History Of The Church
Lesson 5: The Church In The Empire – AD 313 - 590

Speaker: John Phillis
Date: July 21^st, 28^th, 2004, Wednesday Evening Adult Bible Class

[Note: Please read Lesson 6, “Clarification of these Studies,” to gain a better understanding of the process of the “slippery slope” to apostasy and what we are trying to accomplish in these Lessons. Here are some excerpts from Lesson 6A:

One of the things that we have noticed in these Lessons is that the history—what we have in the way of history—is largely what is contained in this “Path to Apostasy” [see “Path to Apostasy” in Lesson 6A]. From the end of the apostolic age, the light of revelation went out at the end of the 1^st Century. We really have very little in the way of the HISTORY of the LORD’S church. We’ve discussed this. I know that most of you, like me, believe that the Lord’s church—from its establishment in AD 33 until this very day—has always been. But we have very little in the way of the history of it. Why? Well, we don’t know exactly, but none of the least of reasons would be, perhaps, because of the persecution that they underwent—first, persecution by the Jews; then persecution by the Romans. The Lord’s true church went underground in many places. They met in secret. They didn’t advertise their meetings. They didn’t have a building with a sign out front, you know, which would have been an open invitation, you see, to “Come get us here!”

And so, we don’t know a lot about what the Lord’s church was doing through this period. Now, were some of them, perhaps, on this path to apostasy? No doubt. Were some of them on the path of the Lord’s true church? No doubt. And so, when we talk about “Christians” being persecuted in the 2^nd Century, the 3^rd Century, the 4^th Century, and so on, who are we TALKING about? Well, again, the record is not clear, but beside the multitude on the path to apostasy, surely we are also talking about brethren—those who were doing everything that they could to remain faithful, to genuinely follow the New Testament precepts for the government of the church, the organization of the church, the worship of the church, practicing baptism for the remission of sins—ALL of those things.

Please keep these things in mind as you read these Lessons.]

We’re going to be look at the history of the church in the Roman Empire, a period beginning early in the 4^th Century, about AD 313, up until 590—toward the end of the 6^th Century. As we look at this particular period of time, we might wonder and say, “Well, why these time frames?” AD 313 was the time when the persecution of the church ended because of Constantine and the Edict of Milan. We’ve discussed that first period of time, from the end of the 1^st Century—from the end of the apostolic age—up to that time when the church was under severe persecution to the end of that. Now, we pick up at that same period of time at AD 313 and will go through AD 590. And we see that AD 590 is going to be—in terms of a period of history—about the start of the period referred to as “the Dark Ages.” So that’s why these time frames are divided the way they are.

The rise of Constantine to power as the Roman Emperor brought drastic change to the status of the church. As we saw, the church was a persecuted minority, and because of Constantine and the Edict of Milan that he made, the church became a tolerated sect, then a favored religion and finally, long before the end of this period of time, it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. During this period, the organizational structure of the church began to assume a definite form, some of the great doctrinal issues that have ever since troubled the church were raised, and the seeds that later divided the “church” into East and West were sown.