Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 -- Fiction
Of the human events in the lives of all the Disciples and Apostles—the
former, the first followers of the Living Visible Christ; the latter,
evangelists, who later became followers—very little, almost nothing, is
told. One finds some of the early followers first with John, the
Baptist, on the Dead Sea at Jordan Ford; then with Christ in Galilee,
then after the Crucifixion, in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Babylonia, in
Rome, in the cities of the Roman Road in Asia Minor, in Greece, in
Thrace, in Macedonia. Connected narrative of their movements, there is
none except a few chapters in the Acts on Paul’s travels from Damascus
to Rome; and even in this, there are long gaps. Paul speaks of hopes to
go to Spain. Did he go? We do not know, for if he did, Luke his
historian, leaves no record of that trip. Peter writes a letter from
Babylonia. Was he in the region of the Euphrates; or was he in Rome,
writing in cypher because of the perils to the Faith from the time Rome
set up Emperor Worship in all the pagan temples? Again, we do not know;
for consecutive narrative from year to year, there is none; so that any
attempt to give a connected life of the leaders of early Christianity
would fall down from sheer lack of data; but the facts, which we possess
authenticated beyond controversy by contemporary sacred and profane
writers, and by recent and ancient archæological and linguistic research
covering from Egypt to Ethiopia, from Ephesus to Mesopotamia—throw so
much light on the early struggles of the New Faith that by taking what
the modern scenario writer would call—“the spot-lights” of their
activities—we can reconstruct the early lives of the leaders of the
purest Faith the world has ever known.
And now how much is fact and how much is fiction in these narratives?
Very little of the essential is fiction. The fiction is only the string
for the jewels of Truth. A semi-secular figure, who is absolutely
historic, has been chosen as the actor. The actor’s experiences are
taken from real life and actual fact. The reaction of the experiences on
the actor’s personality may be called imaginary; but they are such as
similar experiences would have been on you, or me to-day; and each
action is chosen to throw a flash light on some era in the Disciples’
and Apostles’ lives, which is known and proved and authenticated in
history, archæology and the documents now coming so richly to light,
owing to better mastery of ancient script. In this way, we can get a
picture of the heroes and heroines of the early days, who kept the Faith
for us. We can get a picture of them as living, struggling, heroic,
dauntless men and women, and not the shadowy figures of half myth, half
fairy stories, with which we have too often enveloped the keepers of the
ark of the covenant of the Faith.
I have referred to youth seeking light, where many of the old school
accuse them of thoughtlessly seeking only pleasure. I consider this a
libel on modern youth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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