Gibbon on Christianity
Though Edward Gibbon may be the most sardonic of historians, a fact perhaps best demonstrated when, in the eighth chapter of his Opus, he somewhat grudgingly expatiates the growth of the Christian Church, I yet found the following statement on Christianity to be rather interesting.
A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by open violence or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period or to the limits of the Roman Empire. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of humankind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans it has been widely diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa, and by the means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili in a world unknown to the ancients.Gibbon mentions what he finds to be the common incredulity of ecclesiastical-historical documents before he writes the following:
The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.As much as I love that last sentence for its wit, I cannot help but to be reminded of the similarity to Gibbon’s words that the Protestant view of ecclesiastical history shares . Who would have thought that such a dismal view of church history-- “…inevitable mixture of error and corruption…”-- would be welcomed as corroboratory to the Protestant Christian argumentum?
It seems that Gibbon’s rather cynical, dare I say secular, view of ecclesiastical history in many ways compares well with the Protestant view of the same history. Like Gibbon, Protestants are quick to remonstrate the EO and RC views of Church infallibility based on what they, Protestants, believe to be errors, perversions, and miscalculations in the shared EO and RC history. Protestant arguments tend to tout the “total depravity” of man, contending how quickly human pride, greed, and malice perverted the Ancient church, which seems to be just what Gibbon is found stating above.
What a sharp contrast we find in Orthodoxy to the dismal, latter pronouncement of Gibbon that resonates too well with the Protestant view. Even though the EOC views ecclesiastical history just as “candidly” as Gibbon, the EOC sees, in addition to man’s sin and weakness, the Divine continuity, coherence, and preservation of Christian truth through the past two millennia in the Church. Wherein Gibbon emphasizes the human agent in history to the point of excluding the divine, wherein Protestants similarly, yet on the other side of the spectrum, de-emphasize, if you will, the human agent* in history by blaming man’s “utter inability,” Protestants leave man to add little but error and corruption, alas the Orthodox accept both the human agency and the providence of God as invisible and visible means to fidelity, which is made manifest in the Body of Christ: the Christian Church.
* By "human agent" I mean the physical church. Protestants see the physical church as fallible via the human agency (hence my nomenclature), EO see the physical church as infallible.
Some Scripture
Before Paul wrote this...
II Timothy 3Paul wrote this...16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (NASB)
I Timothy 3Certainly my point is not to place one verse as more important than the other. Rather I just wanted to reiterate a point Fr. Steve made during the last Orthodoxy 101 class at St. Paul's. (Paraphrasing) Protestants often quote II Timothy 3:16 as a proof text for Sola Scriptura, but they often gloss what Paul wrote in his first epistle to Timothy, namely 3:15.15 but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. (NASB)
I think his is a fair statement, however, my point is not so much that Protestants gloss the I Timothy passage, but rather they have such drastically different views of "the church of the living God" that they simply miss the thrust of Paul's statement.
The Church, for the first 1000 years of its existence, did not have different views on what Paul meant by "the church of the living God." Even for the next 500 years or so there was hardly much disagreement as to the "interpretation" of that passage: everyone knew it was speaking of the ONE Church, manifested physically on earth that descended from the apostolic line. (The question after A.D. 1054 was not the interpretation of the passage, just who it best applied to-- Rome or the East?).
Interesting that it really wasn't until the Protestant Reformation (some 1500 years after the Church began) that "disagreement" erupted over various "interpretations" of Scripture, including verses such as I Timothy 3:15. These somewhat novel "interpretive disagreements" contributed to the creation of the 20,000+ Protestant denominations in existence today. All those denominations, mind you, have claimed to be a part (in some way) of "the church of the living God."
All very interesting.
Mystery and Mysticism from the New Testament
Sometimes it's very easy to just read over certain parts of Scripture without really paying attention to what the author is giving testimony. Sometimes those glossed parts of Scripture reveal very mystical/mysterious events. The following are just a few of the many such verses found in the New Testament alone-- there seem to be many more in the Old Testament.
These are the types of verses that do not easily fit into western rationalistic Christianity, but they do, in a certain way, add credibility to the many remarkable events preserved in the traditions of the Church. It is not that the traditions of the Church need more credibility, but from a Protestant perspective it is often very easy to dismiss many of the miraculous traditional accounts of the Church as mere hyperbole, or aggrandized historical events. However, when a Protestant is presented with Bible verses, such as the following, it may make it just a little easier to accept some of the traditions they might otherwise reject outright.
Matthew 27Glory be to God both now and forever!
52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.Numbers 22 30 The donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?" And he said, "No." 31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed all the way to the ground. 32 The angel of the LORD said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way was contrary to me.
Matthew 4 11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
John 5 1 After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; 4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.]
Mark 5
27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"Acts 19 11God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.
Luke 2
25Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace. 30For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31which you have prepared in the sight of all people, 32a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel."
33The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34Then Simeon blessed them
A Very Brief History of the Orthodox Church
What follows was printed in my and Katherine's wedding program. I owe thanks to Wayne and Katherine for helping me in the rushed process. It might be helpful to note that I wrote this knowing that the bulk of the wedding audience would be a mixture of Evangelical Protestants and Mormons.
The church you now sit in was founded approximately 2000 years ago (A.D. 30). Ten days after Christ's ascension into heaven the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and ushered in the apostolic age--the birth of the Christian Church (Acts 2). Of course, this physical building is not 2000 years old, but the church of which St. Paul's is an visible manifestation, is indeed that old.
Those same Apostles who received the Holy Ghost followed Christ's commission to disciple the nations (Matthew 28:17-20). They began their missionary endeavors-- covering much of what was at that time the Roman Empire. The Apostle Paul, for instance, reached at least as far west as Rome, Italy (where he was eventually martyred in A.D. 64); he spread the Gospel, founding churches all over modern-day Greece, and into parts of modern-day Turkey, Syria, Jerusalem, and Iraq.As time wore on and the Church continued to grow both geographically and in number, and as the Apostles grew older, there arose the need to ordain bishops (overseers) over the churches that were being founded. The Apostles, inspired by the Holy Ghost, realized the importance of an orderly hierarchy (a Priesthood) necessary to the growth and survival of the Church they were helping to build. As Scripture notes, the Apostles chose men to follow in their footsteps as "leaders" of the Church. These men were called Bishops, Priests (Elders), and Deacons (I Timothy 3:1, 8, ff; Acts 6:1-7).
The offices of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon were not mere human offices (such as the C.E.O. of Toyota). Rather, by the power of the Holy Ghost (Acts 20:28), through the laying on of hands (Acts 6:6), which began with the Apostles laying their hands on the first Bishops, the office holder was ordained by God to perform his duty (Acts 14:22-23). These ordained men were thus as much spiritual office holders as they were earthly overseers of Christ's Church.
Thus began the Priesthood, headed by the High Priest, Christ (Hebrews 8:1ff), and it is carried on to this very day. By way of example, Fr. Steve, and Fr. Timothy have both been ordained in the Holy Ghost, by the laying on of hands, by Bishop Anthony who himself was ordained by the previous Bishop...and so on... all the way back to the Apostle Paul. As such, for 2000 years the Christian Priesthood has stood unfaltering against persecution, war, famine, and heresy. The Holy Spirit has preserved Christian Doctrine and Practice through the Church from the founding apostles even to our current generation (Matthew 16:18-19; Acts 11:26).
The Church of Christ has thus spread into the world one believer at a time, one congregation at a time (Acts16:5). The congregation, then, is not a "new church" per se, but is merely a new assembly of Christians under the umbrella of The Church (e.g., Acts 14:21-23). Thus men, women, and children have been and are continually converted by the preaching of the Gospel; fostered in the Christian life of the Church; strengthened by the legitimately administered Sacraments under the Priesthood; educated from the preached Scriptures, and so much more... all under the banner of the united hierarchy of one Church that has remained to this very day.
Currently, the Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian body in the world, second only to Roman Catholicism. Orthodoxy is the primary religion in such countries as Greece, Romania, Macedonia, Thace, Syria, Caucasus, Armenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Russia.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.