Part 1
E B E R H A R D A R N O L D
THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
I n t h e i r O w n w o r d s
A SOURCE BOOK OF ORIGINAL WRITINGS INCLUD-
ING TEXTS BY TERTULLIAN HERMAS IGNATIUS JUSTIN POLYCARP IRENAEUS ORIGEN CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA EXTRA-BIBLICAL SAYINGS OF JESUS
THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
In Their Own Words
SELECTED AND EDITED BY
EBERHARD ARNOLD
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A translation of Die ersten Christen nach dem Tode der Apostel
Eberhard Arnold Verlag/Sannerz and Hochweg Verlag/Berlin, 1926
This e-book is a publication of Plough Publishing House, Farmington, PA
15437 USA (www.plough.com) and Robertsbridge, East Sussex,
TN32 5DR, UK (www.ploughbooks.co.uk)
Copyright © 2007 by Plough Publishing House
Farmington, PA 15437 USA
All Rights Reserved
USING THIS BOOK
ASIDE FROM CHAPTER I, which is an overview of the early Christian era by Eberhard Arnold, each chapter consists of passages by the early believers themselves, and by non-Christian contemporaries.
MARGINAL NUMBERS in blue indicate the presence of an extended note, explanation, or additional bibliographic reference (correspondingly numbered) at the end of the chapter. Passages marked by a grey number have no note.
THE SYMBOLS USED to illustrate chapter titles throughout the book are based on paintings and engravings found in Roman catacombs, as reproduced in L. Perret, Les Catacombes de Rome (Paris, 1851). See also Oskar Beyer, Frühchristliche Sinnbilder und Inschriften: Lebenszeugnisse der Katakombenzeit (Kassel, Bärenreiter Verlag, n.d.), and Edward L. Cutts, A History of Early Christian Art (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1893).
CONTENTS
With the exception of the Didache (Chapter V), the titles of works listed below do not indicate the inclusion of the full text, but selected excerpts.
Preface vii
I THE WITNESS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 1 by Eberhard Arnold
II THE STATE, SOCIETY AND MARTYRS 47 Pliny Polycarp Justin Letter from Vienne and Lyons Acts of Martyrs Early Apologies Notes
III SELF-PORTRAITS AND PORTRAYALS 78 Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, First Apology Aristides, Apology Origen, Against Celsus Hippolytus, The Apostolic Tradition Letter to Diognetus Tertullian, Apology Notes
IV CREED, CONFESSION AND SCRIPTURE 106 Apostolic Confession Rule of Faith Irenaeus, Against Heresies Athenagoras, A Plea Regarding Christians Late Athenagoras, On the Resurrection of the Dead Justin, First Apology, Dialogue with Trypho Muratorian Canon Notes
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V SAYINGS OF JESUS AND THE APOSTLES 146 Extra-Biblical Sayings of Jesus The Didache First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians Ignatius, Letters to the Ephesians, Romans, Smyrnaeans, and Polycarp Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians Letter of Barnabas Notes
VI MEETINGS, WORSHIP AND CHURCH PRACTICES 189 Baptism The Lord's Supper or Love Meal Distribution of Goods Leadership and Gifts Prayers and Hymns Notes
VII PROCLAMATION AND THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT 232 Acts of Andrew Justin, Dialogue with Trypho Second Letter of Clement The Shepherd of Hermas Sibylline Oracles Montanus Notes
V I
PREFACE
ow can the first Christians speak to those of us who profess Christ at the dawn of the third millennium? Isn't the gap between now and then too wide? And even if it could be bridged, why expend the effort; isn't it difficult enough to interpret the demands of the gospel as we seek to understand them in our own day?
Only the reader will be able to answer this question sufficiently. It is our belief, however, that the first believers have a great deal to say to us today, and that the words they have left behind them – though rooted in a long-gone era – are every bit as relevant today as they were when first recorded. That is the reason for this collection.
The Early Christians is not merely a volume of historical sayings and recorded events; it reflects a faith and way of life aflame with uninhibited zeal and unwavering devotion. To anyone who has experienced the "first love" born of answering Jesus's call to follow him, this will be no surprise. For nowhere else, and at no time since, has the world seen a more vibrant, unyielding (and even reckless, when one thinks of the thousands who paid for it with martyrdom) surge of enthusiasm than that shown by the early believers.
The texts selected here were originally translated and compiled some seventy-five years ago. We are not unaware of many important discoveries made since then, or of the new light shed on previously discovered documents by recent and ongoing research. Yet for the general reader we know of no other collection of early Christian sources undertaken with the same purpose and perspective as this book. Though thoroughly documented and comprehensive enough to be useful to scholars and lay readers alike, its main focus is not patristics. What mattered to Arnold – and matters to us today – is the challenging legacy of the men and women whose faith is recorded here: an unyielding allegiance to
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God's kingdom, and an undivided willingness to sacrifice everything for its sake. It is this order of priority – the spiritual before the theological, the immediate before the historical – that determines the character of this book.
The early Christians challenge us to see discipleship as a path away from "self" toward a wholly transformed social order. To them, it demanded a solidarity in which men and women of all backgrounds, creeds, and cultures would join hands in rejecting the spirit of the age and giving their lives instead to a new, diametrically opposed cause: the rulership of Christ on earth. In stark contrast to their pagan contemporaries (the Latin pagani means "civilian" and implied indulgence in creature comforts) they saw themselves as soldiers under oath; as fighters in a deadly battle against the Prince of this world.
To read the early Christians in their own words is to be confronted with a primal boldness and clarity that sweeps the horizon clean and forces us to take a new look at our own situation. What idols confront us as we strive to follow Christ today? What powers vie for our allegiance? The first believers were a threat to the social system, the power structure, the very moral basis of the society in which they lived. Are we? They sacrificed everything –even their lives – for the sake of the Truth that burned in their hearts. Do we? They sold all they had and gave it to the poor, then banded together in close-knit communities where they took care of the weak and sick, and fed the poor. Can this be said of us?
It is our hope that through the witness of this book, our spiritual distance from the early Christians, those first followers of Jesus, might be narrowed; that instead of approaching their texts merely as interesting or edifying historical documents, we might be challenged, even shaken, to examine our own condition.
The Editors November 1997
V I I I
THE WITNESS OF
THE EARLY CHURCH
n the following pages Eberhard Arnold sets the stage for the rest of the book, which iscomprised of sources from the first two centuries after Jesus's death. Religious and historical context is provided; more important, the vitality of a primitive, spirit-filled faith is examined in the light of its inspiration – the teachings of Christ and his Apostles – and contrasted with the institutionalized religion of later centuries, including our own.
The ship stands for the church. Its meaning is derived from the ark of Noah, which saved humankind from destruction, and from the fishing boats associated with stories of Jesus and his disciples in Galilee. The mast and sailyard form a cross, as does the chrismon at the bow of the ship. A bird (the Holy Spirit) guides the vessel from the top of the mast.
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fter Jesus was killed the small band of his disciples in Jerusalem proclaimed that though their leader had been shame fully executed, he was indeed still alive and remained their hope and faith as the bringer of the Kingdom. The present age, they said, was nearing its end; humankind was now faced with the greatest turning point ever in its history, and Jesus would appear a second time in glory and authority. God's rule over the whole earth would be ensured.
The reality of this message in the primitive church could be seen through the working of powers of the future. People were transformed. The strength to die inherent in Jesus' sacrifice led them to heroically accept the way of martyrdom, and more, it assured them of victory over demonic powers of wickedness and disease. He who rose to life through the Spirit had a strength that exploded in an utterly new attitude to life: love to brothers and sisters and love to one's enemy, the divine justice of the coming kingdom. Through this new spirit, property was abolished in the early church. Material possessions were handed over to the ambassadors for the poor of the church. Through the presence and power of the Spirit and through faith in the Messiah, this band of followers became a brotherhood.
This was their immense task: to challenge the people of Israel in the face of imminent catastrophe. Indeed, in the face of certain destruction the whole of humankind needed to be shaken from its apathy so that all might prepare for the coming of the kingdom. The poorest people suddenly knew that their new faith was the determining factor, and the decisive moment for history. The early church received the daily strength for this task from the writings of the Jewish law and prophets; the faith of the prophet John and Jesus himself; the witness of baptism; their communal meals celebrated to proclaim the death of Jesus; and in the gathered prayer to God and Christ. All the words and stories of Jesus and all that they demanded were told over and over again. Thus the original sources for the gospels and New Testament are to be found in the early church.
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"Lord, come!" was their age-old cry of faith and infinite longing. He who was executed and buried was not dead. He drew near as the sovereign living one. The Messiah Jesus rose from the dead and his kingdom will break in at his second coming! That was the message of his first followers, such as Peter, who led the church at Jerusalem at its founding.
Friends of Stephen, the first martyr, took this message from Jerusalem to Antioch. As a consequence, this nearby metropolis of Greek culture led the way in the work of the apostles, even before Ephesus in Asia Minor, or Corinth, or Rome. It was in Antioch that their enemies coined the name "Christians" for the "people of the Christ." The striking aptness of this name, used to distinguish those who belonged to Christ's Messianic future, surely did not remain unnoticed. As apostles of the Spirit, Paul and Barnabas were sent from Antioch to the Gentiles. Were they the first new apostles after the original circle of twelve?
Paul's witness – his proclamation of the cross, the resurrection, and the freedom and unity of the Spirit – powerfully influenced the church. His work spread over a large part of the known world. It was Paul who, under the leadership of the church in Jerusalem, instituted a standard of behavior that united both Jewish and Gentile Christians.1 The barring of sexual license, the rejection of idols as demonic, and the repudiation of blood in food constituted the practical unity between Jews and Gentiles; this unity was significant. It meant a powerful victory over the rule of demons, now struck to the core and exposed as impurity, idolatry, and blood-lust. The Acts of the Apostles contains the charter of this agreement.
No definite year marks the boundary between the earliest years of the church and the apostles, and the following time of transition dealt with in this book. The extinction of the first Jewish-Christian church at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and Judea in A.D. 70 gives us an approximate date. James, the trusted leader of congregations in Jerusalem for over thirty years, and its two most fruitful apostles Paul and Peter, had suffered martyrdom and death a few years before. The sources in this book speak of the time following the death of James, the end of Jerusalem, and the martyrdom of Paul and Peter.
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The witness of the original church at Jerusalem and its apostles permeated this whole period. Continuity in the original spirit inspired by Christ, showed itself in basic elements of the Jerusalem church: the message proclaimed by the apostles, the accounts they wrote about their work, the ancient Jewish writings, the new book of the New Testament, and above all, the apostles' determined stand against the pagan spirit of the existing order. The strong influence of the church is all the more striking because the first church (with its early Jewish Christianity) perished in the two merciless wars waged by Rome against the Jews, in A.D. 70 and 135. The following persecutions and martyrdoms were initiated by a Jewry turned fanatical as a result. G
od's new order can break in with all its splendor only after cataclysmic judgment. Death mustcome before the resurrec tion of the flesh. The promise of a future millennium is linked to the prophecy of judgment, which will attack the root of the prevailing order. All this springs from the original message passed on by the very first church. The tension is between future and present, God and demons, selfish, possessive will and the loving, giving will of God; between the present order of the State, which through economic pressures assumes absolute power, and God's coming rule of love and justice. The tension is between two antagonistic forces sharply provoking each other. The present world-age is doomed; in fact, the Messiah who is to come has already overpowered its leader! This is an accomplished fact. The early church handed down this suprahistorical revolution to the next generation. Jesus rose from the dead: too late did the prince of death realize his power was broken.2
To believers living in the time of the early church and of the Apostle Paul, the cross was the one and only proclamation:3 Christians knew only one way, that of being nailed to the Cross with Christ. Only dying his death with him, they felt, could possibly lead to resurrection and to the kingdom.4 No wonder that Celsus, an enemy of the church, was amazed at the centrality of the resurrection among the Christians.5 The pagan
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satirist Lucian was surprised that one who was hung on the cross in Palestine could have introduced death as a new mystery: dying with him on the cross was the essence of his bequest.6 The early Christians used to stretch out their hands as a symbol of triumph, imitating the arms extended on the cross.
In their certainty of victory, Christians gathered for the Lord's Supper perceived the alarmed question of Satan and death, "Who is he that robs us of our power?" They answered, exultantly, "Here is Christ, the crucified!"7 When Christ's death is proclaimed at this meal it means that his resurrection is given substance and life is transformed. His victorious power is consummated in his suffering and dying, in his rising from death and ascent to the throne, and in his second coming. For what Christ has done he does again and again in his church. His victory is perfected. Terrified, the Devil must give up his own. The dragon with seven heads is slain and the evil venom is destroyed.8
Thus the church sings the praise of him who became man, who suffered and died, rose again and overpowered the realm of the underworld when he descended into Hades. He is "the strong," "the mighty," "the immortal."9 He comes in person to his church, escorted by the hosts of his angel princes. Now the heavens are opened to the believers. They see and hear the choir of singing angels. Christ's continual coming to the church in the power of the Spirit verifies his first historical coming and his second, future appearance. In trembling awe the church experiences her Lord and sovereign as a guest: "Now he has appeared among us!"10
Some see him sitting in person at the table to share their meal. Celebrating the Lord's Supper is indeed a foretaste of the future wedding feast.
The Spirit has descended upon them, and grace has entered their hearts. Their fellowship is complete and perfect. The powers of God's Spirit penetrate the gathered church. Gripped and filled by the Spirit, they become one with Christ. Ulysses, tied to the mast of the ship, sailed past the Sirens unscathed. In the same way, only those who become one with the Crucified by being tied, as it were, to his cross, can withstand the lures and passions of a storm-tossed world.11
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he trials of all the Greek heroes, however, can not match the intensity of this spiritual battle. By be-coming one with the Christ triumphant, early Christian life became a soldier's life, sure of victory over the greatest enemy in the bitter struggle with the dark powers of this world. Murderous weapons, amulets, and magic spells are of no use in this war. He who truly believes in the name of Jesus, the power of his Spirit, his life, and victory, has no need of water, oil, incense, burning lamps, or even the outward sign of the cross to gain victory over demonic powers. Whenever the believers found unity in their meetings, especially when they celebrated baptism and the Lord's Supper and the "Lovemeal," the power of Christ's presence was indisputable. Sick bodies were healed, demons driven out, sins forgiven. People were assured of life and resurrection because they were freed from all their burdens and turned away from their past wrongs.
At that time the holy nature of baptism and the Lord's Supper required no ecclesiastical forms. Outwardly, baptism was much more like a simple bath than a church rite, and the Lord's Supper more like an ordinary mealtime. At these times the gathered church heard the apostolic confession of faith, and readings from Jewish prophetic writings, the Lord's Sayings, and the gospels. Spirit-filled witnesses gave testimonies, the believers called upon Christ in prayers, gifts were offered and hymns sung in praise of God and Christ. God responded with the coming of the Christ and of his Spirit.
The gifts presented reflected the gratitude and devotion of the community.12 The first fruits of all crops and earnings –"much or little" – were contributed even by those who had to suffer privation in order to give. The leader of the meeting received the gifts of fruit, fowl, flowers, grapes, wine and bread that each one brought to the table. Then they washed their hands. The festive elements for the Lord's Supper were separated from the rest: the loaves were placed in three or five rows on the table and wine was poured into the cup. At times it was mixed with water.13 The food used at the common meal was a visible thanks-offering. Along with prayers from surrendered hearts, the bread and wine
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was a solemn crowning. During the meal the believers partook of all foods, thanking and praising God for all they ate.
In this manner the Lovemeal was originally linked with the Lord's Supper of bread and wine. This "Meal of Thanksgiving" or "Meal of Offerings," where the gifts were immediately used to feed the poor, the prophets, and apostles, has no parallel in any other religion.14 Irenaeus taught that these offerings of thanks to God are the only true and just sacrifices.15 But the antichristian Celsus criticized the Christians for offering and eating firstlings and tree-fruits, bread and wine at their meals while rejecting blood sacrifices as demonic.16 Pagans and Jews burned their sacrifices to honor God; Christians used them to feed the poor. The food offered at the meal was even delivered to those who were absent because of sickness or imprisonment.17
The spirit of Christ translates love of God into divine service of love to others. Whoever serves the poor, the destitute, the downtrodden, serves Christ himself, for God is near to them. To be loved by God means to love God and one's neighbor: community with God becomes community with one another. Expecting the kingdom shapes life and service in the church and unites the believers in one common will. True community and common dedication are the positive results of opposing the present age.
Such uniting in the Spirit needs no set forms. Even in the first period, the elders and deacons needed for each community retained the tasks allotted to them, but also accepted the gifts of grace given by the Spirit. Although the tireless travels of the apostles and prophets helped to strengthen the unity between the communities, the consciousness of being one was created solely by the one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one faith, one baptism, one body and soul given to all.
Through the Spirit, this oneness resulted in an equality that had its roots in God alone. Just as man's alienation from God is common to all, so the Spirit bestows his divine gift equally and totally on all. Those gripped by God see all inequality as a powerful incentive to become brothers and sisters in perfect love. The early Christians were "brothers" and "sisters,"
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because they were united through the one Spirit. They were "consecrated ones," "saints," "the elect," and "believers." The same neediness and guilt made them all "poor." In the earliest times they were also called "poor" because their belief in God and their attitude to temporal goods was regarded as poverty.18
Because the early Christians recognized their equality in poverty and in grace, their message was simple. It reached the most depraved criminal as well as the most uneducated laborer or slave. It called each one to complete healing. To the deepest mind it gave ultimate revelation. The unveiling of God's mysteries is a gift bestowed in simple clarity. Jesus Christ reveals God. By disclosing his nature, Jesus is the physician for the sick as well as for the sinners.
Whoever receives his Spirit and becomes a new man by virtue of the second birth is free and confident, radiant and serene, invested with a power which makes feasible what is most difficult and even impossible.19
In his longing for those old times, Origen cries out:
Oh, that the Lord Jesus would lay his hands upon our eyes, too, so that we too begin to look not at the visible but at the invisible! Oh, that he would open our eyes, too, to see not the things of the present but the things of the future! Oh, that he would unveil to us too that vision of the heart which perceives God in the Spirit through him, the Lord Jesus Christ.20
The Christians of that time were "worshipers of God and the Word." Spirit-gripped in their innermost beings, they took their bearings from
the future. Their faith saw the depths of God, and therefore the achievement of the "impossible" was the source of their strength. Even the pagans (as quoted here by Macarius Magnes) saw that this was what the church demanded: "Only those with faith like a mustard seed, the faith to do the impossible, can be counted among this brotherhood of believers."21
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he equality achieved by faith meant that the very believer who stepped out of the baptismal bath was considered pure and holy. The enemy Porphyry was appalled that one single washing should purify those covered with guilt and evil, that a glutton and fornicator, an adulterer, drunkard, thief, pederast, poisoner, anyone vile, wicked or filthy in other ways should simply be baptized, call upon the name of Christ, and with this be freed so easily, casting off such enormous guilt as lightly as a snake sheds its skin. "All they have to do is to believe and be baptized."22 About this forgiveness and complete removal of guilt, Justin says: Only those who have truly ceased to sin shall receive baptism.23 Whoever is baptized must keep the seal pure and inviolate.24 Such an incredible demand, expecting total change, was possible only by faith in the power of the living Spirit, who descends on the water of baptism and makes it a bath of rebirth, a symbol of new life and purity.
The early church made such severe demands that anyone asking for baptism was (if possible) initiated individually into the new way with its Spirit-given character and ethical commitments. They learned how to witness to God and Christ. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the only unabridged text in this book, contains early second-century baptismal instruction of this kind.25 Such thoroughness made it possible for the teacher, equipped with the Spirit, to answer with personal authority for those candidates.
Under these conditions any question of infant baptism could only be possible after the middle of the second century. It is a fact that at the beginning there was no infant baptism.26 The conviction of the first Christians depended upon their deep belief in baptism. Through their faith in the Holy Spirit they were the church of believers that could forgive every sin because in it every sin was overcome. Many came to the Christians, impressed by the possibility of a totally new way of living and looking for a power that would save them from their unworthy lives.27
More and more soldiers of the Spirit were sworn to the symbol of the "military oath" through baptism and confession of the truth. This mys-
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tery bound them to the service of Christ and the simplicity of his divine works. Through immersion, the believers buried all their ties and involvement of their former lives. Plunged into the water as symbol of the blood of the crucified Christ, the believers accepted as their own the victory of the cross and its power to sever all demonic powers. Now they could live in the strength and future of the risen one. Each believer broke with the status quo and was committed to live and to die for the cause. A triumphal march of fighters for the new time invaded the old with truth and power. Through baptism, the Christians found themselves in sharp conflict with their relatives – households were dissolved, whole families were split, engagements annulled, and marriages destroyed. Celsus launched bitter attacks against the weavers, cobblers, and tanners who confronted young people and women when they were alone. He accused them of persuading their "victims" with wonderful words to leave parents and teachers in order to learn what was good from artisans in their workshops. Celsus admitted that they often achieved their purpose.28
During this first period, these fighters, hated by all the world, were recruited from the lower middle class, the working class of freed slaves, and domestic and industrial slaves. It was unusual for people from the upper classes to join the Christian communities, until the end of the first century when their number gradually increased. They came in considerable numbers only after the second century. In the time period covered by this book, the actual spreading of the movement was almost exclusively limited to the working class people. The value the church put on work was reflected in the make-up of the membership. Everyone was expected to earn his living and to produce enough to help others in want. All had to work, for all had to make offerings so that all might live. Therefore, the church had to provide jobs. This obligation to provide work shows how fully the Christian communities shared their work and goods.29 Whoever was not willing to do the work he was capable of –
whoever "made his Christianity a business proposition" – was not tolerated in the communities. "An idler can never be a believer."30
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The believers put heart and soul into all their acts of love. The freedom of self-determination in their work gave an entirely voluntary character to all social work done by the early Christians. Hermas described the Spirit ruling in the church. He said that the wealthy could be fitted into the building of the church only after they had stripped themselves of their wealth for the sake of their poorer brothers and sisters.31 Wealth was regarded as dangerous to the owner's well-being and had to be made serviceable to the public or given away. In general, material goods were seen as common property, just like light, air, water, soil and other natural necessities.
The practice of surrendering everything in love was the hallmark of the Christians. When this declined, it was seen as a loss of the Spirit of Christ.32 Urged by this love, many even sold themselves into slavery or went to debtors' prison for the sake of others. Nothing was too costly for the Christians when the common interest of the church was at stake, and thus followed an amazing activity in the works of love.33
In fact, everything the church owned at that time belonged to the poor. The affairs of the poor were the affairs of the church; it supported bereft women and children, the sick, and the destitute.34 The spirit of boundless, voluntary giving was the basic feature of the movement and was more essential than the resulting communal life and the rejection of private property. This love made even Christian women of rank give away their property and become beggars. The pagans deplored the fact that instead of commanding respect because of their wealth, these women became beggars, knocking at doors of houses much less respected than their own.35 To help others, the Christians took the hardest privations upon themselves and never limited their works of love.36 Even Emperor Julian had to admit that "the godless Galileans feed our poor in addition to their own."37
According to Christians, the private ownership of property was the result of sin. However necessary property might be for life in the present demonic epoch, the Christians could not cling to it. The private larder or storeroom had to be put at the disposal of guests and wanderers just as
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much as the common treasury.38 Nor could anybody evade the church's obligation to extend hospitality. In this way each congregation reached out far beyond its own community.
But in other ways too the communities helped their brothers and sisters in different places. In very early times the church at Rome received the highest esteem in all Christian circles because she "presided in works of love." The rich capital city was able to send help in all directions, whereas the poorer Jerusalem had to accept support from other churches in order to meet the needs of the crowds of pilgrims that thronged its streets. The relatively small church at Rome gave regular support to fifteen hundred distressed persons in the year A.D. 250.39
Even in the smallest church community, the overseer had to be a friend of the poor,40 and there was at least one widow responsible to see to it, day and night, that no sick or needy person was neglected.41 The deacon was responsible to find and help the poor and to impress on the rich the need to do their utmost. Deacons also served at table.42 There was no excuse for anyone because he had not learned or was unable to do this service.43 Everybody was expected to go, street by street, looking for the poorest dwellings. As a result, Christians spent more money in the streets than the followers of other religions spent in their temples.44
Everyone was equally respected, equally judged, and equally called. The result was equality and fellowship in everything: the same rights, the same obligation to work, and the same opportunities. All this led to a preference for a simple standard of living. Even the Spirit-bearers and leaders who were cared for by the church could not expect any more than the simplest fare of the poor. The mutual respect among those early Christians bore fruit in a "socialistic" solidarity rooted in a love that sprang from the belief in the equality of all people.
The rank afforded by property and profession was recognized to be incompatible with such fellowship and simplicity, and repugnant to it. For that reason alone, the early Christians had an aversion to any high judicial position and commissions in the army.45 They found it impossible to take responsibility for any penalty or imprisonment, any disfranchise-
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ment, any judgment over life or death, or the execution of any death sentence pronounced by martial or criminal courts. Other trades and professions were out of the question because they were connected with idolatry or immorality. Christians therefore had to be prepared to give up their occupations. The resulting threat of hunger was no less frightening than violent death by martyrdom.46
Underpinning these practical consequences was unity of word and deed. A pattern of daily life emerged that was consistent with the message that the Christians proclaimed. Most astounding to the outside observer was the extent to which poverty was overcome in the vicinity of the communities, through voluntary works of love. It had nothing to do with the more or less compulsory social welfare of the State.
Chastity before marriage, absolute faithfulness in marriage and strict monogamy were equally tangible changes. In the beginning this was expressed most clearly in the demand that brothers in responsible positions should have only one wife. The foundation for Christian marriage was purely religious: marriage was seen as a symbol of the relationship of the one God with his one people, the one Christ with his one church.
From then on, a completely different humanity was in the making, shown most clearly in the religious foundation of the family as the basis of every form of society. All creation must move toward the communism of love, the early believers said. Those who are called by God are deeply linked to the coming revolution, the renewal of the whole moral and social order. It is a question of the most powerful affirmation of the earth and humankind. Through their creator and his miraculous power, the believers expect the perfection of social conditions. This was the most positive attitude imaginable: working for God's perfect love to be universally manifested, answering physical needs as well as the need of souls.
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he Christians knew that such a total transformation of all values, such a turning upside down of all strata of society, could never be achieved by human power. Knowing this and having boundless faith in the almighty God, their insight was immeasurably deeper than any human politico-revolutionary threat to the present power structure. Yet the very fact that theirs was not a rebellion based on human opposition and violent insurrection – easily crushed by the coercive power of the State – made these representatives of impending judgment and the creation of a new order appear all the more dangerous. It was they who called themselves "foreigners" and "strangers" in contemporary state and society, "citizens" of a quite different "political, suprapolitical order!" It could be proved that the apocalyptic and prophetic books they read, as well as their own Revelation of John, were full of revolutionary opposition to the existing civic order. And did they not, as self-professed vassals of the coming Christ, stand in direct opposition to the cultic worship of the emperor?
Yes, they felt they were "God's people," a "new people," "people of the future"; the beginning, the central point, and the end of all human history! They never hesitated to represent that the church unity they experienced would be the dominant power of the future Kingdom. They even went as far as asserting that the councilors of their own communities would be capable of administering any large city of God, if such could exist in the present world age; whereas contemporary government leaders with their lack of morals, bad character, and poor performance had no right to claim administrative superiority.47
The Christians' sharp condemnation of the dishonesty, impurity, violence, and mammonism in public life far outweighed what they accepted of the existing law and order, and it brought them all the more hatred. They did recognize the government as a transitory necessity, but they considered it of only relative moral value. These revolutionaries of the spirit knew that they were actually the State's best allies in the cause of morality and world peace,48 which proves that they had a positive attitude to the ethical importance of the state. They realized that until God
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intervened, they could not change the structure of the present order, or bring about any substantial improvements and social reforms for the masses. To them, slavery and social oppression were only one expression of the evils of the status quo, only a partial aspect of the total crime perpetrated by the State against freedom and equality. In protest, the believers gave full recognition to their slave brothers, and often bought or gave them their freedom; but they did not recognize any demand or legal claim on the common purse to pay such ransom. It would have meant letting a legal claim be a substitute for a life of faith, hope, surrender and sacrifice to which every Christian was committed.
However much they protested or proved their loyalty, though, the Christians were misfits in society. The Jews were already an affront to society with their separatism and imageless worship of God, which made them a "second race." The Christian faith in God went a decisive step further. It was divested even of the seeming national character of the "Jewish God" and his temple and sacrifices. For the pagans, this explained the repulsively novel life the Christians led: it was godless. Christians were looked upon as a downright monstrous "third race" and accused of intolerable atheism. This explains why at that time the Roman state fought against the Christians as "criminals," "desperate and forsaken people," "public enemies," "dregs of the nations," and "monstrous phenomena."
In the eyes of the Christians, however, the religious idolatry that they found everywhere was the principal crime committed by humankind. It was the crux of their indictment against the present age and the real cause of the judgment to come.49 This struck at the heart of the concept of the State as absolute – the sole judge of its own interests, laws, and actions. As long as the empire was omnipotent, Caesar could be worshipped as a god, and the state and its laws regarded as culture, religion, and morality.
The Christians abhorred and attacked this mixture of the religious and the patriotic. They detested any State religion that forced back God's rule; they loathed all religiosity influenced by the politics of the moment,
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and fought against any veneration of the existing power structure. This included any political system with a religious emphasis. These were to be regarded as the inheritance of Babylon, the works of sin and demonism. They were nothing short of the devil's state and the service of Satan.
It was therefore inevitable that in return the state would accuse these people of high treason, of being the enemies of civilization. After all, they declared openly that "emperors could only believe in Christ if they were not emperors – as if Christians could ever be emperors."50 Belief in God's kingdom stood in sharp opposition to the deification of the emperor and the cult of the empire.
And yet these same Christians subordinated the emperor only to God. After God, he is the first in this world. Precisely because he remains in their demonic ranks, he stands above all pagan gods. The Christians saw the imperial government, even the existing order of humankind, merely as a passing historical phenomenon, and the creator's moral order as valid even in the midst of Satan's demonic rule. Therefore even the existing government (representing that rule) is instituted by God. For Christians, it is a matter of conscience to honor and respect the moral task of the State and its ruler, for they are ordained by God to be a bulwark against the most serious excesses of sin and evil in these times.
This conviction (which grew stronger in later Christianity) was never lacking, not even in the most radical circles during times of severe conflict. With the world as it is, even the most extreme were not anarchists in the sense that they wanted to abolish the state as it existed then. The early Christians knew only one form of disobedience to government authority: passive resistance which endures everything, even death. There was no other way to demonstrate their certainty that the powers of the State can and will be abolished by a new order – by God alone. They took their stand firmly on the side of this new order of God.
The early Christians were revolutionaries of the Spirit, heralds of the last judgment and the coming transformation; they had to be ready for martyrdom at any moment. Their witness meant they had to reckon with being sentenced to death by state and society. Therefore, "martyrs"
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were those witnesses ready to die for their faith, those who bore this testimony before kings and judges with the steadfastness of soldiers of God. They were martyrs, that is "confessors," even if they did not have to die. To give witness is the essence of martyrdom. Martyrs uphold the truth of their testimony as eye-witnesses of the Lord and his resurrection. They see Christ and become his prophetic spirit-bearers. Through the Spirit, the blood-witness of the martyrs becomes part of the decisive battle waged by Jesus, the battle in which he himself died as champion and leader of the future. By dying, he finally judged and routed the hostile powers of the present age. Put to death by the most devout Jewish people and the Roman state, Christ fettered and disarmed the demons and their darkness through his cross. Since then, each new martyrdom –
each new dying with Christ – becomes a celebration of victory over the forces of Satan. I
t is probably impossible to visualize how seriously the early
Christians took the heroic service of the Spirit. The military equipment bestowed by the Spirit was a living reality, and not just a mere metaphor. The two basic principles of army life – the right to military pay and the injunction against economic and political involvement – aptly characterized Jesus' commission to his apostles. He stressed their right as soldiers of Christ to receive provisions for their service (although they remained poor on principle) and commanded them to refrain from all business enterprises and the amassing of wealth and possessions. The rule of faith committed all Christians to the apostolic and prophetic soldiership of the Spirit. Non-Christians were therefore called "civilians" or pagani, from which the word "pagan" stems.
Jesus had foretold that the drinking of his cup would mean baptism in this bloodbath. Repeatedly the church gathered around the martyrs as for a Lord's Supper celebrated in blood. Every time, the repulsive spectacle of execution became the solemn victory of Christ over Satan's rule, the certainty of the Lord's resurrection – that event which guaranteed for all times the rule of the dying victor. To gather around the martyrs
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was the powerful culmination of early Christian meetings, despite the presence of the pagan populace. But Jesus, leader and fellow fighter, was present at every peaceful meeting, however small. Often at such meetings, the radiant cross and the throngs of people watching the execution of Jesus were all but visible. The voices raised at Christ's crucifixion and the shouts of his friends and enemies rang out from Golgotha.
What was seen and heard in such spirit filled gatherings often led to unintelligible speech and actions that were difficult to understand. Nevertheless, fiery judgment of the last battle dominated, giving flaming birth to light and warmth and bringing in the fresh air of the future. Here Christ was truly present in person. He came in the power of God's Word and Spirit, and in the virtues of goodness, pureness, and strength.
The Word came into its own through prayers, psalms and hymns, and in commentaries on the scriptures made by the prophets and teachers. The impact of the truth called for purity and truthfulness in actual life, and love in practical work. In the exultant enthusiasm which broke in freely from the Holy Spirit there was nothing of exaggeration or intoxication of human emotions. On the contrary, this genuine, surging power of the Spirit revealed the authority of Christ, like a stroke of divine lightning coming from another world. Sometimes, after listening to those who had been taught by the apostles, whole crowds would embrace the faith under this impact of God.51
The clarity of the divine Word, the fact of salvation, was the whole content of such enthusiastic experiences. At times, the light of truth would flow from the apostles like a visible force when the Word was proclaimed, the book of the law and the prophets read, or the ancient psalms of praise sung. Tertullian tells of a typical example: a prophetically gifted sister had visions prompted by the readings of Scripture, by the things described in song, psalm, and spiritual discourse. The Word read aloud became reality before her eyes and ears. She saw the Lord himself and the angelic hosts, Christ's victorious battle, and his return with the princely armies of heaven.52 Others filled with the Spirit saw with their own eyes how an angel prince drove demons out of a fasting wayfarer.53
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Such demons were often seen as dark shadows, smoke, or snakes showing the slanderous and seductive character of darkness. Yet what really mattered was the religious and moral effect on the people. There is a story about a prostitute who listened for hours to the singing of psalms and hymns, and was so deeply stirred that she broke down under the burden of her life and started on the new way.54 Another story tells how the aged John of Ephesus looked for a young renegade in the mountains. Finding him, he threw his arms around the young bandit, who, weeping bitterly, asked for pardon. With the power of his authority, the apostle assured the man of the Savior's complete forgiveness and healing. John then fell on his knees and covered the bandit's hand with kisses. The hand that had wielded the murderous weapon was now washed clean of blood. He brought him back to the church as a living example of repentance and rebirth, a trophy of Christ's power of resurrection.55
As this story of the apostle John shows, God's presence is a concrete reality in his divine cause. Otherwise there is no reverence for the authority of the Holy Spirit. What the Holy Spirit does is identical with the Spirit of the law and prophets, with the spirit of Jesus and the apostles, with the Bible itself. When the Spirit breaks into people's lives it brings the apostolic freedom to obey God-given authority. This authority guarantees that freedom will be fulfilled. There is only one determining will behind the mystery of the Spirit at work: God himself, creator, lawgiver, and coming ruler. The Spirit, since he reveals God, invariably engenders strict moral responsibility. The inner voice, heard in every conscience awakened by the Spirit, is consistent with the goal of God's way. Therefore, this voice knows when to be quiet in reverence to hear God speak and when "rightly and worthily" to praise him.56
Whenever God reveals himself, bringing boundless forgiveness and renewal, it first means sharp chastisement and purification. There was a woman whose hypocritical and impure life was unmasked by the spirit working in Paul; she was thrown to the ground, paralyzed.57 The hands of a young man withered when he shared in the meal because he tried
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to hide a murderous act from the all-seeing Spirit.58 The apostles were equipped with both the power to reveal the true state of a person and the authority to forgive; both gifts were inseparable; both revealed the truth. To be filled with the Spirit meant purity, truth, and love in daily life, and sure guidance in all they did. Only then could the Spirit say what was in people's hearts, or pronounce forgiveness of sins as Christ himself granted it and gave strength for a new life.59 Because forgiveness meant that God himself took away sin, it was a power from God that abolished the rule of sin.
The commission of the Spirit-bearers was to proclaim the Word, to expose evil, and to bring judgment into every situation. They were given authority to forgive and to impart strength for healing and new life. As men of prophecy, they pronounced the word God spoke. A
ll this throws a clear light on the three fold gift of leadership in the church during the early years. Spiritual leaders were first apostles; second, prophets; and third, teachers. God gave them to the church in this trinity and this order.60 It was given to the early church at Jerusalem first. Like many other things, this order was of Jewish origin. Each of these three services could be found among the Jews, who had similar functions, though without the triune responsibility of leadership.
The unconditional respect shown to Jewish teachers is well known. A captive teacher had to be ransomed before a captive father; the teacher had to be relieved of his burden before the father. For the Christians as well, teachers were among the honored leaders in the Spirit: they were expressly assigned third place after the apostles and prophets. They too were bearers of the Word of truth and the Holy Spirit, and they too had the power to beget children of the Spirit. Those asking for baptism were brought to them. In some churches – even in Origen's time – the Spiritfilled teachers spoke freely in the presence of overseers and presbyters. It was their task to represent the truth through mission, and to give full instruction in the Bible and the confession of faith. It was their task to
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spread the knowledge of the new life in all its breadth, depth, and strength. Their instructions giving voice to the spirit of truth were universal and binding, and carried a quite different weight from anything else spoken in meetings.61
Therefore, Tertullian did not count teachers as administrators – overseers, elders, or deacons – but rather among the leaders gifted with the Spirit. In his time these were the martyrs. Tertullian regarded them as witnesses of the prophetic Spirit. They could be disowned by the church only if their deeds did not match their words, or if arrogant confidence in themselves robbed God of his honor. Otherwise, teachers were subordinate only to the higher orders of the prophets and apostles, because to these the Spirit entrusted the specific gift of insight and discernment. All teaching inspired by the Spirit was bound to have the character and witness of the Spirit, and no other content. The undisputed power and authority of the witnesses – shaken and filled by the Spirit of God – could never allow human instruments to become the deciding factor. Only the spirit of Christ was allowed to prevail.
When the Spirit is directly at work it reveals the church, which has reality only in God and in the Spirit. It breaks in repeatedly with its final jurisdiction and in the presence of such unity, there is no question of any human organization and conformity. That is why, in those first years, terms for leaders like "overseers," "presidents," or "elders," were not clearly defined. The church remained an object of faith for the first Christians, as were the holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son. This historical fact is of crucial significance.
So the individual Christian communities represented the ultimate reality of the church which has its life in God. The only valid church order was the guidance of the freely moving Spirit. The church must not be looked for where man is, but where God is, yet the divine, invisible church came to active expression in every worship meeting. She has reality in the Spirit as the mother of the believers, the bride of the coming Messiah, and the body of Christ. The Lord is the Spirit. The Spirit is the church. So Christ in the members becomes the church as the "coming Messiah."62 The church
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is the action of God turned toward humankind, the religious and social manifestation of the Spirit at work on earth.
This resulted in an order, a gathering of men and women who were committed to a clearly defined way of living and who belonged together for life. Their practical sharing was an expression of their strengthening faith and their spiritual deepening. The teachers saw to the practical consequences of a communal order that sought common good for the whole community.63 From this viewpoint the teachers were responsible that all Christians met daily and gathered constantly.64
While keeping in mind these practical aims, spirit-filled teachers were also commissioned to uphold the teaching of the apostles, and hand down their tradition unadulterated. This was the plumb line for the life of faith, the canon of truth by which all things were measured. Belief in the church was an integral part of the apostolic confession of faith, which emerged from the rite of baptism. The believer was submerged into the death of Jesus in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In early years, this oath of allegiance was passed on by word of mouth like a military watchword. It could hardly have been written down at that time. In its earliest form the confession was ninefold. In the following simple words it confessed the belief in God the Father, the Almighty; in Jesus the Christ (or Messiah), his Son, our Lord; in the Holy Spirit; in the church; and in the resurrection of the flesh (the transformation of matter for the new kingdom).65
Belief in God points vertically to Jesus, the coming Prince of God's reign, and further to the Holy Spirit in whom God's person is at work. Belief in the Father points to the Son and to the church, who, working through God, is the mother of all believers. Finally, belief in God's allpowerful might confesses Christ as our Lord and expresses the expectation of the Kingdom on earth under his rule in its most intense manifestation – the resurrection of the flesh.
God is all that matters here; and to acknowledge him is to acknowledge that the Word Incarnate will renew God's creation. According to
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the apostles, the Word goes out from Jesus, and through the Spirit, which gathers the church, it invades human conditions. God is the one God, and the coming Messiah is both the creating Logos and the historical Jesus. He is one and the same, he is Lord of the church, he is the healing Savior of all. "Accept him! Draw near! Live as he lived, and do as he said!" Teachers gifted with the Spirit led people to Christ, to the church of the one faith and witness, and on to a new life governed by the divine citizenship of the future.
In the hands of these teachers the old Jewish writings pointed continually in the same direction. These writings remained the source of knowledge for all meetings, for all personal instruction, and for quiet, individual reading. Origen wanted each Christian to devote one to two hours daily to this.66 The powerful yet simple language of the scripture made a powerful impact on the first Christians. They were strengthened by the psalmists, by the prophets, with their inspired foreknowledge of the future, by account of the creation of the world, by the ethical, divine power and spiritual clarity of the Mosaic lawgivers. Tatian, Justin, and the author of the Proclamation of Peter spoke for many contemporary Christians when they described how they were converted to the Christian faith through these Old Testament writings.67
From the beginning, the ancient Biblical prophecies, their fulfillment, and the still more powerful good news were the essence of the teaching of the Spirit. Everywhere, the "Lord's Sayings" and stories about events of Jesus' life (Papias owned an outstanding collection)68 were passed on from one to another. Called "memoirs of the Apostles" by Justin,69 they were the original form of the Gospels as we know them. The memories of Jesus, called Gospels at an early date, were soon augmented by the apostolic letters, and so the permanent foundations for the New Testament were already laid by the first teachers of Christendom. The first apostles and prophets were mandated to teach the Spirit-given word. The teachers presented it, interpreted it, and proclaimed it.
It is clear from their commission that the teachers were placed after the prophets and apostles, particularly after the apostles. Their commitment
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was also different. Whereas the apostles owned nothing and traveled constantly, the prophets were only required to give up their possessions. The teachers, however, did not necessarily renounce property or take to the road. Because the itinerant life of the apostles had such influence, early Christianity has rightly been called an itinerant religion, traversing the whole world. The travels of the apostles were an inspiration to mission for the other Christians. This lively interaction, with the exchange of their letters and writings, explains how they maintained the same bond between all the communities. Origen still emphasized that the apostles and prophets journeyed from town to town, and took upon themselves the hardships of these travels, barely accepting the necessities of life even from believers.
The intensity of the early Christian struggle and mission needed this example of the apostles. Fasting and lifelong celibacy were often the result of self-control in hearts that were moved to live up to the greatness of that task. The four prophetic daughters of Philip, who were virgins, and later the Montanist prophetesses, likewise virgins, exemplify the life of many apostles and prophets at that time. But this self-discipline of the Christians for the purpose of the Kingdom is not to be confused with the asceticism of later times, which was valued for its own sake. They did not look for redemption through ascetic, religious exercises, but concentrated all their powers on prophesying the coming Kingdom, tempering all their energies for the arduous battle of the spirits to which they were called. All their energies were focused on the one goal, the task at hand. The prophets wanted one thing: that God be heard, that he himself speak and act.
People who took this calling from God so seriously could not remain hidden. Pagans like Lucian knew of prophets who proclaimed their Spirit-given word in worship meetings as well as on their travels.70 From his own experience, Celsus tells of many prophets in his time who prophesied in holy places and moved about in the cities and traveled on the highways. When they were gripped in ecstasy, the Word of God and of Christ spoke through them:
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I am God, I am God's son, I am the spirit of God. I have come because the destruction of the world is at hand. From this I will save you. Soon you shall see me returning again in heavenly power when the fire of judgment descends on city and land.71
The initial spiritual flood of Christian prophecy slowly ebbed away until by the end of the second century its force was spent. Melito of Sardis was one of the last to call himself a prophet. Jewish prophecy had also declined only a few years earlier, after the destruction of Jerusalem. Until that time there had been an immense prophetic activity. It was preserved in the names of certain Jewish prophets and in the abundance of contemporaneous Jewish revelations and oracles from that time. These, however, lacked the power and authority of the prophets of old because they served merely a literary purpose. The Christian prophets alone now claimed the authority of the Holy Spirit. It spoke through them as God's voice.
What a mighty reality were God and the Holy Spirit for those first communities! An ancient fragment describes the prophetic Spirit common to both apostles and prophets which Origen later ascribes to the apostles alone:72
The prophetic Spirit is what makes the firmly established prophetic order of life into a body. He endows the body of the flesh of Jesus Christ with a living soul.73
The body of Christ as the living church is indeed the determining and God-given reality. This depends entirely on faith; the church as a body received its soul by the spirit of the apostles and prophets.
And yet the main task of the apostolic ambassadors was not entrusted to the prophets: at all times the importance of the apostolic calling far surpasses that of the prophets. What was said about the prophets was just as true for the apostles. The apostles too had the prophetic Spirit, and were prophets and teachers. But God entrusted them with tasks which far exceeded prophesying and instruction. The ambassadorship of the apostles carried more weight than the mission of prophecy, and was much more significant than the charge of teaching. It went beyond prophecy because, above and beyond all its other tasks, it alone had the power to lay the foundation for the church. The apostle Thaddaeus said
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he would be silent in a small circle, because he knew he was sent to proclaim the Word in public. Therefore he demanded that all the citizens of the town should assemble. "Then I will speak to them."74
Eusebius reports how those men, consumed with burning love and doing what Jesus told them, distributed their possessions among the poor and set out to proclaim Christ to those who had never heard of him. As soon as they had appointed shepherds in one place, they moved on to people in other lands.75 The world-wide mission of the apostles included everyone. They were charged to found and build up church communities everywhere. Of all the inspired bearers of the Word, the apostles were the leaders throughout the earth. The work of these first ambassadors of the Messiah was seen as so fundamental, so exclusively given by God, so much a part of faith in the Spirit, that their work was even included in the Confession of Faith.76 Only God and Christ himself could call men to an apostolate of such importance. Through the first apostles, the authority of the Spirit wrought tangible miracles and the church was visibly built up everywhere which proved beyond doubt that theirs was a calling from God. It is all the more astounding that "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" and Hermas' The Shepherd use the term "apostle" in a much broader sense than later generations.77 But God did call out other, new apostles, even after he had sent out the twelve and Paul. Tertullian and Origen confirmed this and gave the name of "apostles" to the seventy disciples in the Gospels.
The God-given mandate of Christian apostles towered high above everything else. This is brought into sharper focus by the fact that the word "apostle" originally applied to non-Christian Judaism. The task of the Jewish apostles, though, was limited to carrying letters from Jerusalem headquarters to the scattered Jews everywhere, collecting contributions for headquarters, exercising supervisory and disciplinary powers, and keeping up the bond of all Jews with Jerusalem. In the same way the early church in Jerusalem, the Christian headquarters, with Paul as an apostle, laid the well-known financial obligation on him as well as the decision-making role of the "Apostolic Council." However, the authority of the kingdom, God's reality, stands behind the apostolic ambassador-
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ship. Its tasks are greater. Therefore, both the work carried out by the apostles and the power given to them had to be equally powerful. It was not to be compared with the Jewish apostolate, which was purely organizational.