THE CHURCH PERIODS

Revelation 2:1-7c. 90-200 A.D.E

phesus “fully

purposed”

Ephesus

IV. The Condemnation

Rev. 2:4-7

(Rev 2:4) Nevertheless I have somewhat

against thee, because thou hast left thy first

love.

Ephesus

“fully purposed”

A. The Pioneers of Bible Deviatio

ns

Ephesus

Setting the Stage! Through these man (church fathers), we will see the development of the two lines of Bibles (we see in the Book of Acts ):A biblical lineA non-biblical

Ephesus

Setting the Stage! The (Main) Apostolic Church Fathers1. Clement of Rome (30-100

AD)2. Ignatius (80-115 AD)3. Papias (60-130 AD)4. Epicurus (50-120 AD)5. Basilides (133 AD)6. Polycarp (69-155 AD)7. Justin Martyr (100-165 AD)8. Origen (184-254 AD)

Ephesus

It was through the Apostolic Church Fathers, and those of the Ephesus Church period who followed their leadership, that we see the 1st deviation from the Word of God. They began to use words, and phrases, and concepts that can not be traced biblically

Ephesus

“fully purposed”

A. The Place of

Bible Deviatio

ns

Ephesus

The importance of knowing what was happening in Alexandria, Egypt It will be a key to understanding what will see in the other 6 periods of Church history

The family of manuscripts from which every version of the bible in the last 100 years has been translated comes out of Alexandria, Egypt. 

1. The social life of

Alexander

Ephesus

The City of Alexander was founded in 332 B.C. by an epileptic demoniac named Alexander the Great.

The city was named after him, and after his death, he was preserved in honey, and put on display in a glass coffin in Alexandria.Alfred Edersheim, The life and times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids, Mich: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971)

Ephesus

In the ancient world, the city would have been comparable to our New York or Las Vegas.

The city had paved and lighted streets, running water, and sewers. These modern conveniences were a result of Alexandria’s booming economy..i.e. The city exported 20 million bushels of grain annually.Gerritt P. Judd, A history of Civilization ( New York: Macmillan Co.,1966)

Ephesus

Will Durant says, Of Egypt's 8,500,000 population its capital had now some 800,000 second only to Rome; in industry and commerce it was 1st. “Everyone in Alexandria is busy” says a letter, questionably Hadrian’s; “everyone has a trade; even the lame and blind find work to do.”….

Ephesus

…Here, among a 1000 other articles, glass, paper and linen were produced on a large scale. Alexandria was the clothing and fashion center of the age, setting styles and making the goods..It was also a tourist center, equipped with hotels, guides, and interpreters for visitors coming to see the pyramids and the majestic temples of Thebes. The main avenue, 67 feet wide, was lined for the 3 miles with colonnades, arcades and alluring shops displaying the fanciest products of ancient crafts.Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, vol. 3, Caesar and Christ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944)

Ephesus

Herodas wrote, Alexandria is the house of Aphrodite, and everything is to be founded there wealth, playgrounds, a large army, a serene sky, public displays, philosophers, precious metals, fine young men, a good royal house, an academy of science, exquisite wines, and beautiful women. (Durant, The story of Civilization, 2:593)

Ephesus

Durant adds, The city was notorious for the generosity of its women and the number of its step-daughters of joy; Polybius complained that the finest private home is Alexandria belonged to courtesans. Women of all classes moved freely through the streets, shopped in the stores, and mingled with the men. (Durant, The Story of Civilization, 2:593)

Ephesus

He continues, They made a volatile and inflammable mixture, quarrelsome and disorderly, intellectually cleaver and irreverently witty, shameless in speech, skeptical and superstitious, loose in morals and gay in mood, fanatically fond of the theater, music, and public games. Dio Chrysostom describes life there as “a continuous revel..of dancers, whistlers, and murderers.” The canals were alive with merrymakers in gondolas at night on their 5 mile sail to the amusement suburb of Canopus. There were musical contests that rivaled the horse races in raising excitement. (Durant, The Story of Civilization, 3:500)

Ephesus

Alexandria was also the educational, medical, and scientific center of the world, and became famous for it’s great library, with over 700,000 papyrus rolls.Because of that, intellectualism became a high priority in Alexandria.

“Durant wrote, Books had to meet the tastes of the learned and critical audiences, sophisticated by science and history.” (Durant, The Story of Civilization, 2:608)

Ephesus

H.G. Wells wrote,Wisdom passed away from Alexandria and left pedantry behind. For the use of books and substituted the worship of books. Very speedily the learned became a specialized queer class with unpleasant characteristics of its own..a new type of human being, shy, eccentric, unpractical, incapable of essentials, strangely fierce upon trivialities of literary detail, as bitterly jealous of the colleague within as of the unlearned without- the Scholarly Man.H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, rev.(Garden city, N.Y. Garden City Books, 1961)

2. The religious

life of Alexand

er

PHILO Philo lived from 20 B.C. to 50 A.D. He is a Jew He’s called the Rabbi of the “Great Synagogue” in Alexander He Establishes a theological school in Alexander

What does God Say about Egypt?

Warning!

(Gen 49:29) And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of

Ephron the Hittite,(Exo 13:19) And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.

(Deu 17:16) But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the

people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses:

forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no

more that way.Exodus 15- God calls Israel out of there.Matt 2:15– God calls is son out of Egypt.Acts – Records no missionary activity there.

(Deu 4:20) But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth

out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are

this day.

Jer. 42-44

Ephesus

A Jew like Philo had no business in a place like Egypt. He wasn’t alone “A 2nd century census reveals that over 40% of the 800,000 people in the city were Jews (Durant, The Story of Civilization,3:499-500) Is this the place you think that God would preserve his “best and most reliable manuscripts”Philo’s purpose in the school was to take Old Testament Judaism, and blend it together with Greek philosophy.

Philo

Ephesus

Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenized Jew, is a figure that spans two cultures, the Greek and the Hebrew. When Hebrew mythical thought met Greek philosophical thought in the first century B.C.E. it was only natural that someone would try to develop speculative and philosophical justification for Judaism in terms of Greek philosophy. Thus Philo produced a synthesis of both traditions developing concepts for future Hellenistic interpretation of messianic Hebrew thought, especially by Clement of Alexandria, Christian Apologists like Athenagoras, Theophilus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and by Origen. He may have influenced Paul, his contemporary, and perhaps the authors of the Gospel of John (C. H. Dodd) and the Epistle to the Hebrews (R. Williamson and H. W. Attridge). (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Ephesus

Newman writes He was of the opinion that the Greeks had derived from the Jewish Scriptures all that was wise, true, and lofty in their thinking. It was his task, as it had been the task of others of his type, to show the complete harmony of the Divine revelation of the Old Testament with all that is best in Greek philosophy.. The fact is that his modes of thought and views of life were fundamentally those of the Greek philosophy (a composite of Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism),…..

Ephesus

…and he undertook to show by applying the allegorical system of interpretation to the Scriptures that these were not as they seemed to be, simply, unsophisticated narratives of the dealings of God with His people, but that underneath the anthropomorphic and anthropopathic representations of God and the uncouth representations of the sins and follies of the heroes and worthies of Hebrew history, everything that was wise and exalted in Greek philosophy lay concealed. Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History, vol.1 (Judson Press, 1933)

Ephesus

Edersheim adds, Everything became symbolical in his hands, if it suited his purpose: numbers (in a very arbitrary manner), beast, birds, fowls, creeping things, plants, stones, elements, susbstances, conditions, even sex-and so a term or an expression might even have several and contradictory meanings, from which the interpreter was at liberty to choose. (Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,43)

3. The philosoph

ical life of

Alexander

Philosophy Comes from to Greek words: Phileo = Love Sophia = Wisdom

Literally it means the “Love of Wisdom”

(1Co 2:5-7) That your faith should not stand in the

wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the

wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that

come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden

wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our

glory:

Philosophy Essentially,

philosophy is man’s search for some

unifying principle to make sense out of the universe. But without

God. (And if he is mentioned, he is an idea or concept.)

What does God Say about

philosophy?

Warning!

(Col 2:7-8) Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware

lest any man spoil you through philosophy and

vain deceit, (delusion) after the tradition of men, after

the rudiments (principles) of the world, and not after

Christ.