Of
course the history of the church, the universal church, Christianity, begins
with Jesus and the Apostles, and even before that through the nation of Israel
back to creation. But we will begin our
study with the period right after the Apostles and the completion of the New
Testament, right around the year 100AD, or about 70 years after Jesus' death
and resurrection.
The story of the
early church is one of persecution. During
the first 200 years the church was under almost constant persecution. In the Roman Empire people were required to
worship the emperor as a god. One could
believe, or not believe, whatever one wished, but emperor worship, at least
perfunctorily, was not optional, except for the Jews, the empire gave them a
special exemption.
At
first Christians were simply seen as just another sect within Judaism, so
Christians, originally, fell under that exemption. However, as Jews continued to reject
Christianity and as Christian and Jews continued to distance themselves from
one another, especially after a great Jewish revolt which ended with
destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, Christianity lost this exemption.
After
that Christianity became an illegal religion with no legal protection. In a world in which everyone was required to
proclaim, "Caesar is Lord," including in a religious sense, Christian
refused, proclaiming instead, "Jesus is Lord," and many times this cost them
their lives. Christians were hunted
down, tortured, and killed by being drowned, crucified, burned alive, and eaten
by wild animals often as a form of public entertainment. However, the more the church was persecuted,
the more it grew; as an old saying goes, "The blood of martyrs is the seed
of the church." Despite persecution,
or maybe because of it, the church continued to grow, both numerically and
geographically.
During this time the church also
worked out, often in conflict, many of the points of doctrine we know today,
most importantly the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two
natures of Christ, both divine and human; so the church often found itself
defending against the Romans on the outside and heretics, those who hold and
teach false beliefs, on the inside.
All that changed when Constantine, a convert
to Christianity, became Emperor. In
313AD Constantine issued the Edict of Milan which made Christianity a legal
religion, ending official persecution, although nonofficial persecution
continued.
In
325AD Constantine called together all of the bishops of the church for the
Council of Nicaea to finally officially hammer out all of the doctrinal debates
and formalize the official doctrine of the church. Out of the Council of Nicaea came the Nicaea
Creed which we still sometimes use in worship today as a summary of the
Christian faith.
Eventually
Christianity would become the official religion of the Roman Empire and would
come to be known as the Roman Catholic Church headed by the Pope, the Bishop of
Rome. (Note: The word "catholic" [small c] means universal. All Christians, including Roman Catholics and
United Methodists, are part of the "catholic" or universal
Church.) But this was not necessarily a
good thing because it led to many people becoming Christians in name only and
the church often became entangled in the power politics of the empire.
Even as Christianity was rising within
the empire, the empire itself was declining.
In 476AD the Roman Empire officially fell. It would be up to the church to hold Europe
together during the dark ages which followed.
The meant that the church would gain more power, and become more
corrupt.
