Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up — David Bercot

Defining Early Christianity

Who were the early Christians? By the term early Christians, we are primarily referring to the Christians who lived between 90 and 199 A .D. The Apostle John was still living at the beginning of this period.

The first generation of early Christians were men like Polycarp who had been personally taught by one or more of the Apostles. The period ended with a man who was only one human link removed from John, Irenaeus, a pupil of Polycarp.

By the term early Christianity, we are referring to beliefs and practices of the worldwide community of early Christians who maintained bonds of fellowship and communion with each other. We are not referring to the beliefs or practices of anyone labeled as a heretic by that church.

So we're not describing the entire field of wheat and weeds mixed together, but only the wheat. Although this presentation primarily focuses on the Christians who lived between 90 and 199, the common beliefs and practices of these early Christians were generally maintained by Christians living in the next century.

For that reason, the discussion that follows will also include quotations from writers who lived between 200 and 313, as long as their teachings agree with those who lived in the period immediately after the Apostles.

Were these the early Church Fathers, you may ask? These men were not Church Fathers. Most of them were fairly ordinary, hard-working Christian leaders with above-average education. They would have been highly indignant at being called Church Fathers.

The only Church Fathers they recognized were the Apostles. Actually, the very fact that these writers were not Church Fathers is what makes their writing so valuable. If these men had been great founders of theology, their writings would be of limited value to us.

They would simply tell us what doctrines these particular founding theologians had developed. But these men did not write theological treatises. In fact, no one in the second century Church can even be called a theologian in the modern sense, and there is no real systematic theology in the entire pre-Constantine Church.

Instead, the early Christian writings primarily consist of 1. apologetic works explaining universally held Christian beliefs to the Romans and Jews, 2. works defending apostolic Christianity against heretics, and 3. correspondence between churches.

These writings are a witness to what the Church in general believed and practiced during the period shortly after the Apostles had died. This is what makes them invaluable. In fact, the only person during the entire period between 90 and 313 who can rightly be called a theologian is Origen.

But Origen didn't impose his views on other Christians. Instead, he was one of the least dogmatics of all the writers of the early Christian period, and this was an age when nobody was very dogmatic on matters beyond the few essential Christian doctrines.

One of the noticeable features of early Christianity is the relative lack of rigidly defined theological dogma. In fact, the further one goes back in Christian history, the less defined dogma he finds.

Nevertheless, there still were some essential doctrines and common practices that all Orthodox Christians held to. This presentation will focus on these common or universally held beliefs and practices.

To that end, we have not represented any beliefs or practices as being those of the early Church in general unless they met the following criteria. All early Christian writers who mention the subject express the same view, and at least five early Christian writers, separated by time or geographical distance, discuss the subject.

Actually, most of the matters discussed in this presentation are supported by testimony from more than five writers, citizens of another kingdom. The three distinguishing marks of the early Church were separation from the world, unconditional love, and childlike obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The Three Marks of Early Christianity

1.

Separation from the World. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

2. Unconditional Love. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

3. Obedient Trust. You believe in God, believe also in me. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. 4.

Separation from the World and Materialism

Separation from the World. No one can serve two masters, declared Jesus to his disciples, Matthew 6 .24. However, Christians have spent the greater portion of the past two millenniums apparently trying to prove Jesus wrong.

We have told ourselves that we can indeed have both the things of God and the things of this world. Many of us live our lives no differently than do conservative non-Christians, except for the fact that we attend church regularly each week.

We watch the same entertainment, we share the same concerns about the problems of this world, and we are frequently just as involved in the world's commercial and materialistic pursuits. Often, our being not of this world exists in theory more than in practice.

But the church was not originally like that. The first Christians lived under a completely different set of principles and values than the rest of mankind. They rejected the world's entertainment, honors, and riches.

They were already citizens of another kingdom, and they listened to the voice of a different master. This was as true of the second-century church as it was of the first. The letter to Diognetus, the work of an unknown author, written in about 130, describes Christians to the Romans as follows.

They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time they surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, but are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned. They are put to death, but restored to life.

They are poor, yet they make many rich. They possess few things, yet they abound in all. They are dishonored, but in their very dishonor are glorified. And those who hate them are unable to give any reason for their hatred.

Because the earth wasn't their home, the early Christians could say without reservation, like Paul,.

To live is Christ, to die is gain.

Justin Martyr explained to the Romans,.

Since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men put us to death. Death is a debt we must all pay anyway.

A second century elder exhorted his congregation,.

Brothers, let us willingly leave our sojourn in this present world so we can do the will of Him who called us. And let us not fear to depart out of this world, deeming the things of this world as not belonging to us, and not fixing our desires upon them.

The Lord declares, No servant can serve two masters. If we desire then to serve both God and money, it will be unprofitable for us. For what will it profit if a man gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

This world and the next are two enemies. We cannot therefore be the friends of both.

Cyprian, the respected overseer of the church in Carthage, stressed a similar theme in a letter he wrote to a Christian friend,.

The one peaceful and trustworthy tranquility, the one security that is solid, firm, and never changing, is this. For a man to withdraw from the distractions of this world, anchor himself to the firm ground of salvation, and lift his eyes from earth to heaven.

He who is actually greater than the world can crave nothing, can desire nothing from this world. How stable, how unshakable is that safeguard! How heavenly is the protection in its never-ending blessings!

To be free from the snares of this entangling world, to be purged from the dregs of the earth, and fitted for the light of eternal immortality.

The same themes run throughout all the writings of the early Christians, from Europe to North Africa. We can't have both Christ and the world. Lest we think that the early Christians were describing a lifestyle that they didn't really practice, we have the testimony of the Romans themselves.

One pagan antagonist of the Christians remarked,.

They despise the temples as houses of the dead. They reject the gods, they laugh at sacred things. Wretched, they pity our priests. Half-naked themselves, they despise honors and purple robes. What incredible audacity and foolishness!

They are not afraid of present torments, but they fear those that are uncertain and future. While they do not fear to die for the present, they fear to die after death. At least learn from your present situation, you wretched people, what actually awaits you after death.

See, many of you, in fact by your own admission, the majority of you are in want, are cold, are hungry, and are laboring in hard work. Yet your God allows it. He is either unwilling or unable to assist his people.

So he is either weak or unjust. Take notice. For you there are threats, punishments, tortures, and crosses. Where is the God who is supposed to help you when you come back from the dead? He cannot even help you in this life.

Do not the Romans, without any help from your God, govern, rule over, and have the enjoyment of the whole world, including dominion over you yourselves. In the meantime, living in suspense and anxiety, you abstain from respectable pleasures.

You do not attend sporting events. You have no interest in public amusements. You reject the public banquets and abhor the sacred games. Thus, wretched as you are, you will neither rise from the dead nor enjoy life in the meanwhile.

So if you have any wisdom or sense, stop prying into the heavens and the destinies and secrets of the world. Persons who are unable to understand civil matters are certainly unable to discuss divine ones.

When we read the criticisms that the Romans leveled against the Christians, we must painfully realize that no one would accuse Christians today of those same charges. We aren't criticized for being totally absorbed in the interests of a heavenly kingdom, ignoring the things the world has to offer.

Unconditional Love and Practical Holiness

In fact, Christians today are accused of just the opposite. We are accused of being money-hungry and hypocritical in our devotion to God. A Love Without Condition. At no other time in the history of Christianity did love so characterize the entire church as it did in the first three centuries, and Roman society took notice.

Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim,. Justin Martyr sketched Christian love this way,. Clement, describing the person who has come to know God, wrote,.

He likewise considers the pain of another as his own pain, and if he suffers any hardship because of having given out of his own poverty, he does not complain.

When a devastating plague swept across the ancient world in the third century, Christians were the only ones who cared for the sick, which they did at the risk of contracting the plague themselves. Meanwhile, pagans were throwing infected members of their own families into the streets even before they died in order to protect themselves from the disease.

Another example illustrates both the brotherly love of Christians and their uncompromising commitment to Jesus as Lord. A pagan actor became a Christian, but he realized he had to change his employment because most plays encouraged immorality and were steeped in pagan idolatry.

Furthermore, the theater sometimes purposefully turned boys into homosexuals so they could better play the roles of women on stage. Since this newly converted actor had no other job skills, he considered establishing an acting school to teach drama to non-Christian students.

However, he first submitted his idea to the leaders of his church for their counsel. The leaders told him that if acting was an immoral profession, then it would be wrong to train others in it. Nevertheless, since this was a rather novel question, they wrote to Cyprian in nearby Carthage for his thoughts.

Cyprian agreed that a profession unfit for a Christian to practice was also unfit for him to teach, even if this was his sole means of support. How many of us would be so concerned about righteousness that we would submit our employment decisions to our body of elders or board of deacons?

How many church leaders today would be so concerned about offending God that they would take such an uncompromising position? But that isn't the end of the story. Cyprian also told his neighboring church that they should be willing to support the actor if he had no other means of earning a living, just as they supported orphans, widows, and other needy persons.

Going further, he wrote, Cyprian and his church didn't even know this actor, yet they were willing to support him because he was a fellow believer. As one Christian told the Romans, If Christians today made such a statement to the world, would the world believe it?

The love of the early Christians wasn't limited simply to their fellow believers. Christians also lovingly helped non-believers, the poor, the orphans, the elderly, the sick, the shipwrecked, even their persecutors.

Jesus had said, The early Christians accepted this statement as a command from their Lord, rather than as an ideal that couldn't be actually practiced in real life. Lactantius wrote,.

No matter how guilty he may be. For this reason, God has declared that we should hate no one, but that we should eliminate hatred, so we can comfort our enemies by reminding them of our mutual relationship.

For if we have all been given life from the same God, what else are we but brothers? Because we are all brothers, God teaches us to never do evil to one another, but only good, giving aid to those who are oppressed and experiencing hardship, and giving food to the hungry.

The Scripture teaches that a Christian shouldn't take his brother to court. Rather, he should suffer fraud at the hands of his brother, if need be. 1 Corinthians 6 -7. In contrast to many professing Christians today that don't hesitate to sue their brothers and sisters in Christ, early Christians not only refuse to take their fellow Christians to court, most of them refuse to take anyone to court, since they viewed every human as their brother or sister.

It's no wonder that Christianity spread rapidly throughout the ancient world, even though there were few organized missionary or evangelism programs. The love they practiced drew the attention of the world, just as Jesus said it would.

Obedient Trust in God

A Childlike Trust in God. To the early Christians, trusting God meant more than a teary-eyed testimony about the time I came to trust the Lord. It meant believing that even if obedience to God entailed great suffering, God was trustworthy to bring a person through it.

A person who does not do what God has commanded shows he really does not believe God, Clement.

Declared. To the early Christians, to claim to trust God while refusing to obey him was a contradiction. 1 John 2 -4. Their Christianity was more than verbal. As one early Christian expressed it,. One distinguishing mark of the early Christians was their childlike, literal obedience to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.

They didn't feel they had to understand the reason for a commandment before they would obey it. They just trusted that God's way was always the best way. Clement asked,. They trusted God because they lived in awe of his majesty and wisdom.

Felix, a Christian lawyer in Rome and a contemporary of Tertullian, put it this way,.

God is greater than all our perceptions. He is infinite, immense. Only he truly understands his true greatness. Our hearts are too limited to really understand him. We are making a worthy estimation of him when we say that he is beyond estimation.

Anyone who thinks he knows the magnitude of God diminishes his greatness.

The supreme example of their absolute trust in God was their acceptance of persecution. From the time of the Emperor Trajan, around A .D. 100, until the Edict of Milan was issued in 313, the practice of Christianity was illegal within the boundaries of the Roman Empire.

Being a Christian was a crime punishable by death. But the Roman officials didn't generally hunt out Christians. They ignored them unless someone formally accused a person of being a Christian. As a result, persecution was intermittent.

Christians in one town would suffer horrible tortures and death, while Christians in a nearby area would be untouched. It was totally unpredictable. Yet every Christian lived daily with the death sentence hanging over his head.

The very fact that Christians were willing to suffer unspeakable horrors and to die rather than disown their God was, next to their lifestyle, their single most effective evangelistic tool. Few, if any Romans, would die for their gods.

There had to be some substance to Christianity if it meant so much to those who practiced it. In fact, the Greek word for witness is martyr. Not surprisingly, this is also the Greek word for martyr. In many places where our Bibles use the word witness, the early Christians were reading martyr.

For example, in our Bibles, Revelation 2 .13 refers to Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city. The early Christians were understanding the passage to say, Antipas, my faithful martyr.

Although most Christians tried to flee local persecution when possible, they rejected any mass exodus from the Roman Empire. Like little children, they believed their master when he said his church would be built on a rock and that the gates of Hades would not overpower it.

Matthew 16 .18. They realized that thousands of them might die monstrous deaths, experience excruciating tortures, and suffer imprisonment. But they were absolutely convinced that their father wouldn't let the church be annihilated.

Christians stood before the Romans with naked hands, letting them know that Christians would not use human means to try to preserve the church. They trusted God and God alone as their protector.

As Origen told the Romans, When God gives the tempter permission to persecute us, we suffer persecution. And when God wishes us to be free from suffering, even though surrounded by a world that hates us, we enjoy a wonderful peace.

We trust in the protection of the one who said, Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. And truly he has overcome the world. Therefore the world prevails only as long as it is permitted to by him who received power from the Father to overcome the world.

From his victory we take courage. Even if he should again wish us to suffer and contend for our faith, let the enemy come against us. We will say to them, I can do all things through Christ Jesus our Lord who strengthens me.

Origen had lost his father to persecution when he was a teenager, and he himself eventually died from torture and imprisonment at the hands of the Romans. Yet with unshakable confidence he told the Romans,.

Eventually every form of worship will be destroyed except the religion of Christ, which alone will stand. In fact, it will one day triumph, for its teachings take hold of men's minds more and more each day.

Christianity Against Cultural Conformity

Is right and wrong simply a matter of culture? Early Christianity was a revolution that swept through the ancient world like fire through dry timber. It was a countercultural movement that challenged the pivotal institutions of Roman society.

As Tertullian wrote, Our contest lies against the institutions of our ancestors, against the authority of tradition, against man-made laws, against the reasonings of the worldly wise, against antiquity,.

And against customs. How strange it is, therefore, that the modern Church claims that the Christians of the first few centuries were merely teaching and practicing the culture of their day. This is particularly ironic since the Romans bitterly criticized the Christians for just the opposite, for not following the cultural norms of their day.

But the relationship of the early Christians to their culture is not simply a matter of past history. It is something that should deeply concern the Church today. For most of the cultural issues facing 20th century Christians are the very same issues that faced the early Church.

Divorce and Marriage in Roman Society

However, our response to these issues has generally been quite different from theirs. Divorce, a Roman Plague. As in most societies, the family was the core unit of Roman civilization. But as is true today, marriages were often unhappy.

Both husbands and wives frequently had lovers. By the time of Christ, extramarital affairs on the part of both husbands and wives were so frequent that they were no longer scandalous. Not surprisingly, divorce was fairly commonplace.

Roman men and women often married four or five times. As Tertullian remarked,.

As for divorce, women longed for it as though it were the natural consequence of marriage.

In Roman society, most marriages were arranged by the parents of the bride and groom. Newly wedded couples were not usually in love with each other and often hardly knew each other on their wedding day.

Frequently, there was a considerable age difference between husband and wife. This was true among Christians as well as Roman society in general. So it would be far easier to justify divorce in Roman society than in 20th century America.

Nevertheless, the early Christians didn't rationalize matters from a human viewpoint. Even though divorce was considered perfectly proper in their society, they didn't permit divorce except for adultery.

As Origen wrote, Christians took Jesus' words seriously when he said,. The strict position of the early Christians against divorce obviously was a reflection of their culture. But what about our attitude toward divorce?

Haven't our views followed the trends of our culture? Forty years ago, an evangelical Christian wouldn't have dreamed of divorcing his or her spouse merely because of incompatibility. Today, the divorce rate among evangelicals is fast approaching that of the world.

What has changed? Certainly not Scripture. Rather, the conservative block of American society has changed its views on divorce. Evangelicals often pride themselves for opposing worldly attitudes and trends, but in reality, what we so often oppose is merely the liberal segment of the world.

Modesty, Dress, and Public Bathing

Once a practice is accepted by the conservative element, the Church soon follows in stride. Divorce is a prime example. High Fashion and Low Modesty. Peter had instructed women, Paul gave similar instructions,.

But which is proper for women professing godliness with good works.

In giving these exhortations, the apostles weren't simply reinforcing the cultural norms of their day. They were doing just the opposite. A fashionable Roman woman used virtually every beauty aid that her modern-day counterpart uses.

She began the day by arranging her hair and putting on her makeup. She painted her lips, applied black eyeshadow, put on false eyelashes, coated her face with white powder, and smoothed rouge onto her cheeks.

She wore her hair in an elaborate hairdo, complete with curls, bangs, and ornate layers of braids. Some women wore imported wigs from India, and many dyed their hair blonde. Roman women adorned the rest of their bodies as much as their faces.

When going out, they would array themselves with jewels, often wearing expensive rings on every finger. Fashionable women insisted on wearing gowns made of imported materials, such as silk, even though, pound for pound, silk cost as much as gold.

Clement commented whimsically, The body of such ladies wouldn't fetch a thousand drachmas, but they will pay ten thousand talents for a single dress, so their clothes are worth more than they are.

Even many Roman men wore cosmetics and dressed as lavishly as the women. In contrast, the Church discouraged the use of cosmetics and exhorted men and women to be content with simple clothing. Not only was simple clothing less costly, but luxurious dresses were often transparent and clung sensuously to a woman's figure.

Clement remarked,.

Luxurious clothing that cannot conceal the shape of the body has no covering at all. Such clothing clinging close to the body takes the body's shape and adheres to the flesh. It outlines the woman's figure so that the whole shape of her body is visible to spectators.

Even though they cannot actually see the body itself, such clothing is meant for looking, not for covering.

Nevertheless, the early Church did not try to legislate the type of clothing Christians should wear. While the Church emphasized the principles of simple, modest dress, the specific application of those principles was left up to the individual Christian.

Aside from clothing, the Christian standard of modesty for both men and women also differed from those of Roman society. This was particularly apparent in public and private baths. Few other societies, except for the Japanese, have had such a penchant for hot baths.

Bathing was the national pastime, and public baths were one of the primary meeting places of Roman society. In the early days of the Roman Republic, baths for men and women had been strictly segregated.

However, by the 2nd century, mixed bathing in the nude was customary. Upper-class Romans often had baths in their homes, but modesty there was little different. Clement describes these private baths,.

Some women will scarcely undress in front of their own husbands out of a pretense of modesty, but anyone else who wants to may see them at home shut up naked in their baths, for they are not embarrassed to strip before spectators as if exposing their bodies for sale.

Those who have not become utterly destitute of modesty shut out strangers, yet they bathe with their own servants. They even strip naked in front of their slaves and are massaged by them.

In sharp contrast, Christians taught that men and women should not bathe publicly in each other's presence. Their attitudes toward modesty wasn't a reflection of Roman culture, but of Gothic culture. Don't the Roman attitudes on modesty also have their parallels in today's American society?

Most Americans would be quite embarrassed to be seen in public in their underwear, yet they would think nothing of relaxing at a poolside in swimsuits that are no less revealing. And don't we Christians generally follow right along with our culture?

Entertainment, Violence, and the Arena

We appear in public in swimwear that would have shocked even non-Christians only 50 years ago. Yet, because our swimwear is acceptable to the modern conservative community, we think nothing of it. Roman R-Rated Entertainment.

Upper-class Romans enjoyed a lot of leisure time. They filled their evenings and holidays with gluttonous banquets, the theater, and sporting events at the arena. Banquets sometimes lasted as long as 10 hours.

It was not unheard of for a banquet to consist of 22 courses, including such delicacies as pig's udders and peacock tongues. But Christians took no delight in these gluttonous feasts. The Roman theater was borrowed from the Greeks, and the favorite dramatic themes were crime, adultery, and immorality.

Either boys or prostitutes played the female roles. Although the theater was a favorite pastime of educated Romans, Christians shunned the theater with disgust. Lactantius wrote,.

They teach adultery by acting it out. How do we expect our young people to respond when they see that these things are practiced without shame and that everyone eagerly watches? Tertullian added, He asked rhetorically, How can those things which defile a man when they go out of his mouth not defile when going in through his eyes and ears?

Although it was mainly upper-class Romans who attended the theater and banquets, the rich and poor alike enjoyed the arena. The games in the arena were designed to quench the Romans' undying thirst for violence, brutality, and blood.

The brutal chariot races were the favorite event. In the course of these races, chariots would inevitably crash, catapulting their drivers onto the racetrack, where they would either be dragged to death by the panic-stricken horses or trampled by another driver's team.

All the while, the crowd would go wild with excitement. However, the death and violence that accompanied chariot racing failed to satisfy the Roman thirst for blood. So wild animals, sometimes hundreds of them, were brought into the arena to fight each other.

Wolves against stags, lions against bulls, packs of dogs against bears, and just about any other combination that twisted minds could dream of. Sometimes armed men hunted down animals. Other times, starved animals hunted down unarmed Christians.

But the Romans wanted even more. So human gladiators were pitted against each other to fight to the death. Gladiators were normally prisoners who had already been condemned to death. The Romans thought they were being noble to give these men a fighting chance.

If a gladiator triumphed in repeated fights, he could eventually win his freedom. Once again, however, Christians didn't follow the culture of their day. Lactantius told his fellow Romans,.

He who finds it pleasurable to watch a man being killed, even though the man has been legally condemned, pollutes his conscience just as much as though he were an accomplice or willing spectator of a murder committed in secret.

Yet they call these sports, where human blood is shed. They see men placed under the stroke of death, begging for mercy. Can they be righteous when they not only permit the men to be killed, but demand it?

They cast their cruel and inhuman votes for death, not being satisfied by the mere flowing of blood or the presence of gashing wounds. In fact, they order the gladiators, although wounded and lying on the ground, to be attacked again and their corpse to be pummeled with blows, to make certain they are not merely feigning death.

The crowds are even angry with the gladiators if one of the two isn't slain quickly, as though they thirsted for human blood. They hate delays. By steeping themselves in this practice, they have lost their humanity.

Therefore it is not fitting that we who strive to stay on the path of righteousness should share in this public homicide. When God forbids us to kill, He not only prohibits the violence that is condemned by public laws, but He also forbids the violence that is deemed lawful by men.

Are we willing to take such an uncompromising stand toward entertainment today? After reading such counsel, do we step back and take a look at ourselves? Does our culture dictate our standards for entertainment?

Perhaps you avoid movies that would be considered risqué by the conservative community, yet you end up watching entertainment that was saturated with violence, crime, and immorality, so long as the motion picture industry didn't give the movie a rating worse than PG -13.

Equality, Wealth, and Christian Brotherhood

If so, you let the motion picture industry decide for me what is or isn't fit to see. Your culture has determined your standards for entertainment. To the Romans, all persons were not created equal. Virtually every human society has maintained class distinctions, and Rome was no exception.

Wealthy Romans looked down on poor Romans. Freemen looked down on slaves. Certain occupations were viewed as superior to others. Even the Jews had such class distinctions among themselves. Roman citizens viewed themselves as superior to all other peoples.

Once again, however, the early Christians went against the cultural current of the day. In fact, their teachings on the brotherhood of man were nothing short of revolutionary. Clement wrote,.

I possess and possess in abundance, so why should I not enjoy? It is suitable neither for the individual nor for society. More worthy of love is, I have, so why shouldn't I give to those who need? It is monstrous for one person to live in luxury while many are in want.

Writing a century later, Lactantius stated,.

In God's sight, no one is a slave, no one is a master. Since we all have the same father, we are all equally his children. No one is poor in God's sight except the one lacking in justice. No one is rich except the one without an abundance of virtues.

The reason why neither the Romans nor the Greeks could possess justice was that they had so many class distinctions, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the lowly, the highest authority of kings, and the common individual.

However, someone may say, Isn't it true that among Christians some are poor and others are rich, some are masters and others are servants? Isn't there some distinction between persons? But there is none.

In fact, the very reason we all call each other brothers is that we believe we are all equal. Although the physical circumstances of Christian lives may differ, we view no persons as servants. Instead, we speak of them and treat them as brothers in spirit and as fellow servants of Christ.

Women, Apostolic Teaching, and Church Authority

The Role of Women in Roman Religion. Paul had told the Corinthians,.

And he told Timothy, With all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.

In no other area are the Scriptures so frequently attacked today than on this teaching about the role of women in the Church. It's frequently said that the Apostles and early Christians were simply reinforcing the cultural attitudes of their time concerning the role of women in religion and society.

But Roman women were hardly known for their submissive character. As one Roman commented, In Roman religions, women served in the same roles as men. Female high priestesses governed many temples. Mark Felix, a Christian lawyer, described Roman religion this way,.

It is a crime for a slave even to be present at some religious ceremonies. Some temples are governed by a woman with one husband and others by a woman with many husbands.

In fact, the leading religious figure in the ancient Mediterranean world was the oracle or prophetess of Delphi. And this oracle was always a woman. If the role of women in the Church had been simply a matter of culture and not apostolic teaching, we would expect to find that women served the same roles in both the Orthodox Church and the heretical groups.

But this isn't the case. Women were allowed to teach and officiate in most heretical sects. Tertullian made this comment about the role of women in such groups,. So the exclusion of women from roles of teaching and oversight in the Church was definitely not a matter of Roman culture.

Wait a minute, you may be thinking, maybe the Church didn't follow Roman culture in this matter, but it was certainly following Jewish culture. And it's true that women were excluded from the Jewish priesthood.

But remember that the Jewish priesthood wasn't a product of human culture, it was divinely instituted. Furthermore, by the middle of the 2nd century, the vast majority of Christians were Gentiles, and they most definitely didn't follow Jewish culture.

They didn't keep the Sabbath, practice circumcision, follow Jewish dietary laws, observe Jewish festivals, or follow any other Jewish customs that didn't specifically coincide with Christian teaching.

The early Church simply obeyed the apostolic teachings on the role of women in the Church, the same as they obeyed all the other teachings of the apostles. And once again, they went against Roman culture rather than following it.