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New Church History Articles
- Helvidius, Vigilantius, and Aerius
- Opposition to Monasticism. Jovinian
- The Benedictines. Cassiodorus
- The Rule of St. Benedict
- Benedict of Nursia
- St. Paula
- St. Jerome as a Monk
- Monasticism in the West. Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Martin of Tours
- Fanatical and Heretical Monastic Societies in The East
- Pachomius and the Cloister Life
Apostolic Labors of St. John
Apostle John in the Acts.
In the first stadium of Apostolic Christianity John figures as one of the three pillars of the church of the circumcision, together with Peter and James the brother of the Lord; while Paul and Barnabas represented the Gentile church. This seems to imply that at that time he had not yet risen to the full apprehension of the universalism and freedom of the gospel. But he was the most liberal of the three, standing between James and Peter on the one hand, and Paul on the other, and looking already towards a reconciliation of Jewish and Gentile Christianity. The Judaizers never appealed to him as they did to James, or to Peter. There is no trace of a Johannean party, as there is of a Cephas party and a party of James. He stood above strife and division.
In the earlier chapters of the Acts he appears, next to Peter, as the chief apostle of the new religion; he heals with him the cripple at the gate of the temple; he was brought with him before the Sanhedrin Read more...
Book Title: History of the Christian Church
Related Topics: Apostle John, Apostolic, John, Philip Schaff, St. John
Life and Character of Apostle John
"Volat avis sine meta,
Quo nec votes nec propheta
Evolavit altius:
Tam implenda quam impleta,
Numquam vidit tot secreta
Purus homo purius.
(Adam of St. Victor.)
The Mission of John.
Peter, the Jewish apostle of authority, and Paul, the Gentile apostle of freedom, had done their work on earth before the destruction of Jerusalem—had done it for their age and for all ages to come; had done it, and by the influence of their writings are doing it still, in a manner that can never be superseded. Both were master-builders, the one in laying the foundation, the other in rearing the superstructure, of the church of Christ, against which the gates of Hades can never prevail.
But there remained a most important additional work to be done, a work of union and consolidation. This was reserved for the apostle of love, the bosom-friend of Jesus, who had become his most perfect reflection so far as any human being can reflect the ideal of divine-human purity and holiness. John Read more...
Book Title: History of the Christian Church
Related Topics: Apostle John, John, Philip Schaff, St. John
The Johannean Literature
I. Sources.
1. The Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation of John. The notices of John in the Synoptical Gospels, in the Acts, and in Gal. 2:9. (See the passages in Young’s Analytical Concordance.)
2. Patristic traditions. Irenaeus: Adv. Haer. II. 22, 5 (John lived to the age of Trajan); III. 1, 1 (John at Ephesus); III. 3, 4 (John and Cerinthus); V. 30, 3 (John and the Apocalypse). Clemens Alex.: Quis dives salvus, c. 42 (John and the young robber). Polycrates of Ephesus in Eus. Hist. Eccl., III. 31; V. 24 (John, one of the mevgala stoicei'a, and a iJereu;" to; pevtalon peforhkwv"). Tertullian: De praescr. haer., c. 36 (the legend of John’s martyrdom in Rome by being steeped in oil, and his miraculous preservation). Eusebius: Hist. Eccl, III. chs. 18, 23, 31; IV. 14; V. 24 (the paschal controversy). Jerome: Ad Gal. 6:10 (the last words of John); De vir. ill., c. 9. Augustin: Tract. 124 in Evang. Joann. (Opera III. 1970, ed. Migne). Nicephorus Cal.: Hist. Eccl., II. 42.
II. Apocryphal Read more...
Book Title: History of the Christian Church
Related Topics: Apostle John, Johannean, Johannean Literature, John, Philip Schaff, St. John
Effects of The Destruction of Jerusalem on The Christian Church
The Christians of Jerusalem, remembering the Lord’s admonition, forsook the doomed city in good time and fled to the town of Pella in the Decapolis, beyond the Jordan, in the north of Peraea, where king Herod Agrippa II., before whom Paul once stood, opened to them a safe asylum. An old tradition says that a divine voice or angel revealed to their leaders the duty of flight. There, in the midst of a population chiefly Gentile, the church of the circumcision was reconstructed. Unfortunately, its history is hidden from us. But it never recovered its former importance. When Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Christian city, its bishop was raised to the dignity of one of the four patriarchs of the East, but it was a patriarchate of honor, not of power, and sank to a mere shadow after the Muhammadan invasion.
The awful catastrophe of the destruction of the Jewish theocracy must have produced the profoundest sensation among the Christians, of which we now, in the absence of all particular information Read more...
Book Title: History of the Christian Church
Related Topics: Christian Church, Christianity, Christians, Jerusalem, Philip Schaff
The Jewish War and The Destruction of Jerusalem A.D. 70.
"And as He went forth out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto Him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left here one stone upon another, which shall not be thrown down."—Mark 13:1,2.
There is scarcely another period in history so full of vice, corruption, and disaster as the six years between the Neronian persecution and the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophetic description of the last days by our Lord began to be fulfilled before the generation to which he spoke had passed away, and the day of judgment seemed to be close at hand. So the Christians believed and had good reason to believe. Even to earnest heathen minds that period looked as dark as midnight. We have elsewhere quoted Seneca’s picture of the frightful moral depravity and decay under the reign of Nero, his pupil and murderer. Tacitus begins his history of Rome after the death of Nero with these words: Read more...
Book Title: History of the Christian Church
Related Topics: Christians, Jerusalem, Jewish War, Philip Schaff, Temple
The Roman Conflagration and The Neronian Persecution of Christians
The preaching of Paul and Peter in Rome was an epoch in the history of the church. It gave an impulse to the growth of Christianity. Their martyrdom was even more effective in the end: it cemented the bond of union between the Jewish and Gentile converts, and consecrated the soil of the heathen metropolis. Jerusalem crucified the Lord, Rome beheaded and crucified his chief apostles and plunged the whole Roman church into a baptism of blood. Rome became, for good and for evil, the Jerusalem of Christendom, and the Vatican hill the Golgotha of the West. Peter and Paul, like a new Romulus and Remus, laid the foundation of a spiritual empire vaster and more enduring than that of the Caesars. The cross was substituted for the sword as the symbol of conquest and power.
But the change was effected at the sacrifice of precious blood. The Roman empire was at first, by its laws of justice, the protector of Christianity, without knowing its true character, and came to the rescue of Paul on several Read more...
Book Title: History of the Christian Church
Related Topics: Antichrist, Christianity, Christians, Nero, persecution, Philip Schaff, Rome, St. John
The Jewish Christian Theology
I. James and the Gospel of Law
The Jewish Christian type embraces the Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, and to some extent the Revelation of John; for John is placed by Paul among the "pillars" of the church of the circumcision, though in his later writings he took an independent position above the distinction of Jew and Gentile. In these books, originally designed mainly, though not exclusively, for Jewish Christian readers, Christianity is exhibited in its unity with the Old Testament, as the fulfilment of the same. They unfold the fundamental idea of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:17), that Christ did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to "fulfil." The Gospels, especially that of Matthew, show historically that Jesus is the Messiah, the lawgiver, the prophet, priest, and king of Israel.
On this historical basis James and Peter build their practical exhortations, with this difference, that the former shows chiefly the agreement Read more...
Book Title: History of the Christian Church
Related Topics: Christianity, Gospel, James, Jesus, Jewish Christianity, Jewish Christians, Messiah, Peter
