The Church, the World, and Essex.
Important Note: "Essex"
The kingdom of the East Saxons, from where the name Essex comes, was far larger than the present county. At one time it included most of what is now Middlesex and a large part of Hertfordshire. So the Saxon King of Essex was a substantial ruler in his own right, alongside the Kings of Wessex, Mercia and Northumberland. But by the time of the Norman Conquest(1066), the Kingdom of Essex had been subsumed into England, ruled by one king.
The county of Essex, though, was clearly defined by the three rivers: the Thames, the Lea and the Stour. The rivers were very important channels of communication - it was much easier to travel along them than to try to navigate the roads. But though there was a lot of traffic along the rivers there would have been no doubt about who owned the land on each side of them and which county one was in. It was not until local government re-organisation in 1965 that the London boroughs of Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Newham, Barking, and Havering were created. So for most of the period covered in this module references to Essex may be taken to include the present county and these boroughs.
Further Reading:
THRELFALL-HOLMES, MIRANDA, THE ESSENTIAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. LONDON: SPCK, 2013.
SAMUELS, Ray, An Amazingly Short History of the Church. (Private publication, ordered through Diocesan office).
SUMMERS, Andrew and DEBENHAM, John, The History of Essex:The Essex Hundred Histories. 2008. Short, two page- chapters on aspects of Essex history, with useful list of contacts and references.
EDWARDS, A. C. A History of Essex. 6th Edition 2000.
Essex County Council Heritage Association.
Reading before Session 1
Read 'The Religious Environment of Early Christianity pp
and 'The Roman and Celtic Church in Essex' p.4
If you are able, read: Letter to Diognetus, pp. Constantine, pp. and 'The desert a city,'
The Religious Environment of Early Christianity
The Christian faith was born into a Graeco-Roman world that was in many ways well prepared to receive and spread it. The Roman Empire encompassed all the shores of the Mediterranean, stretching through Gaul (modern France) and parts of Germany to England. The legions kept it relatively peaceful, and the roads along which they marched served also for the passage of traders - and missionaries. A common language, Greek, facilitated communication. The Way, as the Christian faith was known, thus spread quickly and far.
Roman religionwas a syncretism (an amalgam of religions): it embraced spirits of the natural world, guardians of the home and of stages in life, the Greek pantheon of gods and the deification of the Emperor. Priests were state officials rather than spiritual leaders. There was little spirituality or ethical teaching. The many mystery cults attempted to fill this spiritual vacuum, with varying success. Most had secret rites; some practised baptism in water, and sometimes blood, and communicated with the god in a common meal. Then there were the philosophies which originated in Greece, e.g. Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicurianism - often with great moral seriousness, but appealing particularly to intellectuals with time on their hands for discussion, as Paul discovered in Athens (Acts 17).
The Empire was generally tolerantof the religions of subject peoples, recognizing them as a cohesive force and realising pragmatically that attempts at suppression were likely to stir up rebellion. These other religions were found in Rome, having been brought there by immigrants. Like others, Judaism enjoyed this toleration; but it was different in being monotheistic and in refusing to integrate the cult of the Emperor, though some did offer sacrifices on his behalf. So long as Christianity was regarded as a Jewish sect it was granted the same latitude. But once Jewish hostility became evident and it was seen to be not a national but an international faith, it was perceived as a threat to the stability of the Empire.
Christians made themselves conspicuousby their refusal to join in temple worship and feasts and sometimes to buy meat from temple sacrifices (1 Corinthians 8:10-13). They ignored the usual divisions in society and invited men and women, old and young and all races to meet together. Failure to acknowledge the gods of the official cult who were believed to have made Rome great was regarded as atheism, which risked bringing down the gods' anger on society. Christians were therefore bad citizens, antisocial. Since they were forced to worship in houses rather than openly in temples, it was not long before alarming tales were spread of practices including cannibalism, infanticide and incest. Christianity was seen as a pernicious doctrine and believers regarded with suspicion and dislike. Their unpopularity made them a convenient scapegoat in the event of disaster, as when Nero blamed them after the burning of Rome in 64 CE.
Generally speaking, persecution was local and sporadic. Occasionally, however, a particular Emperor would order a general persecution, the last and worst being under Diocletian in 303-4. Books were burnt and buildings destroyed, while the clergy, as the leaders were now called, were made special targets since it was thought that without leaders the faith would die.
Persecution proved to be an ineffective weapon, indeed counter-productive - partly because its implementation depended on the local governor, but principally because the courage shown by individual Christians attracted people into the Church. Hence Tertullian's saying that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. It is impossible to say how many actually died; we know about martyred bishops and other notable figures whose burial places became Christian shrines, but there are few records of rank-and-file martyrs - of whom there were quite possibly fewer than is popularly thought. Nevertheless, Constantine's declaration of religious freedom for all in 313 was a relief to the Church.
Despite persecution and official disapproval, by the mid-second century Christianity was not only firmly established at the heart of the Empire but had spread to North Africa and to Spain and Gaul. In the late second century Tertullian suggested it had reached Britain, though the evidence is sketchy.
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More dangerous to the Church's integrity than state persecution were the tensions within.
Maybe it sounds strange to begin a survey of the history of the Church with an examination of disagreement! Surely the church is to be the place 'where all things are held in common .. (Acts 4: 32). But from the earliest days it is clear that members of the Christian community disagreed with each other about how to be faithful to Jesus' teaching and live the life of Christian discipleship. They were fallible humans, not perfect saints, after all! But a further prime reasons for disputes was the radical nature of what they were attempting to do. The early Christian fellowships were unique in the ancient world in being inclusive - all people, slaves and free citizens, male and female, all races could join. There was simply nowhere else which had this mixture of ages, backgrounds and cultures. Though many of the towns of the Roman world had a multi-racial, multi-cultural population - especially the ports and trading centres like Corinth and Ephesus - the lack of restriction on the mixing of the sexes and social classes amongst Christians appeared scandalous to outsiders. It clearly caused some problems for the followers of Christ as well: how to behave when eating together, how to choose a leader, how to dress? These issues where well settled in societies where people of similar race and social standing lived and worked together, but when the usual rules no longer applied there could be confusion - and disagreement. Many parts of Paul's letters address these sorts of questions.
Not that it was a complete free-for- all. The Christian communities were also distinctive in the demands on those who became a member. Anyone could join, but a lengthy period of instruction before full acceptance as a eucharistic member and adherence to a strict moral code was then required. Faithfulness within marriage, refusal to sacrifice to the Emperor and a sober lifestyle were some of the habits which marked out the Christians.
Then there were disputes about the nature of Jesus' teaching. From the start there were the Judaizers, who wanted to keep the new Way within the Jewish faith and to impose Jewish Law on converts and with whom Paul had a long and ultimately successful battle. (See Acts 15 and the account of the Council of Jerusalem studied in Module C) Church and synagogue split permanently in about 85 CE; but a distinctly Jewish kind of Christianity continued for a time in the Ebionite movement, which denied the divinity of Christ.
A much more widespread movement was gnosticism (from gnosis, Greek for 'knowledge'. It was not an exclusively Christian phenomenon. There had been earlier syncretisms of belief - for example, that of Philo of Alexandria, drawn from Moses and Plato. Gnosticism appealed to those who found Christianity too earthy and failing to answer all their questions about the nature of the world.
Gnostic religions were ones of individual salvation. They believed this salvation came through knowledge rather than through activity. They didn't all agree on the precise content of the knowledge that brings salvation, and we find various schools of Gnostics flourishing in the early Christian centuries, some quite unconnected with Christianity. There were several systems of gnostic mythology, using Hebrew, Greek and pagan sources.
One belief they held in common was that the material world could have no contact with the spiritual world. The good God of the spiritual could not have created matter, and part of their teaching explained how lesser agents were responsible for creating the world.
As matter is evil, man's good spirit feels itself imprisoned in it and longs for the release which the knowledge of God can bring. The Gnostics in their various ways claimed to initiate people into this knowledge and so to ensure their salvation. The affairs of this world are of no account in this transaction. Some Gnostics inferred from this that we should punish our bodies mercilessly because they cause us to be anchored too firmly in matter if they become comfortable. Others took the opposite view and felt free to live lawless lives because our material actions have no effect on the spirit.
This great divide between matter and spirit (dualism) has a crucial effect on the Church's teaching about the work of Jesus. Gnostics who tried to come to terms with Christianity saw Jesus as pure spirit, come to give us the knowledge which will bring us to God. He could not have been a real man, because God can't make contact with flesh. So his whole life, including the cross, was an appearance only. (From the Greek word for ‘appearance’, dokesis, comes the term Docetism, applied to those who deny that Jesus was genuinely human and mortal.)
Many thoughtful and articulate Christians were particularly drawn to Gnostic doctrines. One outcome of the fight to overcome them was that the Christian faith was more firmly defined and ordered.
Letter to Diognetus
"Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not theirwives.
They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.
To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians,not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.
Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world isheld together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself."
From an anonymous letter to Diognetus, possibly dating from 2nd. century.
Constantine
The year 303 brought terrible persecution to the Church under the Emperor Diocletian. In the East of the Empire all churches were to be burned, all scriptures given up to the authorities and no meetings for worship held. The decline of the Empire was being blamed on the move away from the gods towards Christianity; it followed that Christianity had to be wiped out.
But one of Diocletian’s reforms was to split the Empire into two. In the West the persecution was never so severe, and when Constantine gained the leadership of the West upon the death of his father in A.D. 306, the Church enjoyed a peace only rarely disturbed. Constantine’s mother, Helen, was a Christian, and he had a half sister called Anastasia, a name derived from the Greek for Resurrection. Constantine himself worshipped the Sun; but by the end of 312 he was also professing Christian belief.
The story is told that he had a vision before a battle; the vision was of a cross held against the midday sun with the words By this sign conquer. In 312 he rather rashly attacked his rival in the West, Maxentius, who against all common sense marched out of Rome to meet him in battle with the river Tiber behind his troops. Constantine won a decisive victory, Maxentius being driven backwards into the river. Whether or not this was the battle before which Constantine had his vision is unclear, but certainly Christians in general believed that their God had granted Constantine victory as a dramatic proof of his favour. Romans believed he won by the favour of the Sun-god. Constantine certainly believed it was the Christian God enough to have his soldiers carry the chai-ro sign on their shields; whether he believed the Sun-god had nothing to do with it is not so certain.
But by the end of 312 Constantine was most certainly favouring Christianity. It was no longer illegal; it became quite respectable. He made huge gifts to the Church and caused some splendid Christian churches to be built. He passed rules on matters such as the freeing of slaves that showed Christian influence. And in 324 he conquered the Eastern ruler Licinius, an unreformed pagan, and extended the peace of the Church eastwards to cover the whole empire. Less than a generation after the terrible days of Diocletian, the Church was allowed her freedom. It seemed to any thoughtful Christian that God had spoken and acted through Constantine in an unmistakable way.