A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

IV
THE COMING OF THE CHRISTIAN STATE
UNTIL the Edict of Toleration, the early Christian communities had been
isolated and largely confined to the Greek-speaking cities of the empire. Even as
late as AD 300 Christians made up only a tiny minority, 2 per cent at best, of the
Latin-speaking west. This ‘Church’ was much more diverse and unstructured
than the word suggests to modern readers. While the first Christians had been
Jewish, the movement soon spread among Gentiles but manifested itself in a
surprising variety of ways as Christian beliefs interacted with those of other
cults. There had to be a continuous process of self-definition through which
emerged a mainstream Church that was not only distinct from other spiritual
movements but from the Jews and the plethora of pagan deities.
The early Church was held together in the first instance by the commitment to
Jesus Christ, a commitment that had been spelled out in Jesus’ own teachings
and in the letters of Paul. Most Christian communities had an initiation
ceremony, baptism, which was referred to as ‘putting on Christ’, ‘an
enlightenment’ or ‘a rebirth’. This gave access to the Eucharist, a shared meal in
memory of Christ. Intrinsic to the process of initiation was a period of
preparation centred on not only what should be believed but how the Christian
should behave. 1 The result was exclusive communities, meeting in secret but
vulnerable for this reason to accusations that they indulged in cannibalism or
sexual free-for-alls.
It is hard to know, with any religious movement, what gives it its impulse. For
Christianity, the hope of salvation promised by Christ, the belief in a benevolent
God who will care for all, the shared values of the Christian communities, which
appeared to care well for their own, specific rituals that gave a meaning and
purpose to life, all must have played their part. So must a common defensiveness
against their prejudiced opponents. The growth in numbers of these communities
is largely undocumented, but studies of third-century Anatolia, for instance,
show a patchwork of Christian communities, strong in some cities, nonexistent
in others.
Overseeing these developments were the bishops. These had emerged as early