Early Christianity

Christianity has come a long way from its early days, when a couple of sexually dysfunctional men hung out in some dark Middle Eastern caves waiting for the end of the world. But how did it get from there to the world-straddling behemoth of today, followed by such famous people as George Bush, Barack Obama, Ned Flanders and Robert Mugabe?

Well, strap yourself in as we take a journey through Christianity's awkward, first years.

Everybody (well, except Mandaeans) loves Jesus. Even Jews have learned to love the guy (mostly through centuries of religious oppression, but isn't that what love's all about?)

He's particularly beloved of sportsmen, who know there's no bad play that can't be helped with a little bit of Nazarene magic.

The big guy, JC himself.

And why wouldn't you love him? Look at that totally awesome beard - Jesus shows that not all men with facial hair are violent, insane or sleazy pieces of shit. Or homeless winos.

The ladies love him (how could you not love a guy so good with kids, or so caring with his own mother) and the guys want to be him (or in some cases, they want to do him too. Nothing wrong with turning gay for JC! Just ask the Children of God).

You can read all about the guy's rise from humble carpenter to apotheosized saviour in a fabulous book we call the "New Testament". It's a thrilling tale of one man's inspiring life, heart-warming moral mission, and embarrassingly bloody death.

One of the issues with understanding the New Testament is that the order they are arranged in the Bible is not strictly chronological. Think of it as more of a "suggested reading order", just like its best selling rip-off, the Chronicles of Narnia.

The earliest portion of the New Testament, according to some modern scholarship, may actually be Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians, estimated to have been written no earlier than 49 AD, at least 15 years after Jesus is estimated to have died, and written by someone who freely admits to having never met the guy.

Paul hard at work. Though, judging from the deck of cards, not that hard at work.

The earlier a book, the more reliable it tends to be. There's the Gospels we know and then there's....some others.

The first few centuries were a big time for Gospel-writing. Everyone got in on the action. Think of it as the fanfiction of its day, complete with Mary-Sues, slash pairings and strange interpretations of canon characters. By the time you get to the non-canonical "Infancy Gospel of Thomas", the baby Jesus is bringing clay pigeons to life and killing people with magic powers. While pretty awesome sounding, that Jesus never made it into the Bible (but he does sneak into the Qu'ran), so we make do with the familiar cheery, bearded guy who loves all living things. Except fig trees.

Even the familiar bearded Jesus may not be right. In the early days of Christianity, Jesus was depicted as beardless, golden haired, and often dressed in Greco-Roman attire. His earliest depictions, in fact, more resemble the god Apollo, more than anything else, and he was often in artworks holding a wand, making him some sort of prototype Harry Potter.

Jesus and his disciples depicted in early Roman catacombs. Is that a hobbit on the far right?

As Christianity spread, most people depicted Jesus as a member of their own ethnicity, meaning now you can find Nordic Jesus, Italian Jesus, Hispanic Jesus, Greek Jesus, Black Jesus, Japanese Jesus and any variety you like. He's like ice-cream...a flavour for everyone! Some people even suggest a Middle Eastern Jesus, but surely that's just going too far.

But surely the Bible at least gives us vague pointers on the man himself?

In fact, the Bible is mostly silent on the physical appearance of Jesus. Many have taken note on the fact that Judas apparently has to identify Jesus for the Roman soldiers, indicating he was indistinguishable from most Jews who were his disciples. On the other hand, maybe the Romans were ignorant in a "They all look the same to me!" manner, or perhaps they were just idiots.

You'd think though, they at least recognize Jesus based on the way the Gospel has him entering Jerusalem - a-stride two donkeys. (Yes, two of them. Go read it.)

 As the good book says: "Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." (Matt 21:5)

To definitively settle the matter, we can turn to the good book itself. There is one physical description of Jesus, which can be found in Revelation 1:13-16.

 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

Wow! So JC is apparently white-haired, with flaming eyes, metal feet and a sword sticking out of his mouth. Oh, and he's holding stars.

Pimptastic!

 

Jesus will look like this on Judgement Day. Man of many talents.

After an unfortunate run-in with the legal system (ably depicted by one Mel Gibson), Jesus doesn't make it to the after party. What now?

Well, according to the Bible and most Christians, the disciples, dedicated to a fault, never give up hope, are rewarded with visits from the resurrected Christ, experience the power of the Holy Spirit, then go about setting up the world-wide religion Jesus always intended they would. They were able to do that, of course, due to awesome experience of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit appears after spending most of eternity fairly quiet, pops some flames over peoples head, and miraculously makes them fluent in every language you can think of, possibly excluding texting and 1337sp34k.

 

Pentecost: World's first rave.

Many early Christians fully believed that there was going to be a second coming of Jesus that would precede the end of all things, and that secocoming was supposed to occur before the last of Jesus' apostles succumbed to death.

A lot of early Christianity was a Jewish reform movement centered in Jerusalem, headed by James the Just, a blood relative of Jesus, celebrating all the Jewish feasts, obeying the Levite laws, including those that were dietary, and insisting on circumcision for its male adherents. The first inklings that things would change was when Paul of Tarsus, a new convert to Christianity, began to embark on his successful mission to convert the gentiles. Many were attracted by Paul's stance against penis-cutting.

This picture may have sealed the deal.

In 70 AD, the Jewish people of Iudea province rose up in revolt. Another Jewish rebellion, the Kitos War, followed sixty years later, and in 135 AD the Jews rose up for a third time under Simon Bar Kochba. Hundreds of thousands of more Jews died and Hadrian, convinced that Judaism was the problem, set about finding a solution. Or more accurately a "final solution".

It certainly seemed that the end was nigh. Fortunately - and I hope I don't ruin this for you - it was not. Jesus wasn't going to come back quite yet. Instead, he'd give us all a chance to get our act together. The various motley groups breathed a sigh of relief, and then got on with the business of religion.

The Christians knew they need a marketing guru, someone who could help propel their fresh new idea on to the world stage. Luckily, there were plenty of advertising execs wandering around in those days. Back then, they were called "Emperors", and one eventually came to them.

Emperor Constantine the Great, or, to be more accurate, Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (with a name like that, he'd have to be in advertising),  exerted a influence on these early Christians, butt his is often misjudged or exaggerated, especially by the ignorant, liars, or people who fit both categories.

Exhibit A

Constantine's "conversion" occurred during the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, where he allegedly received a vision where the Christian God gave him a sign that told him "in this sign, conquer". He did so, having his soldiers paint the "Chi-ro", or labarum, on their shields and call on Christ's favour to beat their enemies. Just like today's sportspeople and Grammy-winners, the big JC came through, and Constantine won.

We now come to what's become one of the most "famous" things people know about Constantine, or at least, think they know. The Council of Nicaea, where, called to a convocation by Constantine, various Christian bigwigs came together in order to establish consensus. Despite what you also may have heard, Constantine played little role in the debates other than presiding. He attended, but did not vote on any of the proposals.

One of the most fraught parts of the developing theology is what is termed "Christology", or specifically theology that concerns Jesus in particular.

This is the first result of a Google image search for "Christology". No, I have no idea what it is supposed to mean either.

This where it starts to take on a fervour not to be seen until thousands of years with and debates amongst Star Wars fans about the length of Darth Vader's star destroyer.

Most of the back and forth over heresy vs. orthodoxy really only began to pick up steam after the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, prior to that, there was little central leadership for the church, and the individual communities were mainly interested in survival rather than finger-pointing and saying "You're wrong!" in loud voices.Such style of debate can still be seen around the Internet today.

The Contenders

Marcionism

Marcion is famous for coming up with what was probably the first "Bible" - or list of canonical Christian works. However, it was a bit different to what we have today. Marcion wasn't a fan of certain adult-themed elements of the Old Testament, and didn't find the God described therein a very good fit for the idea of his idea all-benevolent father figure. So, instead, he reasoned that the Old Testament was non-authoritative, that only Paul truly understood Christ's message, and that the God of the Old Testament was not really God, but rather a lesser "demiurge" figure that was responsible for all the evil and suffering in the world.

In other words, to these guys, God's a bastard, and there was nothing you could do about, which, whether it makes sense or not, seems to be a pretty depressing way to view things.

Montanism

Montanism took off around the 2nd century AD, and mainly concerned itself with the idea of continuing revelation (ie, that there is still more of God's message to come), mainly based on a vague promise in the Gospel of John that humanity would be sent a "new paraclete". Notably, it also believed that once you sinned, that was it. You were out, and could not be redeemed, making it something like the most exclusive nightclub you've ever been to. Like modern Pentecostals, Montanists were big on the Holy Spirit, that part of the Trinity that to most other Christians seems to be a bit of a free-loader.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism, as outlined by earlier Gnostics such as Valentinus, or by special Gnostic gospels, as seen in top quality sources like Cracked.com , emphasised the importance of the "gnosis" (knowledge) to salvation. Gnostics believed that true salvation was only reachable once you obtained this ultra-secret super-awesome knowledge, and all the other plebs would have to make do with a lesser sort of heaven. I guess if you're stupid or even a bit slow, it's just tough luck in that case, possibly making it another candidate for most unjust afterlife.

Gnosticism often overlapped with some ideas from Marcionism, and as can be seen from Valentinianism, there is a rather complicated theology developed here where, once again, the God of the Old Testament is the evil Demiurge, and the Christ is instead a being trying to link us with his true, spiritual, holy father. Whoever that is.

Arianism

Arianism is one of the most historically significant "heresies". Based on the teachings of Arius (a man previously featured on Cracked because of a bowel-related death), it's main contention with orthodox Christianity is that Arians believe 1) Jesus and God the Father are not of the same substance and 2) There was a time when Jesus did not exist. Like before he was born.

Arius, possibly the guy on the floor in bowel-related agony.

Mainstream Christian denominations mostly accept that Jesus is eternally co-divine with God and, as the divine Logos, it was Jesus that created the world. Arians believed that Jesus, though Divine, was an inferior being, created by God.

As for the first point, this "substance" argument was quite heated back in the day. Once it was established that Jesus and God were divine, and the same being, then the question was asked, "Are they of the same substance?" Now, for many, the correct answer is, "Why does it matter?" but on the other hand, we're talking about people who were willing to debate the number of angels that could dance on a pin, so we're lucky this was in the days before message boards and flame wars.

This debate became summed up by the words describing the various camps:

• Homoousian - ie, Same essence and being. What became our current orthodoxy
• Homoiousianism - ie. like in substance, not necessarily same essence
• Homoianism - i.e Similar essence and being.
• Heterousianism - ie, not the same essence and being.

Some of these were so similiar, particularly the first two, that many could hardly tell the difference. In fact, the first two, homoousios, homoiousios had nearly the same spelling, with only one Greek letter, "iota", being the difference. This led to sarcastic wit, whose name has unfortunately been lost to time, to quip that there was "not one iota of difference" between the two.

Iota: Serious Business.

Presumably he was later perma-banned for trolling.

In the end it wouldn't be the religion we all know and love thanks to these guys, so whether you're a Christian or an Atheist, let's all agree to raise a glass to the early Christians, history's first fandom. Without them, there'd be no churches, cathedrals, hymns or curiously sado-masochistic films by Mel Gibson.

The film thoroughly explores Jesus' substance. And then some.