Alexander Schmemann

1. The Beginning of the Church (28 pages)

Page 9

Nor has this salvation been granted to the Jews alone, but to all mankind. St. Paul never denied that the Jews were a superior people, God’s elect, but for him they excelled other nations not because the Word of God had been committed to them, but because through them the way had been prepared for the advent of Christ. Any person who believes in Christ and shares in His life and death must realize that now there is “neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal. 3:28); if he still thinks to obtain justification through fulfilling the ritual injunctions of the law, let him know that “Christ is become of no effect unto you, . . . ye are fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:4). For in love lies the whole meaning of the law, yet the law itself has no power to give love. In Christ love is freely bestowed upon men, and through Him and in Him the law thus becomes unnecessary. In Him “circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God” (I Cor. 7:19).

When Paul and his companion Barnabas returned to Antioch and gave an account of their travels, they met with opposition and censure from the element among Judeo-Christians which continued to regard the observance of Mosaic law as binding upon all members of the Church without exception. One can see from his epistles that Paul had constantly to defend his apostleship and doctrines against the slander of his enemies, who sought to tear from his grasp the churches he had founded.

In Church tradition the so-called apostolic council in Jerusalem has remained the model for all subsequent councils and the standard of catholicity for the Church. In addition to the apostles, the presbyters — the hierarchy of the local community — and through them the whole Church in Jerusalem took part. It was James, the head of that Church, who summed up the deliberations and proposed a solution. By it the non-Jewish Christians were now officially freed of the burden of the law. They were enjoined only from taking part in pagan ritual banquets (Acts 15:20). An epistle to that effect was prepared and sent to the Gentile Christians of Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Although this decision was not unanimously or everywhere accepted, a decisive step had been taken: by freeing the converted Gentiles from Judaic law — thereby freeing them from being included in the Jewish nation — the Church demonstrated that she was now fully conscious of her world-wide vocation.

Paul continued his preaching ministry for many more years. Three of his great journeys are described in Acts, but these did not exhaust his apostolic activities. In each city he followed up his preaching by establishing the Church, consecrating bishops and presbyters, and building up a Christian community. Teacher, shepherd, father as well as preacher, he embodied perfectly the pastoral ideal, which he himself had formulated. “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (I Cor. 9:22). When the dangers of Judaic legalism were paralleled by that of a pagan mystery cult religiosity, in which the moral content of the liberty in Christ conferred upon converts was forgotten, Paul’s infinite patience and tireless concern were constantly used in the service of the full doctrine of the Gospel.

In the final analysis everything the apostle said, all the answers he gave, can be summed up in one fundamental, tirelessly repeated affirmation and appeal: “In Christ.” These two words give us a pattern for the Christian life. Faith and baptism have united us with Christ; Paul saw Christians as living in such unity with Him, love for Him, and eagerness to serve Him that the whole Church is nothing other than His Body, which He Himself has created through the Holy Spirit. Everything in the Church, therefore — organization, assemblies, variety of gifts, even administrative cares — exists only so that we may grow toward Christ and give back, both to Him and to all around us, that treasure of grace which we have received from Him. If the Church appears in the first chapters of Acts as the advent of the long-promised kingdom of God, Paul’s epistles now reveal this kingdom to be the life of Christ Himself, that life which has been bestowed as a gift upon men and which unites them in the Holy Spirit in an indissoluble union with God and with one another.

The great apostle’s life ended in martyrdom. In Jerusalem, to which he invariably hastened after every new journey, he was finally seized by the Jews. About to be flogged, he made mention of his Roman citizenship, which entitled him to trial before the emperor. The narrative of Acts records his arrival in Rome under arrest and his two years of preaching activity in the capital, then suddenly breaks off. It is not by chance that the books ends in this manner; its main theme is the journey of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome, from the center of Israel to the center of the empire.

 

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