“Gentile Christianity” as a Category in the Study of Christian Origins

Abstract

At least since the time of Ferdinand Christian Baur in the mid-nineteenth century, the concepts of “Jewish Christianity” and “Gentile Christianity,” together with related binary pairs (Jewish Christian / Gentile Christian, Jews / Gentiles), have functioned as basic categories in the critical investigation of Christian origins. Adopting the voice of his hero Paul, Baur speaks of “my Gospel of Gentile Christianity, as opposed to Jewish Christianity,” the English terms renderingHeidenchristentumsandJudenchristentums, respectively. Speaking of Paul's success in establishing “a Gentile Christianity,” Baur says that “the greater the strides were which the Gospel made among the Gentiles, the greater was the importance which the Gentile Christians assumed over the Jewish Christians.” Such increase in importance notwithstanding, the “Jewish-Christian party opposed to [Paul],” he says, remained “powerful,” and the “conflict between the Pauline and Jewish Christianity” continued to mark the early history of the movement. The place of this conflict in Baur's reconstruction of Christian origins is well known, and his characteristic terminology is readily recognized.