Christianity from the Early Fathers to Charlemagne
The first eight centuries of the history of the church play the biggest role in building systematical Christianity later become the tradition of the church. Many theologians raised in this era to protect Christianity against heresies. Even Apostle Paul himself wrote against heresies in many of his epistles especially in second Timothy. Heresies are basically false teaching or false belief of the scripture. One of the possibilities for having so much of heresies in church could be because of having diverse people groups in the church. In the book of Acts the Apostles of Jesus were having difficulties in deal with new gentle converse. Without God’s intervention in Acts 10 Apostle Peter and his fellow brothers could have uncertainty in dealing with Gentiles in Acts 15. On the other hand, there are different heresies in different part of the world. Therefore, apostolic fathers from different parts of Roman Empire deal different issues.
In the case of apostolic fathers’ era in the early church, heresies were the teachings that directly conflicted with the teaching of Jesus and the writing of his apostles. The positive outcome from heresy teachings was the raise of Christian Apologists. In the beginning of apostolic writing, the purpose of their letters is to defend the teaching of Scriptures. For example, Polycarp’s letter is to defend his teacher Apostle John’s letter. Therefore, apostolic writing is more like bible exposition to explain draw the meaning of Apostles’ writings.
In the beginning the purpose of Christian apologetic writings was to defend Christianity from pagan influence. However, apologetic was set in competition with Greek religions and worldview. Since than apologetic served not only for defending the faith but also to express the faith of Christianity by using Greek ways of thinking and reasoning. It is the beginning of Hellenization of Christianity.
There are many advantages by adopting Greek words and methods such as raise of Christian thinkers who can logically present Christian faith to the pagan philosopher. Nevertheless, by using Greek methods there is more division within Christianity more than before. In this era Christianity become the biggest religion in Roman Empire. The church becomes stronger yet weaker in terms of unity. Likewise different sects of Greek philosophy, Christian lost unity. In Hebrew world-and-life view division is not encourages but Greek worldview encourage individualism. The Greek philosophy of individualism seems to influence Christianity since from the very beginning of the Church. Paul in his letter in 1 Corinthians 12 and many other of his writing highlighted unity in diversity. In the letter of Clement of Rome he again highlighted Apostle Paul’s writing about unity. Finally, Hellenization of Christianity was the truing point of Christian worldview from Judeo-Christian, New Testament worldview to Greek Hellenistic worldview.
The first eight centuries of the history of the church play the biggest role in building systematical Christianity later become the tradition of the church. Many theologians raised in this era to protect Christianity against heresies. Even Apostle Paul himself wrote against heresies in many of his epistles especially in second Timothy. Heresies are basically false teaching or false belief of the scripture. One of the possibilities for having so much of heresies in church could be because of having diverse people groups in the church. In the book of Acts the Apostles of Jesus were having difficulties in deal with new gentle converse. Without God’s intervention in Acts 10 Apostle Peter and his fellow brothers could have uncertainty in dealing with Gentiles in Acts 15. On the other hand, there are different heresies in different part of the world. Therefore, apostolic fathers from different parts of Roman Empire deal different issues.
In the case of apostolic fathers’ era in the early church, heresies were the teachings that directly conflicted with the teaching of Jesus and the writing of his apostles. The positive outcome from heresy teachings was the raise of Christian Apologists. In the beginning of apostolic writing, the purpose of their letters is to defend the teaching of Scriptures. For example, Polycarp’s letter is to defend his teacher Apostle John’s letter. Therefore, apostolic writing is more like bible exposition to explain draw the meaning of Apostles’ writings.
In the beginning the purpose of Christian apologetic writings was to defend Christianity from pagan influence. However, apologetic was set in competition with Greek religions and worldview. Since than apologetic served not only for defending the faith but also to express the faith of Christianity by using Greek ways of thinking and reasoning. It is the beginning of Hellenization of Christianity.
There are many advantages by adopting Greek words and methods such as raise of Christian thinkers who can logically present Christian faith to the pagan philosopher. Nevertheless, by using Greek methods there is more division within Christianity more than before. In this era Christianity become the biggest religion in Roman Empire. The church becomes stronger yet weaker in terms of unity. Likewise different sects of Greek philosophy, Christian lost unity. In Hebrew world-and-life view division is not encourages but Greek worldview encourage individualism. The Greek philosophy of individualism seems to influence Christianity since from the very beginning of the Church. Paul in his letter in 1 Corinthians 12 and many other of his writing highlighted unity in diversity. In the letter of Clement of Rome he again highlighted Apostle Paul’s writing about unity. Finally, Hellenization of Christianity was the truing point of Christian worldview from Judeo-Christian, New Testament worldview to Greek Hellenistic worldview.
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