One of the striking omissions in the New Testament is the absence of any instructions on how to prepare the Church for its long journey through time. The imminence of the parousia is one of the reasons; the impact of the Good News is another. Men who were expecting the Second Coming any time, especially those who had received so recently the news of their salvation by the Blood of the Lamb, had no reason to think for the long term. Even when it was clear, as it always had been to some, that there was nothing in the idea that Christ would come again before the last Apostle died, there was little need for some long-term plan. If Christians followed the Gospel message and the promptings of the Spirit, that should be enough.

But, even by the time his disciples were putting the final chapters into St John’s Gospel, it was clear that it was more difficult than those who had argued that the promptings of the Spirit were sufficient. St John himself, in his epistles, had noted the way in which his own community had split, with some not even heeding his words, though he had walked with Jesus. From as early as that, the sort of distinctions between Christians we see here was present.

Some, like our own Bosco, claimed a direct experience and an ability to know, thereby, all that they needed to know; not even the word of St John himself could convince men like Diotrephes that their own inspiration had to be checked, as St Paul’s had been, against the testimony of other ‘saints’. Such men and women claimed to be the only ones who were truly ‘saved’, and many of them thought that the end of the world would come in their times; that they have modern equivalents shows, truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

Some, concerned by such splits and the strange interpretations some put upon the Faith, preferred to stick close to their own local Church and the teaching of the elders in it. Some of these, especially in areas where Jewish Christian predominated, had a highly liturgical form of worship from the beginning, and for these, the commemoration of the Last Supper was not simply a memorial, it was where they truly supped with Christ. At this early stage there was simply an agreement that he was with them; the how no one needed to know, because the answer to the ‘why’ was ‘because He said He would be’.

But as Christianity spread in Gentile regions, it showed a genius of adaptation, which some, like the ‘men from James’ found offensive, but which the Apostles decided was not. So vital, so alive was the Faith, that men and women from all backgrounds and cultures adopted it. As it went east, its Jewish elements fused easily with those of other Semitic cultures, and from the beginning, the eastern church was marked both by the beauty of its liturgies and the mystical bent of the writings its produced. When St Thomas came to India (and I am looking forward to Strauns telling us more about the St Thomas Christians) those who had been Hindus found the asceticism and beauty they had associated with religion, easily combined with the Good News they received so eagerly.

As it went West, Christianity fitted with the Roman ethos. Uneasily at first, as the Romans liked to worship many gods, but more easily as the Romans found in it a bond of unity which a multi-national empire needed. As the Empire in the West began to falter, men like Ambrose of Milan, imperial administrators, or Augustine of Hippo, intellectuals and philosophers, found themselves drawn to Christianity and elected by Christians into positions of leadership. The Roman genius for government and order became a distinguishing mark of Western Christianity.

The long journey through history exposed these Christian communities to terrible ordeals; the Cross of Christ was carried by millions across time. The Roman model proved one of the most resistant to the blows of fate; a well-organised and well-disciplined community with a willingness to suffer for their Lord, was less easily crushed than those without these qualities. That the West also proved able to convert the barbarian tribes to the Faith helped, as did the fact that the converts turned out to be formidable warriors; where the Churches of the East fell to Islam, those of the West, outside of the Iberian peninsula, resisted successfully.

But the tendency to schism that was there from the beginning, has continued, and after the sixteenth century, the West itself succumbed. What effect this has had on the West is a matter of controversy, and those of us who empathise with St Augustine as he watched barbarians come to Hippo, are not, perhaps, best placed to comment on it. I cannot help feeling, at times, as though we are inhabiting the remains of a Christian culture in the way that those Roman left behind in Britannia after 410 huddled in old imperial forts for shelter. But another part of me says, for shame, where is my faith in the Holy Spirit and the promise of Christ.

Christianity was once confined to a few men and women in the vicinity of an upper room in Jerusalem, and now had several billion adherents across the globe. In that there is much to encourage even the gloomy.