Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK

RI i.R. (ROB) VAN HO UWE LIN GEN

individual apostles, some of whom remain almost entirely unknown. In this article the accent, therefore, will lie on the joint activity of the Twelve and those in their immediate circle. The course of their lives stood in service to their witness of Christ, Israel’s Messiah and the Saviour of the world. We have chosen to take Jerusalem as the redemptive-historical focal point, enabling us to gain a view of the gospel, as it was proclaimed and passed on during the apostolic period.1

The ‘apostolic period’ is commonly understood to be the earliest phase of Christianity (in German, Urchristentum). Beginning in Jerusalem, the gospel creates ever-widening circles in the world, just as a stone sends out ripples in a pond. Some date the end of this period with the death of the last apostle, John. Others see its end with the final separation of Judaism and Christianity, after the Bar Kochba revolt in AD 135. This coincides, more or less, with Eusebius’ description of the apostolic era: starting with the period after the Ascension (see the foreword to his Ecclesiastical History II) and continuing till the reign of emperor Trajan. Eusebius comments: “We have now described the facts which have come to our knowledge concerning the Apostles and their times” (rcepi re rcov ánoaróXcov Kai tcSv ánoaroXiKÜv ^povcov; Ecclesiastical History III 31,6; cf. II 14,3)2.

The two most important documentary sources for the apostolic period are the Book of Acts in the Bible and Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. We will examine each of them, providing a methodological account.

2. The first source: The Book of Acts

For the history of earliest Christianity we have access to a historic source in the form of a Biblical book, with a more-or-less official title: The Acts of the Apostles. It is commonly accepted that Luke wrote this book, as a sequel to his gospel. Both Luke’s gospel and this sequel dealing with the apostles were dedicated to a certain Theophilus. Luke, who was not of Jewish descent (it seems likely that he, like Cornelius, belonged to the circle of‘God-fearing Gentiles’, adherents of the synagogue), had become a Christian, and was a frequent companion of the apostle Paul. In narrative form, he recounts the spread of Christianity within the Roman Empire. Into this account, he integrates several discourses given by the apostles. There can be no doubt that Luke, in writing this book, drew on a number of oral and written sources. In this way, his book became a coherent and well-attested whole.

From the perspective of the history of religion, the Book of Acts is quite unique. Of the other world religions, none has a comparable historical work, throwing light on its origins, that can be dated to its own time. Other religions may have narrative texts of a more legendary character; for those without such legendary narrative texts, their early histories must be reconstructed by means of later material. In contrast to this, however, the Book of Acts provides us with a contemporaneous historical account.

Some scholars might attempt to weaken this conclusion with a claim that the Book of Acts is largely theological in character. Of course it is true that Luke, a

1 James D.G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).

2 Adelbert Davids, “The Era of the Apostles According to Eusebius’ History of the Church.” In The Apostolic Age in Patristic Thought, ed. A. HiLhorst (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 194-203.

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