However, according to the New Testament, from the outset the Jewish religious leaders considered the teachings of Jesus to be incompatible with Judaism and the Mosaic Law. The temple priesthood and the Sanhedrin, the supreme religious and court of Jerusalem, conspired to have Jesus put to death by the Roman authorities. According to the Gospel of John: "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (John 5:18) Additionally, he was accused of seeking to destroy the Temple.[2] According to the Acts of the Apostles, after his crucifixion and resurrection, the Jewish leaders persecuted his followers, who formed a church distinct from other Jews and Greeks, into which they allowed uncircumcised Gentiles to enter by baptism.
Christianity also continued many of the patterns found in Judaism: the liturgical form of worship of the synagogue adapted to Christian church services, prayer, use of sacred scriptures, a priesthood, a religious calendar, use of sacred music in hymns and prayer, giving tithes, and ascetic disciplines such as fasting and almsgiving. Christianity adopted the Septuagint, a Greek edition of Jewish scriptures, as the Old Testament.
Emergence of Christianity
Christianity began among a relatively small number of Jews and Jewish Proselytes. Once it was determined to allow Gentiles into the Church, Christianity began to spread throughout the Mediterranean world. For 250 years Christians suffered from sporadic persecutions for their refusal to worship the Roman emperor, considered treasonous and punishable by execution. There were persecutions under Nero, Domitian, Trajan and the other Antonines, Maximinus Thrax, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian and Galerius. In 313 Constantine I and Licinius announced toleration of Christianity in the Edict of Milan. Constantine would become the first Christian emperor. By 391, under the reign of Theodosius I, Christianity had become the state religion of Rome.
Earliest Church
The term "Early Jewish Christians" is often used in discussing Early Christianity. Jesus, his Twelve Apostles, his relatives, and essentially all of his early followers were Jewish or Jewish Proselytes. Hence the 3,000 converts on Pentecost described in Acts 2 were Jews and proselytes. All known converts to Christianity were non-Gentile prior to the conversion of the Roman Centurion Cornelius by Simon Peter (Kephas) in Acts 10. The major division in Christianity prior to that time was between Hellenistic and non-Hellenistic Jews, or Koine Greek (Acts 6) and Aramaic (Acts 1:19) speakers. However, the conversion of Cornelius created another group—Gentile Christians. The New Testament does not use the terms "Gentile-Christians" or "Jewish-Christians"; rather, Paul of Tarsus used the terms circumcised and uncircumcised: "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." (Colossians 3:11) Circumcised and uncircumcised are generally understood as Jews and Greeks; however, it is an oversimplification as 1st century Iudaea Province also had some Jews who no longer circumcised, and some Greeks (called proselytes) and others such as Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Arabs who did.