Early Christianity

The term Early Christianity here refers to Christianity of the period after the Death of Jesus in the early 30s and before the First Council of Nicaea in 325. The term is sometimes used in a narrower sense of just the very first followers (disciples) of Jesus of Nazareth and the faith as preached and practiced by the Twelve Apostles, their contemporaries, and their immediate successors, also called the Apostolic Age.

Early Christianity, which began within Judaism, became clearly distinct from Rabbinic Judaism. It continued to revere the Jewish Bible, generally using the Septuagint translation that was in general use among Greek-speaking Jews and Gentile Godfearers, and added to it the writings that would become the New Testament, thus developing the first Christian biblical canons. It defended Christian beliefs against criticism by non-believing Jews and followers of other Roman religions, survived various persecutions, consisted of divisions that accused each other of heresy, and developed church hierarchy. What started as a religious movement within Second Temple Judaism became, by the end of this period, the favored religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great (leading later to the rise of Christendom), and a significant religion also outside of the empire. The First Council of Nicaea marks the end of this era and the beginning of the period of the first Seven Ecumenical Councils (325 - 787).

Origin of Christianity as a distinct religion

The followers of Jesus composed an apocalyptic Jewish sect during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. Some groups (collectively called Jewish Christians) that followed Jesus were strictly Jewish, or those strongly attracted to Jewish practice, including the church leaders in Jerusalem. Traditionally the Roman Centurion Cornelius is considered the first Gentile (non-Jewish) convert. Paul of Tarsus, after his legendary incident on the Road to Damascus, had success in proselytizing among the Gentiles. He started the division from Judaism by his Theology and Gentile Mission, and persuaded the leaders of the Jerusalem Church to allow Gentile converts exemption from full Jewish law against the position of the Judaizers. Jews who did not convert to Christianity and the growing Christian community gradually became more hostile toward each other. After the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70, Jerusalem ceased to be the center of Jewish religious life, and probably Christian religious life as well. Rabbinic Judaism developed as mainstream Jewish practice, first in Yavne, where the Great Sanhedrin was first reconstituted. Christianity established itself as a predominantly Gentile religion that spanned the Roman Empire and beyond. Scholar James D. G. Dunn has proposed that Peter was the bridge-man (i.e. the pontifex maximus) between the two other "prominent leading figures": Paul and James the Just.

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