Sagaris: Another Ancient Christian Recruited Into Armstrongism After His Death

Sagaris: Another Ancient Christian Recruited Into Armstrongism After His Death

Bob Thiel Discovers Yet Another Member of the Church of God 

Who Never Knew He Was One

There is something wonderfully entertaining about Armstrongist church history. Just when you think the available evidence has been stretched as far as it can possibly go, along comes another ancient Christian who, apparently, has been waiting nearly two thousand years for Bob Thiel to explain his religious affiliation to him.

This time, the fortunate historical candidate is Sagaris, a second-century Christian bishop and martyr associated with Laodicea in Asia Minor.

According to Bob Thiel's article, "Was Sagaris in Asia Minor a Church of God leader?", Sagaris was a faithful member of the Church of God, observed Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan, and held doctrines supposedly shared by the modern Continuing Church of God.

Well, there we have it! Another name added to the Armstrongist historical family tree. Somewhere, Herbert W. Armstrong must be smiling-or at least his posthumous public-relations department is working overtime.

But before we hand Sagaris his CCOG membership card, appoint him to the Council of Elders, and invite him to the Feast of Tabernacles, perhaps we should ask a rather inconvenient question:

What does the historical evidence actually establish?

And, more importantly, what does it fail to establish?

1. What We Actually Know About Sagaris

Let's begin with the evidence rather than the denominational wish list.

The principal ancient testimony comes from Polycrates of Ephesus, writing around the end of the second century. His letter is preserved in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, Book V, chapter 24. Polycrates names Sagaris among respected Christian figures associated with Asia Minor. He identifies him as a martyr who had died at Laodicea and places him among those who observed Passover on the fourteenth day of the month. That is important historical evidence.

It tells us something about Sagaris, the traditions of certain Asian Christian communities, and the controversy over when Christians should observe the annual Paschal celebration. What it does not give us is a membership register for a modern Armstrongist denomination.

Polycrates does not say that Sagaris belonged to the Continuing Church of God. He does not identify himself or Sagaris as members of Herbert Armstrong's twentieth-century religious movement. He does not provide a comprehensive list of doctrines that matches a modern CCOG statement of beliefs. Nor does the surviving passage tell us that Sagaris subscribed to every distinctive doctrine later promoted by Armstrong.

It tells us what it tells us.

Unfortunately, that modest historical conclusion is not nearly as useful to a modern sect trying to establish an ancient pedigree as the much grander claim that Sagaris was one of its own.

2. The Amazing Two-Thousand-Year Membership Application

Here is where Armstrongist historical reasoning becomes particularly entertaining. The argument runs something like this:

• Sagaris was an ancient Christian.
• Sagaris observed Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan.
• Modern Armstrongist churches observe Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan.
• Therefore, Sagaris belonged to the Church of God tradition represented by the Continuing Church of God.

Notice the missing steps.

Where is the evidence connecting Sagaris to a continuous organization extending through the intervening centuries? Where is the documentation establishing that he held the full range of doctrines now associated with Armstrongism? Where is the historical chain connecting his congregation to the modern CCOG? A similarity in one religious practice is not proof of complete doctrinal identity. And doctrinal similarity is not, by itself, proof of institutional continuity.

If observing Passover on the same date is sufficient to establish denominational identity, the historical possibilities become almost limitless. Anyone who shares a particular practice with an ancient Christian can apparently claim that person as a spiritual predecessor. One wonders why other modern religious groups have not simply rummaged through the ancient sources, identified everyone who agreed with one of their practices, and declared the historical investigation complete.

Perhaps they have better things to do.

3. Sagaris Was a Person, Not an Armstrongist Doctrinal Checklist

The real Sagaris deserves to be treated as a historical figure rather than as a prop in a modern denominational argument. Polycrates remembers him as a bishop and martyr. His testimony places Sagaris within the Christian communities of Asia Minor and associates him with the fourteenth-day Passover tradition. That is already interesting enough without inventing additional details.

We should distinguish at least three separate questions:

• Historical identity: Who was Sagaris, and what do the surviving sources say about him?
• Doctrinal beliefs: What can we establish about his beliefs beyond the practices explicitly mentioned in the sources?
• Historical continuity: Is there documented evidence connecting his congregation and teachings to a particular modern denomination?

The evidence cited by Thiel helps answer the first question and contributes to the second. It does not, by itself, establish the third. This distinction is basic historical method, not an attack on anyone's faith.

A historian cannot simply fill gaps in the record with whatever conclusions would be most convenient. The absence of detailed evidence does not give us permission to manufacture it. Yet that is precisely the danger when an ancient figure is introduced primarily to validate a modern organization's claims about itself. Sagaris becomes less a person whose life we investigate and more a name placed on a denominational trophy shelf.

4. The Fourteenth of Nisan: A Practice Is Not an Entire Theology

Thiel's argument centers on the Quartodeciman controversy-the dispute over whether the annual Christian Pascha should be observed according to the fourteenth day of Nisan or according to a Sunday observance. Polycrates's letter is a significant source for this controversy. He appeals to the traditions of earlier Christian leaders and explicitly includes Sagaris among those who observed the fourteenth day.

The evidence for Sagaris's association with the fourteenth-day observance is real. The problem is not that Thiel mentions this evidence. The problem is what he attempts to establish from it.

A calendar practice cannot automatically tell us everything about a person's understanding of salvation, the covenants, the nature of the church, the law of Moses, the Godhead, prophecy, church government, or any of the other subjects that distinguish modern Armstrongist groups from other Christians. Those matters require evidence of their own. Even if Sagaris and a modern CCOG member agree about the date of an annual observance, that agreement does not prove they agree about every other religious question.

Imagine discovering that a second-century Christian ate bread, prayed before meals, and believed Jesus was the Messiah. Would we conclude that he belonged to every modern denomination whose members do the same? Of course not. But apparently, when the subject is an ancient Passover observer, a little historical resemblance can be transformed into a magnificent denominational pedigree.

Armstrongism at its finest: find a point of agreement, enlarge it into an entire theological identity, and announce another victory for the one true church.

5. The Church of God: An Ancient Phrase and a Modern Organization

There is another problem with the claim that Sagaris was a member of the Church of God. Christians have used expressions such as "church of God" since antiquity. The expression appears in the New Testament and was not invented by Herbert Armstrong. But the use of a common Christian designation does not establish that every community described by that language belonged to one continuous institution.

Words can remain in use while organizations, leadership structures, theological emphases, and religious practices change. A modern denomination may sincerely believe that it preserves teachings from the apostolic era. It may identify historical figures whose beliefs resemble its own. It may argue that its doctrines are more faithful to Scripture than those of other traditions. Those are claims that can be investigated and debated. They are not the same thing as demonstrating an unbroken organizational succession from the second century to the present. The distinction matters especially when a modern group uses ancient names to establish exclusive religious authority.

If the argument is that Sagaris observed the fourteenth-day Passover, the historical record supports that point. If the argument is that Sagaris therefore belonged to the exact religious tradition represented today by the CCOG, the record presented in Thiel's article does not establish it.

One is a historical observation. The other is a much larger denominational conclusion.

They should not be confused.

6. Armstrongism's Favorite Historical Parlor Trick

This is hardly a problem unique to the Sagaris article. It illustrates a recurring temptation in Armstrongist historical writing: to search the past for individuals whose reported practices resemble selected modern doctrines, then arrange those individuals into a reassuring procession of spiritual ancestors. The resulting narrative can be wonderfully tidy.

Here is an ancient Christian who observed a particular holy day. There is another who rejected a particular custom. Over there is someone who lived in Asia Minor. And before long, the reader is invited to see the modern denomination as the natural heir of a continuous historical movement. The difficulty is that historical evidence rarely arrives in such convenient packaging.

The early Christian world contained diverse communities, disagreements, developing traditions, and competing interpretations of Scripture. The fact that one community retained a particular practice does not establish that it shared every belief with a modern group that later adopted the same practice.

A responsible historical account must distinguish between what is documented, what is reasonably inferred, and what remains speculation. Otherwise, the past becomes a denominational coloring book. Anything that resembles the preferred picture gets colored in, and anything that does not fit is left outside the lines.

For an organization that places such emphasis on being doctrinally correct, one might expect a particularly rigorous approach to historical evidence. Apparently, rigor becomes somewhat more flexible when the desired conclusion is that another ancient Christian was one of our people.

7. The Irony of Claiming an Ancient Pedigree

The appeal to Sagaris is intended to demonstrate that the CCOG preserves ancient Christian teachings. But the more the argument relies on similarities in selected practices, the more important it becomes to ask whether the rest of the historical evidence supports the claimed continuity.

An ancient precedent can be valuable. It can show that a particular practice existed in early Christianity. It can challenge simplistic accounts of Christian uniformity. It can help modern readers understand why Christians disagreed over religious observances. What it cannot do is automatically certify a modern denomination as the sole legitimate heir of the ancient church. That conclusion requires much more than a list of historical names.

It requires careful evidence about beliefs, institutions, historical transitions, and the actual connections between communities across time. If those connections cannot be demonstrated, the honest conclusion is that a modern group shares certain practices with an ancient community-not that the ancient community has been conclusively identified as an early branch of that modern group. And that conclusion, while less exciting for denominational publicity, is far more defensible.

8. What Would Convincing Evidence Look Like?

If the claim is that Sagaris belonged to the historical tradition represented by the CCOG, the burden is to demonstrate more than a shared calendar observance. A persuasive case would need to address several questions:

• What do the earliest sources actually say about Sagaris?
• Which of his beliefs can be established from those sources, rather than inferred from later interpretations?
• What evidence connects his community to later groups that held the same distinctive doctrines?
• Can that connection be documented across the centuries, including periods for which the historical record is incomplete?
• What evidence distinguishes this proposed line of continuity from other Christian communities that also retained or adopted some of the same practices?

These are reasonable questions for anyone claiming historical continuity. They are not anti-Armstrongist questions. They are the questions that should be asked of any religious movement claiming a unique historical lineage. And if the evidence does not answer them, the claim should be qualified accordingly. A confident declaration is not a substitute for documentation.

Sagaris Can Rest in Peace Without a CCOG Membership Card

Sagaris was an important early Christian figure remembered by Polycrates as a bishop and martyr associated with Laodicea. Polycrates also identifies him with the fourteenth-day Passover observance. That evidence deserves to be taken seriously.

But the evidence cited in Bob Thiel's article does not establish that Sagaris belonged to the modern Continuing Church of God, that he held the entire collection of doctrines associated with Armstrongism, or that an unbroken institutional line connects his congregation to today's CCOG. Those are additional claims, and they require additional evidence.

There is nothing wrong with discovering that an ancient Christian practiced something that modern Armstrongists also practice. That is a legitimate historical observation. The trouble begins when resemblance becomes identity, identity becomes succession, and succession becomes proof that one modern organization alone represents the authentic church across the centuries. At that point, history has stopped being an investigation and started serving as a denominational recruitment department.

Let us give Sagaris the respect he deserves. Remember him for what the ancient testimony actually records. Recognize the significance of the Quartodeciman controversy. Acknowledge the limits of the surviving evidence. And please, spare the man the indignity of being drafted into a modern ecclesiastical identity dispute nearly two millennia after his death. He has already been remembered as a Christian bishop and martyr. He does not need an Armstrongist makeover.

Sagaris is evidence that some second-century Christians observed Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan. He is not, on the evidence presented, proof that the Continuing Church of God possesses an unbroken institutional pedigree reaching back to him. That is the difference between studying church history and recruiting the dead to settle modern denominational arguments.

And if this is Armstrongist historical scholarship at its finest, perhaps the next project should be a membership directory of every ancient Christian who ever agreed with one of Bob Thiel's teachings. At the rate things are going, the CCOG's historical membership may soon outnumber its living membership by the thousands.

Now that would be a church growth report worth publishing.