What Became of the Churches Paul Wrote To

'Church of Mary' in Ephesus, site of the
Third Ecumenical Council in 431

Paul the apostle wrote his part of the New Testament in the form of letters to Christian groups in several cities or areas. Have you ever wondered what became of the churches on those places? Well, some people must (including me) because I received this question on Quora the other day...


Q: Were the churches Paul wrote letters to foundational to post-Biblical Christianity, for example, after Constantine?



A: Rome.

Rome is the most obvious foundational address Paul wrote to. The church father Irenaeus writing around AD 180 described the influence Rome had on post-biblical Christianity:

“For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority,that is, the faithful everywhere,inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.”

Against Heresies, Book 3, chapters 3-4 Irenaeus

Paul’s other destinations had varying degrees of influence after the apostles were gone. Here is some information I’ve put together on them:

Corinth

The non-biblical (but quite orthodox) letter called 1 Clement was written to Corinth by a Roman church leader (probably before the last New Testament books were finished). This letter shows that the old issues of factionalism and quarreling which Paul had addressed continued among Corinthian Christians; referring to their letters from Paul, Clement rebukes some younger believers who have thrown off the leadership of the elders.

Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible, art. Corinth.

Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth around AD 170 wrote a letter preserved in the Church History of Eusebius to the bishop of Rome, Soter, defending the way churches in Achaea traditionally celebrated the feast later called easter, which then was a matter of debate in the church since Rome figured it differently.

Corinth was the capital of the province of Achaea and the bishop there oversaw the smaller churches in the province making him what Orthodox Christians call a metropolitan bishop. Corinth's bishops were present at many of the early church councils and so helped to formulate statements of what Christians do (and do not) believe that are still used to this day.

Metropolis of Corinth - Wikipedia

Galatia

There are actually two areas in modern day Turkey that were called "Galatia" in Paul's time, a north and a south, and no one is certain which one Paul wrote to. If Galatians was sent to north Galatia they would be in the area of Ankara and Pessinus while south Galatia would include Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe where Acts tells us he and Barnabas established churches.

If we go with the southern Galatia theory and look at what roles the cities mentioned in Acts played later on, we can say that Iconium played no important part in later church history, although the apocryphal but popular "Acts of Paul and Thecla" may have been written there "out of love for Paul." Acts of Paul and Thecla - Wikipedia

The church in Antioch was the capital of the province of Pisidia. Partially due to this the bishop there oversaw the smaller churches in the province. The names of many bishops of Pisidian Antioch are recorded and they attended several of the important church Councils.

Antioch of Pisidia - Wikipedia

Lystra did not play a major role in subsequent Christian history, though the foundation of a Byzantine church has been discovered at the site.

Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible, art. Lystra

Not much is recorded of Derbe's part in post-apostolic Christianity. The church continued there however and its bishops attended three important Councils: Constantinople (AD 381), Ephesus (AD 431), and Chalcedon (AD 451) Derbe (Diocese) - Wikipedia.

Ephesus

Ephesus is the traditional residence, in later life, of John the Apostle (Eusebius HE 3.1), who was thought to have lived into the reign of Trajan (98-117; Irenaeus Adv. haer. 3.3.4). According to tradition, he wrote his Gospel at Ephesus (HE 5.8.4), and was eventually buried there (3.39.5-6; 5.24.3). The Basilica of St. John was erected on the traditional site of his tomb during the reign of Justinian (527-565). Timothy is remembered as the first bishop of Ephesus (HE 3.4.5), a tradition probably based on 1 Tim. 1:3. Ephesus is also the site for Justin’s dialogue with Trypho the Jew (Dial. 2-8; Eusebius HE 4.18.6).

Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible, art. "Ephesus"

The city was destroyed by the Goths in 263, and although rebuilt, the city's importance as a commercial centre declined as the harbour was slowly silted up by the Küçükmenderes River. It was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614 AD...

The Church of Mary near the harbour of Ephesus was the setting for the Third Ecumenical Council in 431, which resulted in the condemnation of Nestorius. A Second Council of Ephesus was held in 449, but its controversial acts were never approved by the Catholics. It came to be called the Robber Council of Ephesus or Robber Synod of Latrocinium by its opponents.

Wikipedia, art. Ephesus

Philippians

In the second century, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch of Syria, passed through Philippi on his way to Rome to face martyrdom. The Philippian church later sent a letter to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, requesting his assistance in collecting Ignatius's letters. Polycarp responded favorably to their request in his only letter that has survived (see Pol. Phil. 13.2), though Irenaeus claims that he wrote several others (Irenaeus Haer. 5.33.4). Polycarp's letter (c. the mid-second century A.D.) is helpful in understanding the continuing witness of the church in Philippi in the second century, its concern for those in prison because of their faith and its hospitality. Like Paul, Polycarp also addressed the presbyters (bishops) and deacons (Pol. Phil. 5.2-3; 6.1; cf. Paul's Phil 1:1). In the post-Nicene era, the city became an important Christian center and had a metropolitan bishop.

Dictionary of New Testament Background, art. "Philippi"

Colossae

After a major earthquake in the Lycus Valley that destroyed Colossae and Laodicea (c. A.D. 60-64; Tacitus Ann. 14.27), Colossae was never fully rebuilt, and by the eighth century it was abandoned. The site has not yet been excavated.

Dictionary of New Testament Background, art. "Colossae"

Thessalonica

For centuries the city remained one of the chief strongholds of Christianity, and it won for itself the title of "the Orthodox City," not only by the tenacity and vigor of its resistance to the successive attacks of various barbarous races, but also by being largely responsible for their conversion to Christianity... It was also the scene in 390 AD of the famous massacre ordered by Theodosius the Great, for which St. Ambrose excluded that emperor for some months from the cathedral at Milan.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (2002 edition), art. "Thessalonica"

It still stands today. Thessaloniki - Wikipedia

One

Irenaeus of Lyon

"There is one body and one Spirit, and God chose you to have one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. There is one God and Father of us all, who rules over everyone. He works through all of us and in all of us."

(Letter to the Ephesians chapter 4 verses 4 - 6, ERV)

___________________

Irenaeus was a leader, thinker, and writer in the early Christian Movement. He had grown up in the church at Smyrna (in today's Turkey) led by Polycarp, a legend in the early church. Polycarp had been a student of John the Apostle himself, and he passed on stories and teachings from John and other "elders" in the Movement. Irenaeus absorbed it all with the fabulous mind he had. As an adult he moved east to Lyons, France where he cared for the Movement's outpost there and handed on the 'deposit of faith' as he had heard it from Polycarp, who had received it from St. John the Apostle who received it from... Well, I imagine you can see what makes Irenaeus so important in the history of the Christian Movement.

Today, Irenaeus describes what was in the revelation Jesus entrusted his Apostles with, and how carefully it was handed on.

Now the Church, although scattered over the whole civilized world to the end of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples its faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God—the comings, the birth of a virgin, the suffering, the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily reception into the heavens of the beloved, Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from the heavens in the glory of the Father to restore all things, and to raise up all flesh, that is, the whole human race, so that every knee may bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Saviour and King, according to the pleasure of the invisible Father, and every tongue may confess him, and that he may execute righteous judgment on all. 

The spiritual powers of wickedness, and the angels who transgressed and fell into apostasy, and the godless and wicked and lawless and blasphemers among men he will send into the eternal fire. But to the righteous and holy, and those who have kept his commandments and have remained in his love, some from the beginning [of life] and some since their repentance, he will by his grace give life incorrupt, and will clothe them with eternal glory.

Having received this preaching and this faith, as I have said, the Church, although scattered in the whole world, carefully preserves it, as if living in one house. She believes these things [everywhere] alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them harmoniously, teaches them, and hands them down, as if she had but one mouth. For the languages of the world are different, but the meaning of the [Christian] tradition is one and the same. Neither do the churches that have been established in Germany believe otherwise, or hand down any other tradition, nor those among the Iberians, nor those among the Celts, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor those established in the middle parts of the world.

Irenaeus of Lyons (early 2nd century – c. AD 202)
Against All Heresies book 1 chapters 10 sections 1 - 2 (written about AD 180)

Intersection

(This is a slightly expanded repeat of a previous post. I'm still at a conference.)

Jesus of Nazareth taught his students that, "For when two or three gather together in My name, I am there in the midst of them," (Gospel of Matthew 18.20, Voice). The rest of the New Testament, particularly the Acts of the Apostles, is permeated with the idea that he, through the Holy Spirit, is there at meetings of Christians.

This means that church is not a club where we get together for donuts on Sunday, it's a place where Heaven and Earth interlock. Just like Israel's temple in Jerusalem, only more so. Paul the Apostle taught,

What mutual agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, “I will live in them and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

(Second Letter to the Corinthians 6.16 )

Assuming we haven't forgotten this, the Lord Messiah will quite often speak there.

Are we listening?

"If the voice calls you again, I want you to say, “Speak, Eternal One. Your servant is listening”,” (First Book of Samuel, 3.9, Voice ).

Does the Bible Teach Anything Clearly?

Photo courtesy Rushay (RUSH) Booysen

"Well, that's an odd title for a Christian blog," you may say to yourself.

Maybe, but a scholarly blog I ran across recently (thanks to Twitter) quotes Wayne Meeks, a famous biblical scholar, who believes we should stop using the phrase, "The Bible clearly teaches..."

So let us renounce the phrase, “the Bible clearly teaches” (says Dr. Meeks).  And every time we hear it let us immediately be on our guard... In our situation, when people say, “the Bible clearly teaches,” instead of, for example, “we can learn from the Bible if we stand within a certain community’s tradition,” or “we can find these ideas in Scripture if we construe Scripture in such-and-such a way”… when they do that, they are really masking the locus of the authority they are claiming.

Now, I have to agree with Dr. Meeks in one sense. Most of the times that Christianity has had egg on its face over the last 2000 years have been times when we weren't actually insisting on some scripture but on our own explanation of it. Handy example: the legendary conflict between Galileo and the Catholic Church. What the Church actually ended up defending was the greek scientist Ptolemy's idea of how the universe works -- not that "God the Father Almighty [is the] maker of heaven and earth," as the old creed says. Galileo himself believed that too, after all.

Teachers of Christianity always have to make sure that what we're defending is what the Bible itself says and not our explanation of what the Bible says.

That isn't my main point today but it would make a good topic, so I may post on it in the future.

Fuzziness

That doesn't seem to be Dr. Meeks' main point either. He appears to be saying that the Bible itself isn't clear, that you can't say the Bible clearly teaches anything because it clearly doesn't. To get anything worthwhile out of it at all you must "construe" it or draw its meaning from a "certain community's tradition."

But think about this: All of the things the Bible contains were written by people who knew what they meant at the time. And much of it was written to other people who also knew what they meant. And although we live at a 2 to 3 thousand year remove from their time, it is still entirely possible to recover what they meant. Historians and textual critics and archaeologists do it all the time and with all kinds of books -- not just the Bible.

Have you ever read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey?  You may not have gotten every cultural nuance but did you pick up the main points? Doesn't the Iliad clearly teach that Agamemnon and Achilles, both full of pride, quarrelled over the captured princess Briseis causing Achilles to leave the battle (trust me, it does).

What about Plato and Aristotle? Do we know pretty clearly what they taught? Yes. Why? Because we know a lot about them, their world, and can read their language. Sort of like any other book you read. Including the Bible.

If we read it intelligently, the Bible is quite clear on most things. True some passages are a bit obscure (nobody is sure what St. Paul is getting at here, for instance. Or here.). But it is not a fuzzy, obscure book, and there are a disturbingly large number of things that 'the Bible clearly says'.

What Preaching Should Do

Preaching must either break a hard heart or heal a broken one.

--John Newton


Preaching (including internet preaching) is foolish, you know. The Apostle Paul said so himself:

Since in the wisdom of God the world by its own wisdom did not know God, God was pleased to save those who believe by the foolishness of preaching. (1 Corinthians 1.21)

"Preach" is something of a dirty word today: "Don't you preach at me!" Preaching today is usually assumed to be criticism.  But in reality, Christian preaching is supposed to be about the Gospel, the message Jesus sent us to spread all over the world.  And the Gospel is really an announcement -- the Great Announcement as we like to call it on this site: "The universe has a king, namely, Jesus of Nazareth! His Kingdom is here, now and will put everything right! Come join it; everyone is invited."

Oh, and as part of the bargain, every wrong, selfish thing you've ever done will be forgiven forever.

This is not criticism, it's good news.

As this blog frequently points out, Paul also said that this announcement, "is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes," (Romans 1.16). This announcement, itself, is charged with that power.

When people hear it -- truly hear it -- the hardest hearts can break with compassion for their fellow beings, and the most injured hearts can heal.

Challenge

Jesus enters Jerusalem

Crowd of Disciples:  The King who comes in the name of the Eternal One is blessed! Peace in heaven! Glory in the highest! 

 Pharisees (who were in the crowd):  Teacher, tell these people to stop making these wild claims and acting this way!

 Jesus: Listen—if they were silent, the very rocks would start to shout!

Gospel of Luke 19.38-40, Voice


The Kingdom of God is an irresistible thing. Some of Jesus' followers today fear, and many who are not proclaim, that the days of the Christians are numbered. The scales will  eventually fall from our eyes and people will see that science has shown them to be deluded. Sure, they've been saying that, off and on, since Voltaire and rationalism in the 1700s but this time, we are assured, they are certainly right.

Now, I love science myself, and am no fan of the fundamentalist approach to knowledge.  But I can't help but notice that this makes a nice challenge, in a way, because Jesus of Nazareth will have none of it. You may recall his take on the subject:

Simon, son of Jonah, your knowledge is a mark of blessing. For you didn’t learn this truth from your friends or from teachers or from sages you’ve met on the way. You learned it from My Father in heaven. This is why I have called you Peter (rock): for on this rock I will build My church. The church will reign triumphant even at the gates of hell.

Gospel of Matthew 16.17-18, Voice

Let's wait and see who's right.

Next Job

Well-Used Tools

Photo by Biser Todorov

Today in church we sang a song called Be Still, My Soul, and this line really impressed me -- or more to the point, God really impressed me with this line:

Be still, my soul,

your God will undertake to guide the future,

as in ages past...

To me "your God will undertake" makes the lyrics much more solid and real. Katharine von Schlegel, who wrote them back in 1752, doesn't say, "Don't worry because God is always guiding the future from eternity," like many hymn writers would. No, she says, "Don't worry Christian, because God is rolling up his sleeves, getting out his tools, spitting in his hands and rubbing them together, and 'undertaking' his next job -- guiding the future." He is a worker (John 5.17); God gets dirty hands and splinters while he constructs this future.

Just like he has dependably done for "ages past."

Theologian Thursday: Vincent on Finding the Real Thing

The straight stuff

Many, many people claim to follow Jesus or be part of the Christian Movement, even while disagreeing widely with each other. How do you know you're getting the real deal? Today's theological visitor, Vincent of Lérins, tells us that if you want to find the straight stuff you need to go old school.

In the universal or catholic Church itself, we must make sure that we hold the faith that has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For what is actually and strictly "catholic," or "universal," as the name itself and it's nature imply, is spread out universally.  And we will be following this rule if we follow these three things: universality, antiquity, consent. We follow antiquity if we do not depart in any way from the teachings and understandings that were obviously held widely by our holy ancestors and fathers. And we follow consent when we stick to the consensual definitions and determinations of all -- or almost all -- the priests and great teachers in antiquity 

...But someone might say, "Then, won't there be any progress in Christ's Church?" On the contrary, there will be as much progress as possible. Only someone who envies humans and hates God would try to stop it. But it must be real progress, not alteration, of the faith. In progress something grows within itself, but in alteration it is transformed into something else. So the intelligence, knowledge, wisdom of individuals and of everyone, of a single person just as much as the whole Church, should grow and make vast and vigorous progress over the ages and centuries. But this will happen within each type of thing, that is in the same teaching and in the same meaning.  

Vincent of Lérins (died AD 445)
Commonitory, chapters 2 & 23

Question: Why Use "Christian Movement?"

Winchester cathedral

Photo by Formulax

Q: Why does your site use the term "christian movement" instead of church or something?


A: Because that's what Christianity originally was -- a movement within Judaism that insisted Jesus of Nazareth was the long awaited Messiah, or "Christ" in Greek. It spread by word of mouth (Acts of the Apostles 8) and publicity (Acts 17.16-34), as movements tend to do, and eventually picked up the possibly derisive nick name "Christ-followers" (i.e., Christians).

The word we translate as "church" due to long tradition started off meaning a civic meeting:

"Is there something else you want to talk about? Then come to the regular town meeting of the people. It can be decided there," (Acts 19.39 ERV). 

The word rendered "regular town meeting" is ekklesia, the same word usually translated "church." For Jesus's early followers ekklesia didn't at all conjure up what we think of when we say "church" here on the other end of 2000 years of history. For them "church" was just a gathering, often a secret and rather dangerous one, where they could worship Jesus and learn more about his message from his students.

The purpose of Authentic Light is to teach simple, radical, historic Christianity to interested parties, particularly people who don't follow Jesus yet but might like to. One of the things that gets in the way of that, I believe, is stodgy, traditional, in-house jargon that makes the most interesting thing in the world boring.

To try and crack through that wall of jargon I use different words and phrases like 'Christian Movement' or 'Jesus' Movement' instead of the traditional church lingo.

Uninsulated

Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer

Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1883

Thoughts for a Sunday Afternoon


“If the world hates you, remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as it loves its own people. But I have chosen you to be different from those in the world. So you don’t belong to the world, and that is why the world hates you. 

"Remember the lesson I told you: Servants are not greater than their master. If people treated me badly, they will treat you badly too. And if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours too. They will do to you whatever they did to me, because you belong to me. They don’t know the one who sent me." 

(Gospel of John chapter 15 verses 18 - 21, ERV)


We're moving steadily towards the birthday of the Christian Movement (a.k.a. "Pentecost"). Jesus of Nazareth predicted something very different from a comfortable church-going experience for his followers. That some of us are comfortable doesn't mean he was wrong, but that the place and time we happen to live in is an historical aberration that insulates us. There are plenty of Jesus' followers even today who are not insulated at all.

Today, his followers in ancient France give us a report of what it was like for them.

______________________

The servants of Christ who live as aliens at Vienna and Lugdunum [Vienne and Lyons] in Gaul, to the brothers in Asia Minor and Phrygia. The adversary has fallen upon us with all his might...

In the presence of all the people, the governor had given the order that all of us with our households should be investigated. Prompted by Satan, fearful of the tortures which they saw God’s people suffer, and under pressure from the soldiers who talked them directly into it, pagan slaves in our service brought forth lies against us. These lies were the usual accusations of cannibalism, unnatural sexual unions, and similar ghastly things which we should never speak or think about or even believe that they have ever happened among human beings. When this became known among the pagans, they all flew into a truly bestial rage against us.

Through the slave girl, Blandina, Christ revealed that what is regarded as mean, insignificant, and unattractive by humans is accounted worthy of great glory in the sight of God because of the fact that love towards him proves itself with power and does not vaunt itself for the sake of making an impression. Her comfort, her relief, her refreshment, her painkilling remedy for everything she suffered was the cry, “I am a Christian, and nothing evil happens among us...”

Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina, and Attalus were taken to the wild beasts in the amphitheater, to give the pagan crowd which was gathered there a public spectacle of inhumanity. They ran the gauntlet of whips. They were already used to this. They let themselves be dragged around and mauled by the wild beasts. Everything the raving, yelling mob wanted, now from this side, now from that, they endured. They sat upon the iron chair which roasted their bodies so that the fumes rose up. Yet they heard nothing from Sanctus beyond the confession of faith he had repeated over and over again from the beginning. When they were still found alive in spite of the terrible and prolonged torture, they were finally killed...

The glorified Blandina had already learned to know the scourging, the wild beasts, and the red-hot griddle. Finally they tied her in a fishing net and threw her to a bull. For a long time the animal tossed her about, and so she was killed.

The bodies of those that had perished in prison they threw to the dogs, watching carefully night and day that none of us could be buried. The remains of those who had been torn to pieces by the wild beasts and those charred by the fire they put on public view just as they were. The heads and trunks of the others, carefully guarded by soldiers, they also left unburied for many days. Some of them were raging and gnashing their teeth, seeking to take even more vengeance on them. Others laughed and jeered at them and exalted their own idols, to whom they attributed the punishment of the martyrs. 

The more reasonable ones, those of whom one could believe that they knew pity to a certain extent, slandered them, crying, “Where is your god? How were they helped by the faith which they loved more than their own lives?”

For six days the bodies of the martyrs, mocked in every possible way, were exposed to the elements. Finally they were burned to ashes by these lawless men and swept into the Rhône, which flows nearby. Not a trace of them was to remain on earth. This they did thinking that they could defeat God and deprive them of their restoration. They said that they should not be allowed to have any hope of resurrection, for it was through their faith in this that they introduced a strange and new religion. “Now let us see whether they will rise again, whether their god can help them, and whether he can deliver them out of our hands.”

Letter from Vienne and Lyons to Phrygia (c. AD 177)
Quoted from Eusebius' Church History book 5 chapter 1 ff.

"The Living Faithful and the Faithful Departed..."

Photo courtesy of Zeevveez

Meditation for an All Saints Sunday morning


"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us."

Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 12 verse 1, NET

_____________________

"The church embraces believers spread out over the past, present, and future. To the church catholic belong all who who have ever believed, now believe, and all who ever will believe in the saving work of the triune God. The church is celebrated as a whole community embracing all times. As far back as human time remembers (as with Adam, Eve, and Abel), some anticipating form of God's called out people have existed within human history through the flow of time...

"Eternal life with God brings an incomparable interpersonal blessing: communion with God amid the communion of the saints with God and with all who mirror God's holy love (Luke 23.43; John 12.26; Phillipians 1.23). This celebrating community embraces both the living faithful and the faithful departed who now enjoy eternal life with God (Revelation 14.1-4). 

"The church is a fellowship among the faithful now living, but it extends far wider to embrace also all who have died in faith, as well as those yet unborn who will come to faith. Some remain pilgrims in history, while others having died in the Lord are already joyfully beholding 'clearly God Himself triune and one, as He is,' (Council of Florence, DS 693)."

Thomas Oden,  Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology,  pp.745, 823

Alien Culture

When I was growing up we moved around a lot: A few years in Indiana, then a couple in New Jersey, followed by stints in Kansas, then Idaho, then Michigan... My brothers and I were always the new kids. And we yearned to settle somewhere and finally belong. As we all do -- everyone wants to fit in, to be part of the club.

There's something about the Christian movement that makes many modern-day Christians a bit uncomfortable: We really don't belong here. This isn't our place...

Intersection

Jesus of Nazareth taught his students that, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there with them," (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 18 verse 20, Common English Bible). The rest of the New Testament, particularly the Acts of the Apostles, is permeated with the idea that he, through the Holy Spirit, is there at meetings of Christians.

This means that church is not a club where we get together for donuts on Sunday, it's a place where Heaven and Earth interlock. Assuming we haven't forgotten that, the Lord Messiah will quite often speak there.

Are we listening?

"If he calls you, say ‘Speak, LORD. Your servant is listening,” (First Book of Samuel, chapter  3 verse 9, Common English Bible )