An online early Christian dictionary (coming soon)

Preface

The last couple months I have been working on making available a dictionary of early Christian beliefs online. The work is about finished and should be available on the website in the next week or so. Those familiar with “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs” by David Bercot will find some aspects of this work similar. Throughout the years I have heavily relied on Bercot’s dictionary. Over the last few years one of my close brothers and companions in Huancayo Peru, Anthony Hurtado, took a great interest in Bercot’s Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, and with his limited English he labored in study to try to understand some of it’s truths. Soon he was asking me about the possibility of reproducing such a work in the Spanish language and we began to consider doing a condensed version of “The Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs” in Spanish with only the most relevant topics. Soon Anthony and I were getting together all the Early Christian writings we could find available in Spanish. Because the 10-volume set of Ante Nicene Fathers is not available in Spanish, we had to search high and low. After sifting though numerous bookstores in Lima full of contemporary Christian literature, we only came up with a couple of copies of selected writings, which just goes to show the scarce availability of such valuable materials in the Spanish language. We were also able to find some of the earliest writings on the internet, and some of the brothers in Mexico were able to find some writings as well and send them to us. Once we had all the writings we could get our hands on the work progressed quickly. Anthony and I were excited by what we found. Approaching the project from the perspective of evangelists who often face the opposition of society and the world around us helped us to bring to light aspects of the early Christian faith that may have been overlooked in Bercot’s work. Anthony’s enthusiasm and help made the project quite exciting and soon we had our work available online free to all the Spanish speaking community. More recently we have also made it available in Portuguese as well. Part of the reason I felt the necessity to take on the task again in my own language was to produce an original work of our own, free of copyrights, that could be made available online free of charge to those seeking truth. Another reason was due to the wealth of new light we found in the early Christian writings not presented in Bercot’s work. Some of the topics, while not at variance with but differ greatly from Bercot’s work, to be found in our work worth mentioning will be: the Cross, Evangelism, Faith, Fear of God, Grace, Happiness of Man, Heresies, Holy Spirit, Early Christian View of Jesus, Judging Others, Love of God, Obedience, and most importantly, the whole section on Salvation.

Introduction

Do we understand the words and terms the New Testament writers used? I’m sure every bible believing Christian would say yes. However what if the definitions you ascribe to the words and terms you read in the New Testament are different from what the Lord and his apostles had in mind? The result would be that every time you picked up your bible and read it you would be reading an entirely different message than the apostles had in mind; you would be reading another gospel. Let’s take the seemingly simple word “grace” for example. What if your definition of grace is different than the apostle Paul’s? When you read his epistles you would come to an entirely different understanding of salvation than what the apostle Paul was communicating. It wouldn’t matter how much you read and reread Paul’s epistles, Paul would no longer be saying the same thing to you as he said to the early churches. You would not hear Jesus preaching the same message he preached as he walked amongst us 2000 years ago. You could even memorize the whole New Testament, fasting and praying, but you would still be reading another gospel.

One advantage that the early Christians of the first century had over us was that any question regarding the meaning of the apostle’s teachings could be answered personally with a one-on-one discussion with the apostles themselves. In fact, through the apostle John’s revelation Jesus directly gave correction to various churches. It’s important to note that in addressing the church of Smyrna our Lord found no flaw needing corrected during the time that Polycarp (disciple and personal companion of the apostle John) happened to be the bishop appointed over that church. The only exhortation Christ gave was “Be thou faithful unto death”. Polycarp was burned at the stake after refusing to deny his Lord at the age of 87 years old and his writings are still with us today. Can’t we listen to men such as this that both the scriptures themselves and history have proven as faithful? Neither Polycarp nor any other early Christian writers claimed their writings to be inspired scripture, however such writings shine valuable light on how the gospel is to be understood and practiced.

The purpose of any dictionary is to define words and terms. By making use of close to 2,000 quotes from more than 30 different early church writers over a time span of three centuries dating before the time of Constantine, The Early Christian Dictionary lets the early Christians redefine some of the more important Bible concepts. After some investigation, you will probably find their understanding of scripture to be radically different than your own. You may find answers to many questions you’ve always had. The scriptures may come alive to you as you learn to walk in new light. Or you may decide not to put any reliance on their definitions at all. Even so you must remember that every time you pick up your bible you still rely on the Early Christian writers. That’s because they decided what books to include or not include in the New Testament canon that you use. And after all, if you find you have a serious conflict with the writings of men like Polycarp, you still have to grapple with the fact the these men were favored by both the Lord and the Apostles, and proven faithful even unto death. These are not new truths challenging you old ideas, these are old truths challenging your new ideas.

-Brian Gray