History and the dog who never barked

A while ago, during a discussion in the comment section of this blog, I made the assertion that the historic Church of Christianity was the Catholic Church. A non-Catholic disputed this claim, asserting that the Catholic Church only came into existence with the reign of the Emperor Constantine.

In response to this claim, I shared with her my post entitled Before 300: Pre-Constantinian Christianity, where I provide evidence for twenty-one doctrines which were believed by Christians prior to AD 300 and the rise of Constantine.  The original purpose of that post was not only to show that the Catholic Church was in existence long before Constantine arrived on scene, but also to provide non-Catholics with a simple way to compare their own beliefs to that of the early Christians.

After reading that article, my internet friend appeared to concede that the Catholic Church did actually exist from the earliest of times. Wonderful! However, despite denying its existence only moments before, she now claimed that the Catholic Church had persecuted the “true” Christians in the early centuries! I’ve heard similar claims in the past made by other Protestants as well as Muslims, in an effort to explain why the belief system that we find in the Early Church is incompatible with their own.

Today I would like to examine the assertion that the Catholic Church suppressed “true” Christianity in the early centuries and I will attempt to dismantle it using an argument which may be referred to as “The dog who never barked”…

Elementary dear Watson…

The phrase “The dog who never barked” is a reference to a Sherlock Holmes mystery written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, named “Silver Blaze”. During the course of the story, someone manages to gain access to a racehorse’s stall undetected. Holmes deduces that, since the guard dog failed to raise the alarm, the dog must have known the criminal, providing an important clue in identifying the man and solving the case.

Why is this fictional story applicable to the Protestant argument described above? Well, if someone wishes to argue that “true” Christians were persecuted by the Catholic Church in the early centuries, then we should expect to see some historical evidence to substantiate that claim. The “dog” of history needs to “bark”, so-to-speak. The burden of proof here is on the person proposing the theory of persecution. She must be able to identify the persecuted group and also demonstrate that the group held beliefs identical to her own.

Unfortunately, the lady commenting on my blog was unable to provide any historical evidence to substantiate her claim. So, grab your deerstalker and a pipe, and pretend you’re Sherlock Holmes for a moment… If the “dog” of history didn’t “bark”, what then can we deduce?

The most logical explanation for the complete lack of historical evidence is simply that the claim being made is a false one. The idea that the Catholic Church persecuted “true” Christians in the early centuries is pure fiction.

This begs the question, if there’s no historical evidence to back up the theory, then on what basis is this claim being made? Is it actually based on any evidence, or is it born purely out of a desire to explain away the Christian witness of the early centuries?

Explaining away the silence…

Someone wishing to cling to this theory of persecution must provide an explanation for the complete absence of historical proof. Let’s look at some possible ways in which that might be done.

Explanation #1: Christian Cowards?

Now, one possible explanation for the absence of historical evidence of “true” Christians is to say that they were all cowards. We could assert that they kept the Gospel to themselves and utterly failed to speak out against the falsehoods of the Catholic Church which was preaching its own “false” message to the nations.

While such an explanation manages to explain the complete absence of historical evidence for these “true” believers, it’s a rather undesirable argument and I don’t know anybody who would make it. After all, if all “true” Christians were cowards, it doesn’t really say much for “true” Christianity, does it? Can one even be a “true” Christian and yet fail to embrace the Lord’s command to “make disciples of all nations”? One would expect “real” followers of Jesus to be a little more tenacious in spreading the “true” Gospel!

So, if this explanation is undesirable, is there an alternative available to us?

Explantion #2: Catholic Conspiracy?

A more common response I hear to explain the absence of historical evidence for a sect of “true” Christians is that the Catholic Church’s persecution obliterated them from the historical record. Apart from the fact that this sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy theory, this argument fails for two reasons:

1. Early Church Power
The Catholic Church had very little earthly power in the early centuries. In fact, Christianity was an illegal religion and was actively persecuted by both the populace and the state until AD 313! How on earth would the Church have the kind of power necessary to silence completely the “true” followers of Jesus?

This becomes an even more bizarre suggestion when we contrast the early centuries with later periods of history. For example, by 16th Century the Catholic Church had considerable secular power, yet it failed to prevent the Protestant Reformation and was unable to expunge it from the history books. If the Church couldn’t do it in the 16th Century, what makes us think that the Church could do it in the 3rd Century when she had far less worldly power and influence?

2. Apologist Records
In the early centuries there were many heresies: Docetism, Arianism, Gnosticism and many others… Please consider for a moment how we know about all these heresies and why it is that these groups leave a footprint in history. We know about these heretical groups primarily because the Catholic apologists of the day wrote tracts against their false beliefs.

This begs the question, if the early apologists spoke out against those heresies, why wouldn’t they speak out against these “true” Christians (if they existed)? Why would a Catholic apologist write against, say, Modalism, but not against the proto-Protestantism of the Second Century? Wouldn’t a rebuttal of these “true” Christians be extremely necessary? Wouldn’t their “true” Gospel pose the greatest threat to the Catholic Church’s false message?

For these two reasons, the claims of a conspiracy and a cover-up are inadequate. The absence of historical records points to our original deduction, that such a group did not exist within the early centuries.

At this point we have exhausted alternative explanations for the absence for the lack of historical evidence of “real” Christians…

The “Cave Canem” Challenge

So, if you ever come across someone who claims that the Catholic Church persecuted the “true” Christians in the early centuries, I would recommend asking the following questions:

1. Who were these true followers of Jesus in the early centuries? Can you give some names and some sources to back up your claims?

2. Why were those who had the “true” Gospel unable to leave any kind of mark on history, whereas other (heretical) groups leave an abundance of evidence through the writings of early apologists and historians?

Over the course of this article, I have hopefully made it clear that the “dog” of history never “barked”. History doesn’t reveal a group of “true” believers in the early centuries who were persecuted by the Catholic Church. We must then ask why it is that the “dog” didn’t “bark”. Was it because of some elaborate, improbable, historically untraceable conspiracy? Or was it because such a group never existed?

Do you think that there are any flaws in the logic presented here? How do you respond to claims of a secret persecution in the Early Church? Please leave a comment below!