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Now that we have examined some of the forged texts of early Christianity (part 1) and observed several groups of early Christians who produced these and other texts (part 2), we are able to consider in greater detail the conflicts that arose among these groups and to reflect on the strategies that proved effective in their struggles for dominance. The outcome of these internecine Christian battles was significant. The group that emerged as victorious and declared it
self orthodox determined the shape of Christianity for posterity—determining its internal structure, writing its creeds, and compiling its revered texts into a sacred canon of Scripture. Had things turned out otherwise, not just the Chris
tian Church but all of history would have been quite different. Before address
ing the specifics of these internal disputes, I should say a word about such conflicts more generally.
By the second century, of course, there was already a long history of quar
rels in the Christian tradition. Jesus himself had enemies, and they tended to be those with whom he had a good deal in common. Chief among his opponents during his public ministry were Pharisees, a group of Jews who insisted on keeping God’s Law fully and completely. Pharisees were not professional hypo
crites, as is sometimes made out in later Christian tradition. They were experts in the laws God had given to Moses—laws that God gave precisely in order to be followed—who believed these laws should be observed.1 Pharisees devel
oped a set of traditions that assisted them in keeping the laws. If Sabbath is to be kept holy, and work is therefore not to be done on Sabbath, then one needs to determine what it is that constitutes work so as to avoid doing it. If tithes are to be given to the priests in the Temple, one needs to determine what is to be tithed and how a person can be certain that it has been tithed. And so on.
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Pharisees had serious disputes among themselves concerning how to inter
pret and implement these laws. Jesus had disputes with them as well. Some of the things said in the heat of the battle were not kind. Within the Christian tradition, the Pharisees came to be known as “whitewashed sepulchres” (Matt.
23:27)—clean and attractive on the outside but filled with rotting flesh within.
They were hypocrites, who strained a gnat out of their drink but then swal
lowed a camel (Matt. 23:24). No doubt these Christian slurs were reciprocated by the Pharisees, who were, after all, doing the best they could to understand and practice what God wanted. In religious conflict, it is always a matter of give and take. Even so, it should not be imagined that Jesus opposed the Phari
saic interpretations because they stood so far apart on most issues. In fact, they were extremely close. Hence the emotional rhetoric. We tend to argue most frequently and fervently with those closest to us.
When we move the calendar forward twenty years to Jesus’ outspoken apostle, Paul, we find a comparable situation, only now the “internal” conflicts involve battles within the Christian community, founded after Jesus’ death. Every church that Paul established appears to have become embroiled in turmoil. His letters were meant to solve the problems. Throughout these letters we find harsh and forthright opposition to false teachers. But it is important to note that these are Christian false teachers, who are in Paul’s churches. Sometimes readers neglect to consider the implication: These “false” teachers understand themselves to be continuing on in the same Christian tradition as Paul, bringing out the implica
tions of the gospel message, providing a fuller account of what Paul had taught while passing through town making converts. Paul, however, sees them as stand
ing over and against his gospel message, and so he attacks them with a vehe
mence unparalleled in his comments about pagans or Jews.
Nowhere can this seen more clearly than in the letter to the Galatians. Paul established churches in this central region of Asia Minor, based on his gospel that the death and resurrection of Jesus are God’s way of salvation to all people, Jew and Gentile. He left then to take the mission elsewhere, and other Chris
tian missionaries arrived. They evidently attempted to “correct” some of the things Paul had taught and added some important information. In particular, they insisted that to be full members of the people of the Jewish God, converts needed to become Jewish. For many of their hearers, this view made consider
able sense: They were worshiping the God of the Jews, who gave the Jewish Law, and who ordered all of his people—insiders as well as outsiders—to keep his commandments, including the commandment of circumcision for the men.
Surely the sovereign Lord of all would not change his mind concerning how his people were to relate to him, especially when he called the agreement that he made with the Jewish ancestors an “eternal” covenant. To worship this God and believe in his Messiah, argued the Christian missionaries who arrived in Paul’s wake, followers of Jesus need to join his people in the ways he set forth in his Scriptures.2
These “opponents” had a good deal in common with Paul. They worshiped the God of the Jews. They saw Jesus as the Messiah sent from God to the Jews.
They believed that Jesus’ death and resurrection were part of God’s plan for salvation. They believed this salvation was a fulfillment of the promises found in Scripture. And they believed it applied to all people, Jew and Gentile.
So similar. But they differed on a key point: whether Gentiles were to be
come Jews in order to be “Christians.” The difference was enough to infuriate Paul. His letter to the Galatians seethes with white-hot anger. His opponents are false teachers who stand under God’s curse. They have “bewitched” their hearers. Those who follow their instruction will lose their salvation. Paul hopes that when they themselves are circumcised the knife slips and they castrate themselves (Gal. 1:6–9; 3:1–5; 5:2–4, 12). One can only wonder what they may have said in return.
The tradition of such vitriolic attacks was to continue past Paul into other writings that eventually became part of the New Testament and on into the second and third centuries, as Christians argued against those with whom they had the most in common, whom they could recognize as almost, but not quite, their fellow Christians. These arguments often focused on which beliefs to affirm and which practices to follow. Every side understood that its views were right. And they believed that being right mattered—not just for life on earth but also for rewards in heaven. The losers of these battles would pay an eternal price. And so the fights were hard and drawn out. When they ended, the win
ners chose which records of the affair to keep and decided how to tell the history of the conflict. Only in modern times have the voices of the losers begun to be heard with any kind of clarity.