Imperial Christianity

Constantine Presses for the Establishment of a Christian "Orthodoxy"
Within six months of his conversion Constantine was asked by the Donatists in North Africa to intervene in their dispute with "apostate" bishops (ones who had at one point denied their faith under the pressure of persecution) whose authority the Donatists no longer recognized. Constantine did intervene--but found in favor of the restored bishops against the Donatists, and ordered the Donatists to submit to the authority of these bishops.
He went from there to become increasingly active in imposing "order" on his new church--seeing this as his imperial duty to God (as always had been the understanding of the Emperor's responsibility to the empire: that is, to be the "defender of the faith").

He was responsible for calling the Council of Nicea (325) to decide the dispute between Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria and his presbyter, Arius--who had come to espouse a monarchian or "unitarian" position. The Council itself decided in favor of Alexander--and outlined the basics of the "Nicene Creed," which stood at the heart of "Trinitarian" Catholic doctrine.

Though Constantine stood firmly behind the Council and its decision, he himself remained quite tolerant of the unitarian Arians--who were widely popular in the East (where the Nicene "Trinitarian" decision itself was unpopular). Rumors were that he himself had Arian sympathies--but kept them to himself in order to preserve the religious unity of his domain.

The Arian Constantius Moves to Suppress Paganism
Constantius, who finally rose above his brothers to take over the Empire of his father Constantine, continued the work of bringing the Empire around to full Christianity. But he was a fervent Arian Christian and intimidated the bishops into an anti-Nicene position. At the same time, pursuing religious conformity within his empire, he pushed the Christian cause against paganism more forcefully than his father had--closing the temples in 356 and removing the altar of Victory from the Roman Senate in 357.

Julian the "Apostate"
Julian was a nephew of Constantine who had miraculously escaped the murderous intrigues that took the life of most of the rest of his family after Constantine died in 337.
Upon becoming emperor in 361 he disclosed his pagan loyalties and began to try to undo the work of his Christian uncle Constantine and cousin Constantius. He tried to substitute a new religion based on Platonism in which the Supreme Being was identified with the Sun God Helios (akin to the popular Mithras). He tried also to establish the same moral rigor for his faith that made Christianity so respectable--and even copied the ecclesiastical organization of the Christian church.

He did not directly persecute Christianity but did remove Christianity's privileged position within the government and forbade Christians from teaching in the public schools (in an effort to bring the empire back to its pre-Christian traditions through the children). But there was no real zeal among the populace for his reforms--which was already apparent soon after he took over. When he died in 363 his efforts effectively closed the book for traditional paganism.

Athanasius
Athanasius (ca. 296-373)was deacon of the church at Alexandria, eventually becoming Bishop in 328. He managed to find himself smack in the middle of the growing Catholic-Arian (or Trinitarian-Unitarian) controversy that pulled at the empire. He was exiled 5 times--because of the fluidity of the court politics and the changing fortunes of this Catholic and Arian Christianity with the Roman Emperors.
He took up the cause of his Bishop Alexander against Arius at the Council of Nicea (325) getting the Council to find in favor of his well-argued position against the Arian position. On behalf of the Trinitarian cause he wrote profusely, but most importantly: The Incarnation of the Word ("Christ was made man that we might be made divine." If we were to say that Jesus was not God--as did Arius--but created by God, then Jesus could not be our savior because only God can restore man to union with God.)

The "Cappadocian Fathers"
Three closely related individuals played a key part in refining and strengthening the Trinitarian or Nicene cause: Basil of Caesarea (ca. 330-379), his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335-394), and their close friend Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 330-390). Again, their point was that the Trinity was a necessity for human salvation--for only God, not man, not even a good man, could put an end to sin. It was God, not a good man, that died on the cross.

A General Overview
To be sure, the oral tradition about Jesus' deeds and sayings were the first way in which the "gospel" was spread from place to place. Also, letters written by the apostles, especially Paul, were very important sources of knowledge and inspiration to the early church. But these were hardly "scriptural" in the early days. That honor still belonged only to the Jewish Scriptures (the Christian Old Testament).
But by the early 2nd century various gospels were being circulated in which the story of Jesus was carefully assembled and written down--mostly to be read in worship, much as the Jewish Scriptures were read. Luke's history of the early church or "Acts of the Apostles" was also highly valued. Also the letters of Paul, John, Peter came finally to have authoritative status.

Also widely used, and considered "authoritative" was Tatian's "Diatessaron" (a Gospel harmony), as well as the Shepherd of Hermas. But eventually these two sources would lose favor--not being themselves purely "apostolic" in their origins.

Over the next century other writings were added to the "canon": the "Pastoral Epistles," the secondary letters of John and Peter, James, the anonymous letter to the Hebrews, and--lastly--Revelation.

Meanwhile the various writings collected by the Gnostics were widely rejected by the "Catholic" church as being of very dubious origin.

By the beginning of the fourth century, the canon had, by and large, taken on the look that it has today.

The Early Oral Tradition
It is hard for us to understand how important and persistent was the oral tradition about Jesus among the earliest Christians. To be sure, Paul's letters were carefully preserved and copied and passed around. But the sayings of Jesus were the most precious of all the legacy that the church carefully nurtured.
In about 95 AD, Clement, bishop of Rome, in his letter to the Corinthian church, quotes Jesus sayings, which were as likely at that point to come from oral tradition as from written "gospels."

As Jesus left no writings of his own, the "record" had to be authenticated by those with the status of "apostle." Only they had the right to say exactly what it was that Jesus said and didn't say. Indeed, by the beginning of the second century, apostolic authority was becoming as important as Old Testament writings in the esteem of the churchmen.

Often what the apostles said about Jesus was in the tradition of the Jewish midrash and was more for moral/spiritual instruction of the faithful than for historical accounting for the curious.

Oddly enough, Paul, who gave us our earliest written testimonies concerning the new faith, never himself quotes Jesus or any of the Jesus sayings. However his own injunctions, such as in Romans 12, indicate a familiarity with the Jesus sayings or teachings--though Paul does not credit Jesus with these words of his.

The First Use of the "Gospels"
John Foxe states in his book, Fox's book of martyrs, (Matthew), whose occupation was that of a toll-gatherer, was born at Nazareth. He wrote his gospel in Hebrew, which was afterwards translated into Greek by James the Less. The scene of his labors was Parthia, and Ethiopia, in which latter country he suffered martyrdom, being slain with a halberd in the city of Nadabah, A.D. 60. This is what I believe the hypothesized Q document to be. (Q is an original narrative of the Gospel written in Hebrew which some suppose to be the "source document" for all of the other Gospels. This however is not necessary since there were 11 remaining disciples to write what each of them had seen which were aided by the Holy Spirit in there recording of it. - John 14:26)

In about 125 AD Papias, bishop of Phrygia (reputedly a pupil of the apostle John and possibly the scribe who wrote down John's Gospel as John dictated or taught him) was reported (by Eusebius) to have commented on the need to write down the sayings of Jesus: "I do not suppose that what I could get from the books would help me so much as what I could get from a living and abiding voice."

We know through Eusebius that Papias was aware of at least two gospels, John and Mark, (with respect to the latter, at least in part or portion of what has come down to us as this gospel). But we cannot be sure of exactly what he meant by "books." Usually these would have been in reference to the sacred writings of the Old Testament. He probably was not yet referring to the "gospels" as books.

Papias defended the writings of Mark--answering the criticism that they were not an orderly account by pointing out that they were not written from that vantage-point to begin with but were simply the recordings of whatever Peter felt inclined to report--including material from his sermons.

This strikes us as a very strange comment because what we know as the Gospel of Mark is indeed a very orderly account--and not just a collection of reminiscences. Was Papias referring to what we know as the Gospel of Mark--it hardly seems likely--or some writings from which that gospel eventually derived? What was he referring to? How could he have known of the writings of Mark and yet not about his Gospel at the same time? It is likely that he saw the abscence of a chronological narrative in Mark and and that this is waht he was referring to. -Ed.

Roughly contemporary with Papias' letters was the Didache ("The Lord's teaching to the Gentiles through the 12 Apostles"), which seems to have drawn heavily from Matthew or something like Matthew. And yet there are wide variations. Why would the author of the Didache have picked and chosen from Matthew (without giving credit to its apostolic source) rather than just using all of it? Did "Matthew" exist at that time as we know it? If it did--did why did it not have weightier authority with the writer of the Didache.

A generation later, just prior to the middle of the second century, Justin of Rome speaks in his Dialogue with Trypho about the "memoirs" of Peter (the Gospel of Mark?). In his First Apology, Justin also mentions the "memoirs of the apostles", which he said were read in church along with the compositions of the prophets (Old Testament prophets).

In the next generation, Tatian, disciple of the martyred Justin of Rome, put together a gospel "harmony" of the four (with possibly other minor sources as well) gospels (175 AD?) much as we seem to have them: the Diatessaron. This gives us our first clear indication of a developing gospel tradition. The chronology was built heavily on the Gospel of John, except in minor instances when the synoptic narrative was followed (clearing the temple during the end rather than the beginning of Jesus' ministry).

The Diatessaron itself remained the preferred gospel source within the Syrian church until in the early 5th century when the Syrians were pressured to give it up in favor of the four recognized gospels.

Paul's Letters
We do not know when or exactly how Paul's letters came together as a recognized collection of "scripture." Possibly Luke may have collected and edited these letters just as he put together his gospel account and the Book of Acts--heavily focused on the ministry of Paul.
We do know that they were the first body of Christian literature that were circulated as a collection--as early as the first part of the 2nd century. The earliest surviving manuscript (from Egypt around 200 AD) does not include the Pastoral epistles (most modern scholars doubt that they were written by Paul--for they show evidence of a much more evolved church organization than probably had existed at the time of Paul) but does include Hebrews (which the Western or Roman church did not recognize as Pauline until the 4th century). Marcion's edition of Paul's letters (put together around 144 AD) includes neither the Pastoral Epistles nor Hebrews.

The first evidence we long had of combining the gospel accounts with the Pauline letters into something like a "New Testament," was in the scholarship of Marcion (ca. 150 AD). He combined Luke's gospel (a version of it that differs somewhat from our own) with Paul's letters into a single collection--which became the scriptural foundation of his gnostic secessionist movement--later rejected by the Orthodox community.

The Gnostic Writings
From the Nag Hammadi documents, discovered in upper Egypt in 1945, we have a large number of Christian writings--gnostic in character--in 52 documents. Among those writings was the Gospel of Truth, which gives new indication that in Rome around 150 AD there was a corpus (but not by any means considered a "collection") of recognized writings approximating our "New Testament." Indicated as belonging to this authenticated corpus are: Matthew and Luke (possibly with Acts), the Gospel and 1st letter of John, the Pauline letters (except the Pastorals), Hebrews and Revelation.
The Earliest Sense of the "Canonical" Books
From the Muratorian Fragment, a 7th or 8th century copy of a document belonging probably to the late 2nd century, we have something of a list of the authoritative books of the Roman Church. The first part is mutilated but undoubtedly reports Matthew and Mark. It specifies Luke, John, the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul (now including the Pastoral Epistles), Revelation, Jude and the letters of John, Wisdom of Solomon (our Old Testament Apocrypha), and a work called the Apocalypse of Peter--not to be confused with Peter's letters, which are not mentioned. James is not mentioned, nor is Hebrews. The Shepherd of Hermas is recognized as important, but not authoritative. The documents of Marcion, Valentius and the gnostics are rejected as forgeries
In the last quarter of the second century (175-200 AD), Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp (Bishop of Smyrna), was elected Bishop of Lyon (Southeastern Gaul [France]). Of his many writings, the most important to have survived was Against Heretics--a 5-volume set of writings designed to refute the Gnostic claim that it preserved the true spirit of apostolic Christianity.

Irenaeus rather clearly demonstrated that the Holy Spirit gave the apostles perfect knowledge--which was in no way a secret knowledge. "The truths they received and passed on are openly preserved for us in the sacred writings: the four gospels, the letters of Paul, etc."

This was a very clear demonstration that the catholic (or universal or apostolic) church had established a clear line of canon--including, as best we can tell, the books which we use today as the "New Testament" and excluding the many other writings that were floating around claiming authority (especially all the gnostic writings.) (We know also that Irenaeus used the Shepherd of Hermas and the Book of Wisdom as source books--though he did not claim that they enjoyed the same authority as the others).

Tertullian of Carthage (around 200 AD) was the first significant scholar to do his work in Latin. He was also the first person to report the general use of "New Testament" (or "New Covenant") in the Latin West in reference to the canonical writings of the church.

He does not spell out the actual books he considered as an integral part of the New Testament. Thus we cannot be sure that it included James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John). It did include Jude. It did not include Hebrews--though he comments that although he had no authority to add it to the list, he felt it deserved a place with the others as it was the work of Barnabas, who "learned his doctrine from apostles and taught it with apostles." He compared it with the highly esteemed Shepherd of Hermas, which was widely considered as inspired scripture; to Tertullian it was vastly inferior because of the Shepherd's relative moral laxity: forgiving a sin committed after baptism (Tertullian had become a Montanist, or moral rigorists--condemned by the church some years after his death as a heresy).

Clement of Alexandria was a contemporary of Tertullian--and a major voice in the Eastern or Greek part of the Church. He was, however, quite different in temperament from Tertullian. Being originally from Athens, he showed a much more favorable bent toward Greek thought--even non-Christian Greek thought! Also, gnosticism had taken a bit stronger hold in Egypt. Even Clement shows evidence of being influenced by it.

Clement was more of the impression that Jesus had imparted "secret knowledge" to his disciples. However, the gnosis that Clement spoke of was fairly orthodox by the standards of the day, and Clement held to the idea that the books widely recognized as canonical were indeed the sole foundation for doctrine. He did however, quote Plato and other sources to give additional support to Christian doctrine--that is, showing how Greek philosophy agreed with Christian doctrine.

Clement too mentions the Old and New Testament--though he does not enumerate the books involved. His reference seems to be fairly standard: the gospels, Paul's writings, etc. In keeping with the tendency of the Eastern Church, he includes Hebrews--which he felt was written by Paul. But he also includes freely other Christian writings such as the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Preaching of Peter, the Sibylline Oracles, and others.

Origen of Alexandria (flourished the first half of the third century) was a student of Clement's and was strongly influenced by him. Origen preached expositorily from both the Old and New Testaments and wrote excellent commentaries on Scripture.

He commented how Hebrews was a disputed book--not because of its content but because of questions about its author. He himself was inclined to doubt Paul's authorship of Hebrews (a widely held view in the East)--for the Greek style was considerably better than that found in Paul's other writings. Perhaps, however, it was composed by a disciple of Paul's.

Origen is the first Christian writer to mention 2 Peter--mentioning it as a disputed writing, as well as 2 and 3 John, James and Jude. He is quoted in Eusebius' history to have said that he himself felt that 2 and 3 John were authentic works of the author of the Gospel of John and 1 John. They may have been overlooked previously only because of their brevity. He calls James "the reputed epistle of James." He quoted from it in his writings--but he clearly had questions about its ranking with the recognized "scriptures." He also personally felt that Jude was worthy to be included among scripture--though it was a disputed writing.

But he also included the Didache as scripture--along with the Letter of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.

On the other hand--he was a little more suspicious that his teacher Clement had been about some of the other writings read widely in Christian circles. The Gospel according to the Egyptians he even felt was heretical.

He himself gave very allegorical interpretation to Scripture--in a somewhat gnostic fashion: he emphasized how these writings were given by the Holy Spirit and must be read spiritually rather than literally.

He also considered the gospels to rank above the epistles in importance, and the Gospel of John to rank highest among the gospels.

The Scriptural Canon Seems Established
Eusebius of Caesarea (flourished in the first third of the fourth century) was, after Luke, the second most important historian of the early church that we have. His Ecclesiastical History is the only source we have on the life and writings of many of the early church fathers--and those whom they debated in the struggle to establish Christian orthodoxy. He was also an advisor to Constantine on important church matters.
He listed the current Christian writings as universally acknowledged (the 4 Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles of Paul [including Hebrews], 1 John, 1 Peter and Revelation); as disputed (James, Jude, 2 Peter and 2 and 3 John); and as spurious (the Didache, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and Revelation). Interestingly, Revelation is listed twice: universally acknowledged and spurious! By this, he meant that it was acknowledged in his day as authoritative--though he himself had serious questions about it. By spurious he did not mean to be rejected--but only to be read with caution. In addition to these three categories, there were a number of books circulating around which he held were outright heretical--and to be avoided (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter and others--mostly gnostic works).

The Emperor Constantine requested of Eusebius 50 bound copies of Scripture--both Old and New Testaments. The Bible as put together by Eusebius seems to have included in the New Testament the same 27 books (thus including Revelation--which the Emperor was particularly fond of!) that we find in our New Testament--probably in the same order as we find it today. This became a very important precedent for the Bible such as we know it today!