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Literature and History of New Testament Times

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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</SPAN></span></p> <h2>LESSON XXXIX</h2> <h3>REVIEW</h3> <p>This review lesson is fully as important as any other lesson of the first three quarters. Without reviewing, the study of history is unproductive; only a review can make of the facts a permanent possession. The story of the apostolic age, as it is narrated in the work of Luke, is really very simple; it becomes confusing only when it is imperfectly mastered. A little time spent in turning over the pages of the Lucan narrative, or even of the Student's Text Book, will accomplish wonders.</p> <h4>1. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS</h4> <p>The New Testament account of the apostolic age is indeed only fragmentary. Many questions must be left unanswered. Of the original twelve apostles only Peter and the sons of Zebedee and Judas Iscariot receive in The Acts anything more than a bare mention; and even the most prominent of these disappears after the fifteenth chapter. What did Paul do in Arabia and in Tarsus? What was the origin of the great church at Alexandria? Who founded the church at Rome? These questions, and many like them, must forever remain unanswered.</p> <p>If, moreover, even the period covered by The Acts is obscure, far deeper is the darkness after the guiding hand of Luke has been withdrawn. For the death of the apostle Paul, there is only a meager tradition; the latter years of Peter are even more obscure. For the important period between the release of Paul after his first Roman imprisonment and the death of the apostle John at about the end of the first century, anything like a connected narrative is quite impossible.</p> <h4>2. THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION</h4> <p>A few facts, however, may still be established. The Roman historian Tacitus tells of a persecution of the Christians at Rome at the time of the burning of the city in A. D. 64. The emperor Nero, suspected of starting the fire, sought to remove suspicion from himself by accusing the Christians. The latter had already become<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</SPAN></span> unpopular because of their peculiar ways, and were thought to be guilty of abominable crimes; but the cruelty of Nero almost exceeded the wishes of the populace. The Christians were put to death under horrible tortures. Many were burned, and their burning bodies served as torches to illumine the emperor's gardens.</p> <p>The beheading of Paul has often been brought into connection with this persecution, but more probably it occurred a few years later. Paul had been released from his first imprisonment, and his second imprisonment, at the time of the Neronian outbreak, had not yet begun.</p> <p>The extent of the Neronian persecution cannot be determined with certainty. Probably, however, although there was no systematic persecution throughout the empire, the provinces would not be altogether unaffected by what was happening at Rome. The causes of popular and official disfavor were always present; it required only a slight occasion to bring them actively into play.</p> <h4>3. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM</h4> <p>Even more important than the Roman persecution of A. D. 64 was the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. At the outbreak of the war which culminated in that catastrophe, the Jerusalem Christians took refuge in Pella, east of the Jordan; Jerusalem ceased to be the center of the Christian Church. After the war, the Jerusalem church never regained its old position of leadership; and specifically Jewish Christianity, suffering by the destruction of the national Jewish life, ceased to be influential in Christian history.</p> <h4>4. THE PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL</h4> <p>From the years between the destruction of Jerusalem and the closing years of the century, scarcely any definite incidents can be enumerated. Undoubtedly the missionary activity of the Church was continuing; the gospel was making rapid progress in its conquest of the empire. In this missionary activity probably many of the twelve apostles were engaged; but details of their work are narrated for the most part only in late tradition.</p> <h4>5. JOHN AT EPHESUS</h4> <p>At some time—whether before or after A. D. 70 is uncertain—the apostle John went to Ephesus, and there became the leader of the Asian church. Detailed information about his position and the churches under his care is provided not only in trustworthy tradition—especially<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</SPAN></span> that which comes through Irenæus from Polycarp, the hearer of John—but also in the writings of John himself. The two shorter epistles of John, though each embraces only a small page, are extraordinarily rich in information about congregational matters, and even more instructive are the seven messages of the Apocalypse. By means of the latter the moral condition of the church in Asia Minor is characterized with a vividness that is scarcely to be paralleled for any other period of the apostolic age.</p> <h4>6. THE PERSECUTION UNDER DOMITIAN</h4> <p>During the latter part of the residence of John in Asia Minor there was an important event in the history of the Church. This was the outbreak of the persecution under Domitian—a persecution which apparently exceeded in extent, if not in severity, every persecution that had preceded it. Under Domitian the Roman authorities became definitely hostile; apostasy from Christ was apparently demanded systematically of the Christians—apostasy from Christ and adhesion to the imperial cult. The latter, in the Apocalypse, is represented as an example of the mark of "the beast"; the Roman Empire, as would have been unnatural in the days of Paul, appears in that book as an incorporation of Satanic power. The long conflict between the Church and the empire had at last begun. Which side would be victorious? In the Apocalypse the answer is plain. The Lord himself was fighting for his Church!</p> <h4>7. THE NEW TESTAMENT GOSPEL</h4> <p>Our knowledge of the apostolic age, though fragmentary, is sufficient—sufficient not indeed for a complete history, but for the requirements of Christian faith. The information provided in the New Testament makes up in quality for what it lacks in quantity. Its extraordinary vividness and concreteness possesses a self-evidencing value. The life of the apostle Paul—revealed with unmistakable fidelity—is itself a sufficient bulwark against historical skepticism; it involves inevitably the supernatural Christ. The gospel is no aspiration in the hearts of dreamers; it is a real entrance of divine power into the troubled battle field of human history. God was working in the apostolic Church, God is speaking in the New Testament—there is the summation of our study.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_216" id="Page_216"> </SPAN><br/><SPAN name="Page_217" id="Page_217"> </SPAN></span></p> <hr class="chap" /> <h2>PART IV:</h2> <p class="center">The Apostolic Church and the<br/> Church of To-Day</p> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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