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Breaking Dawn: the First 25 Years of Christianity

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Breaking Dawn: the First 25 Years of Christianity 1 Breaking Dawn: The First 25 Years of Christianity In this article, we will look at the ‘hidden’ first 25 years of the Christian era, examining the impact of Christ upon the ancient world and drawing some lessons for today. An Astonishing Claim Famously, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” iBut when I first read that passage as a sceptical teenager, I found it very puzzling. Did Jesus actually say that? It is not recorded in the other three Gospels – Matthew, Mark or Luke – which are all thought to have been written before John. It is such a prophetic claim to make. However, I soon found that Jesus said something very similar in Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. He told his followers, “You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before mankind, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” ii His hearers would only be lights to the world to the extent that they were genuinely drawing on his light, modelling his behaviour and obeying his teaching. So Matthew’s account is entirely consistent with John’s, though expressed rather differently. In both passages, the character of Christ is seen as the light of the world, revealing God the Father, who sent him into the world. “If you knew me,” said Jesus, “you would know my Father also.” iii So Jesus claimed to reveal the character of God. Now, I had great difficulty imagining anyone claiming to be the Light of the World. But if Jesus did not say it, then John, or whoever wrote his Gospel, must have invented it. And even if that was the case, it was still said by someone about Jesus in the first century and taken seriously at that time. More than that, we can look back over 2000 years and see how it worked out. We might well ask if there is anyone else, in the entire history of the world, who could in any meaningful sense have claimed to be “The Light of the World”? Try to imagine anyone today making such a claim in public. Would anyone believe them? Can you imagine any other figure of history claiming to be the Light of the World? Any political figure – Barack Obama? Any philosopher – Aristotle? Any religious figure – the Pope or Mohammed? It is one thing to say a person is an inspiration and an outstanding luminary in his field, but quite another to say that he personally is the light of the world – it seems impossible to imagine. It would surely be evidence of madness, and within a generation such madness would be entirely forgotten. Yet when John wrote his Gospel, it was widely accepted that Jesus said it of himself. It was deemed credible then, and remains credible today. But did anyone 2000 years ago know how Christ would impact the world and that this claim would so dramatically stand the test of time? 2 The First Glimmers Now, to set the context of this claim, I need to talk for a while about history. Bear with me! Try to keep in mind that the current evidence strongly indicates that Christ was crucified in AD 33. iv Yet, from the secular record outside the New Testament, very little is known about Christ or his followers over the next 25 years. These are hidden years, and that troubled me. Virtually all we know about that first generation of Christians is recorded in the New Testament, which of course is not a book but a collection of 27 different historical Christian documents, diverse pieces of literature including biographies, histories and letters. But why this historical silence from the secular historians of the day? They weren’t called Christians One of the key reasons that the Jesus Movement was initially hidden from view is that the first Christians were all Jews and were known as Jews. They met in the synagogues and gathered for festivals at the temple in Jerusalem. They believed their long-awaited Messiah had come, and for the first ten years, the Jewish disciples were almost entirely consumed in proclaiming the Jewish Messiah to the dispersed Jewish people.v As such, Christ was a Jew and was seen to be of interest only to the Jews, who lived in their well-defined, segregated, difficult-to-understand Jewish cultural bubble. It was about 10 years before there was a breakthrough into the pagan, Gentile world. That occurred around AD 43 in Antioch, which was the third largest city of the Roman Empire, after Rome and Alexandria. A major Mediterranean port, it was also situated at the end of the Silk Road from the east, facilitating in due course the spread of the Gospel to Asia. It was here that we are told by Luke that Christ’s followers were first identified as Christians. Why? Because these converts weren’t Jews; they hadn’t been Jews and weren’t going to become Jews. And remarkably, this breakthrough into the pagan Greek world was brought about by Jewish Christians, who had come from the Greek cultures of Cyrene in North Africa and Cyprus. vi (It is the little details in Luke that are so fascinating!) So come with me now to Paul’s famous letter to the Christians in Rome. It is undisputed that this letter, called “Romans”, was written by Paul and that is has come down to us intact – we are very confident about the text of it, and it is thought to have been written around AD 57, within 25 years of Christ’s death. So let’s see what clues it gives us about those first 25 years of Christianity. The Spreading Flame Paul’s letter begins with a formal introduction, but gets underway properly at verse 8. It seems as though he is bursting to speak: “First of all, I want to thank God that your faith is proclaimed in all the world.” vii What does he mean? He doesn’t say “the faith,” “our faith,” or “my faith,” but he says to the Romans that “your faith” is proclaimed in all the world, within the first 25 years after Christ’s death! It has generally been believed that this 3 statement was just conventional flattery, saying their reputation had gone before them and that everyone had heard about them. But it sounds to me that he is actually saying something much more interesting. So now come with me to the last chapter of Romans. Paul finishes his letter with a long list of personal greetings.viii He has stated clearly that he has never been to Rome,ix yet he names almost 30 people in Rome whom he knows and is deeply indebted to. Two, he says, had risked their lives for him x; one had been like a mother to himxi; two had been in prison with him and become Christians before he did xii; another was a dear friend who had worked hard.xiii Where did he meet these people? It wasn’t in Rome. And wherever they were, how is it that they are now all together in Rome? This requires some detective work. We need to ask questions of the text (and after 50 years, I am still finding answers to my questions!) At the head of this long list of greetings, Paul names a Jew called Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They are mentioned six times in the New Testament xiv, and we are told that they were tent makers. Luke says that Paul first met them in Corinth around AD 50. We are fairly clear about that date because we know from a stone inscriptionxv that Gallio was Proconsul in the region in AD 52, and after being there for 18 months Paul was hauled up before him.xvi The Emperor’s Edict Luke records that Aquila and Priscilla had recently been expelled from Rome by the Emperor Claudius, who ordered all the Jews to leave Romexvii – a fascinating historical detail slipped into the script. Now, the Roman historian Suetonius confirms this and says that the Emperor’s edict was because of constant rioting among the Jews, instigated by someone called Chrestus. xviii This is generally acknowledged to be either a misspelt or a Latinised reference to Christ. Another ancient writer tells us that this exodus of the Jews from Rome occurred in the 9th year of Claudius’s reign (that is, AD 49), which fits well with Luke. xix In AD 53, Paul travelled with Priscilla and Aquila to Ephesus and left them there, where they led a house church in their home.xx There they met a leading Jewish Christian who, interestingly, “was a native of Alexandria” in Egypt, where there was a large Jewish community. He was called Apollos “and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus”. We are left to assume that he learned about Christ in Alexandria. They gave him some tutoring about baptism and sent him on to Corinth, where “he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.”xxi But in AD 54, the Emperor Claudius died and his edict, expelling the Jews from Rome, would have died with him. This enabled the Jews to return home to Rome. So when Paul writes to the Roman Christians in AD 57, they have already returned home, including Priscilla and Aquila, who later would go 4 back to Ephesus.xxii Paul says he is longing to see them and hopes to visit them all on his way to Spain.
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