From Jewish Messianism to Jesus
Without listing all the precursors who contributed to its formation, we should, in accordance with the first Gospel (of Mark), trace the origin of Christianity back to John the Baptist, a leading figure at the turn of the century in the vast movement of Jewish religious renewal in the face of Roman domination, a highly diverse ferment that is improperly grouped under the overly restrictive label of “Essenes,” as the Qumran Scrolls show that this encompassed distinct tendencies: messianic, apocalyptic, and sectarian, all part of a broader movement. There is an obvious continuity between Christianity and the “Essenes” (communion of bread and wine, etc.), and what is certain is that the Essenes were part of the atmosphere of Judaism at the time, just as much as the apocalyptic messianism to which John the Baptist subscribed and which was the breeding ground for early Christianity as they awaited the end while everything was collapsing around them.
There is a contradiction in Flavius Josephus’s portrayal of John the Baptist, who had been an Essene and then a disciple of another baptist, Bannus, and who acknowledges John the Baptist’s ability to draw crowds while equating him with the sectarian practices of the Essenes, which makes it difficult to understand his considerable influence that justified his execution. However, while John the Baptist did indeed come from the same background, he distinguished himself, according to the Gospel, through the radical innovation of opening up conversion by baptism to “all Israel”—a practice otherwise reserved for initiates after their purifying asceticism. This better explains the adoption of this Johannine baptism by the Hellenists and the diaspora, a rite that would form the basis of Christianity. It is undoubtedly a retrospective illusion to portray John the Baptist as a precursor of the opening to the conversion of non-Jews, but this was indeed at the heart of the discussions among the early Christians, right up to Paul, who definitively established it against the hesitations of the Jewish Christians. In any case, here we have, with baptism and the opening to sinners—if not to pagans—what would become the foundation of Christianity in its formative stages.
The Gospels very explicitly situate themselves in the continuity of John the Baptist, who is said to have announced the coming of the Christ who would succeed him, ushering in the Last Judgment and the end of time: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Thus, the writing of the first true Gospel (that of Mark), which was written much later, after 70, can be attributed to a Hellenist (written in Greek), a disciple of John the Baptist (and of Paul), who may have sought to illustrate his prophecy through fiction by giving substance to this Jesus and his fantastical adventures (though the original version ends at the empty tomb without a resurrected Jesus appearing to the apostles). He also drew on other, more traditional sources and teachings, often closely related to the Qumran Scrolls. It must be said that at the time there were all sorts of prophets, visionaries, healers, and magicians, which surprised no one, just as the conventional teachings of Hillel foreshadowed, in a more moderate way (“Do not do to your neighbor what is hateful to you. That is the whole Torah”), which would become, for the Gospel, Jesus’ supreme commandment (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”). This demonstrates the great interpenetration between these currents.
Shortly after the martyrdom of John the Baptist, around the year 30, James the Just will be presented as the leader of the first Christian community in Jerusalem, which is anachronistic but attests to his spiritual authority recognized by both Paul and Thomas. The fact that the title given to him in the Gospel, “brother of Jesus,” is used here is misleading, for in pre-Gospel sources he is called “brother of the Christ,” which is something entirely different, does not refer to a specific historical figure, and places him instead within messianic Judaism. James the Just, regarded as a “master of the Law,” was essentially an ascetic and religious figure devoted to the poor and revered as a saint in Jerusalem. According to Hegesippus, "James, nicknamed the Just, drank neither wine nor cider, ate no meat, did not cut his hair, did not use perfume, did not bathe, wore linen, and prayed at length for the people in the Temple." This did not prevent him from being executed as well, thrown from the top of the Temple in 62 by the high priest, who saw him as a rival and a heretic. A fringe scholar, Robert Eisenmann, sought to identify James the Just with the Essene “Master of Justice,” which does not align with the earlier dating of the Qumran Scrolls but highlights the kinship of his asceticism with that of the Essenes, albeit less mystical and sectarian. The Ebionites, who were also Baptists, remained loyal to James, having rejected Paul because they refused to renounce their Judaism and remained rooted in Temple Judaism. They represent early Judeo-Christianity in the service of the poor and close to the Didache, principles of wisdom found in the Qumran Scrolls. We see, however, that while they, like James the Just, share many points in common with John the Baptist, they differ radically from him by remaining centered on the Temple and prioritizing works over conversion. This apparently did not prevent them from being considered part of the same movement of religious renewal (like the Hellenists, etc.).
So far, there is only an evolution of Judaism and no mention yet of Jesus (at least in the oldest part), much less of crucifixion. This is where the Hellenization of Judaism comes into play, asserting itself from Philo of Alexandria to the Therapeuts seeking to heal souls, while other esoteric traditions were developing, such as that of Hermes Trismegistus (speaking of the Son of God). The name of Jesus would become the standard-bearer of the Jewish (or Gnostic) esoteric movement, which found expression in the Gospel of Thomas, for whom the kingdom is within us. This “gospel” explicitly pledges allegiance to James the Just (Jesus said to them: “Wherever you are, you will go to James the Just, for whom heaven and earth were created”). This was undoubtedly intended to connect these communities in Alexandria to their ancestral homeland, but it also allows us to date the text and clearly demonstrates how James the Just—who emphasized the “works” of faith and cannot be equated with Thomas—was able to unite the various pre-Christian currents through his holiness.
It is possible that the name Jesus—a very common name that means “Savior” (like the name Salvatore)—had already been adopted by Messianic groups, but it appears with Thomas to give a Jewish flavor to “hermetic” wisdom, though it is reduced to the simple formula introducing each of the logia: “Jesus said.” There we find numerous parables that will be taken up in the Gospels and are thought to belong to a “Q source” from which Matthew drew, and which may be nothing more than a version of this “proto-gospel,” devoid of any narrative or crucifixion of this Jesus, master of wisdom and inner salvation, yet foreshadowing the Beatitudes in many respects (inversion of values). In the Sermon on the Mount (an initiatory text), however, we must distinguish between two nearly incompatible parts: the Beatitudes, which stand above the Law and are very distant from Essenism, and the “Antitheses,” whose guilt-inducing rigor is closer to it.
The fusion of the Jesus of wisdom and the sacrificed Christ
Beyond this Jesus as a teacher of wisdom, those whom the Acts of the Apostles call the Hellenists would be decisive figures in early Christianity, whom Paul sought to persecute before his conversion on the road to Damascus. He did not invent the Jesus Christ of his vision, since he fought against his followers, notably because they opposed the Temple and sought to be more universalist. It is likely that these Hellenists were originally disciples of John the Baptist, as they adopted his baptism and opened it to all. In any case, it was these Greek-speaking Jews who, after the death of John the Baptist, would have shaped the Jesus whom he had announced as his successor, merging the Jesus as Master of Wisdom with the mystical Christ of the Essenes, the figure of the “Suffering Servant” (Isaiah 53) or even his Paschal sacrifice, but as a cosmic rather than an earthly event—just as in Paul, who, on the other hand, would not take up the dimension of the teacher of wisdom that would be adopted by the Gospels. It was through them that Christianity was able to begin the fusion of Jewish tradition with Platonism (following in the footsteps of Philo of Alexandria) by detaching it from political messianism and ethnic identity, in favor of an eschatological millenarianism—convinced that the end was very near.
These Greco-Essenes were indeed the first Christians and the least known, although they appear in the Acts of the Apostles alongside the charismatic-prophetic figures of Philip and Stephen. The latter would become the first Christian martyr, stoned to death for challenging the notion that God could be confined within a temple. He impressed others with his faith, proclaiming: “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” even crying out, before falling under the blows, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” However, it is by no means certain that, for him, Jesus had already come, since he spoke of him in the future tense: “for we have heard him say that Jesus will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.” The protests of the Hellenists, as recorded, against the exclusion of their widows from the relief fund in Jerusalem, reveal both the rejection they inspired and their sense of belonging to the same community. However, after Stephen’s martyrdom, the Hellenists were driven out of Jerusalem and joined the diaspora, becoming the first missionaries of the new faith, converting people (including non-Jews) through baptism—a rite detached from a specific place, independent of the Temple, and highly mobile. The early days of Christianity were essentially a baptismal movement in which baptism replaced circumcision as a marker of belonging to the community (along with shared meals and participation in supporting the poor and widows). “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark). Note that a distinction is made between those who received the “baptism of John” (Acts 18:24–25) and those who received the “baptism of Jesus,” who would eventually supplant them.
Paul, the revelation of the cross, and the theology of weakness
It is on this basis that Paul will truly create a Christianity open to the Gentiles and breaking away from Judaism, although it remained fairly marginal before the Jewish War and the destruction of the temple. He, too, will recognize the authority of James or at least seek his impossible approval in the abandonment of Jewish law. His relationship with the Hellenists is just as ambiguous, for he profoundly changes their theology, relying solely on revelations from his own visions. He transforms their heavenly Christ into a crucified figure; there is no longer any question of a Jesus as a master of wisdom. On the contrary, he accentuates the apocalyptic tendency of Persian inspiration, already present, among others, among the Essenes (Rule of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness). One might consider that Paul is first and foremost the name of the profound influence of Persian cosmology—so present in Antioch, where he began his preaching, which was the capital of the Seleucid Iranian Empire (to which Tarsus belonged) until 64 BCE. He was, however, merely extending this influence onto the Judaism of his time, which softened its dualism—a dualism that would recur constantly throughout history.
Indeed, his theology, as an extension of late Judaism influenced by Persia, takes up many themes from Zoroastrianism, particularly the sacrifice and resurrection of the final savior. The “Son of Man” plays the role of the Saoshyant, the Zoroastrian savior, the miraculous son of Zoroaster, born of a virgin impregnated by the prophet’s preserved seed, charged with defeating Evil and raising the dead. The theme of the “Son of Man,” already found in the Book of Enoch and the Aramaic fragments discovered at Qumran, betrays, despite his denial, this Persian origin, as does the ancient repetition of the dualisms of light/darkness, good/evil, truth/falsehood, as well as the themes of resurrection, judgment, and final salvation. One might say that Paul draws upon the form of Judaism most influenced by Persia, emphasizing it to the point of breaking with Judaism.
However, this is not a conversion to Persian dualism, as Manichaeism would be, but a reinterpretation in the shadow of the cross, intended as a strict monotheism that transcends dualism through the recognition that evil has no independent existence—this despite the adoption of the figure of Satan (“the god of this world” 2 Cor 4:4), who replaces the Zoroastrian God of Evil in the cosmic struggle between Good and Evil. The irony of (sacred) history is that this monotheism, which rejects dualism, will need the Trinity to preserve its coherence.
The essence lies not there, but in what constitutes the heart of his theology of the cross, which is the strength of the weak and the defeated. “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Salvation is not found “in spite of defeat” but “through defeat” and in defeat. This reversal of values, which was already present in the Beatitudes, certainly made it a “religion of slaves,” yet it appealed first and foremost to elites weary of Stoicism and the vain morality of the Masters. René Girard claims that the novelty of Christianity lay in recognizing the innocence of the victim, which is simply delusional, given how many examples there are. The sacrifice of the god is itself not at all original. Nor can one say that the reversal of weakness into strength is new; it is found everywhere (not only in Taoism), but Paul’s theology of weakness is more radical in its inversion of values (echoed in the Gospel by “the last shall be first”), which paradoxically would eventually come to govern the Empire. Without dwelling here on his theology of defeat, it is clear that it would prove decisive after 70.
There are several points to highlight: first, that in his early letters—and despite an obvious interpolation that is not at all in his style (1 Cor 15:3–5)—Paul speaks no more than Thomas of a historical Jesus but only of a divine Jesus Christ, the one of his vision; and above all, he is the first to introduce the theme of his (kerygmatic). He speaks only of this, but as a cosmic drama with no reference (or very little) to historical facts. His first letters are dated to the 40s, whereas the first accounts of Christ’s passion date from after 70. It can be said that it is from his epistles that the creation of universal Christianity dates, which makes Christ’s crucifixion the sacrifice that saves us. This marks a reversal of apocalypticism and a messianism of the past, for the expected Messiah has already come—not in glory but covered in infamy—which signifies the end of Jewish political messianism, though it retains a link to Judaism and will ultimately prove perfectly suited to the Empire.
From Marcion’s New Testament to the Establishment of Dogma
While Christianity does indeed find its distinctiveness in Paul and the theology of the cross, this constitutes only one element that will have to contend with other trends and, notably, will give rise to a narrative staging of its mystical conceptions in numerous gospels constructing the myth as the “fulfillment of the Scriptures” (Matthew). To search for whether a prophet who was actually crucified (or a Jesus hanged on the eve of Passover, as mentioned in the Talmud) could have served as a model is a hopeless and futile endeavor, for it was not the triggering event of Christianity but rather Paul’s vision, followed by the destruction of the temple. Certainly, there was no shortage of preachers, healers, and prophets of the apocalypse at that time, but vague similarities are not enough for believers; they want to believe in miracles and the resurrection! Those who are determined to maintain the historicity of a Jesus for whom there is no archaeological evidence are unable to specify which one; this supposedly simpler hypothesis adds nothing, other than to assume that the early believers were indeed speaking of a concrete man, and that the Gospels are not reconstructions, except that they draw on earlier traditions, and that those who denied his historical existence were also ancient (Docetism, among others) and, moreover, denounced from the start by those who defended the Incarnation. Above all, this “historicity” obscures the real history of early Christianity and its diversity. In fact, to present this new theology of the cross and salvation through defeat, there was no need, following the mass crucifixions of the Jewish War, for any specific real-life events. As always, it was the success of these orally transmitted gospels (there were dozens of them, some highly fantastical) that validated the process, with each gospel seeking to answer questions left unresolved by the previous ones (resurrection, virginity, etc.), but this significantly distorted the original project—especially, of course, after it became the official religion. In any case, it was not until the very beginning of the 2nd century, with Ignatius of Antioch portraying Jesus as a martyr (having borne witness in his flesh through his sacrifice), that the (historical) incarnation began to assert itself against mythological interpretations.
Outside of Antioch and the early Pauline networks, the figure of Paul does not seem to have been central in the early days. He did not, in any case, have the status of an apostle. Even if his epistles may have circulated in certain circles, we know of them only through Marcion, which nonetheless attests to a certain degree of obscurity, despite the fact that he was present at the very dawn of Christianity and constituted its true founder, having provided the framework for the religion of the crucified one that the Gospels had subsequently adopted. His theology must have been very much in the minority at first, before spreading once the defeat of Judaism was complete, but above all through its popularization in the Gospels. It therefore took Marcion’s publication of the letters, very late in the day, for the Roman Church to adopt them, positioning Paul at the very beginning of Christianity as well as at its conclusion.
Marcion’s role in the formalization of Catholic orthodoxy is highly revealing of the situation at this rather late date, when he too disputed the historical existence of Jesus. He retained only the Gospel of Luke, devoid of any Jewish references (and quotations from the Old Testament) as well as of Jesus’ birth or genealogy, but he believed that his anti-Jewish Christianity could fit within the Christian movement to the point of donating a considerable sum (200,000 sesterces) to the Roman Church—which would nevertheless excommunicate him in 144 for heresy, though this did not prevent the Marcionist Church from flourishing.
He effectively defended a dualistic doctrine, further evidence of the influence of Zoroastrianism and a cosmic dualism that had penetrated not only late Judaism, as we have seen, and the Essene and Baptist sects, or the magi Simon and Theudas, but also the new cult of Mithras, which would much later inspire the quest for the Grail. Not being Jewish but a Greek from northern Turkey, his contribution consisted in contrasting the vengeful God of the “Old Testament” with the God of Love of the “New Testament” (as he called Jesus’ preaching), where, Paul insisted, love replaces the Law, thus preaching a break with Judaism that would be rejected by the Church (since the Incarnation requires its historicity), although it would adopt its vocabulary. It was in response to his condemnation that he published his sources: his Gospel (an “expurgated” version of Luke) and, above all, the Epistles, ten letters by Paul, gathered together for the first time and which would be adopted by the Church this time (in a revised form). For it was in response to Marcion’s offensive that the Church would seek to formulate its Creed and harmonize the Gospels, as Tatian’s Diatessaron attempted to do in 160. The four Gospels would henceforth be cited together, but it was indeed the publication of Paul’s letters that brought about their final coherence, restoring their original source.
Christian Syncretism
However, while from 170 onward the Pauline letters were indeed integrated into the “proto-Catholic” canon, it is a “corrected” Paul who is no longer the apocalyptic Paul nor the dualistic Paul of Marcion; it is a doctrinal Paul, serving the ecclesial order, providing theological justification for spiritual authority, and concealing the subtleties of his theology of crucifixion and weakness beneath more conventional traditions (charity). Christianity was not born of a prophet named Jesus, nor of John the Baptist, nor of Paul alone, but of a series of successive reconfigurations: the apocalyptic expectation and the call to conversion (John the Baptist), Judean asceticism devoted to the poor (James), Hellenized wisdom (Thomas), the theology of crucifixion and universal salvation (Paul), followed by proto-Catholic standardization (which is the purpose of the councils). This is not a mere arbitrary and contingent juxtaposition but the synergy of the combination of a prophetic pole, a communal pole, and Hellenized circles that developed a universalist interpretation. Propheticism provided religious energy, the community provided a social structure, Hellenization enabled expansion, but it was Paul’s most original and decisive act, constituting a complete reversal of the initial apocalypticism.
Amid a multitude of sects, the development of Christianity cannot be attributed to a single man, nor to a single source, nor to an immutable revealed doctrine, if only because of its internal contradiction between the figure of a heavenly Christ, disregarding his historical life, and what the Gospels make of him in a mythological narrative that one is expected to believe in all its absurdities and miracles. These contradictions are the scars of its multiple origins, of a continuous rearrangement of Jewish, Persian, and Mediterranean traditions, from which the “theology of weakness” and of the cross was forged—a theology that would dominate the West for centuries and continue to evolve, notably with the era of martyrs exalted by Montanism and, of course, Augustine, who would be a pivotal figure, particularly in the development of inner guilt—a concept less pronounced among Eastern Christians—or, finally, the belated integration of a cult of the Virgin, a resurgence of Zoroastrianism once again but also of Celtic traditions, reflecting the importance of women’s faith.
What is surprising is to see opposing conceptions claiming to represent true Christianity, without doubting that they belong to the same general movement (calls for unity are constant). There was an undeniable appeal to its universal morality as well as its eschatology, bringing together all manner of theologies—much like Marxism has seen a wide variety of interpretations and splinter groups citing Marx, all believing in equality and the end of history without agreeing on the rest. We thus have various figures that are more or less incompatible: the one God and the Law of Judaism, the Greek Logos and the dualism of flesh and spirit, the god who dies and is reborn from the mystery cults and Zoroastrianism, and the traditions of wisdom and Egyptian Hermeticism. These contradictions, however, allowed Christianity to appeal to different audiences. The devout Jew could be reassured by the constant references to the fulfillment of prophecies in Matthew. The illiterate masses were captivated by the narrative and miraculous accounts of Mark. Mystics identified with Paul’s cosmic Christ or the secret sayings of the Gospel of Thomas. But they could all come together around the Beatitudes and charity.
The End Times, Between the Already-Here and the Not-Yet
"Benjamin is to Paul what the modern catastrophe is to the cross: the moment when defeat becomes promise." Jacob Taubes
With Walter Benjamin, the “theology of defeat” survives the death of God in a secular version of the Pauline kairos: time is not continuous; it is constantly suspended by the possibility of redemption. Redemption through the negative, the salvific power of disaster, is found in Adorno, Taubes, Agamben, and Žižek. For Taubes, Paul conceives of kairos, time in tension, “the end times”: “I tell you, brothers, the time has grown short” (1 Cor 7). What is remarkable, in fact, is that, since Paul, Christianity has found itself in an in-between time that is quite familiar to us—between the already-here and the not-yet of a long-awaited end of history. Since Christ died for us on the cross, there is no other savior to await; the kingdom is already here in the conversion of the Empire before the final apocalypse that the early Christians believed was imminent (as we do). Yet everything continues as before—what, then, is this endless time of suspension, this “phoney war” before the catastrophe?
