The School of Antioch in Development of Christianity

In part, the apostolic and patristic periods of Christianity can be discerned by way of careful, selective viewing of a map of Great Rome. The apostolic and postapostolic years of the church-in-formation roughly coincide with Rome's decisive transition from conquest-oriented republic to an empire so called. Whereas Rome had spread from the western/central Mediterranean toward the Levant, Christianity was more or less counterspreading outward from thd Levant. What happened over the course of the first and second centuries as imperial Rome consolidated its power to the frontiers of Asia Minor and northern Europe was that Christian doctrinal power and ecclesial conventions were spreading through the eastern and northern Mediterranean region, from Jerusalem to Antioch in the east and to Rome in the west.

The rise of the earliest Christian Church was dominated by theological/doctrinal issues around which mainstream, or orthodox, Church beliefs were authoritatively established; state persecution of Christianity may have been important, but the doctrinal issu

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ism vis-a-vis Christianity was the Jewish revolt of AD 66-70, the last attempt by Jews to escape the yoke of rule by Gentiles. It culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in general and the Temple in particular, as well as the forced dispersion of Jews from Judea. Meanwhile, the new religion was overtaking the old one, for Paul "stripped the Gospel of much of its Jewish character and adapted it to appeal tn all [i.e., Jewish and Gentile] humanity." The imperial Roman historian Suetonius (born AD 69) notes an "ancient superstition . . . that out of Judaea at this time would come the rulers of the world. For Suetonius, "this time" referred to the year of the destruction by Roman legions of the temple at Jerusalem and the once-for-all suppression of the Jewish rebellions against Rome. Suetonius says that the legend had been misunderstood and that the ruler coming out of Judaea had to be Vespasian, the general who ordered the destruction of the temple and who thereafter became emperor. It could be said, however, that both Vespasian and Suetonius misunderstood the superstition, for as it turned out, the great ruler of the world that came out of Judaea was Christianity, and the great shaper of Christianity was Paul. If Christianity
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Approximate Word count = 4870
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page)

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