Background on The False Narrative of the Early Church
Let’s another look at paragraph 81 in the catechism:
“And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching (CCC).
A common argument for the authenticity of the Roman Catholic Church is that its practices and doctrine are continuous and unaltered throughout history, leading back to the apostles.
Has the Catholic Church ever changed its teaching? No, for 2000 years the Church has taught the same things which Jesus taught.” (Catholic Catechism for Adults).
“It is a historical fact the Catholic Church, from the twentieth century back to the first, has not once ceased to teach a doctrine on faith or morals previously held, and with the same interpretation; the church has proved itself infallible.” (My Catholic Church).
In this regard, if anyone were to disagree with the Roman Catholic church on a doctrinal stance, even if it involved using scripture, it would be equivalent to arguing with the apostles themselves.
This isn’t a reach, the Roman Catholic denomination has traditionally defined segregating Christian denominations as schisms. A secular definition of schism involves the splitting of two parties from an original source. The Roman Catholic encyclopedia, crudely conflating the Roman Catholic denomination with the entirety of the Christian church, defines schism as “A willful separation from the unity of the Christian Church.” New Advent, delves further into this assertion that defines the Roman Catholic church as the sole Christian church and departure from their denomination as heresy, here.
This definition paints a false history of a singular church with a unified doctrine that all other denominations wrongly deviated from. At first glance, such a claim may seem reasonable as Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant denominations share many of the same forefathers.
However, the reality is that even in the time of apostles, the greater Christian church (which I will refer to as the body of Christian believers rather than as a singular denomination, per 1 Corinthians 12:12) was never wholly homogeneous in beliefs and practices. The Roman Catholic denomination did not exist the moment Jesus christened Peter as the Rock. For over a century there were just Christians, and they had many disagreements on the practice of their faiths.
Doctrinal Clashes in the Early Church Captured in Scripture
The first disagreement with Christian practice that resulted in a division of Christian unity was likely the argument between what separated Judaism from Christianity. Where Christians their own separate religion? Did Christians need to become practicing Jews to have valid faiths?
Was the Jewish sacrament of circumcision necessary for salvation? You’ll recognize most of these questions from Acts and Pauline epistles. What I want you to specifically focus on is the emphasis that these doctrinal clashes came from members within the Christian church:
Acts 15:24: Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions,
Galatians 2:4: This issue arose because some false brothers had come in under false pretenses to spy on our freedom in Christ Jesus, in order to enslave us.
Galatians 1:7: 6 I am amazed how quickly you are deserting the One who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is not even a gospel. Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ.
This clash is no small issue. Paul claims that teaching Jewish traditions as being a prerequisite for salvation as being against the truth of the Gospel. This would become a problem, because Peter, who should’ve known better, ultimately began acting in accordance with the Jewish Traditionalists, an issue that may have been rooted all the back to Jerusalem with James.
Galatians 2:11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
How can apostolic succession be decisively trusted to preserve Christian doctrine and practice when the Apostles themselves squabbled over it? How can Peter be the prime bishop if the apostles didn’t turn to his authority during these clashes?
No wonder the Council of Jerusalem referred to scriptures (Amos 9) to finalize their judgment instead of reinforcing their own church authority. The men themselves knew there was a higher standard than themselves that they could trust.
James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
16 “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, 17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’ 19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.
Elevating scriptures over Tradition and Magisterium is significantly more indicative of Protestant practice instead of a Roman Catholic one, isn’t it? But, we don’t have to stop there. By the end of the century, the church structure was already very different than the falsehood of a unified Roman Catholic church.
The Martyrdom of the James Shows the Fallibility of Historical Tradition
In continuation with the Early Church described in Acts, churches were organized in territorial branches, with each church having its own bishop and its own preferred scriptures based on which apostolic writings they in their possession at the time (Gonzales, 2010).
Among these churches, the church of Jerusalem would be pre-eminent. Biblically, the church of Jerusalem was founded long before Paul had ever set foot in Rome. James (Jesus’ brother, not the Son of Thunder) as the head speaker at the Council of Jerusalem, is believed to be the closet thing to a leader over the Christian Church.
Acts 15:13″And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me…
Acts 15:19: Wherefore my sentence is that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God”
How respected was James as a leader? Well, James not only summons a congregation of the apostles, early Christians, and Jewish sects (including the Pharisees) to him in Jerusalem, but he also gives the final and authoritative word at the end of the Council.
James’ prestige and reputation go a lot further than his blood relation to the Messiah. James, of course, would go on to be known as James the Just, becoming well known for his passionate adherence to Jewish laws.
So James, being pre-eminent over Peter and having a great respect for Jewish customs, now lends a lot of reasonable context to Peter and Paul’s conflict at Antioch, as well as Luke’s choice in singling out James from the other apostles multiple times in Acts:
Acts 21:17-18: “And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present”.
Acts 12:17: But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Tell these things to James and to the brothers.” Then he departed and went to another place.
Now, James would become the first early church leader to be martyred. James is put on trial and beheaded on a feast day, to please the Jewish authorities. More specifically, he was tried for refusing to recant Jesus’ Lordship to the Sanhedrin.
Pro Tip: This in not to be confused with the apostle James, who’s beheading (Acts 12) Jesus predicted in Matthew 20, where He likens the drinking of His cup to shedding His blood on the cross, and tells both James and John that they share in this cup.
Now, in studying this, one can already find budding discrepancies in history from major Early Church writers concerning James (Jesus’ brother) death, rendering the recorded church history already suspect:
- Flavius Josephus, a Jewish Historian, describes James as being tried before the Sanhedrin and stoned to death.
- However, Saint Hegesippus describes James as being stoned, and then killed with a staff by a Pharisee.
- Seperately, a Roman Bishop, Clement, is quoted as describing James’ death as such: “According to Clement of Rome, quoted by Eusebius (“Hist. Eccl.” ii. 1), James, surnamed “the Just” on account of his great virtue, was the first bishop of the Church elected at Jerusalem. About his martyrdom Clement writes that” he was cast from a wing of the Temple and beaten to death with a fuller’s club.””
These are all educated men, referencing the same event, but the game of telephone is already in effect. Each historian presents a slightly different on James’ execution, but by the time these men are being quoted themselves the recounting takes on more different take. Eusebius quoting Clement, being a good example.
References: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-James-the-Lords-brother
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hegesippus.html
JAMES – JewishEncyclopedia.com
The Church Continues to Fracture Without James
So, after James, the previous spokesperson for the Early Church, is killed somewhere between 40-66 AD, what happened to the Christian body? Well, whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t unification. Paul and Peter still had their hands full with clashing Christian factions over elementary Christian doctrine. The two of them, plus Luke, passionately warn of wolves in sheep’s clothing leading Christians astray.
Then of course, if the date of the writing of Revelation is accurate to the 70s AD, Jesus had already intervened through John to warn several Asian churches of being in spiritual danger. The church was not unifying at all, and they certainly were not consolidating power in Rome.
The whole point of John being at Patmos in the first place was exile during the widespread persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Nero*, which is a strong enough argument against Rome being the seat of Christian authority alone. Of course, this persecution then continued under his successors Domitian and Trajan.
Even after Nero stopped actively hunting Christians, for decades under his successors, being formally accused of Christianity would lead to trial and execution, so the idea of there being a centralized Roman Catholic church in an office tied to the territory and founded on a succession of Peter is not historically congruent at all.
Source: https://www.bereanbiblechurch.org/transcripts/christ_has_come/ch-tc11.html
*Some account ascribe John’s exile as possibly being under Domitian or Claudius instead, which is discussed in the above source.
Doctrinal Clashes in the Early Church as Captured in History
So, let’s take a look at what really happened to the Christian church between the 1st and second century. First, let’s talk about additional heretical denominations arising from within the Early Church:
Gnosticism: Heretics who believe that Jesus was purely spiritual, and that flesh itself was inherently profane. This ultimately led to the conclusion that Jesus did not become a literal man, but simply a spiritual apparition masquerading as one.
To back their beliefs, they claimed that Jesus, through the apostles, handed their denomination secret doctrine. They would become infamous for writing many false books based on Mary and the apostles and would retain significance for centuries.
Source: https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2016/why-were-some-books-left-out-of-the-bible
Marcionism: A heretical sect led by a bishop claiming divine revelation to distort Christian doctrine. The core foundation of Marcionism is the belief that the God of the Old and New Testament were distinct. The former being wrathful and destructive, and the latter being kind and benevolent.
The Marcionites established their own scripture canon contains just the Gospel of Luke and edited version of Pauline letters.
(Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Marcionites)
Montanism: A Christian religion built on the idea that there were additional prophets still receiving special revelations under God. They grew in the Early Church for a while as their revelations at first appeared to reinforce scriptural practices. In fact, Montanism was so successful, it would actually claim an important Christian apologist well known to both the Catholic and Orthodox churches, Tertullian.
The founder, Montanus, and the prophets associated with him, were ultimately driven out of the church when they claimed that the Holy Spirit had newer, less theologically consistent, revelations for the church that must be accepted as divine (Gonzalez, 2010).
The Church Continued to Rapidly Fracture and Develop Heretical Sects
Over the next few centuries, additional “schisms” in the early church would include Donatism, Novatianism, Arianism, and Pelagianism. Among these dominant seven, three of these would be integrated into the formation of the Proto-Catholic Church prior to the establishment of the Papacy: Marcionism, Novatianism, & Arianism.
Remember when I mentioned that the territorial organization of churches continued as it was outlined in Acts? These churches were not only largely decentralized in power, but they also possessed different canonical scriptures as well. At the time, canon scripture was pulled from the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures, the Septuagint, and then the collection of apostolic writings and the Gospels (Gonzalez, 2010).
These churches would each teach according to the writings they possessed, and some would become known by their preferred Gospel writings. Over time, these churches would share their writings and traditions with each other, producing a somewhat cohesive orthodox Christian practice, not in spite of, but because of their decentralization.
This would eventually become a problem, as the Gnostics began producing fake writings of the apostles and Mary. While the damage done by Gnosticism would be limited by its notoriety among many Early Church apologists, the growing faction of Marcionism would push these doctrinal freedoms to their tipping point.
Instead of writing new, easily debunked scriptures, the leader of the Marcionites (you get one guess as to what his name was) began producing an altered scriptural canon made up of edited apostolic writings.
Not only were these altered writings a danger to the orthodox churches, but Marcion would quickly go on to absorb a sizable following from the pre-existing churches, which he would leverage to establish his own rival church with its own priesthood. In fact, historians believe Marcion’s heretical church to actually rival the size and influence of the “proper” Early Church.
Marcion would leverage his power to publish the first New Testament canon. Not only did he removed the entirety of the Old Testament from scripture, but he then stripped out the majority of epistles other New Testament writings that referenced Old Testament prophecy.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Marcionites
Chapter 158: I. Marcion and Marcionites – The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority
It Was the Accumulation of Heretical Sects that Demanded the First Authoritative New Testament Canon
Now, there were at least two sects, that not only had their own “scriptures” and would not adhere to common scriptures of the orthodox church. This led to the orthodox churches needing to establish some form of authenticity to separate themselves from the heretical schisms. Funnily enough, the claim to the apostolic succession was not sufficient at this time, as many of the territorial churches had kept registries of bishops that all led back to various apostles.
Obviously, the historical accuracy of some of these are suspect and the Gnostics had claimed apostolic succession first by virtue of possessing the secret teachings Jesus had passed to them through the apostles. So, apostolic succession was a no go.
In stark contrast with Roman Catholic belief today, the remaining orthodox churches established their authenticity through their many interworking church bodies. Rather than consolidating in Rome, the orthodox churches that had been sharing their scriptures and traditions with each other banded together and compiled their scriptures together to official create the first New Testament, which consisted of the original four Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline Epistles. .
The orthodox churches also professed to follow the pre-existing Old Testament canon that the Marcionites and Gnostics rejected. The orthodox churches then “first” donned the title Catholic, in reference to the fact that they shared a universal canon of scriptures and rejected the new and exclusionary doctrines of the Marcionites and Gnostics (Gonzalez, 2010). Since this was a counter council to Marcion’s canon, this would’ve occurred between the second and third century.
Now, as a large group, apostolic succession took on more meaning, as the individual apostolic lines the orthodox churches had a lot in common. Each major orthodox church would profess their approval of this new canon and each church would show its record of succession back to one of the original apostles.
Soon, it became undeniable that the combined records of apostolic succession from the orthodox churches had a congruency that Marcionite and Gnostic churches did not, allowing them to refute the notion of those heretical churches possessing secret texts from the apostles themselves. This could not have been accomplished apostolic succession was centralized to Rome.
Exploring the Other, More Relevant, Definition of Catholic
Let me expatiate; apostolic succession had a bit of a different meaning then than it does today. You see, Catholic does not only mean “universal,” but it also roughly translates as “according to the whole.” Thus, apostolic succession was a lot more inclusive then, as opposed to now.
The line of bishops was not so important to distinguish the orthodox Christians from the heretics as was the cumulative confession of the new universal canons and creeds. The total weight of the witnesses (ie. the various orthodox churches) of these shared doctrines was the basis for the rejection of Marcionism and Gnosticism (Gonzalez, 2010).
A quick aside for sources:
While best described in in Gonzales’s Story of Christianity, the combined readings of the below two sources also create a solid background and representation for the above progression of Apostolicity of the Early Church.
1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-Catholicism/Religious-orders-canons-and-monks
2. https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2016/why-were-some-books-left-out-of-the-bible
Instead of professing to hold secret scripture from a single line of apostolic succession, as the Gnostics and Marcionites did, the Catholic church could point to its shared teachings from multiple churches. The multiple churches, with multiple lines of successions, all leading down to multiple apostles, established a greater weight of authentic teaching.
This makes the later establishment of the Papal office, which would effectively restrict the authority of apostolic power and authority for salvation back to a single apostolic line, both disappointing and ironic.
Early Church Creeds Alluded to, and Countered, the Schismatic State of Early Christianity
As a fun aside, this is actually around the time the original Apostle’s Creed was first drafted and canonized. Prior to the creed, all churches, including Gnostic and Marcionite churches, used their own creeds based on the Trinitarian formula, which would be commonly invoked during their baptisms.
The more specific Apostles Creed was drafted to exclude the heretical sects in their additional details. It looked something like this, which you’ll likely recognize as being very to most baptismal formulas used today:
“Do you believe in God, the Father almighty? Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Ghost and of Mary the Virgin, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose again at the third day, living from among the dead, and ascended unto heaven and sat at the right of the Father, and will come to judge the quick and the dead? Do you believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Church, and the resurrection of the flesh?” (Gonzalez, 2010)
The emphasis on Jesus being born from Mary, dying, and the confession of the belief of the resurrection of the flesh, were all slights against the Gnostics. The profession of a singular almighty “God the Father” was a direct rejection of Marcion’s claim to separate Old and New Testament Gods. Lastly, the Holy Church was emphasized to establish the orthodox (now Catholic) churches as the authentic and superior denomination.
So, this means that the Christian Church became perfectly unified, defeated the schismatics, and was the singular and unbroken authority on Christianity until the Reformation right? Well, no. They didn’t even make it a few centuries before their next major schism caused by the Novatians.
The Schisms Continue
You see, persecution of Christians under Trajan had begun to die off in the later years of his reign as it began to embody the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Even though things had begun to improve for Christians, Rome itself was beginning to splinter from within under the strain of various dissident groups.
Trajan’s successor, Septimus Severus, decided to reunite Rome under a single religion. All gods and philosophies could still exist, as long as everyone agreed that the Roman sun god reigned above them all, this would become known as syncretism.
A rather damaging component of this edict was that all teachers and new converts to any religion not aligned under syncretism would be put to death. Once again, Rome could not be the epicenter of the Christian church, but its bane.
Source: https://thehistoryofchristianity.wordpress.com/tag/syncretism/
The proto-Catholic church fell into disarray. Some Christians fled to rural cities, such as Saint Clement, and other Christians, such as Saint Ignatius, Perpetua, and Felicitas, would become martyrs. This would last for roughly a decade under Septimus’s rule, only to become progressively watered down by his successors. This reprieve would last until about 250 A.D, where Emperor Decius would replace syncretism with Hellenic Paganism, ruling that any worship of any non-pagan god was punishable by torture and imprisonment.
To weed out the Judeo Christian underground, Decius would require conversion and worship of the pagan gods to be verified by a legal document. This led to three new terms appearing in the church: the confessor, Christians who endured torture and imprisonment for their faith, apostates, who either followed the edict or suppressed their Christian identity in order to avoid persecution, and the lapsed, who fled Rome.
Source: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/persecution-in-early-church-gallery
This persecution only lasted a few years before Decius retired due to illness. After decades of sporadic oppression from Rome, the Christians were finally able to rebuild their churches in peace (at least until the next emperor, Valerian, snapped). This would lead to our next major schism, where the confessors fell into sharp disagreement over whether or not the apostates and lapsed would be allowed to return to the Catholic Church.
This culminated in a sharp disagreement between two major bishops in the church. Cyprian of Carthage, a lapsed bishop who believed in forgiving and reaccepting the lapsed (with some caveats), and Novatian, the Bishop of Rome, who believed that lapsed should not be forgiven without some sort of evidence of repentance under adversity.
Background on the Resulting Synod and Schisms
This would not be Novatian’s first brush with schisms; the church of Rome wasted no time in its dogmatic foolishness by having a schism over whether or not fornicators and past idolaters would be allowed to be forgiven by the church and readmitted into communion (Gonzalez, 2010).
The moderates in the church would elect Cornelius as the new Roman bishop, and the more zealous ones would elect Novatian. As a schismatic bishop, Novatian had no problem butting heads with Cyprian as well, and his schism was quickly growing into its powerful denomination. Even before the formal establishment of the Papal Office, the apostolic line of the Roman church was a comedy of errors.
Source: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Novatianism
This would lead to Cyprian, not Novatian, calling a synod at Carthage to decide how to handle this topic. This would of course be another piece of evidence against the pre-eminence of the Roman Catholic church amongst the early churches. Back on topic, Cyprian was adamant on reabsorbing people into the church, but he also had to save face and come to terms with his personal idiosyncrasies about the lapsed.
You see, Cyprian was a student of the sharp-tongued Montanist, Tertullian. Tertullian would have actively condemned the actions of the lapsed, which Cyprian was a part of, so Cyprian needed to ethically reconcile that himself.
At the synod, Cyprian and the council ultimately decided that those who had purchased or obtained certificates without actually having sacrificed would be immediately readmitted to the communion of the church. Those who had sacrificed would only be readmitted on their deathbeds, or when a new persecution gave them the opportunity to prove the sincerity of their repentance.
Those who had sacrificed to pagan gods and showed no repentance would never be readmitted. All these actions were to be taken by the bishops, and not by confessors. These decisions found enough common ground between Cyprian, Novatian, and they confessors to put the controversy to rest. However, the Novatian schism would continue for several generations after (Gonzalez, 2010).
(Gonzalez, 2010)
This is where the Proto-Catholic church would establish bishops as being above reproach by confessors, which would give Cyprian some much-needed reprieve. The allowance of the lapsed who fled, but had not committed pagan sacrifices, would also alleviate Cyprian’s condemnation from confessors in the church. This is also where Novatian would wind up being considered outside of the orthodoxy. While he remained a bishop in Rome, he was never in full communion with the orthodox Proto-Catholic church, and he would ultimately be retroactively labeled an anti-pope centuries later. Is the Office of Pope divinely protected or not?
This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors in this See so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine. Thus the tendency to schism is removed and the whole Church is preserved in unity, and, resting on its foundation, can stand firm against the gates of hell.” (The First Vatican Council, chapter 4)
Uh-oh, I’m not seeing a lot of unity and infallibility from the Roman bishop, here.
Constantine, a Practicing Pagan, Seizes Power in the Church of Rome
Just to recap, we are now deep in the third century, moving into the fourth, of Early Church history. We have found no unity, Orthodox practices and doctrine are still being defined and squabbled over, and the church of Rome is still not remotely pre-eminent. As we approach the fourth century, we’ll find some modest growth on the unity front, but it would come at a great cost.
In the mid to late third century, Roman Emperor Valerian would lead a questionably effective assault on Christianity. This afforded Christians some tenuous peace, so it wasn’t until the turn of the fourth century that the Catholic Church would face severe persecution once again.
This would be under the reign of Emperor Diocletian, who would outlaw Christianity outright and make it punishable by imprisonment, torture, and death. His (sort of) successors, Constantius, would later relent on this persecution. Once the ardent enablers of the current regime had died off, it left a power vacuum in Rome that would be famously resolved by the syncretist, Constantine.
Proclaiming to have received a charge from God to conquer Rome, Constantine quickly became a powerful ally among the persecuted Christians, in spite of still being a practicing pagan.
(Gonzalez, 2010)
As Constantine seized almost total control of the Roman empire and had treated the orthodox Christians well, he set himself as not only the highest authority of Rome, but also over its churches.
This could be seen during his calling and presiding over of the Council of Nicaea, which had called together over 300 clergies, barring the actual bishop of Rome, who was considered too aged and frail to attend (Gonzalez, 2010). Constantine called the council with the intention of ending a schism growing in the Roman churches called Arianism.
Arianism was a schism within the church that believed Jesus was created by God, and not continuous with God. It was with Constantine’s guidance that the Nicene creed was created, which would of course make it very explicitly known that Jesus was consubstantial with God (God from God, Light from Light).
Though Constantine clearly possessed immense goodwill and influence among Roman Christians, he himself had never actually converted. Constantine remained unbaptized until his deathbed and continued practicing paganism as he continued to gain authority in the church.
This was a problem, as the official religion of Rome was still paganism, and Constantine’s technical title was… Supreme Pontiff of those pagan churches (Gonzalez, 2010). So, heresy in the Papal Office was there from even before its official conception.
(Gonzalez, 2010)
As Constantine found himself at increasing odds between the pagan Roman senate and the Christian Roman churches, he would ultimately favor the Christians. In a show of goodwill, Constantine issued edicts that would give the church and its clergy tax exemption, as well as render the Roman church as an entity capable of owning land and material riches.
This would ultimately harm the church more than help it, as the benefits for Bishops would lead to a marked prevalence of simony in Roman churches that would continue for centuries. These cumulative blessings to the Christian churches only further angered his pagan contemporaries. So, caught between Christianity and Paganism, Constantine found a happy medium by blurring the lines between the two.
Constantine Injects Paganism into the Roman Churches
Under Constantine, Christian churches would fall under subtle Pagan influences. This would include the re-introduction of incense for church practices, priests distinguishing themselves with religious garments in a similar fashion to the pagans, the use of altars in Christian services, and the widespread belief of magical religious relics once owned by the apostles (Gonzalez, 2010).
While those well versed in the Old Testament scripture would recognize the first three as being commonalities in the Levitical priesthood, but much of its usage had fallen away in Early church. These were either rebuked by God, who no longer desired them (hello again, Isaiah) or rendered obsolete by the New Covenant (hello, Hebrews).
While Christianity had quite a fair few supernaturally blessed objects, the use of totems, graven images, and trinkets were never allowed. In the current age, all of these practices, distinguishing dress, and supernatural items had become staples of the pagans, particularly those following the Greek and Roman pantheons.
Compromise Between the Pagans and Christians Would Ultimately Fracture the Church’s Unity Again
This would, of course, eventually lead to an unofficial schism between the rapidly evolving Roman church and its fundamentalists, who disliked the direction the Roman church was heading in. They would mostly become known as the monastic movement, where thousands of them left the church of Rome to live in monasteries in Egypt and Syria.
Others, who were grounded enough to fear that the church was becoming apostate, but not wanting to make the trek into the desert, decided to schism into their own churches still within the Roman Empire.
Among these would be the Donatists, both the spiritual and literal successors to the Noviantists, who believed the Roman Catholic churches had become sinful and were unworthy of being the consecrated bride of Christ. They asserted that the Roman practice of sacred authority being the product of a religious office was flagrantly unbiblical (meaning they had read Acts and Timothy). Instead, they pertained that it was the personal righteousness that would determine the authenticity of the clergy (meaning they had read Matthew).
While better explained in Story of Christianity, Britannica has fair take on Donatism as well: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Donatists
Over time, the Donatists would gain the affiliation of an even more spiritually aggressive party, called the Circumcellions. These people were known for being violently fanatic and would later play a substantial role in the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Early Church was Never Unified and the Roman Catholic Church Created More Schisms than it Prevented
So, now we’ve covered roughly four centuries of early church history. In these four centuries, the orthodox church did not consider itself Catholic until the mid second century. It also did not believe in a singular line of apostolic succession being tied to special authority.
Rome spent much of its time being the epicenter of Christian persecution, hence the lack of a true Papal office, and many of the aesthetic and traditional components of modern Catholicism did not arise until Constantine’s reign (Gonzalez, 2010).
Most importantly, I have four hundred plus years of historical narrative showing that the Christian church was never even remotely unified under the Roman Catholic Doctrine. Power in the Early Church was decentralized, if not even more so than it was in Acts, and continued that way for hundreds of years.
Schismatics also littered much of early church history, and many of them had shared heritage with the saints of the Roman Catholic church. Additionally, the Roman church has still yet to ever be considered thew epicenter and leader of the Christian body. So, the burning question I had while reading this was, how exactly was the Papal office established?
Suggested Reading: González, J. L. (2010). The story of Christianity. New York: HarperOne. Retrieved from: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Christianity-Vol-Church-Reformation/dp/006185588X