The papacy in the second half of the Middle Ages

The popes from the fifth century to the Reformation in the sixteenth century were not unlike the judges and kings of ancient Israel. The papacy contained both saints and scoundrels, and the witness of the church rose and fell accordingly just as God’s people did in ancient Israel under the judges and kings when they intermittently experienced seasons of blessing through obedience to God or languished in wilderness because of rebellion. However, an examination of the papacy’s history is beyond the scope of our inquiry. That said, we should note the general trends of the church under the papacy in the second half of the Middle Ages that led to the Reformation.

Innocent III was pope from 1198-1216. Pope Innocent’s view of the papacy was that, “The Lord gave Peter the rule not only over the universal Church, but also the rule over the whole world…No king can rule rightly unless he devoutly serves Christ’s vicar (the pope).” But Innocent’s ideal church reached beyond his desire for secular power. In 1215, Innocent recognized a need for changes within the church and called a council at the Lateran Church in Rome to initiate reform by which he meant reform of the clergy and monks.[1]

Through the centuries the church had become very wealthy. For many in the clergy, it was an easy vocation with a good income, and many exceptionally worldly men occupied the office of bishop. Thus, the religious and spiritual condition of a large majority of the clergy was appalling. Innocent’s call for reform was shared by many earnest Christians in the church, but as we shall see, their ideas of reform were often dramatically different than those of Innocent and subsequent leaders in the church hierarchy.[2]

One of those was Peter Waldo who believed that the Bible and particularly the New Testament should be the only basis for faith and living the Christian life. Waldo was a wealthy merchant from Lyons, France, but around the year 1176 he sold his merchandise and gave his money to the poor. He and his followers became known as the Waldenses. They memorized large portions of the New Testament, dressed simply, fasted three days each week, used only the Lord’s Prayer, and did not believe in purgatory, masses, and prayers for the dead. Men as well as women were allowed to be lay preachers. The Waldenses and other dissenting groups were considered heretics by the church, and to root out the supposed heretics, the church began the Medieval Inquisition (a Roman Catholic court) not to be confused with the church’s later Spanish Inquisition. The pope enlisted some of the nobles to help in eradicating the Waldenses and other groups, and as a consequence it was said that “blood flowed like water” for twenty years in southern France. But a remnant of the Waldenses survived and found refuge in the Alps of western Switzerland and three hundred years later accepted the teachings of Protestantism.[3]

Innocent and the popes that followed were able to maintain the church’s power over the temporal realm until the end of the thirteen century. But with the rule of Boniface VIII (1294-1303), the church began losing power and declined because of two factors. There was a spirit of rising nationalism among the countries under the church’s political domination thereby weakening the power and authority of a distant pope. From 1309 to 1376, the papal seat moved from Rome to France and was known as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy.” The Italians were highly dissatisfied with this state of affairs and in 1378 elected their own pope which resulted in the “Great Schism” between the Italian and French factions within the Roman church. Thus, the church had two popes which lasted until 1417.[4] But the residual damage to the church caused by the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy and the Great Schism would last for many years.

Rumblings of reformation

The intrigues and destructive warfare within the church did not go un-noticed by those calling for reform of the church. Englishman and Oxford professor John Wycliffe began to criticize the clergy in 1376 because of the corruption within the church and its quest for wealth and political power. He called for a return to the poverty and simplicity of the apostles and declared that the Bible and not the church should be the only determinant of faith. Since the people could not read the Bible written in Latin, he translated it into the English language. Wycliffe died in 1384. His followers were called the Lollards and continued to preach that the only standard for doctrine was the Bible. Throughout England many Lollards were martyred at the stake and only a small remnant survived in secret until the time of the Reformation.[5]

The teachings of Wycliffe did not die with the Lollards but spread to Europe and eventually to Bohemia. John Hus was only fifteen when Wycliffe died. Hus eventually became the head of the University of Prague and enthusiastically welcomed Wycliffe’s teaching. He began to preach boldly about the corruption of the clergy, and many of his ideas became the central teachings of the future Reformation. Hus claimed that only Christ was the head of the church and popes and cardinals were not required for its governance. He challenged the sale of indulgences which was a monstrous practice that contradicted the doctrines of the Bible. For his brashness, Hus was excommunicated, imprisoned, and subsequently burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. For the next twenty-two years the church battled the Hussite movement which resulted in a great slaughter. In 1436, the church agreed to allow the Hussites certain freedoms in preaching and manner of communion. The church also agreed to attempt a reform of the clergy.[6]

The cry for reform within the church came from other parts of the Roman Church’s world as well. The Brethren of the Common Life arose about 1350 in the Netherlands and Germany. They strongly believed in Christian education as a means to bring about reform. Founded by Gerhard Groote, other leaders in the movement included John Wessel, Erasmus, and Thomas à Kempis.[7]

Humanism enters the church

We are nearing the threshold of the Reformation in the early sixteenth century. But before we discuss those events, we must address one other mayor influence on the church which hindered its efforts at reform and continued to afflict both Catholic and Protestant churches to the present day. The Middle Ages did not spring fully formed in Northern Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476. Although ignorant, the barbarians were not stupid. They were ignorant because they could not read or write. But, in many respects their civilization rivaled those of other parts of the world. They had a religion, laws, systems of government, songs, stories, and knew how to make a living. They were excellent warriors, and the conquest of Rome exposed them to the world of books and other cultures.[8]

Life was harsh in the pioneer wilds of northern Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages around A.D. 500. The first half of the Middle Ages has also been called the Dark Ages. This was a time when life was focused on the physical demands of survival and less on those tasks required of a cultivated society. Compared to the remainder of the civilized world, these simple agricultural people of France, Germany, the English Isles, and other parts of Northern Europe appeared to be backwards if not uncivilized. Yet, out of such sturdy stock grew Western civilization and by which is meant Christendom.[9]

Because the Northern Europeans began with so little and struggled under very harsh conditions, the Dark Ages did not end until the eleventh century. In the latter half of the eleventh century and early twelfth century, there began to occur significant social, economic, and political changes that produced an awakening in the cultural and intellectual life of Northern Europe.

From about 1100 to 1300, the men of Western Europe built a cohesive and somewhat refined civilization, and the broad and general characteristics of their medieval society remained for centuries and became the ideas and ideals that formed the foundations of modern Christendom. As towns grew and people had more leisure and material possessions, intellectual curiosity also grew.[10]

These early stirrings in Western Europe were the precursors to the Renaissance which was considered a rebirth or revival of learning usually considered as spanning the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. It was a time of transition between the Middle Ages and the modern times. Beginning in Italy, it marked the humanistic revival of the classical influence of Greece and Rome which led to the flowering of the arts, literature, and modern science.[11] But not all of the fruits of the Renaissance can be considered good for man. The humanistic elements of the Renaissance fundamentally changed the thinking about man and put him at the center and focus of life. In contrast with the biblical revelation, man was now the measure. This redefinition of man invaded the church as early as the thirteenth century through the thoughts and writings of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an outstanding Catholic theologian whose influence still dominates many within the Catholic Church.[12]

Although Aquinas believed that man revolted against God and was fallen, he believed man was only partly fallen. Aquinas believed the will was fallen but the intellect was not. Men could rely on their human wisdom as well as the teachings of non-Christian philosophers. Philosophy was separated from the Bible. Therefore, man could act autonomously. Aquinas revered the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Through Aquinas, Aristotle’s philosophy began to be incorporated into the church as a source of authority alongside the Bible in giving answers to the questions about life. Aristotle focused on individual things (the particulars) as opposed to biblical absolutes and ideals. Human reason was now autonomous, and more and more of church pronouncements were based on Greek or Roman thought. Aquinas’s so-called unfallen human reason was now equal to revelation. But if one starts with things (e.g., a person’s individual acts) as opposed to the absolutes found in the Bible, there is no basis for values, morals, and law. In other words, there is no basis for determining right and wrong.[13]

Humanism had entered the church in the thirteenth century which resulted in an increasing distortion of biblical teaching because of a mixing of Christian and ancient non-Christian thought. Therefore, based the church’s presumption that man’s intellect was unfallen, it made possible a detour on the Roman road to salvation because fallen man was told that he was able to return to right relationship with God by “meriting the merit of Christ.”[14]

Renaissance humanism continued to strengthen and spread over the next two centuries as it evolved toward modern humanism in which man declared he was totally independent and denied God’s existence. Soon this focus on the particulars without benefit of God and his laws etched in creation spread to all spheres of life and knowledge.[15]

In 1453 Constantinople was conquered by the Turks and eventually renamed Istanbul. The eastern half of the old Roman Empire had fallen and signaled the end of Middle Ages. As a result Constantinople’s Greek scholars steeped in the humanistic worldview fled to Florence and other Italian cities. Only fourteen years prior to the fall in 1453, the Eastern Orthodox Church met in council with the Western church at Florence to discuss a renewal of relations between the two halves of the Christian world. Thus, a channel had already been established for humanistic thought in the Eastern church to flow into the Western church.[16] Over the centuries the Western church had left the simple faith of the fathers of the church as found in the New Testament. The church had also breached the biblical barriers between the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. And in the last half of the fifteenth century, the paganizing influence of the Renaissance seized the papacy.

In response to the great wickedness of the times, an Italian Dominican Monk named Savonarola boldly preached in Florence for four years against Pope Alexander VI and the moral abuses within the church. He was hanged in 1498 and his body burned.[17] But calls for reformation would not be quieted. Nineteen years later the sound of nails being driven into the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, echoed throughout the Christian world. The parchment secured by the nails was a cry for massive reform within a corrupt church. It was a call for not only an end to the moral abuses within the church but a return to sola scriptura—the scriptures only as a basis for faith and living the Christian life.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), pp. 124-125, 127.
[2] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
[3] Ibid., pp. 141-143.
[4] Ibid., pp. 134, 136-138.
[5] Ibid., pp. 143-144.
[6] Ibid., pp. 144-147.
[7] Ibid., pp. 150-151.
[8] Ibid., p. 54.
[9] John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926, 1940), pp.10-15.
[10] Ibid., pp. 13-14.
[11] “renaissance,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1963), p. 725.
[12] Francis A. Schaffer, How Should We Then Live? (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1976), p. 51.
[13] Ibid., pp. 43, 52, 55.
[14] Ibid., p. 56.
[15] Ibid., pp. 60, 71.
[16] Ibid., p. 60.
[17] Ibid., p. 80.

The fall of the Roman Empire

The ascendance of Christianity came too late to redeem the social fabric of Rome and the western half of the empire. The Roman world was culturally and spiritually impoverished and no longer had a unifying common core of belief. Its citizens had abandoned their reverence for the old Roman virtues that had once provided cohesion within its far-flung empire. It had been in decline long before the Edict of Milan in 313, and the newly sanctioned Christian virtues had not time to infuse life into the dying empire. The Roman world was culturally and spiritually spent and in a slow motion death spiral during the latter part of the fourth century and early fifth century.[1]

Historians mark certain milestones in the demise of the once mighty empire. To the north lay the barbarian German tribes and behind them were the Mongolian Huns. In 376 the German Visigoths (west Goths) crossed the lower Daube and were the first barbarian tribe to enter the eastern half of the Roman Empire (Byzantine). They were soon followed by the Ostrogoths (east Goths). Even though declining, the empire was still large and had strength enough to drive out the barbarians in 378. The barbarians moved their attacks to the West, and for the next one hundred years hordes of barbarians plundered the western portion of the empire and killed or brought into captivity many of its citizens. The sack of Rome at the heart of the empire by barbarian warlords occurred in 410, and the city was again plundered by the Vandals in 455. The dying body of the empire had its head cut off in 476 when the last western emperor was killed by a Germanic warlord exactly one hundred years after the first invasion of the Goths. The date is more symbolic than meaningful as the empire had ceased to function long before 476. However, that year was far more significant in another way for it marked the beginning of the Middle Ages which lasted for a thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453.[2]

Emergence of the papacy and doctrinal compromise

The second major event to dramatically influence the course of the church’s history occurred in 461 within the church. Out of its second century struggle with the Gnostics and Montanists, the church developed the episcopal form of government (church recognition of a governing authority of bishops) to establish its authority and to determine the meaning of the Bible because even heretical groups claimed biblical authority in promotion of their heresies. At first the organizational structure of the church was relatively simple in that the officials of the church were elders and deacons. Elders were called presbyters. In Greek, overseer meant episcopos or bishop. Bishops were deemed to be the successors of the apostles, and in time the office of a bishop became the leader of group of presbyters.[3]

As the church grew and spread, so did the hierarchal nature of church leadership. Bishops in larger cities (metropolitan bishops, later called archbishops) were eventually looked upon to be of higher rank than bishops from smaller churches. Over time, the bishops of five cities in the Christian realm were recognized as having the greatest authority. Four of these cities were in the eastern and Greek portion of the Roman Empire: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Muslim conquests eventually removed forever the bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. Only the patriarch of Constantinople in the east and the bishop of Rome in the west were left. In time the bishops in the western and Latin portion of the empire recognized the bishop of Rome as their superior. By the year 461, the papacy had been fully established under Pope Leo I in the western portion of the empire. As previously noted, the last western emperor was killed as the Germanic tribes of the north conquered Rome fifteen years later in 476. Remarkably, the barbarian conquest of the Roman Empire enhanced the power and prestige of the Roman popes who were successful in mitigating much of worst excesses of the invaders. Many of the barbarians who invaded Italy had become Christians and were in awe of the bishops of Rome. Soon the church sent missionaries to the barbarous, unlearned, and diverse tribes of the harsh wilds of northern of Europe. Among these uncivilized peoples, many churches were established which became the foundation of Christendom over the next one thousand years.[4]

When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi with his disciples, He asked them who men said the Son of man is. Following their response, He asked his disciples who they said He was.

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” [Matthew 16:13-20. RSV]

Since the second century many Christians believed that the bones of St. Peter were buried on the site of the Vatican church in Rome. Over time the belief grew that the presence of Peter’s bones was proof that he was the first bishop of Rome. Based on Christ’s words that Peter was the rock upon which he would build His church [Matthew 16:18], the Roman church eventually declared that Peter was the founder of the episcopal line of successors (popes) which has never been broken. But the Roman church’s reliance on Matthew 16:18 to establish the papal chain did not exist until approximately 250 and then only marginally until the fifth century.[5] Although the power and authority of the papacy over the Roman church had not come into full flower until the rule of Leo I (440-461), the Roman Catholic Church lists 48 popes before Leo I.[6] Once the papacy had established its supreme authority over the church in the late fifth century, thereafter, all subsequent popes wanting to exert or expand their authority did so based on the church’s interpretation of Christ’s words to Peter. As an example, Gelasius I (492-496) claimed that the popes had ultimate authority to change the decisions of any bishops.[7]

With the authority of church government fully consolidated and vested in the head of the Roman church, a single man now had the power to change or ignore the meaning of scripture, and the church began to deteriorate. Church historian B. K. Kuiper lists many of the unscriptural doctrines that had infiltrated the church by the end of the fifth century.

• Prayers for the dead
• Belief in purgatory (place in which souls are purified after death and before they can enter heaven)
• The forty-day Lenten season
• The view that the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice, and that its administrators are priests
• Sharp division of the members of the church into clergy (officers of the church) and laity (ordinary members of the church)
• The veneration (adoration) of martyrs and saints, and above all the adoration of Mary
• The burning of tapers or candles in their honor (martyrs, saints, and Mary)
• Veneration of the relics of martyrs and saints
• The ascription of magical powers to these relics
• Pictures, images, and altars in the churches
• Gorgeous vestments for the clergy
• More and more elaborate and splendid ritual (form of worship)
• Less preaching
• Pilgrimages to holy places
• Monasticism
• Worldliness
• Persecution of heathen and heretics[8]

Church and state joined under the papacy

We have previously written that the intertwining of the affairs of church and state began with the legalization of Christianity in 313 under Emperor Constantine and later establishment as the official religion of the empire in 380. This mixing of affairs was a corruption of God’s design for each realm and would last for more than a thousand years.[9]

At first it was the state that interfered with the church. But three hundred years later the church was fully involved in the affairs of state. The most important pope in the first half of the Middle Ages was Gregory I who ruled the church from 590 to 604. He became the example for all subsequent popes that assumed broad political powers over the barbarian kingdoms following the vacuum left by the failed Western Roman Empire. Not only the head of the church, Gregory was heavily involved in the secular realm of European politics and governments including appointment of heads of cities, raising armies, and making peace treaties. Simultaneously, the church also cared for the poor, educated the people, and pursued a measure of justice. Much of Gregory I and his successors’ involvement in civil affairs appear to have been the lesser of two evils during the period in which the church dealt with the trauma and transition of a primitive society that existed in the first centuries following the barbarian invasions. Without the church’s involvement in its civil affairs, European civilization would have remained far longer and deeper in the valley of cultural and spiritual darkness.[10] Nevertheless, the consequences of mixing the ecclesiastical and civil governments would haunt the church until the Reformation and beyond.

The division of the eastern and western churches

At the end of the church’s first millennium, its two branches had grown apart to the point of complete separation. In the west the church was located in Italy but with the fall of the western portion of the Roman Empire had expanded into France, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, and Russia. The church in the eastern half of the empire lasted another thousand years until it fell to the Muslim conquerors in 1453. But even though the eastern branch of Christianity survived the on-slough of the barbarians, its history in the Middle Ages was one of retrenchment having lost Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to the Muslim Arabs. It was confined to Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula. Unlike the vibrant, vigorous, and expanding western church, the east was comprised of an old and exhausted people treading water in a stagnant pool.[11]

The character of the two churches had become significantly different. The western church had changed dramatically and had taken on a decidedly Germanic character. The eastern church had a distinctive oriental flavor.[12] Their language, literature, and cultures had drifted apart. The final schism occurred because of differences in the exercise of church authority. Eventually, push came to shove, and Pope Leo IX of Rome sent a letter of excommunication to Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople. Cerularius in turn excommunicated the pope. The Greek Eastern church and the Latin Western church had completely divided by 1054 and would go their separate ways.[13] Hereafter in this commentary on the history of the church, the discussion shall be confined to the western branch of Christianity.
______

The accomplishments of the church in the first thousand years of its history are truly remarkable. In the first five hundred years a tiny Jewish sect that claimed a Jewish man named Jesus was the Son of God had suffered, grown, and eventually conquered heathenism in the highly civilized Roman Empire. In the next five hundred years following the collapse of the empire, the church conquered the highly uncivilized barbarians of northern Europe.[14]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 132.
[2] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), pp. 48-51.
[3] Ibid., pp. 18-20.
[4] Ibid., pp. 39-42, 75-77.
[5] Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 166.
[6] Kuiper., p. 139.
[7] Johnson, p. 167.
[8] Ibid., p. 44.
[9] Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), p. 266.
[10] Kuiper, pp. 57-58.
[11] Ibid., pp. 88-90.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid. p. 98.
[14] Ibid., p. 58.

The struggle for sound doctrine

Dorothy Sayers was a masterful mystery novelist during the first half of the twentieth century and was counted as an equal among such famous authors as Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterton, and Baroness Emma Orczy. But her greatest love and calling was as a theologian and Christian apologist. She was friends with several of the greatest Christian writers of the era including C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J. R. R. Tolkien. In one of her essays titled “Creed or Chaos?” she wrote of the importance of the Christian doctrine.

It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offset Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it.[1]

The enormous importance of doctrine (dogma, creed, belief, principles, teachings) can be seen throughout the 2000 year history of the Christian church. In God’s master plan, the first revelation was given to the Old Testament Hebrews and pointed to the coming Messiah. Jesus came as the final revelation of God. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom he created the world.” [Hebrews 1:1-2. RSV] But the Hebrews rejected the promised Messiah. Thus, the Gospel was sent to the Gentiles. But the Christian faith of the New Testament traces its ancestry to the Hebrew religion because Christ was the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament.[2]

The defense of the truth and integrity of God’s revelation and the faith that flows from it is a central theme throughout church history. The last books of the New Testament were written in the first century following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that signaled the beginning of the Christian diaspora. Even during those early days of the church, its doctrinal foundations were under constant attack. In the last half of the second century, two heresies know as Gnosticism and Montanism arose and threatened the foundations of the faith. Certain gnostic sects had infiltrated the church and spread its two central perversions. Gnostics believed in a dual world of good and evil and the existence of a secret code of truth transmitted only by word of mouth or by obscure secret writings. Gnosticism was a spiritual parasite that attempted to debase the truth of Christian creedal beliefs and separate it from its historical roots.[3] One of its heresies taught that Christ never dwelt on the earth in human form.[4] Among other heresies, Montanism denied that the Comforter promised by Christ in the upper room the evening before his crucifixion did not come at Pentecost but was now at hand.[5]

During its first three hundred years of existence, the church not only grew spiritually and numerically, it grew organizationally out of necessity. From its beginning church councils have been held to deal with problems within the church, almost all of which arose from doctrinal issues. Recall the earlier discussion of Paul’s journey from Antioch to Jerusalem that resulted in the first council ever held by the church. Known as the Council of the Apostles in Jerusalem, it dealt with resistance of some in the church to the extension of Christianity to the Gentiles.

The challenges from the heresies of Gnosticism and Montanism in the last half of the second century led the church to the Apostles’ Creed and clarified the heart Christian doctrine for everyone in the church. From this struggle came the canon (list) of books that comprised the New Testament.[6] In compiling the New Testament, church leaders were not picking and choosing from among the best of those early writings they wished to include. There were many Christian writings at that time which competed with the writings that were consistently recognized as the absolute authoritative and inspired word of God. As new heresies attempted to infiltrate the doctrines of the church, it was necessary to identify and consolidate the canon (list) of authentic and inspired works of the New Testament writers. By doing so, the New Testament canon was separated those from writings that were merely historical by nature but not divinely inspired accounts of Christ, the apostles, and the early church. They also discarded those writings that contained heresies hostile to the truth of the inspired word of God.

Even as the canon of the New Testament emerged as a result of the controversies surrounding various heresies, many leaders of the church still did not have a deep knowledge of the Bible. A hundred years after Christ, even the writings of the Apostolic Fathers who were said to have been personally taught by the Apostles did not reflect an in-depth understanding of the profound truths of the Bible. As a result, there was an on-going misunderstanding of many fundamental articles of faith which led to questions and controversies.[7] One issue that beset the church for three hundred years was the question of Christ’s divinity. Arius stood against Athanasius, both presbyters in the church of Alexandria. Arius preached that Christ was not fully God but is the first and highest of created beings. Wishing to settle the dispute, Emperor Constantine called a council in 325 to meet at the small town of Nicaea forty-five miles from Constantinople. The council pronounced the views of Arius as heresy and resulted in the very first written creed of the church. Known as the Nicene Creed, it affirmed the deity of Jesus. Other early councils clarified and conformed significant questions as to the meaning of certain fundamental biblical truths: the Holy Spirit is God (Council of Constantinople 381), human beings are totally depraved (Council of Ephesus 431), and Christ is both man and God (Council of Chalcedon 451).[8]

Loss of separation of church and state

For three hundred years the church fathers had maintained separation between the affairs of the church and secular rulers and governments in whatever countries to which they had been dispersed. Their only desire was to worship Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. For the Romans and the ancients, the concept of separation of church and state was both incomprehensible and an irritant for religion had always been linked to the city and state. The Romans were not anti-religious and dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to all gods. The Roman rulers were not averse to Christians worshiping Jesus. The problem arose because they worshiped only Jesus as God and his Father the infinite, personal God. This was viewed as treason because it was a particularly significant threat to the unity of the state. Also, Christians believed their God established the absolute universal standard by which to judge not only one’s personal morals but the actions of the state as well. In the Roman Empire, any group that presumed to question its actions or judge its authority could not be tolerated and were treated as enemies of the state.[9]

Because of this, the church received little to no sympathy from those rulers and as a consequence the church suffered severe persecution. Even though the persecuted church was bathed in the blood of its martyrs who had carried the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire, the church grew spiritually and numerically. But something remarkable was about to happen that would forever change the history of the church.

In late October 312, the Roman Emperor Constantine believed he had received divine help from the God of the Christians during a battle that made him the supreme ruler of all of the western part of the Roman Empire. Subsequently Constantine professed Christianity, and in 313 issued an edict in the city of Milan which put a stop to the persecutions and made Christianity and equal of other religions before the law throughout his empire. The Christian church that began with a tiny band of severely persecuted followers of Jesus Christ in the small and hated nation of Israel had astonishingly conquered the heathen world within a span of three hundred years.[10]

Christianity’s legalization in 313 had for a season ended much of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Christianity became the professed religion of the Emperor and was now seen as the avenue to material, military, political, and social success. Thousands joined the church, but many were Christians in name only as the narrow gate was made wide which allowed a flood of corruptions to flow into the church.[11] By 381, Christianity was officially deemed to be the state religion of the empire.[12]

Not only did the church suffer much corruption from within, it quickly learned that Constantine and his successors would extract a most severe price for their newfound liberty. Separation of the church from the Roman state soon disappeared as the state demanded a say in church affairs. In 353-356, Hosius, bishop of Cordoba, Spain, reprimanded one of Constantine’s three sons (Emperor Constantius II) for meddling in church affairs by attempting to get Western bishops to oppose Athanasius of Alexandria for supporting those who rejected the Arian heresy (which denied the divinity of Jesus). Hosius invoked Christ’s words in Matthew 22:21, “…Then sayeth he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” [emphasis added] Hosius then warned the Emperor, “Intrude not yourself into ecclesiastical affairs…God has put into your hands the [secular] kingdom; to us [bishops] He has entrusted the affairs of His church.”[13]

This does not mean Christians are to abandon the civil arena. To the contrary, Christians have a dual role as both followers of Christ and citizens in the civil sphere. One of the roles of the church is to speak truth into society and government and call attention to those areas where civil authority fails in performing its duties. But the church must not usurp the role and duties of government such as laying its hand to the sword. In spite of early resistance, the church eventually succumbed to the non-biblical intertwining of the ecclesiastical with the civil realm.

Because of the compromise of certain doctrinal beliefs, incorporation of worldly thinking and practices, and unbiblical alliances between the church and state, great damage has been done to the cause of Christ and consequently many dark chapters were written in the church’s history.

Sola scriptura – the Bible only. Yes, but…

Throughout this series much will be written of the importance of the scriptures as the wellspring of all truth. But the church’s devotion to the Bible does not mean we begin with a blank slate in each generation. In their haste to cast off the wisdom and experiences of generations of our Christian forefathers, evangelicals have mischaracterized the meaning of sola scriptura which led to a measure of anti-intellectualism and spiritual shallowness. The church must not reject its rich history and knowledge gained over the centuries which are invaluable to understanding of scriptures. The successes and failures of the church through the centuries serve as priceless lessons that both illuminate and elaborate upon the Bible’s teachings. The teachings and writings of the great minds of the Christian past such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin give much insight into a right understanding of the scriptures.[14] Given the benefit of hindsight, we know they got some things wrong, but without a doubt they were profoundly right on many things.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Dorothy Sayers, “Creed or Chaos?” Letters to a Diminished Church, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2004), p. 49.
[2] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), pp. 3-4.
[3] Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 49.
[4] Kuiper, p. 17.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 18.
[7] Ibid., p. 15.
[8] Ibid., pp. 30-31, 33.
[9] Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1976), p. 24.
[10] Kuiper, pp. 24-25.
[11] Ibid., p. 27.
[12] Schaeffer, p. 26.
[13]Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 265-266.
[14] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), pp. 280-281.