Introduction to the History of Christianity

Third Edition

Tim Dowley

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781506445960
• eBook ISBN: 9781506446035
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

Now in its third edition, Tim Dowley's masterful one-volume survey of church history has an updated design and new content, particularly in the section covering most recent Christian history. The inviting full-color format includes many new images and updated maps, while maintaining many of the features that made the second edition a popular volume for the classroom.

Dowley has assembled a global cast of respected scholars to write the full story of the rise of the Christian faith and to provide a rounded picture of the worldwide development of Christianity. The volume has been praised as accurate, scholarly, and balanced. Its writers are committed to Christianity but also to the unhindered pursuit of truth that does not avoid the darker aspects of the varied story of Christianity.

The accessible text is supported by detailed timelines, maps, profiles of key figures in Christianity, colorful images, and a complete glossary. Each section includes questions for discussion.

I

BEGINNINGS: AD 1–325

SUMMARY

Christianity rapidly spread beyond its original geographical region of Roman-occupied Palestine into the entire Mediterranean area. Something of this process of expansion is described in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. It is clear that a Christian presence was already established in Rome itself within fifteen years of the resurrection of Christ. The imperial trade routes made possible the rapid traffic of ideas, as much as merchandise.

Three centers of the Christian church rapidly emerged in the eastern Mediterranean region. The church became a significant presence in its own original heartlands, with Jerusalem emerging as a leading center of thought and activity. Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) was already an important area of Christian expansion, as can be seen from the destinations of some of the apostle Paul’s letters, and the references to the ‘seven churches of Asia’ in the book of Revelation. The process of expansion in this region continued, with the great imperial city of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) becoming a particularly influential center of mission and political consolidation.

Yet further growth took place to the south, with the important Egyptian city of Alexandria emerging as a stronghold of Christian faith. With this expansion, new debates opened up. While the New Testament deals with the issue of the relationship of Christianity and Judaism, the expansion of Christianity into Greek-speaking regions led to the exploration of the way in which Christianity related to Greek philosophy. Many Christian writers sought to demonstrate, for example, that Christianity brought to fulfilment the great themes of the philosophy of Plato.

Yet this early Christian expansion was far from unproblematic. The ‘imperial cult’, which regarded worship of the Roman emperor as a test of loyalty to the empire, was prominent in the eastern Mediterranean region. Many Christians found themselves penalized as a result of their insistence on worshipping only Christ. The expansion of Christianity regularly triggered persecutions. These were often local – for example, the Decian persecution of 249–51, which was particularly vicious in North Africa.

1

Jesus: His Life, Ministry, Death, and Its Consequences

‘Christianity’ without ‘Christ’ is a meaningless word; and without Jesus Christ, there would be no Christianity about which we could write a history. ‘Christ’ is a Greek word, translating the Hebrew participle, ‘Messiah’, both of which simply mean ‘someone who has been anointed’. The very first Christians applied this title to Jesus of Nazareth so quickly that, by the time of the letters of the apostle Paul a generation later, it functioned almost like a surname, Jesus Christ; thus it is hardly surprising that the early disciples were soon given the nickname, ‘Christians’, for those who belong to Christ (see Acts 11:27). It is a curious quirk of history that, while Jesus himself seems never to have had a proper education, was not formally trained or ordained, never held any rank or high office or earned much money, probably never walked further than a hundred miles from his home, during a brief period of wandering and preaching, and finally suffered a humiliating execution at a relatively young age, yet arguably his brief life, ministry, death, and its consequences have had a greater effect on human history than anyone else.

DID JESUS OF NAZARETH EXIST?

No serious historian really doubts that Jesus actually lived and died in the first-century Roman Empire, as evidenced by the major ancient historians. Tacitus (Annals 15.44.3) tells us that the early Christians, who were wrongly blamed by Nero for the fire in Rome in AD 64, took their name from Christ who was executed under Pontius Pilate in Judaea, while Suetonius says that debates about Christ led to such unrest that the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome in AD 49 (Claudius, 25.4). Pliny writes to the Emperor Trajan around AD 111 for advice about what to do with people in his province in Asia Minor who worship ‘Christ as a god’ (Letters, 10.96). In addition, later Rabbinic traditions say that ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ was executed ‘because he practised sorcery and led Israel astray’ (bSanhedrin 43.a). Such historical evidence from Romans and Jewish opponents alike is very significant and provides the core for research in what is often called the ‘Quest for the Historical Jesus’: the first phase of which started with German scholars such as Albert Schweitzer around the turn of the nineteenth and early twentieth century; the ‘new Quest’ began with Ernst Käsemann in 1953; while recent work by scholars such as E. P. Sanders and N. T. Wright is usually seen as the ‘Third Quest’, in which biblical and other sources are scrutinized to see what can be determined about the historical life and death of Jesus.

The Roman Empire in AD 14.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN SOURCES?

Beyond these historical mentions of Jesus in Roman and Jewish writers, the main sources about Jesus are the four Gospels ‘according to’ (rather than ‘by’) Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John found in the Bible. There are other texts also called ‘gospels’ not found in the canon of the Christian scriptures; these ‘non-canonical’ works are mostly less narrative or historical in form, being sayings, discourses, revelations of Jesus, and are probably written a couple of generations later than the canonical Gospels. These four have a similar structure, describing the life and ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist, with an extended concentration on his final week in Jerusalem, his arrest, trial, and execution – and what happened afterwards. This means that their form and literary genre is very similar to ancient biographies of famous people, which concentrated on their public lives, exemplified in their deeds and words, culminating in their death. It is important to recognize that even ancient history writing is not like what we call history today, and nor are the Gospels like video-diaries, simply recording what was done or said. Like other ancient ‘lives’, they seek to interpret eyewitness and other material to explain the importance of their subject – Jesus – after years of prayer and meditation through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – to bring out the truth about Jesus’ deeds and words, life and ministry, death, and resurrection. Most New Testament scholars think that Mark was written first, and his account is followed by Matthew and Luke, who also have access to collections of Jesus’ teachings; these three Gospels are often called the ‘Synoptics’, because they can be ‘looked at’ together, while John is probably composed independently of them, although he too includes some very early traditions.

Judaism in the Time of Christ.

WHERE DID JESUS COME FROM?

Ancient biographies usually begin with the person’s public debut, with perhaps a brief story about their birth or childhood, and sometimes a note about the family history, genealogy, or ancestral city. Mark begins with the adult Jesus arriving to be baptized by John (Mark 1:2–11). Matthew takes it back to the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, told from Joseph’s viewpoint, with wise men coming to pay homage, and a genealogy that goes back to David and Abraham (Matthew 1–2). Luke begins with the birth of the fore-runner, John the Baptist, the journey of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and Jesus’ birth in an inn, narrated from perspective of Mary and the women, with humble poor shepherds coming to the manger; there is a brief story of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple, and his baptism concludes with a more universal genealogy going right back to Adam (Luke 1–3). On the other hand, rather than human stories, John is clear that Jesus’ origin is truly cosmic: ‘in the beginning was the Word’, who not only was ‘with God’, but who is also God, yet who took on human flesh and dwelt among us to reveal what God is like (John 1:1–18).

THE THOUGHT-WORLD OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY Twenty-first century students are familiar with terms such as cultural diversity and globalization. Christianity was born in a cultural setting that experienced its own forms of intellectual and religious diversity, brought into conversation with each other thanks to the global expansion of the Roman Empire. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles display the three distinctive threads in this tapestry: Jewish, Greek, and Roman. Jesus was born into a world of pious Jews, devoted to their traditions and to the Jerusalem Temple. At the same time, many first-century Jews imagined a day when God would raise up a new anointed one (messiah) to right the wrongs of injustice and liberate Israel from foreign rule. They found the religious vocabulary for these hopes in passages from the Hebrew prophets, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. So Luke’s Gospel has the adult Jesus begin his public career by announcing that God’s Spirit now rests on him. The time of fulfilment is at hand (Luke 4:14–21). Though Jesus, himself, would have known those scriptures in Hebrew, and their translations into the Aramaic spoken in Palestine, Luke and the other New Testament authors employ the Greek translations used by diaspora Jews since the third century bc. Called ‘the Septuagint’ (LXX), these Greek versions sometimes create new meanings for Greek words to translate Hebrew concepts, or substitute a familiar Greek concept for the Hebrew. For example, the Greek word diathe-ke- ordinarily means a will or testament, but in the LXX it translates the Hebrew berîth, ‘covenant’. Alexander the Great’s Eastern conquests in the fourth century bc had spread Greek language, civic organization, and culture throughout the region. Attempts by his successors to create a thoroughly ‘Greek city-state’ and religious culture in Jerusalem resulted in persecution and rebellion in the mid-first century bc (1 Maccabees 1:1–15). Important religious concepts emerge among Jews opposed to the world being created by Alexander’s successors, illustrated in Danie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Contributors
• List of Maps
• List of Time Charts
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Preface to the Revised Edition
• Preface to the Third Edition
• BEGINNINGS: AD 1–325
• ACCEPTANCE AND CONQUEST: AD 325–600
• A CHRISTIAN SOCIETY: AD 600–1500
• REFORM AND RENEWAL: 1500–1650
• REASON, REVIVAL, AND REVOLUTION: 1650–1789
• CITIES AND EMPIRES: 1789–1914
• A CENTURY OF CONFLICT: 1914–2001
• EPILOGUE: A NEW MILLENNIUM
• Further Resources on the History of Christianity
• Glossary
• Index
• Picture Acknowledgments