Conflicts with Authorities, to 135 ce
In John Muddiman’s chapter (pp. 91-110), the origins of the Christian movement were set in the Judaism of the period. It showed how Jesus and his first followers should be viewed chiefly within that context.
It showed also how the Church began to expand to move outwards from its centre in Jerusalem, above all under the impulse of Paul. His mission succeeded in establishing congregations of Jewish and Gentile Christians in many urban centres in Asia Minor and Greece, and others too founded churches in Rome itself and elsewhere. In that early period, the dynamic impulse to spread the gospel, derived from the death and resurrection of Jesus, dominated the scene, despite certain tensions among those engaged in the work. However, within thirty years or so, serious difficulties and conflicts arose, presenting Christianity with its first major trials.The equilibrium between Paul and the more conservative Jewish leadership in Jerusalem was ended by a series of events between 62 and 70 ce. First came the judicial murder ofjames by the combination of high-priestly rancour and the violence of the fickle Jerusalem mob, that had proved fatal to his brother thirty years before. Secondly, Christians in Rome came into violent conflict with the imperial authorities, and thirdly, the repercussions of the fall of Jerusalem to Titus in 70 ce had a profound influence on the future of the faith.
Up to the point where Acts breaks off its account of Paul, relations between the Roman authorities and the Christians had called for little comment. Luke, in his treatment of Sergius Paullus (Acts 13:7-12) and Gallio (Acts 18:12-18), attempts to show that senior Roman officials were friendly to Paul and his companions and were prepared even to protect them against the assaults of the Jews. In 64 ce all this changed. On 19 July of that year, a conflagration swept through Rome and destroyed two entire quarters of the city.
Suspicion fell on the Emperor Nero (54—68 ce), known for his grandiose schemes of town-planning, for which a fire in the old quarters of the city would have been a help. The emperor had to find a scapegoat and whether or not he was put up to the idea by Jews and their sympathisers at court, such as the Empress Poppaea, he handed the blame on to the Christians. As the historian Tacitus wrote fifty years later, ‘Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class of men, hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace’ (Annales, xv:44). Many were done to death in the Circus of Gaius and Nero. Though this persecution was an isolated event, it was remembered, and it put the Christians on the wrong side of legal precedent.Equally fateful were events in Jerusalem. James had no capable successor. In 66 ce the Jews rose against Roman rule. However one may interpret the evidence, the Christians appear to have stood aside in the struggle. They survived, but had no share in the triumphs and disasters of the war that imprinted the names of Jerusalem and Masada for ever on Jewish history. With the reorganisation of Judaism and its revival as a religious (but not political) force by the Pharisees, the Christian position in Palestine became intolerable. Something of the hostility between Jews and Christians between 70 and 90 ce can be gleaned from the Gospels of Matthew and John, which were written at this time. With the exception of slow progress northeastward into the Aramaic-speaking areas of Syria, and the still independent kingdom of Osrhoene, Christianity became a ‘Western’ religion with western Asia Minor as its centre and Greek as its language. The Pauline mission formed the basis for future Christian expansion.
The later books of the New Testament, written between 70 and 100 ce, and works by writers immediately after this period, show that the Church was still linked culturally to the synagogue. Its members accepted the Jewish Scriptures, eschatology, messianism, and the ethics of Judaism.
They claimed to be ‘saints’ (i.e. set apart), just as did the Jews themselves (Jude 3, Heb. 6:10), their leaders continued to wear distinctive Jewish insignia of office (such as thepetalon or gold band on the forehead), and their inspired writings were directed to the ‘twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion’ (Jas. 1:1). Only for them, the messianic prophecies in Scripture had been fulfilled by Jesus, and by Jesus alone. Otherwise, as the writer of the best-known Christian book of this period, the First Letter of Clement, indicates, the New Israel was the true successor of the Old.For the Roman authorities, however, it had become clear that Christians and Jews were separate entities. In the 90s the Jews finally won their battle with the Christians for the right to be called ‘Israel’. In a rough and ready style, the Roman authorities regarded those who kept the Law of Moses (i.e. were circumcised) as Jews, and those who did not could not claim the privileges of Jews. If they refused to worship the Roman gods they could be adjudged atheists and punished. In 112 ce Pliny, who had been sent by the Emperor Trajan (98-117) to stamp out maladministration in the Black Sea province of Pontus-Bithynia, had to deal with groups of individuals who had been denounced to him as Christians. He knew Christianity was an offence and the first batch of those brought before him was hauled off to execution. When some Christians recanted or claimed that they had ceased to be Christians, Pliny was in difficulties and wrote to the emperor requesting his advice. Trajan affirmed the illegality of the new religion, but conceded that they should not be sought out, and if they recanted they were to be pardoned (Pliny, Letters, x. 96 and 97). In c. 124, his successor, Hadrian (117-38), enlarged the scope of these concessions by obliging an accuser to prove that his intended victim had offended against the laws. If he failed to do so, the charge would rebound on him. Few, only determined adversaries of Christians would care to take that risk, and so long as the Church remained an insignificant Judaistic sect, its members were relatively free from molestation.