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

as the first century as leaders of Christian communities, and gradually grew in
status. At the beginning of the second century, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, the
city where the word ‘Christian’ is first recorded, told his congregation, ‘You are
clearly obliged to look upon the bishop as the Lord himself’. 2 The authority of
the bishop derived from his succession to the apostles, who had received theirs
from Jesus Christ himself. 3 A bishop of a city such as Antioch, where tradition
recorded that Peter was the first bishop, had special significance. Peter was also
credited with moving on to lead the Christian church in Rome, and the tradition
of his martyrdom there gave that city a status above that of Antioch. The direct
apostolic succession asserted by the bishops of Rome was boosted by the claim
(in Matthew 16:18) that Jesus had proclaimed Peter to be the rock on which he
would build his Church. A third major bishopric emerged in Alexandria where
the first bishop, the evangelist Mark, was believed to have been a disciple of
Peter. There was a sense of common purpose among the bishops, although the
sheer size of the empire and the difficulties of communication across it meant
inevitably that links between them were tenuous. ‘Separated from you by great
stretches of land and the sea, yet I am bound to you in my heart’, wrote Gregory,
Bishop of Rome, across the Mediterranean to his fellow bishops of Antioch and
Alexandria in the late sixth century. 4 There needed to be something more
substantial to bind the bishops together if one was to talk with any meaning of a
unified Church.
The earliest Christian traditions were oral ones. Jesus did not leave any
written texts of his preachings - we are dependent on what memories were
passed down to the gospel writers - and it seems clear that an oral tradition,
passed on within the emerging Christian communities, was resilient at least until
AD 130. The problem lay in the fragility of memories and the tendency for oral
traditions to evolve with time. They could also be threatened by self-appointed
Christian prophets. In the late second century a group known as the Montanists
(after their leader, Montanus) caused a stir with their claims that they had direct
contact with God and that the end of the world was at hand. A ‘New Jerusalem’
would descend from heaven to a small town, Pepuza, in Phrygia. It did not, but
the fervour of the Montanists, who had women among their leaders, appears to
have been the catalyst that turned the bishops back to a more secure footing of
written texts. There never could be any stability in the emerging Church if its
teachings could be subverted by those claiming to be in direct touch with God.
Perhaps the most important figure in the tightening up of Christian authority was