Early Christianity, Martyrdom, And The Importance Of Christian Saints

The Life and Teachings of Jesus and the 12 Apostles

Discuss about the Life of Earliest Christian Communities.

The Apostles of Jesus passed down his teachings and life through different Gospels. These Gospels and different other contemporary accounts come to together to form the Bible which is the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  The 12 Apostles were the direct disciple of Jesus who witnessed his life and learnt the words of wisdom directly from him. They kept direct accounts of these teachings and events Chadwick, Henry.. Most of the events narrated in the different gospels are similar, however there are certain very less amount of differences that has been defended in various ways by different scholars.

The Apostles had preached the religion in different regions of the world. The Jews were the primary audience and there were the gentiles or the non-Jewish. The jewish people already were a part of the religion as they were already the followers of the Old Testament. Jesus had ordered that the Old Testament has to be followed word by word whereas the New Testament also has to be followed.

The Didache is the book which is also known as “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”. The book is an “early Christian treatise”. The book mainly describes the teaching of the Apostles and what they had said about Jesus and his different activities. Different kinds of rituals, practices and prayers are also included in the book. There are prayers and all kinds of practices about Christianity as taught by Jesus and as preached by the Apostles themselves. The institution of Church was in the phase of development, and the Apostles has been playing an important role often as “chief priests”. The treatise also revealed how the Jewish Christians were adopting to the new Christianity.  The book is known to be included in the group of Christian writings of second generation (Varner 2005).

Irenaeus was a preacher and saint from Greece who had been a disciple of Saint Polycarp. Polycarp again was a disciple of John the Apostle. Therefore Irenaeus had received the knowledge from the disciplic succession starting from Jesus himself. The primary source of this paper would be his writings and the records of the Didache (Kraft and Feedman 1992).

Saint Polycarp was however killed and he died a death of martyr. Martyr was someone who died in order to preach the message of Jesus. It is said that Saint Polycarp was burned at the stake, however as the fire did not touch him he was then stabbed. These accounts had been recorded by Irenaeus himself. So taking cue from this writing it can be known what the position of early Christianity about Martyrdom was.

The Role of the Jews and Gentiles in Early Christianity

As it is very widely known that Jesus himself was crucified and he then had resurrected as he was the Son of God according to the scriptures. Similar was the fate with many of the preachers who had been “martyred” and killed by various means because of preaching the religion (Jefford 1989). The Romans who were not followers of Christianity had been threatened by the rise of the religion. Hence they have been following the practice of subduing the Christians in these ways.

As proof about this, is the tale of principal Christian saint, Stephen, stated in Acts 6:8– 7:53. In the wake of being blessed as 1 of the principal elders in that congregation, Stephen quickly started performing relentless works for the general population. As normally the situation when the “Holy Spirit” is powerfully active and the “gospel” is going forward, the powers of dimness emerge to prevent crafted by the holy “kingdom”. For this situation, a few persons came to question what Stephen had been stating, yet Stephen, loaded with the “Holy Spirit”, could disprove their reactions. As opposed to acknowledge what Stephen was instructing, these people conveyed false and artificial charges about him to the “Jewish” pioneers (Acts 6:11-14). The vast majority of Acts 7 comprises of Stephen’s discourse to these Jewish pioneers in which he basically condensed the historical backdrop of Israel to their dismissal of their “Messiah” (Milavec 2003).

Toward the finish of the discourse, Stephen expresses these words, which determine his destiny: “You adamant individuals, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you generally oppose the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not oppress? Furthermore, they executed the individuals who reported in advance the happening to the Righteous One, whom you have now double-crossed and killed, you who got the law as conveyed by blessed messengers and did not keep it” (Acts 7:51-53).

Presently, there was nothing untrue in Stephen’s statements. The Jewish pioneers were surely in charge of handing over Jesus of Nazareth over to the Romans for execution. In spite of Jesus’ supernatural occurrences and legitimate educating, the rigidity of the Jewish pioneers’ hearts shielded them from seeing the truth about Jesus. The Jewish pioneers, after hearing Stephen’s statements, were irritated and quickly orchestrated Stephen’s killing by “stoning” (v. 58). Stephen was, along these lines, the primary Christian saint recorded in the Holy Scripture.

The Didache and Early Christian Practices

The Bible places a great importance on steadfast devotees who die for their “witness”. Stephen was allowed an eminent “vision of paradise” before he was martyred, and in this particular vision, he saw Jesus remaining at the Holy hand of the Father (Acts 7:56) as if sitting tight for Stephen in a disposition of respect for Stephen’s steadfast administration. As additional proof that saints are viewed as valuable in “God’s sight”, the witness Apostle John found in his “vision of the thousand years” those who were martyred for confidence on ruling with Christ, and this for a period of thousand years (Revelation 20:4). The messenger Peter, who composed the most about affliction and languishing over one’s confidence, stated, “On the off chance that you are offended on account of the name of Christ, you are honored, for the Spirit of grandness and of God lays on you… In any case, on the off chance that you endure as a Christian, don’t be embarrassed, however commend God that you bear that name” (1 Peter 4:14, 16). There is additionally the expression of our Lord who articulated a gift upon the individuals who are abused for His name: “Favored are you when individuals affront you, mistreat you and erroneously say a wide range of underhandedness against you as a result of me” (Matthew 5:11).

Irenaeus’ accentuation on the solidarity of the supreme God is reflected and showed in his comparing accentuation on the solidarity of the history of salvation history. Irenaeus more than once demands that God started the world and has been managing it as far back as this inventive demonstration; everything all that has occured is a piece of his arrangement for mankind. The substance of this arrangement is a procedure of development, Irenaeus trusts that mankind was made youthful, and God planned his animals to set aside a long opportunity to develop into or expect the heavenly resemblance (Young et al. 2004). The saint has advocated for all ways in which God’s name can be propagated and the glories of Jesus.

Be that as it may, the historical backdrop of Christian saints has not ended with Stephen’s passing. Amid the main century after Jesus’ demise about the greater part of his pupils languished affliction over His purpose. James the “child of Zebedee” was executed in roughly 44 A.D. Philip had been killed in the year 54 A.D. Saint Matthew was slaughtered with a “halberd”, a hatchet like killing weapon, in the year 60 A.D. James, the person who is believed to be the sibling of Jesus, was pounded the life out of, Matthias was guillotined, Andrew was executed, Mark was shredded, and Peter was killed. Jude, Bartholomew, and Thomas were likewise executed and martyred. Paul endured affliction in the city of Rome in the place where he was decapitated (Cross and Livingstone 2005). Other early witnesses Luke, Barnabas, Timothy, and Simon were likewise slaughtered for Christ.

The historical backdrop of the Christian saints does not conclude with the demise of the devotees. Thousands of devotees readily gave up their lives under the Roman oppression by the sovereigns “Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Maximus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian”. The Roman mistreatment endured well into the fourth century A.D. also, did not end until the point when Emperor Constantine pronounced Christianity the only and official religion during his realm. Amid a similar era, in Persia, the place where the “Gospel”had rapidly spread, numerous others were additionally martyred for their confidence.

Therefore it can be implied that the early Christianity had been that of a selfless sacrifice of plenty of followers of Jesus, whether his own apostles or their disciples. The martyrs had given up their life in defending and preaching Christianity.

The saint’s peaceful reaction to trial and torment was never likened with lack of involvement or renunciation. For the beginning and early church, the demonstration of suffering was a profound skirmish of epic extent against the forces of damnation itself. Justin, for instance, composed a sorry to Emperor “Antoninus Pius” alleging that his discipline of Christians without basic examination was “by the prompting of evil presences.” Notwithstanding their ethical resistance to gladiatorial and agile challenges, Christians openly appropriated the dialect of the recreations to depict their otherworldly sessions with malicious. Eusebius composed unreservedly of “the discipline and much—tried fortitude of the athletes of religion, the trophies won from demons, the victories placed upon all their heads.”

References:

Chadwick, Henry. “The Early Church, rev. ed.” London, England: Clays, St. Ives (1993).

Cross, F.L. and Livingstone, E.A. eds.,. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. Oxford University Press, USA. (2005)

Jefford, Clayton N. The sayings of Jesus in the teaching of the twelve apostles. Vol. 11. Brill, (1989).

Kraft, Robert A., and D. N. Freedman. “Didache.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary 2 (1992): 197.

Milavec, Aaron. The Didache: faith, hope, & life of the earliest Christian communities, 50-70 CE. Paulist Press, 2003.

Varner, William. “The Didache’s Use of the Old and New Testaments.” The Master’s Seminary Journal 16, no. 1 (2005): 127-151.

Young, Frances, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth, eds. The Cambridge history of early Christian literature. Cambridge University Press, 2004.