The Ancient Church

From the Beginnings of Christianity until Constantine

Put an End to Persecution (Edict of Milan, Year 313)

This was a formative period that set the tone for the entire history of the church, for even today we live under the influence of some of the decisions made at that time.

Christianity was born in a world that already had its own religions, cultures, and social and political structures.

In order to understand the history of Christianity one must also have some understanding of the context in which it appeared, since that context was very influential in shaping Christian life and doctrine. The most immediate context of the earliest church was Judaism—first Palestinian Judaism, and then that form of Judaism which existed outside the Holy Land.

Palestinian Judaism had evolved since the writing of the last books of what we now call the Old Testament. More than three hundred years before Christ, Alexander the Great built a great empire encompassing all the territories from Greece to Egypt, and eastward as far as the very borders of India. Palestine was therefore part of that empire. One of the consequences of Alexander's conquests was "Hellenism," that is, the combination of Greek culture brought by Alexander and his followers with the ancient cultures that had long existed in each of the lands that he conquered.

Upon the death of Alexander, some of his successors retained control of Syria and Palestine. Led by the Maccabees, the Jews rebelled and managed to gain a brief period of independence, until the Romans conquered the land in 63 B.C.E. Therefore, when Jesus was born Palestine was part of the Roman Empire.

Judaism in Palestine was not all of one piece. There were within it various parties and religious groups. Chief among them were the Zealots, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. These groups differed among themselves on the manner in which God was to be served, as well as on how Jews ought to relate to the Roman Empire. All agreed that there is only one God, that God's people must follow certain patterns of behavior, and that some day God's promises to that people would be fulfilled.

Beyond Palestine there were large numbers of Jews in Egypt, Asia Minor, Rome, Roman North Africa, and even the lands to the east that had earlier been ruled by Babylon. This vast Jewish contingent that spread far beyond the borders of Palestine is known as the Jewish "Diaspora," or Dispersion. In the Diaspora Judaism bore the mark of its various surrounding cultures. Within the borders of the Empire this could be seen in the use of Greek—the most common language in the Hellenistic world—in preference to Hebrew or Aramaic—the common language of that part of the Diaspora spread eastward in the direction of Babylon. Therefore it was in the Diaspora, in Egypt, that the Old Testament was translated into Greek. This translation, known as the Septuagint, was the Bible that most Greek-speaking Christians used for a long time. Egypt also saw life of the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who sought to combine Greek philosophy with Judaism and was therefore a forerunner of the many Christian theologians who followed a similar path regarding their Christian faith.

However, from a very early date the Christian church began to make headway beyond the limits of Judaism, to the point that it soon became mostly Gentile. In order to understand that process, it is necessary to know something regarding the political and cultural atmosphere of the times.

Politically, the entire Mediterranean basin was part of the Roman Empire, which had unified the region under its rule. In a way, that political unity contributed to the expansion of Christianity. But that unity was based on a syncretistic approach to religion, in which the mixture of various religious traditions soon became one of the most serious threats to nascent Christianity. Furthermore, part of the support for that political unity was the worship of the emperor, which soon became one of the reasons for the persecution of Christians.

Within that framework, the new faith made its way, while at the same defining itself.

In philosophy, the ideas of Plato and his teacher Socrates were dominant. They spoke of the immortality of the soul and of an invisible and purely rational world which was far more perfect and permanent than this transient world of "appearances." Also Stoicism, a philosophical doctrine that promoted high moral values, had gained many adherents. Eventually, many Christians would come to understand the Christian doctrine of life after death in terms of the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the proclamation the Reign of God as an affirmation of the Platonic world of ideas. Likewise, Stoic moral doctrine was profoundly influential in the development of Christian ethics.

The first and most important task of early Christianity was to define its own nature vis-à-vis the Jewish tradition in which it was born. As may be seen in the New Testament, a significant context for that process of definition was the mission to the Gentiles.

This story is known to us mostly through the New Testament. We can see, particularly in the letters of Paul and in the book Acts, the stamp of the difficult decisions the church had to make during its first decades. Would Christianity be a new sect within Judaism? Would it be open to Gentiles? How much of Judaism would Gentile converts to Christianity have to accept and follow? These were the most important and urgent questions with which the church had to struggle in its first decades of existence.

Apart from the books of the New Testament, the most ancient Christian books that have survived are usually grouped under the title of "Apostolic Fathers." It is through this collection of letters, sermons, and theological treatises that we gain most of the information available to us regarding the life and teachings of Christians after the close of the New Testament. Here we see the same process of self-definition in matters as diverse as doctrine, worship, church government, and ethics.

Soon Christianity had its first conflicts with the state, and it was within that context that the new faith had to determine its relationship with the surrounding culture, as well as with the political and social institutions that both expressed and supported that culture.

Those conflicts with the state produced both martyrs and "apologists." The first sealed their witness with their blood.

In the book of Acts, it is usually the religious leaders within Judaism that take the lead in persecuting Christians and the church. Furthermore, there are several occasions in which the imperial authorities intervene in order to quench a riot, and thus indirectly prevent the persecution of Christians.

Soon, however, things began to change, and it was the Empire that took the lead in persecuting Christians. During the first century,...