Chapter 3 – The Lasting Legacy of the Apostles

1. Chapter 3 – The Lasting Legacy of the Apostles Major Concepts Small Christian Communities The Christian Testament The Final Break with Judaism

2. Small Christian Communities • Missionaries spread the Gospel around the Roman Empire • Paul in particular had special success ith the Gentiles • Gentiles found Christianity especially appealing: • Salvation open to all peoples • One God who loved them & wanted them to love each other • Jesus made Christianity human • Not required to follow Jewish law in its entirety

3. What was Worship in a Small Community like in the early Church? • Held in members’ homes • Broke bread together • Shared God’s word • Crisis between Christians and Jews followed by Roman persecution of Christians kept communities decentralized • Peter and Paul both died under Nero’s persecution of Christians • No Christian equivalent of Synagogue let alone the Temple

4. The Discussion of Different Religions and How They Might Have Made Their Adherents More or Less Open to the Message of Christianity • Judaism – to busy to think openly? • Hellenistic – similar to some aspects of Christianity • Roman – appealed to lower Roman classes many of whom were actually foreign • Northern Africa – a compilation of small, local religions • Western Europe outside the Roman Empire – Celts, Druids, etc. – cultures of human sacrifice

5. Christianity becomes a “Movement” • A “movement” is generally considered to be a group formed around a belief in a new way, a new lifestyle • Movements usually forms because of some perceived need in people • Christianity meet the need of people for hope – if not in this world then in the next: salvation was open to all people

6. Christianity: A religion not a Cult See handout on Soothsayers, Astrologers and Magicians

7. The Movie on Paul • Ended with Paul at the gates of Rome • Paul was under house arrest for two years before he appeared before the Emperor for trial • He was found guilty and as a Roman citizen beheaded • Paul seems to have somehow continued his ministry while under house arrest • But the Roman protection of Paul, per his rights as one of their own citizens, further angered Jewish authorities in both Jerusalem and Rome • From Rome’s point of view, angering the Jews might have been considered a good thing

8. Religion and Politics • In Rome, Christians were considered traitors because they would not worship Roman gods • Yet only a few hundred years later an Emperor, Constantine, would make Christianity the state religion of Rome when he needed the church to keep the Empire from barbarians • From 325 AD to 1870 AD the Church was in fact a secular ruler making the Church both a religion and a world power • Today the Vatican is still active in global politics but only as a moral influence

9. The Christian Testament • During his 2nd missionary journey Paul began to write letters of advice to communities he had helped establish • As the apostles died off, and as many documents circulated which incorrectly depicted Jesus’ message, the gospels were written to document the primary sources (the Apostles) and to assure all converts were taught one form of Christianity – finalized around 100 AD • The Christian canon refers to the 27 books now known as the Christian (New) Testament

10. Paul and his writings • Each of Paul’s letters deals with a specific concern • His main themese are that only One God exists and this God has always loved people faithfully, even sending Jesus to give human form to God’s love. • Paul stresses that it is belief in Jesus, not adherence to the Law of the Old Testament, that saves • With so few documents circulating in the early Church, Paul’s letters were copied & passed on

11. How the Gospels were composed • Most of the original apostles were themselves probably illiterate • Local communities visited by the aspostles (primary sources) or their disciples (secondary sources) wrote down Jesus’ life in order to preserve the earliest evidence of the apostles experiences with Jesus • Culture of time and cost of writing limited documents to stating only the important stuff – personal lives were not document in that period • These documents evolved into the 4 gospels

12. How the Gospels were composed continued • Compilation of oral histories • Authors and exact dates unknown but all finalized before 100 AD • These gospels required literate authors to compile them – maybe dictated by the remaining original apostles in some cases? • Pseudepigraphic documents – the practice of the time of someone writing a document and attributing it to some well known person to gain greater acceptance and distribution

13. How the Gospels were composed continuedThe Step of Finalizing the contents of the New Testament • Both legitimate and erroneous documents in the circulating early Christian documents were pseudepigraphic • The Church decided what to include in the Testament based on internal consistency among documents and the appearance of doctrine that clearly did not stem from known Jesus teachings: ex. “The Gospel of Judas” • New Testament finalized around 100 AD

14. How the Gospels were composed continued • Paper was expensive, ink was hand-made, pens were made out of continually re-sharpened cut reeds and someone literate had to be paid to do it accurately: writing a document was expensive • Yet the New Testament was widely copied and circulated – if it hadn’t been we might had have hundreds of local versions of Christianity instead of the singular, universal church we have today • Those documents excluded from the official canon in 100 AD were almost all “gospels,” not letters, and are still largely in existence: today they are referred to as the Gnostic gospels

15. Why Gnostic Gospels were Excluded • Gnosticism (Greek: γνῶσιςgnōsis, knowledge) refers to diverse, religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that the material cosmos was created by an imperfect god • But these men knew better, the earliest known portrait of the original apostles

17. Dating from the end of the 4th century, the full-face paintings depict three of Jesus’ original 12 apostles -- St. Peter, St. Andrew and St. John -- as well as St. Paul, who became an apostle after Christ’s death. • Located on the ceiling of a noblewoman’s burial place in the catacombs of St. Tecla, the four circular portraits, about 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) in diameter, were buried in layers of white calcium carbonate caused by the extreme humidity and lack of air circulation. • The detail shown here demonstrates that devotion to the apostles began in early Christianity. • Indeed, St. Peter’s long, white beard, his squared face and the wrinkles on St. Paul’s forehead indicate that these frescoes may have set the standard for future representations of the apostles. • “These are the first images of the apostles," said Fabrizio Bisconti, the superintendent of archaeology for the catacombs, which are maintained by the Vatican's Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology. • “The paintings of Andrew and John are undoubtedly the oldest ever. There are some older representations of St. Peter dating to the middle of the fourth century, but this is the first time that the apostle is not shown in a group but in an full face icon," Bisconti told reporters. • Measuring about 2 meters by 2 meters (6.6 feet by 6.6 feet), the frescoes also depict the bejeweled noblewoman and her daughter. • “She could have been one of those aristocratic Roman women who had converted to Christianity at the end of the fourth century,” Bisconti said.

18. Open a New Window to below Link • http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/22/vatican-oldest-known-images-of-apostles-andrew-and-john-found/