Early Christian History

Introduction: The Fractured Record

One of the chief problems in studying Christian origins is that much of the material we have, seems not to relate to other material even from about the same time period. In some cases, some of this material conflicts with other portions. In still other cases we find — by peeling back the layers of time, going step-by-step in reverse through the process by which Christianity began — that the apparent disparities in Christianity go right back to its very origins.

To examine this, I will start at the beginning, and examine each of the early Christian documents we have, and the communities that wrote them. When I say that “communities” wrote them, I mean exactly that. Nearly all the early Christian documentation we have, reflected the beliefs and practices of a particular Christian group. Some of these documents were true collaborative efforts, composed by several people working together. Some may have been written by individuals, but those individuals based what they wrote on what what their own groups did and taught. This, each document reflects a community.

1. The Galilean Q Community

The earliest Christian document that we have, is not actually a document that we have! Rather, it’s a derivative document, the so-called “lost gospel” Q. Originally composed around 40-50 CE, this was a source for the three synoptic (or similar) gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke (“Q” stands for the German word Quelle, meaning “source”). It was obvious to 19th century scholars that the synoptic gospels must have had some common source; over a period of time they distilled out of the synoptics those portions which must have come from their hypothesized source, Q.

Although these scholars considered their conclusion obvious, there was one small problem with it: A lack of any other documents of this sort, from the earliest centuries of Christianity. These scholars had proposed a genre of Christian text that had no real precedent.

But, that early Christians had collected Jesus’ sayings in this manner was confirmed, with the discovery — at Nag Hammadi, Egypt — of a cache of 4th-century Gnostic documents. One of them, called the Gospel of Thomas, was a later Gnostic modification or elaboration of something very similar to what Q must have been like. To be sure, the Thomas gospel is not Q. Much of its content is unique to it, with only half of it (or so) overlapping with Q. But, the discovery of Thomas finally provided a precedent for such a thing, and showed that at least some Christians of the era did traffic in documents in the style of Q.

Q is an interesting document. It contains no significant biographical information about Jesus, and very little narrative of any kind. It is, rather, a collection of the sayings of a teacher named Jesus, and since it mentions places in Galilee, he must have preached there. Those sayings — some of which have survived into Christianity and are well-known, such as “turn the other cheek” — have been identified, by some scholars, as being classical Cynical in origin. Classical Cynics were itinerant philosophers of a Socratic school; the most famous Cynic of ancient times was Diogenes of Sinope. It so happens that there were Cynical schools, just across the Jordan from Galilee, in the mainly-Greek province of Decapolis.

This hypothesis is still controversial. It's possible to overstate the supposedly Cynical nature of Jesus' teachings as found in Q. There’s also some debate over how extensively Galilee had been Hellenized at this time. Still, Q almost certainly had have been written in Greek (mainly because the documents which it became sources for were in Greek). Even for Jews in Galilee, the chief language for many was Greek, not Aramaic, so that Greek culture had become a part of life in Galilee. It's plausible for a wandering ethnically-Jewish Cynical sage to have become popular enough that someone recorded some of his sayings. It's also plausible that people living there may simply have collected some Cynical sayings, and attributed them to an indefinite person named “Jesus.”

Still, it also happens to be plausible that the teachings found in Q hadn't been intended to be specifically Cynical. They may merely have been Cynical-influenced. Today, there isn’t a whole lot about later Christianity which is Cynical. Classical Cynics disdained most social conventions; they disliked authority figures (a story was told that Alexander the Great came to call upon Diogenes, happening to arrive when he was bathing, and Diogenes put the conqueror to work as a towel-boy!); they distrusted tradition; they questioned everything; and overall, sought to overturn societal expectations. This is not Christianity!

2. Paul’s Cilician Christ-Cult

The next documents we have, in chronological order — written in the 50s CE — come from the pen of Paul (formerly Saul) of Tarsus. We know nothing of him, other than what he reports in his own letters, as well as what was eventually put down in the book of Acts, up to a century later. Many of the epistles attributed to him were not actually written by a mid-1st-century Hellenized Jew from Cilicia; the “genuine” Pauline letters are 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philemon, and Philippians. Paul speaks of a movement which is of the classical collegia type; these were guilds, of sorts, in which members got together periodically, for companionship, to help one another out in need, etc. Modern lodges or fraternal societies are rough equivalents. Some collegia allowed in only certain kinds of people, usually of a particular profession; others were ethnic in origin (just like modern ethnic clubs). They met, usually weekly, and in the manner of the mystery-religions of the time, they often had a communal meal.

It’s important to remember, though, that many of ancient collegia were not religious in origin, and never became religious. What makes Paul’s movement unique, unlike most other collegia, is that it appears to have had a good number of Jews as well as gentiles. Most cities in the eastern Mediterranean had enclaves of Jews, who usually kept to themselves. Many gentiles, however, mostly schooled in the Hellenic style, became interested in Jews’ “philosophy” (thinking that the synagogues in which the Jews congregated, were philosophical schools of a Hellenic style). In places they were allowed in to listen to the rabbis teach; these folks become known among Jews as “Godfearers.” It appears that the movement to which Paul belonged, was trying to reconcile Greek philosophy and mysticism, with Judaism, so that a new “community” could be forged in which the Godfearers could become an integral part, rather than just remaining on its fringe.

Paul’s letters, therefore, speak of a “Christ” who is mainly an emanated spiritual being, residing in some remote spiritual plane, possibly along the lines of Neo-Platonic thought. He offers almost nothing in the way of biographical information about his savior figure, and works hard to get Jewish scripture to mesh with Greek mysticism. He develops a notion of “sin” based on what was common among Anatolian religions of the time, and claims that Christ delivers the believer from it.

Paul mainly was concerned about gentiles within his movement, mainly with integrating them into it. This suggests that it been a primarily-Jewish movement, perhaps having started solely among Jews as a way to integrate Greek mysticism into their own religion. Only later, prior to Paul’s time, did it “break” distinctively from Judaism at large, bringing in the Godfearers. Note that Jews in his movement were, apparently, still required to abide by the Mosaic Law — which also contravenes later Christianity. However, by Paul’s decree, gentiles did not have that mandate.

3. The Syrian Martyr-Cult

The next Christian document that we know of, is the gospel of Mark. Its author may or may not have known about Q. This gospel drew on a distinctly Hellenic tradition, that of the martyr. It was related to the trope of the “suffering hero,” driven by a cause or by a special nature, who transcends normal human experience and/or ability. A primeval example was the myth of Orpheus, the great musician, whose wife died while he was on Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece. He mourns her, singing dirges, eventually heading toward and then into the underworld (in the process, metaphorically dying), where his song is so sad and compelling, that Hades himself relents and allows her to return with him to the realm of the living. The Pythagorean movement is thought to have been based on Orpean mysticism.

In the case of the gospel of Mark, Jesus dies not for a cause which is at close at hand, such as retrieving his deceased wife, but for something else — soteriology, or improving the human condition. In that regard, the author of Mark departed from the usual Hellenic pattern. Instead he added in the notion of world-transforming savior, akin to the Jewish concept of the Messiah, who would come, re-establish the kingdom of Israel, and bring peace to the earth. Still, the author of Mark departed from even this idea, as Judaism at the time did not consider that the Messiah would have to be a martyr.

The author of Mark, while he uses Jews as figures in his story and discusses topics of interest to Jews of the time, disparages Judaism in general. According to him, Jesus comes down hard on the Pharisees and the Temple establishment. But oddly, he includes a passage wherein Jesus decries the destruction of the Temple, which took place in 70 CE. For this reason, his gospel is almost universally dated by scholars to no earlier than that year (and it may have been composed a few years after that, even). The Christianity of the gospel of Mark is a rather indefinite hodgepodge of Jewish and Hellenic soteriology and some mysticism, which also condemns a good deal of Judaic thought. It includes a great deal of disparagement of the Temple priesthood and prevailing Judaism of the time.

4. The Judean “Signs” Community

About the time that Mark was written, another work made the rounds in Palestine. Now known as the Signs Gospel, it is, like Q, a speculative work, but less definite than Q in that we haven't found another similar derivative document to back it up (as in the case of the Gospel of Thomas and the “lost gospel” of Q). It’s really a precursor of the gospel of John, but it left a trail in other early Christian writings such as the epistle of Barnabas — which is why source critics are sure such a document must have existed. It consists, like Q, of a number of short vignettes, this time describing a teacher whose career consists of unusual supernatural signs, each demonstrating something else, or making some other point apparent. Sign miracles were common in Hellenic mythology. One such sign, the miracle at the wedding in Cana, was part of the Dionysian rites, on the Greek mainland, as described in Euripides’ Bacchae along with other sources. Sign-stories were typically used, in Greek mysticism, to represent other truths — often, they were a code, of sorts. The many mystery-religions of the time all had godmen at their centers, about whom signs stories were told — and many were quite similar to one another.

Unfortunately, as we don’t have complete information about the mystery-religions, we can only speculate as to what the “code” was behind the signs stories. The signs stories were probably presented to initiates of the mystery-religion in stages, one or two at a time, with the former ones helping the initiate interpret later ones.

The Signs Gospel, whatever its metaphorical content may have been, resembled standard mystery-religion material, very much like other literature that trafficked in other mystery-religions. Here again, though, the situation is different from what Christianity later became, and different from the other movements we’ve examined (the Q movement, Paul’s Christ-cult, and Mark’s martyrology cult).

5. The Didache Community

The next document is the Didache, or Teachings of the Disciples, first composed around 80-85 CE. The form in which we know it, discovered in Istanbul in modern times, is probably a late revision, very likely having some portions added after its original composition. Differences can be traced, however, using linguistic style evidence. The earliest versions of Didache contained liturgical instructions, outlined proper practices, and offering guidelines for how to relate to one another and to non-believers.

We don’t know where Didache was authored, which leaves us at a disadvantage in understanding it. In its earliest form, however, it was concerned with form, not doctrine, which suggests that at the time it was first written, there was no firm doctrine, or else it was so simple, or unimportant, that it didn’t need to be written. Later 2nd century revisions of Didache would have doctrinal points added, as well as a small number of sayings of Jesus. At any rate, subsequent Christianity does not live up to all the specifications outlined in Didache — so again, we have something which does not fit into the picture.

6. The “Hebrews Epistle” Community

The next significant book is the epistle to the Hebrews, c. 85 CE. Its author was probably Jewish; his work would only have made sense, at the time, to other Jews — or perhaps Godfearers. He attempts to reconcile sacrifice, as it had been practiced in Judaism, with Greek mystical soteriology and martyrology. In doing so, he establishes that the man who dies for the sins of all, must himself be God — no other sacrifice would suffice. To most Jews of the time, this would have been a preposterous, if not blasphemous, idea, but it might have appealed to some Hellenized Jews, or to Jews opposed to the Temple establishment (which, by virtue of its control of the Temple, managed the Judaic sacrificial system). They could retain their old Judaic traditions but embrace Hellenic mysticism at the same time. Again, this is not what was being taught in the other movements, mentioned above.

7. Facing the Facts!

Progressing further ahead in time will only get more laborious. We aren’t more than a decade or two out of the 1st century yet, but at no time do we see any harmony among the six “Christian” movements listed already above, beyond a few superficial overlaps (such as the name of the teacher being revered being “Jesus”).

Contrast this picture with the common belief — in the 21st century — that Christianity started in one place, with one man, who had a small group of followers, and radiated out from there. This idea just does not stack up, against the documentary evidence of the 1st and early 2nd century! There is far too much fundamental variation — in both belief and practice of the religion — for this to have been the case.

We’re forced, therefore, to depart with this notion, however traditional it may be. What we see from the early documentary evidence, instead, is many different movements, all of which contributed, eventually, to what became Christianity. More to the point, the things these movements taught were quite dissimilar, and they even had different inherent purposes.

8. Implications of the Multiple-Origins Theory

Of course, setting aside the single-point-of-origin theory of Christianity only presents more questions, such as: If these movements were so different, how did they merge together into Christianity? Why do widely-separated movements all give the same name, Jesus/Yeshua, to their central figures? It’s fine to say that multiple sources eventually “created” Christianity, but there must have been a dynamic by which this occurred.

Admittedly, I cannot be too specific about this. What I can say is that these movements did have at least one thing in common: They all crossed the line — to one degree or another — between the Jewish and Hellenic worlds. The Galilean Q community, for example, were (probably) ethnic Jews who had some Hellenic education and background. Paul’s Christ-cult had as its central problem the task of bringing together of Jews and gentiles. The Signs Gospel community was, like the Q community, ethnic Jews pursuing Hellenic ideas, but in a manner of their own. And on it goes.

Given that Jews or Judaism influenced each of these movements, it would be natural, therefore, that their central figures would be Jewish, with a Jewish name. Jesus/Yeshua was a common name at the time; and furthermore, some Judaic messianism speculated that the Messiah would be Jesus/Yeshua (just as Joshua, which is the same name, followed Moses, so too the Messiah would usher in a new age to follow the Mosaic).

It’s probably this Jewish component within each which eventually drew all of these movements together. When the Romans put down Jewish uprisings in 70 and 135 CE, this forced Jews to disperse to other parts of the Empire. This exposed other peoples to Judaism, and also, people already in these movements (even gentiles), saw an advantage in drawing together. Their world was becoming increasingly hostile to anything Jewish, hence, those within these movements sought mutual protection at the very least.

If it sounds far-fetched to believe that people with different beliefs would alter them in order to come together, it’s actually not surprising. Look, for example, at Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In it, he specifically calls for a major alteration in the cult’s doctrine, in order to release gentiles from the Mosaic Law. In his Corinthian letters, he corrects the Corinthians, who are frequently caught up in traditional Hellenic mystical practices such as prophesying; he instructs them to alter their beliefs in order to coincide with the rest of the Christ-cult. He offers both of those pronouncements in the name of generating unity among members of the group. These are just two of many examples of occasions when Christians consciously altered their own doctrine, to achieve harmony with other movements (or at the very least, Paul expected them to!).

Multiple Origins, Many Christianities

Finally — please note that there has never really been a time when Christianity was ever truly “united.” Since the religion’s inception, there’s always been some Christian, somewhere, teaching a divergent doctrine of some sort. In fact, even as the “merger” among these many 1st-century movements took place, they simultaneously drifted apart, into two camps. One, now known as Gnosticism, emphasized the mystical elements of the religion; the other, commonly referred to as “orthodoxy” or Literalism, emphasized form over mysticism. Eventually Literalism became dominant, and wiped out Gnosticism.

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