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Over the next few Monday commentaries we are going to spend some time looking at the detail of the early outreach efforts of the embryonic, still largely Jewish, Christian Church. Tom Lee argues today that much of the early outreach was a virtue forced of necessity as the early followers of Jesus faced various forms of persecution…

Persecution Prompts the First Great Missionary Journeys
Part 5.1
by Tom Lee

A virtue of necessity…

At the time of the great famine the emperor Claudius sent an additional governor to Judaea to serve jointly with Fadus. The newcomer was Tiberius Alexander, a lapsed Jew, son of the governor of Alexandria and nephew of the Jewish philosopher Philo. Thus, during the troublesome period of the census taking, the tough stickler for discipline and adherence to Roman law, was backed up by one knowledgeable beyond the ordinary in Jewish affairs. Under this dual gubernatorial rule the Zealots and Nazoreans came in for some tough handling, several of the Zealot leaders in particular being captured, tried and crucified.

The Nazorean disciples made a virtue of necessity. To avoid both the persecution and the food shortage they set out to preach in the synagogues of the Dispersion. Early in 47, possibly on advice from the Elders at Jerusalem, Barnabus and Paul, together with John Mark, set out for the nearest large Greek island, Cyprus.

There is no historical evidence, save in the case of Peter, that the original apostles of Jesus played any role at all in the dissemination of the new faith, though there is a strong legend associated with the Apostle Thomas. He is reputed to have traveled by the regular trade routes to the Punjab in North India (now Pakistan), where he was engaged with other Hellenized craftsmen as a master carpenter on the building of a palace for King Gondophares of Taxila. He was later supposed to have traveled through India and his presumed burial-place can be seen in Madras.

In Kashmir, Ismailite Muslims will show you a tomb they claim is that of Jesus, but no scientific examination of the tomb or its contents has ever been carried out. The lid is embellished with incised feet, each bearing indented holes.

In Gaul (latter-day southern France) there developed a tradition that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that she and their daughter settled there after Christ's crucifixion. The line of Merovingian kings claimed descent from Magdalene's daughter, which has led in part to many wildly fanciful books, including The Da Vinci Code.

Another legendary traveler is Joseph of Arimathea, who is said to have taken the body of Christ from the cross and laid it in his own rock sepulcher. We know little definite about him, all four evangelists giving him only a line or two. The rest of our knowledge derives from sub-apostolic times.

The dubious Palestinian Jewish Talmud states that he was a younger brother of Mary's father, and so a great uncle of Jesus. Joseph was a wealthy man owning an estate at Arimathea, now Ramallah, a few miles north of Jerusalem, and was a member of the Sanhedrin. In his Latin translation of Mark's gospel, St. Jerome terms him nobilis decurio, originally a military rank, but in the latter days of the Roman Empire when St. Jerome wrote it was the title of an officer in charge of a metal mine.

From here we enter further legendary territory. We learn from the Ecclesiastical Annals of Cardinal Baronius (1538-1607), compiled from the archives of the Vatican library of which he was curator, in the year 36 "Joseph was exposed to the sea in a vessel without oars or sails, which drifted for many days before it made landfall near Marseilles. From that city Joseph and his companions crossed Gaul and passed into Britain where, after preaching the Gospel, he died."

Gildas, writing about 500 CE, had access to the now lost records of pre-Augustine Christianity in Britain carefully preserved in the monasteries of mountainous Wales. He wrote: "Joseph introduced Christianity into Britain in the last years of the reign of Tiberius Caesar."

Outreach to the Gentiles…

Peter, accompanied by his wife and daughter, may have gone to Rome about the same time Paul was in Cyprus, but the Acts of the Apostles is silent about any journey to Rome. Some of the brothers of Jesus, similarly accompanied, were also engaged in missionary journeys. Fellow Jews were meant to be the sole target of their efforts, but in Paphos in Cyprus the Good News, by official request, was proclaimed by Paul in the presence of the Roman proconsul Sergius Paullus, who was apparently converted. Elated with such success Paul from then on publicized Jesus as the Christ to both Jewish and Gentile audiences. Some claim that it was at this time that he adopted the Roman name of Paul, but most scholars contend that Paul had always been his Roman name. He was a Greek-speaking Roman citizen.

The impressionable young John Mark was evidently shocked at this turn of events. To preach about Jesus to Rome's representatives was casting pearls before swine, something that Jesus had proscribed. In rabbinical literature swine is especially used as a term of reference to Rome and the non-Israelite world. On the way from Paphos to Perga in Pamphylia there was heated argument that resulted in the youngster deserting the two older men to return to Jerusalem.

To be an instrument for enlightening the Gentiles had been one of Paul's great dreams even as a Pharisee, and now he was convinced that Jesus had assigned him this task. Asserting that he had a direct commission from the resurrected Jesus "that I might preach the Good News about him to the pagans" he assumed leadership of the expedition and Barnabus fell into second place. Excluded from orthodox Jewish synagogues they set up their own and appointed Elders, including some Gentiles.

Paul's preaching spurred the outward expansion of the Jesus movement beyond the Jewish Diaspora into the vast and rich religious cultures of the pagan world. But there was as yet no creed, no developed theology, no structure, no pope, no liturgical norms — only the preaching, fueled by Paul's passionate belief that God had spoken decisively in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, revealed as the source of divine life for all who heard his Gospel of forgiveness and regeneration. Without Paul, the story of Jesus might have remained a small heresy within Judaism, swept away when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE.

The first Christian texts…

Since Jesus had not yet returned, the diffusion of the Messianic message on such a major scale created the first real need for written propaganda material and it would appear, according to both tradition and textual detective work by linguistic scientists, that two documents were prepared at this time, both of them linked with the name of Matthew. One of these was a compilation of those passages from the Old Testament considered to be prophecies of the Messiah that Jesus' followers claimed as harbingers of his ministry and the manner of his death. The other set down some of the things Jesus was reputed to have said and done.

Both of these, now lost in their original form, may have been sources utilized later by the writers of the three synoptic Gospels. Those who contend that the Gospels are liturgical rather than historical documents generally accept this view, but believe the stories of Jesus' mission were from the first linked to prophetic passages of the Old Testament and may in fact have been developed from them — pious fictions to illustrate his message. In the spirit of Midrash, the literal truth was not as important as the spiritual truth, the moral and ethical message the story was designed to illustrate.

The first Christians were enthusiastic storytellers and their first writings mirrored pagan models. Collections of maxims and moral sayings were much in vogue. Many of the one-liners from the comic poet and playwright Menander (349-291 BCE), who takes sexual diversity for granted, have survived, as have the principal doctrines of Epicurus (341-270 BCE), and many of the sayings of Pythagorus (540-510 BCE) regarded as an incarnation of Apollo. Iamblichus (c.333 BCE) tells us, novices wishing to join the Pythagorean communities had to memorize the sayings.

The preparation of such texts for Jesus' followers was necessary, as already legend was beginning to supplant memory and embroider upon it. There were many among the Nazorean multitudes who had never seen Jesus personally, and whose previous spiritual affiliations were very diverse.

Zealot trouble-makers…

The militant extremists, particularly the Zealots, had also seen the need to go forth into the world. They were not content to await the Day of Judgment in passive prayer: they were eager to hasten its arrival by organized action. The Book of Daniel followed the previous prophets in depicting an earthly future that, save for the supremacy of righteousness, would not be unlike the present, a future in which even sinners would, after trials and sufferings, share in its bliss. Daniel had not believed in an apocalyptic end of the world.

Daniel spoke of the Son of Man as the world ruler and also spoke of the harsh kingdom, which would be the great enemy of God and the Saints. For the Jews, including the Nazoreans, that kingdom was now clearly revealed to be Rome. Consequently it was the duty of the faithful to promote by every means the downfall of the Empire.

One method of contributing to this was by the circulation of especially composed Oracles or prophecies attributed to the Sibyls, principally that of Delphi, writings for which the Romans had a superstitious regard. Seditious texts were circulated that associated the doom of Rome with the Day of Judgment. Under Roman law to predict the downfall of Rome was a capital offense.

Jewish oracle-makers cleverly played on the hostile sentiments of the peoples subservient to Rome, advising them that the day was at hand when they would no longer be enslaved. The Slaves' Revolt under Spartacus, who died in battle (not crucified as in the movie) in 71 BCE, was a lesson indelibly inscribed in Roman memory, and Roman affluence depended greatly on slave labor.

Early Christians perceived as disloyal to the Roman regime…

Paul, himself a Roman citizen, does not seem to have realized that in proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus he might be understood as being an agent for the Messianic uprising advocated by others. He was moreover collecting sums of money for the brethren in Judaea, which in the eyes of strangers could have been intended to finance armed insurrection and not to feed and clothe the victims of famine.

Many of the Nazoreans were Zealot sympathizers, and it cannot have been easy for the Jews of the Diaspora to distinguish between non-militant religious teachers and Zealot agents. But the militants did not have it all their own way. Most of the Jews outside Israel were loyal to the Roman regime; they enjoyed special privileges, their worship was safeguarded, and they were protected from the anti-Semitic attacks of their Gentile neighbors. Consequently there was considerable alarm at the arrival of envoys proclaiming Messianic doctrines in the synagogues, and anxiety to get rid of them. The apostles were imagined to be Zealot agitators. In Thessalonica the Jews in self-protection informed the Romans: "The people who have been turning the whole world upside down have come here now ... They have broken every one of Caesar's edicts by claiming that there is another emperor, Jesus."

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 5.1
PREVIOUS | NEXT
INTRO | PART 1.1 | PART 1.2 | PART 1.3 | PART 1.4 | PART 1.5 | PART 1.6
PART 2.1 | PART 2.2 | PART 2.3 | PART 2.4 | PART 4.0
PART 5.1 | PART 5.2 | PART 5.3 | PART 5.4 | PART 5.5 | PART 6.2 | PART 6.3
PART 7.1 | PART 7.2 | PART 8.1 | PART 8.2 | PART 8.3 | PART 8.4 | PART 8.5
PART 31.1 | PART 31.2 | PART 31.3 | PART 31.4
Acknowledgements | Bibliography

Tom Lee is an Australian, now semi-retired in Phoenix, Arizona, who has had an illustrious international career as an actor, writer, and broadcast commentator. He does not claim to be a professional theologian, nor an historian, but he undertook this study because, like many of the people who are attracted to what we're doing here at Catholica Australia, he was simply inquisitive about the history of Christianity and trying to better understand what he had been brought up to believe. In a sense, his book is a one-man journey seeking to better understand who Jesus was and what his own faith was about.

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

©2008 Tom Lee (Star Concepts LLC) 15633 N. 17* Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85023-3409

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