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“ ‘The Father… determined to call together in a holy Church those who would believe in Christ.’ This ‘family of God is gradually formed and takes shape during ht stages of human history, in keeping with the Father’s plan.”[1]

The whole of theology is a body that was born, grew and developed in the context of a living history of the saints of two thousand plus years, to our day.

Four units of the Deposit of Faith series deal with the question of history, for no other reason than to give some context to the development of doctrine throughout the many centuries that have gone by since the Resurrection of our Lord. They are interspersed among the theological disciplines, like all the other units, offering some basic introductory information with the hopes of leading the Gentle Reader into exploring further historical curiosities with more depth and precision.

Arianism. A heresy of the fourth century, founded by Arius, and denying the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Edict of Milan. In 313, Constantine proclaimed this law making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Gnosticism. The doctrine of salvation by knowledge. “It places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge.”[2]

Manichaeism. “Manichæism is a religion founded by the Persian Mani in the latter half of the third century. It purported to be the true synthesis of all the religious systems then known, and actually consisted of Zoroastrian Dualism, Babylonian folklore, Buddhist ethics, and some small and superficial, additions of Christian elements. As the theory of two eternal principles, good and evil, is predominant in this fusion of ideas and gives color to the whole, Manichæism is classified as a form of religious Dualism.”[3]

There are many ways of approaching History. There’s the famous teaching, now a popular adage, that “History is written by the victors.” This expression points out that, it seems we’re never quite sure actually what happened in the past, because it was passed on to us in writing, and therefore can never be more precise or correct than the fallible human authors who wrote all of this down.

And so it would seem that the world is a sort of prisoner to what we could call “historical relativism,” where a truth of something is never really believed because of the doubt we may have of the witnesses of past events.

Nonetheless, this mentality contradicts itself. If something in the past isn’t true, how do we know? It is because the mind is capable of discerning truth in general and some truths in particular. It is the labor of the historian to pick through what was said by one witness, then another and another, and, after assessing the credibility of the witness, determine the truth of events as they are narrated. Only because we can come to historical truth can we therefore know that occasionally a historian misrepresented one event or another.

Therefore, we can come to the knowledge of the truth, even in historical matters. Given that we can know history, we need to ask ourselves, what is the meaning of history, where did it originate and where is it going? The question is as profound as the question regarding what is the meaning of life or what is time.

St. Augustine[4] sees history springing forth from Christ, the Word from whom all things were made.[5] History began with creation, found its zenith in the Incarnation, and now prepares for its end when Christ comes again in his glory. Such a theological perception of history contrasts starkly with so much literature out there in the world today[6] full of materialism, anti-Catholicism, atheism, Marxism and other such ideological positions.

St. Paul talk about Jesus Christ coming to the world “in the fullness of time.”[7] It was his way of saying that, in a sense the world was “ready” to accept the arrival of the Incarnation. There was a huge cultural development, that of literature and philosophy among the Greeks, and that of political, juridical and social structure provided by the Romans. This development had reached heights the world thus far had never known. However, in the midst of such marvelous cultural development, there was a huge moral disaster simultaneously happening. It is as if the world had the means to do great things, but the human spirit was too weak to use that for good. St. Paul describes the nature of this moral disaster:

While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies... their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males... They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.[8]

The religions of the peoples into which the Church first spread had reduced religion to a function of the state and nation. They were involved with astrology, magic, divinization and necromancy. There was widespread interest in exotic religions, such as those of old eastern religions and the Egyptian Gods. This could be compared with some of the strains of New Age in our day which look to Druidic religion or the practice of magic.

Various philosophies were popular, only barely if at all distinguished from religions (justifying St. Paul’s condemnation of “philosophy” as it was seen and practiced in his day[9]). Epicureans stressed the drive to embrace a materialistic hedonism. Stoics (such as Zeno of Cittium, Marcus Aurelius or Seneca), whose philosophy was probably the most popular at the time of the birth of Catholicism, a philosophy that survived many centuries (322 b.c. – 429 a.d.), held a sort of humanistic morality and religion. Skeptics rejected any possibility for the human mind to possess the truth. Platonists held a theory and philosophy of the universe and its creation. Into this world of lost man, who sought to intellectually sort things out, the Word came. “Word” in Greek is “logos,”[10] a word also meaning “reason, argument, lecture, calculation,” and much more; therefore the first intellectuals who were converted to Christianity strove ardently to grasp the truths of creation and revelation with their minds. Origen was one of the first authors to write a systematic theology of Catholic teaching. There was even an expectation of a renovation of the whole world; Virgil[11] even said a child would come and bring it about.

When it comes to the Hebrew world, Catholics seem to possess, at large, more familiarity, due to Catholic education and occasional rich homilies. They were a people with a long history, and despite incredible odds persevered without being crushed, sustained objectively and subjectively by the fact that they were God’s chosen people, the humus from which the Messiah and Savior would be prepared. After Jesus was born, died, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, the Jewish nation suffered terrible blows. The worst of these was the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 63 a.d., a temple which was never rebuilt, although attempts were made, only to be flustered by nearly miraculous obstacles.

The Hebrews had been taken into captivity by the Egyptians, Assyrians (either 722 or 708 b.c.), then by the Babylonians (597), and now they were oppressed and occupied by the Romans.

The Greeks, however, were almost like a “second chosen people,” providentially prepared to receive the Gospel. They had a highly developed mythology, which was filled with philosophical speculation and commentary and a rich symbolism. Their language was amazingly developed, nuanced, structured and beautiful to the ear. They understood the power of the plastic and performing arts, they appreciated the mysteries of man and of metaphysics. Even the Jew Philo applied the methods of the genius Greek scholarship to the interpretation of the Pentateuch.

One can compare this ancient world to gun powder that was waiting for a spark, or nitroglycerine waiting for a shake. It was full of spiritual power, yet extremely unbalanced and unsettled, looking for something it could not find, or Someone.

The spread of Christianity started when Christ called his twelve apostles, and gave them power by the Holy Spirit, sending them into the world to teach, govern and sanctify. May pious Jews recognized in Jesus Christ the Messiah, and they were the first converts to believe in the Lord.

Several ancient authors from the classical period referred to the nascent Christian community, such as Trajan, who in a letter cited a part of St. John’s Gospel, Tacitus in his Annals[12] where he discusses Nero’s despicable persecution of the Christians of Rome, Plinius the Younger who in 112 discusses the Christians,[13] and Josephus Flavius.[14]

The first community of Jerusalem, during the time of the apostles, swelled to thousands. There were in one day three thousand converts, moved by the preaching of Peter.[15] The participated in the prayers in the temple with the rest of the Jews, but did not share with them the Eucharistic sacrifice. Peter, James and John were scourged,[16] Peter was imprisoned,[17] Stephen was stoned to death,[18] and a general persecution exploded to suppress Christianity. Tradition is that Philip spread the Gospel in Samaria, and Thomas went as far as India with the Word. It was in Antioch that they were called “Christians” for the first time.

James the Greater, in the year 44, was martyred in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa had him killed. James the Lesser was martyred in Jerusalem, where he acted as the local Bishop, by appointment of the other Apostles, around the year. 62 or 63.[19]

Then there was the great Apostle Paul. He had a Hellenistic formation, and studied under the greatest rabbi of the day. He was of the party of the Pharisees, and was zealous for the observance of the Jewish Law. When he was probably about 33 years of age, he had a vision of Christ. He spent two years in the deserts, or three, lived then in Damascus, then went to Jerusalem to meet Peter and James.

As a Christian he went first to Antioch and preached first to the Jews, but then also to the pagans. He went on four long apostolic journeys, the first around the year 49 or 50. He established communities and governed them[20] He was eventually martyred in Rome under Nero, having his head cut off in the manner of punishment proper to Roman citizens (in contrast to, for example, crucifixion).

Peter had been in prison under Herod Agrippa, but was miraculously freed. Eventually he settled in Antioch in Syria. During the time of Emperor Claudius he moved to Rome, where he lived first under Claudius then under Nero; Peter referred to Rome as Babylon.[21] He, too, died martyred there, but by crucifixion; tradition says that he was fleeing Rome during the persecution, but after a vision, returned to Rome to die, and asked to be crucified upside down as he did not consider himself worthy to die like Jesus.

John the Evangelist, the Apostle, seems to have stayed always in custody of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At some point after about 60, he moved to Ephesus, where his enemies attempted in vain to kill him. There he wrote the Gospel of St. John; the Apocalypse was written on the Island of Patmos. He had been exiled to that Island, probably by Domitian, after which he returned to Ephesus. He is believed to be the last of the Apostles to die, after a long life; Ireneaus says he lived to extreme old age, and died about the year 100.[22] St. Polycarp learned the Gospel from St. John himself.

In the next centuries, from about 100-300, Christianity spread to Rome, the Italian peninsula, Gaul, Spain, Germany, the Danube country, Britain, Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and India.

How the Church managed to pull together under one Pope, with local regions governed by Bishops, priests and deacons is one of the most debated issues in ancient ecclesial historicism.

Much more could be said about Peter’s role in the Acts of the Apostles, but this roster suffices to see how Peter had a totally outstanding role among the apostles, a role of being first among the rest.

The terminology for bishop (episkopos, or ejpivskopo~), priest (presbyter, or presbuvtero~) and deacon (diakonos, or diavkono~) were often a bit mixed up, but by 150 or 160 their usage was more codified and structure.[35]

Eventually, after the time of Constantine, the Roman dioceses developed into structures the Christians took advantage of to order their lives. A diocese was a political region of Rome that depended on a large city for its government and management. Of course, since that’s where the bishop dwelt, due to it’s centrality and practical efficiency of location. Diocletian eventually divided Rome in to twelve dioceses governed by “vicars.” The term used to describe the local Church governed by the bishop was “ekklesia” (ejkklhvsia), later the term “paroikia” (paroikiva, or “neighborhood”) was used. Again, the Church was going through the process of codifying it’s canonical terminology.

The Romans had an increasing hatred for the Christians, except for those many who were converted to the faith. Religion in those days had no private character, it was public. The Hebrew religion, with exceptions, was more tolerated since it was isolated to a certain geographical place. But the Christians seemed to not respect the Emperor, and certainly did not participate in the public cult. They did not attend the public spectacles[36] with their religious overtones, and sought to avoid military service for the pagan ritualism associated with the life of the soldiers.

The Christians were calumniated; the Hebrews called them atheists, schismatics and heretics. The Eucharist was understood popularly across the empire to be cannibalism, and stories circulated about how they ate children. Others said they adored the sun – a foolish error repeated to this day even in local universities – and they were blamed for being an “unproductive” class.

In the second century, the bloody side of the persecution took hold; by the third century, the state itself organized the persecutions. The judicial justification was that the empire was falling apart because of the abandon by the Gods, to whom the Christians turned their backs. To this accusation St. Augustine would later write the City of God, saying that the only thing Rome had going for it, in the history of salvation, was that there were Christians in it.

Nero got the famous Roman persecution underway. There was a fire in Rome in 64 a.d., with great devastation. Nero, a madman who had been Emperor even when he was still a teenager, accused the Christians. The mobs of Rome killed many, perhaps as many as 1,500, and the story changed from them causing the fire to them hating the whole human race. Fr. Laux cites the pagan Tacitus’ narration in full.[37] Nero was a musician, and traveled about the Empire singing and winning musical competitions; it is said he sang of the burning of Troy, looking upon the fires of Rome, doing nothing to sop them. He even once made human torches of crucified Christians in his Imperial gardens.

Domitian (81-96) started another persecution after relative peace under Vespatian and Titus. It was very brutal, but of lesser scope.

Trajan, under whom the Roman Empire reached its maximum geographical extension, persecuted Christians under the accusation that they were simply forming a society that wasn’t permitted. He wrote to Plinius the Younger in Asia Minor indicating that the Christinas should be punished.

Marcus Aurelius (161-180), the philosopher Emperor, declared in 176 that those who disturbed the peace by the introduction of a new cult should be punished, nobility by exile and plebe by death.

Septimus Severus (193-211) declared that circumcision (201) and baptism (202) were against the law.

Constantine, or “Constantine the Great,” was proclaimed Emperor by his own soldiers on July 25, 306. His full name was Flavius Valerius Constantinus.

At the battle of Ponte Milvio, or the Milvian Bridge, in 312 (see inset),[39] Constantine defeated Maxentius who had proclaimed himself emperor in Constantine’s absence. During the battle, Constantine looked into the sky and saw the Greek letters chi and rho, (XR in capitals, cr in lower case), with the expression, “By this sign you will conquer.”[40] In February of the following year, 313, he declared the Edict of Milan, a law that was exceptionally favorable to Christianity: it was now the religion of the Roman Empire.

Great heresies tormented the Church every since the very beginning. In the first centuries of the Church, the heresies that made the most impact – recognizing that there were other important ones as well – were Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Arianism (cf. Definitions, above).

Gnosticism was around even before the time of Christ, the Jews knew of it. It attacked Christianity by incorporating some elements of Christianity and of the bible with great fantasy. It typically reduced God to a principle, and in the world there were lesser forces. It’s origins are convoluted and unclear even to the scholars. Gnosticism is syncretistic and pantheistic. The Gnostic cosmos is created by a series of processions of gods or higher intelligences, and the processions eventually become degradations into matter; masculinity and femininity are used as mystical images. Gnostics had faith in the ultimate female symbol Sophia, enjoyed bizarre rites some of which even derived from Christianity, were involved with magic, and had elaborate schools and literature. Tertullian was the Gnostic’s most effective opponent. Gnosticism can be found today in New Age movements.

Manichaeism started in the middle of the third century. Mani (approx. 215-277) was born and raised in Babylonia to a religious and idolatrous father who was both a pagan and a locutionary. It’s core doctrine is its cosmogony, or how the world came into existence: it was through a series of conflicts and developments between the Good Principle and the Evil Principle. (This, too, is a prevalent philosophy on the street of our time and place.) Mani was a Gnostic in many senses. The Primates Manichaeorum were a bit like Buddhist monks; refraining from evil, they refrained from even sexual contact, and repudiated marriage as an evil thing, and they were forbidden from staying in one place to settle. The rest, who were too weak to live such celibate lives, were the auditores, or “hearers” or catechumens.

Arianism was founded by the layman Arius, who studied in Alexandria. It held that Jesus Christ was not God; that there was a time when the Son was not; and that he was inferior to the Father. It denied processions or begetting of God. It was refuted in Ephesus I, by the Cappidocian Fathers,[41] and Constantinople I, yet had spread widely around the Christian communities. The first German converts were Arians. Arianism became eventually a political power in the Christian Empire; in 350 Constantius, who was an Arian, became sole emperor and used his errors to spread his power.

The demands of morality in the early Christian communities were very high; people in our day would generally think they were unrealistic. For example, regular confession was not practiced; as it was the sacrament to forgive mortal sins after baptism,[42] and such sins were so rare, it was celebrated only if necessary and only once; some, even Augustine, said after a further recurrence with mortal sin, one could only hope for the mercy of God. Sins were regularly repented from by prayer, fasting and alms giving.

A different observance from the Jews immediately surfaced, regarding religion and the calendar. The Christians moved the Sabbath to Sunday instead of Saturday, which added further conflict with the Jewish nation among whom many Christians lived. The Jewish people fasted on Mondays and Thursdays; the Christians on Wednesdays and Fridays, and even then only to about 3pm.

A problem arose about when to celebrate Easter. The calendar of the gentiles converted to Catholicism (the Romans used the Julian or solar calendar ever since 45 b.c.) and the lunar calendar of the Jewish nation didn’t match up exactly. Some said it would be on the 14 of Nisan, others that it would be the Sunday after (not on) the first full moon after the spring equinox. The 14^th of Nisan, of course, wouldn’t always be a Sunday. So the Council of Nicea established the latter of the two rules. The result of the norms of Nicea is that Easter can fall on any of 35 days in spring, and each year it’s different.

Churches of Eastern rite, Orthodox and Catholic, adhered to the Julian calendar and still do ever since the Gregorian reform of the calendar in 1582. The Julian calendar had a flaw, that it was off 11 minutes per year, a flaw noted by an English Friar named Roger Bacon. Pope Gregorius XIII had a Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, Christopher Clavius, study the problem, and promulgated the fix: from the Julian calendar of three years of 365 days plus a leap year, he removed 8 of the 250 leap years every thousand years.[43] This is the Gregorian calendar which the Western Church uses, while the Eastern Church continues to calculate Easter on the Julian calendar. Therefore sometimes we have Easter on the same day, sometimes not.

[1] CCC 759.

[2] Cf. New Advent online Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm.

[3] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm.

[4] St. Augustine, Civitas Dei (City of God).

[5] Cf. Gospel of St. John 1:1 ff (known as the preface).

[6] Most history books in public – and Catholic! – schools in America, by all probability; or other works that pretend to be historical, for example, Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, or Edward Gibbon’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.

[7] Gal 4:4, Eph 1:10.

[8] Rom 1:22-32, passim.

[9] Col 2:8.

[10] Cf. Jn 1:1.

[11] Eclogue, IV.

[12] Tacitus, Annals, XV, 44.

[13] Plinius the Younger, Epistle, X, 96.

[14] Josephus, Antiquitate Idaicae, XX, 9, 1; XVIII, 3, 3; The Jewish War, 5.

[15] Acts 2:41.

[16] Acts 5:41.

[17] Acts 12:5.

[18] Acts 7:58-59.

[19] Fr. John Laux, Church History: A History of the Catholi Church to 1940, Tan Books (Rockford, IL: 1989), p. 35.

[20] This is the context of the prescribed reading for this unit 1 Cor 1:12 ff.; we see he addresses problems of factions in the early community, discusses how he sees his mission, and addressed particular questions urgent for the early Christian communities he governed.

[21] 1 Pet 5;13.

[22] Laux, p. 35.

[23] Mt 4:18; Lk 5:7-9; Jn 1:42.

[24] Mt 10:2; Mk 3:16; Lk 6:14; Acts 1:13.

[25] Mt 14:28, 30.

[26] Mt 16:18. Mk 8:29; Lk 9:20.

[27] Mt 17:4; 24-26. Mk 5:37; 13:3; 14:33; Lk 8:51; 9:28; 12:41; 22:8; Jn 18:11.

[28] Mt 18:21; 19:27. Mk 8:32; 9:5; 10:28; 11:21; Lk 8:45; 9:33; 12:41; 18:28; Jn 6:68; 13:6.

[29]

[30] Mt 26, passim; Mk 14, passim; Lk 22, passim; Jn 18, passim.

[31] Lk 22:61; Jn 21:15-19.

[32] Lk 24:12; Jn 13:36-37; 18:10; 20:2-6; 21:7.

[33] Jn 13:24.

[34] Jn 20:5-6.

[35] Thomas Bokenkotter, A Concise History of the Catholic Church, New York (Doubleday: 2004), p. 33. [Note to reader: I don’t recommend this text for occasional faulty theological suppositions and for a poorly applied historical-critical method in the author’s investigations.]

[36] This was often due to the immoral nature of the games. The “gymnasium” was so named for the Greek word, gymnos, “nude.” Men were often killed as part of the fun.

[37] Laux, p. 35.

[38] A great list of the Roman Emperors can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Emperors.

[39] Compliments of http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi84.htm#Today. The Milvian bridge was the oldest bridge in Rome until Garibaldi blew it up.

[40] This expression is, in Latin, In Hoc Signo Vinces, or tou`tw/ nikh`/ in Greek; Eusebius reported it as tou`tw/ nivka. It is possible that the famous IHS acronym is from the Latin expression. Some also think that IHS stands for JESUS, as in Greek the first three letters are IHS. A third series of popular explanations of IHS is that it stands for Iesus Hostia Salvator, Latin for Jesus, Host [and] Victim; Iesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus Savior of Men; Iesus Homo Sanctus, Jesus the Holy Man; Iesus Hostia Sanctus, Jesus the Holy Host; or even the German Jesus Heiland der Sünder, Jesus the Salvation of Sinners.

[41] Fr. Laux, p. 119-122.

[42] St. Irenaeus of Lyon; Clement of Alexandria.

[43] The exact rule is that at the century boundaries, a leap day shall be observed only when the century number is wholly divisible by 400. October 5 - 14, 1582 were simply deleted when the Gregorian calendar was promulgated, as they set the date forward by ten days to correct the Julian problem.

Emperor[38]	Year
Nero	64
Domitian	81-96
Trajan	98-114
Marcus Aurelius	161-180 (176)
Septimus Severus	201-211
Maximinus Thrax	235-236
Decius	249-251
Gallus	251-253
Aurelian	270-275
Diocletian	284-305