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--Critical Perspectives
from the Word of God
While some authors end
the Apostolic Age with the CE 70 destruction of Jerusalem we mark it with the
conclusion of the second Jewish revolt (CE 132�135). This century long
era (CE 30−135) consisted of two
distinctive stages or phases.
The first stage, the forty-year period of the early church led by the
apostles
themselves, came to a close with the CE 70 collapse of the first Jewish rebellion (CE
66–70) against the Romans. This period was a time of rapid growth and development
wherein early Christians of Jewish origin became more and more aware they were not part of
Judaism anymore.
In the early years the church displayed a religious and cultural
uniqueness, derived from the Hebrew Scriptures and
the heritage of Israel, which from the first irrevocably separated it from all forms of
Judaism. Nevertheless, the first Christians saw themselves as the new Israel of God, the eschatological congregation of God (see qehal'el), and the logical heirs of the promises to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
As the primitive church came to understand, in a religious sense, that as
Christians they were neither observant Jews nor bound to the Mosaic covenant with its
Law
of Moses they came to let go of its symbolism. The intent of such
symbolism, e.g., ritual
circumcision, ritual washings, animal sacrifices, and the like, was, according to
early Christian belief, to lead them to Jesus of Nazareth as "Christ,"
that is, "the Messiah."
By CE 70 this phenomenon, slowed in the Jewish homeland by cultural
restraints and speeded in the Hellenistic Dispersion by
the integration of Christian Jews (ethnic Jews who were Christians) and Christian Greeks
through social intercourse and intermarriage among believers, led to the rise of two
distinct groups. Cultural heritage and language divided them.
The Hebrews consisted of a Mishnaic Hebrew speaking church in Eretz Israel (the homeland of
Israel) marked by a tendency
to preserve established traditions. The Hellenists
were a
Greek speaking church in the Hellenistic Dispersion (or the Diaspora)
marked by more tolerant views and less inclined to adopt or retain Jewish culture and
often were ignorant of it. Nevertheless, the cultural heritage and praxis
of the ancient church during this Judeo-Christian period (CE 30–70) remained
predominantly Jewish.
The second stage, the conclusion of the Apostolic Age, extended from the end of
the Jewish rebellion of CE 66–70 to the CE 135 Roman defeat of Simon Bar Kochba (or Bar Kokhba). This constituted a transitional period
leading to the second major period in the history of the church, the Period of the Great
Separation. Persecution and the separation of Judeo-Christians from Gentile Christians and "christianized" Gentile
groups characterized the period. The culture of the church during this
transitional period (CE 70–135), marked by the decline of Jewish lifeways and the
evolving of a new Christian way of life, emerged as neither distinctly Jewish nor pagan
Gentile but as that of a separate religion within the cultural framework of Hellenistic
Judaism (Frend 1984:137).
Moreover, as the ancient church fragmented hundreds of independent, often opposing, and
heretical, groups arose. The rise of Latin and Greek bishops, and the loss of shared
vision, shared goals, and shared leadership, during the Period of the Great Separation,
further fragmented and divided ancient Christianity.
The church entered the Apostolic Age as a Jewish institution under the
leadership of the apostles. It first developed into an extended Judeo-Christian community
oriented toward Jerusalem and then into a monotheistic religion in its own right. By the
end of the Apostolic Age it was on its way to becoming a Greco-Roman Gentile institution.
Church governance had
shifted from the somewhat centralized shared authority of the apostles and their immediate
successors to the local overseers, that is the bishops, resulting in a fragmenting of the
church into hundreds of independent groups. This independence, arising from the autonomy
of the bishops, and the cultural division existing in the church, led to the morass of
theological controversies to follow and the rise of Greco-Roman
Christianity.
Page last updated:
11/28/04 08:44 AM.
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