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David Pawson on Church History Part 2 - AD400 to AD1400

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Thoughtful Thoughts 14.3.25 by John Dunning; 

The Christian Story Part 2;- The church grew but faced persecution…

1). St Paul in Rome…

The book of Acts tells us that Paul was taken as a prisoner to Rome, and we learn that that resulted in converts even in the royal household…

Paul was a prisoner in Rome twice. The first time his lawyer, Theophilus, succeeded in gaining his release, and Paul continued his evangelistic missions. As Paul was a Roman citizen, he was allowed into Rome as he had a legal right to be tried by the emperor. His second imprisonment led to being imprisoned and chained to soldiers 24/7, as Roman soldiers worked shifts, and there were four shifts per day. All this means that Paul had a captive audience and we know he preached wherever and whenever he could.

After Nero became emperor, he then did invite Jews back into Rome for commercial reasons, but he  created an even worse persecution for disciples of Jesus. As Paul was a citizen he was allowed to be beheaded in about 67AD-68AD, instead of being crucified or burned alive in Nero’s garden. Paul’s imprisonment with being chained to soldiers for his second term, explains why there were believing soldiers in the palace. 

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2). From Rome to its empire…

Soldiers from Rome were taking Christianity to England as well as everywhere else, between the 1st and 5th centuries, in the same way that missionaries took Christianity throughout the British empire, a thousand years later. Archaeologists have found the personal crosses of the soldiers, buried where the Roman soldiers' barracks had been in England from the first century AD onwards, which was hundreds of years before Augustine set foot on English soil. That proved it was not Augustine who brought the gospel to England, because Roman soldiers were becoming Christians in Rome and then being sent overseas, so the church mushroomed in size wherever they were sent.

After Constantine became a Christian, and while the Romans were still in Britain, there was a kind of honeymoon period for the church in England. No-one argued with Rome! Constantine made Sunday a day of worship for Christians, so the church was growing more rapidly than it did in Paul’s time, (which we know from Acts 9:11 & 11:24). Romans left England in 410AD as a result of being recalled to defend an increasingly corrupt Rome that had come under siege from a new power… and Rome finally fell in 476 AD.

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3). Christians in Britain.

All this explains why there was such an active church in England hundreds of years before the Pope sent Augustine to England in 597AD. Augustine tried to persuade the English King to command English church leaders to submit to the Pope, which was rejected. 

The fact that there were English church leaders over English churches before Augustine arrived, shows that the church was already well established, well before Augustine. So Augustine was not responsible for bringing Christianity to England (as claimed by Popes), but only Catholicism. 

This statue below is of the Christian King of southern England, AEthelberht.

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4). The Pope and Augustine…

a). In 595 AD, Pope ‘Gregory The Great’ wanted to become the replacement to the Roman emperors, covering the land area of the Roman Empire. The Pope chose Augustine to go to England to help secure England, which was refused. 

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b). When Augustine did eventually arrive in England in 597 AD on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, and then on to Canterbury, it was because that part of England was controlled by King Æthelberht who was a Christian king, and married Bertha, the daughter of Charibert 1st, the King of Paris;- (which was not yet the country of ‘France’ as we know it.)

From the Pope’s point of view, the choice of location was because he knew the English King was a Christian, and because of the increasing number of Christians in the southeast of England. It was much easier to take advantage of this king as he was known for his kindness. Augustine asked the King to bring all the English churches under the pope, which was refused by the church leaders, but the King gave Augustine a huge property with space enough for the 40 priests he brought with him, and the pope made Augustine, his Archbishop of Canterbury.

Then the property he was given by the King, Augustine used to train more priests, which competed with the Christian communities already existing. Augustine wrote to the Pope saying that he had not managed to bring the churches under his authority because the English were pagans who worshiped the sun on December 25th. In reply, the pope told Augustine to join in the pagan festival by holding a “mass” on December 25th, which became known as “Christ Mass”; (“Christmas”)

The Catholic empire was not powerful enough in 576 to mount an invasion as the Romans had done to take England by force, but hundreds of years later, that was to change.

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5). 1066 & all that

The Pope saw an opportunity to support an invasion of England which happened in 1066, 

and gave his flag to William the Conqueror to conquer Britain in his name. 

William’s army not only won the battle of Hastings, but then it massacred most of the civilians in the north in what became known in history as the “Harrying of the North”. The result of all this is that everyone was forced to come under the Pope.

Catholic bishops appointed Catholic priests, which was made to sound all very theological by calling their theology “Apostolic Succession”. It’s been around for so long that established churches accept the tradition as if it were in the New Testament. Anyway, William returned to Normandy in 1086, which he was still ruler of, and fought a French king to gain even more land, but died in 1087. As he had given England to his son Robert, England continued to be subjugated in their own land. In spite of the Catholic church using force to subjugate people, Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is not of this world…

I have had to cut this study in half, due to its length, so come back next time…

William the conqueror holds the Pope’s banner when waging war.

(Part of the Bayeux Tapestry, in France).

EPILOGUE;-

It has been said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. 

True disciples of Jesus are in the world but not of this world.

Obviously Judas Iscariot was not included when Jesus prayed to His Father; (John 17:14).

“...I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified”. 

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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