Introduction

A SHORTENED

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Sometime during the Passover celebration, around the year 30 C.E., something wholly unremarkable occurred: another would-be Messiah was crucified by the Roman authorities occupying Palestine. Crucifixion was a special form of punishment reserved for a particular crime. It was Rome’s public service announcement for what would happen to those who dared to challenge the authority of the Empire. Similarly, the epithet “Messiah” was a particular kind of title. A messianic designation was a royal stamp. To be the messiah was to be the king of Israel. But there was no longer a king or kingdom in Israel, neither was there even an Israel. There was only a province, Judea, ruled by the Romans, and they would tolerate no king.

 

What is remarkable was that there were far more likely candidates for kingship than a carpenter from Galilee. Nevertheless, history has forgotten most of their names and most of the details of their movements. Their respective movements and their messianic claims died with them. This would also have been the fate of Jesus of Nazareth had it not been for the unlikely activity of his followers after his death. Like so many before and after them, they witnessed the sum of their hopes and expectations hanging upon a cross. They tasted the same disappointment as the other followers of the other messiahs. Yet, where the others had cried defeat, the followers of Jesus had the audacity to declare victory. 

 

A movement formed around their message of a crucified king. For three centuries it spread throughout the Roman world, simmering below the surface of respectable society. This movement, which the Roman historian Tacitus once referred to as a “pernicious superstition,” became the favored and the official religion of the Empire. When the Empire no longer functioned in the West, it was the continuation of this movement that took it upon itself to preserve knowledge and civilization in Europe. The message of the crucified, Galilean carpenter-king would eventually spread throughout the globe, indirectly through exploration and commerce, directly through missionary activity. 

Two-thousand years have passed and still the movement continues, albeit in ever-evolving forms. Yet, regardless of its many adaptations over the centuries, the movement is still centered on the figure of a crucified king. Long after the events that inspired the movement, the world still talks about Jesus of Nazareth.

 

This is the story of that movement ...