Was there a crisis over a
supposed ‘delay’ of Christ’s reappearing—His Second Coming—in the early
Church? Did the early Church set itself
up one way only to have to reorient itself later in the 1st century when
believers’ initial enthusiasm about an imminent return of Christ was
thwarted? The purpose of this essay is
to challenge the thesis that (1) there was a ‘delay’ in the Church’s thinking
about Christ’s return; (2) that this was the catalyst for the development of the
Church from a non-eschatological/apocalyptic version of Christianity into a
different version, ‘early Catholicism’; and (3) that the early Church
maintained views, such as its understanding of Christian teaching (theology and
ethics) or its ecclesial structure, that were not compatible with a focus on
the question of Jesus’ imminent return.
This discussion is of particular concern for missions, as will be shown. It offers a developmental view of the Church
in the 1st century that finds disappointed enthusiasm at the center,
and it is incongruous with the version of history we gain from Biblical texts themselves,
which present the Church as active in missional vigour, not disappointed from
misdirected, apocalyptic enthusiasm.
Why address this? First, the paradigms of ‘delay of the
Parousia’ and ‘early Catholicism’ dominated 20th century, New
Testament scholarship, reaching the near sacrosanct status of ‘consensus’. The paradigms were not innocuous, as though
one might simply shrug and say, ‘Well, it was really anyone’s guess when Jesus
may return, so only initial enthusiasm died down—otherwise, no harm was done.’ Instead, academic perspectives on theology,
ethics, and ecclesiology were shaped by this construction of what took place in
the 1st century. Second,
these paradigms fly in the face of missions—the mission history of the early
Church. Third, one has to read against
the text to defend these paradigms, claiming that what Scripture says was only
a later, revisionist depiction of what, thanks to scholarly insights, really
happened. If the twentieth century was
anything, it was the last bluster of Modernity, a shameless elevation of the
scientist’s explanation of nature over nature itself (or the hsitorian’s
explanation over nature itself, or the theologian’s theology over truth
itself). Fourth, this brief study leads
us back to some thoughts about the Church and its mission in our day.
The So-Called ‘Delay of the Parousia’
A large number of New
Testament and early Church scholars have answered ‘Yes’: there was, they say, a
need for the Church to reorient themselves due to a ‘delay of the Parousia’. They believed, furthermore, that key parts of
the New Testament were predicated on a belief in the soon return of Jesus
Christ and, of course, since Jesus did not return, these parts of Scripture
lost their relevance and authority. We
might be able to live with an uncertain surmise that Jesus might return soon,
but if key beliefs are predicated on such a belief, we have a crisis in
canonical authority.
For example, Albert
Schweitzer famously argued that the reason that Jesus taught such high ideals
in the Sermon on the Mount was that he believed that the end of this age would
happen in his own lifetime (so-called ‘imminent eschatology’).[1] Others thought that they could find this
imminent eschatology in the rest of the New Testament such that much of the
early Church’s ethics became irrelevant.[2] This construct in scholarship,
then, mounts a significant challenge to an orthodox Christianity that takes the
Bible as authoritative for the life of the Church. Others found in the New Testament writings a
diversity of views under development during the first century. I will reply to such arguments after
expanding the perspective with another academic construct: early Catholicism.
The Notion of the Evolution of an ‘Early
Catholicism’ in the New Testament
One scholar of note
interpreting New Testament eschatology and related teachings through the lens
of a ‘delay of the Parousia’ was James D. G. Dunn. His Unity
of the New Testament suggested that there were four paradigms in the first
century Church (and therefore in the New Testament): a Jewish Christianity, a
Hellenistic Christianity, an Apocalyptic Christianity, and an Early Catholic
Christianity.[3]
Having outlined the distinctions between
these supposed forms of early Christianity (and there have subsequently been
much more radical proposals), Dunn proceeded to look for the unity between
these four perspectives. He suggests
that there is one unifying factor amidst all the diversity within the New
Testament: the person, Jesus.[4] The underlying assumption in this argument is
that orthodox Christianity can exist within diverse forms, given a unifying
essence.[5]
One problem with this
approach for orthodoxy, however, is that it legitimates a ‘picking and choosing’
hermeneutic for the Bible for everything outside the core of the Gospel. There is, however, no such approach in the
early Church to the Christian faith: believers were not delimiting their use of
holy writings in favour of some essential core, whether a message (the ‘Gospel’),
a principle (‘love’), a person (Jesus), or a doctrine (‘justification by faith’)—although
all such examples of essentialism are evident in the past century of Biblical
interpretation. Instead, the early
Church held to an authoritative canon of Scripture believed to be inspired by
the Spirit of God (with ‘Scripture’ meaning the Old Testament to the New
Testament authors and both testaments to early Church writers from the
mid-second century). Thus, ‘all
Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be
competent, equipped for every good work’ (2 Timothy 3.15-16, ESV). One cannot advocate the approach to the use
of the Scripture in 2 Tim. 3.15-16 and hold to an ‘essential core’ at the same
time: it is one or the other. It may be
worth noting, nonetheless, that to identify the core of the New Testament as
Jesus is rather like describing an onion in reference to its inner ring: the ‘onionness’
of an onion, like Christ in the New Testament, permeates every part. It is not one thing alongside other things.
The ‘delay and the Parousia’
led to an ‘early Catholic’ version of Christianity, according to the scholarly
construct under review. Dunn’s idea
about the early Catholic paradigm had three parts. I will offer my own labelling of each of
these purported developments to capture the point succinctly:
- From Apocalyptic Enthusiasm to Religion: The early Church first believed in the imminent return of Christ and, when this did not happen, an adjustment was needed in terms of what was believed and how the Church was structured.
- From Believing Faith to Dogmatic Faith: The early Church initially held to a simple faith, believing in Jesus Christ. A more settled Christianity had to decide on the content of faith: what they believed. This was a move from discipleship to established institution.
- From Charismatic Community to Church Offices: The early Church’s ecclesiology initially emphasized the gifting and ministry of every believer in the organic body of Christian community (cf. 1 Cor. 12). A more settled Christianity had to establish offices of leadership in the community in the form of bishops, elders, and deacons.
Thus, the earliest version
of Christianity assumed Jesus would return forthwith, in the space of a
generation. They were simply disciples
of Jesus with little need for dogma or for communal authority and order.
On reflection, however,
each of these three parts to the early Catholic concept stretches
credulity. The New Testament itself
represents quite a different focus: missional expansion of Christian
communities from region to region in the known world. The early Church looked back to Jesus for the
Gospel it would proclaim. This involved,
to be sure, the conviction that Jesus would appear again in the last day, but
what was critical was calling people to faith in him and the salvation that he
had accomplished. That accomplishment
was the arrival of God’s reign and the inauguration of the restoration of
Israel from exile, and therefore the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people
of God—as the prophets had foretold.
This immense task was inaugurated at Pentecost and continued throughout
each decade of the first century and then from century to century ever
since. The mission of the Church, not a
delay of the Parousia, was the focus of the Church.
Moreover, the idea that
the earliest Church was nonchalant about theology lacks credulity. This is not to say that they had or needed a
system of theology. Yet their believing could not be differentiated
from dogmatically held convictions. What people believed mattered, and it
mattered greatly. There are several
reasons for this. First, and most
obviously, ‘belief’ cannot be separated from what is believed. Also, every area of theology is related to
belief in Jesus: belief in Jesus is the basis of and beginning for extensive
theological convictions about the Triune God, salvation, eschatology, ecclesiology,
etc. Third, the existence of a Biblical
text—the canon of Scripture—provided the early Church with a means of doing
theology that was not simply about believing but also about interpretation and
argument. This was also true of Judaism for the same reason. Paul the Pharisee turned Christian did not
change his way of doing theology. For
him, theology was far more than making dogmatic statements on every variety of
theological topic: it was also Paul’s exegetical interpretation of the
Scriptures to prove this theological content to belief. Fourth, there is clear evidence in the
earliest New Testament author, Paul, that there was content to Christian
faith. This is everywhere apparent,
since Paul’s letters are articulations of this theology, arguments against
false teaching, and explanations about why theology mattered. If we try to push this point earlier still,
we would find Jesus’ teaching to be grounded in an interpretation of the
Scriptures in light of the inbreaking Kingdom of God. Faith was, to be sure, to directed towards
Jesus, but it was a faith informed by a rich theological heritage and
discussion with which Jesus interacted.
Fifth, right belief is in part defined more carefully because there are
those who propagate false belief. This
reality predates Paul, as Jesus’ own ministry was over against the false
teaching of others, particularly the scribes and Pharisees. Thus, the existence of a content to faith
was, from the very beginning, part of the Christian movement and developed in
part because earlier convictions needed further definition due to the rise of
false teaching—not because of the delay of the Parousia.
The third part of the ‘early
Catholicism’ construct makes the unlikely assumption that a charismatic
ecclesiology is distinct from a highly structured, authoritative
ecclesiology. A number of Pentecostal
and charismatic versions of the Church today might be the place to begin to pick
that idea apart. Several of them are led
by single leaders or a team of leaders exercising great authority. In fact, some groups have had elders try to
control people’s personal lives. This is
not at all to say that this was the case in the first century, but it is to
dispel the myth that charismatic communities cannot have highly authoritative
structures.
More importantly than
theoretical constructs is the fact that the assumption falls apart
Biblically. First, the initial structure
of Christian communities owed something to the synagogue, which also had
elders. Second, the Pauline churches—which
were supposed to represent the non-Catholic version of early Christianity—had elders. In his (undisputed) letter to the Philippian
church, Paul greets the ‘overseers’ (episkopoi)
and ‘deacons’ (diakonoi) (Phil. 1.1). (Since ‘overseers’ and ‘elders’ both appear
in the pastoral epistles but not together, it is likely that they were not two
different groups but the same group with different epithets. The second century would see a development of
the episkopoi as overseers/elders to episkopoi as regional bishops over
several churches in a region.) The use
of these terms in Philippians means that those scholars suggesting that Luke in
Acts reads back a later (early Catholic) version of the Church into the telling
of the early history of the Pauline churches is wrong. When Luke says that Paul and Barnabas appointed
elders in every church on the first missionary journey (Acts 14.23), there is,
frankly, no reason to believe otherwise.
Yet some scholars will say just that, unable to free themselves from
their own assumptions about the evolution of early Catholicism. Nor is the corroborating evidence of 1
Timothy 3 or Titus 1 (about overseers and deacons) to be dismissed as
un-Pauline. (These letters have been taken as post-Pauline for various reasons,
including this erroneous approach to interpretation here under review. Give up the theory, and Paul’s authorship
becomes more believable). Thus, the
charismatic gifting of the local church was compatible with some structuring of
the church. The existence of overseers
or elders in the church does not require a hierarchical ecclesiology, as we
find in the second century (e.g., already in Ignatius). Overseers, e.g., may be understood in terms
of their roles and responsibilities rather than offices and authorities. The overseers in the early Church may have
become bishops at a later time (the same Greek word was used), but their
initial appointment was not due to a delay of the Parousia. What would a better suggestion be for such a
development? Most likely it was twofold:
the expansion of responsibilities due to the growth of the churches in a
certain region, and the need to respond authoritatively to false teaching.
Examining the Arguments
An established paradigm
for understanding the data—the texts—of the early Church, especially a paradigm
that has lasted over a century—will not quickly be overturned. It is, however, in the details of the
arguments that the thesis of a delay of the Parousia leading to an early
Catholicism unravels. Here are several
of these arguments with reference to New Testament texts.
Texts Indicating Christ’s Imminent Return: the
Gospels
The argument involves two contexts: Jesus’ own beliefs about the
coming of the Kingdom and Paul’s earlier letters. In terms of Jesus’ own beliefs, Albert
Schweitzer set up the (false) argument in stark and rhetorically potent terms
in his Quest for the Historical Jesus. He suggested that Jesus believed that the
Kingdom—the Age to Come—would be ushered in by God within His own
lifetime. Schweitzer saw two steps in
Jesus’ belief. First, he believed that
the age to come would be ushered in through his and his disciples’ ministry of
proclamation and of miracles, as indicated in Matthew 10’s so-called ‘Missionary
Discourse.’ In Matthew 10.23, Jesus
says, ‘When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next,
for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel
before the Son of Man comes.’ Schweitzer
believed that Jesus was surprised when his disciples concluded this ministry
and the end had not come. Instead of
giving up his apocalyptic views, however, Jesus (on Schweitzer’s view) now
understood that he would have to take upon himself the sufferings of the
righteous at the end of this age in order to usher in the age to come. This he did by knowingly and willingly going
to the cross, thrusting himself on the wheels of history, as Schweitzer put
it. Jesus believed that God would come
to his rescue but, as Schweitzer says, the wheels turned and, instead of
ushering in the new age, they crushed him.[6]
What is remarkable about
this interpretation of the Gospel narratives is that no Gospel author felt a
need to correct things (by altering the record or explaining things
differently) when, the theory says, a correction was strongly needed. Why would a Gospel writer leave statements
like Matthew 10.23 or 24.34 (‘Truly, I say to you, this generation will not
pass away until all these things take place’), on Schweitzer’s view, without
explanation? Apparently, the Gospel
writer did not see the statements as problematic, and so a different
explanation of what they meant needs to be found.
C. H. Dodd countered Schweitzer
by saying that Jesus was not proclaiming the imminent end but the present
arrival of the Kingdom of God (‘realized eschatology’),[7] although he understood this
not in eschatological terms (the arrival of the Age to Come) but in Platonic
terms (the eternal breaking into the present).[8] This, too, would not explain texts about the
coming of the Son of Man in the time of Jesus’ audience. Something definitive was believed to be
taking place.
Post-Schweitzer and
Dodd, many interpreters have explained that the early Church thought more in terms
of an overlapping of this age and the age to come—often described as an ‘already/not
yet’ eschatology.[9] This is the key to the right answer. It may be that, in various passages, Jesus
had different aspects of the coming of the Kingdom, the coming of the Son of
Man, or the fulfillment of apocalyptic events in view, but they all involve an inbreaking
of the age to come into the present age—an overlapping of the ages. On this understanding, Jesus’ sayings involving
imminence arise, like the summary of his message itself (‘The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel,’ Mark 1.15), from
a belief in the present inbreaking of
God’s rule.
Texts Indicating Christ’s Imminent Return: Paul
The notion of some scholars that Paul expected an imminent return
of Christ begins with a discussion of one of Paul’s earliest epistles. In
1 Thessalonians 4.17, he seems to think—the interpretation goes—that he is
going to be alive when Christ returns, saying, 'Then we who
are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air….' (I would
suggest the more obvious meaning of this passage is that Paul says ‘we’ because
he is alive, not because he expects to be alive when Christ returns.) Then, given his near martyrdom in Ephesus, Paul
allegedly changes his tune and entertains the thought that he might die before
this happens (2 Corinthians 1.8). I am always astounded at how many
scholars think this is a good argument. Even in 1 Thessalonians (5.3-4),
Paul speaks of the end coming as a surprise—suddenness is not imminence.
The imagery he uses of a thief coming in the night most likely echoes Jesus'
similar saying in Mt. 24.36ff, which is also an affirmation that nobody knows
when the Son of Man will come. Also,
Paul’s eschatological perspective on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 (‘the
appointed time has grown very short [wrapping up]’) is not a statement of
urgency in light of an imminent end but of how the present age is already
passing away (v. 31).
In sum, what I find in both Jesus and Paul is the belief that the
age to come was inaugurated through the coming of Jesus. The result was the overlap of this age with
the age to come. This called for
everyone to ‘be ready’ as the end of this age and coming of the Son of Man is
unknown (this is the thrust of Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse, Matthew
24-25). The uncertainty, not the belief
in imminence, called for changing how people should live.
There are texts that address wrong views some had about the end times. The error was not a belief in imminence that
had to be altered by early Catholicism.
It was an error that arose from thinking that the inbreaking of the age
to come into the present meant that this inbreaking was complete. The first indication of this incorrect
interpretation comes in 2 Thessalonians 2.
A false letter purportedly from Paul had misled some believers to think
that the day of the Lord had already come.
Paul responds to this with a brief explanation that, preceding the end,
an intensification of lawlessness (rebelliousness to God’s law) with the coming
of the ‘man of lawlessness,’ who would make claims to be a god in the temple (2.4)
would occur. Since, as Tacitus (Annals) says, certain emperors since Julius Caesar were either considered
divine or themselves claimed to be divine, Paul’s statement is not about the
Roman emperors, blasphemous as they were. It is rather the view that a king ‘bent on
doing evil’ (Daniel 12.27) who sets himself ‘against the holy covenant’ (Daniel
12.28) will ‘profane the temple’ and ‘set up the abomination that makes
desolate’ (Daniel 12.30). He will ‘exalt
himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things
against the God of gods’ (Daniel 12.26). The events of Daniel 12 have to do
with Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd c. BC. Paul turns to Daniel 12 to explain that,
despite the inbreaking of the kingdom through Jesus, the end of this age is
still future. There is not just some
imminent day of the Lord in his thinking: there is still the increase of
lawlessness that precedes Jesus’ return.
Some of the Corinthian believers also held to an erroneous view
about the end times. The error was
similar to the false letter received by the Thessalonians. These Corinthian Christians concluded that,
if the age to come was now present, there was no future to await. Paul says, ‘Already you
have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become
kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!’
(1 Corinthians 4.8). He also corrects their
view that, while Christ has risen from the dead, there is no future
resurrection to take place (1 Corinthians 15.12). This view is understandable, but it is
erroneous. The coming of the age to come
does not mean the end of the present age.
Texts Indicating Christ’s Imminent Return: 2 Peter
In 2 Peter, a different eschatological error is addressed. In this case, certain ‘scoffers’ mock the
idea of God’s judgement and give reign to their sinful desires (3.3). The challenge is phrased partly in regard to
Jesus’ Parousia: ‘They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming?”’
(3.4). Yet the problem in view is not
about well-meaning believers who are in a crisis over Jesus’ not returning as
soon as they had imagined; the problem in view is that in the last days scoffers have come who live according to their
sinful desires because they do not believe God will judge the world. Peter likens them to the scoffers in the days
of Noah. Their scoffing at the belief
that Jesus would return is, more significantly, a rejection of the idea that
God will judge their actions. They are
not believers in a crisis but sinners arguing that they might as well pursue
their own sinful desires.
Conclusion
This essay has taken on two popular arguments in
scholarship from the 20th century: the delay of the Parousia and the
evolution of early Catholicism in the 1st century. The notion that the early Church evolved from
an enthusiastic, charismatic, and apocalyptic form of Christ-followers into an
established, hierarchical, institution, and that it did so due to a crisis of
faith because of the delay (non-appearing) of Christ’s appearing has been
challenged in various ways.
In conclusion, what needs to be pointed out
clearly is that this interpretation of the early Church stands over against a
missionary understanding of the Church.
If, as New Testament authors strive to make clear, Jesus inaugurated a
mission, the focus of the early Church was on the task of that mission, not on
waiting around for Christ to reappear.
To be sure, they prayed ‘Maranatha’ for the return of the Lord. They may have even supposed that they could,
by their holiness and godliness, hasten the coming of the day of God (2 Peter
3.12). But they focussed their thoughts
not on guessing the timing or being disappointed by it not occurring; they
focussed their thoughts on being ready and on getting about the missionary task
inaugurated by Jesus. Paul’s assessment
of this mission claimed great strides in just a few decades, but he held out
that further work needed to be done (Romans 15.18-24).
This has implications for the Church today. We see many churches that have lost concern
for Jesus’ reappearing, or that live without much thought about it. The prayer, ‘Maranatha,’ needs to return to
our lips. Yet this is not to whip
ourselves up to an apocalyptic enthusiasm that may or may not be disappointed;
it is to remind us to be ready for Christ’s sudden appearing in the good timing
of God. Also, the Church today needs to
be reminded that it exists as a people Christ established for mission—evangelical
mission.
Jesus did not come to offer a new theology—a new
philosophy. The philosophies of the
Greeks and Romans did not produce communities, did not produce churches. Individuals took up the teachings of
prominent thinkers and tried to improve their lives accordingly. But Jesus gathered a people. He, like John the
Baptist, founded his mission in the prophetic vision of a restoration of Israel
from captivity in their sins. That mission included a mission to the Gentiles
as well. The restoration of a people was, therefore, both ecclesial (the regathering
of a community belonging to God) and missional (God’s own restoration of this
people from captivity in their sins).
The Church today, likewise, exists not simply to
provide attractive worship experiences or deliver interesting sermons—though these
can be helpful. Nor is Christianity a
philosophy, despite its relevance to all philosophical thought. Christians belong to the Church, and the
Church exists to be a redeemed and holy society, the assembly of God, a people
who witness to the world what it means to be God’s own people. Christians orient their lives not around some
expectation of the imminent return of Christ—only to be dashed when this does
not take place—but around the concern to be ready when Christ returns. A Church not experiencing very much
persecution and dwelling in comfortable times can easily define itself without
much thought of Christ’s return. It can
pray its prayers and never add, ‘Maranatha’,
‘Oh Lord, Come!’ It can throw itself
into doing good works, and it can define ‘mission’ so much in terms of the
Golden Rule to do to others as we would they do unto us, that the missional
urgency of salvation, the Great Commission, gets lost in the fog of missions as
everything the Church does. However,
even as the Church exists to show the world the justice and love of God’s own
people, its missional purpose is to proclaim the glory of God in the saving
power of the cross of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.
[1] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A
Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (Suzeteo Enterprises,
2011; orig. pub. In German, 1906).
[2] This was the sad
conclusion of Jack Sanders, Ethics in the
New Testament (Hymns Ancient and Modern,
2012; orig., 1975).
[3] James
D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the
New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity (Louisville,
KY: Westminster, 1977).
[4] Ibid., p. 369.
[5] He goes so far as to say that ‘the
biggest heresy of all is the insistence that there is only one ecclesiastical
obedience, only one orthodoxy.’ See Ibid., p. 366. This is not, in my view, a statement about
the New Testament evidence but about Dunn’s own presuppositions. It is rightly and effectively criticised by
David Wenham in the ‘Appendix: Unity and Diversity in the New Testament,’ in
George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New
Testament, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993).
[6][6][6]
The idea that Jesus was surprised not to be rescued on the cross stems from
misunderstanding Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 22.1 as he was dying: ‘My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?’ The
Passion Narrative of Jesus in both the Synoptic Gospels and in John is full of Old Testament references to help
readers understand what was taking
place and that it was in fulfillment of
the Scriptures. This is another of
those psalms being fulfilled: the righteous sufferer drinking from the cup of
God’s wrath. These psalms of the
righteous sufferer progress from the cry of dereliction to the assurance of God’s
salvation—the very theology of cross and resurrection that we find in the
Gospels. Psalm 22 goes on to say, e.g., that
those who fear the LORD
should praise Him ‘For he has not despised or
abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from
him, but has heard, when he cried to him’ (v. 24). This psalm contains more that pertains to
Jesus’ crucifixion, not just v. 1: we have to read on, and Jesus’ recitation of
the first verse indicates that he understood the whole psalm to be relevant to
his death on the cross.
[7] C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribners,
1961).
[8]
George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New
Testament, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 9.
[9]
Cf. George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the
NT.