How and when did Christianity begin?
We have the New Testament letters of Paul and other apostles. But there is no independent confirmation that these letters existed before the middle of the second century. All the independent evidence points to them being first known among a group of Christians (followers of Marcion) around the 130s or 140s CE. There is no independent evidence that places them any earlier. I recently reviewed and discussed the contents of a new book by Professor Nina Livesey arguing that Paul’s letters originated in a “school of Marcion” around the 130s/140s CE.
We have the four canonical gospels, but again, independent witnesses do not offer us any reason to believe that these existed before the middle of the second century of our era. There are references to Christians in works of historians Josephus and Tacitus but they are either of debatable authenticity or can tell us no more than what was being said in the second century.
We also have what has long been the unfortunately bypassed elephant in the room: How on earth did so many Christian groups arise declaring that Jesus had never been human, some saying he was never even crucified, some proclaiming that his own disciples remained ignorant of what he taught and preached falsehoods, some saying that Jesus came to abolish the law and others saying he came to keep the law more completely, some even saying he called the God of the Jews some kind of devil. None of that makes any sense if Jesus had gathered and inspired followers to proclaim his teachings after his death as the New Testament claims. I can understand modifications to his teachings arising as new situations arose, but not the wholesale divergence of whether he was even human, or whether he worshiped or denounced the God who created the world and gave the law, or whether his immediate disciples spoke truth or lies.
How could such wildly divergent ideas about Jesus have arisen from one of supposedly a number of teachers and prophets attracting followers in first century Palestine?
But what if it all happened the other way around?
What if there first appeared on the scene teachers denouncing the god of the Jews and proclaiming a new and higher god who offered salvation for those who had been led to death and destruction by the God of the Jewish Bible?
Could such a teaching be understood to have arisen in historical times either among Jews themselves or among their would-be friends who happened to be well informed about the Jewish Scriptures?
There shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been . . .
I think it can. Indications are that teachers of this kind (declaring the creator God of Genesis and the lawgiver God of Moses to be inferior deities to a higher, hitherto unknown, God who saves rather than kills) arose in the early decades of the second century. That was a time of
- some of the most horrific destructions wreaked by Jews (or Judeans of the time) on pagan temples and on Roman armies
- some of the most horrific mass slaughters of Jews, along with non-Jews, under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian
For some details of the uprisings of the Jews and their consequences in the time of Trajan, see
Why did a transnational revolt, with the Jews at its centre, erupt in 116, capable of seriously challenging the Roman empire, which at that very moment had reached the phase of its greatest expansion? . . . What events, in 115 and then 116 CE, first led to Greek-Jewish clashes in Mediterranean cities, and then caused the Jews to take up arms to destroy every element of pagan culture and religion they encountered in their path? — Livia Capponi: Il Mistero Del Tempio p.18 — translation
Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate . . . Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war. Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, “If you and your children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health.” — Cassius Dio, 69,14)
- Rebellion of the Diaspora — the world in which Christianity and Judaism were moulded
- The Red Horse of the Apocalypse and Its Rider
For the scale of destruction (of both Jews and Romans) in the Bar Kochba war in the time of Hadrian, see
- The Simon Bar Kochba Rebellion (scroll down to the heading The War)
The bloodshed of these times was on a scale that the war of 66-70 CE never approached. The destruction of the temple primarily involved the destruction of a city. The uprisings and their genocidal consequences in the second century were on a totally different scale.
Such times help to explain the emergence of the devaluation of the defining markers of Jewishness. As Nina Livesey writes,
Events leading up to and following the Bar Kokhba revolt can be understood as influential to the development of Pauline letters. For, the Bar Kokhba period saw not only massive destruction, death, and the removal of the Jewish population from Judaea but also the call for a ban on circumcision and the destruction of Hebrew scriptures? Rulings against the Jewish practice of circumcision and Jewish writings redound in discussions of these themes in texts dated in and around this period. In addition, treatments of Jewish law and circumcision in biblical and non-biblical texts dated to this period reveal a dramatic downward shift in their value. Comparably dismissive and/or derogatory assessments of circumcision and Jewish law do not surface in texts dated prior to the end of the first century. Discussions of the rite of circumcision dated at or after the Bar Kokhba revolt parallel those found in Pauline letters. (Livesey, 202f)
I think we can extend the point beyond the Bar Kochba war and the letters of Paul. The troubles began in the 110s and earliest indicators of teachers denouncing the Jewish Scriptures and their creator-lawgiver deity come from the same period.
Some historians believe that Book 2 was written during a persecution, that is, under Marcus Aurelius (161-80), because in 2.22.2 Irenaeus writes of persecutions of the just as if they are then going on. Books 1 and 2, then, may have been written before 180. (Unger/Dillon, 4)
Our information is scarce, vague and late, so we can only attempt a bare outline. Justin Martyr, apparently writing shortly before his death in 165 CE mentions several early “heretics”, among them Saturninus, whose followers called themselves Christians:
These men call themselves Christians in much the same way as some Gentiles engrave the name of God upon their statues, and then indulge in every kind of wicked and atheistic rite. Some of these heretics are called Marcionites, some Valentinians, some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians, and others by still other names, each designated by the name of the founder of the system, just as each person who deems himself a philosopher, as I stated at the beginning of this discussion, claims that he must bear the name of the philosophy he favors from the founder of that particular school of philosophy. (Trypho, 35.6)
The bishop Irenaeus was writing “before 180 CE” about leaders he understood to be early teachers of “heretical” views around and prior to the 130s CE and also speaks of Saturninus and prefers to arrange the names in a sequential genealogy of teachings.
The successor of Simon [Magus] was Menander, a Samaritan by birth. . . . . Saturninus, who was of Antioch near Daphne, and Basilides got their start from these heretics. Still they taught different doctrines, the one in Syria, the other in Alexandria. Saturninus, following Menander . . . . (Against Heresies, 1.23.5-24.1)
Saturninus/Satornilus/Satorneilos/Satornil
I will use the Latin rendering of the name, Saturninus, but will return shortly to a possible significance of the Greek form. (Irenaeus originally wrote in Greek and would have used one of the other forms of the name.) What is of significance here is the teaching on god and the Jewish law attributed to Saturninus, a figure estimated to have been active in Antioch, Syria, in the 120s CE. Since we have been talking about the establishment of “schools”, with “Christian” teachers following the ways of philosophical schools of the time, M. David Litwa’s comment is of interest:
Eusebius dated Saturninus to the reign of the emperor Hadrian (117–138 CE). In the same context, the church historian said that Saturninus set up a “school” (didaskaleion), depicting him more as a philosopher than as a religious leader. Nonetheless, we should not exclude the idea that Saturninus’s “school” did double duty as a small, ecclesial formation within a larger network of Christian assemblies in Antioch (among them the networks of Menander and Ignatius, for instance). (Litwa, 77)
If, as seems likely, Saturninus was active at a time of widespread and extreme hostility towards Jews in the eastern part of the Roman empire, the following characterization of his teaching should not be surprising:
Saturninus’s theology . . . expresses a strongly anti-Judaic stance insofar as it openly sought to discredit the Judean deity. . . .
Despite Saturninus’s seeming antagonism toward the Judean deity, he was deeply familiar with Judean scriptures and traditions . . . .
The theological seeds sown by Saturninus bore much fruit. Along with Johannine Christians, Saturninians were among the first to create a strong ideological boundary between their group and competing Jewish (and Christian) circles who worshiped the Jewish deity. Saturninus is the first known Antiochene theologian whose theology derives largely from the exegesis of scriptural texts (with a healthy dose of Jewish tradition). He was determined to revise the book of Genesis. In this revision, Saturninus was the first Christian clearly to identify the Judean god as an angel, one of seven wicked creators. This was a fateful move, proving influential for Marcion . . . . (Litwa, 77f, 82)
The link between Saturninus’s anti-Judaic theology and his historical situation was noted long ago by Robert Grant:
The historical environment of Saturninus was not purely theological. . . It included at least one Jewish revolt against the Romans, in the years 115-117, and perhaps another, in 132—135. Both revolts were disastrous for those who took part in them. Both revolts, as we have already pointed out (see Chapter 1), led radical dualist Jews and Christians to move from apocalyptic toward gnosis, and to reinterpret the Old Testament in a new way. Examining the Heilsgeschichte of Saturninus we shall find that such a reinterpretation is what he is trying to provide. (Grant, 99f — Grant is assuming the traditional first century dates for much of the New Testament literature. I am suggesting that possibly all of the New Testament literature is from the second century.)
Saturninus taught that the world and humankind were created by seven angels, one of whom was the god identified as the creator in Genesis. A higher god had created these angels, including one who was known as Yahweh.
But one of these angels is “the God of the Jews,” and the latter seems to be more important than the others, since Christ came into the world “for the destruction of the God of the Jews and for the salvation of those who believe in him [Jesus Christ].” This is what we read in the Latin translation of Irenaeus summarizing Saturnilus’s doctrine (Adv. haer. I, 24, 2), and also in the Greek text of Hippolytus (Ref. VII, 28, 5). . . . It is almost beyond doubt that for Saturnilus . . . the God of the Jews is the head of the creator angels (d. Irenaeus, I, 24, 4). He can therefore be spoken of as the principal creator.
Thus, according to Saturnilus, the God of the Old Testament is in reality an angel; that is, he is not the true God. As for the reasons that led to the devaluation of this figure, we find them without difficulty in an anti-Judaism and an anticosmic attitude that go much further than those of John. [Unlike the Gospel of John, Saturnilus taught that] Christ came into the world to destroy the God of the prophets and the old Law. . . .
We also learn from Irenaeus’s account that, according to Saturnilus, up to the coming of Christ the demons helped the wickedest human beings, and that this is why Christ came, in order to help the good and destroy the evil and the demons. This seems to mean that the persons in the Old Testament who are depicted as having been prosperous, happy and victorious were in general the most evil, which is to say that the Old Testament depicts men and judges history contrary to the truth; it is to open the door to those Gnostics who declared themselves in favor of the reprobate in the Old Testament. . . . All this manifests an anti-Judaism, or more precisely an antinomianism, a criticism of the Old Testament, that is not found in John . . . (Pétrement, 329f — my bolding)
Roger Parvus proposed the possibility that the Ascension of Isaiah lies behind some passages in our letters of Paul, and that the figure of Paul may be related in some way to Saturninus (compare the Greek form of the name, Sartornilus, with Saulos, the first name of Paul according to Acts):
- Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 1
- Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 2
- Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 3
- Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 4 / Conclusion – Historical Jesus?
- A Simonian Origin for Christianity? — A few more thoughts
I suspect the 120s are a little late for the revival of interest in a historical prophet crucified by Pilate. The more likely scenario is that a second Joshua (Greek: Jesus; see also the posts on the name of Jesus from a classicist’s perspective) was chosen to overthrow the cult and teachings of Moses. This Jesus came to earth to trick the wicked powers into crucifying him so that the good could be released from the power of death. There was no heavenly crucifixion as some have attempted to argue. The Saviour figure took on the forms of the angels in the respective heavens on his way down to earth in order not to be recognized as he passed by. In the same way he took on the form of a human in order to hide his true identity while on earth.
But if Saturninus was one of the first to expound teachings that came to have a close relationship to our idea of Christianity, they were in time supplanted by a more positive and appealing narrative: a story in which the Jewish Scriptures were not only superseded but fulfilled, or given a radically new meaning. Instead of coming to destroy the law Jesus was said to have fulfilled it, and even have bound up in himself a spiritual Moses, a spiritual Elijah, a spiritual David. This was a time of “the Second Sophistic” in literature, and a time of applying allegorical insights to bring out new meanings in old myths and narratives. A new narrative biography, like those of the philosophers, was composed in our gospels. This new narrative, better than other narratives like the Ascension of Isaiah or tales of demonic creators, could be read as a key to discovering new and “higher” meanings in Scriptures. That narrative thereby acquired the added depth that came from those Scriptures while supplanting the “Jewishness” that those Scriptures had long upheld, but that had proved a failure and a loathing to the world by the apocalyptic events in the times of Trajan and Hadrian. But the story of that new narrative would likely transfer us from Antioch to Rome.
Grant, Robert M. Gnosticism and Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959.
Litwa, M. David. Found Christianities: Remaking the World of the Second Century CE. London ; New York: T&T Clark, 2022.
Livesey, Nina E. The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.
Lohr, Winrich. “Justin Martyr.” In From Thomas to Tertullian: Christian Literary Receptions of Jesus in the Second and Third Centuries CE, edited by Chris Keith, Helen K. Bond, Christine Jacobi, and Jens Schröter, 433–48. The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries. T&T Clark, 2020.
Pearson, Birger. Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1990.
Petrement, Simone. A Separate God: The Christian Origins of Gnosticism. Translated by Carol Harrison. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993.
Unger, Dominic J., trans. St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies Book 1. Ancient Christian Writers 55. New York, N.Y: The Newman Press, 1991.
Neil Godfrey
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Your reconstruction offers good insights into the sociological/historical formulation of second century Gnostic developments, but those do not require a second century date for the Gospels or authentic Paul. You quote Justin’s description of developments he was refuting but we must also recall his use of a Gospel harmony, that certainly included 3 if not 4 of the canonical Gospels. Tatian his student of course did the same even more heavily dependent upon John.
I will say it is an enigma to me why Justin seems unaware of a Jesuine prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem. In his First Apology he argues for Jesus’ superior powers of foresight by twice quoting the mini apocalypse (persecution of Christians and false Christs) and claiming fulfillment, but when arguing that the events of 66-135 were predicted he resorts to the OT.:
I don’t know that Justin was using a harmony of the gospels. He flat out contradicts the Gospels and Acts several times as if he has no awareness of them.
I know many scholar have said Justin knows a form of our gospels and some say he called them the Memoirs of the Apostles. But I find myself disagreeing. See chapter 3 of Cassels: https://archive.org/details/supernaturalreli01cass/page/246/mode/2up?q=Jordan
The reason I think Justin has been interpreted as using a harmony goes back to the assumption that the gospels had to have been written in the first century and Justin simply could not have failed to have known about them.
You likely know that Irenaeus was refuting a red herring with those words about Saturnius. The God of the Jews was an ‘angel’ in a second power sense. That was widely accepted.
Justin again:
….I replied again, “If I could not have proved to you from the Scriptures that one of those three is God, and is called Angel, because, as I already said, He brings messages to those to whom God the Maker of all things wishes[messages to be brought], then in regard to Him who appeared to Abraham on earth in human form in like manner as the two angels who came with Him, and who was God even before the creation of the world, it were reasonable for you to entertain the same belief as is entertained by the whole of your nation.”
Again, I submit that all the schisms and Christologies in play in those years were the result of particular conceptions of God as second power emanations. When writers like Irenaeus claim rivals believed in multiple gods or preached a different God, they are demonstrating ignorance or deliberately distorting the theology of others.
Re “We also have what has long been the unfortunately bypassed elephant in the room: How on earth did so many Christian groups arise declaring that Jesus had never been human, some saying he was never even crucified, some proclaiming that his own disciples remained ignorant of what he taught and preached falsehoods, some saying that Jesus came to abolish the law and others saying he came to keep the law more completely, some even saying he called the God of the Jews some kind of devil.”
These groups did not refer to themselves as “Christians” and using that more modern term amalgamates a very diverse crowd of different “Jesus followers.” Many of those groups were not centered upon Jesus but upon a more nebulous “Christ.”
I am relying on Justin Martyr where he says in his Dialogue with Trypho:
In your post you wrote: “I will use the Latin rendering of the name, Saturninus, but will return shortly to a possible significance of the Greek form.” Did you forget, or do you mean in an upcoming post? Just curious.
Anyway, as you know, I think a large part of the so-called Pauline letters are in fact Saturnilian. And, as many have noticed, there are bits and pieces in Revelation’s 7 letters to the churches that seem to point to things in the so-called Pauline letters. It has usually been surmised that Revelation has Pauline churches in view, but maybe the wayward people in question were Saturnilians, tagged by Revelation as Nicolaitans (and which, in turn, may have some tie-in with the Hellenist “Nicolas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism” mentioned in Acts 6:1 & 5). Just a possibility to keep in mind.
I did sneak it in with “and that the figure of Paul may be related in some way to Saturninus (compare the Greek form of the name, Sartornilus, with Saulos, the first name of Paul according to Acts):” — but that was obviously a much briefer note than I originally intended so yes, I should revise something there, either the original notice or the later reference. Thanks.
Neil, I know I’ve been rightly accused of excess speculation, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I will blurt this out and if it’s a bridge too far just read it for its entertainment value.
I have long wondered whether the Sceva episode the Acts of the Apostles is some kind of proto-orthodox veiled takedown of Saturninus. He is called a Jew and some kind of highpriest but no one has been quite sure what to make of him. He has 7 exorcist sons who are described as itinerants and who reach Ephesus. They want to exorcise “in the name of the Jesus that Paul preaches” (Acts 19:13). But the evil spirit replies: “Jesus I recognize, and Paul I know, but who are you?” Then the spirit overpowers them and they flee naked (exposed). And at Ephesus “a large number of those who had practiced magic, collected their books and burned them in public” (Acts 19:18).
The name Saturninus is, I suspect, related to the god Saturn and/or the planet that in ancient times was numbered as the 7th. And according to Irenaeus the Simonians had “priests who … perform magic in so far as each is able to do so.” And “They employ exorcisms…” So, I am wondering if these 7 exorcist sons of Sceva are meant to represent 7 disciples of Saturninus who were itinerants, traveled about in Asia, and wrote about Jesus in the name of Paul. I am wondering if the original so-called Pauline letters were written by Saturnilians to their own churches in the same 7 cities addressed by the seer of Revelation (including Ephesus}, and that only subsequently – when turned into letters of Paul by Cerdo – some of the destinations were pushed out further afield (e.g., to Coriinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, Rome).
Anyway, I hope I have at least given you a good laugh, and shown you what kind of crazy ideas sometimes bounce around in my head.
Wasn’t Elaine Pagels, decades ago, making the point that Gnosticism was present at the very beginning of Christianity? A redating of events seems implicit in that recognition.
Probably. Some scholars do argue that point. But I think they all work with the gnostic-orthodoxy model on the assumption that the orthodoxy/proto-orthodoxy came first and the gnostics took those teachings in their own “wayward” direction. I think that is a direction difficult to explain and the opposite direction has more explanatory power.