What were some of the early challenges to Church authority?

Answer 1

Answer

It seems that the very earliest challenges to Church authority arose because of divisions within Christianity that are already evident in the time of Paul the Apostle. Today, we tend to think of early Christianity as a single, monolithic authority guided by eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. We tend to think that schisms in Christianity could not have occurred during the lifetimes of the apostles.

In fact, Paul talks of those who opposed his teachings and taught what he considered a "different Christ", within less than two decades of the traditional date for the crucifixion. When the gospels, which came somewhat later, spoke of false apostles, what they were talking about was other Christians who saw Christianity differently. Christians who, in turn, may have called the evangelists "false apostles".

There was no unanimity within the Christian community as to the meaning of Christ or his message. This was the challenge to Church authority.

Answer 2

There have been challenges to the authority of the Church in Rome for twenty centuries now. To get any kind of a reasonable answer in under six volumes, you are going to have to specify a time period, and perhaps a country.

Answer 3

A:

Judging by frequent references in Paul's epistles, the gospels and the Johannine epistles, one of the most important issues that early Christians had to face is division. Assuming that Jesus was crucified in 30 or 33 CE, as generally supposed, it seems there were substantial differences of belief about what Jesus taught, and even about his life and mission, within one or two decades of his death.

A growing consensus among scholars also places the writing of the Gospel of Thomas as early as Mark's Gospel or even earlier. As this is a moderately gnostic gospel, this provides very early evidence for Gnostic Christianity, a quite different branch of Christianity than that which has come down to us today. This is evidence external to The Bible to show just how extensive these divisions were.

Christian tradition also says that Christians faced widespread and severe persecution under Emperor Nero (54-68), and that he ordered the execution, in Rome, of the apostles Peter and Paul. Historians agree that Nero blamed the Christians of Rome, perhaps unfairly, for the Great Fire, but say that otherwise he appears to have ignored the Christians. There may have been some official persecution under Domitian but, again, historians say the evidence makes this unlikely. There certainly would have been sporadic small-scale attacks on Christians, who could be blamed whenever natural disasters struck, as their 'superstion' had made the gods angry.