Church Unity

I believe the Christian Church is more unified today than it has ever been.

The Ancient Church was not unified. (Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something.) Ancient Church History was just as messy as current events on CNN, if not messier. The Early Church Fathers weren't Anabaptist, they weren't Federal-Vision-Presbyterian, and they weren't Council-of-Trent-Roman-Catholic. They were all of the above! They got together and held councils and screamed at each other. Not even Ecumenical Councils could reconcile them. After the 1st Council of Nicea, for example, there were still plenty of Arian Bishops and Emperors. Simply put, if you search for a pure "strand" of unity throughout the ages, you'll never find it.

I have to give the Ancient Church some credit, though. They did have a certain kind of unity. Most compelling is their ecclesiastical structure: they had the episcopacy, or the pseudo-episcopacy, or whatever you want to call it. No competing denominations. When modern Christians read about it, we ooh and ahh. "So unified!" we say, "if only we could attain that kind of agreement today!" And that's not all. Their liturgies were relatively uniform. They argued over issues like the dating of Easter, or standing while praying, and came to a general consensus. The Ancient Church possessed a primal, simple sort of unity.

But under that apparent unity lurked a demon. Christians sued each other. Bishops contended for the same position...with casualties! Christians murdered each other. Donatists in the 4th century conquered and stole church buildings. (But don't worry, the Catholics usually stole them back.) And this isn't limited to the Ancient Church; we all know about the hostilities between Protestants and Catholics, or between Protestants and Anabaptists. Historically, our deadliest enemies have been other Christians. Philip Schaff says, "More Christian blood has been shed by Christians than by heathens and Mohommedans."

Today I believe this is no longer the case. Perhaps I'm misinformed (or uninformed), but it seems Christians don't commonly murder each other anymore. When I meet a Catholic in the street, I don't feel compelled to duel him to the death like the Irish used to. The Modern Christian Church is more... well... Christian. Yes, we have more denominations than ever, and more variant theological opinions. We have scandals and kerfuffles, like the Federal Vision Fiasco among conservative Presbyterians here in America. But no PCA pastors are plotting to assassinate Doug Wilson for it. When push comes to shove, we love each other.

That is why the Christian Church today is more unified than it's ever been. We live at peace with one another, or at least, more peacefully than we used to. That's a broad generalization, I know, and I can't really defend it perfectly. Certainly, during times of persecution the church has been unified. Christians generally forget about their hatred and superficial differences when they're hunted by a common enemy. But overall, I think we give the modern global church far too little credit. There's more to unity than creeds and liturgies.

Jerome, Unbathed Super-Scholar

Commonplaces from Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, pp. 967-88 (and 205-14). Concerning Saint Jerome:

"He was one of those intellectual natures, to which reading and studying are as indispensable as daily bread."

"He...[had] contempt of the natural ordinances of God, especially of marriage; and, completely reversing sound principles, he advocated even ascetic filth as an external mark of inward purity."

"Of marriage he had a very low conception, regarding it merely as a necessary evil for the increase of virgins."

"His principle in studying was, in his own words: 'To read the ancients, to test everything, to hold fast the good, and never depart from the catholic faith.'" ('Meum propositum est, antiquos legere, probare singula, retinere quae bona sunt, et a fide catholica numquam recedere')

"[Jerome] inspired several of his admiring female pupils, like St. Paula and her daughter Eustochium, with enthusiasm for the study of the sacred language of the old covenant, and brought them on so far that they could sing with him the Hebrew Psalms in praise of the Lord."

"He lamented the injurious influence of [Hebrew] studies on his style, since 'the rattling sound of the Hebrew soiled all the elegance and beauty of Latin speech.'"

"But his exegetical labours are not uniformly carried out; many parts are very indifferent, others thrown off with unconscionable carelessness in reliance on his genius and his reading, or dictated to an amanuensis as they came into his head.(1)" FOOTNOTE: He frequently excuses this 'dictare quodcunque in buccam venerit,' by his want of time and the weakness of his eyes...At the close of the brief Preface to the second book of his Commentary on the Ep. to the Ephesians...he says that he often managed to write as many as a thousand lines in one day. (!!!)

Easter and Anti-Semitism

I'm not Quartodecimian. I see no reason to be. Nevertheless, I find the following interesting:

'The feast of the resurrection was thenceforth required to be celebrated everywhere on a Sunday, and never on the day of the Jewish passover, but always after the fourteenth of Nisan, on the Sunday after the first vernal full moon. The leading motive for this regulation was opposition to Judaism, which had dishonored the passover by the crucifixion of the Lord.” We would,” says the circular letter of Constantine in reference to the council of Nice, “we would have nothing in common with that most hostile people, the Jews; for we have received from the Redeemer another way of honoring God, and harmoniously adopting this method, we would withdraw ourselves from the evil fellowship of the Jews. For what they pompously assert, is really utterly absurd: that we cannot keep this feast at all without their instruction .... It is our duty to have nothing in common with the murderers of our Lord.” This bitter tone against Judaism runs through the whole letter.'
(Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Vol. III, pg 405)