Christianity

The History of Christianity

Christianity began in the first century CE among followers of Jesus, a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was crucified under Roman rule in Jerusalem. Christians hold that God raised him from the dead. Historians hold that his followers came to believe this, and they trace how a small Jewish movement became the world's largest religion.

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This page covers the history shared by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians and names the branch where accounts differ. See also Branches.

How did Christianity begin?

Christians and historians tell the story of Christianity's first years differently, so both accounts appear here side by side. Historians such as Dale Martin hold that these methods cannot test questions about God's action; N. T. Wright argues that history can weigh the resurrection.12

The tradition's account

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell how Jesus was born to Mary in Bethlehem; he grew up in Nazareth, in Galilee.3 At about thirty, he was baptized by John in the Jordan River and began to preach that the kingdom of God was near. He chose twelve disciples, healed the sick, and taught in parables.3 At Passover in Jerusalem he was arrested, and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, handed him over to be crucified.3

The Gospels report that women found his tomb empty on the first day of the week, and Paul writes that he was raised on the third day. The risen Jesus appeared to his followers for forty days and was then taken up into heaven.3 At the Jewish feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, and they began to preach.3

Catholic teaching holds that the resurrection was a real event in history, the crowning truth of the faith.4 The Reformed Westminster Confession teaches that Jesus rose in the same body in which he suffered.5 Orthodox teaching holds that in Jesus the Son of God became man.6

The historians' view

Nearly all historians accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Dale Martin of Yale University tells students that reputable scholars all accept this.1 A chronology made for the PBS series From Jesus to Christ places his birth around 4 BCE and his death around 30 CE.7 Scholars such as Shaye Cohen of Brown University stress that he was born, lived, and taught as a Jew.8 The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that "Christus" was executed by Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.9

Many scholars conclude that Jesus was probably born in Nazareth and that the Bethlehem story reads him into the prophecy of Micah; others reply that no such story was needed to call him Messiah.10 Many hold that John the Baptist probably baptized him, partly because the Gospel writers seem uneasy about it.1 Some, Martin among them, see Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher of the end of the age, a portrait others dispute.111 The PBS chronology dates the Gospels to about 70 to 110 CE, and Paul's letters to the 50s.7

How do historians assess the resurrection reports?

Historians such as Dale Martin and Paula Fredriksen hold that Jesus's followers were convinced he had been raised.112 In a PBS interview, Fredriksen notes that the Gospels insist both that Jesus was truly dead and that his disciples were sure they had met him again. As a historian, she says, this tells her nothing about whether Jesus was raised, but much about his followers.12

Scholars divide over the empty tomb. John Dominic Crossan of DePaul University argues that the Gospel of Mark created the story.12 N. T. Wright argues that there is no other solution to the historical problem than to conclude that something remarkable had happened to the body of Jesus2.2

How did a Jewish movement become a separate faith?

Over the next century, the movement around Jesus spread from Jerusalem and welcomed Gentiles, meaning non-Jews, across the Roman world. Paul, a Jew from Tarsus, came to believe in Jesus as the Messiah in 35 or 36 CE, by the PBS chronology, and carried the message to Gentiles in Asia Minor and Greece.713

Church tradition ascribes to Paul the letters that bear his name. The Orthodox Church in America's teaching series counts fourteen, including Hebrews, which it holds is Paul's in teaching though perhaps written down by a disciple.14 Scholars have long recognized seven as undisputedly his. They debate three more, and many hold that 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus were written later in his name.15

According to the book of Acts, a council in Jerusalem around 48 or 49 CE decided that Gentile converts need not keep the ritual law of Moses, including circumcision.3716 Paul describes a meeting in Jerusalem in his letter to the Galatians, and scholars debate how closely the two accounts match.17

After a fire in Rome in 64 CE, the emperor Nero blamed the Christians and had many put to death.97 In 70 CE, Roman armies ending a Jewish revolt destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem.7 Paula Fredriksen calls the timing of the separation a complicated question, and notes that the name "Christian" appears only in texts from the early second century.18

What are the key periods in Christian history?

When What happened
About 30 CE Death of Jesus.7
About 48 to 49 CE A council in Jerusalem, as Acts tells it, welcomes Gentile converts without the ritual law.716
325 CE The Council of Nicaea teaches that the Son is fully divine.6
451 CE The Council of Chalcedon teaches that Jesus is one person in two natures.1920
1054 CE Papal legates and the patriarch of Constantinople exchange excommunications.21
1517 CE Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses begin the Protestant Reformation.22
1545 to 1563 CE The Catholic Council of Trent meets.2322
1906 CE The Azusa Street mission in Los Angeles becomes an early center of Pentecostalism.2425

How did the early church settle its core beliefs?

The church of the 4th and 5th centuries defined its teaching about God and Jesus through councils of bishops. In 313, the emperors Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, ending the persecution begun under Diocletian in 303.26 In 325, the Council of Nicaea taught that the Son of God is uncreated and "of one essence" with the Father.6 The Council of Constantinople, in 381, confirmed Nicaea's work, and its creed is the one Catholic teaching calls the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.2728 By the 390s, under Theodosius I (reigned 379 to 395), Christianity had become the empire's official religion.26

In 451, the Council of Chalcedon taught that Jesus is one person in two natures, divine and human, united without confusion or change and without division or separation.19 The Oriental Orthodox churches, among them the Coptic, Ethiopian, and Armenian churches, did not accept its wording. Following Cyril of Alexandria, they hold to the formula "One nature of the Word Incarnate." The World Council of Churches calls the old label "Monophysite" mistaken. Since 1985, official dialogue between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox has produced agreements on this teaching.29

The Assyrian Church of the East has been separated from the other churches since a dispute arising from the Council of Ephesus in 431; in 1994, it and the Catholic Church signed a common declaration of faith.2730

How did Christianity divide?

Two later breaks, in the 11th and 16th centuries, also shaped the branches of today. In 1054, legates of the pope in Constantinople excommunicated the city's patriarch, and the patriarch and his synod excommunicated the legates in turn.2131

A main issue was the pope's authority. Catholic teaching holds that the pope, as Peter's successor, has full and supreme power over the whole church.32 In the Orthodox account, Rome pressed that authority beyond its own region, against the early pattern of each bishop governing his own territory.31 The churches also divided over the filioque, a phrase the West added to the creed saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "and the Son."3128 The crusaders' sack of Constantinople in 1204 deepened the break.31

In 1517, Martin Luther (1483 to 1546), an Augustinian monk, issued his Ninety-Five Theses, which mostly concerned the sale of indulgences, pardons from punishment for sins already forgiven. The pope excommunicated him in 1521.22 Luther and the other Reformers taught that people are justified freely through faith, not by their own works, and that scripture is the final judge of church teaching.335 John Calvin (1509 to 1564) led the Reformation elsewhere in Europe. The Catholic Church answered the Reformers and reformed its own practice at the Council of Trent, which met in stages from 1545 to 1563 and which Pope Francis, in a 2013 letter, described as guided by the Holy Spirit.222334

How did Christianity spread?

In the book of Acts, Jesus sends his followers to be his witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8)3. Orthodox tradition holds that by the end of the first century there were Christian communities from Egypt to Armenia and India.35 The Oriental Orthodox churches carried the faith from Alexandria into Africa and from Antioch eastward.29 Ezana, king of Aksum, is Ethiopia's first recorded Christian ruler; scholars still discuss how much earlier Christianity reached the region.36 In 988, Prince Vladimir of Kyiv led his people to baptism.37

Looking back on the age of European empires, a 2019 consultation of the World Council of Churches and the Council for World Mission called the complicity between evangelism and colonization a persistent pattern, found in many regions and churches.38 Protestant missions from Britain and the United States spread churches such as the Methodists around the world.39

In 2015, Pope Francis said many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God40, and he asked forgiveness. He also asked that people remember the thousands of priests and bishops who strongly opposed the logic of the sword with the power of the Cross40.40

In 1910, about two-thirds of the world's Christians lived in Europe. By 2010, only about a quarter did.41 By 2020, sub-Saharan Africa had passed Europe as the region with the most Christians, 31 percent against 22 percent.42 The spread map shows these changes over time.

What shaped Christianity in the modern era?

Pentecostalism emerged in North America early in the 20th century, when members of the Holiness movement began to speak in tongues as a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit.24 In 2010, by estimates Pew drew from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, there were about 279 million pentecostal and 305 million charismatic Christians.43

The ecumenical movement, the effort to bring the churches closer together, formed the World Council of Churches in 1948.44 At the Second Vatican Council, from 1962 to 1965, nearly all the world's Catholic bishops met, with observers from other churches, and many Catholics entered ecumenical work.45 On 7 December 1965, in a joint declaration read in Rome and in Istanbul, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople removed the excommunications of 1054 from memory.21

By 2020, there were about 2.3 billion Christians, 28.8 percent of the world's people, according to the Pew Research Center, down 1.8 percentage points since 2010.46 In 2010, Pew counted Christians as by far the largest religious group.41 Pew counts everyone who identifies as Christian, Latter-day Saints included.4727 For more on Christians today, see the Today page.

Sources

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