Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic movement in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea, from where it spread throughout and beyond the Roman Empire.
Origins
Christianity "emerged as a movement of Judaism in Roman Judea" in the syncretistic Greco-Roman world of the 1st century AD, which was dominated by Roman law and Hellenistic culture. It started with the ministry of Jesus, who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God.Christianity: an introduction by Alister E. McGrath 2006 pp. 16–22 After his death by crucifixion, some of his followers are said to have seen Jesus, and proclaimed him to be alive and resurrected by God. The resurrection of Jesus "signalled for earliest believers that the days of eschatological fulfillment were at hand,"Larry Hurtado (December 4, 2018), "When Christians were Jews": Paula Fredriksen on "The First Generation" and gave the impetus in certain Christian sects to the exaltation of Jesus to the status of divine Son and Lord of God's Kingdom and the resumption of their missionary activity.
Apostolic Age
Traditionally, the years following Jesus until the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles is called the Apostolic Age, after the missionary activities of the apostles.August Franzen, Kirchengeschichte, Freiburg, 1988: 20 According to the Acts of the Apostles (the historical reliability of which is disputed), the Jerusalem church began at Pentecost with some 120 believers, in an "upper room," believed by some to be the Cenacle, where the apostles received the Holy Spirit and emerged from hiding following the death and resurrection of Jesus to preach and spread his message.Schreck, The Essential Catholic Catechism (1999), p. 130
The Christian Testament writings depict what orthodox Christian churches call the Great Commission, an event where they describe the resurrected Jesus Christ instructing his disciples to spread his eschatological message of the coming of the Kingdom of God to all the nations of the world. The most famous version of the Great Commission is in , where on a mountain in Galilee Jesus calls on his followers to make disciples of and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus is first recorded in . Peter baptized the Roman centurion Cornelius, traditionally considered the first Gentile convert to Christianity, in . Based on this, the Antioch church was founded. It is also believed that it was there that the term Christian was coined.
Missionary activity
After the crucifixion of Jesus, Christianity first emerged as a sect of Judaism as practiced in the Roman province of Judea. The first Christians were all Jews, who constituted a Second Temple Jewish sect with an apocalyptic eschatology.
The Jerusalem community consisted of "Hebrews," Jews speaking both Aramaic and Greek, and "Hellenists," Jews speaking only Greek, possibly diaspora Jews who had resettled in Jerusalem. With the start of their missionary activity, early Jewish Christians also started to attract proselytes, Gentiles who were fully or partly converted to Judaism. According to James Dunn, Paul's initial persecution of Christians probably was directed against these Greek-speaking "Hellenists" due to their anti-Temple attitude. Within the early Jewish Christian community, this also set them apart from the "Hebrews" and their Tabernacle observance.
Christian missionary activity spread "the Christian Way" and slowly created early centers of Christianity with Gentile adherents in the predominantly Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman Empire, and then throughout the Hellenistic world and beyond the Roman Empire in Assyria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Georgia and Persia.Franzen 29 Early Christian beliefs were proclaimed in kerygma (preaching), some of which are preserved in Christian Testament scripture. The early Gospel message spread orally, probably originally in Aramaic, but almost immediately also in Greek.
The scope of the Jewish-Christian mission expanded over time. While Jesus limited his message to a Jewish audience in Galilea and Judea, after his death his followers extended their outreach to all of Israel, and eventually the whole Jewish diaspora, believing that the Second Coming would only happen when all Jews had received the Gospel. Apostles and preachers traveled to Jewish communities around the Mediterranean Sea, and initially attracted Jewish converts.Bokenkotter, p. 18. Within 10 years of the death of Jesus, apostles had attracted enthusiasts for "the Christian Way" from Jerusalem to Antioch, Edessa, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Cyprus, Crete, Alexandria and Rome.Duffy, p. 3. Over 40 churches were established by 100,Hitchcock, Geography of Religion (2004), p. 281Bokenkotter, A Concise History of the Catholic Church (2004), p. 18 most in Asia Minor and Upper Mesopotamia, such as the seven churches of Asia, and some in Greece and Italy.
According to Fredriksen, when early Christians broadened their missionary efforts, they also came into contact with Gentiles attracted to the Jewish religion. Eventually, the Gentiles came to be included in the missionary effort of Hellenised Jews, bringing "all nations" into the house of Christianity's God. The "Hellenists," Greek-speaking diaspora Jews belonging to the early Jerusalem Jesus-movement, played an important role in reaching a Gentile, Greek audience, notably at Antioch, which had a large Jewish community and significant numbers of Gentile "God-fearers." From Antioch, the mission to the Gentiles started, including Paul's, which would fundamentally change the character of the early Christian movement, eventually turning it into a new, Gentile religion. According to Dunn, within ten years after Jesus' death, "the new messianic movement focused on Jesus began to modulate into something different ... it was at Antioch that we can begin to speak of the new movement as 'Christianity'."
Paul and the inclusion of Gentiles
Paul was responsible for bringing Christianity to Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, and Thessalonica. According to Larry Hurtado, "Paul saw Jesus' resurrection as ushering in the eschatological time foretold by biblical prophets in which the pagan 'Gentile' nations would turn from their idols and embrace the one true God of Israel (e.g., ), and Paul saw himself as specially called by God to declare God's eschatological acceptance of the Gentiles and summon them to turn to God."[Larry Hurtado (August 17, 2017 ), "Paul, the Pagans' Apostle" According to Krister Stendahl, the main concern of Paul's writings on Jesus' role and salvation by faith is not the individual conscience of human sinners and their doubts about being chosen by God or not, but the main concern is the problem of the inclusion of Gentile (Greek) Torah-observers into God's covenant.Stephen Westerholm (2015), The New Perspective on Paul in Review, Direction, Spring 2015 · Vol. 44 No. 1 · pp. 4–15 "Hebrew" Jewish Christians opposed Paul's interpretations, as exemplified by the Ebionites. The relaxing of requirements in Pauline Christianity opened the way for a much larger Christian Church, extending far beyond the Jewish community. The inclusion of Gentiles is reflected in Luke-Acts, which is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how the Messiah of the Jews came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it provides, and its central theme, is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because a number of Jews rejected it.
Split with Judaism
There was a slowly growing chasm between Gentile Christians, and Jews and Jewish Christians, rather than a sudden split. Even though it is commonly thought that Paul established a Gentile church, it took centuries for a complete break to manifest. Growing tensions led to a starker separation that was virtually complete by the time Jewish Christians refused to join in the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt of 132.Davidson, p. 146 Certain events are perceived as pivotal in the growing rift between Christianity and Judaism.
Ante-Nicene period (2nd-3rd century)
Roman Empire
Spread
Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire, and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Assyria and Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires. In AD 301, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to declare Christianity as its state religion, following the conversion of the Royal House of the Arsacids in Armenia, although the Neo-Assyrian kingdom of Osroene became Christian earlier. With Christianity the dominant faith in some urban centers, Christians accounted for approximately 10% of the Roman population by 300, according to some estimates.Hopkins(1998), p. 191 Christianity then rapidly grew in the 4th century, accounting for 56.5% of the Roman population by 350.
By the latter half of the second century, Christianity had spread east throughout Media, Persia, Parthia, and Bactria. The twenty bishops and a number of presbyters were more of the order of itinerant missionaries, passing from place to place as Paul did and supplying their needs with such occupations as merchant or craftsman.
Various theories attempt to explain how Christianity managed to spread so successfully prior to the Edict of Milan (313). In The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark argues that Christianity replaced paganism chiefly because it improved the lives of its adherents in various ways. Dag Øistein Endsjø argues that Christianity was helped by its promise of a general resurrection of the dead at the end of the world which was compatible with the traditional Greek belief that true immortality depended on the survival of the body.Dag Øistein Endsjø. Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009. According to Will Durant, the Christian Church prevailed over paganism because it offered a much more attractive doctrine, and because the church leaders addressed human needs better than their rivals.
Bart D. Ehrman attributes the rapid spread of Christianity to five factors: (1) the promise of salvation and eternal life for everyone was an attractive alternative to Roman religions; (2) stories of miracles and healings purportedly showed that the one Christian God was more powerful than the many Roman gods; (3) Christianity began as a grassroots movement providing hope of a better future in the next life for the lower classes; (4) Christianity took worshipers away from other religions since converts were expected to give up the worship of other gods, unusual in antiquity where worship of many gods was common; (5) in the Roman world, converting one person often meant converting the whole household—if the head of the household was converted, he decided the religion of his wife, children and slaves.
Persecutions and legalisation