EASTER QUINTET ON THE CHURCH’S DAWN// Part I// Foundations of a Romano-Jewish culture

Narratives concerning the journey from Christ to Nicene Christianity tend to fall into two camps with one implying that its contingencies disclose more human heat than divine light, and the other charting a serene arc from paganism to a single god, church, empire and emperor, and portraying it as the earthly consolidation of divine will.

Both have shortcomings. The first, by setting up contingencies in opposition to divine will, acts as if the latter baulks at interventions unless permitted the smooth operations of an astrolabe. An odd position when key Christian tenets hold that truth cannot be easily discerned or defended in a fallen world (Jn. 14:17), seeing as we do ‘through the glass darkly’ (1 Cor. 13:12), and that God perseveres (Rom. 8:28).

Meanwhile, glossing rather than examining the complex junctions of the narrative arc––for fear of excavating accidents or a pluralism that undermines tranquility––suggests that a nervous complacency afflicts the second camp, a sentiment that echoes the first in that it appears grounded in the suspicion that divine omnipotence should reduce history to pageantry if the masses are to be fully convinced of the faith’s divine sponsor.

What follows, in this five-part Easter survey, is neither a myth-busting or a triumphalist ride through antiquity but an attempt at scrutinising some of the main processes, while minimising as many teleological horizons as possible, which catapulted the Jewish hope that ‘All gods [will] bow down to God’ (Ps. 97.7) from a rogue view of a tribal religion––which verged on ‘atheism’ due to a lack of respect for the gods––to the sole Roman faith; a religion which transmuted a Jewish message into an anti-Jewish theology. It promises neither to frame hybrid elements or myriad voices as proof of divine absence, nor push an airbrushed account adjusted to fulfil preconceived images of what befits a saviour. The hope is that instead readers detect a playful sense that God takes delight in ‘working all things to the good’ (Rom. 8:28) throughout history, and has not stopped.

Steeped in Christian illiteracy, modern readers who encounter Christ’s message for the first time might anticipate that it hit ancient readers with the same oddness or peculiarity. Surely ancient pagans had been as befuddled by calls for ‘repentance’ due to the ‘The Times [being] fulfilled’ and the Kingdom of God [being] at hand’ (Mk. 1:15)––the main thrust of which was repeated by Paul who claimed the ‘night’ was ‘far gone, the day at hand’ (Rom. 13:12)––as those who complete religious studies curricula today. Yet such assumptions are misguided: Judeo-Greek hybrid cultures were embedded throughout the ancient world far more than conventional narratives allow. In the first century BC, Strabo claimed that ‘The Jews have made their way into every city so that it is difficult to find a single place in the Oikoumene where they are not based.’ [1] And while it is accurate to describe the eastern spread of Jews as part of a diaspora given their exile after the Babylonian conquest in 586 BC, most of the western dispersion was voluntary and attributable more to the pull factors of Alexander’s and Rome’s internationalised world rather than the destruction of the temple in AD 70. Moreover, the images of ghetto haredim bent over books that colonise most discourses should be set aside for Jews that attended gymnasia, spoke Greek, watched theatre, served in foreign armies, competed in athletic games, took Hellenic names, and so on. Jews even wrote themselves into pagan culture. In the third century BC Letter of Aristeas, for example, a Ptolemaic king was portrayed as so desperate for Jewish wisdom that he commissioned the translation of Jewish scriptures into Greek. One Jew attributed the source of the alphabet to Moses; another claimed Moses taught music to Orpheus. Such tendencies led the philosopher Numeneus of Apamea to ask ‘What is Plato but Moses speaking Greek?’[2]  Perhaps the most significant development occurred in third century BC Alexandria, where the God of the Jews deigned to adopt Greek with the Greek translation of Jewish scriptures––typically referred to as the Septuagint––which not only forced Jewish ancestral literature through a gauze of Greek terms and concepts but also introduced Greek-speaking audiences to Jewish messages. Pagans who grew attracted to the Jewish traditions were known as ‘God fearers,’ phoboumenoi (ton theon) in Greek, or yir'ei shamayim ‘fearers of heaven’ in Hebrew. In short, Jews often found themselves waist-deep in gentile mud and vice versa. This meant that when the ‘Kingdom of God’ was announced, many had a basic grasp of the Jewish belief that it constituted a culmination of time, a period when God promised to wipe away tears (Rev. 21:4). In a less universalist vein––though it would be exhilarating that all of mankind [the 70 nations descended from Noah’s grandsons] would be united––Israel was set apart as a nation whose unification [of the 12 tribes] was particularly special, perhaps as a concession to Jehovah’s decision to broadcast himself to the Jews first. The reunion was not limited to the living: the dead would also be raised to heed cosmic justice. The Roman state was more than semi-familiar with such a message given that the late Second Temple period saw many popular movements that buzzed around the flower of God’s imminent Kingdom. Most were swatted by Rome but Christ was unique in possessing followers who celebrated a ‘resurrection,’ lending his eschatological vision credibility and a sense of urgency that derived from the likelihood of a prompt return. Followers lived in the spiritually fiery zone that spanned the risen Christ’s private revelation to a few insiders––approximately 500 according to Paul (1 Cor. 15:3)––and his impending Second Coming. Outside Jerusalem the message was assisted by networks of God-Fearers such as Cornelius, who ‘feared God with all his household, gave alms liberally and prayed constantly’ (Acts 10.2). Addressing this switch in demographics, the stick was ultimately a demand that God-fearers shift from worshipping God among other gods to exclusively worshipping the former, despite the civic tumult caused (given the association of gods with urban and even state fortunes). The carrot was the message of eternal life, liberty from sin, participation in the Holy Spirit, powers to prophesy, work miracles and cures, speak in the language of angels, and discern between good and evil spirits.

It was crucial to have these God-Fearers onside as they formed the cultural bridge between Jewish and Gentile worlds. Without them it was hard to understand a Gospel message that referred to a ‘Messiah,’ ‘descendants of David,’ ‘Abraham,’ Law,’ Prophets,’ ‘Resurrection,’ ‘Kingdom.’ Their participation became even more important following the realisation that a critical mass of Jews had rejected Paul’s message. An outcome that the apostle justified to gentiles by noting that only when the ‘fullness’ of nations, i.e. conversion of all 70 nations, had been reached would God unblock Israel’s ears (Rom. 11:25). NOTES [1] Josephus, Antiquities, 14.115.

[2]  On the Good, Book 3, fr 10a; Paul Ciholas, ‘Plato: The Attic Moses…’ The Classical World, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Dec., 1978 - Jan., 1979), pp. 217-225. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4349036 

[3] Jehovah is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָה‎ Yəhōwā, one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה‎ (YHWH).