Second Century Christianity

Second Century Christianity and Judaism

For centuries, the debate between Judaism and Christianity has divided not only individuals but also countries as a whole. There are many things that affect how these two religions differ and are alike. Among many of the variations, the account of Jesus from either party varies. The Jews who deny him as a divinity are the very people he walked among. One of the main similarities, though, is where these religions originated from, both emerging from the Proto-Orthodox faith. The account of Christianity and how it evolved is a legend within itself, but the story about how Christianity morphed into multiple branches comes from the tales of the apostles, Peter and Paul. Without the conversion of Paul and the apostles spreading the word of God in their own way, Christianity would cease to exist. In summary, the Proto-Orthodox religion is responsible for the way Christianity and Judaism are today.
Proto-Orthodox emerged around the third century and was one of the most victorious Christian religions of that time. Proto-Orthodox was one of the only religions that influenced other religions, for example: they subjected the Gnostics and Jewish Christians. “The victory bequeathed to us four Gospels to us virtually everything we know about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.” One of the main reasons people decided to follow the Proto-Orthodox religion was because the Christians believed in one God. Many of the religions of this time had multiple gods and people were more interested in following one God than twelve. They were proven to be a strong group of Christians because of this. Many of the Proto-Orthodox people had a large influence on literature and history of the time because their actions were written down to form the bible. This then brought them into writing the New Testament that lead to the establishment of a hierarchy. This included the creation of deacons, priests, bishops and the pope. The establishment of hierarchy also brought people to pursue this faith because they were very interested in a set of practices and beliefs. They continued on with their beliefs to include sacraments, such as baptism and the Eucharist, the belief in the holy spirit/the trinity and also said that Jesus was “both divine and human”. Proto-Orthodox offered all of this and much more and that is why they had such a large following.
The ideals of the Proto-Orthodox were not the only thing that made the religion so popular. Any group of people, weather religion based or not, has to have strong leaders to carry on the passion. Within this time, an author named Ignatius of Antioch wrote down information regarding the Orthodox religion and proved to be a dedicated individual. He wrote letters that discussed “many of the issues to be taken up with his successors among the proto-orthodox”. He wrote letters about the sacraments, about the bishops and about the Christian church. He was then sent for execution for practicing his beliefs. He was willing to suffer for God and what he believed in. He states, “Fire and cross and packs of wild beats, cutting and being torn apart, the scattering of bones, the mangling of limbs, the grinding of the whole body, the evil torments of the devil—let them come upon me, only that I may attain to Jesus Christ”. Even though he was about to be eaten and torn apart by wild beasts, he kept his word and had faith. We see this faith come more into play when Christianity evolves itself into a larger group. Ignatius became a role model to other followers and authors who were willing to make sacrifices and even die for God. Ehrman is a perfect example of this and writes, “…Neither the pains nor the pleasures of this life were anything compared with the glories of salvation awaiting those who gave themselves over not to this world but to the world above, the world of God”. More and more people started agreeing with this ideology as Proto-Orthodox grew. Unfortunately though, some people disagreed with these thoughts and started asking questions about this so-called God. Through out their time, Proto-Orthodox started posing questions such as, “how can Christ be God and God the Father be God if there is only one God”, and “Why does the scripture say that God sent his son, rather than that he sent himself?” This stirred up questions and caused some individuals to protest against the Word of God. A man by the name of Hippolytus was the main source of conflict. As a result of him speaking out, the church and the upper echelons decided to split. Even though Hippolytus argued the Word of God, he knew that many of the Christian people still believed that there was only one God. Throughout the second and third century, there were Proto-Orthodox thinkers who opposed the teachings of Proto-Orthodox. Therefore, they had other religions like the Gnostics, Theologians, Marcionites and Egionities that had different views within each. When Proto-Orthodox was the last religion standing, they came out strongest and moved forward into Christianity. Some other followers moved forward into the Jewish religion and this is how the religion split into two different beliefs. The Jewish and Christian religions are both similar in some ways but very different in others. Jesus might have been Jewish but the Jewish beliefs changed once he left Earth. For the Christians, once he was crucified, the religion rose with the help of the Apostles and Paul. Right after Jesus was crucified, most of the disciples went into hiding from the public. They were afraid to be seen on the streets of Jerusalem because if someone recognized that they were a follower of Jesus, they feared persecution. Jesus started appearing to Peter as he did to Mary Magdalene and Peter realized that he needed to return to Jerusalem thinking that Jesus would reveal himself in a glorious way. All eleven of the disciples, including the female disciples, his mother Mary, and other close followers met in the upper chamber of Jerusalem, where the last supper took place. They talked about the word of Jesus amongst one another and talked about the events that just happened. These events had them all lost and confused. Eventually, the male and female disciples and close followers had all been upset for so long for the Messiah leaving them. But then they realized that he was there in spirit. As time went on they became fearless and started to “apply Isaiah to the Messiah”. “So their enthusiasm and power of imagination coupled with their new interpretation of the biblical verses attached other enthusiasts and imaginative people like themselves”. New followers came along and old followers started to have faith once again in Jesus. The Christian religion reached a total number of 120 followers and the people kept growing. This only made the Christian religion stronger. The disciples only grew stronger as well. They finally understood what they needed in order to have faith. The Pentecost occurring brought forth the most faith in these men and women. Once the Trinity or the Holy Spirit appeared to them, they understood everything. Paul, also known as Saul before he was converted, was a rabbi Jewish priest. He started off being known for persecuting Christians and treating them poorly. As he was on his way to condemn more Christians in Damacus, he suddenly saw a bright light from the sky and feel off his horse. He then heard a voice from above say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul then asked who he was and realized that the Lord was speaking to him. Saul became blind for three days and did not eat or drink. A man by the name of Ananias came to him and laid his hands over him and he suddenly could see. At that moment he was baptized and converted to Christianity and his named was changed to Paul. He apologized for all his sins and God willingly accepted. From that moment on, he became a Christian and preached the word of God. “To be sure, without Paul, Christianity would have become a world religion with a distinctive theology and a highly developed ecclesiastical organization.” He explained to the people that Jesus came down to save everyone and not just the Jews. You did not have to become a Jew in order to convert to another religion and to believe in God.
Now, knowing the background of Christianity, it is easier to understand the split between Judaism and Christianity. Both started off as one, the Hebrews, which were brought out of Islam. The Proto-Orthodox was the first successful Christian religion, but was merely a stepping-stone to the religions of today. People started to fall into their own beliefs instead of following what the Jews told them to believe in. They still worshiped some of the Jewish ways until the apostles and Paul came along and started sharing their stories. They both believe in the idea of the Messiah and that there is only one who is mighty and great. They had specific laws and scriptures that they abide by in everyday life. Places of worship were both the center of the Religion. They came here to practice the word of their Messiah and to perform their rituals. “Churches and synagogues across America have become increasingly close through joint study and sharing of vital social justice concerns.” Even though they seemed to have a lot in common, the Jewish and Christian religions became very diverse. The Largest change in beliefs occurred once Jesus was crucified.
The Jewish and Christian communities may have had their similarities but they did differentiate when it comes to the scriptures, the trinity, faith, holly days, and beliefs. One of the largest differences between the scriptures of the religions was that the Jewish people were required to read the Torah everyday. “The general aim of the Christian scriptures is to convince the reader to believe that the one path to the salvation of the soul lies in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son and the incarnation of God, whose blood was offered up to cleanse humanity of it’s inherited and inherit sin.” Though the Christians had the Bible, they had priests to rely on to converse the scripture. The Holy Spirit, as the Christians believe, combines three people into one: God the Father, God the Son and The Holy Spirit. The Jews found this concept hard to understand because they did not believe that three people could become one thing. The holy days differ as well. The holy day for Christians is Sunday, The Lords Day. Saturday is the Sabbath for the Jewish people. They celebrate holidays such as Yom Kippur and Passover as Christian people celebrate Christmas and Easter. One of the different beliefs between the two religions is what happens when people leave this earth. “It’s a mystery where they go. Christians believe that there is an after life of heaven and hell. “... It was Christianity that invented eternal damnation—not for failure to treat one’s fellow human being with loving-kindness but for failure to have faith in the cross.” It basically comes down to if that person did not serve God or believe in his teachings and have faith, he will go to hell and stay there for eternity. The Jewish believe that once you die, you are purified and everyone becomes equal. “From a Jewish perspective, the purification of Hehinnom, as painful as it may be, is an act not of divine vengeance but of divine love, as when a mother cleans her child’s wound so that it may heal”. One of the biggest differences in the religions was the story of Jesus’ resurrection. “It is this Greek thinking that misleads us into referring to God as the Supreme Being; strictly speaking, both Christianity and Judaism view God not as the Supreme Being, but as the One who is beyond the categories of being both, immanent and transcendent.” The Jews believe that Jesus came on this earth, and that he was a very important person to society. They do not think that Jesus rose from the dead to save people from their sins. They believe that there is another Messiah to come and they are waiting for him. Christians believe that Jesus came to this world to preach the word of God. He saved hundreds of people and did what he had to do to show the faith of God. He then died for them to save them from their sins and is now in heaven. They believe he has already come and we now worship and pray to him. Also, the way they viewed each other differed a lot. Not only because they had different beliefs, but because the Christian beliefs pushed them to be more closed off toward the Jewish beliefs. “We can see, therefore, that the very practice of Christianity over the centuries has helped to keep alive the damaging picture of Judaism sketched above.” The Jews did not ward off the Christian people; instead they just decided to have different beliefs. They wanted the Christians to believe in their faith as much as the Jews believed in Judaism because they accepted they had a common heritage and goals; “…We Jews and Christians must determine how we can respectfully deal with the key areas in which we differ.” There are obviously many differences between the two religions. These differences grew with time as the religions developed on their own.
Everything falls back to Proto-Orthodox and how it stared everything. Once the battle debating weather or not there was a supreme being, or God, was won, the Christian religion could really start spreading its wings and collecting more followers. This started a landslide of movement among the followers who had witnessed the Holy Spirit. These disciples and Paul brought about an abundance of faith to the Christian religion and cannot be forgotten in the importance of the dispersal. This made Christianity its’ strongest. Once the crucifixion of Jesus occurred, though, there was a definite split among even the seemingly strongest religion. Judaism emerged from a different belief in weather or not Jesus rose from the dead to forgive humanity’s sins. They became stronger as they started to form their own beliefs. Today, the religions have had a lot of time to transform into their own separate religions. Still, they cannot forget that they emerged from the same place. Both religions are very strong and prominent today. If it were not for this incredible journey of this one base religion, today’s world religions would not be anything similar to what they are today.

Bibliography
Klausner, Joseph. From Jesus to Paul (Hebrew University, Jerusalem: Ruskin House 1872- 1958)

Harrelson, Walter and Falk, M. Randall. Jews and Christians. A Troubled Family. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990)

Berger, L. Alan and Patterson, David. Jewish Christian Dialogue. Drawing honey from the Rock (Minnesota: Paragon House, 2008)

Bart D Ehrman, “On the Road to Nicaea: The Broad Swath of Proto-orthodox Christianity Article”

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[ 1 ]. Ehrman page 136
[ 2 ]. Ehrman page 137
[ 3 ]. Ehrman page 138
[ 4 ]. Ehrman page 138
[ 5 ]. Ehrman page 153
[ 6 ]. Ehrman page 153
[ 7 ]. Ehrman page 153
[ 8 ]. Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (Hebrew University, Jerusalem: Ruskin House) page. 265
[ 9 ]. Klausner page 267
[ 10 ]. Klausner 269
[ 11 ]. Acts 9:4-5
[ 12 ]. Klausner page 270
[ 13 ]. Walter Harrelson and Randall M. Falk, Jews and Christians. A Troubled Family. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990) page 14
[ 14 ]. Berger page 104
[ 15 ]. Berger page 108
[ 16 ]. Berger page 107
[ 17 ]. Berger page 107
[ 18 ]. Aland L. Berger and David Patterson, Jewish Christian Dialogue. Drawing honey from the Rock (Minnesota: Paragon House, 2008)
[ 19 ]. Harrelson page 26
[ 20 ]. Harrelson page 17