EARLY CHURCH CATECHESIS AND NEW CHRISTIANS' CLASSES IN CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICALISM
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mar 2004 by Arnold, Clinton E

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3817/is_200403/ai_n9400818
www.etsjets.org/jets/journal/47/47-1/47-1-pp039-054_JETS.pdf

I. INTRODUCTION

For twelve years my wife and I were deeply involved in a ministry to new believers at our local church.1 When we began developing this "assimilation" ministry, we started with an eight-week course that covered many of the basics of the Christian life. We offered the hour-and-fifteen-minute course during the Sunday morning Sunday School time for mixed ages, marrieds, and singles.

The initial idea was for new believers to take the eight-week course as a primer in some of the basics of Christian doctrine and practice and then help them blend into the regular age-graded Sunday School program of the church. A number of constraints prevented this from working well. There was the practical social difficulty of being a newcomer in a Sunday School group that has been together for years, but there was also the fact that these new believers strongly felt the need for more of the same kind of teaching and discussions centered on the basics that they had just experienced.

I had also been doing some reading in the Church fathers about how new Christians' classes were conducted in the early church and came away deeply convicted about the superficiality of what we were doing. There was such a rigorous plan and commitment by church leaders in the first four centuries to ground new believers in their Christian lives. The impact of this reading on my thinking led to some significant changes in our new Christians' ministry, especially the development of a ministry plan and curriculum that would keep them for two to three years.

I have now been away from this ministry for a couple of years, but have continued to reflect critically on what we did in light of ????ure and early church practice. It has become increasingly clear to me that the evangelical church as a whole could benefit from re-examining the testimony of the Church fathers and gleaning insights from how they ministered to new believers.

It may challenge many churches to consider implementing some modifications in philosophy and structure of ministry as they entertain questions such as:
* Is a four-week (six-week, or eight-week) new Christians' class really enough?
* Are we getting new believers adequately immersed into the ????ure?
* Have we downplayed the importance of creed?
* Are we helping new believers repent completely of sinful life-styles and practices?
* Are we taking the spiritual warfare dynamic seriously enough in helping new believers grow?

The time is fortuitous for a re-exploration of the early church practice of training new believers-a practice they called the catechumenate, derived from the Greek word katechein, meaning "to teach" or "instruct."2 Fortress Press has just published a new critical edition of the Apostolic Tradition,3 the earliest source providing us with detailed information about the catechumenate.4 The majority of scholars have associated the Apostolic Tradition with a lost work of Hippolytus of Rome (AD 170-235)5 especially because a statue in Rome included a reference to a work called the Apostolic Tradition in a list of Hippolytus's writings inscribed on the base. The discovery of this document in the last century, first in a Coptic (Bohairic) manu???? and subsequently in a fifth-century Latin manu????, led scholars to believe that this lost work had now been recovered.6 The Greek original has never been discovered, but many Greek terms from the original can be inferred on the basis of Greek loanwords in the Coptic.

Paul F. Bradshaw and his fellow editors of the Fortress edition, however, question the association with Hippolytus and regard the Apostolic Tradition as an aggregation of material from different sources spanning a variety of geographical regions and dating as early as the mid-second century (with some layers dating as late as the fourth).7 Others, who see Hippolytus as primarily responsible for the document, would also recognize that it does reflect a compilation of early church traditions. In other words, Hippolytus did not invent the material; he simply wrote down the practices and advocated them in his church setting.8
The value of this document, then, is that it preserves many of the traditional ministry practices of churches in the second and third centuries. Although it was known and used in Rome, it may have originated in the East and was certainly widely used there as attested by the fact that it has been preserved in Egyptian (Sahidic and Bohairic), Arabic, and Ethiopie manu????s. Portions of the Apostolic Tradition were used in the composition of several other church orders, including the Apostolic Constitutions, the Canons of Hippolytus, and the Testamentum Domini.9

For our purposes, we can safely say that it is the most important bearer of traditions and information on how the churches of the Mediterranean world of the second and third centuries organized and conducted training for new believers.

In this paper, I want to glean several insights from the Apostolic Tradition about the ancient church catechumenate that may prove to be instructional for us today. I make no pretension to provide a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the catechumenate. I simply want to make selective observations about the nature and structure of the catechumenate from the Apostolic Tradition in conversation with some other ancient sources giving testimony to this practice (such as the Didache,10 Didascalia Apostolorum,11 the Apostolic Constitutions,12 the Testamentum Domini,15 and from some of the Church fathers). On this basis, I will offer some thoughts on what the contemporary evangelical church can learn from their forbears on this.

1. Was the catechumenate a "new Christians'" class? Perhaps the first question that needs to be discussed is on the propriety of speaking of the ancient church catechumenate as a "new Christians'" class. The section of the Apostolic Tradition treating the catechumenate begins with the following statement: "concerning newcomers, those who will give their assent to the faith" (15.1). The church leader who interviews them is guided as follows: "let them be asked the reason why they have given their assent to the faith" (15.2). Similarly, the DidaKcalia Apostolorum says, "When the heathen desire and promise to repent, saying 'We believe,' we receive them into the congregation so that they may hear the word, but do not receive them into communion until they receive the seal and are fully initiated" (2.39).14

These new people clearly have some rudimentary level of faith. They appear to be aware of enough of the gospel message that they have exercised faith in it and are now taking the step to commit themselves to a rigorous course of study, prepare for baptism, and join the community of believers.15 In the language of contemporary conversionist evangelicalism, one might say that they have heard an evangelistic message, prayed the sinner's prayer, and are ready to get plugged into a church.16

The difficulty, however, is that the catechumenate was also a formal preparation for baptism. Perhaps the most significant motive for the shift away from the apostolic practice of baptizing immediately after profession of faith17 to a time after substantive training, mentoring, and preparation had to do with "the concern the ministers of baptism had from the very beginning for the sincerity of the conversion of the candidates."18

The question of whether the catechumenate was a new Christians' class also hinges on the assumption of a number of early Church fathers that baptism was the occasion for the divine bestowal of salvation and the divine work of regeneration.19 Some Church fathers, however, could argue that regeneration takes place prior to baptism. In his discourse on repentance, Tertullian says:

Is there one Christ for the baptized, another for the learners? Have they some different hope or reward? some different dread of judgment? some different necessity for repentance? That baptismal washing is a sealing of faith, which faith is begun and is commended by the faith of repentance. We are not washed in order that we may cease sinning, but because we have ceased, since in heart we have been bathed already (Tertullian, On Repentance 6.15-17).20

It is not my purpose here to solve the question of the occasion of regeneration in relationship to baptism. The answer to the question of whether or not the catechumenate was a new Christians' class hinges on our perspective on the moment of saving faith. If we believe that it occurs at the time that we put our faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ-as I believe-then we can refer to the catechumenate as a new Christians' class.

What matters most for our purposes, however, is learning from the early church how it helped assimilate these pagan seekers into the life of the church.

II. TIME AND IMPORTANCE
1. Four weeks was not enough. Although the NT itself never specifies a particular time frame or a set procedure for training new believers, there are numerous exhortations and narrative examples of the establishment of new believers in Christ. The development of an organized catechumenate may have derived much of its impetus from the second part of Jesus' so-called Great Commission where he enjoins his disciples not only to proclaim the gospel and baptize the new believers, but also "teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matt 28:19-20). Certainly the entire course of the apostle Paul's ministry could be described as a zealous combination of proclaiming the gospel along with an equally zealous commitment to forming communities of believers and teaching them. he tells the Galatians that "I am in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you" (Gal 4:19).

As we move into the post-apostolic period, there is widespread testimony of a focused and coherent plan21 to instruct new believers. There may have been some precedent for the structure and content of the catechumenate in the Jewish procedure for training proselytes. The ethical teaching of the "two ways" tradition that appears in early Christian catechetical documents (Barn, 18-20; Did, 1-6) appears to be rooted in Jewish tradition. This is seen most notably now in the comparison of these documents with the "two ways" teaching found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (IQS 3:13-4:26).22 Nevertheless, we need to recognize that "in regard to the instruction of I.Jewish] proselytes before their reception, nothing is known."23 We really know nothing of the length of the period of instruction for proselytes, how the time was structured, and very little of the content of what was taught. If it did serve as the model for the early Christians, we actually may learn more about the Jewish pattern from Christian catechetical sources than vice versa.
When we begin to examine the sources of the early Christian catechumenate, we discover that it often took place over a three-year span.24 The Apostolic Tradition reflects the practice of instructing them for a span of three years: "let the catechumens hear the Word for three years" (17.1). A three-year period is also attested in the Apostolic Constitutions (8.32.16) and the Testamentum Domini (3.3).25 Clement of Alexandria also alludes to a three-year catechumenate (Stromata 2.18).26
Part of the motivation and concern for a lengthy process was rooted in a desire to foster solid spiritual formation and to protect these new believers against sin, heresy, and apostasy. Thomas Finn summarizes the process well in affirming that, "The key was conversion, itself a journey, or as the ancients put it, a change ('turning,' epistrephein/conversio) from one 'way of walking' to another."27 Cyril of Jerusalem reflects on the vital importance of this process of growth for the health and stability of these new believers: "Let me compare the catechizing to a building. Unless we methodically bind and joint the whole structure together, we shall have leaks and dry rot, and all our previous exertions will be wasted" (Cyril of Jerusalem, Prochatechesis U).28

By contrast, many evangelical churches today place a minimal emphasis on the training of new believers, especially when compared to the prominence and importance of the catechumenate in the ancient church. Some churches find it adequate to have a four-week members' class prior to baptism and the acquisition of church membership. Others may have a six or eight-week new Christians' class. How many contemporary evangelical churches, however, have a plan for training new believers over a two or three-year span?

2. A top priority for the Christian scholars of the day. As we consider the lives and writings of the most well-known church leaders in the first four centuries, it is amazing how many of them devoted themselves to the task of teaching new believers. I have gained an extraordinary respect and admiration for Origen (185-254), a Church father often remembered primarily for his tendency to allegorize certain narrative texts. In spite of his erudition and scholarly bent, he had a passionate concern for training new believers in the ????ures and elementary instruction in the faith.29 According to Eusebius, there were great numbers who came to him for instruction in the rudiments of the faith (Eusebius, Hist. 6.3). Origen was preceded in this ministry in Alexandria by Clement (150-215) and Pantaenus.

Tertullian displayed a similar "abiding and passionate concern for the formation of catechumens,"30 but so did Hippolytus (Rome; 170-236), Ambrose (Italy; 339-97), Cyprian (North Africa; d. 258), Gregory of Nyssa (Asia Minor; 330-395), John Chrysostom (Byzantium; 347-407), Theodore of Mopsuestia (Asia Minor; 350-428), Cyril of Jerusalem (Palestine; b. 349), and many others. In fact, some of the most important works extant from the hand of Cyril are a set of catechetical instructions and messages.31
One other important figure in this regard is Augustine. Among his various responsibilities in his work in Hippo, North Africa, was his directorship of a catechumenate. There is so much in Augustine's writings about the catechumenate that William Harmless wrote a 400-page monograph on this topic a few years ago.32 One of Augustine's most important works providing insight into the fourth-century catechumenate is a document called De Catechizandis Rudibus, "On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed." This is essentially a letter Augustine writes to a teacher in Carthage who has "a rich gift in catechising" but is struggling and discouraged with his ministry. Augustine here functions as a mentor to Deogratias to encourage him and give him advice in carrying out this important ministry in the church.

If the training of new believers was such an important ministry in the estimation of the well-known leaders and teachers of the ancient church, it is natural to ask whether it is equally a priority among the scholars and Bible teachers of our time. How many seminary professors are teaching in the functional equivalent of a catechumenate? How many evangelical pastors value the importance of this ministry so highly that they relinquish other commitments to free up adequate time to teach new believers? Time and busyness are certainly the key issues. But should the teaching of new believers be placed at a higher level of priority necessitating a few other things to be cut from our schedules? For seminary professors, perhaps writing one less article each year and investing more time in teaching new believers might be worth considering. For pastors, perhaps giving an associate the opportunity to do a four-week preaching series could free up a chunk of time to spend with a group of new Christians on Sunday mornings.