The three groups within the primitive Christian movement
survived into the second century. One died out and the
other two expanded:
2. The Jewish Christian movement: The failure of the Bar
Kochba revolt (132 - 135 AD) was devastating for the
Jewish people, including the Jewish Christians. Any Jews
who remained in Palestine in 135 AD were killed, enslaved
or permanently driven from the land. The Jewish Christian
movement had a brief resurgence during the 2nd century AD,
and then disappeared from the pages of history.
Pauline Christianity continued to spread across the known
world (primarily westwards). It started to develop a
formal theology, a set of doctrines, and an unofficial
canon of writings which were later to become the Christian
Scriptures (The New Testament). From the enormous supply
of Christian gospels and epistles (letters) they chose a
few that more-or-less matched the theology of the
developing church. Admittance of the Gospel of John into
the official canon had to overcome a great deal of
resistance; many in the church felt that it had too much
Gnostic content. The canon accepted: Four gospels,
attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Acts of the Apostles, apparently written by the same
author as who wrote Luke.
Thirteen Pauline Epistles -- letters which claim that they
were written by Paul. Religious liberals accept that seven
were written by Paul, one may have been written by him,
and 5 were by unknown authors -- mostly from the second
century many decades after Paul's death.
Eight general Epistles -- James, John, Peter, Hebrews and
Jude, -- Hebrews which might have written by Priscilla.
Revelation, a book about the end of the world by John
3. Gnostic Christianity consisted of many separate groups
with no appreciable central organization. Each group was
under the leadership of a Gnostic teacher like Marcion,
Valentinus, and Carpocrates. These groups shared some core
beliefs, but otherwise differed greatly from each other.
The Gnostic movement initially expanded, and at one point
was the primary form of Christianity in the eastern
Mediterranean. However, probably by persecution by Pauline
Christians, it later went into a steep decline, and ceased
being a significant force by the 6th century.
The Patristic Era:
After the deaths of the Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers
were looked upon for guidance. They included a number of
teachers and bishops: e.g. Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus,
Origen, Polycarp, Tertullian. A hierarchical
organizational structure called the "monarchial
episcopate" then developed in which the individual
congregational leaders recognized the authority of their
area bishop in matters of doctrine and faith. There was no
person or group who could speak for the church as a whole.
It was only in 325 AD that bishops from throughout the
Christian movement would be able to meet at the Council of
Nicea and attempt to resolve differences in Christian
beliefs.
H O W E V E R..............
One is forced to talk about
the "histories" of Christianity rather than of the
"history" of the religion. This is particularly true of
the very early Christian movement:
There is one history taught by religious historians which
is based on the documents of the time -- including the few
books that made it into the Bible and the hundreds of
others that were excluded. Historians speak of many
Christian faith groups teaching conflicting views of
Jesus, God, morality, religious obligations, etc. Men and
women led house churches. No central authority existed;
the congregations were almost completely decentralized.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Jesus selected
Peter to be the temporal ruler of the church. Peter
traveled to Rome, presumably with his wife, and reigned
there as the first Pope. Una Fides, a Roman Catholic
apologetics web site, claims that: "History proves that
from that time [of the disciple Peter] on, both in the
East and the West, the successor of Peter was acknowledged
to be the supreme head of the [entire Christian] Church."
1. Peter, Paul and the other apostles ordained bishops as
their successors; those bishops, in turn, ordained their
successors. Thus, the church's current bishops can trace
their ordination through an unbroken line from the
apostles; this is called the "apostolic succession."
There is the conflicting view of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS; the Mormons). Their
founder, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), taught a theology of
restorationism: He preached that the true Christian church
died out in the early 2nd century AD, and did not survive
in any form until he restored it as the LDS Church, early
in the 19th century.
The "Two by Twos" church (a.k.a. Irvinites, The Jesus-Way,
No-Name Church, etc) teach that their group was founded by
Jesus. They maintained a very low profile since the first
century AD. It survived until today as the only true
Christian church. They feel that they have been
continually persecuted by other Christian groups "which
from the earliest times have diluted and perverted the
true gospel." 2
Many Christian denominations teach that they alone are the
true church. They believe that they alone can trace their
lineage directly back to the primitive, first century
Christian church. They view the ten thousands of other
Christian denominations as having split away from their
own church at some point in history.
Each of the above denominations tends to view very early
Christianity as movement which agreed on almost
everything. However, historians view the early Christian
movement as being composed of many faith groups which
taught widely varying beliefs. Sometimes multiple
Christian congregations would co-exist in a single city,
and would agree on little -- much like today.
|
