After reading that article, my internet friend appeared to concede that the Catholic Church did<\/strong> actually exist from the earliest of times. Wonderful! However, despite denying its existence only\u00a0moments before, she now<\/strong>\u00a0claimed that the Catholic Church had persecuted the “true” Christians in the early centuries!<\/strong>\u00a0I’ve heard similar claims in the past made by other Protestants as well as Muslims, in an effort to explain why the belief system\u00a0that we find in\u00a0the Early Church is incompatible with their own.<\/p>\n Today I would like to examine the\u00a0assertion that the Catholic Church suppressed “true” Christianity in the early centuries and I will attempt to\u00a0dismantle it using an argument which may be referred to as\u00a0“The dog who never barked”<\/em>…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The phrase “The dog who never barked”\u00a0is\u00a0a reference to a Sherlock Holmes mystery\u00a0written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,\u00a0named “Silver Blaze”<\/em>. During the course of the story, someone manages to gain access to\u00a0a 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\u00a0and solving the case.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0The 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\u00a0held beliefs identical to her own.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the lady\u00a0commenting 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\u00a0Sherlock Holmes for a moment… If the “dog” of history didn’t\u00a0“bark”, what then can we deduce?<\/p>\n The most logical explanation for the complete\u00a0lack 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.<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Now, one possible explanation for the absence of historical evidence of “true” Christians\u00a0is to say that they were all cowards. We could assert that they\u00a0kept the Gospel to themselves and utterly failed\u00a0to speak out against the falsehoods of the Catholic Church which was\u00a0preaching its\u00a0own “false” message to the nations.<\/p>\n While such an explanation manages to explain\u00a0the 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\u2019t 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\u00a0“make disciples of all nations”<\/span><\/em>? One would expect “real” followers of Jesus to\u00a0be a little more tenacious in\u00a0spreading the “true” Gospel!<\/p>\n So, if this explanation is undesirable, is there an alternative available to us?<\/p>\n A more common response I hear to explain the absence of historical evidence for a sect of “true” Christians is that\u00a0the\u00a0Catholic Church’s persecution obliterated them\u00a0from the historical record.\u00a0Apart from the fact that this sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy theory, this argument fails for two reasons:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Early Church Power<\/strong> This becomes an even more bizarre suggestion\u00a0when we contrast the early centuries with later periods of history. For example, by 16th Century the Catholic Church had considerable\u00a0secular power, yet it failed\u00a0to\u00a0prevent 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?<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Apologist Records<\/strong>![\"Sherlock3\"](\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Sherlock3.jpg\")
<\/p>\nElementary dear Watson…<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Sherlock2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nExplaining away the silence…<\/h2>\n
Explanation #1: Christian Cowards?<\/h3>\n
![\"Sherlock4\"](\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Sherlock4.jpg\")
<\/p>\nExplantion #2: Catholic Conspiracy?<\/h3>\n
\nThe 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\u00a0and the state until AD 313! How on earth would the Church have\u00a0the kind of power necessary to silence completely\u00a0the “true” followers of Jesus?<\/p>\n
\nIn the early centuries there were many heresies: Docetism<\/a>, Arianism<\/a>, Gnosticism<\/a> and many others… Please consider for a moment how we know\u00a0about all these heresies and why it is that these groups\u00a0leave a footprint in history.\u00a0We know about these heretical groups primarily\u00a0because the Catholic apologists of the day wrote tracts against their false beliefs.<\/p>\n
![\"Sherlock1\"](\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Sherlock11.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n