Chapter 6: Expansion in the Premodern Era, A.D. 30

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Chapter 6 Expansion in the Premodern Era, A.D.
301500

• The History of Mission

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Chapter Outline

• Introduction
• Mission before Christendom (A.D. 30313)
• Mission and Christendom (A.D. 3131500)
• Mission beyond Christendom (A.D. 331500)

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Mission before Christendom (A.D. 30313)

• You Will Be My Witnesses
• Into All the World
• Troublemakers Everywhere

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You Will Be My Witnesses

• Ordinary Christians composed the rank and file of
  witnesses.
• Christians used every opportunity to share the
  good news.
• Since they met in homes for worship, evangelism
  took place in part through these cell groups.
• Other practices included open-air evangelism,
  visiting the sick, and caring for the needy.
• Christians saw how the power of the Holy Spirit
  and the preaching of the gospel brought persons
  to faith. They also recognized the absolute
  necessity of prayer.

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Into All the World

• By the year 180, Christians could be found in all
  the provinces of the empire.
• Eusebius Pamphilus, a later church historian,
  said that
• Mark first preached the gospel in Alexandria
• John went to Ephesus and
• Thomas and Andrew ventured east of the
  Mesopotamian river valley (Eusebius Pamphilus
  1955, 65, 82).
• Other influential witnesses included Pantaenus,
  who reportedly visited India (Mundadan 1989,
  117).

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Troublemakers Everywhere

• Without legal recognition, Christians faced the
  danger of meeting together for worship without
  public sanction.
• Their close fellowship often sparked
  misunderstanding among neighbors who spread
  malicious rumors about them, such as
• sexual immorality,
• cannibalism, and even
• atheism, since people could not see their god
  (Bush 1983, 161).

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Troublemakers Everywhere (cont.)

• Their actions also appeared hostile to
  traditional values.
• Christians shunned public office because they
  refused to pledge allegiance to the emperor by
  throwing incense on an altar in honor of his
  divinity.
• Many, but not all, Christians were pacifists,
  often choosing to avoid military service because
  of the possiblity of having to kill.
• Not surprisingly, believers suffered during
  persecutions and sometimes died from torture or
  were torn to death by animals in coliseums, the
  sports arenas of the time.

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Troublemakers Everywhere (cont.)

• Tertullian contended that the blood of the
  martyrs was the seed of the church, a comforting
  hope and frequently true, but one not always
  confirmed by history.

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Mission and Christendom (A.D. 3131500)

• By the year 1500 the entire region from Europe to
  Russia had been Christianized. Though divided
  politically, the various territorial states had
  affirmed the Christian faith, boasted Christian
  rulers, and promoted Christian culture. Yet the
  outward victory of Christianity masked the
  persistent endurance of non-Christian practices
  that remained hidden from public view.

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Mission and Christendom

• The Plow of Apostolic Preaching
• The Sword and the Cross
• Monks, Nuns, and Friars
• The Heresy of the Three Languages
• Applying the Faith

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The Plow of Apostolic Preaching

• Missionaries were sent by the church
• Augustine of Canterbury in Britain
• Cyril and Methodius in Moravia
• Captured slaves sowed the gospel seed
• Nino in Georgia (Caucasus)
• Patrick in Ireland
• Businessmen shared their faith
• Frumentius and Aedesius in Ethiopia
• Some returned from exile to homelands
• Gregory the Illuminator in Armenia

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The Sword and the Cross

• There were many political conversions
• Clotildas marriage to Clovis of the Franks
• Vladimir in Kiev
• Forced political conversions often produced
  merely verbal pledges to the faith.
• East/West tensions culminated in 1054 the
  resulting split remains today.

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Monks, Nuns, and Friars

• The work of monks and nuns proved to be
  exceptionally important in evangelization
• Basil the Great
• Benedict of Nursia
• Monasteries or abbeys became training centers for
  missionaries
• Columba in Iona
• Hilda the abbess of Whitby in England
• Some established monasteries in Europe as posts
  for outreach
• Willibrord among the Frisians
• Ansgar in Denmark and Sweden

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Monks, Nuns, and Friars (cont.)

• The friars (brothers) in the thirteenth century
  brought new interest in traveling and preaching.
  They included the followers of
• Francis of Assisi, and
• Dominic.
• Islam spreads
• The church eventually responded through the
  carnage of the crusades.
• The legacy of bitter antagonism remains today.

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Irish/ Celtic and British Missions to Europe,
Sixth to Eighth Centuries
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The Heresy of the Three Languages

• Some church missionaries considered only three
  languages to be suitable for sacred purposes
  Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
• Early translation work
• Ulfilas (Gothic)
• Cyril and Methodius (Slavonic)
• Stephen of Perm (Komi)

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Orthodox Missions, Ninth to Eleventh Centuries
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Applying the Faith

• Early Contextualization
• Use of icons
• Converting temples into churches
• Substituting Christian holidays for pagan ones

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Mission beyond Christendom

• Thomas journeyed eastward, arriving on the
  Malabar coast of south India in A.D. 50.
• The sixth-century Alexandrian merchant Cosmas the
  Indian Navigator discovered there were Christians
  in Sri Lanka.
• Upon his return to Italy in 1295, Marco Polo, who
  had traveled to the court of the Mongol ruler
  Kublai Khan, described breathtaking adventures
  and unexpected encounters with Christians in
  far-off China.

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Mission beyond Christendom (A.D. 331500)

• Syrian Christianity Divides
• Mission to Asia

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Syrian Christianity Divides

• Schisms with Greek and Latin Church over the
  human and divine natures of Christ
• Two major forms of Syrian Christianity developed
• Monophysitism the incarnate Christ had a single
  (divine) nature
• Nestorianism Christ had two persons (human and
  divine)

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Mission to Asia

• Syrian missionaries
• Monks trained in Mesopotamia and Persia
• Physicians
• Merchants who traveled widely along the Silk Road
• Examples
• John of Resh-aina and Thomas the Tanner (Turkey)
• Bishop Alopen (China)
• Roman Catholic missionaries
• John of Montecorvino (China)
• Islamic expansion in the Middle East and North
  Africa

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Nestorian Missions in Asia