MS100 Topic 1 Study Guide Autumn 2017

MS100 Topic 1
BA (Hons), DipHE, CertHE, Foundation

and Top-Up (Hons) in Theology and
Mission
Student Study Guide Book Autumn 2017
MS100: Topic 1: Mission History in the West
ForMission College : MS100 2017-18
Students Name:
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MS100 Topic 1
Contents
Reference books to help students engage with the MS100 assignments .................. 3
Session 1: Paradigm Shifts in Church History ............................................................ 5
Session 2: Jesus and Paul as Missional Leaders .................................................... 26
Session 3: The Heresiarchs: Facing the Forces of Syncretism ................................ 37
Session 4: Structural responses to heterodoxy ........................................................ 44
Session 5: The Church Councils as Mission Responses ......................................... 50
Session 6: Martyrdom as Mission............................................................................. 61
Session 7: The Desert Fathers Battling with Alien Forces..................................... 74
Session 8: Conversion of Emperor and Empire? ..................................................... 86
Session 9: The Fall of the Western Roman Empire and Augustine and Gregory as
Missional Leaders .................................................................................................... 98
Session 10: Monastic Missionaries ........................................................................ 114
Session 11: Celtic Mission as Cross Cultural Contextualisation (Patrick and
Columbanus) .......................................................................................................... 124
Session 12: The Rise of Islam as a Missionary Religion, the Crusades and
Contributions of Islam to the West ......................................................................... 133
Course text book:

Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
2008)
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Reference books to help students engage with the MS100

assignments
Ebsco Ebooks to be consulted for this module: for assignments and extra
reading
Pagels, E. H. (1985). Christian apologists and 'the fall of the angels': an attack on
Roman imperial power?. Harvard Theological Review, 78(3-4), 301-325
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0000968186&
site=ehost-liv
Moss, C. R. (2012). Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and

Traditions. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=462900&site=eh
ost-live
Christie, D. E. (1998). The Call of the Desert: Purity of Heart and Power in Early
Christian Monasticism. Pro Ecclesia, 7(2), 216-234.
site=ehost-live
Christie, D. E. (1997). 'The Word in the Desert': The Biblical Spirituality of Early
Christian Monasticism. American Baptist Quarterly, 16(1), 69-80.
site=ehost-live
Smither, E. L. (2014). Rethinking Constantine: History, Theology, and Legacy.

Eugene, Or: Wipf and Stock Publisher
ost-live
Leithart, P. J. (2010). Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the

Dawn of Christendom. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic.
ost-live
Ayres, L. (2007). Voting about God in early church councils. First Things, 17845-48.
site=ehost-live
Graham, C. A. (2014). A reader's lexicon of the Apostolic fathers. Criswell

Theological Review, 12(1), 125-128.
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site=ehost-live
Grant, R. M. (1988). The Apostolic Fathers' first thousand years. Church History,
5720-28.
site=ehost-live
Sebastien, L., & Van Fleteren, F. (2012). The Life of Augustine of Hippo. New York:
Peter Lang AG
ost-live
Torchia, N. J. (2012). Creatio Ex Nihilo and the Theology of St. Augustine : The Anti-
Manichaean Polemic and Beyond. New York: Peter Lang AG.
ost-live
Cahill, P. J. (1992). Celtic Christianity: A Different Drum. Religious Studies And

Theology, 12(1), 9-23
site=ehost-live
LeMasters, P. (1999). Celtic Christianity: Its Call to Discipleship. Encounter, 60(4),

463-495
site=ehost-live
Hunter, G. G. (2010). The Celtic Way of Evangelism : How Christianity Can Reach
the West-- Again. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
ost-live
Dakake, M. M. (2013). In the shadow of the sword: the birth of Islam and the rise of
the global Arab empire. First Things, 23053-56
site=ehost-live
Robinson, P. W. (2016). Three myths about the crusades: what they mean for
Christian witness. Concordia Journal, 42(1), 28-40.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLAn3848464&sit
e=ehost-live
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Session 1: Paradigm Shifts in Church History

by Dick Whitehouse
Overview:
There are many different ways of reading history depending on the standpoint from
which we examine the literary, archaeological and geographical evidence. The mass
of available material covering the period of this course will be approached to uncover
evidence of the way that mission has shaped the life of the Church during our period.
The ways in which the church has approached its missionary impulse has changed at
different periods of its existence and in different social and cultural situations. This unit
uses the notion of paradigm shifts to explore the changing shape of mission leading
to the present day.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this session the successful student will be able to:
1. Understand and describe the nature of paradigms as applied to theology and

history.
2. Explain what constitutes a paradigm shift.
3. Describe and outline the context of Boschs six paradigms and their explanatory
value.
Instructions for this Session
1. Read the session notes and complete the reflections and exercises.
2. Read the required reading as shown below.
3. Attend the lecture for this session at your campus - making sure you take careful
notes to flesh out your knowledge and understanding of the topic for this
session
There is a pdf reader on Moodle for this session:
Martin Robinson, Winning Hearts, Changing Minds (London: Monarch, 2001) pp17-
36.
Outline:
1. Missional reading use of the term missional

2. Concept of paradigm shifts
3. Characterisation of each of the six paradigms in terms of missional movements
4. Utility of application to a missional reading of history in this course
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1. A Missional Reading
There are many different ways of assessing the evidence before us as we examine
the history of the Christian Church in the west. For instance, we could trace the social
development of the Church by focusing on the demographic data and the social and
cultural background of the emerging church or we could take a history of ideas
approach by concentrating on documentary evidence for the development of doctrine
in the early years of the Church. Another approach might be to trace the political
influence of Christianity in the west as it ascended to a position of power within the
Roman Empire and later. In this course we will be utilising a little of each of these
approaches in order to trace the way in which the mission of the Church drove and
was influenced by its response to its social and cultural context. This will be a
missional reading of Church history in which we trace the growth of significant
movements towards mission within the Church. In the process, we will identify
significant leaders who were movement-makers within their own context as we seek
to apply lessons for our own situation.
This will be a missional reading of Church history in the sense that we seek to identify
the extent to which the Church in the west has pursued or ignored the missio dei. The
term missional is of fairly recent origin growing out of the gospel and culture debate
which flowed from the work of Lesslie Newbigin (1909-98) in the second half of the
20th century. The term has acquired many different uses, but it is employed here to
indicate that mission is more than just evangelism or Church growth; rather, it is Gods
on-going work of restoration that includes social, political and physical salvation as
well as personal redemption and forgiveness.
2. Paradigms
In 1962 the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions1 which was destined to become the most quoted academic book of all
time. In it, Kuhn questioned the current assumption that scientific knowledge advanced
along a straight line of progressive development as theories are tested and refined.
By tracing the history of science Kuhn came to the view that rather than steady
cumulative progress in knowledge arrived at by adding to, testing and correcting the
old stock of knowledge, scientists periodically come to an impasse when old
explanations no longer work. This lack of fit throws communities of scientific
specialists into turmoil as they are propelled towards answers which require a different
way of looking at things.
These potentially new frameworks of thought alternate between revolutionary and

established ways of looking at the world. Thus, for a period, scientists work within old
and new frameworks at the same time until a community of thinkers breaks through
into a new paradigm or framework of thought. Kuhn uses the example of Copernicus
whose view of a universe where the earth revolved around the sun challenged the
1 Kuhn Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1962
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established Ptolemaic view that the sun orbited the earth. For a time the old astronomy
produced more predictable results until Copernicus model was refined. Until then,
observers tended to alternate between the two systems until the Copernican revolution
was finally established.
Such a change of viewpoint is what Kuhn labelled a paradigm shift. In a postscript to

his work Kuhn defines the term paradigm as: the entire constellation of beliefs,
values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community.2 As
Bosch observes, the term paradigm is a slippery concept and Kuhn was accused by
his critics of using it in at least 22 different senses! Nevertheless, its meaning is
generally fairly clear. From our standpoint a paradigm may be taken as a framework
of reference, a way of perceiving reality.
Hans Kng the German Catholic theologian appropriated the idea of paradigm shifts
to delineate six historical-theological divisions of the history of western Christianity
each of which reveals a particular understanding of the Christian faith. Missiologist
David Bosch points out that each era or paradigm also offers a distinctive
understanding of Christian mission.3 The six paradigms identified by Kng were:
1. The apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity.

2. The Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period.
3. The medieval Roman Catholic paradigm.
4. The Protestant (Reformation) paradigm.
5. The modern Enlightenment paradigm.
6. The emerging ecumenical paradigm.
These paradigms or eras of Christian history in the west will form a guiding framework
for our examination of the story of the Church in the MS100 units of this course and
will be briefly examined below. Before doing so it is necessary to reflect that Christians
in each era were struggling to understand and appropriate the Christian message and
its mission in the terms of their age and culture for themselves. Bosch commented:
Needless to say, all of them believed and argued that their understanding of the faith
and of the churchs mission was faithful to Gods intent. This did not, however, mean
that they all thought alike and came to the same conclusions.4
Bosch made the point that while we may think that our understanding of the faith is
objectively accurate, our views in fact rest on our interpretations of divine revelation.
This calls for greater humility and empathy when we seek to understand other
interpretations of the faith. Bosch went on to observe:
There is yet another important and related factor which affects the ways
people interpret and experience the Christian faith: the general frame of
reference with which they happen to have grown up, their overall experience
2 cited by Bosch David, Transforming Mission (Orbis Books, New York, 1998). p185
3 Bosch, p182
4 Bosch, p182
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and understanding of reality and their place within the universe, the historical
epoch in which they happen to live and which to a very large extent has
moulded their faith, experiences and thought processes. The differences
between the six sub-divisions of the history of Christianity listed by Kng have
to do, to a very large extent, with differences in the overall frame of reference
between one era and the other, and only to a lesser extent with personal,
confessional, and social differences per se.5
One consequence of the changing understanding of Christian faith and practice in the
different eras or paradigms identified by Kng is that the understanding of the Churchs
mission also underwent radical change. This has implications for a missional reading
of Church history and so it is to these six periods or paradigms that we shall now briefly
turn.
3. Kngs Six Paradigms
1) The apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity
The term apocalyptic is used here to indicate a belief in the imminent consummation
of the kingdom of God. To begin with, the focus of the Church was on the expected
imminent return of Christ to set up his kingdom in power and completeness. This
apocalyptic paradigm gave urgency and energy to the missionary thrust of the church
as it established what has been described as outposts of the future communities of
faith bearing witness to an eternal dimension of a faith lived out in the here and now.
It was inevitable that this dynamic would sooner or later burst out of its boundaries into
new territories beginning with dispersed Israel and spilling over its banks to reach first
gentile proselytes and God fearers and then to embrace pagan unbelievers within its
reach. However, as time wore on and Jesus failed to return, the focus changed
towards a more settled view of Church and the Churchs mission.
2) The Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period.
Once the Church began to move across the boundary into gentile territory its leaders
and the gospel that they embraced were inevitably to face challenges in terms of
theology and mission. A new way of proclaiming the message of Christianity and a
new vocabulary had to be found in order to contextualize the gospel so that it made
sense in a new cultural context. Not only was it necessary to frame the gospel in
different terms that would make sense to a new audience it was also imperative to
ground that message in new forms of worship and practice. These new expressions
of faith needed to confront the culture with a new way of living that was a genuine and
Biblically compatible alternative to pagan excesses a Christian faith and practice
which demonstrated eternal realities. These were some of the challenges that faced
the rank and file members and the leaders of the church in the patristic period.
5 Bosch, p183
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By patristic we mean the period in which the so-called Church Fathers came to the
fore. In the first place these were leaders who could claim some direct connection with
the first Apostles or their immediate disciples. Theology and mission in the patristic
period was defined by a response to Greek philosophy or, to be more accurate,
philosophies. Philosophy in this context is not to be thought of as an academic
discipline but as thought forms adopted by educated men in pursuit of a satisfying way
of life. The most influential philosophies during this period were those of the Stoics,
the Epicureans, the Cynics and the Platonists. These will be briefly taken up and
examined in session 3, but the most dominant was Platonism which gave rise to a
stream of thought which has been labelled by scholars since the 18th century as
Gnosticism. The term Gnosticism is not used by ancient writers, none of the church
fathers use the term although they do identify people adopting certain characteristic
ways of religious thought as Gnostics. Much of the development of orthodox Christian
theology in the writings of the Church Fathers arises from attempts to refute the
influence of this false teaching on the beliefs of Christians.
The second type of patristic writing is apologia (the Greek word means defence)
which sets out to make a reasoned defence of the faith. In some cases these take the
form of responses to anti-Christian propaganda and in others they are correctives to
aberrations in Christian doctrine brought about by the influence of Gnostic or Platonic
thought forms. The third literary genre used by the Church Fathers is that of polemic,
which is a controversial discussion or attack on the position of an opponent. Justin
Martyrs Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, written c.135 CE, is a celebrated example.
Trypho was probably not an actual person but an imaginary character used to portray
the position of Jews who were opposed to the Christian teaching. In this way Justin
could attack a group of opponents without actually naming them.
All of these literary approaches were designed either to consolidate or advance the
Christian position in public debate. It is a commonplace for Church historians to state
that the issue of mission is not a concern of the patristic period as the Church Fathers
rarely use the term mission in their writings. However, this observation is misses the
point that their plain concern was to advance the cause of Christ. It is evident that men
like Ignatius in his letters embracing martyrdom, Irenaeus in his attacks on
Gnosticism, and Justin in his Apology for (i.e. defence of) Christianity addressed to the
emperor Antoninus Pius, were all leaders of a movement to establish and extend the
Christian Faith.
As the Church moved into the Mediterranean atmosphere of the greater Roman
Empire it began to leave behind Jewish thought forms as it had to grapple with Greek
concepts and vocabulary. Christians in the Roman Empire were always going to be
suspected of disloyalty to the Empire because they insisted their first allegiance was
to Christ as Lord. It was not therefore a wise move to continue to propagate an overtly
kingdom theology nor did it appeal to the platonic ways of thinking which dominated
society at every social level. At its base, popular thought was more preoccupied with
superstition so that the worship of gods often took the form of warding off evil spirits
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who were thought to dominate every aspect of life. At a more educated and intellectual
level, the concern was with cosmology; the way in which spiritual forces controlled the
planetary universe and blocked the way to the transcendent supreme being who was
considered to be pure spirit and therefore uncontaminated by matter which was
considered to be of a lower order and therefore evil.
The apologists countered this mode of thinking by following hints in the writings of the
Apostle Paul which suggest that, on the Cross, Christ overcame the powers of a fallen
universe. He is Christus Victor, the victorious Christ, not just victor over the political
realm but over all creation. This theology of a victorious Christ was underpinned by
the liturgy of the patristic church. Robert Webber commented:
The central theme of liturgical theology in the early church clearly points to
Christus Victor. The whole human race has been subjected to death and is
under the penalty of disobedience. But God has by the incarnation, death, and
resurrection of Christ trampled down death, destroyed the gates of hell, and
overcome the powers of evil. In Christ the nature of humanity has been renewed
and the way to heaven has been opened. These rich images of the liturgy are
found in the writings of the early Fathers, and in their theology of
recapitulation.6
Irenaeus (c.130 - 202CE) and other Church Fathers taught that by becoming incarnate
as a man Christ recapitulated the fall of Adam thus reversing it on the Cross where He
potentially restored all things to Gods former intention. Thus, salvation becomes not
so much forgiveness and cleansing as ascending into the presence of God through
the knowledge of Christs victory.
3) The medieval Roman Catholic paradigm.
It is difficult to date the beginning of the medieval period since there was a gradual
change from the patristic period until the final east-west divide between mainstream
Christian Churches at Constantinople in 1054. It was customary for historians to date
the Middle Ages from the date of the fall of Rome to the northern Germanic tribes
under Alaric in 410CE but Constantine had already moved the capital of his empire to
Byzantium in 330CE renaming it Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The Eastern
Roman Empire was to stagger on for another 800 years or so in the form of the
Byzantine Empire thus the transfer to the medieval paradigm was gradual and
piecemeal. Ferguson noted that:
Medieval civilization was built up from the culture of the later Roman Empire
(especially Roman literature, law, and governmental institutions), the customs
of Germanic peoples, and the church with its faith and practices (specifically
the theology of Augustine and the pre-eminence of the papacy).7
6 Webber Robert E., Ancient- Future Faith, Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1999, p. 58
7 Everett Ferguson, Church History Vol 1., (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) p6
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In contrast the culture of the Orthodox Byzantine civilisation was: built up from the
culture of ancient Greece, the institutions of the Roman state, the customs of the
Hellenized peoples of the Near East, and Christianity.8
From the middle of the second century until the fourth century the Church was infused
with Greek thought and culture but gradually, in the west after the period of
Constantine, the dominant language came to be Latin rather than Greek. Along with it
came changes of theological emphasis many of these were precipitated by
Augustines theological reconstruction which focused on original sin rather than the
divine image in man. This created a new pattern of thinking for western Christians. In
Greek theological thought, as we have seen, redemption was seen as a process
through which human nature was taken up into the divine by means of doctrinal
instruction.
Greek thinking was incarnational, it emphasised the origin or pre-existence of Christ

as the Logos or pre-existent Word. Latin thinking, following Augustine, was cross-
centred emphasising the substitutionary death of Christ for sinners. Although
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) came before the Middle Ages as such, he laid the
foundation for the medieval paradigm. In accordance with the theory of paradigm
shifts, there was an overlap in this period of history during which theological thinkers
operated within two frameworks of reference until the split between the two ways of
thinking and the different social and cultural arrangements to which they gave rise
finally came about in 1054.
From then on, the geographical centre of the medieval Roman Catholic paradigm
shifted westwards as a new Holy Roman Empire developed under Charlemagne (742-
814CE) who sought to unify Europe under Catholic rule in a partnership between the
pope and this newly crowned emperor. Charlemagne was anointed by the pope an act
which signalled their independence from the old Roman order represented by the
Emperor in the east, effectively marking the end of the Roman Empire as it had been
known.
During the medieval period much of the conversion to Christianity was political often
whole tribes were baptised - sometimes at the point of a sword - this further fuelled a
process by which the Church had been populated by large numbers of nominal
Christians through the large scale conversion of half instructed people dominated by
a Church hierarchy. However, we must see the work of Charlemagne and other rulers
and popes as a serious attempt to build a Christian civilization to replace primitivism
as they saw it.
The exception to this hierarchy was to be found in the monasteries which were centres
of learning, hospitality and agricultural practices which often sustained, and certainly
influenced, the settlements in the geographical area around them. Medieval social
structure was generally feudal; serfs farmed land which belonged to the lord of the
8 Webber, p58
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manor to whom they paid rent and often served as armed retainers when needed in
battle. The world was conceived of as a Great Chain of Being ranging from God the
Divine Emperor at the top through angels via kings, princes, popes, priests and
peasants through animals and plants to inanimate objects like stones. Each had their
own place in this scheme of things which was a spiritual order reflected in the social
and political orders.
An unforeseen consequence was that the individuals access to salvation came

through the hierarchy of the Church which was protected by the state. State and
Church were intertwined in such a way that the Church, which had privileged access
to God, gave spiritual protection to the King or Emperor while the monarch guaranteed
physical, armed, protection to the Church. Bosch commented:
The relationship between emperor and pope, during the early Middle Ages,
was never completely relaxed; there was almost always a silent struggle for
supremacy. At the same time each knew that he needed the other. What was
true at the highest level was true at the local level as well; every bishop or priest
was dependent on the goodwill and support of the authorities, every local ruler
required the approval of the church. The churchs dependence upon the
imperial power, also in its mission work was both a necessity and a burden.9
One of the consequences of this was that, in many instances, mission became a
matter of conquest, an instrument of war or, at least, of diplomacy. In The Medieval
paradigm colonialism and mission went hand in hand. It was this mentality which gave
rise to the Crusades when successive popes and monks raised armies to retake the
Holy Land from the Muslim colonisers of the former Christian Middle East. Much of
this story can be traced in Philip Jenkins The Lost History of Christianity.10
In contrast, Celtic missionary strategy in the British Isles centred around monastic
communities which did not necessarily begin with cloistered buildings rather they were
based on communal life which was designed to be a demonstration of the way in which the
gospel was to be lived out. A typical Celtic mission base would include tradesmen and
artisans, as well as teachers, monks and priests. Together the community as a whole could
show potential pagan converts a different way of living.
These communities related to clan life and Abbots, much like clan chiefs, were the
outstanding religious leaders. Bishops were much less important in the Celtic set up.
These communities were characterised by missionary zeal as each Christian was
expected to communicate the gospel to others. They were, therefore much more
mobile and peregrinatio (pilgrimage) formed an important part of penance. Pilgrimage
was not so much to a revered holy site as making a penitential journey for the
9 Bosch, p. 221
10 Jenkins Philip, The Lost History of Christianity, Oxford, Lion Hudson, 2008
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perfection of the individual monk who must help whoever he met on the journey, thus
sharing the gospel along the way.
Celtic monks depended upon the Spirit and their journeys were often spontaneous.
There are stories of monks putting to sea in coracles allowing the wind to take them
where it would with a view to evangelising wherever they made landfall. Some of their
journeying was much more strategic and Celtic monks travelled through Europe along
rivers such as the Rhine establishing new Christian communities and building
monasteries as they went. These Celtic missionaries have been credited with re-
evangelising large parts of Europe in their day and they established bases as a far
afield as Kiev.
David Bosch suggested that if the missionary text of the patristic period was John 3:16
God so love the world that he gave then the Roman medieval paradigm explicitly
appealed to Luke 14:23 compel them to come in. This text was first used by
Augustine whose thinking dominated the medieval period, when he argued that
schismatics of his day should be forced to return to the Catholic Church. Bosch
commented: In the course of the Middle Ages the text came to be applied also to the
forced conversion (or at least baptism) of pagans and Jews. Even when explicit
appeal to this text was dropped in the later medieval period its sentiment remained in
Catholic missionary thinking until late into the twentieth century. Bosch goes on to
observe: It could not really be otherwise, as long as one argued that there was no
salvation outside formal membership of the Roman Catholic Church and that it was to
peoples eternal advantage if they could be made to join this body.11
4) The Protestant (Reformation) paradigm.
The political scheming of rival kingdoms within the Holy Roman Empire and the role
of the papacy in brokering political power helped set the scene for the emergence of
the Reformation theological and missionary paradigm. During the period of the
medieval Roman Catholic paradigm there were three stands of theological
development. The first was an emphasis upon evolving practices that entrenched the
position of the church as the arbiter of faith. Secondly, this was accompanied by a
search for intellectual rigour in the emerging halls of academia. This search centred
upon coming to an understanding of God and his relation to society that fitted
philosophical frames of reference drawn from the thought of either Plato or Aristotle
whose approaches to knowledge were diametrically opposed. Thus, theology was
being worked out in universities which were established and sanctioned by the Church
although monastic leaders also contributed to debate as they guided their followers.
Thirdly, popular devotional movements helped shape Church teaching as the priests
and prelates were forced to respond to them.
11Bosch, David, Transforming Mission; Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, New York, Orbis
books, 1995, p.236
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In the 14th century the so called Black Death, probably a mutation of Bubonic Plague,
swept through Europe reducing the population by as much as a third. Self-
recrimination for bringing about this supposed judgement resulted in the resurrection
of self-flagellation movements as a sign of mortification and penance for what was
deemed to be a punishment from God. In addition to bemoaning their own guilt, other
scapegoats were sought and anti-semitic violence erupted. In its defence, the Catholic
Church attempted to head off these excesses and by 1349 Pope Clement VI banned
flagellant processions linking them to anti-Jewish attacks. From then on the Church
attempted to regulate penitential self-flagellation which played a part in the experience
of the first Reformer, Martin Luther, leading to his revised understanding of both
Church and mission.
A further strand of Church teaching influencing Luthers thought hinged upon the
doctrine of purgatory which was first developed during the 11 th and 12th centuries and
became an instrument of Church policy against which he was to protest in the 16th
century. Diarmaid MacCulloch commented:
European society in the wake of the Black Death remained preoccupied by

death and what to do about it. No wonder the eleventh- and twelfth-century
development of the doctrine of purgatory was one of the most successful and
long-lasting theological ideas in the Western Church. It bred an intricate
industry of prayer: a whole range of institutions and endowments, of which the
most characteristic was the chantry, a foundation of invested money or landed
revenues which provided finance for a priest to devote his time to singing
masses for the soul of the founder and anyone else the founder cared to
specify.12
Development of this doctrine not only secured the loyalty of wealthy members of
society to the Church, it also brought in revenues for the maintenance of its buildings
and clergy.
Closely allied to this was the development of the idea of indulgences the sale of which
provided a further lucrative source of fund raising revenue for Church projects. The
notion of papal indulgences grew out of the belief that, since Christ was totally divine
his death on the Cross provided more than enough grace for the salvation of the whole
world. Salvation was conceived of in terms of spiritual or moral merit which could
counterbalance a persons sin. In addition, it was assumed that the saints could build
up an excess of merit so that they were able, as it were, to deposit their balance in the
bank of heaven. Since this divine fund of merit was present it could be drawn upon by
the Church through the good offices of the popes who were considered to be the
successors of the Apostle Peter inheriting from him the keys to the kingdom. It was a
short step to assert that at the popes discretion it was possible to transfer excess merit
from the bank of heaven to the account of the needy sinner at a price! This was
12 MacCulloch, D., A History of Christianity, (London: Penguin Books, 2010) 555
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achieved by the grant of a certificate of indulgence guaranteeing a fixed number of
years off purgatory and, increasingly, these indulgences were offered for sale by
agents of the pope in order to raise money to fund Church projects such as the
rebuilding of St Peters Basilica in Rome. This traffic in human pardon was one of the
abuses against which Luther and other Reformers were to protest.
Martin Luther (1483-1546), was born in Saxony into a relatively affluent family, his
father was a copper mine leaseholder with ambitions for his family. He sent the young
Martin to study law at Erfurt University, but Martin switched to theology and philosophy
since he thought that law led to uncertainty whereas he was looking for certainty and
assurance about the issues of life. He attained his masters degree in 1505, the same
year in which he was almost killed by a lightning bolt when caught in a thunderstorm.
Terrified of divine judgement, he called out to St Ana, vowing to become a monk if his
life was spared. The storm passed and Luther felt forced to keep his vow by entering
an Augustinian Friary in July 1505. Here he became an exemplary monk.
Still looking for assurance, Luther devoted himself to fasting, prayers, confession,
frequent penance, flagellation and pilgrimage but with no sense of the presence of
God who he saw as an exacting judge. Luther later reported: "I lost touch with Christ
the Saviour and Comforter, and made of him the jailer and hangman of my poor
soul.13 Johann von Staupitz, Luthers spiritual adviser, encouraged him to look away
from constant contemplation of his own sins to the merits of the Saviour, advice which
did not take immediate root, but which was to affect his growing understanding of the
place of faith in the scheme of salvation.
Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507 and in the following year his superior
von Staupitz called him to become a lecturer in theology at the recently formed
University of Wittenberg, a centre of humanist thinking. Luther began lecturing in
Psalms using modern printing techniques to produce the text for his students with wide
margins for his students to make notes. He was already using the innovation of printing
to further his message and while he rejected humanist rationalist philosophy, he used
humanist techniques in scholarship in approaching the text in order to challenge
medieval scholasticism with its allegorizing approach to scripture. By 1515 Luther
turned to lecturing on Pauls letter to the Romans which was central to Augustines
understanding of salvation. It was here, in the midst of his own spiritual turmoil, that
Luther began to understand salvation in terms of a gift from God as he came to grips
with one side of his Augustinian heritage. The text the just shall live by faith came to
him as a revelation that righteousness came from God not from human effort.
This revelation did not yet cause Luther to question the doctrine of purgatory which
he didnt drop until as late as 1530, but he clearly understood that - purgatory or not -
mans way into heaven could come through no amount of prayer, confession, penance
or human works. He was therefore incensed by the sale of indulgences as a papal
13Kittelson, James. Luther The Reformer. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishing House, 1986,
79.
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MS100 Topic 1
means of fund raising. In particular he was enraged by the activities of Johann Tetzel,
a Dominican friar who blatantly hawked indulgence certificates in market places in a
fundraising campaign to finish rebuilding St Peters Basilica in Rome and to pay off the
debts of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, who was Luthers senior pastor. Luther wanted
to know why, if St. Peters needed to be rebuilt, the pope did not use his own vast
wealth instead of extorting money from poor Germans. He wrote a letter to the
Archbishop setting out a disputation in ninety-five theses challenging the practice of
selling indulgences and he is reputed to have nailed a copy of these theses to the
main door of the parish church in Wittenberg in open defiance of the authorities. In
these theses Luther set out an internal doctrine of grace which was what he wanted
the Church to debate, but what the Church powers wanted to talk about was external
authority and they came down heavily upon Luther so that his protest was turned into
an act of rebellion. Luther refused to retract and in 1520 a papal bull [proclamation] of
excommunication was issued proclaiming him a heretic. Luther publicly burned the
papal bull in the town square of Wittenberg to the acclaim of students and citizens.
Luther went on to write three great treatises in 1520 which were a call to Christian
freedom. In them, he identified the pope and the whole church organisation as the
Anti-Christ.
The only way to settle this impasse was for the civil authorities, as represented by the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, to adjudicate. Luther was called before the regular
imperial assembly or Diet in Worms in 1521. Luther refused to retract his position
and was condemned. The Emperor Charles honoured Luthers safe conduct from the
Diet but the Elector Friedrich, who by this time had come down in favour of Luther,
arranged for his kidnap and safe incarceration in the stronghold of Wartburg until he
brought the whole of Saxony out in favour of what was coming to be called
Lutheranism (initially a slur or term of contempt). The stage was set for local rulers to
become the arbiters and champions of Church allegiance in given territories. The Holy
Roman Empire was set to be divided into territories which were loyal to either the
Roman Catholic or the emerging Lutheran Church and in, due course, other
Reformation churches such as that led by Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva. This
eventually led to a series of bloody and indecisive wars of faith which were only
brought to an end at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 and later in 1648 with the Peace
of Westphalia which ruled that each region has to follow the religion of its ruler.
It was during his period of safe conduct in Wartburg that Luther translated the New
Testament into German, later to be followed by the Old Testament. The invention of
the printing press made the mass dissemination of Scripture possible for the first time
in history. This was a daring departure; making the Bible available in the vernacular
opened up theological debate to the masses and paved the way for Luthers doctrine
of the priesthood of all believers.
We do not have space to trace all of the main events in the development of the
Reformation, but enough has been said to open up a discussion of the main features
of the Reformation mission paradigm and to point the student to further study. It is
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MS100 Topic 1
clear that the Reformation opened up a huge divide in the Church based on
diametrically opposed views of the nature of salvation and of the Church.
At first sight it appears the territorial development of Reformation Churches, resulted

in a complete loss of a missionary theology. The Reformers were fighting for the soul
of the Church as they understood it; therefore they gave more time to the formulation
of doctrine and to the establishment of the gospel within their own territories as a
personal faith response to divine revelation than they did to carrying the gospel to un-
evangelised peoples. Their concern was to formulate a Church which was a
demonstration of the truths of the gospel. Thus Luther defined a true Church as one
where the Word of God is preached, the sacraments (now reduced to two) are rightly
administered and where Church discipline is enforced. In addition to these
distinguishing marks, he promoted the priesthood of all believers by which he meant
the right to approach God without a human intermediary and to read and expound the
scriptures in the context of the home.
As time wore on, the Lutheran and other Protestant Churches became more and more
concerned about establishing purity of doctrine in a fight to maintain their own
existence and paid less attention to reaching beyond their own borders. Nevertheless,
the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, which broke with the idea that ordinary
believers are less important and uninformed subjects of the Churchs ministry, was to
lay a foundation for more individualistic mission activity in the future.
Both Lutheran and Protestant Reformers ignored the Great Commission text in
Matthew 28:18f since they believed it was already fulfilled by the first Apostles and
because it was used by the Anabaptists to justify roving non-territorially controlled
ministries. For the Reformers, ministry and, with it, the proclamation of the gospel, was
tied to territory whether a local parish or a Reformed principality. In this sense, mission
was the rulers responsibility and, for the Reformers, the existence of a scriptural
Church established by a ruler ensured that the gospel was proclaimed. Luther used
the illustration of a stone thrown into the water whose ripples reached the farthest
shores of the earth but did not explain how in practical terms this was to come about.
The Reformers lack of vision for missionary activity in the conventional sense
stemmed from their view of the Sovereignty of God which meant that He has taken the
initiative in salvation. Mission is not a term that was in vogue at this time, it was in fact
coined by the Jesuits to describe the evangelisation of colonial subjects and
Protestants, but for the early Reformers what we think of as mission was seen as
Gods prerogative. This is a forerunner of the contemporary notion of missio dei as a
Biblical concept. He is the one who reaches out to lost people and whose plan is to
restore divine rule.
The emphasis, in Luthers case, on the subjective aspect of salvation grew out of his
own experience of seeking peace with God but as time went on the emphasis on purity
of doctrine in Reformed Churches led to a dead formalism which was only to be broken
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MS100 Topic 1
by the Pietist movement in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Pietism exploded onto
the scene under the under the leadership of two Lutheran pastors, Philipp Jakob
Spener (1635-1705) and his younger contemporary August Hermann Francke (1663-
1727) who initially recruited lay members to assist with parish work in growing
population centres where the parish clergy could not cope alone. It grew into a
movement which gave rise to groups of believers known as brotherhoods gathered
from among members of local churches. In their enthusiasm they threw off the formal
cold and correct orthodoxy which had gripped the Churches as they sought an intimate
personal relationship with God. This breathed new life into theological concepts like
conversion, new birth and sanctification which became not merely theological
categories but a living experience. In the beginning, Pietism was characterised by
joyful and exuberant worship and home based small-group gatherings where spiritual
experiences were shared. These new discoveries led to a desire to reach out beyond
themselves with the news of personal experiential redemption. The Pietists were the
first to give rise to overseas missionary enterprises in the modern sense although
initially even these were tied to trade missions or colonial territories as was the first of
them, the Danish-Halle Mission in Tranquebar in India. However they were soon to
break these bounds reaching out beyond immediate colonial concerns. In particular,
the Moravian movement, which was influenced by Pietism, sent missionaries wherever
they believed God was calling them to proclaim the gospel.
Pietistic enthusiasm for mission extended beyond concern for peoples souls by
embracing their physical and social needs as an outworking of the gospel. They were
active in mission at home as well as overseas, ministering to the destitute in Halle,
where the movement started, establishing a school, an orphanage, a hospital and a
widows home as part of their expression of the gospel. This was a pattern they were
initially to adopt overseas as well until, after 30 years, the quest for a deeper spiritual
life began to harden into a dualism separating the social and spiritual spheres. As a
result, the missionaries were instructed to confine themselves to spiritual concerns.
Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700 1760) came to faith and was nurtured
in the Pietistic movement in Halle before he established a safe haven for persecuted
Moravian believers at Herrnhut on his estate. This community was to experience
internal strife until they experienced a visitation of the Holy Spirit bringing an outbreak
of ecstasy and unity which spilled over into a desire to reach the lost. This was a lay
led movement and Zinzendorf with his intense devotional life became one of their
inspirational leaders. The community at Herrnhut established a missionary prayer
meeting which engaged in an unbroken chain of prayer on a rota basis lasting for 100
years! No wonder that, from the earliest days, they sent out unprecedented numbers
of young missionaries, many of them married couples, who were not required to be
formally trained in theology. The Moravian Movement became a prolific forerunner of
modern missions and was influential in the conversion of John Wesley who was
instrumental in the next mission paradigm.
5) The Modern Enlightenment Paradigm
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MS100 Topic 1
The so-called Enlightenment period began in the mid-17th century and ran on until the
end of the 18th century. Many scholars date its demise to the eruption of the French
Revolution (1789-1799) which was a direct consequence of Enlightenment thinking. It
has also been dubbed the Age of Reason because it marks a break from authority
based on revelation and the teachings of the Church. This was fuelled by weariness
with decades of religious wars and the consciousness that different conclusions drawn
from Biblical revelation were actually based on mens reasoning which produced
different versions of the truth and with them different Church traditions. In one sense,
the age of Enlightenment was a direct product of Reformation insistence on freedom
of conscience based on interpretation of Scripture. Many of the Enlightenment thinkers
such as Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton were professing Christians
of some sort. Added to the mix was the rediscovery of classical thought and a
rediscovery of some of its scientific and mathematical principles.
Enlightenment thinking was not uniform and had many national variations, but it
extended throughout the continent, particularly Germany, Holland and France as well
as Britain. A group of amateur philosophers met in salons throughout Europe
eventually focusing on Paris where during the 18th century a caucus decided to
produce an Encyclopaedia of human knowledge which they worked on for several
decades. The basis of the Enlightenment paradigm was that human reason is the
basis of all knowledge rather than divine revelation. This took two main forms: English
empiricism which based knowledge on the application of the experimental methods
and Continental Rationalism which based knowledge on pure reason. In practice, the
two were not always as neatly divided.
In England, Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who came from a Puritan heritage, was an
early forerunner of the Enlightenment movement proper. He promoted the gains of
experimental method as a means of increasing the store of knowledge and of applying
it. He insisted on the necessity of a planned application of the inductive method of
inquiry to all natural phenomena. His importance lies in the separation of the natural
and spiritual worlds as areas of inquiry each with their own methods of approach. This
freed scientific method from subjection to the Church.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was another bridge to the Enlightenment movement who
combined Bacons empirical approach with pure mathematics, which is based on pure
reason. Credited with the discovery of the principle of gravity, Newton went on to
describe a universe based on regular observable mathematical principles and the
principle of physical cause and effect. Newton described a mechanistic universe which
was like giant clockwork - a universe which he believed reflected the nature of its
maker. During the next century this gave rise to Deism, the view of a God who created
the universe, winding it up and setting it in motion to be left to its own devices based
on creation principles. Such an absentee God needed no missionaries since the
universe proclaimed his character and, in any case salvation came from reason rather
than revelation of the need of a Saviour. God had created the best of all possible
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MS100 Topic 1
worlds which was developing from its own inherent logic. Progress was therefore
inevitable with a little help from man.
There are too many luminous thinkers to mention in detail but, in Scotland, men like
Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Hume (1711-1776) come to mind. Smith was a
moral philosopher and economist who wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of
the Wealth of Nations in which he propounds the theory that the person who trades
does so in his own interest, not that of the public but, in doing so, produces the best
outcome for all. He promoted a view that markets are controlled by an invisible hand
by which he does not mean a divine intervention but, rather, something like the modern
term market forces. It is an economic philosophy based on beneficent selfishness
which was to have far reaching consequences for the form of consumerism that
dominates current western culture. Smith travelled widely on the Continent where he
met with the French salon philosophes who promoted the Enlightenment as a self-
conscious movement fostering progress as a human achievement which did not need
God as its author.
Smith was preceded and influenced by David Hume one of the most renowned British
empiricists. He worked to achieve a naturalistic science of man essentially a
psychological theory of human nature. His A Treatise of Human Nature has been
hailed as the foundational document of psychological science. In it he placed emotion
above reason maintaining that human behaviour is driven by desire rather than reason
arguing that: Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions."14 He believed
that free will and determinism are compatible ideas which do not need any
metaphysical interference to justify their coexistence and he maintained that ethical
behaviour is grounded on feelings rather than abstract moral principles or revealed
moral law. This opinion eventually led to John Mills Utilitarianism, the belief that the
right course of action is that which leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest
number of people. Morality is therefore essentially a hedonistic pursuit. Echoes of this
can be found in the modern belief that free agents are at liberty to do whatever they
want as long their behaviour does not directly harm anyone else.
In the next century developed forms of Utilitarianism produced an argument for liberty
that justified the freedom of the individual as opposed to unlimited state intervention.
This view was already implicit in Enlightenment thought in the 18th century. It can be
argued that this attitude led directly to the French Revolution and it was reaction to this
on the part of the Romantics, exemplified by Wordsworth and Coleridge that turned
British opinion against the principles embraced by the philosophers of the Age of
Reason. Romantic reaction was fuelled by a horror of the possibility of the excesses
of the French Revolution spreading from the mainland to Britain. This fear produced a
conservatism that made space for a return to a more traditional theology. Humes
views on Christianity were ambiguous; for instance, he made some encouraging
14 David Hume, A treatise on human nature, http://www.unc.edu/~jjeffrey/HumeFiles-B3/B2.3.3.accessed

05/08/2013
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MS100 Topic 1
noises about the place of religion in society, but he opposed the argument from design
as a defence of natural religion.
Hume argued against the notion of a metaphysical self suggesting instead that what
is called the self is simply a bundle of sensations held together by the brain. In doing
so, he paved the way for 19th and 20th century psychological theories that had no need
for the concept of the soul and, therefore, no need for a concept of spiritual salvation.
Any salvation there might be was to come from mans ability to manipulate his
environment for his own benefit and for human good. He was a prolific essayist and
correspondent in contact with French Enlightenment proponents, particularly Jean-
Jacques Rousseau who directly influenced the course of the French Revolution. When
Rousseau fell foul of the religious establishments in France and Switzerland he fled to
England where he was sheltered by Hume who found lodgings for him.
Intriguingly, Rousseau who mixed with the Encylopedists, originated ideas that lent
support to the French Revolution and to the Romantic Movement in Britain which was
to oppose the principles of the Age of Reason. Rousseau made a case that both arts
and the sciences led to the corruption of human morality which is an interesting
position given that his own sexual morality was highly dubious, starting from his
introduction both to the Catholic faith and to the Parisian Encyclopedist philosophers
by his wealthy mistress Mme de Warrens. In order to complete his conversion to
Catholicism Rousseau had to relinquish his Genevan citizenship though he was later
to reconvert to a form of Calvinism in order to regain his citizenship. Plainly, though an
intellectual believer, his attitude to specific expressions of religion was instrumental.
He was later to assert that all religions were equally acceptable and therefore one
should remain within the religious loyalty of ones birth.
Later, Rousseau wrote The Social Contract, a work in which he maintained that
property was a form of theft and argued for a primitivism which extolled the innocence
of mankind prior to the ownership of property. He thus propagated the notion of the
noble savage and of natural religion. In doing this, he thought that he was supporting
Christian faith against the materialism of other Enlightenment philosophers such as
his former friend Diderot. However, both he and his past mistress, a lapsed Protestant
turned Catholic, were reacting against the doctrine of absolute depravity promoted by
the Calvinism of their upbringing. Influenced by the salon philosophers of the
Encyclopedist movement, de Warrens was more of a Deist than a Catholic but that
faith offered her an easier solution to the remission of sins. Once he renounced his
new found Catholicism, Rousseau solved the problem by suggesting original
innocence as a replacement for original sin. In a sense, for him, progress was to be
achieved by stepping back from royalist Catholic affluence with its attendant
corruption, justified by the supposed divine right of kings, to an earlier idyllic state of
nature.
There is not space to deal with more representative thinkers of the Age of Reason;
enough has been said to show the general direction of their arguments and the
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MS100 Topic 1
diversity of thought. However, Enlightenment rationalism may be generally
summarised in the following terms:
1. The separation of the natural world from the spiritual world as areas of inquiry
on the assumption that the former is amenable to observation and
experimentation in ways that the latter is not.
2. The assumption that, following the example of 17th century French Catholic
philosopher Rene Descartes, a process of systematic doubt is the best way to
arrive at objective explanation of perceived facts.
3. A mechanistic assumption that every physical effect has a corresponding
physical cause thus shutting out questions of moral purpose.
4. The view that the world is a closed system with no possible intervention from
above.
5. The conviction that objective truth can only be arrived at by observation,
experimentation and testable theoretical explanation.
6. That publicly observed facts are distinct from privately held opinions.
7. The consequent persuasion, following the philosophy of German
Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), that morality and
religion are matters of opinion confined to the private realm whereas physical
facts belong in the public realm.
8. The shift from the corporate authority of revelation and religion (i.e. the
Church) to the authority of individual reason.
Many of these principles were applied to the study of the Bible so that it too became
an object of human inquiry based solely on reason with a corresponding shift from a
search for a revelation of Gods will to an explanation of the origins of religion; from an
obedient response to a judgement between fact and fiction; from progressive
revelation to the history of salvation.
In these circumstances the missionary paradigm changed, the Church was pushed
into a corner and was forced to fight for its life. Nevertheless, not all was lost, the 18th
century Methodist revival under Whitfield and the Wesleys in England and North
America, followed by the Great Awakenings in North America, which gave rise to
outbreaks of evangelical fervour that within two generations was to transform whole
areas of society leading up to the Victorian era. John Wesley, in particular shared
some Enlightenment assumptions in his Biblical scholarship and his evangelistic
methods which extended to public morality and ground changing social work. Wesley
also engaged in experimental physics: he was a man of his times who was a bridge
between Moravian mission via Lutheran pietism leading towards Victorian public
morality and social engagement.
This, in turn, led to, or was accompanied by, the modern missionary movement
pioneered by William Carey the self-taught Hebraist, educationist and Sanskrit Bible
translator who used Enlightenment philology to forward the progress of mission in
India, not to mention his many imitators and compatriots in other parts of the world.
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MS100 Topic 1
Far from the heralded demise of religion under French Enlightenment principles the
period was to give rise to an unprecedented wave of Anglophone missionary activity
across the world.15
6). The emerging ecumenical paradigm.
In the year 1900 a missionary gathering in New York proclaimed itself as an

international ecumenical conference. It was one of a series of ad hoc mission
conferences held over the previous fifty years that bore witness to an unprecedented
increase in world Christianity. At the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment the total
Christian presence amounted to 20% the worlds population - roughly the same as at
the end of Constantines reign. By the opening of the 20th century this had increased
to a staggering 30%. Christianity was on the increase in Europe and largely due to
European and North American missionary activity the task of evangelising the world
was within reach. Moreover, with growing western affluence and the technical
capability at the Churchs disposal it seemed that nothing could stop its advance. It
was therefore decided to call a further conference for the year 1910, to be held in
Edinburgh, with the slogan to evangelise the world in our generation.
The agenda for Edinburgh was to discuss the means to effectively reach the rest of
the world for Christ a hope that had animated previous conferences too. The
difference this time was the intention to be truly ecumenical in its constituency. In past
conferences missionary strategy had largely been the province of Free Church mission
agencies and individual evangelical missionaries mainly focusing on promoting the
missionary cause and recruiting missionaries. Edinburgh was to be different in that it
sought to draw in national Churches including all varieties of Anglicans and
Episcopalians from the UK and America. Until this point such gatherings had only
included evangelicals, the aim now was to reach beyond this to embrace all kinds of
churchmanship in the recognition that the missionary task was not confined to one
brand of theology. This, of course, was to widen the definition of mission in
acknowledgement that carrying historical and, largely European, denominational
divisions and theological squabbles overseas into other cultures made little sense
since they weakened the missions cause and the credibility of the gospel.
Practical co-operation between missions overseas, particularly in Africa and India had
long been practised among evangelicals for whom the redemption of individual souls
took the highest priority. In any case, the rise of independent mission agencies, often
focusing on a given area e.g. the Africa Inland Mission, the Sudan Interior Mission and
the China Inland Mission, already cut across denominational affiliations. The very
names indicate strategic geographical moves, i.e. in these cases, from evangelising
coastal strips to penetrating continental interiors. In this sense the word ecumenical
was already a reality, but Edinburgh attempted to extend the reach beyond
evangelicals. However, a curious and maybe inevitable blindness afflicted even this
15 cf. MacCulloch, Diarmaid, A History of Christianity. London, Penguin Books, 2009, p. 873
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MS100 Topic 1
conference. The delegates were almost exclusively European or North American with
a few antipodean representatives, all from sending churches. There was little
recognition that the receiving churches were also part of the picture with their own
responsibility for mission. This was to be rectified in later conferences when the so-
called younger churches were to be given a voice in recognition of the fact that mission
was no longer from the West to the rest, but from anywhere to everywhere. Edinburgh
was the watershed that brought about this change of view thus revolutionising the
whole face of missions in a dramatic fashion. Through a set of events too complex to
detail in this unit, but which included the emergence of the wider ecumenism of World
Council of Churches to the narrower but vigorous evangelical ecumenism of the
Lausanne movement, ecumenical cooperation has transformed world mission.
Numerically, it is perhaps the influence of the narrower ecumenism of the evangelical

movement that has had the most impact on world mission in the 20th and 21st centuries
via the amazing progress and inclusiveness of the world Pentecostal movement. This
has been a catalyst for the growth of Christianity in the southern hemisphere and the
shift of the balance of power to what Philip Jenkins has identified as the emerging new
Christendom. It is only to be hoped that what he has observed turns out to be wrong
or, at least, that the same old mistakes will not be made in new cultures.
The burgeoning of World Christianity in the southern hemisphere is not confined to

Pentecostalism although it has catalysed a resurgence of Catholicism both in South
America and the Philippines. It also extends to the remarkable story of the house
Church movement in China and of prophet-healing or spiritual Churches in Africa16
and is accompanied by a wave of reverse mission into Europe as declining Churches
here have become hosts to missionaries from many parts of the southern hemisphere.
This new missional paradigm is also seeing the most extraordinary penetration into
Islamic territories from the Middle East to the former Soviet Central Asian republics
which are virtually closed to European missionaries. In this situation the role of western
missions is changing to an enabling and supporting one rather than to a privileged and
superior one. Meanwhile, under the inspiration of the work of Lesslie Newbigin who
died late in the last century, western missional thinking is challenging new approaches
to reformulating church and approaches to mission for a secular consumerist culture.
They, in turn, are likely to be able to point southern hemisphere missionaries to the
next challenge which is already emerging in their home patches due to northern
sponsored economic and ideological globalisation fuelled by the logic of modernistic
consumerism.
For Reflection:
1. Why do mission paradigms change?

2. How helpful is the notion of paradigm shifts in the context of mission?
16 See Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge UP, 2004) pp103-122
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MS100 Topic 1
3. What lessons can be learned from each of the six paradigms for todays
mission activity?
4. Where are you on the spectrum of missional activity outlined in this unit?
There is a pdf reader on Moodle for this session:
Martin Robinson, Winning Hearts, Changing Minds (London: Monarch, 2001) pp17-
36.
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MS100 Topic 1
Session 2: Jesus and Paul as Missional Leaders
by Dick Whitehouse
Learning Outcomes
1. understand the concept of missional movements as applied to Jesus and Paul

2. identify and analyse the contextual nature of both Jesus and Pauls approach
to mission
3. evaluate the missional relevance of these approaches to their own placement
situation
Required reading for session 2:
Textbook: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (USA: Thomas

Nelson, 2008) pp. 3-36
Reader on Moodle: Michael Green Evangelism in the Early Church, (Eastbourne,

Kingsway Press, 2003) pp. 76-115 (PDF Reader)
1. The missional concept applied to missional leaders
The current use of the term missional stems from the Gospel and Culture movement
in the United States in the late 20th century. This movement is a response to the
lifework of Church statesman and Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin. The move from the
word mission as a noun to the adjectival form was intended to convey the idea that
mission is not a bolt-on activity or department of the Church; rather, it is the very core
of what the Church is meant to be about. The term has become a buzz word that has
been much misused and misunderstood. Many Church programmes add it as a
fashionable descriptor intended to make that activity look contemporary. This misses
the point that the term missional does not describe another programme designed to
bring the Church up to date. It is at the very heart of what God intended. when He set
out to restore His creation to its original purpose. A fundamental aspect of this is the
insight that we are not called to engage in mission on Gods behalf so much as to
recognise that mission is Gods activity - theologians call this missio dei in which we
are invited to join.
It is in this sense that we can speak about Jesus and Paul as missional leaders. Of
course, Jesus is much more than that since, together with the Holy Spirit, He is the
means through which Gods mission is to be accomplished. Jesus is the embodiment
of Gods rescue plan to restore what was lost at the fall of man. This means that to be
missional is also to be incarnational the living out of Gods purposes in the concrete
here and now reality of time and space in all its human untidiness. The mission of
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MS100 Topic 1
Jesus as it is set out in the four canonical Gospels is the beginning of a movement
that has eschatological implications. According to the claims of the epistles of both the
Apostles Peter and Paul, it will only be consummated when Christ returns in glory at
the restoration of Gods kingdom - on earth and in the heavens.
The term missional as applied to leaders and to Church movements in this unit is,
therefore, intended to indicate a specific type of leadership; one that is focused on
Gods overall purpose for the world that He created and for mankinds place in it. The
missional leaders we shall examine are ones who kept Gods purpose truly in mind.
They focused on His kingdom rather than their own empires.
2. Historical, religious and social background to the mission of Jesus
Before considering the mission of Jesus in any detail it is necessary to briefly consider
the background to his ministry. Jesus was born in Palestine during the reign of the
Roman Emperor Augustine in or around 6CE (a revised date based on the
contemporary scholarly research). This means that His life is firmly set in a
geographical and historical context that contributed to the shape and direction of His
ministry. To begin with, Jesus was born into a devout Jewish family who, according to
Luke, were waiting for the consolation of Israel. What this indicates is that they were
part of the nation of Israel living in Palestine who, although in their own land, were
under foreign rule and who, therefore, as N.T. Wright points out, regarded themselves
as still in exile.17 They awaited the coming of a Messiah who would liberate Israel in
fulfilment of the Old Testament promises of their ancestral God, Yahweh. This can be
clearly seen in Lukes account of both Zechariah and Marys responses to the angelic
promise of the birth of a special child.
Roman rule in this corner of the province of Syria was mediated through a combination
of a local client king, Herod the Great, and the jurisdiction of a Roman governor.
According to the Jewish historian Josephus, at this time Palestine was divided into
three areas: Judea in the south, Samaria in the centre and Galilee to the north.
Estimates of the population based on archaeology and census returns are variously
estimated at between 1.5 and 2.5 million people. The capital city of Jerusalem in the
south was the centre of government and religious life was based on the temple. Under
Herods rule the religious leaders were given a degree of autonomy in conducting
religious affairs under the control of the Sadducees, a priestly ruling elite, who
supervised ritual offerings and lived off of the temple income. They were religious
conservatives who only accepted the five books of Moses as authoritative, although
the Psalms were also used in temple worship. They did not believe in an afterlife. In
the temple administration the Sadduccean party was served by scribal lawyers who
explained and interpreted the Torah, the Law so often referred to be both Jesus and
Paul. They shared religious jurisdiction with the Sadducees in an advisory council
called the Sanhedrin. Many of these were Pharisees, a sort of religious brotherhood
17 Wright N.T., Jesus and the Victory of God, London, SPCK,1996
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who took obedience to God and His laws seriously. They accepted a wider canon of
OT Scriptures embracing historical and prophetic books as well as the wisdom
literature. Their faith was more supernatural since they believed in angels and looked
forwards to a general resurrection of the righteous dead often linked to the appearance
of an expected messiah/deliverer.
Apart from Jerusalem, both Judea and Galilee were rural with a land working
population many of whom had lost their land to Roman and other wealthy landowners
who created large estates. These land workers were the day labourers referred to in
some of Jesus parables who were increasingly impoverished under Roman and
religious rule. They were forced to pay taxes both to outsourced tax collectors working
on behalf of the Romans and to the temple. Roman rule was harsh and widely resented
and many religious leaders of the Pharisaic party looked for an apocalyptic liberation
under a conquering messiah who would restore Israel and subjugate the hated foreign
oppressors. An underground movement known as the Zealots were prepared to take
matters in their own hands rather than waiting for a deliverer to be sent by Yahweh
and occasionally led popular uprisings which were always brutally put down.
The population was scattered through small and larger villages and a handful of small
towns. The word polis rendered as city in many Bible translations simply meant an
established and settled community and has no reference to size. In addition to day
labourers there were shopkeepers and self-employed artisans like Joseph and Jesus
with their carpenters shop. The word for carpenter here would also embrace the term
for a jobbing builder. Around Lake Galilee, or Genessaret, fishing was a staple
occupation and the lake also formed a waterway between other parts of the region
such as the Decapolis which was a mainly Gentile area. Hellenised cities such as
Caesarea Philippi and Persepolis were not far away from Capernaum and a mixture
of Koine Greek, the trade language, and Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew, were spoken.
(Jesus probably spoke both languages).The region of Galilee where Jesus conducted
much of His ministry had a population estimated at between 500,000 and 1 million
people. Here there was a mixture of racial origins and, as Matthew records, it was
known as Galilee of the Gentiles.
It was into this territory, the land bridge between there continents, that Jesus was born
and where, apart from a couple of incursions into Gentile territory He spent His life and
conducted His ministry. It may not seem promising as the seed bed of what was to
become a world religion, but this is the stage on which Gods missional plan was to be
played out.
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3. The Gospels as missionary documents
This background to the gospels emerges at all sorts of levels in the accounts of the
life and ministry of Jesus and is embedded in His teaching. Whatever we make of the
four Gospels, they have to be seen in the first instance as missionary documents. They
were written for specific communities at a time when eye witnesses of the ministry of
Jesus were beginning to die out and it was becoming obvious that the return of Jesus
was not as imminent as the Church first supposed. The first three gospels share a
similar framework and carry much of the same material albeit arranged in a different
order. It is clear that the gospel writers selected their material from oral tradition and
other, possibly written, sources and pieced them together with a view to presenting a
picture of Jesus which would appeal to and edify their particular audiences. Because
of the shared framework they are usually referred to as the Synoptic Gospels
(synoptic = from the same view point). Johns Gospel, which came later, carries a lot
of different material and is largely played out in Jerusalem in contrast to the synoptics
where the stage is mainly in Galilee. Johns gospel is a more theological reflection on
the meaning of the life of Jesus.
One thing that all four gospels have in common is that almost a third of their material
focuses on the last week of Jesus life, together with His death and resurrection. This,
then, is clearly an important aspect of His mission. His death is even more important
than His birth only Matthew and Luke have both stories and it is not as some have
alleged an accidental part of the story or a tragic unplanned for ending. We will briefly
examine the gospels in turn to assess what they have to contribute to our
understanding of Jesus as a missional leader.
i) Mark mission as action and exorcism

By common consent among scholars Marks is considered to be the earliest Gospel
although there is testimony amongst the apostolic fathers that Matthew came first.
However, Marks is the shortest Gospel and testimony by Papias at the end of the 1st
century suggests that the memories of the Apostle Peter as reported to Mark lie behind
it. If this is so, it would indicate something of the nature of his apostolic teaching.
Mark dives in right at the beginning with an announcement which could be the title of
his Gospel: .the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of
God. (Mark 1:1, NIV). This is an explosive statement since Marks audience, reputedly
in Rome, would know that the Emperor Augustus placed boundary markers at the
limits of freshly conquered territory added to the Roman Empire which proclaimed the
gospel or good news of the Roman peace brought in by his reign as the divine
Emperor. In other words, Mark begins with a statement that there was an alternative
peace ushered in by an alternative kingdom. Plainly, without saying so directly, Jesus
is viewed as the divine King coming to rule on Gods behalf.
It is not surprising; therefore, that Marks Gospel is less given to long stretches of
teaching but is action packed. A characteristic word is immediately or straight away.
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Jesus is pictured in a manner that would appeal to Romans as a man of action who
was ranged against the powers of evil. Marks Gospel is replete with exorcisms as a
sign of the presence of the Son of God who had come to usher in a new age under a
new reign. (Exorcism was to become one of the main missional tactics in the next
generation in the time of the so-called Apostolic Fathers). No wonder that Jesus
quickly came into conflict with the authorities both religious and civil who formed an
unholy alliance to get rid of Him. The final dnouement on the cross which they thought
signalled His defeat, in fact announced His triumph and the longer ending to the
Gospel, whether original or not, expresses the conviction that the preaching of His
incendiary message would result in miraculous signs confirming His supernatural
kingdom. The mission of God was being accomplished.
ii) Matthew mission as disciple making

It is commonly recognised that Matthews is a Jewish Gospel; nevertheless, he also
focuses on gentile concerns and the Gospel itself closes with a command to the
Apostles and, presumably, their successors to go into all the world making disciples
of all nations as they went, baptising in the threefold name and teaching them to
observe all that Jesus had commanded them. This gives a clue to Matthews approach
to the missional question; it was not simply a matter of conversions or even church
planting, but more one of induction into a way of life springing from an encounter with
the crucified and resurrected Lord.
Matthews Gospel from beginning to end focuses on the issue of discipleship; if this
were not so, the so-called Great Commission of chapter 28:18ff would be no more
than an afterthought. It is clear that Matthew presents Jesus as a latter-day Moses.
His teaching is deliberately arranged in five blocks reminiscent of the Pentateuch and
after coming out of the wilderness following His encounter with Satan, Jesus goes to
a mountain on the borders between Jewish and Gentile territory to deliver His
teaching, setting out the nature of life in Gods kingdom. For Matthew the genius of
Jesus is that, while confining His foundational teaching and miraculous ministry to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel He nevertheless lays a foundation for a worldwide
outreach which is to impact all nations. Jesus is, thus, the archetypal mission
movement maker.
iii) Luke/Acts mission as good news for the marginalised

It is significant that the only Gentile author in the whole of the Biblical canon is Luke
the doctor who was a companion of the Apostle Paul on some of his missionary
journeys. As a trained physician who was used to dealing with oral and visual
evidence, Luke sets out to take down an ordered account from eyewitnesses to the
ministry of Jesus in order to construct his Gospel. He then turns this into a two volume
account by adding the Acts of the Apostles as an apologia for mission among the
Gentiles and to the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire. We will deal with the Acts
account in a later section when we consider Paul as a missional leader, but, first, let
us look at the contribution of his Gospel.
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It is notable that Luke begins with a very Jewish flavour; he clearly understands the
nature and level of apocalyptic and eschatological expectation that accompanies the
little circle of devout believers who await the coming of the Messiah. Moreover, the
exultation of both Mary and Zechariah in the birth stories is focused on the belief that
the oppressors will be dethroned and that Israel will be exalted into the place of top
dog in the anticipated new order. It is all the more significant, then, that the real
launching point of Jesus ministry stems from His confrontation with the home crowd
in the synagogue in His home town of Nazareth recorded in Luke 4 following his return
in the power of the Spirit from testing in the wilderness. There he reads the passage
in Isaiah 61 prophetically proclaiming to former exiles a year of Jubilee when wrongs
will be righted and, filled with the Holy Spirit (a constant theme of Lukes writings), the
Servant of the Lord will proclaim freedom to the captives, healing for the blind and
lame and the proclamation of the year of the Lords favour. This is a gospel of grace
taken by Luke to be the mandate for Jesus ministry on which the rest of the Gospel is
modelled. So far, so good, Jesus neighbours receive the message that He is the
fulfilment of this passage with some wonderment and surprise. At first, they seem to
welcome it, but there is a turning point, the passage in Isaiah goes on to speak about
vengeance but Jesus studiously breaks off the reading before that point and goes on
to point out that there were occasions in Israels story when Gentiles were recipients
of grace to the exclusion of the Jews; by this point the citizens of Nazareth turn on
Jesus and attempt to kill him. They have no use for a Messiah who includes Gentiles
in His reach. Luke may intend us to see this as a foreshadowing of what was going to
happen on the Cross. Be that as it may, it is interesting to note that in the rest of the
Gospel Luke highlights Jesus contacts with Samaritans, Gentiles, the poor, women,
tax collectors and other outcasts. His is a gospel for the least, the lost and the left out.
From the beginning of his Gospel, Luke gives prominence to the work of the Holy Spirit
in the mission of Jesus. He is born through the direct intervention of the Spirit and
throughout His earthly career His dependence upon the Spirits activity is evident. In
accordance with this, Luke is the only one of the three synoptic gospels writers who
directly gives Jesus the title Saviour and this accords with his understanding of the
gospel as liberation from limitation and sin. In keeping with this, he presents the entry
into Jerusalem and Jesus last supper with His disciples as a new exodus event at
which a new covenant with sinners is entered into. He is the only one who says that
Christs blood is shed for the remission of sins. The scene for this interpretation of
Jesus life and death is set earlier at the Transfiguration where Jesus is identified as
talking with Moses and Elijah about His exodon (Greek for exodus) which He is about
to accomplish in Jerusalem. The notion that Jesus is to accomplish His death indicates
that it wasnt to be something that would happen to Him accidentally and without
forethought.
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In Lukes account salvation is seen not as something ephemeral or merely spiritual.
Salvation in Luke, as in the other Gospels is a matter of justice. David Bosch
commented:
With Scheffler, one could say that, for Luke salvation actually had six
dimensions: economic, social, political, physical, psychological and spiritual.
Luke seemed to pay special attention to the first of these. We may thus detect
a major element in Lukes missionary paradigm in what he writes about the new
relationship between rich and poor. There are, at this point, parallels between
Matthew and Luke; the difference is that, whereas Matthew emphasized justice
in general, Luke seems to have special interest in economic justice.18
All three Synoptic Gospels end with a Great Commission of one sort or another. That
in Luke is less a command than a promise where the risen Jesus meets the disciples
in Jerusalem and opens their minds to understand the scriptures.
Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from
the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in
his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these
things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the
city, until you are clothed with power from high.19
The missionary mandate is accompanied, as in the longer ending of Mark, with the
assurance that mission is not a matter of self-effort in order to carry out the command
of the Lord, but a partnership endeavour with which He is intimately bound up. In
Lukes Gospel this sets up a bridge to the second volume of his work to which we will
come later.
iv) Johns theological interpretation of mission incarnation and conflict
In Johns Gospel we breathe an entirely different atmosphere; it is more reflective and

theological with a structure involving long set speeches in many of which it is difficult
to be sure where the words of Jesus end the commentary by the author begins. Unlike
the synoptics the action in Johns Gospel mostly takes place in Jerusalem around a
series of the main religious feasts and a further complication to its intricate structure
is that the speeches, in conflict with the Jewish leaders, that ensue are organised
around seven miracles. John uses the word signs since they are meant to point out
who Jesus is and what is the nature of His mission on earth.
The author of the Gospel is here taken to be the John the Apostle although he is
nowhere identified as such in the book. Early Christian testimony is divided between
attributing authorship to John the Apostle and to a shadowy figure referred to by
18 Bosch, David, Transforming Mission, Maryknoll, New York, Orbis Books, 1998, p. 117
19 Luke 24:46-49 (RSV)
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Papias as John the Elder who is taken by many scholars to be a member of Johns
circle bearing the same name. Be that as it may, the opening of the Gospel pushes
back beyond the other Gospels by identifying Christ with the divine Word (Greek
logos) through whom all things were created. So, it starts with a pre-existent Christ
who is closely identified with God. Although the concept of a creator logos was to sit
well with a later apologetic when the church was confronted with the gnostic notion of
a logos spermatika - the creative divine reason it is more likely that John intended
Christ to be identified with the Word in Genesis when God spoke and the world was
brought into being.
This understanding of Jesus as a transcendent being is nevertheless firmly anchored

in an incarnational understanding. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us or,
as Petersen so aptly renders it in The Message version of the Bible: The Word
became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood.20. The Greek often
translated dwelt here is skenos which literally means tabernacled; John may be
deliberately linking Jesus with the Old Testament tabernacle as the visible presence
of God amongst men. Unlike the other Gospels where the kingdom of God or of the
heavens (Matthew) is a central theme, John uses the phrase only once, but
represents Jesus kingly activity in different ways. Thus Jesus standing before Pilate
says, My kingdom is not of this world, accordingly, John presents a series of
contrasts such as above and below, darkness and light, spirit and flesh all of which
are meant to give insight into the nature of Jesus as the Messiah who, if he is lifted up
on the Cross, will draw all men to himself. The all here means not every single person
but all types of people thus embracing the nations. It is significant that this statement
comes after Greeks seekers approach him in the build up to the Passover Feast, the
last feast covered in the Gospel. Jesus response is to say that his hour has now come
and that unless he dies there will be no fruit. This is a clear indication of the direction
of his missional leadership and John indicates the purpose of his Gospel in this way:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not
recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name.21 This
is preceded by a scene where the risen Jesus says to his disciples: As the Father has
sent me, even so I am sending you,22 as He breathes upon them with the promise of
the Holy Spirit as their enabler.
Summary
The four Gospels different as they are in emphasis, are united with one voice in
proclaiming that Jesus deliberately set out to create a missional movement that
proclaimed His kingship, His death for sin and His resurrection to bring new life. This
life was meant to be lived in obedience to Him and a central part of this obedience was
to bring life changing hope and daily practice into the lives of estranged men and
20 John 1:14
21 John 20:30-32 (NIV)
22 John 20:21
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women of all nations. Each Gospel carries its own version of the Great Commission
which is not confined to Matthew 28:18ff.
3. Pauls missional trajectory

Saul of Tarsus did not set out to become a missional leader or even to be a follower
of Jesus. To the contrary, he began as a rabbinic student of Gamaliel in Jerusalem
whence he had migrated as a young man at an unknown date. By his own admission
he was a strict Pharisee who prided himself on keeping intact Israels religious
boundary markers set out in the Torah. From his presence as an onlooker and cheer
leader at the death of Stephen until his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to
Damascus he was a determined persecutor of this new Jewish sect which challenged
all his presuppositions about the God of Israel and the importance of the Law both as
a racial and religious boundary and as a means of finding personal righteousness
before Yahweh.
Once his life was turned around by his Damascus road encounter with Christ Saul,
now called Paul, was just as radically committed to propagating the good news of
Jesus as the Messiah who liberated, not from foreign political oppression, but from sin
and the futility of a merely religious life. Most of what we know about Paul can be
gleaned from the Pauline Epistles written, on conservative dating, between 49 and
61CE, and Lukes account of his mission recorded in the book of Acts which was
written later probably a short while before the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans during
the Jewish rebellion of 70CE. Modern scholarship disputes Pauls authorship of the
so-called Pastoral Epistles (I & II Timothy and Titus) as well as Ephesians and
Colossians. We believe there are good grounds for accepting the traditional ascription
to Paul and, for the purposes of this unit we will make that assumption. Lukes narrative
in Acts is an apologia (Greek for defence) for the extension of the mission of Jesus
into a Gentile mission into distant reaches of the Roman Empire.
As recorded in Acts, Paul received an apostolic commission directly from the risen
Christ at his conversion. This is an important part of Lukes account because it is by
the way of laying claim to Pauls inclusion among the foundational apostles of the faith
since part of the qualifications to be considered as such was to have been an eye
witness of the resurrection. Paul speaks of himself in this respect as one abnormally
born.23 In each of his public accounts of his conversion in Acts, Paul insists that he
was sent first to the Jew and then to the Greek. In keeping with this, once he began
his missionary career, wherever possible he went first to the Jewish synagogue to
announce Jesus as the Messiah in keeping with Jewish Scriptures. Only when his
message was rejected in that quarter did he reach out to Gentiles in the locality usually
taking with him some synagogue members who had responded to his preaching. It is
likely that among these were a number or god-fearers (Gentile synagogue attenders
who had not yet made a full commitment to becoming cultural Jews or proselytes.)
23 1 Corinthians 15:8 (NIV)
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Often a number of those who decamped with him were women a fact which fits in with
the observation of Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian that in many places,
particularly in Damascus, the wives of pagan community leaders were attracted to
Judaism.24
During a brief period of persecution by Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem from 41- 44 when
the Greek speaking Christian Jews were scattered, the gospel spilled over first into
Samaria and then into Damascus and Syrian Antioch. It was in the first place that
Pauls rabbinic world was turned upside down and after being filled with the Holy Spirit
and baptised (a ritual reserved by the Jews for Gentile converts), he began to share
his faith publicly. In the second city, scattered Hellenized believers could no longer
contain their enthusiasm as they began to share their faith with fully Gentile
neighbours. A church rapidly grew and the Apostles in Jerusalem sent Barnabas as
an envoy to check what was happening. He brought back a positive report and
returned to help lead the new congregation after first recruiting Paul the recent convert
who was back in Tarsus after escaping with his life from Damascus as a result of his
solo evangelistic activities which were equally regarded with suspicion by the Christian
community and former Jewish compatriots, alike.
It was from their leadership role in the Church in that Barnabas and Paul were
commissioned by their fellow Church leaders, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to
be set apart for the work to which God had called them which turned out to be a roving
mission to share the good news of Jesus throughout the Roman Empire. Paul was
never again to be the pastoral leader of a local Church except in the cases of Corinth
and Ephesus in both of which he shared leadership as he established the church as a
missionary base. His apostolic role was to be one of proclaiming Christ and organising
converts into self-sustaining locally led congregations. After the first missionary
journey during which churches were established in Cyprus, and Pamphylia, Pisidia
and Lycaonia (part of what is now southern Turkey). At the beginning of the process,
Luke speaks about Barnabas and Paul engaging in this mission but by the end of the
journey in Acts he reverses the roles as we read of Paul and Barnabas evidently
the partnership was changing. Paul and Barnabas reported back to the sending
church in Antioch before preparing for the next missionary journey but at this point
they parted ways because Paul refused to include Barnabas nephew John Mark who
deserted them half way through their first tour. Whether one agrees with Pauls
decision or not, clearly he had no time for half-hearted followers!
Prior to this split up, Barnabas and Pauls missionary activities among the Gentiles
caused dissension among Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and a council was called to
settle the issue of whether Gentile converts should be required to follow Jewish ritual
laws in order to be accepted as true believers. After a heated debate, recorded in Acts
15, James and the other Apostles in Jerusalem, with the advocacy of Peter, came
24 Quoted in Schnabel, Eckhard J. Early Christian Mission volume 1, Downers Grove: IVP, p. 127
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down on Pauls side of the argument that it is impossible to be saved through the Law
but only through faith in Christ. This was a missionary watershed and a defining
moment in the story of the church. Although there was to be long standing opposition
from so-called Judaizers who persisted in following Pauls missionary activities trying
to turn his gentle converts into Jews, the battle was essentially won. The first stage in
contextualizing the gospel for other cultures had already begun and it was the brilliant
rhetoric of Paul in his epistles that maintained the momentum.
We do not have space to cover Pauls remaining missionary journeys other than to
record that whether confronting the paganism of the Roman Empire exemplified in
Corinth, Athens or Ephesus or seeking to defend the gospel under house arrest in
Rome, Paul focused on producing missional leaders for the future. His tactic is
demonstrated in Ephesians where he insists that the trans-local ministries of Apostles,
Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers given by Christ to the Church were
established to equip ordinary believers to do the work of the ministry in order to
produce a mature Church which would shine as a light in the pagan darkness. Before
his martyrdom in Rome (around 64CE) Paul underlines this missionary approach in
his injunction to Timothy as his apostolic envoy in Ephesus:
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things
you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable
people who will be qualified to teach others also.25
This instruction encourages four generations of witnesses or church members with a

view to promoting the Gospel that Paul proclaimed. Pauls teaching went far beyond
merely proclaiming the Cross of Christ, important as that is, but also advocated an
alternative way of living that was eventually to overturn the paganism of the Roman
Empire. Clearly, like the Master that he imitated, Paul was an intentional missional
movement maker.

Nelson, 2008) pp. 3-36
Reader on Moodle: Michael Green Evangelism in the Early Church, (Eastbourne,

Kingsway Press, 2003) pp76-115 (PDF Reader)
25 2 Timothy 2:2
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Session 3: The Heresiarchs: Facing the Forces of Syncretism
by Dick Whitehouse
Learning Outcomes
1. understand and explain the development of 2nd century Christian doctrine in the
context of heretical forces
2. identify and analyse the response of mainstream Churches to alternative
versions of Christian faith
3. evaluate the missional relevance of contextual explanations of the Gospel in
their own placement situation
Required reading for Session 3:
Textbook: Shelley, Bruce L., Church History in Plain Language, Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 2008, pp. 46-68
1.Contextualisation of the Gospel: Transition from Hebrew to Greek culture
Both Jesus and Paul operated within a thoroughly Jewish apocalyptic paradigm
proclaiming the Kingdom of God both as a present reality and one which was to be
fully realised in the immediate future with the return of Christ which would herald the
restoration of all things. This eschatological framework formed a strong incentive for
their mission; there was an urgency about their proclamation. The concept of the
kingdom was central to both of their thought, but, as Paul moved into Gentile territory
he conveyed the gospel in terms which would be more readily understood in a Greco-
Roman context. In the Book of Acts to the Jews he proclaims Jesus as Messiah but
in addressing Gentiles he begins the story with creation and moves on to judgement,
later employing terms like justification and forgiveness in order to explain how this
related to the individual believer. His recorded sermons on his missionary journeys
do not use the term kingdom although the concept lies behind what he said.
Nevertheless, in the last chapter of Acts we still find him proclaiming the kingdom to
Jews in Rome who visited him during his house arrest.
Paul was probably executed in Rome around 64CE two years before a Jewish revolt
against the Romans in Jerusalem led to the destruction of the Temple in 70CE and
the dispersal of the Jews. The Jerusalem Christians did not agree with the revolt and
had already moved out to Pella in the Transjordan. After the fall of Jerusalem the
Pharisaic party regrouped in the City of Jamnia where, in the absence of temple
rituals and the influence of the priesthood (they had assassinated the Sadducees),
they tightened their hold on Judaism. In the process, they anathematised Christianity
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as a false Jewish sect. What was left of the Temple in Jerusalem was given over to
pagan Roman worship and the temple tax was applied to the support of a Roman
god. From then on, the Church, which was still largely Jewish, and the proponents of
Judaism were in constant conflict, each reviling the other. Henceforth, it was more
difficult for Christian congregations to hide under the umbrella of Judaism as a
religion recognised by Rome.
In the further reaches of the Roman Empire beyond the eastern Mediterranean
seaboard, the relationship between Christians and Jews was not always as clear cut.
Nevertheless, Christian apologetics sometimes took the form of countering Jewish
arguments against the Christian faith. As Christianity moved geographically away
from Palestine and chronologically away from the time of Jesus Christ, Jewish
apocalyptic terminology made less sense. Clearly the predicted parousia was not as
imminent as previously thought. W.H.C. Frend in his History of the Early Church
suggested that gnostic thought rushed in to fill the gap.26
1. Orthodoxy defined by combating heresy

i) Gnosticism
Gnosticism was just one of the currents of thought with which expanding Christianity
had to contend and it may be argued that it was in combating divergent forms of
religious and philosophical thought that Christian orthodoxy came to be defined. Until
the opening of the 2nd century, what Christians believed was defined against a rule
of faith that is a summary statement of what counted as genuine Christian teaching
in line with the churchs practice. (Paul has such a summary statement in I
Corinthians 15:3-8.) Remember, it had not yet been decided which post-Jewish
Christian writings counted as scripture and different groups of Christians relied on
different literature purporting to come from the early apostles. Against this
background, these summary statements of the gospel and of what counted as
mainstream Christian teaching assumed considerable importance in counteracting
Gnostic inroads into the Church. Davidson recorded:
The solution that emerged in the second century was that there was a certain
line of teaching that was in harmony with the apostles position, and the vital
narrative of faith was to be located with reference to that line. In the later second
century, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul (ca. 140-200), appealed directly to the
tradition to summarize what he believed to be the true gospel. He spoke of the
rule of truth, the tradition, the preaching or the faith. Others, like Tertullian,
a prominent teacher in the church in North Africa (ca.160-225), would refer to a
similar notion as the rule of faith (regula fidei, loosely evoking Pauls reference
to a rule in Galatians 6:16) or the canon of truth.27
26
Frend W.H.C., The Early Church from the Beginnings to 461. London SCM Press, 1991, p.49f
27
Davidson Ivor J., The Birth of the Church: From Jesus to Constantine AD 30-312, volume one,
Oxford, Monarch Books, 2005, p.168
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Gnosticism was once thought to be a cohesive spiritual movement although recent
scholarship questions this (for details see the article by Antti Marjanen)28 It seems to
have been a more amorphous set of ideas that was in the air in the second century
which was heavily influenced by a popularised form of thought based on Platos
philosophy. In this respect it was more like contemporary New Age philosophy
which lacks any centralised organisation, but which gives rise to a multitude of
beliefs with many common threads.
Gnosticism had its own travelling proponents with differing approaches; what they
shared in common was a belief that salvation hinged upon a superior, often secret
knowledge. At the core was a shared belief that the world was not created by a
transcendent god but by a lesser being or demiurge often identified with the God of
Israel. On this view, matter was deemed to be tainted and, therefore, evil whereas;
the only pure existence was thought to be spiritual. Most forms of Gnosticism spoke
of the fall but it wasnt the fall of man as a bearer of Gods image. Davidson again
commented: The Gnostics believed in a doctrine of the fall, but for them this was a
fall of the divine, spiritual element into the material realm. He went on to observe:
As a result of the fall, particles or sparks of goodness had become imprisoned in

the bodies of certain spiritual individuals, who were destined for salvation. Gods
plan of salvation consisted in the sending of various redeemer figures (above all,
in a Christian context, Jesus the Christ), to enlighten these privileged persons as
to their heavenly origins and their special destiny and to communicate to them
the special knowledge that would enable them to take the appropriate measures
finally to escape the corruption of the material world and be reunited with God. 29]
In most forms of gnostic belief the human pure spirit was regarded as imprisoned
within a corrupt physical body. Salvation was therefore conceived of as the escape
of the spirit to a disembodied heavenly state - an understanding that is at odds with
the New Testament concept of final salvation as restoration to a resurrection body
shorn of the limitations of a fall from grace. Unfortunately, a throwback to gnostic
thinking can be traced in many contemporary hymns, worship songs and popular
Christian piety which focus on salvation as a disembodied heavenly state! For the
Gnostic, salvation was a process of ascent to the transcendent god past the planets
which were thought of as guarded by malevolent demonic spirits. An early
foreshadowing of this way of thinking may be seen in the incipient heresy attacked
by Paul in his letter to the Colossians.
In response to this, the Apostolic Fathers enumerated and counteracted the

teachings of gnostic teachers by presenting the gospel as a different form of gnosis
(knowledge) as they presented the means of salvation as a sort of divine pedagogy
28 Harvey Susan Ashbrook and Hunter David C., (eds,) The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian
Studies, Oxford, OUP, 2006, p203ff
29 Davidson, p166
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MS100 Topic 1
through which true disciples of Christ were able to advance in a faith which began
with personal commitment to a crucified Saviour, but was to be worked to within the
community of faith. The Gnostics presented their teaching as a form of higher,
secret, knowledge which led to salvation from the material world. By appealing to the
rule of faith the Church Fathers made the point that orthodox Christian teaching and
practice was not based on hidden esoteric truth but was founded on a publicly
accessible narrative.
More orthodox Christian leaders tellingly accused the Gnostics of having no social
conscience nor any relationship to the central unifying Christian practice of meeting
around the Lords Table. The Eucharist was too heavily grounded in the visual and
the tactile to appeal to gnostic thought and, for them, salvation was purely a personal
affair, not one that impinged upon the world at large. Basil in his letter countering the
views of Sabellius, a prominent gnostic teacher, said that: strange opinions
concerning the grace of Jesus Christ caused them to abandon Christian morals with
the result that: For love they have no care, none for the widow, none for the orphan,
none for the distressed, none for the afflicted.30
ii) Marcions truncated gospel

Marcion, born 85CE, was the son of the Christian bishop of Sinope on the shores of
the Black Sea. He was a wealthy merchant trading along the Mediterranean coast
who eventually moved from Asia Minor to settle in Rome around 140CE where he
joined part of the congregation to which he made a large and generous financial
contribution. If this gift was meant to buy him influence his ploy was unsuccessful
since by 144 he was ejected from Church membership on account of false teaching
and he ended up starting his own alternative Churches.
Marcion attempted to reformulate Christian teaching by defining the canon of

scripture. The word canon means a rule or measuring stick and is hence used to
describe what is the measure or accepted body of sacred Christian writings.
Marcions may have been the first formal attempt to decide what did or did not count
as Scripture. Until this point the Churches held to the Alexandrian Septuagint version
of the Hebrew Tanekh as Scripture to which a number of Christian authors were
gradually being added. Although there was widely held consensus on an accepted
core of Christian writings there were disputes about several of the books now
included in our canon of scripture and some were widely regarded but have been left
out of the final tally of Scripture.
Marcion made his choice of acceptable books on the grounds of his view of God. For
him, the God of the Old Testament was vengeful and vindictive, not at all like the
God and Father of Jesus Christ who was a God of love. In fact, Marcion believed
that it was the vindictive Old Testament Jewish God who was responsible for the
death of Jesus on the Cross. Although not himself a Gnostic, Marcion like them,
30 Basils Letter 210, quoted by Frend, p54
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MS100 Topic 1
sought to separate Christianity from its Jewish roots therefore he excluded the whole
of the Tanekh (Jewish Scriptures) from his canon. Beyond this, he accepted only the
letters of Paul and Lukes Gospel as Scripture and, even here, he felt that Pauls
writings needed to be stripped of their Judaizing tendencies which he alleged to have
been added later. He also cut out the birth stories and the resurrection accounts from
Lukes Gospel because they were tied Jesus too closely to matter and were
considered unworthy of Christs spiritual nature. Marcion probably only accepted
Luke because of his association with Paul and because of his frequent mention of
the Holy Spirit which fitted with his own anti-flesh spiritual theology.
Commenting on Marcion Frend asked:
What was his message? Like his Gnostic contemporaries whom he resembled in
many ways, Marcion rejected Yahwehs identification with God. God was the
unknown God of Acts 17:23, characterized by love, boundless peace and
serenity. This God was Father of Jesus Christ, but had no tie with creation;
rather, his object in sending Jesus Christ to the world was to free mankind from
the power of Yahweh. But Marcion did not regard Yahweh as evil, merely that his
law represented bare natural justice, the eye for an eye, the justice which the new
covenant was designed to supersedeHe aimed instead at providing the Church
with its own canon of Scripture independent of the Septuagint, independent of
Judeo- Christian writings, a Scripture worthy of a loving God and the saving
purpose of his Son. For the believer himself, seized with love and compassion,
trust in Gods goodness sufficed for salvation.31
Marcions rejection of the material in favour of the spiritual inevitably caused him to
recast the Gospel in non-Jewish terms in opposition to the Septuagints delight in
Gods physical creation and its embrace of the Jewish law and history. For him,
salvation did not include the physical realm and, although he saw entry into salvation
as an easy matter, for him subsequent discipleship meant embracing a rigorous
asceticism which included frequent fasting, sexual abstinence, the rejection of
marriage and a willingness to embrace martyrdom. Marcions Churches were
rigorously organised and clearly had their appeal since they spread through Asia
Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia. However, the riposte of the mainstream Churches
was firm and his teaching, along with that of the Marcionite Churches, was decisively
rejected as heretical. Marcion had clashed with the Churches in Asia Minor even
before he appeared in Rome although his new doctrines were probably not yet fully
developed by then. Polycarp the renowned Bishop of Smyrna denounced him as the
first born of Satan. Clearly his theology was incompatible with that of the
mainstream Churches even before their Christian doctrine was fully formed.
31 Frend, p56
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MS100 Topic 1
iii) Montanism
By the turn of the 1st century Christian doctrine and practice had begun to solidify.
Already, prior to this, there are signs within the Pastoral Epistles that itinerant
charismatic ministry was giving way to more routinised local ministries although it
seems from the Apostle Pauls practice that for him, governmental ministry even
within first generation Churches was firmly in the hands of local leaders whether
designated as bishops, overseers or presbyters. The terminology was loose and may
have been culturally contextual, but the practice was uniform; though Paul gave
advice and at times issued firm instructions, his appeal to local leaders was based
on theological principles rather than authoritarian rule.
There is no clear indication of the practice of the other Apostles in this respect
although it appears that leadership of the Church in Jerusalem was collegial even
though James was the senior presiding figure. By this time Peter was engaged in
itinerant ministry focussing on diaspora Jews. The only clue we have to his practice
is contained in 1 Peter 5 where he enjoins the believers to respect and obey their
leaders, though this respect and obedience was to be a response to the integrity of
their lives. Peter refers to himself as being an Elder as well as an Apostle although it
is not clear what the relationship between the two functions would be.
As the new century dawned it is clear that there were still wandering itinerant
prophetic ministries operating under the guidance of the Spirit who visited local
churches. The Didache a tractate from Syria on Church discipline and practice
reveals a tension between travelling charismatic prophetic ministries and local
resident ministries. It sets out clear instructions about the permitted lengths of stay of
such visitors who are to be tested by whether they solicit funds for their support. This
indicates a movement away from loosely organised charismatic and inspirational
leadership towards something like a more settled clergy from which a hierarchy of
formal ministry was later to emerge. By the mid-second century the balance of power
had shifted decisively in the direction of local settled ministries, but the last throes of
the more inspirational looser form of organisation with more spontaneous leadership
relationships had yet to work itself out and a challenge to the developing settled
pattern was to be mounted in the mid-second century.
This challenge came in the form of a movement which began in Phrygian Asia Minor
where there were outbreaks of ecstatic prophetic activity in the late 160s and 170s.
This movement centred round the ministry of a presbyter named Montanus and two
women prophetesses who travelled around with him. They excited a large following
in this rural backwater where people were attracted to a less formal and stimulating
form of worship which offered the immediacy of the tangible presence of the Spirit.
Montanus and his two helpers, Priscilla and Maximilla, did not deliver formal written
prophetic utterances but proclaimed their messages extemporaneously under the
supposed direction of the Holy Spirit. They operated within an apocalyptic which
was had become more unfashionable in the mainstream Churches some of which
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MS100 Topic 1
were prone to read expectation of the kingdom of God in more spiritual and less
concrete terms.
The New Prophecy movement came to be labelled Montanism after its leader and it
attracted the suspicion and even anger of many of the urban, more sophisticated,
Churches in the Roman Empire. It does not seem that the core doctrines of the
Montanists were greatly different from those of the more orthodox Churches apart
from the fact that they revived early 1st century apocalyptic expectations of the
imminent return of Christ. They even suggested anticipated dates when the heavenly
Jerusalem would come to earth in Phrygia centred on the small town of Pepouza
where they were based. Their main crime was to claim direct divine inspiration which
seemed to some to challenge the emerging canon of Scripture and the authority of
the established priesthood. Montanus made no distinction between men and women
in ministry in a throwback to earliest Christian ministry and offended Greek cultural
expectations of the role of women. Montanus seems to have treated his female
assistants as equals. Davidson commented:
As the movement spread and established its own forms of organization it

offered potential empowerment to a wider constituency than more traditional
expressions of the faith sometimes seemed to do. The Montanists may have
been the first to pay their leaders to lead, and this may have not only attracted
a wider social spectrum but also diverted donations away from main stream
churches. Collections of Montanist sayings and prophetic oracles circulated,
and these were revered as holy texts by supporters of the movement. In Asia,
the New Prophecy split many churches, and the Montanists became the first
believers we know of to be excommunicated by a synod of bishops.32]
For a time, Montanism stubbornly persisted in spite of persecution but it was soon to
blow itself out even though it was taken up by Tertullian, the North African apologist,
at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Stubborn traces of it were to remain in North
Africa as late as the 5th century.
Textbook: Shelley, Bruce L., Church History in Plain Language, Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 2008, pp. 46-68
32 Davidson, p184
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MS100 Topic 1
Session 4: Structural responses to heterodoxy
by Andrew R. Hardy
Learning Outcomes
1. Explain several of the main challenges to a so called orthodox response to

heterodoxy
2. Define the meaning of heterodoxy
3. Understand basic responses of the so called early church fathers to perceived
heretical heterodox beliefs
4. Be aware of the rather simplistic claims to an apostolic and authentic
communication of so called orthodox beliefs in the early period
Davidson Ivor J., The Birth of the Church: From Jesus to Constantine, Oxford,
Monarch, 2005, Chapter 6: A Catholic Church? Available on ATLA here:
ost-live.
Setting the Scene: Early Divergment Traditions of Christianity
Gnosticism, Marcionism and Montanism could have taken the emerging Church
down very different paths without the orthodox response to their divergent positions.
The Church managed to survive with a more or less catholic (universal) approach to
the faith in place, but how was this achieved? The answer was to take three differing
but interconnected structural approaches to the issues.
Each of these alternative approaches to the Christian message in its own way posed
a threat to the continuity of the Church offering, as they did, alternative
understandings of authority and of the nature of salvation. The mainstream
Churches responded in three separate but interlinked ways. First, as we have seen,
they appealed to the rule of faith as one defining measure of what counted as
legitimate textual sources of avowedly Christian teaching. This led to the beginnings
of a search for consensus on what counted as Christian, as opposed to Jewish,
Scriptures. So, these heresiarchs impelled the mainstream Churches towards a
debate about the canon of Scripture which was not to be formally completed for
another hundred years or so.
The second response was to seek to trace a succession of tradition back from the
current Churches to the apostolic era and, eventually, to Jesus himself. The so-
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MS100 Topic 1
called Apostolic Fathers of the immediate post-apostolic era laid claim to personal
contact either with one of the twelve original Apostles or to one of their disciples. In
this way they could lay claim to apostolic authority for their own teaching. This move
was not lost on heretical movements and many gospels were in circulation that
carried the name of individual Apostles which plainly had no connection with the
alleged author. The Gospel of Thomas discovered in the Nag Hammadi gnostic
hoard is one such example which has received attention in popular literature such as
Dan Browns book The Da Vinci Code and is often referred to by contemporary
Gnostics. The practice of seeking gravitas for a publication by attaching to it the
name of some revered but now dead figure is known as pseudepigraphy and was
not uncommon in the ancient world where it was thought normal to assume a famous
persons name as authority for the contents of a literary production. One clear
difference between this false Gospel literature and what came to be accepted as the
authentic Gospels is its lack of any credible chronological narrative. The Gospel of
Thomas, for instance, reads more like a collection of wisdom sayings attributed to
Jesus than to a meaningful account of His teachings in the context of His life and
mission. The claim of the Apostolic Fathers to an apostolic link is of a different
nature; rather than attaching an apostolic name to a piece of literature, they laid
claim to a personal link with the Apostles that authenticated their own teaching
derived from that source.
This second move was to give rise to the third approach, which was to authenticate
the Church and its Gospel message by seeking to trace a continuity of leadership
succession in individual congregations back to the original apostles. This naturally
gave rise to the acceleration of a process that had already begun, namely to move
from collegial congregational leadership to that of a single elder or bishop (the one
with claims to apostolic connectivity) assisted by other ranks of leaders. As time
progressed, this one leader in a locality came to be looked to for guidance and
authority by lesser local congregations thus beginning the move towards
monarchical bishops presiding over groups of congregations in an area or region.
Thus, so called, orthodox truth was protected by structural arrangements meant to
guarantee the protection of the Churchs message from heterodox attacks on the
integrity of it.
Not all early church historians would agree with this rather simplisitic reading of the
challenges faced by believers. It needs to be understood that this short introduction
is a very generic account and numerous interpretations of what the Christ event
meant were part of the landscape of the second, third and fourth centuries
particularly. For example, there was not just one simple version of Gnosticism, but
numerous diverse strands of belief and emerging tradition, which the Nag Hamadi
finds attest to. The so called Nag Hamadi documents represent a collection of
various religious documents which to one degree or another may be traced to
differing versions of Gnosticism from the first 200 odd years of history after Jesus.
The three movements in historical development mentioned above, are at best, a
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MS100 Topic 1
simplistic attempt to account for what some would like to argue as an early orthodox
strand of Christian documentary memory (such as the fourfold gospels) which
represented authentic Christian belief. We must be aware that this is only one
account among others. In what follows next some consideration will be given to
some prominent defenders of the so called authentic transmission of the orthodox
deposit of Christian faith.
Champions of orthodoxy: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Clement
Prominent among the defenders of orthodoxy during this period were three figures
who we will come across again later in other contexts. They are; Justin Martyr,
Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria; we will briefly look at each of them below.
Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165) was a Greek born in Samaria early in the second
century. He studied philosophy in Ephesus and gives a somewhat embellished
account of his spiritual quest in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Justin studied
successively with Stoic, Aristotelian and Pythagorean teachers before turning to a
Platonist tutor with whose philosophy he was satisfied, being particularly drawn to its
mystical and religious aspects until while meditating he met an old man on the
seashore. The old man refuted the platonic doctrine of the soul and pointed Justin to
the Old Testament prophets with their forecasts of the coming of Christ. Justin
became a Christ follower as he came to regard Christianity as the true philosophy.
This gives the clue to the approach he was to take to when defending the Christian
faith, first to the Emperor and then against gnostic aberrations.
Justin moved to Rome around 151CE and soon after addressed an Apology for
Christianity to the Emperor Antoninus Pius which he was later to supplement with
anti-gnostic material. He rejected paganism and its practices as superstition but he
welcomed the classic philosophical tradition, especially Platonism, believing that, like
the prophets of the Old Testament, they received partial truth from the Divine Logos
who inspired men coming into the world. This Divine Logos was fully present in
incarnate form in Jesus the Christ who was also fully a man and physically suffered
on the Cross in contrast to the gnostic belief that divine could not neither become
physical nor suffer. He uses the parable of the sower to illustrate Gods sowing the
seeds of truth among men even in pagan philosophy. Justin further follows Paul in
suggesting that God had also left sufficient witness to His character in creation for
men to come to some understanding of Himself.
The Gnostics developed systems of thought that started off from a popularised form
of Platonism, but which went on to reject philosophy as a false path. Justin
countered this by using Platonism to make Christian thought reasonable and to
explain how a transcendent God could deal with created beings. Henry Chadwick
commented:
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MS100 Topic 1
He uses the concept of the divine Logos or Reason both to explain how the
transcendent Father of all deals with the inferior created order of things, and to
justify his faith in the revelation made by God though the prophets. The divine
Logos inspired the prophets, he says, and was present entire in Jesus Christ.
This inspiring activity and its culmination in the actual incarnation are special
cases of divine immanence.33
Justins adoption of platonic philosophy was influential among 2 nd and 3rd century
apologists and was to have far reaching consequences for the theology of the
western church. One of the people he influenced heavily was Irenaeus (ca. 160-
225) bishop of Lyons in Gaul.
Gnosticism had already reached the western edges of the Roman Empire by the
middle of the 2nd century consequently Irenaeus turned his attention to refuting it in
detail. He brought some stability and coherence to Christian theology; only two of his
complete works survive along with several fragments. His Presentation of the
Apostolic Teaching was a manual of a basic doctrine written for a friend and his
Refutation and overthrow of knowledge falsely so called was a polemical attack
directed at the teachings of Marcion and a Gnostic teacher called Valentinus.
Irenaeus thought to establish the essential unity between Old and New Testaments
as established by the fulfilment of prophecy in Jesus Christ. He made a great deal of
the parallel between Adam and Christ and established what became known as the
recapitulation theory of the atonement. Irenaeus held that when Adam fell the image
of God in him was defaced rather than destroyed. What Adam lost was the moral
image of God which could only be restored when Christ, the second Adam, restored
it to the condition prevailing before the fall through His perfect obedience to God
which took Him to the cross where Jesus overcame the tempter. Jesus was
presented as a victor over the enemy who would restore all creation. Irenaeus held
to the literal resurrection of the body and to redemption as a restoration of creation
not simply disembodied spiritual bliss in heaven. Part of his argument for unity of the
Scriptures was based on a view of progressive revelation which he used as an
argument against the moral difficulties of the Old Testament of which Marcion made
great play.
Valentinus sought to supplement the apostolic writings with secret oral traditions and
several spurious gospels. Therefore like Marcion, Irenaeus sought to establish a
canon of Scripture though based on different principles. While accepting the
Septuagint, he went on to argue for individual New Testament books on the basis of
reason and came up with a canon of Scripture remarkably similar to the final position
adopted by the Church as a whole. In response to the authority of unwritten
traditions claimed by the Gnostics, Irenaeus made a case for orthodoxy by appealing
to the succession of teachers in Churches of apostolic foundation. In particular, he
33 Chadwick, Henry, The Early Church, London, Penguin, 1993. p.77
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MS100 Topic 1
appealed to the line of succession in the Church in Rome as one example. The fact
that he chose this one example was to have repercussions for the claimed primacy
of that Church over other Churches in the west.
Clement of Alexandria (ca.150 215) was a third champion of orthodoxy. He was

probably born in Athens but Alexandria is attached to his name because that is
where he exercised his ministry for most of his life as a lay theological instructor. He
was a pupil of a Sicilian teacher named Pantaenus who had travelled as a
missionary in the east and was an enthusiastic advocate of the Christian message.
Pantaenus set up a Christian school or academy designed to mirror the pagan
philosophical academies but instead teaching an intellectually reasoned approach to
the Christian faith. Following him, Clement also presented a culturally contextual
presentation of Christian truth. He had previously travelled the Hellenistic
Mediterranean sitting under several prominent Christian teachers before becoming a
pupil of Pantaenus. One of Clements best known works was Stromateis which is
perhaps best rendered as Miscellanies it was more like a collection of musings
rather than a connected doctrinal treatise. In this and his other writings Clement did
three things; like Justin before him, he highlighted similarities between some
philosophical thought and the teachings of scripture. This was an attempt to make
the gospel culturally relevant to cultured Alexandrian society. Secondly, he defended
Christianity against perversions of it particularly aiming at the Gnostics who were
very influential in Alexandria. He suggested that the gnosis or esoteric knowledge
which they professed was hollow and illusory. The true higher knowledge was to be
found, incarnate, in Jesus Christ. Thirdly, to quote Davidson, he maintained that:
The Christian life begins with faith, which is a basic apprehension of the
elementary truths about God, but this faith is expressed in a rational manner in
the daily discipleship of walking with God. On this journey, ethical endeavour is
motivated not by fear of punishment or hope of reward but by a love of the
knowledge of God for its own sake.34
Like Justin and Irenaeus, Clement sought to make a reasoned case for the faith over
and against the divergent perversions of his opponents and, like them, he presented
salvation in terms of a Christian pedagogy, a walk with Christ that brought the
believer to eventual salvation through a faith worked out in daily life as part of a
community of faith.
Movement makers or counter cultural conservatives?
A final question remains; were these champions of the faith counter-cultural

conservatives seeking to stem a tide of false and distorted teachings or were they
movement makers? The final proof may be in the outcome of their efforts. Frend
34 Davidson, p 254
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MS100 Topic 1
observed that the rise of Gnosticism and the beginnings of the Christian mission ran
in parallel and, at first, spread in the similar areas yet it was the Christian message
that won the day even though gnostic tendencies still remained yet, because of its
lack of coherent organisation or a satisfying worship, Gnosticism never succeeded in
providing a viable answer to mankinds religious quest. Marcionism was better
organised and more communally based but it, too, was doomed to failure since its
asceticism and rejection of marriages left it vulnerable to lack of internal recruitment.
Montanism may have offered a more exciting form of worship but it is difficult for
local Churches to live at that level of intensity without eventually becoming routinised
-especially once the initial impetus from highly regarded charismatic figures dies
away.
All in all, the alternatives to standard Christian worship and teaching which offered a
direct personal experience divorced from a social communal base and a way of life
for successfully living in this world in preparation for the next had no lasting answer.
The Christian apologists established a base which made sense of life in the context
of an empire which was losing its cohesiveness and they offered a platform for
mission capable of appealing to the intellectual elite and to the ordinary masses.
For Reflection:
1. How did the Church adapt to a new cultural context?

2. What were the measures of orthodoxy?
3. Who authenticated Church teachings?
4. What were the responses to heretical tendencies in and on the edges of the
Church?
5. How important was continuity of leadership to maintaining orthodoxy?
6. How did the Church discriminate between acceptable and spurious Christian
texts?
Davidson Ivor J., The Birth of the Church: From Jesus to Constantine, Oxford,
Monarch, 2005, Chapter 6: A Catholic Church? Available on ATLA here:
ost-live.
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MS100 Topic 1
Session 5: The Church Councils as Mission Responses
by Andrew R. Hardy
Learning Outcomes
1. understand the importance of the Church Councils to the mission of the early
Church
2. evaluate the missional importance of defining Logos Christology for the
proclamation of the Christian missionary gospel.
Required Reading:
Textbook: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, USA: Thomas Nelson,
2008 pp. 99-107
Introduction
In the last session we considered the circumstances that led to the Apostolic Fathers
drawing on a variety of sources to maintain and support the Christian missionary
movement. Our focus for the most part was on the Apostolic Fathers although we
started off by discussing the later Church Fathers as well, who will have a greater part
to play in the discussion of this session. In earlier sessions some important
developments have been mapped that led to the official recognition of the Christian
faith as the faith of the later Roman Empire, beginning with Emperor Constantine.
Constantine was faced with a number of challenges in his political decision to raise
the profile of Christianity to the forefront of Roman society, both he and later Emperors
did not face an easy task in acculturating former believers in the Roman pantheon to
accepting Christ as their sole God. Constantine arguably was seeking a new glue to
hold the fragmenting Roman empire together. The great days of Augustus and his
successors had passed away. Roman hegemony now faced an uncertain future with
the growing power of the European western tribes, in what later would become the
holy Roman Empire. They were now beginning to threaten the borders of the aging
Roman machine of international governance. This situation made it important to have
a new ideological faith to strengthen the empire.
Much debate has been exercised regarding the role of Constantine in the proceedings
of the first Council of Nicaea. It needed to meet in order for diverse theological
persuasions existing in the vast confines of the Roman Empire, to find agreement on
some basic universally agreed tenets of the Christian faith. It was of political concern
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MS100 Topic 1
that some Christians held to a view that Christ was not fully a divine being, where
others held He was. Concerns like this could lead to factions and divisions arising in
different Roman Provinces which would threaten the political and social stability of the
empire. It has been argued that Constantine forced through a version of Christology
that was one among others related to Christian beliefs about the divinity of the Son of
God. In the opinions of some Church historians the adoption of Trinitarian theology,
and the acceptance of Christ as the eternal divine Son of God, was actually just one
brand of Christian faith which was not globally supported by the New Testament
writers themselves, in the way that Nicaea sought to assert for its creedal statement.
The first council of Nicaea has remained of great significance to Church tradition, and
out of it the theological tradition of the eternal divine status of Jesus Christ as Son of
God was affirmed. In order for us to be able to evaluate the particular significance of
the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, for this tenet of early orthodox Christology's
formulation, we will need to consider some of the key issues at stake. Somewhat like
our last session we will need to focus on the missional significance of the Church
Councils to the work of the Church in this period in its new social setting.
Nicaea to Chalcedon
Frances Young's text (From Nicaea to Chalcedon35) has become for some
undergraduate programmes a standard work that traces developments that led to the
universal claims made in the Nicene Creed. It is a work well worth reading for the
student who wishes to dig more deeply into the intricacies of the ecumenical councils
that shaped the Christian missionary movements later theological cadences,
especially in the west. The articulation of the Nicene Creed has remained of
fundamental significance to believers throughout the subsequent ages of the Church:
'We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten from the Father, God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same substance as the
Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
35Young, F. M., (2010), From Nicaea to Chalcedon, a Guide to the Literature and its Background,
London: SCM Press.
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We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father (and the Son).
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.'36
The story behind the development and formulation of this creed will now be traced. It
is clear enough that it contains an early Trinitarian formulation in its wording. It is
especially notable that Christ is clearly portrayed as God himself, 'begotten' by the
'Father' from all eternity. At the most basic level the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
was formulated to address the Christology of bishop Arius. Arius basically held to the
belief that Christ was not of the same divine nature from the days of eternity as that of
the Father. In simple terms he argued that Christ was a created being who had been
given an elevated semi-divine status as the Son of God. There was a time, Arius
believed, when the divine Word (Logos - Greek for word) had not existed. It was not
just Arius who held this view but he had a following who also framed their Christology
in this manner. For instance, Eusebius of Caesarea was semi-Arian in his Christology
although he would not have called himself this. It seems that a majority of believers in
the Eastern Church could have been semi-Arian as well, or adoptionistic. When
Constantine sat at the opening session of the council decisions were yet to be finalised
about this matter. Following the end of the council Arius was excommunicated from
the Church and his Christology was branded as heretical. For many Nicene-Chalcedon
historians this outcome has been the subject of much debate. Was Arius simply
supporting one of at least two or three different Christological traditions, held by
Christians from the earliest period of the Christian mission? Was his view a distortion,
similar in the minds of some, to the Jewish rejection of the divine Jesus as their
Messiah? Was it in the class of a Gnostic belief where the man Jesus had been
adopted by the spirit of Christos (Greek word for Christ) at his baptism? These matters
will be considered more fully in TH100 and TH200. It is enough to recognise at this
stage that Arianism was officially branded heretical in the later written parts of the
creed.
The Council of Nicaea and later Councils
Constantine commanded all bishops from the Eastern and Western empire to attend
Nicaea (325AD), to discuss and resolve differences they held over the nature of Christ,
the date of Easter and what should happen to those who had been baptised by
heretics. The first Council of Nicaea was opened by Constantine during the Easter
36The Nicene Creed, http://www.thenazareneway.com/nicene_niceno_constantinopolitan_creed.htm

12:25, 29/06/13
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period of 325AD. Somewhere between 250 to over 300 bishops attended this event,
although Constantine had invited over 1800 delegates from the Eastern and Western
wings of the empire. Nicaea is now Iznik in modern day Turkey. The location of the
council was well positioned for the majority of delegates who came from Asia Minor,
Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Greece and Thrace. Although synods had
been convened previous to this council - Nicaea is considered to have been the first
great world council of Churches (ecumenical council) coming as delegates did from
the furthest reaches of the empire.
Bishops were provided with free travel to the council and back to their episcopal sees.
There was adequate provision made for their lodging whilst at the council and their
safe conveyance was guaranteed there and back. The bishops were granted the
allowance to bring two companions with them from each of their sees, which mainly
consisted of priests and deacons from their regions. Another important reason for so
many going to the council was due to the earlier edict of Milan (313AD), at which
Constantine and Licinius had formally terminated their predecessors policy of
intermittent persecution of Christians. The political importance of the council has
already been discussed.
The Eastern bishops formed the great majority of attendees at the council. There were
three bishoprics which held the place of first rank among those who attended from the
East. These were held by the three patriarchs: Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of
Antioch, and Macarius of Jerusalem. A number of the bishops who attended the
council came with the marks of torture and persecution on their bodies. This added to
the spiritual strength and commitment of the delegates as they were staunch persons
of the faith, who wished to uphold the integrity of the received traditions. At the first
council of Nicaea, Alexander had one of the most significant names associated with
the Christological debates with him, Athanasius. Although tradition claims that
Athanasius offered advice at the 325AD council, more recent scholarly opinion has
demonstrated some real doubts on this having happened. He was only a young
deacon just in his early twenties. It would have been unthinkable in the context of the
venerable elderly bishops of Nicaea that an untried and untested deacon, attending
his bishop, should have had a voice. It is possible, however, that he offered some
ideas to bishop Alexander, which may have influenced the proceedings. This is of
course impossible to verify. Athanasius eventually spent most of his life contesting the
Christology of Arianism.
The western Latin-speaking provinces had five major representatives in attendance at

the council; Marcus of Calabria from Italia, Cecilian of Carthage from Africa, Hosius of
Crdoba from Hispania, Nicasius of Dijon from Gaul, and Domnus of Stridon from the
province of the Danube. The supporters of Arius included Secundus of Ptolemais,
Theonus of Marmarica, Zphyrius, and Dathes, all of whom came from Lybia.
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Constantine opened the proceedings of the council dressed in his finest purple and
gold robes, as emperor of the Roman world. He had insisted that the first council be
conducted like a session in the Roman senate. This was an old and venerable system
itself, well proven as a means to conduct formal proceedings of this magnitude. It may
be argued that once Christianity came from the margins to the centre of the Roman
world, it inherited a system of governance which in many ways, after the fall of Rome,
would help the Roman Church exercise ecclesiastical power over western Europe. In
a sense Christianity has remained one of the most effective missionary religions in the
world, because it has adapted itself to numerous contexts, integrating itself into the
systems of governance which made it to be not only an ecclesiastical power, but for
the Roman Church a political force as well, during the middle ages in Europe.
Moreover, the perceived challenges of Arius's Christology were first on the agenda for
discussion, as the council opened in the imperial palace at Nicaea on May 20th 325AD.
Arius and his supporters were hopeful and confident that they may win the day in
having the Arian version of Logos Christology accepted, or even officially adopted at
the council. However, as portions of Arius writings, now lost to us, were read out there
was a growing feeling among the vast majority of the delegates that he had pressed
his case too far, and it was felt that many of his theological views were even
blasphemous. None of this worked in Arius favour, and for Eusebius of Caesarea it
was a great embarrassment, as he himself was a mild supporter of Arius's Christology.
It seems that his friendship with the emperor's wife may have helped him save face.
Certainly in the estimation of some historians Eusebius soon became a turn coat and
tried to save face by producing a creedal formulation, which was something like the
one that the council was trying to formulate to counter the Arian Christology. Although
Eusebius himself sought to claim that the council adopted the Caesarean creed, it is
more commonly accepted today that the Jerusalem creed was used to help form the
Nicene Creed's wording.
The two major parties at Nicaea were those who thought of themselves as more
orthodox in their beliefs, and for them Christ was to be thought of as of the same divine
substance as the Father. In simple terms the Arian supporters thought of Christ as
being of like substance to the Father. The differences that these two small phrases
made to an understanding of Christ's divine status were monumental. In the first
instance He was Himself God in every way that the Father was, in the second He was
a lesser being, yes worthy of worship, but not of the same type of worship which was
due to the eternal Father. The orthodox bishops won the day and had every one of
their theological proposals incorporated into the Creed. The council took until 19th
June 325AD to reach this consensus. It seems that only two bishops from Libya did
not vote for the Creed's conferment. It seems that much was open for debate still at
the end of Nicaea as well, although it was felt that the consensus had helped put a
stop to a major potential rift between the east and west. The Encyclopaedia Britannica
offers an interesting insight into some of the complexities that were still to be resolved
post-Nicaea:
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MS100 Topic 1
The decision in favour of the Athanasian view [a later view read back
into the first council's decisions by those who idolised Athanasius] at
Nicaea did not immediately end the controversy. For more than a century
the church wavered; the Council of Ariminum (359) all but reversed
Nicaea, and the emperor in Constantinople turned the Athanasian
majority into a minority. Constantine himself leaned toward Arianism later
in his reign, and his eventual successor, his son Constantius, was openly
Arian. Several theologians continued the controversy, and a number of
views vied for acceptance, including monophysitism (see monophysite),
which held that Jesus had only a divine nature and that he had passed
through his mother, Mary, as water passes through a tube, in the words
of Gregory of Nazianzus [one of the Eastern Cappadocian fathers]. One
question of particular importance throughout the controversy was
whether Jesus had actually suffered. Answering the question
affirmatively seemed to suggest that God himself had suffered;
answering it negatively seemed to undermine Jesus full humanityand
thereby his ability to redeem humankind.37
Despite the new terms introduced in this quotation it is clear enough that there was no
clearly held position that fully overturned Arianism post-Nicaea. Rather the Nicene
Creed operated as a kind of acceptable wording which helped each party feel that it
was not so expansive in its formulation, so as to fully undermine the Arian persuasion's
views or the divine Logos Christology of others. Having said this the wording itself
came to set out in principle that Christ was the same substance in essence as his
Father. This substantial language acted as a touch paper which would inevitably lead
to more debate subsequent to Nicaea. It was the developments that followed later
after Nicaea that slowly led to a coalescing of positions, with the eventual dominance
of the so called orthodox view becoming the official western view. By the time of
Chalcedon the consensus view of divine Logos Christology became hegemonic
theological mantra of the emerging Latin Christology. The Western Roman Latin view
was to become the dominant Christology of the church in the West.
The debates that had seemed somewhat like a tennis match, with differing
Christological views seeking pre-eminence over others regarding the nature of Christ,
found their ultimate point of clarification at Chalcedon. It was convened October 8th to
November 1st AD 451, at Chalcedon in Asia Minor, on the Asian side of the Bosporus
known today as Istanbul. It marked a turning point in the 5th century debates as to
whether Jesus had one nature, being therefore only divine (Monophysite position) or
two natures, human and divine (Nestorian position). This was the last ecumenical
37 Encyclopaedia Britannica From-Nicaea-to-Chalcedon

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/115761/Christology/259389/From-Nicaea-to-Chalcedon
accessed 13:14, 30/06/13
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council that Anglicans and other Protestants consider to be ecumenical, and of a
binding nature in terms of its decisions regarding the nature of Christ.
The Council was opened by Emperor Marcian. It repudiated and set aside the
decisions of the 449AD Second Council of Ephesus, which had largely confirmed the
one divine nature of Christ alone, in Monophysite terms. The Council formulated the
'Chalcedonian Definition' which denied the concept of a single nature in Christ and
articulated that he had two natures in one person, which were completely in harmony
in his being, as two complete natures, as Godhead and manhood, as a harmonious
living self without fracture of being. Hence the paradoxical nature of such an
impossible logical theological concept also meant that the doctrine of the two natures
were held to be a mystery that could not be resolved by human reason. It, in other
words, transcended human ability to understand.
The Missional Challenge of Arianism and the Decision of the Council and later
Councils
The missional importance of the edict of Milan and the councils are of far greater
significance than is often accredited to the events of Nicaea and afterwards. Given the
official orthodox verification of the Christian faith, essentially giving it political backing,
could be termed a triumph for mission given that the world power of the time had been
essentially enthralled by its potential to unite its frayed empire. However, from another
perspective it was a disaster for mission, as it brought many into the Christian fold
through mass political conversions, who simply transferred allegiance to Christ
technically rather than wholeheartedly. This surely would open the way for a half-
hearted faith, which would eventually lose its sharpness and relevance to people, as
an authentic means to work transformation in their lives.
For over 200 years the Christian missionary movement had been placed on the
margins of the Greco-Roman world. It was costly to be a Christian at times leading to
persecution, privation, execution and torture. Because the Christian faith had been
perceived by the Roman authorities, in the capital and at times in the provinces as
well, as an atheist sect because it did not have recognised status as a national religion
of a conquered people, meant that Christians were always open to the charge of
subverting belief in the gods or the god of a region. This charge of atheism was no
small matter to overcome.
When the Christian missionary movement won the attention and then essential
acceptance of emperor Constantine, it had become such a force to be reckoned with
that it became politically significant to be reckoned the official political faith. Popular
belief in the gods or god was not segregated from Roman political ideology as it has
come to be in more modern times. By 313AD 10% of the Roman world considered
itself to be Christian. A tipping point had been reached. The Christian faith had
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MS100 Topic 1
penetrated right into the political heart of the Roman emperor himself. With the
continuing adoption of the Christian religion after the time of Constantine by his
successors, we may speak of the first version of Christendom being established in the
Roman world. Greco-Roman society itself came to aver Christianity as its cultural
religion, which children would increasingly be baptised into, and would identify with as
their cultural heritage. It took time for the general populace to change allegiances from
their gods to Christ and his saints, but a process of acculturation continued from the
time of the edict of Milan, to the Council of Nicaea and its counterparts, to change
Roman society into a new type of religio-political entity. Sadly none of this could
prevent the fall of the Western empire in 476AD.
By the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire the Church in Rome and Italy
was a force to be reckoned with. It is ironic that the western European tribes that
overthrew the Western Empire were themselves Arians. Rome itself was orthodox and
embraced the Nicene Creed in its final form, more fully expanded and then supported
as it was in later councils. The missional significance of Nicaea and its later councils
was that they established the orthodox faith, which affirmed the doctrine of the Trinity
and the divinity of Christ. Had Arianism been adopted at Nicaea then it is quite likely
that it would have influenced later western Christology in a different way. Was it
important to the mission of the Church to protect the divinity of Jesus Christ? What
was the missional significance of Nicaea and the later ecumenical councils?
Constantine had hoped that the council would act as a means to weld the
disintegrating empire together with a commonly accepted faith. This was much more
than a vain hope. The opportunity of Christianity was its message of peace and
reconciliation. If only the Arian controversy, and the dating of Easter could be resolved,
then it surely offered the best hope to further strengthen the Roman Empire's
dominance over the Mediterranean basin. It is not an over simplification to claim that
Constantine's mission was to use the uniting potential of the Christian religion to bring
about some kind of new peace in the Roman provinces, and to offer a centralising
ideology to hold the empire together. We must not forget that for many intellectuals of
this period, it was not the spiritual disciplines of the Christian faith that attracted them,
but rather they saw it as a philosophy and ideology which could perform a vital role in
the strengthening of the empire. From this point of view it can be argued that this would
have been a good missionary outcome given the Lord's prayer, 'Thy will be done, thy
kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.' It is not hard to miss the essential
reasonableness of such a proposition for those who were going through this rich period
of new hope and rapid change.
However, Constantine's political hopes, shared as they were by many Christian

bishops from all around the empire, with the new hope of an end to persecution and
the possibility of sharing the gospel with the whole Roman world, did not meet all that
had been hoped for. Yes the council, and later ones, affirmed the divine Sonship of
Christ, yes this led over time to a settling of some theological conflicts in the West and
East. But sadly the disagreement over Easter, and the later inclusion of the Filioque
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clause into the creed (at the council of Constantinople), led to the Eastern churches
only accepting the first council of Nicaea, and not the later decisions of Chalcedon.
From this point of view the sense of missional opportunity to unite the Roman world
under Christ was not successful. Given that this may be termed a real hope many had
at the time, it is hard to be too critical of such a potentially noble aspiration.
Having noted this potential for the later schism that occurred between the eastern and
western Churches in 1053AD, the groundwork was at least potentially done that led to
this later tragedy. In terms of the Nicene orthodox Christology that has dominated
western theology, Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical alike ever since, it may be
much harder to be objective about its merits. It must be noted that the Eastern
Orthodox churches of today largely adopt the first Nicene Creed but not the later
ecumenical councils that followed its formulation decisions. Hence it seems clear
enough that the divinity of Christ is considered vital to the Christian missionary faith. It
was Athanasius who famously made the case for the importance of the orthodox
position. Young commented on his contribution:
Re-creation is Athanasius' main understanding of salvation in Christ.

Humanity would have lived s s (as God), if it had not been for the
fall. Scripture says, 'ye are all gods and sons of the Most High.' Here are
the seeds of Athanasius' doctrine of s (theopoiesis -
deification), first hinted at towards the end of the De Incarnatione, where
he sums up his position in a much quoted sentence:
(He became man/human,
that we might become god/divine).'
'Salvation in Christ, understood in terms of revelation and re-creation, is

the faith that Athanasius was prepared to defend to the uttermost.
Everything else he came to stand for is merely a corollary of the central
fact of his religious consciousness. His fight against the 'Arians' would be
motivated by soteriological concerns. Never again did he give a full
account of his position, but behind all the theological arguments against
his opponents this twin understanding of salvation can be detected. In
the course of the long and diffuse polemic of the Orations contra
Arianos, his two major concerns constantly recur as the basis of
argument. Revelation and re-creation involved the restoration to
humanity of the true Logos of God; so right from the start
Athanasius' soteriology implied that God alone could be the source of
salvation, that God alone could take the initiative and deal with
humanity's sorry plight. This conviction spurred him in defence of the
essential Godhead of the Logos; the Logos is not a creature but is 'out of
the substance of the Father' () because only so
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is our salvation fully realized and guaranteed: that was Athanasius'
central argument.38
The doctrine of deification is less a part of Western theology but it is central to the
Eastern Orthodox position. It is strange that the Western faith has played down this
doctrine and yet the Nicene position to a large extent is founded on its articulation. It
is certainly a central tenet of Evangelical faith that only the God-Man could work a
miracle of reconnection between heaven and earth, because He was both God and
man. Only the creator incarnate subject to human weakness, but at the same time
having faith in the divine Father, could make a true link with fallen humanity. In essence
this is some of what Athanasius thought. However, western theology struggles with
the concept that mankind is essentially to become a partaker of the divine nature
through theosis. This will become the topic of TH200 to explore later on in this
programme.
It may be argued from a conservative position that a non-divine Christ could not be
trusted to reveal the nature of God to people. It can also be argued that only God
Himself entering into human suffering, taking on its pain and estrangement in Himself,
could have worked the miracle of eternal reconciliation for all who believe. If the
student accepts this perspective then divine Logos theology must be part of the
Christian missionary gospel movement. If a more Arian reduced Logos theology is
accepted, then it could be argued that God in some way is so remote from His
creations that a lesser god - such as a first created Christ - would never enable
believers to fully realise what they were created for, being made to reflect the image
of God to each other. From this perspective the history of Arianism and orthodox
Christianity from the 4th century AD onwards takes on real importance to missional
theology. None of us can afford to simply sit on the wall.
38 Young, (2010), pp. 55, 56.
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Group Reflective Exercise
1. What is the importance of group decision making where participants join in
councils to decide important theological matters? To what extent should we
decide things based on group consensus where committed believers have
sought spiritual insight into important theological matters?
2. In what ways do you think the decisions of the councils were important for the
ongoing success of the Christian missionary movement? Give reasons to
support your view/s.
3. What makes the divinity of Christ important to the gospel mission of the
Church?
4. What might make the Arian position of missional importance to the preaching
of the gospel to the people of today in Western Europe?
5. To what extent may it be claimed that Arianism was more in keeping with
Jewish monotheistic faith than the Nicene faith?
6. What evidence have you found to support the idea that the Nicene faith is
reflected in the early apostolic Church's beliefs?
7. In what ways were Christology attacked in the apostolic era? What impact
might these attacks have had on the mission of the early Church had they
been successful?
(Obviously some of these questions require the student to bring together what they
have learnt so far in this module in other sessions in order to address them properly)
Required Reading:
Textbook: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, USA: Thomas

Nelson, 2008 pp. 99-107
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Session 6: Martyrdom as Mission
by Dick Whitehouse
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this session the successful student will be able to:
1. Understand and describe the extent of persecution in the Roman Empire that
led to martyrdom
2. Explain the meaning of martyrdom and its effect on the credibility of the Church
3. Evaluate the relationship between the Church and the State and assess the
lessons for contemporary mission
Required reading
Textbook: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (Nashville: Thomas

Nelson, 2008) pp. 37-45
AND
Reader on Moodle: Frend W.H.C., The Early Church: From the Beginnings to 461,
London, SCM Press, 2003, Chapter 6 A Generation of Crisis pp. 58-71.
Introduction:
The word martyr is simply the Greek word for an eye witness to an event and, is
normally used in the New Testament to mean someone who is a witness to Christ
although Paul uses it in 1 Thessalonians 2:5 to refer to God as our witness. It only
later came to mean someone who paid with their life as the price of witnessing to Christ
as Saviour. In this sense, it came to have a significant bearing on the development
and growth of the Church between the 2nd to 4th centuries as well as in subsequent
periods of Church history.
It is worth noting that there were more martyrs for the faith in the 20 th century than in
any preceding era of the worldwide church. Martyrdom probably has arguably
produced more conversions to Christianity in Communist countries than any other
factor. Whether martyrdom was ever a self-conscious missionary tactic is open to
doubt, but there is little argument that, as part of the Christian story, remarkable spurts
of growth have occurred in persecuted churches. In the 2 nd century, Tertullian, an
apologist and orator who was fond of an eye catching phrase, famously wrote: the
blood of martyrs is the seed of the church implying that unconverted people, inspired
to faith by the example of Christian martyrs, leaped into the gap to replace those who
died. Augustine later commented that this statement was truer in spirit than in fact;
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however, it does carry a kernel of truth. But, before going on to look at individual
martyrs and their influence on the growth and theology of the Church, it is worth looking
at the sources and extent of persecution in the Roman Empire that led to martyrdom
taking place.
Sources and reasons for persecution
i) Jewish opposition and crowd violence
Christianity was born amidst persecution; according to the Gospels, conflict between
Jesus and Jewish leaders of His day marked the majority of His ministry and eventually
led to His crucifixion. It should be noted that opposition at this stage did not come from
Roman officialdom but from religious Jews. Pilates involvement in Jesus death was
purely an expedient response to political pressure in a region where rebellion was
never far from the surface. This pattern was repeated to some degree in the
subsequent history of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Stephen,
the first Christian martyr in the book of Acts, was put to death, not by the Romans but
by a Jewish mob in spite of the fact that the religious leaders did not have the right to
exercise the death penalty. The young Saul of Tarsus was present encouraging and
assisting Stephens death. Ironically, when he became Paul the Christian apostle it
was this same Jewish crowd dynamic which was to lead to his own imprisonment and
eventually his death at the hands the authorities in Rome.
After the fall of Jerusalem to Titus, the Emperor Vespasians son, in 70CE the
antagonism between Pharisaic Jews and Christian Jews was to accelerate and well
into the 4th century local persecutions were often triggered by Jewish accusations
before the magistrates. Moreover persecution often came at the hands of Jewish mobs
incensed at Christian claims about Jesus. They attacked Christians in Alexandria and
elsewhere so it is not by accident that some of the early apologetic writings took the
form of polemical dialogues with Jewish opponents.
Mob violence was to be a recurring theme in the story of anti-Christian persecution.

Pagan riots against the Church periodically erupted as street mobs of angry protestors
were time and again the cause of Christian suffering, rather than state sponsored
persecution. Churches were sometimes ransacked and on occasion individual
believers were hacked to death or literally torn apart as a result of mass hysteria
against the Christian cause. There is a clear link between the causes of these
outbreaks and official persecution when it came to the fore.
ii) Pagan sensibilities
The sources of both pagan mob violence and state persecution were the same. It was
widely held that the peace and prosperity of the Roman Empire was not only the result
of strong rule by autocratic Emperors, but also of the benign care of traditional gods.
In that cultural context, religion and politics were not divided into separate
compartments. If battles were successful, trade and agriculture prosperous and
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government secure, it was because the gods approved of human actions. Moreover,
their approval depended upon continued observance of cultic practices such as
sacrifices at pagan temples, the reading of omens and consulting oracles at cultic
shrines. The range of gods and goddesses available to worship was almost unlimited.
Provided attendant beliefs and practices did not clash with the civic ethical code it did
not much matter which gods one chose to worship, but traditional gods were accorded
the highest respect.
A corollary of these attitudes was that when things went wrong in the public domain it
was considered to be because the gods were offended in some way. Consequently,
when this happened it was necessary to find some scapegoat to blame for whatever
was amiss. Christians were an obvious target because they did not feel free to join in
public events such as parades, circuses, athletic contests, membership of trade guilds
or pagan domestic hospitality since they involved allegiance to other gods and,
frequently, involved pagan immorality considered by everyone else to be normal ways
of behaving. Exhortations to avoid such behaviour can be seen in chapter 4 of Pauls
letter to the Ephesians and were a staple fare of subsequent Christian teaching.
Separating themselves from such normal public behaviour caused Christians to
appear secretive, antisocial and probably subversive of corporate and state welfare.
As late as the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries Augustine, in his polemical work The
City of God, found it necessary to turn on its head the pagan argument about
Christianitys destabilising effect on the state. He argued that a dispassionate review
of Roman history showed that it was precisely when Rome turned to its civic and
traditional gods that disasters most frequently occurred. He attributed this fact to the
wrath of the one true God whom the pagan state was denying. He made this defence
of the Christian position just as the Visigoths and other northern tribes were knocking
on the gates of Rome prior to its fall. Ironically, many of these tribesmen were converts
to the rejected Arian form of the Christian faith.
iii) State sponsored persecution
As part of the Roman politico-religious culture, the reliance on traditional gods

translated into a belief that the foremost of these gods exercised a special concern for
the Emperor as the embodiment of the State. This first manifested itself with Augustus
who designated himself as the divine Augustus around the time of Christs birth. This
divinity probably meant no more than the genius or creative-life-principle39 of Rome
which was evidence that the blessing of the gods rested upon him. In time, it came to
be thought of as meaning that Emperors were adopted by the gods into divine status.
Certainly, Nero and Domitian specifically made that claim.
The test of loyalty to Rome which was periodically administered was to publicly offer
a pinch of incense to the genius of the Emperor which neither Jews nor Christians felt
at liberty to do. Rome had come to realise that Jewish monotheistic faith meant that
39 Davidson, p. 195
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worship of any other god was an emotive and non-negotiable issue and, after the bitter
experience of many rebellions, Judaism was granted the status of an approved religion
(religio licita) which absolved Jews of the need to offer incense to Caesar. To begin
with, Christians sheltered under the umbrella of Judaism. Whatever the conflicts
between them, Rome merely saw Judaism and Christianity as rival sects of the same
religion but as time wore on it became obvious that this was not the case and
Christianity was no longer granted the same privileged status. Nevertheless, for the
most part, Christians were left alone unless specific charges were made against them
by other citizens. The usual accusations were of atheism since they did not accept
other gods or, sometimes, of economic subversion since they refused to buy goods
such as meat which had been dedicated to the gods. At this point, the magistrates
became involved and the evidence suggests that unless they were motivated by local
antipathies most magistrates gave the accused a way out by swearing allegiance to
Caesar through offering incense at the civic altar. Some Christians backed down
knowing that the alternative was torture or death.
The traditional picture of unremitting persecution in the Roman Empire has been
shown to be inaccurate in the light of more recent historical research. Christianity was
an unlicensed religion under suspicion of disloyalty to Rome and was always under
the threat of hostile reaction either from popular uprisings or state pogroms, but, for
the most part, until the Decian persecution at the end of the 3 rd century, Christians
were left alone for long periods. Government action was intermittent and mainly local.
Persecution of the Church was rarely at the behest of the Emperor. One apparent
exception to this rule was Neros action against the church in 66CE when Christians
were singled out and subjected to horrific torture, public humiliation and death by
burning as human torches. This was brought about when Nero attempted to burn down
slums in one area of Rome in order to clear the way for one of his building projects.
The plan went wrong and the fire spread, destroying a whole quarter of the city. Nero
turned on the Christians as a diversionary tactic to avert blame from himself. The
resulting carnage decimated the Church in Rome and began the long story of Christian
martyrdom but it was not a result of state policy and for some time remained an
isolated incident. However, Ferguson commented: The persecution under Nero was
confined to Rome, but this action set a precedent that could be followed elsewhere.40
External evidence for state persecution under Domitian (81-96) is limited; it seems to
have been confined to removing certain high ranking members of Roman society.
However, there seem to have been extensive local persecutions in the province of
Asia that form the background to the book of Revelation and which reflects its attitude
to Rome identified in typical apocalyptic language as Babylon traditionally, the
archetypal figure of anti-Jewish persecution. The cypher 666 in Revelation may be a
cryptic indication that Domitian was regarded as Nero redivivus (i.e. back from the
dead).
40 Ferguson, p.65
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Public policy with regard to Christianity was patchy and inconsistent. Insight to this can
be gained from a letter by Pliny the Younger who was Governor of Bithynia. Pliny wrote
to the Emperor Trajan for his advice on how to deal with Christians against whom
accusations had been brought. He wanted to know whether he was to make
distinctions in his treatment of them based on age or weakness. He also wanted to
know whether those who recanted and abandoned their faith and those who claimed
that they had abandoned Christianity long before these accusations should be treated
in the same way as those who confessed that they were practising Christians and
refused to renounce their faith. He further wanted to know whether punishment was to
be attached to bearing the name of Christian or for specific crimes committed as
Christians. He explained to the Emperor that he had ordered the execution of those
who confessed to being Christians or if they were Roman citizens to be sent to Rome
for trial. Those who denied that they were ever Christians he released after they had
recited a prayer to the gods and offered incense to a statue of the Emperor since these
were things which those who are really Christians cannot be made to do. The ones
who apostatised, whether at the time or previously he released after administering a
similar test. A few of the apostates had renounced Christianity twenty years before
that is under the persecution in Domitians reign.
Pliny reports that on examination of some of the apostates, as far as he was able to
ascertain, the practices of the Christians, though in his view superstitious, did not
consist of heinous crimes. The accusations of cannibalism, nocturnal clandestine
meetings, magical incantations and incestuous practices amounted to nothing more
innocuous than meeting at dawn to sing hymns and pray to Jesus as a god before
retiring to meet later in the day for a common meal. Their main crime was to refuse
worship to other gods or to offer incense to the Emperors statue. Trajans reply
approved Plinys procedures which were under the discretion of a governor but added
that Christians were not to be sought out though if they were accused and convicted
they should be punished. Anonymous accusations were not to be allowed as accusers
had to operate within a proper legal framework.
What this indicates is that there was no settled imperial policy towards the existence
of Christianity. It meant that generally speaking the Christian Church was at the mercy
of local magistrates and the tolerance or otherwise of their neighbours. Other than
that, until the time of Decius, state persecution was at the whim of individual Emperors
and was sporadic and mainly local. One authorised outbreak of persecution came
under Marcus Aurelius (161-180) who was a Stoic philosopher as well as emperor.
His reign came at a troubled time of economic crisis and a series of natural disasters
accompanied by wars with the Germanic tribes on his northern border. Once again,
Christians were a convenient target for blame and Marcus Aurelius authorised actions
taken against them in the Rhone valley in the year 177 where 48 Christians were
martyred in the amphitheatre in Lyons. Among them was Pothinus the ninety year old
first bishop of the city. A further outbreak took place in Scillium, North Africa, where
12 people were martyred and in a separate incident Justin the apologist earned his
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name Justin Martyr when he was charged before the prefect Junius Rusticus as the
result of a court case with a Cynic philosopher named Crescens. Justin identified
himself as a Christian philosopher and thus placed himself under condemnation.
Refusing to recant he was condemned with a number of other Christians who were
Roman citizens to be whipped and beheaded. According to Marcus Aurelius Stoic
views, principled suicide was acceptable but what he saw as a reckless willingness for
martyrdom when a way out was offered amounted to stubbornness which was in itself
sufficient to merit the death sentence.
Universal state sponsored persecution did not come until Decius came to the throne
in October 249 after deposing the Emperor Philip. Decius proclaimed himself the
restorer of Romes traditional values which heralded a return to worship of Jupiter and
the Roman gods as opposed to newer religions. He personally presided at sacrifices
to Jupiter on the Capitoline hill in Rome and ordered that similar rituals were to be
followed throughout the empire. His edict was not aimed specifically at Christians, but
it was to affect them hardest since a refusal to offer sacrifices would be deemed
subversive, offensive to the gods and to public order the penalty for non-compliance
was death. In order to enforce the decree every person in the empire had to produce
a libellus (certificate) as proof of offering the statutory sacrifice. Many Christians
complied, especially those whose property was threatened with confiscation, but
others remained steadfast. Fabian the bishop of Rome and Babylas, bishop of Antioch
were among the prominent martyrs but many rank and file Christians also paid the
price of their faithfulness. Decius persecution did not last long since he died in battle
in June 251 when his polices were reversed but, as Davidson commented: The
advent of Decius thus launched the first systematic and empire-wide attack on the
Christians since the beginnings of the church.41
The pattern of empire-wide persecution was renewed with the reign of Diocletian (284-
305) once again at a time of upheaval in an Empire confronted with border rebellions
and warfare with rival dynasties in the East. Economic and administrative crisis
demanded an administrative restructuring so Diocletian broke the empire into two
appointing two Augusti or senior Emperors each assisted by a deputy or Caesar. He
took control of the East while Maximian was appointed Augustus of the West;
Diocletian chose Galerius as his Caesar while Maximian opted for Constantius. These
were destined to be fateful choices in the events which were to follow, both for the
empire and for the Church. Galerius was the arch-persecutor of the Church in the east
while Constantius son, Constantine, was to become the future emperor who favoured
Christianity.
Diocletians reforms were politically and religiously conservative; he wanted to restore

Romes ancient civic virtues and that was to involve the rejection of foreign religious
innovations which he saw as eroding age-old customs. To begin with he concentrated
on reconstruction and was not unfriendly towards Christians who seem to have been
41 Davidson, p322
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favoured by his family members. In addition, many high positions in his court were
held by Christian believers. However, his programme of reconstruction involved the
rebuilding of pagan temples and the revival of their cultus.
Diocletians deputy, Galerius who was rabidly anti-Christian sought to influence his
policy though Diocletian was not to be stampeded into action. However, the tipping
point may have come when between 298-302 unrest in the army in Syria and North
Africa involving Christian soldiers may have caused him to think of Christians as
unreliable. In February of 303 he issued an edict in Nicomedia for all copies of
Christian Scriptures to be given up and destroyed and meetings for Christian worship
to be banned. The following day he issued a supplementary edict depriving Christians
of all civic offices and honours and threatening them with torture while disallowing any
legal rights. He dismantled the prominent Church in Nicomedia which stood opposite
his palace.
This news provoked revolts in some of the eastern provinces particularly Syria and
Melitine and fires broke out in the Emperors palace. A second edict for the arrest of
all bishops and clergy was consequently issued; soon the prisons were overflowing
and the administration faced a problem since prisons in the Roman Empire were
merely holding facilities for those awaiting trial not for long term incarceration so there
wasnt sufficient space to cope with the influx. Later in 303 Diocletian issued a third
edict ordering clergy to be forced, through torture if necessary, to sacrifice and then to
be freed. The minority who held out against the pressure were to be executed. In the
spring of 304 Galerius began to exercise authority in the east due to Diocletians ill
health. He stepped up the pressure to include all Christians whereas Diocletian had
targeted Church leaders only. In the following year Diocletian abdicated and Maximian
was reluctantly forced to join him. Galerius was now in sole control of the east while
his counterpart, Constantius, ruled in the west. He was much more lenient so the
Churches in the west suffered less actual persecution though they were to be torn
apart far more than the Church in the east as a result of controversy over dealing with
the lapsed once the persecution receded.
Prominent martyrs and their significance for the Church
Stories of martyrdom fuelled the imagination of the Church and, as we shall see, they
were used by church leaders to encourage and edify the faithful in their daily Christian
experience. They played a significant part in shaping the identity of the Church as it
confronted paganism some martyrs self-consciously used their suffering to stiffen the
Churchs resistance and to gain posthumous influence. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, is
one such Christian leader who used his coming martyrdom to gain a hearing for his
views on Church order. He died somewhere around 107-110 and on his way to trial in
Rome he was allowed to receive visits from Church representatives. Ignatius wrote
letters to these and the heads of other Churches including those in Ephesus,
Magnesia, Tralles, Philadelphia and Smyrna. Each letter was addressed to a presiding
bishop, which suggests a more settled form of leadership. Although other Churches at
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the time exercised a collegial form of leadership, Ignatius makes the case for one
bishop in each locality assisted by presbyters and deacons and maintains that the
administration of baptism and the eucharist is not valid unless authorised by the
presiding bishop as the one called to safeguard the flock.
The striking thing about Ignatius almost royal progress to his martyrdom is the way in
which he looks forward to his coming death as the crowning of his lifes work. It would
be the means of his entry into full salvation and eternal bliss. He pleads that no
influential Roman Christians should intercede for his release as this would rob him of
the martyrs crown and the privilege of suffering in union with his Lord. The intense
devotion displayed by Ignatius could easily translate into provocative behaviour
towards the state on the part of later aspiring martyrs in order to gain martyrdom. The
Church was to condemn such behaviour as suicide rather then genuine martyrdom.
True martyrdom was regarded as the result of standing steadfast in the face of
unprovoked persecution.
One of the bishops to whom Ignatius wrote on his journey to Rome was his friend
Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was himself to die at the stake much later sometime
around 155 or 156. Polycarps attitude to martyrdom was different from that of Ignatius,
but no less influential. He was a well off and respected member of the community in
Smyrna and, indeed, at his trial non-Christian citizens interceded for him. There was
a local outbreak of persecution in which twelve believers were thrown to the wild
animals in the arena. The crowd, incensed at the way these Christians died called for
Polycarp to be killed. Polycarp made himself scarce but refused to back down once
he was located and brought before the proconsul and asked if he was a Christian. This
illustrates the situation between the Church and the Empire at this period. Polycarp
had been bishop in Smyrna unmolested for over fifty years which shows the Church
was left in relative peace. But, when public outcry was roused, the position of
Christians brought before the magistrate was clearly set. At this point the differences
between Church and State became insurmountable unless one or the other backed
down.
Accounts of Polycarps death show how a martyrs trial and death took on both an
instructive aspect for the Church and an opportunity for public proclamation of the faith.
Although the third century Christian historian Eusebius is sometimes prone to
exaggeration there is little reason to doubt the following account which purports to
have been transcribed from an eye witness:
When he approached the proconsul asked him if he was Polycarp, and when
he admitted it he tried to persuade him to deny, saying: Respect your age,
and so forth, as they are accustomed to say: Swear by the genius of Caesar,
repent, say: Away with the Atheists; but Polycarp, with a stern countenance
looked on all the crowd in the arena, and waving his hand at them, he groaned
and looked up to the heaven and said: Away with the Atheists. But when the
Governor pressed him and said: Take the oath and I will let you go, revile
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Christ, Polycarp said: For eighty and six years have I been his servant, and
he has done me no wrong, and how can I blaspheme my King who saved me?
But when he persisted again, and said: Swear by the genius of Caesar, he
said: If you vainly suppose that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as you
say, and pretend that you are ignorant who I am, listen plainly: I am a Christian.
And if you wish to learn the doctrine of Christianity fix a day and listen. The
proconsul said: Persuade the people. And Polycarp said: You I should have
held worthy of discussion, for we have been taught to render honour, as is meet,
if it hurt us not, to princes and authorities appointed by God; but as for those, I
do not count them worthy that a defence should be made to them. And the
proconsul said: I have wild beasts, I will deliver you to them, unless you change
your mind. And he said: Call for them, for change of mind from better to worse
is a change we may not make; but it is good to change from evil to
righteousness. And he said again to him: I will cause you to be consumed by
fire, if you despise the beasts, unless you repent. But Polycarp said: You
threaten with the fire that burns for a time, and is quickly quenched, for you do
not know the fire which awaits the wicked in the judgement to come and in
everlasting punishment. But why are you waiting? Come do what you will. 42
This venerable old man refused to renounce his faith when confronted by the
authorities but did not go out of his way to court martyrdom in the first place. Once
accused, Polycarp was unyielding, refusing offers of leniency at the price of
renouncing his faith as we have seen, others were not so courageous and this
account was probably designed to steel their resolve. On the other hand, although
wishing to avoid bloodshed, the official became more hardened the more obdurate the
accused appeared. Stubbornness before a magistrate was considered an insult to the
judicial system and, hence the state itself, thus confirming suspicions that Christians
were a subversive force.
As we have already seen, this was also the case with Justin Martyrs death in Rome
in 165, although he more likely courted martyrdom. In a civil court case with a Stoic
philosopher named Cerenthius, Justin identified himself as a Christian philosopher
thus inviting the magistrate to accuse him of the crime of being a member of a body
opposed to the state. Again, as in the case of Polycarp, the magistrate offered
clemency giving Justin the opportunity to recant and offer worship to Caesar. He
refused and, along with several other accused Christians, who must all have been
Roman citizens, was beheaded.
Not all martyrs were prominent leaders of the church indeed as MacCulloch wryly
observed:
The attractive feature of a martyrs death was that it was open to anyone,
regardless of social status or talent. Women were martyred alongside men,
42 Eusebius, H.E.iv. 15.18
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slaves alongside free persons. The necessary ability was to die bravely and
with dignity, turning the agony and humiliation into shame and instruction for
the spectators.43
Martyrdom was at the same time a great leveller and a means of exaltation for those
who suffered. Martyrs were considered to be heroes of the faith whatever their social
status. Indeed, in the late fourth century confessors in prison were deemed to be able
to pronounce remission of sins to believers in the church outside.
Examples of sufferers who were not church leaders can be found in the stories of
Blandina, who was a slave girl killed in Gaul in 177, who according to Eusebius
steadfastly refused to deny Christ or to admit that fellow believers engaged in evil
practices. She demonstrated exemplary courage in the face of death by encouraging
her fellow sufferers to march resolutely into the arena as she followed on behind.
Another case of the least amongst the Christians becoming a stirring example was
that of Perpetua and Felicitas, two young women who were not yet full members of
the Church since they were still undergoing preparation for baptism. Perpetua was a
high born young married woman with a young child and Felicitas was a pregnant slave
girl. They were thrown to the wild beasts in the arena in Carthage, North Africa, in the
year 203 before their throats were cut by gladiators. Before going to trial Perpetua was
angrily confronted by her pagan father with her obduracy but she refused to back down
saying, I cannot deny what I am.
Hagiography as a source of propaganda
Martyrdom gave rise to hagiography, a new form of literature promoting the stories of
those who were faithful to Christ in the face of death. The word hagiography means
writings about the Saints. Those who were martyred were deemed to go straight into
the presence of Christ obtaining their completed salvation MacCulloch observed: The
first people whom Christians recognised as saints (that is, people with a pure prospect
of Heaven) were victims of persecution who died in agony rather than deny their
Saviour, who had died for them in agony on the Cross.
Susan Harvey makes the point that hagiography in general, and that relating to martyrs
in particular was also about a Christian reshaping of social dialogue in addition to being
a means of shaping Christian identity. In particular it began the process of
overthrowing popular ethical understanding. She commented:
Christians used the presentation of martyrdom ass occasion for challenging

the existing social order. They presented a crafted narrative of Christian witness
that subverted inherited traditions of Graeco-Roman society, by inverting the
meaning of what had taken place in the event of the martyrs death. The Roman
displayed public death by torture as a spectacle of power and domination.
43 MacCulloch, p161
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Christian authors utilised a rhetoric of paradox to declare this apparent defeat
of Christians a victory for Christ. In doing so, they played out basic New
Testament motifs of the divine becoming human, the Lord of All crucified as a
common criminal, life resurrected from death, the illiterate fisherman become
the eloquent proclaimer of Gods Word. The very vocabulary of what counted
as virtues and vices in this situation reversed traditionally cherished ideals.44
MaCulloch added, The stories of the martyrs were lovingly preserved as an example
to others.45
These accounts were preserved in three main literary forms: letters sent by Churches
to other Churches describing the events surrounding martyrdom in their midst;
passions or narrations of the last days and the deaths of martyrs and acts that
purport to be transcripts of the trials of the victims. A table is given below of some of
the main influential examples:
ACCOUNTS OF MARTYDOM
Documents Date Location

Letters of Churches
Martyrdom of Polycarp 156? Smyrna
Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons 177 Lyons
Passions
Martyrdom of Ptolemy and Lucius c. 150 -60 Rome
(in Justin, 2 Apology)
Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas 203 Carthage
Acts
Acts of Justin and his Companions 167 Rome
Acts of the Pergamene Saints c. 165 -70 Pergamum
Acts of the Martyrs of Scilli 180 Carthage
Acts of Apollonius c. 184 Rome
Source: Ferguson Everett, Church History Vol.1, p.80
These popular accounts acted as propaganda for the Christian cause and created
veneration of local martyrs whose stories were treasured by their home churches and
were rapidly transmitted more widely. The honour given to martyrs led to the creation
of shrines to these heroes where pilgrimage was often made as it was alleged that
prayer offered at these places was more effective. It was not long before any lovingly
44 Harvey Susan Ashbrook, Martyr Passions and Hagiography in Harvey Susan Ashbrook and
Hunter David G., The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, Oxford, OUP, 2008, p. 606
45 MacCulloch, p161
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preserved relic of the saints was regarded as a talisman and the anniversary of martyrs
were regarded as special days.
As such local cults threatened to get out of hand, regional leaders of the Church
stepped in to reclaim the importance of martyrs as witnesses (the original meaning of
the word martyr) to Jesus Christ in His suffering by articulating a theology of
martyrdom which emphasised the grace of martyrdom as something not extended to
everyone but to a chosen few who were able to endure. The anniversaries of martyrs
were seized upon as opportunities to challenge, encourage and enthuse the faithful
through panegyrics (extravagant praise delivered in formal speech or writing) often
taking the form of an account of the martyrs life and death. As time went by, non-
historical additional miraculous material was imported into these texts which owed little
to fact. This was considered to be justified because the object was not so much to
convey facts as to edify the faithful. There is evidence that this form of hagiography
did spur believers on to greater efforts to emulate Christ and to become heroes of the
faith in every day life. While in the early days the Stoics despised Christianity precisely
because of what was considered to be its culture of death, many unbelievers were
challenged and attracted to Christ because they saw that faith in Him both enabled
adherents to live well and to overcome the fear of death as they looked to a future
hope which paganism could not provide. Martyrs were anticipating the future; as
Ferguson aptly commented:
Martyrdom was viewed as a kind of radically realized eschatology. The

martyrs realized now the blessings intended for all Christians, for in the events
surrounding their death they entered into the end-time blessings of the
presence of God, the gift of the Spirit, and forgiveness of sins. 46
In showing no fear of death the martyrs blazed a trail, often gaining the respect and
sometimes winning the allegiance of their pagan neighbours. In the early days of
Christianity this lack of fear of death also showed itself in the way that when frequent
plagues hit urban centres, unlike the wealthy citizens who fled to their country estates,
Christians remained behind to nurse the sick both in their own community and that of
their neighbours. This, too, was a kind of unsung martyrdom; thus, martyrdom became
mission.
46 Ferguson, p84
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For Reflection
1. What was the extent of the early persecution of Christians?
2. How did non-Christians perceive the early believers?
3. What were the issues for the persecuted Churches?
4. What was the impact of martyrdom on Christian mission?
Required reading

Nelson, 2008) pp37-45
AND
Reader on Moodle: Frend W.H.C., The Early Church: From the Beginnings to 461,
London, SCM Press, 2003, Chapter 6 A Generation of Crisis pp. 58-71.
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Session 7: The Desert Fathers Battling with Alien Forces
by Dick Whitehouse
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this session the successful student will be able to:
1. Understand and describe the events leading to the rise of the monastic
movement
2. Analyse the tensions between the inner spiritual life and the Churchs role in
the wider world
3. Critically evaluate the importance of the monastic movement for the progress
of mission in the west
4. Assess the nature and importance of spiritual conflict for personal development
and the health of the Church
Reader on Moodle: Ferguson, Everrett, Church History Vol 1, from Christ to Pre-
Reformation, Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2005. Chapter 12: The Church in the
Fourth and Early Fifth Centuries.
1. The Rise of Monasticism
During the second half of the 3rd century a movement towards personal asceticism
grew in the Church both in the east and the west. As the trend to solitary ascetic
practices flourished, it matured into more communal forms of rigorous spirituality which
were to lead to full blown monasticism. This came at a time when entry to the Church
between periods of persecution had become easier; the Church was winning the battle
for the minds of those pagans who were dissatisfied with the crude nature of the
polytheistic myths and stories surrounding the traditional gods. The serious
monotheism of both Judaism and Christianity appealed to more serious minded
pagans. Nevertheless, the integrity of Christians carried a penalty since it meant that
they tended to achieve posts of public trust as well as positions of responsibility in
pagan households thus making Christianity socially acceptable so that it became
advantageous to join the Church for social advancement. This led to a dilution of
personal ethical standards as a move towards building-based worship in large
gatherings began to take the place of smaller familial interactive devotion involving
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dialogue and group accountability. Conditions for Church membership were becoming
less rigorous and more serious minded Christians felt that this watered down the
search for an intimate relationship with God and an earnest quest for personal
holiness. It was these spiritual athletes who turned to asceticism in order to satisfy
their pursuit for the divine.
Asceticism i.e. the practice of self-denial, abstinence from fleshly pursuits and the
search for simplicity in the spiritual life, was not new. It had its roots in Judaism
amongst the Essenes at the time of Jesus and in such historical figures as Elijah and
his namesake, John the Baptist. It was also paralleled in some pagan philosophical
practices such as those followed by Stoics and Cynics whose thought had to some
degree penetrated Christian theology via some apologists who attempted to present
Christian thought in a way that made sense to cultured pagans. Thus, the way was
opened to ascetic practices as a spiritual discipline for Christians. As Church discipline
became more lax, personal discipline turned out to be a form of protest that was meant
to secure the holiness of the Church. But, as we shall see, the development of
personal asceticism into a more settled monastic movement was also used as a bridge
to bring the two aspects of the Church together. The Church cannot divorce itself
entirely from public life if it is to have societal influence.
The movement towards asceticism gathered pace in the three decades leading up to
the Great Persecution under Domitian. Once this last onslaught against the Church
receded and Christianity became a tolerated and even promoted religion under
Constantine it became far more socially and professionally advantageous - and
popular - to be seen to be a practising Christian. The age of the martyrs had brought
stirring and challenging role models as an ideal for Christian living. The martyrs were
regarded as spiritual athletes but the challenge to heroic action by confronting state
repression was no longer present. Consequently, the ascetics, particularly those who
withdrew to the desert, came to be regarded as the new martyrs serious witnesses
to, and partakers in, the sufferings of Jesus and there is plenty of evidence that they,
too, saw themselves in this light. The struggle was no longer with flesh and blood in
political terms but with spiritual opponents in the form of the world, the flesh and the
devil. We will take up these themes later as we examine the lives of individual Desert
Fathers.
2. Asceticism and the monastic movement
Some forms of asceticism were practised from the earliest days of Christianity, usually
as an individual pursuit within the believers own home. The early ascetics did not cut
themselves off from everyday life. Unlike pagan asceticism, matter was not viewed as
intrinsically evil; as Ferguson commented, Instead, it adopted self-denial as the
renunciation of the good in pursuit of a higher life and to be more fully dedicated to
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religious ministry.47 This does mean, however, that from the beginning, there was a
tendency to identify two levels of Christian commitment which eventually led to an un-
Biblical view of sainthood.
Initially, the movement towards monasticism was most clearly evident in Syria and
Egypt. In Syria it was influenced by aberrant movements on the edges of Christianity
like Marcionism and Encratism, as well as externally to Manicheanism in addition to
ascetics living within orthodox circles. Syrian Christianity adopted a baptismal vow of
singleness taken by some candidates known as covenanters.48 Scholars have
argued that this applied not simply to a vow of virginity but also to a promise to
chasteness within Christian marriages. Krawiec argued,
Although the term [for singleness] is related to the Greek term for monk,
monachos, the singleness of these ascetics did not stem from living apart from
society but rather evoked a singleness of purpose and the singleness of the
Only-Begotten Son of God.49
This was to be one of the influences that would help form the monastic thrust of
Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the Middle Ages.
Egyptian monasticism, which was to spread to the west, received a huge impetus from
the life and example of a monk named Antony (Ca. 251-356) popularized by The Life
of St Antony written by Athanasius of Alexandria around 260CE. Athanasius, who was
later to become the standard bearer of orthodoxy in the Arian controversy, briefly
pursued ascetic life in the deserts of Egypt where he came to know Antony personally.
Athanasius used his knowledge in his biography of Antony to present an apologia for
monasticism which was the first life of a saint of its kind. It was destined to become a
standard pattern for presenting conversion experiences and one that was later to be
followed by Augustine in his Confessions. These two books were to have an immense
impact both on the propagation and development of medieval Christianity and the
progress of monasticism.
Antony was born into a wealthy family in Herakleopolis Magna in Lower Egypt. His
parents died when he was in his late teens leaving him to care for his younger sister.
Antony was influenced by a local ascetic living on the edge of his village and on
hearing the words of Matthew 19:20-21 quoted in a Church service: If you want to be
perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in
heaven; and come, follow Me, he decided to take them literally. Selling his inheritance
he donated the proceeds to the poor and placed his sister in a commune of virgins
47 Ferguson Everett, Church History, Vol. 1, From Christ to Pre-Reformation, Grand Rapids,
Zondervan, 2005, p. 228
48 Krawiec Rebekka, Asceticism in Harvey, Susan Ashbrook and Hunter David G., The Oxford
Handbook of Early Christian Studies, Oxford, OUP, 2008, p.769

49 Krawiec, p769
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which was a sort of forerunner of a nunnery. He then retired to the desert to live a
solitary life seeking God.
By this time asceticism was already being practised in isolated environments on the
outskirts of cities on the edge of the desert. Antony went further as probably the first
ascetic to withdraw deep into the desert on his own some 59 miles west of Alexandria
where he remained for some 13 years. He later withdrew deeper into the desert living
for 20 years enclosed in an old Roman near the village of Pirspir on the Nile, relying
on food brought to him by villagers. His ascetic way of living was fairly extreme and
although he wished to be solitary he attracted crowds of imitators who came to live
near to him to hear his teaching. His disciple Macarius organised them into loose
cenobitic communities thus beginning a monastic settlement. Antony saw his ascetic
lifestyle as a form of martyrdom but he also wanted to become a literal martyr and in
the year 311 during the Domitian persecution, he travelled to Alexandria where he
openly visited and encouraged the confessors in prison who were awaiting execution.
The Governor ordered him to leave the city, but Antony refused arguing with the
Governor in order to provoke torture and martyrdom but the official refused to rise to
the bait and Antony was not arrested.
After his abortive attempt at martyrdom Antony moved to the Eastern Desert where he
tended a garden weaving baskets and rush mats to give the proceeds to the poor. He
encouraged his followers to a life of contemplation and work thus anticipating by some
200 years the rule of St. Benedict based on prayer and labour. His fame spread so
widely that the Emperor Constantine wrote to him requesting prayer. At first, Antony
refused to reply maintaining that the ascetic life and court politics could not be mixed
although he was eventually constrained to write a letter back invoking prayer for the
Emperor and for the well-being of his Empire. The theme of worldly influence and
monastic separatism is one to which we will return later.
3. Spiritual battle fighting unseen enemies
The issue of conflict between life in the wider world and inner spiritual well-being is
one that dominated the thinking of many ascetics. Most of them did not withdraw
completely from the world; they were prepared to receive visitors seeking spiritual
direction hospitality was considered to be a spiritual discipline even if it meant
interrupting their life of contemplation. Many of them also visited and ministered to the
local poor as part of their devotion which was intended to keep them from being
exclusively preoccupied with the inner life.
However, one of the reasons that these holy men and women came to be consulted
by other Christians is that they gained a reputation for confronting and dealing with
demonic powers. Their battle was not so much with flesh and blood to use Pauline
terms as with encountering spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. The sayings
of the Desert Fathers are replete with anecdotes about encounters with and the defeat
of demonic powers. Their perceived spiritual power came from self-discipline, long
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hours of prayer and overcoming physical appetites in order to concentrate on the
spiritual realm. As the challenge of facing outward enemies, particularly through
martyrdom in public arenas receded, focus switched to dealing with the enemy forces
in the unseen realm which were considered to be behind physical attacks on the faith
and the source of outward temptations. Withdrawing from the everyday world was not
found to be an automatic antidote to temptations; Jerome famously reported that,
when he retired to solitude in a cave sexual temptations in the mind were far more
difficult to overcome than those he previously blatantly encountered in the imperial
court.
The advice given to enquirers by the desert saints varied from the enigmatic to the
intensely practical and many of their sayings were wryly humorous showing that
spirituality and dullness did not have to go together! Nevertheless, the life of an
anchorite or cenobitic monk was hard and demanding. In their search for spiritual
perfection they spent years seeking to divest themselves of attachment to earthly
comforts in order to achieve superiority over demonic forces and they became famous
for their ability to confront evil spiritual powers. They fought not only for their own
spiritual advancement but, in a sense also for the soul of the wider church as they
stood as a witness to the fact that that gospel was meant to be taken seriously not
merely as an ideal but as an intentional way of life.
4. Structural battle fighting for the soul of the church
In one sense, the monk in fighting to achieve union with God was turning the desert
into paradise in an inversion of the Biblical fall of man thus presenting an account of
the triumph of grace over a hostile cosmos. Many of the lives of the saints, modelled
on Athanasius Life of St Antony, stylised this combat as a means of Christian
propaganda for the triumph of the Cross and of faith over a decadent world. SA Harvey
commented:
In this rhetoric, as in its biblical predecessors, the old order was passing away,
and a new order coming to be. Thus, in hagiography, even a woman, a slave,
or a street beggar could become a saint. The desert became paradise regained.
The saint imitated the work of Christ in reversing what had been a distorted
natural order of the universe: the sick were healed, the poor fed, the weary
comforted.50
As Harvey noted, the stories of the Desert Fathers became a powerful medium
through which to negotiate the tensions inherent in Christianizing the Roman Empire
and establishing the power of the church in political, economic and social terms.51 It
is no accident that many of the so-called Church Fathers were bishop monks. The
desert ascetics exercised a powerful hold over the imagination of the ordinary every
day Christians who struggled with their place in the world. They wielded a spiritual
50 Harvey Susan Ashbrook, p. 615

51 Harvey, p615
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authority based on their sanctity that was sometimes lacking in institutional church
leaders. As Harvey commented, Athanasius biography of Antony was written just at
the time when episcopal authority was becoming stabilised in the great urban centres
of the Empire. His account of Antonys life provided a bridge between desert and city
faith communities enabling the institutional church to cash in on monastic kudos:
The ascetic hero fought Satan in a desert world devoid of societys comforts,
even as Christ had done in the forty days after his baptism. In turn, the bishop
guarded the church in the world, even as Christ had done during his ministry.
Episcopal and ascetic authority were thus differentiated by their very
geographical locations, and placed over differing domains. The ecclesiastical
institution could thereby embrace the ascetics spiritual power in ways that drew
it into the service of the Church, rather than challenging or competing with it.52
Monasticism was to become the means both of preserving the perceived legitimacy of
the Church and of extending its mission at various other points in the unfolding story
of the church prior to the Reformation, as we shall see later. And, this all began with
the unlikely story of the Desert Fathers.
5. Types of monasticism
As monasticism developed, there were several types of ascetic each giving rise to
different versions of monasticism. An anchorite meaning one who withdraws is the
term for a solitary ascetic whereas the term monk, as we have seen, refers to
singleness of purpose and came to be the catch-all label for ascetics gathered together
under a communal Rule or set of principles in order to pursue the spiritual life. The
term hermit popularly thought of as meaning a solitary holy man, comes from the
word for a deserted region. The rise of monasticism, whether in the east or west, was
intimately associated with the desert. This is not surprising since the desert or
wilderness plays an important part in the historical origins of Christianity whether one
thinks of the formation of the nation of Israel following their escape from Egypt, the
emergence of John the Baptist from the Judean desert to announce the coming
Messiah or the way in which Jesus is portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels as re-enacting
Israels experience during his forty-day temptation. The desert was a place of solitude,
testing and formation, all of which are themes of the ascetic life as it was pursued in
the 3rd and 4th centuries.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Christians who wanted to be serious about their faith
in the face of an increasingly opulent and sometimes decadent Church often retired to
the desert to find simplicity, faith and spiritual rigour. Although we may find some
ascetic practices austere and extreme, they were not pursued for their own sake nor
because monks followed gnostic views of the evil nature of matter or the inferior status
52 Harvey, p615
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of the physical body. Rather, the denial of physical appetites was considered to be a
training of the body to be more aware of its spiritual component. It must be
remembered that the Greek word askesis from which the term ascetic has recently
been derived (the term itself was not used by those we describe as ascetics) is
derived from the ancient term for training. Thus, at its best the desert ascetic life was
pursued in order to be nearer to and to glorify God; at its worst it could be a self-
indulgent quest for vainglory. There is no doubt that the desert holy men and women
were highly regarded by every day Christians many of whom resorted to them for
healing, counsel and teaching. For their part, most ascetics sincerely believed that
they were merely living the Christian life in accordance with the teachings of Christ
and their solitary pursuit of holiness was balanced by service to the poor. Ferguson
commented: In the fourth century, champions of monasticism treated it not as a
special form of Christian life, as it was to come to be later, but as the actualization of
what was in principal demanded of all Christians.53
As the number of desert ascetics grew, they began to form loosely organised cenobitic
groups. The word cenobite comes from the Greek word for communal or common
life. They would live in separate proximate locations or cells for solitary contemplation
and meet two or three times a week for corporate worship and to celebrate the
Eucharist. This seems to be something akin to what Antony practised in Lower Egypt.
However, this was to mature into a more organised form of monasticism under the
leadership of Pachomius.
6. Consolidation and advance: Medieval monasticism as Mission
i) Pachomius (292- 346)
Pachomius was conscripted in 311 into the army of the Emperor Licinius to join his
fight against Maximin Daia for control of the eastern half of the divided empire. He was
shipped from his village via Alexandria to Thebes where in prison with fellow conscripts
he was visited by Christians who brought food and assistance as an act of charity.
This was the means of his conversion: Pachomius never forgot that acts of charity
were an essential part of the Christian life and this perception was to influence his view
of the monastic life. After the war was over in 313, Pachomius settled near the desert
village of Seneset where he received instruction and was baptised. Impelled by the
idea that service of God entailed service to fellow Christians he engaged in works of
charity and, like Antony, became the disciple of an eremitic ascetic living nearby.
Joined by his brother John, he moved to Tabennesi where he planned to live the
ascetic life of a hermit in a cenobitic setting. However, attracted by his saintliness,
many other ascetics gathered around him and, after a reputed vision from God, he
was convinced that he was called to build a monastery. Pachomius introduced the first
53 Ferguson, p. 229
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settled rules for community living established around the twin pillars of prayer and
service to the community. His influence was so great that some of the best
contemporary exponents of asceticism joined his movement and a chain of
monasteries developed with a central headquarters. Perhaps because of his military
experience, Pachomius proved to be a gifted administrator as well as a charismatic
leader and his influence stretched widely so that a whole region was covered with
monastic settlements. Jerome extravagantly claimed 50,000 monks joined the
movement. This is certainly wide of the mark; nevertheless the evidence suggests a
significant tally over of 10,000 men and women were monasticised and his settlements
were described as a city in the desert.
ii) John Cassian (ca 360 - 435)
After Pachomius death in 346 there was an internal battle for leadership succession
and this amazing movement died away, but not before it had affected the lives of
thousands and set a trajectory for the future of monasticism as a spiritual force and a
missional movement. One of the bridges for this development was Saint John Cassian
(also known as John the Ascetic) who was born to a wealthy family in Scythia, a region
which now spans Romania and Bulgaria. He is well known for his mystical writings in
both Latin and Greek which bear the marks of his classical education showing the
influence of Cicero and Persius on his Christian thought. Together with an older friend
he entered a hermitage in Bethlehem for three years before travelling to Scete which
was in the throes of the aftermath of the monastic succession following the death of
Pachomius. Nevertheless, he was deeply influenced by the organisational model that
he encountered there which he was to call upon at a later date. About 15 years later
in 399, he and his friend Germanus fled for their lives from Alexandria to
Constantinople as the Churches in the city were torn apart by theological controversy
over the nature of God. They appealed to John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of
Constantinople who took Cassian under his protection and ordained him as a deacon.
When Chrysostom himself was exiled as the result of a quarrel with the imperial family
he sent Cassian to Rome to plead his cause with Pope Innocent I. As a result of this
visit, Cassian, now a priest, was commissioned to go to Marseilles to establish a
monastery along Egyptian lines thus bringing eastern monasticism to Europe. His
foundation around 415 resulted in a complex of monasteries for both men and women
providing a model for later European monasticism which, in time, was to fuel
missionary activity among Pagans from France to northern Germany. Cassians
writings influenced St Benedict (Ca 481-543) who established several monasteries in
Italy and wrote St Benedicts Rule, a set of principles for life in independent
monasteries but which has provided a model for several different missionary monastic
orders over the centuries.
iii) Martin of Tours (c.316-c.397)
Martin was born in Pannonia (now Szombathel in Hungary) and grew up in northern
Italy where his father was a tribune (senior officer) in the Imperial cavalry. At the age
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of 10, to his fathers dismay he became a catechumen and was baptised into the
Church. At age 15 he, too, joined the cavalry; it is not clear how long he remained in
the military but, according to his biographer before an impending battle against the
Gauls, near to Worms, he decided that as a Christian he could not shed blood saying,
"I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight." Charged with cowardice he was jailed and
declared a traitor but the battle never took place and he was discharged from the army
whereupon he travelled to Tours and became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers.
During the Arian controversy Hilary was exiled and Martin was forced to flee returning
home where he managed to convert his mother and other family members but his not
his father before spending some time as a hermit until Hilary was reinstated to his
diocese where Martin re-joined him building a monastery later to become the
Benedictine Ligug Abbey, one of the oldest monastic foundations in Europe. Martin
toured western Gaul on apostolic journeys converting pagan tribes-people and
building small wooden monasteries as outposts wherever he went. His approach to
winning pagans was aggressive, often demolishing their temples before preaching to
them about the gospel of peace! The hagiography surrounding Martin is replete with
tales of miracles including healings.
After being proclaimed Bishop of Tours he established a prototype parish system and
continued his evangelistic travels by donkey, on foot or by boat establishing monastic
communities as he went in order to secure the gains he had made and to provide a
missional example of Christian living which extended to agriculture and education,
Asceticism had come a long way along the missional route since its beginnings in the
deserts of Egypt and Syria.
7. Monastic mission in the British Isles:
The story of missions in the medieval period is not all one of political manoeuvring;
there is another side to the story. Christian lands were themselves subject to invasion
and conquest. In the 8th and 9th century France and Britain in particular were ravaged
by raids from Vikings and Norsemen who pillaged and looted monasteries that had
been established by Christian missionaries who had come from Rome to bring the
gospel to the local tribes. Yet, each time, the monks who considered that they were
there for the long haul returned to regroup, rebuild and re-establish communities of
faith that brought an eternal dimension into localities previously dominated by
superstition and primitive practices. During a period of barbarism and social chaos in
the 7th century it was the monasteries in Ireland and England that kept learning alive
and it was from them that scholars were drawn to fuel the renaissance of education
and learning fostered by Charlemagne a century later.
It is known that there were Christians in Britain by the end of the second century, prior
to Charlemagnes reign in Europe, mainly drawn from the Roman military as well as
Roman merchants and landowners. Three British bishops were present at the Council
of Arles in 314, an indication that, in Britain, the faith was spreading. A British monk
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named Ninian (360-432) who was trained in Rome, visited St Martin of Tours where
he was impressed with the idea that to be a monk was to be a missionary. He moved
to Galloway in Scotland where he evangelised the southern Picts. Ninian has been
dubbed by biographers as the apostle of Scotland. In the same period Patrick (389-
461) evangelised the Celtic tribes of Ireland setting up monastic communities to
conserve and advance his efforts. Patrick was born into a Christian family in the
northwest of England from where as a youth he was kidnapped by pirates and sold
into slavery in Ireland. He escaped and fled to Gaul where he was taken into a
monastery becoming a monk only to return to Ireland where he laid the foundation for
Celtic Christianity.
After 402CE when the Romans withdrew from Britain, a series of Scandinavian and
Germanic invasions saw an onslaught against the monasteries and other Christian
centres, bringing with it a fresh resurgence of paganism. It was against this
background that Roman missionaries were sent to Britain. Augustine of Canterbury
(so called to distinguish him from his more famous namesake) was dispatched by
Pope Gregory in 596 along with forty other monks to begin the evangelisation of
England. However, Celtic monks were already active as missionaries in other parts of
Britain notably Columba (521-597) who set up his base on the island of Iona off the
southwest coast of Scotland and Aidan who established himself on the island of
Lindisfarne in 635 to become a missionary to Northumbria at the invitation of king
Oswald. The Irish monk Columbanus, who was a notable scholar, evangelised on the
continent where he set up monasteries in eastern France and northern Italy.
Everett Ferguson commented:
When Roman missionaries came to England at the end of the sixth century,
there were already three expressions of Christianity in the British Isles: (1) old
Romano-British Christians, pushed back to Wales and Cornwall; (2) Irish
Christians, representing a purified and intensified form of Christianity
introduced by Patrick; and (3) Iro-Scottish Christians, who came from Ireland to
Scotland.54
Roman and Celtic missionaries adopted different mission tactics; both groups
preached the gospel as they understood it but the Roman missionaries were more
likely to use coercion to persuade pagans to become Christians Their policy was to
destroy everything that was perceived as inconsistent with Christianity while adapting
to Christian purposes or taking over every religious practice that could be used to
provide continuity in the religious life of its followers. In one of his letters instructing his
mission force Gregory the Great wrote; Take down their idols and consecrate their
temples.55 Part of this strategy was to impose Roman organisational structures on
the adherents of the new religion. Thus bishops were a more important part of their
54 Ferguson, 2005, p. 354

55 Gregory the Great, Epistle 11.76 quoted in Ferguson 2005 p. 355
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strategy than were the monks although monks were frontline missionaries they were
answerable to the bishops.
In contrast, Celtic missionary strategy centred around monastic communities which

did not necessarily begin with cloistered buildings rather they were based on
communal life which was designed to be a demonstration of the way in which the
gospel was to be lived out. A typical Celtic mission base would include tradesmen and
artisans, as well as teachers. Together the community as a whole could show potential
pagan converts a different way of living.
These communities related to clan life and abbots, much like clan chiefs, were the
outstanding religious leaders. Bishops were much less important in the Celtic set up.
These communities were characterised by missionary zeal as each Christian was
expected to communicate the gospel to others. They were therefore much more
mobile and perignatio or pilgrimage formed an important part of penance. Pilgrimage
was not so much to a revered holy site as to making a penitential journey for the
perfection of the individual monk who must help whoever he met on the journey, thus
sharing the gospel along the way.
Celtic monks depended upon the Spirit and their journeys were often spontaneous.
There are stories of monks putting to sea in coracles allowing the wind to take them
where it would with a view to evangelising wherever they made landfall. Some of their
journeying was much more strategic and Celtic monks travelled through Europe along
rivers such as the Rhine establishing new Christian communities and building
monasteries as they went. These Celtic missionaries have been credited with re-
evangelising large parts of Europe in their day and they established bases as far afield
as Kiev.
Celtic Christians were lovers of nature and took over from paganism a belief that God
revealed Himself through nature as well as the Word. They incorporated sinuous
nature carvings into their monuments and used natural forms to explain the gospel.
Patricks well-known use of the three leaves of the shamrock to explain the Trinity is
typical of their practice. Instead of destroying local culture they tended to adapt it and
reinvent it for Christian purposes.
The Celtic monks often confronted warring kings with the gospel of peace and
intervened in inter-clan disputes to explain the way of Christ in order to bring peace
and justice. They relied heavily on prayer and miracles to demonstrate the gospel and
both miraculous healing and medical treatment formed part of their gospel. The Celts
valued womens ministry much more highly than the Romans and many monastic
communities were mixed and in some cases were led by an abbess. The two most
important buildings in a monastic compound were the library and the prayer house
followed closely by the hospital (the centre of hospitality, not just of medical treatment).
Celtic Christianity was rigorous and ascetic in its practices placing great store on
penitential practices in order to maintain a strict religious life. There was strong
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emphasis on keeping the body subject to the spirit and some of the Celtic saints went
to extreme lengths to subdue their bodies which they saw as a source of temptation.
There are stories of monks who chained themselves to stakes in the rising Atlantic
winter tides in order to discipline their bodies. At the same time, they had a love for
music, poetry and art, producing some of the most exquisite illuminated manuscripts
which were seen as acts of worship and were designed to portray the gospel. The
most noted example is probably the Book of Kells in Dublin.
In the late 7th and well on into the 8th centuries, as a result of the success of much of
the Roman mission in England, large numbers of Anglo-Saxon missionaries loyal to
Rome followed their Celtic forbears as missionaries on the continent. Much of their
activity was among their continental Saxon cousins as well as the Germanic tribes.
Notable among these missionaries was Boniface who was born in Wessex and
educated in monasteries first in Exeter and then in Winchester before working among
the Franks and the Frisians where he saw mass conversions. Boniface became first
bishop and subsequently archbishop without a fixed diocese although he set up his
base in Mainz from where he reformed the Church structures where it had become
lax. He was involved in civil politics rebuking kings and engaging in their civil councils.
Boniface finally returned to Frisia where he was martyred by pagan warriors in 754
while preparing converts for baptism. Believing in a gospel of peace, neither he nor
his co-labourers offered any resistance to their attackers. He was to remain an
outstanding example of the way in which monasticism, which began in Syria and Egypt
in the 3rd century, was to become a missional force which helped preserve both
Church and gospel.
Reader on Moodle: Ferguson, Everrett, Church History Vol 1, from Christ to Pre-
Reformation, Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2005. Chapter 12: The Church in the
Fourth and Early Fifth Centuries.
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Session 8: Conversion of Emperor and Empire?
by Dick Whitehouse
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this session a good student will be able to:
1. Understand the importance of Constantine for the future of medieval

Christianity
2. Explain the states role in the development of Church doctrine
3. Analyse the relationship between political and religious power leading to the
Christendom settlement
4. Assess the extent of political power as a missional force and evaluate its role
in your own context
Required reading:
Textbook: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (USA: Thomas Nelson,
2008) pp. 91-98
1. Prelude to Constantine empire and career
Did the Christian movement convert the Roman Empire or was it the Empire that
subverted Christianity? That is the central question that will tax our thinking in this
session and it is a complex and fascinating one that poses a number of other related
questions questions to which religious and social historians have found it difficult to
give a definitive answer. Commenting on the course of history after the accession of
Constantine to the throne and the way in which the Church developed its thinking,
Lesslie Newbigin tellingly commented:
The Church of the first three centuries was essentially a martyr church, bearing
witness against the public doctrine of the time. It could have accepted, but did
not accept, the protection offered by Roman law to the private exercise of
religion as a way of personal salvation. Though a small minority, it challenged
the public doctrine of the time as false and paid the price. When the old
classical worldview lost its confidence and disintegrated, it was perhaps
inevitable that the ruling power should turn to the Church as the integrating
power for a new social order. That had enormous consequences for good over
the succeeding millennium. It created the Christian civilization of Europe. But it
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also led the Church into the fatal temptation to use the secular power to enforce
conformity to Christian teaching.56
In this session we will be tracing some of the ramifications of this statement and its
implications for missional thinking.
When Diocletian divided the Empire in 284 assuming responsibility for the eastern
provinces he appointed Galerius as his Caesar, or second in command, while handing
over the Western half of the Empire to Maximian who chose Constantius to be Caesar
alongside him. Constantius took charge of the furthermost western edge of the
Empire, basing himself in York. He was a Neoplatonist embracing a popular pagan
form of monotheism which regarded the sun as the supreme deity. Constantius son,
Constantine, at age 23 was an ambitious young military officer being trained by
Diocletian in his court in Nicomedia to succeed his father in the West. Galerius was
suspicious of Constantine and when Diocletian became ill and was forced to abdicate
along with Maximian, he made sure that Constantine was kept at court in the East.
Galerius was now Augustus (Emperor) in the East and Constantius took on that role
in the West. Galerius, as we saw in a previous unit, increased the severity of
persecution of Christians under his jurisdiction but Constantius in the West was much
more lenient as he leaned towards Christianity. Constantius first wife, Helena,
Constantines mother, was a Christian although Constantius divorced her sometime
before 289 in order to marry the daughter of Maximian in what seems to have been a
political alliance aimed at consolidating her new husbands position. Helen was
banished to Diocletians court in Nicomedia along with her son in order to keep the
balance of power.
When Constantius fell ill in 306 Constantine obtained permission from Galerius to visit
his father. Almost immediately, Galerius rescinded his order but it was too late,
Constantine had already left for Britain arriving just in time to see his father who was
on his deathbed. As soon as the father died, the army acclaimed Constantine as
Augustus in his place. This was barely a legal appointment but over the next two years
in a series of military campaigns he proceeded to take over most of the territory which
his father had previously ruled as the official Caesar. During this period he minted
coins bearing the image of the sun god as his patron replacing the slogan To the
Genius of the Roman People which adorned previous coinage. Thus, Constantine
was making a political statement based on a declaration of monotheism though not an
adherence to Christianity. At the same time, he did have Christian advisers one of
whom was Hosius, Bishop of Cordova.
In 312 Constantine advanced through northern Italy in order to confront his rival
Maxentius in Rome who was bidding to be the official Emperor. The final showdown
between the two was, to some extent, a battle of religious loyalties. Maxentius
favoured the traditional gods although he was relatively tolerant towards Christians
56 Newbigin, Lesslie, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, London, SPCK, 1989, p. 223
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under his rule and he elevated his father, murdered by Constantine in 310, to the status
of divinity. After consulting pagan oracles which encouraged him to confront his
enemy in open pitched battle, Maxentius decided to cross the Tiber and face his
opponents army away from the safety of Rome. Constantines smaller force routed
the army of Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge and he marched into Rome as the new de
facto Emperor.
Prior to the battle Constantine reported some kind of religious experience which he
interpreted as a sign that the Christian god was on his side. Eusebius of Caesarea,
the 4th century church historian, claims that Constantine saw a sign in the sky brighter
than the midday sun followed the next night by a dream of Jesus Christ. According to
Lactantius the Latin apologist, in this dream he was told to emblaze the Chi-Rho
monogram formed from the first two letters of the name of Christ on his soldiers
shields. Certainly, from 215 this device appeared on Constantines coinage and
although for worshippers of Zeus it could be taken as his symbol of the two headed
axe it was widely regarded as an indication of Constantines commitment to
Christianity. Nevertheless, the triumphal arch erected in Rome to commemorate
Constantines victory honoured the sun as patron god of the Empire as did his
commemorative coinage. (Coins were an important way of declaring official policy in
an age devoid of mass communication). Perhaps the distinction between a
monotheistic faith in the sun god and God the Son was not yet clear to the Emperor
and, indeed, there are isolated cases of Christian bishops who did not make the
distinction at this stage of the Churchs story and, as we shall see, Christian
understanding of the identity of Christ had yet to be worked out in detail. This was a
process in which the new emperor was to become personally involved.
Eusebius portrays the pre-battle events as the new Emperors conversion experience,
but we must exercise some caution about this evaluation as Eusebius was as much
apologist as serious historian and, in any case, historiography was not a rigorous
discipline as early as this. However, victory over superior forces was definitely taken
to be some sort of divine intervention and from this time onwards Constantine favoured
the Church thus slowly shifting the balance of religious and political power in the
Empire.
A significant factor in Constantines defeat of Maxentius lay in the fact that in the east
a similar struggle was taking place when Licinius bid for power was countered by
Maximin Thrax. Maximin persecuted Christians and pushed for the re-establishment
of pagan faith as the keystone of a stable empire in the east. He pointed to bumper
harvests as a proof that the gods approved of his reign. As Frend commented: it was
the pagan version of Constantines view that the security of the Empire rested on the
right worship of the Divinity or, we might say the worship of the right divinity! 57
Maxentius had written to Maximin for aid in his fight against Constantine, but Licinius
who was betrothed to Constantines sister (as was Constantine to the sister of
57 Frend, W.H.C., The Early Church From the Beginnings to 461, London, SCM, 1991, p. 122
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Licinius!) held Maximin off. Meantime, Maximin was defeated in battle against the
Christian kingdom of Armenia thus vindicating Licinius policy of cultivating those areas
of the Eastern Empire whose loyalty was largely Christian. This pro-Christian policy
predated that of Constantine by at least 18 months. Clearly, loyalty to the practice of
monotheism in general and to Christian worship in particular was an effective strategy
of statecraft prompting the question as to whether Constantines conversion was
genuine, cynical or merely pragmatic.
2. Constantines personal faith and the beginnings of Christendom
Maximin had still to be finally defeated and when he invaded Licinius territory in
Thrace, Constantine commanded him to pull back. Licinius finally faced him on the
30th April 313 on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. According to Lactantius, Licinius
also had a pre-battle vision - he reported nightly dreams of an angel who dictated a
prayer to the Highest God which he made his soldiers repeat before the battle which
they convincingly won. Following this victory, Constantine and Licinius jointly issued
the Edict of Milan in 313 giving freedom of religious expression to all men. The
existence of such an edict has been disputed by some scholars on the grounds that
no such document has physically survived; nevertheless, it need not be doubted as its
provisions are referred to in surviving official letters from Licinius to some of his
governors and is commented on by the apologist Lacantius who could scarcely have
appealed to something that did not exist as it could be questioned by his opponents.
The Edict was not aimed specifically at Christians although it particularly favoured
them. On Constantines part, it meant the restoration of Christian property and the right
to public recognition including, in due course, the right of Christian priests to receive
the same tax benefits accorded to pagan priests. For now, Christianity was not
regarded as the official state religion, but as one that was finally granted state
recognition and to which civic benefits were extended.
Constantines Christian faith was a developing affair; his transition from a sun
worshipper to a worshipper of the Son may not have been a straight line development.
He is alleged to have told Eusebius of Caesarea many years later that before a battle
(possibly not that against Maxentius, but an earlier one against the Franks) he saw the
cross against the midday sun bearing the legend in this sign conquer. Lactantius
conflation of this legend with the pre-Milvian Bridge experience may be a
misunderstanding or a deliberate piece of pro- Christian propaganda. Nevertheless, it
shows that in Constantines mind there was no necessary conflict between
worshipping the sun and giving homage to Jesus Christ. Henry Chadwick makes the
point:
In other words, Constantine was not aware of any mutual exclusiveness

between Christianity and his faith in the Unconquered Sun. The transition from
solar monotheism (the most popular form of contemporary paganism) to
Christianity was not difficult. In Old Testament prophecy Christ was entitled the
sun of righteousness. Clement of Alexandria (c. A.D. 200) speaks of Christ
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driving his chariot across the sky like the Sun-god. A tomb mosaic recently
found at Rome, probably made early in the fourth century, depicts Christ as the
Sun-god mounting the heavens with his chariotIf Constantines coins long
continued to be engraved with the symbolic representation of the Sun, his
letters from 313 onwards leave no doubt that he regarded himself as a Christian
whose imperial duty it was to keep a united Church. He was not baptized until
he lay dying in 337, but this implies no doubt about his Christian belief. It was
common at this time (and continued so until about A.D. 400) to postpone
baptism to the end on ones life, especially if ones duty as an official included
torture and execution of criminals.58[
We will later take up the issue of Constantines determination to maintain peace and
unity in the Church something in which he was to fail abysmally because it formed
part of his policy for civic imperial peace. There can be little doubt that in the face of
crumbling pagan values and the loss of the old civic virtues extolled under the Genius
of Rome, he saw a common and united Christian faith as the means to cementing a
fractured Empire. However, we will first look at some of the outcomes of imperial
patronage for the development of the Church particularly in the West.
There can be little doubt but that Constantine came to see his role as promoting the
Church in such a way that there would be one empire united under one emperor which
would be held together by a universal church. What he sought to do during his lifetime
did not bring about this ideal, consequently the Roman Empire under his rule did not
constitute what has since come to be termed as Christendom i.e. a religio-political
arrangement where state and Church were two sides of the same coin. His sons were
to take his policy further to the point of enforcing Christianity as the official religion with
accompanying implied persecution of pagans. Nevertheless, what he did and what he
sought to achieve would eventually lead to such a settlement and, in the interim, posed
a number of questions which still resonate, in terms of Church-state relations and the
overall mission of the Church, today.
The immediate consequences of Constantines promotion of Christianity were to have

a permanent effect on the Church in the future. The Church was brought out into the
open and it now had a significant part to play on the public square. Indeed, this was
part of the Emperors strategy for his domains; the Church was meant to reintroduce
moral integrity and a sense of purpose into public life, but this time not governed by
pagan civic virtues of public service to the gods on the part of a privileged few aimed
at the aggrandisement and benefit of the state and justice for those already in power.
Rather, public life was meant to be governed by a sense of obligation to one Lord
which equated Roman citizenship with eventual citizenship of heaven. In the process
this would unite the Empire and maintain its role in the world.
58Chadwick Henry, The History of the Early Church, Revised Edition, Vol. One, London, Penguin
Books,1993. p.127f.
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Constantine made generous donations to the Church and, while he did not ostracise
pagans, the ablest of whom he included in his court, he did privilege Christian clergy.
He even allowed the Church to conduct its own courts operating under canon law to
settle internal disputes without going to the magistrates. This move is somewhat akin
to the suggestion of Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, that
Muslims in this country should be allowed to operate Shariah law in their own religious
courts. When later disputes in the Church extended beyond moral or legal matters to
doctrinal issues the Church was allowed to convene its own Councils a sort of higher
court of appeal however, these were too important to be totally independent of the
state and, as its leading Christian, Constantine was often present at them or was
represented by bishops who were his envoys. Indeed, as we shall see, he set a
precedent for state interference in doctrinal matters by calling specific Councils into
being. For him, the unity and peace of the Church was too important a matter for it to
be left to its own devices; the unity of the Church and the unity of the Empire were
inextricably bound together.
Constantine sponsored ambitious Church building projects in some metropolitan

centres and handed over some pagan temples for Christian use. These new buildings
often took the form of a basilica with a spacious nave and an apse at the end for pulpit
and altar thus changing the focus of worship. The process by which Churches moved
from familial gatherings in homes to larger public worship spaces was thus
accelerated. As congregations expanded there was a move from dialogical teaching
to performative declaration; from gathering around the Lords table at a love feast (as
evidenced by Plinys investigations into Christian behaviour at the turn of the 1st and
2nd centuries) to priestly celebration of a re-enacted sacrifice at an altar; from
congregational participation to passive observation. All of this was to have far reaching
consequences for the emerging form of Christendom Church practice.
A further and perhaps the most radical consequence of imperial patronage for the
future of the Church was the political influence that was handed to it. Far from being,
at best, marginal people looked on with suspicion and disdain, Christians were now
elevated to positions of influence and authority in the court and in public life generally.
Along with this came the temptation to use political prominence for personal advantage
and the priesthood came to be a stepping stone to prominence and public influence.
At the same time, there was a tendency for the state to almost regard Church
structures as an instrument of government. At its best, the Church was an aid to good
government, at worst clergy came to be regarded as civil servants, mere instruments
of the state.
There is clear evidence for a Christian presence in the Roman army for maybe 150
years prior to Constantine, but now that the Empire was headed by a warrior king who
professed the faith, the pacifist roots of early Christianity were further attenuated. After
all, the army was there to protect an empire that safeguarded the Church. Issues of
conscience over fighting and bloodshed gave way to a theory of just wars which
eventually gave licence for Christians to regard warfare as a means of mission.
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These are not the only results of imperial patronage raised by Constantines
conversion, but they are some of the most important and far reaching for the future of
an emerging Christendom. You may wish to trace more effects in the light of your
readers, but we will go on to tease out what all of this means for our study of missional
Church.
3. The Churchs relationship to political power
It has been fashionable among scholars reading the history of the early church to see
the accession of Constantine to the throne and his adoption of the Christian faith as a
fall away from the pristine purity of the Churchs progress from the teaching of Jesus
of Nazareth towards the coming of kingdom he had proclaimed. Prominent among
these have been Anabaptist Church historians and such leading thinkers as Mennonite
apologist John Howard Yoder who studied under Karl Barth. For him, and others taking
a similar line of reasoning, Constantine was a disaster for the Church since he forged
a state-church relationship which distorted mission and from which the Church has
never fully recovered. This is an issue of the gospel and culture which will not go away;
whatever stance we may take on the relationship between Church and state it remains
true that the gospel has implications for political power and it is Constantine that raises
these questions in their most acute form.
The position adopted by Yoder and others has been questioned by Peter J. Leithart in
his book; Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of
Christendom. In the introduction to his book Leithart said:
I have found that, far from representing a fall for the church, Constantine
provides in many respects a model for Christian political practice. At the very
least, his reign provides rich material for reflection on a whole series of
perennial political-theological questions: about religious toleration and
coercion, about the legitimacy of Christian involvement in political life, about a
Christian rulers relationship to the church, about how Christianity should
influence civil law, about the propriety of violent coercion, about the legitimacy
of empire.59
This observation suggests that we need to think through our understanding of

Constantinianism and of the model of Christendom that grew from it. Was it inevitable
or could it have been avoided? Newbigin was of the opinion that, while not everything
that arose as a result of the Christendom phase of the Churchs history was ideal, it is
difficult to see how Church leaders could have done otherwise.60 The fact is that since
its inception Christianity has inevitably been related to political power in one form or
another. In the early stages the Christian movement stood aloof from political power
but, even then, it had to work out its attitude to the state which varied from both Peter
59 Leithart Peter J., Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom.
Downers Grove, IVP, 2010. p.11
60 Newbigin Lesslie, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p.223
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and Pauls injunctions to good citizenship which saw the power of government as God-
given to the implicit verdict made by the writer of Revelation which saw the Roman
state as under Gods judgement. It is possible to reconcile both attitudes but it was not
possible for the Church to be totally neutral in its stance towards secular power. Jesus
himself pointed to this dilemma when He distinguished between loyalty and
responsibility towards Caesar and God. His answer left His followers to work out what
was Caesars and what was Gods, but the clear implication is that commitment to God
comes first. Once the Church itself became a significant social force, both Church and
government had to recalibrate their response. It may be argued that, whether
Constantines conversion was genuine or merely a matter of canny political policy it
was inevitable that Roman government was going to have to accommodate to some
new realities.
By the time of Constantines accession to the throne the spread of Christianity and its
social influence were such that it had to be taken into account if the empire was to be
governed effectively. As we have seen, even Licinius although remaining a pagan
found that it was to his advantage to extend toleration and even privileges to the
significant Christian presence in his domains. Towards the end of his reign at the
eastern end of the empire there were border skirmishes with Constantines troops and
in 315 Constantine invaded and took over the province of Pannonia which was largely
Christian. Licinius began to see that his days as co-emperor might be numbered and
that in the event of further conflict between him and Constantine the latter would likely
appeal to the loyalty of Christians in the eastern provinces. Licinius therefore reversed
his pro-Christian public policy and began to repress the Church. This gave Constantine
the excuse to move in and in 324 after a series of battles which dislodged Licinius from
his capital of Byzantium he was final defeated on the shores of the Bosphorus opposite
Byzantium which would eventually become Constantines capital city renamed
Constantinople.
What all of this points towards, is that the extensive Christian presence in society had
become a factor which rulers and governors had to take into account. Like it or not,
Christianity was now a political force to be reckoned with; consequently, whether or
not the Church entered directly into wielding political power, it had become a power
broker in society. It seems that by the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries this had become
inevitable.
By the last quarter of the 3rd century, particularly under the reign of Diocletian, the cost
of maintaining the Roman Empire was escalating. Peace on the Balkan frontiers could
only be maintained with a heavy military presence and the cost of maintaining the
infrastructure of government and of roads throughout the Empire was mounting
rapidly. Revenues could only be maintained at the cost of higher taxation much of
which fell on rural areas impoverishing the peasantry. In the midst of this, Christian
practice of justice and preaching individual freedom made the Church an attractive
haven and a focus of protest. Prior to this Christianity had been a largely urban
phenomenon but now it was beginning to spread throughout rural areas particularly in
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North Africa and Asia Minor as well as in Egypt around Alexandria. At the same time,
the Church was beginning to become more uniform with an established pattern of
priesthood which led to an administrative hierarchy. Churches were beginning to be
arranged on a parish basis where rural churches tended to be supervised from larger
urban centres although, particularly in Numidia in North Africa, rural Churches could
become centres of dissent. They tended to retain a more apocalyptic outlook and to
adhere more strictly to the letter of Scripture. This meant that large areas which were
becoming disaffected with the paganism espoused by the Roman patrician governing
class were ripe for turning to Christianity as an attractive alternative. Moreover, North
Africa had become overwhelmingly Christian as had Lower Egypt and the city of
Alexandria and neither of these could be ignored since they were the major grain
producing areas, the bread baskets of the western and eastern empires respectively.
They wielded immense economic power.
What all of this means is that Christianity was becoming more extensive, better
organised and more aware of its own social and economic status. It was, in effect,
becoming a political force. Added to this is the fact that the clergy, who were still rarely
full time officials, were generally regarded as people of integrity so that many of them
attained to public office becoming instruments of government at a secular level.
Whether Constantine had converted to Christianity or not, he would have had to take
this significant Christian presence into account in forming public policy. The evidence
is that he saw it as a positive force which could help to remake and unite the Empire
at a time when it was beginning to crumble.
4. Parameters of Church/State power: Constantines involvement in

Church affairs
We have seen that Constantines concern for Church and empire were in parallel
since he saw unity in the one as a means to maintaining unity in the other. Thus, his
personal involvement in Church Councils was not an accident nor was it merely a
matter of the enthusiastic involvement of a keen amateur theologian who was the
highest ranking lay Christian in the empire. In fact, he was often reluctant to carry his
involvement in Church decisions too far.
The first controversy to attract his attention was the quarrel between factions in the
North African Church over dealing with the re-admission of lapsed Christians to the
Church who had denied the faith under persecution. At issue was whether the
Church was to be regarded as a gathered body a fortress of elect and strict saints
or a mixed multitude - a hospital for sinners. When Mensurius the bishop of
Carthage died in 312, Caecilian was elected as his successor and when Constantine
came to the throne he made a generous financial grant to Caecilian to be applied to
Church funds as a thanksgiving for his victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
Caecilians policy towards re-admission of the lapsed was fairly lenient involving
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penance and confession. Meantime, the Numidian bishops who traditionally had a
say in the appointment of the bishop of Carthage objected to Caecilians
appointment and ordained Majorinus as a rival bishop who represented their stricter
attitude towards the lapsed. Majorinus was eventually to be succeeded as rival
bishop by Donatus who was even more hard line in his attitude. The ensuing
controversy which became known as the Donatist Controversy was not easily
resolved and the Donatists formed a separatist puritanical Church which for some
time exceeded the orthodox in numbers since they were enthusiastically missionary
in their approach.
Constantines attitude throughout was to seek to maintain the unity of the empire
through the right worship of the supreme God and he was constitutionally opposed to
extremists seeking to force their opinions on the majority. In line with this, in 213 he
instructed the Pro-consul of Africa not only to recognise Caecilian as Bishop of
Carthage but also grant tax exemption to all clergy in communion with him. This
gave a financial advantage to the orthodox and his opponents protested by making
an appeal to the Emperor to appoint bishops from Gaul where there had been no
persecution to arbitrate in the dispute. His response was to call Caecilian with ten of
his own bishops along with the same number of his opponents to Rome where the
dispute was to be judged by Bishop Miltiades and three bishops from Gaul. Thus, the
tribunal was convened by the Emperor setting a precedent for his later actions by
calling actual Church Councils. Frend commented, at this stage Constantine seems
to have regarded the bishops as Civil Servants whose special function, however,
was to intercede with the Summus Deus [Supreme God] for the safety of the
Empire.61
Miltiades, who was Bishop of Rome, in effect turned this into a general Church
Council by summoning fifteen Italian Bishops to the table. Constantine loaned the
Lateran Palace, the house of his wife as the venue for this conference. Miltiades and
the majority found in favour of Caecilian and the orthodox party but after the death of
Majorinus and his succession by Donatus another appeal was made to the Emperor
who convened a fresh Council at Arles, the capital of Gaul in 314. Again, the bishops
found in Caecilians favour a decision accepted by the Emperor, but the Donatists
became more intransigent causing a schism which dominated the North African
Church for over a hundred years and only disappeared when Islam annihilated both
Churches.
The pattern of Constantines involvement in Church disputes was to be repeated at

the Council of Nicaea where the battle was over the nature of Christ. This is an
important controversy which will be dealt with in detail in the theology units of this
course. The main point at issue was the divinity of Christ and how the distinction
between his human and divine natures was to be expressed or explained without
jeopardising the means of mans salvation. The dispute was a legacy of the theology
61 Frend p.129
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of Origen, the Alexandrian Church Father. He adopted a logos theology in relation to
the nature of Christ since he wished to make the faith intelligible to Greek thinkers.
However, his formulation of this theology was ambiguous and was to lead to
divergent interpretations. At the centre of the dispute was Arius an Alexandrian
presbyter and his Bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. It began as a local quarrel but
Arius enlisted the weighty support of bishops outside his See. The squabble
threatened the stability of the Greek Church so Constantine sent his friend Bishop
Hosius of Cordova to Alexandria in an attempt at reconciliation. When this failed he
decided to call a large-scale council of bishops to adjudicate to be held at Ancyra
(modern Ankara). In the event Constantine transferred the event to Nicaea nearer to
his current headquarters in Nicomedia so he could take personal control of
proceedings. This is widely regarded as he first ecumenical council because of the
breadth of representation. It was attended by 220 bishops and a number of
presbyters among whom was Athanasius who came as Bishop Alexanders scribe.
The attendees were mostly Greek although some bishops came from the west
together with two Roman presbyters sent to represent Pope Sylvester.
Constantine opened the debate urging the delegates to achieve unity and, thus,
peace. In the ensuing debate the Emperor suggested a key term - homoousios -
that was to help bring resolution, partly because of its ambiguity or, at least its
capability of being understood divergently. Chadwick commented:
The creed proposed for adoption by the council was sharply anti-Arian in its
affirmation that the Son is of one substance with the Father. Its concluding
anathema condemned the propositions that the Son is metaphysically or
morally inferior to the Father and belongs to the created order. Astonishingly
enough, after the strong partisanship apparent before the council, 218 out of
220 bishops signed the creed, a unanimity that must have gratified the
anxious emperor. It is, however, clear that the crucial terms of the creed were
not understood in a precisely identical sense by all the signatories. 62
The point of referring to this Council is not so much to investigate the details of the
debate as to raise the issue of state involvement in the development of Church
doctrine and the motivation that lay behind it. In all of Constantines interference in
Church disputes there was one issue at stake as far as he was concerned namely,
the unity of the Church and the hoped for unity of his empire that this was intended
to bring. Church affairs were, for him, part of state policy but it seems evident that his
growing faith was real and, while he involved himself in Church affairs, his baptism
prior to his death shows that as emperor he submitted himself to the Church, This
raises issues that were to be worked out in the model of Christendom that was to
grow out of Constantines example. He is credited with saying that he was bishop to
those without which seems to have meant that he was the bridge between the
62 Chadwick Henry, The Early Church, Revised Edition, Volume One, London, Penguin Books, 1993,
p. 130
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Church and the rest of his empire. As emperor his son Constantius was to take this
further since he later described himself as bishop of the bishops.
The concept of Christendom as a model of relationships between Church and state

grew out of Constantines approach to state/Church relationships and was to
dominate the history of the Church in the West for at least another fifteen hundred
years.
For Consideration:
1. How missional is Christendom?
2. Did or does Christendom end up confining the activities of the Church to

pastoral and teaching roles or does it allow for genuinely apostolic, prophetic
and evangelistic functions?
3. Is it ever appropriate to allow the state to seek to enforce Christian standards

or belief?
4. Would it be missionally advantageous today to disestablish the Church of

England?
Required reading:

Nelson, 2008) pp. 91-98
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Session 9: The Fall of the Western Roman Empire and Augustine and Gregory as Missional
Leaders
Session 9: The Fall of the Western Roman Empire and Augustine
and Gregory as Missional Leaders
by Andy Hardy
Learning Outcomes
1. understand some of the main circumstances the Church in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and
6th centuries AD had to respond to,
2. evaluate what made Augustine and Gregory the Great good examples of
missional leaders suited to their periods of Church history.
Required Reading:

Nelson, 2008) pp. 163-172
AND
Reader on Moodle: Brown, P., (2013), The Rise of Western Christendom Triumph
and Diversity, AD 200-1000, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 190-216. (PDF
Reader)
Introduction
It would be remiss of a short survey of Western Church history to miss the final end of
the western Roman Empire, as this module focuses on western Church history. As is
the case with any overview there are large deficiencies in what historical surveys can
cover, and it is important to be up front about this with participants. However, what
skimming over the surface of this important area of history at least offers are some
hints of what students may wish to read more about, in more extensive scholarly
volumes that discuss Christian Church history.
The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was a process spanning many centuries.
There is no absolute system of recording or discussing the processes that led to the
final downfall of the western Roman Empire. At best certain significant points in the
story of its decline can be highlighted to demonstrate what was a very complex
process, taking several centuries. Firstly, in this session we will consider some of the
missional challenges and opportunities which the decline and fall of the Roman Empire
in the West offered. Secondly, we will consider something of the work of Augustine
and then of Pope Gregory the Great, being good examples as they were of missional
leaders who lived, in the first case, in the period of the final fall, and in the latter about
100 years after it. In Augustine's (354 - 430AD) case we discover how a Church pastor
and bishop sought to develop a theology which would become a major theological
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Leaders
force in the development of the Roman Catholic faith, as well as in some important
aspects of Protestant and Evangelical faith. Augustine's aims were really to help the
Church to have a robust faith suited to the culture and context of western life in the
empire during the uncertain times of the empire's last days. In the case of Gregory
(540 - 604AD) we discover both a strong man of faith who led the Church of Rome
through a terrible time of unrest, as well as a spiritual leader who also proved to be a
leader of the highest political and civil character, during a period where Rome was a
city afloat like an unmoored ship without engines, amongst the threatening waves of
unrest challenged as Italy was like never before, by the Western European tribes.
The Missional Challenges and Opportunities for Christianity as the western

empire faltered and finally ended
The Third Century - the era of divisions and later re-unification
The Roman Empire of the third century AD faced high levels of political instability.
There had been a real crisis from 234 - 284AD which threatened the ongoing political
structures, that helped the empire exercise its hegemonic rule over its vast territories.
There was military anarchy, plague and political power struggles between various
provinces throughout the empire. By 258260, the empire had essentially become
three states consisting of firstly the Gallic Empire which included Gaul, Britannia and
Hispania. Secondly there was the Palmyrene Empire with provinces in Syria,
Palaestina and Aegyptus. Finally there was the Italian independent Roman Empire.
Emperor Aurelian (270275) later reunited these three pseudo-empires, which
required great tact and political will and strength to achieve. The real end to this period
of internal divisions was realised with the ascension and reforms of emperor Diocletian
in 284.
Emperor Diocletian (284 - 305) was in many ways a worthy emperor who helped the
tottering empire not to decentralise, and become a hotchpotch of competing states.
He initiated a number of far reaching political and economic reforms which aimed to
ensure that the Roman economic infrastructures did not go into meltdown. One of the
causes for the faltering of the Roman political machine had been based on economic
hardship, to some significant extent arising out of plague, poor crops and military
conflict. The reforms of Diocletian that stabilised the situation largely remained in place
until the final end of the Western Roman Empire, which bears testament to the robust
nature of their effectiveness to resolve economic and political tensions beyond his
reign. Diocletian is best known to Church history for his ferocious persecution of
Christians, which led to many dying for their faith, or with many others recanting their
faith to escape torture, imprisonment or death. In a real sense Diocletian's brutal
measures were the last ditch efforts of Roman paganism, which would soon recognise
Christ as Lord beginning in a small way as this did with the edict of Milan (313AD).
The challenges of persecution that had in many ways protected the faith from those
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Leaders
who did not have a deep commitment to give up all for the sake of Christ, now was
potentially challenged by the easier climate where it was safer to be a Christian.
Two major themes regarding mission can therefore be traced in the third century. On
the one hand the Church had in many ways been purer of faith and commitment during
the times of persecution. It was much harder to have a lukewarm faith which left people
with the opportunity to live a double life. The challenge to a Christian's faith, faced as
they often were with the choice to curse Christ and offer sacrifice to the emperor as
the true son of the gods, had a tendency to test each believer's commitment and
authenticity. The new circumstances that unfolded when Christianity was no longer
outlawed, had the potential to let believers settle down into a more relaxed lifestyle,
where particularly the more wealthy could live with double standards. Little changes.
There are challenges to mission outreach if Christianity is outlawed and there are
challenges to the purity and authenticity of faith if life is easy. Mission may successfully
move forward in each context, but each context puts different temptations before
believers. In the current western context believers have enjoyed a relatively
persecution free existence, yet their faith is being challenged from all directions by the
forces of secularisation. Key questions might be what are the specific challenges to
faith in today's climate and, what can we learn from the way the early Church handled
their challenges for today?
The 4th Century - continuing Western decline despite a hopeful beginning
The reign of emperor Constantine I (306 - 337), also known as Constantine the Great,
saw Christianity lose its atheist status and become for all intents and purposes a
legitimate religion of pre-eminent status and civil recognition. This was a hopeful start
to a new century after much disquieting change. It also led to challenges. For instance
what was the Church to do with those who had recanted their faith to escape
persecution? A high respect for those who quite literally bore the physical marks of
torture among Christian ranks, was maintained, and to some extent this further
emphasised the bipartite nature of those who seemed to be fair weather Christians.
The Churches struggled to find solutions to this situation - but it was grace that won
the day to a large extent, with those who had recanted being re-admitted to Churches
upon official profession of repentance and penance. However, not all agreed with this.
The Donatists in North Africa took the view that there could be no restitution to the
Church for those who had recanted their faith, during the persecutions. Whereas later
in the 5th century, Augustine of Hippo argued robustly that restitution should be
allowed. Divisions of this type were certainly hindrances to mission from the point of
view that it seemed that the gospel that taught grace and forgiveness, seemed to be
limited by such a theology of disallowance. On the other hand of course a case can
be made that only those who were staunch and pure of heart would keep the church
free from hypocrisy during this new era of freedom from persecution.
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Moreover, although Constantine did not officially convert to Christianity until his
deathbed, he saw the political opportunity Christianity offered to provide a social glue
that could help the Roman Empire remain united. A new kind of empire required a
new capital. Constantine's love of the eastern wing of the empire, and his desire to
keep the east and west united, led to him founding the new eastern capital in
Constantinople (now Istanbul in modern day Turkey) named after its founder. With the
establishment of Constantinople, Constantine in effect converted to Christianity, which
had the further effect of legalising and favouring the Christian religion. After the time
of Constantine I all Roman emperors were Christian (in name at least) except for
emperor Julian. After Constantine's death in 337AD there was a tentative period of
shaky stability, but the writing was on the wall when the Arian Visigoth tribes migrated
into the empire, as they sought to escape the war loving Huns, later in the 4th century.
At first it seemed that a Visigoth settlement would not pose great difficulties for the
empire, but soon unrest arose among Visigoth ranks as local Roman administrators
mistreated their people, which led to resentment then unrest and finally open rebellion.
This led to the so called first war with the Visigoths (376 - 382AD). The defining battle
happened at Adrianople (August 378AD) where a large Roman army led by emperor
Valens was defeated, and Valens lost his life. The role of the western European tribes
in the final downfall of the Western Roman Empire may be traced to this first decisive
victory of the Visigoths, over the once almost invincible Roman elite forces, which had
maintained the Roman provinces and the pax romana (Latin, Roman peace) for
several centuries. Although the final fall would not be until 476AD, some 98 years later,
the strength of the Roman military machine was starting to be challenged, in ways that
would lead to the inability to overcome continuous military incursions from the Arian
tribes.
The fact that the Visigoths were Arian in their Christian beliefs, posed a serious
challenge to the Latin wing of the Christian Churches in the West as well. The Nicene
Creed was most definitely anti-Arian in the perception of the Western Churches, and
emperor Theodosius I (379 - 395AD) worked hard to particularly establish Nicaean
Christianity as the state religion. He did this most vociferously by intensifying policies
against paganism rather than Arianism. However, it must be considered somewhat
ironic that the Latin Churches within the confines of the empire faced European tribes
that were fundamentally Arian, in their Christology at least. However, important
missional opportunities could be suggested with the incursions of the Visigoths and
later Arian tribes as well.
In the first place it demonstrates that Christianity had started to take a stronger hold
outside the empire, which at least offers support to the strength of the Christian
missionary faith to be embraced even by those who became the enemies of the
emerging Christian Roman West. Moreover, Christianity was not perceived with its
teaching about the saviour of the world to be a national Roman religion, but it
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transcended the older traditional boundaries where one nation would consider the
need for a stronger god to defeat a weaker nation's god. The Christian God, Arian that
the Visigoth faith was, did not foster a tribalistic view of god, which an attendant
theology of power associated with it might have done. Well, anyway, this may be
suggested to be a new ideal, which could lead to new ways of conceiving human
society, as time allowed for a view like this to develop. Of course human history is
replete with many examples of one Christian nation going to war with another, both
claiming God to be on their side. What has often helped Christians, even on opposite
sides among Christian warring nations, has been their identity as members of the
cosmic kingdom of God which transcends the kingdoms of the world.
This is a facet of kingdom theology which students living in a peaceful Europe may
resonate with more fully, however, during the turbulent times of the erosion and
downfall of the western Roman empire, it would have been much harder to have the
leisure for a Visigoth to reflect on his fellow Roman brother in Christ, being an equal
party in the cosmic kingdom. It may be suggested at this point that we may now look
on the missionary growth of Christianity beyond the empire as a greater part of the
history of missio Dei, but for those living in the midst of a set of historical
circumstances, it is much harder to perceive what God might be doing. The benefit of
historical reflection and hindsight is to look back on history in order to perceive
processes which have been evident much later. Hence faced as postmodern
Christians are by discontinuous change in the secular west it is not easy to discern all
that God may be doing missionally in this new post-Christendom context.
The 5th Century - further developments that ended an empire
The 5th century continued the theme of the western Roman Empire losing some of its
former strongholds and provinces, which it had once ruled over. In December 406AD
a mixed tribal confederation of Vandals, Suevi and Alands crossed the frozen river
Rhine and sacked Gaul. A number moved on to take Hispania and Africa. This
represented the end of Roman hegemony of these regions, which would never again
come under their control.
There was a second war with the Visigoths who were under the leadership of king
Alaric. He raided Greece and invaded Italy with his troops, finally coming to the walls
of Rome in 410AD. They invaded the ancient city and sacked it taking many important
treasures and brutalising its people. Eventually they left Italy and founded their own
kingdom in southern Gaul and Hispania. In 455AD Rome was sacked for a second
time on this occasion by the Vandals.
Although much has been left out of this very potted history, the century continued to
see the tribes weaken the western empire until the time of the last emperor in 476AD
- when the west essentially finally fell under the inexorable assaults of these tribes.
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The Eastern Empire would continue for some time after the fall of the west, with
Constantinople having emperors associated with it for many years. In terms of the
Western Empire a new era was launched, and with it a major paradigm shift was about
to occur. The first version of Christendom was ended. The next phase would not be
realised until the 11th century AD in Western Europe with the conversion of the last of
the ten major tribes which later became Christianised.
Moreover, it is interesting to note that the end of the Roman Empire in the west opened
the door for a new era of missionary expansion for the Christian Churches.
Significantly the foundations to Western European society were to be laid through the
various tribes who slowly converted to Christianity, in the years that followed. The last
tribe to convert would not be until the 11th Century among the Nordic peoples. It is
also interesting that the Arian tribes were catalytic for the end of Rome. These same
tribes eventually converted to the Nicene faith of the Latin west. It is worth mapping
this turn of events, given that western theology came to be dominated by some of the
early trends post-Nicaea-Chalcedon that gave a definite Latin spin to western
theology, in the years that followed. It must also be recognised that beginning in the
7th century AD the rising power of the Muslim Moors, and their successors, essentially
separated the Western Church from large parts of the Eastern Church. For instance
the Visigoths who settled in Hispania were overthrown by the Moors during the 7th
century. These invaders threatened the stability of Constantinople and could have also
settled in Italy, if it were not for the support of Constantinople and some of the
European tribes. For these reasons what became Western Christendom Europe, was
for many years an island surrounded by Islamic forces, that even threatened its own
stability and society more than once. There are all themes which would come to
influence a future Christendom Europe.
Augustine (354 - 430AD): - the 4th and 5th Centuries
Augustine of Hippo's influence on the Christian missionary movement has been

immense. His life straddled two important centuries in the development of Christian
theology, in what has been called the Hellenistic paradigm (Kuhn, Bosch), or more
typically called the patristic period. His most mature work came in the first quarter of
the 5th century AD. He was heavily influenced by Hellenistic thought, particularly
coming from Plato and Plotinus. It was a feature of the Hellenistic paradigm that
Christian theology drew on Greek philosophical ideas, as a major source of how crucial
theological ideas about the nature of God and man were to be understood for many
centuries thereafter, in Western theology and philosophy. He was bishop of Hippo in
North Africa (now to be found in modern day Algeria). His two best known works are
the Confessions and the City of God. Jerome was Augustine's contemporary who
attested that Augustine had been instrumental in re-establishing the ancient Christian
faith in his mature works.
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In his early adult life he had been heavily influenced by Manichaeism which was a
form of Gnosticism. He became a Christian in 387AD. He had a strong ministry in
Hippo and was a strong leader with great influence through his written works over the
later theological thought of the Roman Catholic Church particularly. In terms of his
understanding of human sin and sinfulness he taught that mankind was irretrievably
corrupted by sin. Original sin had made mankind completely unable to have the will to
do good. Only an act of divine grace through faith in Christ could redeem mankind
from this situation. The human will was considered utterly corrupt. Much of Augustine's
thought on the total depravity of mankind developed particularly in reaction to Pelagius
teaching, that man had a free will and that it was possible for people to choose to turn
their lives around, once they had put their faith in Christ. Augustine contested this
doctrine of freewill. To some extent it can be argued that both Calvin and Martin Luther
drew on Augustine's doctrine of the total depravity of man in their formulation of a
theology of new birth and justification by faith in the gracious salvific act of God in
Christ. Luther maintained that it was only by grace that a person could be saved from
the power and guilt of sin, and that it was the work of divine grace to give man the will
to follow Christ, as well as to be regenerated over a life time of sanctification through
the Spirit's work, into Christ's likeness. Augustine held to a form of divine determinism
as well, where he maintained that God had not only predestined the means of
salvation, but also those who would make up the elect. Calvin to some large extent
developed his concept of irresistible grace from this stable of thought.
It is also interesting to note that Augustine formulated his own theology of just warfare,
which to a large extent is still referred to in Christian ethics as a robust contender for
an ethics of war, compared as it often is with the pacifism of the early Church and the
later Anabaptists. It was also particularly Augustine who developed the doctrine of the
Trinity further, by emphasising that the Holy Spirit had been sent to the Church at
Pentecost not just by the Father but by the Son as well. The Eastern Orthodox
Churches contended this view from early times, holding that the Spirit had only been
sent by the Father. Indeed up until the 20th century this was a major point of
theological contention between the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic
Churchs views on the doctrine of God. Having mentioned these theological matters
briefly as we have, it is important to understand that Augustine's written works make
him one of the great theological names of Western Church history. In this sense he
could be called a missional theologian of great significance, as his thought has
affected the Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical theological traditions to some
significant extent. However, we must not neglect his importance when he was bishop
of Hippo either.
When the Western Roman Empire began to come apart at the seams the bishop of
Hippo began to develop a new kind of theology, which was crucial to the mission of
the Church and God's people during this period. It was part of his preaching and written
work in his spiritual classic 'City of God' which transformed the Catholic Church's self-
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perception, to see itself as a spiritual City of God. This city of God was distinct from
the earthly City. Those who made up this segment of the Church were those who
closely adhered to the Trinitarian dogma and the councils of Nicaea and
Constantinople. Augustine taught that the mission of the Church is to shape people to
participate in the City of God spiritual. The development of this spiritual theology gave
people under threat as the empire disintegrated a sense of security that God had a
plan which would make them eternally part of his heavenly city. Augustine wrote:
'We see then that two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly
city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God,
the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self.'63
O'Meara commented on the conception of the two cities:
All men are born in the earthly city but can become, if they are
predestined to it, members of the heavenly city. Entry to that city is
through regeneration in Christ, but people other than Christians can be
members of this city. The Erythraean Sibyl, for example, is thought by
Augustine to belong to it because she attacked the worship of false gods.
It would seem that Augustine believed that the number of men that would
belong to this city would be small. The character of the earthly city can
be divined from its opposition to the heavenly.264
It is important to note the circumstances that led to the need to help Christians process
the uncertain times they were living in. Because the Empire was undergoing constant
attacks by the Visigoths, Vandals and Huns it was important to frame these conflicts
in the context of a larger view. Augustine sought to develop a theology which was
based on another economy, finding its locus in the journey of God's people to a new
city. The Church was as it were the representation of this city on earth in a spiritual
sense. The mission of the Church was for people of faith to inhabit its spiritual
atmosphere. Augustine had reflected profoundly on the development of theological
thought about the gods in Greek philosophy, which in Plato and Aristotle had led
ultimately to belief in one God. Augustine believed that the Church could expect to see
people of former ages, who had not believed in Yahweh or Christ as part of the City of
God. Just as Greek philosophy had affected the formulation of the Creeds of Nicaea,
Ephesus etc. so Augustine embraced much of the tradition where Christian
theologians sought to contextualise their philosophical theology, to fit the intellectual
atmosphere of the Roman Empire as well as its last days before it fell.
Augustine was a missional leader of a type who wanted to ensure that the Christian
missionary movement had a theological understanding of its place in the last days of
63 Augustine, Book 14:28:

64 O'Meara, J., (1984), Penguin Classics, St Augustine City of God, London: Penguin Books, p. 30
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the empire, which would make it possible for its people to live in new circumstances,
where the empire would no longer sustain it when the Roman state collapsed.
Constant warfare and conflict required a theology that located the mission of the
Church to be a spiritual force that could win people to the city of God. As much as
anything the work entitled City of God was a very important rear guard action, to help
believers to keep faithful to God based on the secure understanding that they were
part of a heavenly city that transcended the uncertain dangerous world of warfare and
conflict of this period. Theology affects the Christian world-view, and a good missional
theology is required in order for people to understand their place in the missionary
purposes of the missionary God. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that Augustine
also had the heart of a pastor, who sought to care for his flock in Hippo in the context
of what must have seemed like frightening discontinuous change. His theology was
worked out, no doubt, to a large extent based on the praxis of dealing with real people
faced by challenging circumstances in the real world. The best type of missional
leaders would surely agree in any age of history that their best theology has been
developed in the pulpit as they seek to help the real life circumstances people face in
society.
Gregory (540 - 604AD): - the 6th and very early 7th Century
The large part of Pope Gregory's life was during the latter half of the 6th century AD,
although a small part was also lived out in the first four years of the 7th century. Clearly
our short consideration of Gregory as a missional leader, suited to the context of the
times he lived in, takes us more than 100 years after the lifetime of Augustine. Given
that the aim of this session is to help the participant to grasp what missional leaders
looked like during the ending days of the Western Roman Empire, and a century after
its end, Gregory makes for a good choice of a significant man of God, who has often
caught the imagination of students of history over the centuries.
The historian Shelley wrote of this man:
'For six months no pope ruled in St. Peter's basilica [after the death of
pope Pelagius II]. When church leaders decided to elect a monk named
Gregory, he refused the office and even fled from the city, hiding in the
forest, until he was found and dragged back to Rome. After notifying
Constantinople, officials consecrated him St. Peter's successor on 3
September 590.'
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'Gregory was a most unlikely candidate for greatness. Fifty, balding, and
frail, he had no craving for the papal office. He complained that he was
"so stricken with sorrow that he could scarcely speak."'65
Gregory's appointment as pope in 590 was a personal disaster in his mind. He loved
the monastic life and the opportunities to live the contemplative life. The role of pope
was far from a contemplative one in the context of plague, death and distress, which
greeted Gregory in the weeks following his election. His approach to accepting the
office of pope was for him to hold a three day memorial to the memory of pope Pelagius
II, with attendant prayers in the city for the plague to end. It did not do so during the
three days, but did within a short time after the end of the memorial and petitions.
Whilst pope Pelagius had been alive in 579AD Gregory's father had died leaving him
a large family fortune. Gregory had no thought of using it for himself, but he gave it
away to help the poor. He purchased three Church monastic houses. He tried to do
this in an inconspicuous way so as not to be noticed. This strategy failed and Pelagius
appointed him as one of seven deacons in the city.
Earlier in 573AD, at the age of 33, a reluctant Gregory had been appointed the prefect
(mayor) of Rome by the emperor Justin in Constantinople. This had made him
responsible for the highest civil position in Rome and its outlying regions. The role
included the whole economy, the grain supplies, a welfare program with care for the
poor, and public works. Gregory also ensured that the city's water supply and sewage
systems were properly dealt with in order to ensure public health. Obviously he had
been recognised from a younger age to have extraordinary qualities which made him
a candidate in many minds for pope. The fact that he kept on trying to live a humble
contemplative life in the monastery throughout his mature life speaks volumes to his
desire not to be corrupted by power. In many ways this is a strong reason why he may
be thought of as a very good example of the qualities needed for a contemplative
spiritually informed missional leader.
When the Lombards attacked Rome in 595AD Gregory arranged the defence of
central Italy, not just Rome itself. He himself actually donned a military uniform during
this time of crisis in central Italy. It was not the Roman emperor of the east in
Constantinople who negotiated a peace with the Lombards as they advanced, but it
was Gregory. This had profound implications for the respect the papacy later achieved
with the Western tribes - as it not only came to be seen as the head of the Roman
Catholic Church, but also as a civil power in its own right.
After Gregory's death he was soon declared God's consul, and it was not long before
he was given the title Gregory the Great, becoming canonised along with Augustine,
65 p. 163,
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Jerome etc. as one of the doctors of the Church. This was an unusual outcome given
that Gregory had never produced a great original theological work of significance. He
had certainly upheld the faith and had stood for high spiritual values. Most importantly
as pope he stood strongly for the orthodoxy of the earlier Church Councils, and he
personally enshrined these in the papal office, as he did the teachings of Ambrose,
Augustine and Jerome. Indeed the orthodoxy which he enshrined may be considered
just as important as those who formulated it. From this perspective he deserved
canonisation.
Shelley noted what may be considered the heart of an outstanding missional leader:
In his book Pastoral Care, Gregory stressed that the spiritual leader
should never be so absorbed in external cares as to forget the inner life
of the soul, nor neglect external things in the care for his inner life. "Our
Lord continued in prayer on the mountain," Gregory wrote, "but wrought
miracles in the cities; showing to pastors that while aspiring to the
highest, they should mingle in sympathy with the necessities of the infirm.
The more kindly charity descends to the lowest, the more vigorously it
recurs to the highest." The words were autobiographical.66
The 'autobiographical' tenor of these words as Shelley noted were lived out by Gregory
with no intention of fame for himself. It seems that another principle vital for missional
leaders to consider is that service modelled after the likeness of Christ, does not seek
to produce significance for the self in service to others, but rather it serves simply for
the good of others, without thought of reward. We may also consider that Gregory like
Christ fulfilled missional roles often at significant cost to his personal health. He was
not a well man when he became pope, and one finds copious references in the records
that he spent much time in bed suffering from illness and great pain. A slower
contemplative life would have cost his ailing body far less.
It could be argued that any missional leader has much to aspire to and learn from
Gregory. As a Christian leader he made far more significant contributions outside the
Church in civil society, than in some ways he did within the Church. Actually Gregory
may be termed a good example of a kingdom leader - in the sense that the sufferings
of people in society, and the real need for safe political and economic conditions for
life, were part of his missional practices throughout his lifetime. He most certainly
always had the heart of a missionary. He had wanted in his earlier adult life to go as a
missionary to Britannia. The pope of the time would not permit it. What Gregory
unwittingly exemplified was what mission really means - it was for him to engage in
mission where God had placed him on his mission in the local context of Rome and
Italy. Gregory is a great example of a missional leader in many ways, because he
66 Shelley, p. 164
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redefined mission to be local suited to the context of the local Church in the
neighbourhood rather than somewhere else in another nation.
Reflection
Take some time to read the excerpt below from Gregory's pastoral rule, and then
answer the questions in a small group at a tutorial or facilitation. The whole rule can
be viewed at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/36011.htm .
Chapter 10
What manner of man ought to come to rule
That man, therefore, ought by all means to be drawn with cords to be an

example of good living who already lives spiritually, dying to all passions of
the flesh; who disregards worldly prosperity; who is afraid of no adversity; who
desires only inward wealth; whose intention the body, in good accord with it,
thwarts not at all by its frailness, nor the spirit greatly by its disdain: one who
is not led to covet the things of others, but gives freely of his own; who
through the bowels of compassion is quickly moved to pardon, yet is never
bent down from the fortress of rectitude by pardoning more than is meet; who
perpetrates no unlawful deeds, yet deplores those perpetrated by others as
though they were his own; who out of affection of heart sympathizes with
another's infirmity, and so rejoices in the good of his neighbour as though it
were his own advantage; who so insinuates himself as an example to others
in all he does that among them he has nothing, at any rate of his own past
deeds, to blush for; who studies so to live that he may be able to water even
dry hearts with the streams of doctrine; who has already learned by the use
and trial of prayer that he can obtain what he has requested from the Lord,
having had already said to him, as it were, through the voice of experience,
While you are yet speaking, I will say, Here am I Isaiah 58:9. For if perchance
any one should come to us asking us to intercede for him with some great
man, who was incensed against him, but to us unknown, we should at once
reply, We cannot go to intercede for you, since we have no familiar
acquaintance with that man. If, then, a man blushes to become an intercessor
with another man on whom he has no claim, with what idea can anyone grasp
the post of intercession with God for the people, who does not know himself to
be in favour with Him through the merit of his own life? And how can he ask of
Him pardon for others while ignorant whether towards himself He is
appeased? And in this matter there is yet another thing to be more anxiously
feared; namely, lest one who is supposed to be competent to appease wrath
should himself provoke it on account of guilt of his own. For we all know well
that, when one who is in disfavour is sent to intercede with an incensed
person, the mind of the latter is provoked to greater severity. Wherefore let
one who is still tied and bound with earthly desires beware lest by more
grievously incensing the strict judge, while he delights himself in his place of
honour, he become the cause of ruin to his subordinates.
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Chapter 11
What manner of man ought not to come to rule
Wherefore let everyone measure himself wisely, lest he venture to assume a

place of rule, while in himself vice still reigns unto condemnation; lest one
whom his own guilt depraves desire to become an intercessor for the faults of
others. For on this account it is said to Moses by the supernal voice, Speak
unto Aaron; Whosoever he be of your seed throughout their generations that
has a blemish, he shall not offer loaves of bread to the Lord his God Leviticus
21:17. And it is also immediately subjoined; If he be blind, if he be lame, if he
have either a small or a large and crooked nose, if he be brokenfooted or
brokenhanded, if he be hunchbacked, if he be bleareyed (lippus), if he have a
white speck (albuginem) in his eye, if chronic scabies, if impetigo in his body,
or if he be ruptured (ponderosus) Leviticus 21:18. For that man is indeed blind
who is unacquainted with the light of supernal contemplation, who, whelmed
in the darkness of the present life, while he beholds not at all by loving it the
light to come, knows not whither he is advancing the steps of his conduct.
Hence by Hannah prophesying it is said, He will keep the feet of his saints,
and the wicked shall be silent in darkness 1 Kings 2:9. But that man is lame
who does indeed see in what direction he ought to go, but, through infirmity of
purpose, is unable to keep perfectly the way of life which he sees, because,
while unstable habit rises not to a settled state of virtue, the steps of conduct
do not follow with effect the aim of desire. Hence it is that Paul says, Lift up
the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths
for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather
be healed Hebrews 12:12-13. But one with a small nose is he who is not
adapted for keeping the measure of discernment. For with the nose we
discern sweet odours and stenches: and so by the nose is properly expressed
discernment, through which we choose virtues and eschew sins. Whence also
it is said in praise of the bride, Your nose is as the tower which is in Lebanon
Canticles 7:4; because, to wit, Holy Church, by discernment, espies assaults
issuing from this or that quarter, and detects from an eminence the coming
wars of vices. But there are some who, not liking to be thought dull, busy
themselves often more than needs in various investigations, and by reason of
too great subtlety are deceived. Wherefore this also is added, Or have a large
and crooked nose. For a large and crooked nose is excessive subtlety of
discernment, which, having become unduly excrescent, itself confuses the
correctness of its own operation. But one with broken foot or hand is he who
cannot walk in the way of God at all, and is utterly without part or lot in good
deeds, to such degree that he does not, like the lame man, maintain them
however weakly, but remains altogether apart from them. But the
hunchbacked is he whom the weight of earthly care bows down, so that he
never looks up to the things that are above, but is intent only on what is
trodden on among the lowest. And he, should he ever hear anything of the
good things of the heavenly country, is so pressed down by the weight of
perverse custom, that he lifts not the face of his heart to it, being unable to
erect the posture of his thought, which the habit of earthly care keeps
downward bent. Of this kind of men the Psalmist says, I am bent down and
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am brought low continually Psalm 38:8. The fault of such as these the Truth in
person reprobates, saying, But the seed which fell among thorns are they
which, when they have heard the word, go forth, and are choked with cares
and riches and pleasures of life, and bear no fruit Luke 8:14. But the blear-
eyed is he whose native wit flashes out for cognition of the truth, and yet
carnal works obscure it. For in the blear-eyed the pupils are sound; but the
eyelids, weakened by defluxion of humours, become gross; and even the
brightness of the pupils is impaired, because they are worn continually by the
flux upon them. The blear-eyed, then, is one whose sense nature has made
keen, but whom a depraved habit of life confuses. To him it is well said
through the angel, Anoint your eyes with eyesalve that you may see
Revelation 3:18. For we may be said to anoint our eyes with eyesalve that we
may see, when we aid the eye of our understanding for perceiving the
clearness of the true light with the medicament of good conduct. But that man
has a white speck in his eye who is not permitted to see the light of truth, in
that he is blinded by the arrogant assumption of wisdom or of righteousness.
For the pupil of the eye, when black, sees; but, when it bears a white speck,
sees nothing; by which we may understand that the perceiving sense of
human thought, if a man understands himself to be a fool and a sinner,
becomes cognizant of the clearness of inmost light; but, if it attributes to itself
the whiteness of righteousness or wisdom, it excludes itself from the light of
knowledge from above, and by so much the more fails entirely to penetrate
the clearness of the true light, as it exalts itself within itself through arrogance;
as of some it is said, Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools
Romans 1:22. But that man has chronic scabies whom the wantonness of the
flesh without cease overmasters. For in scabies the violent heat of the bowels
is drawn to the skin; whereby lechery is rightly designated, since, if the heart's
temptation shoots forth into action, it may be truly said that violent internal
heat breaks out into scabies of the skin: and it now wounds the body
outwardly, because, while sensuality is not repressed in thought, it gains the
mastery also in action. For Paul had a care to cleanse away this itch of the
skin, when he said, Let no temptation take you but such as is human 1
Corinthians 10:13; as if to say plainly, It is human to suffer temptation in the
heart; but it is devilish, in the struggle of temptation, to be also overcome in
action. He also has impetigo in his body whosoever is ravaged in the mind by
avarice; which, if not restrained in small things, does indeed dilate itself
without measure.
For, as impetigo invades the body without pain, and, spreading with no
annoyance to him whom it invades, disfigures the comeliness of the
members, so avarice, too, exulcerates, while it pleases, the mind of one who
is captive to it. As it offers to the thought one thing after another to be gained,
it kindles the fire of enmities, and gives no pain with the wounds it causes,
because it promises to the fevered mind abundance out of sin. But the
comeliness of the members is destroyed, because the beauty of other virtues
is also hereby marred: and it exulcerates as it were the whole body, in that it
corrupts the mind with vices of all kinds; as Paul attests, saying, The love of
money is the root of all evils 1 Timothy 6:10. But the ruptured one is he who
does not carry turpitude into action, but yet is immoderately weighed down by
it in mind through continual cogitation; one who is indeed by no means carried
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away to the extent of nefarious conduct; but his mind still delights itself without
prick of repugnance in the pleasure of lechery. For the disease of rupture is
when humor viscerum ad virilia labitur, qu; profecto cum molestia dedecoris
intumescunt He, then, may be said to be ruptured who, letting all his thoughts
flow down to lasciviousness, bears in his heart a weight of turpitude; and,
though not actually doing deeds of shame, nevertheless in mind is not
withdrawn from them. Nor has he power to rise to the practice of good living
before the eyes of men, because, hidden within him, the shameful weight
presses him down. Whosoever, therefore, is subjected to any one of these
diseases is forbidden to offer loaves of bread to the Lord, lest in truth he
should be of no avail for expiating the sins of others, being one who is still
ravaged by his own.
And now, having briefly shown after what manner one who is worthy should
come to pastoral authority, and after what manner one who is unworthy
should be greatly afraid, let us now demonstrate after what manner one who
has attained to it worthily should live in it.'67
Group Reflections
1. What is the relationship of pastoral care to missional leadership?
2. In what ways does the pastoral rule of Gregory relate to your mission context?
3. In what ways does the pastoral rule not relate to your mission context?
4. What sources did Gregory draw from in formulating his rule?
5. What circumstances led to him writing the rule?
67Gregorys pastoral rule, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/36011.htm accessed 13:01, 07/07/13 -

covered by Springdale CLA
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6. To what extent could a rule for missional leaders be useful in your view and
why?
7. What sort of things would you put in a missional leader's rule suited to your
local missional contexts?
Conclusion
This session has demonstrated that in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th centuries AD the
Christian missionary faith had responded to a variety of circumstances, in order to try
to maintain the purity of the faith. Moreover, the Church had moved through a process
of what seems best described as a series of moments of discontinuous change, faced
as it was by challenges to its Christology and doctrine of God and the incursions of the
Arian Western tribes. It is interesting that from a Western point of view that these tribes
often converted from an Arian faith to what was thought of as a Nicene faith. A major
lesson to learn from the movements in this period is that orthodoxy of theological
beliefs seems to always go hand in hand with spiritual orthopraxy. Orthopraxy rides
on orthodoxy. Orthodoxy cannot survive without orthopraxic structures to express what
people believe. Successful missional leaders who work within the frameworks of
missional movements, need to seek to protect orthodoxy and orthopraxy in such a
manner, so as to be free enough to be flexible to respond in contextually sensitive
ways to an often rapidly changing world.
Required Reading:

Nelson, 2008) pp. 163-172
AND
Reader on Moodle: Brown, P., (2013), The Rise of Western Christendom Triumph
and Diversity, AD 200-1000, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 190-216. (PDF
Reader)
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Session 10: Monastic Missionaries
by Martin Robinson
Learning Outcomes
1. understand the nature of cross-cultural mission during the dark ages,

2. evaluate monasticism as a missional method and consider its relevance for
today.
Required Reading:
Nelson, 2008) pp. 116-123
The Dark Ages as Cultural Context

The broad subject of the Dark Ages has been covered in a number of other sessions
notably in Topic 1 Session 9 Constantinople and Rome and in Topic 2 Session 1
The Second Christendom the conversion of Western European Tribes. These are
helpful additions to the few paragraphs that follow. There are a number of elements
in the big picture of Christian history during this period that we need to outline.
Firstly, we need to be clear about what period we think the Dark Ages refers to.
There is no universally agreed set of dates for this period, but for our purposes we
are going to speak of a period from approximately 400 AD to 800 AD. The first date
(400 AD) highlights the division of the Roman Empire effectively into two Empires,
the Eastern Empire based in Constantinople and the Western Empire based in
Rome. That division of the Empire happened to coincide with a gradual weakening
of the Western Empire until it was radically reshaped with completely different power
centres and political structures. The second date (800 AD) refers to the coronation
of Charlemagne as emperor at Rome on Christmas Day in the year 800. The
arrival of Charlemagne marked a new though different kind of unity for the former
territories of the Western Roman Empire.
Secondly, we need to be aware of the approximate ethnic makeup of the Western

Roman Empire before the arrival of the Dark Ages and after that arrival. In very
broad terms, the greater part of the territories north of the Alps were composed of
various Celtic peoples. One significant exception to this general picture is the
territory known today Provence (which as the name suggests was an early Roman
Province), Aquitaine (South West France) which was also a more Latin area and
finally large parts of modern day Spain along the Mediterranean coastline,
particularly Catalonia.
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From Ireland in the West to Austria in the East, various waves of Celts had migrated
from further East to become the dominant culture in most of central and western
Europe for hundreds of years prior to any Roman influence. The Latin name for
these people was the Galli and the Greek name was the Celtoi or in other words
Gauls and Celts. Both Romans and Greeks thought of these people as barbarians
and these are roughly the people that Paul is referring to in his letters when he writes
of barbarians.
The Galli and the Celtoi were not different people, only different names for the same
people. The Roman term was used for the province of Gaul (roughly the territory we
think of as France today). The Roman name was also used to denote a colony of
Celts in Asia Minor (present day Turkey). It was known as Galatia. So we could call
Pauls letter to the Galatians, Pauls letter to the Celts. The present day region of
Galicia in Spain also refers to that same people group.
The Dark Ages was in part brought into being by the migration of vast new people
groups nearly all of whom were broadly Germanic in ethnicity. They did not share
the language, culture or religion of the existing Celtic or Latin peoples. These were
tribal peoples whose way of life was very different to that of the Roman civilisation
and who existed in a complex relationship with Roman society until eventually they
became the new dominant social, political and cultural reality.
These peoples were themselves very varied, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Huns,
Lombards, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Burgundians, and also (arguably) the Belgae
who some thought of as having a mixed Celtic and Germanic origin. It is very easy
to see how some of these various Germanic tribes caused the renaming of various
parts of Europe names which still exist in modern day Europe France, Lombardy,
Burgundy, Belgium, England and so on.
The nature of the relationship between these peoples and Roman civilisation was
that initially some German tribes, all of whom lived east of the Rhine, were enlisted
by the Romans as allies to ward off attacks from other German tribes. Others were
enlisted directly as soldiers into the Roman army. These were normal Roman tactics
that had been used many times across the whole Empire. The idea was that the
attraction of Roman citizenship would always be more alluring than local tribal
allegiances so that loyalty to Rome would always predominate.
Over time more and more of these tribes came to live west of the Rhine as guests of
the local population. However, their allegiances remained more to their tribal chief
than to Rome and, over time, they became sufficiently numerous, so that as Romes
power faded, they were able to become the new dominant ruling force.
The primary and important difference between these peoples and Roman civilisation
was that the Germanic peoples were essentially tribal and rural. In other words, their
culture was both a warrior culture and an agricultural culture. Their wealth came
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from farming and from captured booty, not from the kind of city based trade that
relied on coinage. In fact they had no need for cities and were very happy to destroy
cities as part of their conquest without the need to subsequently live in the cities that
they had captured.
For the most part these new tribes were illiterate, even their kings and nobles could
not read and write. They had no need for libraries, which of course usually require a
civilisation based on cities in order to thrive. In fact the very idea of civilisation is
based on a system of order around citizens and civil life which is deeply connected
with the life of the polis (Greek for city) or political structures connected with city life.
The division of the empire into East and West, robbed the Western part of the
Empire of a good deal of its energy around trade and commerce (important for
supporting education) and so eventually a gradually diminishing of wealth, the ability
to maintain a broader enforcement of order, and communication which requires the
presence of order and well maintained roads. To some extent the arrival of the
Germanic tribes both helped to cause this decline but also occurred in the first place
because they were taking advantage of this new weakness in the structure of Roman
life.
As order and authority from Rome gradually gave way to the military, economic and
social power of the new emerging kingdoms established by the Germanic tribal
leaders it became clear that a new society was emerging. It was a tribal, warrior and
rural culture that did not value learning or urban life. In that important sense, the
light of civilisation (city based life), of learning and literacy and to a large extent of
Christianity was being extinguished hence the Dark Ages a time when all these
lights went out.
Third, we need to be aware of the implications of this new situation for Christianity,
the Church and for mission. In one way it would simple if we could simply say that
all the Germanic tribes migrating into the Roman Empire were pagans. The reality is
more complex.
Although it was the case that Christianity had been the official religion of the
Empire ever since the time of Constantine, that did not mean that paganism or
indeed religions like Judaism simply vanished. There was an ongoing process of
mission and evangelism which varied enormously in its success and penetration
depending on exactly where in the Empire we are looking. There were also brief
periods of pagan revival, especially during the time of the Emperor Julian. But the
arrival of the tribes who were pagan, and especially the decline of city or town life,
where Christianity was previously at its strongest, did produce a new missionary
challenge. Indeed so strongly had Christianity identified with urban life that the very
Latin word for country dweller, pagani, became synonymous with unbeliever or in
reality a belief in polytheism. The old paganism of the empire was being replaced by
the new paganism of the newcomers.
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To add to this complexity, some of the newcomers, especially the Visigoths, were in
fact Arian Christians, having been converted prior to making their conquests in
Western Europe. From the perspective of Latin or Catholic or Nicene Christians,
Arian Christians presented as much a missionary challenge as the pagan tribes did.
So how might the existing Christian communities, strong in urban areas which had
now lost their importance, communicate the faith to these newcomers whose way of
life, language, cultural and religion were so different to the existing populations of
Christians?
In some parts of the former Roman Empire, notably in Southern Britain, or England
as it was to become known, there is very little evidence of any successful missionary
efforts by the local British Christians as the pagan Anglo-Saxons arrived. Indeed the
history of conflict seems to have pushed the existing population of the British Isles,
far to the West, into Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria. There is very little connection
between the Celtic languages of these areas and the new language of the Anglo-
Saxons. That lack of linguistic connection illustrates the broader lack of cultural or
faith communication.
Although there was some success on the part of stronger Christian communities,
particularly in Southern France, at converting the newcomers, for the most part, the
re-conversion of Europe was going to depend on an entirely new missionary force
the Monastic Missionaries.
Origins of the Monastic Missions

As we have seen elsewhere, monasticism did not really begin with a concern for
mission so much as spiritual purity. Indeed, in its origins in Egypt, it was partly a
reaction to the very success of mission as thousands of citizens flocked to the
Churches, those who had endured years of persecution and who had probably
prayed for the day when their neighbours might come to faith, were rather dismayed
by the actuality of mass conversion. The lack of discipleship led to the Church being
invaded by worldliness and so losing something of its spiritual passion. This is
always a dilemma for the missionary success brings it own particular problems!
So how did a movement that was formed in the Egyptian desert, partly as a protest
against worldliness in the Church, become a major missionary resource at the
opposite end of the Roman Empire some two hundred years later? One of the keys
to understanding this transition was the life and ministry of St. Martin of Tours.
Martin was a Roman soldier in Gaul and was drawn to the monastic life. We do not
know exactly how he gained a knowledge of monasticism but we do know that the
popularity of pilgrimages to Jerusalem, inspired by Constantines family, had brought
a knowledge of monastic communities to the west. Not least because many pilgrims
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had experienced the hospitality of monastic houses during their pilgrimages to the
east.
Martin established the very first monastic community in the west in the city of Poitiers
(now in France) in the year 360 and then later, after he had become the bishop of
Tours in 372, in a location near that city, Marmoutier. The work of Martin became a
model for the spread of monastic life throughout Western Europe and St. Martin is
often referred to as the patron saint of Europe. One of the distinctive features of
Martins ministry was his missionary work amongst the pagans in the countryside in
the wider area of Tours. That missionary impulse became a feature of the western
monastic tradition.
A second emphasis was that of the development of scholarship as part of monastic

life. That partly revolved around the copying of scripture but alongside that work,
other books were also copied so that a tradition of establishing libraries in the
monasteries was developed. With the gradual diminishing of urban life and its
accompanying scholarship, monasteries were able to play a vital role in retaining a
connection with an older world of literature and learning. In the midst of the Dark
Ages, monasteries became beacons of light, keeping alive the light of the gospels
and the light of learning.
As the work of re-evangelising the western part of the empire developed, especially
from the middle of the 6th century, two quite distinct monastic movements emerged.
Two Monastic Movements

The first monastic movement developed as a series of quite independent
movements in various Celtic nations. An early pioneer, inspired by St Martin was
Ninian who established a monastery in South West Scotland known as Candida
Casa. Ninian was originally a native of Cumbria. He almost certainly visited St.
Martin at Tours and the work he established in Scotland led to a number of
missionary enterprises amongst the Picts in Scotland.
At a similar time, a number of monasteries were established in Wales and these led
to a whole series of missionary expeditions throughout Wales and the South West of
Britain. Even today the various saints associated with these missions can be found
recorded in the place names of many communities in Cornwall and Wales.
One of the most famous of all these Celtic pioneers was Patrick. There is some
dispute as to whether he came from Wales, Cumbria or even from Southern
Scotland, but wherever he originated from, his work in completing the conversion of
the Irish, building on the slightly earlier missionary work of Palladius, was hugely
important in developing monastic communities throughout Ireland. These monastic
settlements produced many hundreds, if not thousands of missionary monks.
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One of the best known of these pioneers was Columba who established a key
monastic community in Iona. From his base in Iona, the earlier work of Ninian was
vastly further extended throughout Scotland. It was from Iona that a group of monks
travelled to Lindisfarne, sometimes called Holy Island, to establish a monastic
community that subsequently sent missionaries to many other parts of the emerging
kingdoms throughout England, notably to the capital of Mercia, at Lichfield.
Even better known than Columba was a monk with the same name, usually
distinguished by the use of the Latin version of his name, Columbanus. His work
took him to the mainland of Europe where he established many monasteries,
eventually ending his life at the monastery of Bobbio in Northern Italy.
Many other Celtic missionaries, mostly from Ireland, followed the lead of
Columbanus and gradually a vast network of monastic settlements was established
throughout Europe, travelling across the Irish Sea and the North Sea and up the river
systems of Europe. These sea and river routes acted as the early medieval
equivalent of motorway systems allowing the primitive coracles of the Irish to
penetrate deeply into the pagan communities of Europe bringing the gospel with
them. It is said by some scholars that there was hardly a valley in Switzerland that
did not have their own Irish monk striving to create small communities that had the
capacity to live as groups of missionaries.
This missionary movement continued to flourish for at least three hundred years,
gradually bringing local populations to a knowledge of and a commitment to Christ.
The point about this movement is that it had no centralised organisation. These
were independent communities that had their own life and organisation.
The second monastic movement originated at about the same time as the Celtic
movement but from an entirely different location. Rome, beginning with Pope
Gregory, also began to send missionaries across Europe. One of the best known of
these missions was that of St. Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory in AD 597 to
evangelise the English, beginning with a mission to the kingdom of Kent with its
capital city of Canterbury.
The Canterbury mission was assisted by the fact that the wife of the king was
already a Christian and had established a worshipping community as part of palace
life. The emphasis of the various missions sent by Rome to different parts of Europe
was somewhat different than the Celtic missions in a number of respects. Two are
worthy of mention at this point. Firstly, the discipline of these Roman monastic
communities were all based on the Benedictine rule. Unlike the Celtic houses which
all had their own slightly distinctive rules, there was a uniformity of organisation and
style across all the Roman initiated monasteries that gave a cohesion to their life and
allowed for a greater degree of mutual connection.
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Secondly, that cohesion and connection with the prestige of Rome offered a standing
to these monasteries which gave them an influence with the various royal families
that extended invitations and hospitality to them. They were able to convey a sense
that becoming a Christian was to join a broader culture and civilisation that had
prestige and wider belonging beyond merely that of a local community.
So, two significant but very different monastic missions began to have an influence
throughout Europe from the late 6th and early 7th centuries. A vast missionary
movement with the intent of re-establishing the influence of Christianity, and of
creating a wider Christian life and culture was under way in Europe. The various
tribes of Europe with their different traditions, stories, local gods, languages and
customs were being attracted to the common and shared story of the Bible. The
Dark Ages were increasingly having light shone upon them.
The prophetic statement of monastic life

The attempt to evangelise Europe through a monastic mission movement was very
different from the way in which Christianity had been spread in its earliest phase. In
the first few centuries, evangelism had often taken place through the influence of
those who travelled: people such as merchants, soldiers in the Imperial service,
sailors who operated the merchant ships and who also transported soldiers, as well
as those who travelled because they were themselves traded as slaves.
The travels of these early Christians often centred on ports and other significant
cities and towns which were strategic for reasons of commerce, administration and
military defence. In these strategic locations, Christians would meet and form local
communities who would in turn evangelise their local areas, particularly through acts
of kindness, the example of good lives and the attraction of the communities that
they established.
The collapse of the Roman Empire, and with that collapse, the shrinking of a network
of trade, communication and administration forced the Church to establish a
completely new method of sharing the gospel. The monasteries were in the frontline
of that new strategy.
Their way of living in community contained a quiet prophetic statement about the
nature of the gospel in at least three key areas. To understand the prophetic nature
of their lifestyle it is important to remember the context in which they were operating.
The dominant culture was that of a warrior culture. The first point to remember about
warriors is that they take what they want by force of arms usually from the poor. A
warrior culture is all about the power of violence.
Monastic communities made the interesting decision to be self-contained, to work

the land and in so doing to provide for their own needs. They were not taking
anything from anyone. They might have decided to do something different to this.
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For example, given that many of these monks had been invited to come by rulers,
they could have said something like, the work we are doing in preaching the gospel
is so important that we do not have time to cultivate the land and grow our own food.
Please supply food for us. No doubt a warrior king could easily have met that
request, not by growing food himself, but by doing what rulers normally did taking it
from the poor.
In refusing to take indirectly from the poor the monks were making two statements.
They were identifying with the poor by joining them in honest toil, and they were
giving dignity to work in a culture that did not attach much value to the act of working.
The establishment of a just and stable society requires that work has dignity.
By living as they did a peaceable life dependent on prayer and not on arms, the
monks were also demonstrating the ultimate value of a different story. Every
community across Europe ultimately had two significant buildings one was the
Church and the other was the castle. At the time, the castle was the building with
prestige and power. The Church, often in the valley, represented the absence of
power by comparison with the castle located high on a hill overlooking all else. Yet it
is the story of the Church which has proved to be the longer lasting story. Just as in
Communist Eastern Europe it has been the Church that has outlived, and dare one
say, out loved, the obvious power of the State, so in medieval Europe a different
story was being exemplified by the monastic communities that were gradually
established all across Europe.
Serving others, providing hospitality, caring for the poor and the weak, ministering to
the sick, these are all actions that lay the foundations for a society that is worth living
in. A warrior culture can never do that. It is always the poor that suffer when the
story of violence acts as the foundation of society.
The heart of community

In our own time, we have tended to think of monasteries as enclosed places, cut off
from the real world, almost as places that seek to escape from the world. Certainly
monasteries can be like that. But the monastic communities that helped to shape
medieval society were not like that.
Firstly, the early monasteries were much more open to the surrounding society than
we might imagine. It was possible for individuals to come and live in a monastic
community for a time in order to discover what living in a servant relationship with
others might look like. There was a degree of fluidity between monastery and
society rather than tight dividing lines.
Secondly, monasteries were more like mission stations from which preaching work in
surrounding areas was conducted. Fairly early in the medieval period there came a
tradition of Minster Churches. The word Minster could be rendered as Mission. In
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other words a network of mission centres was established from which the Bishop
would organise mission and evangelism to the surrounding region. A pattern of
parishes was often established from the central Minster Church. You will still find
today some Churches that have retained the work minster as part of their name.
The cathedral Church of York or York Minster is one such centre, Westminster
Abbey is another.
The Minsters were often connected with monastic settlements. For example
Malmesbury Abbey is another of these ancient centres which owed much to the
scholar and poet Aldhelm. He was a monk and a musician and was often seen
outside the Abbey in the streets of Malmesbury playing a musical instrument and
inviting the townspeople into the worship services.
Thirdly, the community life of monasteries offered a rhythm of prayer, of spiritual

devotion and of discipleship practice so vital for the development of healthy, vibrant
and long lasting Christian communities capable of conducting mission in the face of
a potentially hostile culture. Arguably, the first task of the monasteries was to allow
the establishment of fully functioning local communities of Christians. Having
accomplished that goal, their initial function shifted towards that of either being a
support to the Churches that were being established or being centres that
encouraged the renewal of spiritual life at times when the spiritual life of the Church
became drained or even corrupted.
It is interesting that in these times when many are seeking yet another re-
evangelisation of Europe that what is sometimes called a New Monastic Movement
is developing, often amongst Protestants as well as Catholics. These new
communities are different in that they do not require vows of chastity but they do
have other significant vows. They are often comprised of men and women, of those
who come for certain periods of time, of married couples and sometimes operate as
dispersed communities with a mother house acting as a co-ordinating centre.
Perhaps these new monastic communities are again catching something of the feel
of the early monastic communities renewing the church, engaging in mission.
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Learning activity:
Visit this list of modern day Christian Communities:
http://www.newcreation.org.uk/links-to-other-christian-communities
Make brief notes on 3 of the communities listed. Include a dispersed community
such as the Iona Community or the Northumbria Community.
Whilst making your notes seek to identify:

a) do they live or in community together or are they a dispersed community?
b) are they reflective or isolationist or do they have a mission focus?
c) are they renewing the Church or preserving it in an historical cocoon?
d) are they practising cross-cultural mission?
Required Reading:
Nelson, 2008) pp. 116-123
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Session 11: Celtic Mission as Cross Cultural Contextualisation (Patrick and Columbanus)
Session 11: Celtic Mission as Cross Cultural Contextualisation

(Patrick and Columbanus)
by Martin Robinson
Learning Outcomes:
1. Understand and describe the nature of Celtic Christianity

2. Critically evaluate the cross cultural nature of Celtic Mission
3. Consider the relevance of Celtic spirituality in contemporary mission
Required reading:
Nelson, 2008) pp. 152-160
AND
Reader on Moodle: Martin Robinson, Rediscovering the Celts: The True Witness
from Western Shores, (Fount 2000).
Introduction: Celtic Missions, a re-assessment

Until the last few decades, the various Celtic missions were presented as something
of a footnote in history. The main theme was that of the re-evangelisation of Europe
largely by monks sent from Rome. The Celtic saints were variously presented either
as marginal predecessors of the real missionary force that followed the initial efforts
of the Celts, or as amateur missionaries whose work needed to be both corrected
and properly established or as failures who tried to do good work but lacked the
proper authority and standing that came from a connection with Rome.
However, more recent work on archaeological sites but also more widely in terms of
a reassessment of Celtic culture and life, has caused scholars to review the
contribution of the Celtic saints. Some of that reassessment has been presented in
a fairly journalistic style with titles such as How the Irish Saved Civilization68, but a
great deal has been based on solid academic research that has explored local sites
and local traditions all across Europe.
What has emerged from this more recent study is an awareness that the Irish or
Celtic missions operated on a scale that probably made them at least the equal of
the pioneering work of the monastic missionaries sent from Rome. Moreover, there
68Cahill, Thomas, How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from
the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (Ireland: 1995)
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is a recognition that the energy of the Celtic saints as a separate tradition continued
for at least three hundred and fifty years and was probably only diminished because
of the impact of the various Viking raids on the monasteries of Ireland. There are
some examples of Irish monastic life existing on the continent as a separate tradition
until well into the 14th century.
So how did such an important strand in the re-evangelisation of Europe come to be

so comprehensively ignored? To a certain extent history is written from the
perspective of the victors and there was a battle, albeit not a violent one, between
the traditions of the Celtic Church and that of the Roman Church. There were the
obvious differences debated so vigorously at the Synod of Whitby to do with the
dating of Easter and the way in which monks were to dress and even cut their hair!
But beyond these more visible debates was the larger difference between a series of
local traditions and the unifying and codifying tendency of Rome.
To a large extent the Celtic saints represented a more local set of traditions that
were ultimately subsumed into the more organized and synthesized Catholic tradition
emanating from Rome. As John Finney expresses it, often the Celts pioneered and
the Romans organized. In the long run it is those who organized the pioneering work
who prevail and whose account of history is most often heard. Uncovering the
pioneering work of the Celts is especially helpful for those who desire to think about
the message in its local context. This means reflecting on the way in which mission
is faithfully transmitted as a consistent message in ways that make sense to the local
people that missionaries are trying to reach.
Words of Caution
The renewal of interest in Celtic Christianity and indeed in all things Celtic art,
jewellery, music, culture and even paganism, needs to come with a slight health
warning. The absence of significant sources and texts that tell the exact story of the
Celts in a contemporaneous fashion necessarily means that there is a degree of
reconstruction and speculation that enters into any kind of imaginative retelling of the
story of the Celtic saints.
The attempt to use the Celts for other purposes often comes in four distinct forms.
Firstly, it is instructive to see how Patrick and the other Celtic saints are pressed into
the service of the Roman Catholic Church as though their work can be somehow
seen as part of the wider Catholic story. Secondly, in a remarkably similar way,
Patrick and the Celtic saints are often used by Protestant communities to suggest
that they represent an older and purer version of Christianity which existed before
the Roman Catholic variant came along and unfortunately usurped the older and
truer (and by implication proto-Protestant) form of Christianity. History is often useful
for propaganda purposes but inevitably the facts tend to get in the way of good story.
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Thirdly, there is a recent attempt at producing liturgy, prayers and music in a Celtic
style. There is no attempt here to pass off these more recent offerings as long lost
Celtic productions only recently discovered, but we do need to be a little cautious
about how we present these more contemporary developments.
Fourthly, and more problematic, is the reality that some want to authenticate their
own particular prejudices by suggesting that there was some older Celtic tradition
that has become corrupted and needs to be restored. Their own particular
restoration tends to coincide with what they already thought to be the case. This
tendency is reflected in the following quotation:
The writings of Shirley Toulson represents one strand of such an attempt. Her book
The Celtic Alternative: A reminder of the Christianity We Lost connects the Celtic
church with a number of modern movements ranging from Buddhism to the
Womens Movement, the Green Movement and the Peace Movement. Donald Meek
lists some of the historical inaccuracies and inadequacies of such an approach. He
rightly comments that the parts of the Celtic witness that are inconvenient in such an
identification are simply ignored. He notes the attempt of one of the writers attached
to the Little Gidding community to link creation spirituality with the Celtic church and
asks, Is Little Gidding going in for a little kidding?
The Scale of the Celtic monastic movement

It is impossible to document exactly how many Celtic missionaries left the shores of
Ireland and other Celtic areas but we can gain a few clues from the place names of
communities all across Europe. Many of these are derived from the holy men who
first came to bring the gospel to these areas. A glance at the maps of both Cornwall
and Wales makes the point fairly quickly but more recently scholars have attempted
to illustrate the same point from many European countries. Some are very well
known, such as St. Gallen in Switzerland while others like Llangrannog in
Ceredigion, Wales (the church of St. Cranog) are more obscure.
We gain more insight by examining the size of some of the monasteries that were
training and sending missionaries. Possibly the best-known monastery in Ireland
was located in Bangor, in present day Northern Ireland. At the height of its activity it
was said that Bangor had more than 4,000 monks living there at any one time.
When one considers that at this point of time in Ireland there were no major cities or
settlements it is not difficult to conclude that a monastery such as Bangor
represented one the largest settlements in the whole of Ireland.
How did this pattern of monastic life develop in the first place? It is clear that the
initial flowerings of monastic life were deeply interconnected. The key continental
monasteries of Lrins, located on an island off the South coast of France, and Tours
in central France were initially important centres of influence.
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St. Patrick returned as a missionary to Ireland in 432 having studied either at Lrins
or at Tours (he may have visited both) and St. Ninian established Candida Casa in
Galloway, Scotland in the late 4th century having spent time with St. Martin at Tours.
Slightly later than Patrick, a number of monasteries were established in South

Wales, particularly by St. Cadoc (or in Welsh Cattwg) at Nant Carfan near Cardiff
and St. Illtud at Llantwit Major. St. Samson was trained at Llantwit Major and from
there went on to become very influential as a missionary in both Cornwall and
present day Brittany. St. Finnian was influenced by St. Cadoc and by St David and
went on to found a monastery at Clonard in Co. Meath, Ireland.
A second St. Finnian was trained at Candida Casa and founded a monastery at
Moville in Co. Donegal. St. Columba was trained at Moville prior to his move to Iona.
St. Comgall was also trained at Moville and from there established the monastery at
Bangor which has already been referred to. Columbanus was trained at Bangor and
when he went to continental Europe, one of his companions was St. Gallen who, as
we have indicated, was a key figure in the development of work in Switzerland.
St. Aidan who was born in Ireland, went to Lindisfarne after a time in Iona. From
there various key missions went to other parts of England, in particular to the
Kingdoms of Mercia, Middle Anglia and Lindsey. Other influences certainly flowed
from Lindisfarne but also, because the way was being opened up by Celtic
missionaries and by the work of Roman missionaries in Kent, other monks were able
to come directly from Ireland itself. Travel, not settlement was a huge theme
amongst the Celtic monks and so keeping track of all their connections is not
straightforward.
These are a few of the well-known saints whose lives are somewhat documented.
What we know less about are the names, lives and ministries of the thousands of
other monks who either accompanied the well-known saints, before launching out on
their own ministry, or indeed the names of those who set out alone, launching their
coracles to see where the winds and the waves would take them. A more detailed
account of the interconnectedness of these various Celtic communities can be found
in E. Bowen, Saints, Seaways and Settlements, (University of Wales Press, 1977).
A detailed history of the Irish saints can be found in D. ODwyer, Towards a History
of Irish Spirituality, (The Columba Press, 1995).
Their missionary context

Although Patrick is often represented as being the one who brought the gospel to
Ireland, the missionary Palladius had arrived a year before Patrick. He had been
sent from Rome to minister to the small number of Christians who were present in
that land. A pattern of scattered individual Christians applied to the parts of western
Europe that had never been part of the Empire. These areas were the whole of
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Ireland and the larger part of Scotland. These territories had never had a pattern of
urban life, connected by roads, trade, governance and the ability to impose order
through the military garrisons. They were predominately rural, with a tribal and
pagan society as the normal situation.
Christianity, however much diminished in the various parts of the former Empire, was
still present, it was just not equipped from the perspective of mission to reach out to
the new people groups that were increasingly forming the dominant social, cultural
and political reality. These new people groups often looked more like the peoples
that we have described above in Ireland and Scotland in that they held tribal
allegiances within a rural society and were pagan in similar ways to the Celts and
Picts in Ireland and Scotland.
As we saw in the previous session, during the first few centuries, Christianity had
thrived in urban centres and had only spread much later to the countryside. The
nature of the life of Christian communities during the first three centuries was shaped
by Christianitys urban context. It was very difficult for these town based Christians
to imagine how they might make connection with the newcomers to Europe. The
townspeople spoke Latin, were able to read and write, had a money based economy,
and often relied on reasoned debate to talk about the faith - a faith which had a
written text as its scripture.
The newcomers were very different. Their first language was not Latin, they lived in
the countryside, were largely illiterate, had a form of trade which was either the tools
of war, or agricultural barter, and they worshipped strange gods that the existing
town based Christians knew little about. There was a vast communication gulf and
for the most part very little conversion took place at the level of ordinary people.
It is of course true that at the level of the more powerful kings, successful attempts
were made to convert them. The most notable of these conversions was that of
Clovis, King of the Franks who was baptized, together with 3,000 of his nobles, on
Christmas Day in 496. But that action, seen by many as having more political than
religious significance, had very little effect on the lives of ordinary people.
In this context, the attempts of Martin of Tours to reach out to the pagani (Latin for
country-dwellers) was very important. His monastic community and his preaching
visits to the surrounding rural areas allowed a rather different approach to mission to
develop. The life of prayer in the monastery combined with what we might call
power evangelism during his rural visits created a new kind of more confrontational
missionary hermeneutic. Those who were working in pagan rural Ireland and
Scotland (Patrick and Ninian) saw great value in this approach and quite possibly the
influence of Martin and the community at Tours was crucial in shaping the
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missionary approach of the early pioneers of a mission to the pagan tribes in Ireland
and Scotland.
Pagan religion
What was pagan religion like? Our knowledge is obviously limited by the single fact
that none of these peoples wrote down details of their practices. Our main written
accounts of their beliefs come from the Christian missionaries who were seeking to
convert them.
The Druidic religion of the Celts and the pagan worship of the Germanic tribes were
different to one another in the makeup of their panoply of gods and in the detail of
their ceremonies and priesthood but they also shared certain common
characteristics. They were all polytheistic in nature, with gods for various areas of
life. They were all based in the worship of nature and like many folk religions in rural
life had a strong fertility element in their ceremonies. The fertility of crops, animals
and human families were all vital for continued existence.
The ability to heal, to combat evil forces, to protect the community from harm of all
kinds, whether curses, or the demonic, or natural disasters or illness and plague
were all vital for the wellbeing of the tribe. Religion was interwoven into this daily life.
Christian missionaries faced the question, how does the life of a Jew in faraway
Palestine, who lived hundreds of years ago, whose identity could best be understood
through the pages of the Old Testament, speak to the lives of these new tribes of
warriors and farmers?
The missionary pattern of the Celtic saints

At the heart of their missionary approach was the monastery itself. Although it was
sometimes the case that individuals would go as a missionary and live the hermit life,
for the most part that was either for a period of time and/or was related to the life of a
nearby monastery.
In one sense we could think of the monastery as a kind of instant town or community
that could be located in the middle of the rural communities that the monks were
seeking to work with. The monastery allowed those who they connected with to see
at first-hand what a Christian community might look like. These were open ended
communities where people could come and stay for a time, possibly even months, to
observe and participate in community life. The message did not always have to be
preached it was also lived.
The life of the monastery clearly centred around prayer and the dimension of prayer
and spiritual warfare was something that the Celts certainly emphasised. The
concept of spiritual warfare was sometimes interpreted as prayer in the wild and
lonely places. This was the Celtic version of prayer in the desert, or the wilderness,
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that had been pioneered by their heroes, the desert fathers, in the Eastern Church in
Egypt.
The wild places or deserts might be hermit caves on mountainsides, or small

dwellings in inaccessible parts of the countryside, or even on remote islands. We do
not know too much about why particular locations were sought out, we only know
that the Celtic saints saw this prayer warfare as important in battling with the
demonic powers in particular areas, so that the way might be cleared for the free
preaching of the gospel.
Some scholars have pointed out that not all the Celtic saints spent time in lonely
isolation and have made the observation that what looks isolated to us did not
necessarily count as isolated in earlier times. For example, those who have
attempted to make the journey to Iona might consider it to be isolated far from any
cities or major motorways it seems a strange place to locate a major mission
settlement. But in the days of Columba, when the sea routes counted as the major
means of communication, Iona was actually at the centre of some key sea routes. In
other words its location was actually very strategic.
But despite these caveats, there is sufficient evidence of prayer in the wild places for
us to think that these lonely vigils formed a part of the missionary activity of the
saints. At the very least, they built a reputation as holy men such that people of all
kinds, leaders and the lowly, sought them out for advice and prayer.
Precisely why particular places were chosen we can never know. Were they just
places that they felt drawn too, or were they places where they discerned a spiritual
stronghold of some kind? The Celtic monks have left us no information on this point.
Suffice it to say they did believe that prayer in the wilds was important as part of the
mission.
The preparation in prayer was vital in relation to another key ingredient in their
missionary approach power encounters of various kinds. These encounters were
often very public demonstrations of spiritual power between the Celtic saints and
their adversaries the priests responsible for maintaining important pagan shrines at
sacred places. These encounters at particular locations were often associated with
springs, wells and trees, as one might expect from a paganism rooted in nature
worship. The various stories that surround the saints are reminiscent of the
encounter of Elijah with the prophets of Baal and it may even have been this story
that encouraged and inspired them.
Whether it was St. Martin in France, St. Patrick in Ireland or St. Columba in Scotland
there were key stories of the miraculous defeat of pagan spiritual power, thus
demonstrating the power of the gospel. Such public demonstrations had the effect
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not only of winning over the ruler of the area, but often the priests of the old religion
and the ordinary people were convinced too. This was not just a demonstration of
the value of a new political connection, power encounters were about kingdoms that
lay beyond any earthly realm.
The connection with healing gives rise to another Celtic theme that of integrating
Christianity with everyday life. The Celts were famous for their many blessings.
They seemed to have a blessing for every occasion and for every ordinary item that
went with domestic and agricultural life. To some extent these various blessings and
prayers replaced the previous pagan practices and to were thus a necessary
development for that reason. However it is also the case that for the Celts the whole
of life was sacred and so to pray blessings on every notable occasion and to
interweave them into the fabric of everyday life was a very normal and natural thing
to do. The world of the Celts is an enchanted world where God is ever present
ready to dispense divine kindness and goodness.
Learning from the Celts

The primary lesson is to examine how the Celts were able to take the message of
Christianity from its essentially urban setting and give it a new set of cultural clothes
in an essentially tribal and rural setting. In other words, the Celts were able to cross
over into a different mission paradigm and translate the gospel message into a new
cultural context.
There clearly are some resonances for 21st century Europeans. The sociologist
Peter Berger wrote in the 1960s of the impact of modernity as the removal of the
sacred canopy in western culture. Today scholars write of the new cultural tendency
to re-enchant the world. It is at that point that many find the tone of Celtic
Christianity helpful and attractive. However, we need to be careful not to try and
recreate what we cannot really know. For example, we have not talked about the
severe penitential practices of the Celts which, one suspects, many would not be
quite so keen to restore to their daily life.
It is not wise to imitate others, even if we could, but we can learn from their ability to
imaginatively engage with a radically different cultural setting in an authentic manner.
We are increasingly meeting a new kind of paganism in the 21 st century.
Questions for Consideration:

1. What does the Celts approaches to mission teach us about cross-cultural mission
today?
2. Does a re-exploration of Celtic spirituality provide an opportunity to engage
missionally with the New Age movement? What are the opportunities and
dangers in doing so?
3. The Celtic saints emphasised the importance of a personal encounter with God.
Are John Wimbers Power Evangelism & Power healing and the recent healing
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on the streets initiative modern applications of the same approach?
Required reading:
Nelson, 2008) pp. 152-160
AND
Reader on Moodle: Martin Robinson, Rediscovering the Celts: The True Witness
from Western Shores, (Fount 2000).
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Session 12: The Rise of Islam as a Missionary Religion, the Crusades and Contributions of
Islam to the West
Session 12: The Rise of Islam as a Missionary Religion, the
Crusades and Contributions of Islam to the West
by Andy Hardy
Learning Outcomes
1. understand some circumstances that led to the rise of Islam as a missionary
faith,
2. articulate an understanding of the missional challenges and opportunities Islam
offered to the Church,
3. evaluate the Crusades as missionary endeavours,
4. understand how the Church benefitted from Islam in terms of its larger
philosophical and theological developments,
5. evaluate the fundamental beliefs and practices of Islam in the context of its
historic developments.
Required Reading:
Textbook: Shelley, Bruce, L., Church History in plain language, 3rd edition, Nashville:
Thomas Nelson (2008), pp. 186-192 & 495-498
AND
Reader on Moodle: MacCulloch, D., (2010), A History of Christianity, London: Penguin

Books, pp. 255-285
Introduction
It is impossible to neglect to discuss the rise of Islam in any discussion of Western
Church history. The reason for this is because like the Christian missionary movement
Islam is another kind of missionary faith. Following the time of Muhammad rapid
developments occurred which made the Muslim Moors a force to be reckoned with.
As we mentioned in session 9 the Moors conquered Hispania in the 7th century
displacing the Visigoths as part of this fatal blow.
A Sketch of the Developments of Islam (Sunnites, Shiites and Sufis)

In this section we will discuss two of the major developments in Islam, viz Muhammad
and his call to the apostolate, and the developments which occurred after his death.
These two areas are important because as Professor Ess points out the events which
were perceived to occur in the inception of Islam are 'paradigmatic' in nature. This
means that it uses the Koran and Hadiths as the paradigm for its beliefs. This of course
is the same for Christianity which builds itself on the New Testament traditions as well
as later Church traditions, such as the Nicene Creed.
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Islam to the West
Muhammad
Muhammad was born in the city of Mecca in Arabia in 570CE. He was of a poor
background and of seemingly little education. In his twenties he worked for a rich
woman who was involved in trading (she was much older than Muhammad). He
consequently married her at the age of 25. His fortunes changed after this making him
more a man of leisure - providing him with time during which he could contemplate
things of spiritual significance.
From youth he had a strong religious disposition which manifested itself even more in
adult life. He tended to retire for prayer to caves of the Arabian wilderness. He had a
tendency to have numerous dreams of a vivid nature. He was very dissatisfied with
the Arabian polytheism of his region. It had been showing signs of decay for a number
of years. For a man of such profound religious convictions it did not fulfil his spiritual
needs. While he was engaged in his trading business he came into contact with
Judaism and Christianity, and became impressed with their monotheistic beliefs. They
must have appealed to him more than the seemingly inconsistent beliefs of the Arabian
polytheism. In fact there were already a category of people called Banifs who had
rejected idolatry among the Arabian peoples. They had also accepted Allah as the
supreme God, or indeed perhaps as the only God. Muhammad certainly did, as the
Koran attests. The way in which he conceived of Allah was as a transcendent being
who was inconceivable to human knowledge.
Muhammad entered into his apostolic role at the age of 40 when he had his first vision.
This happened on the night of Ramadan in 610AD. He had a vision of the angel Gabriel
who commanded him to 'recite'. He asked 'What shall I recite?' He was commanded
again that he should 'recite'. This happened a number of times, until these words were
said to him:
'Recite in the name of thy Lord who created man from blood coagulated, recite!
Thy Lord is wondrous kind, who by the pen has taught mankind things they
know not [being blind].'
His first response after this vision was to believe that he was possessed by a Jinn (an
evil spirit). And, therefore, he went to hurl himself over a precipice, but he heard a
voice from heaven calling him the apostle of God. For a little time after he still thought
of himself as possibly possessed. He could not stand the thought that he might be
rejected by his fellow tribesmen as demon possessed. Rather sadly they did in fact do
this very thing.
His visions continued for a period of 22 years until his death in 632AD. They circulated
at first in oral form, not being recorded in writing by Muhammad himself. But as he
grew older the oral forms were recorded by scribes in writing. Something also needs
to be mentioned about the nature of his visions. He was said when entering into the
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Islam to the West
state of a visionary experience, to break out into a cold sweat, with his body tensing
and then violently shaking. At this point he would wrap himself in his mantle and fall
into a trance, which could last for a number of hours. This is not unlike similar
manifestations recorded in the Old Testament for prophets like Daniel.
As time passed he became convinced that he was not demon possessed, but indeed
he was Allahs apostle. But this did not change the reality that the people of Mecca
regarded him as Jinn possessed. In fact opposition became so intense for him that he
had to flee from Mecca to a city which was named after him (later), as the 'city of the
prophet' (Medina). This occurred on July 16 622AD (being called the Hajira flight).
This was the turning point in his career. While in Medina he was at first sympathetic to
Jews and Christians, but when they rejected him, he turned from Jerusalem as the
centre of worship to Mecca, and to the sacred black stone called the Kaaba.
This change in emphasis necessitated his return to Mecca which he did by conquest
defeating the inhabitants of the city. He ordered the complete destruction of all the
idols and established his monotheism by force. He guaranteed his political
ascendency in Arabia by conquering his enemies who were near at hand, and by
inviting more distant tribes to join him. By the time of his death in 632AD, he had gone
a long way toward uniting Arabia under a theocentric government. This new religion
spread quickly under the new found stimulus of the uniting influence of Muhammads
religion.
Events after Muhammads Death

The events which occurred after his death are not unpredictable. Muhammad had left
no successor or will. This meant that there was a power struggle. The community
which he had founded needed a Caliph (Ruler). It lived as a theocracy with no
distinction made between Church and state (to use a Christian metaphor). It needed
someone to lead in war, to enforce the law and to guide the people in times of peace.
Therefore the aged Abu Bakr, one of the earliest believers, was elected. But this was
not achieved with any form of overall collective agreement among all of the believers.
In fact there were three rival parties, two of which have lasted until the present day.
Firstly, there were the companions of the prophet. They believed in the legitimacy of
any suitable early believer. This could be by election. Secondly, there was the
aristocracy of Mecca, who wanted to capture the Caliphate to promote their own ends.
Thirdly, there were the legitimists, who were against the idea of election, and held that
only a relative of Muhammad might take the position. This they argued should be his
cousin, and son-in-law, Ali. It was their argument that such an outcome was surely
divinely designated. Therefore, there was a major power struggle between the
legitimists and those who believed in election. The former lost, when Ali was murdered.
The group who still identify themselves with this early view have not forgotten his
assassination until the present day. This bears testament to the long held folk
memories of tribal societies. This group is known as Shia.
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Shia have ever since awaited the coming of the one who they call the Mahdi, whom
they believe will appear at the end of time to deliver Islam from an antichrist, who is
supposed to appear as a sign of the imminent apocalypse. There has been an
apocalyptic tendency among this group since its inception. It has sometimes been the
cause of violence, with the hope that this might hasten the advent of the last events of
the worlds history.
But as it has been said, the party of Ali (Shia) lost the power struggle, and the
electionists won the day. This latter group is known as Sunnis (or Sunnites). They may
be termed as traditionalists. They have been responsible for the development of the
four major schools of thought in Islam. Firstly the Sunna, that is the practices of the
prophet (or Hadith tradition), in which traditions relating to Muhammad have been
compiled to fill in areas which the Koran does not cover. Secondly, there is the Koran.
Thirdly, there is the Ijma, which is the consensus of the Muslim community in which
decisions are made based on the general practices of the community. Fourthly, there
is the Qyas, which is the use of analogical reason. It consists of a system of religious
traditions which have been compiled from a comparison of early sources to determine
community problems. These form four groups among the Sunnites. Corporately they
are called Sunnis.
Something should also be mentioned about the Sufis. They may be said to have arisen
out of what they perceived to be the extreme legalistic tendencies of mainstream
Sunnite Islam. They originated because of the mechanical religious practices which
developed in Muslim communities. They reacted against the transcendent view of
Allah, which seemed to make him seemingly impersonal and disconnected from the
real human situation. They desired a religion of the heart in which fellowship with God
could be experienced.
The way in which this desire was expressed was in the form of mysticism. In this
approach a persons 'contact with God deepens 'until he' becomes 'the thou into which
the I is completely absorbed'. The central aim of this obliteration of the self is to
experience God in his love, to be consumed in that love, and to lose all fear. It is not
a love experienced as if it were among equal partners. The mystic was to be
completely absorbed into the divine. This loss of self-identity is obviously quite out of
keeping with modern individualism or for that matter with mainstream communitarian
Islam. It remains a strong motivation in Asian faiths among Buddhists, Hindus etc.
Islam as a pragmatic more ritual based faith, with deep theological passion for Allahs
honour and glory, does not consider self-negation to be part of Gods design for human
beings made to enjoy the fruits of the afterlife in the Muslim paradise. The very nature
of mysticism, in its Islamic form, meant that it never grew very popular. Although it was
accepted in many communities, it never had the thrust to gain the upper hand over the
Sunnis.
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Thus from its inception Islam has had one group which has exerted a great deal of
influence over it, viz. the Sunnis. It has probably remained in such a strong position
because of two main factors. Firstly, because of the strong ritualistic ties that have
kept Muslim communities together. Secondly, it is because of the practical application
of the Hadiths to everyday life. Coupled with this is the fact that Islam has always kept
itself in command of its complicated traditions, by employing professors who can
interpret the laws. Islam has no professional clergy, and therefore, these professors
have always been able to keep in contact with the people on the lay level. It means
they have remained popular because they have been enabled to keep in touch with
grass roots religious thoughts, as well as the challenges that the common people face.
Unlike Christianity, which too often divorced itself from the common man particularly
in the Middle Ages with its professional clergy and mystifying use of the Latin language
that was unknown to the mostly uneducated commoners.
The Background to the Conflicts between the Eastern and Western Church and
Islam
Backgrounds to Conflict in the Middle East

The Byzantine Empire with its capital in Constantinople made up the eastern Roman
Empire. Following hard on the heels of Mohammed's death the Arabic Moors became
a force to be reckoned with. By the 7th century they had defeated the Visigoths in
Espania and came to dominate that region. If one considers present day Spain one
can still recognise the influence of the Islamic culture and way of life as a strong
narrative underpinning the Spanish deeper sociological culture. Within a short period
of a couple of centuries Constantinople was cut off from the rest of the eastern
Christian Church by Muslim controlled territories. The Coptic Church in Egypt had to
fight for its continued existence and Palestine and Jerusalem became Muslim
territories. The seven major crusades that the popes of the 11th and 12th centuries
sent knights on, were based on a somewhat idealistic desire to liberate the holy land
from a non-Christian hegemony. What we will try to unpick in this section are some of
the issues relating to questions like, 'Can the crusades be termed a form of mission?'
and 'to what extent can we think of the Muslim faith as an Abrahamic faith, which
shares in the mission of Abraham to bless all nations?' This latter question will of
course prove very controversial for some readers.
After 636AD Muslim troops overthrew the Eastern Byzantines at the Battle of
Yarmouk, meaning that control of Palestine and Jerusalem came under the hegemony
of three dynasties, the last of which was under the rule of the Fatimids, until they lost
control of the region to the Seljug Empire, which was itself Muslim. During the periods
of the three empires including the Fatimids there had been some good trade
opportunities for the northern part of the Eastern Empire, for Constantinople and for
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the developing Western Holy Roman Empire. Things were not perfect and trade and
commerce opportunities ebbed and flowed. This was the cause of frustration, although
at first it did not create a strong desire for military action to redress the imbalance, of
trading rights between the east and west. The Seljuks readily allowed Eastern
Christians to engage in pilgrimages to the holy sites in Palestine and Jerusalem, as
they considered their faith, based as it was on the Biblical books, to allow their faith to
be tolerated. For rather complex reasons Christian pilgrims coming from the West
were not given access to Palestine, and merchants were hindered to such an extent
as to make the West feel like an island under siege, separated from the economic
opportunities the East offered others. The debarring of Latin Christians from these
sites and trading rites led to the support for the Crusades across the Western Catholic
world. The Crusades would prove to be a dark day indeed for the Christian Church,
with dreadful injustice, unethical warfare and human selfishness being justified in the
name of Christ.
The Seljuk Empire ruled a large territory in the east to the greatest extent by 1092AD.
In 1054AD the Eastern Empire and Church officially separated themselves from the
Western Church. The circumstances that led to this rift would last for many centuries
with strong disagreements over the authority of the pope and the bishop of
Constantinople, being just one of a number of disagreements that led to division. There
were also theological differences such as the Eastern Orthodox Churches not
agreeing with the Filioque clause, nor did they recognise the bishop of Rome as the
head of the Church universal. Earlier in the 6th century AD emperor Justinian of
Constantinople had written an edict which had recognised the bishop of Rome as the
universal head of the Church in the world, in matters of faith and doctrine. However,
the turn of events by 1053AD definitely rejected the claims of the Roman Catholic
Church and its pope to have the authority of St. Peter over the Church universal. The
official division between the east and the west left the west out of the loop in the trading
and pilgrimage opportunities enjoyed by the Eastern Christians. The Eastern Empire
was not helped by this break either.
In 1071 the Muslim Turks defeated the Byzantine emperor which led to them gaining
control of Anatolia, a crucial strategic area for the Eastern Empire. Although the schism
between the east and the west had occurred in 1053 the emperor appealed to pope
Gregory VII for help - none was given. The Seljuk Turks threatened the empire until
1091, when emperor Alexius defeated them. Obviously the threat to Constantinople at
this time was significant. Had it fallen then the Western Latin Church and its European
peoples would have had the Seljuks parked on their doorstep. All of these
circumstances left the West recognising its vulnerability, and particularly having
grievances because of the loss of easy access, and trading and pilgrimage rites to the
east. Moreover, it is interesting to note that up until the Fatimids Christians had not
been forced to convert to Islam because they too were people of a book like Muslims
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were - with some perceived similar heritage coming from shared stories of the
Abrahamic faith.
This raises the importance of narrative and story to missional work in general in any
locality. Shared stories that are perceived to exist between diverse peoples and
cultures can be an important means of at least developing mutual respect and
tolerance of differences. Too often the early steps in any contextually relevant
missional enterprise in a local context, needs to begin with the building of respect and
mutual understanding of differing world-views. Some Christian missionary historians
may consider the conquest of Islamic nations in the east against Christian peoples to
have been a disaster for Christianity. However, it must not be forgotten that the new
relationships built, as they were on some high level of mutuality and respect, was a
new opportunity for the mission of God to go to all peoples. Moreover, the fact that
Islam drew heavily from the Abrahamic traditions is not without merit to recognise its
shared similar missionary zeal, to pass on the Muslim faith in one God called Allah.
The synergies that existed, and exist, between Muslims and Christians suggest a
similar missional heritage and some degree of similar missional motivation to share
monotheistic religion. Certainly among other sources, the Islamic academics drew
from Plato and Aristotle, as did, Ambrose and Augustine. Thomas Aquinas, himself a
great theologian of the Catholic Church, benefitted from the Western Churches
rediscovery of Aristotle's philosophy. We will return to this later.
Backgrounds to Conflict in Western Europe

During the 11th century AD various Western tribes were expanding their territories,
some of which led to the taking of regions from Muslim control. There was a growing
recognition that the Muslim Seljuks had pushed the level of threat up to a high level,
which could not be ignored in the Latin west. Moreover, the expansionistic desires
evidenced by the territorial acquisitions mentioned, led to a desire to reopen trading
routes in the east and to allow Christians from the west to travel in pilgrimage to the
holy land. It was these early forays into Muslim territory that led to the later popular
support for the Crusades.
The Catholic Church continued to vie for its place in the control of the developing
European scene in the West. The papacy sought to undercut the power of monarchies
to appoint bishops and other ecclesiastical offices in their own realms. This conflict led
to a 50 year civil war in Germany. The desire of many a Catholic Christians, in the
various realms of emerging Western Europe, was for the pope of Rome to exercise
universal power over the appointment of all kinds of ecclesiastical offices, which in turn
bespoke an intention to also have similar civil power later, over the appointment of
kings and marriage alliances between kingdoms. The strong piety that was stimulated
by this investiture controversy also fuelled developing popular support for the
Crusades. There was a level of propaganda in favour of retaking Palestine from the
Seljuks, and the earlier theories of the ethical justification for Just War formulated by
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Augustine, provided an important source to meet the demands of this huge public
sentiment, to go on holy Crusade for Christ to reclaim the holy land from the Seljuks.
The pope provided yet another incentive for going on Crusade, declaring that those
who went would receive free remission of all of their sins. By the time of Pope Urban
II in 1095, there was essentially a council affirmed decision (the Council of Clermont
1095), for there to be a crusade to the holy land including help for Greek eastern
Christian brethren who were under the hegemony and threat of the Seljuks. It needs
to be noted that the piety and fervour for the retaking of the holy land soon overtook
the desire to help the Greeks.
Urban called all knights and noble born in France to take up arms and to go on holy
Crusade to liberate the east. He engaged in preaching for this holy Just War in France
as did other Church officials in Italy. Urban did not go as far as to openly call for
Jerusalem's re-capture, but his rhetoric was to speak of the need to liberate the
Eastern Churches. It must be said that his speech was a strong motivator for action
on the part of nobles and knights alike. What was unleashed in reality, over the period
of over 100 years, was a terrible time of violence and injustice being perpetuated
against Muslims and Christians alike. Nowhere was this more terribly illustrated than
in the holy land. The promise of complete remission of sins made it possible for many
a noble lord to justify murder, rape and plunder in order to extend his own fortunes
by engaging in a crusade.
Were the Crusades a missional endeavour? It could be argued they gave a good outlet
for popular piety and religious imagination, with many going on crusade to climax their
adventure by going to the holy land to see the place where Jesus died and rose again.
However, as already mentioned the Crusades became a dark blotch on the blotting
paper of history, with many atrocities being done under the flag of the cross of Christ
and in the name of the saviour of the world. The general policy during the seven
Crusades was to liberate the east and re-found a Christian Jerusalem and holy land.
In these matters the Latin West completely failed to achieve these ends. It did not
regain control of the east through the Crusades. For all the reasons discussed it may
be concluded that the Crusades were a mission disaster not worthy of the name of
Christ.
Benefits of Contact with Islam - Aquinas and the Western Church

Aquinas lived from 1225 to 1274AD. He was a priest as well as a very important
philosophical theologian. Aquinas like many who came somewhat after the dark years
of the Crusades was an inquisitive theologian. If nothing else intellectual people of
scholarship in the church were asking questions relating to the existence of God, and
the significance of the Christian belief in God, faced as the West still was by that other
great world religion of Islam. Aquinas and his contemporaries may be said to have
benefitted in numerous ways from contacts with Muslim scholars. Importantly for
Aquinas he drew heavily on the rediscovered writings of the Greek philosopher
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Aristotle, preserved as they had been by Muslim scribes and scholars. Muslims like
the so called Christian people of the Book, took great care in scholarly pursuits and
scientific enquiries, which aimed not only to improve the lot of the common person in
society, but also to advance knowledge. All of the benefits of contact with Islam were
due to Islam's robust religious practices that kept its peoples united. Muslim theology,
faith and practice need to be understood a little in order to understand the missional
success of Islam in propagating its faith during the centuries we have been briefly
outlining.
Fundamentals of the Islamic Historic Faith

In this section we will concentrate on general Islamic theology as it has arisen from its
historic religious roots. It will be considered under the following classifications: faith
and practice. Under the heading of faith the five articles of Muslim belief will be
discussed. These are as follows: the doctrine of god, Angels, Scripture, Prophets and
the Last things. There is a sixth point which not all Muslim theologians agree should
be included with the other five. This is the doctrine of predestination or fate.
Under the heading of practices the five pillars of Muslim orthopraxy will be outlined.
These are: the Creed, Prayer, Almsgiving, Fasting and the Pilgrimage. There is also
a possible sixth classification as well, the Jihad. This is the concept of holy war. This
is hotly disputed among Muslim scholars as to whether it is a primary tenet of Islamic
orthodoxy or orthopraxy.
Classification 1: Faith
The first article of Muslim doctrine is the belief in Allah as the only god. He is perceived
to be a transcendent being. It creates the belief that:
Thus it follows for orthodox Islam that the greatest of all sins is Shirk, or
association, i.e. giving to anyone or anything even the smallest share in Allahs
unique sovereignty.
In developed Islamic theology the doctrine of god is considered to cover three matters.
Firstly, it concerns itself with the being or essence of Allah. Nine statements are
iterated to be essential to such belief. Firstly, that he exists, that he has had being from
all eternity, that his existence will continue into all eternity, that he should not be likened
to any substantial thing, His non-en-bodied-ness, that he is an essential being for the
continued existence of all things, that he is omnipresent and finally he is absolutely
unique.
Secondly, there are the attributes of Allah. Traditionally these are listed in the ninety-
nine names of divine being, with Allah as the one hundredth. But for simplicity seven
things are to be believed by the faithful. That he has life in himself without derivation,
that he is omniscient, that he is omnipotent, that he is all-willing, that he has sensibility,
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that he has speech, and finally he is active. Thirdly, there are the works of Allah, which
cover the following four elements: He is creator, that he is preserver of all things in
existence, that he reveals himself and he predestines all things in existence to do
whatever is according to his divine plan.
There is a further element for consideration in relation to the name of Allah. The basic
letters which constitute it are Alif, Lam and Hay with the Arabic Ilah. An interesting
point arises from the final of these letters, with the observation that its root meaning is
that of 'wonder or awe.' The point is that the name of Allah may be taken to indicate
the absolute un-knowable nature of his existence besides his will to reveal himself. To
put it another way, man is bewildered in the presence of Allah the absolute
transcendent Lord. Moreover, Allah is viewed as the sovereign judge. He is the sole
arbiter of the destiny of men, which will become apparent on the Final Day. There will
be no mediator to appeal too. Salvation is completely down to his mercy and justice.
The second article is the belief in Angels. This is essential to Muslim doctrine. Angels
are not perceived to perform normal bodily functions like human beings. They have no
sexual desire nor do they consume food. They are meant to have been created out of
light, being sanctified from carnal desires, anger, and hence this makes them perfect
in the fulfilment of Gods commands. Their major functions are thought to be
intercessory, to act as guardians, to uphold the throne of god, to supervise hell and to
exorcise Jinn. The chief, or highest of the angels is Gabriel, who appeared to
Muhammad and was the instrument of Allahs revelations to him. Satan is also
believed to have been an angel at some point in his existence, but is thought to have
fallen from grace by disobeying the divine command to pay homage to Adam, after
Allah had created him. Satan is the means by which men are tempted. Creatures
called Jinn are also thought to exist. They are considered to be between men and
angels. These can be either good or evil. Like men, they can experience salvation
based on the merits of their deeds. Probably one of the most important functions of
the angels is thought to be that they keep a record of every single persons good or
evil deeds. Every human being has two recording angels, one which records his evil
actions, and one which tabulates his good deeds.
The third article is the doctrine of Scripture. There are believed to be four inspired
books. These are the Torah of Moses, the Psalms of David, the gospel of Jesus and
most importantly the Koran. Muslims think that Christians and Jews have corrupted
the original texts of the first three sources, so that it is almost impossible to convert a
convinced Muslim to either religion, until he can be persuaded of the veracity of the
extant works that make up the aforementioned sources. The key belief of all devout
Muslims is that the Koran supersedes all other revelations of Allah, because it is the
most recent in the linear series of revelations. However, their 'Holy Scripture' is not
limited to the Koran only, but also to the works which have just been mentioned to
some far lesser extent. This is particularly offset by Islams acceptance 'that all that is
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necessary to know of these inspired writings is supposed to have been retained in the
Koran. What this means is that Muslim scholars use the Koranic variants to Christian
and Jewish Scriptures to measure the authenticity of anything they might reflect on
found in the extant Judaeo-Christian deposits.
The fourth doctrine is that of the prophets. The Arabic 'Nabi' (prophet) like its Hebrew
Semitic counterpart are close cognates. They share the common etymology of 'one
who bubbles forth' as a fountain. 'Allahs mind, will and purposes are revealed as
appropriate to mankind so that they may know how to worship him and how to guide
their lives aright.' God is said to have spoken to mankind by this medium throughout
the centuries in differing communities. Islam pays careful homage to six particular
prophets. Adam is the first to be recognised, then Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and
finally Muhammad as the greatest of the Nabi. However, this list may be extended to
nine by including, Jacob, Job and David. Muhammad is viewed as the final prophet
and hence the ultimate source of revelation from Allah, thus superseding all others.
The fifth doctrine is that of the last days or last things. The final events are
characterised especially by the resurrection of the dead and the eschatological
judgment of the just and wicked. The former is pictured as hidden from all but God.
Nevertheless, there will be some certain knowledge of the eschatons closeness
through what are termed 'the lesser' and 'greater' signs. During the resurrection both
the righteous and the wicked are brought back to life. Then they are arraigned before
the judge. Allah acts as the sole arbiter and judge, deciding each persons eternal fate
according to his faith, and works of righteousness. The righteous are given a home in
paradise and the wicked in a flaming hell of torturous fire. Three angels have important
roles on the day of resurrection. Asrafil will blow the last trumpet blast announcing the
telos. Gabriel and Michael alongside Asrafil gather the bones of the dead together in
preparation for the resurrection. There is also an intermediate place which might be
termed as the Islamic version of purgatory.
Sixthly, there is the disputed doctrine of predestination or fatalism. This is the belief
that both good and evil proceed from the divine will, although how this works is
mysterious. A monist view of Allah could be arguably brought to the foreground in this
theological instance. It is probably because of this turn of events that it proves very
difficult for theologians to reconcile themselves to this perspective. To put it in another
way, there is an Islamic version of some kind of double predestination. In this view
God deliberately influences, or decrees, some people to be lost and others to be
saved. Jeffery helpfully commented:
Orthodox Islam teaches the absolute predestination of both good and evil, that
all our thoughts, words and deeds, whether good or evil, were foreseen,
foreordained, determined and decreed from all eternity, and that everything that
happens takes place according to what has been written for it.
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Much of the failure of Muslim countries to advance has possibly been due to this
fatalistic view of life. It is common to hear a Muslim comment 'It is Allahs will.'
However, this view is challenged as many Muslim nations have embraced many
scientific advancements. Mans fate does not rest within his hands, and for that reason
man can do nothing else except accept his fate. It may be said that one of the greatest
reasons for Islams appeal is its simplicity of doctrinal belief that the faithful can
understand and maintain because of its stability of theological and devotional iteration.
Classification 2: Practices
The first step in being a Muslim is to accept its central doctrines, whereas the next is
to consent to its five pillars of orthopraxy. The first and most important of these is the
creed. This consists in the words 'there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the
prophet of Allah.' This statement is right at the bedrock of Muslim belief. The statement
in itself is thought to have merit. To pronounce it is an act of piety. If it is recited to an
unbeliever it is thought to be enough to make him into a Muslim. However, Islamic
scholars add little more to this folk tradition as Jeffery commented:
'The orthodox divines, however, say that six conditions must be observed
before it can effectively make one a Muslim. These are: (1) it must be repeated
aloud; (2) it must be perfectly understood; (3) it must be believed in the heart;
(4) it must be professed till death; (5) it must be recited correctly; (6) it must be
professed and declared without hesitation.'
The second is that of prayer. Prayer is central to the practice of devout Muslims. It
must be done five times a day; upon arising, at noon, at mid-afternoon, at sunset and
before retiring. Each of these sessions is preceded by ceremonial ablutions. The
worshipper is called to prayer by the Muezzin, and has to recite the prescribed prayers
while facing Mecca. They are all done in public. Each service is led by an Imam. Friday
is a special day which is held in the Mosque, a sermon is preached at this time along
with congregational prayers. All devout Muslims also attend to private prayers at
home.
The third pillar is of almsgiving. There are two technical terms used for it, these are
Zakat and Sadaqa, both words are borrowed from Arabic. Jeffery commented on their
meaning as follows:
'In the Quran they seem to be used interchangeably for that practical sharing
with others less fortunate the bounty one receives from Allah, a sharing which
was to be one of the marks of a true Muslim.'
It may also be said to be a social obligation, which proves the correctness of the givers
private property. The giver is not to view possessions as his own, but as Gods gift to
him. The believer is a steward of these earthly provisions. Alms giving was practiced
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in Arabia prior to Muhammad, and was brought into the Muslim community by the
prophet. Perhaps the injunction for this was because of his sympathy with the poor,
because he himself had come from among their ranks in his early life. It seems that it
was at first a voluntary thing, but with the passage of time it became a requirement,
being one fortieth of a mans income or goods. It is thought to have merit for salvation
to the giver. Because of this the one who receives alms does not feel a sense of debt
to the giver, but rather considers himself as a rightful beneficiary of the provisions.
The fourth element is that of fasting. 'It is binding on all adult Muslims of both sexes,
save for the aged, sick, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and travellers.' The fast of
Ramadan is one that all Muslims must keep. It lasts for about a month, in which time
the believer cannot eat between the times of sunrise and sunset. It is believed that this
practice develops self-control, devotion to God and identity with the destitute.
Abstinence from smoking and sex is also imposed. Most Muslims eat before sunrise
and after sunset during this month.
The fifth pillar is pilgrimage. This custom arose before the time of Muhammad, as
Jeffery notes. All Muslims, today, are expected to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca at least
once in their life time. Providing that the pilgrim's family can be supported during the
individuals journey, and he should also be able to provide for himself whilst away from
home. The trip is an essential part of salvation (as the other pillars are). The rituals of
this time centre themselves in Mecca, and around the black stone called the Kaaba.
The major events which are to happen are as follows. When the pilgrim is within six
miles of Mecca he changes from his ordinary clothes, and puts on a special seamless
garment. The shoes are removed from his feet, and the city is approached barefoot.
The fingernails are not cut, and neither is the hair. Upon entering Mecca the sacred
Mosque is visited, and the sacred stone is kissed. The Kaaba is then circled seven
times, three running, and four walking. Then the pilgrim runs between and ascends
mount Safa and mount Marwa seven times. After this a visit is paid to mount Arafat,
at which place a sermon is heard. Then the night is spent at a place called Mazdalifa.
After this stones must be thrown at three pillars in Mina. The climax to the whole
process is to offer sacrifice on the last day of Imran. It need not be said that this is a
very demanding programme, on which an infirm or elderly person would not fair very
well. For this reason somebody else can go in their stead to gain merit for them.
A sixth practice which may arise in times of crises is Jihad. The holy war is conceived
of in similar fashion to St. Augustines arguments for just wars. A Muslim may be
expected to go to war to spread Islam, or defend it against infidels. They believe that
he who dies whilst fighting for Allah is guaranteed a home in paradise.
Group Reflection
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1. How can an understanding of Islam's historic faith and practices help enable
meaningful missional conversations with Muslims?
2. To what extent is it helpful to have a militant evangelical approach toward

other world faiths who are equally welcomed into the western public square?
3. What can you deduce from the discussion of this session that may help you
to engage in mission with other faith persuasions in an effective and affective
manner?
4. Given that Islam is a missionary faith in some ways, in the sense that it has
taken its faith into differing cultures, kingdoms and nations over the course of
its history, to what extent has it been successful in winning converts to Islam?
5. How would you go about striking up conversations with Muslims or peoples

of other faiths based on your learning from the historical insights from this
session?
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Conclusions
Islam was not arguably a disaster for the eastern or western Christian missionary
movements. This may be considered to be particularly pertinent if the Biblical
theologian considers that God ultimately has purposive control over history, being
open as history is to human free will, and as it may be considered to be part of a causal
open system. Missio Dei (Latin meaning God's mission) would seem to require the
missional theologian to consider his or her history of mission in the light of the
missionary God's plan to reconcile the world to himself. In this sense it may be useful
to reflect on the role of Islam in its own missionary endeavours in the shaping of world
history, and particularly the history of western philosophy and theology. The
consideration of Islam's historic theological faith demonstrates the deep commitment
required of the faithful.
Can Islam be thought of as taking part in the Abrahamic mission to bless all nations
through Abraham's descendents? The way the student answers this question will be
largely due to how the term 'blessing' is to be understood. It seems evident that the
Muslim faith could be considered to be closely related to Old Testament ideas and to
that extent some missiologists hold that Islam like the Jewish faith is to be considered
in need of accepting Christ as Lord in order to fulfil the missio Dei. As in all scholarly
pursuits the student is left to make his or her own mind up on these matters.
Required Reading:
Textbook: Shelley, Bruce, L., Church History in plain language, 3rd edition, Nashville:
Thomas Nelson (2008), pp. 186-192 & 495-498
AND
Reader on Moodle: MacCulloch, D., (2010), A History of Christianity, London:

Penguin Books, pp. 255-285
147

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MS100 Topic 1

BA (Hons), DipHE, CertHE, Foundation

Student Study Guide Book Autumn 2017

MS100: Topic 1: Mission History in the West

ForMission College : MS100 2017-18

Course text book:

Reference books to help students engage with the MS100

Moss, C. R. (2012). Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and

Smither, E. L. (2014). Rethinking Constantine: History, Theology, and Legacy.

Leithart, P. J. (2010). Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the

Graham, C. A. (2014). A reader's lexicon of the Apostolic fathers. Criswell

Cahill, P. J. (1992). Celtic Christianity: A Different Drum. Religious Studies And

LeMasters, P. (1999). Celtic Christianity: Its Call to Discipleship. Encounter, 60(4),

Session 1: Paradigm Shifts in Church History

1. Understand and describe the nature of paradigms as applied to theology and

Instructions for this Session

There is a pdf reader on Moodle for this session:

1. Missional reading use of the term missional

These potentially new frameworks of thought alternate between revolutionary and

Such a change of viewpoint is what Kuhn labelled a paradigm shift. In a postscript to

1. The apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity.

3. Kngs Six Paradigms

1) The apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity

2) The Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period.

3) The medieval Roman Catholic paradigm.

Greek thinking was incarnational, it emphasised the origin or pre-existence of Christ

An unforeseen consequence was that the individuals access to salvation came

4) The Protestant (Reformation) paradigm.

European society in the wake of the Black Death remained preoccupied by

12 MacCulloch, D., A History of Christianity, (London: Penguin Books, 2010) 555

At first sight it appears the territorial development of Reformation Churches, resulted

5) The Modern Enlightenment Paradigm

14 David Hume, A treatise on human nature, http://www.unc.edu/~jjeffrey/HumeFiles-B3/B2.3.3.accessed

6). The emerging ecumenical paradigm.

In the year 1900 a missionary gathering in New York proclaimed itself as an

Numerically, it is perhaps the influence of the narrower ecumenism of the evangelical

The burgeoning of World Christianity in the southern hemisphere is not confined to

1. Why do mission paradigms change?

16 See Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge UP, 2004) pp103-122

There is a pdf reader on Moodle for this session:

1. understand the concept of missional movements as applied to Jesus and Paul

Required reading for session 2:

Textbook: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (USA: Thomas

Reader on Moodle: Michael Green Evangelism in the Early Church, (Eastbourne,

1. The missional concept applied to missional leaders

2. Historical, religious and social background to the mission of Jesus

17 Wright N.T., Jesus and the Victory of God, London, SPCK,1996

i) Mark mission as action and exorcism

ii) Matthew mission as disciple making

iii) Luke/Acts mission as good news for the marginalised

iv) Johns theological interpretation of mission incarnation and conflict

In Johns Gospel we breathe an entirely different atmosphere; it is more reflective and

This understanding of Jesus as a transcendent being is nevertheless firmly anchored

3. Pauls missional trajectory

23 1 Corinthians 15:8 (NIV)

This instruction encourages four generations of witnesses or church members with a

Required reading for session 2:

Textbook: Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (USA: Thomas

Reader on Moodle: Michael Green Evangelism in the Early Church, (Eastbourne,

Required reading for Session 3:

1.Contextualisation of the Gospel: Transition from Hebrew to Greek culture

1. Orthodoxy defined by combating heresy

As a result of the fall, particles or sparks of goodness had become imprisoned in