Week 2 · AD 101–200
Faith Under Pressure
Martyrs, false teaching, and Christ’s real flesh
This week
Christ in flesh, water, and bread
- Baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and a Sunday meal
- Ignatius and Irenaeus defend Christ’s real flesh and blood
- Gnostics and Marcion deny that the Creator is Christ’s Father
- Montanists claim new revelations, and bishops reject them
- Martyrs in Gaul and Smyrna, and a dispute over Easter
Portrait of the Boy Eutyches
Unknown artist, about AD 100–150, Roman Egypt. A boy’s face painted in wax on wood.
Church life
How Christians were baptized and worshiped.
Christ and the sacraments
Baptism in the Didache
- The Didache, a short church handbook, names the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Baptism
- Running water is preferred, but cold or warm water is allowed
- If water is short, pouring water on the head three times is allowed
- Christ’s command in Matthew 28:19 stands behind this Baptism
Christ and the sacraments
The Lord’s Supper and Sunday worship
- Eucharist (Greek for “thanksgiving”): the Didache lets only the baptized eat and drink
- About AD 150, Justin Martyr says Christians gather on Sunday, hear the Gospels or prophets, and pray
- After thanks, believers receive bread and wine
- Justin says this food is the flesh and blood of Jesus, who became flesh
- Scholars still debate how the Didache’s meal prayers relate to later Communion services
Controversy and heresy
False teaching about Christ and the Creator.
Controversy
Docetism: Christ only seemed to suffer
- Docetism says Christ only seemed to have a body and to suffer
- Ignatius of Antioch wrote that Christ “truly suffered”
- Real flesh makes Christ’s death a real death for sinners
Controversy
Gnosticism and Marcion
- Gnostics promised saving “knowledge” (gnosis) and often taught the material world was evil
- Irenaeus of Lyons wrote Against Heresies and named the followers of Valentinus
- Irenaeus said they wrongly shut the flesh out of salvation
- Marcion of Pontus taught that the God of the Jewish Scriptures was not Christ’s Father
- Marcion kept a shortened Luke and ten letters of Paul, and Rome broke with him about AD 144
Councils and events
Synods on Easter, and judgment on a new prophecy
Councils and events
The Easter dispute, AD 190–195
- Most churches ended the Lenten fast (before Easter) on Sunday, Christ’s resurrection day
- The churches of Asia ended it on the 14th day of the Jewish month, whatever the weekday
- Bishops met in synods (church assemblies) in Palestine, Rome, Pontus, Gaul, and Osrhoene
- They wrote letters in favor of Sunday
- Lutheran classification: Not classified
Councils and events
Asian bishops judge Montanism
- Montanus and two women, Prisca and Maximilla, claimed new revelations from the Holy Spirit
- The bishops of Asia met in many places to examine these new prophecies
- They judged the prophecies false and put the Montanists out of the church
- Lutheran classification: Received
Major people
Bishops, a philosopher, and a martyr of Smyrna
Major people
Polycarp of Smyrna
- Bishop of Smyrna, burned and then stabbed to death at about age 86
- The usual date is AD 155 or 156, but Eusebius gave about AD 166
- Told to curse Christ, he said Christ had never wronged him in 86 years
- He told the governor that Christ was his King and Saviour
Major people
Ignatius, Justin, and Irenaeus
- Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote letters to churches while a prisoner taken to Rome
- Tradition says he died in Rome about AD 107, but some scholars date it later
- Justin Martyr, a philosopher turned Christian, was beheaded at Rome about AD 165
- Justin refused to sacrifice to the gods and wanted to suffer “for our Lord Jesus Christ”
- Irenaeus, from Asia Minor, became bishop of Lyons after Pothinus
- He wrote against Gnosticism, and Christ’s real flesh matters for salvation and the Supper
Wider world
Emperors, a Jewish revolt, and a plague
Wider world
Hadrian and the Jewish revolt
- About AD 122: Hadrian visited Britain, and a wall was built from the Tyne to the Solway
- AD 132–135: the Bar Kokhba revolt, a Jewish uprising in Judea, was crushed
- Hadrian built a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina, on Jerusalem’s site and barred Jews from living there
- The sources differ on whether the new city caused the revolt or followed it
Wider world
Marcus Aurelius and the plague
- Marcus Aurelius ruled Rome from AD 161 to 180, sharing the throne with Lucius Verus until 169
- He was a Stoic philosopher and wrote the Meditations
- From about AD 165 to 180, a great epidemic, now called the Antonine Plague, struck the Roman world
- The Historia Augusta says the dead were carried away in carts and wagons
- AD 177: Christians at Lyons and Vienne in Gaul were tortured and killed for confessing Christ
Confessional Lutheran connection
Where second-century sources meet the Lutheran confessions
“the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ”
Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 7, on the Eucharist
Confessional Lutheran connection
Comparing the sources with the confessions
- These are the curriculum’s judgments, and the writers did not hold the whole Lutheran confession
- Baptism: compare Didache 7 with Augsburg Confession IX, and separate the promise from water and fasting
- Lord’s Supper: compare Justin, First Apology 61 and 65–67, with Augsburg Confession X
- Creation: Gnostics and Marcion denied the Creator is Christ’s Father, so compare the Apostles’ Creed
- Unity: Irenaeus’s plea fits Augsburg Confession VII.2–3, and Solid Declaration X treats rites Scripture neither commands nor forbids
- Polycarp: honor a faithful witness, but do not pray to saints (Augsburg Confession XXI)
For discussion
How does Irenaeus connect the Creator, Christ’s coming in the flesh, and the Eucharist?