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Course 12 · Lesson 1.2

Church order, worship and martyrdom in the second century

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 12 outline

Module 1: The Apostolic Fathers and the Early Apologists

  1. Who the Apostolic Fathers were: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and the Didache
  2. Church order, worship and martyrdom in the second century
  3. Why Christians wrote apologies: charges, persecution and public defense
  4. Justin Martyr, philosophy and the Logos

Module 2: Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen

  1. Irenaeus against the Gnostics: the rule of faith and apostolic succession
  2. Tertullian and the beginnings of Latin theology
  3. Origen: biblical scholarship, allegory and speculation
  4. Heresy and orthodoxy: the scholarly debate about early diversity

Module 3: Creeds and Councils: Nicaea to Chalcedon

  1. From baptismal confession to creed
  2. Arius, the Council of Nicaea (325) and Athanasius
  3. The Cappadocian Fathers and the Council of Constantinople (381)
  4. Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): one Christ, two natures
  5. The seven councils and how the churches receive them

Module 4: Augustine, Chrysostom and the Desert

  1. Augustine: life, conversion and the Confessions
  2. Augustine on grace, the Pelagian controversy and the City of God
  3. John Chrysostom: preacher, pastor and critic of wealth
  4. The Desert Fathers and Mothers: Anthony, Macarius and Amma Syncletica

Module 5: The Medieval Church and Scholasticism

  1. The medieval setting: monasteries, cathedral schools and universities
  2. Anselm and the method of scholasticism
  3. Thomas Aquinas: life and the structure of the Summa Theologiae
  4. Aquinas on faith, reason, nature and grace
  5. East and West: the growing divide and the schism of 1054

Module 6: The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation

  1. Luther and the question of justification
  2. Zwingli, Calvin and the Reformed tradition
  3. The Radical Reformation and the English Reformation
  4. The Council of Trent and Catholic reform
  5. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings of the Reformation

Module 7: Modern Theology and Tracing a Doctrine

  1. The Enlightenment and its challenges to inherited doctrine
  2. Schleiermacher, liberal theology and Karl Barth
  3. Vatican II, Orthodox renewal and the evangelical and Pentecostal movements
  4. How to trace a doctrine: development, change and corruption

All courses

Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 1.2

What you will learn

  • Describe how a typical Christian community was led and how it worshipped in the second century.
  • Explain what the word martyr means and how Christians understood martyrdom.
  • Summarize how Roman officials treated Christians, using Pliny and Trajan as an example.
  • Recognize what the sources show clearly and what they leave uncertain.

The big idea

In the second century, Christian churches were small, mostly urban communities that met regularly for readings, prayer, a shared meal of bread and wine, and mutual support. They were led by bishops, presbyters and deacons, though the exact pattern varied by place. They were also legally vulnerable. Christians could be put to death, not usually through continuous empire-wide campaigns, but through local accusations and the decisions of governors. Martyrdom, which means witness, became a central part of how Christians understood faithfulness.

Key terms

Martyr
From the Greek word for witness. A Christian who is put to death for refusing to renounce the faith. Early Christians treated such a death as the supreme form of witness to Christ.
Eucharist
From the Greek word for thanksgiving. The Christian meal of bread and wine, also called the Lord’s Supper or communion, celebrated as a memorial and as a participation in Christ.
Deacon
From the Greek word for servant. An assistant to the bishop who helped with worship and with care of the poor.
Lord’s Day
Sunday, the day of the resurrection, on which Christians gathered for worship.
Governor (proconsul or legate)
A Roman official who ruled a province and acted as its judge. Governors decided what to do when Christians were brought before them.
Recant
To publicly take back a belief. In persecution, a Christian was often asked to recant by offering incense to the emperor or cursing Christ.
Acts of the martyrs
Early accounts of the trials and deaths of Christian martyrs, some based on court records and others written later. Historians treat them with care, weighing each separately.

Background

The churches of the second century were not buildings with steeples. They were groups of people, often meeting in private houses, in cities around the Mediterranean. They had no legal standing as a recognized religion, though the Roman Empire usually tolerated many local cults. Christians were unusual because they refused to take part in the worship of the gods or the emperor, and because they met in secret enough to arouse suspicion. Neighbors accused them of atheism, because they denied the gods, and of rumored crimes at their meals.

Within the churches, leadership was local and personal. Ignatius, writing in the early second century, describes a bishop with a council of presbyters and a body of deacons. The Didache and other texts show other patterns, including travelling teachers and prophets. By the end of the century, the single bishop with presbyters and deacons was widespread, though historians continue to debate how quickly it spread and how it developed. Catholic and Orthodox Christians usually see it as a faithful growth of apostolic office, and many Protestants see it as a human development that became normal.

Persecution was real but uneven. For most of the second century, there was no empire-wide order to hunt Christians down. Instead, a Christian could be reported by a neighbor, tried by a governor, and executed if he or she would not recant. Later, in the third century, emperors such as Decius ordered sacrifices throughout the empire. That is a different stage and belongs to a later lesson.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What worship looked like

Justin Martyr, writing in Rome in the middle of the second century, gives a short description of Sunday worship. People gathered from town and country. The writings of the apostles or the prophets were read for as long as time allowed. The leader then spoke to urge the people to follow what they had heard. They stood and prayed. Bread and wine mixed with water were brought, and the leader offered prayers and thanksgivings. The people answered Amen, and deacons carried the bread and wine to those present and to those absent. A collection was made for orphans, widows, the sick, prisoners and strangers.

This pattern, with readings, a sermon, prayers, the Eucharist and care for the poor, is recognizable in many churches today. It is also remarkably plain. There was no creed to recite yet, and no elaborate ceremony. The surviving evidence also shows regional variety, so Justin’s account is one important witness and not a description of every church.

Step 2: Leaders and offices

The bishop led worship and teaching, and he was responsible for the community’s unity and its care for the poor. Presbyters advised him and sometimes presided. Deacons assisted at worship and carried out acts of charity. Ignatius says that nothing should be done in the church without the bishop. First Clement stresses that leaders were appointed in an orderly way. The two writers do not use exactly the same vocabulary, which is one reason the history of early church office is debated.

Alongside these offices were people recognized for their gifts, such as teachers and, in some places, prophets. Over time, the role of the official leaders grew, and the role of travelling prophets declined. Why this happened is another debated question.

Step 3: A Roman governor writes to the emperor

Around the year 112, Pliny the Younger, governor of the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor, wrote to the emperor Trajan asking how to deal with Christians. He had questioned some who were accused. He reported that they met on a fixed day before dawn, sang a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves by oath to avoid theft, adultery and breaking faith. Those who refused to offer incense to the emperor’s image and to curse Christ, he had executed.

Trajan replied that Christians were not to be sought out, but that anyone properly accused and unwilling to recant was to be punished. This exchange is one of the clearest outside views of Christians in the early second century, and it shows the legal position: not hunted, but not safe.

Step 4: Martyrdom and what it meant

The Greek word martys means witness. Christians used it first for anyone who testified to Christ, and then increasingly for those who died for that testimony. The Martyrdom of Polycarp, an early account of the death of the bishop of Smyrna, tells how an old man was urged to swear by the emperor and curse Christ, and refused. Ignatius, on his way to Rome, wrote that he wanted to be found faithful. Another famous case is the persecution at Lyons in Gaul in the year 177, described in a letter preserved by the later historian Eusebius.

Christians honored martyrs, remembered the day of their death and later celebrated the Eucharist at their graves. The accounts shaped how the church understood courage, but they also raised hard questions. Should a Christian seek martyrdom, or only accept it when it came? Most church leaders said that seeking it was wrong, though some individuals were more eager. The question grew sharper in later persecutions.

  1. What do Justin’s description of worship and your own experience of church have in common?
  2. Why would a plain gathering of readings, prayers and a shared meal attract suspicion?
  3. What did Pliny and Trajan treat as the crime: being a Christian, or refusing to sacrifice?
  4. Why might the early church honor martyrs so highly?
  5. What are the risks of making martyrdom an ideal, and what are the risks of ignoring it?
  6. Which details in these sources come from Christians, and which from outsiders?

Examples

A Sunday gathering in Rome

A shopkeeper, a freed slave and a widow gather in a rented room. A passage from the apostles is read, the leader speaks, prayers are said and bread and wine are shared. A deacon takes a portion to a sick member at home. Justin’s description gives the outline of such a meeting.

A governor’s problem

Pliny faced a practical question: if people are accused of being Christians, what should he do? His letter shows a careful official who did not want to punish the innocent but had no doubt that stubborn refusal deserved punishment. It also shows how Christians looked to him: a harmless but unusual association.

An old bishop at his trial

According to the early account, Polycarp was asked to renounce Christ and was given the chance to live. He refused, and the account makes his refusal the center of the story. Historians note that such accounts were written to encourage Christians, and still treat the main outline as credible.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching sees the bishop with presbyters and deacons as an apostolic structure that grew out of New Testament roots, and it honors the martyrs as saints whose witness continues to intercede and teach. The Mass is understood as the continuation of the worship Justin describes.

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians likewise hold that the local bishop with his clergy is the center of the church’s life, and they celebrate martyrs with feast days. The Divine Liturgy keeps the shape of readings, prayers, thanksgiving and communion that appears in the second century.

Protestant

Protestants differ. Some, such as Anglicans and some Lutheran churches, keep the threefold ministry. Others hold that the New Testament uses bishop and elder for the same office, and they organize their churches around elders or congregations. Most Protestants honor the martyrs as examples of faith without asking for their prayers, and John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs shaped Protestant memory.

Historians

Historians use these texts to reconstruct the daily life of the churches and the legal position of Christians. They debate how far persecution was local or empire-wide, how reliable the martyr accounts are, and how fast bishops became the single leaders of their cities. They agree that the broad outline of worship and persecution is well attested.

Why it matters

Doctrines are not formed in a vacuum. The faith of the early churches was shaped by what they did together each week and by what it cost to belong. Seeing the worship, the offices and the danger of the second century makes the later arguments about creeds and councils easier to understand, because those arguments were about the faith of real communities, many of whom had buried their dead.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Christians were under constant empire-wide persecution from the beginning.

Correction: Historians describe persecution in the second century as local and sporadic, driven by accusations and governors’ decisions. Empire-wide campaigns began in the third century.

Misunderstanding: The martyr accounts are all pious fiction.

Correction: They vary. Some, such as the letter from Lyons, are early and detailed. Others were written long afterward and contain legend. Historians judge each account by its date and character, not all together.

Misunderstanding: Early worship was disorganized and informal everywhere.

Correction: It was simple, but Justin describes a clear order. Evidence from other places shows variety, but not chaos.

Misunderstanding: Martyrs were people who wanted to die.

Correction: Some were eager, but church leaders generally taught that Christians should not seek death. Martyrs were those who would not deny Christ when they were brought to trial.

Knowledge check

What does the word martyr originally mean?

It comes from the Greek word martys, which means witness. Christians first used it for anyone who testified to Christ and later mainly for those who were put to death for refusing to deny him. The early church treated such a death as the highest form of witness.

What were the main parts of the Sunday gathering Justin describes?

Writings of the apostles or prophets were read, the leader preached, the people prayed, bread and wine mixed with water were brought and blessed, the people said Amen, and the elements were distributed. Gifts were collected for the poor and needy. Justin writes in Rome in the middle of the second century.

What did Trajan tell Pliny to do about Christians?

Trajan told Pliny not to hunt Christians out, and not to act on anonymous accusations. Anyone properly accused who would not recant and offer sacrifice was to be punished. Christians were therefore not safe but were not under continuous empire-wide pursuit at that time.

Why do historians disagree about early church leadership?

The evidence uses terms such as bishop and elder in different ways, and the sources are few. Some read the New Testament as showing one office and some as showing two. Ignatius describes a single bishop, but scholars disagree about how widespread that was in his time.

Think it through

  1. What would it be like to belong to a group that other people suspected of crimes you had not committed?
  2. How do you decide when an old account of an event, written by believers, is trustworthy?
  3. Why might a plain pattern of worship last for many centuries?
  4. What would you say to someone who wants to seek out suffering for the faith?

Independent assignment

A reconstruction of one Sunday

Using only what Justin’s description, Pliny’s letter and the Didache say, write a page in your notebook describing a Christian Sunday in the early second century. Mark each sentence with a letter showing its source. Then list three questions the sources leave unanswered. Aim for 400 to 600 words.

Further study