SHORT SUMMARY
Jesus of Nazareth was a Palestine Jew who grew up in Galilee, an important center of the militant Zealots and resistance to the rule of the Romans and their local collaborators like the Herodians and the Temple priests in Jerusalem. Contrary to later interpretations, his original message was not intended to undermine the traditional Jewish religion, but to emphasize that the Kingdom of God was at hand and that his disciples should love God and one another. His commandments were for the Jews to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus laid down the ethical principles of humility, charity, and brotherly love that would form the basis of the value system of Western civilization. All three of the original Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were based on similar materials but written by authors in different parts of the Roman Empire for quite distinct religious community. Luke’s Gospel, for instance, emphasized the Good News for the poor and Jesus as a teacher and healer who blessed the common people. Early Christians were often divided about the nature and message of Jesus, with Gnostics regarding him as a mainly spiritual figure, compared to the Arians who believed he was a divinely inspired human being. Some writers like Tertullian and the writers of the Didache thought that Christianity should maintain strong links with its Jewish parent religion, while others would have rejected most of those traditions. Indeed, there was not even a commonly accepted version of Scripture or definition of the nature of Jesus for several centuries after his death.
OUTLINE
I. Introduction
1) Luke’s Gospel has always been classified as one of the Synoptic Gospels that used Mark and Q as source material, it contains a number of unique features that indicate the social and cultural background of the author, his audience and religious community. This was probably a relatively poor and marginalized group in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Greek-speaking, and made up mostly of struggling artisans, craftsmen and freed slaves—a quite typical community by the standards of early Christianity, although there may have been some wealthy persons among them.
2) Tertullian also insisted that Christianity should be rooted in Judaism and had to avoid any admixture with Greco-Roman philosophy, but neither he nor Justin could point to a commonly accepted version of the Christian Bible, which did not yet exist in second century.
3) This remained an open debate at the time, as did the question of what ‘orthodox’ Christianity truly meant.
4) The writers of the Didache also opted for partial and selective incorporation of Jewish law, but did not mention the synagogue, circumcision or dietary laws.
5) Marcion and the Sethite Gnostics were particularly hostile to the Jewish Scriptures, arguing that the Creation in Genesis was really the work of an evil and inferior god as opposed to the Higher Being revealed by Jesus and Paul.
6) Early Christian polemicists such as Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Tertullian all attacked Gnosticism as ‘heresy’ and until the 20th Century virtually nothing was known about it except in the distorted texts they had written.
7) Their purpose was to construct the boundaries between what later became ‘orthodox’ or ‘catholic’ Christianity in opposition to Judaism, paganism and carious Christian ‘heresies’.
8) Until the fourth and fifth centuries, however, when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire under emperors like Constantine and Theodosius, Christian ‘orthodoxy’ was still fluid and in dispute. Only because of the power of the Roman state did Christianity finally become a unified religion.
9) For the first three centuries of Christianity no commonly recognized hierarchy or Scriptural canon existed.
10) In the end, the ‘orthodox’ Christians won the battle and their words were preserved, which was not the case with their opponents.
II. The Didiche, Jewish Christianity and Gnosticism
1) The Didache was basically an instruction manual used in the early Christian churches in Asia Minor in the first and second centuries, although no complete copy of it was thought to have survived until a Greek manuscript was discovered in Istanbul in 1873.
2) Although its theology falls well within the later ‘orthodox’ Christian tradition, it was not included in the Biblical canon. It copied Jesus in incorporating much of the Jewish law, and had a list of prohibited acts such as murder, adultery, theft, corruption of boys, magic, divination, astrology, and coveting the goods of others.
3) In addition, it borrowed from the Sermon on the Mount, calling on Christians to be gentle, kind, patient, long-suffering, to share with the needy, give generously to charity, and to avoid anger, hatred or lust. This was the way of eternal life.
4) All Christians were required to confess their failings before the entire church, although they were to be rebuked in a gentle way.
5) Baptism would be by immersion in water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while communion would be taken with both bread and wine.
6) In addition, Christians were required to say the Lord’s Prayer three times a day, looking forward to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.
7) Finally, the Didache refers to the lasts days and the end of the world, which will be a time of war, violence and lawlessness.
III. Hersey and Orthodoxy Concerning the nature of Jesus and His Central Message
1) Judaism provided Christians with a respected past, but they also had to decide how much of the Jewish law and Scriptures could be incorporated for their own purposes.
2) Paul had argued that Israel now included all Gentiles from ‘the nations’ who accepted Christ, and that they would no longer have to follow Jewish laws and dietary practices, while Matthew declared Jesus to be the fulfillment of the law and prophets.
3) In the third and fourth centuries, the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity were not necessarily clear and absolute, since Jewish Christians still attended synagogues, practiced circumcision and adhered to Jewish dietary laws.
4) Justin Martyr also thought that Jesus had fulfilled the prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures, but his opponents claimed that these were also a mixture of truth and error.
5) Tertullian also insisted that Christianity should be rooted in Judaism and had to avoid any admixture with Greco-Roman philosophy, but neither he nor Justin could point to a commonly accepted version of the Christian Bible, which did not yet exist in second century.
6) In the Gnostic Epistle to Flora in the second century, Ptolemy classified the Jewish Scriptures into three types, which originated either with God, Moses or the Jewish elders. Only those parts that were from God, such as the Ten Commandments, were pure and perfect enough to be incorporated into the Christian Bible, while other parts like the Jewish ‘eye for an eye’ had been corrected with the command of Jesus to ‘turn the other cheek’.
7) Ptolemy also agreed that Jesus has revealed the True God to humanity, not the inferior one who created the material world.
8) Early Christian polemicists like Irenaeus of Lyons attacked the Gnostics for these ideas that the creator God was false, the material world was evil or that Jesus did not have a physical body.
9) Tertullian blamed Gnostic ‘heresy’ on the influence of Plato, Zeno, Stoicism and other elements of Greek philosophy, especially in their belief that Jesus had no physical body and the material world was inferior and evil.
10) Although early Christians rejected the pagan Greco-Roman gods and the cults of the Roman god-emperors, Platonic or Gnostic dualism was a far more difficult problem and Christianity was always in danger of veering off to one side or the other.
Luke’s Gospel
1) According to early church traditions, Luke was a Jewish, Greek-speaking physician who accompanied Paul on his three journeys, and was chosen to write the third Gospel because his knowledge of Greek was better than most of the other writers in the church at that time.
2) Church tradition indicates that Luke was Jewish, but also a Greek-speaking missionary to the Gentiles who knew the language better than the other Gospel writers. Because of his audience, he put special emphasis on the complete innocence of Jesus, and had both King Herod and Pontius Pilate repeatedly declare him guiltless.
3) Luke was not from the elite or aristocracy, unlike the many Roman critics of Christianity, but probably from the artisan or techne caste to which even physicians belonged in the ancient world.
4) Both Paul and Jesus were also from the same stratum of society, and the early Christian message seemed to resonate particularly well with the freed slaves, artisans and craftsmen of the cities and towns.
5) His Gospel placed particular emphasis on social and economic justice, and proclaiming Jesus as having brought the Good News to the poor, the marginalized, slaves, women, children, prostitutes and outcasts.
6) All the Synoptic Gospels have the same structure about the trial, execution and burial of Jesus, possibly based on Mark, which was written for the church in Rome.
7) Jesus had literally come as a physician to the sinners, including even despised tax collectors who had spent their lives robbing and cheating the people. If they repented and made restitution, they were also welcome to his table and into the community of God.
8) Jesus almost always performed his healings before a large crows, including his enemies among the priests, Sadducees and Pharisees, and made a point of assisting the poor and the outcasts of society, including lepers, demoniacs, and women.
9) He cleansed and healed them, cast our their demons, forgave their sins and welcomed them into the family of God, which of course only further enraged his enemies. He welcomed women and children into the family of God (despite their extremely low social status), ate with sinners and prostitutes, healed the slave of a Roman centurian, and blessed the poor and purified lepers.
V
Conclusion
1) These disputes continued until the church councils at Nicea and Chaldedon finally defined Jesus as fully divine and fully human, but the opportunities for dialectic tension were virtually endless.
2) Gnostic Christians also seem more prepared to reject more of the Jewish Scriptures and tradition than the ‘orthodox’ or ‘catholic’ variety, who regarded Judaism and having been replaced by the New Covenant.
Annotated Bibliography
Green, J.B. (1995). The Theology of the Gospel of Luke. Cambridge University Press.
Luke’s Gospel has always been classified as one of the Synoptic Gospels that used Mark and Q as source material, it contains a number of unique features that indicate the social and cultural background of the author, his audience and religious community. This was probably a relatively poor and marginalized group in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Greek-speaking, and made up mostly of struggling artisans, craftsmen and freed slaves—a quite typical community by the standards of early Christianity, although there may have been some wealthy persons among them. Luke and Paul could literally communicate with this group in their own language, rather than the high literary Greek of the aristocracy. This community would have seen Jesus as being similar to themselves, in that he also came from a relatively low status, and ministered to the common people, providing them bread, healing their sicknesses, declaring that they were all equals in the eyes of God—part of the same divine family and Kingdom. Jesus welcomed all who were willing to repent of their sins and live by the new code of love, justice and equality, including the lepers, prostitutes and other outcasts.
King, Karen L. What Is Gnosticism? Harvard University Press, 2003.
Early Christians struggled with defining their own identity in opposition to Judaism and paganism, and also against other Christians whose teachings were regarded as heretical. Judaism provided Christians with a respected past, but they also had to decide how much of the Jewish law and Scriptures could be incorporated for their own purposes. Paul had argued that Israel now included all Gentiles from ‘the nations’ who accepted Christ, and that they would no longer have to follow Jewish laws and dietary practices, while Matthew declared Jesus to be the fulfillment of the law and prophets. In the third and fourth centuries, the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity were not necessarily clear and absolute, since Jewish Christians still attended synagogues, practiced circumcision and adhered to Jewish dietary laws. One second century Gnostic text, the Epistle of Barnabas, called for a complete break with Judaism because the Jews had broken their covenant with God, while the Gnostic Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Truth hardly mentioned the Jewish Scriptures at all. Justin Martyr also thought that Jesus had fulfilled the prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures, but his opponents claimed that these were also a mixture of truth and error.
Milavec, Aaron. The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary. Liturgical Press, 2003.
The Didache was basically an instruction manual used in the early Christian churches in Asia Minor in the first and second centuries, although no complete copy of it was thought to have survived until a Greek manuscript was discovered in Istanbul in 1873. Although its theology falls well within the later ‘orthodox’ Christian tradition, it was not included in the Biblical canon. It copied Jesus in incorporating much of the Jewish law, and had a list of prohibited acts such as murder, adultery, theft, corruption of boys, magic, divination, astrology, and coveting the goods of others. All of these could be found in many other Christian texts of the time and later, and the Didache describes them as the way of death. In addition, it borrowed from the Sermon on the Mount, calling on Christians to be gentle, kind, patient, long-suffering, to share with the needy, give generously to charity, and to avoid anger, hatred or lust. This was the way of eternal life. All Christians were required to confess their failings before the entire church, although they were to be rebuked in a gentle way. Baptism would be by immersion in water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while communion would be taken with both bread and wine, giving thanks “for the life and knowledge which you revealed to us through your servant Jesus” (Milavec 23). In addition, Christians were required to say the Lord’s Prayer three times a day, looking forward to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. Finally, the Didache refers to the lasts days and the end of the world, which will be a time of war, violence and lawlessness and the appearance of the Deceiver, Those Christians who remained faithful to the end, however, would be saved when Christ returned again.
