Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (175 page)

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Authors: Diarmaid MacCulloch

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87
Stringer, 42.

88
Harline,
Sunday
, 4-6.

89
Goodman, 454, 469-70, 530-31.

90
Acts 11.26; see Goodman, 539-40.

91
For a careful though not dogmatically positive account of the evidence for Peter's death in Rome, see J. Toynbee and J. Ward-Perkins,
The Shrine of St Peter and the Vatican Excavations
(London, 1956), 127-8, 133, 155-61.

4: Boundaries Defined (50 CE-300)

1
John Rylands Library, Manchester (UK), Greek Papyrus P
52
: for a careful dose of cold water on attempts to date the fragment more closely, see B. Nongbri, 'The Use and Abuse of P
52
: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel',
HTR
, 98 (2005), 23 - 48.

2
C. Markschies,
Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen: Prolegomena zu einer Geschichte der antiken christlichen Theologie
(Tubingen, 2007), 32. I am grateful to James Carleton Paget for pointing me to this reference.

3
Romans 16.5-8. On the question of authenticity in Paul's letters, see p. 1045, n, 53.

4
I Corinthians 9.14: cf. Synoptic parallels Matthew 10.10-11, Luke 10.7-8.

5
II Thessalonians 3.6 (my italics). There is a good discussion of this point in G. Theissen,
The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth
(Edinburgh, 1982), 33-54. For a vigorously contrary view, emphasizing the poverty of Pauline Christian communities, see J. J. Meggitt,
Paul, Poverty and Survival
(Edinburgh, 1998).

6
Romans 16.23 - both men send greetings to the Christians in Rome. An inscription for Erastus, 'aedile at Corinth', may well be a reference to this same man and a testimony to his high social status: W. A. Meeks,
The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul
(New Haven and London, 1983), 58-9.

7
I Corinthians 11.17-34.

8
I Corinthians 10.23-32.

9
I Corinthians 7.20.

10
Romans 13.1: cf. Jesus's ambiguous response when shown a coin of the emperor: Mark 12.17 and Matthew 22.21.

11
Galatians 3.28.

12
I Corinthians 10.21.

13
J. A. Harrill,
Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social and Moral Dimensions
(Minneapolis, 2006), 6-16, 177-8. A tradition about the letter has Onesimus stealing money from Philemon and then running away from his master to meet Paul, for reasons unknown (cf. ibid., 6-7). This has no basis in the text and probably arose from a desire to make sense of the letter's peculiar content. The survival of the tradition unchallenged in much modern scholarship is remarkable.

14
I Peter 2.13, 18-24: the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, like many other translations, bowdlerizes the word
oiketai
to 'servants'. It means 'house-slaves'. This material is part of the
Haustafeln
, discussed pp. 118-19.
15
G. M. E. de Ste Croix, 'Early Christian Attitudes to Property and Slavery', in D. Baker (ed.),
Church, Society and Politics: Papers Read at the Thirteenth Summer Meeting and the Fourteenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society
(
SCH
, 12, 1975), 1-38, esp. 20-21.

16
The classic statement of the case is E. Schussler Fiorenza,
In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins
(London, 1983).

17
C. Tuckett,
The Gospel of Mary
(Oxford, 2007), 101 [
Gospel of Mary
18.11-15] and see esp. 52-4, 201-3; E. Pagels and K. L. King,
Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
(New York and London, 2007), 35-7. On the gnostics, see pp. 121-5.

18
Romans 16.1-7, 12; U. E. Eisen,
Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies
(Collegeville, 2000), esp. on Junias, 47-8, 54, 56, and on deacons, 159-98.

19
I Corinthians 11.3-15; 14.34.

20
A classic and careful account of the arguments against Ephesians being authentically Pauline is C. L. Mitton,
The Epistle to the Ephesians: Its Authorship, Origin and Purpose
(Oxford, 1951).

21
Ephesians 2.7.

22
Ephesians 6.1-4.

23
I Timothy 2.15.

24
Ephesians 5.23. Cf. an elaborate argument by Paul about our release from the Jewish Law, based on the analogy of a wife's release from marriage by her husband's death, Romans 7.1-6.

25
I Timothy 3.7.

26
Titus 2.5.

27
C. Osiek, 'The Self-defining Praxis of the Developing
Ecclesia
', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 274-92, at 281; Goodman, 118, 245-8.

28
I Corinthians 7.1-9.

29
Acts 4.32-end; 5.1-11.

30
Leviticus 25.

31
I Timothy 2.11-12.

32
Stringer, 39-41; it is difficult to locate or date the
Didache
, but scholarly opinion inclines to the late first century and a setting in Syria/Palestine.

33
D. Williams, 'Justification by Faith: A Patristic Doctrine',
JEH
, 57 (2006), 649-67, at 654.

34
D. Brakke, 'Self-differentiation among Christian Groups: The Gnostics and Their Opponents', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 245-60, at 247-9.

35
J. D. Turner and A. McGuire (eds.),
The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration
(Leiden, 1997), esp. 4-8 for an account of the discovery. For a selection of gnostic texts from here and elsewhere, see Barrett (ed.), 92-119.

36
E. M. Yamauchi, 'The Issue of Pre-Christian Gnostics Reviewed in the Light of the Nag Hammadi Texts', in Turner and McGuire (eds.),
Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years
, 72-88, esp. 87.

37
Scholars once commonly held that early Egyptian Christianity was particularly closely associated with gnosticism, the case being first strongly argued by W. Bauer,
Rechtglaublichkeit und Ketzerei im altesten Christentum
(Tubingen, 1934). This view has been carefully refuted by C. H. Roberts,
Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt
(London, 1979), esp. Ch. 3.

38
S. Davies (ed.),
The Gospel of Thomas Annotated and Explained
(London, 2003), 54-5 [Log. 42].

39
M. Franzmann, 'A Complete History of Early Christianity: Taking the "Heretics" Seriously',
JRH
, 29 (2005), 117-28, at 120, qu. Epiphanios,
Panarion
26.4-5.

40
A moderate (though widely criticized) exposition of gnostic opposition to authority and sympathy to female potential is E. Pagels,
The Gnostic Gospels
(New York, 1979), especially 48-69.

41
See discussion and texts in E. Pagels and K. L. King,
Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
(London, 2007), 59, 67-8, 71-4, 113.

42
Titus 1.14.

43
Historians up to modern times have tended to follow Irenaeus of Lyons's assertion that Marcion mutilated the texts of Paul and Luke which he used: see Stevenson (ed., 1987), 92. For strong arguments to the contrary, and general discussion of Marcion's use of Luke, see A. Gregory,
The Reception of Luke and Acts in the Period before Irenaeus: Looking for Luke in the 2nd Century
(Tubingen, 2003), 175-210.

44
M. Frenschkowski, 'Marcion in arabischen Quellen', in G. May and K. Greschat (eds.),
Marcion und seine kirchengeschichtliche Wirkung
(Berlin, 2002), 39-63, at 46-9, 62.

45
On Harnack and Marcion, W. H. C. Frend, 'Church Historians of the Early Twentieth Century: Adolf von Harnack',
JEH
, 52 (2001), 83-102, at 85, 101.

46
W. R. Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch
(Philadelphia, 1985), 238, 243-4.

47
D. Trobisch,
The First Edition of the New Testament
(Oxford, 2000), esp. 6-7, 72-7, 106-7.

48
On Clement being read liturgically at Corinth and indeed elsewhere, see Eusebius, 147 [III.16]; 201 [IV.23.11].

49
D. R. Cartlidge and J. K. Elliott,
Art and the Christian Apocrypha
(London and New York, 2001), 15-18, 143-8, 169.

50
D. H. Williams,
Tradition, Scripture and Interpretation: A Sourcebook of the Ancient Church
(Grand Rapids, 2006), 82-3, qu. Irenaeus,
Proof of the Apostolic Preaching
3.6-7.

51
See the account of their election in Acts 6.1-6.

52
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 12.

53
Ibid., 8-9. The original, Isaiah 60.17, is translated in the Revised Standard Version as 'I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness.'

54
Various modern scholars have questioned the authenticity and early second-century date of Ignatius's letters: for summary effective replies, see A. Brent, 'The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch',
JEH
, 57 (2006), 429-56, at 429-32.

55
Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch
, 238.

56
Brent, 'The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch', 433.

57
This case is made ibid. and in A. Brent,
Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origins of Episcopacy
(Edinburgh, 2007).

58
For the possibility that Peter's death in Rome is less secure than that of Paul, see pp. 110-11. For the earliest assertions that Peter was Bishop of Rome, in the mid-fourth century, see p. 294.

59
The first church building on the site, apart from a small shrine, was put up probably as late as 354; and for a useful summary history, including the disastrous fire and almost equally disastrous rebuilding of 1823, see M. Webb,
The Churches and Catacombs of Early Christian Rome
(Brighton and Portland, 2001), 207-13.

60
Cartlidge and Elliott,
Art and the Christian Apocrypha
, 135.

61
The evidence for the excavated shrine being the actual grave of St Peter is strong but not absolutely conclusive: see J. Toynbee and J. Ward-Perkins,
The Shrine of St Peter and the Vatican Excavations
(London, 1956), 127-8, 133, 155-61.

62
Frend, 130, 146-7.

63
A. Hastings, '150-550', in Hastings (ed.), 25-65, at 30.

64
Brakke, 'Self-differentiation among Christian Groups', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 245-60, at 255-6.

65
Stringer, 67-8. For imitation of this stational worship in the later West, see p. 347, and in Byzantium, see p. 193.

66
V. Fiocchi Nicolai, F. Bisconti and D. Mazzoleni,
The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscriptions
(Regensburg, 1999), 165.

67
J. Stevenson,
The Catacombs: Rediscovered Monuments of Early Christianity
(London, 1978), 31-2.

68
W. Tabbernee,
Fake Prophecy and Polluted Sacraments: Ecclesiastical and Imperial Reactions to Montanism
(Leiden and Boston, 2007), 399-400. Tabbernee was among the rediscovery team (ibid., ix, xxix, 116, 258-9); his book is now the best overview of Montanism.

69
I. Backus,
Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich and Wittenberg
(Oxford, 2000), xii; I. Backus,
Historical Method and Confessional Identity in the Era of the Reformation (1378-1615)
(Leiden, 2003), 131-4, 148-52. On radicals, mainstream Protestants and the Last Days, see pp. 623-4 and 772-4.
70
This is a case well argued in A. Stewart-Sykes, 'The Original Condemnation of Asian Montanism',
JEH
, 50 (1999), 1-22.

71
G. Salmon in W. Smith and H. Wace (eds.),
Dictionary of Christian Biography
(4 vols., London, 1877-87), III, 941, s.v. Montanus.

72
Colossians 2.8.

73
A. Lukyn Williams (ed.),
Dialogue with Trypho the Jew
(London, 1930), 4-20 [Chs. 2-9].

74
Ibid., 127 [Ch. 61]. For Philo's use of
logos
, see Barrett (ed.), 262-5.

75
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 120.

76
Ibid., 167.

77
Cf. ibid., 164, 176.

78
For Tertullian's use of '
trinitas
', see M. Wellstein,
Nova Verba in Tertullians Schriften gegen die Haretiker aus montanistischer Zeit
(Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1999), 218-20.

79
Lukyn Williams (ed.),
Dialogue with Trypho the Jew
, 113 [56.11].

80
Brakke, 'Self-differentiation among Christian groups', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 255-6; F. M. Young, 'Monotheism and Christology', in Mitchell and Young (eds.), 452-69, at 461.

81
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 184, 186.

82
Eusebius, 257 [VI.11.6].

83
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 180.

84
Ibid., 184.

85
Ibid., 187.

86
A. Le Boulluec (ed.),
Clement D'Alexandrie: Les Stromates: Stromate V
(
Sources Chretiennes
278, 1981), 38-9 [V.1.9.4]; A. Le Boulluec (ed.),
Clement D'Alexandrie: Les Stromates: Stromate VII
(
Sources Chretiennes
428, 1997), 128-9 [VII.6.34.4].

87
Stevenson (ed., 1987), 188-9.

88
J. Boswell,
Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century
(Chicago and London, 1980), 140, 147, 164, 355-9.

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