Jesus Before Constantine. Doug E. Taylor

      Jesus Before Constantine

      The Church, Her Beliefs, and Her Apologetics

      Copyright © 2020 Doug E. Taylor. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

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      paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5523-4

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5524-1

      ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5525-8

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. 07/30/20

      Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

      To my wife—the mother of my children, Kathryn

      When you became a Christian your biological family essentially severed all ties with you because of the differences each of you understood with respect to the person of Jesus. Yet you have never wavered in your belief of the gospel message of the eternal deity, physical death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus. You have asked questions that made me dig deeper and look harder for not only what we as Christians believe, but also to know why we believe what we believe. Over the years you saw something in me that I never saw or could have imagined of myself, and it was you who encouraged me to pursue graduate school and my doctorate. Without you, this book would never have happened.

      Figures

      4.1 Causal Factor Types and Problem Categories | 125

      4.2 Major Root Cause Categories Irrelevant to This Research | 127

      4.3 Major Root Cause Categories Relevant to This Research | 128

      4.4 Root Cause Types and Root Causes | 129

      4.5 Root Cause #1 | 130

      4.6 Root Cause #2 | 133

      4.7 Root Cause #3 | 135

      4.8 Root Cause #4 | 137

      List of Abbreviations

      1 Apol. Justin Martyr, First Apology

      1 Clem. First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

      3 En. 3 Enoch

      Apol. Aristides, Apology

      Adv. haer. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses

      Adv. Jud. Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews

      Adv. Marc. Tertullian, Against Marcion

      Adv. Prax. Tertullian, Against Celsus

      Ag. Ap. Josephus, Against Apion

      Apol. Tertullian, Apology

      b. Ber. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot

      b. Sota Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sotah

      Contra Cels. Origen, Against Celsus

      De bapt. Tertullian, On Baptism

      De carn. Chr. Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ

      De civ. Dei Augustine, The City of God

      De jejun. Tertullian, On Morality

      De mon. Tertullian, On Monogamy

      De pat. Tertullian, On Patience

      De praesc. haer. Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics

      De princ. Origen, De Principiis

      De res. Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh

      De pud. Tertullian, On Modesty

      De virg. Vel. Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins

      Dem. Apol. Pr. Irenaeus, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

      Ep. Cyprian, Epistles

      Hist. Eccl. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History

      Ign. Eph. The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians

      Ign. Mag. The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians

      Ign. Rom. The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans

      Ign. Smyr. The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans

      J.W. Josephus, Jewish Wars

      Misc. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies

      Paed. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor

      Pol. Phil. The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians

      Prot. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen

      Ref. Hippolytus, Refutatio

      Strom. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata

      Trypho Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho

      Abstract

“The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”1 Why Christianity from its inception grew in numbers has remained a relatively stable and uncontested topic. Moreover, recent history has seen a move by some scholars to claim not one but multiple Christianities existed in the first three centuries. No study, however, has approached the growth of Christianity as being a result of positive apologetics and then defended that there was but one Christianity from the beginning through the use of root cause analysis. After proposing an early fixed understanding of those core beliefs that established one as being Christian, this study treats the characteristic teachings of Ebionites, Docetists, and Marcionites through the filter of root cause analysis toward supporting the claim that from the origin of Christianity there has been only one Christianity, and that Christianity grew through the use of a positive apologetic.2

      Foreword

      Over several decades of full-time study on the resurrection of Jesus, observing carefully the current state of this research since the late 1960s, I have observed many research trends. Several time periods during the past two thousand years going back to the earliest church have consistently received far less attention especially when compared to the latest trend—the Third Quest for the Historical Jesus during the latter two decades of the twentieth century. When major studies do emerge from these less-represented periods, they are often PhD dissertations that focus on minute questions that do not evoke as much interest.

      Several crucially important time frames and topics exist and likewise need to be pursued. Making such efforts more important are the increasing number of studies during recent decades that claim that second-century AD Christianity in particular was partially or even widely divergent during this time. Some authors seek to give the impression that second-century Christianity basically presented a smorgasbord of historical and theological options, from which seekers could choose their preferred version, as if it were simply a matter of personal preference.

      Into this suggested milieu has come a significant and impressive study by Doug Taylor, entitled Jesus before Constantine (Wipf and Stock, 2020). While a fair number of volumes address subjects from the writings of the early apostolic fathers into the mid-third century,