Augustinianum

The first generation of Christians slowly became aware that Jesus‟ message was addressed to “all nations”. It produced a movement of itinerant missionaries, which slowly decreased in number. Subsequently, the Christian mission became the responsibility of local communities. Since few pagans could read books written by Christian authors, the community gave witness through their conduct, through testimony given during trials in the forum and through martyrdom in the stadiums. Increasingly, conversions came about through bonds of friendship, kinship and personal daily contact.

Christianity is a complex phenomenon, especially during the initial period. The use of the plural “Christianities” in historiography aims to emphasize this complexity. This paper offers some examples to highlight the different ways of life, the manifold interpretations of Jesus, the diverse organizations of churches and of worship during the first two centuries. The paper goes on to discuss the concept of Christianity and proposes a definition deriving from the impact of Jesus on believers. This impact led to his veneration, whether in an exclusive sense or not, but always in a decisive manner, given that, as the eschatological envoy, Jesus is the cause of salvation.

The conviction that from the beginning believers in Christ possessed an awareness of their own faith and that they strove to avoid dissolving into different beliefs or doctrines, was the impulse for the author of this article to argue in a point by point manner in favor of the strong collective identity of the first believers in Christ. From the margins the author offers evidence of the liminality of the believers in Christ with respect to Jews and Pagans; from the contents he offers some reflections on the canonical Gospels, the day of celebration, the organization of the community and communication between the communities. The unitive outlook with which the author approaches the first testimony of Christianity distances his point of view from the pluralistic visions which are more in fashion among historians, who prefer to speak ofChristianities and not of a Christianity.

This short note underscores the pivotal part that the Apostle Paul played in promoting the socio-cultural heterogeneity characteristic of early Christianity: Without his role in the extension of evangelisation also to the Gentiles, Christianity, as a Hebrew “sect”, would have remained much more uniform, adhering mostly to the traditional way of life handed down from its ancestors (liturgy, rituals). Paul‟s missionary turn opened the way to many other, and also more “gentile”, forms of being Christian.