Judaism and early Christianity

According to a program on public TV that focused on the schism between
Judaism and Christianity, the crucial event that led to their breakup was the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 ce.
The early "Christians" were all Jews, they spoke Aramaic and practiced
Judaism, some of them very earnestly. However, as their distinctness
began to grow and the "gospels" were written down between 50-100 ce,
so the "church" split into two main groups, those who regarded themselves
as part of Judaism, and those who regarded their message as being of
universal significance. Both in their emphasis on Christ as the messiah
were in effect heretical forms of Judaism.
These two groups cohered around two men, James the Just (hatzaddik),
who was called "the brother" of Jesus Christ, and Paul. While James
remained all his life in Jerusalem and "preached" there and organized a
"church" there, Paul went out on voyages to Turkey, Greece and Italy
to preach the Christian gospel to Jews and non-Jews alike.
Vespasian had been the Roman general appointed to put down the Jewish
revolt of 66 ce that produced Jewish quasi-independence in the Roman province
of Judea following the death of Herod the Great. While he was engaged in
this war, recorded by Josephus in his "Jewish Wars," the Emperor died in
Rome, resulting in chaos. With his loyal legions Vespasian returned to Rome
and was appointed Emperor in 69 ce, starting what has been known as the
Flavian line.
His son Titus was appointed by him to continue and finish the Jewish wars.
When he returned to Judea he captured and sacked Jerusalem in 70 ce.
According to legend, he issued orders not to destroy the Temple, since he
intended to use it to keep control over the Jews. But, his legions could not
be controlled in the general orgy of violence and looting and fire spread
to the Holy Temple, that after 600 years of continuous practice was
destroyed. This event is recorded on the Arch of Titus in Rome. His last
act was to surround and destroy the Jewish holdouts on Masada, the
fortress and palace of Herod by the Dead Sea.
With the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, both Judaism and
Christianity underwent major transformations. No longer tied to the Temple,
and its sacrifices, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai began the transformation of
Judaism at the Academy in Yavne into Rabbinic Judaism as we know it.
Prayers superseded animal sacrifices and interpretations of the Rabbis
rather than the Cohanim (priests of the Temple) became the guiding light
of Judaism. Meanwhile the destruction also meant that the power base
of James in the "Judaic" branch of the "church" was itself destroyed, and
this left Paul a free hand to take over the reins and direction of what was
to become Christianity.
In Rome there was a general dislike of Jews because they had opposed
Roman might and because Jerusalem was the only city that had competed
with Rome as a place of pilgrimage and grandeur of public works. At
first the Romans did not distinguish between Jews and Christians, but
Paul saw his opportunity, with the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Temple, and he reoriented Christianity to the center of the Empire in Rome.
This was where the power was and where the opportunity for non-Jewish
converts was to be found. In doing so, Paul made sure to distinguish his
new religion from Judaism and his followers from the Jews themselves.
While the Romans initially persecuted the Christians, as they did the Jews,
gradually Christianity made converts among them, By 300 ce Christianity
had already become a powerful influence in the Empire. During the war
with a rival for the throne Constantine saw an image of a fiery cross (in
previous battles he had seen a fiery sun disk), and so he converted to
Christianity and became Emperor in 306 ce, and forced his whole court to
likewise convert. In 313 he issued the Edict of Milan stopping all persecution
of Christians, but not of Jews. He then made himself Head of the Church and
suppressed the other religions that were competing with Christianity for the
loyalty of the pagan Romans, including Mithraism. In 330 ce Constantine
moved the Capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople (now Istanbul).
It was not until the Council of Nicaea in 325 ce that a meeting of all Bishops
of the Church decided on what was actually the canonical beliefs of the
religion. They narrowly voted that Jesus Christ was "the son of God" and from
then on any other belief, such as that of the Gnostics, was considered
heretical. Of course, Judaism was considered to have been superseded by
Christianity, and so on top of the Roman antipathy for the Jews was added
the Christian "replacement" theology, that was only officially abandoned by
the Catholic Church in the 1960s.
Knowing these events does not alter the terrible history of Church
persecution of the Jews, but maybe it can improve our understanding of
how it started