Church History
Introduction
During the 2nd century, the Roman empire had a great eternal power that stretched to various nations such as Germany and Britain but the end of the 2nd century marked the end of its power expansion due to the wave of invaders. During this period of terminal decline of the Roman Empire, the Church had an incredible growth since majority had read the New Testament and Christian’s beliefs. However, not all people believed on Christianity since there was disagreement and different teachings on the divine nature and the human nature. For example, Gnostics and Docetism and other raised arguments on Christian life and the deity of Christ but the ‘Church Fathers’ such as Justin Martyr and others opposed the Roman authorities and offered responses to the argument that was raised to suppress Christianity. This period was marked as the period of ‘Church Fathers’ since theologians started introducing the basic doctrines. Conservative Romans failed to accept the Christian religion since they saw Christianity as a threat and believed on ‘pax deorum’, but Christians believed on God and Christ.
Gnosticism
During 130 and 160 A.D to 1st century, there was controversy between the Gnosticism and defenders of Christian teaching. The controversy was on fundamental issues regarding the nature of evil, the redemption and the nature of God. These fundamental issues introduced the Christians theological tradition in order to understand its nature and more importantly get answers on the fundamental issues. However, Gnosticism presented its argument from Jewish texts and symbols and Hellenistic religion[1]. In addition, sources for Gnosticism were derived from work of opponents who provided Gnostic teaching and believed that the material world was created by the a demi-god .The problem with these teachings is that they offered a secret teaching and presented primordial reality from ordinary thought and own experience. Rather than presenting teachings from the Greek philosophy, they presented theological notions from Gnostic thinking. Generally, the knowledge was derived from the world of darkness and ignorance and their thoughts were based on docetism[2]. The latter means that Christ was not a human but rather he was a celestial substance and for this reasons, his sufferings, death and resurrection were mere illusion. There is a big difference between the Gnostic teaching and Christian teaching in that the latter derived knowledge from the ‘apostolic tradition’, the Old Covenant Scriptures and the revelations of Christ. The former focused on the letters of Paul where they offered allegorical interpretations to justify their argument on spirit and soul[3].
Marcion
Marcion opposed both Gnosticism and Christian teaching and presented different teachings similar to Basilides and Valentinus teachings. His teachings were derived from the letters of Paul and he presented canon of sacred books. However, even though he provided canon books, the problem with his teachings was that he related the Christian Gospel with Judaism from the Jewish Scriptures. He read the letters of Paul and the Jewish Scriptures in a literally manner and he was convinced that the Christian dispensation was from the loving God but he did not understand the Christians dispensation from the Law and the Prophet[4]. The teachings made him to conclude that God in the letters of Paul and God in the Mosaic covenant are two different things simply because God in the letters of Paul presented God of love and mercy while God in the Mosaic Covenant presented a tyrannical nature. Marcion did not only understand the teachings but he wrote ‘Antitheses’ which presented the contradictions between the Christian faith and the Jewish Scriptures. In his writing, he clearly showed that God in the Old Testament was not the true God but rather the true God was presented in the letters of Paul or simply through Jesus Christ. He tries to say that God the creator (Old Testament deity) is a false God since he create peace and evil (Isaiah 45:6-7) and God in the New Testament is the true God since he appointed his son to save the human race[5]. It is also important to understand that Marcion borrowed Gnostic ideas since he accepted the dualism on spirit and matter from the Cerdo teachings. He believed that the true God of love did not have a human body and for this reason, Marcion’s believers were restricted form sexual intercourse and eating meat[6].
Montanism
Marcionism, Gnostism and ‘the New Prophesy’ (Montanism) created a crisis of self-understanding at the end of the 2nd century. Montanus who founded the Montanism proclaimed that he was a prophet sent by God to proclaim the truth[7]. However, the Christian community opposed the prophetic teachings arguing that the teachings were a threat to the society. The big problem with the prophetic teaching is that it was a ‘new prophecy’ which proclaimed apocalyptic revival and the end of the world and the construction of the New Jerusalem in the Pepuza in Phrygia. In preparing for the end of the world, Montanu together with other prophets like (Priscilla and Maximilla) and their followers alienated themselves from the world as well from the society[8]. The movement expanded in various regions such as Asia, Syria, North Africa and Rome where bishops in these regions taught Christians the teachings of the ‘New prophecy’ but later some questioned the prophecy and others led to crisis between Christian churches and believers[9].
Irenaeus of Lyon
Irenaeus of Lyon is well known as a theological leader who opposed the Marcion and Gnostics teachings. Irenaeus did a great work which is fully apprenticed in modern times. An important point to note about Irenaeus is that he is not Christian convert but rather he grew in a Christian background since childhood. His Christian background and the martyrdom in his religious faith had a great impact in his orthodoxy owes. Irenaeus’s well known work is ‘Against Heresies’ where he refuted the Gnostic teachings and defends the orthodox faith. As a prolific writer, he rejects all teachings which orthodox church and leaders could reject and more importantly he refutes the Valentinian’s teachings that ‘in order to understand the scripture, people need a secret tradition and be spiritually mature[10]. In other words, those who ignore the tradition cannot derive an important message from the scripture. Valentinun did not believe on the creation of the material world but he believed that creation is a work of ‘the demiurge’ and the role of Christ when he was on earth was to separate the human beings from the evil. In response, Irenaues in his Christian writings showed that God, the Father of Jesus Christ created the world with goodness and beauty , and that Christ acted as a human being and was made perfectly visible to human beings by God. ‘Against Heresies’ is divided in to five books and the first book presents the heretical sects and offers true doctrines by quoting Scriptures to show the divine wisdom. He clearly presents the biblical doctrines especially the Divine testimonies of Jesus Christ to show that the scripture is an inspired word of God. In addition, he shows that the Old Testament and New Testament are related in reflecting the role of Christ[11]. He also wrote another book ‘The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching’ where he presented the knowledge on the nature of God and the doctrine of man.
Justin Martyr
Jutsoce Martyr was a Greek Philosopher and his writings present the Christian revelation and a theology of history. He was a converted Christian since he was grew in a Jewish environment and after being converted he became a teacher in Christian teaching. His writings are ‘First Apology’, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew’ and the ‘Second Apology[12]’. In his work, he uses the Old Testament as the ‘Memoirs of the Apostles’ where he introduced the gospel of Mathew, Luke, John and others. Thus, Martyr was a great apologist and an interpreter of the Old Testament and his tradition view helped him build a systematic hermeneutic. In other words, he understood the Christian tradition by focusing on the Old Testament where he derived symbolic and prophetic concepts[13]. From the prophetic books or from the Old Testament, Justin show that Jesus, the son of God came in the world as a human beings where he was hated and unacknowledged . Justine presented the nature of Scripture by asserting that the content in the Old Testament is important to the church as it is a ‘memoir of Apostles’ and helps the Christians understand the Scriptures[14]. In his writing, he used exegetical procedures and was influenced by the Judaism, Christianity and Philonic hermeneutics. On Judaism, Justin concentrated on Post-Christian Judaism where he derived the biblical interpretation methods and concepts of the scripture. For example, the combination of Christianity and Judaism show that the Old and New Testaments as well as the Hebrew Bible are authoritative scriptures and all have a common belief that salvation is through accepting Jesus Christ[15]. On Philonic hermeneutics, Justin focused on Alexandrine tradition where he derived a hidden meaning reduplicated expression, allegorical meaning of words and symbolic meaning of things. On Christianity, Justin asserts that the Gospel such as that of John provided a historical knowledge on Jesus’ life in the Old Testament[16].
Tertullian
Tertullin was a Roman but later converted to Christianity and presented Christianity teachings in the West. In his writing, he focused on the martyrdom and his writings were in Latin unlike other theologians who wrote in Greek. His work is unique in that he goes direct to the point by practically attacking the prosecutors of Christianity and those whose doctrines are not true[17]. He include something important based on graphic warnings by saying that there is a fiery judgments and those who persecuted Christianity and those who led people astray will be consumed. It is important to understand that he used the Scripture to present his argument. For example, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and are unity of substance and they have similar qualities. He applies a traditional imagery in explaining the trinity and asserted that since the sun originates from the rays of the light, the son and the Spirit originate from God and thus, the Father is greater than the son[18]. Tertullian argues that the word was God and since the Father, the Son and the Spirit are one, then Jesus Christ is the word. In this case, the ‘word’ presents not only what Jesus said but also who he was and his action. The word of God is the truth and the truth was presented through the character and work of the Christ[19].
Conclusion
The research show that Christianity originated from the Roman Empire in the Jewish society during the 1st century. However, Christianity was prosecuted by the Roman Empire because Christians rejected their beliefs on pax deorum but believed on God and refused to sacrifice and to worship their gods. There was a great persecution especially during the 3rd century which led to political instability, war and death. Even through Roman were religious, there was nothing like ‘united Christianity’ so many used different forms to spread the religious doctrines. For example, Gnostics, Montanism and Marcionism had different beliefs on the nature of Christ and the salvation. However, early church fathers, that is; Tertullian, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyon were apologists in the 2nd century who introduced the Christian teachings and opposed false teachings such as Gnostics. The Christian theologians played an important role in presenting the canonical books, developing Christian doctrines and shaping the Christian history.
Bibliography
González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity. Volume 1, Volume 1. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.
Hill, Jonathan . The History of Christian Thought: The Fascinating Story of the Great Christian Thinkers
and How They Helped Shape the World As We Know It Today. Downers Grove: IVP Academic,
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Walker Williston. A History of the Christian Church. Ravenio Books, 2014
Barnard, Leslie W, and Iustinus. St. Justin Martyr: the First and Second Apologies. New York [u.a.: Paulist
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Dunn. D Geoffrey. Early Church fathers. Tertullian. Psychology Press, 2004
Butler D. Rex. The New Prophecy and "New Visions": Evidence of Montanism in The Passion of Perpetua
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[1] Walker Williston. A History of the Christian Church. Ravenio Books, 2014, pg 62
[2] Ibid, 62
[3] Ibid, 63
[4] González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity. Volume 1, Volume 1. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Pg, 82
[5] Ibid, 84
[6] Ibid, 85
[7] Walker Williston. A History of the Christian Church. Ravenio Books, 2014, pg 87
[8] Ibid 89
[9] Butler D. Rex. The New Prophecy and "New Visions": Evidence of Montanism in The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas.CUA Press, 2011, page 10
[10] Hill, Jonathan . The History of Christian Thought: The Fascinating Story of the Great Christian Thinkers and How They Helped Shape the World As We Know It Today. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2003. Print. Pg 21
[11] Ibid, 25
[12] Barnard, Leslie W, and Iustinus. St. Justin Martyr: the First and Second Apologies. New York [u.a.: Paulist Press, 1997. Print. Pg, 103
[13] Ibid, 164
[14] Ibid, 175
[15] Ibid, 180
[16] Ibid, 187
[17] Dunn. D Geoffrey. Early Church fathers. Tertullian. Psychology Press, 2004.pg, 53
[18] Ibid, 56
[19] Ibid, 58
