Early Church was more divided than EVER
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• They Lied about the First 100 Years of Chr...
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As most people know, Jesus lived in the 1st half of the 1st century, had a following of young jewish teens consisting of both male and female. And he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem around 30 AD. Most of his life is shrouded in mystery. He wrote nothing down. And we have 0 contemporary primary sources or any archaeoligical evidence about him or his movement that exist from the period in which he was alive. Everything we know about him is taken from Paul's letters and what the Gospel authors say about him. All we know about his family is that his mother's name was Mary, and that James may of been his brother. Paul tells us nothing about his father, and the earliest Gospel Mark, doesn't even mention who his fathers name is. It is not until Matthew's Gospel, written between 85-95 in which we get any mention of Joseph, being the father of Jesus. Celsus, a greek who was hostile to Christianity, claims that Jesus biological father was a Roman Soldier named Pantera. Celsus cites Jewish sources who he says he got this information from. And the Talmudic fragments from Rabbinic sources also agree with this. According to Origen, Celcus lived during the reign of Hadrian, between 117-138. Even if Celcus wrote later, this would mean that Pantera and Joseph, as possible fathers of Jesus are nearly contemporary ideas to each other in the sources. If Joseph was really Jesus' father's name, you would think Paul's letters and Mark's early gospel would easily relate this. And what reason would jews have for deceptively telling Celsus in the early 2nd century that his father was actually Pantera, a gentile Roman, born out of wedlock? It seems that there would be much more incentive for Paul to hide this than there would be for Celcus to lie about it. Whether Joseph or Pantera is his father, is impossible to know. I will leave that up to you to decide. That is a topic for another video. The main question I want to explore in this video, is what did the earliest Christians believe? And who were they?
Celsus gives us a list of the sects and denominations of the Church that were relevent in his day, in the early 2nd century. He says:
Those of the 'Great Church', recieve as true the accounts of the creation in 6 days, and God resting on the 7th. They agree in regard to the first man, and deduce their genealogies from him. They accept the narratives about the going of the Children of Israel into Egypt, and their flight from it. I know some hold the Creator - the God of the Jews - to be different from, and opposed to, the God from which Jesus came. In truth, their divisions are endless. They have 'carnal' and 'spiritual' men. They call themselves Christians, who wish to live in all things as the Jews. There are among them; Sibyllists, Simonians, Marcellians, Carpocrations, disciples of Mary & Martha, and Marcionites... But notwithstanding all their divisions and abusive controversies, you may hear them ALL saying, "the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world". - Celsus
What I find so interesting about this passage, is how he shows no knowledge of any gnostic heresy at this time. He considers the Simonians, Marcellians, Carpocrations and Marcionites to be among the sects of the Great Church. All of them are considered gnostics and heretics by later Christian writers. And he mentions them being Sibyllists, something I will address later in the video. I think this is very telling of how the early church was divided but yet all were within the church. Wide ranging doctrines that opposed each other, yet all believed in the crucifixion.
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