St. James’ Sunday Study Group Lectures

The Unpopular Cult—Persecution

Lecture # 7
Nov. 3, 2019 11:45 am. To 1:00 pm.

To this point in the course, the lectures have described the contexts of Christianity within Mediterranean culture, Greek civilization, and Roman rule; its birth within the symbolic world of Torah; its first rapid expansion; and the composition of its earliest literature. But it is premature to speak of “Christianity” in these earlier stages as though it were a fully defined and distinct entity; the process of its formation continued into the 2nd century and only then achieved greater clarity. The next six lectures trace the history of this continuing formation in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, beginning in this lecture with a discussion of persecution.