AskThePriest.org

Christians before Christ?

A reader writes in with a question:

I guess I’m just curious what happened to people in death before Christianity became heard of. I feel that people, no matter what era of living, should be able to reach heaven. I don’t understand how any religion can be started on any random date with people before it not knowing about the religion. To me, this discredits any idea of a definitive afterlife.

A very good question - and one that Christian theologians have been mulling over since the beginning. The first thing to do is to clarify a few things. There was a time when “Christianity” did not exist, defined as the human social construct based on the person, story and words of Jesus of Nazareth. But according to orthodox Christian theology, there has never been a time at which Christ has not been present. (I’m intentionally not using the word “exist” because that sets up a whole other set of metaphorical issues.) Christ being defined as the second part of the holy and undivided Trinty has been present eternally. Christ became incarnate somewhere around 0 CE in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and remains incarnate in his ressurection body. For more about the time in-between the crucifixion and the ressurection, see AskThePriest.org: Jesus’ Harrowing Experience.

This continual presence of the second part of the Trinity is where room for speculation lies about what happened to people who died before the incarnation. Many of the early church fathers and later writers did so. Justin Martyr from the 100s writes,

Apology, Chapter XLVI. — The Word in the World Before Christ.

But lest some should, without reason, and for the perversion of what we teach, maintain that we say that Christ was born one hundred and fifty years ago under Cyrenius, and subsequently, in the time of Pontius Pilate, taught what we say He taught; and should cry out against us as though all men who were born before Him were irresponsible-let us anticipate and solve the difficulty. We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious. So that even they who lived before Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived reasonably. But who, through the power of the Word, according to the will of God the Father and Lord of all, He was born of a virgin as a man, and was named Jesus, and was crucified, and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, an intelligent man will be able to comprehend from what has been already so largely said. And we, since the proof of this subject is less needful now, will pass for the present to the proof of those things which are urgent.

Augustine of Hippo also writes on this theme in the 3rd Century:

That which is known as the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist; from the beginning of the human race until the time when Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already existed began to be called Christianity. (Retractt. I, xiii, cited by Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn in his Shadow of The Third Century, Elizabeth N.J.: Academy Press, 1949, p.3.)

There are many more musings on this theme among theologians throughout the ages. So might it be possible that there were people in the world who “Knew Christ” as the eternal Word without knowing the human incarnation of the Word in Jesus? Opinons vary in different parts of Christianity. Most of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism, parts of Eastern Orthodoxy and much of Protestantism maintain that salvation is a possibility outside the church (See John 10:16).

The most important thing to note about this conversation is its secondary nature. As Justin says, the “proof is less needful now.” Christianity is a “positive” religion, meaning we speak of what we know, and testify to what is seen. The Gospels don’t speak on this issue, so while it is certainly part of the theological discussion, it is not central. We maintain that salvation (and what that means is another discussion) can be found through the church, but that God alone is in ultimate charge.

David+

Anastasis

The Lord is Risen!

Holy Saturday: Hell's Bonds are Broken

Meditation

From the Holy Saturday Matins service of the Byzantine Rite

A fearful and marvelous mystery is today beheld being accomplished: The Incorporeal is conquered; he who freed Adam from the curse is bound; he who tries the hearts and reins of humanity is unjustly tried by them; he who shut the abyss is shut up in prison. He before whom the powers of heaven stand with trembling, stands before Pilate; the Fashioner is smitten by the hand of him whom he fashioned; he is adjudged to the Tree of the Cross, who judges the living and the dead. He is shut up in the tomb, who is the purger of Hell. O you, who with compassion did endure all things and has saved all from the curse, most patient Lord, glory to you.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

When you, the redeemer of all, had been placed for all in the new tomb, Hell, the respecter of none, saw you, and crouched in fear. The bars broke, the gates were shattered, the graves were opened, the dead arose. Then Adam, thankfully rejoicing, cried out to you: “Glory to your humiliation, O merciful Master.”

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

When you, the deathless Life, did come down to Death, then did you destroy Hell through the dazzling brightness of the Godhead; and when you did raise up the dead from the abyss, all the powers of heaven cried aloud: “Christ our God, Giver of life, glory to you.”

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

Creation was moved with intense astonishment, when it beheld you hung in Golgotha, you who did hang all the earth free in the midst of the waters; wherefore it cried: “None is holy except you, O Lord.” He who closed up the abyss is seen as dead, and wrapped in linen and spices; he the Immortal, as mortal is laid in the tomb. O Lord, Creator of the world, and Conqueror of death, glory to you.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

Today the grave holds him who holds creation in the hollow of his hand. A stone covers him who covers the heavens with virtue. Life sleeps, and Hell trembles, and Adam is set free from his bonds. Glory to your dispensation, O Lord, through which, when all things were accomplished, you presented to us an eternal rest – your most holy Resurrection from the dead.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

The great Moses mystically foreshadowed this day, saying: “And God blessed the seventh day.” This is the blessed Sabbath; it is the day of rest, and on it the only-begotten Son of God rested from all his works; through the dispensation of death, in the flesh he rested. Joseph of Arimathea begged the body of Jesus, and laid it in his own new tomb, for it was fitting for him to pass from the grave as from a bridal chamber. You who has destroyed the power of death and to humanity has opened the gates of paradise, glory to you.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

Most blessed are you, O Mother of God, for through him who was incarnate from you, Hell was made captive, the curse was annulled, Eve was set free, Death was put to death, and we are endued with life. Therefore, we cry, “Blessed are you, O Christ our God, who did so will; glory to you.”

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

He who has ears to hear, let him listen.  Today Hell cried out, groaning: “Would that I had not received him who was born of Mary, for he came to me and broke my power; he shattered the gates of brass, and as God, raised up the souls which before I had held.”

O praise the Lord, all you nations of the Earth.

Today, Hell cried out, groaning: “My authority has been broken down; I received one dead, as one of the mortals; but against this one I prevailed not.  I perish with him and with those I had ruled.  From eternity I had held the dead, but behold, he raises all.”

For his merciful kindness is ever more and more towards us; and the truth of the Lord endures forever.

Today Hell cried out, groaning:  “My power has been trampled on; the Shepherd has been crucified, and he raised up Adam; I have been deprived of those over whom I ruled, and all those I swallowed in my strength I have disgorged.  He who was crucified has emptied the tombs, and the power of death avails not.”

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  Amen.

 

For more on the Harrowing of Hell, see Jesus' Harrowing Experience.

A Humane Humanity

A Good Friday Sermon from Fr. David Simmons, ObJN

To: My beloved people

From: Jesus Christ, Son of the living God
on Good Friday

I was listening to the stations of the cross you were celebrating today in my honor, and I heard an interesting prayer:

“Teach your Church, O Lord, to mourn the sins of which it is guilty, and to repent and forsake them; that, by your pardoning grace, the results of our iniquities may not be visited upon our children and our children’s children; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I’m glad you’re praying to me, and I’m glad you’re thinking of the future, but I’m concerned how you might take this prayer. You almost might think from it that my father is into punishing you for the things you do wrong. You might even think that he’s into punishing your children and your grandchildren. While there are plenty of bad fathers in the world, please rest assured that my father is not one of those. My father loved you all into existence and called you very good. He knows your limitations. In regards to those things you have done and have left undone, he looks at you with pity and not with blame. He cannot forgive you, because he never blamed you, or hated you, or wished harm to you and never will.

The prayer could also be read in a very good way, in that by asking that your iniquities not be visited upon your descendants, that you are finally admitting that it is your own actions that are causing lasting harm in the world. I was listening to NPR the other day, which I do a lot. A journalist was talking about the time he went to Somalia to cover the great famine there. He said they walked into the hotel to find great mounds of food welcoming them, while people were literally starving on the streets below. In one heartbreaking case he related how a father had watched his son die of starvation in a hospital, then had carried his body out into the street past booths of food which he did not have the money to buy. The journalist explained that famine never has to do with supply, but with distribution. You don’t need my father to punish you - as a race, you do a pretty good job punishing yourselves. You are experts at ignoring the long-term consequences of your decisions, so that your own wrath is visited upon your children and your children’s children.

Folks, I didn’t come to earth and become one of you to appease my father’s wrath. I came to save you from your own. I came to instill my divinity into humanity so that humanity might become humane. When my suffering was over on the cross, I did not turn to my father and ask if he was pleased. I cried, “It is accomplished!” I turned to humanity, and I turn to each one of you and ask, “Is it enough? Are you satisfied? Have I proven to you once and for all that God does not desire your death or that of any of you? Looking upon the soldiers gambling over my belongings, can you continue to disregard the needs of the poor? Looking upon the tortured ruin of my body, can you continue to torture each other? God himself has died there at your hands. Having crucified God, can you continue to crucify each other in your daily lives? Can you continue to hate? ”

Beloved, God is love, and I am God. Humanity crucified love. That is not the end of the story. In three days, you’ll see. All shall be well. But for now, it is right for you to gaze upon my body on the cross, and for you to remember that it was not God that put me there, but humanity. And should it be nothing to you as you pass by, it is not God’s wrath that shall be visited upon your children and your children’s children, but the wrath you hold so dear in your hearts. I came to save you. It is accomplished. All that remains is for you to accept the freedom I have purchased from your own selves.

Yours Truly, Jesus Christ,
a true lover of your soul

Sermon040612