- How the Followers of Jesus became
“Christians”
a. Paul’s understanding of the meaning
of Jesus, that his crucifixion fulfilled
God’s long-standing plan for
mankind’s salvation—redemption
and justification are two other of
Paul’s terms for what happened—
became a central dogma of the
community of Jesus’ followers, the
Christian Church.
b. The increasingly massive influx of
Gentiles into new Christian commu-
nities on an equal footing with the
Jewish Christians was the major fac-
tor in the separation of Jesus’ follow-
ers, now increasingly called
“Christians,” from the main body of
the Jewish Community.
B. The Spread of Christianity
- The Persecution and Growth of
Christianity
a. Throughout Roman history, the
Jews were thought of as both a
nation and a religion. When
Christianity was identified as a new
religion, its members lost the
exemptions and protections long
extended to the Jews.
b. Romans became increasingly suspi-
cious (and intolerant) of Christians
when the latter refused to worship
the deified emperor and looked to a
kingdom “not of this world.”
c. Additionally Rome was in a financial
crisis and needed a scapegoat to
unite the empire. The persecution of
Christians (feeding to the lions,
games, etc.) enabled the govern-
ment to distract an otherwise unhap-
py people.
d. A century of persecutions followed
until Constantine ended them in the
early fourth century.
CHRISTMAS AND
EASTER
No one was sure of the date
when Jesus was born (nor Moses
nor Muhammad, for that matter):
birthdays were rarely noted in the
ancient world, and Jesus’ birthday
was celebrated more by imperial
proclamation than from historical
memory. The newly converted
Roman emperor, Constantine,
chose the 25th of December to
supplant the popular feast of the
“birthday of the Invincible Sun”—
the tutelary deity of the Roman
Empire before it became
Christian—which was celebrated
at the winter solstice.
Of far greater importance to
Christians liturgically and theologi-
cally is Easter, a curious Anglo-
Saxon name for what the early
Christians called, more accurately,
Pascha, that is, Passover. As the
Gospels testify, Jesus had indeed
died and was buried on the Jewish
Passover, probably in the year 30
CE, and, as Christians came
increasingly to believe, in the same
manner as the lambs who were
sacrificed. Passover recalled for
Jews their salvation from slavery in
Egypt; for Christians, it now meant
humankind’s redemption from sin.
Passover is marked, like all Jewish
holy days, according to the lunar cal-
endar and not, like the Christians’, by
the solar one. As Christians distanced
themselves from their Jewish her-
itage, the calendar links between
Passover and Jesus’ death and resur-
rection began to be questioned, often
contentiously, and eventually weak-
ened, though they never quite disap-
peared. Unlike the rest of the
Christians’ calendar, Easter and
Pentecost (the Jews’ Shabuoth, the
birthday of the Church for Christians)
remain lunar holy days, though now
deliberately calculated in a manner
different from the Jewish reckoning of
the dates of those feasts.