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CHURCH HISTORY for DUMMIES Class #6: The - Part 3

The Ebionite

I need to clarify and correct something before we begin. Last week, a question was asked about the and their relationship to the Docetists. I answered that they were sometimes used interchangeably. I misspoke. The Ebionites are sometimes linked with the Judaizers, not the Docetists.

So who were the Ebionites? They were a heretical group of Jewish people who were very much like the Judaizers, which is why they are often linked with them. It is speculated that the Ebionites arose in the first century, likely coming to prominence after the destruction of Jerusalem 7O A.D. but by the middle of the 400’s they were virtually extinct.

Most of what we know of them comes from the writings of the early , the first being, Irenaeus. He was the first to use the term “Ebionites” in print, around 190 A.D. Their name most likely comes from the Hebrew word for “poor.” Hippolytus and Origen would both later refute them in their writings.

The Ebionites viewed as a prophet but they denied His preexistence and therefore denied that He was . The Ebionites denied the deity of Jesus. They were all for the humanity of Jesus, but not his deity.

Eusebius, the first church historian, writing in 325 A.D. described the Ebionite heresy this way:

“The adherents of what is known as the Ebionite heresy assert that Christ was the son of Joseph and Mary, and regard him as no more than a man.”

They viewed Jesus as just a man. But they did believe that He kept the law perfectly, so they stressed obedience to the law in order to attain . They also insisted on circumcision as a pre-requisite to salvation. So you can see why many believe that they were just another branch of the Judaizers.

Anyway, I wanted to clarify that. And now you have one more heretical group to add to your files of heretics!

Tonight we will finish up with the Apostolic Fathers. We’ll start with the Epistle of .

The (A.D. 130)

The Epistle of Barnabas was written around 130 A.D. possibly even as late as 150. Again, sometimes these dates are speculation.

The Epistle of Barnabas was originally given its title because some people thought that it was written by Paul’s friend, Barnabas, who we read about in the book of Acts. It soon became known that this letter was not written by that Barnabas, but the name stuck because, well, that’s how church history works. So they just couldn’t seem to shake the title The Epistle of Barnabas, even though it wasn’t written by anyone named Barnabas.

You see, that’s just how history works. You can’t control what people say after you are dead. That’s just life, so get over it.

In this letter, Barnabas is writing to Christians and reminding them of Christian virtues. He reminds them that there are 2 ways to live, what he calls:

“the Way of Light” and “the Way of the Black One.” Here’s a sample:

THE Way of Light is this: if any man desire to journey to the appointed place, let him be zealous in his works. Therefore the knowledge given to us of this kind that we may walk in it is as follows:— 2 Thou shalt love thy maker, thou shalt fear thy Creator, thou shalt glorify Him who redeemed thee from death, thou shalt be simple in heart, and rich in spirit; thou shalt not join thyself to those who walk in the way of death, thou shalt hate all that is not pleasing to God, thou shalt hate all hypocrisy; thou shalt not desert the commandments of the Lord.1

BUT the Way of the Black One is crooked and full of cursing, for it is the way of death eternal with punishment, and in it are the things that destroy their : , frowardness, arrogance of power, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, adultery, murder, robbery, pride…2

1 Clement I, P., Ignatius, S., Bishop of , Polycarp, S., Bishop of Smyrna, & Lake, K. (1912–1913). The Apostolic fathers. (K. Lake, Ed.) (Vol. 1, pp. 401–403). Cambridge MA; : Harvard University Press. 2 Clement I, P., Ignatius, S., Bishop of Antioch, Polycarp, S., Bishop of Smyrna, & Lake, K. (1912–1913). The Apostolic fathers. (K. Lake, Ed.) (Vol. 1, p. 407). Cambridge MA; London: Harvard University Press. He goes on to list more of the Way of the Black One.

But the important thing about The Epistle of Barnabas is this: It gives us an idea of how early Christians dealt with the “problem” of the . That may sound strange to you, that the Old Testament was a problem, but imagine if the only copy of the Scriptures you had was the Old Testament. For the average Christian back then, you didn’t have a copy of any of the or Romans or Galatians or or Philippians. All that you had to read during your quiet time as you drank your coffee was the Old Testament.

This is how it was for believers in the 2nd century and even on up into the 3rd century. So as a pastor, as a Sunday school teacher, you are preaching to and teaching a Christian congregation, a Christian church with the Old Testament.

So the problem was: How do you preach Jesus from the Old Testament? What are you going to say about Jesus and about following Jesus as a disciple out of the Old Testament? Sure, you could talk about how Israel roamed the wilderness for 40 years, but what are you going to say about Jesus? Sure, you can talk about Solomon’s Temple, but what are you going to say about Jesus of Nazareth?

What are you going to say about Christ and without the help of Ephesians or the of John or Hebrews? What are you going to say about Jesus from the prophet Ezekiel? What are you going to tell your church about Jesus from 2nd Chronicles… or even the Song of Solomon?

This is what pastors and teachers faced in the 2nd century.

So The Epistle of Barnabas is an example how Christians dealt with the very Jewish Old Testament. Christians in the second century were dealing with the problem of how you communicate truth to Christians while using a very Jewish text. They read all the stories of the Old Testament, the poetry, the laws, etc and there they found Jesus.

So what’s so wrong with that? We want to do that, right? We want to preach Jesus from the Old Testament, right? This is in line with Article 1 of Dallas Seminary’s doctrinal statement, where I attended seminary, which says this:

We believe that all the Scriptures center about the Lord Jesus Christ in His person and work in His first and second coming, and hence that no portion, even of the Old Testament, is properly read, or understood, until it leads to Him.

No portion of the Old Testament is properly read or understood until it leads to Jesus. So at the very foundation of Christianity is this understanding: the Old Testament is actually not a Jewish text, but a Christian text. Think about that.

The Old Testament was written for the edification of Christians. Let me say that again: The Old Testament was written for the edification of Christians. Now, where do I get that?

1 Corinthians 10:6–11 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

The Old Testament was written for Christians. The Old Testament was written for you. As Paul tells the Roman church in Romans 15-

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

So, the Old Testament was actually written for Christians. And this is Barnabas’ understanding when he writes his letter. He writes this very long letter explaining how the Jewish Scriptures are full of Christianity. Barnabas is teaching the 2nd century church that they need to keep the Old Testament because the Old Testament is distinctively Christian.

So how did Barnabas teach the Old Testament? Barnabas used the allegorical method of interpretation.

Allegorical Interpretation

The Epistle of Barnabas gives us insight into the “allegorical” method of Old Testament interpretation. What is the allegorical method of interpretation? It’s a method of interpreting the Bible that says that truth is communicated through a symbolic understanding of a passage’s literal meaning. For example, in the book of Ruth, it tells us of the custom of removing your sandal and giving it to another person when there was a transaction of land or redeeming someone or something:

Ruth 4:7 Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel.

Now, an allegorical interpretation of that would go like this: The sandal represents the sinner before the sinner came to know Jesus. And Satan has to give you back to Jesus, like the man who hands his sandal over to another man. So Jesus is the man who receives the sandal and now you belong to Him.

I don’t know if anyone has every come to that conclusion with an allegorical interpretation on Ruth 4:7, but that’s probably what they would say. These spiritual truths are supposedly communicated through a symbolic understanding of the literal meaning. The literal sandal being traded is supposed to be a picture of you leaving the kingdom of darkness and being transferred into the kingdom of light. That’s how an allegorical method of interpretation works.

Charles Spurgeon did this with Judges 4. Look, I don’t mean to throw him under the bus, I have the greatest respect for him, he’s one of my heroes, but his interpretation of Judges 4 is sloppy! In Judges 4, when Jael drives a tent peg through the temple of Sisera, that is not a picture of the mortification of sin, which is what Spurgeon preached (see his sermon “Sin Slain” preached July 9, 1860). There are plenty of passages that talk about putting sin to death, Judges 4 is not one of them.

Here’s one example from The Epistle of Barnabas to give you a flavor of what his allegorical method looked like. Barnabas said this-

Now, in that Moses said, “Ye shall not eat swine, nor an eagle, nor a hawk, nor a crow, nor any fish which has no scales on itself,” he included three doctrines in his understanding.3

3 Clement I, P., Ignatius, S., Bishop of Antioch, Polycarp, S., Bishop of Smyrna, & Lake, K. (1912–1913). The Apostolic fathers. (K. Lake, Ed.) (Vol. 1, p. 375). Cambridge MA; London: Harvard University Press. So you are all probably familiar with the laws in the Old Testament that forbid certain foods and call them “unclean,” right? Well, Barnabas would say that these verses are not really talking about God prohibiting the Israelites from eating these unclean animals. Barnabas said that each animal represented a certain kind of individual that believers should abstain from. So he says that the pig represents men who have many possessions but, like a pig after being fed, these men forget the Lord after gaining many possessions. And for Barnabas, the birds like the eagle and hawk and crow, represent men who swoop in and steal from others and plunder their properties.

So for Barnabas, the commandments in the Old Testament against eating certain animals were not about that at all. They were about avoiding certain kinds of people. That’s the allegorical interpretation. The pig represents the ungrateful person. The birds represent thieves.

Now, we may not agree with Barnabas’ method of interpreting the Old Testament, but it is better than throwing the Old testament away, right? We gotta give Barnabas some credit. At least he is reading the Old Testament and teaching from it. At least he doesn’t say that it doesn’t relate to Christianity.

I’m curious: How would you teach Jesus from the Old Testament? How would you share the Gospel using the Old Testament? What would you say when you are evangelizing if you didn’t have the “Romans Road” and you could only use the book of Numbers?

How would you bring forth the distinctive teachings of Christianity if you didn’t have the Gospel of John or Romans? How would you teach the doctrines of Christianity from 2nd Chronicles or Ezekiel. For Barnabas, it was to be done using a method of interpretation known as “allegorical.”

Again, we may not agree with Barnabas’ method of interpreting the Old Testament, but it is better than throwing the Old Testament away, right?

So that’s what The Epistle of Barnabas is about.

The next writing of the Apostolic Fathers that we want to look at is The Shepherd of Hermas.

The Shepherd of Hermas (A.D. 130)

The Shepherd of Hermas was written by some guy, in Rome, in middle of the 2nd century, around 13 A.D. And Hermas is writing to convey a message about this vision that he had. And this vision that he claims to have received has 3 parts. It is broken down into 5 visions that he has, 12 commandments that he receives from God, and 10 parables that he also received in this same vision.

And Hermas writes all of this down to address one question. The question that was facing many churches in the 2nd century was this:

“Once a Christian is baptized, can they be reinstituted into the church if they fall away. Can you bring forgiveness upon a person after they have been baptized and they sin so wickedly and walk away from the ? If someone returns to , after being baptized, can you take them back into church fellowship?”

Remember, many of the early Christians came from pagan backgrounds where they worshipped false and idols, where they worshipped at shrines and altars to other gods, where they were involved in “sacred prostitution.” So what do you do if a Christian falls away and goes back to this lifestyle? Can you welcome them back into the church community after they went back to their idols?

The very traditional answer floating around churches in Rome was, “No.”

It was a very conservative position. If you were a baptized Christian who had returned to your previous pagan lifestyle, there was no reinstitution back into the church that was available for you. That was the common .

So Hermas writes this letter to provide a more liberal option.

Can you restore someone who has fallen away? Hermas’ answer was, “Yes…but only once.”

Hermas’ answer was a more generous and gracious response than most in his day. Hermas was such a liberal!

But to understand why this question arose in the 2nd century, remember what people came out of. They came out of paganism into Christianity.

The people sitting next to you in church had just four months ago been offering meat to idols, they had been sitting in the amphitheater, watching people being ripped apart by lions and that was “entertainment” to them, they were sleeping with temple prostitutes and calling it “.” This is the world and lifestyle that they left behind when they came to Jesus.

So there was no area of neutrality then. If you are not with the Christians, then you are with the pagans. It was black and white. That’s why The Epistle of Barnabas called the 2 ways to live 1) the Way of Light and 2) the Way of the Black One.

The worship of many gods was woven into the very fabric of society back then. Everybody worshipped some god or gods. Morality always implied a in the ancient world.

Sadly, in our day, we have spilt morality from theology so much so that you can abuse your wife and still say you are a Christian. You can abuse children and still try to convince us that you believe Christianly. 2nd century Christians would struggle with this. The point that churches were making the 2nd century was this:

“If you have a moral problem, you have a theological problem. So if you leave the church community and enter into the morality of the pagans, then we get really suspicious and wonder if you have also embraced the theology of pagans.”

Morality and theology were not separated in the early church. If you had an ethical problem, if you had a moral problem, then the 2nd century Christians would say, “We’re suspicious about your theology. We’re suspicious about what you actually believe because your moral life and your faith are not that easily separated.”

This is what the Christians in Rome were struggling with and why Hermas shoots off this really long email to them, to try and help guide them. He wants to remind Christians, just like Barnabas did, that there are only 2 ways to live: the Way of Light and the Way of the Black One.

The last of the Apostolic Fathers that we want to look at is called The .

The Didache

The Didache was written about 50-70 A.D., although there are some who place the date of its composition in the 2nd century. Its title comes from the Greek word (didasko) for “teaching.”

The Didache was essentially a manual of church instruction. It was a handbook in how to do church. It was separated into three parts:

1) Two Ways: Part 1 of The Didache highlights what we have seen with Barnabas and Hermas. It teaches us about light and darkness, about truth and error. And it reminds Christians that you are always associated with one of these 2 ways. There is no middle ground. You are either walking in the Way of the Light or you are walking in the Way of the Black One. And that is still true today, right?

So The Didache is written to teach the early church how to be distinctively Christian in a pagan world.

2) How to: Part 2 focuses on very practical “how tos” in the church: how to worship, how to baptize, how to fast, how to conduct the Lord’s Supper, how to treat another church leader or pastor who comes to you from another church and visits you, etc.

3) Eschatology: Part 3 is a very brief word about eschatology. It reminds churches that Christians are primarily defined by their hope, namely, their belief and hope in the resurrection of the body. That we will experience resurrection one day, just like Jesus did.

The Doctrine of the Apostolic Fathers

Let’s talk now about the doctrine of the Apostolic Fathers. The first thing that we need to understand is that there was no official doctrinal statement or theology floating around in the 1st and 2nd centuries. There was no Westminster Confession of Faith or 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. There was no Baptist Faith and Message. There was nothing “official” like that yet. The creeds and councils of church history were still a century or two away. So there was no official doctrine or systematic expression of God.

But what we do see in their writings is a very classical understanding of God. They speak of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

They speak of the 3 Persons in the Godhead and how they are distinct and yet they are one. But they do not have a more formal wording like we might have today. For instance, they do not have some formal wording, like what has become common in our time:

We believe in one God eternally existing in three Persons.

They don’t have something formalized like our Statement of Faith here at Grace:

B. The Trinity We believe that there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons; that these are equal in every divine perfection, and that they execute distinct but harmonious offices in the work of creation, providence and redemption.

They don’t have something more formalized like this, but you still see it in their writings. It is still well-developed and expressed in their writings. They speak of the Trinity, but not in some formalized way like a creed or confession or Statement of Faith. They actually speak more like the Bible does, using language like the Bible. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing is it?

The Bible does not use the phrase, “one God eternally existing in three Persons,” does it? Does the Bible use the phrase “one God eternally existing in three Persons?” No. But is it true? Yes!

Does the Bible use the term “Trinity?” No. But is it true? You betcha it is!

So even though the Apostolic Fathers have not developed a systematic presentation of the Trinitarian God of Christianity, we still see that they believed what would one day come into systematic expressions like The Nicene Creed or the Westminster Confession of Faith. They spoke of the Trinity the way the Bible does… which isn’t a bad way to speak is it?

So a more systematic presentation of the doctrine of the Trinitarian God of Christianity is going to have to wait for the heretic Arius to pop up his ugly little head in Alexandria in 325 A.D. And then in reaction to him, the church will gather to write a more formalized systematic expression of the doctrine of God.

And when it comes to the doctrine of Christ, the systematic expression is the same. The doctrine of the person and nature of Christ is going to have to wait for a more formalized expression in the middle of the 5th century when the heretics Apollinarius, Eutyches, and Nestorius rear their ugly heads. In response to these 3 knuckleheads, at the 4th ecumenical Council at Chalcedon, the church will formalize a more systematic expression of the doctrine of Christ, highlighting the unity of His two natures.

Remember as I said last time, it is not enough to say that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man. We must, in the same sentence and in the same breath, say that those 2 natures are also in union with one another. So the 2 natures of Christ, His humanity and deity, are united together in one person in His incarnation and then resurrection, never to be separated again. Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, with those 2 natures united together in one person.

That’s what the church will wrestle with in the middle of the 5th century. But even before this, we still see a robust understanding of the 2 nature of Christ, in the Apostolic Fathers. In the 2nd century, Christians are emphasizing this about Jesus: there is a divine reality and a human reality united in a single person.

Ignatius of Antioch, who is arguably the preeminent theologian among the Apostolic Fathers, and who we looked at last week, he said this in his letter to the Ephesian church:

There is one Physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and yet not born, who is God in man, true life in death, both of Mary and of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.4

Ignatius explains that Jesus was both flesh and spirit. Remember, human beings are made up of 2 parts: body and spirit/soul. Material and immaterial.

So, was Jesus a human being? Yes! And since He was a human being, He was made up of what 2 parts? Body and spirit. Body and soul. That’s what Ignatius is saying when he says “who is both flesh and spirit.”

But he also says that Jesus was born and yet not born. He has always existed and yet He was born as baby. He was of God and also of Mary. But then Ignatius says, “first passible and then impassible.” What does that mean?

4 Clement I, P., Ignatius, S., Bishop of Antioch, Polycarp, S., Bishop of Smyrna, & Lake, K. (1912–1913). The Apostolic fathers. (K. Lake, Ed.) (Vol. 1, p. 181). Cambridge MA; London: Harvard University Press.

“Passible” means that Jesus was able to die. And “impassible” means that Jesus was not able to die. As man, as a human being, He could die, and He did die. But as God, He could not die because God cannot die because He is eternal.

So, even though there was no full-blown systematic expression of the deity and humanity of Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers, we still see that they held to an orthodox understanding of the person of Jesus.

We’ll continue, Lord willing, next time and we’ll look at the sacraments in The Didache and the early church, specifically their understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We’ll look more at Trinitarian worship and how their understanding of the Trinity shaped even their understanding of baptism.