probably his last letter he admitted that in certain regions of the
west ‘the very name of Christ has not been heard’ (Romans
15.20). The communities of the Jewish Diaspora seem to have
played a significant role in Paul’s strategy (Levinskaya 1996). Acts
in particular depicts him as going first to the Jewish gathering
place (termed either synago ̄ge ̄orproseuche ̄) in each of the cities
he visited throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In such places
he could expect to find not only Jews, but also gentile/pagan
god-fearers (on whom see p. 123). Not all such cities and their
Jewish communities afforded identical opportunities. Philippi in
Macedonia, for example, had been a Roman colony settled by
military veterans since the late first century BC. Here the Jews
seem to have been a rather marginal group: Actstells us that
their meeting place was outside the city gates (16.13; cf. Oakes
2001: 58–9).
Even in its emphasis on these Jewish networks, Actsis far
from a satisfactory history. A major theme of its narrative is the
hostility of the Jews to Paul’s preaching in contrast to the more
receptive audience he found among (some) gentiles/pagans. At
Ephesus, for example, Paul taught in the synagogue for three
months before Jewish hostility drove him to seek other accom-
modation among the gentiles (Acts19.8–10). Some of Paul’s
letters attest to hostility towards the Jews: he warned the Christians
of Philippi to ‘beware of the dogs, beware of evil workers, beware
of those who mutilate the flesh’ (Philippians3.2), a reference to
the Jews and their practice of circumcision. Elsewhere, it looks
as if his intended audience was wholly of gentile/pagan converts,
such as when he asked the Corinthians to recall their worship of
‘idols’ (1 Corinthians12.2). Certainly, by the time the deutero-
Pauline letters were written, the target of missionary activity was
deemed to be predominantly pagan/gentile. This does not mean
that a Jewish phase in Christian missionary activity came to an
end some time in the first century: we saw earlier in this chapter
that the close relationship between Christianity and Judaism lasted
well into late antiquity, meaning that some form of Jewish mission
must have outlasted Paul.^5 Nevertheless, it is clear that the centralCONTEXTS FOR THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY
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