When did the Jewish practices cease to be an issue?

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Tis_Bearself

Patron
Today being the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, I was thinking about them and how they had an argument over Peter not wanting to eat with Gentiles and about the early Jewish converts to Christianity believing it was necessary for all Christians to follow the Jewish practices.

I am wondering, when exactly did this issue kind of fade away so that no one was concerned any longer with whether some Christian had a Jewish background or had done traditional Jewish practices such as circumcision?
 
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. is generally when this occurred.
Judaism became basically illegal for sometime in Palestine after the Jewish War. In fact this was kind of a golden age for Christianity since they weren’t really the target anymore temporarily in the region.
I would say this was basically the point when there was no doubt a complete separation between Judaism and Christianity. Jewish Christianity was centered in Jerusalem, led by James who was martyred in 62 according to Josephus but was very respected even by Jews. The Jewish Christian’s retained Jewish customs just acknowledging Christ as the messiah. After the destruction this group was largely destroyed.
What we really are left with is Pauline Christianity.
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
Peter not wanting to eat with Gentiles
Click to expand...
I think Paul in Galatians also warns against being seen eating in company of those who proclaim gospels other than the four Gospels of Jesus Christ according to the Evangelists. And that warning at the start of Galatians is powerful. Now here he doesn’t refer to Gentiles in the common sense of the term, but to those proclaiming a revelation that is false. And again, Galatians is all to commonly quoted overlooking the subtleties that accompany this warning.

-Thus when St.Paul said he became everything for everyone, that is not without safeguards or non-negotiables.

I still consider Romans one of the toughest books in Scripture - sometimes becoming nearly incomprehensible. Precisely because of the many inversions of logic along the text…
 
Last edited:
As @Prodigal1984 has said, it was the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus’ legions in 70 that marked the end of Second Temple Judaism. The rabbis moved to Yavneh (Jamnia), near the coast, and this seems to have been the place where the new form of rabbinic Judaism developed, while the Jewish Christian community moved in the opposite direction, to Pella in what is now the Kingdom of Jordan. Up until that point, Jewish Christianity had been a faction within Judaism, alongside the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and others, but the move away from Jerusalem seems to have put an end to that.
 
Interestingly some have made an argument that the warning he made could have been against people sent by James to “correct” the gospel Paul gave to them.
I think the meeting between Paul and the elders in Jerusalem regarding this may have been much more tense than Acts portrays, mainly because Paul himself in his letter to the Galatians seems to imply it wasn’t as smooth as Acts seems to let on.
 
Thanks BartholomewB, that makes sense.

Paul must have been in an odd position being both an observant Jew prior to conversion, and a Roman citizen. I wonder how “privileged” Jewish people such as him felt about Rome given that they had more rights than the Jewish non-citizens. I also wonder sometimes if he was ever put in a position pre-conversion of needing to prove his allegiance to the Jewish community, for example by being a big persecutor of Christians.
 
Prodigal1984 said:
Interestingly some have made an argument that the warning he made could have been against people sent by James to “correct” the gospel Paul gave to them.
Click to expand...
I doubt that James (whether “James son of Zebedee” or “James son of Alphaeus”) would contradict the true gospels (which wouldn’t even have been written at the time) pretending to substitute them with a false gospel received through a false revelation. That would be in contradiction with them having been chosen by Jesus himself and certainly having received the Holy Spirit, and I also don’t believe Our Lord would abandon His own apostles in that context of the early church.

No. I believe Galatians was prophetic speaking for ages to come.
 
Most of Paul’s writings are among the toughest books in Scripture for me. I spent many decades just disliking the man. Apart from the obvious stuff that people get hung up over such as the remarks about women, etc, I also used to think of him as sort of this Johnny-come-lately who just cruised into the 12 Apostles’ scene and started throwing his weight around. I realize God did call him, quite dramatically, and probably called him because he did have certain skills and qualifications that not all the Apostles possessed, but I still have to work on having patience with him often. I definitely prefer Peter. He was kind of a doofus (or a dodo as Mother Angelica would say), but he did know Jesus personally and Jesus picked him to be leader. Also, he wrote less so there was less difficult-to-follow stuff in his writings.
 
Last edited:
Well the James is James the Just, or James the brother of the Lord who headed the Church in Jerusalem until his martyrdom in 62.
 
That’s an interesting idea. Paul’s prominent role in the persecution of Jewish Christians — he was the one they picked to head the punitive mission to Damascus — suggests that he likely displayed an above-average eagerness or fanaticism, which in turn may perhaps indicate that he was determined to make sure no one could accuse him of divided loyalties. This idea is new to me. I don’t even know how or when Paul’s family had been granted Roman citizenship. Rome had been the dominant power in the region since Pompey’s day, so I suppose it could have been any time from the sixties BC onward. I’ll try and find out.
 
Last edited:
Prodigal1984 said:
Well the James is James the Just, or James the brother of the Lord who headed the Church in Jerusalem until his martyrdom in 62.
Click to expand...
Yes I know now. But I always prefer to read up on them to avoid any confusion.

The argument you referred doesn’t hold up IMHO. It seems Paul himself in Galatians says James through the Holy Spirit recognized the grace Paul had received (unsurprisingly so I might add, since they were apostles and had seen Jesus - Paul to a lesser extent nevertheless). Thus referring James as an antagonist to Paul and as “preacher of false gospels received through false revelation” doesn’t make any sense.

(There’s also a “protestant vs catholic” “TASTE” to that argument since it favors (and flavors) internal dissent over external false revelation…if you get my meaning…)

My comment still stands against such argument.
 
Last edited:
Paul allegedly was a Roman citizen by birth, because he was born in Tarsus, a city where the Romans had granted citizenship to all the inhabitants and those born there after the grant, in return for a large sum of money being paid to Rome. I believe there is someplace in Scripture where Paul refers to his citizenship as being by birth. Some Bible scholars have disputed the evidence for Paul’s citizenship, but apparently he thought of himself as a Roman citizen and the Romans seem to have accepted his statement that he was a citizen, right up to the point where he was executed by beheading as customary for citizens.

Apparently citizenship was a big issue around the time of Christ and there had been a major war fought over it about 100 years before Christ was born. The Romans ended up expanding the regions of citizenship to the whole peninsula of what is now Italy, and then a couple hundred years later extended citizenship to Gaul and Spain as well. In return for their citizenship, which extended to everybody born in that area after the citizenship grant, then the people were supposed to not take up arms against Rome; they also had to submit a lot of personal data in a census on a regular basis, which Rome could use to promote or demote certain people based on their wealth.
 
Last edited:
I appreciate your comment @Tis_Bearself. As usual its entertaining, well humored, and a first hand account of living the faith. 🙂

God bless.
 
Yah I don’t know.
I sometimes wish we had more writings from the Apostles themselves who knew the Lord.
Paul was called of course for a special reason to proclaim to the Gentiles but I think this is why Tradition is so important.
Many Protestants really only read Paul, as if it is the Gospel of Paul and not Jesus Christ. Some passages have always concerned me when he seems to get so angry when some church is picking up some false ideas and he’ll rebuke them almost saying “This is my Gospel and it is true”. It very well might be, but I’ve always got this sense that he had some sort of pride.
 
Thanks. I have been trying very hard to like St. Paul better for some years, though I really think he and I might end up having a big blowup if we had met in person back when 🙂

He was also on my mind because I was just at Tre Fontane a few weeks ago and of course it is called “Tre Fontane” (Three Fountains) because it’s named for the three fountains that, legend has it, sprang from his head as it bounced three times on the ground exclaiming “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” after he was beheaded. I had a book of gory martyr stories in which I read that when I was about 6.
 
Prodigal1984 said:
It very well might be, but I’ve always got this sense that he had some sort of pride.
Click to expand...
In terms of style a good priest said St.Paul is “extremely provocative”. And he really is…

The strength he imparts to his writing is powerful and an expression of zeal. He probably had military training (an athlete) and thus first hand physical metaphors are spread throughout his text. That sort of powerful presentation is also cultural, speaking in vibrant masculinity, with his whole body and being, (perhaps even in a kind rapture) the typical expression of a powerful discourse in Mediterranean culture.

And St.Paul was also a busy man, unwilling to entertain nonsense and getting straight down to business. (however contrived his own exposition might feel to us at times…)
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
He was also on my mind because I was just at Tre Fontane a few weeks ago and of course it is called “Tre Fontane” (Three Fountains) because it’s named for the three fountains that, legend has it, sprang from his head as it bounced three times on the ground exclaiming “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” after he was beheaded. I had a book of gory martyr stories in which I read that when I was about 6.
Click to expand...
That’s one heck of a good story! I’ve never heard that one. I will have to tell my son (12) about that. He’d love it!

Anything to get kids more interested in their Faith.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Thanks. I have been trying very hard to like St. Paul better for some years, though I really think he and I might end up having a big blowup if we had met in person back when 🙂

He was also on my mind because I was just at Tre Fontane a few weeks ago and of course it is called “Tre Fontane” (Three Fountains) because it’s named for the three fountains that, legend has it, sprang from his head as it bounced three times on the ground exclaiming “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” after he was beheaded. I had a book of gory martyr stories in which I read that when I was about 6.
Click to expand...
Just in time (before the thread closes)…Geee, it’s been in the back of my mind I wanted to reply to this post since the day you wrote it but I always kept postponing. Anyway: Thank you for sharing the story of “Tre Fontane” because I honestly had never heard of it and had no idea. And also, I’m happy to know you went on a pilgrimage and hope you had a good time.
 
Thanks, yes I could only spend a very short amount of time there and actually did not get to the Tre Fontane Abbey this trip as I was focused on getting to the Shrine of the Virgin of Revelation which is independent of the Abbey and across the street from it. Both these places are off the beaten path as you need to take the Metro to a stop way out in the suburbs and then walk about a half mile, so most tourists don’t go. I did throw a penny in the fountain so hopefully I will go back another time, when I have more time.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top