What We Can Learn from a New History of Early Christianity

When reading the mainstream church histories, I often come across the argument that an event, say the physical resurrection of Christ, certainly happened because there is no other historical interpretation which makes sense. It worries me. Most events in the ancient world are poorly recorded and we simply have no grounds to make any historical interpretation at all! We just have to say we do not know what happened. So when theologians often say they are certain what happened, historians tend to be more cautious. In my New History of Early Christianity I discuss some historical evidence about the resurrection accounts that I think is overlooked though I conclude that, despite the lack of conclusive evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, the important thing was that early Christians believed that it happened.

Why should someone who is primarily a historian of the ancient world and a relaxed agnostic who drifts in and out of churches to hear friends’ sermons have anything to contribute to a history of Christianity? Let us take a simple case of the apostle Paul. Luke tells us that he was born a Roman citizen and his use of privileges, such as electing to go to Rome for trial, seem to confirm this. Many biblical scholars say no more. For a historian at home in the wider world of the first century Roman empire, however, Paul’s citizenship rings alarm bells. Citizenship was very rare in the Greek world in this period for someone of Paul’s status and background and it is very unlikely that he or any of his family would have been granted it. However, the Romans had an extraordinary process by which the children of freed slaves could gain citizenship and pass it down to their families. So the most likely explanation is that Paul was the son, or possibly grandson, of a freed slave (his family may have been enslaved in the Roman conquest of the east). Acts 6:9 specifically notes a synagogue of freedmen in Jerusalem visited by citizens of Cilicia, Paul’s native province, so Paul may have attended it when he was in Jerusalem. (For those interested Jerome Murphy O’ Connor’s Paul, A Critical Life, OUP, 1996 explores Paul’s citizenship further.)

So Paul may have been only a generation from slavery. This is important. First it means he had an ambiguous social position: he had a status which gave him privileges but only because his father or grandfather had been members of that most ignominious group of all, the slaves. No wonder he often felt marginal. He frequently mentions slavery in his letters -- note Romans 6- 15-19, for instance -- but, despite having read widely in Pauline studies, I have never found a scholar who relates these passages to Paul’s own possible experience of slavery. (I am always open to being advised otherwise on this point!) So perhaps a historian with a wider knowledge of the Roman empire can bring something to biblical studies.

So where might my history differ from others? In the first part "Beginnings," I have reorganized the New Testament texts to discuss them chronologically. A great deal had gone on in the early Christian communities before any known gospel was written and so my chapter "Fifty years on: the Gospel Writers Reflect on Jesus" is as late as Chapter Seven. I also stress that the books of the New Testament were assembled slowly – the Book of Revelation did not make it into the canon until the fourth century. It is equally important to stress that there were many texts, such as the First Letter of Clement, that are known to have been widely read but did not make it into the New Testament. So a well-read Christian of the early second century may have known several early texts of which we now know nothing but certainly would not have seen anything like a New Testament.

If there is a thesis that stretches through the book, it is the immense difficulty that the early Christian communities found in achieving consensus and unity. I use my knowledge of the wider empire to show just how many cultural niches there were in which Christianity settled. There were very different Greek and Latin Christianities. I stress this diversity and give the evidence for it because I think it is underestimated. Studies such as Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity assume all too easily that there was a single movement called "Christianity," growing steadily. There is a mass of evidence against this view. The historian Eusebius, writing just thirty years after the Diocletian persecutions, wrote that God had sent them because of the mutual hostility of Christian communities!

Those who have read my earlier books will know of my argument that Christian theology of the fourth century was of a high intellectual standard and that one has to look for the legislation of the Christian emperors, notably Theodosius (379-395), for the stifling of Christian diversity. I repeat this argument here and take the story of the very different Christianities that developed in the Greek east and the Latin west up to AD 600. On the way, I discuss the gnostics -- were they overthrown by an authoritarian church? -- I think not. It is all fascinating stuff and I have tried to include the latest findings.

I hope Christians as well as non-Christians will read my book. There may be surprises and shocks as I challenge some conventional interpretations but no one is harmed by lively debate and I hope this book encourages it. It is vitally important for us all to understand how the Christian churches were born.