FROM 66 AD TO THE 4TH CENTURY

When we reach the end of the Book of Acts, we find much tranquility and even an incredible opportunity for Paul to preach the gospel. However, history tells us that it was at that very moment that the revolt of the Judeans began against the arbitrariness of the different representatives of Rome, both in the province of Judea and in Syria, which also incited many Gentile-Judeans to carry out several massacres against the Jewish-Judeans. This revolt was of such magnitude that the governor of Syria sent the Fulminata legion, but since the local Judean army, which was also part of the revolt, defeated this legion that had already arrived to besiege Jerusalem directly, the emperor had no other option but to declare the entire province of Judea as rebellious and send one of his best generals (Vespasian) at the head of four legions, to whom his son Titus also joined.

Both marched to Judea and in less than two years ended the entire revolt and reduced the entire Judean army to zero. The regions of Judea were left in total crisis and, in addition, without an army to control it in all its corners, so soon thieves and looters began to prosper. After two years, the thieves had already managed to enter Jerusalem and create two groups large enough to control the entire city. And as greed is the distinctive point of any thief, the desire to dominate the entire city also made them fight among themselves and kill anyone who did not join them. The high priest Anan was one of the citizens who bravely confronted them, preventing them from entering the temple because they had to repent first if they wanted God to receive their sacrifices, but in the end, he ended up dead along with more than 6,000 priests outside the very building.

Around that time, Emperor Nero committed suicide, which brought disturbances in the city of Rome, so the senate asked Vespasian to go and take the throne. Faced with this situation, the general, before leaving, asked his son Titus to finish off the thieves who had seized Jerusalem. In five months, Titus not only captured alive the leaders of each group along with all their surviving followers but also left the temple and the entire city without a stone upon another.

In those four years, since the sedition began throughout Judea and Syria, the church of Jesus Christ in Judea (mostly Jewish and minority Gentile) had managed to survive, thanks to the fact that from the moment the first Fulminata legion appeared in front of Jerusalem (the one that had been defeated) and in obedience to the mandate and prophecy of Jesus 40 years earlier (Mt 24; Lk 21), they left Jerusalem and the surrounding areas of Judea, mainly to the region of Perea east of the Jordan River. When the war ended, since the Romans knew that not everyone had joined the revolt, and especially it is said that those from Perea did not confront the Roman legions, the followers of Jesus and all the inhabitants of the region were allowed to remain in the area or return to Judea.

Despite this experience of the Judeans with Rome, 45 years later, there was another revolt known as the Kitos War. On this occasion, the Jews living in the diaspora throughout the empire, as a consequence of great repression by Emperor Trajan in his eagerness to conquer India, faced the Parthians. Because of this, the Jews living in Babylon and Susa joined the Parthians to face Trajan, and this again defined them with the category of “rebels.” And like any community that fell into this category under the empire, they would simply suffer continuous persecutions and massacres until they were subdued.

To fully understand what was happening at that moment, we must know that for the Romans, there was no difference between Christians or Jews. For them, the mere fact of believing in the God of the Bible was to be a Jew. So the only thing that could serve as protection for a Christian, unlike a Judaist, was to go unnoticed through another citizenship, whether Roman or any other Gentile nation. Thus, many Jews who believed in Jesus preferred to opt for that citizenship and avoid the danger of being Jewish. Although this meant little to the empire. In this way, a church with a Gentile numerical appearance begins to appear, although there was really a Jewish majority that simply did not find it convenient to be seen as such.

I am sure that when many hear this, it will clash with what they thought until now. Therefore, it is also good to clarify that the story about great persecutions “exclusively” against Christianity in those years is rather a story created later by Catholicism and imperial Orthodoxy, with the aim of achieving a more “authentic” connection between their religion and the early Christians. But that story, which sadly is the most common, is in stark bankruptcy today among top scholars on this subject. The reality, which is increasingly clearer as a result of document findings and the most accurate archaeology we have today from those moments, is that it was the Jews who truly suffered persecution from the time of Nero until the time of Diocletian (54-305 AD), and Christians simply also experienced those persecutions for being considered by the empire part of the Jews. In fact, what we call today “Evangelism” was understood at that time by the empire as “Judaizing,” although after understanding the concepts we discussed in the previous article, we know that it was not technically so, but for the empire, it was.

With that clearer reality in mind, where the Jewish followers of Jesus had to opt more to distance themselves from Jewish revolts, we find a church trying to live in peace once again and although they were bearing much fruit among the Gentiles due to their testimonies in the face of death, the same did not happen among the Jews. The cause was simple, but also very unknown to most people today. At that time, a gigantic group of false Christians began to rise, known years later as the Gnostics. They had a large variety of doctrines and managed to be more seen as Christians than those who truly were. They believed, for example, that the God who created heaven and earth was a kind of demon or devil who made a corrupted creation and also adopted a rebellious people, the Jews. For them, Jesus was the true God separate from the other who came to save that corrupted creation. They also had mystical initiations that were nothing more than the same pagan religions adapted to Christianity. When a Jew saw that, they simply rejected it, but since those Gnostics were the majority for those new Jewish generations, that was Christianity. And taking a small pause here, I can also say that the same has historically occurred until today. And although some Christian apologists tried to make the difference clear by showing that it was not the true gospel, as the Gnostics were so many and communication was not as global as it is today, that defense did not change their opinion much.

About 30 years later, there was a third and final revolt, the Bar Kokhba revolt. This leader was proclaimed Messiah by one of the most influential rabbis of that time (Akiva), which immediately made the Jewish followers of Jesus not fully support him. Not because he was a thief like those who seized Jerusalem in the first revolt, but because of the blasphemy of proclaiming him Messiah. It is good to clarify here that there is no record that he directly proclaimed himself Messiah, but the fact that such an influential rabbi of the time with more than 25,000 disciples did so, left no option for the Messianics. As this revolt was the most successful of all and achieved independence for three years, during that time Bar Kokhba did not forgive the “betrayal” of the followers of Jesus and expelled many from the region and killed others. This also affected the number of Messianic Jews, although they later managed to survive in Jewish-Christian synagogues until the 4th century. Like the one in Susya, which still preserves the name Yeshua (Jesus) in one of its mosaics. In fact, we also have the testimony of Jerome, who made the first translation of the Bible into Latin (Vulgate), and moved to Bethlehem in that same 4th century to perfect his Hebrew among the Messianics of the region.

However, another challenge was coming upon them. On one hand, the division of the empire and, on the other, a new religion that emerged from that Gnosticism that had caused so much damage.

To be continued…

Author: Dr. Liber Aguiar