HC 501 INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

A Review on
The Video Lecture for the Week (4)

Submitted by Anish Philip

Submitted to Rev Michael Kumar Chatterjee
Submitted on 2 April 2021

HOUSTON BIBLE SEMINARY

TEXAS.
Persecution of Christians in the early periods:
The growth of Christian churches started to happen in very powerful ways and that led to different
aspects regarding who are Christians, their identity, their belief, and practices. The blood of martyrs
become the seed of Church.
Persecution was three layered:
1. It started with own Jewish brothers. Persecution by the Jews. From infancy of Christianity Jews
were not able to cop up with the trinity concept. Jesus didn’t appear in the way Jews want him
to be. Jews wanted a king and Jesus don’t wanted to be so. Crucifixion of Jesus was contrary to
Jews understanding of Messiah in OT. Even Christians were not observing the Sabbath.
Sadducees opposed the teaching of resurrection which they never believed. Christians were not
participating in pagan festivals which were also against Christians.
2. Romans raised eyebrows and attacked formally by Roman empires. Persecution by the
Romans. Christianity was recognized by the Roman Empire as a legal religion. Christianity was
Religio illicita (you don’t have the right to exist). Constantine made it legal (Religio licita) in 312
AD. The lofty ethical idea of Christianity and the importance which were given to holiness and
love was against the teaching of Roman worship of pagan god. It emphasized on worldliness
and selfishness. Love your God and love the neighbour was concised by Jesus Christ from all the
ten commandments. Celebration of Lords supper was misunderstood or not able to interpret
by the Romans. This misinterpretation was heavy on Christians and they had to shorten the
Sunday service and bring the evening communion session to morning. Stephens persecution
was first among the persecution and it became the process to strike against Christianity.
3. Persecution initiated by the Roman Empires. Emperor worship was rejected by Christianity.
Many Christians didn’t want to be soldiers and they were not partaking in festivals. Language
used by Christians: “the kingdom of God is here” were rejected. One of the main emperors
during Christian persecution was Nero (AD 54-68).
 13 Oct 54 CE - 11 Jun 68 CE: Reign of Roman emperor Nero.
 68 CE - 69 CE: Year of the Four Emperors: Civil war in Rome.
 8 Jun 68 CE - 15 Jan 69 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Galba.
 15 Jan 69 CE - 16 Apr 69 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Otho.
 17 Apr 69 CE - 20 Dec 69 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Vitellius.
 26 Dec 69 CE - 23 Jun 79 CE: Reign of Roman emperor Vespasian.
 24 Jun 79 CE - 13 Sep 81 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Titus.
 14 Sep 81 CE - 18 Sep 96 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Domitian.
 18 Sep 96 CE - 27 Jan 98 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Nerva.
 28 Jan 98 CE - 7 Aug 117 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Trajan.
 11 Aug 117 CE - 10 Jul 138 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Hadrian.
 10 Jul 138 CE - 7 Mar 161 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Antonius Pius.
 10 Jul 138 CE - 9 Mar 161 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius.
 7 Mar 161 CE - 17 Mar 180 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
 9 Mar 161 CE - Mar 169 CE: Marcus Aurelius rules with Lucius Verus.
 Mar 169 CE - 177 CE: Marcus Aurelius rules alone.
 177 CE - 17 Mar 180 CE: Marcus Aurelius rules with Commodus.
 17 Mar 180 CE - 31 Dec 192 CE: Commodus rules alone.
 1 Jan 193 CE - 28 Mar 193 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Pertinax.
 28 Mar 193 CE - 1 Jun 193 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Didius Julianus.
 9 Apr 193 CE - 4 Feb 211 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus.
 198 CE - 209 CE: Reign of Caracalla with his father Septimius Severus.
 209 CE - Dec 211 CE: Reign of Caracalla with his father Septimius Severus and his brother Geta
(Feb - Dec 211 only with Geta).
 209 CE - 26 Dec 211 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Geta.
 Dec 211 CE - 8 Apr 217 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Caracalla.
 11 Apr 217 CE - 8 Jun 218 CE: Reign of Roman Emperors Macrinus with his son Diadumenian.
 8 Jun 218 CE - 11 Mar 222 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Elagabalus.
 13 Mar 222 CE - 18 Mar 235 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Severus Alexander.
 Mar 235 CE - May 238 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Maximinus Thrax.
 238 CE - 244 CE: Reign of Gordian III in Rome.
 22 Mar 238 CE - 12 Apr 238 CE: Reign of Gordian I and Gordian II in Rome.
 244 CE - 249 CE: Reign of Philip the Arab in Rome.
 22 Dec 245 CE: Birth of Emperor Diocletian.
 249 CE - 251 CE: Reign of Decius in Rome.
 253 CE - 260 CE: Reign of Roman emperor Valerian with his son Gallienus as co-emperor.
 253 CE: Reign of Aemilianus in Rome.
 253 CE - 268 CE: Reign of Gallienus in Rome.
 Sep 270 CE - c. Sep 275 CE: Reign of Roman emperor Aurelian.
 284 CE - 305 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian.
  306 CE - 337 CE: Reign of Roman Emperor Constantine I.

Edict of Milan: was the February AD 313 agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman
Empire. Western Roman Emperor Constantine I and Emperor Licinius, who controlled the Balkans, met
in Mediolanum (modern-day Milan) and, among other things, agreed to change policies towards
Christians following the Edict of Toleration issued by Emperor Galerius two years earlier in Serdica. The
Edict of Milan gave Christianity legal status and a reprieve from persecution but did not make it the
state church of the Roman Empire. That occurred in AD 380 with the Edict of Thessalonica. The
document is found in Lactantius' De Mortibus Persecutorum and in Eusebius of Caesarea's History of
the Church with marked divergences between the two. Whether or not there was a formal 'Edict of
Milan'  is debated by some.

Christians were called the Nazarian. Different modes of persecution were also there during the times;
1. Persecution by harassment and oppression
2. Persecution by crucifixion. It was the capital punishment for Romans.
3. Other was stoning, beaten to death, burn to death, beheaded, imprisonment, Amphitheatre
(punishment in which the condemned person was killed by wild animals).

Effects of persecution:
 Due to persecution Christianity grown and spread
 It purified Christianity
 It gave rise to apologetic literatures and Church fathers were active.
 Some became hermit or ascetic.

Heresies: The heretical teachings

1. Gnosticism
2. Montanism
3. Marcionism
4. Manicheanism
5. Ebionites

Controversies of the early church: Trinitarian controversy- Arianism, Christological controversies,

Apollinarianism, Nestorianism and Eutychianism.
Antioch (Syria)- they gave emphasis upon the humanity of Christ and Alexandria (Egypt)- they gave
emphasis upon the divinity of Christ, were two important schools on the study of Christianity after the
Constantine emperor to define Christianity.

Fight against Heresies in the Second Century

When the church grew and formulated its doctrines, heresies also developed. Some of them like
Montanism arose from the church while heresies like Gnosticism did not arise from the church. Most
of the major heresies arose and became very popular in the second century. So, the Lord raised many
Christian leaders to defend the church from the teaching of the heretics. This helped the church to
finalise its creeds. The study of the heresies of the second century helps us to understand how the
heresies grew and the way in which the church responded to the heretical teaching and fought against
them.

a. The Nazarenes: The Nazarenes were Jewish Christians. They were the descendants of the Judaizers
who questioned the gospel preached by Paul. They wanted Jewish customs to be observed by the
Christians. They moved to Pella near the River Jordan after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. They
carefully kept the Jewish laws and observed circumcision and the Sab bath carefully as per the
rabbinical rules. They were not very popular, and they ceased to exist from the fourth century.

b. The Ebionites: The Ebionites were another sect similar to the Nazarenes who lived in the east of the
River Jordan. They wanted all Christians to observe the Jewish laws. They accepted only the gospel of
Matthew and rejected all the other gospels and the epistles of Paul. In the gospel of Matthew, they
removed portions dealing with the preexistence of Jesus Christ and His miraculous conception. They
believed that Jesus became divine only at His baptism when He received the Holy Spirit. They also
believed that He became an ordinary man before His death since the Spirit left Jesus before His death
and Jesus suffered as an ordinary man. They considered Jesus Christ as the greatest of all the prophets
and the natural son of Joseph and Mary. They rejected the preexistence of Jesus Christ and did not
believe I that Jesus was an eternal Son.

c. Gnosticism: Gnosticism was the most dangerous and the subtle heresy of the second century. The
origin of this heresy is not known. Gnosticism was a complex religious movement based on the ideas of
Christian religion and the pagan religion. It became popular in the earlier part of the second century.
The word gnosis in Gnosticism means "knowledge it was because Gnostics claimed to have a special
knowledge about the way of salvation. They taught that this knowledge about salvation was obtained
from the Apostles directly.
Gnostics believe that God is good and great, and His name is Bythos. The world is evil. So, they asked,
"How can a good God create an evil world?" They believed that the world was created by God of the
Old testament, who is Jehovah God and He is between good and evil. They denied the incarnation of
Jesus Christ. One group of Gnostics believed that the divinity of Jesus Christ came on Him at the time
of His baptism and left before His crucifixion. Another group had the view that the humanity of Jesus
Christ was not real, and Jesus had a phantom like appearance.
They believed that salvation could be obtained by knowledge. The Gnostics believed in a supreme God
who is not present in the world and believed that between this evil world and God there are many
divine beings. Man has a physical body, which is part of this world and a soul which is a divine spark
present inside the body. According to the Gnostics, salvation is the escape of soul from the body to
God above. This salvation could be obtained only by the gnosis - knowledge to pass through the divine
beings to God. The Gnostics rejected the Old Testament and Juda ism, and developed their own
scriptures. They did not believe in the resurrection of the body.
The important teachers of Gnosticism were Valentinus and Basilides Marcion was another leader of
Gnosticism and he developed a Gnosticism similar to Christianity. But he rejected the Old Testament
and taught that the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ was different from the Lord of the Old Testament,
He was excommunicated from the church and died at Rome in AD 170. Gnosticism became a popular
and widespread heresy in the sec wad century. So, Irenaeus studied this heresy and wrote clearly
against this heresy in his major work Against Heresies.

d. Montanism: The movement of Montanism was started by Montanus in Phrygia (Turkey) in 170s and
later spread to Rome and North Africa. This movement grew when the church entered into nominalism
and formalism in the second century. Montanus was a priest of Cybele and became a Christian in 150s.
He later claimed that he got a special revelation from the Holy Sprint to start this movement. He
started Montanism with a revival campaign and claimed that he received the gifts of the Holy Spirit as
it happened in the first century: Two rich ladies who had deserted their husbands joined him and this
movement progressed when many people joined the group. In the beginning Montanism was not a
heresy. But when many people joined the movement and monasticism gave importance to certain
teaching, it developed into a heresy. They gave importance to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They believed
that the millennium was near and New Jerusalem will be established in their lifetime in their place.
They even waited for the coming of the Lord in Pepuza but were disappointed.
About their teachings A.M. Renwick wrote,
They also professed to have authority to impose a more rigid discipline on the Church, forbade second
marriages, and stressed the superiority of the celibate to the married state. In their pride, they thought
they surpassed even Christ in their teaching (Renwick 1986:35).

They began to exalt the ministers of the church and believed that the ministers carry out God's work
on the earth through the Sacraments. They even began to believe that the priests offer the sacrifice of
Christ at the altar again and again. They insisted that only through them men can do business with
God. The outcome of this belief was that preaching stopped completely, and the priest was given a
place of the mediator between man and God. Thus, they completely departed from the teaching of the
Scrip tires

The church leaders found that the Montanists were distorting certain doctrines, and condemned it as a
heresy in a synod in AD 162 held in Asia Minor But it spread to Rome in AD 170 and to North Africa by
the end of second century. Tertullian was a follower of this heresy in the beginning but withdrew from
them later finding them to be unscriptural. This heresy disappeared from Africa by the end of fourth
century and from all other places at the beginning of sixth century. New churches with magnificent
building and decorations and paintings were built. People gathered for worship in these churches on
Sundays because Sundays became holidays as per government orders. In worship service, singing
became popular and some pagan practices entered into Christian worship.
The people started worshipping saints, and Mary. People began to give importance to relics (the
remains and the personal possess of saints like bones, teeth and clothes and believed that they had
the power to heal diseases and protect people from evil. They also gave importance pilgrimages to
places connected with the saints. So, Christianity began to drift into a region an ignorance and
superstition.

e. The organisation of the church: During this time the authority of the church passed to the leaders of
the church. The leaders of the church were the ordained bishops who take all decisions on the belief
and organisation of the church. Since the church grew tremendously during this period, the bishop
became the center of authority and the bishops of the cities became more important. The bishop of a
city was called Metropolitan under whom there were many bishops and dioceses. Among these
Metropolitans, some bishops like the bishop of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem
were called as Patriarchs and those of Seleucia and Steciphon were called as Catholicos.

The bishop of Rome became the leader of all other bishops and he was called as the Pope. The church
also began to exercise the doctrine of the apostolic succession (the belief that the bishops received
their authority from the disciples of Jesus Christ through their successors) and claimed that there was
no salvation outside the church. Soon the bishop in Rome became the supreme authority in the church
and claimed that he was the true successor to Apostle Peter. Thus, there arose the belief of the
supremacy of pope over all the bishops in the church. The present for the Roman Catholic Church took
its shape during this period.

Arianism
Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, raised the Trinitarian controversy which was called as Arianism.
Arianism is similar to the present-day Jehovah Witnesses who deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Arius
believed that Jesus Christ had a beginning while the Bible taught that He was pre-existent. He taught
that Christ was made out of nothing and believed that Jesus Christ was a different substance from the
Father and was subordinate to the Father. Thus, Arius denied the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria understood the error in this belief and took this false teaching to a
synod arranged in Alexandria. Aria was an eloquent preacher and so many people supported his view.
This controversy created much dissension and was about to break the unity of the church. So,
Constantine was forced to resolve this controversy and he called an Ecumenical council in AD 325 in
Nicaea. This council rejected the views of Arius and stated that Christ existed from time eternity. The
council also concluded that Jesus was of the same nature of the Father an at the same time He was
distinct from the Father. Arius was condemned and exiled. Only in the council of Constantinople in 381
this controversy was fully rejected.

Nestorianism:
This controversy is related to the Person of Jesus Christ and the doc trine of incarnation. Nestorius was
a popular preacher who became the bishop of Constantinople in AD 428. He stressed the two natures
of Jesus Christ to the extent that according to him, Christ was two persons. He believed Jesus was a
man united with the Word in a unique way, whereas the Bible teaches that Christ is the Word
incarnate. He said that the doc trine of Christ was like the union of the husband and the wife, where
they have two natures and are persons with one flesh.