Video Transcript: Spread

The Trial and Testimony of the Early Church

PROGRAM 2

SPREAD

DAVID WRIGHT: Dead as a dodo. That’s the fate of most of the cults and religions of the ancient world. Have you ever met Mithra-ist or a Manichean or a devotee of Isis and Osiris? And yet the movement started by Jesus did survive. And more than survive, it grew to conquer and win the allegiance of the whole Roman world and beyond it.

NIGEL as TERTULLIAN: We are but of yesterday and have filled everything you have—cities, tenements, forts, towns, yes, and camps, tribes, palace, senate, and forum. All you have left to you is your temples!

CARSTEN THIEDE: After the resurrection, Jesus told his followers that they were to take the Gospel to the farthest ends of the world. It had to have sounded preposterous, ridiculous even; how should they do it? A mere twelve apostles, no mass media, no financial means, a minority group, threatened by persecution. It was impossible.

STEVE: In our first program we showed how Christianity emerged from its Jewish roots, It was a new faith in a world that revered tradition, a universal faith in a world loyal to local deities, an exclusive faith in a world that celebrated its tolerance.

From their roots in Palestine as followers of a humble working-class carpenter-turned-preacher—Jesus of Nazareth—the Christians set out to bring their faith to the whole world. By any normal calculation this was an impossible job because Christian teachings simply could not be accommodated or reconciled with the most sacred assumptions of the Roman world.

NIGEL: Yet, in spite of incredible difficulty the faith managed to spread and in some places even to thrive. What happened?

STEVE: It all began at a place like this, a first century tomb in Jerusalem. After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in just such a tomb. But two days later the massive stone that covered the entrance was found pushed aside and there was no body in the tomb. His followers reported that Jesus was alive again. They had seen Him, talked with Him, even eaten bread and fish with Him. His followers proclaimed, “Christ is risen,” and they called it the Good News! To pick up the story, let’s go to my three colleagues in our series, Jane, Russell and Nigel.

RUSSELL: The disciples of Christ had shown themselves to be rather fickle, even cowardly, under pressure before the resurrection, but after the resurrection and the day of Pentecost, they went forward as passionate messengers that Jesus was their Lord.

JANE: But they didn’t just proclaim Him as their Lord. They came to see Him and announce Him as their Lord and Savior of the whole world!

NIGEL: “When the fullness of time had come,” as the apostle Paul put it.

RUSSELL:  The disciples of Christ clearly understood themselves to be under a divine mandate to bring this news about Christ to the whole world. But how do you do it, particularly when you are so few in number, very limited in resources, and have no game plan?

JANE: That’s right. Jesus really didn’t even give his rather unimpressive group of followers any clear-cut strategy.

NIGEL: Well, maybe there was a reason for this, Jane.  If they had known what it would take to get the thing started, then would any of them have had enough faith to move out and begin?

RUSSELL: To understand how the faith spread, we first have to understand a little about the world into which it was born.

STEVE: Prior to the emergence of Roman power, a few centuries before Christ, the

Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great, laid the groundwork as he expanded his domain. The Greeks loved cities. Of course they had their farmers, but the city was the place to be—and the Greeks had some great ones like Athens and Corinth.

Everywhere Alexander went he would build new cities like Alexandria, or rebuild old ones.  His successors followed the pattern, founding Antioch among others.

Thus, the Mediterranean societies became more and more Greek, with the Greek language becoming a common language used almost everywhere in the empire.

When the Romans took over, they maintained this pattern and continued to build cities across the expanse of the empire. And wherever they went, they took with them their advanced administrative skills and amazing engineering abilities. Imagine the engineering skills needed for the systems of aqueducts they built to supply water for their citizens. This is the aqueduct built at Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, a key departure point in the advance of the early church.

So when Christianity began to spread under Roman rule, it spread through a world of cities, most of them, of course, very much smaller than Rome. These cities were linked together by an incredible network of well-constructed roads. There were more than 50,000 miles of roads, or a distance twice the circumference of the earth, and many of these roads have outlasted the empire itself by more than 1500 years. And they can still be seen and used today.

Where the roads touched the sea there were good harbors for sea travel. And the Pax Romana (or “Peace of Rome”) meant that the roads and seas were relatively safe for travel without fear of robbers or pirates. There was also an efficient postal system. With the Greek language spoken and understood in the main centers of the empire, communication and travel for government, commerce, and trade were greatly facilitated. And for the spread of ideas, conditions had never been better.

STEVE: By the year 100, just 70 years after the death of Christ, the faith had burst forth from its Judean womb to many of the major cities of the empire. Jesus, from the accounts in the Gospels, never traveled more than 100 miles from home during his entire adult life, but now there were communities of followers thousands of miles from where it all began. And the places highlighted on this map are not just places where the Gospel was preached but locations where there were actual communities of believers.

JANE: A band of followers, a growing band whose names have now been lost to us, shared their new-found life all around the apartment buildings of the cities in the Mediterranean world.

 

STEVE: A fascinating report on the Christians was written by an unknown author around the year 180. It is called the Epistle to Diognetus.

JANE: Here we catch a glimpse of how the believers’ lives were ordinary and yet, at the same time, so very extraordinary: “Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by country, by speech, nor by customs. But although they live in both Greek and foreign cities, and follow the local customs, both in clothing and food and the rest of life, they exhibit the wonderful and admittedly strange nature of their own citizenship. They live in their own homelands but as sojourners; they share all things as citizens, and suffer all things as aliens. Every foreign country is their homeland and every homeland a foreign country. They marry as all do; they bear children, but they do not discard their children as some do. They offer a common table but not a common bed. They find themselves ‘in the flesh,’ but do not live ‘according to the flesh.’ They pass their time upon earth, but are citizens of heaven. They obey the established laws, and surpass the laws in their own lives.

“They love all and are persecuted by all. They are put to death and are made alive. They are poor but make many rich. They lack all things yet abound in all things. They are abused and give blessing; they are insulted and give honor. When they do good they are punished as evildoers; when they are punished, they rejoice as those receiving life. By the Jews they are attacked as foreigners, and by the Greeks they are persecuted; and those who hate them are not able to state the cause of their hostility.”

DAVID WRIGHT: Christianity traveled along the ordinary highways and byways of the Roman world through travelers of various kinds, merchantmen, business-men, soldiers, prisoners, slaves and hostages, Christian lay people of all kinds moving around and being moved around the great roads of the empire. Students, teachers, philosophers, refugees, pilgrims, professionals, doctors, lawyers, people of many kinds taking their Christian faith with them: bearers of the Christian message as they traveled around. So largely, expansion was not, it seems, the work of clergy, of ministers, of pastors but of Christian men and women in their ordinary paths and routines of life.

JANE: Here is another very helpful document written by a Christian to the emperor Antoninus Pius. It gives us a valuable insight into the lives and attitudes of Christians who lived during this vital period of church history and who tried to manage the affairs of the church without the first-century apostles left to guide them. The writer here is Justin, who himself was to become a notable martyr, a victim of persecution. Listen as he tells us:

RUSSELL as JUSTIN: “Before, we rejoiced in uncleanness, but now we love only chastity; we used to practice magic arts, but have now dedicated ourselves to the true and unbegotten God; we used to love money and possessions more than anything, but now we share what we have and give to all of those in need; we used to hate one another, kill one another. We would not eat with those of different races. But now, since the manifestation of Christ, we love our enemies and pray for those who hate us without just cause.”

STEVE: The faith continued to spread rapidly despite mounting opposition. Here we see where Christian communities were established by the year 200, but how are we to account for the continuing advance? Keep in mind that the churches had no impressive public ceremonies to attract the masses. For generations they also had no church buildings. And if you went to a service in a home, you would find no bizarre spectacle or compelling entertainment and none of the depraved orgies they were falsely accused of in the earliest years. Instead, you would find scriptures read, some prayers, exhortation, and finally the Eucharist, but if you were not baptized, you would not even be invited to stay for that.

NIGEL: There is every evidence that the church was never without its internal tensions. They did not break off into denominations as we know them today, but serious conflicts were part of their ongoing life——for they considered that they were dealing with matters of truth and error--perhaps the clue to the secret of the spread of the early church. As we have pointed out, early Christianity was an urban movement. The people lived in cities, and in these cities you lived very close to your neighbors. You did not have many secrets in such a setting. Your neighbors had a very good idea of who you were, how you lived your life, and what was important to you.

DRAMA SEGMENT (NIGEL AND RUSSELL).

RUSSELL: May I talk to you; I need to talk to you. Look, I know I have no right to ask you anything, especially after the way that I insulted you last week. My wife is dying. The doctors have done all they can. There is nothing else they can do. She doesn’t have much time. Look, it is said about town that you Christians pray for healing, that the god you pray to sometimes answers your prayers and grants a healing.

NIGEL: Yes, that’s right, He does grant us healings sometimes.

RUSSELL: Please, would you come pray for my wife? I’ll give you anything you ask. I don’t know what else I can do!

NIGEL: Let’s go quickly. . . . . I am going to pray to the Lord to heal you. Then, I’ll go get the sisters and they will come to you. They will look after you. They will pray for you. I am going to pray for you.

STEVE: It was through such countless everyday acts of compassion, concern, and love for the neighbors that the Gospel spread. It was a grassroots people movement that found its opportunities in serving human needs, caring for the unlovely, even rescuing and taking in children who had been abandoned on the garbage dumps. In Rome, by the year 250, in what was perhaps the first “meals on wheels” program, the church was providing for more than 1500 widows.

NIGEL: But there was also the element of the miraculous in reports of early Christian life. Christians became known as those who would care for the sick and had healing powers and also powers to drive out demons.

DAVID WRIGHT: If we are to understand early Christianity, we’ve got to take proper account of the miraculous. Miracles are attested right from the beginning of the movement. We find Peter, for example, healing a cripple at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. Miracle stories are found right through the second and third centuries. Writers like Justin and Irenaeus and Tertullian make a great deal of the Christians’ ability to perform miracles. They offer even to work miracles under laboratory conditions in court in order to demonstrate the power of the Christian God.

CARSTEN THIEDE: Miracles were an integral part of life in Palestine and, of course, in the early church. Exorcisms, healing, it had to be done. Many people did it, not only Jesus, incidently, his contemporaries, so he had to prove himself as it were to his contemporaries as one who could do what others did and then go on and explain why he did it and what the purpose of it all was. And that’s what Peter and Paul did when they performed miracle healings and so on. Or look at certain instances in the history of the early church. Peter’s escape from the prison of Herod Agrippa was a miraculous escape. It couldn’t be explained by human or natural means. Or look at the survival of the important manuscripts of the New Testament writings. It was the avowed aim of persecution after persecution to destroy all these manuscripts, but yet they have survived. The New Testament, the whole Bible, has survived. We could go on and give many more examples of the necessity of the importance of the miraculous in the history of the early church.

STEVE: By the early 300s the faith had continued to spread, new centers were established, and existing centers strengthened. In some regions there was actually a Christian majority, and in other places, while still a minority, Christians maintained a strong presence.

NIGEL AND RUSSELL (in adaptation of comments from the writings of Justin Martyr).

RUSSELL: From all over the world there are those of us who have put our faith in Christ Jesus. When we truly do, there is no one that can make us afraid. True, there are those among our number, some who have been beheaded and crucified, others tortured in other ways, thrown to wild beasts and burned, but it is now plain that even these horrible things cannot make us forsake our precious faith. I look at it like this . . . it’s like when you cut back the part of the vine that has borne fruit already. Cut it back, other flourishing fruit bearing branches grow to take its place. . . . Now please understand us that we are not contentious. Christ has taught us how, by patience and gentleness, to lead those from shame and the love of evil.

NIGEL: Do you have many that have joined you?

RUSSELL: I can show you many who have turned from a violent and tyrannical disposition. People who have been convinced by the quality in the life of their Christian neighbors:  the extraordinary forbearance they show after they are cheated, how they conduct their own business affairs with the utmost honesty.

STEVE:  At this time the empire had a population of 50 to 60 million people. Estimates are that five to ten percent were Christian believers or somewhere between three to six million people from all walks of life and every social rank. As more and more people became Christians, their presence permeated society. And in the early 200s the colorful theologian Tertullian could boldly challenge the empire, no doubt with a bit of rhetorical exaggeration.

NIGEL as TERTULLIAN: What if so vast a people as we had broken away from you and moved to some other part of the world? The loss of so many citizens would have brought shame upon your rulers. You would have to find other people to rule. You would have more enemies than citizens.  But, as it is, you have fewer enemies because of the multitude of the Christians. Indeed, it would seem that in nearly all the cities nearly all the citizens are Christians.

STEVE: The catacombs, underground tunnels and rooms with art work and inscriptions celebrating central themes of the faith. They had been dug out by the early Christians to bury and honor their dead. Today they are a vivid symbolic reminder that Christianity in its first few hundred years was a kind of underground movement. But in 312 the emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity after a reported vision. His victory, at the Milvian Bridge north of Rome, consolidated his political power. It is a convenient point in time to mark the great divide between the era when Christianity was a despised, harassed minority and later in the fourth century when it became the dominant and official faith of the empire.

Success would bring its own problems and challenges, but that subject is for another time. For the moment consider that the early years of Christianity represent one of the most astonishing peaceful revolutions and transformations of established cultural norms ever seen at any time.

How can we account for the remarkable spread of the Christian faith? No simple answer is possible, but at least part of an answer may be found in considering what happened at this place. This is where Jesus gave what we now call the Sermon on the Mount, and part of that sermon is known as the Lord’s Prayer. What a jolt that brief prayer now so familiar must have given to first-century hearers. After all, it told people how to think of God and themselves in a new way. Look at this.

R O T A S

O P E R A

T E N E T

A R E P O

S A T O R

This Latin word square has been found in widely divergent places including England, Dura Europos in Mesopotamia, and the two found at Pompeii, which have to date back earlier than 79 AD when the city was destroyed. No one knows for sure what it means.

Notice the palindrome: how the same words are spelled forwards and backwards. See how the letters can easily be rearranged to spell “Paternoster” twice in the form of a cross. The N of Noster forms the intersection with an A and an O left over. Paternoster are the first two Latin words of the Lord’s Prayer, “our Father,” and the A and the O could represent the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega. That’s the term applied to Christ in the book of Revelation in the New Testament meaning “the beginning” and “the end.”

NIGEL: Paternoster, “our Father.” Maybe in those two words we get a clue as to how the Gospel was spread throughout the world.

RUSSELL: For the world into which the Gospel was born was a world in which people felt themselves to be at the mercy of fate, victims of chance, their lives controlled by impersonal astrological forces.

JANE: Yes, because it was a world where, for the most part, religion was tradition rather than a personal belief.

STEVE: So into this world came Christianity proclaiming that your life has meaning, you are known, you are loved, and that a God greater than any you could ever have imagined is creator of all. He has visited our planet in the person of his son Jesus Christ to show His love, and His love is so intimate he can be approached and addressed as “our Father.” Such a concept was totally new and yet it seemed to be exactly what many were waiting for. It was a concept that found a home across the diverse cultural, religious, and social backgrounds that made up the Roman Empire.

NIGEL: Of course this is not a full explanation of why and how the faith spread, but it would seem to be a necessary part of any explanation that would adequately account for what happened.

STEVE: Over the following centuries, Christianity continued to grow and spread at an even faster rate than in the first three centuries. And we should note that, ironically, this faith born in the Middle East would find its strongest reception the more it moved west through the Greco—Roman world. It would become a foundational institution for western civilization itself.

NIGEL: But it is in this present century that there has perhaps been the most exceptional spread of Christianity in all of its history--and in the most unexpected places.

STEVE: For example, dramatic spiritual awakenings have been quietly advancing in some communist countries. In fact, it's possible that one of the most rapid expansions of the Christian faith in its entire history has taken place in our generation in communist China. Spreading through an informal network of house churches, some observers estimate that Christianity in China has grown from some 800,000 adherents to many millions in the past forty years.

The message the Christian church has brought to every generation is called the “Gospel,” which means literally “good news.” But the good news has often meant persecution for those who proclaim it. In our next episode we will look at the resistance to the early church and the range of charges and accusations that were hurled against it.