Before Jerusalem Fell - EntreWave

The Role ofJewish Christiani~ 227
won from Judaism (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 18:8; 21:20-22; 28:23-24), and the
Christians were, in fact, found operating in Jewish circles.24 “When
Paul comes into a city, he first goes into the synagogue and there
preaches to the Jews. The synagogue is the natural center for him,
for there he finds those who are interested in the subject. He only
goes to the pagans when the Jews refuse to hear him, but even among
the pagans he begins with those who have already developed a
certain relationship to Judaism.”2 5 It is, of course, assumed by the
non-Christian Jews that Judaism and Christianity were not one, for
they zealously persecuted the Christians.
Up until the era of the mid-A.D. 60s (but not after A.D. 70) the
Remans -were prone to identi~ Christianity as a sect of Judaism,
intimately and necessarily bound up with it.26 This was obviously
due to: its object of worship (Christ, a Jew); its origin (Judea) and
leadership (Jewish apostles), and the bulk of its membership (predominantly
Jewish); its self-designation (“Israel of God” [Gal. 6:15],
“seed of Abraham” [Gal. 3:29], “the circumcision” [Phil. 3:3] etc.);
and its constant involvement in the religious life of the Jews. Sulpicius
Severus reported that Titus’s war council conducted before the siege
of the Temple debated whether or not to destroy the Temple:
Titus is said, after calling a council, to have first deliberated whether
S. Angus commented rightly that “the first persecutions for the infant church came
entirely from exclusive Judaism, and it was the Jews who first accused Christians before
the Roman courts” (S. Angus, “Roman Empire“ in International Standard Bible Eruydopedra
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1929] 42605).
Moule writes in this regard: “So in the Acts the narrative of actual persecution begins:
and from start to finish it is instigated by the Jews. When the Gentiles do join in, it is
only in the unthinking manner of excited mobs . . . , or because they momentarily
imagine that their political peace is threatened. It is the Jews who are really the
aggressors. . If one asks what New Testament references to the persecution of
Christians are inescapably and demonstrably to be referred to Gentile action, there are
extraordinarily few” (Moule, Birth, pp. 108-109).
24. Brandon may state the situation a littfe too strongly, but he is very close to an
accurate assessment when he writes: “We have seen, partly on the evidence of the Acts
itself, that the Jewish Christians remained firmly attached to their national faith and
worshiped regularly in the Temple” (Brandon, Fall ofJerusalem, p. 100).
25. Kurt Aland, A Histov of Christian@ vol. 1: From th Beginnings to the l%reshold oftlw
Refownatson, trans. James L. Schaaf (Philadelphia Fortress, 1985), p. 32.
26. Tacitus, Annals 15:4+ Sulpicius Severus, Sacred Hi-stoy 2:30. As Brandon notes,
“the tendency to place an essential emphasis upon the Jewish origin [in these two
writings] is clear” (Brandon, Fall ofJerusalan, p. 121 n. 1).