Jesus to the Renaissance - Day 4

Good evening everyone. It's lovely to see so many bright faces again this evening. I'll just carry on where we left off yesterday. We're looking here at the parting of the ways between the Jews who believed in Jesus and the Jews who didn't believe in Jesus. We looked at the first Jewish war and the trauma that came from the destruction of Jerusalem, and then the second Jewish Roman war. As I mentioned yesterday, Bar Kokhba was proclaimed the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva, and Jews rose up and fought against the Romans, defeating a couple of Roman legions and armies. However, they were completely wiped out; Jerusalem was flattened, half a million Jews were killed, a thousand villages were destroyed, and anyone who was still there was sold into slavery.

So how do the Christians, or the Christian Jews who believed in Jesus, respond to this? During the first Roman war, they left Jerusalem because they said Jesus is a pacifist and shouldn't be doing this. The second time around, when Bar Kokhba was proclaimed as the Messiah, to Christian Jews he was a false Messiah. This is the whole thing about the Antichrist or false Messiah because they said Jesus is the true Messiah and Bar Kokhba is a false Messiah. Therefore, they wouldn't get involved in supporting the second uprising against the Roman occupation. You can see here that the early Christian Jews are starting to establish their identity as a separate religion or spiritual community, with their own synagogues. As time went by, their identity changed; children of Jews who believed in Jesus, especially the grandchildren, no longer thought of themselves as Jews. Even though their parents and grandparents were Jews, they thought of themselves as Christians and inherited an anti-Jewish sentiment from their parents.

Their parents would always talk about how the Jews rejected Jesus and how the Jews had failed. They no longer wanted to think of themselves as belonging to a failed religion, so they separated themselves in terms of their own sense of who they were. They began to identify themselves and call themselves Christians, even though their parents and grandparents were Jews. This is how the community split and divided over time into two separate identities. Later on, as Gentiles started to come into the church, these were people witnessed by Paul, predominantly God-fearers. They were Gentiles who attended the synagogue because they were interested in the spiritual and moral teachings of Judaism but didn't want the hard bits. The church then became increasingly Gentile, and what's called dispensational or replacement theology developed, leading to the rejection of Judaism as a failed religion. The church then became the new Israel.

You've got the Old Testament, which is seen as old-fashioned and superseded by the New Testament. The term 'testament' means covenant; the old covenant has been replaced by the new covenant. For almost 2,000 years, that's what Christians have thought. When Pope John Paul II went to Jerusalem, he went to the Western Wall and prayed there, putting a little prayer in the stones. In doing so, he acknowledged that the old covenant is still valid. For most of Christian history, Christians have thought the old covenant was broken and no longer valid. However, John Paul II was reasserting that the old covenant is valid; the covenant God made with the Jews is an everlasting covenant.

Judaism was rejected as a failed religion, and the church self-identified as the new Israel, claiming to be heirs to Abraham and the promises made to him. The blame for the crucifixion was placed on the Jews. You might wonder why this happened, especially since the Romans were obviously responsible for the death of Jesus. We have to understand the context of the first and second centuries. The Christians were witnessing to Jews in the Roman Empire but were also increasingly witnessing to Gentiles. At the same time, they were being persecuted. The Jews weren't persecuted in the Roman Empire; the Romans tolerated them as long as they made sacrifices on behalf of the emperor. Unlike everyone else in the Roman Empire, they weren't expected to acknowledge the emperor as God or make sacrifices to him.

As a compromise, the Jews had to make sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem on behalf of the emperor to show loyalty. For the early days of the Christian church, they also fell under that kind of protection because the Romans regarded the Christians as just another Jewish sect. However, as Christians increasingly separated from the Jews and developed their own sense of identity, they no longer had that protection. They were expected to acknowledge the emperor as God, which they wouldn't do, leading to their persecution. When they preached about Jesus, they didn't want him to come across as a political subversive and rebel against Roman authority, especially following the two Roman Jewish wars. The early Christians, Jews who believed in Jesus, didn't want to be seen as followers of someone who was put to death as a rebel against Roman authority.

They didn't want to blame the Romans for the crucifixion of Jesus. In the way the gospels are edited, especially that notorious passage where Pilate washes his hands of the crucifixion, the blame for Jesus' crucifixion is transferred from the Romans onto the Jews. This allowed them to accuse the Jews of rejecting and murdering Jesus. Consequently, when you read the gospels, the portrayal of the Romans is very favourable. The actual historical reality of the Roman occupation was harsh; historical accounts by Josephus describe it as a terrible reality. However, in the gospels, the Romans only feature occasionally, and whenever they do, they come across as good people. There's a Roman centurion and a Roman soldier at the foot of the cross who testifies that Jesus was innocent. Pilate doesn't want to crucify Jesus, and his wife tells him not to do it. The picture we have of the Roman occupation in the gospels is very inaccurate and not historically accurate; they are presented in a very favourable light for this reason.

You can see this development in someone called Melito of Sardis, who died in 180. He was the most influential bishop in Asia at the time. Jerome, one of the church fathers, said that Tertullian, who we will come to later, was a contemporary of Melito and saw him as a prophet due to his work on the first Old Testament canon. Melito is one of the early church fathers who worked on reorganising the Hebrew Bible in the order we have it now in the Christian Old Testament. Polycrates, another well-known Christian bishop, said Melito, whose whole walk was in the Holy Spirit, was incredibly highly respected. Melito was a Christian Jew by birth and the author of a book called 'Peri Pascha', which is about the Passover, the time when Jesus was crucified. It's a fascinating account of understanding what was going on. In paragraph 72, he recounts the history of God's providence of restoration from Adam through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the way up to Jesus. When he starts talking about Jesus, he refers to him as one who was murdered. The historical reality is that Jesus wasn't murdered; he was found guilty by the Romans on a political charge and executed as a political subversive. However, Melito presents it as Jesus being murdered in the very centre of Jerusalem because he had healed the lame, cleansed the lepers, guided the blind with light, and raised the dead.

Melito accuses the Jews of murdering Jesus because he did good things. He questions why Israel would do such a strange injustice, presenting it as extremely unjust. He states, 'You dishonoured the one who honoured you; you held in contempt the one who held you in esteem; you denied the one who publicly acknowledged you; you renounced the one who proclaimed you his own; you killed the one who made you live.' He asks, 'Why did you do this, O Israel? The one who hung the earth in space is himself hanged; the one who fixed the heavens in place is himself impaled; the one who firmly fixed all things is himself firmly fixed to the tree. The Lord is insulted; God has been murdered; the King of Israel has been destroyed by the right hand of Israel.' This accusation has resonated through the whole of Christian history for 2,000 years: the accusation that the Jews rejected and murdered Jesus, who was God. The Jews rejected and murdered their Messiah, and at the same time, Melito explains that this was what was supposed to happen, as foretold by the prophets, and how it was necessary for Jesus to be crucified to bring about salvation through the forgiveness of sin.

There is an incredible contradiction at the heart of the Christian message, along with a significant accusation towards the Jews. This stems from early Jews who believed in Jesus transferring the blame for his crucifixion from the Roman authorities onto the Jewish people. This narrative has persisted, with some people even suggesting that the Holocaust was a form of punishment for the events of 2000 years ago. The idea that the Jews deserved what happened to them because they rejected Jesus is a sentiment that can still be heard today. Medieval depictions of Jews, such as those in illustrated Bibles, often portrayed them in a negative light, reinforcing stereotypes that have persisted through the centuries. Traditional Christian theology has only recently begun to reevaluate these perspectives, particularly since the Holocaust and Vatican II, which prompted a reassessment of the environment that led to such atrocities.

Christianity began as a heretical movement within Judaism and was regarded as a Jewish sect. The four Gospels contain elements of hostility towards the Jewish establishment of the time, including the shifting of blame for Jesus' death from the Romans to the Jewish authorities. Initially, Christians were a small group within a much larger Jewish population in the Roman Empire. However, as Christianity gained power and established status, particularly after being accepted by Constantine, earlier rhetoric against the Jews was used to marginalise them. Modern scholars of the New Testament and Christian history acknowledge this perspective, although it has not yet fully permeated the broader spiritual community.

When we read the Gospels, we often do so naively, perceiving a conflict between Jesus and the Jews. However, it is essential to recognise that Jesus was a Jew, living and dying as a practicing Jew. His followers were also Jews, and the conflicts depicted in the Gospels are essentially arguments among Jews. The Pharisees, who were the spiritual leaders of the Jewish community, were liberal reformers who became prominent after the destruction of the Temple. Jesus himself likely shared many beliefs with the Pharisees, and the Gospels reflect a time of significant conflict between the early church and rabbinic Judaism.

The Gospels appear anti-Jewish because they were written during a time of conflict between the early church and rabbinic Judaism. The early Christian Jews, who were often pacifists, did not participate in the fight against the Romans, which created tension with those who did. After the destruction of the Temple, the conflicts between the early church and the Jewish community were projected back into the time of Jesus, leading to the Pharisees being unfairly vilified in the Gospels. The Gospel writers shifted the blame for the crucifixion from the Romans to the Jews, which has had lasting implications.

The Gospel of Matthew, thought to be written in Antioch, presents Jesus as a new Moses, tracing his lineage back to Abraham. It is structured around five narratives or discourses, paralleling the five books of Moses. Matthew aims to convince Jews who did not believe in Jesus that he was the Messiah, despite his crucifixion, which was foretold by the prophets. The Gospel is filled with proof texts from the Hebrew Bible to support this argument, reflecting the debates that would have occurred among Jews at the time.

The New Testament, including the Gospel of Matthew, was written as an argument with Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Similarly, the Divine Principle is structured as an argument with fundamentalist Christians, using proof texts to explain its interpretations. Matthew critiques Pauline antinomianism, addressing the complexities of the law and its observance among different groups. Jesus is presented as fulfilling rather than abolishing the law, emphasising the importance of the Mosaic law and the Pharisees' understanding of it. This creates a challenging dynamic for Christians, as they must reconcile Jesus' reaffirmation of the law with their beliefs.

The Gospel of Luke, authored by a companion of Paul, presents a different perspective. It was written for the Pauline church and reflects a more gentile-friendly approach. Luke's account of Jesus' life is less focused on the Jewish law and more on the universal message of Jesus. This divergence highlights the varying interpretations of Jesus' teachings and the ongoing debates within early Christianity regarding the relationship between Jewish law and the new faith.

Luke traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to Adam, not just Abraham. Why Adam? Because Adam is the ancestor of all humanity, while Abraham is the ancestor of the Jews. For Gentiles, Abraham is not their ancestor, so Luke's inclusion of Adam makes the genealogy more inclusive. The Gospel of Luke features Gentiles quite frequently. For example, there is a Roman centurion whose daughter is sick. He sends a message to Jesus, asking Him to come and heal her. As Jesus is on His way, the daughter dies, and the messengers tell the centurion not to bother Jesus anymore. However, Jesus reassures him that He will heal her. In commentary, Jesus remarks about the centurion, saying, 'I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.' This illustrates that Jesus came not only for the Jews but also for the Gentiles, who can also be saved.

Mark's Gospel is the shortest of the four and notably lacks a birth story or ancestry, which is curious since Matthew and Luke both include these narratives. John presents a different perspective, focusing on the concept of the Word made flesh without mentioning Jesus' parents. In the earliest copies of Mark, there are no resurrection accounts, only the empty tomb. Later versions of Mark have additional bits added, which can be found in the footnotes of your Bible. Structurally, Mark resembles a Greek tragedy and lacks the particular structure seen in Matthew, which is incredibly well-organised. Luke also does not have the same level of structure as Matthew, and Mark even less so. Additionally, Mark contains several geographical inaccuracies and is generally understood to have been written in Rome, not Antioch, for a non-Jewish audience.

Mark's Gospel does not assume that its readers are familiar with Judaism, so it explains many Jewish customs that Matthew and Luke do not. In this context, Jesus is presented as breaking Jewish customs, including kosher laws. For instance, there is a dispute over Kashrut, the laws governing what can be eaten and how. The Pharisees, who come from Jerusalem, gather around Jesus and His disciples and notice that some of them are eating with defiled hands, meaning they have not washed them. Mark explains that the Pharisees and all Jews do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, adhering to the tradition of the elders. This indicates that Mark was written for a non-Jewish audience, which is a stark contrast to Matthew and Luke.

Later in the Gospel, Jesus responds to the Pharisees with a famous quote about what defiles a person. He explains that it is not what goes into a person that defiles them, but what comes out. He tells His disciples that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile them, as it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer. Mark interprets this to mean that Jesus declared all foods clean. This interpretation suggests a break with kosher laws, which has been adopted by the Church, even though Mark merely recorded a typical conversation Jesus would have had with the Pharisees. This illustrates the shift in understanding regarding dietary laws and the inclusivity of Jesus' message.

As we delve deeper into the relationship between the three synoptic Gospels—Mark, Luke, and Matthew—we encounter what is known as the synoptic problem. There is a significant amount of overlapping material among these three texts, leading to questions about their relationships and which is the oldest. Approximately 76% of the material in Mark is also found in Luke and Matthew. Conversely, only 3% of Mark's content is unique to it, while 64% of Luke's material overlaps with Matthew. This overlap raises questions about the sources of these Gospels and their interconnections.

Saint Augustine of Hippo believed that Matthew was the oldest Gospel, followed by Mark, which he thought was based on Matthew with some additional teachings of Jesus. He posited that Luke was the last Gospel written. This traditional view explains the order of the Gospels in the New Testament. However, more recent scholarship has proposed the two-source hypothesis, suggesting that Mark was the first Gospel and that both Matthew and Luke were based on it, along with another hypothetical source known as Q. While there is no textual evidence for Q, this theory has gained traction in New Testament studies.

I personally believe that Matthew is the oldest Gospel, as it is the best structured and written in the best Greek. I think Luke was written based on Matthew, which accounts for the significant overlap, while Mark serves as a summary of both. When examining Mark closely, it appears to alternate between sentences from Matthew and Luke, suggesting a deliberate compilation. The two-source hypothesis emerged in Germany in the mid-19th century, and I have explored this extensively. I concluded that the Greisbach hypothesis, which posits Matthew as the oldest, is the most plausible explanation.

Returning to the essence of the Jewish faith, it centres on one God who is good and a God of love and justice. This belief is rooted in the teachings of Moses and the community of Israelites. God is the creator of the world, which is inherently good. All human beings are considered God's children, and there is no separation between God and humanity. Humans possess free will and are called to live moral lives, contributing to the creation of a good society. Although Jews believe in an afterlife, their primary focus is on establishing a just society in this world. The covenant God made with the people of Israel is unconditional, affirming their status as God's chosen people. However, living in the land of Israel is conditional upon observing the law, as emphasised by Moses in Deuteronomy.

Different levels in the spiritual world allow you to reach the true God. Now, I talked about what happened in Jerusalem, and we must try to imagine the Jewish people living in the first century during the Roman occupation, the uprising against the Romans, and the destruction of Jerusalem. This included the destruction of the Temple, the second uprising, and the genocide that followed, leading to the expulsion from the land of Israel. Many people living there were sold into slavery. If you were a thinking Jew at that time, how would you make sense of such trauma? There aren't many options available. You could continue hoping that someone would arise to be the real Messiah of Israel, as Jesus and Bar Kokhba were not the answer. You could wait and hope that another one would come along, and as Barbara mentioned yesterday, several did. However, every single time the Jews followed a Messiah, it ended in disappointment.

Secondly, you could abandon Judaism completely. You might think, 'Why did God allow this to happen? Maybe God doesn't exist; perhaps this is a false religion.' This is a common response today. If you were a Jew living after the events of the first and second centuries, you might start to think that God had abandoned the Jews and consider abandoning Judaism altogether. If you chose this latter path, you could embrace Christianity, which, while still a Jewish sect, attempted to make sense of what happened to the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Christianity taught that the Messiah of Israel had already arrived in the person of Jesus Christ, but the redemption he brought looked very different from the revolutionary agendas of Bar Kokhba and others. You could argue that the Jews who followed Bar Kokhba were mistaken, while those who believed in Jesus were correct.

Alternatively, you might be tempted to retain some remnants of Judaism but start reading the Old Testament upside down, where the God of Israel is now portrayed as the antagonist. This is evident in Gnosticism, which discusses figures like Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Seth. In their narratives, the serpent is depicted as a good figure, bringing knowledge to Adam and Eve, while the God who created them is seen as the one who withheld that knowledge. This inversion of the traditional narrative is one of the origins of Gnosticism. Gnostic ideas often use stories from the Old Testament but reframe them according to a different worldview, mixing biblical and non-biblical ideas from sources like Zoroastrianism and Plato. As Jews began to reinterpret the scriptures through a Gnostic lens, they viewed the material world as corrupt and evil, created by a flawed deity.

In this Gnostic view, Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, is seen as a bad god, a cruel and vindictive figure. Instead of being a good creator, he is portrayed as an evil god who offers a different kind of redemption—not the physical redemption that Israel had always hoped for, but rather a spiritual salvation. This salvation is about escaping the material world, which is viewed as corrupt, and freeing one's divine spark from the physical body. The Gnostic perspective suggests that the material world is a lie, and this idea has permeated modern culture. Many people today express similar sentiments, believing that the material world is inherently flawed.

The Gospel of Jesus, as understood by many New Testament scholars, is about the Kingdom of God. Jesus preached, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,' a message echoed by John the Baptist. Jesus' teachings focused on the political, social, economic, and cultural transformation needed to create a society governed by God. This theocracy was not ruled by priests but by God through the conscience of the people. However, the reality is that the Kingdom of God did not manifest as expected. Instead, there was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish people, leading to centuries of conflict. Scholars argue that the disciples would not have fabricated a story about the Kingdom of God being at hand if it had not been a genuine teaching of Jesus.

The other aspect of Jesus' teaching required personal transformation and repentance. Just as Father began his ministry addressing the reality of the Japanese occupation of Korea, Jesus sought to resolve the issue of Roman occupation. Initially, Father focused on this issue, but as the Second World War progressed, he shifted his focus to the threat of communism. The Gospel of Jesus was very much about creating a society that reflected the ideals of the Israelites when they entered Canaan. In contrast, the Gospel of Paul emerged in light of the events following the crucifixion and resurrection. Paul preached repentance and being born again, emphasising that belief in Jesus leads to salvation and entry into heaven after death. This focus on spiritual salvation aligns with Gnostic interests.

Paul's message, which includes the idea that believers are no longer under the law but under grace, diverges significantly from the teachings of Jesus. This theological shift was influenced by figures like Marcion, who rejected the Hebrew Scriptures and portrayed the God of the Old Testament as harsh and vindictive. Marcion distinguished between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, asserting that they were not the same. He believed that Jesus came to free humanity from the law imposed by this cruel deity. Marcion's influence was profound; he created one of the earliest New Testament canons, excluding the Old Testament and purging Jewish elements from the text. He presented a version of the Gospel of Luke that lacked these elements, which some argue resembles the Gospel of Mark.

Marcion's teachings caused significant upheaval in the early church. He was excommunicated for his views, yet his influence persisted. He advocated for strict vegetarianism and abstaining from wine and marriage, aligning with Gnostic beliefs. Despite his excommunication, Marcion's ideas shaped early Christian thought and continue to resonate in various spiritual communities today.

His ideas circulated among many of the Hellenists. The Gentile Christians liked what he was teaching, and so Irenaeus, who is again one of the early Church Fathers, wrote a book against the heretics titled 'The Detection and Overthrow of False Knowledge'. Martian was a Gnostic who was teaching that, and Irenaeus wrote volumes critiquing what Martian was teaching. The reality is that the Marcionites carried on until the 10th century; for a thousand years, there were Marcionite spiritual communities. This is, I think, Coruscant; I think it's sort of around somewhere in the Middle East, I'm not sure. They were incredibly influential, and you still find a lot of people within the Christian Church and in our own spiritual community who are basically Marcionites. They make a distinction between the God of the Old Testament, who is nasty, vindictive, and cruel, and the God of the New Testament, whose perfect love would never go around punishing anybody. I don't think that's authentic anyway.

As I said, Martian had his canon, an altered version of Luke. I think it looks more like the Gospel of Mark, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Thessalonians. There's another book I can't remember where that's from; it's not in the current New Testament. Questions like Philippians and Philemon are also included. Like the Gnostics, Martian believed Jesus was essentially a divine spirit who descended from heaven to earth in human form but did not actually take on a fleshly human body. This heresy is called asceticism. The Gospel of Mark is like that at the beginning, but then, as I said yesterday, it has one sentence: 'He, the Word, became flesh.' That is non-Gnostic, and there's a way to correct it. Martian then considered Paul to be the correct interpreter and transmitter of Jesus' teachings, focusing on teachings and knowledge (gnosis) rather than what Jesus himself was preaching and teaching about.

This posed a huge challenge for the Church. They rejected Martian and his teachings, as well as his formulation of the New Testament. They had to decide what they wanted to recognise as scripture. The Church Fathers got together, discussed it, and decided which books represented the gospel authentically. There are many books, which I will talk about in the next slide, but they decided that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the most authentic, representing the gospel despite their inconsistencies. This approach shows a lot of wisdom; they didn't say they would only accept one of these gospels as being right, which would have posed a problem for other Christian communities. Instead, they opted for mutual recognition of each other's scriptures, even though there were contradictions.

There was someone who tried to produce another gospel that harmonised all four gospels, but that was rejected. They said, 'No, these are the oldest gospels from the early Church.' Even though they contradict each other and have inconsistencies, they acknowledged and accepted the legitimate authority of these four gospels, plus the Acts of the Apostles. I think that was a good way of doing it—mutual recognition of each other's scriptures. They then discussed which of the authentic letters of Paul should be included, deciding these were the authentic letters he wrote to different church communities he established, as well as letters to particular individuals he was friends with. There were also letters written by other apostles: James, Peter, John, Jude, and the Book of Revelation.

I mentioned yesterday that there are many other books that never made it into the New Testament; they are non-canonical and weren't acknowledged as standard. They still exist, such as Q, a hypothetical document for which there is no evidence. Then there's the Didache, which is very orthodox but from the later second century, containing orthodox Christian teachings. There are various fragments and letters, including Clement's, which are quite late but very orthodox. Some of these are Gnostic, like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter, while the Gospel of the Egyptians is believed to be Ebionite. These are interesting because they represent very early Christian Jews who believed Jesus was a human being, left behind as the Church developed.

The Acts of Andrew and other accounts exist, but we only have the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. There are many other records of the apostles, but they are much later and never made it into the New Testament. Only New Testament scholars or scholars of the early Church would know these and pick out bits they thought were authentic and valuable. Again, many of these are Gnostic, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Judas have recently appeared, but they never made it in. This is how the canon developed. We looked at Tertullian and Melito of Sardis, and then there's Tertullian, an incredibly influential person I mentioned before. He is known as the father of Latin Christianity, coming from Carthage in North Africa, where Augustine also came from. He wrote a book critiquing the Gnostics and also wrote books against heresies.

The question then arises: what is a heresy and what isn't? How do you decide what is the correct belief? This struggle with the Gnostics, who had a completely different framework and views, was significant during this time within the early Church. Tertullian's prescription against heresies shaped the Latin Church, which is the Catholic Church, and it influenced European Christianity and culture. He argued that Christians must abstain from the philosopher's quest for truth because restless seeking for understanding leads to heresy. In other words, pursuing the truth might lead to different ideas, and those who seek understanding often become heretics because they start to look at things differently from others.

Tertullian believed in unity of belief, which is why it's called the rule of faith. He stated that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches must be reckoned as truth. To do this, he produced the first version of what is now called the creed, summarising certain theology about the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This was one aspect of the creed, along with certain beliefs about who Jesus is—begotten, not created—and facts about his life, such as being crucified under Pontius Pilate and rising again on the third day. Tertullian's version was mostly an account of the narrative life of Jesus, summarising what the gospels convey about his life and teachings.

He asserted that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches must be reckoned for truth, containing what they received from the apostles, who received it from Christ, and Christ from God. The idea is that Jesus received the truth and revelation from God, taught this knowledge to his disciples, the apostles, who then established churches. Their teachings aligned with the apostles' teachings, while Martian's teachings were seen as coming from a different space. Tertullian stated that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches is orthodox, meaning it is right teaching. To be orthodox, one must have the right faith and sincerely recite the Nicene Creed, with all teachings based upon it and the traditional teaching of the Church.

He claimed that this rule of faith was taught by Christ and raised no other questions than those which heresies introduce. However, when you examine the rule of faith Tertullian created, it wasn't actually taught by Christ. The gospel of Jesus differed from the gospel of Paul and was certainly different from the rule of faith promulgated by Tertullian. The Nicene Creed is not the teaching of Jesus; it is the rule of faith. This is interesting when unpacking what is going on here. Tertullian insisted that the rule of faith was taught by Christ and raised no other questions. In other words, you just have to accept it. If you start asking questions, you quickly become a heretic.

I remember my mother, who is Jewish; her mother was born in Jerusalem. My mother was a typical Jew who asked questions all the time. Due to certain circumstances, she ended up at a Catholic convent in England just before the war. Her parents took her to England for a good education, leaving her at a convent in Tonbridge, where she lived with the nuns for five years. She asked many questions, but the nuns always said, 'Don't ask questions; it's a mystery.' This idea was drummed into my mother: it's a mystery, and you can't question it; just believe. This perspective comes from Tertullian and has permeated European Christianity until today. You see similar patterns in contemporary society, where questioning political correctness can lead to being cancelled. This legacy from Tertullian is shocking and highlights the importance of tracing the genealogy of our culture to understand why it is the way it is. Tertullian's rule of faith discouraged curiosity and disputation, insisting that once you accept Jesus into your life, you should not ask questions. This shaped the Latin Church and, in many ways, the whole Christian Church from very early on.