Jewish & Gentile Believers in the Early Church

According to Geza Vermes, the transition from being Jewish to becoming a Christian during the first century was not a smooth one. As the Apostle Paul communicates in Romans 3:29-30: Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by [ek – out of, faith is the instrument of justification] faith and the uncircumcised through [dia tees – by means of, faith is the agency of justification] faith is one. The role that faith played in the Jew coming to know Jesus as Messiah was unique to the Jewish faith and, therefore, different from the Gentile coming to a saving faith in Jesus. 

Géza Vermes (2 June 1924 – 8 May 2013) was a British academic, Biblical scholar, and Judaist of Jewish–Hungarian descent—one who also served as a Roman Catholic priest in his youth—and scholar who specialized in the field of the history of religion, particularly ancient Judaism and early Christianity. He is best known for his complete translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls into English; his research focused on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Ancient Hebrew writings in Aramaic, such as the Targumim, and on the life and religion of Jesus. He wrote an article entitled “From Jewish to Gentile: How the Jesus Movement Became Christianity,” in which he documents the first-century transition from the Jewish faith to Christianity for both the Jew and the Gentile.

Peter’s Invitation

At the Pentecost that followed the crucifixion, the apostles were transformed under the influence of the Holy Spirit from a group of gutless fugitives into born-again champions of faith in Jesus, the risen Messiah – Geza Vermes. Acts 2 tells us that the original 120 followers from the upper room were immediately increased by 3,000 new Jewish converts. They were challenged only to believe in Peter’s teaching of who Jesus was and then baptized in His name. This began a long and arduous journey to qualify the role of the Torah for the Christian, both Jew and Gentile. 

So then, those who had received his word were baptized, and that day, there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and many wonders and signs were being made by the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.          Acts 2:41-47

The new Jewish converts continued to observe the Mosaic Law. Vermes observes: 

In addition to their attachment to the Law of Moses, including worship in the Temple, the religious practice of the first Jewish Christians also included the “breaking of the bread” (Acts 2:46). This breaking of the bread was not a purely symbolic cultic act but a real meal. It had the double purpose of feeding the participants and symbolically uniting them with one another as well as with their Master Jesus, and with God. The frequency of the rite is not immediately specified, but the initial impression is that it took place daily, not unlike the sacred dinner of the fully initiated Essenes described by the Jewish writers Philo and Josephus and by the Community Rule of the Dead Sea Scrolls. “And day by day, attending the Temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous heart” (Acts 2:46). On the other hand, according to Acts 20:7, Paul in Troas broke the bread on the first day of the week, and the Didache, the earliest Christian treatise (late first century C.E.), also orders that the bread should be broken, and thanksgiving (Eucharist) performed each Sunday (Didache 14.1). 

The Judeo-Christians considered themselves Jews, and their outward behavior and dietary customs were Jewish. They continued to observe all the rules and regulations of the Mosaic Law, including continuing to frequent the religious center of Judaism, the Temple of Jerusalem, for private and public worship; it was there that the apostles performed charismatic healings (Acts 3:1–10; 5:12, 20, 25, 42). These Jewish Christians assembled for prayer in the sanctuary every day (Acts 2:46). Even Paul, the chief opponent of the obligatory performance of Jewish customs in his churches, first visited the synagogues for worship when visiting new locations to spread the Gospel. He once fell into a trance in the course of his prayer in the House of God (Acts 22:17), and on a later occasion, he underwent the prescribed purification rituals before commissioning the priests to offer sacrifice on his behalf (Acts 21:24–26).

The Way of God

It is conjectured that a great many of these new Jewish Christians were of the Essene sect of Judaism, who had already been practicing many of the new Christian activities related above in Acts 2. Since they were not participating in the temple sacrifices, they had placed their religious focus on the study of Scripture and other ancient Jewish scrolls (as found in the Dead Seas Scrolls) as well as communal life. Vermes says they were comparable to the Essenes in number, and they exhibited similar customs, such as the daily solemn meal and subsistence from a common kitty. The changes prescribed by the Holy Spirit and the Apostles of the Christian “Way of God” were not as dramatic as many may have thought. So, prior to the admission of Gentile candidates, the affiliates of the Jesus party appeared to ordinary people in Jerusalem as representatives of a Jewish movement or sect. The followers of Jesus were referred to in the late 50s of the first century as the “sect [hairesis] of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5, 14). In later patristic literature, the Judeo-Christians were designated as the Ebionites or “the Poor.” The church historian Eusebius (260–339 C.E.) reports that up to the Bar-Kokhba war (the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome [132–135 C.E.]) all of the 13 bishops of Jerusalem, starting with James, the brother of Jesus, came from the “circumcision” (Ecclesiastical History 4.3,5).

The Gentile Jesus movement began around 40 AD when the family of the Roman centurion Cornelius in Acts 10. Acts 11:19-24 and Galatians 2:11-14, with the inclusion of many pagan converts of Paul in Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, identify the demographic watershed regarding the composition of the Jesus movement. Then, when he [Barnabas] arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute hearts to remain true to the Lord, for he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord (Acts 11:23-24). With these additions, the Jewish monopoly of the new movement came to an end. Jewish and Gentile Christianity was born.      

Introducing a Gentile 

It was in the Syrian city of Antioch in the late 40s AD that the once-novel became frequent. Emigré members of the Jerusalem church were joined there by Gentiles evangelized and baptized by Judeo-Christians originating from Cyprus and Cyrene (in North Africa). The mother church in Jerusalem dispatched Barnabas to run the new mixed community, and Barnabas hurried to Tarsus in Cilicia to persuade his friend Saul/Paul, already a believer in Christ, to join him in looking after the new church. The Jewish and the Gentile Christians of Antioch coexisted happily and ate together. When visiting the community, Peter willingly participated in their common meals. However, when some extra-zealous representatives of the Jerusalem church headed by James the brother of Jesus arrived in Antioch, their disapproving attitude compelled all the Jewish Christians, including even Peter and Barnabas, but with the notable exception of Paul, to discontinue their table fellowship with the brethren of Greek stock (Acts 11:2). As a result, union, fraternity and harmony in the new mixed church disappeared. The outraged Paul confronted Peter and publicly called him a hypocrite (Galatians 2:11–14), creating the first major row in Christendom.          Geza Vermes

As a result of the Jerusalem council reported in Acts 15, Gentiles wishing to join the church would be exempted from the full rigor of the Law of Moses, including circumcision, and would merely be required to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from the consumption of blood, from eating non-ritually slaughtered meat, and from certain sex acts judged particularly odious by Jews. The rules addressed certain pagan practices within the Gentile world. In Jerusalem, different conditions prevailed, for Gentile Christians could not join their Judeo-Christian brothers in the Temple as non-Jews were prohibited under threat of instant death to set foot in the area within the Temple reserved for Jews. 

The original Judeo-Christian baptism (a rite of purification) and the breaking of the bread (a solemn communal meal) were transformed in the Gentile church under the influence of Paul. Baptism developed into a mystical participation in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The communal meal became a sacramental reiteration of the Last Supper. The perceived differences soon led to animosity and an increasing anti-Jewish animus in the Gentile church. Baptism is presented as an ablution, a purification rite, and a spray of water may be substituted for immersion if no pools or rivers are available. Communal prayer entailed the recitation of “Our Father” thrice daily. The Thanksgiving meal (Eucharist) was celebrated on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) (Didache 14:1). It was a real dinner as well as the symbol of spiritual food. No allusion is made in Pauline fashion to the Lord’s Supper.      Geza Vermes 

The Didache & the Epistle of Barnabas

Two early Christian writings provide a great contrast between the two branches of first-century Christianity. The Didache, or Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, probably composed in Palestine or Syria, is our last major Jewish-Christian document preserved in full. The Epistle of Barnabas is one of the earliest expressions of Gentile Christianity, filled with anti-Jewish strictures. 

Teaching authority in the Didache lay in the hands of itinerant prophets whom we know also from Acts 11:27–28. They were supplemented by bishops and deacons. However, these were not appointed by the successors of the apostles, as became the rule in the gentile churches, but democratically elected by the community.         Geza Vermes 

The Didache’s first chapter contains the emphasis on the Christian life in contrast to death, with a summary of the Mosaic Law, the love of God and of the neighbor, with the addition of a number of dictates from the Sermon on the Mount. This includes the addition of the so-called “golden rule” in its negative Jewish form: “Whatever you do not want to happen to you, do not do to another” (Didache 1.2). The lifestyle recommended in the Didache is comparable to the lifestyle of the Essenes in Qumran as described in Acts, including religious communism: “Share all things with your brother and do not say that anything is your own” (Didache 4.8). The Didache also strongly emphasizes the teaching of the Torah as a continual emphasis of worship: “See that no one lead thee astray from this way of the teaching (Hebrew – Torah), because apart from God does he teach thee. For if thou art able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, thou shalt be perfect” (Didache 6.1-2). 

Perhaps the most significant element of the Didache’s doctrine concerns its understanding of Jesus. This primitive Judeo-Christian writing contains none of the theological ideas of Paul about the redeeming Christ or of John’s divine Word or Logos. Jesus is never called the “Son of God.” Astonishingly, this expression is found only once in the Didache, where it is the self-designation of the Antichrist, “the seducer of the world” (Didache 16.4). The only title assigned to Jesus in the Judeo-Christian Didache is the Greek term pais, which means either servant or child. However, as Jesus shares this designation in relation to God with King David (Didache 9.2; see also Acts 4:25), it is clear that it must be rendered as God’s “Servant.” If so, the Didache uses only the lowliest Christological qualification about Jesus. In short, the Jesus of the Didache is essentially the great eschatological teacher, who is expected to reappear soon to gather together and transfer the dispersed members of his church to the Kingdom of God. The Pauline-Johannine ideas of atonement and redemption are nowhere visible in this earliest record of Judeo-Christian life. While handed down by Jewish teachers to Jewish listeners, the image of Jesus remained close to the earliest tradition underlying the Synoptic Gospels, and the Christian congregation of the Didache resembled the Jerusalem church portrayed in Acts.      Geza Vermes

The Didache is the last flowering of Judeo-Christianity. After Hadrian suppressed the Second Jewish Revolt in 135 C.E., the decline of Jewish Christianity began. Justin Martyr (executed in 165 C.E.) proudly notes that in his day, non-Jews largely outnumbered the Jewish members of the church (First Apology).     Geza Vermes   

A New Order

Once Christianity established a foothold in the Greco-Roman world largely due to Paul’s four missionary journeys, there was a switch in the perception of Jesus from a charismatic prophet to a figure defined by deity, and these changes directly affected the entire religious climate as well as the government structure of the church organization. At the same time, under the influence of Paul’s organizing genius, the church acquired a hierarchical structure governed by bishops with the assistance of presbyters and deacons. As the church population became more Gentile than Jewish heritage, the direct input from Jewish converts became less and less evident. The new order, to some degree, had an anti-Judaistic flavor, as may be detected from a glance at the Epistle of Barnabas, the earliest work of Gentile Christianity. 

This letter—falsely attributed to Barnabas, the companion of Paul—is the work of a gentile-Christian author, probably from Alexandria. It was most likely written in the 120s AD and almost made its way into the sacred books. It is included in the oldest New Testament codex, the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus, but was finally declared non-canonical by the church. A reference to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem definitely dates it after 70 AD, but the absence of any allusion to the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132–135 AD) suggests that the epistle was written before c. 135. It is a hybrid work, in which moral instructions (Barnabas 18–21) based on a Jewish tractate on the way of light and the way of darkness, attested to also in the Didache 1–5, and ultimately in the first-century B.C.E. Community Rule among the Dead Sea Scrolls, is preceded by a lengthy anti-Jewish diatribe (Barnabas 1–17). The author depicts two quarreling parties designated simply as “we” and “they,” the first representing the Christians and the second the Jews, and the dispute is founded on the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), which both factions consider their own property.      Geza Vermes   

Complete Knowledge

Barnabas aims to teach “full or complete knowledge” (Epignosis) by emphasizing to them the essential Biblical doctrines of Covenant, Temple, sacrifice, circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws from the perspective of Jesus. In light of the exegesis in vogue in Alexandria and a new emphasis on allegorical interpretation with a spiritual connotation (see Barnabas 2:5), the literal precepts of the Old Testament were now much less the order of the day. Sacrifice should not amount to cultic slaughter but demand a broken heart, nor is forgiveness of sin obtained through the killing of animals but through the mystical sprinkling of the blood of Christ (Barnabas 5:1–6). Once the letters of Paul, nearly half of the New Testament canon, had taken root, his ideas moved to the forefront of Christian thinking and apologetics. According to him, the endowment of gnosis, that the grace of the true circumcision of the heart, is dispensed not by the mutilation of the flesh but by means of the cross of Jesus (Barnabas 9:3–7). This new perspective meant that the covenant between God and the Jews was a sham; it was never ratified. When Moses brought the tablets of stone written with the finger of God from Sinai (Exodus 32) and found Aaron and the people worshipping a golden calf, he smashed those tablets into pieces, thus rendering the Jewish covenant null and void. Instead of Jesus fulfilling the law of Moses, the New Covenant, sealed by the redemptive blood of “beloved Jesus” in the heart of the Christians (Barnabas 4:6–8, 14:1–7), took its place.         

Barnabas’s portrait of Jesus is considerably more advanced than the Didache’s “Servant” of God. Barnabas calls Jesus “the Son” or “the Son of God” no fewer than a dozen times. This “Son of God” had existed since all eternity and was active before the creation of the world. It was to this preexistent Jesus that at the time of “the foundation of the world” God addressed the words, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness” (Barnabas 5:5, 6:12). The quasi-divine character of Jesus is implied when Barnabas explains that the Son of God took on a human body because without such a disguise no one would have been able to look at him and stay alive (Barnabas 5:9–10). The ultimate purpose of the descent of “the Lord of the entire world” among men was to enable himself to suffer “in order to destroy death and show that there is resurrection” (Barnabas 5:5–6). We are in, and perhaps slightly beyond, the Pauline-Johannine vision of Christ and his work of salvation.       Geza Vermes   

The Hybrid Had No Future

According to Vermes, the parting of the ways between Jewish and Gentile Christianity is manifest already at this stage, and the Epistle of Barnabas marks the start of the future doctrinal evolution of the church on exclusively gentile lines. Half a century later, the bishop of Sardis, Melito, declared that the Jews were guilty of deicide: “God has been murdered … by the right hand of Israel” (Paschal Homily 96). Eventually, Judeo-Christianity became estranged from its brother as it adhered to the observance of the Mosaic precepts and combined them with a hybrid of faith in Jesus; progressively, they became a fringe phenomenon. Judeo-Christians progressively vanished, either rejoining the Jewish fold or being absorbed into the Gentile church. This hybrid Christianity was doomed to fail.