Author: Gary Witcher
Company: none

Departures

	Have there been any surprises for you as we have gone back to the first century to learn about early Christianity?  Did you know that, in the beginning, each congregation was autonomous and was under the oversight of a plurality of elders?  Did you know that the title "pastor" was applied to an elder and not to a preacher?  Did you know that, in the early church, adults  (only) were immersed (only) for the forgiveness of their sins?  Did you realize that there was no liturgy in the early church and that musical instruments were never used in the worship?   Were you aware that Christians who lived nearly 2000 years ago had to take stands against divorce, abortion and homosexuality?
	Let’s start to move toward the 21st century, now, as we examine factors that have contributed to changes resulting in what is known today as Christianity.
	Even during the lives of the Apostles, there was evidence of impending departures from the simple purity of primitive Christianity.
	"Be on guard," Paul tells the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:28-31,  "for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.  I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears."
	"But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed," Galatians 1:8 advises.
	"You were running well;" Paul comments in Galatians 5:7-10, "who hindered you from obeying the truth?  This persuasion  {did} not  {come} from Him who calls you.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump  {of dough.}  I have confidence in you in the Lord, that you will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is."
	"But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times,” 1 Timothy 4:1-3 warns, "some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, {men} who forbid marriage {and advocate} abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth."
	"But realize this," Paul cautions in 2 Timothy 3:1-7,  "that in the last days difficult times will come.  For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these.  For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
	"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;” 2 Timothy 4:3-4 prophesies, "but {wanting} to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths."
	As has already been noted, the practice of a single elder leading a congregation was developing in the latter part of the second century.
	"The first definite mention of child-baptism comes early in the third century," Eerdmans' Handbook to the History of Christianity comments (Dowley, 1987, p. 10).   It was from this same century that changes were made in the Lord's Supper.
	"From   the third century,” the Handbook states,   "Old Testament ideas of priesthood were used by some to interpret the Eucharist as the 'Christian sacrifice'.  At first the sacrifice was thought to consist of praises, but gradually it came to be held that an offering was made to God to gain forgiveness of sins" (Dowley, 1987, p. 9).
	Still, these major changes in the original pattern were few and far between.  This may have been due in part to the fact that these were years of persecution.  It was only with official recognition that departures from the New Testament instructions accelerated.
	Persecutions were experienced during the reigns of Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Antonius Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Decius, Valerian I and Diocletian.  Many false accusations were used to fuel hatred toward the Christians.  Perhaps it was a misunderstanding of the Lord's Supper that resulted in charges of cannibalism.  Since they refused to worship idols, they were labeled atheists.  Their great love for each other led to cries of incest.   They would not worship the emperor, so they were called traitors.  Since they worshiped an executed  "criminal,” so the people thought, they must have been criminals, too.

	Constantine took over the throne soon after Diocletian, and in 313 he issued the Edict of Milan tolerating Christianity.   By 380, Christianity was established as the official religion of the empire.   This recognition provided the power needed to bring about major changes in the church.
	There have always been heretics.  First there were the Gnostics and the followers of Docetism.  There were the Mandaeans, the Montanists, the Manichaeans, the Novatianists, the Monarcianists and the Arians.  Arguments centered on the nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and on the process of enlightenment.
	Since Constantine was motivated, at least in part, by political considerations, a divided religion was of little use to him. So in 325 he convened a church council at Nicea.  This was only the first of several councils in which religious ideas were decided by political maneuvering.  During the next 400 years, major councils were held in Constantinople, Ephesus, and Calcedon as well as Nicea.
	"The public prayers had now lost much of that solemn and majestic simplicity that characterized them in the primitive times, and which, at present, are degenerating into a vain and swelling bombast," Mosheim says of the end of the fourth century (Kurfees, 1972, p.16).
	"New ceremonies were gradually added to the church services from the fifth century onwards," Eerdmans' notes,  "while some older ceremonies fell out of use.  Believer’s baptism declined and the baptism of infants became normal" (Dowley, 1987, p.149).
	When some, such as Celestius, challenged infant baptism in the early fifth century, Augustine reacted strongly (Dowley, 1987, p.199). This is in spite of the fact that, to this day, the Catholic Church does not officially recognize the existence of limbo.  They simply allow people to believe it exists.
	"The doctrine of limbo has never been affirmed by the magistrate of the church," a priest affirmed in a major Italian newspaper,  "and there are not, in favor of its existence, decisive foundations either in the Scriptures or in catholic tradition." (Perico, 1973, p.2)
	"Of limbo there is not a single solid historical foundation in the Sacred Scriptures or in tradition," a professor at the Gregorian University of Rome commented in another Italian publication.  "The first to occupy himself with babies who die without baptism was Augustine."
	"Limbo does not exist," he adds. "It cannot exist"  (Galot, 1973).
	In fact, in 2007 the Catholic Church officially abandoned the concept of limbo.
	In spite of this fact, infant baptism was common by the early sixth century.
	Leo I, who was pope from 440 to 461, was one of the first to push the idea of authority being handed down from Peter to subsequent bishops of Rome (Kelly, 1989, p.43).  The emperor Justinian gave the title  "head of all the churches" to Rome.   Emperor Phocus repeated this claim in 607 and Boniface III became the first real pope with even a small measure of the status that has been bestowed since.  It was about this same time that prayers to Mary and the "Saints" were becoming more common.
	Pope Vitalian introduced organs into some churches in 670, but it was the middle of the next century before instrumental music was very common (Kurfees, 1987, pp.17-18).
	In 709, Justinian II started the practice of kissing the pope's feet (Kelly, 1989, p.85).  Nicholas I was still trying to consolidate the power of the pope in the mid-800s (Kelly, 1989, p.107).
	It was not until the beginning of the second millennium that indulgences were being granted (Kelly, 1989, p.153).  The celibacy of priests was added in 1074 (Kelly, 1989, p.155).  In 1184, the inquisition became a popular method of dealing with those who disagreed.
	And disagreements about the use of instrumental music continued until the 1200s.
	"Our church does not use musical instruments, as harps and psalteries, to praise God withal, that she may not seem to Judaize," Thomas Aquinas claimed" (Murfees, 1972, p.19).
	"The church," Presbyterian professor John Girardeau wrote, "although lapsing more and more into deflection from the truth and into a corruption of apostolic practice, had not instrumental music for 1,200 years (that is, it was not in general use before this time);...the Calvinistic Reformed Church ejected it from its services as an element of Popery, even the Church of England having come very nigh to its extrusion from her worship."
	"It is heresy in the sphere of worship," he adds.  (Kurfees, 1972, p.23)
	"By the Middle Ages," Eerdmans' observes of the Lord’s 
Supper,  "this had been developed to make the Eucharist a re-offering of Christ's sacrifice on the cross.  There also arose magical ideas concerning the bread and wine" (Dowley, 1987,p. 9).
	The doctrine of purgatory was accepted in 1439 by the Council of Florence.  The Feast of the "Immaculate Conception” was recognized in 1476 (Kelly, 1989, p.250), although the doctrine itself was not officially approved until 1854.  And, even in the sixteenth century, Erasmus was condemning instrumental music.
	"We have brought into our churches," he noted,  "a certain operose and theatrical music; such a confused, disorderly chattering of some words as I hardly think was ever heard in any of the Grecian or Roman theatres.  The church rings with the noise of trumpets, pipes and dulcimers; and human voices strive to bear their part with them.  Men run to church as to a theatre, to have their ears tickled.  And for this end organ makers are hired with great salaries, and a company of boys, who waste all their time in learning these whining tones" (Kurfees, 1072, pp. 19-20)
	"The public worship of the Deity," Mosheim observes of the sixteenth century,  "was now no more than a pompous round of external ceremonies, the greatest part of which were insignificant and senseless, and much more adapted to dazzle the eyes than to touch the heart" (Kurfees, 1972, p.16)
	Girardeau mentioned that the Church of England almost rejected instrumental music.  In 1562 they voted on the use of the organ.  After discussion, the vote was 43 for eliminating it and 35   in favor of keeping it.   But the tally of   absentee ballots...from people who had voted without hearing the arguments, reversed the vote to 59-58.  The Church of England kept instrumental music on the basis of a single absent voter  (Kurfees, 1972, p.21).
	By the way, the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope was approved in 1870, and then only after bitter disagreement.  And the "Ascension of Mary" became dogma in 1950.
	"From history," Catholic writer Bartmann admits,  "...result two things: that there did not exist in the primitive church an explicit tradition, neither written nor oral, of apostolic origin, about the ascension of Mary; (and) that the doctrine was formed little-by-little as fruit of a loving reflection of the Christian faith regarding the dignity of (Mary)" (Bartmann, 1957, p.744).
	In other words, there is no basis for this doctrine.  Yet it was added only 50 years ago.  So the process continues even today.
	In the next study, we will look at the past few centuries from another point of view.  Until then, remain dedicated to your search for the truth.  Man-made changes will always be with us, but only the truth will set us free.

References:

Bartmann, Bernardo (1957), Teologia Dogmatica, trans. Bussi, Natale
     (Alba: Edizioni Paoline). 

Dowley, Tim, ed. (1987), Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity
     (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

Galot, Jean (1973) "Il Limbo Non Esiste," Domenica del Corriere, 
     75[9/10].

Kelly, J.N.D. (1989), The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford: Oxford
     University Press, reprint).

Kurfees, M.C. (1972), Walking by Faith: Origin of Instrumental Music in
     Christian Worship (Nashville: Gospel Advocate).

Perico (1973?) "Esiste Limbo?" Il Piccolo, Wednesday, June 13:2.

Unless otherwise noted, "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), (C)Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 Used by permission."