Biblical Prospector: The Lost History of Christianity

About a year ago, I read Philip Jenkins' The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia--and How It Died. Jenkins sets the stage very early in the book; there once was a large Eastern Christian population and culture that did not share the Greek and Latin heritage of the Western Church.

Christianity originated in the Near East, and during the first few centuries it had its greatest centers, its most prestigious churches and monasteries, in Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Early Eastern Christians wrote and thought in Syriac, a language closely related to the Aramaic of Jesus and his apostiles. (from The Lost History of Christianity)

My religious heritage goes back, via the reformation, to Rome and the Latin Church— as does most everyone coming from a European heritage. Most of us probably have a mental picture of Christian history that begins in Jerusalem with the establishment of an independent ecclesiastical structure— the church— and new forms of worship. The action very quickly shifts westward, primarily through the evangelistic efforts of Paul of Tarsus. The few Jewish believers are quickly outnumbered by a rapidly growing gentile church and the ties with obsolete Jewish practices are rapidly discarded. The languages of the church became Greek and Latin. The center of gravity settles at Rome. The Reformation divides the Latin church leading to the fragmented situation that we have today. Most of us are aware of there are Eastern churches but it is not a big part of the mental landscape. Perhaps I am being too hard on the hypothetical modern, western Christian. Maybe there is greater awareness of history than I assume, but my own experience suggests that there is not. I don't think one book can change that, but perhaps this book can help create an awareness of some missing pieces in our history.

There are at least three aspects of Christian history that are mysterious to me. One— how did the movement evolve from Jewish believers in Jesus the Messiah in Jerusalem— "many myriads of Jews... who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law" (Acts 21:20 NKJV)— to the anti-semitism of exemplified by Saint John Chrysostom (347–407):

The other disease which my tongue is called to cure is the most difficult... And what is the disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews which are soon approaching.— John Chrysostom

Two— how did the tolerance of the Jerusalem Council described in Acts 15 evolve into the persecuting church of a few centuries later:

According to the Catholic or Orthodox, who eventually triumphed within the Roman Empire, Christ had two natures, which were conjoined and commingled. Many Easterners followed the Patriarch Nestorius, who accepted the two natures but held that these were not absolutely united in the mystical sense taught by the Orthodox. This meant that the Virgin Mary could not rightly be called the Mother of God. Following bitter struggles, these Nestorians were cast out of the fold at Ephesus in 431. Most Egyptians and Easterners, however, held that Christ had only one nature, so that the divine overwhelmed the human. They thus became known as Monophysites, believers in "one nature." In 451, the ecumenical council at Chalcedon defeated the Monophysites and declared them heretical.... The Council of Chalcedon left the Orthodox in command of the empire and the mainstream church apparatus, and over the next two centuries they excluded and persecuted the newly defined heretics.... (from The Lost History of Christianity)

Three— how did a small sect of Judaism grow to become a world religion dominating whole continents? Jenkins' book is not an answer to all of these questions, but it does give us a glimpse of a few missing pieces of the puzzle.

Jenkins takes a stand against the current scholars who assert that variant, alternative Christianities disappeared in the fourth and fifth centuries on the heels of a newly formed hierarchy under Constantine, intent on crushing unorthodox views. In reality, Jenkins says, the largest churches in the world were the "heretics" who lost the orthodoxy battles. These so called heretics were in fact the most influential Christian groups throughout Asia, and their influence lasted an additional one thousand years beyond their supposed demise. (from The Lost History of Christianity)

Christianity has come to be associated with Europe and European culture. When European-American Christians evangelize non-European cultures, we are challenged by the interaction with radically foreign ways of life to determine what is the genuine heritage of Jesus and the Apostles and what are merely traditions added later in Europe. When unfamiliar cultural elements are associated with the familiar European Christianity that we know, some question whether the synthesis is still genuine.

But such questions are ironic when we realize how unnatural the Euro-American emphasis is when seen against the broader background of Christian history. The particular shape of Christianity with which we are familiar is a radical departure from what was for well over a millennium the historical norm: another, earlier global Christianity once existed. For most of its history, Christianity was a tricontinental religion, with powerful representation in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and this was true into the the fourteenth century. Christianity became predominantly European not because this continent had any obvious affinity for the faith, but by default: Europe was the continent were it was not destroyed. (from The Lost History of Christianity)

Jenkins' book challenges me to question: what is genuine Christian culture? What was the early community of believers in Jerusalem really like? How did they live and interact? How did they spend their time?

I believe that there is another Lost History that predates the one described in this book— that of the believers in Jerusalem prior to A.D. 70. We will probably never recover much of that pre-70 A.D. lost history, but seeing glimpses of the Semitic (Syriac/Aramaic) Christianity described in Jenkins' book makes it easier to imagine the culturally Jewish, probably Hebrew speaking, Christianity of the Jerusalem Church.

You can browse portions of the book...