Editorial

Dangerous Myths - An 'early Church' that never existed

by Paul Stenhouse, M.S.C., Ph.D

How often does one hear bible-toting evangelists, anxious to topple the 'great harlot' from her throne in the hearts of simple people struggling to practise their Catholic faith in a hostile world, claim that 'Christianity was simpler in the early centuries'. Issues,' they say, 'were more black-and-white then; individual Christians, guided by the Holy Spirit, were left to themselves to decide how best to live out their faith,' as there were no Church 'structures' and the individual's 'faith' was the deciding factor - not obedience to some ecclesiastical authority, or to 'rules' and 'regulations'. Such leaders as existed were merely 'first among equals,' and the opinion of the simplest devout bible-Christian carried the same weight as that of an apostle or a bishop.

Even some disaffected and cynical modern Catholics - who have already made their minds up about politically incorrect issues like celibacy of the clergy, fidelity to liturgical norms, and to the Catholic Church's stated position on issues like abortion, remarriage after civil divorce, euthanasia, contraception, the ordination of women and democracy in Church government - postulate as the reason for their 'principled stance,' the existence of an idyllic early Church that, according to them, was unstructured and 'respected' people's consciences by allowing great breadth of opinion on religious and moral issues.

Origins of the myths

But is this true? "The usual 'argument' from which the myths spring [a logical conclusion from the claims of the protestant reformers in the sixteenth century] is warmly embraced by those who look for reasons to justify their rejection of any authority in religious or moral matters other than the 'bible' (by which they mean their under-standing of it). These claim to have found in the early Church a religion of Jesus where 'the believer' stands confidently before God, with no need for a visible Church or any religious authority other than his own 'conscience'.

'There were no popes or papal encyclicals,' we are told, 'in the early Church. And no need for them because the Holy Spirit guided the individuals'. Some even go so far as to say that to be a Christian you can answer 'no' to the question: 'Do I have to buy the whole package, including the Church'. 1 Some theologians prefer the discredited and often meaningless jargon of North American Social Science faculties, to time-honoured Catholic terminology. They write about 'church' rather than 'the Church,' and 'being church' (which seems to make of each of them his/her own 'pope') rather than 'belonging to the Church'.

Part One of the mythology sets it on the road to popular appeal by insisting, albeit in low gear, that the early Christians were a community 'built on love' that decided everything along democratic lines, rather along the lines of a 'commune'. According to this scenario they acknowledged no 'authorities' - priests or bishops - to whom they had to defer in the practice of their faith, were free of 'paternalism,' accepted no regularised liturgies or sacraments, regarded the written New Testament as their 'Rule of Faith,' and were 'saved' by devout reading of the scriptures and by following the teaching of Jesus typified by the Golden Rule 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.

According to Part Two, with the mythology now moving into overdrive, it was around the fourth century that everything changed. The bishop of Rome, the successor of St Peter, allegedly began to assert his power over the 'simple' and bible-based early Church, and Christian life became more controlled and ordered, and, by implication, more complicated. Devotion to the Mother or God was introduced, along with numerous other, allegedly 'unbiblical,' practices, like offering the sacrifice of the Mass, praying for the dead, venerating saints, blessing oneself, using holy water, going to confession, and so on.

The overweening attraction of such a mythology is self-evident. It appeals especially to our highly individualistic and hedonistic society whose definition of 'truth' (including religious 'truth') is 'whatever a person is "comfortable" with'. It resorts unblushingly to the convenient ploy of labelling practices with which it does not agree, or which it or its ancestors discarded long-ago, as 'innovations'. It also puts the blame for anything that displeases it, on 'authority,' and appeals to a 'simpler,' less 'dogmatic' past when people 'followed the Spirit,' a euphemism - more often than not - for 'followed their own inclinations'.

The allegations made in the above paragraph concerning the supposed 'unbiblical' reforms introduced by unnamed bishops of Rome in the fourth century, have been looked at in depth and refuted in countless publications from the time of Martin Luther onwards. I refer interested and open-minded readers to the ten (10) booklets in the series Understanding Catholicism, and the popular booklets entitled Why do Catholics...? and Catholic Answers to Bible Christians volumes I and II - all of which are available from Chevalier Press.

Was the early Church free of 'rules 'and 'regulations'?

Is it true that Catholics from the first century (for all Christians, whether their home was in Pannonia 2 or Phrygia 3, Romania or Abyssinia, were Catholics in those times) would find today's Church 'unfamiliar' and that life for Catholics in the first couple of centuries was less constrained by laws and regulations than it was at the time of the reformation; and than it is in these last few years before the third millennium?

Common sense would suggest that they were not. Even the reformers who, at the beginning, insisted that the early Christians were 'free spirits' - like Luther who had proclaimed the superiority of reason over authority in rousing terms, and later on denounced it as 'the devil's whore,' Calvin and Knox, and all founders of later churches that sprang from their spiritual loins - discovered, when it was too late, that their wholehearted return to an hypothetical 'early Christian' world where love,' and bible-study allegedly rules, instead of laws and regulations, invariably led to self-deception and chaos.

As new reformers sprang up, born of Luther's doctrine of private interpretation of the bible, the master reformer dealt with them authoritatively and harshly. The former Augustinian monk exiled Andreas Bodenstein (known as Carstadt) 1480-1541 (whom he called 'the new Judas') for translating a demonstrative pronoun differently from him. The energetic denouncer of papal infallibility persecuted Caspar Schwenckfeld (1499-1561) and John Hussgen (known as Oecolampadius) 1482-1531 for not accepting his infallibility. And more than 120,000 wretched miners and peasants of Thuringia and Swarbia who rebelled against the German princes after digesting Luther's bible tracts, were put to the sword after the princes received the reformer's bible-based advice to them.

Even the smallest group of cubscouts needs a scout-master, and is expected to follow the rule book for cub-scouts if the youngsters are to qualify for admission to the wider world of Scouting. Attempts by individuals to interpret the rules according to their own whims or feelings would not be tolerated; and disobedience to the rules will lead, inexorably, to exclusion from the cub-scouts.

Are we seriously expected to believe that Jesus provided less carefully for his followers, than Lord Baden Powell did for the scouting movement that he set up in 1918? Or that the early believers (many of whom died atrocious deaths for their faith) believed that following their own feelings and preferences in interpreting the teaching of Jesus, was all that was required for being a faithful Christian?

The role of leaders in the Church

The Apostolic writings contain a wealth of data that gives the lie to the myth, but we will select a few, including some lesser known, passages that make the point unequivocally.

St John, the beloved disciple, in describing the unbecoming conduct of a 'leader' of an unnamed Christian community in Asia, takes for granted that there is someone who 'exercises the primacy' 4 over the Church in question. In describing the behaviour of Diotrephes he brings into focus the role of a 'legitimate' bishop of a Church. The apostle complains, 5

I sent a letter to your church, but Diotrephes, who loves being the leader will not recognize my authority. If I come I will raise the matters for which he must bear the blame. He lays baseless and spiteful charges against us; and not satisfied with that, refuses to receive our friends. He even interferes with those who would do so, and tries to expel them from the Church.'

St John did not write complaining that someone had dared to assume the role of bishop in a community that recognised no such authority. His complaint was that one, Diotrephes, who exercised that role in the community, abused it. The behaviour of Diotrephes is held up to the community as a caricature of the role of the true bishop which was, in the words of St John:

  1. To accept the authority and obey the advice of senior Apostles and disciples; Diotrephes refused to do this.

  2. To bring charges against members of the Church who truly erred; Diotrephes brought lying and malicious charges.

  3. To welcome fellow-Christians from Churches known to be faithful: Diotrephes refused to permit this.

  4. To take steps to prevent members of the Church from supporting those who err; Diotrephes acted against those who were faithful to the Apostolic tradition.

  5. To excommunicate recalcitrant members, if this be called for; Diotrephes excommunicated supporters of the Apostle.

There is nothing novel in this. St Paul writing to his beloved Timothy, the son of Eunice, the grandson of Lois 6 not only takes it for granted that there is an authority in the Church, but, in a well-known passage, describes in detail the bishop's role:

'A bishop should be above reproach, married only once, sober, temperate, courteous, hospitable, and a good teacher; he must not be given to drink, or a brawler, but of a forebearing disposition, avoiding quarrels and no lover of money. He must be one who manages his own household well and keeps his children respectful, a man of chaste habits. If someone doesn't know how to control his own family, how can he look after the Church of God? He should not be a recent convert, lest he become inflated with pride and fall into the power of the devil. He should be well thought of by those outside the community, so that he not become an occasion of dis-esteem, and fall into the devil's snare.' 7

Political incorrectness in early Christendom

As St Paul was about to leave Ephesus for Macedonia, he gave authority 'to command certain persons to give up teaching erroneous doctrines, and studying interminable myths and genealogies, 7 to Timothy, who stayed on in Ephesus for this purpose.

St Jude condemned 'certain persons who have wormed their way in (to the Church)... who are enemies of religion, and who... have made God's grace an excuse for licentiousness and have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ'. 9 'They flout authority10 ... they pour abuse on things they do not understand,11 ... and are shepherds who care only for themselves. They are clouds carried away by the wind without giving rain, trees that in season bear no fruit, dead twice over and pulled up by the roots'.12

St Paul commanded the Christians of Ephesus, 'Give up living like pagans... throw off falsehood... do not be fools'.13 He did not hesitate to reprove them about matters as wide-ranging as lying, stealing, giving into anger, using bad language, giving way to fornication and adultery, drunkenness or to 'coarse, stupid or flippant' talk. Anyone who still doubts that the early Christians were expected to live their faith according to a strict doctrinal and moral code, needs to read the New Testament carefully, and then revise his opinion.

Anyone who taught a doctrine contrary to what he himself preached is called by St Paul a 'proud and ignorant man... typical of men who have let their reasoning powers become atrophied and have lost grip of the truth'.14

There are so many references in the Apostolic writings to the obligation to refute error,15 and avoid false teachers,16 false apostles,17 and false prophets18 and to 'join in the struggle in defence of the Faith,19 that surely no one could doubt that left to themselves, without any authority to challenge their ways of thinking and acting, the members of the early Church (like many bible-Christians, and some self-styled Catholics today) would have joined the ranks of those 'ignorant and unstable' Christians of whom St Peter wrote,20 who 'misinterpret' St Paul's writing, 'as they do the other scriptures'.

Not only were the early Christian not left to themselves to decide how best to live their faith in Jesus, the Apostolic writings seem almost entirely to have originated from a felt need (to use St Luke's phrase) for providing 'authentic knowledge about the matters of which you have been informed'.21

The letters contained in the New Testament were, almost without exception, written in an authoritative tone,22 [often in response to appeals for help23] to clear up doubts,24 to 'put fresh heart' into the wavering,25 to settle arguments,26 to clarify disputed points of faith or morals,27 and to reprimand the wayward.28

'Patemalistic,' and proudly so

Living, as we do, in an egalitarian and individualistic society whose childish ploy, sanctioned by some psychological 'experts,' is to blame parents, especially fathers, for most if not all the problems that arise in one's adulthood, it is hardly surprising that the perfectly good word 'paternalism' (acting or thinking in a "fatherly" way) has become a term of opprobrium for many. Curiously, critics of alleged 'paternalism' in the Church, many of whom belong to women's lobby groups, object also to references to 'The Holy Family,' or to the 'Virgin Mother'. They also scorn the time-honoured custom of referring to the Church as 'she'.

Yet 'fatherly' well describes the attitudes of Catholic leaders in the apostolic age, as it should describe their successors today if they are willing to exercise their role, and not, like Distrophes, abuse it. St Peter addressed his converts as 'most dear'29 and my beloved'30. St Paul and St John describe them as their 'children'31. Timothy was Paul's 'son,'32 and the Galatians, despite being 'stupid' were still Paul's 'children,' and his 'brethren'.33

Towards a Churchless Christianity

Tragically for all of us, the current antipathy to authority in the Church [especially the authority of the Pope] will reap the usual harvest of disillusion, and religious and social chaos. Today's grim spectre of rebellion was first unleashed at the reformation by men whose hearts may initially have been in the right place, but whose emotionally clouded minds, to use St Paul's phrase, had lost the power to reason,' and whose 'successes would be short-lived'.34

Today's attacks on spiritual authority further pave the wide, hard road that leads to a social, moral and political despotism, against which no defences will remain standing for those who prefer their own authority to that of the Church.

Truth-seekers among bible-Christians and other Protestant Christians who succumb to the wiles of the mythology examined above, will eventually be driven to accept the falseness of their position. Either they will have to embrace Catholicism [unthinkable option to so many], or they will follow the 'madding crowd' further down the path charted by endless sceptics and atheists who 'freed from the Church... revelled in the fellowship [of others] none of whom worried in the least about the literal inaccuracy of the bible or the Virgin Birth of Jesus'.35 Such religious anarchy is always based on the assumed 'complete irrelevancy of the Church and its theology'.36

The myth examined above flourishes in the tepid atmosphere generated by loose thinking and unproven assumptions on the part of self-styled experts. These blithely 'fiddle while Rome burns,' and can't hear the cries of despair over the deafening dinking of coin.

Those who deny authority to the Church in matters of faith and morals, on spurious historical or biblical grounds, blindly accept the 'authority' exercised by atheistic, materialistic, deterministic, behaviouristic or pragmatic professors of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology and social sciences generally. As we approach the third millennium, we should heed St Paul's timely warning, given to Timothy, against those who 'defy the truth':

'They will be arrogant, boastful and abusive; with no respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affection; they will be implacable in their hatreds, scandalmongers, intemperate and fierce, strangers to all goodness, traitors, adventurers, swollen with self-importance. They will be men who put pleasure in the place of God, men who preserve the outward form of religion but are a standing denial of its reality. Keep clear of men like these'.36

- Paul Stenhouse, MSC

Footnotes

  1. Dudley Hyde, Rescuing Jesus: A Heretic's Handbook, Mandarin, 1997 p.149.

  2. Now the modern states of Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Servia, Hungary.

  3. Now that region of central Turkey between Izmir, Konya and Adana.

  4. Thus, 'primatum gerere,' St Jerome translates the Greek.

  5. III John, 9-10.

  6. II Timothy, 1,5.

  7. I Timothy 3,2-7.

  8. I Timothy, 1,3.4.

  9. Jude 4.

  10. Jude 8.

  11. Jude 10.

  12. Jude 12.

  13. Ephesians 4,18.25; 5,17.

  14. I Timothy 6,3.4.

  15. I Timothy 4,1-4; II Timothy 2,17; II John 7.

  16. II Peter 2,1.

  17. II Corinthians 11,13.

  18. Mt 7,15: I John 4,1-3.

  19. Jude 3.

  20. II Peter 3,16.

  21. St Luke's Gospel, 1,4.

  22. I Corinthians 4,20.21.

  23. I Corinthians 7,1.

  24. I Corinthians 7, 1ff; II Corinthians 6.14ff.

  25. Ephesians 6,22.

  26. I Corinthians 6, 1ff.

  27. Philippians 3,1ff.

  28. Galatians 3,1ff.

  29. II Peter 3,1.

  30. II Peter 3,17.

  31. I John 2,1; Gal 4,19; II Corinthians 8,1 (= 'brethren'); II Cor 12,19 (='most dear').

  32. II Timothy, 2.1.

  33. Galatians 3,1; 4,19; 5,13.

  34. II Timothy, 3,8,9.

  35. Dudley Hyde, Rescuing Jesus: A Heretic's Handbook, Mandarin, 1997, p.14.

  36. ibidem, p. 10.

  37. II Timothy, 3,2-5,8.

From "Annals Australia" January/February 1998



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