Gentile Christians

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As Gentile Christians are early Christians of the first century refers to the non-Jewish were origin. Christians of Jewish origin and tradition at this time, on the other hand, are called Jewish Christians .

Origin of the Gentile Christians

The early Christianity consisted mainly of Christians of Jewish origin. Jesus Christ , his disciples , the apostles and the members of the early Christian communities in the area of Palestine were Jews ; they lived as a fringe group in the tradition of Judaism. Their mother tongue was generally Aramaic .

As early as the first half of the first century it can be assumed that people from the Hellenistic cultural area also became Christians. However, no independent sources can be found for this period. The spread of the Christian faith took place along the major traffic axes of the Roman Empire, so that the major cities were primarily reached. In the late first century there was increased missionary work and the inclusion of non-Jewish people in early Christianity who did not obey the Jewish dietary laws , the purity and Shabbat laws and whose men did not have to be circumcised .

The previous religious affiliation of these people encompassed the wide range of religions and philosophies prevalent in the Roman Empire. There were followers of the gods of the Greek and Roman pantheon or the East Persian Mithras cult . Philosophical doctrines of this time were among other things Platonism , Sophistics and Epicureanism . The social affiliation of the Gentile Christians included slaves, the disenfranchised, but also rich Roman widows, virgins and educated full citizens. Their mother tongues were varied, but mostly the Greek Koine was spoken; that level of Greek that was spread as a supra-regional common language by Hellenism .

Differentiation from Judaism

Jewish Christians retained their Jewish traditions and regulations such as circumcision, ( Brit Mila , Hebrew ברית מילה, "Covenant of Circumcision") and the Jewish dietary laws, ( Hebrew כַּשְרוּת Kashrut ), ( Food Commandments ).

Gentile Christians lived in the vicinity of synagogues and temples , but mostly had little reference to the customs of Judaism. The early Church therefore went through a phase of discourse and tension over the question of whether Gentile Christians should also obey Jewish commandments. The problem became more specific with Paul's missionary journeys , as a result of which numerous Gentile Christian congregations arose in Asia Minor.

According to biblical tradition, this tension was resolved at the apostles' council in Jerusalem . Here Paul's position was adopted, according to which the Gentile Christians were not subject to all Jewish commandments. This coincided with the destruction of the Jewish state in the first century by the Roman Empire and with the second diaspora of Judaism. The Pauline theology gained general acceptance in the emerging Christianity, which demarcated itself from Judaism. The last evidence of tension between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians can be found in Ignatius' letters from the early second century.

An independent Jewish Christianity survived for some time. It is characterized by a Jewish faith, Jesus Christ as the Messiah or the Tanakh recognized announced end time prophet, but not required, to worship Christ, but only one God.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Gentile Christ  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ “They [the oldest Christian community] belong in the overall Jewish sphere just as much as other groups which it then included, such as the Essenes on the one hand and the Sadducees on the other. The thoughts and hopes she cherishes are thoroughly Jewish; she only wants to have Jewish life, and she only has the Jewish horizon. ” Leo Baeck in: Die Lehren des Judentums according to the sources. Volume III, 3. The confrontation with the emerging Christianity, p. 56; Association of German Jews (Ed.), Gustav Engel Verlag, Leipzig, 1930 (new and expanded edition, Knesebeck Verlag, Munich, 1999)
  2. ^ Hans Conzelmann: History of early Christianity. Vandenhoeck and Rupprecht, Göttingen 1976, ISBN 3-525-51354-2 , p. 54 ff.
  3. ^ Karl Suso Frank: Basic features of the history of the old church. 3. Edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-09044-6 , p. 1.
  4. ^ Kathrin Gies: Speisegebote (AT). Created: Aug. 2012, accessed January 19, 2019 [1] from Bibelwissenschaft.de
  5. ^ Karl Suso Frank: Basic features of the history of the old church. 3. Edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1993, ISBN 3-534-09044-6 , p. 15 f.