At this point, having read the Gospels, we should have a fairly accurate picture of Jesus. Let us now hold it firmly before our eyes and use it to measure what we will read next, which naturally, will be the story of the very first Christians, as told by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. It is pleasant reading, but I do wish to make a premise; although the first Christianity was the one started by Jesus himself, the original which we should refer to, it is not always, nor in every way, the best model, and we'll see why.
The book of Acts, or Acts of the Apostles, defined by some critics as a romanticized account, has been proven to be historically accurate and the most reliable for that early period of Christianity. There is much to be learned from this book, where we see the role of the Holy Spirit energizing the first disciples to bear witness and practice Jesus’ teachings - we see God working great miracles to spread his message and protect his young church - we see the courage of the first Christians and their spirit of love, unity and sacrifice - but we also see some problems arising in their midst, a disagreement, the cause of which already existed in Jesus' days, and that ran so deep that it eventually broke into the first Christian schism. Paul’s Epistles, which we will study after Acts, deal extensively with the reasons of this rift. To prepare for their later study, we must then seek to understand the background and dynamics of this event, as told by Luke in the book of Acts (and later by Paul in Galatians). Another reason for seeking understanding of this event is that it is not relegated to the past, but lives on to this very day, howbeit in different forms.
The importance of what is not written
When reading the book of Acts it is also crucial to note what is not written. For example if we see that a particular aspect of our Christianity is not mentioned as part of early Christianity, then it would behoove us to put it aside, for the time being, and return to the original simplicity. I'm not implying that there are no other valid aspects of our faith, which were revealed or understood later, but I am simply recommending that we proceed by stages, like in the building of a house, the foundations first, then the walls, etc...
On the other hand we will also note that certain practices of the early Christians are no longer part of modern Christianity. They were mainly part of an Israelite cultural heritage, with no particular relation to Christianity and were thus abandoned over time. A closer look at the socio-cultural environment of that period might help us understand better.
The historical socio-cultural context
The Israelites were the “chosen people” to whom God, through Moses, had given his laws, the so-called commandments. To get an idea of how these laws affected society in those days, one could perhaps look at a present day country in which the Islamic Law, or Sharia, is the constituted legal system. I am not using this example because the two things are identical, but simply because it gives an idea of a society where religious commandments do not determine only ethics and morality, but are also the official legal system. In the Israel of the early Christians, the Mosaic Law was the actual law as well as the religion. There was no distinction between the two and it regulated the social order, as well as expressed the will of God to the people. Unfortunately, under this provision, abuses of the law were often committed in the name of God, and those who exercised power did so legally, as well as spiritually, oppressing others in the name of God. Jesus came into this state of things and clashed with it brutally - especially with the religious leaders, those who interpreted and applied the law, who soon had him crucified. It wasn’t any different for his followers, who soon met the same wrath from the same hierarchy.
The beginning of a new era
Despite being ostracized by the authorities, and thanks to the many miracles and powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit, the early Christians multiplied rapidly. These, including the apostles, all derived from that same Israelite culture which we just described. Though painfully aware of its shortcomings, they were nevertheless still influenced by it. One aspect of such cultural conditioning was that, by virtue of Abrahamic descent, they all felt part of a privileged elite, God’s chosen people and his representatives on earth. Their upbringing brought them to see all non-Jews condescendingly, as gentiles, pagans, infidels, and not worthy of equal respect and dignity. With these “inferior races” they even avoided contact, lest they became contaminated by it.
Many early Christians were also part of those crowds who initially rejected Jesus and voted in favor of his crucifixion. The reason was that he did not match their idea of a Messiah but, rather, that of an impostor. He had not liberated them from the Romans, nor restored the throne of David or made them powerful, as they though the Messiah would do. Later, as they heard of Jesus’ resurrection, saw further miracles by his disciples, many of them changed and came to recognized in Jesus some great one sent by God. It was not yet a complete change, nor enough to give them a new culture and a change of attitudes, and they continued to be Israelites in religion, laws, culture and outlook towards the outside world. For a few decades, Jerusalem’s Christians still lived in the Old Testament, with Jesus as a new supplement to it. Christianity thus belonged to the “chosen people” and, if it wasn’t for God’s intervention to bring about more substantial changes, it would have remained a sect within Judaism.
How did God change things? In the book of Acts we notice some key elements and the first is in chapter ten. There, Peter received a revelation from God instructing him not to consider the gentiles (non-Jews) as unclean, since in his eyes there was no difference between Israelites and gentiles. The enormity of the problem was expressed by Peter when, in obedience to that vision from God, entered the house of a Roman and said, “You know that it is an unlawful thing for a man, a Jew to keep company with or to come near to one of another nation. But God has shown me not to call any man common or unclean” [1]. Nothing could be clearer than that, but it wasn’t enough to bring about a significant change. Instead, the event through which God took hold of the helm of Christianity and changed its route, was the transformation of Saul into the Apostle Paul, as told in Acts chapter nine.
Saul, an educated Pharisee, zealous of the Jewish faith and tradition, had initially fought against the “heresy” of the new Christian sect. God intervened by blinding him, then opening his eyes again and, finally, Saul saw things as they were and became Paul. He then recognized Jesus as the true Messiah, the author of a brand New Covenant, and everything changed. Paul became the apostle par excellence, who then lead Christianity in its transformation from Jewish sect, into universal church.
Being unwelcomed in Jerusalem, Paul went to other nations and population centers of the Roman Empire. There he preached the good news (gospel) of Jesus to the Gentiles, without the heavy burden of old Jewish mores and laws, which he now saw as superseded in Christ. His success was enormous and, with the Spirit of God sustaining him, his new model of Christianity spread rapidly among non-Jewish populations. Eventually this developed into a deep rift with the mother church in Jerusalem, who did not accept Paul, nor his new Christians. If it weren’t for his successes, they would have chosen to ignore him, but because of the numbers who followed his “new” theology, they had to eventually come to terms with him.
The root of the problem
At the root of the problem was the fact that the Jerusalem church did not believe Paul’s doctrine to be correct. To them Paul was a new young upstart who did not really understand original orthodoxy. To be a Christian, they said, it was necessary to first keep the required prescriptions of the Mosaic Law. For them, in fact, Christianity was a supplement to the one true religion, namely that of the Old Testament. Paul, instead, claimed that Christ had begun a brand new era, a New Testament, and that the Old One was no longer binding for Christians.
The clash between these two ways of understanding Christianity was so severe that it never ended. It even resulted in an open confrontation between Peter and Paul [2] and was the cause of the first council of Jerusalem [3], which was resolved by a compromise, but did not end the disagreement.
An epic change and its effects
Paul remained on the outer reaches of the official church and his ideas were poorly received, if not openly opposed, by his colleagues in Jerusalem. This state of things remained fairly unchanged until a catastrophic event occurred. Although prophesied in detail, its fulfillment is not described in the book of Acts, and we must search other historical sources to learn about it. That event was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and it was then that that original brand of Christianity, who still followed the old Jewish religion, lost its central role. The Jewish Christians of the so-called Concision (because circumcised) migrated elsewhere, mainly towards Arabia and, supposedly, it was from their descendants that Muhammad learned about Jesus. This could explains why the Quran reflects an opinion similar to that of some factions of early Jewish Christianity, who saw Jesus as a great one, but not as God incarnate, nor as the founder of a New Testament.
At a heavy cost, with the destruction of Jerusalem, the Diaspora of the Jews and of the Church of the Concision, Christianity finally matured and cut his umbilical cord to the Old Testament. Paul, from being the odd one out, became instead the leading Apostle. His vision for a universal Christianity became finally recognized and others followed him to proclaim it to the whole world. His writings, and those of his disciple Luke, became widely accepted and eventually formed the majority of the New Testament.
With this I leave you to the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, which I'm sure you will find fascinating.
1. Acts of the Apostles 10, 28
2. Epistle of Paul to the Galatians 2
3. Acts of the Apostles15
