CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MGNrHLY The Early Dark Ages of the Church­ Some Reflections El) T R RE lZ "Different Ministrie\, Differem Means, One God!"­ A Theological Opinion on the Racial Issue 'KENNETH F. KORBY The Ministry of Absolution FRIEDRICH-\VILHELM KUENNETH Homiletics Book Review Wol. XLI February 1970 No.2 The Early Dark Ages of the Church­ Some Reflections EDGAR KRENTZ INTRODUCTORY NOTE: to the Pauline Gentile mission.2 There are This is a revised and slightly expanded ver­ thus about 20 years for which we have no sion of a lecture delivered before the faculty, primary documentation. student body, and guests of the Near East Yet it is in this period that important, School of Theology, Beirut, Lebanon, in Oc­ tober 1968. The writer wishes to thank all if not decisive, developments took place aJ this school fo r making his visit memorable in the Christian church. Some can be par­ and pleasant and hopes that the lecture will tially documented from the Book of Acts: in some small way convey his pt'ofound the geographic spread of the church be­ thanks. In a slightly altered form the article yond Jerusalem-Judea; the gradual inclu­ is scheduled to appear in the Journal of the Near East School of Theology. sion of the Gentiles; some aspects of the life of the church. But our ignorance far he period of history from the Resur­ T exceeds our knowledge. Even if we accept rection to the oldest document in the the essential historicity of Acts along with N ew Testament is in many ways the dark­ a number of recent scholars,3 a multitude est in the history of the church. No docu­ of questions that fascinate the student of ment in the New Testament antedates the the earliest church remain unanswered. year 50, the generally agreed-on date for The churches in Antioch, Rome, and Alex­ 1 Thessalonians.! Even if we would date andria were all founded in this period; yet Galatians early, say A. D. 48/49 on the we can only make guesses about who the South Galatian hypothesis, we would push missionaries were who :first preached to our knowledge back only a year and a half. The only other possible candidate for an awaken faith in these most important civic earlier date is the Epistle of James, placed 2 Most recendy by Wilhelm Michaelis, Bin­ by a minority of scholars at a time prior leitung in das Neue Testament (Bern, 1961 3 [editions are hereafter indicated by superscript ! See Paul Feine and Johannes Behm, In­ numbers]), pp. 278-79 (with references to troduction to the New Testament, 14th revised older literature). The implausibility of this edition by Werner Georg Kii=el, tr. A. J. view is shown by Kiimmel, pp. 289-91, and Mattill Jr. (Nashville and New York, 1966), Franz Mussner, Der Jakobusbrief (Freiburg­ p. 183; Willi Marxsen, Intt'Oduction to the New Basel-Wien, 1964), pp. 12-23. Testament, tr. G. Buswell (Philadelphia, 1968), 3 See R. P. C. Hanson, The Acts (Oxford, p.34. 1967), pp. 1-35; A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New The author is professor of exegetical theology Testament (Oxford, 1963); Johannes Munck, (New Testament) at Concordia Seminary, The Acts of the Apostles (Garden City, New St. Louis. York, 1967). 67 68 THE EARLY DARK AGES OF THE CHURCH centers.4 Is W alter Bauer correct when he of the title Son of Man for Jesus outside suggests in his epoch-making book Recht­ the Gospels. In Acts it is on Stephen's lips, glaubigkeit und Ketzerei im iiltesten Chri­ in the Gospels always on those of Jesus . .rte1Zttlm (Tiibingen, 1934; 19642) that Was there a theology that understood Jesus early Christianity in Alexandria was judged as the coming Son of Man but that proved later to be heretical because gnostic and inadequate and thus disappeared? so it was expunged from historical mem­ Would such a Christology have been ory? 5 Why are no Aramaic records pre­ characteristic of Judea-Christianity as op­ served from this early church? What was posed to Hellenistic Christianity? And is the function of the Twelve, a group re­ that why it disappeared? Such is the opin­ ferred to in 1 Cor. 15 :5? What was the ion of Wilhelm Bousset 6 and Reginald conception of and role of the apostle in Fuller.7 Are such Christians to be equated this period? Was it identical with that of with the Judaizers with whom Paul dis­ the Twelve? Acts seems to use the term putes the nature of the Gospel? Or were only for the original Twelve and always they a latent force called forth by his work? in the plural. The apparent exception in Did the early missionaries vary the terms Acts 14: 14 applies the term to Barnabas with which they preached Jesus as they and Paul as missionaries of the church of moved through the ancient world? Did Antioch. such variety polarize Christianity, or were What theological problems did the early Christians held under a higher unity young church face? How did it solve of faith? W as Paul a great innovator in them? A reading of Acts would suggest theology, or was he merely a courageous that most of the problems that faced the proclaimer of theologies already current in early church down to A. D. 45 were more the church? Is he the Hellenizer of Chris­ sociological than theological- for exam­ tianity, as some 19th-century scholars ple, the greed of Ananias and Sapphira and argued,S or does he continue, though ex­ the grasping character of Simon Magus. pand, the apostolic proclamation? But Acts contains enough hints to make us Such questions are only representative wonder. Acts 7:56 represents the only use 6 Kyrios Christos (Gottingen, 1913; 1965 5), pp. 1-22, 77-84. 4 The early establishment of the church at 7 The Foundations of New Testament Chris­ Antioch on the Orontes and at Rome is evident tology (New York, 1965), pp. 143-56. See from the New Testament. The case of Alex­ also Norman Perrin, Rediscovering the Teach­ andria is far less clear, as Floyd V. Filson, A ing of Jesus (New York and Evanston, 1967) , New Testament History (Philadelphia, 1964), passim, and the literature referred to there. p. 246, n. 31, points out. Some have seen evi­ S See the relevant sections of Albert dence of the existence of Christianity in Alex­ Schweitzer, Patti and His Interpreters: A Criti­ andria in the Emperor Claudius' famous letter cal History, tr. W . Montgomery (New York, to the Alexandrians written A. D. 41 (P. Lon­ 1912). The question is certainly not answered, don 1912 = Corpus Papyrorum Judaicorum no. as a rapid reading of the volume Das Paulus­ 153), especially in the reference to Jews from bUd in der neueren deutschen Forschung, ed. Palestine who cause disturbances. The exten­ Karl Heinrich Rengstorf (Darmstadt, 1964), sive bibliography is available in CP J. will show. Rudolf Bultmann, "Zur Geschichte 5 See Hans Dieter Betz, "Orthodoxy and der Paulus-Forschung," ibid., pp. 305-307, Heresy in Primitive Christianity," Interpreta­ shows that this is a central issue for the under­ tion, XIX (1965), 299-311. standing of early Christianity. THE EARLY DARK AGES OF THE CHURCH 69 of the kind that arise when one tries to travels. Acts gives no information about reconstruct the history of the church in the liturgy or worship of these churches. this period. It has been called "the twilight We do not know if Paul's sermons custom­ region of Christianiti' and its study char­ arily lasted as long as that spellbinder in acterized as a "little-trodden, difficult, and Troas that put young Eutychus to sleep. dangerous way." 9 Yet these questions are Acts raises more questions than it an­ important, for answers to them might swers.1S demonstrate that there was (or was not) W e are forced to look for more primi­ a continuity of interpretation of Jesus from tive material embedded in the documents the Resurrection to our first literary of the New Testament. This type of study sources.10 The way may be difficult; that is relatively young. Each year sees some makes it only more interest.ing and fasci­ significant additions to our knowledge. nating for the student. Some material is expressly marked off by The resources for this study include the the writers as earlier tradition, for exam­ Book of Acts and such material as can be ple, 1 Cor. 11:23 and 15:3-5. Other mate­ recovered from the rest of the New Testa­ rial can be recovered only by a careful ment. Charles Harold Dodd 11 has called analysis of formal elements or by other at ention to the common kerygma that iinguistic phenomena. The fa her of such underlies the sermons in Acts, though his studies in the N ew Testament is the great analysis has been challenged recently.12 classicist Eduard Norden. His volume Ag­ Yet Acts according to its own outline nostos T he os, first published at Leipzig in ( 1: 8 ) is something less than a complete 1913, is still a basic text.14 In it he identi­ history. It concentrates its interest on two fied Acts 17, Co!. 1: 15-20, 1 Tim. 3: 16, and figures, Peter and Paul, in order to trace other passages as stylistically foreign in the missionary spread west toward Rome. their New Testament contexts. Luke omits much that must have been com­ This study has been carried on for about mon knowledge for his readers but is lost 50 years.