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2.5.5 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
Primitive Jewish Christianity
The Widening Field - Gospel Spreads to Antioch
It will not do, indeed, to draw too large deductions from the case of Cornelius; it will not do to see in the admission of the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity, which was extorted form the disciples of Jerusalem at this time, the conscious recognition of the principle of universal fraternity and equality in the Gospel.
That they foresaw the momentous consequences that were wrapped up in their action is out of the question. They were forced by the demonstration of the Holy Spirit to admit, in spite of their native prejudices, the possibility of a Gentile’s conversion, but they did not see in it the ultimate abrogation of the Jewish law, or the rise of a Christian church in which that law should have no recognition.
It was certainly not their belief that the law was any less divine, any less binding, any less permanent than they had hereto thought it. When the Christians of Jerusalem approved Peter’s action, neither he nor they thought for a moment of turning from the Jews to the Gentiles, or of carrying on active missionary work among the latter; nor had they any idea that Gentile Christianity would one day become so strong that it could take an independent position alongside of Jewish Christianity and demand for itself equal honor and equal rights. At best it was regarded as an exceptional form of Christianity, of a distinctly lower and less perfect type, and it was doubtless their expectation that the great majority of Christians would come form the ranks of the Jews, native or proselyte, and that Gentile worshippers of Jehovah, who might be admitted to the church because they recognized Jesus as the Messiah, would continue to acknowledge the religious superiority of the chosen people, just as those Gentile had always done who reverenced Jehovah as the supreme God and attached themselves more or less closely to the Jewish people without accepting circumcision and becoming genuine proselytes.
From such pious heathen the number of the proselytes was constantly augmented, and it may have been the belief of these early Christians that the family of Israel would receive accessions in the same way from the ranks of the Gentiles that recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and thus Gentile Christianity constitute for many only a bridge to the full and complete Christianity of the believing children of Abraham. [It is significant that the Galatians later used their Gentile Christianity in just this way, finding no inconsistency in going on from the belief in Christ to the assumption of the entire law. See Gal. 3:3].
They did not become any the less truly Jews, nor did they consciously waive any of their ancestral prerogatives. To think otherwise is to underestimate the power of their traditional faith and to make inexplicable the subsequent attitude toward the heathen assumed in Jerusalem, both by those who admitted and by those who denied their conversion.
In Act 11:19 sq., Luke records that certain men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who must have been either Hellenists of proselytes, being scattered abroad by the persecution which followed Stephen’s death, came to Antioch, and there preached the Gospel to Gentiles, [The best manuscripts read “Elluvioras” or Hellenists, instead of Elluvas or Greeks, and Westcott and Hort adopt this reading. Other editors (Lachmann, Tregelles, Tishendorf) read “Greeks” on the ground that the word “Hellenists” does not offer the necessary contrast to the word “Jews” in the previous verse, the Hellenists being themselves Jews. Wendt adopts the reading “Hellenists”, but regards the word as referring to Greeks, and he is very likely correct. Ant any rate, Gentile, not Jews must certainly be understood.] And that a great number of the Gentiles were converted.
There is nothing surprising in this, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of the report. The fact that Luke makes this Gentile evangelism the work not of apostles, but of unknown men, and that he does not represent it as prompted by the church of Jerusalem, speaks for the trustworthiness of his account.
It is no more than we might expect, that Christian Hellenists and proselytes, with their intimate acquaintance and association with the Greek world, should have been moved, when obliged to leave Jerusalem, to tell their Gentile friends of Christianity. And nowhere was such conduct more natural that in Antioch, for we learn from Jesephus [B.J. 7:33], not only that there were multitudes of Jews there, but that they were especially active in the work of proselytizing, and had a large following among the Greeks of the city.
At any rate, whether surprising or not, it is certain that the Gospel went to Antioch at an early day, and that there was a strong Gentile Christian community there some time before the council of Jerusalem. [It is of course conceivable that Gentile Christianity in Antioch owed its origin to the preaching of Paul; but it is extremely unlikely, for the city is mentioned only once in his Epistles (Gal. 2:11), and he addressed no letter, so far as we know, to the Antiochian church. It is in itself inherently probable therefore, quite independently of Luke’s account, that Paul found Gentile Christians already in Antioch when he began Christian work there, as recorded in Acts 11:26.]
Used by permission of the publisher.
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