THE CHURCH AND CHURCHES OF THE APOSTLES AND

PROPHETS
John R. Gaden*
The Starting Point and Aim
In seeking to understand or to develop a doctrine of the church as it appears in
the earliest Christian generations, the first quesion to ask is how to begin. There
are a number of possibilities. One may follow Paul Minnear's classic study,
Images of the Church in the New Testament (Westminster, 1960), begun in the
1950's for the WCC's Faith and Order Department, in which he isolated some 96
analogies and centred on those that gravitate around the church as the people of
God, the new creation, the fellowship in faith and the body of Christ, without
paying too much attention to the particular strata in which they are found.
Another approach would be to take the various Models of the Church clarified
by Avery Dulles (Doubleday, 1974) in his analysis of some modern ecclesiologies
and see how far any of them are to be found in our period. A third possibility,
common enough among Anglicans in the last one hundred years, would be to
trace from New Testament times the development of the four marks of the church
(one, holy, catholic and apostolic) first found together in the NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed of 381. Fourthly, we could use the approach of BEM
itself and seek to discover some convergence on what we regard as central to the
understanding of the church in the New Testament and the early life of the
church, combining the first and third approaches.
The approach adopted here is somewhat different from any of these. It tries to
take seriously both the existence of widely differing Christian communities in
this period, a fact almost universally accepted by scholars today, 1 and the sociohistorical context of those communities. As such it draws on the rapidly
increasing number of sociological studies of early Christian communities as well
as on those who seek to establish trajectories of Christian life through the first
generations from the apostolic age immediately following the Resurrection to the
end of the second century.2 Beginning with the work of Raymond E. Brown in
particular, now usefully summarized in The Churches The Apostles Left Behind
(Paulist, 1984).3, I will try to describe the life and development of these
communities and only then raise theological issues about the church and the
churches.
THREE TYPICAL TRAJECTORIES
Study of the earliest Christian communities reveals an astounding variety,
which tradition has too easily homogenized both in the New Testament Canon
and in histories of the early church. What Robert Wilken calls The Myth of
Christian Beginnings (Doubleday, 1971), invented by Luke's Acts of the Apostles
and receiving classic form in Eusebius of Caesarea's History of the Church,
would have us believe is that the church was originally one and undivided,
developing in an orderly way under the guidance of the Holy Spirit from Jesus'
call and commissioning of the twelve apostles. The reality is otherwise. Luke, for
instance, omits any reference to Christian activity in Galilee or in Syria (except
* John Gaden is lecturer in pat rsi ics, spirituality and theology in the Adelaide College of Divinity
and is Warden of St. Barnabas' Theological College.

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for Antioch) nor does he explain the origin of Christian communities in

Alexandria or Rome, either because he does not know of them or because none
of these fit his view of the Gospel being proclaimed by duly authorised persons in
ever-widening circles from Jerusalem.
From this great diversity I have chosen three trajectories the Pauline, the
Johannine and that of women led communities as sufficiently illustrative for
our purposes, although I recognise that it omits equally important trajectories
such as the Petrine/Roman and those of Jewish Christianity. I look at each first
in the apostolic and sub-apostolic period, i.e. up to about 100, the end of the
period covered by New Testament writings, the first two generations of
Christians, and then at what happens in the post-apostolic period of the second
century, the third generation and on.
(1) The Pauline Trajectory in the First Century. R.E. Brown's book, The
Churches The Apostles Left Behind, is concerned with the question of how the
various Christian communities survived "after the death of the great first
generation of apostolic guides and heroes" (p. 30). However, before looking at
the post-Pauline communities we will consider briefly the best-known Pauline
community, the church at Corinth, though it should not be regarded as
necessarily typical of other Pauline communities.
(a) Corinth. Paul addresses his correspondence to "the church of God which is
at Corinth" (1 Cor 1:2, 2 Cor 1:1) which met regularly in one place for the Lord's
Supper and other worship (1 Cor 11:18 ff, 14:1 ff) as well as to regulate the life of
the community (1 Cor 5:4) and hear Paul's letters read out. Because it could only
have met at someone's house, the size of the assembly was much less than a
hundred, since even the enlarged room of the third century hosue-church in Dura
- Europas only "measured about 40 feet by 16 feet, and could hold little more
than sixty people". 4 It is not clear whether this church also met in smaller
household groups as in Rome, though the houses of Gaius (1 Cor 1:14, Rom
16:23) and Stephanas ( 1 Cor 1:16,16:15 f), both Paul's converts, would have been
available, as well as that of Chloe (1 Cor 1:11). Though small, the Christian
community in Corinth represented a mixture of social levels, both Jews and
Gentiles, without either of the extreme ends (cf 1 Cor 1:26-28), but sufficiently
divergent to cause problems about eating together (1 Cor 11:17-34) and eating
meat with non-Christians (1 Cor 8-10). Its members prided themselves on their
divine wisdom ( 1 Cors 1:17-2:16) and possession of pneumatic gifts ( 1 Cor 12-14),
while also being divided into factions around their original mentors (1 Cori:
7, 3:1 fi) After response to the preaching of the Gospel, entry into the
community was effected by baptism (1 Cor 12:13) and its solidarity maintained
by the Lord's Supper and the common worship (1 Cor 10:16 f, 11:17 ff, 14:5,12),
in which ajl including women exercised leadership roles. Their identity as "those
sanctified in Christ Jesus" and "called to be saints" (1 Cor 1:2) was re-affirmed
through acclaiming the lordship of Christ, the crucified one now raised from the
dead (1 Cor 12:3, 15:3 f). The Corinthian Christians regarded each other as
brothers and sisters (eg. 1 Cor 7:15), all members of the one body (1 Cor 12:12-17)
yet belonging also to a world-wide community of Christians (1 Cor 1:2). Order
was maintained by Paul's external authority as an apostle, by community rules
on ethical conduct (1 Cor 5-10), by the appeal to love (1 Cors 13) and by local
leaders associated with Paul's original evangelism in Corinth (1 Cor 16:15 f),
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although Paul also mentions the wider circle of apostles, prophets and teachers (1
Cor 12:28), of whom Apollos at least was initially involved with Paul in Corinth
(1 Cor 3:4-6), while others, "the false apostles" (2 Cor 11:13), worked to
undermine Paul.
(b) Post-Pauline Communities. A Pauline heritage is found in at least three
differing forms the Pastoral Epistles, Colossians-Ephesians, and Luke's two
volume Gospel and Acts but some common themes are sounded in these
second generation communities, even though we do not have as much
information about them as about the church in Corinth. In the Pastorals, the
dying Paul is represented as sending Timothy to Ephesus and Titus to Crete to
deal with threats to the Christian community posed by false teachers. A similar
situation is apparent in both Colossians and Ephesians, while Luke reflects a
context of Jews and Christians in conflict resulting in the separation of church
and synagogue.However, all three stress the unity, universality and importance
of the church, whether as the supra-terrestrial body of which the head, Jesus
Christ, is now exalted far above all things (Col 1:15-20, 2:8-19, Eph 1:3-23, 4:116) or as the community in which the saving acts of God are continued through
the intervention of the Holy Spirit as the Gospel is proclaimed to all the world
(Acts 1:8, 2:1 ff etc.) or understood as God's household in every place, "the pillar
and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15).
To protect their communities from error, these writers stress the need for
officially approved teachers and for a faithful transmission of the received
proclamation and teaching, a concern already apparent in Paul (1 Cor 11:23 ff,
15:3 ff, Phil 2:19-24). The Colossians are tp live in Christ Jesus the Lord as they
received him from Epaphras (2:6, l:5a-7). Because there is "one Lord, one faith,
one baptism", the Ephesians are to build up the body of Christ into this unity
through the enabling roles of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and
teachers (4:5, 11-13, cf 2:20). In Acts, the original preaching of the apostles,
shared first by the seven (6-8), is continued by Paul to be passed on to elders like
those in Ephesus (20:17-35), whom Paul is said to appoint in every church in his
mission (14:23). The Pastoras are even more insistent on the careful
appointment of local presbyter-bishops and deacons (1 Tim3:l-13, Tit 1:5-11).
This incipient institutionalism of faith and order, called by some "early
Catholicism",5 also has a domesticating, conformist side in the adoption of
household codes similar to those of the surrounding patriarchal society (Col.
3:18-4; 1, Eph 5:21-6:9, 1 Tim 5:3-16, 6:1-2) and in the emphasis on the leaders'
safe respectability (1 Tim 3:2-7, Acts 26:5, 30-32).
(2) The Johannine Trajectory in the First Century. Raymond Brown's major
work has been to trace the life of the community which, over a period of sixty
years or so, produced the Gospel and the three Epistles of John.6 This community
was spread in both time and space with a number of house-churches, perhaps in
Ephesus and outlying provincial towns, although the term 'church' only occurs in
the relatively late 3 John, where it refers to a local congregation (vv 6,9f). We
shall deal at this point with John 1-20, leaving the Epistles and John 21 to the
second century section.
John 1-20, dated about 90AD., revels a community of believers at odds over
the years with a variety of groups, seven in all according to Brown the world as
a whole, disbelieving Jews, adherents of John the Baptist, crypto-Christians
12

within the synagogue, Jewish Christians with an inadequate view of Jesus, and
Christians of the apostolic churches. Such an alienated community not
unexpectedly found their identity by looking inwards and prizing the individual's
relationship of love and faith with Jesus together with love and service to each
other (10:1-18, 13:1-17, 34f, 15:1-17). In this waythey remained in touch with the
life of God present in Jesus, as the Spirit gave enlightenment and new birth
through baptism (3:1-21) and continual nourishment through the Eucharist
(6:26-65). However, unlike communities in the Pauline trajectory, no
hierarchical leadership, apostolic order or doctrinal formulations were required
to control the life of the community, because all were seen to be equally disciples,
responding to the words and works of Jesus for which the Beloved Disciple was
primary witness (13:23-25, 19:35-20:8) and which continued to be interpreted to
each believer though the Paraclete-Teacher (14:15f, 25f, 15:26f, 16:12-15). This
community of the Beloved Disciple regarded itself as "closer to Jesus and more
perceptive" than the Apostolic churches, yet looked to eventual unity between
them (10:16, 17:20f).8
(3) Women Led Communities in th First Century. Our sources for the role of
women in founding and leading Christian communities in this period are scant
and heavily androcentric.9 That women were involved in the missionary
movement of the first two Christian generations is clear, but they are often no
more than names, if that. Given the egalitarian nature of disciples hip in John, it is
not suprising to find mention of a woman missionary there, the one primarily
responsible for the conversion of the first Smaritan Christians (4:28-42). For
John, too, it is a woman, Mary Magdalene, who has primacy as witness to the
resurrection and so Mary gains the title of "apostle to the apostles", even if
nothing else is said of her apostolic work (20:17f). In the Pauline communities
also women took part in establishing churches and Paul lists a number of women
among his co-workers, either as travelling missionaries or local leaders or both
(see Rom 16:1-7, 12, 15, Phil 4:2f, Philem 2). Of these it is worth singling out
Prisca, who along with her husband Aquila, is mentioned as the teacher of
Apollos (Act 18:26) and as one in whose home in Rome, in Corinth and in
Er/hesus, a house-church met (1 Cor 16:19, Rom 16:5). This missionary team is
the prime example of male-female equality and partnership in the service of the
Gospel.
Women with the freedom to make missionary journeys must usually have had
independent means and, like those who hosted local churches in their houses (cf
Acts 12:12-17, Col 4:15), they must have been people of some wealth and
standing. It would seem that part of Phoebe's ministry at Cenchreae arose out of
her status as patron-cum-superintendent of the church there (Rom 16:If)
However, it would be wrong not to recognise that for Paul and for Luke what
gave women prominence in the Christian community was not so much social
standing as their spiritual gifts of leadership, prophecy, teaching, service and
pastoral care (Acts 2:17, 21:9, 1 Cor ll:3ff), although the two are obviously
connected. (All of the above also, of course, applies to men.)
In Mark the faithfulness of women disciples would be stressed over against the
weakness of the male twelve, but already in Paul and increasingly in the Pastoral
Epistles, women's leadership was brought under male control. Paul's concern for
order in the Corinthian church led him to require women to have their hair
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bound up when prophesying as a sign of their authority (1 Cor 11:2-16), but also
to require silence of married women in church (1 Cor 14:33b-36), perhaps
suggesting that at least in Corinth single women were more appropriate leaders,
in line with his preference for the unmarried state (1 Cor 7:32-35,39f). The use of
household codes in the post-Pauline communities to re-inforce traditional
patriarchal standards, however Christianized, only hardened this control of men
over women to the point where the Pastoral Epistles prohibit women from
teaching men (1 Tim 2:11-15), allowing them in the church only the subordinate
role of deacon (1 Tim 3:11) and a general ministry restricted to other women (1
Tim 5:3-16, Tit 2:3-5). As becomes clear, not all women were prepared to be
submissive having once tasted their freedom in Christ.

SECOND CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS

With the death not only of Paul and other first generation leaders but also of
their immediate converts, certain problems became acute for the various
Christian communities. What was the authentic Gospel? How was continuity
with the first apostolic generation to be maintained? How were the life and
identity of communities to be sustained? Who had authority to decide answers to
these questions? Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient evidence to show
exactly how particular communities or trajectories handled the transition and by
the second half of the second century the collecting of Christian scriptures means
that a number of trajectories are beginning to inter-act. However, it is possible to
distinguish a number of approaches to these problems, even if in places they
overlap.
(a) Episcopal Authority (Ignatius). Though strongly influenced by Paul's
theology of the Cross with a sprinkling of Johannine ideas, Ignatius of Antioch,
martyred about 110 AD, developed a view of the church centred on the bishop,
perhaps from the Petrine tradition of Matthew. Not only must everything
(baptism, eucharist, teaching) be done with reference to the bishop (Smyrn 8. If,
Magn 4.1, Phil 7.2, Eph 4-5, Trail 2.2), but it is the bishop who assembles and
constitutes the congregation, for the bishop is "to be regarded as the Lord
himself (or as God) and "wherever Jesus is, there is the catholic church" (Smyrn
8.2, Trail 2.1, 3.1, Eph 6.1). Associated with the bishop is his council of elders
(presbyters) and the deacons, "and apart from these there is nothing to call
church" ( Trail 2.2). When talking of this threefold pattern, we must be careful to
remember that the size of the congregation is still small, so that Ignatius refers to
a situation much closer to our parish with pastor, a vestry or council and helpers.
It is significant, however, that Ignatius knew no doctrine of apostolic
succession. His authority was established by appeal to the Spirit of prophecy
speaking through him (Phill.lf) and to the threefold ministry being patterned on
God's way of working through Jesus and the apostles (Magn 6.1, Smyrn 8.1). We
do not know how Ignatius became Bishop of Antioch nor did he appear to
provide for a successor, but other sources concerning churches in Asia Minor at
this time (e.g. Rev 2-3, 1-3 John) show no evidence for this threefold order. Its
novelty perhaps explains his over-insistence on the need for unity with the bishop
and his associates. But the fact that the church in Rome was not yet ordered in
this way did not mean he had no communion with it. On the contrary (Rom.
Pref), for even his own church in Antioch was now bereft of a bishop (Rom 9.1).
14
I

More important, then, was a shared faith in the Cross of Christ and a common
discipleship of suffering (Rom 4,8). Already the expression of this faith was in
credal form ( Trail 9) as a defence against Judaizers and Docetists, but in Ignatius'
mind communion with the bishop and love for one another were recognizable
signs of authentic faith and discipleship (Trail 7, 13).
(b) The Certainty of Revealed Knowledge (Gnostics). The three Epistles of
John, written about 100-110 AD, indicate that a major secession has taken place
in the Johannine community and it is widely agreed by Brown and others that the
larger group took with them into various Gnostic circles a particular
intepretation of the Gospel of John. 10 Gnostic literature and polemical
information about Gnostics span at least the second and third centuries and is
extremely diverse in nature and alocation. The following are some very
impressionistic and partial comments.11
The Church was understood to be a spiritual reality, in Valentinian terms one
of the first Ogdoad, born along with the Human from Logos and Life
(Ptolemaeus, Comm. in Irenaeus, Haer 1.8.5), or even identified with the third
member of the Godhead, existing like the Son from the beginning (Trip. Tract.
57). It was made up of the elect, pneumatics or Gnostics, existing in perfect
harmony with each other ( Trip. Tract. 94, Great Seth 67f) and thus in union with
the Pleroma. The visible church is the place where psychics may receive
instruction and purification in order to gain access to the Pleroma (Trip. Tract.
123), while sacraments operate on two levels, as pictures of true reality for
Gnostics and means of grace for psychics (Irenaeus, Haer. I. 13.2-4, 21.2-5).
Some Gnostic groups had an organized, hierarchical ministry. Others
maintained a Pauline Corinthian type of community in which the gifts of each
member were given play despite the inevitable tensions (Interp. Know. 15-21).
Some Gnostics continued to exist within orthodox/apostolic churches (cf.
Clement Alex. Strom. VII), while others were excluded as false, although the
charge of being false/heretical was mutual (Apoc. Peter 77-80). Those thus
excluded, however claimed to be the true church, teaching the truth in succession
to the apostles, particularly, through the gift of the chrism (Ptolemaus, Flora 5,
Gospel of Philip 74), and alone to have the right ievelation, hence the naming of
so many of their gospels after apostles. A sense of alienation from the world and
the desire for certainty of salvation lay behind much Gnostic thought, but the
various religious systems produced by the Gnostics were not sufficient to
withstand the combination of Christian attack from without and fissiparous
individualism within. Nevertheless, it is not hard to see various Johannine
themes pushed here to self-destructive extremes.
(c) The Spirit of Prophecy (Montanists). Prophesying is widely attested in the
apostolic and sub-apostolic periods both for men and women (Acts 2:17f, 1 Cor
14: Iff, I Thess 5: 19f, I Tim 4:14, Rev 1:3, 19:10, 22:6f) and continues on into the
second century. Those with the Spirit of prophecy exercised a leadership in
Christian communities that had priority over the more institutionalized
presbyter-bishops and deacons (Did. 10, 13, 15), but there was always the
problem of false prophets (Matt 7:15-23, 1 John 4:1-6, Rev. 2:20-23, Did. 11).
This ambiguity in prophecy raised the need for control over both message and
speaker, but the move of the 'orthodox' in this direction inevitably led to the
decline of prophecy, so that groups such as the Montanists could rightly point to
15

the lack of the Spirit's gifts in the mainline churches. While remaining doctrinally
orthodox, Montanist churches (so called in Tertullian, adv. Prax 1) introduced
stricter moral discipline over their adherents and emphasized the leading of the
Spirit by giving prominence in their official ministry to prophets both male and
female (Hippolytus, Elench. VIII. 19, 2f, X.26). They, too, appealed to a line of
succession as their guarantee, but here it was a succession of those possessing the
prophetic gift (Eusebius, H.e.V.MA).
Beginning in Phrygia and moving from Asia Minor to Gaul, Rome and North
Africa, this enthusiastic apocalyptic movement drew both on Johannine
teaching about the Paraclete and Paul's about spiritual gifts, but above all it
showed confidence in present manifestations of the Spirit and the purity of its
member's lives. Gradually driven out by the Orthodox', it dwindled taking with it
the Spirit of prophecy from the great church, but not before Tertullian had
enunciated a definition of the church very different from that of Ignatius:
The church itself is properly and principally the Spirit himself ... any number of
persons at all joined in this faith [in the Trinity] is recognized as the church by him who
founded and consecrated it. Therefore, the church will indeed forgive sins, but this is
the church of the Spirit through spiritual people and not the church consisting of a
number of bishops {Pudic 21).

(d) The Guarantee of Apostolic Succession (1 Clement, Ireneaus, John 21). We

know nothing of the church in Corinth between the time of Paul's letter and the
first letter ascribed to Clement, written some forty years later about 97AD from
"the church of God sojourning in Rome" to "the church of God sojourning in
Corinth" (1 Clem. Pref). It is worth noting that the verb 'sojourning'
(paroikousa), which means living as strangers, non-citizens, is that from which
our work 'parish' is derived. In neither place is a bishop or single leader
mentioned, but each church is governed by a council of presbyter-bishops
together with deacons (42.4). However, at Corinth jealousy and envy within the
congregation had led to some of the presbyter-bishops being put out of office and
the creation of a schism (3. Iff, 44.4, 46.5-9, 47.6). The letter extols obedience,
humility, forgiveness and love, appeals to God's ordering of creation which
brings it peace (20) and to the principle of subordination in the army and the
body (37f), before applying God's ordering of Israel's cultic life to the church,
where each (high priest, priests, Lvites, lay people) has a proper service
according to rank (40f). As God sent Jesus and Jesus sent the apostles, so the
apostles "appointed their first converts as bishops and deacons of future
believers" (42), providing also for "approved men" (sic) to succeed them, the
latter being "appointed by other reputable men, with the consent of the whole
church" (44.1-3).
While 1 Clement asserts that this pattern of apostolic succession happened
everywhere (42.4), it was left to later writers, particularly Irenaeus, writing from
Gaul about 180 AD, to draw up lists of this succession in Rome and other centres,
(although bishops and presbyters still seem equated (Haer. III.3.1-4, IV.26.2-5).
However, Irenaeus is not so much concerned with disorder in a local community
as with his claim against the Gnostics that the universal church alone preserves
the truth of the Gospel and is therefore the true church. For him, the church is
transmitted to every place by a known succession of leaders who guard it by not
falsifying the Scriptures or altering the rule of faith, but by "a lawful and careful
exposition according to the Scriptures" and by "the pre-eminent gift of love"
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which exceeds both knowledge and prophecy (ibid. IV.22.8). We have in

Irenaeus the first flowerings of a catholic Christianity which sees the salvation
and perfection of human beings mediated through mother church, where the
Gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments administered by a publicly ordered
ministry that is faithful to the apostolic tradition found in New Testament
writings, especially the four gospels, and in credal formulations (ibid. 1.10. If,
III.l.lf,7f). "Where the church is, there is the Spirit of God", and those who do
not belong to this visible, apostolic church do not share in the Spirit who
continually renews the life of the church in truth, so that even when the reverse is
stated, "where the Spirit of God is, there is the church", it is controlled by the fact
that "the Spirit is truth" and truth of course is found in fidelity to the apostolic
tradition (ibid. III.24.1).
Raymond Brown argues12 that the Johannine community, which prided itself
on being guided into truth by the Holy Spirit, was eventually forced by the schism
apparent in 1 and 2 John to come to terms with the apostolic church represented
by the figure of Peter. Thus, John 21, the rehabilitation of Peter after the
Resurrection, was appended to the Gospel to persuade Johannines to accept the
authority of the apostolic ministry, but also to reassure apostolic churches about
the true discipleship of Johannines, but not before Peter is put three times
through the Johannine test of personal love for Jesus. The presbyter of 1 and 2
John had no authority to impose his understanding of the Johannine tradition on
those to whom he wrote. He could only appeal to their sharing in the common
fellowship and to the inner teaching of the Spirit (1 John 1:1-4, 2:26f). It is even
possible that this presbyter's quarrel with Diotrephes in 3 John 9f concerned this
very point of apostolic leadership, with Diotrephes representing just such an
authority over a church of equals as we have seen developed further in Ignatius
and Irenaeus.
(e) Women Leaders and Woman*s Church. It should not be a surprise to find
the main evidence for women leaders and communities of women outside the
male establishment represented by Ignatius and Irenaeus. The grouping of
widows mentioned in 1 Tim 5:3-16 continued under male control and it is
possible that they lived together in community along with dedicated virgins
(Ignatius, Polyc. 4, Smyrn. 13, Polycarp, Phil. 4). Certainly the contemporary
world knew religious cults and associations restricted to women and there is
evidence for a woman's synagogue in Philippi. It is perhaps for such groups of
Christian women that the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla were written,
because Thecla is set forward both as a vowed virgin and as a missionary
commissioned by Paul "to teach the Word of God", enlightening many in
Seleucia (6-9, 41, 43). Before the end of the second century, Tertullian tells of
women claiming the right to teach and baptize on the basis of this story, a right
which he opposed (De bap. 17). The struggle of some women to remain free of
male hierarchical control in the church is also reflected in other apocryphal
writings, mostly Gnositc, which built on the privileged position of Mary
Magdalene and other women at the empty tomb to make her a major recipient of
Jesus' revelations and thus a teacher of the apostles, who atfirstdispute her right
to teach (e.g. the Gospel of Mary, Pistis Sophia) or her right to be first in Jesus'
love (Gospel of Philip 63f). It is not possible to say whether the women
responsible for the presence of such texts also formed a woman church. Among
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the Montanists, while Maximilla and Priscilla exercised leading roles as

prophets, Maximilla indeed succeeding Montanus as leader of the movement,
and while their women prophets in places taught, baptized and celebrated the
eucharist, it was in the assembly of all (Didymus, De Trin. III. 41.3; Cyprian,
Epist 75.10). There is no evidence for Montanist women churches.
JEWISH AND HELLENISTIC MODELS FOR THE CHRISTIAN
ECCLESIA
This long descriptive treatment of the church and the churches in the first 150
years or so may be rounded off by listing possible or explicit models that were
used by Christians to image their own communities. I include here only those that
seem to be most significant, noting that none of them appear in pure form
without being mixed with others:
Family/Household of God 'love patriarchy', head of the house
(Pastoral Epistles)
Synagogue council of elders and head of synagogue
(Jerusalem church under James)
Cultic Assembly of Israel a holy people with a clerical hierarchy
(7 Clement and increasingly in 3rd century)
Collegium or Religious Association patron, overseer (episcopos), deacon
Town Council and Association of CitizensMayor
(/ Clement, Ignatius)
Fellowship of Believers/Disciples Community of Equal Love
(John, Gnostics)
Eschatological/Spirit-filled Community
(Qumran, John, Montanists)
Organic Body of Christ (Paul, Ephesians, Colossians, Irenaeus)
World-wide 'Brotherhood'/ 'Race'/ Nation
Transcendental Reality a Platonic Idea/Form
(Ephesians, Colossians, Gnostic)
Imitation of Christ a community modelled on Jesus' self-abandonment
(Mark, religious communities)

CRITICAL THEOLOGICAL ISSUES

These are listed primarily as discussion-reflection points.13
(1) The Normative Role of the early Church
This is the fundamental issue. In what ways are the various Christian
communities of the first two centuries normative for us? Given that their models
for the church were drawn largely from Jewish and Hellenistic society, can any of
them be absolute for us? Note the absence of the popular modern model of the
church as Servant or of the church as Mission.
(2) What did 'Church' (Ecclesia) Mean at This Time?
In the NT, ecclesia refers to one or more of three gatherings:
(a) Christians meeting together in one house (Rom 16:5, Philem 2)
(b) All the Christians and house-communities in one city or province (Acts 8:1,
9:31, 1 Cor 1:2, Col 4:6, Rev 2:1 etc)
(c) All the churches and Christians together as one universal church (Eph 1:22f,
5:23, Col 1:18, 24)
In the second century, these uses of ecclesia were expanded at both ends. It is
used to refer to an even smaller number than a house church, namely a gathering
of three, no doubt drawing on Matthew 18:20, but also given a Trinitarian basis
(Tetullian, Pudic 21). With this usage, then, any gathering of Christians could be
called 'church'. At the other end, it comes to refer to a reality transcending time
18

and space, a spiritual mystery to which the elect, the saved, all believers past and
present belong. Further, as a variety of groups began to claim the title for
themselves, the great church began to add a number of qualifiers, arriving finally
at "the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church".
We are left with the problem of understanding how a local congregation or
gathering, a diocese, a national body, a world-wide denomination, and all
Christian people can share the name 'church'.
(3) How are 'Orthodox* and 'Heretic' Distinguished?
Despite all the developing stress on apostolic ministry, even as late as Irenaeus
what seems to count in the end are:
the centrality of Jesus; i.e. confession of faith in Jesus crucified and risen,
the affirmation that Jesus is the one who frees us to be in community with each
other and with God:
active love for one another (fellow Christians) through the working of the
Holy Spirit.
These are an irreducible minimum for being recognized as Christian churches
and themselves raise the basic Christological and Trinitarian questions.
(4) Pluralism and the Canon of Scripture
Does the NT canonize plurality, including a diversity of Christian
communities, or does the concept of canon require us to homogenize? To put this
another way, are the various Christian communities complementary, able to
exist side by side, or does each need to take the other's insights on board (as
Brown argues)?15 What happened in fact during the time when the Canon of
Scripture was being developed was that the patriarchal apostolic model of'early
Catholicism' became dominant, with all the other models subsumed under it.
Further we may ask whether the Canon functions as a means of setting the limits
to pluralim, so that as long as a community is consistent with one strand of the
NT it should be tolerated by others consistent with different strands.
(5) The Meaning of Koinonia16
(a) All NT writers stress the need for unity or communion between believers
and many show a consciousness of belonging to a church or community of
beievers to be found in every place. They relate a common participation in Christ
or a common sharing in the same Spirit to the need for unity among Christians.
(b) In centres such as Ephesus there may have been both Pauline and
Johannine churches existing side by side, and there is no evidence to suggest that
they were not in communion with each other. Even though Paul separated from
Peter and Barnabas at Antioch over the question of table fellowship, which
presumably included the eucharist, he did not break off relationships with the
tradition they represented but raised money for the saints in Jerusalem, taking it
there himself (Roml5:25f).
(c) Because there is communio Sancii Spiritus (Communion in the Holy
Spirit), there must be communio sanctorum (Communion of the saints), which
requires communio in sacris (Communion in sacraments).
(6) A Complex of Canons11
As we saw developing in Irenaeus, Scripture was not the only canon produced
as a guarantee of apostolic tradition. At the same time as the establishing of th

19

NT Canon, there came into existence other apostolic canons

Creeds
Ministry
Liturgies for Sacraments (Initiation-Baptism and Eucharist)
Praxis love and discipleship.
How do these Canons relate to each other? In talking of development, is there a
'Golden age' of the first five centuries? Does development come to an end? What
are the criteria for legitimate development?
(7) Institutional Barriers and Openness to the World
Every Christian community needs some self-definition over against the world
and this may lead to introversion or the creation of barriers. It posed no problem
for Paul himself and he apparently expected outsiders to come to the gatherings
of believings (1 Cor 14:23-25). However, nowhere in the surviving sources is Paul
seen to encourage his congregations to engage in evangelism, except in the
ministry of evangelists, and direct outreach does not form part of early churches'
self-definition, although the church grew abundantly. But what these churches
did was to define themselves in ways that were open to the world, as places for all
peoples, nations and cultures.
(8) Semper Reformando and the Ideal Community of the Kingdom
The churches' structures and institutions are constantly called into question by
the interaction between the renewing drive of the Spirit, the Gospel portraits of
Jesus, his pattern of relationships and proclamation of the Kingdom, and the
idealised picture of the early Jerusalem church in Acts. Our vision of God's
Kingdom continues to reform the life ofthat community which the Spirit gathers
around Jesus through those who stand in the line of the apostles and prophets.

FOOTNOTES
1. On the pluralism of early Christian Communities, see E. Schweizer, Church Order in the New
Testament (SCM, 1961); E. Ksemann, New Testament Question of Today (SCM, 1969), pp.
236-59; J.D.G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (SCM, 1977); D. Harrington
Light of all Nations (Glazier, 1982); W. Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
(E.T. Fortress, 1971:1934).
2. Most helpful here is Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians. The Social World of the
Apostle Paul (Yale UP., 1983) and John G. Gager, Kingdom and Community. The Social
World of Early Christianity Prentice-Hall, 1975). See also J.M. Robinson and H. Koester,
Trajectories Through Early Christianity (Fortress, 1971). A more detailed and extended
approach than the one adopted here is E. Schillebeeckx, The Church with a Human Face
(SCM, 1985).
3. This book is a companion to his earlier ones, The Community of the Beloved Desciple
(Chapman, 1979) and, with J.P. Meier, Antioch and Rome. New Testament Cradles of Catholic
Christianity (Paulist, 1983).
4. J. P. Audet, Structures of Christian Priesthood (Sheed & Ward, 1967), p. 159. R. Banks, Paul's
Idea of Community (Lancer, 1979), pp. 45-50, puts the number at 40-45 as a maximum.
5. See the discussions of this term in Ksemann, Dunn, and Harrington cited above.
6. R.E. Brown, The Gospel According to John 2 Vols (Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 1966) and The
Epistles of John (Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 1982).
7. Brown, Community, pp. 168f.
8. Ibid., p. 84.
9. I rely here particularly on the work of E.S. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (SCM, 1983).
10. Brown, Epistles, pp. 69-115.
11. See texts in J.M. Robinson (ed), The Nag Hammadi Library (Harper & Row, 1977) and the
discussion of E.H. Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (Random House, 1979).
12. Brown, Community, pp. 93-164, Epistles, pp. 100-115.

20

13. Y. Congar, Diversity and Communion (SCM, 1984), has a much more extended theological
discussion of issues arising from the starting point of pluralism.
14. The final chapter of Dunn, op. cit., is very helpful here.
15. Brown, Churches, pp. 73f, 99, 123, 149f.
16. See S. Brown, "Koinonia as the Basis of New Testament Ecclesiology", One in Christ, 12(1976),
157-167.
17. See J. Knox, The Early Church and the Coming Great Church, (Abingdon, 1955).

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