During the second century Christians increased greatly in numbers and influence throughout the Roman Empire and doubtless the gospel was carried by individuals beyond these limits. It was mainly among the lower and middle classes that the gospel spread in this century. Against the dark background of paganism and immorality, with its callous disregard for suffering and its utter hopelessness, Christianity shone with a heavenly luster. In most of the cities of the civilized world, and in villages too, there were companies of Christians who worshipped the true God, who loved one another, and who lived for the most part honest, upright and moral lives. The testimony of both Christian and pagan writers concurs in proof of this. A Christian writer of this century asserts that wherever they were, Christians rose above the evil laws and customs of the country in which they lived. The poor were everywhere diligently cared for. There is on record a letter from Dyonysius, Bishop of Corinth, to the Roman Church, written about 156 A.D., in which the following passage occurs:
“This is your custom from the beginning to confer benefits on all brethren and to send relief to various churches in every city, by which means while you assist the indigent and sustain the brethren who are in the mines, and while you continually persist in such donations, you preserve the national custom of the Romans—that which your excellent Bishop Sotir has even carried farther than usual by making generous donations to the saints, and edifying by excellent discourse (as a loving father his children) the brethren who visit him from abroad.”
From this it is evident that the bounty of the wealthier assemblies was generously extended to their poorer brethren in other parts. This and other testimonies show the unity that existed between the various assemblies in different parts of the world, who at times communicated with each other by letter. There is a beautiful and touching example of this in a long letter written about 177 A.D. from the Christians of Lyons and Vienne in France to their brethren in Asia and Phrygia on the occasion of an awful persecution in those parts of France during which many believers were put to death and many were cruelly tortured.
Christian churches and schools were built in many places in the second century. Malignity, calumny and insult were meted out freely to this poor and suffering people, while successive waves of persecution carried off thousands and left many others, who escaped death, with the marks of their sufferings for the rest of their lives.
Lucian, a witty pagan, wrote an account of an impostor named Peregrinus who for a long time deceived Christians. His story, intended to show the simplicity of Christians, serves to bring out their love and charity. Being a man of talent and education, Peregrinus acquired a place among them and was imprisoned as a Christian. Lucian records:
“There came Christians, deputed from many cities in Asia to relieve, to encourage and to comfort him, for the care and diligence which the Christians exert on these occasions is incredible — in a word, they spare nothing. ... These poor creatures are firmly persuaded they shall one day enjoy eternal life. Therefore they despise death with wonderful courage and offer themselves voluntarily to punishment. Their first lawgiver has taught them that they are all brethren, when once they have passed over and renounced the gods of the Greeks and worship that Master of theirs who was crucified and regulate their manner and conduct by His laws. They despise, therefore, all earthly possessions and look upon them as common, having received such rules without any certain grounds of faith. Therefore if any juggler or cunning fellow who knows how to take advantage of the opportunity happens to get into their society, he immediately grows rich because it is easy to abuse the simplicity of these silly people.”
From the pen of this hostile and contemptuous pagan we have an eloquent testimony to the love and care these early believers expended on their suffering brethren, their faith and hope, their obedience to the Lord’s commands, and their unselfishness and unworldliness. That they were imposed upon by a clever impostor only shows that, being of honest intent themselves, they gave others the credit of honesty too. Love “thinketh no evil” (1 Cor. 13:55Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; (1 Corinthians 13:5)). Peregrinus came to an evil end, as we might expect of such a character.
Justin Martyr, a converted philosopher, whose defense of the Christian faith is well-known, says in his first Apology:
“We who formerly rejoiced in licentiousness now embrace discretion and charity; we who rejoiced in magical arts now devote ourselves to the unbegotten God, the God of goodness; we who once set our affections upon wealth and possessions now bring into the common stock all our property and share it with the indigent; we who, owing to the diversity of customs, would not partake of the same hearth with those of a different race now, since the appearance of Christ, live together and pray for our enemies and endeavor to persuade those who unjustly hate us that by leading a life conformed to the excellent precepts of Christianity they may be filled with the good hope of obtaining the same happiness with ourselves from that God who is Lord above all things.”
The first Christians had no formal creeds. They drew their doctrine from the Scriptures and were content to express their beliefs in Scriptural language. They did not pry into what was unrevealed or beyond comprehension. (We except, of course, those who put forward heretical doctrines.) The early Church firmly refused these heresies and held to the essential foundations of the faith. This is not to say that individuals were not tainted with them, nor that the Church did not suffer from their propagation, but the fact is they were not recognized or accepted as part of the Christian faith by that great body of believers who formed the Christian Church.
It may be well at this stage to say that there is ample evidence that by the middle of the second century, that is, within fifty years after the departure of the last of the apostles, most of the books of the New Testament were generally recognized as Scripture.
Those who immediately followed the apostles, some of whom had known them personally, quote from almost all the books of the New Testament as we have them today, thus furnishing indisputable historical evidence of their genuineness and of the fact that they were received in those early days as the inspired Scriptures. Moreover, the distinctive character of the Scriptures was beyond all controversy because there was nothing at all in the writings of the post-apostolic fathers which could in the least degree be compared with them.
As the years went by, and particularly as the third century was reached, a certain decline became noticeable. The influence of Greek philosophy, the forms of pagan religion, undue reverence for the martyrs, the sign of the cross, to which miraculous powers were ascribed, the tendency to attach forgiveness of sins to the rite of baptism — these and other elements creeping in slowly and insidiously, together with a growing worldliness, gradually adulterated the purity of the faith and the conduct of believers.
Alongside all this was the rise of a clerical caste. We have seen that in the apostles’ day the assemblies were led by elders, also called overseers. Soon after the apostles left the scene — some say while John was still living — it became a recognized practice for one man to rule a local church. He was called the bishop (a word which is a corruption of episcopos, Greek for overseer), and below him were the presbyters or elders. Gradually other grades were added. Constant questions arising largely through the prevalence of heresies led to the calling of councils of bishops to settle disputes. These councils, which were at first provincial, were generally presided over by the bishop of the capital city in which they were held. Thus arose a higher grade of bishop who was called a Metropolitan. From this it was an easy step for the bishops of the principal cities of the empire to claim an ascendancy over the others.
Antioch and Alexandria in the East and Rome in the West stood out in importance and influence. The Roman bishop was, even in these early days, appealed to as a sort of arbitrator, and as early as the year 196 A.D. we find Victor, Bishop of Rome, asserting his authority and demanding, under pain of excommunication, that the Asiatic Church should conform to the practice of Rome in the matter of the date of observing Easter. This resulted in a serious disagreement between the Church of the East and the Church of the West. Irenaeus of Lyons remonstrated with the Roman bishop in regard to this matter.
The first three centuries of Christianity have been summed up by a competent historian as follows:
“We might divide the first 313 years of the Christian era into three periods in respect to its internal history. The first century was the age of Christ and the apostles, of miracles and inspiration inherent in the Church; the next fifty years we may consider as that of the apostolic fathers enlightened by some lingering rays of the departed glory, which were successively and insensibly withdrawn; the third was the period of severe probation and bitter anxiety, unalleviated by extraordinary aids, and so far removed from human consolation that the powers of the earth might seem to have conspired with the meanest of its progeny in order to oppress and desolate the Church of Christ — yet even this was not without the Spirit of God.”