Story of Christianity: Volume 1: The Early Church to the Reformation (The Story of Christianity)

by Justo L. González

What was happening was that the “Hellenistic” Jewish Christians were serving as a bridge to the Gentile world, and that Gentiles were joining the church in such numbers that they soon overshadowed the earlier Jewish Christian community.

Their faith was not a denial of Judaism, but was rather the conviction that the Messianic age had finally arrived.

This was why Christians in Jerusalem continued keeping the Sabbath and attending worship at the Temple. To this they added the observance of the first day of the week, in which they gathered in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

Those early communion services did not center on the Lord’s passion, but rather on his victory by which a new age had dawned. It was much later—centuries later—that the focus of Christian worship shifted towards the death of Jesus.

In the earliest Christian community, the breaking of the bread took place “with g...

Of the apostles, Peter and John seem to have been foremost, for Acts gives several indications of this, and they are two of the “pillars” to

The third such “pillar,” however, was not one of the twelve.

Later, when church leaders were uniformly given the title of “bishop,” it was said that James was the first “bishop” of Jerusalem.

Soon thereafter, the leaders of the Christian community in Jerusalem decided to move to Pella, a city beyond the Jordan whose population was mostly Gentile.

At that time Jewish nationalism had reached the boiling point, and in A.D. 66 a rebellion broke out that would lead, four years later, to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies.

They were led first by James, the brother of the crucified, and then, after the death of James, by Simeon, another relative of Jesus.

Simeon was eventually killed by the Romans, although it is not clear whether this was due to his Christian faith or to his claim to Davidic lineage.

Although by A.D. 135 a number of Jewish Christians returned to Jerusalem, their relationship with the rest of Christianity had been almost entirely severed, and leadership had passed to Gentile Christians.

When, in later centuries, Gentile Christians deigned to write a few words about that forgotten community, they would speak of its heretics and its strange customs, but they would have little of positive value to say about that church, which faded out of history in the fifth century.

Since they were the first to be persecuted in Jerusalem, they were the first to be scattered throughout the neighboring towns, and thus they were also the first to take the Christian message to those areas.

This does not mean that the mission was extended to the Gentiles, for Acts explains that they went to all these areas “speaking the word to none except Jews.”

The mission of Philip in Samaria, and the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, are possibly the first indications of the church’s willingness to receive non-Jews.

These various events show that, while the earliest Christian expansion was mostly the result of the witness of those Jewish Christians of Hellenistic tendencies who had to flee Jerusalem, the mother church approved of their work, both among Hellenistic Jews and among Gentiles.

The Epistle to the Romans shows that there was a church in the imperial capital before Paul’s arrival. Furthermore, the spread of Christianity in Italy was such that when Paul arrived at the small seaport of Puteoli there were Christians there.

Paul’s greatest and unique contribution to the shaping of early Christianity was not so much in the actual founding of churches. Rather, it was in the epistles that he wrote in connection with that activity, since those epistles eventually became part of Christian Scripture, and thus have had a decisive and continuing impact in the life and thought of the Christian church.

But mostly these nameless Christians were merchants, slaves, and others who traveled for various reasons, but whose travel provided the opportunity for the expansion of the Christian message.

while he felt called to preach to the Gentiles, his usual procedure upon arriving at a new town was to go to the synagogue and the Jewish community.

Of all these traditions, the most trustworthy is the one that affirms that Peter was in Rome, and that he suffered martyrdom in that city during the Neronian persecution.

All this indicates that there were at least two people with the same name, and that later tradition confused them.

A second-century Christian writer—Papias of Hierapolis—affirms that there were indeed two persons by the name of John in the early church: one the apostle, and another an elder at Ephesus, who received the visions of Patmos.

What happened was that the churches in every important city began claiming

apostolic origins.

Christians in Spain have claimed that their land was missionized, not only by Paul, but also by seven envoys of Saint Peter and by Saint James.

The legend regarding Peter’s missionaries to Spain appeared in the fifth century, but it was not as influential as that of James’ visit to the country, which originated three centuries later. According to this tradition, James proclaimed the Gospel, without much success, in Galicia and Saragossa. On his way back, the Virgin appeared to him standing on a pillar, and gave him words of encouragement—this is the origin of the “Virgen del Pilar,”

This legend has been of great significance for the later history of Spain, for St. James (in Spanish, Santiago) became the patron saint of the nation.

Thus, although it is highly unlikely that James ever gave any thought to Spain, the legends regarding his visit were very influential in the later history of that country.

The tradition that claims Thomas visited India leaves historians somewhat baffled.

We are told that an Indian king, Gondophares, was seeking an architect to build a palace, and that Thomas, who was no

architect, offered himself for the job. When the king found that Thomas was giving to the poor the money allotted for the construction of the palace, he had the apostle put in prison. But then Gondophares’ brother, Gad, died and came back from the dead. Upon his return he told his brother of the magnificent heavenly palace that he had seen, which was being built through Thomas’ gifts to the poor. The king and his brother were then converted and baptized, and Thomas moved on to other parts of India, until he died as a martyr.

history had no record of Gondophares nor of any of the other details of the story.

More recently, however, coins have been found that prove that there was indeed a ruler by that name, and that he had a brother named Gad.

This, coupled with the undeniable antiquity of Christianity in India, and with the fact that at the time there was significant trade between India and the Near East, makes it more difficult to reject categorically the possibility that Thomas may have visited that land, and that late...

In truth, most of the missionary work was not carried out by the apostles, but rather by the countless and nameless Christians who for different reasons—persecution, business, or missionary calling—traveled from place to place taking the news of the Gospel with them.

Therefore, the Christian message to Jews was not that they should abandon their Jewishness. On the contrary, now that the messianic age had begun, they were to be better Jews.

This invitation was made possible because, since the time of the prophets, Judaism had believed that through the advent of the Messiah all nations would be brought to Zion.

For those early Christians, Judaism was not a rival religion to Christianity, but the same faith,

many Jews believed, with some biblical foundation, that the reason why they had lost their independence and been made subjects of the Empire was that the people had not been sufficiently faithful to the traditions of their ancestors.

For these reasons, in most of the New Testament it is Jews who persecute Christians, who in turn seek refuge under the wing of Roman authorities.

Suetonius, a Roman historian, says that Jews were expelled from the capital city for their disorderly conduct “because of Chrestus.”

Most historians agree that “Chrestus” is none other than “Christus,” and that what actually took place in Rome was that Christian proclamation caused so many riots among Jews that the emperor decided to expel the lot.

This new consciousness was at the root of two-and-a-half centuries of persecution by the Roman Empire, from the time of Nero to the conversion of Constantine.

When Christianity became the official religion of the majority, there were those who, on the basis of what the New Testament says about the opposition of Judaism to Christianity, and without any regard for the different historical circumstances, declared the Jews to be a rejected race, persecuted them, and even massacred them.

Ten years after his accession to the throne, he was despised by the people as well as by the poets and artists, who were offended by the emperor’s claim that he was one of them.

Two of the areas that had not burned had a very high proportion of Jewish and Christian population. Therefore, the Emperor decided to blame the Christians.

Therefore, in order to destroy this rumor, Nero blamed the Christians, who are hated for their abominations, and punished them with refined cruelty.