A Short World History of Christianity, Revised Edition

Robert Bruce Mullin

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781611645514
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

Church historians have long known and appreciated Christianity's global history. Until recently, however, introductory textbooks on the history of Christianity focused almost exclusively on Europe and North America. Robert Bruce Mullins's A Short World History of Christianity, by contrast, offers a panoramic picture of the history of Christianity in its Western and non-Western expressions. It tells the story of the early church in the Greek East as well as the Latin West; of Christianity's spread into Asia as well as Europe during the Middle Ages; and its explosion around the world during the modern period. Mullins's highly readable narrative explores why global perspectives have emerged so strongly in our understanding of the story of Christianity and how they have impacted Christianity's perspective on its place in the world.

This newly revised edition adds information on such global phenomena as early Syriac-speaking Christianity; the growth of Pentecostalism around the world, especially in the southern hemisphere; and recent trends in Christianity, including the elevation of the first pope born in the Americas. A time line of key dates, call-out boxes, and other helpful study materials are also provided. Beginning students will appreciate this memorable introduction to the most important events in the history and development of Christianity.

SECTION 1

Shaping a Christian Tradition

Chapter 1

“Who Is This Man?”

The story of Christianity is a vast and complicated tale with thousands of actors—both heroes and villains—but at its heart it is about one man, Jesus of Nazareth. The earliest Christian Gospel posed the question most bluntly, “Who is this man?” and the subsequent story of Christianity has been the attempt to render an answer to this question. People in different times and locations have offered their own interpretations—in theology, in art, in humble devotion—but the question remains. The poet and sage Ralph Waldo Emerson perhaps said it best: the name of Jesus “is not so much written as plowed into the world.”

But if the story is about a man, it is also about what people thought about him, what he said and did, and how they responded to his life. This, too, was as true in the first century as it is in the twenty-first. For centuries some have attempted to separate the man from the testimonies and get back to the true “historical Jesus.” In the past century alone this Jesus has been seen as a moral prophet, social revolutionary, philosopher, and Cynic teacher of wisdom, as well as in countless other ways. Indeed, in the long history of Christianity people have tended to read into this Jesus the hopes and fears of their age. Although this task has never ultimately been successful, all of these pictures present some important insight. But what is here attempted is to provide a broad historical sketch to begin this study.

Divisions and Conflicts

There are but a few, brief references to Jesus in what has come down to us in the writings of antiquity, apart from Christian sources. There is a fleeting reference to him by the Jewish historian Josephus and an even sketchier reference by the Roman historian Tacitus, but a historical picture ultimately rests on the texts preserved by the Christian community itself. From these we soon learn that the world of the historical Jesus was one where great forces were clashing. There was, to begin with, the world of Judaism. Judaism had grown more complex since the return from captivity in Babylon in 538 BCE. New ideas began to find a place among believers. The notion of an afterlife and a day of judgment (both largely absent in the religion of David and Solomon) took on a prominence in some Jewish groups. The interest in judgment brought forth a new type of literature, the apocalyptic. Apocalypticism pictured the world as a battleground between God and Satan, in which the oppressing power of Satan would be overthrown by God, who would usher in a new and perfect age. In this age God would rule directly. The instrument of God in this action would be the messiah. He would restore the kingship of David and, with it, Jewish power. The apocalyptic hope led pious individuals to watch for signs to see if the day of judgment was at hand.

The hope for a restoration of national glory was made intensely practical by the political situation Judaism found itself in. Since their return from exile the Jewish people had been under the dominion of one foreign power after another. First there were the Persians. Their rule, though distant, was real. Then came the Greeks, or Hellenists. In his subduing of Persia, Alexander the Great brought the eastern Mediterranean area (including Judea) under the sway of Greek power. After his death (as we will see) the land was contested by various different satraps, successors to Alexander’s control. Finally, in 63 BCE, the land came under the control of Rome, and it was under Roman rule that Jesus was born.

These political changes created divisions within the Jewish world. How one should respond to the challenge of Hellenism became a question of great urgency for those Jews living in the larger world. The Christian writer Tertullian was to ask the famous question “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” and it was a pressing question for Jews confronting Hellenism. Hellenism introduced the Greek language, a culture that was cosmopolitan, and an educational ideal that rested on philosophy. All were challenges. Language was perhaps most basic. Since the time of captivity many Jews had taken residency throughout the Mediterranean world. They were the Jews of the Diaspora. To live and work in the cities of the Mediterranean was to be in a world that spoke Greek. As Greek increasingly became the language of the Jewish Diaspora, Jews recognized that the Hebrew Scriptures needed to be translated. The Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures became known as the Septuagint (for the seventy scholars who, according to legend, translated it), and it later would become the first Bible of the young Christian community. But the question of Hellenism ran deeper. According to Greek philosophy, the spiritual was superior to the material, and the universal was superior to the particular. What sense, then, could be made of sacred Scriptures given to a single people and filled with earthy images? Must there not be a greater reality behind the literal words of the text? The search for such a meaning was called allegory. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, for example, saw the story of the garden of Eden as symbolizing the development of the soul’s moral virtues. Greek wisdom and Hebrew revelation, he believed, could work together.

Others were not so sure. The gymnasium, symbol of the Hellenistic world, where naked young men exercised their bodies, and the Jewish Temple, where pious men in long robes prayed to the God of Israel, seemed like different worlds. The question of Hellenism would become particularly sharp in the second century BCE. Judea had become a point of contention between competing parts of the old Alexandrian empire. Both the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria coveted the land. In the 160s the Seleucids under Antiochus Epiphanes triumphed, and they attempted to push hellenization to a further degree. Not only was a gymnasium established in the sacred city of Jerusalem, but the Temple itself was dedicated to Zeus. The result was the revolt of the Maccabees, a fight against assimilation. The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah commemorates the cleansing of the Jewish Temple.

The complicated world of Judaism also contributed to the emergence of many competing parties. There were those who saw the center of Judaism to be its Temple. There priests continued to serve and offer sacrifice to God as in the past. The party associated with the Temple was known as the Sadducees. If the Temple was their place, the books of Moses (the first five books of the present Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament, also known as Torah or Law) were their Bible. They refused to put other works—such as the Prophets or the “Writings” such as Psalms and Proverbs—on the level of the Law of Moses. Sadducees rejected new beliefs such as the resurrection of the dead because they were not to be found in Moses. Opposing the Sadducees were the Pharisees. They had three distinctive teachings. First, they believed that the Scriptures included the Prophets and the Writings as well as the Law of Moses. Second, they put great emphasis on the interpretation of the law. In a complicated world the law needed to be applied to situations for which it had never been intended. The rabbi (or teacher) interpreted the law for the community, and the rabbi was the great figure among the Pharisees. Finally they believed that much of the thrust of the law was to achieve a moral and ritual purity in everyday life. One needed to be pure not merely to be in the Temple but in all aspects of the world.

In addition to Pharisees and Sadducees there existed another group, the Essenes. The Essenes had withdrawn from a world that had become polluted. In their isolated communities they focused on their communal life and saw their communal body as the temple of the Lord. In their communities the apocalyptic hope burned bright. Their purity within a world of corruption was like Israel of old, a time in the wilderness in preparation for entering the promised land. The Dead Sea Scrolls were most likely part of a library of an Essene community.

The imposition of new ideas and forces changed Judaism, and these changes would have an immense impact on the shaping of Christianity. But the new milieu also involved Judea in an international community, and this international community would have a role in the shaping of Christianity. The emergence of a common linguistic world as a result of Alexander’s conquests meant that the Christian Scriptures, written in Greek, could be comprehended throughout the Mediterranean world. The apostle Paul, in one of the earliest of Christian writings, proclaimed, “In Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek,” and in this he meant that the message was for both Jews and Greeks. One practical reason this could be so was that Greeks and (most) Jews shared a common language.

If Alexander provided a common language, Rome created a common society. The birth and rise of Christianity took place in the two centuries when Roman power was at its peak. Rome created what was called the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. Rome’s governance was certainly brutal at times. The famous phrase of the historian Tacitus, “They created a desert and called it peace,” reflected the negative side of the Pax Romana. But Rome also provided an unprecedented communication network linking the known world from Britain to Baghdad. The Mediterranean Sea, once a haven for pirates, was now a Roman lake, filled with communication and commerce. The Roman peace was the backdrop for the rise of Christianity. Indeed, one of the Gospel writers, Luke, claimed it was more. In his account of the birth of Jesus, Luke was to write, “A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered,” and it was for that reason that the parents of Jesus traveled to Bethlehem. There Jesus was born in the city of David. For Luke, prophecy was fulfilled through the action of a Roman emperor. The early Christian community would have an ambiguous relationship with the Roman Empire.

The Story of a Life

Such was the world, but what do we “know” about this man Jesus, born in the Roman-occupied province of Judea more than two thousand years ago? As we saw, virtually the only source of information is Christian sources, and even that is surprisingly spotty. The Gospels record scant information about his early life. He is associated with the town of Nazareth in the region of Galilee, a place far from the religious center of Judaism or the political center of anything. There Jews and non-Jews lived together. His father is recorded as being a carpenter, and in one place Jesus himself is called a carpenter. From the accounts we also learn that at about age thirty his life radically changed. He underwent baptism at the hands of a fiery wandering preacher, John the Baptist. John was a preacher of righteousness, a bearer of the message of the prophets. The relationship between John and Jesus has generated much speculation. Luke states that they were relatives, and the Gospel writers picture John as the one who prepared the way for Jesus, but many modern scholars believe they may have had competing ministries. We also learn that after the baptism Jesus began acquiring a group of followers or disciples and began a public ministry. Luke has this ministry beginning when Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth and read from the scrolls. The scene and the passage chosen, if not historical, do capture the spirit of the ministry of Jesus as recorded by the Gospel writers. From Isaiah, he read,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Good news, healing, and the inauguration of a new age in God’s relationship with the world (the acceptable year of the Lord) aptly summarize the ministry that was to follow.

The good news he offered was in an arresting style and focused on a central subject. He made use of parables, or simple stories that used everyday imagery: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho”; “A sower was out sowing the field.” Each parable, though, had a pungent point. And the point of many was the kingdom of God. Mark, whose Gospel is the earliest, has Jesus beginning his public ministry by announcing, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” The idea of a kingdom of God would have been familiar to those steeped in the apocalyptic hope of the age. Many sought God’s intervention in the world and the restoration of Israel’s glory. But Jesus’ preaching concerning the kingdom presented a paradox. At times he spoke of the kingdom of God as already present. Through his own ministry, he declared, the relationship between God and the world had been altered. God had become closer. The Gospel writers make this point by recording Jesus’ name for God: “Abba,” or “Father.” The use of the word Father to describe God was not unique to Jesus—it is found in some of the Jewish literature of the time—yet the standard Jewish term for God was not Father but Lord. For Jesus the term Father suggested a new and closer parental relationship between God and the faithful.

Yet at other times Jesus speaks of the kingdom as coming in the future. In the prayer he taught his followers, known as the “Our Father” or the Lord’s Prayer, he stated, “Thy Kingdom come.” It is imminent, and the faithful need to prepare for it, because no one knows when it will actually come. The paradox is reflected in the differing ways in which the parables speak of the kingdom. Some parables urged watchfulness: if you are asleep at the time, you will miss the opportunity. Other parables speak of the present existence of the kingdom and of its being like leaven or yeast—tiny yet transforming—or like a mustard seed that over time will become the greatest of trees. Later, scholars would speak of this paradox as “realized/realizing eschatology” or the belief that the kingdom is both present and future. The tension between present and future would become an important part of the dynamics of later Christianity.

The kingdom entailed a radical ethic. The new relationship between God and humanity demanded a distinctive relationship among people. This ethic is most powerfully set forth in the Gospel of Matthew, in a series of sayings known as the Sermon on the Mount. Although the structure of the sermon may be later, the sentiment reflects the vision of Jesus. The world has been turned upside down: the meek are blessed, and not the powerful; the poor are blessed, but not the rich; and blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Jesus emphasizes the internal spirit of a person over form and show, and he teaches the connectedness of humanity. Old divisions are overturned, and he calls for a wider fellowship. Nor did Jesus merely teach these things. The Gospel writers record Jesus in his ministry overcoming and transcending traditional social barriers, and thus incurring the wrath of those who kept the laws of purity. A regular charge made by his opponents was that he associated with “sinners and tax collectors” and all manner of social and religious outcasts.

A second focus of Jesus’ ministry was his healings. At first glance some modern readers might assume that all such stories are to be dismissed as legend or accretion, but his contemporaries, even his enemies, all acknowledged that he—like many others—healed. Spiritual healing was something that was expected in the ancient world, as it is still in large parts of the world today. What made the healing stories recorded about Jesus different was that they seemed not to be mere wonders but were linked to the new relationship between God and the world. Matthew records a visit to Jesus from the disciples of John the Baptist in which they pointedly asked him if he were the one sent from God. And Jesus replied, “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them.” To be able to heal and cast out demons was a sign of divine authority in the ancient world. The world was viewed as a spiritual battleground, and the holy man showed his power by being able to overcome the demonic powers that sapped mind and spirit. The Gospels, however, record a second type of miracle in which Jesus showed authority over the physical world as well. He fed large crowds with but a few fish and loaves, he stilled storms, and he cursed a fig tree such that it withered and died. These nature miracles would prove to be a problem for many by the nineteenth century.

In some accounts, more words are spent describing Jesus’ last week than are used to report his entire earlier ministry.

The teaching and healings led people to ask who this Jesus was. The question appears again and again in the Gospel stories. Was he a prophet? Was he the coming again of John the Baptist (who had been executed)? Finally, could he be the messiah? The Gospels record Jesus asking his disciples who they thought he was. One of them, Simon Bar Jonah, later known as Peter, announced that he believed that Jesus was the messiah, or Christ. Peter’s confession would be an important event in the later Christian story. Jesus then gave him a new name, Peter, or “the rock,” and said that upon that rock the church would be built. But it is important that even here the Gospel writers record the confusion of the disciples. The messiah was supposed to bring triumph, but Jesus instead talked of suffering and death. There seemed to be a conflict between the belief that Jesus was the messiah, and his warning that he would soon be put to death.

Of all the parts of Jesus’ life, we know most about his death. All the accounts—Christian, Jewish, and Roman—agree that he was executed by crucifixion, that is, nailed to a cross. The death of a peasant preacher such as Jesus was not extraordinary. The Pax Romana rested on crushing all threats to order, and in an unstable province such as Judea, anyone who went around publicly challenging the social order was a prime candidate for elimination. The task of governors such as Pontius Pilate was precisely to keep the peace. Nor did Jesus’ treatment of the Temple and the purity laws endear him to the Pharisees and Sadducees. He had many enemies.

But the Gospel writers take great pains to rehearse the events of the last week of his life, later known as the passion. In some accounts, more words are spent describing this last week than are used to report his entire earlier ministry. The Gospels carefully record Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem before an adoring crowd, which laid palms before him. They write of his intensifying conflicts with the Jewish authorities and of his overturning a table in the Temple where money was changed. They speak of how one of his closest followers, Judas Iscariot, decided to betray him. But more important for the later story of Christianity, they tell of his meeting with his disciples in an upper room, perhaps to celebrate the Jewish Passover meal, and there taking bread and announcing that it was his body, and the cup of wine, his blood. When this event was first recorded, the author (the apostle Paul) added to Jesus’ words the phrase “Do this in remembrance of me.” The memorial of bread and wine—the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist—would become one of the most important rituals for the Christian community, and Jesus’ words “This is my body” one of the most debated passages in the Christian Bible. What did he mean, and how literally was the claim to be interpreted? The later Christian community, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, would have bloody wars over the meaning of this meal of bread and wine. Much ink and even more blood would be poured out fighting over these words.

After the meal Jesus retired to a garden to pray, and there he was arrested. His trial has been a s...