BRITISH CHURCHCHRISTIAN
CHURCH ORIGINS IN BRITAIN Click
here to view the complete text of Introduction It is generally promoted by the Christian churches that the formalized religion based on the model of Jesus emerged from the teachings of Peter and Paul in Rome, but there is nothing in the Vatican Archive, nor in any historical record, to substantiate this premise. The New Testament Acts of the Apostles relate that, following two years of confinement in Caesarea on a charge of incitement, St Paul was taken under guard to Rome in the year AD 60.1 He was placed under house arrest prior to his appearance before the Senate tribunal, and then imprisoned in AD 62. Following that event, there is no further record of his life, and it is reckoned that he met his end in the mass slaughter of Christians by Emperor Nero in AD 64. Paul’s erstwhile colleague, the apostle St Peter, is not referenced in the Bible or in any other document subsequent to his imprisonment in Jerusalem, from where he escaped to Antioch, Syria, in AD 44. But without any supporting evidence, Church tradition has claimed from the 4th century that Peter also went to Rome, where he became the first leader of Christians in the city and was martyred along with Paul. In contrast, however, the Church’s own Apostolic Constitutions actually cite another man as the first Christian leader. Writing in AD 180, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon in Gaul stated that the first ministry of the Christians in Rome was committed to the supervision of a certain Linus. Paul had actually mentioned Linus in his second epistle from Rome to his colleague Timothy,3 and it had been recorded as early as AD 68 by the Roman writer Martial that Linus was a prince who had been captured and brought from Britain.4 Furthermore, he had led the Christians of Rome since AD 58, two years before St Paul arrived in the city. Linus had been a Christian before his seizure and, as confirmed in the Vatican Archive, ‘The first beginnings of Christian piety existed in Britain’.5 It is on record that Christianity had entered Britain as early as AD 35, just two years after the crucifixion of Jesus and long before the faith made any impact in Rome. Click
here to view the complete text of Laurence Gardner website - www.graal.co.uk
|
