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Alexander Schmemann
1. The Beginning of the Church (28 pages)
From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church
Page 10
What was left when the ministry of the apostles had been sealed by their blood? There were only insignificant groups of Christians scattered about the world. Nobody knew much about them and at first hardly anyone even noticed their existence. Nevertheless, the first victory had been won: the Good Tidings of Christ had been heard. Throughout the next period of Church history, the time of persecutions, the profound assurance of the apostle will resound: “As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things” (Cor.
6:9f.).
The Church and the Greco-Roman World.
Christ was born when Augustus reigned alone upon the earth, as the Christmas hymn proclaims. The Church has not forgotten that it began when the Roman Empire was at its peak. The Greco-Roman world, which was the Roman state held together by Hellenistic culture, was, after Judaism, the second motherland of Christianity. The myth that this world was unique and universal has been undermined as our historical horizons have broadened and our understanding of other ancient worlds and cultures has extended. Yet it is not merely a myth, and no Christian can be indifferent to the significance of this tradition. For the Christian mind, history cannot be a mechanical chain of cause and effect, nor can the foundation of the Church in precisely that world and at precisely that moment be simply a matter of chance. “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4). The world that was the “historical flesh” of the Church met Christianity with hostility and persecution, yet it ultimately proved capable of heeding the Christian teaching, and to some extent of responding to it. Nor can it be merely chance that the sacred words of the Gospels were written in Greek, or that the theology of the Church, the human answer to divine revelation, was clothed in Hellenic categories of thought. The Gospel cannot be thoroughly understood if separated from its Jewish, Old Testament sources; it is also inseparable from the world in which the Good News was first destined to be proclaimed.
Although the empire of Alexander the Great fell apart almost within a year of his death, Hellenism conquered with its culture, which gradually became a unifying pattern from Armenia to Spain, from the Sahara to the Danube and the Rhine. The Roman conquests in the second and first centuries B.C. only continued this Hellenization. It was in the world-wide monarchy of Rome that the Hellenistic era reached its apogee. After a century of wars and devastation, there the Pax Romana finally reigned. Roman law everywhere assured a good measure of justice, stability, and well-being. With good roads, economic prosperity, and a widespread exchange of writings and ideas, it is not surprising that the source and symbol of all these benefits, Roma Augusta herself, gradually became the object of a cult — the highest value of this newly-unified mass of humanity.
Yet beneath the external glitter and prosperity a deep spiritual crisis was developing. Men were no longer satisfied with the national gods of popular religion who had previously guarded the narrow horizon of their city, tribe, or clan. Many sought new spiritual nourishment in the Eastern mysteries that engulfed the empire. Temples to Isis, Cybele, and Dionysus were erected in the center of Rome, and secret ceremonies, promising immortality and regeneration, were performed. This was an era of premonitions and expectations. “A single Empire, a single world language, a single culture, a single common trend in the direction of monotheism, and single common longing for a Savior” — this is how Harnack has summarized the circumstances in which Christianity began to spread.
People of the Early Church.
The Jewish dispersion, which eventually resulted in the establishment of Jewish communities in almost every city of the empire, was, of course, the intended instrument for this expansion. Historians have calculated that there were no less than four million Jews living in the Diaspora, whereas the whole Roman population totaled fifty million. Despite the innumerable religious restrictions that continued to separate the Jews from the “unclean,” their constant contact with Hellenistic culture inevitably had some effect on them. In contrast to the Palestinian rabbis, the Jews of the Diaspora felt a need to explain their faith to the outer world. The Septuagint had made the Bible accessible to the Greek-speaking world; later on, the Alexandrian Jew Philo tried to express the faith of his fathers in the categories of Greek thought.
Cf. Books for getting closer to Orthodox Christianity ||| Orthodox Images of the Christ ||| Byzantium : The Alternative History of Europe ||| Greek Orthodoxy - From Apostolic Times to the Present Day ||| A History of the Byzantine Empire ||| Videos about Byzantium and Orthodoxy ||| Aspects of Byzantium in Modern Popular Music ||| 3 Posts on the Fall of Byzantium ||| Greek Literature / The New Testament
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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/schmemann-orthodoxy-1-beginning.asp?pg=10
