If one of Christ’s Apostles showed up at YOUR church
services, would he approve of your practices and beliefs? Are you sure? Does
the average Christian church follow and practice the same teachings as the New
Testament church set up by Jesus himself?
Part I of this two-part series of booklets described the
massive apostasy that took place within Christianity during the first three
centuries. Part II looks at the forces that made the remnant of the true Church
an unpopular and increasingly persecuted group of believers.
As
startling as it may sound, the religion the world knows as Christianity was not
founded by Jesus Christ! Within
the span of three hundred years, this religion had become a vast organization
with a clergy presiding over rites taken from pagan mysteries and Judaism. It
had borrowed the best elements of Greek philosophy and had formed a dogma
appealing to human reason and emotion. This religious organization had become a
powerful political force in the Roman Empire. But it was not the Church
established by Christ!
“Contemplate
the Christian Church at the beginning of the fourth century, therefore, and
some difficulty will be experienced in recognizing in her the community of
Apostolic times, or rather, we shall not be able to recognize it at all”
(Charles Guignebert, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Christianity, p.
122).
The
congregations that adhere to the teachings of the apostles and their Jewish
disciples are scattered and poor. They live in Syria, Egypt, Palestine, and
possibly even in Rome, where they are nearly overwhelmed by the large churches
filled with converts from paganism. In the first part of this series, you read
how Catholic Christianity rejected its Judaic heritage. Now let’s look at some
of the forces that influenced this repudiation.
Jews
were widely dispersed throughout the Roman Empire in New Testament times.
Because Judaism had a long history as a religion, the Romans allowed the Jews
to continue their practices. Julius Caesar granted them the right to observe
the Sabbath and to meet in synagogues, exemption from military service, and the
freedom to follow their own laws.
Outside
of Palestine, Jews were allowed to exist as independent communities of resident
aliens within larger cities. They were subject to their own political structure
as well as to that of the Roman Empire.
In New
Testament times, probably as many as 5-7 million Jews lived in the Roman
Empire, with roughly a million in Egypt, another million in Syria, and close to
one million in Palestine. At least 10,000 Jews lived in Rome; Jewish colonies
also existed in the large trading centers of Asia Minor. As Josephus remarked,
“There is not a community in the entire world which does not have a portion of
our people.”
Judaism
had long been viewed favorably by pagan writers; Jews were thought to be a race
of philosophers, much like the Brahmins of India.
“Throughout
the Roman Empire various practices of Judaism found favor with large segments
of the populace. In Rome many gentiles observed the Sabbath, the fasts, and the
food laws; in Alexandria many gentiles observed the Jewish holidays; in Asia
Minor many gentiles attended synagogue on the Sabbath” (Shave J.D. Cohen, From
the Maccabees to the Mishnah, p. 55).
The
gentiles venerating Judaism were no doubt the people whom Acts called those who
“feared God” (Acts 13:16, 26; 16:14; 17:4, 17, 18:7). They were not converts
to Judaism, but they were appreciative of its doctrines. The major obstacle to
their conversion was circumcision, which was looked upon as self-mutilation by
Romans.
It has
been argued by some scholars that one of the reasons that Jews wrote in Greek was
to attract gentile believers. While Judaism had no official missionary work,
individual Jews actively sought converts. Christ hinted at this effort when He
said:
“Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to
make one proselyte...” (Matthew 23:15).
Judaism continued to gain converts
and remained a viable religious movement within the Roman empire until the end
of the fourth century.
Freedom
of worship, however, did not mean there was an absence of tension between Jews
and Romans. The Jews living as resident aliens in cities throughout the empire
wanted both tolerance from and equality with their neighbors. They asked for
the continuance of their autonomy as well as full rights of citizenship. Many
cities refused, and disturbances broke out in Alexandria, Antioch, and Asia
Minor during the first century A.D.
The
tension was particularly acute in Alexandria, which became a center of
anti-Judaic propaganda. “If the Jews wish to be Alexandrians, let them
worship the gods of the Alexandrians” was the common sentiment.
It is
easy for us in the twentieth century to underestimate the role that religion
played in the political life of the Roman Empire. The worship of local gods was
considered a vital aspect of assuring civic peace and prosperity (Robert L.
Wilken, The Christians As The Romans Saw Them, p. 58). Ritual and
government were closely intertwined, and the cities that rejected the Jews’
petitions were merely acting on long-standing beliefs.
Religion
at that time was not a matter of personal conviction; it was a civic duty.
Nonetheless, the Roman government chose to be somewhat tolerant of differing
creeds provided their adherents could prove that their beliefs were based on
tradition.
Anti-Judaic
sentiment was intensified by the wars which the Jews waged against Rome. From
A.D. 66-70, Palestinian Jews sought to expel the Roman legions from their
homeland. The war ended with the burning of the Temple and the death of more
than 500,000 Jews. Palestine was decimated of half of its population.
Surprisingly, Jews in other parts of the Roman Empire suffered no repercussions
from the hostile acts of their kinsmen. Yet they too later fought against the
Romans in a major uprising in 115-117 A.D. Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, Cyprus,
and Cyrene launched a revolt which brought destruction for both themselves and
their gentile neighbors (Wayne A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First
Christians, p. 67-68). The causes of the war are still unclear, but the
result was devastation.
The
final war between Romans and Jews was waged in Palestine in 133-135 A.D. Led by Simon Bar Kochba, the Jewish rebellion was
caused by Roman actions which are also historically uncertain. Again, hundreds
of thousands of Jews were slaughtered and so many sold into captivity that
their price fell to that of a horse (Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, p.
548). All Jews were expelled from Jerusalem, which became a city of gentiles.
In the
context of these uprisings, it is easy to see how anti-Judaic feeling could
develop in the Roman Empire. Resentment toward Jews in Rome became so strong
after the first Jewish War that crown prince Titus, who had participated in the
sack of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., was forced to give up his desire to marry
Berenice, sister of Herod Agrippa the Younger.
One of
the common complaints voiced by Roman writers during this time was that Judaism
was a superstition. In the Roman view, a superstition was a religious practice
that neither honored the gods nor benefited mankind (Wilken, p. 60). The Romans
could see no value in the cults of the Jews, Celts, Egyptians, or Germans
because they did not honor gods in the manner that Romans thought appropriate.
Influential writers such as Quintilian, Plutarch, and Tacitus singled out
Judaism as a superstition that was harmful and degrading to Roman society. Yet
eventually these feelings subsided and Judaism peacefully coexisted with most
religions for several centuries thereafter.
But
another storm was brewing. As they continued to reject the Judaic roots of
their religion, Catholic Christians increasingly viewed Jews as a problem. The
conflict between Judaism and Catholic belief became sharper from the second
century onward. Instead of accepting their common heritage, the church fathers
sought ways to reinterpret the Scriptures and to show the superiority of their
new religious movement.
Some of
them saw the destruction of the Temple as proof that God had rejected the Jews.
Justin Martyr scornfully mocked the Jewish sacrificial system. The heretic
Marcion claimed that the God of the Old Testament was evil and that only Paul’s
doctrines of love represented true Christianity. Although he was noted for his
keeping of the Passover on the 14th of Nisan, Mileto of Sardis denounced the
Jews as Messiah-killers and criminals. The invective against Judaism was
continued by Origen, Tertullian, John Chrysostom, Cyprian, Ambrose, and other
misguided men.
Tertullian
in particular wanted to “dissociate the Christian message from its Jewish trappings
in order to give it a truly Latin expression” (Jean Danielou, The Origins of
Latin Christianity, p. 139).
He was
not content to confine himself to Judaism, however. He also attacked Jewish
Christianity not only in its heterodox forms, but as it existed in the
Christian church during his lifetime. His reaction against the Judeo-Christian
element, became more pronounced in each of his writings, which influenced a new
generation of church leaders.
Ironically,
the major criticism leveled at the emerging Catholic Church was its rejection
of Judaism. Around 180 A.D., the Greek philosopher Celsus charged that
Christians had deserted the Jewish law. They wantonly disregarded the points
that were mostly clearly set forth — the keeping of the Sabbath, the festivals,
and the dietary laws. The fact that church fathers were writing rebuttals
80 years later shows the impact that Ceisus had.
But even
more devastating were the arguments of Porphyry, a well-known biographer, and
philosopher. Several generations of churchmen were unable to answer Porphyry,
whose works were finally put to the torch by Constantine. Intimately acquainted
with the Scriptures, Porphyry showed that the Christians of his day had abandoned
the teachings of Christ and had introduced a new cult in which Jesus Himself
was deified. Since they were unable to counter his accusations, the church
fathers grew even more vehement in their attempts to allegorize the Bible.
By the
end of the third century, the Jews had become an embarrassment. They represented
a large and unpopular group that should have but would not accept Catholic
norms. Under the emperor Theodosius, when Christian uniformity became the
official policy of the empire, Christian mob attacks on synagogues grew common.
This unlicensed violence was contrary to Roman public policy, since Jews were
regarded as valuable and respectable members of society for their general
support of authority.
In 388
A.D. the Jewish synagogue at Callinicum on the Euphrates was destroyed at the
instigation of the local bishop. Theodosius decided to make the incident a test
case and ordered it rebuilt at Christian expense. The bishop Ambrose hotly
opposed the decision, and Theodosius withdrew his orders. This event marked an
“important stage in the construction of a society in which only orthodox
Christianity exercised full rights” (Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity,
p. 104-105).
An even greater
embarrassment to the church was the continued existence of Jewish Christian
congregations — the element that Tertullian wanted to extirpate. In their
efforts to disavow the influence of Judaism, Catholics soon viewed these
Christians as heretical.
“Yet what was Christian heresy? And
for that matter, what was the Church? Most of our knowledge of early Christian
history comes from the writings of Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth
century. Eusebius was in many ways a conscientious historian, and he had access
to multitudes of sources which have since disappeared ...He wanted to show that
the church he represented had always constituted the mainstream of
Christianity, both in organization and faith. The truth is very different ...A
dominant orthodox Church, with a recognizable ecclesiastical structure, emerged
only very gradually” (Johnson, p. 43).
The
apostle Jude, the brother of Christ, urged Christians at the end of the
first century to “earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.”
His epistle is regarded by some modern scholars as one of the literary remains
of Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, written after the fall of Jerusalem. What
is significant is that the primitive Church was already being threatened from
within. True Christians were forced to begin to defend the faith against men
who called themselves brothers in Christ.
Christianity
did not follow a smooth evolutionary path after the mother Church in Jerusalem
was scattered. It divided and re-divided. Gradually, a group of people who
called themselves Catholics agreed to accept certain doctrines — not the plain
and simple doctrines of the New Testament, but doctrines which had been
allegorized and reconfigured to their ideas and values.
By the end of the second century,
the way of life transmitted by the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem
was in grave danger. A few historians believe that it actually perished.
Historical information about the groups that followed the apostolic traditions,
unfortunately, is sketchy and comes almost exclusively from the writings of the
church fathers. Under Theodosius and a later emperor named Valentinian, all
writings hostile to the Catholic Church — including Christian works deemed
heretical — were burned.
Yet a
few historical traces have been preserved. After the fall of Jerusalem, a
certain group of Jewish Christians remained faithful to the apostolic
traditions, while another began to incorporate elements of legalism, Essenism,
and even Gnosticism into its religious thought. Justin Martyr was the first to
point out the difference between the two groups. Some Jewish Christians wanted
to impose ritual laws on Gentile converts, but others did not.
Jewish
Christians who maintained the apostolic legacy were accepted by neither Jew nor
professing Christian. They were occasionally viewed as a political threat by
authorities. Several Roman emperors examined their leaders, who were the
descendants of Jesus’ family, to see if they were a potential menace to the
empire. From 90 A.D. the Jews banned them from the synagogues, and from the
middle of the second century catholic churchmen strongly condemned their
beliefs as unworthy of Christ.
Very
likely the group known historically as the Nazarenes represented the
Jewish Christianity taught by the apostles. The term “Nazarene” is first
mentioned in Acts 24:5 where it is used to refer to true Christians.
Later Jewish writings also referred to Christians as Nazarenes. Two catholic writers,
Epiphanius and Jerome, stated that the Nazarenes of their day dwelt in Berea,
Pella, and in other cities in the hill country of Judea and Syria. Julius
Africanus corroborates that Jewish Christian leaders included offspring from
Jesus’ family. These Christians had a complete gospel of Matthew in Aramaic, as
well as commentaries on the Old Testament, which Jerome himself used. They
followed the law of Moses along with the teachings of Christ.
Augustine
of Hippo was acquainted with such groups as late as 400 A.D. In Antioch, “the
synagogue on Saturday, the church on Sunday” was a familiar summary of
practice. John Chrysostom lamented the fact that some Catholics had begun to
observe the Jewish holy days and Sabbath; he admitted that many had high regard
for the Jews and believed that their way of life was holy.
In the
430s, the Christian Council of Laodicea ruled in detail against Christian
observance of the Jewish Sabbath, their acceptance of unleavened bread from
Jews, and their keeping of Jewish festivals (Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and
Christians, p. 482). The truth left by the apostolic Church was not easily
extinguished.
Did this
truth perish after the fourth century? The answer is no. As the Catholic Church
moved into the Middle Ages, what it called Judaizing never ceased to exist.
“In the
decrees of the Church councils, the term gained currency from the time of the
Council of Laodicea in the fourth century onward. It was used by Christian
ecclesiastics like Agobard, who charged Christians at Lyons (in the ninth
century) with Jewish inclinations and habits. In the historical literature of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the term ‘Judaizer’ won frequent place,
and came to designate either individuals or groups, who, as in Lombardy,
adopted a Jewish outlook on life, and Jewish forms of ceremony and conduct. It
was employed to designate certain heretical groups which challenged papal
authority. Papal bulls during these centuries when heresies flourished are
filled with references to Judaizers and ‘Re-Judaizers,’ the latter term being
applied to Jewish converts to Christianity who later returned to their original
faith” (Louis Newman, Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements,
pps. 1-3).
The
truth has never been lost, but it has been ignored. Only within this century
have scholars attempted to reconstruct early Church history apart from the
writings of the church fathers. A few of them have been provocative in their
reevaluation.
Whether
or not they agree with his conclusions about the divinity of Christ, most
Biblical scholars recognize that Hugh Schonfield made a significant
contribution to our knowledge of church history. Along with S.G.F. Brandon and
Robert Eisler, Schonfield clearly demonstrated that the early Church was a sect
within Judaism, not a new religion.
In his
book Those Incredible Christians, Schonfield presents an interesting
thesis. The religion known as Christianity is an anachronism — an institution
out of its proper time. By adopting the trappings of paganism, Christianity
reverted to an ancient past. Yet paganism as a religious movement had been
slowly dying out among the educated classes of the Roman empire. In a curious
twist of fate, educated Romans were moving toward the monotheism that Judaism
had embraced for centuries. By converting to Catholicism, they fell back into a
form of polytheism evidenced by belief in the trinity.
Schonfield
challenges the reader to examine his or her own religious beliefs. He concludes
his book with an invitation to Christians to “go back to the beginning and
search out anew in the context of the Jewish vision, which the Church forsook,
the mysteries of the Kingdom of God” (p. 225).
In this
age of intellectual enlightenment, it is amazing that the modern Christian
clings to outdated myths and practices. The one area of life — religion — that
a Christian should consider of supreme importance is based on fallacy.
One television evangelist has even gone so far as to admit that a certain
holiday is pagan in origin, yet he claims it for Jesus just the same.
Is
that what Jesus Christ wants? Christ
placed a great deal of emphasis on knowing the truth. Remember that He had to
combat the false doctrines and ideas of His time. He said,
“You
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
He also
said, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit,
and in truth” (John 4:24).
Now it can conceivably be argued
that He was referring to “spiritual” truth
— not truth based on historical evidence.
But
twenty centuries later we are faced with a unique dilemma. To understand
spiritual truth, the modern Christian must understand historical truth. It is
difficult to separate Christian theology from Christian history, because they
had an enormous impact on each other. Modern Christianity was shaped by key
events and trends in history, as well as by the long process of doctrinal
development.
If you
believe you are a Christian, it’s time to ask yourself some hard questions. Do
your beliefs agree with those of primitive Christianity, or have they been
accommodated to the society around you? If your church has, not been built
on the foundation of Christ and the apostles as described in the New Testament,
your faith may be a hollow shell — a relic of ancient religions far removed
from the God of the Bible.
—
Written by: Wesley White