From the Maccabees to the Mishnah

by Shaye J.D. Cohen

in the 380s CE some of the good Christians of Antioch attended synagogue on the Jewish New Year because they wished to hear the shofar being blown. This was but one of the many ways by which they showed reverence for the synagogue. Bishop John Chrysostom reproved them for being traitors to Christianity and for consorting with the enemies of Christ. The bishop believed that these Christians had effaced the boundary between Judaism and Christianity, but apparently these Christians disagreed. They were Christians whose Christianity prevented them neither from respecting Judaism and its rituals nor from consorting with Jews. The fulminations of the bishop aside, there is no evidence that these Christians believed they were violating their communal boundaries or indeed that they were uncertain about the location of those boundaries. The Christian community did not include Jews, and the Jewish community did not include Christians, even if some Christians wandered over to the synagogue from time to time.