They did so, however, against a background of considerable
overlap and interaction between Jewish and Christian communi-
ties and practices. At the beginning of the second century, bishop
Ignatius of Antioch reproached the Christians of Magnesia and
Philadelphia in Asia Minor for mixing their faith in Jesus Christ
with Jewish practices. However much bishops might assert this
incompatibility, the attraction of Judaism for some Christians
remained strong. Some three centuries after Ignatius, another
bishop of Antioch, John Chrysostom, reproached members of
his flock for attending services in the synagogue (Wilken 1983).
It would be erroneous to suppose that this closeness of Judaism
and Christianity was simply an artefact left over from the days of
Jesus and the apostles. At Edessa in Syria, for example, the close
relationship between Judaism and Christianity seems to have been
a late development, only beginning in the third century (Drijvers
1992).
Such factors have important implications for the relationship
between early Christianity and Judaism. In the brief sketch of the
conventional view of Christian origins offered at the beginning of
this chapter, it was noted that Christianity inherited some things
from Judaism. It has often been assumed that primary examples
of this inheritance were Christianity’s missionary impulse and the
willingness of Christians to endure martyrdom for the faith. More
recently, however, scholars have questioned such assumptions.
Although it is true that many Jewish communities in the Diaspora
attracted interested non-Jews (gentiles/pagans) who were known
as ‘God-fearers’ (see p. 123), this is not quite the same thing as
Judaism actively and systematically seeking out converts. In gen-
eral, Jewish proselytism (the seeking out of converts) only devel-
oped much later, and even then seems to have been practised only
to a limited degree (Goodman 1994). Similarly, the extent to
which Christian martyrdom owed anything to the example set
by Jews – such as those who died defending Jewish traditions
against violation by the Syrian king Antiochus IV in 168/7 BC
(2 Maccabees6–7; cf. Frend 1965: 42–50) – has been questioned
(Bowersock 1995: 9–21). It has been argued furthermore that the
CONTEXTS FOR THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY1
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