Alexander Schmemann

1. The Beginning of the Church (28 pages)

Page 13

In St. Paul’s epistles the word “church” is already used to designate both each separate congregation and all Christians, the universal Church. This was so because each congregation, however small, felt itself to be, in the union of bishop, clergy, and people, the incarnation of the whole Church — the appearance and visitation here of the one Christ.
Wherever the Christian went he found the same broken bread — ”broken to bits but not divided” — heard the same blessing, and was included in the same union.
All the churches had one source and one norm: apostolic tradition. Through its bishops each Church could attain the level of the Church as it had first appeared, the miracle of Pentecost and the first community in Jerusalem.

In this network of churches we may distinguish from the very start senior churches in each region which acted as centers of communication. These were the churches most immediately connected with the apostles, the most ancient and largest in membership. Because of the destruction of Jerusalem, the apostolic sees (or “seats”) of Rome, Antioch, Ephesus, and Alexandria took on special significance. Rome, in particular, was sanctified by the blood of Peter and Paul and “presided in love,” according to St.
Ignatius of Antioch. Later Rome was to claim universal authority for its bishop, and the claim was to divide the Church. In the early years we hear nothing of these claims. No one disputed the authority and significance of the Roman Church; she was first and senior, but in union and equality with the others, as the center of the universal consent of all churches. A final formalization of the organization of the Church was still remote, yet behind the inconsistency of differing words and designations appeared the firm contour of the Catholic, or universal and united, Church.

 

Basis of Persecution by Rome.

The persecution of Christians has been variously treated by historians from early times. After the accounts of martyrdom had been embroidered by Christian piety into a shining legend, a later age of enlightenment to which Rome appeared as an ideal of justice and culture attempted to deny or minimize the fact of persecution. Whatever its destructive intention, this attitude has helped to separate genuine documents from the vast hagiographic literature, so that we are now in a better position to explain the persistent struggle against Christianity over three centuries by the Roman Empire, which was in fact basically neither bloodthirsty nor fanatic.

When Christianity appeared, the most varied religions were flourishing in the empire, and Juvenal’s satires mock the fascination of these many exotic cults for the Romans. At first the authorities took no notice at all of the Christians and did not perceive the radical distinction between them and the Jews. Judaism, though strange and unusual, was a legitimate religion, and the Church survived its first decades, as Tertullian has said, “under its roof.” Even in this period, however, we encounter hostility and frequently even hatred for Christians on the part of the multitude.
The lack of temples, the night meetings and secret ceremonies, all inevitably aroused suspicion, and naturally the most monstrous rumors developed about orgies, magic, and ritual murders at Christian meetings. Although this created an atmosphere favorable for persecution, the Roman state was in general law-abiding and did not permit arbitrary outrages. The true cause of the conflict must therefore be sought in the essential nature of the Roman state.

Like all states of antiquity, Rome had its gods, its national-political religion. This was neither a system of beliefs nor a system of morals (the Roman citizen could and very often did believe in foreign gods). It was a ritual, worked out to the last detail, of sacrifices and prayers, a cult of primarily political and state significance. Rome had no other symbol to express and maintain its unity and to symbolize its faith in itself. Although in this troubled period very few believed in the symbol, to reject it meant disloyalty, being a rebel. Rome demanded only outward participation in the state cult as an expression of loyalty; all that was required of a citizen was to burn a few sticks of incense before the images of the national gods, call the emperor “Lord,” and celebrate the rites. Once he had fulfilled this, he was free to seek the eternal meaning of life wherever he wished.

 

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