Ancient Christianity

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It was advertised through ChristianBook.com's mailing list, so why not? Ancient Christianity is a free online course taught by Kenneth "Ken" Calvert, introduced by Larry P. Arnn (an Anglican), and presented by Hillsdale College.

The Director of Online Learning is Kyle Murnen, the Editorial and Research team is Joey Barretta, John Case, Juan E. Davalos, Michael Driscoll, Stephen Goniprow, and Christopher Goffos.

(https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/ancient-christianity)

Summary

Christianity had peculiar modern attributes even when it was born in the ancient world. The strangeness adds to the plausibility. C. S. Lewis wrote that, "If you were gonna just make up a religion, would anybody think to make this one up?"

Christianity starts with the life of Jesus, which was both miraculous and ordinary. He was born in a village in Palestine (Israel) to ordinary people, and he was a carpenter in Nazareth without title or wealth, though he was descended from Abraham and David. He began his ministry at age 30, and it lasted about three years until his crucifixion, condemned under Roman law.

He lived over the backdrop of Rome, Israel and Judaism, and the Greeks.

Jesus lived 2000 years ago, and Abraham lived 3,500 years ago, so Abraham was about as ancient to Jesus as Jesus is to us. The Jewish story is unlike other ancient religions - that God made a covenant with His people, but He meant it as a blessing to all peoples on the face of the earth. Other religions were for the families of the cities and founded by leading families of the cities. They kept a fire forever burning in their homes to sacrifice part of every meal for these ancestors.

Spartan gods were for Spartans, and Spartans did not care about Athenian gods. The Jewish God gives the Law just to the Jews, and the Jews carry a message for the whole world through their inability to be worthy of being the Chosen people. Jesus came out of those people and was an extension of the providence of that people and God's plan.

The Greeks were seeking a universal truth. In Plato's Republic, the turning point is when Glaucon says to Socrates, "Show me, then, that justice is good for its own sake. Show me that it's good even if the person who practices it suffers for the practice of it--even if the unjust prosper. Show me that it's a good and a true thing."

Jesus doesn't give a law, but the standard resides in and comes from Him. People had to learn to think universally, and this is the seedbed on which Christianity has grown.

Romans united the known world, the parts they thought were important, besides Persia. When Jesus was executed, his apostles acted as though He were still alive and they have to follow Him just as much as if He were still with them. They spread the religion throughout the empire. Most of the New Testament is letters sent to the people in localities where they went and evangelized.

They formed the new religion of Christianity, working out the new system with new practices of worship. The practices are standard in any liturgical church (Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Orthodox).

By 350 A.D. the Emperor Constantine (306-337), one of the last strong Roman emperors, becomes a Christian.

Lecture 2

Jesus' birth necessitates the audacious claim that God, not just some local Greco-Roman god, not just the God of something like love or war, but the God of the universe came as a baby while remaining God and allowed himself to die. He loved his people, showed them who he was, and forgave them countless times.

The Roman Empire encircled the Mediterranean Sea and was a preparation for the Gospel.

Favorable Circumstances for Christianity:

Judaism

Judaism includes from its earliest expressions that someday a Messiah will come and undo what happened at Eden.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

The Fall wasn't left as a tragedy but was left as the beginning of a story that would unfold throughout all history.

Remarkable births are common in Scripture - Isaac to elderly Abraham and Sarah. Hannah and Samuel. Samson's mother. John the Baptist to the elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth.

There was expectation that God himself would be born. This baby is not described like Hercules. He is a Prince of Peace.

Isaiah prophesied the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel, God with Us. Also, for unto us, a child is born, to us a son is given. The government shall be upon his shoulder. Wonderful Counselor. Prince of Peace.

Greek Culture

Alexander the Great spread Greek culture throughout the eastern half of the Mediterranean. Alexandria, Antioch, great cities had formed. Greek philosophy is at its height. Greek language is the language of the New Testament, the origins of Christian apologetics and theology. They were using Greek language and culture but not using Greek gods or being syncretistic and were not saying God was the same as Zeus or Marduk, etc. There is a distinction between God and the god of the Greeks.

Pantheons were the norm, but monotheism is central to understanding God. How are God the Father and Son and Holy Spirit one? What words do you use to describe God when he became Man? Of course God is beyond human language, but early Christians relied upon Greek to begin expressing what we express today.

Words available to Christians:

Logos: Reason, rational thought, a force throughout the universe that brings reason and unifies the cosmos. Jesus was that logos, that divine power, that word that unified all creation.

Ousia: Substance. Helps to explain God's triune nature.

Platonism is the dominant philosophical school. It's a scientific model for understanding religion and god. Platonic thinkers believed there must be a god, but he was transcendent beyond all material things and had no relation with the material world. Only the emanations, the results of his inward life, produce such beings as the Demiurge that would create the material world. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all expressed this idea. God created the universe ex nihilo, but this idea of a 'god of the universe' can be used by early Christians to communicate, so long as they took care not to slide into Platonism.

Platonic thinkers could not accept God could become Man. Stoics could not accept God would have emotions, cry, die on a cross. It was impossible.

Roman Empire

The entire Mediterranean world was united first by the Roman Republic then the Roman Empire.

The Roman Republic created the Roman Empire and Caesar Augustus in its fall. This first emperor was a brilliant administrator and planner. He brought peace and security. He created a great propaganda machine, including Virgil with his Aeneid and Eclogues which praised the coming of Caesar Augustus, helping him be viewed as a sort of Messiah. Later in Christian history, Christians thought Virgil had to have been informed by the Holy Spirit.

Caesar Augustus was a king, and his senate merely felt as part of the government. He sent a message to the Roman world by calling himself Princeps (first citizen, root of our word prince). It's an old Roman Republican term - someone old and revered would be called a first citizen, a point of honor he brought upon himself. From the rule of Caesar Augustus to Emperor Diocletian is called the Principate, the era of the rule of the emperors of the first citizens.

Caesar takes on an old title "Pontifex Maximus" (Chief High Priest). This is an old Roman Republican office, one that oversees all the religious activities of the empire. All Roman emperors through Gratian in the 380s will be called Pontifex Maximus, including Constantine. This idea of having responsibility over the religious activities of the empire as the emperor is important.

Another important concept is the "genius of the emperor." This is the idea that the emperor was indwelt by a divine power that would make him the lynchpin that kept the empire together. This describes the Roman Empire and the world in which Christians came. There is the Priene Calendar Inscription, an important inscription that was found in the city of Priene in western Asia Minor (western Turkey today) that gives us an understanding of how Augustus was seen. It was established on his birthday - "Since providence, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit mankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things. And since he, Caesar, by his appearance excelled even our anticipations, surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good tidings for the world that came by reason of him." (Good tidings = gospel) He had brought peace after 100 years of civil war, ending the Roman Republic. Augustus was called savior, the son of God, the one who brings good news.

Think of the contrast with Jesus, the incarnate God, with this powerful king Augustus who ruled Judea through his governor in Syria, Quirinius, and Herod the Great, the local king of the Jews. The true king of the universe was a baby in a manger.

This is how the ancient Christians understood Jesus.

Lecture 3

Jesus entered the world as a Jew, and the earliest Christianity was Jewish. Jews were monotheistic, but they struggled with idolatry to multiple gods. They even asked God for a human king, but their human kings often led the people astray and bring about civil war.

722, the 10 tribes of the north were invaded and half the population was held captive by the Assyrian Empire. 586 - Nebuchadnezzar conquered them and the Neo-Babylonians took the elite class of the Judeans into the Babylonian Empire. They were exiled because of the rise of unfaithful kings and their own unfaithfulness.

The Persians are unlikely heroes. Cyrus the Great (circa 600-530 B.C.) rises to power and overthrows the Neo-Babylonians. There is evidence from the Cyrus Cylinder that Cyrus's approach to the conquered people's religions was to allow them to rebuild their temples and reestablish their worship, including the Jews. Isaiah 45 refers to Cyrus as the LORD's anointed, a messiah. The Jews under Cyrus go home and reestablish themselves under Ezra (fl. 480-440 B.C.) and Nehemiah (fl. 500-400 B.C.) and the law and the temple, but they are opposed by the Samaritans when rebuilding the temple and reestablishing themselves in Jerusalem. Darius I (circa 550-486 B.C.) was later also sympathetic to the Jews. The Jews were trying to as a nation rededicate themselves to the Law so they would never depart from it and lose the Holy Land.

The Samaritans were the remnants of the northern 10 tribes who stayed behind. There is tension between Samaritans and Jews because the Samaritans intermarried with noncovenantal peoples, built their temple at Mount Gerizim, and only recognized the Torah as authoritative.

During Jesus' day (1st century B.C.), the Jews were faithful to the Law of Moses, such as under Pharisaism.

The Jews' cordial relationship with the Persians is disrupted by the rise of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.). He conquered the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and destroys the Phoenician presence and conquers Tyre their cultural capital. Josephus (circa 37-100) says Alexander is met by a delegation of Jews on his way down the coast, and the Hellenistic Greeks interacted with Jews. Hellenism is the idea Greek culture can be married with native cultures - including Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Jewish. The Jews prosper with this interaction. At the same time, they are yet another polytheistic Pagan culture controlling the Jews.

Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Athens, Corinth become important to Jews with large Jewish populations. It was a diaspora by choice. Other Jews stayed in Babylon, in the east, and their communities persisted for well over 2 millennia. These are Pagan cities, though, so Jews face constant persecution, even from the intellectuals.

The Greeks gave the Jews the Septuagint. Josephus refers to a letter from Ptolemy II (308-246 B.C.) to Aristeas about his desire for the Hebrew Bible to be written in Greek. He hired 72 Jewish scholars who in 72 days translated the entire Old Testament. (Maybe not historically accurate tbh.) There were many translations for the Greek, but this story underlines that the Septuagint was the only acceptable translation. Also, there is a Greek warning in the Temple warning non-Jews to only go so far in the Temple. There are Gentiles interested in Judaism and Temple worship.

Philosophical discourse within Judaism in Greek, such as that belonging to Philo of Alexandria (circa 20 B.C. - A.D. 50). In the Gymnasium, men study philosophy and read Homer and Hesiod. Older, more conservative Jews found the Gymnasium completely unacceptable. Many Jews accepted this tradition, but they object to practice of meeting and training naked (the word gymnos means naked). Jewish men who were part of the gymnasia stood out due to circumcision and led to tension. 1 Maccabbees described men who tried to cover up their circumcision (plastic surgery?), which is a rejection of the Covenant.

After Alexander the Great's death, his successors had trouble understanding and honoring the Jews. The Seleucids and the Ptolemies arise out of his death. The Seleucids control the coast of the Mediterranean well into the old Persian territories, eastward into Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan), and to the Indus River Valley.

Antiochus IV (circa 215-164 B.C) has all his territory bow to Zeus, Hellenistic culture, and Hellenistic gods. Usually syncretism allows for this, since Zeus and Marduk are the same god. The Jews cannot allow the Temple in Jerusalem to become a temple to Zeus, though, and add a status of Zeus. He outlaws circumcision and various Jewish practices. He forces local Jewish populations to give sacrifice to Zeus.

In 1 Maccabbees and 2 Maccabbees, Antiochus IV and his officials begin to oppress and martyr the Jews. A woman loses 7 sons. In 1 Maccabees, the Temple is defiled and a gymnasium is built in Jerusalem.

Mattathias Hasmon (fl. 167-165 B.C.) lives in a town outside of Jerusalem called Modein and watches his people sacrifice to Zeus. He calls his people to him to uphold the Law, kills the Jews who were sacrificing, then kills the Greek officials. This rebellion is the Rebellion of the Maccabbees (maccabbee is Aramaic for hammer). Thousands rise up against the Greek to end the oppression from 167 to 165. They win some internal independence within the Seleucid Empire and later recreate a fully independent Hasmonean kingdom in Judea, the last truly independent Jewish state in the Holy Land until 1948.

During this time, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, the Book of Tobit are written and point to the strong expectation of a Messiah and ideas of what He may look like. In Maccabbees, the Temple is retaken and cleansed in 165. The oil in the Temple lamp stands lasted 8 days (a miracle). This becomes a celebration of the rededication of the Temple called Hanukkah. In John 10, Jesus celebrates Hanukkah at the Temple.

In 63 B.C., a Roman general named Pompey the Great (106-48 B.C.) who is ridding the area of pirates and settling troubles in the eastern region of the Mediterranean shows up in Judea because a civil war is going on regarding Greek Hellenistic influence and the control of the Temple. The Temple was not only their center of worship, it was also the most wealthy temple in all the ancient world. Also, temples were often used as banks in the ancient world because obviously no one would rob a temple, so Jews stored their savings here. When Pompey arrives, he suppresses the civil war and walks into the Temple (as the second non-Jew to enter after Alexander the Great). He takes a small amount of the Temple wealth for Rome and establishes Roman rule over Judea and over the Temple. The Samaritans again plead against the Jews and lose.

Within the Jewish population during the A.D. first century, factions emerge: the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Samaritans, and Zealots.

The Sadducees claimed to be the descendants of the proper High Priests of the Israelites. Maybe their name is derived from Zadok, a High Priest under David. They believe themselves the rulers, but people are skeptical of their authority.

The Pharisees are criticized as orthodox Jews without love because Jesus criticized them for a lack of love for God and each other, but they were faithful. If they were related to the return of Ezra in Nehemiah, they are first and foremost concerned with staying in the Holy Land and never being exiled again. They protected the Law and created layers of law to protect the original Torah. They were also very intent about bringing the Torah into the daily life of everyday Jews. They had a positive impact on Judaism but also created an oppressively absolute Torah-obeying Judaism. There were Pharisees who were interested in Jesus. They had dinner with Jesus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee.

The Essenes were a monastic group who lived in urban and rural monasteries, such as the great Essene complex at Qumran near the Dead Sea. They were trying to isolate themselves from the insanity going on in Judaism at this point following the falling apart of the Hasmonean kingdom. They reject what is happening at the Temple, believing the Pharisees to be too lax in their devotion to the Torah. They were also obsessed with the Messiah and His return, training themselves spiritually and militarily as His shock troops.

The Zealots are very interested in destroying Rome.

Now that Judea is under Roman control, Antipater I, the father of Herod the Great, emerges (circa 114-43 B.C.), and Herodian politics rise. Herod the Great came into power (circa 72 B.C.-A.D. 4) due to the various civil wars in the Empire. The civil wars between Pompey and Caesar then later between Octavian and Mark Antony allowed for Antipater then Herod to come to power.

Herod and the Herodians became one of the most important forces defending Roman interests in the East. Every civil war, the Parthians would offer aid against the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. In 40 B.C., the Parthians had invaded the Holy Land and controlled Jerusalem. Also in 40 B.C., the Senate made Herod the Great the King of the Jews. In 38, Herod played a significant role in driving the Pathians out of Jerusalem, back eastward into Mesopotamia.

Herod was called Great for his building programs. However, he was paranoid and had family members and members of the Jewish community killed, was willing to suppress opposition, and clung to control of this region on behalf of Rome. Herod was their local ruler or representative in the layers of Imperial rule Rome had established. He was upset when representatives of the Parthians arrive (essentially an enemy embassy), but they were the Magi. He could not directly kill them, but he asked them to show him the location of the King of the Jews.

The Jews prospered under Herod. Romans and Jews had a mostly positive relationship, Jerusalem prospered, Caesarea was a successful port, the Temple would become more grand, he built a temple to Caesar Augustus on the coast. They could not worship the genius of Caesar Augustus (Emperor of Rome, 27 B.C. - A.D. 14) in the Jerusalem Temple, but at the time, under Octavian, the Jews began to sacrifice on behalf of the Roman Emperor daily. The emperor doesn't understand that sacrifice is on behalf of his sins, but the Jews were participating in the wider religious context of Rome and under Pontifex Maximus in their own way.

The Herodians die out when they are no longer useful to the Romans. Pontius Pilate (Governor of Judea, circa 26-36), Flaccus, and Florus have difficulties governing the Jews. Pontius Pilate gets in deep trouble for executing thousands of Samaritans, and others get in trouble for not understanding the Temple and its tithe and tax.

Also in the 1st century, the Christian movement is beginning, and under Claudius (Emperor of Rome, 41-54), there are tensions and riots in the Jewish community at the capital at Rome over someone named Chrestus. Suetonius may have misheard Christ's name.

Conflicts about Jesus and Christians become very pronounced under Gaius Caligula (Emperor of Rome, 37-41) ("little army boots", a nickname he hated). He is crazy, names his horse a senator, and has relations with his 3 sisters. He is a friend of one of the remaining members of the herodian dynasty, Herod Agrippa II (circa 27-92), who tries to understand the Jews. Flaccus governs Alexandria as well as Jerusalem, is loyal to Tiberius (second emperor of Rome, 14-37), an enemy of Caligula, and is under tension to produce revenue, even by abusing the Jews and taking Temple money. Agrippa goes to check on Flaccus and support the Jews. Thousands of Jews are forced into ghettos in Alexandria, their synagogues burned. Caligula kills Flaccus, but he puts a golden status of himself in the Temple of Jerusalem. An important Jewish leader Philo of Alexandria (a neoplatonist who understands God is both transcendent and imminent, above all things but also in creation) is sent to talk to him. Eastern officials from Syria and Damascus drag their feet in obeying this order. Caligula ignores Philo and the Jews, but he gets assassinated by the Praetorian Guard.

He is succeeded by Nero (Emperor of Rome, 54-68) who has trouble with Jews and Christians. History agrees Nero was the one who set fire to Rome to make it into a city of gold (as many would not sell their real estate to him) and did not send the fire department (Praetorian Guard), but Nero blamed the Christians. He oppressed them in various ways, dipping in tar and feeding to animals. Peter is crucified upside down, Paul is beheaded.

Tacitus (circa 56-120) wrote about the Neronian persecution, saying while they were innocent of the fire, they were haters of humanity and did not support Roman values. In Histories 5.5, he says, "Whatever their origin, these rites are maintained by their antiquity, the other customs of the Jews are base and abominable, and owe their persistence to their depravity." "The Jews conceive of one god only, and that with the mind alone" - by faith, not by statues. They were considered atheists because they had no statue in their temple. "They regard as impious those who make from perishable materials representations of gods in man's image; that supreme and eternal being is to them incapable of representation, and without end. Therefore, they set up no statues in their cities, still less in their temples; this flattery is not paid their kings, nor this honor given to the caesars." They seem like traitors.

(https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/ancient-christianity)

Figures

Peoples

Places

Topics

Works

Vocabulary

  • Syncretism - the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought; (Linguistics) the merging of different inflectional varieties of a word during the development of a language