Is Christianity a sect of Judaism?

Relationship between Christianity and Judaism

The other day I was listening to a sermon and the preacher happened to say that if we do certain things, live a particular way, then ‘Christianity is merely a sect of Judaism’. His intent was clearly to point out that Christianity is totally separate from Judaism. Indeed, when we look at Christianity around us today, from Catholics to Pentecostals, Baptists to Methodists, there is very little similarity between Christianity and Judaism. Another preacher I heard, speaking of the Apostle Paul, referred to Paul having been ‘called by Christ’ as meaning that he had been called ‘out of Judaism and into Christianity’.

Is it true that Christianity is a completely separate religion? Did Jesus Christ come to establish a ‘new thing’ called Christianity? Or is Christianity essentially Jewish? After all, Jesus was a Jew, the Apostles were all Jews, all the early believers for around the first ten years after the resurrection of Christ were all Jews or converts to Judaism (proselytes) and the events of the Gospels and many of those in the Acts of the Apostles all occurred in the land of the Jews, Israel. Of course, there are one or two things that overlap Christianity with Judaism – we worship the same God; we have the same Bible – well, the Old Testament is the same at least, but it does indeed appear, from our 21^st Century vantage point, that there is little else in common between Jews and Christians.

In order to understand this issue, we first have to understand what is meant by a ‘sect’. Recently, I was speaking to a Jew in Jerusalem and I asked him what the difference was between the various Jewish groups, such a Hassidic, Askenazi and so on. He started by saying ‘well, first you have to understand that all Jews are Jews.’ There are various groups within Judaism, but they all have the same Bible version, they all have the same worship practices, they are all ‘the same’ essentially. To him a ‘sect’ was simply a group within a group, but the emphasis was on their similarities, not their differences. Contrast this with the western view of a ‘sect’ where the emphasis is on the differences. For instance, Jews look for what is common between them; Christians, with their several denominational labels, cling to that which highlights the differences. They cling to those differences and the result is division and separation. In Judaism, they cling rather to the similarities and the result is unity and inclusion.

The dictionary definition compounds this western view:

Sect sɛkt/

noun

1.    a group of people with somewhat different religious beliefs (typically regarded as heretical) from those of a larger group to which they belong.

synonyms:

(religious) cult, religious group, faith community, denomination, persuasion, religious order; More

o    derogatory

a group that has separated from an established Church; a nonconformist Church.

"two of the older sects—the Congregationalists and the Baptists—were able to increase their membership dramatically"

synonyms:

(religious) cult, religious group, faith community, denomination, persuasion, religious order; More

o    a philosophical or political group, especially one regarded as extreme or dangerous.

"the radical sect Friends of the Earth campaigned against aerosols containing CFC gases"

You notice that the key words in these three definitions promote separation and even fear: ‘typically regarded as heretical’; ‘separated from an established church’; ‘especially one regarded as extreme or dangerous’.

A different online dictionary defines ‘sect as:

1.a body of persons adhering to a particular religious faith; a religious denomination.

2.a group regarded as heretical or as deviating from a generally accepted religious tradition.

3(in the sociology of religion) a Christian denomination characterized by insistence on strict qualifications for membership, as distinguished from the more inclusive groups called churches.

4.any group, party, or faction united by a specific doctrine or under a doctrinal leader.

Of these definitions, two are much closer to the Jewish understanding of the word ‘sect’: a body of persons adhering to a particular religious faith’ and any group, party, or faction united by a specific doctrine under a doctrinal leader’. So the Lubovitch Jews are those who follow the teaching of the Rabbi Lubovitch, while not denouncing the beliefs of the rest of Judaism – and that is the key. When a person is, say, a ‘Calvinist’, they follow the teachings of one of the leaders of the Reformation in the Middle Ages, John Calvin. If they then cease to be Calvinists, they usually (though not always) end up renouncing everything John Calvin taught and enter a different denomination, for example, Pentecostal. The Pentecostals teach that the miraculous gifts of the New Testament are still operative today; they often particularly emphasise ‘speaking in tongues’ (languages of either men or angels that they have never learned). If they then decide that these gifts are not valid today, the tendency is to renounce that teaching and join somewhere else. The result is a fragmented view of Christianity, whereas the Jews have a cohesive view of Judaism.

How does this help us understand the relationship between Jews and Christians today? Well, if Christianity was seen as a sect in Bible times, then it would have been an inclusive view, not an exclusive view. Being a Christian did not mean renouncing Judaism; being Jewish did not mean they considered Christians heretics.

So did the Jews therefore consider Christianity a sect? Furthermore, did the early Christians consider themselves a sect of Judaism?

Today, believers in Jesus are known throughout the world as Christians. But this was not always the case. The word ‘christianos’, from which we get the word ‘Christian’ is only found three times in the New Testament – in Acts 11v26, Acts 26v28 and 1 Peter 4v16. Other designations for believers (other than the word ‘believer’ itself) were ‘The Way’ (Acts 9v2, 19v9, 19v23, 24v14, and 24v22) and ‘The Nazarenes’ (Acts 24v5). The designation ‘Nazarene’ is derived from the word for ‘a person from Nazareth’. In the instance of the New Testament, it refers to those who were followers of ‘the man from Nazareth’, namely, Jesus Christ.

They were also known for being a ‘sect’ of Judaism: Acts28v22, 24v14 and 24v5. It seems that the New Testament does indeed place Christianity as a sect of Judaism, with roots firmly embedded therein.

So what changed? It was Epiphanius (310/320-403 AD) who first denounced as heretics those who were called Christians but still lived within Jewish faith and practice. Until that time, followers of ‘The Way’ had been deemed Christians beyond reproach. The Jewish Encyclopedia puts it: “For a long time they [the Nazarenes] were regarded as irreproachable Christians, Epiphanius ("Hæres." xxix.), who did not know much about them, being the first to class them among heretics. Why they are so classed is not clear, for they are reproached on the whole with nothing more than with Judaizing. As there were many Judaizing Christians at that time, the Nazarenes can not be clearly distinguished from the other sects. The well-known Bible translator Symmachus, for example, is described variously as a Judaizing Christian and as an Ebionite; while his followers, the Symmachians, are called also "Nazarenes" “

Epiphanius himself states: “But these sectarians... did not call themselves Christians--but "Nazarenes," ... However they are simply complete Jews. They use not only the New Testament but the Old Testament as well, as the Jews do... They have no different ideas, but confess everything exactly as the Law proclaims it and in the Jewish fashion-- except for their belief in Messiah, if you please! For they acknowledge both the resurrection of the dead and the divine creation of all things, and declare that G-d is one, and that his son is Yeshua the Messiah. They are trained to a nicety in Hebrew. For among them the entire Law, the Prophets, and the... Writings... are read in Hebrew, as they surely are by the Jews.”

Bede (c672-735 AD) wrote: “The Judaism and the Christianity of the Bible are the same, only differing in the fact that "biblical Christianity " professes Jesus as the Messiah” 

It might surprise people to learn that “the first fifteen bishops of the church in Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews and the congregation over which they presided united the law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years under the immediate inspection of His apostles, should be received as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent and relieved her distress by a liberal contribution of alms, but when numerous and opulent societies were established in the great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth , and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to all the Christians afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes that from all the various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly solicited fro their own practice” (Gibbons, vol. 1, p. 389).

It is clear from this, that the church in Jerusalem was seen as the lead church for all the congregations throughout the world at that time and that they maintained a unity between the law of Moses and the doctrines of Christ. For forty years, the church leaders were all Jewish by birth and continued in Jewish orthodoxy while professing that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

Gibbon goes on to explain that the Christians who fled the destruction of Jerusalem for refuge in Pella beyond the Jordan remained there in obscurity and solitude for another 60 years (to A.D. 130). In A.D. 135, the Romans defeated the Jews again and banished them from Jerusalem and imposed severe penalty if not death upon any who would dare to approach its precincts. He then writes, “The Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of Gentiles, and most probably a native of either Italy or some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion the most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a century… In few years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, cold possibly hope for salvation” (ibid. pp. 389–391).

Thus the keeping of the law of Moses had become deemed ‘heresy’ within 100 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. No longer was Christianity a sect of Judaism, no longer did its adherents follow the Way of the Nazarene; they had become an entirely separate religious group. But, to quote a phrase, ‘from the beginning it was not so’.