Alexander Schmemann

1. The Beginning of the Church (28 pages)

Page 19

By the end of the first century, when the apostolic period was drawing to a close, the Church already possessed the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Although they were not perhaps as yet collected into one volume, each had been accepted by the group of churches for which it was written. Very shortly afterward they were combined in one quadripartite Gospel, and in the middle of the second century the Christian apologist Tatian composed the first harmony, or code, of the Gospels. The differences between the four accounts, and even obvious divergences in secondary matters such as chronology and the sequence of events, did not bother early Christians, who were not looking for precise accuracy of detail but for the truth about Christ.

The appearance of the New Testament in the Church as a book, as Scripture, was therefore not a new factor, but a record of the founding tradition. Just because it was identical with the original tradition as the Church already knew it, there appeared at first no need of a canon, or precisely fixed list of accepted records or Scriptures. This situation enabled Gnostic teachers to ascribe their own doctrines to the apostles and to present them in the form of “gospels” and “epistles.” Hence, the problem of criteria became crucial for the Church in the middle of the second century. Each new doctrine claimed to be a true interpretation of the Gospel — what would enable the “Catholic” Church to judge among them?

These questions were answered by the first generation of Christian theologians, among whom we must especially distinguish St. Irenaeus of Lyons, chief fighter against Gnosticism. First of the great Fathers of the Church, he had known in his childhood Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna and other presbyters who had seen the apostles, and he may have studied in the first Christian school known to us, that of Justin the Philosopher at Rome.

Irenaeus’ arguments against the Gnostics may be expressed by the term “apostolic succession,” but for him this meant more than the uninterrupted episcopal laying on of hands from the time of the apostles; it meant primarily the unity of the Church and its life in time and space:

 

Having received this preaching and this faith, .
. . the Church, although scattered in the whole world, carefully preserves it, as if living in one house. She believes these things [everywhere] alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them harmoniously, teaches them, and hands them down, as if she had but one mouth. For the languages of the world are different, but the meaning of the Tradition is one and the same .
. . Neither will one of those who preside in the churches who is very powerful in speech say anything different from these things, for no one is above [his] teacher, nor will one who is weak in speech diminish the tradition. For since the faith is one and the same, he who can say much about it does not add to it, nor does he who can say little diminish it.7

 

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