by Harvey Cox
There are shelves of treatises about “what actually happened” on the first Easter Sunday, and the gospel accounts are not consistent. What is clear, however, is that, although the disciples had lost hope and fled in panic after the crucifixion, something happened to convince them that Jesus and the coming peaceable kingdom he embodied had not been defeated by death. The disciples soon came to believe that, in some sense that is hard to define, he still lived.
In thinking about this difficult issue, some find it helpful to make a distinction between the historical, or “pre-Easter,” Jesus and the post-Easter “Christ.” In this reading, “Christ” (which means one who is anointed or designated for a purpose) signifies the Spirit that had empowered Jesus during his earthly lifetime and now empowered a previously dispirited band of followers. But, although the distinction between the historical Jesus and “Christ” can be useful, it is also important not to lose sight of the continuity between the two. For the early Christians, the reality of “Christ” included, but was not exhausted by the historical Jesus. The cause Jesus espoused, his confrontation with the power wielders, his vision of the coming era of shalom—all these elements constituted his life. They made him who he was.
The stories of the Resurrection, as hard as they are for modern ears to comprehend, mean that the life Jesus lived and the project he pursued (the Kingdom of God) did not perish at the crucifixion, but continued in the lives of those who carried on what he had begun. This is what the theological language about Christians as the “Body of Christ” or the “extension of the Incarnation” attempt—with only limited success—to articulate. When Jesus referred to himself as the “vine” and his friends as the “branches” (John 15:5), this is what he had in mind.3
“Christ” means more than Jesus. It also refers to the new skein of relationships that arose around him during and after his life. Several biblical references support this interpretation. Paul frequently speaks of the Christ who dwells within him and within the other followers. When, for example, he writes that among those who share the Spirit of Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” he means something more extensive than the historical Jesus (Gal. 3:28). The Easter cycle, with all its harshness, joy, and impenetrability, tells of this enlargement of the historical Jesus story into the Christ story. It says that who Jesus was, as the embodiment of a “different possible world,” was not ultimately defeated by the crucifixion, but continues.
It is also important to note that according to the Easter cycle the “Christ Spirit” is not restricted to the Christian community alone, but is present, albeit often unrecognized, throughout the entire created order. The story of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–13), which continues the Easter narrative, tells of the gift of the same Spirit that had animated Jesus to the disciples, and from them to those they met as they spread his message abroad. The account states that the Spirit—dramatized by tongues of flame—was “poured out on all flesh” (2:17). The symbolic significance of the disciples understanding each other even though they spoke in different languages signals a universal community. But the fact that they spoke in many different languages, not just in Greek or Hebrew, shows that the new and inclusive community preserves the cultural particularity embodied in languages.
One of the most devastating blunders made by the church, especially as the Age of Belief began, was to insist that the Spirit is present only in believers. St. Cyprian of Carthage, a third-century bishop, first phrased it in elegant Latin: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, which means “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” Since then the Catholic Church has largely retracted this claim to exclusivity, and rightly so. In a famous passage Jesus says that the Spirit “blows where it will,” and that no one knows “where it comes from and where it goes” (John 3:8). In other words the Spirit cannot be restricted by doctrinal or ecclesial boundaries. In a similar vein, Christianity has always insisted that the image of God, the imago dei, is present in all human beings. The Quakers speak of “that of God that is in every man.”
The truth of the Easter cycle is that the life work of Jesus was not annihilated by his execution. It continues, among both those who follow him explicitly and those who contribute to the realization of the “possible world” that he demonstrated, whether they acknowledge him or not. This possible world, which Jesus exemplified, introduces a type of relationship among human beings that is radically different from Sartre’s grim choice between submission or domination described in a previous chapter. It suggests that communities of love and reciprocity, forgiveness and compassion are within our grasp, even if they cannot be fully realized.
The faith of the earliest Christians combined that of the Old Testament with the Christmas story, the other accounts of Jesus’s life, and the Passion and Easter stories. Their faith took the form of a loyalty to Jesus rather than Caesar and a hope that the new world of shalom Jesus personified would one day appear in its fullness. They lived their faith in fellowships that, even amid fierce persecution, needed neither creeds nor clergy. But by the time Constantine became emperor, much of that original lifestyle had already begun to corrode. Hierarchy had begun to replace fellowship, and belief to replace faith. How this distressing story unfolded takes us to our next chapters.
CHAPTER 4
The Road Runner and the Gospel of Thomas
What Happens When It Wasn’t Really That Way?
Recent discoveries about the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus shed a bright new light on a series of old enigmas. They help clarify how Christianity deteriorated from a movement generated by faith and hope into a religious empire demarcated by prescribed doctrines and ruled by a priestly elite. They trace how a loose network of local congregations, with varied forms of leadership, congealed into a rigid class structure with a privileged clerical caste at the top ruling over an increasingly disenfranchised laity on the bottom. They help explain why women, who played such a vital leadership role in the earliest days, were pushed to the underside and the edges. These discoveries suggest that Christianity was not fated to develop as it did, that what happened was not simply a natural process like a tiny acorn growing into a mighty oak. A different historical trajectory was possible, and this has significant implications for the future.
In short, Christianity now has a second chance. A combination of circumstances makes possible a new outlook that might be more like the first three centuries and less like the last fifteen hundred years. Not only do we know more about the actual origins of the Jesus movement than any generation since the first century itself, but—even more important—Christianity is no longer a “Western” religion; it has recently exploded into a global one. Its vital centers now lie in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and this affords unprecedented new opportunities.
There is a clear link between origin and future. But it does not consist of trying to return to a lost golden age. Some Pentecostals believe they are reviving the church described in Acts of the Apostles, complete with healing, miracles, and speaking in tongues. “New Age” groups often assert they are drawing on secret or suppressed esoteric lore. Catholics appeal to “apostolic succession,” a straight line of authority from Jesus to Peter and down through all the popes to the present one. Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians claim their forms of church administration are identical with those of the New Testament. But there is no road back to the primitive church some Protestants long for, or to the splendid medieval synthesis many Catholics dream of, or to the “old-time religion” American revivalists sing about. Much of this attempt to revert to the “way it was” is based on fanciful reconstructions of some previous period. Still, its advocates have a point.
Despite the imaginary pasts they sometimes contrive, all these denominations agree on one thing. What Christianity should be doing today and tomorrow must continue what Jesus and those who immediately followed him were doing; otherwise it has become some
thing different. Looking backward in order to move forward can be confusing and contradictory. But it is not frivolous. Unlike Hinduism, whose beginnings merge into the mists of primeval legend, there was a real historical time when there was no Christianity; then suddenly there it was. It is understandable, therefore, that Christians periodically revisit Jesus and the first few Christian generations to remind themselves what the original movement was about at its onset. Knowing about the past is vital not to return to it, but to learn from it, from both its mistakes and its successes.
The past, as someone has said, is not forgotten; it isn’t even past. Our past shackles us, especially when we don’t realize it. But it can also liberate us. Understanding our past can reopen roads that might have been taken, but were not. This is why it is so imperative that we have both the most accurate picture of the origins of Christianity possible and the clearest grasp of the sweep and dynamism of the new global Christianity. The next chapters are devoted to the first issue, drawing on current research to sketch a historically trustworthy picture of early Christianity. We then turn to the widened horizons brought about by an internationally expanded Christianity and what they portend for the future.
The biggest hurdle we face in thinking about Jesus and early Christianity is the skewed image we carry in our heads of that period. The picture is littered with debris, and much cleanup work is required before reconstruction can begin. My generation grew up with the flawed depiction of that important era embedded in our consciousness. But in recent years hardworking scholars have scraped away some of the clutter and have greatly corrected and clarified the portrayal.1
My initial understanding of Christian beginnings was defective in three important respects. First, when I attended seminary, most historians conveyed the impression that once upon a time there was a single entity called “early Christianity,” but that gradually certain heresies and schisms arose on the margins and disrupted the initial harmony. Second, they also assumed that what they called “apostolic authority” took shape right away, as did the creeds and hierarchies that seemed necessary to combat these assaults from the edges. Third, they taught that although the Roman Empire formed the political and cultural locale in which the early Christians lived, it was mainly just the “background” and, except for the persecutions and the martyrs, had little to do with how early Christian leaders shaped their own ideas and actions.
In the last few decades, however, all these assumptions have proven erroneous. The following are now evident. First, there never was a single “early Christianity”; there were many, and the idea of “heresy” was unknown. Second, it was not the apostles themselves, but subsequent generations who invented “apostolic authority,” and both creeds and hierarchies emerged much later than had been thought. Third, an essential key to comprehending the earliest Christians, including those who wrote the New Testament, is to see their movement as a self-conscious alternative to the empire that tyrannized them. And the best way to understand the succeeding generation of Christian leaders is to notice how they reversed course and gradually came to admire and emulate that empire.
History, as the old dictum puts it, is always written by the winners. Not only did the winning contenders among the many first “Christianities” write the history; they also tried to destroy any counterevidence. This is why the so-called heretics hid their texts in caves, only to be discovered many centuries later. Then the winners used their rewritten history to bolster their own claims to authority. In the meantime, they softened their attitude toward the Roman Empire from passive resistance to docile subservience; then they tried to suggest that the Christian movement had been made up of loyal subjects of the divine emperor from the beginning. This primitive revisionism produced a clumsy effort to shift the blame for Jesus’s death from the Romans to the “Jews,” with what turned out to be disastrous long-term consequences. Today, however, it is evident that this whole winners’ version is not only wildly inaccurate, but demonstrably dangerous.
The process that has brought a clearer picture of early Christianity into focus is almost as exciting as the picture itself. A combination of a more precise and scientific archaeology, the unexpected discovery of ancient Christian documents hidden in caves for millennia, and the refinement of historical research methods all render the acorn-to-oak-tree assumption untenable. A better metaphor for early Christianity might be of seeds widely sown and sprouting in varied soils and climates. But it is also important to see that these new insights have an important meaning for Christianity in the twenty-first century. They free us from the narrow picture that reigned for so long, and they enable us to reexamine both the roads not taken and the paths that were closed down by those who eventually came into power. How is that distant past relevant to the immediate future?
The first thing recent research on early Christianity reveals is how multifaceted it was. Among the various congregations scattered throughout the Roman Empire from Antioch to Gaul, there was no standardized theology, no single pattern of governance, no uniform liturgy, and no commonly accepted scripture. In faith all focused on Jesus, but there were decisive differences in interpretation. Some, especially around Jerusalem, emphasized the historical Jesus; others, the universal Christ; and still others, a mystical inner Christ. In organization, of course the older and more experienced members tended to guide the younger ones, but there was no clerical caste. In liturgy, all shared a common meal of bread and wine, prayers, and readings, but the patterns differed from place to place. All Christians were baptized, but the modes varied. All read what we now call the Old Testament, usually in its Greek version (the Septuagint), and other documents and letters that circulated among them, some of which eventually became part of the New Testament and some of which did not.
Yet, despite their dissimilarities, these widely dispersed congregations plainly felt a strong sense of unity. What bound them together, however, was not an organization or a hierarchy, and it was not a creed. Rather, it was a powerful confidence that they shared the same Spirit and were all engaged in the common enterprise of following Jesus and making his message about the coming of God’s Reign of shalom known to the world. Thus, it is now clear that the “official Christianity” that eventually emerged was only one among a range of “Christianities” that thrived during the earliest years. The distinction we still make today between “orthodox” and “heretical” movements did not exist. There was nothing inevitable or preordained about which version, if any, would predominate. This, in turn, suggests there is nothing fated about how Christianity could develop in the third millennium. The most disturbing question is how the degeneration into hierarchy, imposed uniformity, imperial organization, and a standardized creed happened. We take that up in the next chapter.
The second key discovery about early Christianity critical for today is that what came to be called “apostolic authority” is a fiction invented considerably later. In the years immediately following Jesus’s crucifixion, as more and more people joined the movement he had initiated, usually those who had known and followed him during his short career were respected as the leaders in the first congregations. But that was not always true. The most dramatic exception is Paul, who admitted he had never known Jesus “in the flesh.” Rather, he had met the Risen Christ in a blinding mystical encounter on the road to Damascus. As a Jew and a Pharisee, trained to be a scholar of his people’s tradition, Paul knew that a sure sign of the arrival of the long awaited messianic era would be that Gentiles would begin to enter the commonwealth of Israel, previously restricted to the “seed of Abraham.” Paul also knew, even before his encounter on the Damascus road, that this ingathering was already beginning to occur. All over the empire, Gentiles—some no longer inspired by the pantheon, some repelled by the moral decay around them—had begun attending synagogues, attracted by the monotheism and the strict morality of the Jews. Paul taught that the mission of Jesus had been to break down the Jewish-Gentile barrier once and for all and that his own mission as the “
Apostle to the Gentiles” was to make this message known to everyone.
Paul referred to himself as an “apostle,” which means “messenger.” Most important, as we look for the appearance of hierarchies and the claims to “apostolic authority” on which they were based, Paul never claimed that his authority derived from previous apostles. In fact, he often denied it. It came from his personal encounter with Christ. Further, he warned the congregations in his letters against granting such authority to any other apostle. He did not believe that the apostles should hold some unique kind of higher sway, but taught that the Spirit distributes among its members all the varied “gifts” a congregation needs. And he underscored time and time again that the greatest of these gifts was love. Again, we will return to this issue in a later chapter.2
But why, until recent years, has “apostolic authority” remained such an unexamined fixture? When I arrived at seminary, the teachers who taught about these formative decades, even though all were Protestants, emphasized both how early and how important it was. But they were wrong. What came to be called “apostolic authority” was not early. What happened, instead, was that, later on, the concept was read back into the earlier history. It was read back by those who, after the original apostles were dead, wanted to claim authority for themselves. The winners, or those who would eventually become the winners, were already at work rewriting the history very early on. When we realize that the idea of apostolic authority did not originate with the apostles, who themselves placed their confidence in the authority of the Spirit’s presence among the people, this has major implications today for the future of global Christianity.