Written by Gustave - Updated on Jan 8, 2025
Crucifixions were commonplace in the Roman Empire. They were so common that the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth was only noticed by a small group of devoted followers...
To find out more about the birth of Christianity, we invite you to read our article on the subject. Following your reading, you can also discover our blog with several articles on the Church and its history. Don't hesitate to consult our articles, like the one on how to keep the faith in difficult times, from our online blog.
And without further ado, let's start reading to discover the origins of Christianity!
The birth of Christianity: everything you need to know
To understand the life and death of Jesus and the birth of Christianity, we need to understand the context of the Roman Empire. Jesus was a Jew, as were almost all his first disciples. Within 30 CE, Rome's empire had expanded to cover virtually all the lands adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea, including the lands occupied by the Hebrews.
The Romans had no tolerance for sedition or rebellion against their government. But the Jews had a religious reason to resist Roman control. The Romans expected the Jews to worship the emperor as a god. But the Jews' religion commanded them to worship only one god: Yahweh. Their refusal to worship any of the Roman emperors infuriated these rulers. The emperors were used to getting their way, and they didn't take Jewish resistance lightly.
In 26 B.C., the Romans established direct power over the Jews. They appointed Pontius Pilate as governor of the territory that year. Pontius Pilate had little tolerance for Jewish traditions. More than once, he pushed the Jews to the brink of revolt by violating their religious beliefs in their holy city of Jerusalem. He even took money from the treasury of their sacred temple to build an aqueduct. This action led to a suppressed rebellion that resulted in many Jewish deaths.
According to Hebrew texts, human time on earth was believed to be temporary. It was to be replaced by God's triumph over all human sin and the establishment of God's eternal kingdom. They believed that this apocalypse, or end of the earthly world, would be brought about by a messiah. Many Jews expected this messiah to deliver them from Roman domination and their earthly burdens. For some, this messiah was Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus began teaching in the Jewish tradition. He preached love and tolerance, and was also believed to have performed miracles, healing the sick, walking on water and even raising the dead.
Jesus affirmed that Yahweh's kingdom would never be realized on earth, but in an afterlife. Jesus taught to love even enemies, because in light of the coming kingdom of God, there was no reason to hate. A small group of disciples believed he was the promised messiah who would end Roman rule.
Jesus' ideas were rejected by most Jews in Galilee, a region in northern Israel, where he first preached his ideas. Many Jews believed that Jesus was a troublemaker who violated the sanctity of Yahweh. He chose to go to Jerusalem to spread his word between 30 and 33 CE.
Gaining disciples in Jerusalem was not easy for Jesus. Not all Jews saw their religion or their relationship with the Romans in the same way. In fact, some of the high priests of the Jewish Temple supported the Romans. The high priest was appointed by Pontius Pilate to control Jewish affairs and keep the Jewish population in line. Some historians maintain that the priests received wealth and power for their cooperation with the Romans.
Jesus decided to target these priests and their control of Yahweh's Temple. It is thought that he saw them hindering the conversion of the Jewish population to his ideas. He coordinated an attack on the Temple's commercial activities, which were a great source of wealth for the priests.
At the very least, it gave the Roman authorities the excuse they needed to arrest Jesus for sedition. On the night of the Passover Seder, known to Christians as the Last Supper, Jesus was arrested. Jesus had gone into hiding and Judas of Iscariot, one of his disciples, told the Roman authorities where he would be found.
Crucifixion and the growth of Christianity
Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate, who didn't know how to proceed. Jesus' disciples were only a small minority, and the crowd was clamoring for crucifixion. Pilate condemned Jesus to death. He was beaten and crucified.
Three days after his death, Jesus' tomb was found empty. For the next 40 days, his disciples claimed to have had visions of Jesus rising from the dead in the tradition of Moses and other great Jewish prophets. The resurrection story lies at the heart of Christian beliefs in the divinity of Jesus and life after death.
Most Jews rejected the notion of Jesus as their messiah. In the years following Jesus' death, the Romans treated the early Christians as a small Jewish sect. That all changed with Paul of Tarsus.
Paul began to spread the ideas of Christianity further among non-Jews. Many of the region's poor and destitute found comfort in the notions of a loving god and an afterlife. The Romans persecuted these Christians who rejected Roman polytheism. But Paul traveled far and wide, and his successors did a remarkable job of reaching converts. After almost four centuries of existence on the margins, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire in 395 CE.
