Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The gentiles should be dealt with caution in cases of using them as witness in a criminal or civil suit. The gentile does not honor his promises like that of a Jew. The laws of the Torah were not to be revealed to the gentiles, for the knowledge of these laws might give gentiles an advantage in dealing with Jews.
Roman investigations into early Christianity found it an irreligious, novel, disobedient, even atheistic sub-sect of Judaism: it appeared to deny all forms of religion and was therefore superstitio. By the end of the Imperial era, Nicene Christianity was the one permitted Roman religio; all other cults were heretical or pagan superstitiones. [187]
Cornelius (Greek: Κορνήλιος, romanized: Kornḗlios; Latin: Cornelius; fl. 1st century AD) was a Roman centurion who is considered by some Christians to be the first Gentile to convert to the faith, as related in Acts of the Apostles (see Ethiopian eunuch for the competing tradition). The baptism of Cornelius is an important event in ...
According to Krister Stendahl, the main concern of Paul's writings on Jesus' role, and salvation by faith, is the problem of the inclusion of gentile (Greek) Torah observers into God's covenant. [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ web 1 ] The inclusion of Gentiles into early Christianity posed a problem for the Jewish identity of the early Christians.
Sardis Synagogue (3rd century, Turkey) had a large community of God-fearers and Jews integrated into the Roman civic life.. God-fearers (Koinē Greek: φοβούμενοι τὸν Θεόν, phoboumenoi ton Theon) [1] or God-worshippers (Koinē Greek: θεοσεβεῖς, Theosebeis) [1] were a numerous class of Gentile sympathizers to Hellenistic Judaism that existed in the Greco-Roman world ...
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
Nonetheless, Romans were more lenient to Jews compared to Gentile Christians. Some anti-Christian Romans further distinguished between Jews and Christians by claiming that Christianity was "apostasy" from Judaism. Celsus, for example, considered Jewish Christians to be hypocrites for claiming that they embraced their Jewish heritage. [84]
Most historians agree that Jesus or his followers established a new Jewish sect, one that attracted both Jewish and gentile converts. According to New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, a number of early Christianities existed in the first century CE, from which developed various Christian traditions and denominations, including proto-orthodoxy. [13]