Expansion During the PostApostolic Period 100500 AD

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Expansion During the Post-Apostolic
Period100-500 AD
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Periods

• Three periods
• Apostolic Jews and Gentiles
• Later 1st c to 180 Gentile growth, slow but
  steady growth, small congregations
• 180 to Constantine and beyond disorder,
  pestilence, war, insecurity. Rapid growth

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Context

• The Roman Empire in decay
• Cults and mystery religions, Gnosticism,
  Neoplatonism, heresies
• Manicheanism, Montanism, Monarchianism
  (Theodotians)
• The fall of Jerusalem and the Council at Jamnia
  in 90
• Persecution local and sporadic until 250
• Christianity primarily a city religion
• Antioch The center of Christianity after the
  fall of Jerusalem
• Rome
• Ephesus
• Alexandria

MONARCHIANISM/MODALISM/PATRIPASSIONISM/SEBELLIANIS
M (from latin monarchia unity) exaggerated the
unity of the Father and Son to make them one
person thus the distinctions in the Holy Trinity
are modes, not persons. Thus the Son is a form
or mode of the one Father God and so it is the
Father that died on the cross. Also there is
divergent views on when Jesus became God
baptism, resurrection, etc.
MANICHEANISM. Mani was its founder who had
taught in Persia, and had met there a martyr's
death by crucifixion in 276 or 277. The
fundamental belief of the religion pictured the
universe as the scene of an eternal conflict of
two powers, the one good, the other evil. Man, as
we know him, is a mixed product, the spiritual
part of his nature consists of the good element,
the physical of the evil. His task, therefore, is
to free the good in him from the evil and this
can be accomplished by prayer, but especially by
abstinence from all the enjoyments of evil
riches, sex, wine, meats, luxurious houses and
the like. Like Gnosticism, taught that the true
spiritual Jesus had no material body and did not
actually die. Augustine was a Manichean for nine
years, from 372-383, before dissatisfaction with
its teachings.
MONTANISM. A movement from the middle of the
second century originating with Montanus who
appeared as a new prophet in Phrygia (west
central Turkey). Prophecy was the most prominent
feature of the new movement along with ecstatic
visions, announcing the approach of the second
advent of Christ and the establishment of the
heavenly Jerusalem at Pepuza in Phrygia. The
movement also prescribed the severest asceticism
and sought persecution.
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Geographical Expansion

• Historically silent expansion to all provinces of
  the Empire by the end of the 2nd century
• Egypt
• Alexandria
• Cyrene
• Carthage

• Armenia
• Pontus
• Bithynia
• Spain
• Arabia

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Reasons for Growth

• Passion for Witness
• First and foremost we must reckon with the
  burning conviction by which a great number of the
  earliest Christians were possessed.
• (Neill 35)

A Balanced View of the First Christians It
would probably be a misconception to think of
every Christian of the first three hundred years
after Christ as aggressively seeking converts.
Such pictures as we have of these early
communities in the New Testament and in the
voluminous writings of these centuries warrant no
such conclusion. In none of them does any hint
occur that the rank and file of Christians
regarded it as even a minor part of their duty to
communicate their faith to others. Its seems
probable, however, that many must incidentally
have talked of their religion to those whom they
met in the round of their daily occupations.
(Latourette, Expansion v. 1, 117)
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Missionaries

• Eusebius of Caesarea (c 260-340)
• At that time beginning of the second century
  many Christians felt their souls inspired by the
  holy word with a passionate desire for
  perfection. Their first action, in obedience to
  the instructions of the Savior, was to sell their
  goods and to distribute them to the poor. Then
  leaving their homes, they set out to fulfill the
  work of an evangelist, making it their ambition
  to preach the word of the faith to those who as
  yet had heard nothing of it, and to commit to
  them the books of the divine Gospels.

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Missionaries

• Gregory of Pontus in the 3rd c
• Gregorys methods were well adapted to his
  purpose. To pagan miracles he opposed Christian
  ones and exposed the fraudulent practices of the
  priests. He encouraged Christians to celebrate
  festivals in honour of the martyrs, substituting
  these for the feast of the old gods.
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this
  approach?
• Latourette
• By such means the transition from the old to the
  new was eased and popularized, even though in the
  process Christianity acquired some of the beliefs
  and trappings of the cults which it supplanted.
  Gregory seems frankly to have recognized the fact
  that for the masses any demand for a complete
  break with the past would either prevent
  conversion or could not be realized. However,
  although he sought to render the adoption of the
  new something more than nominal and to hold up to
  his flock certain standards of action. We find
  him, for instance, disciplining Christians who
  under pressure of an invasion of the Goths
  compromised their faith and were guilty of deeds
  unworthy of the Christian name. (Latourette 90)

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Reasons for Growth

• The purity of the lives of the believers
• Community

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Reasons for Growth

• Love and Service
• Care of orphans and widows
• Prisoners and travelers
• Burial of the dead
• Lactantius (c 240-320)
• We will not allow the image and creation of God
  to be thrown out to the wild beasts and the birds
  as their pray it must be given back to the earth
  from which it was taken (Neill 37)
• Emperor Julian (332-63)
• Atheism has been specially advanced through the
  loving service rendered to strangers, and through
  their care for the burial of the dead. It is a
  scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a
  beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not
  only for their own poor but for ours as well
  while those who belong to us look in vain for the
  help that we should render them. (Neill 38)

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Centrifugal versus Centripetal

• Centrifugal Proceeding or acting in a direction
  away from a center.

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Reasons for Growth

• The Apologists Arguing for the faith
• Quadratus, Aristides, Justin, Melito, Tatian,
  Athenagoras, Minucius Feliz, Clement of
  Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian and Tertullian
• Irrationality of paganism
• Immorality of the gods
• Monotheism
• Superiority of Christian ethics
• The testimony of Christians
• The respectful citizenship of the Christians

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Apologetics and Mission

• To argue or not toargue?

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Clement vs Tertullian

• The place of philosophy

Clement of Alexandria Now the Greek philosophy,
as it were, purges the soul, and prepares it
beforehand for the reception of faith, on which
the Truth builds up the edifice of knowledge.
(From The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Book VII)
Tertullian What has Jerusalem to do with
Athens, the Church with the Academy, the
Christian with the heretics? .... I have no use
for a Stoic or a Platonic or a dialectic
Christianity. After Jesus Christ we have no need
of speculation, after the Gospel no need of
research. (From The Prescriptions Against the
Heretics)
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Growth

• Persecution
• The Facts
• Christianity had no legal right to exist (religio
  ilicita).
• Persecution was spasmodic, with no area
  experiencing relentless and continuous
  persecution.
• The number of martyrs is smaller than later
  historians imagined it.
• The circle Pressure on the church encouraged
  secret meetings, which in turn encouraged
  suspicions and rumors, which in turn brought more
  pressure on the church and the need for more
  secrecy.
• Accusations
• Cannibalism
• Infanticide
• Insurrection

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Growth

• Reasons for Persecution
• During this period of insecurity and decline in
  the Empire, emperors sought to eliminate
  Christianity for the purpose of bringing
  stability. Christianity regarded as a public
  menace.
• The maintenance of the worship of the gods was
  believed to be essential to the welfare of
  society.
• (Latourette 130)
• The Climax of the Storm
• Diocletian 303
• Reasons unclear Christians in his household
• The edict
• Empire-wide

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Growth

• The Affect
• Persecution deeply affected the popular opinion
  of Christians and Christianity.
• Public persecutions
• Conversions of pagans
• Christian fallout under pressure
• Notable Martyrs
• Polycarp of Smyrna
• Iranaeus
• Bishop of Lyon Gaul (180)
• Successful missionary bishop
• Polemicist against Gnosticism
• Justin

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Freedom of Religion

• Constantines Edict of Milan in 313
• The church explodes
• Christianity becomes fashionable
• Consequences
• Faith became superficial
• Faith became the acceptance of dogmatic teachings
  versus internal change of heart from a
  relationship with God
• The church took on features of Roman culture
• Polity
• Vitality of the church begins to diminish as well
  as its evangelical missionary vision
• Confusion of politics and Christianity The
  problem of power

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Why the Roman Persecutions?

• The church had become the largest unified body
  excepting the Empire itself.
• The church set itself against so many of the
  patterns of the society into which it was born.
  (Latourette Expansion v. 1, 161)
• Social
• Religious
• Intellectual
• Political

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Why did Christianity win?

• Constantine
• Disintegration of the Empire
• Organization and solidarity of the Church
• The inclusiveness of the church
• The church was uncompromising yet flexible
• Met the Greek longing for salvation of the soul
  and moral living
• Coherent worldview carried from Judaism
• Miracles

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Discussion

• What questions does persecution raise for the
  expansion of Christianity today?
• What values should we maintain in the face of
  persecution?
• What should be our attitude toward the
  persecution of Christians?
• How should we pray for Christians being
  persecuted?

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Bithynia
Pliny the Younger in Bithynia (112) The
contagion of the superstition had spread in the
villages and rural areas as well as in the larger
cities to such and extent that the temples had
been almost deserted and the seller of
sacrificial animals impoverished (Cairns 94)