An Overview of Church History
Obviously, I can't do a very comprehensive overview of 2,000 years of history on just one web page. There is, however, a working picture of church history that can be communicated on just one page, and I think it is very, very important to anyone wanting to understand the Scriptures, the churches of the past, and why the churches are what they are today. I pray to God that I can do that in as brief and understandable a manner as possible.
I want to focus on the apostles' churches and what they were like, and then tell you briefly what happened to them over the remaining 17 centuries to make them like today. What I am telling you about the apostolic churches is based on what they wrote themselves. I have read all the writings of the church written before AD 200, most of them repeatedly. If you did not know, let me tell you that there are a lot of them. A collection of extant writings from that period cover a good 1500 pages of small print in the first three volumes of The Ante-Nicene Fathers, a 10-volume set of writings from the Pre-Nicene period (a term which will mean something to you shortly) that is today published by Eerdman's and Hendrickson publishing companies. They are also available on the web at http://www.ccel.org and probably many other sites as well.
Part I: The Beginning: The Apostolic Churches
Let me begin with a quote from The History of Christianity: A Lion Handbook, published by Lion Publishing and edited by Dr. Tim Dowley. My edition is the 1994 edition.
The early followers of Jesus were marked out by their clear convictions about doctrine and ethics. They recognized only one message of salvation, only one God, only one Savior. Once a person became a follower of 'the Way,' a new life-style was demanded of him. This exclusiveness of early Christian belief and behavior attracted many people. But it was also a cause of offence; enemies accused Christians of aloofness and of hating the present world (p. 82).
This is a surprisingly comprehensive picture of early Christianity, in my opinion. In AD 146, a man name Justin Martyr wrote a letter to the emperor which is known as The First Apology of Justin Martyr or just First Apology. There are a lot of arguments concerning justice in his rather long letter, but when it comes to describing Christianity, his descriptions are quite simple. An example follows here:
We...follow the only unbegotten God through his Son—we who formerly delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magic arts, dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who valued above all the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock and share with everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the Ruler of all (chs. 13,14).
Justin, after saying, “Brief and concise utterances fell from him, for he was no sophist, but his word was the power of God” (ch. 14), then goes on to list the commands of Christ that cause Christians to live this way. He argues that it is reasonable to believe in the resurrection, appeals to prophecy as a proof of the truth of Christianity, and then argues that it is superior to Judaism and to the idolatry of the Romans.
There is a tremendous focus on obedience to Christ in the writings of the early church. Evangelical historians and pastors commonly report this as “they fell quickly into legalism.” On the contrary, they understood that if Christ is Lord, then he is to be obeyed. They understood as well that lifestyle is everything. It was Jesus Christ who said that not everyone who called him Lord would enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of his Father (Matt 7:21-23). He said as well that a prophet would be known by his fruit. Why should anyone believe the teachings of a church that is not bearing fruit? Christ said that his Father would be glorified when his disciples bore much fruit, and then added “so shall ye be my disciples” (Jn 15:83).
The early church was a powerful witness to Christ, so much so that their effect on the world around them, especially on the Roman empire, can be described as nothing less than miraculous and as proof of the true power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why, outside of the power of God, should a religion, consisting of a few uneducated men from a vassal state worshiping a crucified criminal they claimed was raised from the dead, become the dominant religion of the western world, completely overthrowing the religion of the greatest empire in history?
The 2nd century church refused to join the military wherever possible, and even in the military they refused to fight with earthly weapons. Their only weapon was prayer, they said. And because they believed that it was Rome that withheld the antichrist from being revealed (2 Thess. 2:64), they prayed diligently for the Roman empire. The time of the greatest strength of the early church, while they continued in unity and in their emphasis on obedience to Christ, is known as the Pax Romana, the “Roman Peace.” Though they avoided earthly warfare, their spiritual warfare was powerful enough to create an era in world history!
Minucius Felix, whose Octavius is extremely difficult to date and could belong to any period between AD 130 and AD 230, adds his testimony to the succes of the early church.
If we Christians be compared with you [Romans], although in some things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found far better than you. For you forbid and yet commit adulteries; we are born men only for our own wives. You punish crimes when committed; with us even to think of crimes is to sin. You are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; we are even afraid of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot exist. Finally, from your numbers the prison boils over, but you will find no Christian there, unless he is accused on account of his religion or a deserter (The Octavius 35).
Such testimonies are rampant. Athenagoras, another early apologist, wrote, for example, "But among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if they are unable in words to prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deeds exhibit the benefit arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works" (A Plea for the Christians 11, c. AD 177).
Irenaeus, writing in AD 185, adds his testimony to the power of the 2nd century church.
The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth (Against Heresies I:10:2).
Unity is no minor thing. Christ prayed for unity in a rather remarkable manner, basing his entire reputation on the unity of his disciples (Jn 17:20-23). The 2nd century church had this unity, and they had the love that marked them as Jesus's disciples (Jn 13:35). Justin describes it above as overcoming cultural differences to live familiarly with one another while taking care of all needs. Tertullian gives an exactly similar description of Christian love in his Apology a half century later (ch. 39). In fact, there he remarks that the Romans marveled at Christian love, saying to one another, "Behold how they love one another."
But what did they believe? That is the question first and foremost on the mind of modern Christians. Because we modern Christians do not have fruit, love, or unity to prove that we are Christ's disciples, we resort to arguments about doctrine. We divide from each other as though these doctrines prove whether or not we are Christians, when in fact the most clearly Biblical doctrine we could hold is that it is our divisions over doctrines that are proof that we are not Christians! At least three different words for division, including one that is perhaps best translated as "denomination" (hairesis, which is translated "sect" five times in the book of Acts) are listed in Gal. 5:19-21 as works of the flesh which will prevent us from inheriting the kingdom of God.
The beliefs the early church required were simple. In fact, the Apostle's Creed, which is recited weekly in many modern denominations, is adapted from a similar short creed called the Nicene Creed, which managed to sum up orthodoxy as late as AD 325. The Nicene Creed was itself adapted from the "Rule of Faith" of the church at Caesarea. A "Rule of Faith" was short list of beliefs recited at a believer's baptism, probably in answer to questions by the baptizer. Tertullian mentions the "Rule of Faith" in one of his writings and remarked that it is simply a longer version of Jesus's original baptismal Rule of Faith, which was "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19).
Irenaeus, having said that the Church believed the same thing all across the world, gave a list of the things the churches believed everywhere:
The Church...has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, earth, the sea, and all things in them; One Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations, the advents, the birth from a virgin, the suffering, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and his manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father to gather all things into one and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Savior and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, things on earth, and things under the earth and that every tongue should confess to him and that he should execute just judgment towards all, so that he may send spiritual wickednesses and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, unrighteous, wicked, and profane among men into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of his grace, confer immortality on the righteous, the holy, and those who have kept his commandments and have persevered in his love, some from the beginning and othes from their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.
This is actually much longer than any Rule of Faith that you will find listed in any early church writing. Even the Rule of Faith in Caesarea 140 years later that became the Nicene Creed was shorter than this. What Irenaeus says is true, however. You will find nothing contradicting any of these things in any of the writings of the early church before Nicea.
It is true that there is an emphasis on works at the end of this creed of Irenaeus's. Indeed, you will find it in all the writings of the early church. Justin Martyr, for example, who was quote above, wrote:
Hasten to know in what way forgiveness of sins and a hope of inheriting the promised good things shall be yours. But there is no other way than this: to become acquainted with this Christ, to be washed in the fountain spoken of by Isaiah for the remission of sins5, and, for the rest, to live sinless lives (Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew 44).
Now, understand that both the early Christians in general and Justin in particular believed that God will forgive the sins of Christians who confess and forsake them6. However, as we have seen above, in the early church it was expected that the Christian was one who had made up his mind to "deny himself, take up his cross daily, and come after" Christ (Luk 9:23). The call the early church gave was to abandon sin, even in thought, thus following the commands of Christ, who taught us not to be angry with our brother and not to look upon a woman to lust after her.
It was not just Justin who taught these things. Let me introduce to you Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna in the mid-2nd century. He had been bishop of Smyrna for decades, and, if not the bishop, was certainly a member of the church at Smyrna when that church received a letter from Jesus himself that is given in Revelation 2:8-11. Unlike all the other churches except Philadelphia, Smyrna received no rebukes from the Lord. Tradition has it that Polycarp was appointed to his position by John, and Irenaeus, quoted above, says he sat at the feet of Polycarp in his younger years, making Irenaeus, though writing almost a hundred years after the last apostle's death, a key witness to the apostolic era.
Polycarp, a man respected enough by the apostle John to be appointed the lead elder of the church in Smyrna, described the Gospel in this way in a letter to the church at Philippi:
He who raised [Christ] from the dead will raise up us also, if we do his will, walk in his commandments, and love what he loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness (Letter to the Philippians 2).
Polycarp understood grace. Surely the apostle of love would not have appointed Polycarp to such an important position, in such a successful church, had he not understood grace. Just three sentences earlier he had written:
In whom, though now you see him not, you believe, and believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, a joy into which many desire to enter, knowing that by grace you are saved, not of works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ (ibid., 1)
It is this ability—as well as the wonderful fruit borne by the early church—to maintain the tension between faith, grace, and works that is found in Scripture that drew me so readily to the early church. I already knew that Paul, the very same person who had written that we are justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Rom. 3:28), had also written that God would repay eternal life to those who sought immortality by patiently continuing to do good (Rom. 2:6). Though modern theologians describe this as a purely conjectural statement by Paul—it could never happen, because no one will patiently continue to do good—I had always found it hard to believe such dismissive teachings. The fact is, Galatians, that great letter defending the doctrine of justification by faith alone, had a very similar statement, clearly directed to Christians. "Therefore, do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season you shall reap, if you do not lose heart" (Gal 6:9). In context, the item to be reaped by doing good is eternal life, for that is what was being reaped in the previous sentence.
The fact is, no one can miss the verses on works in the New Testament. You may ignore them, but you cannot miss them. 2 Peter, for example, states rather clearly that it is by "doing these things" that you will make your calling and election sure and obtain an entrance into the kingdom of Christ (1:10,11). "Doing these things," in context, is diligently adding to your faith virtue (often translated "moral excellence" in modern translations), knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. Even more telling is James 2:24. Did you know that it is the only occurrence of "faith alone" or "faith only" in the whole Bible, and it says "not by faith only"? A little breathtaking, isn't it? I wish I could make things different, but I'm afraid I didn't write the Scriptures and we've been forbidden to change them. I have to face the challenges, promises, and threats of these verses just as much as you do. Personally, I think it'd be nice to hear about these things now than on the last day. Don't you?
If it will relieve any of you who are reading this, it is also Scripturally obvious that this obedience to Christ must come by the power of the Spirit of God. There is no other way it can happen. Our flesh is weak, so the Law cannot save us (Rom 7, entire chapter), but what the Law could not do, God did (Rom 8:3)! According to Romans, being under grace means that sin will not have power over us (6:14). According to Ephesians, being under grace means that we will be God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works (2:10). According to the letter to Titus, saving grace will teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly (2:11,12). Galatians tells us that apart from the Spirit we can't do what we want (5:17), but it promises that if we walk by the Spirit we won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh (5:16). Therefore, Paul, who wrote all the things I'm referencing in this paragraph, tells us that it is "by the Spirit" that we are to put to death the deeds of the body so that we might live (Rom 8:13).
I would probably be a lot more hesitant to say these things if I didn't know that these things are proclaimed as universal truth in a century when the church was united and powerful. It is commonly taught that the church fell away quickly, and the presence of gnostics, false doctrines, division, and gross sins in the church—all of which can be seen in the New Testament letters—were too much and led to this downfall and legalism. That's an interesting theory, and if we had no more to go on than the New Testament, it would be a possibility. We are not limited to the New Testament writings, however. The letter of the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth around AD 95, commonly called First Clement and attributed by tradition to Clement of Rome, tells us that the Corinthian church responded powerfully to Paul's letter decrying their division. Clement's letter described a renewal of division among the leadership of the Corinthian church and begs of them to return to their repentance. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, another one of the apostle John's appointments, wrote seven letters that display the work that went into driving the gnostics out of the church. We know from later writings that his efforts were rewarded with almost complete expulsion.
Ephesus, so severely rebuked by Jesus in Revelation 2, also clearly repented. John, according to tradition, ended up staying there until the end of his life, and another John, an elder, arose in his place. Irenaeus, about a century after the writing of the Revelation describes Ephesus as a great and apostolic church holding fast to the truth of the Gospel.
Thank God that we are not left wondering. We have numerous testimonies to the condition of the church in the 2nd century; it was glorious and powerful. Even history witnesses to its power in the Pax Romana, though historians are surely ignorant that the force behind that peace was the prayers of godly Christians who believed that our warfare really was with spiritual wickedness in high places and not with flesh and blood. Oh, that our faith in the power of God to restrain and control kings and governments were renewed again, because our attempts to help God with carnal force and to gain control of governments in his name have repeatedly proven to be our greatest downfall. As it is said, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Yes, this applies to Hitler's attempt to invade Russia in winter, a mistake Napolean made over a hundred years earlier, but it applies even more so to Christians, who have trusted in earthly weapons and failed so many times that it is impossible to count them.
We need to address two things here. One concerns the 2nd century church, which is, what about the pope? The second will carry us through to today, which is, what happened to that glorious testimony to the holiness and power of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Footnotes:
3 The Scripture quotes on this page are pulled from either the KJV or some other non-copyrighted version and updated into today's language by myself. Please check your own favorite translation wherever you doubt that I am quoting the Scriptures accurately. I am being very careful to avoid controversial translations or reading, except in cases where I specifically tell you my choice of translation is unusual. In such a case, I will also tell you why I am suggesting it. That's rare, and on most pages you'll be unlikely to run across such an instance. Return to text
4 Their reasons for believing that "that which withholds" was the Roman empire are both compelling and very interesting. Basically, because Daniel describes four beasts which represent four major governments, and the beast of Revelation is a compilation of those four beasts, they believed that those were the only major governments of history. Once the last one fell, which was Rome, then the antichrist would appear. Theophilus, bishop of Antioch in AD 168, gives a time frame for this in To Autolycus III:28 that is accurate to within a decade. Return to text
5 An obvious reference to baptism. Return to text
6 Just three chapters later, for example, Justin says, "For the goodness and the lovingkindness of God...hold righteous and sinless the man who, as Ezekiel tells, repents of sins, and reckons sinful, unrighteous, and impious the man who falls away from piety and righteousness to unrighteousness and ungodliness" (Dialogue with Trypho 47). Return to text
