Early Church, The
Henry Chadwick
Number of quotes: 13
Book ID: 215 Page: 25
Section: 2B2
No pagan cult was exclusive of any other and the only restriction on initiation into many cults was the expense. By supposing that the various deities were either the same god under different names or local administrators for a supreme deity it was possible to give all cults a loose unity.The Roman government was in practice tolerant of any cult provided that it did not encourage sedition or weaken morality. Indeed, one reason for Roman military success was believed to be the fact that, while other peoples worshipped only their own local deities, the Romans worshipped all deities without exclusiveness and had therefore been rewarded for their piety.
Quote ID: 5364
Time Periods: 123
Book ID: 215 Page: 26
Section: 2B2
Under Domitian (81-96) the situation seems again to have become grave. Except for Caligula and Nero the emperors had traditionally discouraged over-enthusiastic subjects from offering them divine honours. Domitian took the opposite view, styling himself ‘Master and God’, and inclined to suspect of treachery those who looked askance at his cult. The customary oath ‘by the genius of the emperor’ became officially obligatory.
Quote ID: 5365
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 215 Page: 29
Section: 4B
By the end of the second century Christianity was penetrating the upper classes of society, and more than one highly placed personage might wake up to find his wife embarrassing him by disappearing to nocturnal vigils and prayers. Marcia, the concubine of the emperor Commodus (180-92), was a Christian, and was able to gain for the church in Rome a considerable measure of relief (below, p. 88).
Quote ID: 5366
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 215 Page: 30
Section: 2D3A
Moreover, the conviction that martyrdom granted immediate admission to paradise and conferred a victor’s crown, combined with a somber evaluation of the Roman empire as a political institution, led to a tendency towards acts of provocation on the part of over-enthusiastic believers, especially among the Montanists (below p. 52) who were especially prone to identify reticence with cowardice and moral compromise. Hotheads who provoked the authorities were soon censured by the church as mere suicides deserving no recognition.COPIED
Quote ID: 5367
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 215 Page: 31
Section: 3A4A
But in Spain by A.D. 300 there were Christians happily holding the distinguished office of flamen in the cult of the emperor.
Quote ID: 5368
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 215 Page: 32
Section: 2A1
The rite of baptism by which they were admitted to the Church was both a commemoration of the moment at the river Jordan when Jesus was filled with the Spirit for his life work, and a once for all renunciation of evil, which St Paul in a powerful metaphor described as ‘being buried with Christ’.
Quote ID: 5369
Time Periods: 247
Book ID: 215 Page: 52
Section: 2D3A
A Phrygian named Montanus was seized by the Spirit and, together with two women, Prisca and Maximilla, delivered utterances of the Paraclete in a state of ‘ecstasy’, i.e. not being in possession of his faculties. It was the peculiar form of these utterances to which other Christians objected: this kind of ecstatic prophecy was not like that of the biblical prophets, delivered in the third person, but was direct speech by the Spirit himself using the prophet’s mouth as his instrument.PJ Note: Seriously? The prophets did not speak in the first person?
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Quote ID: 5370
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 215 Page: 52/53
Section: 2D3A
its puritanism and revivalist ethics won for it a notable convert in the brilliant African orator Tertullian, who died fulminating against his former Catholic brethren because they imagined that the Church was constituted by bishops rather than spiritual men.The orthodox reply, as formulated by Hippolytus of Rome, was unerringly directed against Montanism’s weakest point, namely its divisiveness: the quest for miraculous gifts is well (he thought), but the supreme miracle is conversion and therefore every believer alike has the gifts of the Spirit;
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Quote ID: 5371
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 215 Page: 53
Section: 2D3A
The chief effect of Montanism on the Catholic Church was greatly to reinforce the conviction that revelation had come to an end with the apostolic age, and so to foster the creation of a closed canon of the New Testament. Irenaeus is the last writer who can still think of himself as belonging to the eschatological age of miracle and revelation.COPIED
Quote ID: 5372
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 215 Page: 56/57
Section: 3A3B,4B
The practical application of charity was probably the most potent single cause of Christian success.. . . .
A particular service which the community rendered to poor brethren (following synagogue precedent) was to provide for their burial.
. . . .
Hospitality to travelers was an especially important act of charity:
. . . .
At first clergy stipends were paid on a dividend system (monthly in the time of Cyprian of Carthage); it was only much later that the growth of endowments made fixed incomes possible at least in many churches.
. . . .
The financial independence of each church meant that rural clergy were ill paid while those in great cities or attached to popular shrines became well off.
. . . .
bishops who preferred to spend money on rich adornments and splendid churches were generally disapproved; in any event, there was no question of such elaboration before the time of Constantine.
Quote ID: 5374
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 215 Page: 57/58
Section: 3A3B
The distribution of alms was obviously open to abuse. In the first century, the author of the Didache was already giving warnings about exploitation by false brethren.. . . .
But the distribution of alms was not confined only to believers.
Quote ID: 5375
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 215 Page: 66
Section: 4A
It inhered in the nature of the church’s existence that from the start it was engaged in debate with critics, and that the formulation of its doctrines was hammered out in an intellectual dialogue.. . . .
It is no accident that the most substantial extant work by a second century Christian is the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, written by Justin Martyr about 160.
Quote ID: 5376
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 215 Page: 67
Section: 2D3B
The Christian attitude was the more disturbing for their insistence that, under the new covenant inaugurated by Jesus the Messiah, a blood relationship to Abraham was of no importance.
Quote ID: 5377
Time Periods: 127
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