A History of Christianity

An Introductory Survey

Joseph Early

• Publisher: B&H Academic
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781433672217
• eBook ISBN: 9781433683633
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

A History of Christianity examines the development of Christianity from its biblical foundations to modern times. While seeking to be comprehensive, historian Joseph Early Jr. centers on key events, people, theological developments, and conflicts that have shaped Christianity over its two-thousand-year history. He also presents the development of Christianity within the social, political, and economic challenges of the times. In doing so, he paints a clear, detailed, and balanced picture of the opportunities and struggles faced by the church and the contributions made by significant people, institutions, and traditions. A History of Christianity is an ideal introductory survey for undergraduate students and any reader who desires to know more about the broad scope of Christianity.

Chapter One

Jesus and the World into Which He Was Born

Jesus Christ and Christianity were born into the volatile world of Palestine. Then as now, the region was a religious and political powder keg, constantly on the verge of explosion. Although Judaism had dominated the area for more than a thousand years, the Jewish people often found themselves under the rule of foreign powers vying for Palestine’s important position as a land bridge that connected Asia, Europe, and Africa. In turn, the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and, at the time of Christ, the Romans ruled the region. The cultures of these occupiers deeply affected Jews and the region’s other inhabitants.

First-Century Judaism

Because Jesus and his first followers were Jewish, Judaism had a strong impact on the foundation of Christianity. Early Christianity stressed the laws of Moses, the Passover, and the importance of the Abrahamic covenant. Jesus, however, chose to interpret Old Testament teachings in a more spiritual and less legalistic manner than did some Jewish sects. Though first-century Judaism was fragmented by the dispersion of Jews throughout the world and internal arguments among the religious elite, many of its core concepts laid the groundwork for Christianity.

The Hebrew Scriptures were the basis of Judaism. The Tanakh (Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim), or Old Testament, provided Jews with the story of their national birth, the explanation of their special standing as Yahweh’s chosen people, their religious requirements, and their hope for the future. Jesus and his disciples had deep respect for and frequently quoted from the Tanakh. These thirty-nine books, often in their Greek form (the Septuagint), provided Christianity with its first literature.

The Tanakh helped establish Christian monotheism. As stressed in Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Christianity believed in only one God, Yahweh; and as Yahweh was invisible, no graven images were permitted. For both Jews and Christians, pagan gods were nothing more than figurines with no true power.

The concept of covenant was also important to Judaism and Christianity. A covenant was a vow or agreement made between a deity and a group of people. God made key covenants in the Old Testament with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. The covenants with Abraham and David were of special importance. The Abrahamic Covenant (Gen 12:1–3) promised the descendants of Abraham that they would have a homeland, be a great and numerous people, and be blessed by God. The Gospels stressed the importance of this covenant in, for example, Matthew 3:9 and 8:11 and Luke 1:73–74. The Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7) stated that the Messiah would come from the line of David. As noted throughout the New Testament (e.g., Acts 2:29–31), Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in the Davidic covenant. He fulfilled the Old Testament covenants and inaugurated the new covenant predicted in Jeremiah 31.

Around the time of the Babylonian captivity, anticipation of the Messiah became a prominent feature of Judaism. It reached a fever pitch in the first century. The term Messiah as used in the Hebrew Bible means “anointed one,” and in the Septuagint it is translated as “Christ.” In the Jewish context the Messiah or Christ was to be God’s tool for the purification of Judaism, a liberator, and a Davidic warrior. Old Testament figures like the judges, Saul, David, and the prophets prefigured the ultimate Messiah. Like these Old Testament heroes, Jews expected that the one to come would be human.

The most important site for Judaism was Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. It was the central site for Yahweh worship, the only location where sacrifices could be offered by faithful Jews. In 722 BC, Assyria defeated the ten northern tribes of Israel and took many Jews back to their homeland as slaves. In 586 BC, Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the temple of Solomon and transported thousands of enslaved Jews back to Babylon. This displacement of Jews became known as the Diaspora. Even after a few Jews were permitted to return from exile and rebuild the temple, many remained in foreign lands. Synagogues were built for these displaced people who could not visit the temple. In synagogues the Scriptures were read, oral traditions were passed on, and Jews received religious education. In the Roman Empire synagogues served as outposts of Jewish culture amid a pagan society. They were pivotal in the spread of Christianity. During the apostle Paul’s missionary journeys, he often shared the gospel in synagogues. In Palestine, however, Herod’s temple remained the center of Judaism until its destruction in AD 70.

Not only were the Jewish people separated by great distances, but they were also split into factions that often despised one another. The most prominent factions were Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes.

During the life of Jesus Christ, the Pharisees (the separated ones) were a nonpriestly group that numbered about 6,000. They were legalistic, hoping to hasten the Messiah’s coming by purifying Judaism. They accepted not only the Torah but also Jewish oral traditions as authoritative, they believed in the physical resurrection of the body, and they observed Sabbath laws meticulously. They were deeply admired by the average Jew but opposed by the Sadducees. Because of their legalism, the Pharisees frequently clashed with Jesus. Tradition maintains that Ezra—who reinstituted the law, led many exiled Jews home, and organized the rebuilding of the temple—was the father of the Pharisees. In the development of Christianity, the apostle Paul was the most important Pharisee.

The Sadducees controlled the priesthood and observed the sacrificial system strictly. They only accepted the Torah and not ancient traditions as authoritative, did not believe in the physical resurrection of the body, did not affirm the existence of angels or demons, and said there was no judgment after death. Because of their connection with the priesthood and the temple, the Sadducees tended to mediate between the Jewish populace and the Roman authorities. Like the Pharisees, the Sadducees were at odds with Jesus and thus were not depicted in a flattering light by the New Testament writers.

The Zealots were a radical fringe of the Pharisees that sought to remove the Romans from Palestine by force. They believed God would reestablish Israel as a political power only when defiling Gentiles were removed from the land. Their violent resistance to Roman rule played a major role in inciting the Romans to destroy Jerusalem in AD 70.

The Essenes likely originated from the Pharisees but were even more radical. They came to believe the Pharisees were corrupt and broke from them. A group known as the Qumran community, who lived in the Judean desert near the Dead Sea, appears to have been a group of Essenes. In 1947 more than 900 of their texts were found, revealing that they were highly apocalyptic, held messianic expectations, wore white clothing, and conducted baptismal ceremonies similar to those of John the Baptist. The Qumran community was massacred by the Romans in AD 67.

Hellenism

Greek (i.e., Hellenic) culture saturated the ancient Near East in the first century. First, Philip of Macedon (359–336 BC) consolidated all the squabbling Greek city-states into a cohesive nation with a unified identity. Then his son Alexander the Great (336–323 BC) conquered most of the known world and infused it with Greek culture, establishing colonies characterized by Greek philosophy, medicine, architecture, and, most importantly, the Greek language. By the time of Jesus, most people in the Mediterranean region spoke basic, or koine, Greek. As a result, in cosmopolitan cities like Alexandria, Egypt, people from different areas of the world lived together. Diaspora Jews, or Hellenistic Jews, were among these groups. Greek may not have been their first language, but it was the universal language. The apostle Paul found this helpful on his missionary journeys.

The prominence of Greek culture also had negative effects. If a young man wanted an education or to become important in politics or society, he had to be fluent in Greek language and conversant with Greek culture. This led many Hellenistic Jews to compromise their Jewish identity and even their moral standards, as when young Jewish athletes competed with Greeks in the nude.

Many Hellenistic Jews became so Greek that they forgot the Hebrew language. This was a major problem since Yahweh inspired Jewish prophets to write the Scriptures in Hebrew. To date no one had translated the Hebrew Bible into another language, and Jewish leaders were faced with the dilemma of either allowing Judaism to die or permitting the Scriptures to be translated into Greek.

After much deliberation Jewish scholars determined that a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible was permissible. This translation, known today as the Septuagint, became the Bible used by writers of the New Testament. The name Septuaginta is Latin for “seventy” and refers to the Jewish tradition that seventy (or ­seventy-two) Jewish elders produced the translation. Thus, the Septuagint is often referred to as the “LXX”—the Roman numeral for seventy. Dating the Septuagint is difficult, but scholars believe the entire Old Testament was translated between the third and second century BC.

Greek philosophy was prominent in the Mediterranean world and had displaced the classical Greek religions as the source of answers to life’s ultimate questions. The Greek religions’ demise was hastened by their inability to answer difficult questions like, What happens after death? The pantheon was replaced by Platonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Cynicism. These philosophies influenced and clashed with traditional Judaism.

Plato (427–347 BC) provided much of the framework for Greek philosophy. His most important idea was “Forms” or “Ideas.” Forms, for Plato, are the archetypes of which material objects are just approximations. Only the perfect Forms are real, and they are not perceptible by the senses. What we perceive through our senses is an illusion. Plato also taught a radical dualism that stressed the eternity and superiority of the soul and the temporality and inferiority of the body. The soul is imprisoned inside the body and longs to escape. Though Plato is vague when it comes to details, he taught that good souls return to the realm of true Forms and evil souls are placed into inferior, material creatures.

Founded by Epicurus of Athens (342–270 BC), Epicureanism taught that the gods exist but do not care about humanity. Everything is physical or material, and nothing exists after death. Not only does the human body die, but so does the soul. Therefore, there are no eternal rewards or punishments. The greatest goal of the Epicurean was to avoid pain and to enjoy mental pleasures, which outlast physical ones. In Acts 17, the apostle Paul debated with Epicureans at Mars Hill in Athens.

Zeno of Citium (ca. 311 BC) was the father of Stoicism. The Stoics practiced self-control, freedom from passions, and doing right in order to be right. Their ultimate goal was to train the body to be in harmony with nature and the mind to face the difficulties of the world. The Logos was an important aspect of Stoicism. It was a cosmic intelligence or active reason that united the world and made it intelligible to humans. Human souls are endowed with a portion of the divine Logos. This principle plays a significant but altered role in the New Testament and in the writings of the early church fathers.

For the lack of a better description, the Cynics (“dogs”) were the hippies of the first-century world. They advocated a simple lifestyle, moral virtue, self-sufficiency, and harmony with nature. They also believed that all authority should be questioned. Their distinctive appearance made them easy to identify—one cloak, a walking stick, a beggar’s bag, and a long beard.

Roman Political and Religious Influence

In the first century, the Roman Empire extended as far west as Britain and Spain and as far east as the border of the Persian Empire in modern-day Iran. The Romans referred to the Mediterranean Sea as Mare Nostrum (our sea), and they built roads that connected their vast empire. These roads proved to be safe and were essential in the transmission of the gospel. Rome controlled Palestine from 63 BC, when General Pompey (106–48 BC) conquered Jerusalem. Local authority was granted to a pup...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• 1. Jesus and the World into Which He Was Born
• 2. Growth, Persecution, and Defense (ca. 30 to ca. 200)
• 3. Problems from Within
• 4. Christian Orthodoxy and the Ante-Nicene Fathers
• 5. Worship in the Second and Third Centuries
• 6. Constantine and the Consolidation of Christianity
• 7. Fourth- and Fifth-Century Trinitarian and Christological Controversies
• 8. Theologians of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries
• 9. Consolidation and Worship in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Centuries
• 10. Development of the Western Church in the Early Medieval Period
• 11. Christianity in the East
• 12. The Western Church in the High Middle Ages
• 13. Monasticism, Scholasticism, and the Final Conquest of Europe
• 14. Papal Decline and the Renaissance
• 15. Worship in the Middle Ages
• 16. The Dawn of the Reformation
• 17. Zwingli and the Radical Reformers
• 18. John Calvin
• 19. The English Reformation, Puritanism, and Separatism
• 20. Catholic Reaction and Response to the Protestant Reformation
• 21. Christianizing the New World
• 22. Unforeseen Opposition
• 23. Eighteenth-Century America
• 24. Nineteenth-Century Protestantism in England
• 25. The Second Great Awakening and Its After-Effects
• 26. Old-World Denominations in the New World
• 27. Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the Modern Era
• 28. Modern Protestantism
• 29. The New Christian World— Globalization in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
• Endnotes