Christian historian, Woodrow Walton, invites us to take another look at the early church and the struggles it faced as it emerged from the Apostolic Age and became the state religion of the crumbling Roman Empire. Part of The Gospel in History series.

What is attempted here is to reappraise the condition of the church as it spread the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in the years after the persecutions meted out to the Christians by Domitian and subsequent to the attacks made by critics of the gospel by both the powers that be and those of philosophical bent. This goes beyond the period of the first apologists of the faith, as for instance, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian, and extends into the period when the gospel had to face off the spiritualizing gnostic mentality which invaded the Mediterranean world out of Persia and beyond with the return of Roman forces after armed conflicts with Persian armies. The role that Irenaeus of Lyons had in his polemic Contra Haeresies (“Against Heresies”) was crucial for the future of the gospel.

“The Favorites of the Emperor Honorius” (1883) by John William Waterhouse.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.

The subversive effects of Gnosticism in both its Docetic (that the humanity Jesus or his material body was only an illusion) and non-Docetic forms and of esoteric pantheism were great. Syncretism during the reign of Alexander Severus was also challenged by the church’s leaders and apologists. Mithraism and syncretism returned with Roman soldiers from differing parts of the empire.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ also contended with eastern-type spiritualities coming out of Persia, India, and elsewhere. This writer argues that “Spirit,” as spoken of in the Bible, refers to the Personhood of God as revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This stands in stark contrast to the way “spirit” is defined by the New Age spirituality of Marilyn Ferguson, pantheism, panentheism, the self-engrossed spiritualism of the Yoga practitioners, and the intuitive spirituality marketed by popularizers such as Tolle and Chopra.  A contemporary defender of biblical spirituality against the mentalities of these teachers is Ravi Zacharias, particularly in his book Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality.

Matthew E. Gordley, in his monograph Teaching through Song in Antiquity: Didactic Hymnody among Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians, explores the variety of means that ancient poets, over time and in numerous locations, employed hymns to instruct their audiences. Gordley argues that many Greek, Roman, Jewish and Christian hymns of antiquity, beyond praising a deity, also had the primary function of instructing and shaping the writer’s community (1-2).

The author maintains, “Didactic hymns, prayers and religious poetry are those which employ the stylistic and/or formal conventions of praise and prayer, but whose primary purpose was to convey a lesson, idea, or theological truth to a human audience” (5).

In this comprehensive work, the author claims through a study of form, content and strategies of a hymn, insight can be gleaned about issues facing the communities for which these texts were composed (2). Gordley also asserts that by comparing didactic hymns from a variety of cultural traditions, a greater appreciation and understanding of how ancient instructional strategies functioned can be achieved (2). A final goal of the author is to explore the types of lessons and instructions conveyed through hymnody (8).

Gordley’s book consists of eleven chapters, a bibliography, an index of references and an index of modern authors and subjects. Chapter one is critical as it conveys the methods Gordley utilizes to identify hymns intended to have a teaching function (9). The features, which may indicate that a hymn had a didactic purpose, are first, a poet’s invitation to his audience to learn from him, (such as Psalm 78:1, which opens with “Give ear, my people, to my instruction …”). A second indicator of a teaching purpose is the presence of prominent instructional language in the hymn.

When these explicit indicators are absent, Gordley notes other characteristics in the hymn that can point to a text with a didactic purpose. They are 1) the direct address of the audience by the author, 2) the presence of direct claims about the deity being praised and/or explicit claims about the community offering the praise, 3) the recounting of an event, in the form of a narrative, from the mythic past or recent past (10). Gordley also claims psalms or hymns that are embedded in a narrative or an epistolary text of the Bible or in other early Jewish and Christian literature could have had an instructional function in its new context (11). Gordley’s methodology leans on reader-response criticism, discourse analysis, performance criticism and the analysis of how communities have remembered themes over time (15-20).

Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2001), 434 pages.

Without question, we can all agree that marriage between man and woman was established and ordained by God very early after the creation account. Throughout the Bible, men take wives, marriages are arranged, and men and women fall in love. But how much do we really understand about how betrothals and marriages were conducted? What were the cultural and historical elements that came into play as the “two became one flesh?” How did a wedding in the time of the Exodus differ from that of the time of the Gospel of Matthew?

Satlow has compiled a comprehensive look at marriage throughout the biblical ages that helps put this noble institution into an overall context and elucidates the biblical text. Using not only the Bible, but also extra biblical books from both the Jewish and Christian camps, he adds understanding which, until now, would have taken years of independent research. The subject index helps locate resource material quickly and easily.

For instance, the imagery of “take a wife,” is quite vivid, literally meaning to capture a woman and carry her away. This does not hold very many modern romantic scenes with it, but then, the period in which the Bible was written was not one of romance. This is only one example of many throughout the book’s pages. This book is an important read for any teacher that desires to better understand biblical marriage and the analogy of marriage between the heavenly Bridegroom and the body of Messiah, His Bride.

Reviewed by Kevin M. Williams