Christianity after the New Testament period with Professor Dale Martin (2022-02-15) ​

0:00:01 well hello everyone and welcome to
0:00:04 blogging theology i'm very privileged to
0:00:07 welcome back professor dale martin of
0:00:09 yale university who has been an honored
0:00:12 guest a number of times before welcome
0:00:15 back dale thank you very much
0:00:18 well today dale will be speaking about
0:00:21 christianity after the new testament
0:00:24 period
0:00:26 i i like what you write del in the final
0:00:28 chapter of your book new testament
0:00:31 history and literature
0:00:33 which by the way is based on a series of
0:00:36 introductory undergraduate
0:00:39 talks you gave at yale which everyone
0:00:42 can still view on youtube if you go to
0:00:45 open yale courses you can see the whole
0:00:48 series of lectures including um a talk
0:00:50 on this subject as well the last in that
0:00:53 series and this book which i do
0:00:55 recommend is based on that series of
0:00:58 lectures at yale so i'm just going to
0:01:00 read a paragraph from the final chapter
0:01:02 of this book uh the epilogue and it's
0:01:05 entitled christianity as world religion
0:01:08 in inverted commas and you write dale
0:01:11 my students are often surprised when
0:01:13 they realize just how unimportant jesus
0:01:16 of nazareth was during his life and just
0:01:20 how insignificant the movement begun in
0:01:22 his name was for a couple of centuries
0:01:25 afterward
0:01:27 they think like most people that jesus
0:01:29 must have been a very important person
0:01:32 and that his followers must have taken
0:01:34 the world by storm after his death
0:01:38 once they hear the story of how diverse
0:01:40 the early jesus movement was how weak it
0:01:43 was for so long and how it took
0:01:46 centuries for its adherence to become
0:01:49 even a powerful minority in the ancient
0:01:53 mediterranean
0:01:54 they asked quote so how did this tiny
0:01:58 group of illiterate peasant followers of
0:02:00 an epilogue apocalyptic jewish prophet
0:02:04 become a world religion
0:02:06 how why and when did that happen
0:02:10 excellent questions
0:02:12 so dale uh please take this forward for
0:02:16 us it's a paradigm shifting discussion i
0:02:18 think
0:02:20 well i there have been some scholars um
0:02:23 well i'm not sure how much i would want
0:02:25 to call them scholars but
0:02:27 they basically pointed out that no one
0:02:29 talks about jesus in the first century
0:02:31 except his own followers
0:02:34 um
0:02:35 the romans never mentioned it the greeks
0:02:37 never mention them
0:02:39 other jews never mention them
0:02:41 for the most part there is a couple of
0:02:43 references in josephus the jewish
0:02:45 historian who wrote around the year 90
0:02:50 but they're very scanty references
0:02:53 and it's actually caused some scholars
0:02:56 to say that jesus of nazareth never
0:02:58 existed and we've talked about this
0:03:00 before right
0:03:01 um
0:03:04 understandable why they would say that
0:03:06 because
0:03:07 how could jesus have been as important
0:03:10 as
0:03:12 christians take him to be
0:03:15 but no one seemed to knew he existed in
0:03:18 the first century
0:03:19 and so some scholars have just said he
0:03:22 didn't exist
0:03:24 he was an invention of
0:03:26 the later christian church
0:03:29 well that's
0:03:30 obviously not true and it's not true
0:03:33 because we there's just no way to
0:03:34 explain the existence of the christian
0:03:37 sources we have
0:03:38 uh mainly the four gospels in our canon
0:03:42 the gospel of thomas which is not in our
0:03:44 canon but we think it may hold some
0:03:47 uh
0:03:48 significance for the historical jesus
0:03:50 and the seven letters the seven
0:03:51 authentic letters of the apostle paul
0:03:54 which date to the year 50. there's no
0:03:56 way really to explain the agreement
0:03:58 among those different sources because
0:04:00 they didn't all use one another they
0:04:02 didn't all know one another
0:04:05 so there's no reason to there's no way
0:04:07 to explain the existence of all those
0:04:09 independent sources
0:04:11 that jesus of nazareth actually existed
0:04:14 than to say he actually existed but then
0:04:17 you have the problem the historical
0:04:18 problem was saying well why didn't
0:04:19 anybody know anything about him
0:04:22 well and it's because
0:04:24 during his own lifetime and immediately
0:04:26 after his death
0:04:28 the people who knew anything about him
0:04:30 were a handful
0:04:31 um
0:04:35 he
0:04:36 his main ministry was in galilee
0:04:39 around the river jordan
0:04:41 and this town of capernaum now capernaum
0:04:44 was
0:04:45 a tiny village
0:04:47 in the first century at the time it's
0:04:49 not like we're not talking about new
0:04:51 york and los angeles
0:04:52 you know we're talking about some tiny
0:04:54 little village out in the middle of new
0:04:55 mexico maybe
0:04:57 and
0:04:58 that's where they all existed and
0:05:01 uh
0:05:02 even so after his death he went at the
0:05:05 at the end of his ministry he went to
0:05:07 jerusalem
0:05:08 and that's where he was executed by the
0:05:10 romans but even according to acts of the
0:05:14 apostles which is
0:05:16 very much a promotional christian piece
0:05:18 of literature so it if anything acts as
0:05:21 going to exaggerate the number of jesus
0:05:24 followers
0:05:25 not minimize them even according to acts
0:05:28 there were only about 120
0:05:30 people who
0:05:31 were followers of jesus in jerusalem
0:05:33 after his death
0:05:35 well 120 people
0:05:38 out of the roman empire population of 50
0:05:41 million
0:05:44 is rather small
0:05:45 and so it's not surprising that people
0:05:48 didn't know about jesus
0:05:50 so this is one of the problems that my
0:05:51 students would regularly
0:05:53 confront me with um why didn't if if
0:05:56 what you say is true
0:05:58 why was he why wasn't he better known
0:06:01 well he was just one apocalyptic jewish
0:06:04 prophet among many i mean i don't know
0:06:06 if you or others have seen the
0:06:09 uh movie the life of brian
0:06:12 uh you know many many times many times
0:06:15 yes but they make a big deal out of you
0:06:17 know all these different jews sitting
0:06:20 around
0:06:21 and different people you know different
0:06:23 messiah people
0:06:25 uh well that's kind of the way it was in
0:06:27 this sense they're you couldn't
0:06:30 trace it back to more than one i can't
0:06:32 read this i'm sorry i can't resist
0:06:33 there's one scene where um brian of
0:06:36 course people think is the messiah uh
0:06:38 he's taking refuge at home and his mum
0:06:40 comes to the window and there's a huge
0:06:42 crowd thousands of people outside
0:06:44 wanting to see this messiah and they say
0:06:46 he's not the messiah he's a very naughty
0:06:49 boy
0:06:50 yes exactly and uh that as classic as
0:06:53 when british humor was really really
0:06:55 great sorry i digress back to the real
0:06:57 messiah well but that the thing that i
0:07:00 used to have my students
0:07:02 watch several movies
0:07:04 about jesus and they had to write papers
0:07:07 on them
0:07:08 because i was teaching a course on the
0:07:09 historical jesus
0:07:11 and some of these were like you know
0:07:13 the last temptation of christ or
0:07:17 jesus of nazareth which was on tv or
0:07:20 these different things and at least
0:07:21 those movies often attempt
0:07:23 to show the real jesus but i also had
0:07:26 them watch
0:07:28 the life of brian uh because it also
0:07:31 contained a lot of tropes that occur in
0:07:34 jesus scholarship yes and one of them is
0:07:38 why was he so unknown yes um and one of
0:07:41 the reasons is because there were more
0:07:43 than one person wandering around uh who
0:07:46 people were claiming to be the messiah
0:07:49 now i don't actually know that jesus of
0:07:51 nazareth was claiming to be messiah i
0:07:53 rather doubt it to be to tell you the
0:07:55 truth but at least as some of his
0:07:57 followers thought he was the messiah
0:07:59 and that's why he was executed by the
0:08:01 romans when he went to jerusalem uh he
0:08:04 was executed on the charge of being a
0:08:06 false king of judea
0:08:09 a presumer to the throne of judea
0:08:13 and
0:08:14 that's clearly what he was executed for
0:08:16 so there must have been somebody around
0:08:19 at the time
0:08:20 who was claiming that jesus of nazareth
0:08:22 was the king of the jews
0:08:26 even if jesus himself didn't openly make
0:08:28 that claim and even if he didn't believe
0:08:31 that he was i don't know about that
0:08:34 but the real question is then how do you
0:08:36 go from that to getting the new
0:08:38 testament
0:08:39 and that's the core that's the
0:08:42 core of the course that i taught so we
0:08:44 go through all the gospels and the
0:08:46 letters of paul and all the other
0:08:48 letters down to the revelation of john
0:08:51 at the end of the new testament and we i
0:08:54 always tried to show how did this
0:08:55 develop
0:08:56 from this one guy
0:08:58 um
0:09:00 and and
0:09:01 how do we reconstruct the history of it
0:09:04 but then even after that you have
0:09:08 you know i would end my course on the
0:09:09 new testament
0:09:10 and the students would say but wait a
0:09:13 minute
0:09:14 it's not clear even now that jesus is
0:09:17 supposed to be
0:09:18 god
0:09:21 even in these new testament documents
0:09:23 it's not clear
0:09:24 that he's considered completely divine
0:09:27 with god the father
0:09:28 and you certainly don't have the
0:09:30 doctrine of the trinity
0:09:32 by this time
0:09:34 and so you know they and and you have
0:09:36 like this handful of people
0:09:38 who believe in him
0:09:40 where do you how do you get from there
0:09:44 to a world religion and that's what the
0:09:46 last lecture of the course was trying to
0:09:48 do
0:09:49 but the thing is it it's it's it's a
0:09:52 long story that's the problem it's a
0:09:55 long story
0:09:56 things change in the
0:09:57 things are set in the first century
0:10:00 things start changing in the second
0:10:01 century things change even more in the
0:10:04 third century and it's not till you get
0:10:06 to the fourth century
0:10:08 in the year 325
0:10:11 that you have the council of nicaea
0:10:14 which
0:10:15 is the first really big ecumenical
0:10:18 council and by ecumenical we just mean
0:10:21 a council that claims to have
0:10:23 bishops representing all of the churches
0:10:26 throughout the known world at the time
0:10:28 and that council was convened by the
0:10:30 emperor constantine
0:10:32 in 325 it is because
0:10:34 he
0:10:35 he was trying to unify the empire
0:10:38 around this
0:10:41 cult of jesus
0:10:43 and he knew that all these different
0:10:45 followers of jesus had such different
0:10:47 opinions about who he was
0:10:50 and so he he
0:10:52 kind of forced the bishops to meet
0:10:55 in nicaea which is
0:10:57 in modern turkey
0:10:59 to try to get them to come to some
0:11:00 agreement
0:11:01 about what they believed about jesus of
0:11:04 nazareth
0:11:05 and that's when you get the first
0:11:08 real counsel of the church
0:11:12 but there's a long way from jesus dying
0:11:14 on the cross to even the council of
0:11:16 nicaea in 325
0:11:19 and that's what i've tried to illustrate
0:11:21 um with
0:11:23 that particular lecture
0:11:25 in that chapter of my book
0:11:28 so um you point out that there's huge
0:11:30 developments and
0:11:31 uh changes that have happened over the
0:11:33 years in my view they continue long
0:11:35 after that with the development of the
0:11:37 infallible papacy in the medieval period
0:11:40 and the uh the papal um jurisdiction
0:11:43 over the whole of the the church and
0:11:45 then the clash between east and west and
0:11:47 the what became the catholic and the
0:11:49 orthodox and then the beginning of the
0:11:50 enlight the renaissance the
0:11:52 enlightenment and the introduction of
0:11:54 reason and the birth of biblical
0:11:56 scholarship and liberalism and i mean
0:11:59 it's just a never-ending story it's not
0:12:00 like it ended with constantine because
0:12:03 even constantine's
0:12:04 um uh
0:12:06 council wasn't the last word the his
0:12:09 some of his subsequent um successors uh
0:12:12 weren't too happy with it and the church
0:12:14 itself went back to arianism and um it
0:12:17 was quite a messy complex
0:12:20 uh perplexing uh history it seems um but
0:12:24 how do we how do we get though uh if you
0:12:26 can in the second century perhaps we can
0:12:28 go there to the third century how do we
0:12:30 get from this apocalyptic jewish prophet
0:12:34 in the first century to
0:12:36 this uh
0:12:37 perhaps otherworldly figure the logos as
0:12:39 he's often called by uh by some of the
0:12:42 upper-class christian elites who start
0:12:45 thinking wow we we must follow this
0:12:47 religion and maybe it's a bit like a
0:12:49 philosophy because we know about
0:12:50 philosophy we know you know about
0:12:51 stoicism you know about uh hellenistic
0:12:54 philosophy maybe christianity is like
0:12:56 that and it moves away from its jewish
0:12:58 roots and becomes a a gentaj i mean i
0:13:01 can go on there's so many
0:13:03 movements and different and
0:13:04 transformations that take place is quite
0:13:06 bewildering i think
0:13:08 yeah the second century is a good place
0:13:09 to start i mean even before the middle
0:13:12 of the second century you have the
0:13:13 development of certain institutions that
0:13:16 will end up being the unifying forces so
0:13:19 the unifying forces of christianity end
0:13:21 up being not particular people but
0:13:24 social structures
0:13:25 such as christian hierarchical
0:13:27 institutions right so even with ignatius
0:13:31 who is bishop of antioch
0:13:34 and he's arrested by the romans and he's
0:13:36 taken by the romans to rome from syria
0:13:40 and he's martyred
0:13:43 and he writes several letters to
0:13:45 churches in
0:13:46 asia minor and
0:13:48 and one to the church in rome
0:13:50 and
0:13:51 he first is an advocate of the idea that
0:13:54 you should have one bishop over each
0:13:57 major city
0:13:58 just one bishop over a city so you don't
0:14:00 have a council of elders which is what
0:14:03 existed before then
0:14:04 and he claims to have been the bishop
0:14:06 for antioch which makes him the bishop
0:14:09 for all the area around india
0:14:11 well we call this the monarchical bishop
0:14:14 because it's an idea that there's one
0:14:16 bishop who rules he's a monarch he's
0:14:20 the one ruler of his area well ignatius
0:14:23 who is writing these letters probably is
0:14:25 a big debate about when to date these
0:14:27 letters but probably i would say he's
0:14:30 writing these letters around the year
0:14:31 110.
0:14:33 um and he is one of the first people who
0:14:36 argues you have to have one bishop
0:14:38 in each
0:14:40 city
0:14:41 and then you have
0:14:43 a bunch of presbyters he calls them
0:14:45 which comes in the english priests
0:14:48 so you have one bishop and then priests
0:14:50 under the bishop and then you have
0:14:52 deacons
0:14:54 and all three that three-tiered level of
0:14:57 authority
0:14:59 uh is first laid out by ignatius
0:15:03 and uh
0:15:05 and that's very early because it didn't
0:15:07 really take hold in the whole church
0:15:08 until a few centuries later
0:15:11 but if ignatius was actually arguing for
0:15:14 this in the year 110 that's very early
0:15:17 but that's an early sign that somebody
0:15:20 ignatius realized that if you want to
0:15:22 bring unity to the diversity of these
0:15:25 christian churches you have to have a
0:15:27 structure of unity in a hierarchy of
0:15:30 church of church offices
0:15:33 so ignatius is very important about then
0:15:36 you also have the beginnings of the
0:15:37 development of canon a canon of
0:15:39 scripture
0:15:40 which is very important
0:15:42 and that doesn't happen until centuries
0:15:44 later but you can see even by the year
0:15:47 200
0:15:49 that the four gospels that we recognize
0:15:51 as our gospels become recognized as
0:15:55 the most official gospels of the church
0:15:58 everybody knew that there was the gospel
0:15:59 of thomas and the gospel of mary and the
0:16:01 gospel of peter and the god but you
0:16:03 start seeing people like irenaeus
0:16:06 who is another bishop in gaul or what we
0:16:10 call france nowadays and he's arguing
0:16:12 that there are these four gospels and
0:16:14 only these four gospels matthew mark
0:16:16 luke and john well just a quick point
0:16:18 you may have said this before what were
0:16:19 the reason why there were just four
0:16:20 gospels according to irenaeus
0:16:23 well his his the reasons that he gave
0:16:26 will not be accepted by most modern
0:16:28 people
0:16:29 he said there are four points to the
0:16:30 compass north south east and west
0:16:33 therefore there must be four gospels i
0:16:36 see a great okay a pass over that
0:16:38 observation with that comment
0:16:40 but but i mean his real reasons were
0:16:43 that uh he believed that matthew mark
0:16:45 luke and john were actually written by
0:16:48 uh these ancient
0:16:50 people we don't believe that anymore but
0:16:52 he said these are the people who go back
0:16:54 to jesus
0:16:55 so his main arguments were that these
0:16:56 are the most ancient gospels
0:16:59 but his real argument was that these
0:17:00 were the these were the gospels that
0:17:02 were already being read
0:17:04 the most in churches in his area
0:17:07 so it's like it's common usage and the
0:17:10 other thing is that these are the ones
0:17:11 he considered orthodox they they taught
0:17:14 the true gospel whereas he believed the
0:17:16 gospel of thomas and the gospel of mary
0:17:18 and peter and these other gospels
0:17:20 they had
0:17:21 bad christologies they didn't present
0:17:23 jesus as the christ in the right way
0:17:27 so i would say the most dominant
0:17:29 criteria was that they matched his
0:17:31 theology
0:17:34 but they he also used arguments from
0:17:36 antiquity
0:17:37 and from apostolic authority he believed
0:17:40 that these people really went back to
0:17:41 the apostolic times so those are the
0:17:43 arguments well see that wasn't that was
0:17:46 being settled around
0:17:47 the second century
0:17:49 and then you had a collection of paul's
0:17:51 letters that were being collected and
0:17:53 sent around
0:17:54 and uh so it really was the first four
0:17:56 gospels and a collection of paul's
0:17:58 letters they were being
0:18:00 copied together and sent around to
0:18:02 different churches
0:18:04 and
0:18:05 and then gradually
0:18:07 uh you had the other things in the new
0:18:09 testament like
0:18:11 the epistle of james which um
0:18:14 Music
0:18:15 nobody no modern well
0:18:18 i don't no respectable modern scholar
0:18:20 would believe that the apostle james
0:18:22 that is james son of zebedee the brother
0:18:25 of jesus
0:18:26 actually wrote james
0:18:28 it could not be written by a jew of that
0:18:30 kind of education
0:18:32 it's
0:18:33 very good greek for example and very
0:18:36 well composed but anyway the gospel of
0:18:38 james and it's because they thought
0:18:40 james really wrote it first and second
0:18:42 peter
0:18:43 first peter became accepted first
0:18:46 and then only much later to second peter
0:18:48 but it's because they believe peter
0:18:50 wrote them
0:18:51 well we don't believe peter actually
0:18:53 wrote them but
0:18:55 around that
0:18:56 but that's for the same reason we don't
0:18:57 think james wrote james because we're
0:18:59 dealing here with illiterate fishermen
0:19:01 peasants basically
0:19:03 who are not suddenly going to acquire uh
0:19:06 you know advanced education to be able
0:19:08 to read and write in sophisticated greek
0:19:09 it's just not going to happen
0:19:11 that's right
0:19:12 one main reason why
0:19:14 you would yes yeah so then there's first
0:19:17 second and third john
0:19:18 and then there's the revelation of john
0:19:21 uh the revelation
0:19:22 actually became included because a lot
0:19:25 of people
0:19:26 believe that it was written by the same
0:19:28 john who wrote the gospel of john in the
0:19:30 letters of john well that's obviously
0:19:32 not right all you have to do is read
0:19:34 greek and it's just totally different
0:19:36 the theology's different the greek is
0:19:38 different the language is different the
0:19:39 writing style is different but we think
0:19:41 that the
0:19:43 book of revelation was actually written
0:19:44 by a jew named john but john was a
0:19:47 fairly common name so it's not
0:19:50 surprising that there was more than one
0:19:51 john in early christianity anyway those
0:19:54 different documents uh became kind of
0:19:57 glommed onto
0:19:59 the original collection which was the
0:20:01 four gospels and the letters of paul
0:20:04 and it and they eventually became the
0:20:07 new testament but anyway the development
0:20:09 of canon started happening in the second
0:20:11 century
0:20:12 um
0:20:13 and then you had the development of
0:20:15 doctrines so the idea that uh jesus was
0:20:18 not only a man but he was also a god
0:20:21 well that was highly debated but in the
0:20:24 second century you had many ways of
0:20:26 interpreting this you had the gnostics
0:20:28 uh what we call the gnostics and they
0:20:30 were people who tried to interpret
0:20:32 genesis and the stories about jesus to
0:20:35 match a certain kind of platonic
0:20:37 philosophy
0:20:39 and so
0:20:41 uh
0:20:42 you have a a a very educated man named
0:20:45 valentinus who lived in rome in the
0:20:48 second century in the middle of the
0:20:49 second he
0:20:51 you can think of him as sort of a living
0:20:53 room scholar
0:20:54 he uh
0:20:56 there was probably a bunch of people who
0:20:57 would meet
0:20:58 and read his writings and read the bible
0:21:00 and he would interpret them
0:21:02 that that became the center of what then
0:21:05 later became gnosticism
0:21:08 uh which is now reflected most in the
0:21:10 say the nag hamadi library uh which is a
0:21:13 series of documents from the fourth
0:21:15 century but in the second century you
0:21:17 didn't have all of that development but
0:21:18 you did have valentinus as a very
0:21:20 educated
0:21:22 uh
0:21:23 christian
0:21:24 but he was trying to interpret jesus to
0:21:27 fit certain kinds of platonic
0:21:28 philosophical traditions
0:21:31 so you start getting a jesus that looks
0:21:33 very different from matthew mark luke
0:21:35 and john
0:21:36 and that's in the middle of the second
0:21:37 century
0:21:39 you have marcion as another person later
0:21:41 declared a heretic yes and he basically
0:21:43 said the old testament and the jews are
0:21:45 all
0:21:46 instruments of the devil
0:21:48 and the only apostle that's really
0:21:50 dependable is paul
0:21:52 and so he he made a list of just the
0:21:54 gospel of luke which he edited to take
0:21:57 out any what he thought was too jewish
0:21:59 about it and he even edited the letters
0:22:01 of paul to take out what he thought was
0:22:03 too jewish in paul which is ironic since
0:22:06 of course paul was a very faithful jew
0:22:08 his whole life it was a pharisee but
0:22:10 anyway marcion started a movement in the
0:22:13 middle of the second century and there
0:22:15 were marcy knight churches all over the
0:22:17 east at the time yeah and then you had a
0:22:20 very different one named montenus who
0:22:22 was a man who
0:22:24 lived in asia minor in modern-day turkey
0:22:26 and he taught that marriage was wrong
0:22:28 and sex was wrong and and he believed
0:22:31 that the holy spirit
0:22:33 gave him the gift of tongues and
0:22:34 prophecy
0:22:36 and he got these two females who were
0:22:38 two women who were his disciples and
0:22:40 they all claimed the gift of tongues and
0:22:42 the gift of prophecy and they all taught
0:22:44 that you couldn't be married and you
0:22:45 couldn't have sex it became a very
0:22:48 uh important
0:22:50 movement within christianity in the
0:22:52 second century now what my point is that
0:22:55 these aren't all the same
0:22:57 ideas they're very different ways of
0:22:59 interpreting jesus but they're all ways
0:23:01 of interpreting jesus in the second
0:23:03 century
0:23:05 my favorite is a guy called justin uh uh
0:23:09 justin martyr he was a
0:23:11 philosopher in the middle of the second
0:23:12 century who
0:23:13 you kind of christianized philosophy or
0:23:15 created a christian philosophy
0:23:17 and saw jesus as the logos you know this
0:23:20 word john's gospel it's also there in
0:23:22 genesis at the beginning as well the
0:23:23 beginning was the word
0:23:24 was the word god spoke created by his
0:23:26 word and um you know quite an elite uh
0:23:30 philosophical discourse crazy but the
0:23:32 reason the reason i didn't include
0:23:35 justin in that list
0:23:37 was that he was later the one that the
0:23:40 church claimed to be orthodox true true
0:23:43 so he's a true church father
0:23:45 okay
0:23:46 whereas they said you know the gnostics
0:23:48 valentine's marcian montenus they were
0:23:51 all heretics well they were bad guys
0:23:53 okay they're the bad guys
0:23:55 but yes you're quite right uh justin
0:23:57 martyr who was executed around the year
0:23:59 150 uh martyred in rome uh he wrote
0:24:05 very philosophically informed defenses
0:24:07 and you're right you mentioned the word
0:24:09 logos
0:24:10 uh justin martyr was a big advocate of
0:24:13 logos theology
0:24:14 um with similar to the gospel of john
0:24:16 that jesus is the word of god he's the
0:24:19 expression of god
0:24:21 justin martyr though uh
0:24:24 was later heralded by the church as a
0:24:26 great church father and martyr which is
0:24:28 why we call him justin martyr instead of
0:24:31 justin the heretic
0:24:33 uh
0:24:34 you know
0:24:35 martin martin is not his surname is
0:24:37 actually a description like an office
0:24:39 right it's like jesus christ it becomes
0:24:41 a name you're just if it was mr christ
0:24:43 no that's meant to be yeah
0:24:47 it's not it's not like his name was
0:24:48 justin h martyr um
0:24:52 martyr was at it later because he's one
0:24:54 of the early christian uh very famous
0:24:57 martyrs in rome in around the year 150.
0:25:00 so that's all going on in the second
0:25:02 century um but then you also have um
0:25:06 you know at the end of the second
0:25:07 century another person who is later
0:25:10 considered orthodox clement of
0:25:11 alexandria
0:25:13 who is like justin martyr trying to
0:25:15 offer an interpretation of jesus and the
0:25:18 gospels
0:25:19 that would be
0:25:21 amenable to philosophers
0:25:23 now clement's main philosophy is more
0:25:25 stoicism
0:25:27 but he he's trying to give a stoic
0:25:29 interpretation of christianity but he's
0:25:31 also very influenced as justin martyr
0:25:33 was by platonism
0:25:35 so that's the other thing you have in
0:25:37 the second century you have
0:25:39 the development of what later becomes to
0:25:41 be considered several important heresies
0:25:44 but you also have what becomes the
0:25:46 philosophical interpretation of the
0:25:49 gospels
0:25:51 that is
0:25:52 still considered later as orthodox and
0:25:54 acceptable but one thing i don't
0:25:56 understand maybe i i miss i misheard
0:25:58 this or misunderstood it that didn't
0:26:00 justin martin refer to jesus or the son
0:26:02 as in some sense a second god and he if
0:26:05 that was the case then
0:26:07 how is he seen as proto-orthodox because
0:26:10 that would not be the language that
0:26:11 would be approved later on uh in
0:26:13 trinitarian thought anyway to talk of
0:26:15 the second god it would be no no there's
0:26:17 one god in three persons and so on so
0:26:19 it's not exactly orthodox language is it
0:26:22 no it's not and uh that again shows how
0:26:26 what comes to be considered in the
0:26:27 fourth fifth and sixth century orthodoxy
0:26:30 takes time to develop so even justin
0:26:33 martyr who was later considered a proper
0:26:36 orthodox philosopher of christianity
0:26:38 people kind of forgive his some of his
0:26:41 uh what they would call later
0:26:42 misstatements they overlook them okay
0:26:44 fair enough they overlook them exactly
0:26:47 uh but yes you're right uh justin martyr
0:26:49 kind of would talk about jesus as a
0:26:51 secondary god or a second god
0:26:54 and that would later be declared heresy
0:26:58 but it takes a long time for all those
0:27:01 very careful distinctions to be
0:27:03 developed
0:27:04 right
0:27:05 okay so um perhaps we can move on to the
0:27:08 third century i noticed by the way you
0:27:09 didn't mention totally absolutely
0:27:11 because he's kind of half in half outs
0:27:13 he's sort of
0:27:14 orthodox and they get later a a fanboy
0:27:17 of mo montanus this guy who you
0:27:19 mentioned earlier on and i'm not quite
0:27:21 sure how to where he fits in is he a
0:27:23 heretic isn't he a heretic but he was a
0:27:25 big a big guy on the scene as well was
0:27:27 he not in the second no your people
0:27:29 would most people would have put
0:27:31 tertullian in the orthodox side
0:27:33 but they just kind of then say well he
0:27:35 kind of took that don't get married
0:27:37 thing a little too far
0:27:39 um
0:27:41 yes tertullian was a radical
0:27:43 when it came to asceticism and that's
0:27:46 another thing that there there are
0:27:47 several different sort of
0:27:50 issues related to the second century
0:27:52 that become debatable for centuries
0:27:54 afterwards
0:27:55 and one of them is martyrdom
0:27:57 should you want to be martyred or should
0:27:59 you try to avoid martyrdom and so that
0:28:02 becomes highly debatable in christianity
0:28:05 and uh later christians would condemn
0:28:08 people who try to get martyred
0:28:11 um
0:28:11 Music
0:28:13 and asceticism becomes very debatable uh
0:28:16 that that's why clement of alexandria he
0:28:18 wrote against the radical asceticism of
0:28:21 some person like tertullian and clement
0:28:24 said no it's perfectly okay to get
0:28:25 married but clement also said it's
0:28:27 perfectly okay to get to be rich
0:28:30 and
0:28:31 the valuing of poverty had been
0:28:34 almost
0:28:36 completely part of christianity yet for
0:28:38 that time i mean matthew's gospel is
0:28:40 there in luke blessed are the poor in
0:28:42 luke or matthew's version blessed are
0:28:43 the poor in spirit but you get the sense
0:28:45 of yes spiritual and or material poverty
0:28:47 being a virtue in yes
0:28:50 and uh and that's kind of that's that's
0:28:52 part of what clement of alexandria
0:28:54 writing around the year 200 he's trying
0:28:56 to
0:28:58 bring together what he considers the
0:29:00 orthodox earlier fathers and writings
0:29:03 with what he considers proper philosophy
0:29:06 and really upper class morality
0:29:09 yes um
0:29:10 and so
0:29:11 he he agrees that asceticism is uh
0:29:15 good
0:29:17 and being poor is good
0:29:19 but then he writes these treatises where
0:29:21 he says well it's okay to be married and
0:29:23 it's okay to be rich
0:29:24 um you know as long as you
0:29:27 do it the right way
0:29:29 but
0:29:29 you know all of that is very important
0:29:32 in the second century and you know we
0:29:34 haven't talked about um
0:29:36 celsus the anti-christian writer yes who
0:29:40 you know published
0:29:41 um
0:29:41 Music
0:29:43 you know his book
0:29:44 in the middle of the second century on
0:29:46 truth
0:29:47 and then
0:29:49 uh
0:29:50 nobody really answered him until
0:29:53 much later
0:29:54 yeah and uh galen the we only have
0:29:57 celsius's writings because galen quotes
0:29:59 it and
0:30:00 and then we have origen
0:30:02 trying to
0:30:03 refute uh celsius later in the third
0:30:06 century um
0:30:08 but celsius because he was trying he was
0:30:11 criticizing christianity he basically
0:30:13 said there's no way jesus could be
0:30:15 divine he can't even be a good person
0:30:18 because he's dirty and poor and low low
0:30:21 class
0:30:22 and you know
0:30:24 that can't happen you know in the
0:30:27 ancient world
0:30:28 uh so there's all these
0:30:30 movements that are going on in second
0:30:32 century christianity in fact i think
0:30:34 probably the second century is
0:30:37 in some ways the most interesting
0:30:38 century to study christianity because
0:30:41 you have so many conflicting
0:30:43 ideas of what it means
0:30:45 um
0:30:46 and you have the apologists like we said
0:30:48 just to martyr um and people like that
0:30:51 who are for the first time trying to
0:30:54 defend christian beliefs
0:30:56 against the upper-class
0:30:58 uh arguments against it yeah and
0:31:01 polycarp of course the famous uh martyr
0:31:03 who whose letter we i think we still
0:31:05 have a hugely significant figure but i
0:31:08 just want to get the sense though
0:31:09 because i quoted your paragraph
0:31:11 beginning uh
0:31:12 just to give a paradigm shifting sense
0:31:14 that uh in the early centuries
0:31:16 christianity was not
0:31:19 a massive social political reality it
0:31:22 was a minority
0:31:24 faith
0:31:25 perhaps early on
0:31:27 followed by slaves poor people the
0:31:29 low-wage people in urban areas slaves
0:31:32 and so on but in the second century uh
0:31:34 we seem to be getting some upper class
0:31:36 people who become attached to the
0:31:37 movement we mentioned justin martyr but
0:31:40 is it still a small
0:31:42 minority faith that's not really
0:31:45 impacting on global history so we're not
0:31:48 really dealing with the christianity we
0:31:50 know of today which is found in all the
0:31:51 continents of the world where we have a
0:31:53 pope in rome who can speak on behalf of
0:31:56 a billion catholics we're not dude we're
0:31:58 still not there yet we're still in a in
0:32:00 a localized mediterranean perhaps or
0:32:03 maybe in india but maybe some christians
0:32:05 ended up in india but still
0:32:07 a regional faith
0:32:09 that hasn't yet reached its prominence
0:32:12 they did later on that's one of the
0:32:14 things that makes the second century
0:32:15 history interesting is that
0:32:18 and it's very difficult to figure out
0:32:20 how many christians there actually were
0:32:22 in these early centuries
0:32:24 and the estimates has ranged
0:32:27 all the way around the globe i mean not
0:32:28 around the globes for geographically
0:32:30 everybody agrees that it was
0:32:32 uh pretty much centered in the
0:32:33 mediterranean basin right
0:32:36 rome
0:32:37 and
0:32:38 greece and turkey and very little impact
0:32:41 in a palestine and a bit in egypt
0:32:44 um
0:32:46 and yes there may have been some
0:32:47 christians who got to india
0:32:50 uh the western coast
0:32:51 of india indian christians who now exist
0:32:54 they bel they trace their own existence
0:32:57 of their churches back to thomas
0:32:59 the apostle thomas the doubter the twin
0:33:02 um
0:33:03 a lot of modern scholars would dispute
0:33:04 that but
0:33:06 uh
0:33:07 indians basically indian christians
0:33:09 believe that their churches were founded
0:33:10 by the apostle thomas in the first
0:33:13 century but at least we do know that
0:33:15 there were
0:33:16 uh
0:33:17 indian christians at a very early date
0:33:19 at least certainly by the second century
0:33:22 but the problem the thing about the
0:33:23 second century is that we still don't
0:33:26 believe
0:33:27 that it was a significant social
0:33:30 movement
0:33:31 judged by any kind of uh numbers and yet
0:33:34 the
0:33:35 obverse of that is that for the first
0:33:38 time we have upper-class
0:33:40 uh educated non-christians taking notice
0:33:43 of them
0:33:44 that's what's that's what's the bur in
0:33:47 the saddle
0:33:48 why would celsius or celsius
0:33:51 because the way you pronounce his name
0:33:53 in the latin would be kelsis but in
0:33:55 modern english we say celsius but why
0:33:58 would he
0:33:59 uh
0:34:00 even notice this bunch
0:34:03 and so you have the beginnings of people
0:34:06 uh starting to notice this movement
0:34:10 which is kind of at odds with the idea
0:34:12 of most of the scholars that it still
0:34:14 was not an important social movement
0:34:17 if you just judge by
0:34:20 you know societies by numbers and that
0:34:22 sort of thing but that's that's going on
0:34:24 in the second century and in the third
0:34:26 century you have much more starting
0:34:28 about like that because
0:34:31 the third century is when you have the
0:34:33 rise of super important movements in
0:34:35 christianity that become powerful and
0:34:37 notice such as
0:34:39 when we talked about asceticism the idea
0:34:41 that you have to avoid
0:34:42 eating and wine and uh you know sex and
0:34:46 marriage and that sort of thing the
0:34:47 people that was saying anthony who
0:34:49 famously uh arguably founded monasticism
0:34:52 was associated yes i mean
0:34:54 going off into the desert and fighting
0:34:56 demons and all sorts of things and um
0:34:58 and that was really important you had
0:34:59 monks you had nuns you had people who
0:35:02 mortified the flesh with
0:35:04 quite quite alarming ways uh there was
0:35:06 one guy i remember a college one guy i
0:35:08 forget his name now apparently he lived
0:35:10 up a upper pole for years he just lived
0:35:12 up there grew old and he was you know
0:35:15 hailed as a great hero of christian
0:35:17 asceticism i think we spent his entire
0:35:19 life living up a pole in the desert you
0:35:21 know
0:35:22 it takes all sorts but that's you're
0:35:24 talking about simeon yeah i forget he's
0:35:26 yeah but he was uh revered kind of um
0:35:29 he stood on a pole yeah
0:35:31 uh several meters from the ground yeah
0:35:34 um until his feet his feet rotted
0:35:37 under him
0:35:38 and people would talk about the stink
0:35:40 that came from his body as it rotted
0:35:43 away on this pole
0:35:44 but people would come from miles around
0:35:46 to consult him
0:35:48 about things like where is my where is
0:35:50 my runaway slave
0:35:52 or you know how do i deal with my
0:35:54 brother in this argument about our
0:35:56 father's will or you know simeon he's
0:35:59 called the stylite
0:36:01 because
0:36:02 that's the guy yeah the skylight but
0:36:05 there were other other he was the first
0:36:07 famous one but then other guys would
0:36:09 crawl up on poles after that and
0:36:11 especially in the in the east you would
0:36:13 have several skylights
0:36:15 it's just it just by today's obviously
0:36:16 believed in a very different world but
0:36:18 today it seems such bizarre being it
0:36:20 really does well one of the important
0:36:21 things that happens in the third century
0:36:23 though as you said is that you have the
0:36:25 development of
0:36:26 asceticism and it becomes uh
0:36:29 it becomes involved in two different
0:36:31 major movements
0:36:33 and anthony is the representative of one
0:36:36 which is the anchor right that is the
0:36:38 lone set
0:36:39 ascetic who goes off by himself
0:36:42 and lives in a hut somewhere yeah and
0:36:44 but then you have what we call
0:36:45 coinabitic or cenobitic uh uh monastics
0:36:49 monks and nuns and they actually form
0:36:51 communities
0:36:53 of monks and nuns
0:36:55 and that really didn't exist before but
0:36:57 it starts existing in the third century
0:36:59 so you have two different forms of
0:37:00 message of asceticism and monasticism
0:37:03 that come about in the third century the
0:37:05 lone monastics
0:37:07 like anthony
0:37:09 and simeon uh and the
0:37:11 community monastics and that will
0:37:14 develop in what we later think of as you
0:37:16 know yeah you know basil
0:37:19 that i mean the
0:37:20 the people who later develop
0:37:22 modern and medieval uh citizens benedict
0:37:25 benedict is the the yes benedict is that
0:37:27 the first rule is the famous monastic
0:37:29 rule which is uh very early we still
0:37:32 have that i i i've met monks who still
0:37:34 follow that rule today in england so yes
0:37:36 exactly so uh
0:37:37 benedict is the first of the
0:37:40 major uh monastic
0:37:42 writers who writes for a community of
0:37:45 nuns and monks and nuns
0:37:48 but there were also uh you know people
0:37:50 in
0:37:50 egypt at the time who were doing the
0:37:52 same kind of thing yeah um
0:37:54 ephraim for example
0:37:56 is very famous as a writer for monastic
0:37:59 uh
0:38:00 so you do have so in the third since you
0:38:01 have this
0:38:03 explosion of monasticism
0:38:06 um
0:38:07 uh you also have the first official
0:38:10 persecution of christians
0:38:12 see a lot of people think that
0:38:13 christians were persecuted by the romans
0:38:15 from the very beginning well they
0:38:16 weren't no the roamers didn't know this
0:38:18 is an important point there's actually a
0:38:20 professor in america she's actually in
0:38:22 english originally i forget her name and
0:38:24 i forget the name of the book but it's
0:38:25 basically about the myth of christian
0:38:27 persecution uh it was just written a
0:38:29 couple of years ago and uh yes
0:38:31 yeah i'm sure you've heard of it i
0:38:32 forget her name but um there's some
0:38:33 youtube footage of her speaking with a
0:38:35 very english accent in a very american
0:38:37 context but but she has given the
0:38:39 scholarly facts about this uh and then
0:38:41 the myth of persecution i mean there was
0:38:44 some persecution but it wasn't
0:38:45 unrelenting it wasn't totalitarian
0:38:48 systematic threat no it was local and
0:38:51 the way i used to describe to my
0:38:52 students is that
0:38:53 um you know people
0:38:55 people were worried about christians
0:38:56 because they didn't
0:38:58 sacrifice to the emperor or to the
0:39:00 traditional gods
0:39:01 and they thought well this is going to
0:39:02 destroy the culture
0:39:04 because we don't want the gods to be mad
0:39:06 at us and if you have this
0:39:08 even if it's a small minority of people
0:39:10 who are not honoring the emperor not
0:39:12 honoring the gods well that's going to
0:39:14 make the gods mad
0:39:15 and they'll just reign destruction out
0:39:17 on all of us and i've tried to describe
0:39:19 it this way it's not like it was the
0:39:21 government coming down
0:39:23 it was local people i said imagine
0:39:25 yourself at a football game
0:39:27 and they start seeing the star-spangled
0:39:29 banner and unfurling the american flag
0:39:32 on the field and it's all this hyper
0:39:34 nationalism and patriotism and they say
0:39:37 please rise while we sing the national
0:39:39 anthem and you sit down
0:39:42 keep your baseball cap on
0:39:44 and start singing happy birthday
0:39:48 i did right
0:39:49 i said what's gonna happen i said you're
0:39:51 gonna get beat up
0:39:53 really gosh okay
0:39:55 you're going to get beat up
0:39:57 and it's not the u.s government that's
0:39:59 beating you up
0:40:01 it's all these people around you who
0:40:03 think that you're you know
0:40:05 dishonoring america
0:40:07 right
0:40:08 so that's the early person any early
0:40:11 persecutions that christians suffered it
0:40:13 was local
0:40:15 it was by their neighbors not the
0:40:17 government
0:40:18 and it was because they were the the
0:40:21 other locals the non-christians were
0:40:23 concerned that this would destroy the
0:40:25 fabric of society
0:40:28 but now in the first time is in
0:40:31 around the year 250
0:40:34 and decius is the emperor
0:40:37 the roman emperor
0:40:38 this is the first time you get an empire
0:40:40 wide attempt
0:40:43 to force the christians to repent this
0:40:45 is just to be clear this is at 250 a.d
0:40:48 in the middle of the third century it's
0:40:50 the first time we
0:40:52 state-sponsored persecution of
0:40:55 christians in the roman empire yes
0:40:59 uh i mean empire wide i mean you could
0:41:02 get
0:41:02 you know we do have
0:41:04 uh
0:41:05 the letters of plenty the younger
0:41:08 um
0:41:10 addressed to trajan the emperor trajan
0:41:13 and his answers back and these date from
0:41:15 around well one was plenty that he was
0:41:18 governor of bithynia which is that
0:41:20 northern part of uh turkey
0:41:22 um
0:41:23 i'm sorry where's my
0:41:27 my phone is going off
0:41:30 um
0:41:31 but then
0:41:32 plenty writes as governor of bithynia
0:41:35 writes to trajan to say
0:41:37 i've got these christians who uh you
0:41:40 know their neighbors are accusing them
0:41:42 of being christians
0:41:43 should i do anything about it yeah and
0:41:45 he says is it a crime to be a christian
0:41:48 is it is it a crime to be called a
0:41:51 christian even if you don't act like one
0:41:53 and how to sort out deal with this and
0:41:55 trajan sends back some letters well that
0:41:56 all happens around the year 112
0:42:00 a.d
0:42:01 ce
0:42:02 and uh so we know that this was local
0:42:05 but notice
0:42:06 plenty he's a roman governor he doesn't
0:42:08 know what to do about this
0:42:10 and he didn't initiate
0:42:12 anything
0:42:14 now he ends up
0:42:16 anyone who says i'm not a christian i
0:42:18 never was a christian he just lets them
0:42:20 go
0:42:21 and anyone who
0:42:23 is willing to sacrifice to the emperor
0:42:26 like just sprinkle a little bit of
0:42:27 incense on a sacrificial fear you know
0:42:30 you sprinkle incense on a fire
0:42:32 and
0:42:33 that counts as honoring the emperor
0:42:36 anybody who's willing to do that he
0:42:37 would let go
0:42:38 and he tortures two women
0:42:42 and he calls them diacona
0:42:44 deacons
0:42:46 now we're not sure
0:42:47 if they're
0:42:48 if that just means servants are they
0:42:50 slaves he just tortures two female
0:42:52 slaves
0:42:53 because the word could mean that or
0:42:56 these two women who are deacons in the
0:42:58 church
0:42:59 because the word can mean that also
0:43:01 we don't know because we just have to
0:43:03 mention this letter now that goes back
0:43:05 to 112. but you can tell from that
0:43:07 series of letters back and forth from
0:43:09 plenty and trajan
0:43:10 that
0:43:11 they don't really know what to do about
0:43:13 this group
0:43:14 and so there's no policy
0:43:17 um
0:43:18 trajan finally writes back and says
0:43:21 okay anybody who
0:43:24 you know says they're a christian they
0:43:25 won't sacrifice yet do something to them
0:43:28 but you know just let people you know
0:43:30 let people alone generally
0:43:33 so even trajan doesn't have a policy
0:43:37 so the first time you get a first roman
0:43:41 policy
0:43:42 for the whole empire to persecute
0:43:44 christians is 250.
0:43:48 so 150 years after this exchange between
0:43:51 plenty and trajan
0:43:54 but that's a very important
0:43:56 uh
0:43:57 that's a very important development of
0:44:00 the third century
0:44:01 another important development of the
0:44:03 third century
0:44:04 is origin
0:44:06 the great biblical scholar and
0:44:08 philosopher
0:44:10 because he wrote in the third century
0:44:12 he's one of the first christian scholars
0:44:15 who has a complete education
0:44:17 of philosophy
0:44:20 interpretation of homer and
0:44:22 euripides and everything and turns all
0:44:25 of his skills
0:44:27 to the bible
0:44:29 and then he becomes super important for
0:44:32 the development later of christian
0:44:34 philosophical writing
0:44:36 well there is it has to be said uh in
0:44:38 his early years um
0:44:40 um he took some of the words of jesus in
0:44:44 uh i think it's the sermon on the mount
0:44:45 somewhat too literally
0:44:47 um the jesus words about you know if if
0:44:50 your eye causes you to sin cut it out of
0:44:52 your hand cause it or if another part of
0:44:54 your anatomy causes you to sin cut it
0:44:57 off and i believe he did actually do
0:44:59 that
0:45:00 well that there's actually a big debate
0:45:02 among scholars it about a generation ago
0:45:05 most scholars would say
0:45:06 no he didn't really do it
0:45:08 uh but now you're right more scholars
0:45:10 are coming around and saying well maybe
0:45:12 he did
0:45:13 um you know
0:45:15 and and there's of course that other uh
0:45:18 passage in matthew about people who are
0:45:20 eunuchs because they're born eunuchs
0:45:22 people who are eunuchs out of choice and
0:45:25 people who may are made units by men
0:45:27 that is slaves who are
0:45:28 made eunuchs by their masters but then
0:45:30 he talks about matthew talks about
0:45:32 people who are eunuchs
0:45:34 uh for the kingdom of god
0:45:36 and you know origen took that perhaps be
0:45:39 quite literal
0:45:40 and made himself a eunuch for the sake
0:45:43 of the kingdom of god
0:45:44 whether origin
0:45:46 the historical origin did it or did not
0:45:49 is debatable
0:45:51 but you're right i would say more
0:45:54 scholars
0:45:55 nowadays are saying well he probably did
0:45:58 i mean just because we we find the idea
0:46:00 unconscionable and unimaginable it
0:46:02 doesn't mean someone in the third
0:46:04 century would have thought the same way
0:46:06 and maybe in an excessive zeal um he did
0:46:09 it but the
0:46:10 one of the the fly in the ointment of
0:46:11 some of that is that origen is also
0:46:14 super famous for being one of the first
0:46:16 um
0:46:18 highly educated
0:46:20 scholars of christianity who insisted
0:46:23 that the highest form of interpretation
0:46:25 was allegorical interpretations
0:46:27 and spiritual interpretation
0:46:30 so of course
0:46:32 that would be a case of him taking the
0:46:34 eunuch sayings in not the allegorical
0:46:37 sense but in the literal sense
0:46:40 yeah and so that's one argument some
0:46:42 people come back to say well origen was
0:46:44 not famous for literal interpretation no
0:46:46 but that was later you could say as a
0:46:47 teenager he might have had a more
0:46:49 literalist face but um anyway this is
0:46:51 all by the by
0:46:53 moving on from his um personal habits of
0:46:56 uh castration or not
0:46:58 um
0:46:59 can we just move on to uh
0:47:01 a big
0:47:02 game changer when uh constantine or
0:47:05 constantine um
0:47:07 uh roman emperor of the whole empire i
0:47:10 mean he lived many many years he was
0:47:13 hugely powerful influential he decided
0:47:15 to call a gathering of all the bishops
0:47:18 in the in the world to really sort out a
0:47:22 mess which was dividing is having
0:47:23 political consequences the empire was
0:47:25 being fractured and
0:47:27 um by these uh controversies and violent
0:47:31 violence actually uh took place so some
0:47:34 of the partisans of athanasius or the
0:47:35 partisans of aries would would um beat
0:47:38 each other up and things like that so he
0:47:40 he decided to but
0:47:42 my question to you is he's well known as
0:47:44 a christian but was he was he in your
0:47:46 view really a christian or was he a just
0:47:48 a politician
0:47:49 uh you know seeking the main chance to
0:47:52 further his career on a religion that
0:47:54 was becoming so powerful and and uh
0:47:58 and
0:47:58 whether you're a christian that would be
0:48:00 my first uh point in a way
0:48:03 i really am agnostic about that i just
0:48:05 don't think we have enough evidence to
0:48:06 know what was going on in his mind
0:48:09 um
0:48:11 and i'm not a scholar of constantine but
0:48:14 i think
0:48:15 that most people believe that he
0:48:16 actually wasn't baptized until he was on
0:48:18 his deathbed which was not uncommon for
0:48:21 emperors
0:48:22 the main doctrine back then was when
0:48:25 you're baptized all your previous sins
0:48:27 are forgiven
0:48:28 but any sins you commit any major sins
0:48:31 you commit after baptism you can still
0:48:33 be held responsible for well an emperor
0:48:35 could not avoid doing things like
0:48:37 killing people
0:48:39 emperors just had to kill people
0:48:41 you know you had to run the army
0:48:44 yeah that's all in a day's work and so
0:48:47 you know a lot of emperors who realized
0:48:50 that they were not going to be able to
0:48:51 avoid the
0:48:53 the commandment against killing
0:48:55 they would put off their baptism until
0:48:57 as late as possible
0:48:59 so then any of those sins that they'd
0:49:01 committed would be cleansed by baptism
0:49:05 so we don't and i don't think we know
0:49:06 for sure when constantine was baptized
0:49:09 um
0:49:11 obviously he he thought that he became a
0:49:14 follower of jesus the disciple of jesus
0:49:16 when he first saw what he later called a
0:49:18 vision
0:49:19 before the big battle
0:49:22 you know and uh he saw the cross in the
0:49:24 sky and all that kind of stuff
0:49:26 and it's just we just don't know
0:49:28 in my opinion whether he just looked
0:49:31 around and said this is a great
0:49:32 ideological system
0:49:35 and
0:49:36 and people sometimes don't realize that
0:49:38 constantine was the one who united the
0:49:40 empire it was before him
0:49:42 there were it was east and west
0:49:45 and rome and you know the east uh and
0:49:49 uh
0:49:50 there were two different
0:49:51 emperors
0:49:52 one for the west and one for the east
0:49:54 and there were two different caesars
0:49:57 under them one for the west and one for
0:49:58 the east
0:50:00 and
0:50:01 constantine was the first one who waged
0:50:03 war against
0:50:04 uh he was actually in the west to start
0:50:06 off with he waged war against the
0:50:08 eastern
0:50:10 emperor in order to defeat him and then
0:50:12 set himself up as the sole emperor and
0:50:15 then united the empire well you know if
0:50:18 you're if your main your main life's
0:50:21 work
0:50:22 has been to unite the empire
0:50:24 and you see that there's this
0:50:26 minority movement i don't think there's
0:50:28 any way that christians were the
0:50:31 majority of the inhabitants of of the
0:50:33 roman mediterranean at the time but if
0:50:35 you see that there's this
0:50:36 uh movement that can be found in both
0:50:39 the east and the west so you remember
0:50:41 that rome was still a very important
0:50:43 center
0:50:44 uh for christianity and spain was
0:50:47 increasingly an important center but the
0:50:50 main weight of authority
0:50:52 of christianity was in the east
0:50:54 it was before of course constantinople
0:50:56 because constantine established that um
0:50:59 but
0:51:00 jerusalem was a very important uh
0:51:02 christian city and uh alexandria and
0:51:05 egypt was a very important and antioch
0:51:08 in syria these were the most important
0:51:10 christian cities
0:51:12 uh in practically the empire and is it
0:51:15 the case that maybe constantine just
0:51:17 looked around and said wow i can combine
0:51:20 rome
0:51:21 and antioch and jerusalem and alexandria
0:51:24 into one big thing
0:51:27 if i
0:51:28 use christianity
0:51:30 yeah and i i honestly can't say whether
0:51:32 we i just don't believe
0:51:35 of course it's according to what you
0:51:36 mean by christian
0:51:38 we live in a modern era in which whether
0:51:40 you're a christian or not has to do with
0:51:43 your will your mind and we believe that
0:51:46 has to be pure
0:51:48 well
0:51:51 is there a way to think about becoming a
0:51:52 christian which
0:51:54 you can have
0:51:57 conveniences or misgivings
0:51:59 or doubts or you just say i'm gonna go
0:52:03 along with this without having any kind
0:52:05 of
0:52:05 conversion of the heart i mean we live
0:52:07 after the puritans right
0:52:09 and uh it all has to be a personal
0:52:12 individual conversion experience
0:52:15 well that's kind of a later development
0:52:17 yeah exactly
0:52:19 so it's according what you mean by
0:52:21 christian
0:52:22 being a christian as to whether he was
0:52:24 really a christian he certainly there's
0:52:26 no doubt that he became
0:52:29 the patron
0:52:31 of the christianizing of the roman
0:52:33 empire
0:52:34 i think it's important point there
0:52:35 because i used to think that
0:52:37 that he made the roman empire officially
0:52:39 christian and that was it
0:52:41 yeah it was now the christian roman
0:52:43 empire but that's not really true is it
0:52:44 as he said he became the patron he
0:52:47 favored christianity but paganism still
0:52:49 existed pagan temples and so on it's
0:52:52 only later that they were
0:52:54 ruthlessly suppressed and extirpated
0:52:57 later on but but he it was as you say a
0:53:00 patronage of favoring rather than like
0:53:02 now we've got the middle the middle ages
0:53:04 have now begun and no one else would be
0:53:06 tolerate anything else that wasn't quite
0:53:07 how it was in with him was it no a lot
0:53:10 of times you'll see people say
0:53:12 constantine made christianity the
0:53:14 official the official religion of the
0:53:16 roman empire no he did not yeah
0:53:19 that didn't happen until around the year
0:53:22 400
0:53:23 and it was one of constantine's you know
0:53:27 uh descendants was theodosius
0:53:30 um emperor i think theodosius
0:53:33 who finally basically got the senate to
0:53:36 recognize christianity as kind of rome's
0:53:38 official uh
0:53:40 ritual uh and and religion constantine
0:53:43 never did that
0:53:44 but he did promote christianity
0:53:47 um and his mother helen
0:53:50 uh did you say hello to your cat by the
0:53:52 way who's just uh hello
0:53:54 she has not been she has been ignored
0:53:56 long enough
0:53:57 she won't be ignored
0:53:58 uh anyway helen uh um
0:54:02 you know constantine's mother
0:54:03 did
0:54:04 probably more than constantine
0:54:06 uh she was the one who went around you
0:54:08 know saying
0:54:09 went to jerusalem palestine saying oh
0:54:11 this is where jesus descended ascended
0:54:14 into heaven this is where the you know
0:54:16 garden prayer took place this is the you
0:54:18 know side of the crucifixion and let's
0:54:20 build the church of the holy sepulchre
0:54:23 you know that was helen's doing more
0:54:25 than constantine's to him yeah but
0:54:28 constantine gave his force behind it in
0:54:30 fact constantine eusebius the great
0:54:33 church historian uh was also
0:54:36 one of constantine's boys
0:54:38 uh you know he wrote a life of
0:54:40 constantine uh eusebius um
0:54:44 you know started his church history to
0:54:46 prove
0:54:47 that christianity was
0:54:49 was destined to be uh the power that it
0:54:52 was and constantine had a lot to do with
0:54:54 it
0:54:55 so it but you're correct that
0:54:57 constantine was a promoter of
0:55:00 christianity
0:55:01 but he he did not make christianity the
0:55:04 official religion of the roman empire
0:55:06 i want to clarify one other point which
0:55:07 i found very curious when i first read
0:55:09 eusebius's ecclesiastical history i mean
0:55:12 i look i look in vain for any sense of
0:55:15 the universal episco papacy with its
0:55:18 universal jurisdiction over the whole of
0:55:20 the church
0:55:22 um
0:55:23 in the sense we understand it today that
0:55:25 seems to be pretty absent even i don't
0:55:28 want to push it too far but um it's
0:55:30 perplexing looking back one doesn't see
0:55:32 catholicism in the in the sense we see
0:55:34 it today uh you know mirrored in those
0:55:37 early centuries
0:55:39 no because it wasn't there i mean it it
0:55:42 was a western development for one thing
0:55:45 and people
0:55:46 eastern christians still don't accept it
0:55:48 no
0:55:50 you know the bishop of rome is
0:55:52 one bishop among all bishops and maybe
0:55:54 he is
0:55:55 the a premier bishop but that doesn't
0:55:58 mean you don't get
0:56:00 well you mentioned earlier in our talk
0:56:02 uh papal infallibility yes that didn't
0:56:04 become a doctrine until
0:56:06 what the late 19th century the early
0:56:08 20th century indeed there was no such
0:56:10 thing as papal infallibility
0:56:13 in the ancient world or the medieval
0:56:15 world as a doctrine
0:56:18 uh that's a modern development
0:56:20 in fact
0:56:21 a lot of what we think of as roman
0:56:23 catholicism
0:56:25 in this universalizing sense that was
0:56:27 really
0:56:28 trinitarian i mean uh
0:56:30 um
0:56:33 the council of trent
0:56:35 uh it was
0:56:36 reaction to the roman catholic church
0:56:38 against
0:56:39 the reformation
0:56:41 and so the emphasis on the universality
0:56:44 of the papacy and its infallibility and
0:56:47 all that kind of stuff that's a modern
0:56:49 development
0:56:50 um
0:56:52 what was it 1500 something
0:56:54 when you had the kind of
0:56:56 real split between the east and the west
0:56:59 uh forms of christianity
0:57:02 you know that's
0:57:04 five six hundred years ago
0:57:06 it's not
0:57:08 two twenty five hundred years ago two
0:57:10 thousand years ago
0:57:11 and they're just in a sense to come to
0:57:13 the final part of of your uh you're
0:57:15 talking about this the
0:57:17 the the concept of christianity now as a
0:57:20 global religion
0:57:22 is uh you argue in your book i think
0:57:24 controversial and depends what we mean
0:57:26 by these terms but it seems to if it
0:57:28 exists at all
0:57:30 uh it seems to be on the back of
0:57:32 technological and political and economic
0:57:34 changes that took place
0:57:36 in the 19th century particularly and
0:57:38 that then you've you find
0:57:40 christianity in very substantial forms
0:57:42 probably in most uh well all continents
0:57:46 apart from antarctica apparently most
0:57:48 continents in the world um and if for
0:57:51 the first time it's no longer just
0:57:53 centered around the mediterranean basin
0:57:54 but is now found truly globally in the
0:57:56 new world where you are um and in the
0:57:59 american in south america in australia
0:58:02 in china in obviously throughout africa
0:58:05 russia everywhere and it's now global
0:58:08 but that's a recent thing is it not
0:58:09 that's what you argue um it's certainly
0:58:12 you know if you look back into deep time
0:58:14 christianity was a european religion it
0:58:17 was associated identified very much as a
0:58:19 european faith and not as a global faith
0:58:22 whereas now of course you know the
0:58:24 center of gravity say the church of
0:58:25 england or the episcopalian churches is
0:58:27 called in america the center of gravity
0:58:29 there is in africa you know the biggest
0:58:31 the biggest
0:58:32 uh church in the anglican community is
0:58:34 in nigeria
0:58:37 not in england
0:58:38 um and this is a fruit a product of
0:58:41 globalizing colonialist economic factors
0:58:45 um anyway
0:58:46 that's right yeah
0:58:48 christendom was europe
0:58:50 yeah
0:58:51 throughout most of
0:58:53 uh history
0:58:54 yeah and so when you talked about
0:58:56 christianity you were talking about
0:58:57 europe
0:58:58 yeah that first begins to change i mean
0:59:00 you had people will debate this because
0:59:02 they oh no you had these jesuits going
0:59:04 off to on the silk road to china
0:59:07 and india back in blah blah blah well
0:59:09 yeah yeah that's a minority thing it's
0:59:12 not globally important it's not
0:59:14 politically important it's not even
0:59:15 religiously important
0:59:17 but what it really becomes important is
0:59:20 when uh
0:59:22 especially the roman catholic church
0:59:25 starts uh trying to
0:59:27 evangelize the native americans in north
0:59:29 america and south america and that
0:59:32 starts in the 1600s yes not earlier
0:59:36 but it's the 17th century and then
0:59:38 really takes off in the 18th century
0:59:41 so i mean now you look at you say well
0:59:43 my goodness latin america is one of the
0:59:45 most catholic countries and you know
0:59:48 catholic areas in the world yeah but it
0:59:49 didn't happen until you know the 17th
0:59:52 century or the 18th century
0:59:54 and then the next wave was when
0:59:57 protestants mainly there was catholics
1:00:00 but mainly protestants including the
1:00:01 anglicans uh started evangelizing africa
1:00:06 sending missionaries to africa
1:00:08 uh and also to china but uh then that
1:00:11 really was in the 19th century
1:00:14 so you really have the christianizing
1:00:17 of africa
1:00:18 the christianizing of north and south
1:00:20 america happening in the 17th and 18th
1:00:22 century the christianizing of africa and
1:00:25 china starting off in the 19th century
1:00:30 and then the 20th century you have
1:00:32 uh that just
1:00:34 taking more fire as you have more and
1:00:36 more american churches and european
1:00:38 churches and of course you have now
1:00:40 african churches who want to send
1:00:42 missionaries to north america
1:00:44 so but you know it really is a modern
1:00:46 development that even the you could say
1:00:49 there was a social
1:00:51 uh political
1:00:53 uh and religious
1:00:55 presence of christianity
1:00:57 outside of europe only in the modern
1:01:00 world and of course it's clear why it
1:01:02 was it was colonialism
1:01:03 uh the the father of
1:01:06 the father of worldwide christianity is
1:01:09 the colonialism making colonies out of
1:01:11 other countries outside of europe
1:01:14 and a lot of a lot of force conversions
1:01:17 as well a lot of forced conversions uh
1:01:19 where the natives in inverted commerce
1:01:21 were forced to convert to
1:01:23 uh this religion um and obviously their
1:01:26 descendants became
1:01:27 uh christianized um this extraordinary
1:01:30 story um and then the other somewhat
1:01:32 controversial point that i've made that
1:01:34 somebody would disagree with is that
1:01:37 i would say that
1:01:38 when my students ask when did
1:01:40 christianity become a world religion
1:01:42 and i say well it was not before the
1:01:44 concept of world religion was developed
1:01:47 and that was developed around the year
1:01:48 1900
1:01:51 um
1:01:52 people didn't talk about world religions
1:01:55 before that
1:01:56 and at first christianity was the only
1:01:58 considered the only world religion by
1:02:00 religious studies scholars
1:02:02 because they would say oh islam is just
1:02:04 for arabs
1:02:05 and judaism is just for jews
1:02:07 and you know the things that those
1:02:09 africans did and those
1:02:11 native americans said that's just
1:02:12 paganism it's just local kind of
1:02:14 versions of worshiping different gods
1:02:16 there's no real religion there much less
1:02:18 a world religion so christianity was the
1:02:20 only world religion it was stated around
1:02:23 the year 1900 1910.
1:02:26 around the same time some especially
1:02:28 protestant scholars they really liked
1:02:30 buddhism
1:02:32 but it was a kind of thing that we call
1:02:34 buddhist modernism it was
1:02:37 invented about that time by western
1:02:39 buddhist scholars and trans transported
1:02:42 into america
1:02:43 and europe and then
1:02:46 american buddhists transported it back
1:02:48 into asia
1:02:50 and so the idea was okay buddhism is
1:02:52 also in asia and north america and you
1:02:55 know europe and differently so we're
1:02:57 going to allow buddhism to be
1:02:59 another world religion
1:03:01 so many years the only world religions
1:03:04 that people would admit to were
1:03:05 christianity and buddhism wow
1:03:08 and then it gradually developed and this
1:03:09 didn't really happen until the middle of
1:03:10 the 20th century really
1:03:12 when scholars of religion who started
1:03:14 teaching things like comparative
1:03:16 religions or history of religions
1:03:18 they started saying oh well
1:03:20 you know
1:03:22 okay islam is in a few more places so
1:03:25 we'll allow islam to be a world religion
1:03:27 and then more for political kind of
1:03:29 purposes they said okay we're going to
1:03:30 say judaism is a world religion
1:03:32 well judaism had always been the ethnic
1:03:35 jews the ethnic religion of the jews
1:03:38 so there's no way in the classical
1:03:42 termini termination of terminology of
1:03:44 war religions that judaism was a world
1:03:46 religion but it started to be included
1:03:48 in textbooks this all happened in the
1:03:50 middle of the 20th century when you had
1:03:52 textbooks being written to teach
1:03:53 comparative religions and they ended up
1:03:55 with
1:03:56 five christianity
1:03:59 judaism islam
1:04:01 hinduism hinduism was only whatever the
1:04:04 indians did hindu is just another word
1:04:06 for india yeah and so hindu just
1:04:08 referred to indian religion whatever it
1:04:11 was
1:04:13 and then buddhism and they started
1:04:15 teaching in
1:04:16 colleges and universities
1:04:18 that these five were the five world
1:04:20 religions
1:04:22 so if you took a course in introduction
1:04:24 to religion
1:04:25 in general
1:04:26 you would have a textbook that would
1:04:28 have
1:04:29 two weeks on each of these five
1:04:30 religions and then maybe a scattering of
1:04:32 things like
1:04:34 paganism
1:04:38 and so the idea of world religions
1:04:40 really only comes about with the force
1:04:42 in the 20th century and so when my
1:04:44 students said when did christianity
1:04:45 become a world religion i say well it
1:04:47 was in the 20th century when they
1:04:48 invented the category
1:04:51 yeah
1:04:53 yeah i i think uh a point taken i think
1:04:55 it in in the sense i i mean it uh in
1:04:57 terms of its actual global substantial
1:05:00 extension i i think it could be dated
1:05:03 early in that but on the back of
1:05:04 colonialism uh for sure um
1:05:07 absolutely
1:05:08 and i mean just a a code or an appendix
1:05:10 to that i mean now i mean i
1:05:13 even on this little contraption here uh
1:05:15 my iphone there's a little app called
1:05:17 clubhouse you may not know i don't know
1:05:19 but you can literally talk to anyone on
1:05:22 the planet
1:05:23 and as a lot of muslim and christian and
1:05:25 jewish and other uh rooms as they're
1:05:28 called there it's all above all
1:05:29 perfectly or perfectly respectable but
1:05:31 in real time you're talking to anyone
1:05:33 anywhere
1:05:34 and any sense of
1:05:37 national boundaries geographical uh
1:05:39 elements is completely gone
1:05:41 you're just in real time real space with
1:05:43 lots of people around the world and uh
1:05:46 that that is
1:05:47 that's almost not global that's almost
1:05:49 cosmic it's like you know yes we've
1:05:51 transcended the globe now we've just
1:05:53 become in this ethereal realm where we
1:05:55 can all connect immediately um
1:05:58 so what does that mean for religion who
1:06:00 knows
1:06:01 we all we all only exist as elonic
1:06:05 eclipse
1:06:06 electric pulses electric pulses in the
1:06:09 mind of the cosmos that's all we are
1:06:12 exactly that that's our next stage in
1:06:13 evolution yes
1:06:15 said he feels it's already happened
1:06:18 um well thank you
1:06:20 we've been talking well you've been
1:06:21 talking now for an hour and a quarter
1:06:23 it's been um
1:06:24 absolutely fascinating obviously there's
1:06:26 much much that you could have said on
1:06:28 many many other areas we didn't even
1:06:30 mention augustine you didn't even
1:06:32 mention my my hero from the early church
1:06:35 um but of course we can't talk about uh
1:06:37 everything so um but nevertheless thank
1:06:39 you so much uh dale for your expertise
1:06:41 and your the entertaining way that you
1:06:43 uh shared these stories even mentioning
1:06:45 the life of brian which i'm hugely proud
1:06:48 of as a brit that we produce
1:06:50 a fantastic movie which is still
1:06:52 entertaining us but it was played at
1:06:54 king's college in london a couple of
1:06:56 years ago when bart ehrman was there
1:06:59 and uh in a very august scholarly
1:07:01 setting and um it was played uh
1:07:05 as as a contribution to the academic
1:07:07 debate about uh jesus in the
1:07:09 contemporary world so i thought that was
1:07:11 very nice
1:07:14 so um in conclusion is anything you just
1:07:16 we want to say uh in summary before we
1:07:18 conclude dale
1:07:20 no i'm just trying to keep my cat from
1:07:21 crawling on my head again
1:07:24 what's your cat's name by the way
1:07:26 uh this one's rosie rosie oh which is
1:07:29 very very sweet hello
1:07:31 hello hello
1:07:33 okay fantastic well thank you so much
1:07:35 dale for your time i'm sure uh the our
1:07:37 viewers uh myself included found that
1:07:40 very very interesting and as i said
1:07:41 before you can watch uh
1:07:43 dale's videos on the open yale courses
1:07:46 on youtube and also this book um new
1:07:49 testament history and literature uh
1:07:51 which is a kind of more detailed
1:07:52 discussion of those lectures
1:07:54 and if you want to want to take this
1:07:56 these ideas further do read that book
1:07:58 which you get on amazon and many other
1:08:00 places i'm sure so
1:08:02 um well thank you very much dale until
1:08:04 next time um thank you
1:08:06 thank you bye-bye