#early christians

[rossodimarte]

Henryk Siemiradzki (1834-1902), Martyrdom of Early Christians

[theinwardlight]

May God, who sees all things, and who is the ruler of all spirits and the Lord of all flesh – who chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us, through Him, to be a peculiar people – may God grant to every soul that calls upon His glorious and holy Name, trust, peace, patience, endurance, self-control, wholeness, and a clear understanding, to the well-pleasing of His Name, through our High Priest and Protector, Jesus Christ, whereby God is given glory, and majesty, and power, and honor, now and forever, Amen.

Clement of Rome, 1st century Christian

[atheostic]

I love how Christians talk about early Christians like they were a monolith

Here's just a handful of early Christian denomination beliefs:

Adamites: Would hold services naked and were not monogamous.

Arianites: Believed that Jesus & God were two separate people, that Jesus was the son of God, and that Jesus didn't always exist.

Bardaisanites: Thought the sun, moon, and planets were living beings, to whom, under God, the government of this world was largely entrusted; and though Man was free, he was strongly influenced for good or for evil by the constellations.

Carpocratians: They believed in reincarnation and were encouraged to experience everything there is in life (sinful and moral alike) so that they wouldn't have to reincarnate to experience what they had missed out on. They believed that going against Jewish biblical law was a serious responsibility because said laws came from evil angels who created the world. They also were of the belief that Jesus wasn't a deity, but rather an enlightened role model people should strive to be like (kinda like the Buddha). (According to Irenaeus of Lyons)

Colarbasians: Believed the whole of truth and religion to be contained in the Greek alphabet; and that it was for this reason that Jesus was called the Alpha and Omega.

Marcionites: Believed the god Yahweh (the Jewish, Christian, & now Muslim god) was an evil, tyrannical deity, & that the god featured in the Hebrew Scriptures was not the Father of Jesus Christ. They forbade marriage and urged celibacy, since bringing more children into the world meant bringing more people into captivity to the evil Yahweh.

Montanists: Allowed women prominent positions in the sect, such as bishops, presbyters, and deacons.

Simonians: Believed that the Holy Spirit was feminine and reincarnated as different women, most notably Helen of Troy.

Valentinianists: Considered the god of the Old Testament as the imperfect creator of the material world. One needed to recognize the Father, the depth of all being, as the true source of divine power in order to achieve gnosis (knowledge). Gnosis, not faith, was the key to salvation.

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Marie Ellenrieder (German, 1791-1863) St Felicitas and her Seven Sons, 1847 Although there are several traditions surrounding the martyrdom of St Felicitas, the most pre-eminent is that the canonisation of the widowed Felicitas was the result of her refusal to Publius the Prefect of Rome – on behalf of herself and her sons – to renounce the Christian faith. The consequence of her refusal was that she was forced to endure the sight of her sons being put to death individually before being beheaded herself. In this depiction of the family before their matyrdom (or after in Heaven in the manner of a 'sacra conversazione'), St Felicitas is shown, gazing heavenwards, standing in the centre of a group consisting of her seven sons, all of whom are dressed in the Renaissance biblical style. St Felicitas wears a wimple and gold-edged scarf whilst her children are robed in simple tunics in an assortment of bright colours. Three of the male figures are shown studying religious texts whilst the others stare contemplatively about them as though in prayer.

[indizombie]

The earliest Christians were communists (as Acts tells us of the church in Jerusalem, and as Paul’s epistles occasionally reveal), not as an accident of history but as an imperative of the faith. In fact, in preparing my own recent translation of the New Testament, there were many times when I found it difficult not to render the word koinonia (and related terms) as something like communism. I was prevented from doing so not out of any doubt regarding the aptness of that word, but partly because I did not want accidentally to associate the practices of the early Christians with the centralized state “communisms” of the twentieth century, and partly because the word is not adequate to capture all the dimensions – moral, spiritual, material – of the Greek term as the Christians of the first century evidently employed it. There can simply be no question that absolutely central to the gospel they preached was the insistence that private wealth and even private property were alien to a life lived in the Body of Christ.

David Bentley Hart, 'What Lies Beyond Capitalism? A Christian Exploration', Plough

[a-queer-seminarian]

found this wonderful essay on Facebook....the full thing is pasted below; selective bolding is mine.

(image description: the first paragraph of a facebook post by Jim Rigby from March 4 2021, pasted below. / end id)

____________

MOST AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD HAVE HATED THE EARLY CHURCH

After seminary, one of the first things I did was to read the writings of the early church. By “early” I mean before the Latin creeds were written. Many, if not most, Christians are taught to believe those later creeds define what it means to be “Christian.” I wondered, “what about the centuries before that?” Why do so many in the church say Christianity is defined, not by Jesus and the early church, but by creeds and rituals developed centuries later?

The “heroes of Christianity” I was taught in seminary, like Calvin and Luther, came long much later than the early church. These latter day theologians came along after the church had stopped being persecuted. I have come to the conclusion that the church was a no longer persecuted after the Latin creeds because at that point it was no longer a threat to empire. 

The early church wasn’t persecuted by Rome because of its theology. Rome didn't care about metaphysics, it cared about dominating its citizens' minds and hearts. The early church was persecuted for political reasons, namely because it refused to participate in the violence and hoarding required to be a good citizen of an empire like Rome. By replacing the teachings of Jesus with the creeds and rituals of later Christendom, the church could avoid persecution by replacing the teachings of Jesus with abstract hypothetical assertions about God. By taking the emphasis off the radical and universal teachings of Jesus, the church was able to find a comfortable niche by playing the role of pious liturgist to the crimes of empire.

Frankly, I don’t think most American Christians would have liked the early church very much. In fact, I find myself challenged and sometimes offended by their teachings. I myself would think twice about joining the early church. For one thing, the early church demanded a radical commitment to economic justice as a price of entry.

Saint Basil the Great (b. 330 C.E.) compared those who base their idea of justice upon property rights to a man in a theatre who claims the seats next to him and will not let latecomers have them. Basil says, “That’s what the rich are like; having seized what belongs to all, they claim it as their own on the basis of having got there first.”

How many modern Christians would agree with Saint Chrysostom's words, "Those who strip others of their clothes are called "thieves." Should not those who have the power to clothe the naked but do not do so be called the same? The bread in your larder belongs to the hungry. The cloak in your wardrobe belongs to the naked. The shoes you allow to rot belong to the barefoot. The money in your vaults belongs to the destitute. You do injustice to every person whom you could help but do not."

Chrysostom (b. 347 C.E.) also refuted the age old excuse for wealth inequality, namely that rich people work hard and poor people do not, "Now don’t tell me that you actually work hard. If you call earning money, making business deals, and caring for your possessions “work”, I say, “No, that is not work. But alms, prayers, the protection of the injured and the like – these are genuine work.” You charge the poor with idleness; I charge you with corrupt behavior."

Most modern American Christians would also hate the early church because it renounced nationalism and the violence necessary to sustain it. Origen (b. 186 C.E.) said, “You cannot demand military service of Christians any more than you can of priests. We do not go forth as soldiers with the Emperor even if he demands this.”

I get uncomfortable when I read the early church leader Hippolytus (b. 170 C.E) saying that those entering the church must be screened for their profession to make sure they are not participating in violence against or exploitation of others, “The professions and trades of those who are going to be accepted into the community must be examined. The nature and type of each must be established… brothel, sculptors of idols, charioteer, athlete, gladiator…give it up or be rejected. A military constable must be forbidden to kill, neither may he swear; if he is not willing to follow these instructions, he must be rejected. A proconsul or magistrate who wears the purple and governs by the sword shall give it up or be rejected. Anyone taking or already baptized who wants to become a soldier shall be sent away, for he has despised God.”

It also seems to me that the early church demanded universality or internationalism as a price of entry. Tertullian (b. 160 C.E) wrote, “Shall we carry a flag? It is a rival to Christ.” St. Chrysostom said, “I am a Christian. One who answers thus has declared everything at once—their country, their profession, their family; the believer belongs to no city on earth but to the heavenly Jerusalem.”

Again, let me confess I find some of the above shocking and uncomfortable. I do not want to share everything. I want to keep my computer and my guitar. I kind of like the idea of an army protecting me, but if I am going to be honest I must also confess that the early church calls me to much more than the comfortable creeds and rituals used to define Christianity today.

It seems to me, by “Christian” the early church did not mean members of a exclusive sectarian religious cult, but people of every creed and culture who serve our one human family by choosing:

- Lives of service instead of careers of power and domination, - An economic system based on sharing fairly instead of one focused on personal wealth and success, - To be a good citizen of the whole world, not just of our own nation, - And, finally, by choosing to sing reverent hymns that consecrate us ALL to the common life instead of mindless repeating the religious creeds that divide us into sects.

[gadarene]

"Archaeologists stunned by link between Halley's comet and Ireland's Christian conversion" (Daily Express, 16 Oct 2021)

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Renewing Your Mind | The Reason for Canon | Nov 11, 2020

The early Christians received the books of the New Testament gladly because they knew the Old Testament story was incomplete without Jesus. Today, Michael Kruger establishes why the New Testament canon was a natural idea for the ancient church to embrace.