"The Early Church" by Henry Chadwick

 A classic authoritative account of the history of the Christian church from c 35 CE (immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus) up to the late 500s CE. 

I was seeking some information on the doctrinal disputes of the early church: I wanted to understand the theological bases for heresies and orthodoxies; this wish was not well satisfied. Although Chadwick does spend some time explicating the theologies, he is much more interested in the power struggles. These could get tedious.

The final chapter summarises the overall historical trends and, for my money, could well have come first to structure the narrative. Chadwick suggests that the priorities for the first century was to move away from the apostolic tradition, with its availability of actual witnesses, towards a written tradition: this was a period in which the development of some sort of authorised canon was important. Simultaneously, the church was endeavouring to develop its organisation from a few local cells, each of a few believers, to an empire-wide religion; the speed with which Christianity spread surprised even the faithful. Once Christianity became a state sponsored religion, there were tussles for power and influence between the head honchos of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch and other places; these were at about the same time as the Roman Empire was splitting into two, or three, or four, and warring claimants were trying to unify the empire (under themselves). 

A thorough account of a turbulent time, but I have found it difficult to develop a clear overview.

Some interesting moments:

• “Paul perceived that the doctrine of the imminent end of the world was a liability rather than an asset in evangelizing the Greek world where the dominant speculative interest was in the beginning of things." (C 1)
• "The Ophites (i.e. serpent worshippers) argued that since through the serpent Adam and Eve had come to have knowledge of good and evil, he was a good power, the Leviathan encircling the cosmos with his tail in his mouth to symbolise eternity, who had out-maneuvered the inferior creator and his son Jesus.” (C 2)
• "The existence of four versions of the gospel was a troublesome puzzle in itself. Marcion ... accepted only one.” (C 2)
• “Christianity did not give political emancipation to either women or slaves, but it did much to elevate their domestic status by its doctrine that all are created in God’s image and all alike redeemed in Christ; and they must therefore be treated with sovereign respect." (C 3)
• “In Christian eyes the intense particularity of Judaism was incompatible with its own monotheistic principles: was not their God the God of the Gentiles also? (cf. Rom. iii, 29–30).” (C 3)
• “Tertullian’s conception of the Christian life is first and foremost as a battle with the devil. This led him to ... conceive of the intellectual task of the Christian thinker as a conflict with diabolical forces. ... If he could outmanoeuvre the devil by dialectical subtlety, so much the better.” (C 5)
• “Throughout the fifth century poetry and secular historical writing tended to remain in pagan hands.” (C 11)
• “Detachment from vanity fair was easier to those who expected the end of the world in the imminent future than to those who expected the historical process to roll on and who possessed some modest property to pass on to their children.” (C 12)
• “A force of peasant monks was an ideal instrument for destroying pagan temples and for conflicts with heresy.” (C 12)
• “Evagrius loved sharp, pregnant, obscure maxims.” (C 12)
• “since nature also is the good gift of the Creator. Nothing ‘natural’ can be evil. The sex instinct is only wrong when used in a way outside the limits laid down by God,” (C 15)
• “dancing did not succeed in becoming a natural and approved vehicle of religious expression, except in Ethiopia.” (C 18)
• “The representation of Christ as the Almighty Lord on his judgement throne owed something to pictures of Zeus.” (C 18)

November 2020