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In search of our Christian origins...  Over the last few months we have been exploring the historical beginnings of Christianity. The very first commentary I submitted explored the Jewish origins of Christianity, a theme that has provided one of the unifying threads in subsequent commentaries in which I have attempted to recreate the historical tapestry of the life and times of Jesus and his first followers. This week, Ian takes this series of commentaries a step further by asking, "Who were the first Christians?" It may come as some surprise that the first group in the Jesus Movement to bear the name "Christian" were viewed as dissenters and troublemakers within the wider movement. The Hellenist Dissenters
According to the Acts of the Apostles (11:26), it was at Antioch that the followers of Jesus first became known as Christians. The Antiochene church had been founded by a group whom we met earlier in Acts 6:1-6, designated by Luke as the "Hellenists" (Acts 6:1). These "Hellensits" were Greek-speaking Jews from the Diaspora who, according to Acts (11:19) arrived in Antioch and began a vigorous mission amongst the large Jewish community in that cosmopolitan city. However, in time certain men from Cyprus and Cyrene took the next step and approached the Gentiles (11:20). This was an incredibly innovative development, which would not have been well received by the apostolic authorities back in Jerusalem. We noted in our previous commentary on the earliest Jerusalem church that its constituents, whom Luke calls "Hebrews" (Acts 6:1), were Aramaic-speaking, Law-observant Jews. This means that in addition to their belief in Jesus as the Messiah, the initial membership of the Jerusalem community apparently held to the quintessential Jewish practices of circumcision, Sabbath observance, Temple worship, as well as the dietary and purity codes. Moreover, the Jerusalem church survived and flourished for four decades, up until the fall of Jerusalem (70 CE.), and the best explanation for this is that the constituents of the first community of believers in Jesus Messiah remained throughout the life of their congregation in Jerusalem manifestly loyal and Law-observant Jews. The only indication we have of anything to the contrary in Acts occurs with the introduction of the "Hellenists" (Acts 6:1).
Luke tells us that the issue at stake in the Hellenists' dispute with the Hebrews was the latter's financial administration of the community's funds. According to Luke this problem was resolved immediately by the apostles commissioning seven Hellenist administrators — Stephen, Phillip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas — as a sort of oversight committee to control the common purse (6:3-6). Despite the innocuous tenor of this conflict and the amicable nature of its resolution, the account of this contest serves to introduce a series of further controversies and dramatic developments (Räisänen, 1992: 288-293). Stephen embarks on a ministry of preaching amongst the other Diaspora Jews in Jerusalem, resulting in his trial and execution on the charges of apostasy and blasphemy (6:8-8:1). Stephen and his followers appear to have been openly critical of both the Jewish Law and the Temple cult. As a consequence, Stephen's circle of supporters amongst the Hellenists is subsequently persecuted and dispersed (8:1-4). Philip carries the Christian message to Samaria (8:4-40) and, as we have noted, other refugees of the persecution establish a mission amongst the Gentiles in Syrian Antioch (11:19-26, 13:1). "Followers of the Oiled One" É. Trocmé (1997: 32) observes that Christianos is a political term (Latin suffix -ianos) that may have been used in a derisory fashion ('supporters of the oiled one'), and thus indicates a first contact with pagans who, lacking any biblical background, did not fully comprehend the Jewish roots of the term Christos. As such, the popular recognition of the movement in Antioch as "followers of the Christos" is significant. First, it testifies both to the success of the Gentile mission in Antioch and its emergence as an innovative religious movement that was considered by the wider, multicultural society in Antioch as independent of its Jewish origins. It is unlikely that such a designation would have been devised earlier in Jerusalem to describe the Law-observant Jesus Movement there. It seems likely that the "Hebrew" membership of the Jerusalem community would have been perceived as no more than another Jewish sect (24:14; 28:22; cf. 5:17; 15:5). Perhaps amongst their fellow Jews the Christian-Jews at Jerusalem were even known commonly as the "Sect of the Nazarene", as Luke suggests in Acts 24:5. Moreover, the Jerusalem church survived and flourished for four decades, up until the fall of Jerusalem (70 CE.), which can only be explained if we conclude that any persecution the community suffered was relatively minor and infrequent. The best explanation for this is that the constituents of the first community of believers in Jesus Messiah remained throughout the life of their congregation in Jerusalem manifestly loyal and Law-observant Jews. It is only later, when the Hellenists at Antioch had initiated a vigorous and successful Law-free mission amongst both Jews and Gentiles in the predominantly pagan city of Antioch that such a term could arise. No longer were the Hellenists perceived as mere Jewish apostates — as happened in Jerusalem, leading to Stephen's tragic death and the persecution of his circle of supporters. But with the addition of their Gentile converts at Antioch, they came to be seen increasingly as the tradents of an entirely new religious tradition in which the established boundary markers distinguishing Jew from Gentile (circumcision, Sabbath observance, and the dietary and purity proscriptions of the Torah) were completely abolished. So What? Turning now to the "world in front of the text" we might ask, "so what?" What does it matter if Christianity emerged only later when the movement had spilled beyond the bounds of Judaism? The lesson to be learned here is one that concerns the value of dissenters and troublemakers. All-too-often it is those who are open to new ways of thought and action who suffer persecution and censure. Institutions are always frightened by innovation and change, but institutions can only survive and flourish if they embrace both. It is an interesting historical coincidence that when in ancient Israel the community moved to a centralised monarchy and temple cult, the first charismatic prophets appeared to act as a counter to institutional authority. One might see a similar development with the advent of Hellenists We can only speculate as to the reasons why the Hellenistic members of the Jesus movement embraced views so at odds with those of the Hebrews. Some scholars have argued that the Hellenists seized upon that emphasis in Jesus' teaching with regard to the Law and the Temple that raised the opposition of the Jewish religious authorities, and resulted in Jesus' trial and execution (Hengel, 1983: 22-24). In particular, the Hellenists, as a charismatic eschatological group, focused on Jesus' apocalyptic pronouncements regarding the imminent destruction of the Temple (Matt 26:61; Mk 14:58; 15:29; Lk 21:5-36; Jn 2:19), the corruption of its cult (Mk. 11:15-17; Matt. 21:12-13; Lk 19:45-46; Jn 2:13-22), and the inadequacies of the laws governing the dietary proscriptions (Matt 15:10-20; 23:25-26; Mk 7:14-23; Lk 11:37-41) and Sabbath observances (eg., Mk 3:1-6; Matt 12:9-14; Lk 6:1-11). Such a theory has one obvious fault — Jesus did predict the end of the Temple, which the Hebrews most likely knew. However, that knowledge did not encourage them to criticise the Temple cult or the Mosaic Law that governed its practice. On the contrary, it led them to become quite exemplary in their observance of the Law and their devotion to the Temple. Attempting to tie the Hellenists' criticisms of the Law and the Temple to Jesus traditions requires that we assume that Jesus' original disciples understood the import of Jesus' message far less than the Hellenists who were converted to the movement only after his death. But, surely, the only knowledge the Hellenists had about Jesus was what they had received by way of catechetical instruction from the Hebrews. Are we then to imagine that the former were able to separate the misunderstanding of the latter from the real intent of Jesus' message? This is a rather difficult assertion to defend.
It is far more reasonable to assume that the Hellenists' negative views on these two Jewish cultural institutions represented a radical departure from the theological position of the original followers of Jesus and their Aramaic-speaking converts. A departure that the Hellenist converts to the movement instigated, which ultimately led them to initiate the mission to the Gentiles in Antioch. Without this innovation there would never have been any "Christian" movement other than a small sect of Judaism. Bibliography and further food for the journey: R. E. Brown, C. Osieck, and P. Perkins, "Early
Church", in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. R. E.
Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1989,
1338-1354. Photo Credits:
What are your thoughts on this essay? Ian Elmer can be contacted at: Ian Elmer <ianelmer@catholica.com.au> Please Note: You need to remove the "NOSPAM" words at the beginning of the email address before sending the email" ©2006 Ian Elmer |
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Ian
Elmer is a lecturer in New Testament at ACU National (formally Australian
Catholic University). He is also a member of the Centre for Early Christian
Studies, and was recently admitted into ACBA (Australian Catholic Biblical
Association). His research specialities are Paul and First-Century Christianity.
He is the author of published articles in the Australian Ejournal of Theology
and in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church (a publication of the
Centre for Early Christian Studies). He is currently completing a doctoral
thesis, entitled Paul, Jerusalem and the Judaisers: The Galatian Crisis
in its Broader Historical Context.