History's Testimony: The Early Christian Church

In the entire history of the Christian church, there has only been one point in time when we have truly been without the scandals that so many modern Christians now have to face. I am speaking, of course, of the early Christian church.

If you have ever read about the events following Jesus's return to Heaven, then you know that the church was founded in a time when the spiritual state of the world was being turned upside down. With every new chapter, hundreds of demons would be given the boot! This was a time when Paul went to and fro, doing God's holy work. This was a time when the last books of the Bible were being written. This was the church that many Christians have looked on with guilt and envy as we struggle to rediscover the truth that was laid out so plainly in those days.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I did not take on this article with the assumption that all of my readers would regard the Bible as the word of God but rather that many would be suspicious of anything I wrote. I cannot take it for granted that my words will not come under scrutiny and neither can I rely upon an argument founded solely on the word of God. Let the discourse begin.

The first point to be made is the nature of the early church. This was a group that could expect everything from insults to crucifixions. These people had to band together just to survive. As a history geek, I find the most remarkable thing about the early church to be the way in which it functioned as a community. You see, in all of human history, no one has ever managed to organize a socialist establishment that survived. No one, that is, except for the early Christian church. When someone joined the church, they were expected to sell all of their possessions and give the money to the church. In every other Socialist experiment ever performed, greed, selfishness, or anger ruined the system. Do partially to the threat of persecution and partially to their absolute conviction to the love of God, the church maintained a general immunity to these problems.

In fact, the church was persecuted not only in Israel, but also in the Roman empire, and by one of the most infamous tyrants of all history. Nero, the very definition of tyranny, turned his baleful eye upon Christianity after a fire consumed the city of Rome. It is believed by many that Nero himself started the fire based on the fact that directly afterward he built one of the largest and most extravagant palaces in the history of the Roman Empire, a project he would not have been able to complete if so many other buildings had not been destroyed by the blaze. Whatever the reason for the fire, it is doubtful that any Christians would have started the fire considering that Paul had expressly told the church to respect the authority of Rome, even if Rome was morally bankrupt.Already oppressed for their beliefs, Christians under Nero's rule were not simply crucified, but were actually covered in oil and then set alight. It is even reported that Nero (as lustful for blood as Caligula was for women) used Christians as torches in his gardens. So feared and hated was Nero that he was believed by many to be the Antichrist. In fact, taking into consideration that Biblical prophesies are often fulfilled multiple times, it is entirely possible that he was the Antichrist.

And yet, despite all this persecution, the church actually grew. In a matter of decades, this oppressed religion somehow managed to spread across the Roman empire, a culture that had little in common with many of its most basic doctrines, such as monotheism. How? The answer comes from another enemy of the early church, a Pharisee who was feared above all others by the first Christians. His name was Saul and he personally sought out and persecuted many Christians. This was a man who had been known to literally drag Christians from their homes; his notoriety cannot be overestimated. And yet this same man became Paul, the first and most respected Christian missionary, seemingly overnight. Obviously there are many who doubt that Saul actually met Christ on the road to Damascus, and naturally there have been many historical investigations into the matter, but to this day, no conclusive evidence has arisen that suggests the Biblical account of Saul's conversion is anything less than the absolute, literal truth. Because of Paul, not only did the church grow, but it also maintained a theological unity. Even when the church did split (which occurred even before the Orthodox and Catholics separated) his letters helped to serve as shared sources of religious doctrine that still held Christianity together and served to denounce heretics.

Yet Paul was not some sort of genius of geniuses. He was a profound intellectual, yes, but so were countless thousands of other historical figures that never came close to matching his accomplishments. Neither was Paul powerful. Respect in the church meant little in a world where Christianity was a mere cult. Like other Christians, Paul gave up his worldly possessions, leaving him with little money to carry out his work. As a result, Paul was as much at the mercy of fortune as anyone else of his time. Indeed, Paul was shipwrecked, stoned, and otherwise subjected to the trials of misfortune. The only explanation for Paul's success is that he was working under the direction of God and bearing a message that really was the truth.

There is one more matter that remains to be discussed. You see, it is only natural that any discussion of the early church should end on the topic of Constantine. Emperor Constantine ruled during the early Fourth Century and, like many emperors, he was not without competition. When Constantine's father was killed, the was a dispute between him and Maxentius, his half-brother broke out over the issue of who was the rightful emperor, resulting in a civil war. The night before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, it is recorded that God came to Constantine in a dream and ordered him to have the cross painted on the shields of his soldiers. Constantine obeyed and he not only won the battle, but killed Maxentius. When he became emperor, Constantine declared Christianity legal, ending centuries of oppression and persecution. Yet it is not certain that Constantine immediately converted. In fact, it is believed that he continued to worship Apollo, though he struggled with the issue of Christianity. While some would look to this as support of a skeptical outlook, it actually indicates a confusion and inner conflict that can only be explained by the factual nature of Constantine's vision.

In the Roman empire, religion and politics were one and the same. Rulers worshiped not to please the gods, but to please the people. Nowhere in this world of idols, politics, and war was there a place for an all-knowing, all-loving God. And then Constantine came face-to-face with just that. This was a God that had literally spoken to him. This was a God that he had sincerely tried to please. This was a God that had rewarded him for his obedience without the approval of the masses. The result was that Constantine took God seriously as someone at the other end of a deal while at the same time he tried to fix and adjust his understanding of the world.

What Constantine did marked a new era in Christianity. With the church finally granted the rights of a legal entity, the world was open to conversion. At the same time, this also opened up the church to corruption. Ever since the Protestant Reformation, we have been trying to relearn the lessons of the early church, to relearn what it means to follow Christ, because, though it was short-lived, it spoke the with the Lord's voice with a clarity now unmatched.