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Orthodox Christianity, as it sought to become the exclusive religion, distanced itself from Judeo-Christian Churches of God and all Jewish Christian sects. At first the orthodox rated the latter as the old way, later a detrimental way, and finally a heretical one.
Early in the second century some Christian Gentiles aspired to not only distance themselves from Judeo-Christians but began to consider Judeo-Christianity as heterodoxy and their Greco-Roman Christianity as orthodoxy. To further separate themselves from other professing Christian groups, and from what they perceived as Jewish Christian sects, Greco-Roman Christians began calling themselves "catholic" meaning universal. By CE 200, according to Elaine Pagels, Greco-Roman Christianity.
...had become an institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons, who understood themselves to be the guardians of the only "true faith." The majority of churches, among which the church of Rome took a leading role, rejected all other viewpoints as heresy. Deploring the diversity of the earlier movement, Bishop Irenaeus and his followers insisted that there could be only one church, and outside of that church, he declared, "there is no salvation." Members of this church alone are orthodox (literally, "straight thinking") Christians. And, he claimed, this church must be catholic�that is, universal. Whoever challenged that consensus, arguing instead for other forms of Christian teaching, was declared to be a heretic, and expelled. When the orthodox gained military support, sometime after the Emperor Constantine became Christian in the fourth century, the penalty for heresy escalated. (Pagels 1979:xxiii.)
While the general sense of the word catholic is "universal" it also can mean "according to the whole". In the latter sense Greco-Roman assemblies began to refer to themselves as catholic, that is, according to the whole, and to abandon the phrase Church of God. Justo Gonz�lez provided the logic underlying this change: "To separate itself from the various heretical groups and sects, the ancient church began calling itself "catholic." This title underscored both its universality and the inclusiveness of the witness on which it stood. It was the church "according to the whole," that is, according to the total witness of all the apostles.... Only the church "catholic," the church "according to the whole,: could lay claim to the entire apostolic witness" (Gonz�lez 1984:66).
The Old Roman CreedI believe in God almighty; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, Who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried, and the third day rose again from the dead, Who ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the father, whence He will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, the life everlasting. |
Greco-Roman Christianity devised a means for its people to identify each other and to distinguish between Christians who were orthodox from those who were heterodox in the form of the so-called Apostles Creed. The direct predecessor of the Apostles� Creed was the Old Roman Creed or the Ancient Roman Symbol also known as the "symbol of the faith" (Wood 1979:808). Justo Gonz�lez explains:
Another element in the church�s response to heresies was what we now call the "Apostles� Creed.".... [I]ts basic text was put together, probably in Rome, around the year 150. It was then called "symbol of the faith." The word "symbol" in this context did not have the meaning that it has for us today; rather, it meant a means of recognition, such as a token that a general gave to a messenger, so that the recipient could recognize a true messenger. Likewise, the "symbol" put together in Rome was a means whereby Christians could distinguish true believers from those who followed the various heresies circulating at the time, particularly gnosticism and Marcionism. Any who could affirm this creed were neither Gnostics nor Marcionites. (Gonz�lez 1984: 63.)
The Old Roman Creed appears consistent with the main currents of Judeo-Christianity and Judeo-Christianity seems orthodox in these matters of faith. It is quite doubtful that Judeo-Christians would affirm the later Apostles� Creed with its Nicene overtones. The idea of Jesus descending into Hades while dead is a Greek dualistic concept. His rising on the third day appears at first to be biblical but the thrust of the statement involves the Lord�s-day teaching of the orthodox. That is, the concept is a derivative of an orthodox hermeneutic wherein every Sunday is the day of Resurrection and the heart of all worship. Judeo-Christians celebrated the weekly Sabbath not the Lord�s-day nor did they subscribe to Greek dualism and immortal soul mythology. This, of course, alienated the Judeo-Christians from the orthodox and made them heterodox in Greco-Roman Christian eyes.
Page last updated: 12/13/04 07:22 PM.
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