Full Text for Galatians- Volume 3 - Were there other persecutions of the church during the First Century? (Video)

No. 3. >> You've just shared that Paul was one of the first persecutors of the church. That leads me to want to ask a follow-up question: Were there other persecutions of the church during the First Century? And is it because of persecutions that the early Christian church met in catacombs and other hiding places? >>DR. ARTHUR A. JUST, JR.: David, there is a saying among the early church fathers that the seed bed of the church is the blood of the martyrs. And that's very true of the First Century. As you look at the history of the early Christian communities, you'll see that one of the ways in which you can define the history of the church -- and I'm talking about the church in the first 40 years -- is by a series of persecutions, first by Jews and later on by Gentiles. Now, of course the first persecution, the severe persecution, is the one led by the Apostle Paul who at that time of course was called Saul. And the first Christian martyr is Stephen. And you can read about his martyrdom in the seventh and eighth chapters of Acts. It is Stephen who is the first martyr of the church because of the persecution by the Sadducees, by the chief priests led by the Apostle Paul who was a Pharisee. Now, that may not mean much at this point. But let me explain the significance of that. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were at odds with one another. They did not like each other. In fact, you can see this later on in the Book of Acts when Paul, a Pharisee, comes before the Sanhedrin to defend the Gospel and he talks about the resurrection, the Pharisees and the Sadducees start fighting about the resurrection because the Pharisees believe in it and the Sadducees do not. When you see the persecution, the first persecution in which Stephen is martyred, the chief priests who are Sadducees are the ones leading the persecution. And they have hired Paul the Pharisee to carry out this persecution. Now, here you can see to a certain extent Paul compromising himself by aligning himself by people he doesn't believe the same things about. And yet his hatred of Christians was so great that he was willing to suspend his difficulties with the Sadducees in order to accomplish a greater goal. You know, the enemy of my enemy is a friend is that kind of thing. And it's a great example of that. What happens after that first persecution when Stephen is martyred is that the church scatters. This is actually in some ways a good thing. Certainly there's a great tragedy that there are martyrdoms of Christians in the early church there. But from that point on, the church gets out of Jerusalem. And that's really the beginning of the mission of the church. There was kind of an ongoing -- not to the same intensity but there was an ongoing persecution of Christians by Jews for a number of years. But after the conversion of Paul, which happens right after the martyrdom of Stephen, that persecution to a great extent lessens. The next persecution is in the years 41 to 44. You can see that on the chronology. 41 to 44 is the persecution of Christians by Herod Agrippa I. One of the four Herods. Herod the great. Herod Agrippa, Herod Agrippa I and Herod Agrippa II. They are either sons or grandsons or great grandsons of Herod the Great. This is the first Gentile persecution. And this is a significant persecution. Because one of the big three among the 12, Peter, James and John, James and John are the sons of Zebedee. James the son of Zebedee is martyred. And you can read about it in Acts 12. I'll talk about it later because it's a significant event. This is a watershed event in the life of the church because after Chapter 12 in Acts everything changes. This is a time, too, when you see it's not just Jews that are persecuting the church, but Gentiles. And from this point on, it's the Romans who are now going to persecute the church. There is, however, after this persecution from the years 45 to 49, a period of quiet. A period of peace. And it's during this time as we're going to see later on that the apostolic Council occurred in the year 49. Now we're getting some dates in mind. Remember 30 is usually the date of Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension. Depending upon how you date things, between 30 and 36 were the persecutions of Paul. It could be five years. It could be two years. We're not sure. We do know the persecution of Herod Agrippa I was 41 to 45. Apostolic Council was usually dated in 49 and 50. And then there was a severe persecution following that beginning in Rome where the Jews were actually the target of the persecution. And many Christians were tossed out of places like Rome and Alexandria because of that. Now, here is a very, very important point. And if you don't understand this, it's going to be hard to read the book of Galatians. Christians did not agitate in the Roman Empire. They did not put forward their position to an extent that the Romans would persecute them. The ones who were really the agitators were what were called the Jewish zealots. These Jewish zealots were fierce, like Paul to a certain extent. Even in some ways worse than Paul -- were fierce for maintaining the principles of Judaism. There was actually a name for some of them. It was called Sacarii, which is the name of a long knife with a curved blade. This knife was used by these Jewish zealots to actually go into a crowd when there was a great feast and they would just slip that knife into those people who they thought were not holding to the principles of Judaism. And it was a frightening thing. This is the kind of terrorism that we even see today in the Middle East. It seems to be part of the character of the Middle East. But these Jews not only caused trouble in Israel and Palestine but all over the empire. And the Roman Empire in seeing how this agitation was disturbing and causing turmoil in their big cities not only persecuted the Jews but in the process persecuted Christians, as well. And there was this kind of confusion as to what a Christian was. Was he a Jew? Was he a Christian? Jewish Christian? We're going to see that that confusion was part of the persecution that was significant in the early Christian communities. The emperor you perhaps know in the year 50 expelling the Jews from Rome was Claudius. And Jewish Christians not only were part of the persecution by Romans but -- and this is a key point -- the Jewish zealots, these Sacarii, were targeting Christians. Because they perceived them as being somewhat Jewish because they were holding to the Old Testament. And yet like Paul because they were no longer believing in circumcision and works of the law, they were considered to be betrayers of the Jewish faith. So here we see a combination of Romans and Jewish zealots persecuting Christians. From 50 until the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70, these Sacarii, these Jewish zealots were causing great difficulties in the church. The martyrdom of Peter and James in the 60s, 64, 65. And Paul. All of these persecutions were a result of primarily the Roman Empire. But also because of the way in which the Jewish zealots were stirring up the citizens of Rome. So if you take the big picture of the 40 years between the death and resurrection of Jesus and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the church can be defined by a series of persecutions and ongoing persecution. Now, that is why Christians have to hide out when they worship. The catacombs were certainly a place. But the prominent place of worship -- and you can see this in the gospels and you can certainly see it in the Book of Acts -- were in the private homes of Christians. They would take these ***teniman houses, these small houses, 40 feet by 16 feet. We know the size of these what were called **tetilus, ***tetali if there were many of them. These were house churches that formed the foundation of the Christian church for the first 300 years of Christianity. At least there used to be at Yale University when I studied there in their archaeological museum a copy of a church from Dura-Europos in East Syria of what a house church was like. It's a very small space. And these were very safe. Because they were homes of Christians converted into liturgical space for Word and sacrament ministry that were the places where they worship. And you can see when Jesus sends the apostles from house to house, when Jesus enters the house, the Lord's Supper is in a house. The house churches in the Book of Acts are the prominent way in which Christians worship. You can see that this is the place in which the Christian church was able to hide during those years of persecution.