To understand the Catholic Church, we must consider the history of the Church.
When considering history, we should consider what it means. The definition of history is “a chronological record of events, of the life or development of a people or institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events”. History is not free from error or manipulation. There is a saying “History is written by the Victors” (Winston Churchill) and subject to the politics of memory.
Catholic tradition holds that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ . The New Testament records Jesus' activities and teaching, his appointment of the twelve Apostles, and his instructions to them to continue his work.
The Catholic Church teaches that the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, in an event known as Pentecost, signaled the beginning of the public ministry of the Church. Peter is also thought to be Rome's first bishop and the consecrator of Linus as its next bishop, thus starting the line which includes the most current pontiff, Pope Francis. Conditions in the Roman Empire facilitated the spread of new ideas. The empire's well-defined network of roads and waterways allowed easier travel, while the Pax Romana (peace treaty) made it safe to travel from one region to another. The government had encouraged inhabitants, especially those in urban areas, to learn Greek, and the common language allowed ideas to be more easily expressed and understood.
Between Jesus’ Life & Constantine, 33 - 325 A.D
This was a time where there were no written Gospels but only a spoken tradition of the sayings and stories of Jesus. So it was for the earliest Christians.
Jesus obviously never ordered his disciples to write down what he said or what he did. His intention therefore must have been for His word to be passed orally.
It was at least 30 years after the Resurrection before any written record was made about the life of Jesus. Scholars have different views but generally agree that the gospels were written around:
• Mark: c. 68–73 or c. 65–70.
• Matthew: c. 70–100, possibly c. 80–85
• Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85
• John: c. 90–100 up to 110, majority view is that it was written in stages
As the first decades of the first millennium passed and those who had been contemporaries of Jesus and the Apostles died, Christians realized the importance of recording and gathering together oral traditions of Jesus' sayings and life and letters written by the Apostles. Fewer and few people were still living who could speak authoritatively as apostles or even as those who knew the apostles.
The church went through many changes in the first 300 years. At first, Christians' Scriptures were only the Jewish Law and the Prophets and some of the Jewish Writings, such as the Psalms. Though they used simple affirmations of faith, such as "Jesus is Lord," they did not have formal creeds or confessions. Worship was not highly structured and existed in a variety of forms.
Apostolic Age 33 A.D. to 100 A.D.
The Apostolic Age of the history of Christianity is traditionally the period of the Twelve Apostles, dating from the Great Commission of the Apostles by the resurrected Jesus in Jerusalem c. 33 until the death of the last Apostle, believed to be John the Apostle in Anatolia c. 100.
Traditionally, the Apostles are believed to have dispersed from Jerusalem, founding the Apostolic Sees. It holds special significance in Christian tradition as the age of the direct apostles of Jesus Christ. The major primary source for the "Apostolic Age" is the Acts of the Apostles, but its historical accuracy is questioned by some.
The first Christians continued to worship alongside Jewish believers, as described in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, were all Jewish, either by birth, or conversion for which the biblical term proselyte is used, and referred to by historians as the Jewish Christians.
Within twenty years of Jesus's death, Sunday was being regarded as the primary day of worship.
Most scholars agree that the followers of Jesus were composed principally from apocalyptic Jewish sects during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. Some Early Christian groups were strictly Jewish, such as the Ebionites and the early-church leaders in Jerusalem, collectively called Jewish Christians.
During this period, they were led by James the Just. Paul of Tarsus, commonly known as Saint Paul, persecuted the early Jewish Christians, such as Saint Stephen, then converted and adopted the title of "Apostle to the Gentiles" and started converting the Gentiles.
Christianity began growing away from Jewish practices to establish itself as a separate religion. To resolve doctrinal differences among the competing factions within the Church, in or around 50 A.D., the apostles convened the first Church council, the Council of Jerusalem. Paul persuaded the leaders of the Jerusalem Church to allow Gentile converts exemption from most Jewish commandments which may parallel Noahide Law in Rabbinic Judaism. This council affirmed that Gentiles could become Christians without adopting all of the Mosaic Law.
In 66, the Jews revolted against Rome. Rome besieged Jerusalem for four years, and the city fell in 70. The city was destroyed, including the massive Temple, and the population was mostly killed or removed.
Jerusalem ceased to be the center of the Christian church, its bishops became "suffragans" (subordinates) of the Metropolitan bishop of Caesarea. In the 2nd century, Christianity established itself as a predominantly Gentile religion that spanned the Roman Empire and beyond.
After 70, Christians became dispersed, moving out more and more beyond Israel. Christianity increasingly became Hellenized. Greek, not Aramaic, became the primary language of Christians. Instead of Jerusalem, three cities:
• Antioch in Syria
• Alexandria in Egypt
• and Rome in Italy
became the most important centers for Christian communities.
Jesus's apostles gained converts in Jewish communities around the Mediterranean Sea,over 40 Christian communities had been established by 100. Although most of these were in the Roman Empire, notable Christian communities were also established in Armenia, Iran and along the Indian Malabar Coast. The new religion was most successful in urban areas, spreading first among slaves and people of low social standing, and then among aristocratic women.
By the end of the 1st century, Christianity began to be recognized internally and externally as a separate religion from Rabbinic Judaism which itself was refined and developed further in the centuries after the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple.
The apostolic period between the years 33 and 100 produced writings attributed to the direct followers of Jesus Christ. The period is traditionally associated with the apostles, hence the tags "apostolic times" and "apostolic writings". The New Testament books were connected by the early church to the apostles, though modern liberal scholarship has cast doubt on the authorship of most New Testament books.
As the New Testament canon developed, the Letters of Paul, the Canonical Gospels and various other works were also recognized as scripture to be read in church. Paul's letters, especially Romans, established a theology based on Christ rather than on the Mosaic Law, but most Christian denominations today still consider the "moral prescriptions" of the Mosaic Law, such as the Ten Commandments, Great Commandment, and Golden Rule, to be relevant. Early Christians demonstrated a wide range of beliefs and practices, many of which were later rejected as heretical.
As shown by the numerous quotations in the New Testament books and other Christian writings of the 1st centuries, early Christians generally used and revered the Jewish Bible as Scripture, mostly in the Greek (Septuagint) or Aramaic (Targum) translations, much of which is written in narrative form where "in the biblical story God is the protagonist, Satan (or evil people/powers) are the antagonists, and God's people are the agonists".
In the traditional history of the Christian church, the Apostolic Age was the foundation upon which the entire church's history is founded.
Ante-Nicene Period, 100 A.D. to 325 A.D
The Ante-Nicene Period (literally meaning "before Nicaea") of the history of early Christianity refers to the period following the Apostolic Age to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. This portion of Christian history is important, having a significant impact on the unity of doctrine across all Christendom and the spreading of Christianity to a greater area of the world.
Those seen as prominent figures of this era, referred to as the Ante-Nicene Fathers or Proto-orthodox Christians, generally agreed on most doctrine while the teachings of those early Christian writers which the general majority considered to be heretical, were rejected.
Christian groups and congregations first organized themselves loosely. In Paul's time, although certain decisions by Elders and Apostles were binding, as in the Council of Jerusalem,there were no precisely delineated functions yet for bishops, elders, and deacons.
A Church hierarchy, however, seems to have developed by the late 1st century and early 2nd century (c 90 - 140). These structures were certainly formalized well before the end of the Early Christian period, which concluded with the legalization of Christianity by Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313 and the holding of the First Council of Nicea in 325, when the title of Metropolitan bishop first appears.
In the post-Apostolic church, bishops emerged as overseers of urban Christian populations, and a hierarchy of clergy gradually took on the form of episkopoi (overseers), presbyteroi (elders), and diakonoi (ministerial servants). This hierarchy emerged slowly and at different times for different locations.
Clement, a 1st-century bishop of Rome, refers to the leaders of the Corinthian church in his epistle (letter) to Corinthians as bishops and presbyters interchangeably. The New Testament writers also use the terms "overseer" and "elder" interchangeably and as synonyms. The Didache (Teachings of the Apostles, dated by most scholars to the early 2nd century), speaks of "appointing for yourself bishops and deacons".
Disputes regarding the proper titles and roles of church leaders would later become one of the major causes of schism within the Christian church. Such disputes include the roles of bishops and presbyters. Churches such as the Catholic and Orthodox use the word "priest" of all the baptized, but apply it in a more specific sense "ministerial priesthood" to bishops and presbyters and sometimes, somewhat loosely, treat "presbyter" and "priest" as synonyms, applying both terms to clergy subordinate to bishops. In congregational churches, the title "priest" is rejected, keeping only "presbyter" or "elder". Some congregational churches do not include a role of bishop in their organizational polity.
Post-apostolic bishops of importance include Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome . These men reportedly knew and studied under the apostles personally and are therefore called Apostolic Fathers. Each Christian community also had presbyters, as was the case with Jewish communities, who were also ordained and assisted the bishop. As Christianity spread, especially in rural areas, the presbyters exercised more responsibilities and took distinctive shape as priests. Lastly, deacons also performed certain duties, such as tending to the poor and sick.
In the 2nd century, an episcopal structure becomes more visible, and in that century this structure was supported by teaching on apostolic succession, where a bishop becomes the spiritual successor of the previous bishop in a line tracing back to the apostles themselves.
By the end of the early Christian period, the church within the Roman Empire had hundreds of bishops.
The organization of the Church began to mimic that of the Empire. Bishops in politically important cities exerted greater authority over bishops in nearby cities. The churches in Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome held the highest positions.
Beginning in the 2nd century, bishops often congregated in regional synods to resolve doctrinal and policy issues. By the 3rd century, the bishop of Rome began to act as a court of appeals for problems that other bishops could not resolve.
Jerusalem was the first church and an important church center up to 135. The First Council of Nicaea recognized and confirmed the tradition by which Jerusalem continued to be given "special honour", but did not assign to it even metropolitan authority within its own province, still less the extraprovincial jurisdiction exercised by Rome and the other sees mentioned above.
Constantinople came into prominence only after the early Christian period, being founded officially in 330, five years after the First Council of Nicaea, though the much smaller original city of Byzantium was an early center of Christianity largely due to its proximity to Anatolia.
Irenaeus of Lyons believed in the 2nd century that Peter and Paul had been the founders of the Church in Rome and had appointed Linus as succeeding bishop.
The four Eastern patriarchs affirmed Saint Peter's ministry and death in Rome and the apostolic succession of Roman bishops. However, they perceived this as a mark of honor rather than an overarching authority over belief and practices, as they still considered themselves to be the final authorities in their own regions, see for example Metropolitan bishops and Pentarchy, yet still under the overall guidance of the bishop of Rome.
Other patriarchs did turn to Rome for support in settling disputes, but they also wrote to other influential patriarchs for support in the same fashion. Outside of a few notable exceptions, the body of literature left from this period, and even as late as the 5th and 6th centuries, is said by Bernhard Schimmelpfennig to illustrate the generally limited scope of the Roman bishops' authority but acknowledged the authority nonetheless.
William Kling states that by the end of 2nd century that Rome was a significant, if not unique, early center of Christianity, but held no convincing claim to primacy. The Petrine proof text first occurs historically in a dispute between Cyprian of Carthage and Pope Stephen. A bishop from Caesarea named Firmilian sided with Cyprian in his dispute, seething against Stephen's "insulting arrogance" and claims of authority based on the See of Peter. Cyprian's argument won out the day, with Pope Stephen's claims meeting rejection.
Cyprian's claim was that bishops held the keys to the forgiveness of sins, with all bishops being the successors of Saint Peter. Jerome later took up the argument for the primacy of the Roman bishop in the 5th century, a position adopted by Pope Leo I.
Early Christian Art
During the first three centuries Christians, like their Jewish counterparts, were ambivalent about expressing their faith with images. The norm was to consider art to be against the second commandment (Exodus 20:4). Some of the earliest Christians known to have used art were a group of Gnostics who were followers of Carpocrates. These Gnostics made images of Christ in the second century.
Another element that affected Christian art, particularly in the third century up until the Edict of Milan in 313, had to do with the persecution and/or outlawing of Christianity. Christian art therefore often used images already in secular society.
Other art literally went underground, such as that in the catacombs of Rome. The drawing above is a sketch of the type of art found in the catacombs.
The first Christian art was derived from "neutral images" which could be accepted by Christians or pagans.
These images included:
• the Good Shepherd carrying his sheep (symbol of humanitarian concern)
• the Orans (figure with hands uplifted in prayer)
• dove (peace hereafter)
• peacock (immortality)
• fish (Greek word "fish" formed an acrostic for "Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour)
Christians re-interpreted these images so that they had meaning for their beliefs.
Since they could not show their faith openly, Christians made use of symbols such as those described above. These symbols appear on the walls of the catacombs and on the marble-slabs which sealed the tombs that are in the catacombs.
In addition to symbols, the catacombs also have frescoes. A fresco (from the Italian word meaning "fresh") is a type of mural painting. Frescoes in the catacombs depict biblical scenes of the Old and the New Testament.
These paintings are not simply illustrations of stories from the Bible; however, but rather they are interpretations of the Bible. They often use typology, just like some Christian written interpretative material from the same time period. Old Testament stories such as Moses Striking the Rock, Noah and the Flood, and Daniel in the Lions' Den are shown to pre-figure or anticipate Christ and his salvation. Other frescoes in the catacombs include Jesus and the Woman at the Well, Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, and Jesus Raising Lazarus.
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