Four Witnesses (2002)

Four Witnesses is a great, great book! Period. I read all 340 pages in less than two days. For a "non-reader" like myself, that's saying something.

As a Catholic, I have often wondered how the church got where it is today. What were the catalysts for certain beliefs, traditions and rituals? And how close is it now to what the original Apostles instituted?

The Roman Catholic church is an apostolic church, meaning it is based solely on the teachings and examples of the Apostles. But, some 2000 years later, how do we know what the Apostles truly meant? Since the Luther schism, reinterpretations of what it means to be a Christian has generated numerous versions and denominations of the faith.

So, how can we know the Apostle's intent? And under what historical context were such decisions decided... decisions which helped form the Catholic church today?

It's wise and logical to turn to the immediate followers of the Apostles to get a glimpse into how the Apostles intended the faith to be lived and grown. After all, these followers would pattern their lives after the Apostles and these Apostles would have been the first to have converted a belief in Jesus Christ into a day-to-day existence.

Four Witnesses examines the lives and the writings of the early church fathers who were either followers of the Apostles or the Apostles' apprentices: Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons.

The author, Rod Bennett, was surprised to find that these early days of the church formation were well documented... over 1000 pages are available for reading and study. Pages written in the first 100 years or so after the resurrection of Christ. And he has taken that information and consolidated it, along with his own personal journey of faith, into a format easily digestible to today's reader.

A couple of broad-stroke differences culturally that both helped define the creation and growth of the church are the Mentor/Apprentice structure of the society and the importance of oral tradition at the time.

In Christ's day, one learned a craft or skill or knowledge from a master. There were no vocational schools or grand university system available at the time. The validity of the apprentice was based almost solely on the validity of the master. Jesus learned to be a carpenter from his father, Joseph. If Jesus were to say "I'm a carpenter," the first question to follow was "who was your master?" "Joseph." If they liked Joseph's work, they trusted Jesus' carpenter skills.

So, when the Apostles set forth in their ministry, their master was Jesus. And as their ministries grew, the Apostles took on apprentices to pass along all that they knew and how to live as this new thing called a "Christian." By analyzing the writings and rituals used by these apprentices, you can immediately understand what they were handed down from their masters, the Apostles.

Secondly, oral tradition was critical. Most people couldn't read or write, so having the written word did not reach the majority of the Christian church at that time. Tradition and how to live as a Christian was passed on using a "listen to what I say and do what I do" philosophy.

I was amazed to find out that the majority of what we call the Catholic Mass and Catholic Church had already been instituted before most of the New Testament had even been written!

Also critical to the Church at the time was the importance of following and obeying your spiritual "masters." Peter was the greatest of the Apostles. Everyone agreed on this. But, to avoid heresy, churches had to completely submit to the skill and knowledge of the Apostle's apprentices, meaning the bishops, priests and deacons. Heresy always started when the lineage, the direct line back to the Apostles, was broken.

The same occurs today.

The book is so rich and full of wonderful information that I could write about it for hours. But, some of the highlights that surprised me were that the first catechesis of the Christian faith (called the Didache), written between 60 and 90 A.D., tells Christians how to live their faith and includes "do not kill a fetus by abortion." That means such a belief must have come from the Apostles themselves. By 200 A.D. the church stated "we acknowledge that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul begins at conception. Life begins when the soul begins."

So, if you wonder why the Catholic church is so adamantly against abortion, you can rest assured its because the men who walked with Jesus Christ himself believed it to be murder.

The second amazing aspect of the early church is that it was attacked, via heresy, immediately upon Jesus' resurrection. I'm sure Satan felt the best time to kill the faith is in its infancy. The leader of the heretical movement, which later became known as the Gnosticism, was led by Simon the Magician (or Simon Magus). How confusing it must have been for pagans to hear similar, but very different versions of Christianity from two men called Simon. And how effectively evil of Satan to devise such a simple attack.

For the next 500 years, the church would fight various forms of Gnosticism, which basically believed that Jesus was never human, only a ghost or spirit. This means his suffering is invalidated. Which means his sacrifice for sins is invalidated. Which leads to undermining the true need for salvation from sin and avoiding a sinful life. Which leads to a whole lot of un-Christian behavior. But the message preached by both Simons sounded a lot alike.

The thing that separated Simon Peter from Simon Magus is the same thing that caused Simon Peter to deny Christ three times... people recognized him as a follower of Christ. They saw him with Jesus. They understood him to be the apprentice to Jesus, his master.

That's just the tip of of the iceberg. There is so much more in this book. I could write a hundred more paragraphs... but then, that would be plagiarism.

Find this book. Get it, read it, love it. It's an amazing, enlightening experience!