Christianity: The Biography

Two thousand years of the global church

Ian Shaw

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783594672
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Histoire du Christianisme

Christianity: the Biography charts the life-story of Christianity from its birth and infancy among a handful of followers of Jesus Christ, through its years of development into a global religious movement, spanning continents and cultures, transcending educational and social backgrounds, with over two billion adherents. Ian Shaw offers an introductory orientation to the richness of the Christian tradition and its heritage around the world. This outline of the major phases, developments, movements, and personalities in Christianity's life story over the two millennia is necessarily painted on a broad canvas. It is designed to open the subject up for more detailed study. As well as covering the well-trodden ground of the history of Christianity in the West, it also has a special concern for the story from the non-Western world.Christianity: the Biography encourages reflection on the lessons to be learned from the past, and seeks to avoid the tendency to draw a distinction between matters of faith or theology and history. Opening up Christianity's biography should deepen theological understanding and build faith, and inspire a longing to meet the One behind the story.'What an original idea. Ian Shaw has presented the current scholarship in church history in a very engaging way. I hope this book is widely read... An absolutely outstanding volume!' Ian Randall, Senior Research Fellow, Spurgeon's College

1. THE CRADLE

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Lifeline

753 bc – traditional date for the foundation of Rome

587 bc – Jerusalem captured by Babylonians, start of exile

364 bc – Aristotle begins studies with Plato

323 bc – death of Alexander the Great

192–188 bc – war between Roman and Greek armies

44 bc – assassination of Julius Caesar

c. 6–4 bc – birth of Jesus Christ

ad 14 – death of Caesar Augustus

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Every biography begins with a birth, but the exact date when Christianity was ‘born’ is open to debate. Does Christianity begin with the birth of its founder, Jesus Christ, in squalid and obscure surroundings in Bethlehem? Or was it when the first disciples were called and became followers of Jesus Christ? A case could be made for Pentecost, when the book of Acts records that the Holy Spirit came upon those present, transforming the disciples of Jesus from a fearful, uncertain group into an empowered body of messengers witnessing to the good news of Jesus Christ. Some have stressed the importance of seeing Christianity as a movement, seeing its beginning as the time when the followers of Jesus were first referred to as ‘Christians’ in Acts 11:26. Most historians of Christianity consider the end of the Jewish–Roman War in Palestine in ad 70, towards the close of the lives of most of the apostles, as a vital moment. This roughly marks the transition from the era of the apostles, which is towards the end of the New Testament period, and certainly represents a new phase in the development of Christianity.

All this illustrates the challenge of pinpointing the ‘birth’ or ‘foundation’ of Christianity to a specific moment. Jesus did not call his followers Christians and he did not start individual churches. Founded on a commitment by individuals to the person and teachings of Jesus Christ, what became known as Christianity emerged over a period. It was a movement of those who found salvation through faith in him and sought to follow his example and teachings.

Every birth takes place in a geographical, historical and social context which has a role in shaping subsequent development. The cradle of Christianity was the intersection of differing worlds, both geographically and culturally. The Roman province of Palestine, historically the land of Israel, where this birth took place, lies at the junction of three continents, Africa, Asia and Europe, and if anything pointed to Christianity becoming a global religion this did. In its early years Christianity belonged more to the Middle East, Africa and the Orient than the West. It was originated at the crossroads of a series of major trade routes along which flowed the materials by which cultures are forged and changed – people, goods and ideas. Through this narrow strip of land marched armies bent on conquest, some heading east, some heading west. In the centuries before Christianity emerged, those armies redrew the political map of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa several times.

Ancient Greece

Christianity also developed at an intersection in political and cultural history. Palestine had been fought over and conquered successively by Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks. By 1400 bc a group of people speaking an early form of Greek were scattered across parts of what is now modern Greece and the Mediterranean. They built cities and palace fortresses like that at Mycenae. Their unity was not political but came through language and culture, such as the oral traditions of the Homeric legends which looked back to the great days of the Mycenaeans. Such culture became known as ­Hellenistic, after the term hellas, which embraced these scattered groups. The religious ceremonies such as those associated with the god Apollo at Delphi, or the games in honour of the god Zeus on Mount Olympus, gave a further sense of unity. The hellenes were convinced of the superiority of their culture: all others were barbaroi, from which the term ‘barbarian’ comes. Between 800 and 500 bc Greek society demonstrated more order, with settlements developing round the temples dedicated to Greek gods. A series of small city-states emerged, each surrounded by a rural hinterland. It was the work of Philip of Macedon, who ruled from 360 to 336 bc, to bring unity to Greece. Under the rule of his son Alexander, a Greek empire rapidly appeared through a series of speedy and brilliant military campaigns. He came to be known as Alexander the Great, ruling from 336 to 323 bc. He swept all before him – conquering Syria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Persia – dreaming of a real union between the areas he conquered. Alexander sought administrative and cultural unity among the people he conquered, promising greatness as a ruler to match his military greatness. His tutor had been Aristotle, and Alexander sought to spread Greek ideas and culture throughout his territories, seeking peace and prosperity through his policies. Seventy cities claim Alexander as their founder, the best known being Alexandria, which was named after him, with a world-renowned university and library. Principles of systematic and scientific town-planning emerged, with significant advances in architecture. Cities were rapidly colonized by Greek traders and artisans, creating a vast single market.

When Alexander met his demise in mysterious circumstances aged just ­thirty-two, his empire was divided up by his generals, who ruled as semi-divine monarchs over territories which stretched from the Adriatic to Afghanistan. Beset by bitter rivalry, before long these territories had divided into a series of smaller kingdoms.

The rise of Rome

The traditional date for the foundation of Rome is 753 bc, and until 509 bc it functioned as a city-state with a king. After the overthrow of the monarchy a republic was instituted with power in the hands of a senate controlled by the patrician social elite, who appointed consuls. The ordinary people, the plebeians, had only limited influence on their work. The emergence of an empire based on this city was slow, but as Rome grew in size and influence, war between the Romans and Greeks became inevitable. A series of wars in the 190s and 180s bc saw the Romans victorious and taking control of the Mediterranean area. The Roman Empire was eventually to stretch to Britain, the Rhine and the Danube in the north, along the North African coast and to the borders of Asia in the east – but its trade routes reached much further. Palestine belonged significantly to the eastern half of the Roman Empire.

The political structure of the Roman Republic underwent momentous ­revolution in which the old rule of oligarchy was transformed into personal autocracy. This change came through a long and intermittent civil war lasting seventy years. Eventually, after the assassination of the general and dictator Julius Caesar in 44 bc, Octavian manoeuvred his way into power through a series of battles and political stratagems. He ruled as Caesar Augustus from 27 bc onwards, the first of the Roman emperors. Although he died in ad 14, the Roman Empire was to long outlast him, surviving, albeit in changed form, for over a thousand years. Augustus brought peace and stability to territories stretching from the English Channel to Sudan, and after his death he was declared a god. Most of the subsequent emperors, combining astute governance with occasional terror tactics, were also assigned the status of god after their lifetimes. Peoples of widely differing cultural backgrounds were ruled together in one empire.

Jewish history

After the Greek and Roman empires, the third great political, social and religious influence on Palestine was of course Judaism. The emergence of the Jewish people from a group of wandering herders, through slavery and conquest, into a small nation with its own modest empire under the kingships of David and Solomon, is told in the pages of the Old Testament. So too is its subsequent decline into division and defeat, with many of its peoples dragged into exile as a result of conquests by Assyria, Babylon and Persia. The capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the destruction of the temple in 587 bc was a terrible blow which Judaism nevertheless managed to survive, as it did an attempt in the second century bc by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV, who arrogantly called himself ‘Epiphanes’ (Manifestation), to Hellenize the cultural and religious life of the Jews. This produced an uprising and a series of wars from 167 to 164 bc. After much blood had been shed, the Jews, led by Judas Maccabeus, secured a short period of existence free from the rule of a foreign power, which lasted until Roman occupation around 63 bc. Palestine then fell within the political orbit of the ruthless superpower that had superseded the Greek one. Between 37 bc and 4 bc Judea was subjected to the repressive rule of King Herod, from Idumea (Edom), who served as a puppet king of the Romans. After his death the territories he had ruled were divided up among his sons, before direct rule was imposed, exercised through Roman officials such as Pontius Pilate. An independent nation-state was not to exist again in Israel until 1948.

Defeat and exile had left the Jewish peoples scattered across the Middle East and into North Africa and Europe. This meant that some 80% of all Jews lived in the ‘diaspora’ (dispersion) outside Palestine. The land remained much troubled politically when Jesus was born, and after his death there were major rebellions against Roman rule, in 66–70 and 132–5, attempting to recreate what Judas Maccabeus had done; both of these rebellions were brutally crushed.

Greek and Roman culture

Palestine at the end of the first century bc was not only at a geographical and political intersection; it was also at a cultural one. The march of successive armies across this small but significant land left deep imprints. From the Greeks came their language and a culture deeply shaped by its literature and philosophy. In religion, polytheism (belief in the existence of many gods, such as Zeus, Artemis and Apollo) was the order of the day. The pantheon of Greek gods was large and diverse. The worship of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, could on the one hand be a high-minded celebration of beauty and love, and on the other a degraded form of fertility worship expressed in immoral sexual activity. A team of a thousand female temple slaves served the sexual appetites of the devotees of Aphrodite in Corinth, casting a moral blight on the whole city, reflected in the letters of the apostle Paul to the church there. Religious life in the Greek world was complex – from rituals involving prostitution, to sacrifices to appease gods, or seeking guidance by reading the entrails of slaughtered animals. Dissatisfaction with the ancient public religions led to the emergence of new secret cults, mystery religions, which only the initiated could join.

But Greek culture also produced profound intellectual and philosophical achievements, creating tension with the crude and unsophisticated depictions of the religious life of the gods of Olympus. Scientific discovery advanced in the fields of anatomy, astronomy and mechanics. The foundations of math­ematics were laid by philosophers such as Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 bc). A user-friendly script emerged with a twenty-two-letter alphabet based on sounds rather than pictorial symbols, making easier the development of writing forms in which ideas as well as the names of things with physical form could be communicated. The fourth and fifth centuries bc saw the height of Greek philosophy, especially with the work of Socrates (c. 470–399 bc), Plato (c. 429–348 bc) and Aristotle (384–322 bc). Moral philosophy set out notions of right living and high ideals in life.

Plato was Socrates’ pupil, and his writings helped to shape European thinking on big issues in life such as immortality, pleasure and politics. Plato also debated the question of the existence of a supreme god, and if one existed, what that god would be like. He concluded that the supreme god would be a unity, incapable of being divided, without moods and passions (unlike the Greek gods), and unchangeable. He struggled with the idea of how such a god could create the current imperfect world and concluded that it was just a poor reflection of ideal Forms which were a truer and higher reality, and had been created by one lower than the Supreme Soul, namely the demiourgos. The task of the human soul is to reach beyond the present world to the Forms which lie beyond it.

Plato’s abstract, speculative, idealistic philosophy stands in contrast to that of his pupil Aristotle who emphasized that reality was to be understood through a process of critical reasoning based on observed facts. Studying a concept or object did not come by speculating on what its ideal form might look like, but by systematic study and the collection of facts and information, and upon the basis of that research coming to conclusions. To Aristotle this approach held good for all areas of knowledge, from science to the humanities; indeed it influenced Western education for more than 2,000 years after his death. Import­antly, there was also a growing sense of the need for a clear connection between religion and morality, and that the...