The Earliest Church

William P. Sampson, James P.M. Walsh

• Publisher: New Academia
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780996648462
• eBook ISBN: 9781955835251
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

"Exciting reading for anyone who wants to experience the initial development of Christianity as the work of humans essentially just like us." —David Goldfrank, Professor of History, Georgetown University This book brings to life the lived experience of the disciples after Christ's death, the possibilities they faced, and the choices they made—and how these all shaped the direction the Church would take. "In The Earliest Church, the late Rev. William P. Sampson, SJ, takes us on a journey of imagination, spirit, and theological contemplation. By helping us to explore the earliest days of the Church, he guides us into a deeper understanding of our Church in the present day. Just as Fr. Sampson guided so many on spiritual retreats, this book continues his legacy of scholarship, reflection, and helping others to most authentically live their faith." —John J. DeGioia, President, Georgetown University "Applies a unique combination of historical and exegetical imagination and scholarly rigor to reconstruct the hypothetical journey of the direct and indirect disciples of Jesus from their considering him to have been an extraordinary man to their envisioning him also as God." —David Goldfrank, Professor of History, Georgetown University "A fascinating exploration of how the religious experience continues to open up new insights into the past and the meaning of the Christian perspective. It provides a new analysis for readers seeking to know the history and contemporary unfolding of Christianity as seen in the early development of the church." —Dr. Ronald Johnson, Professor Emeritus of History, Georgetown University

1

The Early Decisions

One of the first decisions the disciples make is to leave Galilee and return to Jerusalem for the great Festival of Weeks. They could have crept away, speechless from shame, and lived a life of prayer and penance, perhaps in Galilee, awaiting the return of Jesus. Like the Qumran community they could have gone into the desert and lived quiet lives of preparation for the great day.

But the Apostles do something quite different. They do not withdraw, though they are tempted along that path. Instead they decide to return to Jerusalem.

This decision is not reached after many months or years of reflection. No, within seven weeks they are back on the road heading for Jerusalem, back into that world where they are strangers and nobodies. In the time left before the return of Jesus, they leave their cozy and peaceful home base around the lake, their familiar surroundings where they know every nook and cranny. They walk back into the urban scene where they come across as country bumpkins, people who speak with an upcountry accent, backwoodsmen.

Looking back from where we are it can be hard to grasp how strange that decision was. It is easy from our retrospective view to see very little choosing in their return to Jerusalem so soon after the catastrophic events of the Passover feast. But to those involved, it was not at all an inevitable choice. They were spectacular failures in their own eyes. They were not likely candidates for any further missions. The best thing they could do now was to live apart and prepare peacefully and prayerfully for the end. But they decide otherwise.

Had they chosen to stay in Galilee, the story of the Church would have been very different. Perhaps we would never have heard of them.

Why did they decide to go back? What made them return to the hubbub of Jerusalem? They became convinced that they had a mission to accomplish. A sense of being-sent had come upon the group as a result of the appearances of Jesus, and the coming of the Spirit. They have been given a task. It is a very limited task: the good news is to be preached to the chosen people. A last chance is to be offered to the Jews before the end comes on.

So the earliest disciples do not decide to go the way of the separatist community of Qumran. They leave the lake country and head back down the Jordan valley, and take the road up from Jericho to Jerusalem. They walk into the Temple and preach to the people: “The end has come; here is the last chance for you; there is still time to be saved.”

On their way back along the roads to Jerusalem they had passed again all the familiar sights. It is the third time they have made this journey in the last few months. It is also likely to be the last time. The end will not be long in coming. Their preaching will probably prove just as useless as was Jesus’ preaching. But it is God’s special favor to the chosen people, a final opportunity.

This then is the first thing to be noticed about the earliest disciples: they chose to return to Jerusalem. It is not an obvious decision, and it will have an enormous effect, of course, on the development of the Church.

The second decision they made would have appeared to them a very minor one, involving a new practice. At supper, they have one of the Apostles recall some of the words Jesus had used at the supper he had eaten with them just before his death. They remember Jesus telling them to do it. But he had told them to do many things, like washing each other’s feet, and they did not feel obliged to follow them literally. But the command to repeat the words and gestures that he had used at that supper, this they decide to follow literally.

It is a small but crucial decision, and it will have immense consequences in the coming months. It will shape the community’s future as nothing else. At the supper, in the evening, toward the beginning of the meal, there is a pause and one of the Apostles recalls the very words Jesus used and breaks some bread and passes it around the table as Jesus had done. Then, toward the end of the meal, he takes a cup of wine and repeats the words as best as he remembers them, and the cup passes from hand to hand as each one drinks. It is very brief. It is simply an interruption of the meal.

What if they had decided—consciously or unconsciously—to celebrate the Last Supper only as part of their annual Passover? The Eucharist would then occur as an annual memorial of the real meaning of Passover. Though they did not decide to do that, it would not have been an unlikely choice. Jesus had added those few words to an already developed ritual, and that ritual-setting was a help to explain the meaning of his brief additions.

Didn’t repeating Jesus’ words apart from the Passover setting prove to be somewhat awkward? What if Jesus had chosen the paschal lamb’s flesh to symbolize his body? But he chose the bread. Did that make it easy for them to enter upon a pattern of using the Eucharistic ritual frequently?

In retrospect it is very easy to miss the options that were available to the disciples. It can appear that they had no choice but to do what Jesus had clearly planned for them. But the path they took was chosen by them from among many paths they might have gone down.

This then is the second decision they made within those first seven weeks. The Apostles bring with them on their mission to Jerusalem this practice of doing again and saying again what Jesus had so recently done and said at that supper, and what he had told them to do and say. It is a very small part of their day. It is only a small part of their supper. But it is quite different from what their suppers had been before. It is also different from what suppers are like elsewhere in Jerusalem.

The next two decisions are made unconsciously. They do not decide to change certain practices. For what is most striking about the group is not how they differ from other Jews but how similar they are. Two things that they do not change are most surprising. The first: they go to the Temple each day and engage in the Temple rituals just as they had always done. Peter takes two doves to the priest to be sacrificed. It never enters his head not to do it. Nothing that they have experienced makes them think that this is inappropriate, or a waste of time. They see themselves as the same devout Jews that they were before the death of Jesus. The Temple ritual is still as meaningful as ever. The sacrifices and the songs, the psalms and the prayers still touch their hearts. They participate in the service without questions. The coming of the new heavens and the new earth are but a completion of what they are already sharing in when they join in the Temple worship. The end is near but it will bring with it a new and more glorious Temple. They feel at home among the crowd of worshippers.

Don’t they realize that they are Christians? That the Temple and its holocausts are at an end? That Jesus is the new Temple? That these sacrifices have lost all their meaning now?

How odd that after the Resurrection appearances, the followers of Jesus—the Earliest Church—go to the Temple each day, and pray to God with the priests.

But this confusion persisted among Christians for centuries. One strange instance occurred almost three hundred years after the Resurrection, in Antioch. Some Christians would attend the synagogue on the Sabbath and on the high holy days. John Chrysostom commented: “Many among us keep the Sabbath.” They joined in the celebration of Yom Kippur, fasting as the Jews did. They erected huts for the festival of Sukkoth. As Robert Wilken in his study on Chrysostom states:

These Christians who participated in Jewish rites and observed Jewish law were not marginal renegades who came to church only infrequently. From John’s comments, they appear to be regular members of his congregation who thought they could remain members of the Church while observing Jewish rites and customs. In their minds, there was no contradiction between going to the synagogue on Saturday to hear the reading of the Law and coming to Church on Sunday to participate in the Eucharist. They want, says John, to have fellowship with the Jews and ‘fellowship at the holy table sharing the precious blood.’5

So, too, the early disciples did not even think of not going to the Temple once they were back in Jerusalem.

Neither do the disciples stop going to the synagogue services. In the past, whenever they had come to Jerusalem they would on the Sabbath go to one of the synagogues in town. Now, they continue to do so. They do not experience any sense that these services have been rendered meaningless. Even though they are mixing with people who do not believe in Jesus, still they join in their prayers, they listen with them during the readings, they listen while the rabbi explains the text. That the rabbi is not a believer in Jesus is not important. They still feel that they share a common faith with him. They are all devout Jews. These are still the chosen people. What is coming will only bring this faith to a fullness of perfection.

These patterns of Temple worship and attendance at the synagogue services have important consequences. It means that they keep on hearing the Scripture read, the Law and the Prophets. It is going to be different from listening to the Law and the Prophets before. The disciples are no longer the same, and the texts will take on, in some cases, a strikingly different meaning.

We have noted how the decision not to live quietly in Galilee affected the future of the Church. Had they stayed near the lake, there would have been little challenge to their simple, undeveloped, relatively formless faith.

But what would have been the outcome had they separated immediately from Temple and synagogue—if that can even be imagined? The evolution would have taken a path where Scripture would have played a much less important role. But because they kept on with Temple and synagogue, hearing the texts of Scripture soon became part of a dialogue they are having with the Jerusalem Jews. Sometimes a question that a listener asks during the Temple preaching—often in a non-hostile way—is answered by a Scripture text they hear at the services later that day. This dialogue with their hearers is the context of their listening to the reading of Scripture. There are moments when a text leaps out at them as the precise answer to one of the questions.

Since they see themselves as devout Temple worshippers, they are stimulated intensely by Scripture. The Earliest Church will live and grow within Judaism. The Apostles will search the Scriptures for answers to their questions and for confirmation of their faith in Jesus.

This was the world of the Earliest Church. Temple worship and preaching to the people, a remembering at the supper, and the synagogue service, nothing that sharply distinguishes them from a typical Jewish sect. They are awaiting the return of Jesus in glory, and the end of the world, the coming of a new heaven and a new earth. This pattern could have gone on indefinitely, had it not been for unexpected developments. Two surprises were to radically change the path the Church was taking, and to produce a Church all but unrecognizable to the first followers.

2

Two Surprises

On their return to Jerusalem the disciples see once again familiar places which reawaken memories of the catastrophic Passover. The Roman soldiers here and there remind them of the great power of the Empire. The crowds of people bring back pictures of the hostility of that day, and how they had been screaming for Jesus to die. The priests in the Temple and the Pharisees are unpleasant reminders also.

The disciples go into the Temple areas to preach. It is then they encounter their first surprise: people actually listen! Instead of the violent hostility that was experienced just seven weeks before, they find people listening to them, asking them questions, getting interested. The Apostles are amazed.

The crowds in Jerusalem are immense. It is the Feast of Weeks, the first large gathering of the pilgrims since the Passover festival. The Apostles who had performed so shabbily during the Passover, filled with fear, are now quite boldly standing up before strangers in the Temple courts—just the way Jesus had—and not all the people are turning away. Some come to their synagogue services to hear more. And some finally join them completely, and are invited to the suppers.

It is a cause of great joy among the disciples. Here, in this alien world with its urbane culture, people are touched by their word. Of course, some of the better classes had been attracted by Jesus, but he was a most effective speaker. That was different. Now, it is their own voices that are being heard.

But there is a much greater surprise in store for them, and it also occurs in the first few weeks.

One morning, a week after their return to Jerusalem, Peter stands up in the Court of the Men and begins to preach. The disciples are gathered near him. People draw near. Some are familiar faces, people whom the disciples recognize for they had been frequently among the crowds that listened to Jesus preach.

The passersby are curious. They come up to the fringe of the crowd and ask those on the edge what’s going on. Quite a few stay to listen. Two well-dressed men approach, drawn by Peter’s fire. They ask one of the listeners, “Do you speak Greek?” “Very little.” The two look on in curiosity. One of them sees Philip standing off to one side, and he brings the other man with him, weaving through the crowd to where Philip is standing.

Once Philip sees him coming, he remembers him well. They had met just a few months before in this same Temple, not far from this very spot. It had been evening and Jesus had just finished preaching. The crowd of listeners was slowly breaking up and the disciples were getting ready to walk to Bethany. Suddenly a group of rather wealthy people came toward Philip, and this man now approaching him had been the spokesperson. His name was Stephen. They were Jews who spoke Greek, not Aramaic. Many of them could not understand Jesus’ words but there were a few in the group who knew some Aramaic, and they had been impressed by Jesus. Now they wanted to meet him personally. Someone had pointed out Philip to them as a disciple who spoke Greek.

That evening weeks before, Philip had taken them to Andrew for he also knew Greek, and they brought these men to Jesus (John 12:20). Now as Peter continues to preach to the growing crowd, Stephen and his friend, Nicolaus, introduce themselves to Philip. They ask to be caught up on the events. So Philip tells them the good news, in Greek. It is the first time that the gospel of the Risen One has been spoken in Greek! The two friends hear it with delight. They had been delighted by Jesus’ words, and stunned at his execution. As Philip speaks, their old enthusiasm comes back, and their hearts open to the incredible message.

Stephen’s friend, Nicolaus, is actually a Gentile whom Stephen had led into Judaism. He had been circumcised and was a devout believer.

These are the Hellenists, Jews who speak Greek as their primary language. Philip is astonished: even the Greek-speakers with their cosmopolitan lifestyles are eager to believe! It is a world turned upside down. Because of the peculiar nature of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day, the Good News must be preached in two different languages right from the start. For there are people present in the Temple audience who have never learned Aramaic.

Jerusalem is a city of two distinct language groups. This fact about the Jerusalem in which the earliest Church begins her journey is worth stressing because it will play a major role in the development of the Church, a role that no one was expecting.

How had Jerusalem become divided like this, and what had happened to Hebrew? Many centuries before, the Babylonians had conquered Palestine, Egypt, Syria, and big parts of Asia Minor, present-day Turkey. Most of the Jews had been driven from the Holy Land into exile. They were taken east as a captive people, and they lived in Mesopotamia for many years. They learned the language of their conquerors, the international language, Aramaic. As the years passed they stopped using Hebrew, except for a few who made a study of it. In their homes and their places of business, the Jews spoke the language of the Babylonians.

When the Persians conquered Babylon, they allowed the Jewish exiles to return home. There in Palestine, the international language, the language both Babylonians and Persians used, became the common language. That continued down to Roman times in Jesus’ day. So Jesus himself spoke the lingua franca of the Babylonians and the Persians: Aramaic. So did the Apostles and the disciples. So did Jesus’ audiences. Jesus was an event among those who spoke Aramaic.

Hebrew was still used in the Temple worship, and in parts of the synagogue service, but most of the service was in Aramaic. The Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Aramaic so the people could understand them.

But some of the Jews had not gone to the east at the time of the invasions. They had fled to Egypt, and to Syria and to Asia Minor. There they remained throughout the period of Persian dominance. Then came Alexander the Great. He conquered the Persian Empire, and he brought with him all the “glory that was Greece.” He introduced the Middle East to Greek art and poetry, th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors’ Notes
• About the Author
• Introduction
• 1. The Early Decisions
• 2. Two Surprises
• 3. Hearing the Scriptures Afresh
• 4. Splitting the Shema
• 5. A Difference
• 6. Prophesying
• 7. The Oddest of the Oddities
• 8. The Second Coming
• 9. Who Do You Say I Am?
• 10. Time Bombs
• 11. The Giant Step
• 12. The Great Hymns
• 13. The Logical Conclusions
• 14. Antioch and Jerusalem
• 15. Some of the Early Hymns
• 16. Foundations for a Projection
• Notes