A Portrait of the Early Church

The following is a small snapshot into the life of the early church from Tertullian.

He was an early church father who lived from 160AD to 230AD.  He was a member of the church at Carthage in North Africa and wrote numerous works explaining Christianity to the pagan world around him, defending Christianity from heretical groups that sought to destroy it, and encouraging Christians in their faith.

The words below are taken from his work entitled, "The Apology" - Chapter 39.  In these words Tertullian is defending against false ideas that were being spread about Christianity, and in so doing he compares the Christians to the pagans around them.

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I shall at once go on, then, to exhibit the peculiarities of the Christian society, that, as I have refuted the evil charged against it, I may point out its positive good.

We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation (judgment). 

We assemble to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful.  However it be in that respect, with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we animate our hope, we make our confidence more steadfast; and no less by inculcations of God's precepts we confirm good habits.

In the same place also exhortations are made, rebukes and sacred censures are administered.  For with a great gravity is the work of judging carried on among us, as befits those who feel assured that they are in the sight of God; and you have the most notable example of judgment to come when any one has sinned so grievously as to require his severance from us in prayer, in the congregation and in all sacred intercourse. The tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honor not by purchase, but by established character.

There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God.   Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price (membership fees).

On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund.  For they are not taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God's Church, they become the nurslings of their confession.

But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us.  See, they say, how they [the Christians] love one another, for [they] themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they [the Christians] are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.

And they are wroth with us, too, because we call each other brethren; for no other reason, as I think, than because among themselves names of consanguinity (deep friendships and connections) are assumed in mere pretence of affection (claimed, but unreal affection). 

But we are your brethren as well, by the law of our common mother nature, though you  are hardly men, because [being] brothers so unkind.  At the same time, how much more fittingly they are called and counted brothers who have been led to the knowledge of God as their common Father, who have drunk in one spirit of holiness, who from the same womb of a common ignorance have agonized into the same light of truth!

But on this very account, perhaps, we are regarded as having less claim to be held true brothers, that no tragedy makes a noise about our brotherhood, or that the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another.

All things are common among us but our wives. We give up our community where it is practiced alone by others, who not only take possession of the wives of their friends, but most tolerantly also accommodate their friends with theirs, following the example, I believe, of those wise men of ancient times, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared with their friends the wives whom they had married, it seems for the sake of progeny both to themselves and to others; whether in this acting against their partners' wishes, I am not able to say. Why should they have any care over their chastity, when their husbands so readily bestowed it away?

O noble example of Attic wisdom, of Roman gravity--the philosopher and the censor playing pimps!  

What wonder if that great love of Christians towards one another is desecrated by you!  For you abuse also our humble feasts, on the ground that they are extravagant as well as infamously wicked.  To us, it seems applies the saying of Diogenes: "The people of Megara feast as though they were going to die on the morrow; they build as though they were never to die!"  But one sees more readily the mote in another's eye than the beam in his own.  Why, the very air is soured with the eructations (belching) of so many tribes, and curiae (groups of people), and decuriae (sub groups of people) (through the Roman's riotous feasting).

The Salii (priests of the god Mars) cannot have their feast without going into debt; you must get the accountants to tell you what the tenths of Hercules and the sacrificial banquets cost; the choicest cook is appointed for the Apaturia (an annual Greek festival stressing common relationship), the Dionysia (annual Greek festivals honoring the god Dionysus), the Attic mysteries; the smoke from the banquet of Serapis will call out the firemen. Yet about the modest supper-room of the Christians alone a great ado is made. 

Our feast explains itself by its name.  The Greeks call it agape, i.e., affection. Whatever it costs, our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the good things of the feast we benefit the needy; not as it is with you, do parasites aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious propensities, selling themselves for a belly-feast to all disgraceful treatment,--but as it is with God himself, a peculiar respect is shown to the lowly.

If the object of our feast be good, in the light of that consider its further regulations.  As it is an act of religious service, it permits no vileness or immodesty. The participants, before reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the chaste (to enjoy but not to get drunk).  They say it is enough, as those who remember that even during the night they have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the Lord is one of their auditors (listeners).

After manual ablution (washing after dinner), and the bringing in of lights, each is asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God, either one from the holy Scriptures or one of his own composing,--a proof of the measure of our drinking (the Christian's singing was worshipful and controlled – not the uncontrolled singing of the drunk pagans).

As the feast commenced with prayer, so with prayer it is closed. We go from it, not like troops of mischief-doers, nor bands of vagabonds (wandering hoodlums), nor to break out into licentious acts (unrestrained sexual conduct), but to have as much care of our modesty and chastity as if we had been at a school of virtue rather than a banquet.  

Give the congregation of the Christians its due, and hold it unlawful, if it is like assemblies of the illicit sort: by all means let it be condemned, if any complaint can be validly laid against it, such as lies against secret factions.  But who has ever suffered harm from our assemblies?

We are in our congregations just what we are when separated from each other; we are as a community what we are individuals; we injure nobody, we trouble nobody.

When the upright, when the virtuous meet together, when the pious, when the pure assemble in congregation, you ought not to call that a faction (as Christianity was called), but a curia--[i.e., the court of God.]

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