9. The emergence of Christianity: the early (pre-Constantinian) period in the history of Christianity

Lecture Plan

1. Socio-political conditions and ideological prerequisites for the emergence of Christianity.

2. The historical and mythological schools on the personality of Jesus Christ.

3. The evolution of early Christianity. The Antiochene and Jerusalem communities. The formation of doctrine.

4. The Bible: composition and content. Canon and Apocrypha.

5. Apologetics: Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen. Tertullian.

6. Patristics: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Aurelius Augustine. The church's struggle against Gnosticism, Montanism, and Manichaeism.

7. The formation of the cult and the church organization.

1. Socio-political conditions and ideological prerequisites for the emergence of Christianity

In the second half of the first millennium BCE and in the first centuries of the Christian era, changes were taking place throughout the entire Eastern Mediterranean region in the traditional worldview of the main masses of the population, changes that prepared the way for the appearance and spread of a new world religion – Christianity. During the period when mythological thinking dominated, people, following a tradition inherited from a long line of ancestors, relied on the given order of the world and on their place within the collective as its organic part. The inevitability of events connected with such a world order provoked no doubt. Now, however, traditional foundations were collapsing everywhere; Greco-Macedonian, Roman, and Parthian conquests led to the fall and rise of states across territories enormous in scale, and to the masses of people drawn into these processes. Forced and voluntary resettlement took place, kinship and communal ties were lost, and success or failure often seemed accidental and unforeseeable. Under these conditions, the need became ever more palpable for faith in a mighty patron God who could save not the tribe, not the community, not the city, but the given individual person, deprived of the former guarantees of his accustomed existence.

One manifestation of the search for new deities was the creation of syncretic images of gods that combined the functions and attributes of the deities of different peoples. These phenomena in religious thought had already appeared within the framework of the Persian Empire. They were partly connected with mass migrations, especially characteristic of the Hellenistic era: in a new place, people sought to secure the support of local gods without renouncing the veneration of their own former, «ancestral», ones. But in the merging of the images of various gods one can also see an expression of the tendency toward the universalization and abstraction of divinity, toward the formation of the concept of a single deity. Great popularity in the ancient Near East (as far as Iran) was enjoyed by the cult of Serapis (Osiris, Apis, Zeus, Hades, Asclepius), who appeared as the lord of heaven and of the kingdom of the dead. No less widespread were the cults of the ancient female deity – the Great Mother (as the origin of all that exists), who was identified with Astarte, Cybele, Isis, Hecate, Artemis, Aphrodite Urania, and other female deities who became, in essence, her hypostases. In the work attributed to Lucian – «On the Syrian Goddess»

– an image of such a syncretic deity in the temple of Syrian Hierapolis is described; the author calls the goddess Hera, although she is borne by lions (an attribute of Cybele), and on her head is a tower and a headband which, in the author's words, «adorns only Aphrodite Urania». The cult of the Mother Goddess, present in most religious beliefs of the time, united people of the most varied ethnic and social origin, and the goddess herself, in the conception of her worshippers, was the ruler of the universe. Lucius, the hero of Apuleius's «Metamorphoses», addressing Isis, says: «...You turn the world, kindle the sun, govern the universe, trample Tartarus underfoot... at your bidding fire is kindled, clouds gather, fields are sown, crops rise».

The universalization of the image of divinity is noticeable even in local patron deities of individual cities, whose cult attracted the most varied people: thus, in an inscription from the small Carian town of Panamara (1st century CE), all citizens living in the city, foreigners, slaves, women, and «all the people of the inhabited world» are invited to take part in festivities in honor of Zeus Panamaros. In this case the local Zeus was probably already perceived as a hypostasis of a single mighty deity who appears as the patron of all inhabitants of the oikoumene. Thus the formation of the concept of a universal deity was also connected with the notion of human community, of the natural equality of people – a notion no longer confined to philosophical teachings but beginning to penetrate mass consciousness.

The universal deity was conceived not only as omnipotent, but also as just and merciful toward people. This reflected the growing anthropocentrism of religious thinking: it was not only that man served God – the deity cared first and foremost for man. In that same prayer to Isis, Lucius calls her the «protectress of mortals», the «defender of the human race». And an inscription from Nubia contains an appeal to honor Isis and Serapis, «the greatest of the gods, saviors», «benevolent, gracious», «benefactors». The benevolent deity, in the conception of people of the first centuries of the Christian era, helps people and is itself the supreme bearer of moral principle. Numerous dedications from Asia Minor, Syria, and Phoenicia are made to «the gods who hearken» (or, in the singular, the god who hearkens). Epithets such as «pure and just» are also applied to the deity. It is characteristic that the «pure and just» god is nameless – he is one, and justice has become his principal attribute.

Probably under the influence of ideas about a single deity, interest in Judaism appeared in the late Hellenistic period outside Palestine. Alongside the fantastic, clearly tendentious descriptions of Jewish rites by various ancient authors, one can also find a positive attitude toward Jewish beliefs. Thus Strabo writes with sympathy about Moses and his teaching of a single deity who governs the cosmos and the nature of existence; he also singles out moral requirements for believers: only those who live prudently, in accordance with justice, can receive a reward from God. Private religious associations appear in which the influence of Judaism is visible: thus, from Cilicia there survives an inscription in honor of the head of a synagogue, set up on behalf of a college of worshippers of the «Sabbath God», i.e., the God of the Sabbath (besides full members of the college, people called «sabbatists» are also mentioned). The «Most High God», around whose cult various people in Asia Minor, in Thrace, and on the Bosporus likewise united, was in all probability connected with the image of the Jewish Yahweh, although non-Jews were also numbered among his worshippers.

A person's turning to a just, «hearkening» deity presupposed the notion of a personal connection with this deity outside the official ceremonies of the community or city. Thus, in the Hellenistic states, and later in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, a great number of private religious associations appeared around the cults of one deity or another, for the most part of eastern origin. Special sacraments and mysteries were performed to unite each member of the community with the savior-deity. In these mysteries ancient magical rites were combined with a moral trial through which the initiate had to pass. Tertullian wrote that initiation into the mysteries of Isis and Mithras took place through ablution, that is, purification (not only physical but also moral). The mystery rites, as it were, offered every participant the possibility of union with the deity. True, magic still remained the chief means of personal communion with it in these rites. In the magical spells connected with the cult of Hermes Trismegistus (the Thrice-Greatest), especially widespread in Egypt, there are formulas ensuring union with the deity, including the affirmation: «I know your name, which has shone forth in heaven, I know all your images too, I know what your plant is...». Knowledge of the secret

images and names gave believers, in their own conception, magical power over the deity.

Faith in the possibility of direct contact with the deity – without the mediation of traditional priesthood – led to the appearance, in the first centuries of the Christian era, of many prophets and preachers in the eastern provinces. A characteristic example is Alexander, who was active in Bithynia and Pontus in the 2nd century CE. He was mocked by Lucian – and enjoyed enormous popularity among the most varied strata of the population. Alexander announced the birth of a new deity in the form of a serpent (an incarnation of Asclepius) and gave oracles in its name. The thirst for miracle, the hope of communion with a living god, ensured success for people like Alexander.

However, at the turn of the era there also appeared communities that did not recognize magic and imposed only moral demands on their members. In this respect a religious union founded by some philosopher in the Asia Minor city of Philadelphia in the 1st century BCE is of interest. Members of the union honored Zeus and the Great Mother (Atargatis). Both women and men could join it, whether free or slave. They had to swear an oath not to plot against anyone, not to use spells, not to use means preventing childbirth, and not to help others do so; men were not to cohabit with married women, whether free or slave, nor to seduce girls and boys; wives were not to be unfaithful to their husbands. It is characteristic that all the condemned offenses are directed only against the individual person, and no norms of public, official conduct were established; it is also interesting that the members of this union opposed magic, although they believed in it (the ban on spells and love potions). This union reflects a high degree of self-determination of the individual and a need for moral norms that would protect that individual.

All the described features of the cults of the Eastern Mediterranean appeared in the form of tendencies – they were present in various forms and with varying degrees of intensity in different beliefs. These tendencies prepared the ground for the spread of Christianity, just as Jewish sectarianism prepared the ground for its emergence. It was precisely in Christianity that they found their fullest embodiment. In it – as in Buddhism – the particularism, the ethnic or class narrowness of ancient cults, were overcome, and normative moral demands were formulated for believers. Early Christianity called for union in love, which was not to divide people into strangers and one's own. At the same time Christianity deified suffering – it was to the suffering, precisely, that divine grace was to be revealed. Christians perceived themselves not as members of any particular traditional collective, but merely as temporary wanderers on earth. And at the same time man as an individual stood at the center of the entire Christian doctrine: he bore responsibility not only for his personal deeds, but for all the injustice of the world, yet at the same time he possessed the possibility of choosing a path that would lead him to salvation in the Kingdom of God on earth or in another world.

The universalism of the Christian message determined the transformation of Christianity into a world religion, but this path was fairly long.

2. The historical and mythological schools on the personality of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ as the object of the Christian cult belongs to theology. And this is a matter of faith, which excludes any doubt and requires no investigation. Nevertheless, attempts to penetrate the spirit of the Gospels, to understand the true essence of Jesus Christ, have never ceased. The entire history of the Christian Church is full of fierce battles for the right to possess the tru-

Churches, and by the Reformation. But, apart from purely theological disputes, the figure of Jesus Christ also became a subject of discussion in historical scholarship, which was and continues to be concerned above all with two problems: 1) the question of the real content of the Gospel history, that is, whether Jesus Christ was a historical person; 2) the question of the image of Jesus Christ in early Christian consciousness (what is the meaning of this image and what are its origins?). These problems found themselves at the center of debates between two scholarly schools that arose as early as the 18th century – the mythological and the historical.

The mythological school (C. Dupuis, C. Volney, A. Drews, and others) completely denied the reality of Jesus Christ as a historical figure and regarded him exclusively as a fact of mythology. In Jesus they saw the personification now of a solar or lunar deity, now of the Old Testament Yahweh, now of the Qumranite Teacher of Righteousness. Trying to reveal the origins of the image of Jesus Christ and to »decode» the symbolic content of Gospel events, representatives of this school carried out enormous work in searching for parallels between the motifs and plots of the New Testament and earlier mythological systems. Thus, for example, the idea of the resurrection of Jesus was linked by them to conceptions of the dying and rising deity in Sumerian, ancient Egyptian, West Semitic, and ancient Greek mythologies. Attempts were also made to give the Gospel history a solar-astral interpretation, quite widespread in ancient cultures (the journey of Jesus Christ with the 12 apostles was presented, in particular, as the annual course of the sun through the 12 constellations). The image of Jesus Christ, in the opinion of adherents of the mythological school, gradually evolved from an original image of a pure deity to a later image of the God-man. The merit of the mythologists lies in the fact that they succeeded in examining the image of Jesus Christ in the broad context of ancient Near Eastern and classical culture and in showing its dependence on preceding mythological development.

The historical school (H. Reimarus, E. Renan, F. Baur, D. Strauss, and others) held that the Gospel narrative has a certain real basis, which, however, became ever more mythologized over time, and Jesus Christ

gradually turned from a real person (a preacher and teacher of the faith) into a supernatural being. Supporters of this school set themselves the task of freeing what was genuinely historical in the Gospels from later mythological elaboration. To this end, at the end of the 19th century it was proposed to use the method of rationalist criticism, which meant the reconstruction of the «authentic» biography of Jesus Christ by excluding everything that does not lend itself to rational explanation, that is, in effect «rewriting» the Gospels in a rationalist spirit (the Tübingen school). This method drew serious criticism (F. Bradley) and was soon rejected by the majority of scholars.

The cornerstone thesis of the mythologists concerning the »silence» of first-century sources about Jesus Christ, which, in their conviction, proved the mythical character of this figure, prompted many supporters of the historical school to shift their attention to the careful study of New Testament texts in search of the original Christian tradition. In the first quarter of the 20th century the school of «form history» (form criticism) arose (M. Dibelius, R. Bultmann), whose aim was to reconstruct the history of the development of the tradition about Jesus Christ – from its oral origins to its literary shaping – and to determine the original core, purging it of the accretions of later redactions. Textual studies led representatives of this school to the conclusion that even the earliest Christian version, isolated from the Gospels and dating to the mid-1st century, does not make it possible to reconstruct a real biography of Jesus Christ. Here too he remains merely a symbolic figure; the historical Jesus Christ may have existed, but the question of the actual events of his life is hardly resolvable. The followers of the form-history school still constitute one of the leading trends in modern biblical scholarship today.

Because of the absence of fundamentally new documents, and given the limited informative value of archaeological material, it is difficult for now to expect any substantial breakthrough in resolving the problem of the historical Jesus Christ.

3. The evolution of early Christianity. The Antiochene and Jerusalem communities. The formation of doctrine

At first the followers of the Galilean preacher Joshua (Jesus) made up a small group, one of many that existed in Palestine in the 1st century CE. Their immediate predecessors were the Qumran Essenes and John the Baptist, of whom, besides the Gospels, an account is also given in the «Jewish Antiquities» of Josephus Flavius. John was connected with the Qumran community; in expectation of the coming of the messiah he called on people to repent and cleanse themselves of all sins. In these calls one can clearly see the expectation of the end of the world – eschatological conceptions characteristic of the teaching of the Qumranites. Baptism – immersion in the waters of the Jordan river – served as an expression of purification. John and his disciples preached asceticism. John's fate was a sad one: he spoke out against the Roman appointee, the ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas, and was executed on his orders, since, according to Josephus Flavius, Herod feared that John's influence over the people might lead to rebellion.

One of those who received baptism from John in the waters of the Jordan was Jesus of Nazareth. From the point of view of Jesus's first venerators, it was precisely at the moment of the act of baptism that Jesus became the «prophet of prophets»; the «Holy Spirit» descended upon him

– as is related in the early gospels, created among Christians of Jewish origin (the Ebionites and Nazarenes). The teaching about Jesus as the Son of God in the literal sense of the word, immaculately conceived by the Virgin Mary, arose approximately in the middle of the 1st century CE. Thus, at the beginning of his preaching, Jesus appeared as a prophet, continuing the earlier prophetic movement (it is not for nothing that the sayings attributed to him contain so many quotations from the Old Testament prophets). It is difficult to reconstruct the initial core of his preaching; judging by the most ancient tradition, preserved in the New Testament and Judeo-Christian writings, its main content consisted of calls to spiritual purification through the «living water» of faith

in expectation of the imminent end of the world and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. In the earliest of the canonical gospels – the Gospel of Mark – Jesus says to his disciples: «...there is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life» (10. 29-30). Eschatological hopes constituted the most important part of the worldview of Jesus's first followers. The path

to the Kingdom of God meant renunciation of all the values of the surrounding world; in a fragment of the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews Jesus angrily rebukes the Rich Young Man for the fact that his house is full of goods while the «sons of Abraham» die of hunger: to become perfect, one must give away all one's property to the poor and only then follow Jesus (a shorter version of this story is given in the Gospel of Matthew – 19. 21). Not only renunciation of wealth, but also the breaking of all former traditional ties (leaving house, brothers, sisters, parents – as follows from the saying from the Gospel of Mark cited above), the abandonment of the traditional way of life (living like the birds of heaven) – all this was part of the conception of spiritual purification. Judging by the Gospel tradition, Jesus's first disciples did exactly this: having abandoned homes and families, they walked together with him through Galilee, and then went to Jerusalem (Peter, in particular, was married; there is mention of his mother-in-law, whom Jesus healed). Very important for the further spread of Christianity was Jesus's opposition to formal ritualism, to the ritual regulation characteristic of the Pharisees. In various gospels a protest against Sabbath restrictions insistently sounds: «...What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep!..» (Matt. 12. 11-12); the protest against outward observance of ritual is just as sharp: in a fragment of an unknown apocryphal gospel found in Egypt (first third of the 2nd century), an episode is related of Jesus's meeting with a Pharisee, who rebuked him for entering the temple together with his disciples without even having washed his feet. In reply Jesus «said to him: You have washed yourself in standing water, in which dogs and pigs lie day and night, and you have washed yourself and rubbed the outside of your skin, as harlots and flute-girls anoint themselves, bathe, and rub themselves with perfumes and paint, to arouse desire, while within they are full of scorpions and vices. But I and my disciples, whom you say are unclean, we have washed ourselves in living water, descending [from heaven]...».

The negative attitude toward the formal requirements of the Pharisees did not, during Jesus's lifetime, mean the rejection of all ritual norms. Thus in the gospels one can find hints that certain rites and sacrifices were observed by Jesus's disciples: in the Gospel of Mark Jesus tells the man he has healed to offer for his cleansing «what Moses commanded» (1. 44). Later, however, after Jesus's execution, when his death began to be understood as an atoning sacrifice for all mankind, his followers, including Judeo-Christians, began to reject all sacrifices [see, for example, the Epistle to the Hebrews: «Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me» (10. 5); these words, a paraphrase of the Septuagint (Ps. 39. 7-9), are placed by the author of the epistle in Jesus's mouth].

The attitude of the first Christians toward non-Jews also gradually changed. On the one hand, it may seem that the original preaching was intended only for Jews. «I am sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel», says Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, but on the other hand – according to the Gospel tradition – he also attracted and healed people of non-Jewish origin, all who believed in him: he helped a Roman centurion, a woman of Syro-Phoenician stock, and so on. Faith alone was enough for salvation. In this was manifested that overcoming of particularism, of the division into «one's own» and «strangers», which could already be traced in individual religious teachings of the preceding period. The «openness» of the Christian message determined from the very beginning the possibility of the wide dissemination of the new teaching. In this openness lies one of the essential differences between Christianity and the teaching of the Qumranites, for all the similarity of many elements in the worldview of the two sects. Certain passages of New Testament writings sound like a direct polemic against the Qumran rules of closed existence: «Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house» (Matt. 5. 14-15).

The first Christians addressed their appeals equally to men and to women; among Jesus's disciples, according to tradition, were women who accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem and were present at his execution. Later too, women played a significant role in the Christian communities of the eastern provinces, and apparently it was primarily women who had lost their social and family ties. Christians – and this runs through all early Christian literature – called to themselves the poor, widows, orphans, cripples, prostitutes – that is, all those rejected by the norms of communal morality in ancient societies. The idea of Christian mercy meant help to all who suffered, regardless of the causes of their suffering; mercy was directed at the individual person, and in this respect Christian charity differed from the collective distributions and public feasts of the ancient world.

Mercy is one of the components of Christian morality. According to the Gospel tradition, Jesus taught a religion of selflessness, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness. The first Christians proclaimed a normative morality that included love of enemies, the repayment of good not only for good but also for evil. Retribution was entirely entrusted to God, who was himself the embodiment of goodness and justice. These norms were difficult to realize in real life (as the whole subsequent history of Christianity clearly showed), but on the one hand they absorbed the hopes and moral searchings characteristic of various religious groups, while on the other hand they stood opposed to the traditional conceptions of antiquity, with their division into «one's own» and «strangers», the principle of retribution based on the lex talionis, and so on – which attracted all those who were dissatisfied with such conceptions.

All these principles and ideas, already embedded in the preaching of Jesus, found their further development in the teaching of Paul from the Cilician city of Tarsus. Paul, originally an orthodox Jew and a persecutor of Christianity, later became no less zealous a defender of it. By the time of Paul's activity (mid-1st century) the bulk of Christians were Jews living outside Palestine (there were also small groups of Christians in Palestine who retained the old names of Ebionites – «the poor» – and Nazarenes – «the consecrated»). They observed the Sabbath and recognized the Temple in Jerusalem, considering themselves, as it were, «true» Jews; the number of non-Jewish Christians was apparently relatively small.

Paul's preaching opened the way into Christian communities for the broadest strata of non-Jews. He came out against observance of the Law – the all-encompassing system of commandments and prohibitions: the absolute goodness of the deity is incomparable with human deeds, and all that remains for people is to hope for God's forgiveness. Grace, sent down by God, leads man out of the world of evil. All mankind is saved by the voluntary suffering of the absolutely innocent Jesus: each individual person is saved by the very act of faith, which grants forgiveness through the death of Christ. Thus, all people were made complicit in the guilt for the evil of the surrounding world, and each could be saved through faith: Christianity gave not only hope of salvation, but also a sense of spiritual purification, in which the most terrible sinners, having repented, could become equal to the righteous. The act of faith, according to Paul's teaching, was accessible to all, regardless of ethnic origin and observance of the requirements of the Law: «...there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all» (Epistle to the Colossians 3. 11). This position helped Christianity to win people's souls and contributed to its transformation into a world religion.

As for the Judeo-Christians, who tried to combine the new ideas with the traditional requirements of the Law, they continued to exist in Palestine and Syria up to the Middle Ages; their teaching, which denied the virgin birth, influenced a number of heretical teachings, including, indirectly, Arianism, and the tradition reflected in their sacred books can be traced in New Testament writings recognized by the church as sacred (for example, in the Revelation of John). But the teaching of these groups did not achieve wide dissemination. Only the development of the idea of universalism, the appeal to the individual person apart from his social and tribal ties, led to the fact that Christianity, like other world religions, outlived the ancient society that had given birth to it and spread beyond its geographical and chronological boundaries.

According to Christian tradition and the account of Josephus Flavius, Jesus's brother James remained in Jerusalem (one of the most venerated apostles of the so-called Judeo-Christians). In 62 CE he was executed (sentenced to death by stoning). Little is known about the Palestinian Christians; following the Qumranites, they called themselves Ebionites, that is, the poor. During the Jewish revolt against the Romans at the end of the 1st century, they, according to tradition, resettled across the Jordan (apparently because of disagreements with other groups), although it cannot be excluded that some of the Ebionite Christians, together with the Ebionites from Qumran and other Essene sects, took part in the revolt (Josephus Flavius attests to the participation of the Essenes in the Jewish War).

It is known that the Palestinian Christians at first joined the anti-Roman revolt that broke out in Palestine in 132 CE. But when the leader of this revolt, Bar Kokhba, proclaimed himself the messiah, they refused to recognize him (for the Judeo-Christians there was only one messiah – Jesus) and withdrew from the revolt. The 2nd-century writer Lucian mentions Christians in Palestine, but Christianity did not achieve wide dissemination on the territory of Palestine: the influence of orthodox Judaism was too strong there, and there were too many groups and sects competing with one another.

It may be supposed that some of Jesus's disciples and the disciples of his disciples, after the death of their teacher, returned from Jerusalem to the borders of Syria, and then began to preach in Syria itself – in Damascus and Antioch. According to Christian tradition, it was in Antioch that the very name «Christians» was born (from the Greek word «Christos», that is, «messiah»). At the beginning of the second half of the 1st century, Christians appear in the cities of Asia Minor (one of the earliest works of the New Testament – the Revelation – is addressed to the Christians of the seven Greek cities of Asia Minor). From there Christian preachers also set out for other regions. Christianity apparently appeared fairly early in Egypt, where there were many Jews (especially in Alexandria). In the West Christianity spread more slowly. The capital of the empire was the only exception. Among the Jews who had resettled in Rome or come there temporarily, Christians could have appeared fairly early as well: in the motley multilingual Roman crowd it was easier for them to preach and easier to hide from possible persecution.

After the defeat of the anti-Roman revolt in Judea, among the captives and inhabitants of Palestine sold into slavery there could also have been Christians, who began their preaching in whatever cities and regions fate had cast them into. In Pompeii, among the inscriptions in the gladiators' barracks, one was made by a Greek-speaking Jew; he wrote «Genesis» (the title of the biblical book of Genesis) and added – «the greatest». Some scholars consider it possible to interpret certain cryptograms and symbols found there as Christian, although this is doubtful.

But the first Christian communities were formed, and their teaching and organization took shape, in the eastern provinces, above all in Syria and Asia Minor.

The spread of Christianity among the most varied strata of the population led to changes and increasing complexity in Christian doctrine. On the one hand, the educated elite created Christian philosophy and theology, far from always comprehensible to the majority of believers; on the other hand, the lower classes of the population, especially from rural areas where traditional local beliefs were strong, brought into Christianity elements of pagan conceptions, naively combining features of their local deities with the image of the Christian God.

In the 2nd–3rd centuries Christianity spread not only among different strata of the empire's population, but also into different provinces. At the beginning of the 2nd century, the greatest number of Christians was still to be found in Asia Minor and Syria; on the Balkan peninsula in this period Christian communities are known only in a few cities (Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica). Judging by Lucian's account of Peregrinus, who joined the Christians in Palestine, individual groups of Christians (or more precisely, Judeo-Christians, in particular Ebionites) persisted there in the 2nd century, but Palestinian Christianity played no significant role. After the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the emigration of Christians from Palestine continued not only to the west, but also to the east. In the 2nd century Christians appear in northern Mesopotamia. The origins of the major Christian figures and writers of the 2nd century are characteristic: Justin was a native of Samaria, his disciple Tatian and Theophilus came from Mesopotamia, Athenagoras apparently from Athens, Irenaeus, the author of a huge work against heresies, from Asia Minor; even the writer Hippolytus of Rome, though he lived in Rome, came from somewhere among the Greek-speaking eastern provinces of the empire. Christianity appears comparatively early in Egypt. Papyrus fragments of Christian writings found in Egypt are dated to the first third of the 2nd century; among them are fragments of writings that entered the New Testament, as well as excerpts from unknown gospels (in one of them a tradition close to the first three gospels of the New Testament is used, in another – a tradition close to the Gospel of John). On the territory of Egypt, Christianity spread above all, probably, in Alexandria, where many Greek-speaking Jews lived. Among the Alexandrian Christians there were many educated people, and it was there that a special theological school was opened, which, as already mentioned, was headed in the 2nd–3rd centuries by such outstanding Christian writers and theologians as Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

During the 2nd century individual Christian communities appear in the southern regions of Egypt – Akhmim, Asyut, and Chenoboskion, where, after the Second World War, an actual library of Gnostic Christians (in the Coptic language) was found. This discovery attests that in Egypt a variety of Christian doctrine spread that did not coincide with the teachings of the Christians of Asia Minor and Rome. The spread of Christianity in its Gnostic understanding among the rural inhabitants of Egypt was connected with the traditions of Egyptian beliefs, which influenced the Gnostics, and with the passive forms of resistance that Egyptian peasants employed against those in power. One such form of resistance was «anachoresis», the flight of landowners from their villages. The fugitives hired themselves out as farmhands and became vagrants. The Roman authorities actively fought against vagrancy, caught vagrants, punished them, and returned them to their former place. Many fugitives joined

secret religious communities and settled in inaccessible places. From the 2nd century

the first monks appear in Egypt (the word «monk» means «solitary»). In seclusion these people sought to «free» themselves from the world of evil and to attain that state of soul that would ensure them mystical union with the deity. In the Egyptian Gnostic teachings much was taken from ancient Egyptian religious conceptions and from the teachings of the Egyptian priests (in particular, a number of magical formulas and spells of the Gnostic Christians were borrowed from the ancient cults of Egypt). Egyptian farmers were accustomed to belief in the magical power of a spoken word or name. They believed that knowledge of the name of a god united a person with him, and that knowledge of the name of a demon gave a person power over that demon. Among the Gnostics the Word (Logos), the name, the concept, was detached from concrete reality and appeared as an independent, eternal essence. Probably not all Egyptian farmers who fled from the burden of taxes to the remote regions of Upper Egypt and joined Gnostic communities fully understood the complex mysticism of the latter's teaching, but they invested their own magical conceptions into their reflection on the Logos-Christ, on the power of the divine Word.

The spread of Christianity in the west of the empire proceeded at a considerably slower pace. Its capital, Rome, was the only exception. In Rome lived people who had come, or been brought (if they were slaves), from the most remote corners of the empire. There one could meet worshippers of the most varied gods; therefore there is no reason to doubt that Christians were already living there in the time of Nero.

We cannot say how numerous the Roman Christians were at the end of the 1st century. Probably there were not so many of them, and, judging by the names mentioned in Paul's epistles, none of them were native Romans. At the end of the Acts of the Apostles there is an account of Paul's meeting with the leaders of the Jewish community of Rome. In this episode the Jews, among other things, say that they have heard nothing about Paul, and know only that this teaching (that is, Christianity) is disputed. Thus Christians, it seems, were still in the 1st century a small closed group in Rome, about which even many of the Jews living there knew little. In the 2nd century the number of Christians in Rome noticeably increases. From the second half of the 2nd century, special Christian cemeteries appear in the Roman catacombs – the underground galleries and quarries that had survived from antiquity; beginning in the 3rd century Christians also cut new galleries in the catacombs for their burials. The burial of the dead occupied an important place in the Christian cult: for Christians believed in the resurrection of the flesh, and therefore rejected the cremation rite accepted among the Romans. They set up special cemeteries so as to remain among fellow believers even after death. The catacombs were also a place for the prayers of Christians, when they did not yet dare to gather openly.

While slaves, freedmen, and immigrants predominated among Christians, their non-participation in public life was not very noticeable. But from the second half of the 2nd century, the negative attitude of Christians toward public office, and then toward military service, became a definite problem. The orator Aelius Aristides, speaking against Christians, accused them of being of no use to anyone, of being unwilling to take part in public festivities or to sit on city councils. Celsus, in his work against the Christians, calls on them to serve in the army and to fulfill civic duties. The question of military service was quite acute for Christians at the turn of the 2nd–3rd centuries. One Christian work (the «Apostolic Tradition»), written approximately at the beginning of the 3rd century, expresses condemnation of believers who wish to become soldiers.

Because Christians were becoming more conspicuous, criticism of Christianity appeared in the 2nd century as well, criticism that, unfortunately, has for the most part come down to us only in the retelling or citations of Christian writers. In the works of Lucian, Celsus (whose work is examined in detail by Origen), and Fronto (whose speech against the Christians is set out in the dialogue «Octavius» by the Christian apologist Minucius Felix), the teaching of the Christians is no longer simply called a repulsive superstition, but is analyzed in more detail. It is contrasted with classical philosophy and education. Lucian treats the Christians most leniently; his attitude toward them contains more contempt than indignation. He writes that the Christians honor «the great man who was crucified in Palestine»; further he says of them: «For these wretched people have persuaded themselves that they will be immortal...». But the active missionary activity of the Christians, on the one hand, and their public inactivity, on the other, provoked not only contempt but also hatred. A passionate denunciation of Christians is found in Celsus. He contrasts their faith with the philosophical teachings of antiquity. Celsus tries to show the absurdity of Christian dogmas, as well as the lack of originality of those points of their teaching that seem to Celsus to deserve approval. As an example of the first he cites the teaching about the Last Judgment: «It is absurd of them to think that when God, like a cook, kindles a fire, all mankind will be roasted, while they alone will remain, and not only the living, but also those long dead will crawl out of the earth in the flesh – this whole hope of worms». An example of the second is the Christian precept not to resist an offender. On this score Celsus says that this had been said long ago; such, in particular, was the conviction of Plato. In the dialogue «Octavius», created at the beginning of the 3rd century but based on earlier anti-Christian writings, it is not so much a philosophical point of view on Christianity that is reflected as mass conceptions of it. It says, for example, that Christians worship the head of a donkey, kill infants, and indulge in «disgusting lust». What strikes the anti-Christian authors is that these people «nourish love for one another, without even being acquainted with one another...». Caecilius, in whose name these accusations are voiced, calls for the complete destruction of the Christians. Minucius Felix probably selected from anti-Christian literature the most absurd accusations, which were easiest to refute, but that such accusations indeed circulated is also confirmed by Tertullian in his «Apology», when he speaks of the mocking depiction of the Christian God in the form of a man with donkey's ears and a hoof on one foot. Thus, condescending contempt, rationalist criticism, fantastic accusations – such was the range of the perception of Christianity by its pagan opponents. It is true, however, that one should not exaggerate the weight of this anti-Christian literature. The educated people of the time, writers, philosophers, spoke out in general against the superstitions and secret religious societies that had spread. Lucian mocked various false prophets and preachers (for example, the already-mentioned Alexander and Peregrinus) far more caustically than he mocked the Christians. Celsus, in order to compromise the Christians, compares them to the servants of Mithras, to people who believe in the appearance of Hecate (a deity of the underworld) or of some other demon... The Christians, in his view, are like them. Thus Christianity was perceived merely as one of many harmful superstitions, one, however, that it had already become necessary to combat.

Christians answered their pagan opponents with no less active criticism. They, in turn, attacked their gods: Christian apologists asserted that these gods had been invented by ancient poets (this, in particular, is what Athenagoras and Theophilus of Antioch wrote). Minucius Felix held that the pagan deities were nothing but deified ancestors. Tertullian called the stories about the gods fables. Christian writers subjected the morals and ethical norms of Roman society to sharp criticism. This criticism was the most effective; it found the greatest response in the hearts of non-Christian readers and listeners. The Christians spoke out very sharply against gladiatorial combats. «What could be more inhuman, more cruel», Cyprian wrote of these combats. Christians also denounced lawlessness and bribery. The same Cyprian wrote: «Evildoers go unpunished because the modest are silent, witnesses are afraid, and those who ought to judge are bribed». «It is permissible to coexist with pagans», Tertullian asserted, «but it is impermissible to share their common morals».

It is interesting to note that this criticism unfolded precisely at the time when, within Christianity itself, processes of adaptation to the surrounding society, of the formation of church organization and Christian dogmas, were taking place. If in Paul's epistles one of the chief points at issue was the question of the attitude toward Judaism, then in the 2nd century a much closer connection with the classical world and its spiritual heritage confronted Christian theologians with the problem of their attitude toward this world and this heritage. But although objectively changes were taking place within Christianity that promoted its rapprochement with this world, subjectively, conscious of itself as a new religion, it continued to set its own teaching and norms of conduct against the religious-philosophical teachings and social practice of the Roman Empire. Apparently the criticism from the Christians directed against the traditional values without which, it seemed, the state could not exist, obscured from the authorities the assurances of loyalty that also sounded in the writings of Christianity's defenders. As early as the 60s of the 2nd century, Melito, bishop of the city of Sardis, asserted that Augustus's establishment of peace in the empire had been part of the divine preparation for the spread of the gospel – the Christian good news. And Tertullian, in his «Apology», wrote that Christians pray «for the emperors, for their ministers, for all authorities». But at the same time many Christians continued to refuse to offer sacrifices before the statues of the emperor, ready to accept death rather than depart from their faith. According to Tertullian, one of the Roman governors asked Christians brought before him whether they lacked ropes and precipices, if they were so eager to die? Their stubborn unwillingness to perform purely formal acts of loyalty seemed to him simply a thirst for death.

In the second half of the 2nd century, cases of persecution of individual Christian preachers and groups of Christians became more frequent. The tradition of the martyrdom of the old bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp, has survived; one of the first Christian writers – Justin – perished at the end of the 160s CE. Above there was already an account of the persecution of Christians in Gaul and North Africa. It is true that these persecutions too were not caused specifically by anti-Christian edicts of the emperors. They were most likely explained by the fact that, like the writers who came forward with anti-Christian criticism, the emperors of the 2nd century still did not distinguish Christianity from other secret cults that seemed dangerous to them; they fought against all these cults. It is characteristic that cases of persecution were more frequent in the provinces than in the capital. Roman Christians were under the more effective control of the capital's authorities, behaved more tolerantly, and had influential protectors. In the provinces, where it was sometimes hard to restrain popular discontent, fear of the Christians (as well as the desire to shift onto them the responsibility for all troubles) was stronger. One of the Roman historians reports that the emperor Severus (beginning of the 3rd century) issued a special decree for Egypt (it was not of empire-wide character) forbidding conversion to the Christian and Jewish faiths. Such a decree may have been caused by the fact that in Egypt these religions were fairly widespread and their religious slogans were used for actions against the authorities; moreover, adherents of a number of Christian sects withdrew into the deserts, into mountainous regions, forming isolated communities or simply leading a hermit's life, which had a negative effect on the economic and social life of the province.

However, sporadic persecutions did not exclude the manifestation of interest, and even sympathy, toward Christianity and its individual adherents. Thus that same Septimius Severus took on a Christian woman as his son's wet-nurse;

the mother of the emperor Alexander Severus – Julia Mamaea – corresponded with Origen. It was said that Alexander Severus, in his private shrine, alongside

images of ancient deities, placed an image of Christ. All this was not accidental: the emperors and their entourage felt a need for new cults that would unite the population of the empire and sanctify imperial power, which the excessively official cult of the emperor, devoid of living faith, could not do. Under one of the emperors of the Severan dynasty an attempt was made to introduce the worship of the «Unconquered Sun» as such a cult (this cult was later introduced by some subsequent emperors as well: Aurelian, at the end of the 3rd century, even declared the cult of the «Unconquered Sun» a state cult), but all such cults, however far removed they may have been from traditional Roman religion, did not go beyond the bounds of familiar conceptions and did not break completely either with polytheism or with the system of spiritual values worked out by the classical world.

Interest in Christianity was manifested not only at the court of the Roman emperors, but, perhaps, to an even greater degree among the rulers of certain eastern regions. By the mid-3rd century Palmyra – a wealthy trading city in Syria – had achieved independence from Rome. Zenobia, the ruler of Palmyra, though not herself a Christian, as already mentioned, patronized Christians, in particular that very Paul of Samosata against whom bishops of other communities came forward, accusing him of heresy. It cannot be excluded, however, that Zenobia's interest in the Christians was dictated not only by ideological but also by political motives.

During the crisis of the 3rd century, which affected all aspects of the economic and political life of the empire, changes occurred in the emperors' attitude toward Christianity. This crisis coincided with, and to a certain extent even contributed to, the strengthening of the church organization of the Christians (organized Christian communities could preserve themselves better and even become a refuge for all who suffered during times of unrest and civil war); the wealth of the church also grew. This organization began to seem dangerous to emperors who had come to power with the help of the army and were not confident in the stability of their own power, who feared continual conspiracies and uprisings. In the 3rd century Christianity began to spread among soldiers as well; many of them, having accepted Christianity, continued their service in the army, since this service was their only source of livelihood, but the very fact of the appearance of such soldiers, whose brethren in faith often did not wish to serve in the army, could not fail to worry the emperors. One might say that the church turned out to be prepared for union with the state earlier than the empire was prepared for union with the Christian church. From the middle of the 3rd century official persecutions specifically directed against Christians begin.

In 249, rebellious soldiers, who had shortly before united

with barbarians and opened the empire's border on the Danube to them, proclaimed as emperor the general Decius, who had been sent with an army to suppress them. Decius accepted the title (though, as the sources report, against his own will), turned his army back to Italy, and seized su-

preme power. Having become ruler of the empire in this way, Decius attempted to restore order in it, to introduce certain old Roman customs, encouraged the worship of the ancient gods, and began, in essence, the first empire-wide persecution of Christians. The inhabitants of the whole empire were required to prove their loyalty to the authorities by performing sacrifices in the presence of officials. Those who fulfilled these requirements were issued by officials special certificates stating that so-and-so (male or female) regularly performed sacrifices; according to the edict, he or she had offered a sacrifice, made a libation, and tasted of the sacrificial meat. Several such «certificates» have been found by researchers in Egypt. But many Christians refused to do what the imperial officials demanded of them, and then they faced death. Christians fled from the cities, tried (not always unsuccessfully) to bribe officials, anything not to worship foreign gods. There were also, as already mentioned, Christians who, under threat of death, did what was demanded of them. It was precisely after the Decian persecution that the problem of the «lapsed» arose, that is, of those who had renounced Christianity. But these persecutions did not last long – Decius ruled only two years; he perished in battle with the Germanic tribe of the Goths. The struggle for imperial power after his death temporarily diverted attention from the Christians.

A new wave of persecutions came under the emperor Valerian, who ascended the throne two years after Decius's death. Valerian had at one time been close to Decius and apparently shared his views on the Christians. Valerian first of all moved against the church organization. By an edict of 257, bishops and other Christian clergy were forbidden to conduct religious services; they were ordered to publicly offer sacrifices to the Roman gods; Christians were also forbidden to hold assemblies. The following year another edict was issued, threatening punishment for Christians belonging to the upper classes. Christian senators were stripped of their rank, the property of Christians was confiscated, and they themselves, above all those who were in state service (civil or military), were sent to hard labor in mines and quarries (the shortage of manpower had led the emperors to replace executions with forced labor). The persecutions of the Valerian period aimed at strengthening the imperial apparatus, which had slipped out of control during the crisis, and at replenishing the state treasury through the confiscation of church property and the property of individual Christians. Not only men were exiled; Valerian's decree specifically stipulates punishment for noble Christian women.

During these persecutions bishop Cyprian perished; he was sentenced to death for having led an «irreligious life» (from the Roman point of view) and for having «incited others to wickedness». According to Christian traditions, during his execution a great crowd of Christians gathered to be present at the death of their martyr and to collect his blood. This account shows that the persecutions were directed not so much against ordinary Christians as against their leaders, and that it was not so much the mere fact of belonging to Christianity that was punished as Christian propaganda, «incitement to wickedness». Valerian probably understood the impossibility of destroying all Christians. What mattered to him was to halt the spread of the new religion and to purge the administrative apparatus and the army of suspect elements. But these measures did not lead to any appreciable results. Moreover, the condemnation of senators and noble women to penal labor provoked discontent not only among Christians, but among all those who were in one way or another connected with these people.

The emperor Valerian came to a sad end: he fell captive to the Persians, who at that time began an invasion of the eastern provinces of the empire. Christian authors related with satisfaction that, while in captivity, he led a slave's existence: every time the king of the Persians mounted his horse, the Roman emperor had to bend his back so that his master could rest his foot upon it. Valerian's son Gallienus, forced to fend off continual barbarian assaults, put an end to the persecutions and recalled the exiles. Gallienus was one of the first emperors to display religious toleration toward Christians.

However, the Christians still had one more, and perhaps the most cruel, persecution to endure. In 284 Diocletian became emperor, the son of a Dalmatian freedman, an outstanding statesman, a man of unbending will and energy. He carried out a whole series of reforms in the administration and taxation of the empire and for a time managed to cope with rebellions and separatist movements. In particular, the revolt in Gaul of the Bagaudae (fighters), among whom there were many Christians, was cruelly suppressed. Diocletian demanded that divine honors be paid to him. Feeling his own power, he decided to deal with those religious movements which, in his opinion, might form an opposition to his personal cult. He acted not only against Christians: Diocletian's first religious persecutions were directed against the adherents of Manichaeism – a teaching that arose in the 3rd century in Iran and began to spread in the eastern provinces of the empire. Manichaeism absorbed elements of the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism, of Christianity (in its Gnostic form), and of the philosophical teachings of late antiquity. The founder of this teaching, Mani, named as his predecessors Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus. At the foundation of Manichaeism lay the conception of the dualism of the cosmos: the earthly world, the world of evil, was created by an evil deity, but there also exists a good deity. According to Mani's teaching, a spark of divine light is implanted in man, but

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Часть 1 9. The emergence of Christianity: the early (pre-Constantinian) period in the history of Christianity
Часть 2 4. The Bible: composition and content. Canon and Apocrypha -
Часть 3 7. The formation of the cult and of the church