2. The polemics of Christians against Jews are early and amazingly bitter; see William Nicholls, Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate (New York: Jason Aronson, 1995).
3. See the discussion by Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Judaism without Circumcision and ‘Judaism’ without ‘Circumcision’ in Ignatius,” Harvard Theological Review 95:4 (2002): 395–415, as well as the study by Thomas A. Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways: Early Jewish-Christian Relations (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009).
4. See Louis Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
5. One of the classic Jewish treatises on the relationship of Israel and the nations of the world is that of the nineteenth-century Italian Rabbi Elijah Benamozegh, Israel and Humanity (Israël et l’Humanité), translated and edited by Maxwell Luria (New York: Paulist Press, 1994).
6. See Acts 15:19–21 plus references in Acts 10:1–2; 13:16, 26, 43, 50; 16:14; 17:4, 17; 18:7, as well as Luke 7:1–9. See the discussion, “The Godfearers: Did They Exist?,” which includes “The God-Fearers: A Literary and Theological Invention,” by Robert S. MacLennan and A. Thomas Kraabel; “Jews and God-Fearers in the Holy City of Aphrodite,” by Robert F. Tannenbaum; and “The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers,” by Louis H. Feldman, in Biblical Archaeology Review 12:5 (September/October 1986): 44–63.
7. Males, whatever their age, were required to undergo circumcision, and both males and females were immersed in a mikveh or Jewish ritual bath. See Louis H. Feldman, “Conversion to Judaism in Classical Judaism,” Hebrew Union College Annual 74 (2003): 115–56; Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 219–21; and Joseph R. Rosenbloom, Conversion to Judaism: From the Biblical Period to the Present (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1979).
8. The Talmud says that the twelfth petition of this prayer, the Birkat HaMinim, was added in the late first century by the rabbis, directed against Christians (notzerim) who were giving Jesus divine status. See Berachot 28b and William Horbury, “The Benediction of the ‘Minim’ and Early Jewish-Christian Controversy,” Journal of Theological Studies 33:1 (1982): 19–61.
9. Larry Hurtado and others have more recently advanced the argument that such worship of Jesus as divine originated not with Paul but among Jesus’ earliest Jewish followers, in response to faith in his resurrection and ascension to heaven. See Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005). Hurtado refers to this as “binitarian devotion,” as it includes always God the Father, but now with Jesus as Lord at the right hand of God. The latest contribution to this debate is James D. G. Dunn, Did the Early Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
10. Paul’s phrase “under the Torah of Christ” is literally “in (the) law of Christ,” meaning within its jurisdiction, just as one who is Jewish is “in (the) law of Moses” while Gentiles are “outside” that law.
11. Jubilees 7:20–28; Acts 15:19–20; Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 56a–56b.
12. The Apocrypha contains ten books, all dating to the two centuries before the time of Jesus, that are included in Catholic Bibles and the ancient Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) but excluded from the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament.
CHAPTER 9: THE “BATTLE OF THE APOSTLES”
1. An impressive visual website of St. Peter’s Basilica with photos and descriptions is http://www.stpetersbasilica.org.
2. In the gospel of John there is an allusion to Peter’s death (John 21:18–19), and the pseudo-Pauline text of 2 Timothy 4:6–8 seems to know of Paul’s death. In both cases nothing that specific is related as to time, place, or manner of execution.
3. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1; 3.3.2.
4. See Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier, Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity (New York: Paulist Press, 2004), p. 98.
5. Tacitus, the Roman historian, is our best source for this persecution. He is the first Roman writer to mention “Christus” (“Chrestus”) and his execution in Judea under Pontius Pilate. His account gives one insight into the attitude of the ruling class in Rome in the early second century A.D. toward this newly emerging eastern cult called “Christianity”: “But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a cart. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.” Tacitus, Annales 15.44, translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, Complete Works of Tacitus (New York: Modern Library, 1942), pp. 380–81.
6. Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Claudius 25.4 and Acts 18:1–3.
7. John J. Gunther surveys the views of thirty-nine scholars who have proposed thirteen categories of identification. See St. Paul’s Opponents and Their Background: A Study of Apocalyptic and Jewish Sectarian Teachings (Leiden: Brill, 1973).
8. See Jeffrey J. Bütz, The Brother of Jesus, pp. 154–61, which offers a persuasive reconsideration of the correctness of F. C. Baur’s essential position.
9. A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish Christian Sects, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 36 (Leiden: Brill, 1973).
10. See Hans-Joachim Schoeps, Jewish Christianity, translated by Douglas R. A. Hare (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), for a summary of the basic Ebionite sources that survive and a discussion of their contents.