The church and its history » The history of Christianity » The
primitive church » The relation of the early church to late Judaism
Christianity began as a movement within Judaism at a period when the
Jews had long been dominated culturally and politically by foreign
powers and had found in their religion (rather than in their politics or
cultural achievements) the linchpin of their community. From Amos (8th
century bc) onward the religion of Israel was marked by tension between
the concept of monotheism, with its universal ideal of salvation (for
all nations), and the notion of God’s special choice of Israel. In the
Hellenistic age (323 bc–3rd century ad), the dispersion of the Jews
throughout the kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean and the Roman
Empire reinforced this universalistic tendency. But the attempts of
foreign rulers, especially the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (in
168–165 bc), to impose Greek culture in Palestine provoked zealous
resistance on the part of many Jews, leading to the revolt of Judas
Maccabeus against Antiochus. In Palestinian Judaism the predominant note
was separation and exclusiveness. Jewish missionaries to other areas
were strictly expected to impose the distinctive Jewish customs of
circumcision, kosher food, and sabbaths and other festivals. Other Jews,
however, were not so exclusive, welcoming Greek culture and accepting
converts without requiring circumcision.
The relationship of the earliest Christian churches to Judaism turned
principally on two questions: (1) the messianic role of Jesus of
Nazareth and (2) the permanent validity of the Mosaic Law for all.
The Hebrew Scriptures viewed history as the stage of a providential
drama eventually ending in a triumph of God over all present sources of
frustration (e.g., foreign domination or the sins of Israel). God’s rule
would be established by an anointed prince (the Messiah) of the line of
David, king of Israel in the 10th century bc. The proper course of
action leading to the consummation of the drama, however, was the
subject of some disagreement. Among the diverse groups were the
aristocratic and conservative Sadducees, who accepted only the five
books of Moses (the Pentateuch) and whose lives and political power were
intimately associated with Temple worship, and the Pharisees, who
accepted the force of oral tradition and were widely respected for their
learning and piety. The Pharisees not only accepted biblical books
outside the Pentateuch but also embraced doctrines—such as those on
resurrection and the existence of angels—of recent acceptance in
Judaism, many of which were derived from apocalyptic expectations that
the consummation of history would be heralded by God’s intervention in
the affairs of men in dramatic, cataclysmic terms. The Sanhedrin
(central council) at Jerusalem was made up of both Pharisees and
Sadducees. The Zealots were aggressive revolutionaries known for their
violent opposition to Rome and its polytheisms. Other groups were the
Herodians, supporters of the client kingdom of the Herods (a dynasty
that supported Rome) and abhorrent to the Zealots, and the Essenes, a
quasi-monastic dissident group, probably including the sect that
preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls. This latter sect did not participate in
the Temple worship at Jerusalem and observed another religious calendar;
from their desert retreat they awaited divine intervention and searched
prophetic writings for signs indicating the consummation.
What relation the followers of Jesus had to some of these groups is
not clear. In the canonical Gospels (those accepted as authentic by the
church) the main targets of criticism are the scribes and Pharisees,
whose attachment to the tradition of Judaism is presented as legalistic
and pettifogging. The Sadducees and Herodians likewise receive an
unfriendly portrait. The Essenes are never mentioned. Simon, one of
Jesus’ 12 disciples, was or had once been a Zealot. Jesus probably stood
close to the Pharisees.
Under the social and political conditions of the time, there could be
no long future either for the Sadducees or for the Zealots: their
attempts to make apocalyptic dreams effective led to the desolation of
Judaea and the destruction of the Temple after the two major Jewish
revolts against the Romans in 66–70 and 132–135. The choice for many
Jews, who were barred from Jerusalem after 135, thus lay between the
Pharisees and the emerging Christian movement. Pharisaism as enshrined
in the Mishna (oral law) and the Talmud (commentary on and addition to
the oral law) became normative Judaism. By looking to the Gentile
(non-Jewish) world and carefully dissociating itself from the Zealot
revolutionaries and the Pharisees, Christianity made possible its ideal
of a world religion, at the price of sacrificing Jewish particularity
and exclusiveness. The fact that Christianity has never succeeded in
gaining the allegiance of more than a small minority of Jews is more a
mystery to theologians than to historians.
The church and its history » The history of Christianity » The
primitive church » The relation of the early church to the career and
intentions of Jesus
The prime sources for knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth are the four
canonical Gospels in the New Testament. There are also a number of
noncanonical sources, notably the apocryphal gospels, which contain
stories about Jesus and sayings attributed to him. The Gospel of Thomas,
preserved in a Coptic Gnostic library found about 1945 in Egypt,
contains several such sayings, besides some independent versions of
canonical sayings. At certain points the Gospel tradition finds
independent confirmation in the letters of the apostle Paul. Although
the allusions in non-Christian sources (the Jewish historian Josephus,
the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and Talmudic texts) are
almost negligible, they refute the unsubstantiated notion that Jesus
might never have existed.
The first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are closely related
in form, structure, and content. Because they can be studied in parallel
columns called a synopsis, they are known as the Synoptic Gospels. Mark
was probably used by Matthew and Luke, who may also have used the Q
Gospel (so-called from the German Quelle, “source”; Q is the
hypothetical Gospel that is the origin of common material in later
Gospels). John, differing in both pattern and content, appears richer in
theological interpretation but may also preserve good historical
information. The Gospels are not detached reports but were written to
serve the religious needs of the early Christian communities. Legendary
and apologetic (defensive) motifs, and the various preoccupations of the
communities for which they were first produced, can readily be discerned
as influences upon their narratives. Although many details of the
Gospels remain the subject of disagreement and uncertainty, the
scholarly consensus accepts the substance of the Gospel tradition as a
truthful account.
The chronology of the life of Jesus is one of the matters of
uncertainty. Matthew places the birth of Jesus at least two years before
Herod the Great’s death late in 5 bc or early in 4 bc. Luke connects
Jesus’ birth with a Roman census that, according to Josephus, occurred
in ad 6–7 and caused a revolt against the governor Quirinius. Luke could
be right about the census and wrong about the governor. The crucifixion
under Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judaea (ad 26–36), was probably about
the year 29–30, but again certainty is impossible.
Jesus’ encounter with John the Baptist, the ascetic in the Judaean
Desert who preached repentance and baptism in view of God’s coming
Kingdom, marked a decisive moment for his career. He recognized in John
the forerunner of the kingdom that his own ministry proclaimed. The
first preaching of Jesus, in his home region of Galilee, took the form
of vivid parables and was accompanied by miraculous healings. The
Synoptic writers describe a single climactic visit of Jesus to Jerusalem
at the end of his career; but John may be right (implicitly supported by
Luke 13:7) in representing his visits as more frequent and the period of
ministry as lasting more than a single year. Jesus’ attitude to the
observance of the law generated conflict with the Pharisees; he also
aroused the fear and hostility of the ruling Jewish authorities. A
triumphal entry to Jerusalem at Passover time (the period celebrating
the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in the 13th century bc) was the
prelude to a final crisis. After a last supper with his disciples he was
betrayed by one of them, Judas Iscariot. Arrest and trial followed,
first before the Sanhedrin and then before Pilate, who condemned him to
crucifixion. According to the Evangelists, Pilate condemned Jesus
reluctantly, finding no fault in him. Their version of the condemnation
was an attempt to keep Jesus from appearing guilty in Roman eyes, and it
was a means for the early Christian community to find its way in the
Roman world. In any event, Jesus was executed in a manner reserved for
political or religious agitators. It was a universal Christian belief
that three days after his death he was raised from the dead by divine
power.
Jesus preached the imminent presence of God’s Kingdom, in some texts
as future consummation, in others as already present. The words and acts
of Jesus were believed to be the inauguration of a process that was to
culminate in a final triumph of God. His disciples recognized him as the
Messiah, the Anointed One, though there is no record of him using the
word (except indirectly) in reference to himself. The titles Prophet and
Rabbi also were applied to him. His own enigmatic self-designation was
“Son of man,” sometimes in allusion to his suffering, sometimes to his
future role as judge. This title is derived from the version of the Book
of Daniel (7:13), where “one like a son of man,” contrasted with beast
figures, represents the humiliated people of God, ascending to be
vindicated by the divine Judge. In the developed Gospel tradition the
theme of the transcendent judge seems to be most prominent.
Apocalyptic hope could easily merge into messianic zealotry.
Moreover, Jesus’ teaching was critical of the established order and
encouraged the poor and oppressed, even though it contained an implicit
rejection of revolution. Violence was viewed as incompatible with the
ethic of the Kingdom of God. Whatever contacts there may have been with
the Zealot movement (as the narrative of feeding 5,000 people in the
desert may hint), the Gospels assume the widest distance between Jesus’
understanding of his role and the Zealot revolution.
With this distance from revolutionary idealism goes a sombre estimate
of human perfectibility. The gospel of repentance presupposes deep
defilement in individuals and in society. The sufferings and pains of
humanity under the power of evil spirits calls out for compassion and an
urgent mission. All the acts of a disciple must express love and
forgiveness, even to enemies, and also detachment from property and
worldly wealth. To Jesus, the outcasts of society (prostitutes, the
hated and oppressive tax agents, and others) were objects of special
care, and censoriousness was no virtue. Though the state is regarded as
a distant entity in certain respects, it yet has the right to require
taxes and civic obligations: Caesar has rights that must be respected
and are not incompatible with the fulfillment of God’s demands.
Some of the futurist sayings, if taken by themselves, raise the
question whether Jesus intended to found a church. A negative answer
emerges only if the authentic Jesus is assumed to have expected an
immediate catastrophic intervention by God. There is no doubt that he
gathered and intended to gather around him a community of followers.
This community continued after his time, regarding itself as the
specially called congregation of God’s people, possessing as covenant
signs the rites of baptism and Eucharist (Lord’s Supper) with which
Jesus was particularly associated—baptism because of his example,
Eucharist because the Last Supper on the night before the crucifixion
was marked as an anticipation of the messianic feast of the coming age.
A closely related question is whether Jesus intended his gospel to be
addressed to Jews only or if the Gentiles were also to be included. In
the Gospels Gentiles appear as isolated exceptions, and the choice of 12
Apostles has an evident symbolic relation to the 12 tribes of Israel.
The fact that the extension of Christian preaching to the Gentiles
caused intense debate in the 40s of the 1st century is decisive proof
that Jesus had given no unambiguous directive on the matter. Gospel
sayings that make the Jews’ refusal to recognize Jesus’ authority as the
ground for extending the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles must, therefore,
have been cast by the early community.
The church and its history » The history of Christianity » The
primitive church » The Gentile mission and St. Paul
Saul, or Paul (as he was later called), was a Pharisee who persecuted
the primitive church. Born at Tarsus (Asia Minor), he had come to
Jerusalem as a student of the famous Rabbi Gamaliel and had harried a
Christian group called by Luke the “Hellenists,” who were led by Stephen
(the first Christian martyr) and who regarded Jesus as a spiritual
reformer sent to purge the corrupt worship of Jerusalem. While on a
mission to Damascus to persecute the followers of Jesus, Paul was
suddenly converted to faith in Christ and, simultaneously, to a
conviction that the Gospel must pass to the non-Jewish world under
conditions that dispensed with exclusively and distinctively Jewish
ceremonies. Paul was disapproved by Christian Jews and remained
throughout his career a controversial figure. He gained recognition for
the converts of the Gentile mission by the Christian community in
Jerusalem; but his work was considered an affront to Jewish
traditionalism. He saw clearly that the universal mission of the church
to all humanity, implicit in the coming of the Messiah, or Christ, meant
a radical break with rabbinical traditions.
Owing to the preservation of some weighty letters, Paul is the only
vivid figure of the apostolic age (1st century ad). Like his elder
contemporary Philo of Alexandria, also a Hellenized Jew of the
dispersion, he interpreted the Old Testament allegorically and affirmed
the primacy of spirit over letter in a manner that was in line with
Jesus’ freedom with regard to the sabbath. The crucifixion of Jesus he
viewed as the supreme redemptive act and also as the means of expiation
for the sin of mankind. Salvation is, in Paul’s thought, therefore, not
found by a conscientious moralism but rather is a gift of grace, a
doctrine in which Paul was anticipated by Philo. But Paul linked this
doctrine with his theme that the Gospel represents liberation from the
Mosaic Law. The latter thesis created difficulties at Jerusalem, where
the Christian community was led by James, the brother of Jesus, and the
circle of the intimate disciples of Jesus. James, martyred at Jerusalem
in 62, was the primary authority for the Christian Jews, especially
those made anxious by Paul; the canonical letter ascribed to James
opposes the antinomian (anti-law) interpretations of the doctrine of
justification by faith. A middle position seems to have been occupied by
Peter. All the Gospels record a special commission of Jesus to Peter as
the leader among the 12 Apostles. But Peter’s biography can only be
dimly constructed; he died in Rome (according to early tradition) in
Nero’s persecution (64) about the same time as Paul.
The supremacy of the Gentile mission within the church was ensured by
the effects on Jewish Christianity of the fall of Jerusalem (70) and
Hadrian’s exclusion of all Jews from the city (135). Jewish Christianity
declined and became the faith of a very small group without links to
either synagogue or Gentile church. Some bore the title Ebionites, “the
poor” (compare Matthew 5:3), and did not accept the tradition that Jesus
was born of a virgin.
In Paul’s theology, the human achievement of Jesus was important
because his obedient fidelity to his vocation gave moral and redemptive
value to his self-sacrifice. A different emphasis appears in The Gospel
According to John, written (according to 2nd-century tradition) at
Ephesus. John’s Gospel partly reflects local disputes, not only between
the church and the Hellenized synagogue but also between various
Christian groups, including Gnostic communities in Asia Minor. John’s
special individuality lies in his view of the relation between the
historical events of the tradition and the Christian community’s present
experience of redemption. The history is treated symbolically to provide
a vehicle for faith. Because it is less attached to the contingent
events of a particular man’s life, John’s conception of the preexistent
Logos becoming incarnate (made flesh) in Jesus made intelligible to the
Hellenistic world the universal significance of Jesus. In antiquity,
divine presence had to be understood as either inspiration or
incarnation. If the Synoptic Gospels suggest inspiration, The Gospel
According to John chooses incarnation. The tension between these two
types of Christology (doctrines of Christ) first became acute in the
debate between the schools of Antioch and Alexandria in the late 4th
century.
The church and its history » The history of Christianity » The
primitive church » The contemporary social, religious, and intellectual
world
Many Palestinian Jews appreciated the benefits of Roman rule in
guaranteeing peace and order. The Roman government tolerated regional
and local religious groups and found it convenient to control Palestine
through client kings like the Herods. The demand that divine honours be
paid not only to the traditional Roman or similar gods but also to the
emperors was not extended to Judaea except under the emperor Caligula
(reigned 37–41), whose early death prevented desecration of Jerusalem’s
holy sites and social unrest. It was enough that the Jews dedicated
temple sacrifices and synagogues in the emperor’s honour. The privileges
of Roman citizenship were possessed by some Jewish families, including
that of the apostle Paul.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul affirmed the providential role of
government in restraining evil. Christians did not need to be
disaffected from the empire, though the deification of the emperor was
offensive to them. Moreover, although as an agency of social welfare the
church offered much to the downtrodden elements in society, the
Christians did not at any stage represent a social and political threat.
After the example of their master, the Christians encouraged humility
and patience before wicked men. Even the institution of slavery was not
the subject of fundamental Christian criticism before the 4th century.
The church, however, was not lost in pious mysticism. It provided for
far more than the cultic (liturgical) needs of its members. Inheriting a
Jewish moral ideal, its activities included food for the poor, orphans,
and foundlings; care for prisoners; and a community funeral service.
Christianity also inherited from Judaism a strong sense of being
holy, separate from idolatry and pagan eroticism. As polytheism
permeated ancient society, a moral rigorism severely limited Christian
participation in some trades and professions. At baptism a Christian was
expected to renounce his occupation if that implicated him in public or
private compromise with polytheism, superstition, dishonesty, or vice.
There was disagreement about military service, however. The majority
held that a soldier, if converted and baptized, was not required to
leave the army, but there was hesitation about whether an already
baptized Christian might properly enlist. Strict Christians also thought
poorly of the teaching profession because it involved instructing the
young in literature replete with pagan ideals and what was viewed as
indecency. Acting and dancing were similarly suspect occupations, and
any involvement in magic was completely forbidden.
The Christian ethic therefore demanded some detachment from society,
which in some cases made for economic difficulties. The structure of
ancient society was dominated not by class but by the relationship of
patron and client. A slave or freedman depended for his livelihood and
prospects upon his patron, and a man’s power in society was reflected in
the extent of his dependents and supporters. In antiquity a strong
patron was indispensable if one was negotiating with police or tax
authorities or law courts or if one had ambitions in the imperial
service. The authority of the father of the family was considerable.
Often, Christianity penetrated the social strata first through women and
children, especially in the upper classes. But once the householder was
a Christian, his dependents tended to follow. The Christian community
itself was close-knit. Third-century evidence portrays Christians
banking their money with fellow believers; and widely separated groups
helped one another with trade and mutual assistance.
Women in ancient society—Greek, Roman, or Jewish—had a domestic, not
a public, role; feminine subordination was self-evident. To Paul,
however, Christian faith transcends barriers to make all free and equal
(Galatians 3:28). Of all ancient writers Paul was the most powerful
spokesman for equality. Nevertheless, just as he refused to harbour a
runaway slave, so he opposed any practice that would identify the church
with social radicalism (a principal pagan charge against it). Paul did
not avoid self-contradiction (1 Corinthians 11:5, 14:34–35). His
opposition to a public liturgical role for women decided subsequent
Catholic tradition in the East and West. Yet in the Greek churches
(though not often in the Latin) women were ordained as deacons—in the
4th century by prayer and imposition of hands with the same rite as male
deacons—and had a special responsibility at women’s baptism. Widows and
orphans were the neediest in antiquity, and the church provided them
substantial relief. It also encouraged vows of virginity, and by ad 400
women from wealthy or politically powerful families acquired prominence
as superiors of religious communities. It seemed natural to elect as
abbess a woman whose family connections might bring benefactions.
The religious environment of the Gentile mission was a tolerant,
syncretistic blend of many cults and myths. Paganism was concerned with
success; the gods were believed to give victory in war, good harvests,
success in love and marriage, and sons and daughters. Defeat, famine,
civil disorder, and infertility were recognized as signs of cultic
pollution and disfavour. People looked to religion for help in mastering
the forces of nature rather than to achieve moral improvement.
Individual gods cared either for specific human needs or for specific
places and groups. The transcendent God of biblical religion was,
therefore, very different from the numerous gods of limited power and
local significance. In Asia Minor Paul and his coworker Barnabas were
taken to be gods in mortal form because of their miracles. To offer
sacrifice on an altar seemed a natural expression of gratitude to any
dead, or even living, benefactor. Popular enthusiasm could bestow divine
honours on such heroes as dead pugilists and athletes. In the Roman
Empire it seemed natural to offer sacrifice and burn incense to the
divine emperor as a symbol of loyalty, much like standing for a national
anthem today.
Traditional Roman religion was a public cult, not private mysticism,
and was upheld because it was the received way of keeping heaven
friendly. To refuse participation was thought to be an expression of
disloyalty. The Jews were granted exemption for their refusal because
their monotheism was an ancestral national tradition. The Christians,
however, did everything in their power to dissuade people from following
the customs of their fathers, whether Gentiles or Jews, and thereby
seemed to threaten the cohesion of society and the principle that each
group was entitled to follow its national customs in religion.
If ancient religion was tolerant, the philosophical schools were
seldom so. Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics
tended to be very critical of one another. By the 1st century bc, an
eclecticism emerged; and by the 2nd century ad, there developed a common
stock of philosophy shared by most educated people and by some
professional philosophers, which derived metaphysics involving theories
on the nature of Being from Plato, ethics from the Stoics, and logic
from Aristotle. This eclectic Platonism provided an important background
and springboard for early Christian apologetics. Its main outlines
appear already in Philo of Alexandria, whose thought influenced not only
perhaps the writer of the anonymous letter to the Hebrews, traditionally
held to be Paul, in the New Testament but also the great Christian
thinkers Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Ambrose of Milan. Because of
this widespread philosophical tendency in ancient society, the Christian
could generally assume some belief in Providence and assent to high
moral imperatives among his pagan contemporaries. Platonism in
particular provided a metaphysical framework within which the Christians
could interpret the entire pattern of creation, the Fall of humanity,
the incarnation, redemption, the church, sacraments, and last things.
The church and its history » The history of Christianity » The internal
development of the early Christian Church » The problem of
jurisdictional authority
In the first Christian generation, authority in the church lay either in
the kinsmen of Jesus or in those whom he had commissioned as Apostles
and missionaries. The Jerusalem church under James, the brother of
Jesus, was the mother church. Paul admitted that if they had refused to
grant recognition to his Gentile converts he would have laboured in
vain. If there was an attempt to establish a hereditary family
overlordship in the church, it did not succeed. Among the Gentile
congregations, the Apostles sent by Jesus enjoyed supreme authority. As
long as the Apostles lived, there existed a living authoritative voice
to which appeal could be made. But once they all had died, there was an
acute question regarding the locus of authority. The earliest documents
of the 3rd and 4th Christian generations are mainly concerned with this
issue: what is the authority of the ministerial hierarchy? The apostolic
congregations had normally been served by elders (Greek presbyteroi,
“priests”) or overseers (episkopoi, “bishops”), assisted by attendants (diakonoi,
“deacons”). The clergy were responsible for preaching, for administering
baptism and Eucharist, and for distributing aid to the poor. In each
city the senior member of the college (assembly) of presbyters, the
bishop, naturally had some special authority; he corresponded with other
churches and would attend the ordinations of new bishops as the
representative of his own community and as a symbol of the
catholicity—the universality and unity—of the church of Christ.
Ignatius, bishop of Antioch early in the 2nd century, wrote seven
letters on his way to martyrdom at Rome that indicate how critical the
centrifugal forces in the church had made the problem of authority. The
bishop, he insisted, is the unique focus of unity without whose
authority there is no sacrament and no church. A few years earlier the
letter of Bishop Clement of Rome (c. ad 95) to the church at Corinth
based the hierarchy’s authority on the concept of a historical
succession of duly authorized teachers. Clement understood the clergy
and laity to be essentially distinct orders within the one community,
just as in the Old Testament there were high priests, priests, Levites
(Temple functionaries), and laymen. The principles of Clement and
Ignatius became important when the church was faced by people claiming
recognition for their special charismatic (spiritual) gifts and
especially by Gnostic heretics claiming to possess secret oral
traditions whispered by Jesus to his disciples and not contained in
publicly accessible records such as the Gospels. Indeed, in his
conflicts with the Gnostics in the late 2nd century, Irenaeus of Lyons
promoted the idea of apostolic succession, the teaching that the bishops
stand in a direct line of succession from the Apostles.
The authority of the duly authorized hierarchy was enhanced by the
outcome of another 2nd-century debate, which concerned the possibility
of absolution for sins committed after baptism. The Shepherd of Hermas,
a book that enjoyed canonical status in some areas of the early church,
enforced the point that excessive rigorism produces hypocrisies. By the
3rd century the old notion of the church as a society of holy people was
being replaced by the conception that it was a school for frail sinners.
In spite of protests, especially that of the schism led by the
theologian and schismatic pope Novatian at Rome in 251, the final
consensus held that the power to bind and loose (compare Matthew
16:18–19), to excommunicate and absolve, was vested in bishops and
presbyters by their ordination.
Early Christianity was predominantly urban; peasants on farms were
deeply attached to old ways and followed the paganism favoured by most
aristocratic landowners. By ad 400 some landowners had converted and
built churches on their property, providing a “benefice” for the priest,
who might often be one of the magnate’s servants. In the East and in
North Africa each township normally had its own bishop. In the Western
provinces bishops were fewer and were responsible for larger areas,
which, from the 4th century onward, were called by the secular term
dioceses (administrative districts). In the 4th century pressure to
bring Western custom into line with Eastern and to multiply bishops was
resisted on the ground that it would diminish the bishops’ social
status. By the end of the 3rd century the bishop of the provincial
capital was acquiring authority over his colleagues: the metropolitan
(from the 4th century on, often entitled archbishop) was chief
consecrator of his episcopal colleagues. The bishops of Rome,
Alexandria, and Antioch in the 3rd century were accorded some authority
beyond their own provinces, in part because the first bishop of each of
those cities was thought to have been one of the Apostles. Along with
Jerusalem and Constantinople (founded in 330), these three sees (seats
of episcopal authority) became the five patriarchates. The title papa
(“father”) was for 600 years an affectionate term applied to any bishop
to whom one’s relation was intimate; it began to be specially used of
bishops of Rome from the 6th century and by the 9th century was almost
exclusively applied to them.
From the beginning, Christians in Rome claimed for themselves special
responsibilities to lead the church. About ad 165, memorials were
erected at Rome to the Apostles Peter—traditionally considered the first
bishop of Rome—and Paul: to Peter in a necropolis on the Vatican Hill
and to Paul on the road to Ostia. The construction reflects a sense of
being guardians of an apostolic tradition, a self-consciousness
expressed in another form when, about 190, Bishop Victor of Rome
threatened with excommunication Christians in Asia Minor who, following
local custom, observed Easter on the day of the Jewish Passover rather
than (as at Rome) on the Sunday after the first full moon after the
spring equinox. Stephen of Rome (256) is the first known pope to base
claims to authority on Jesus’ commission to Peter (Matthew 16:18–19).
Bishops were elected by their congregations—i.e., by the clergy and
laity assembled together. But the consent of the laity decreased in
importance as recognition by other churches increased. The metropolitan
and other provincial bishops soon became just as important as the
congregation as a whole; and, though they could never successfully
impose a man on a solidly hostile community, they could often prevent
the appointment falling under the control of one powerful lay family or
faction. From the 4th century on, the emperors occasionally intervened
to fill important sees, but such occurrences were not a regular
phenomenon (until the 6th century in Merovingian Gaul).
