30 September 2012

In search of Isolde and her lost tower

Upper Exchange Street ... is it Upper Isolde Street or Upper Exchange Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

I spent most of today in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, first at the Cathedral Eucharist this morning, and at the ordination of two priests, the Revd Yvonne Ginnelly for Monkstown Parish and the Revd Martin O’Connor for Saint Anne’s and Saint Stephen’s, in the afternoon.

In between, I had lunch in Beirut Express in Dame Street, and took a stroll through Temple Bar book hunting in the barrows and the second hand stalls.

For less than €10, I came away with three treasures, including an edition of George Herbert’s poems to add to a growing collection.

But on my way from Parliament Street through Essex Street to the cathedral, I was taken aback yet again by the ways in which English-language street names can rendered in Irish by the Temple Bar and city council authorities.

At the corner of Essex Street, Upper Exchange Street has been rendered in Irish as Sráid an Mhalartáin Uachtarach, or Street of the Upper Exchange – did no-one know how to translate it into Upper Street of the Exchange, or did they think there were two exchanges?

At the corner of Lord Edward Street, opposite the former Royal Exchange, which became the City Hall in 1852, and the entrance to Dublin Castle, the same people have translated Upper Exchange Street as Sráid Iosóilde Uacht or Upper Isolde Street.

One English name and two Irish names for one short, narrow street is some achievement. And this one small, narrow street even has two postal districts. If you approach it from the south end it is in Dublin 8, but if you approach it from the north end it is in Dublin 2. Perhaps it was an old ruse to confuse the Vikings. But then, I suppose, as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

A choice between the historicity of the Royal Exchange and the legendary royal princess Isolde may be difficult to argue about in a week when Wagner’s opera, Tristan und Isolde, is being staged in Dublin tonight [Sunday 30 September 2012], on Wednesday and on Saturday.

Wagner’s opera is based on the Nordic legend of Iseult or Isolde, an Irish princess who had been promised in marriage to King Mark of Cornwall. However, she drank a love potion and fell in love with the king’s nephew, the Cornish knight Tristan who was charged with her safe passage across the Irish Sea.

Legend says that when she could not fulfil her love for Tristan, Isolde took a death potion. The whole affair was hardly a good career move for Tristan. Realising his faux pas, he too drank a death potion.

The legend gave its name to Isolde’s Tower, a 13th century mediaeval tower that was part of the old city walls in Dublin. The tower was the first part of the city’s defences facing any sea-borne attack. Originally, the River Poddle ran around the eastern side of the tower, and the city wall continued from two sides of the tower, which rose to a height of three storeys and had walls that were four metres thick.

But even before the end of the Middle Ages, much of the Poddle was culverted. By the late Middle Ages it had fallen into disuse and it was partly demolished at the same time as Buttevant Tower – mentioned by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake – at the corner of Upper Exchange Street and Essex Street, made way for Essex Gate.

The tower was rediscovered in the 17th century, but most of it was destroyed and covered in soon after. The hidden remains were yet again discovered in 1993-1997 during building work.

Having discovered “Upper Isolde Street,” I spent a few minutes before returning to the cathedral in search of the remains of Isolde’s Tower. But they were not to be seen this afternoon. Instead, the surviving remains of the tower are hidden behind an iron grille, about midway on the river side of Lower Exchange Street, which links Fishamble Street and Essex Street West and near Dublin’s Viking Adventure.

The developers were supposed to have provided public access to Isolde’s Tower but the gate was locked, and it appears it always it. Isolde’s Tower is one of Dublin’s treasures, but how long is it going to remain hidden and disguised?

This could be a major tourist attraction, given its location close to Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, Temple Bar and the site associated with the first public performance of Handel’s Messiah. A conservation plan is being prepared to upgrade the presentation of the tower to include lighting, an historical explanation, maintenance and cleaning. Now, I think, that deserves more attention than providing double and inconsistent translations of the city’s street names and confusing the postal deliveries.

29 September 2012

Blackberries, brambles and memories for Michaelmas

Blackberries and brambles near the beach at Grestones, Co Wicklow, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

Today, 29 September, is Michaelmas, the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. Because this feast day falls near the equinox, it is associated with the beginning of autumn and the closing-in of the evenings. In many parishes it is associated too with Harvest Thanksgiving.

Michaelmas also marks the beginning of new seasons and terms in the law and in academic life, and Michaelmas term ends towards the end of December. There are still memories of this as one of the quarter days, when debts were settled and outstanding accounts were paid. The other traditional “quarter days” are Lady Day (25 March), Midsummer Day (24 June) and Christmas Day (25 December).

According to an old Irish superstition, blackberries should not be picked after Michaelmas. According to folklore, when the Archangel Michael expelled the Devil from Heaven on this day, he fell into a blackberry bush, cursed the brambles he had fallen into, and continues to spit on them after this day.

But there were few ripe blackberries among the brambles in Greystones, Co Wicklow, this afternoon – the lack of warm summer sunshine in the past few months means many of them are still red and waiting to ripen although autumn has arrived.

Cormorants on the rocks between the harbour and the beach in Greystones this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

The temperature was hovering around a comfortable 16 all afternoon. As we walked above the cliffs, between the harbour and the beach, a group of cormorants sat along the craggy rocks, while out in the water there was a flurry of yachts and a lone ship waiting to move into Dublin Bay. The water and the sky were predominantly blue, and the views stretched back north as far as a sun-kissed Howth Head.

The Happy Pear ... a happy pair had lunch here this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Greystones is spoiled for restaurants. And this afternoon a happy pair went for lunch in the Happy Pear on Church Road. The Happy Pear includes under one roof a natural food market with organic and non-organic sections, and a café and restaurant.

Later we went for a walk on the beach, and back up around the cliffs and rocks again. The sky and the waters remained blue, and I wondered what the full mon would be like in this sky and on these waters later tonight.

Sir Jacob Epstein’s bronze statues of Saint Michael and the Devil on the wall outside Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On the way back to Knocklyon, driving through golden autumnal countryside, my mind wandered a little this Michaelmas as I thought of Jacob Epstein’s statue of Saint Michael at Coventry Cathedral, mused over a story about Saint Michael’s Church in Lichfield with Comberford connections, and recalled lazy afternoons in Michaelhouse in Cambridge.

When Basil Spence commissioned Jacob Epstein, some members of the rebuilding committee objected. They said some of his earlier works were controversial. And, although Coventry was at the centre of post-war reconciliation, some even objected, saying Epstein was a Jew.

To this, Spence retorted: “So was Jesus Christ.”

Saint Michael above the main door into Saint Michael’s Church in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Michael’s Church, overlooking the cathedral city of Lichfield, is reputedly one of the oldest Christian sites in England. The churchyard has some amazing graves, including one known as the “saddle-back grave,” and another shaped almost like a funerary urn.

The ‘saddleback’ grave in Saint Michael’s Churchyard, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Kate Gomez, who writes a blog called Lichfield Lore [http://lichfieldlore.co.uk/], told the story two weeks ago of Saint Michael’s, its bells and its monuments. The parish launched a Bell Restoration Fund last month.

The Marquis of Donegall, whose family owned Comberford Hall after it had been sold to pay the debts and mortgages of the Comberford family, had erected a spacious mausoleum near the chancel in Saint Michael’s for his family, the Chichesters of Fisherwick Hall.

However, when Kate visited Saint Michael’s last month, she could find no trace at all of the ostentatious Chichesters. However, a booklet on the history of the church told how the mausoleum had become infested by rabbits and they were breeding in the coffins. The mausoleum was replaced by a stokehold during restoration work in 1842-1843, and the bones of Lord Donegall’s family were buried elsewhere.

Michaelhouse café and Saint Michael’s Church (on the left) on Trinity Street, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Another Saint Michael’s Church houses one of my favourite coffee shops in Cambridge. Michaelhouse is a café located in Saint Michael’s Church in Trinity Street in the oldest part of Cambridge, only a few steps from Sidney Sussex College, around the corner at the end of Green Street. It stands opposite Gonville and Caius College and is close to Great Saint Mary’s Church, Trinity College and King’s College Chapel.

Saint Michael’s is a 14th century parish and collegiate church. But, while Michaelhouse is an award-winning café and restaurant, the place remains a church – you could say it offers refreshment for both body and soul. Church services are still held in the chancel several days a week, and the mediaeval Hervey de Stanton Chapel offers a peaceful space that is also used at times for concerts.

Michaelhouse recalls the name of one of the earliest Cambridge colleges, which flourished from 13234until 1546, when it was merged with King’s Hall to form Trinity College. Michaelhouse was the second residential college in Cambridge, following Peterhouse (1284) – although King’s Hall was established in 1317, it did not acquire premises until it was re-founded by King Edward III in 1336.

At the time of the dissolution of the monastic houses, Michaelhouse had an income greater than that of Westminster Abbey. The clergy of Michaelhouse served Saint Michael’s Parish until the college was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1546. It was merged with its neighbour, King’s Hall, to form Trinity College, which is the largest and wealthiest college in Cambridge to this day.

Nothing much remains of the original Michaelhouse buildings, apart from Saint Michael’s Church.

The interior of Saint Michael’s Church, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After a fire in 1849, the church was rebuilt by George Gilbert Scott and his son, George Gilbert Scott junior. In time, the parish was too small to be sustainable, and it was finally united with Great Saint Mary’s Church, the university Church, in 1908.

By the early 1990s, the church buildings were in need of significant repair, and an ambitious fundraising and building got under way. The Michaelhouse Centre opened in 2002, and is now a key cultural and spiritual location in the heart of Cambridge, a unique community resource and a place of beauty and tranquillity.

Driving back from Greystones, Co Wicklow, this afternoon through fields of autumn greens and golds (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

The Collect of Saint Michael’s Day:

Everlasting God,
you have ordained and constituted the ministries
of angels and mortals in a wonderful order:
Grant that as your holy angels always serve you in heaven,
so, at your command,
they may help and defend us on earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

28 September 2012

Moonlight sonata at Dublin Bay

Moonlight glistening on Dublin Bay last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

Three of us were feeling homesick for a little Greek food last night, and as we were already on the north side of Dublin we booked a late table at Cape Greko in Malahide.

Cape Greko, which opened eight years ago, is Malahide’s first Greek and Cypriot restaurant. It is on the corner of New Street, and some of the tables have views of the marina and the coast.

Cape Greko takes its name from the Cape Greko peninsula in Cyprus, and the head chef, Demetris Pierei, has been influenced by different regions in Greece and Cyprus.

Demetris Pierei has a passion for traditional Greek Cypriot cooking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Demetris has a passion for traditional Greek Cypriot cooking that began at an early age when he began working in local tavernas and hotels in Cyprus. He then studied to become a chef and patisserie in Larnaca Institute of Technology and worked in some of Cyprus’s renowned five-star hotels in the Paralimni and Protaras resort area.

He moved to Ireland in 2001 with his Irish wife. When he opened his restaurant in Malahide, he remained true to his roots, offering Greek Cypriot-inspired cuisine in Cape Greko.

Cape Greko appeared in Trevor White’s The Dubliner’s “100 best restaurants in Dublin” in 2006, and has also appeared in the Georgina Campbell guides.

Cape Greko’s logo, an amphora, on the stairs leading up to the restaurant last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Cape Greko’s logo is an amphora, the narrow-necked jar and two handles used in classical Greece for storing and carrying win and olive oil. But we had more than wine and olive oil last night; we had three dishes:

Mousaka came in the traditional form of layers of sliced courgettes, aubergines, potatoes, tomatoes and minced beef cooked in red wine, topped with béchamel sauce and oven baked in a clay dish.

The Seafood Souvlaki or kebabs included skewered marinated monkfish, organic salmon, mussels and tiger prawns cooked on the grill and served with homemade dressing.

As for the vegetarian, I had Mediterranean chickpea and cous cous, which was Greek-style cous cous, cooked with chick peas, raisins, peppers, mushrooms, red chillies and almonds.

These came with a side salad, home-made chunky chips and garlic sautéed potatoes. And we also had olives, tzatziki, hummus, haloumi and feta – all Greek-style, and all served at the same time.

I never got to walk along the beach in Malahide last night – it was too late when we left Cape Greko. But we drove back along the coast through Malahide, Portmarnock and Baldoyle. The moon was almost full, and when we reached Sutton there was a complete vista before us of the lights encircling Dublin Bay, with water in the bay glistening in the moonlight.

Dublin Bay ... a long way from Cape Greko and the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

It was a long way from Cape Greko and the Mediterranean. But after the rains and storms of the previous night, we could not resist stopping in the midnight calm before we reached Bull Island and enjoying the autumn peace.

There is a full moon late tomorrow night [Saturday/Sunday].

Church History 1.3: An introduction to Patristics and the Early Fathers

The Church Fathers … in a Greek Orthodox icon

Patrick Comerford

28 September 2012

11.30 a.m., Hartin Room

Year I MTh, Church History elective module (TH 7864)


Church History 1.3: An introduction to Patristics and the Early Fathers

Introduction:

There was a time when Patristics would have been one of the core First Year modules for ordinands in an Anglican theological college. Scholars like Bishop JB Lightfoot (1828-1899) and Bishop Brooke Westcott (1825-1901) placed Patristics at the heart of Anglican theology from the late 19th century on, for many generations.

Today, there is may be less enthusiasm for Patristics, and Professor Alister McGrath, looking at the obstacles to our understanding of Patristics in the 21st century, identifies four reasons why understanding Patristics can be difficult today:

● Some of the debates appear to have little relevance to the modern world;
● The use of classical philosophy;
● The doctrinal diversity;
● The divisions between East and West, or between Greek and Latin methods of theology, and the extent to which they use classical philosophy.

He might have added that some of them think in ways that are totally alien to us today, such as Saint Simeon the Stylite (ca 390-459), who achieved fame as an ascetic because he lived on a small platform on the top of a pillar near Aleppo in Syria for 39 years.

But do not be frightened by this topic, or think it is irrelevant or of merely antiquarian interest. In the Liturgy module in Year II, you will become familiar with the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas, anonymous works dating from the same period as the Apostolic Fathers, and perhaps with the Apostolic Constitutions, important texts in understanding the Liturgical practices and beliefs of the Early Church.

And the teachings of the later Church Fathers are keys to understanding the debates over the Canon of the Bible and the formulation of the Creeds of Nicaea (321), Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451).

The Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The field of Patristics is that of the Early Christian writers known as the Church Fathers and their writings. The name comes from the Greek πατέρας (pateras) and the Latin pater (father). The period is generally considered to run from the end of the New Testament period or the end of the Apostolic Age (ca 100 AD) to either the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, or even to the Second Council of Nicaea in the eighth century (787 AD).

Lancelot Andrewes ... roots Anglican theology in the patristic writings of the first five centuries

The Caroline Divine Lancelot Andrewes summarises the Anglican understanding of doctrinal authority in memorable form: “One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries and the series of fathers in that period – the three centuries, that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.”

Many scholars today would prefer to refer not to Patristics but to Early Christian Studies. But Patristics is more than the study of historical figures and historical writers. It is not merely an exploration in antiquity that has the church as its main field of interest. It is the very study in which we come to understand how the continuity of the Apostolic and the post-Apostolic Church in prayer life, in spirituality, in sacramental life, in trying to hold together our unity as the Body of Christ, and in a spirituality that found its expression too in our Creedal and Trinitarian formulas.

The Church Fathers

The prominent early Church Fathers whose writings form the basis for Patristics include Saint Ignatius of Antioch (ca 35-110), Justin Martyr (ca 100-ca 165), Irenaeus of Lyons (ca 130- ca 200), Clement of Alexandria (ca 150-ca 215), Cyprian of Carthage (died 258), Athanasius of Alexandria (ca 296-ca 373), Gregory of Nazianus (329-389), Basil of Caesarea (ca 330-379), Gregory of Nyssa (ca 330-ca 395), Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca 350-428), Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Vincent of Lérin (died before 450) and Cyril of Alexandria (died 444).

Their thinking and their writings are found in epistles or letters, apologetics or defence of the developing and unfolding doctrine of the Church, in sermons, in accounts of their saintly lives and their martyrdom – for it was said in those days the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church – in philosophical writings, and in accounts of pilgrimages, particularly to Jerusalem.

Their concerns include the Liturgy, personal and corporate prayer, how to live an ascetic life that remains appropriate, penance, the corpus of scripture, schism and heresy, creation and ethics.

The Church Fathers are generally divided into the Ante-Nicene Fathers, who lived and wrote before the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, who lived and wrote after 325. In addition, the division of the Fathers into Greek and Latin writers is also common.

Some of the most prominent Greek Fathers are: Justin Martyr, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexander. The Latin Fathers include Cyprian, Jerome, Ambrose of Milan, Gregory the Great and Augustine of Hippo. They lived and wrote across the Mediterranean world, in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Rome and the area of north Africa around Carthage, as well as Milan and Jerusalem.

The Apostolic Fathers

The view of the Coliseum from the Irish Dominican church at San Clemente (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Apostolic Fathers, who are a small number of Early Christian writers, lived and wrote in the second half of the 1st century and the first half of the 2nd century. They are acknowledged as leaders in the Early Church, and although their writings are not included in the New Testament, many are regarded as contemporaries of or students and followers of the Apostles, the generation that had personal contact with the Disciples. In this way, they are seen as the link between the Apostles, who had personal contact with Christ, and the later generations of Church Fathers.

The Apostolic Fathers include: Clement of Rome, who was alive around 96 AD; Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna.

Saint Clement of Rome was the author of the epistle known as I Clement (ca 96 AD). This is generally considered the oldest surviving Christian epistle outside the canon of the New Testament. In this letter, he calls on the Christians of Corinth to maintain harmony and order.

A colonnade of 14 Corinthian columns on the west side of the Stoa of Smyrna, the only surviving classical site in Izmir. Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote four of his letters, including one to the Church in Smyrna, while he was a prisoner in Smyrna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Ignatius of Antioch (ca 35-110) is said to have directly known Saint John the Evangelist. On his way to martyrdom in Rome, he wrote a series of letters that provide an example of the theology of the early Christians. In his letters, he discusses ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role and authority of bishops.

He identifies a local church structure of bishops, priest and deacons, with the bishop in the place of God, the priests in the place of Apostles, and the deacons serving as Christ served: “Let the bishop preside in the place of God, and his clergy in the place of the Apostolic conclave, and let my special friends the deacons be entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from all eternity and in these last days has been made manifest” – To the Magnesians, 6 (Andrew Louth).

Hear how Ignatius weaves together, in one of his letters, his Trinitarian faith, his understanding of the threefold order of bishop, priest and deacon, and links his Christology with his Ecclesiology: “Do your utmost to stand firm in the precepts of the Lord and the Apostles, so that everything you do, worldly or spiritual, may go prosperously from beginning to end in faith and love, in the Son and the Father and the Spirit, together with your most reverend bishop and that beautifully woven spiritual chaplet, your clergy and godly minded deacons. Be as submissive to the bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ was to his Father, and as the Apostles were to Christ and the Father; so that there may be complete unity, in the flesh as well as the spirit.” – To the Magnesians, 13 (Andrew Louth)

Ignatius claims to have spoken in some of the Churches through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In an early Patristic poem, he teaches the deity of Christ and his human and divine natures:

“There is only one Physician –

Very Flesh, yet Spirit too;
Uncreated and yet born;
God-and-Man in One agreed;
Very-Life-in-Death indeed;
Fruit of God and of Mary’s seed;
At once impassible and torn
By pain and suffering here below:
Jesus Christ, whom as Lord we know.”


To the Ephesians, 7 (Andrew Louth).

Saint Ignatius of Antioch ... referred to the Church as a “Eucharistic community” which realises its true nature when it celebrates the Eucharist, and defined the Church as the local community gathered around its bishop, celebrating the Eucharist

He is the second writer after Clement to mention Saint Paul’s Epistles, and he is also responsible for the first known use of the Greek word katholikos (καθολικός), meaning “universal,” “complete” and “whole” to describe the Church, writing:

“Where the bishop is to be seen, there let all his people be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is present, we have the catholic Church. Nor is it permissible to conduct baptisms or love-feasts [the Eucharist] without the bishop. On the other hand, whatever does have his sanction can be sure of God’s approval too.” – To the Smyrnaeans 8 (Andrew Louth).

Ignatius is also the first of the Church Fathers to speak about the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He thought of the Church as a Eucharistic society which only realised its true nature when it celebrated the Supper of the Lord, receiving His Body and Blood in the Sacrament.” [Ignatius, quoted in Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 242.]

The 42-hectare Kültürpark was laid out on the ruins of the Greek quarter of Smyrna ... Saint Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna and was martyred there (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Polycarp (ca 69-ca 155) was the Bishop of Smyrna (present-day Izmir in western Turkey). Irenaeus says “Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and conversed with many who had seen the Lord, but was also appointed bishop by apostles in Asia and in the church in Smyrna.” (Adversus haereses, 3.3.4).

According to the early Church historian, Eusebius, Irenaeus says that as a boy he had listened to accounts by Polycarp of his friendships with “John and with the others who had seen the Lord.” Polycarp died as a martyr in Smyrna in 155 AD.

The Greek, Latin and Desert Fathers

The Apostolic Fathers were followed by the Greek Fathers, including: Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, the Cappdocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzus, Peter of Sebeste and Gregory of Nyssa), Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus.

Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, wrote that the only way for Christians to retain unity is to humbly accept one doctrinal authority – episcopal councils, and he proposed that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John should all be accepted as canonical Gospels.

Clement of Alexandria united Greek philosophical traditions with Christian doctrine.

Athanasius of Alexandria is remembered for his role in the conflict with Arianism and for his affirmation of the Trinity. At the First Council of Nicaea (325), he argued against Arius, who said Christ is of a distinct substance from the Father.

The Cappadocian Fathers made major contributions to the definition of the Trinity, finalised at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the final version of the Nicene Creed, which was agreed there.

Among the Latin Fathers of the Church were Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Gregory the Great.

The Desert Fathers were early monastics in the Egyptian Desert. Although their writings are not as extensive, their influence was immense. They include Saint Anthony the Great and Saint Pachomius. Many of their short and pithy sayings are collected in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

A small number of Church Fathers wrote in other languages: Saint Ephrem the Syrian and Saint Isaac the Syrian, for example, wrote in Syriac, although their works were widely translated into Latin and Greek; others wrote in Ethiopic.

An icon of the Church as a boat, including Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers

In patristic writings, we find a non-negotiable concern for the poor, the sick, and those in prison, balanced with demands for personal responsibility, honest work, and an orderly social life.

Saint Basil the Great wrote: “The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.”

The Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos has the skull of Saint John Chrysostom (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint John Chrysostom, the great conscience of the Church on these matters, closed his second sermon on Lazarus and the Rich Man, preached in Antioch in the late fourth century, imploring his congregation to keep one main thing in mind: “I beg you, remember this without fail, that not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life. We do not possess our own wealth but theirs.”

It is a common Patristic saying that of the two, schism is worse than heresy. Behind this thinking is the presumption that a heretic is sincere in his belief — however erroneous — and so it could be that God may at least judge him on the basis of his sincerity, his personal integrity, and his consistency of action in regard to his principles. The schismatic, on the other hand, has willfully separated himself from others who share the same beliefs, thus denying the truth that unity and communion exist in the very confession of the same truth. Heresy might be seen as a sin of error, while schism is a sin against truth itself.

If I ever had any doubts about the potential for humour among the Early Fathers, my misgivings were dispelled a few years ago by Dr George Bebabwi, an Egyptian scholar now living in Indianapolis.

In the course of a lecture in Cambridge, he told a story from the Abbot Sophronius of a desert monk who was called on for an exorcism. The monk slowly took out the scroll of the Book Genesis and started to read methodically and carefully at Chapter 1, Verse 1, not verse-by-verse, or even word-by-word, but letter-by-letter: “I-N T-H-E B-E-G-I-N-N-I-N-G, G-O- …”

Before he got any further, the Devil interrupted the monk, demanding in an outraged voice: “This is an exorcism – aren’t you supposed to be reading the Psalms.”

“I’ll get to them, in my own good time,” the monk replied nonchalantly.

“I can’t wait that long,” was the impatient response. “I’m out of here now.”

If you are in danger of thinking the Desert Fathers are concerned only with their own personal salvation, and not with the salvation of the whole world, then they also warn against what may be described as “learning wisdom.” The Egyptian Desert Father, Abba Poemen, said: “A man who teaches without doing what he teaches is like a spring which cleanses and gives drinks to everyone, but is not able to purify itself.”

There was a monk in Egypt who wanted to be martyr. His abbot warned him against false heroism and told him it was easy to be unusual. True heroism, the abbot said, is found in daily life, looking for reality and finding God’s will there. The monk persisted in his quest for martyrdom, however, and headed off to an area controlled by nomadic tribes, and he demanded to become a martyr.

But once the nomadic people captured the monk, he was unable to resist, and rather than accept the pain of martyrdom he worshipped their idols. He returned to the monastery, where the abbot reminded him that true heroism often lies in dealing with daily realities rather than seeking to be dramatic or unusual.

If your image of the Early Fathers, particularly the Desert Fathers, is of humourless men stuck on the top of pillars or columns, sending down baskets with human waste and hauling them back up again full of food and drink, then think again of Saint Anthony, the founder of monasticism, saying: “Joy and not fear are the signs of the holy.”

When we look at the spirituality of the Church Fathers we should also remember those who were later regarded as heretics, including Tertullian (ca 160-ca 225), Origen (ca 185-ca 254), Pelagius and Nestorius (died ca 451). Although they never came to be regarded as Church Fathers, their writings help us to understand what the Church Fathers were countering, and who they were debating with. Indeed it was Tertullian who first said: “The blood of the martyrs is seed of the Church.”

Nor were all the Patristic writers men, either. One of the greatest descriptions of pilgrimage we have at time is by Egregia, who travelled from Gaul (France), spending three years in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor, describing the churches and the liturgies, and seeking out healing centres such as that of Saint Thecla in Isauria, an inland district in south-central Anatolia

The rediscovery of Patristic texts and writings in the 15th and 16th centuries, following the exodus of Greek scholars with the fall of Byzantium is a major factor in understanding the Reformations, in particular the Anglican Reformation. And so, I conclude this part of our module this morning with the “Prayer of Saint Chrysostom” introduced to Anglicanism by Thomas Cranmer:

“Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfil now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.”

Westcott House, Cambridge … the theological college is named in honour of the great Anglican patristic scholar, Bishop Brooke Westcott (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Selected Reading and Bibliography

SA Harvey, DG Hunter (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford: OUP, 2008/2010).
MB Cunningham, E. Theokritoff (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (Cambridge, CUP, 2008).
JB Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers (London: MacMillan, 1891, 1907)
Andrew Louth (ed), Early Christian Writings (London: Penguin, 1987).
Cyril Richardson (ed), Early Christian Fathers (London: SCM Press, 1953).
JWC Wand, The Greek Doctors (London: Faith Press, 1950).
Benedicta Ward, The Destert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks (London: Penguin, 2003).

The Ladder of Divine Ascent … is an icon from Mount Sinai based on a book of the same name on the ascetic and monastic life, written ca 600 AD by Saint John Klimakos

Appendix 1:

Prayers of Saint John Chrysostom:


Saint John Chrysostom

1. O Lord, deprive me not of your heavenly blessings.
2. O Lord, deliver me from eternal torment.
3. O Lord, if I have sinned in my mind or thought, in word or deed, forgive me.
4. O Lord, deliver me from every ignorance and heedlessness, from pettiness of the soul and stony hardness of heart.
5. O Lord, deliver me from every temptation.
6. O Lord, enlighten my heart darkened by evil desires.
7. O Lord, I, being a human being, have sinned; I ask you, being God, to forgive me in your loving kindness, for you know the weakness of my soul.
8. O Lord, send down your grace to help me, that I may glorify your holy Name.
9. O Lord Jesus Christ, inscribe me, your servant, in the Book of Life, and grant me a blessed end.
10. O Lord my God, even if I have done nothing good in your sight, yet grant me, according to your grace, that I may make a start in doing good.
11. O Lord, sprinkle on my heart the dew of your grace.
12. O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, your sinful servant, cold of heart and impure, in your Kingdom.
13. O Lord, receive me in repentance.
14. O Lord, leave me not.
15. O Lord, save me from temptation.
16. O Lord, grant me pure thoughts.
17. O Lord, grant me tears of repentance, remembrance of death, and the sense of peace.
18. O Lord, grant me mindfulness to confess my sins.
19. O Lord, grant me humility, charity, and obedience.
20. O Lord, grant me tolerance, magnanimity, and gentleness.
21. O Lord, implant in me the root of all blessings: the fear of you in my heart.
22. O Lord, grant that I may love you with all my heart and soul, and that in all things I may obey your will.
23. O Lord, shield me from evil persons and devils and passions and all other lawless matters.
24. O Lord, who knows your creation and what you have willed for it; may your will also be fulfilled in me, a sinner, for you art blessed for evermore. Amen.

Excerpts from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers:

1, “A hermit said, ‘Take care to be silent. Empty your mind. Attend to your meditation in the fear of God, whether you are resting or at work. If you do this, you will not fear the attacks of the demons.”
2, Abba Moses, “Sit in your cell and your cell will teach you all.”
3, “Somebody asked Anthony, ‘What shall I do in order to please God?’ He replied, ‘Do what I tell you, which is this: wherever you go, keep God in mind; whatever you do, follow the example of Holy Scripture; wherever you are, stay there and do not move away in a hurry. If you keep to these guidelines, you will be saved’.”
4, “He (Evagrius) also said, ‘A monk was told that his father had died. He said to the messenger, ‘Do not blaspheme. My Father cannot die’.”
5, Abbot Pastor said, “If someone does evil to you, you should do good to him, so that by your good work you may drive out his malice.”
6, An Elder said, “A man who keeps death before his eyes will at all times overcome his cowardliness.”
7, Blessed Macarius said, “This is the truth, if a monk regards contempt as praise, poverty as riches, and hunger as a feast, he will never die.”
8, “It happened that as Abba Arsenius was sitting in his cell that he was harassed by demons. His servants, on their return, stood outside his cell and heard him praying to God in these words, ‘O God, do not leave me. I have done nothing good in your sight, but according to your goodness, let me now make a beginning of good’.”

Some additional sayings of the Fathers:

“Do your utmost to stand firm in the precepts of the Lord and the Apostles, so that everything you do, worldly or spiritual, may go prosperously from beginning to end in faith and love, in the Son and the Father and the Spirit, together with your most reverend bishop and that beautifully woven spiritual chaplet, your clergy and godly minded deacons. Be as submissive to the bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ was to his Father, and as the Apostles were to Christ and the Father; so that there may be complete unity, in the flesh as well as the spirit.” – Ignatius, To the Magnesians, 13 (Andrew Louth)

“There is only one Physician –
Very Flesh, yet Spirit too;
Uncreated and yet born;
God-and-Man in One agreed;
Very-Life-in-Death indeed;
Fruit of God and of Mary’s seed;
At once impassible and torn
By pain and suffering here below:
Jesus Christ, whom as Lord we know.
– Ignatius, To the Ephesians, 7 (Andrew Louth).

“Where the bishop is to be seen, there let all his people be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is present, we have the catholic Church. Nor is it permissible to conduct baptisms or love-feasts [the Eucharist] without the bishop. On the other hand, whatever does have his sanction can be sure of God’s approval too.” – Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 8 (Andrew Louth).

“The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.” – Saint Basil the Great.

“I beg you, remember this without fail, that not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life. We do not possess our own wealth but theirs.” – Saint John Chrysostom

Next:

Week 6 (Residential Weekend I):

Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral. This essay is based on notes used for a lecture on the Church History elective module (TH 7864) with Year I MTh students on 28 September 2012.

Church History 1.2: From the Apostles to Constantine

The Apostles represented in statues on Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Year I MTh, Church History elective module (TH 7864)

10.30 a.m., Friday, 28 September 2012, Hartin Room

Church History 1.2: The Apostolic and post-Apostolic Church


The Apostolic and post-Apostolic Church

Now that we have set out what this course is about and why we are the doing Church History, we begin by looking at the period that covers the formation of the Church and the development of our understandings of sacramental life, liturgical life and doctrine, in which we began to formulate in the Creeds, to set out the organisation of the Church, with distinctive roles for bishops, priests and deacons, organised within dioceses.

We are in the period of the first exciting missionary expansion of the Church.

This is the period that sees the emergence of a radical belief-system for both Jews and Greeks turn into a major religious force. This is a belief system that: challenges the worldview of Jews in the Middle East (the largest Jewish city at the time was Alexandria) and the worldview of the Mediterranean world (largely the Roman Empire, but also largely Greek speaking).

So we are looking at the history of Christianity after the life of Christ and the first Apostles.

We can debate whether Christianity was founded by Christ, by the twelve, or by Saint Paul. But many of the key founding figures of Christianity never met Christ – they include not only the Apostle Paul but the Gospel writers Saint Luke and Saint Mark.

Christianity spread initially from Jerusalem throughout the Middle East places such as Syria, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Jordan and Egypt. By the 4th century it was successively adopted as the state religion in:

● Armenia (301)
● Georgia (319)
● Ethiopia (or Abyssinia, the Aksumite Empire) (325)
● The Roman Empire (380).

By the Middle Ages, Christianity was the principal religion throughout Europe, and later we shall see how the story of the missionary expansion of Christianity in the early modern era in Asia, Africa and the Americas is intricately tied in the story of European mercantile and colonial expansion, during the Renaissance and in the wake of the great explorations.

Throughout its history, Christianity has been shaped by persecutions, schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches.

But there is nothing new under the sun, and this was true too of the Early Church immediately after the apostolic period.

Early Christianity grew from a first century Jewish development to a religion that spread throughout the Greek-speaking and Imperial Roman world in the Mediterranean basin and beyond.

We can divide Early Christianity into two distinct phases:

1, The Apostolic Period, when the first apostles were alive and led the Church
2, The Post-Apostolic or Patristic period, when an early episcopal structure developed, and when persecution was often intense.

This early period of Church history came to an end, as did the Roman persecution of the Church, in AD 313 in the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great. In 325, he was instrumental in calling the First Council of Nicaea, which was the first of the seven Ecumenical Councils, and Church History then moves into a new phase.

1, The Apostolic Church:

Saint John the Divine in the cave on Patmos … The Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Book of Revelation contain the earliest accounts of the beliefs of the first Christians and the Apostolic Church

The Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Book of Revelation contain the earliest accounts of the beliefs of the first Christians and the Apostolic Church, which we find in early creeds, hymns, sermons and declamations, and the early sufferings of the first Christians, including the martyrdom of Stephen (see Acts 6: 12 to 7: 59) and James the son of Zebedee (Acts 12: 2), and the arrests of Saint Peter (12: 3) and Saint Paul in Philippi (Acts 16), Ephesus (Acts 19) and Jerusalem (Acts 21), and his being sent to Rome.

The Apostolic Church was the community led by the apostles, and perhaps by some of Jesus’ own family members, including James the Brother of the Lord.

In the Great Commission, the Risen Christ commands that the Gospel should be brought to “all nations” (Matthew 28: 19), to Jerusalem, “all Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth” (Acts 1: 8).

Our primary source for the post-Resurrection period is the Acts of the Apostles, which gives us an account of the life of the Apostolic Church, through the great missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul, until his house arrest in Rome.

The first Christians were either Jews or proselytes – converts to Judaism. Yet, the Great Commission involves “all nations.” In the early chapters of Acts, the apostles continue to worship in the Temple, and Paul and Barnabas go first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles (see Acts 13; 46, 18: 6).

Saint Paul preaching in Thessaloniki ... a fresco in the Cathedral Church of Saint Gregory Palamas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The first early division in the early Church was between the Judean Jews and the Greek-speaking Jews, with the Greek-speakers claiming their widows were discriminated against. This dispute was solved with the appointment of the first seven deacons (see Acts 6: 1-6).

The next difficulty facing the Church was the debate about whether non-Jewish or Gentile converts to Christianity needed to become Jewish, accepting circumcision and the dietary laws so they could become Christians.

Peter’s vision in Joppa seems to settle the debate about food laws (see Acts 10: 9-16). When Peter baptises the Centurion Cornelius and his household in Caesarea the debate about circumcision seems to have been be settled (see Acts 10: 44-48). While the conflicts continued (see Acts 11: 1-18; 15: 1-5), the arguments seem to have been settled at the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15: 6-21).

The entrance to the Basilica of Saint John in Ephesus: local tradition says Saint John the Divine lived on this site after his exile on Patmos ended, and wrote his Gospel and Epistles here (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But there were still those who continued to argue for the necessity of circumcision. They were labelled Judaisers, and the conflict that continued explains much of the dialectic in the Johannine writings which are so often misinterpreted or misrepresented as being anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic.

The Early Church also came into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities, leading eventually to their expulsion from the synagogues as Christianity developed a distinct identity, separate from Rabbinic Judaism.

The name Christian (Χριστιανός) is first given to the disciples in Antioch: χρηματίσαι τε πρώτως ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ τοὺς μαθητὰς Χριστιανούς … “and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’” (Acts 11: 26). The word Christian may have been first used as a term of reproach, a derogatory term, or to mock those who followed the teachings of Christ.

2, The Post-Apostolic Church

The Church Fathers … in a Greek Orthodox icon

The transition from the Apostolic Church to the Post-Apostolic Church is not something we are told about in the New Testament. Despite all the myths and popular stories, we are not told in the Acts of the Apostles about the deaths of either Saint Paul or Saint Peter.

Last Friday [21 September 2012] in the chapel here, we remembered Saint Matthew. But I had to say we do not know from the New Testament what happened to Saint Matthew – or any of the other three Gospel writers – what happened to them after the Gospels, Acts, Epistles and the Book of Revelation were written.

Some of the important leaders of the Post-Apostolic Church include Polycarp of Smyrna, Clement of Rome and Irenaeus of Lyons. These leaders were said to have known and studied under the apostles personally, and so they are known as the Apostolic Fathers.

The post-apostolic period concerns the time after the death of the Apostles (say, around the year 100 AD). This period continues until the persecutions come to an end with the legalisation of Christian worship under Constantine the Great.

The Coliseum in Rome seen from the Irish Dominican church at San Clemente … large-scale persecution of the Church begins under the Emperor Nero in the year 64 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Larger-scale persecutions of the Early Church begin in the year 64, when the Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the Great Fire of Rome that year.

Although not recorded in the New Testament, Church tradition says that it was under Nero that both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome. For 250 years Christians suffered from sporadic and at times intense persecutions for their refusal to worship the Emperor, and were executed for a refusal seen as stubborn treason.

A Mediterranean sunset in Thessaloniki … how did Christianity spread so rapidly in the Mediterranean basin? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yet, despite these persecutions, Christianity continued to spread throughout the Mediterranean region. So, we might ask, from a disengaged point of view, why did Christianity succeed? Indeed, why did Christianity even survive?

There is no agreement among historians when it comes to these questions.

For some Christians, this success is simply a natural consequence of the truth of the Christianity and fulfilled through the providence of God. Yet, as Christians, we would not accept such claims for the initial successful spread of either Buddhism or Islam.

So these are questions that we have to address in Church History.


A map showing the spread of Early Christianity

Some of the explanations we might consider include:

● Christianity offered an improve lifestyle or way of life.
● Christianity offered an attractive combination of the promise of a general resurrection of the dead with the then popular Geek belief that true immortality depends on the survival of the body, with Christianity providing a practical explanations of how this could happen.
● The promise of future life, which held out hope no matter how bad or good present circumstances were.
● The use of koine Greek, the common language of the Mediterranean basin for trade and administration made the New Testament and other early Christian writings accessible to a wide pubic.
● The reports of miraculous powers exercised or experienced within the primitive church.
● The apparently pure morals of these early Christians.
● The sense of belonging akin to family kinship within an increasingly self-sustaining and self-governing society.
● Easy transport and communications systems across great distances along the shorelines of the Mediterranean.

Early Church structures

Saint Ignatius of Antioch ... referred to the Church as a “Eucharistic community” which realises its true nature when it celebrates the Eucharist, and defined the Church as the local community gathered around its bishop, celebrating the Eucharist

In the post-Apostolic church, bishops emerged as overseers of urban Christian populations, and clerical structure emerged with:

1, The επίσκοπος (epískopos), plural ἐπίσκοποι (epískopoi), literally the overseer, by which we now mean the bishop.
2, The πρεσβύτερος (presbyteros), plural πρεσβύτεροι (presbyteroi), the elder(s) or priest(s).
3, The διάκονος (diakonos), plural διάκονοι (diákonoi), the deacon or deacons.

This structure emerged slowly and at different times in different places.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we see a collegiate system of government in Jerusalem though headed by James, traditionally regarded the first bishop of the city (see Acts 11: 30, Acts 15: 22).

The harbour of Réthymnon in Crete … Paul leaves Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford 2010)

In the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul leaves various disciples in charge of local churches (see Acts 20: 17-38), and we see in the pastoral epistles (I and II Timothy, Titus) that he leaves Timothy in Ephesus and Titus, who is not mentioned in Acts, in Crete, each with what might be called episcopal oversight of the Church.

In Acts also, Saint Paul ordains presbyters in the churches he founds (see Acts 14: 23). In his letters to Timothy and Titus, we can see a more clearly defined episcopate, and we are told Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete to oversee the local church (see I Timothy 1: 3; Titus 1: 5). Saint Paul commands them to ordain presbyters or bishops and to exercise general oversight, telling Titus to “rebuke with all authority” (see Titus 2: 15).

The term presbyter is often not yet clearly distinguished from the term overseer or bishop (see Acts 20: 17; Titus 1: 5, 7; I Peter 5: 1).

The earliest writings of the Apostolic Fathers, including the Didache and the First Epistle of Clement, indicate the Church may have used two terms for local church offices: presbyters, which was an interchangeable term with episkopos or overseer; and deacon.

Clement, a first century bishop of Rome, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, refers to the leaders of the Church in Corinth as bishops and presbyters, but he uses the term interchangeably.

A colonnade of 14 Corinthian columns on the west side of the Stoa of Smyrna … Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote four of his letters while he was a prisoner in Smyrna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

By the end of the first century, Church structures become clearer. In the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, and in particular the writings of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who was said to have been a student of Saint John the Evangelist, the role of the episkopos is important and clearly defined:

● “It is clear that we must regard a bishop as the Lord Himself” – Epistle to the Ephesians 6: 1.
● “Let the bishop preside in the place of God and his clergy in the place of the Apostolic conclave, and let my special friends the deacons be entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ” – Epistle to the Magnesians 6: 1.
● “You must never act independently of your bishop and clergy.” – Epistle to the Magnesians 7:1.
● “Be as submissive to the bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ was to His Father, and as the Apostles were to Christ and the Father; so that there may be complete unity, in the flesh as well as in the spirit.” – Epistle to the Magnesians 13: 2.
● “Equally, it is for the rest of you to hold the deacons in as great respect as Jesus Christ; just as you should also look on the bishop as a type of the Father, and the clergy as the Apostolic circle forming his council; for without these three orders no church has any right to the name.” – Epistle to the Trallians 3: 1.
● “Follow your bishop, every one of you, as obediently as Jesus Christ followed the Father … The sole Eucharist you should consider valid is the one that is celebrated by the bishop himself, or by some person authorised by him. Where the bishop is to be seen, there let all his people be.” – Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8:1.
● “A man who honours the bishop is himself honoured by God, but to go behind the bishop’s back is to be a servant of the devil” – Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 9:1.

[Quotations from William Stanford and Andrew Louth, Early Christian Writings, The Apostolic Fathers (London: Penguin, 1987 ed)].

It is clear that by the time of Saint Ignatius a single bishop was expected to lead the Church in each centre of Christian mission, supported by a council of presbyters and a group of deacons.

As the Church continued to expand, new churches in important cities were provided with their own bishop. Presbyters and deacons were sent out by the bishop of a city church. In time, the bishop changed from being the leader of a single church in one urban area to being the leader of the churches in a given geographical area.

At the end of the 2nd century, Clement of Alexandria writes about the ordination of a bishop, using the words bishop and ordination in their technical meaning.

By the 2nd century, bishops are defined also as the only clergy entrusted with ordination to the priesthood or presbyterate and the diaconate.

At the beginning of the 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome describes the ministry of the bishop as that of the Spiritum primatus sacerdotii habere potestatem dimittere peccata, the spiritual primacy of sacrificial priesthood and the power to forgive sins.

The ministry of the deacons included tending to the poor and sick.

In the second century, the episcopal structure is also given the support of claims to apostolic succession, first articulated by Ignatius of Antioch, in which a bishop becomes the spiritual successor of the previous bishop in a line that is traced back, step-by-step, to the apostles themselves.

Early Christian writings and art

The study of Early Christian writings or the writings of the early Fathers of the Church is known as Patristics. Some of the notable Patristic writers or Early Fathers of the Church include:

● Saint Ignatius of Antioch
● Saint Polycarp
● Saint Justin Martyr
● Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
● Tertullian
● Saint Clement of Alexandria
● Origen of Alexandria

These Early Christian writings in the period immediately after the New Testament period can be divided into two types of works:

● theological
● apologetic

Apologetic writings seek to defend the faith by using reason to refute arguments against Christian beliefs and teachings.

Christian art emerges relatively late, with the first known Christian images emerging ca 200 AD.

The oldest Christian works of art are not icons but paintings from the Roman Catacombs, dated ca 200 AD, and the oldest Christian sculptures are from sarcophagi, from the early 3rd century. We may look at this later in the residential weekend and when we look at the debates about icons.

Early heresies

The correct interpretation of the faith has been a major concern for Christianity from the beginning. One of the main responsibilities of bishops in the early Church was to guard correct beliefs and to refute heresies, so that defining orthodoxy becomes a major issue in the history of the Church in the first four or five centuries, and even after that.

The earliest doctrinal controversies are often Christological. In other words, they were about Christ, his divinity and his humanity.

● Docetism, which emerges at the turn of the second and third centuries, held that Christ’s humanity was merely an illusion, thus denying the incarnation, or that God became fully human.
● In the middle of the second century, Marcion held that Christ was the Saviour sent by God, and Saint Paul was his chief apostle. But he rejected the Hebrew Bible and the God of Israel. His followers, the Marcionists, believed that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.
● These beliefs had some similarities with Gnostic heresies, in that both were dualistic.
● Dualistic groups maintained that reality was composed of two radically opposing parts: matter, seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good.
● Arius (250/256-336) of Alexandria and Arianism held that Christ, while not merely mortal, was not eternally divine and was, therefore, of lesser status than God the Father.

What would emerge was a clear Trinitarian understanding of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one being with three hypostases or persons. This would be defined in the Nicene Creed, and we shall look at this development at a later stage.

The canon of the Bible

A copy of the King James Version of the Bible, dating from 1611, in Lambeth Palace … how did the Early Church decide on the contents of the New Testament?

The period that we are looking at this afternoon also sees the emergence of an agreement among Christians about what is and what is not part of the Bible.

The Early Church saw the Bible as used the Old Testament found in the Greek translation of the Bible we know as the Septuagint (LXX), and the New Testament developed over a period of time.

The writings attributed to the apostles circulated amongst the earliest Christian communities. The Letters of Saint Paul were circulating in collected forms by the end of the 1st century. In the early 2nd century, Justin Martyr mentions the “memoirs of the apostles” or the Gospels. By around the year 160, Saint Irenaeus is referring to four gospels.

By the early third century, Origen of Alexandria may have been using the same 27 books as we now accept in the canon of the New Testament, although there disputes still arose and debates still continued over the canonicity of some books, including Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, and the Book of Revelation.

Most of what is now the New Testament was universally acknowledged from the middle of the 2nd century or earlier. The Muratorian fragment shows that a set of writings similar to the New Testament was recognised by the year 200.

In his Easter letter in 367, Athanasius of Alexandria gives the earliest known and exact list of the books in the New Testament. The Synod of Hippo in North Africa in 393, approved the New Testament as we have it today, along with the Old Testament book in the Septuagint.

These decisions were repeated in 397 and 419 at the Councils of Carthage, which were under the authority of Saint Augustine, who regarded the canon as closed. The commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible ca 383 was instrumental in fixing the Biblical canon in the West, and in the year 405 Pope Innocent I set a list of the sacred books.

But these bishops and councils never claimed to be defining something new. Instead, they said they “were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church.” And so, we find unanimity on the canon of the New Testament in the West by the fourth century and in the East by the fifth century.

The end of persecution

The Rotunda in Thessaloniki, built by the Emperor Galerius ... his reign marked the end of the persecution of the Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Galerius who had once been one of the leading figures in persecution of Christianity, issued an edict in 311 that brought to an end the Diocletian persecution of the Church. Galerius reigned for another two years, and was then succeeded by Constantine the Great, an emperor with distinctively pro-Christian sympathies.

Constantine the Great … his victory brings freedom for Christians and marks the beginning of Christendom

Constantine had first come into contact with Christianity through his mother, the Empress Helena. Ahead of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, he commanded his troops to adorn their shields with the Cross following a vision he had the night before. The battle was decisive, and after his victory Constantine become the Emperor of the West.

The accession of Constantine was a turning point for the Church, marking the end of persecution and the beginning of Christendom. After his victory, Constantine supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges to the clergy, such as exemption from certain taxes, promoted some Christians to high office, and returned property confiscated during the reign of Diocletian.

Between 324 and 330, Constantine built a new imperial capital at Constantinople, which had churches within the city walls but no pagan temples.

Constantine also played an active role in the leadership of the Church. In 316, he acted as a judge in a North African dispute concerning the Donatist controversy. Then, in 325 he called the first Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicaea, to deal primarily with the Arian heresy.

The council agreed on the Nicene Creed, which professed there is “One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church.”

In calling the council, Constantine established a precedent for regarding the emperors as responsible to God for the spiritual health of their subjects, and having a duty to maintain orthodoxy. The emperor was to enforce doctrine, root out heresy, and uphold the unity of the Church.

Finally, Constantine was baptised on his deathbed.

Constantine’s eventual successor, Julian the Apostate, was on becoming emperor renounced Christianity and embraced Neo-Platonism. He began reopening pagan temples, and modified old pagan beliefs so that they resembled Christianity traditions, with an episcopal structure and public charity. But his death brought to an end the last imperial threat to Christianity.

Christianity as the Imperial state religion

The 4th century palace complex in Thessaloniki … the Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion of the empire under the Edict of Thessaloniki in 380 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Constantius II (337-361) and Valens (364-378) had personally favoured Arian or Semi-Arian forms of Christianity, but Valens’s successor, the Emperor Theodosius I, supported the Trinitarian doctrine set out in the Nicene Creed.

On 27 February 380, the Edict of Thessaloniki, issued in the name of Theodosius I, officially adopted Christianity as the state religion of the Empire.

The Church quickly adopted the same organisational boundaries as the Empire, so that geographical provinces, called dioceses, corresponded to imperial territorial divisions. The bishops, who were located in major urban centres, oversaw each diocese.

Five dioceses came to hold special eminence, and their bishops were recognised as patriarchs:

● Rome
● Constantinople
● Jerusalem
● Antioch
● Alexandria

The prestige of these sees was strengthened by claims to apostolic foundation. The Bishop of Rome claimed to be the Primus inter Pares or “the first among equals.” The Patriarch of Constantinople claimed precedence as the bishop of the new capital of the empire, the New Rome.

Next: 1:3, An introduction to Patristics and the Early Fathers.

Required or recommended reading:

General Church History:

David L Edwards, Christianity, the first Two Thousand Years (London: Cassell, 1997).
Diarmuid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity (London: Penguin, 2010).
John McManners (ed), The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Irish Church History:

Alan Acheson, A History of the Church of Ireland (Dublin: Columba, 2nd ed, 2003).
JR Bartlett, SD Kinsella (eds), Two Thousand Years of Christianity in Ireland (Dublin: Columba, 2006).
Brendan Bradshaw, Dáire Keogh (eds), Christianity in Ireland, Revisiting the Story (Dublin: Columba, 2002).

World Anglicanism:

Kevin Ward, A History of Global Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral Dublin. This essay is based on notes prepared for a lecture on Friday 28 September 2012 with Year I students on the MTh course.