Chapter 13: How Early Christianity Was Corrupted. Christianity was like a precious treasure that the apostles entrusted to spirit-filled men of the highest character. This treasure was safeguarded by a nearly impregnable stronghold fortified by four towering walls. These four walls were: 1) the firm conviction that there was no new special revelation after the time of the apostles, and an ultra-conservative spirit that equated change with error.
2) The Church's separation from the world, protecting Christianity from being influenced by the currents of worldly attitudes and practices. 3) The voluntary practice of referring questions to the elders and churches where the apostles had taught. 4) The independence of each congregation, making it difficult for any erroneous teachings to spread quickly through the Church. As long as these four walls remained intact, apostolic Christianity was fairly safe from any major adulteration.
Perhaps these walls would have eventually deteriorated with the passage of time, but we will never know because they were battered down first. However, they weren't battered down by the brutal force of persecution. For nearly 300 years, Satan had brought wave after wave of intense persecution against the Church, but the protective walls remained firm, unyielding. In fact, persecution served as a refiner's fire, separating the gold in the Church from the dross.
It took Satan nearly three centuries to figure this out. However, once he did, he was able to accomplish in a few decades what he had been unable to do in 300 years. Instead of using brute force to crush Christianity, he now simply used flattering persuasion to destroy it from within. This principle reminds me of one of Aesop's fables I read when I was a small boy. One day, the sun and the wind were heatedly arguing over who was mightier.
As neither one was willing to concede that the other was stronger, the sun proposed they put their strength to a test. The winner of the test would be acknowledged as the stronger. Spying a man wearing a woolen cloak walking down a country road, the sun proposed that each would try to force the man to take off his coat. The wind agreed that this would be a fair test. The sun invited the wind to proceed first, and the sun retreated behind a cloud.
The wind unfurled all of its might, hitting the man with a gust of wind so strong that it nearly knocked him off of his feet. As the man struggled to walk, the wind, howling like a locomotive, blew harder and harder against him. Although he could barely stand up, the man did not take off his cloak; he only wrapped it tighter around himself. Panting and exhausted, the wind finally gave up. The sun then emerged from behind a cloud and gently beamed its warm rays onto the man.
Within a few minutes, the man, feeling uncomfortably warm, removed his cloak. Likewise, when Satan tried to coerce Christians by force, he failed miserably. However, when he laid out the red carpet and showered gifts, praise, and honor on the Church, she capitulated almost instantly. Our first subheading: The Shift from Lifestyle to Doctrine. As I stated previously, there was very little change in the principal beliefs of Christians between the second and the third centuries.
However, by the middle of the third century, the Church had lost some of its spiritual vitality. Many Christians began to adopt the immodest styles and materialistic pursuits of the world. Larger numbers of Christians denied Christ in times of persecution. As the Church was losing some of its spiritual vitality, its ecclesiastical structure was becoming more rigid. Christians began viewing their leaders more as sacramental priests than as teachers and preachers.
Also, the bishop of Rome was asserting special claims of authority over other churches. It has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. In Christianity, theology is the last refuge of a spiritually weak church. Theology requires no faith, no love, and no sacrifice. A faithless Christian who has no real relationship with God can give mental assent to a list of doctrines the same as the spiritually strongest Christian can. So, as the Church weakened, it began to place greater emphasis on doctrine.
By the end of the third century, after an extended period without persecution, bickering between churches over doctrinal issues had become fairly widespread. The church historian Eusebius, who lived during this period, records the sad situation that had developed. He said, "On account of the abundant freedom granted by the government, we fell into laxity and sloth.
We envied and reviled each other and were almost as it were taking up arms against one another, leaders assailing leaders with words like spears, and people forming parties against people." As a result, the Church was spiritually unprepared for the tidal wave of savage persecution that engulfed the Church at the beginning of the fourth century. Our next heading: How Constantine Tried to Christianize the Empire. Ever since the time of Nero in the first century, there had been no continuing dynasty of Roman emperors.
Instead, an emperor usually reigned only a short while before he was overthrown by a rival claimant to the throne. In 306 AD, several rivals shared the ruling power of the Roman Empire. Severus ruled Italy and North Africa, and Constantine ruled Britain and Gaul. Two other men ruled the Eastern Empire. When Severus was dethroned by a rival named Maxentius, Constantine declared himself to be the sole legitimate emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
Constantine was a born leader, a decisive man of action who could both inspire and organize people. Soon after declaring himself to be the sole emperor of the West, he began a slow march across the Alps to Rome to dethrone Maxentius. After a string of victories, Constantine began the final leg of his march on Rome in AD 312. During that march to Rome, he had an experience that was to have a profound impact on the course of Christianity and on the history of the world.
Eusebius, the church historian, later described what Constantine told him had happened. "He said that about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the sign of a cross of light in the heavens above the sun bearing the inscription, 'By this conquer.'" In addition, Constantine said he later had a dream in which Christ told him to construct a military standard in the form of a cross. This standard would protect him in all battles with his enemies.
As a result of these experiences, Constantine ordered a special military standard to be constructed. It consisted of a gold-plated spear placed upright, transversed by a shorter bar forming the shape of a cross. A gold wreath studded with jewels was laid over the crossbar, and the initials of Christ were placed inside the wreath. Carrying this standard into battle, the armies of Constantine decisively defeated those of Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, about two miles outside the walls of Rome.
Constantine became the sole ruler of the Western Empire, and he credited his victory to the God of the Christians. Constantine's subsequent relationship to the Church can only be understood in light of the relationship that Roman emperors had always had with the religion of their subjects. The Romans were basically a religious people, and they attributed their success and prosperity as an empire to the gods who had blessed them.
Religion in the Roman Empire was a public matter, and religion and state had always been closely intertwined. Invocations and sacrifices were made to the gods during public ceremonies, and public worship of the gods was considered a matter of patriotic duty. To offend the gods was a crime against the state.
Now, Constantine genuinely believed that the Christian God had given him his victory and that this same God would now protect the Roman Empire as long as the emperors worshiped him and the Church was faithful to him. So Constantine began showering blessings on the Church and its leaders.
In conjunction with the Eastern Emperor, he issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, which says in part, "We resolve to grant both to the Christians and to all men freedom to follow the religion which they choose, so that whatever heavenly divinity exists may be favorably inclined toward us and to all who live under our government." Notice that Constantine did not require everyone in the empire to become a Christian.
He simply gave Christianity legal recognition for the first time, putting it on an equal footing with all other religions in the empire. Nevertheless, Christianity was now the religion of the emperor himself, which gave it prestige over all the pagan religions. Many church buildings had been destroyed in the persecution that preceded Constantine's enthronement. So Constantine had most of these church buildings rebuilt at public expense.
He also began paying salaries out of the state treasury to the leaders of most churches, and he passed laws specifically exempting church leaders from any obligatory state service. Constantine did this to enable the leaders to devote their full time and energy to their congregations. He believed that a spiritually healthy church would ensure God's continuing favor on the empire. Constantine also promoted Christians to positions of prominence in the state and surrounded himself with Christian advisors.
He even had Christian bishops accompany his troops into battle to ensure God's favor. Our next subheading: The Walls Begin to Crumble. For two and a half centuries, Christianity had remained relatively unchanged, being protected by four massive walls. But the outermost wall, the ultra-conservative spirit of the early church, was threatened. In the past, any new doctrine or practice had been automatically rejected by the church.
But after Constantine's conversion, the church began to re-examine their attitude that change was necessarily wrong. For example, the church had always considered it heretical to pay salaries to church leaders. However, when Constantine offered salaries to the church leaders, the church reconsidered the matter and decided to accept them. The church began proclaiming that a new age had dawned for Christianity and that the old ways of doing things no longer had to be followed.
Christians told themselves that God had changed the rules. Eusebius wrote, "It must seem to all who duly regard these facts that a new and fresh era of existence had begun to appear, and a previously unknown light suddenly began to dawn from the midst of darkness on the human race.
And all must confess that these things were entirely the work of God, who raised up this pious emperor to withstand the multitude of the ungodly." In describing how leaders of the church were invited into the emperor's own chambers to socialize with him, Eusebius sounds more like a star-struck child than a mature leader of the church.
He said, "The men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost of the imperial chambers, where some were the emperor's own companions at the table, while others reclined on couches on either side. One might have thought that a picture of Christ's kingdom was shadowed forth, that this was a dream rather than a reality." The outermost wall had been breached. The church no longer equated change with error. Rather, the church began believing that Christianity could actually change for the better.
Perhaps apostolic Christianity wasn't the pinnacle of Christianity, but only the beginning. The possibility of new special revelation was accepted. Christians now applied to the church Haggai's prophecy about the rebuilt temple, where he said, "The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former." Yes, the church was now ready to soar to new heights. Our next heading: How Friendship with the World Ruined the Church.
The next wall of protection was the church's separation from the world, and this wall was also soon demolished. The church was like a naive young girl who had been suddenly swept off her feet by a rival suitor. The world wanted to be friends with the church, and the church saw no harm in reciprocating. For the first time in history, it was socially prestigious to be a Christian. Preference was given to Christians in appointments to state offices.
However, the world's friendship utterly gutted the very soul of the church. As Constantine began passing laws to "Christianize" Roman society, the distinction between Christians and non-Christians became blurred. In the past, there had been little to attract anyone to the church other than a genuine faith in God. Fair-weather converts were ferreted out as soon as it came time to carry their crosses. Unregenerated persons in the church were a small minority.
But now that Christianity was socially rewarding, people began flocking into the church in hordes. Already spiritually weak, the church was simply unable to assimilate such a large mass of new so-called converts. Before long, the name Christian became a meaningless description. It merely indicated that a person gave mental assent to a particular creed and that he had partaken of the various Christian rites, such as baptism. It no longer meant he had a changed life.
One of the immediate effects of the church's friendship with the world was that it began adopting the world's methods. This was inevitable because the world can't do things God's way. To do things God's way requires God's power, and mobs of unregenerated people using the name Christian don't have God's power. Nor do they even want to do things God's way since God's way requires patience, willingness to suffer, and absolute trust in Him.
Now, at first, the innovative methods of the world seemed more effective than the old ways of doing things. For example, the church changed its method of coping with persecution and government oppression. In the past, Christians had simply tried to hide or flee from persecution. They refused to physically fight their persecutors or retaliate against them. However, the crowds of unregenerated persons who had bloated the church weren't about to meekly accept death, torture, or oppression.
For example, when Constantine's son sent one of his generals to Constantinople to depose the church's bishop, the congregation formed a mob. That night, when the general was asleep, the mob set his lodging house on fire. When he finally ran out of the house, dazed and coughing from the smoke, they pounced on him. Then they dragged him through the cobblestone streets of the city and savagely beat him to death. This was no isolated case.
It was the normal response of the fourth-century church to government oppression. The character of Christianity had changed. The world also had a different means of handling heretics. Constantine reasoned that the church would be much healthier if there were no heretics around to mislead people. So he tried to use his power to eradicate heresy, issuing the following edict.
"Understand now by this present statute, you Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulicians, and Montanists, and all the rest of you who devise and support heresies by means of your private assemblies, that your offenses are so hateful and altogether atrocious that a single day would be insufficient to recount them all. Since it is no longer possible to tolerate your deadly errors, we hereby give you warning that none of you are to meet together hereafter.
We have therefore ordered that your meeting places be taken from you, and you are expressly forbidden to hold your superstitious and senseless meetings, not only in public, but also in private homes or any other place." Only a few decades previously, it had been a crime to be a Christian. Now, it was a crime to be a heretic. And the church silently accepted this development without protest. How much easier it was to use the authority of the state to silence heretics instead of having to argue with them.
But soon, large segments of the church were labeling each other as heretics and using the sword against each other. Eventually, far more Christians, a hundred times more Christians, were slaughtered by the sword of the church than had ever been slain by the pagan Romans. Sad to say, when the Muslim armies invaded Egypt in 639 AD, many Christians in Egypt welcomed them as liberators, for they fared better at the hands of the Muslims than they did at the hands of their fellow Christians.
Our next subheading: Evangelism Through Dazzling Architecture. Originally, Christians had held their services in private homes. As congregations grew, they converted houses into meeting places, calling these prayer houses. No one was attracted to the early church by the architecture of its buildings, but rather by its teachings and by the godly lives of the people in the church. However, Constantine reasoned that many people would be attracted to Christianity if church buildings were more impressive.
So at state expense, he constructed lavish church buildings that rivaled the magnificence of pagan temples. The new church buildings were arrayed with impressive colonnades and vaulted ceilings. Many of them had beautiful fountains and elegant marble floors. Constantine wanted it to be difficult for an unbeliever to walk past a church building without being tempted to peer inside because of the beautiful architecture. And his idea worked splendidly.
Pagans were attracted to the magnificent church buildings, and thousands of them were, "converted" as a result. Our next subheading: Instead of carrying their cross, Christians now marketed the cross. Next, Constantine's mother, Helena, got into the act. Following directions that she said God had given her in a dream, she journeyed to Jerusalem and claimed that she had found the tomb of Jesus. She also said that she found three crosses in the tomb, but she didn't know which one belonged to Jesus.
So the three crosses were taken to a terminally ill woman who supposedly was instantly cured when she touched the true cross of Jesus. Well, this started a wave of relic mania. Within a short time, relics were appearing everywhere: bones of prophets, pieces of the cross, garments worn by the apostles, and so on. Thousands of people were supposedly cured by touching or viewing these relics. Eventually, these relics were hawked by vendors who created a rather lucrative business from them.
In the late 500s, a lady of nobility asked Gregory, the bishop of Rome, to send her the skull of the apostle Paul to be placed in a church she was building in honor of Paul. Gregory replied in this manner in a letter to her, "I am distressed that I neither can nor dare do what you ask. For the bodies of the apostles St. Peter and St.
Paul glitter with such great miracles and terrors in their churches that one cannot even go to pray there without great fear." Gregory went on to relate how a priest had been struck dead when he accidentally tried to move some of Paul's bones. Gregory continued in his letter saying, "You should know that it is not the custom of the Romans when they give relics of saints to presume to touch any part of the saint's body. Rather, only a cloth is put into a box and placed near the sacred bodies of the saints.
When the cloth is taken up, it is deposited with due reverence in the church that is to be dedicated. The effects produced thereby are just as powerful as if their bodies had been brought to that special place." Gregory went on to describe how one Roman bishop had cut one of these blessed pieces of cloth with a pair of scissors, and blood flowed from the cloth, supposedly. Few occasions were more attractive to the common people of Rome than feasts.
One of the customs of the early Christian congregations had been to remember their local martyrs by having a love feast and a memorial service on the anniversary of the martyr's death. While some innovative Christians now realized they could attract non-believers to the church by expanding these martyrs' feasts into festive public celebrations, the idea worked beautifully, and soon entire towns were, "converted this way." Our last subheading: Does Growth Indicate God's Blessings?
Once the church opened itself to change, how could it know whether God approved the changes? The church thought the answer was easy, mistakenly thinking that growth automatically indicates God's approval. Christianity had grown rapidly in the first three centuries, but after the conversion of Constantine, the church mushroomed. At the time of the Edict of Milan, AD 313, probably about a tenth of the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity. But that had taken nearly 300 years.
But in less than a hundred years after the Edict of Milan, nearly all of the other 90% had been, "converted." The church believed that this rapid growth was a sure sign of God's approval. Having accepted this premise, the church quickly adopted virtually any practice that resulted in growth, including the use of images in worship, a practice utterly loathsome to the early Christians. In summary, two of the protective walls of early Christianity were now in ruins.
Only two remained: one, the referral of questions to apostolic churches, and two, the independence of each congregation. Unwittingly, Constantine demolished both those walls with one single event: the Council of Nicaea.