This shift continues into the modern world, where narrative history is seen as biased, and history written or taught by a believing Christian is doubly suspect. The modern-day belief that historians of no faith are more “objective” than historians of faith is a fallacy, for “the rejection of some or all religious truth is every bit as much an intellectual position as is the acceptance of religious truth. Both the believer and the non-believer have a point of view. … Objectivity does not derive from having no point of view.”17 It has been forgotten that all presentations of history rest on the worldview of the historian. The task of the historian is to review available sources and find a way to craft a comprehensible narrative from the mass of raw materials. The crafting of the subject into a readable and presentable book is heavily influenced by the worldview of the author, who, if honest, will openly communicate that worldview to the reader or student. I am a faithful Catholic, and as such I approach the subject of Church history from that perspective. That does not mean that I will ignore or gloss over the negative events or actions in the history of Church, but it does mean that I will interpret those events in light of my faith and the unique role of the Church in human history.
1. Benedict XVI, Address at a Meeting with Young People, Cathedral of Sulmona, July 4, 2010.
2. Lumen Gentium, 8.
3. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 470.
4. See Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Light and Shadows: Church History amid Faith, Fact and Legend, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009 [2007]), 17.
5. Quoted in Desmond Seward, The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders (New York: Penguins Books, 1995 [1972]), 222.
6. See Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 2.
7. Hilaire Belloc, Europe and the Faith (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, 1992 [1920]), 38–39.
8. Benedict XVI, Address at a Meeting with Young People, Cathedral of Sulmona, July 4, 2010.
9. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 5.
10. Hilaire Belloc, Characters of the Reformation: Historical Portraits of 23 Men and Women and Their Place in the Great Religious Revolution of the 16th Century (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1992 [1936]), 102.
11. Belloc, Europe and the Faith, 1.
12. Brandmüller, Light and Shadows, 84.
13. Ranke was known for his History of the Popes (pub. 1834–1839), which were answered by a Catholic series written by Ludwig von Pastor (1854–1928) in the late nineteenth century.
14. Christopher Shannon and Christopher O. Blum, The Past as Pilgrimage: Narrative, Tradition & the Renewal of Catholic History (Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 2014), 40.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Warren H. Carroll, The Founding of Christendom: A History of Christendom, vol. 1 (Front Royal, VA: Christendom College Press, 1985), 11–12.
One
The Beginning — Pentecost and the Spread of the Gospel
“You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”1
Jesus Christ
The fisherman had experienced a range of emotions over the last few months. Years ago, he had met the man who changed his life, who gave it meaning — the man who gave his authority to the fisherman and commanded him to lead a new community that would change the course of human history. Little did the fisherman know that hundreds of men would follow in his shoes and his name would be remembered and recalled for thousands of years. None of that occupied the fisherman’s mind at the moment. Instead, he was focused on the crowd in front of him: several thousand people from around the known world, enraptured by his tale of the Christ, by a miracle of the Holy Spirit hearing him in their native language. Peter had experienced every emotion during his friendship with Jesus. He had learned from the Master, lived and eaten with him, and loved him. Weakened by fear and consumed by self-preservation, he had denied knowing the man who had given him everything. But the Christ had forgiven him, and that act of mercy motivated Peter. He recalled vividly the day he heard the Master’s body was not in the tomb and how he ran as fast as he could to see for himself the emptiness. Then, Jesus appeared to him and the other apostles and spent time with them, and then he left again. But he promised to send the Spirit, and when the Spirit came ten days later, Peter and the others were changed men. No longer afraid of the Jews, they were emboldened for the epic adventure Jesus called them to undertake. It began in Jerusalem in front of a large crowd, where the once simple fisherman proclaimed Jesus Christ crucified, died, and resurrected.
Every story has a beginning. Our family history begins some two thousand years ago in the imperial Roman province of Judea, an unimportant backwater in the imperial system. It was a place of frequent violence and home to a group of people who, unique in the Empire, were allowed to worship their one God. If asked, no one alive at the time would have thought that a motley collection of “nobodies” could lead a cultural and religious revolution that would change the Empire and sweep the world. In the first century A.D., a document known as the Acts of Caesar Augustus was published in order to honor the emperor and encourage others to imitate his virtues.2 In the same century, a physician named Luke wrote another document with a similar title. It recorded the actions of a band of brothers — witnesses to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit — who spread his Good News throughout the world and provided a blueprint of life in the new kingdom.
A Replacement for the Betrayer
Peter and the other apostles knew that in the new kingdom they were not merely witnesses to the deeds of Jesus — they were also endowed with authority as representatives of Christ. The college of apostles had been incomplete since the death of Judas the betrayer. Someone was needed to restore the college to its fullness and take Judas’s place. The Eleven, recognizing their office as not merely organizational but also priestly,3 cast lots in accordance with the Davidic custom, where priestly duties were assigned by lot. The lot fell on Matthias, who had been one of the earliest disciples of Jesus. The college was now complete, and the apostles waited the promised sending of the Spirit.
Pentecost — Birthday of the Church
Under the Old Covenant, the feast of Pentecost celebrated the giving of the Law by God to the Jewish people through Moses (the Torah) fifty days after the first Passover. Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven (fifty after his resurrection) a group of 120 disciples, including the apostles and the Blessed Mother, gathered in Jerusalem. We know the story from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: they heard a mighty wind and were shocked when tongues of fire descended on them. They began speaking in other languages. This event alludes to the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament, when human communication was garbled because of mankind’s sinfulness. But now, in the New Covenant, God restored the community of humanity in a shared language of the Gospel in the Church.4 Tradition holds that the event took place in the Upper Room where Jesus and the apostles celebrated the Last Supper; however, an alternative theory proposes that the location was actually the Temple.5 Filled with the Spirit, the apostles began preaching, which the assembled diverse crowd heard in their own native languages. This miracle captured the attention of the crowd, and Peter began the Church’s evangelization efforts by proclaiming Jesus Christ crucified, died, and resurrected. After hearing Peter’s testimony, the people asked him what they should do. He invited them to repent and be baptized. The Acts of the Apostles records that three thousand souls were added to