The Parting from the Way is Accepted by Protestant Scholars, But …

COGwriter

Partially to explain church history, many Protestant scholars teach that there was a parting of the ways.

The Protestant scholar Dr. James D.G. Dunn wrote:

In the first edition of Partings I made bold to draw the conclusion that a final ‘parting’ can be discerned in the second century-with the second Jewish revolt against Rome, and certainly by the end of the second century. Further study soon made it clearer to me that these were but further partings, (Dunn JDG. The Parting of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity, 2nd ed. Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd, 2006, pp. XVIII-XIX)

Well, although there was what would be called the Christian religion in the FIRST century, there was a definite parting of the ways between those who held to the original faith and a compromised one after the second Jewish revolt. That revolt is known as the Bar Kockba Revolt and a definite parting took place in Jerusalem c. 134-136 A.D.

Many Protestant theologians maintain that the early church gradually became predominantly Gentile and that the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 confirmed that Gentile converts were not required to fully adopt Jewish religious practices. They frequently appeal to their interpretations of the writings of the Apostle Paul to support this conclusion as well as their interpretation of the vision that the Apostle Peter had in Acts 10. As a result, most Protestants teach that Christians are not obligated to observe the biblical food laws, seventh-day Sabbath, or annual holy days, arguing instead that apostolic teaching established a different pattern for the Christian church. Some modern scholars describe the historical process leading to this development as the “parting of the ways” between Christianity and Judaism.

Yet, a careful review of their interpretations along with scripture and historical accounts show something different.

Remember Christians were told by the Apostle Peter to “be even more diligent to make your call and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10).

So, let’s start out by considering that Jesus’ half-brother James was at the Jerusalem meeting (often referred to as the Jerusalem Council) of Acts 15 (Acts 15:13).

James kept the seventh day Sabbath. Notice something from an Eastern Orthodox liturgy that claims the Apostle James, Bishop of Jerusalem and brother of Jude (cf. Matthew 13:55), stated:

Moses the great mystically prefigured this present day, saying: “And God blessed the seventh day.” For this is the blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, on which the only−begotten Son of God rested from all His works. Suffering death in accordance with the plan of salvation, He kept the Sabbath in the flesh; and returning once again to what He was, through His Resurrection He has granted us eternal life, For He alone is good and loves mankind. (Sources: Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, translators, The Lenten Triodion (London, England: Faber and Faber, 1978), pp. 652−653, 656 and Michael S. THE HOLY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN SABBATH-DAY IS ON SATURDAY. May 10, 2015. http://orthodoxchurch.nl/2015/05/honoring-of-the-sabbath-in-the-historic-orthodox-church/ accessed 02/02/20)

So, we see that Eastern Orthodox liturgical tradition attributes strong significance to the seventh-day Sabbath and associates this understanding with James of Jerusalem. Scholars generally acknowledge that the Jerusalem church under its Jewish-Christian bishops continued to maintain Jewish practices, including Sabbath observance.

While Protestant scholars acknowledge that Jewish Christians kept the Sabbath, they tend to feel that Acts 15 exempted Gentiles from doing the same.

However, the Apostle Paul wrote:

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

There are not different rules for Jews and Gentiles to become Christians or live as Christians. Furthermore, the Apostle Paul, himself, not only kept the Sabbath (Acts 13:14, 42-44, 17:2, 18:4, 28:17), but also taught Gentiles on it (e.g. Acts 13:42-44).

The Apostles taught:

32 And we are His witnesses of these things, as is also the Holy Spirit, which God has given to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32, AFV)

9 … He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, (Hebrews 5:9)

Even though salvation is a free gift of God (Ephesians 2:8), we clearly see that obedience is required for salvation.

Early Christians obeyed the Ten Commandments and kept the Sabbath. They also kept the biblical holy days and obeyed the scriptures against eating biblically unclean meat.

Now consider that Protestants such as Martin Luther did not observe the seventh-day Sabbath, biblical holy days, and unclean meat restrictions. He further claimed people are saved by “faith alone.” Yet, consider that James wrote:

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:17, KJV)

24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone. (James 2:24, New English Bible)

In his 1546 Preface to the New Testament, Martin Luther famously dismissed the book of James:

St. James’ epistle is really an epistle of straw … for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it” (Luther, M. Preface to the New Testament, 1546).

and

In the first place it is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works…Besides, he throws things together so chaotically that it seems to me he must have been some good, pious man, who took a few sayings from the disciples of the apostles and thus tossed them off on paper. Or it may perhaps have been written by someone on the basis of his preaching (Luther, M. Preface to the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, 1546).

Note that James was the half-brother of Jesus (cf. Galatians 1:19; see also Relatives of Jesus), and Martin Luther did not respect his part of the Bible.

Furthermore, Martin Luther asserted:

Be a sinner, and sin boldly, but believe more boldly still. Sin shall not drag us away from Him, even should we commit fornication or murder thousands and thousands of times a day (Luther, M. Letter of August 1, 1521 as quoted in Stoddard J. Rebuilding a Lost Faith. 1922, p.93).

Martin Luther seemed to overlook what the Book of Hebrews taught:

26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries (Hebrews 10:26-27).

True Christians did not depart from the way to accept compromise or ways of sin.

Furthermore, despite what some Protestants may assert, the New Testament and church history paint a different picture as the Sabbath was also being kept by Gentile Christians.

Before looking post-New Testament, notice the following from a Protestant translation of the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament:

3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.'” And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.” 5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.” 6 It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience…9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience (Hebrews 4:3-6,9-11, NIV).

Notice that the New Testament enjoined the keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath and warned that not keeping it was an act of disobedience.

So, when and why did it change for the Greco-Roman Catholics and others?

Although some claim that it changed before the death of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110-135 A.D.), the fact is that he did keep the Sabbath and thus, no, Gentile Christians had not switched by his time–details about Ignatius are in the article Another Look at the Didache, Ignatius, and the Sabbath.

Although true Christians do not consider the following sources to be scripture, the following passages from them show that the sabbath was being observed in the 2nd century, and that the observance of the Sabbath was considered to be of great importance:

…If you do not observe the sabbath as a sabbath you will not see the Father (Patterson S, Meyer M. The “Scholars’ Translation” of the Gospel of Thomas. Verse 27. Scholars Version translation of the Gospel of Thomas taken from *The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version.* Copyright 1992, 1994 by Polebridge Press).

John … on the seventh day, it being the Lord’s day, he said to them: Now it is time for me also to partake of food. (Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. Translated by Alexander Walker. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 8. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe)

Let me add that in the late 2nd century, Theophilus of Antioch and in the 3rd and 4th centuries Lucian of Antioch both kept the seventh-day Sabbath.

The earliest historical record of many changing from the Sabbath to Sunday came in the 2nd century after the Jews revolted. As a result of the Bar Kochba revolt, the Roman Emperor Hadrian was very angry with the Jews. Even though Christians did not participate in the revolt, Hadrian outlawed any, whether followers of Judaism or Christianity, who wanted to live in what was Jerusalem–which he renamed Ælia Capitolina from keeping the Sabbath:

Hadrian . . . According to rabbinic sources, he prohibited public gatherings for instruction in Jewish law, forbade the proper observance of the Sabbath and holidays and outlawed many important rituals (Barron SW. Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume 2: Christian Era: the First Five Centuries. Columbia University Press, 1952, p. 107).

The Eastern Orthodox seem to have acknowledged that a change came, but they have been a bit guarded about it. Notice this admission:

In 135 AD the Roman emperor Hadrian builds on the ruins of Jerusalem a new roman city and names it Aelia Capitolina and permits the Christians to come back. However the Jewish are not permitted to come in town. (The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem. http://www.holylight.gr/patria/enpatria.html viewed 07/02/2026)

The “Jewish are not permitted to come in to town”?

That’s correct in a sense. Those who kept Jewish practices like the seventh-day Sabbath were not permitted to come into Jerusalem after its 135 A.D. takeover. According to Arabic sources, the Roman soldiers told professors of Jesus that they could live in Jerusalem they did things like abandon the Sabbath (Pines S. The Jewish Christians of the Early Centuries of Christianity according to a New Source. Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Volume II, No.13; 1966. Jerusalem, pp. 14-15).

Notice also:

Emperor Hadrian adopted new repressive measures against Jewish religious practices suggests that such measures influenced the new Gentile hierarchy to change the date of Passover from Nisan 14 to the following Sunday (Easter-Sunday) in order to show separation and differentiation from the Jews and the Jewish Christians …

A whole body of Against the Jews literature was produced by leading Fathers who defamed the Jews as a people and emptied their religious beliefs and practices of any historical value. Two major causalities of the anti-Jewish campaign were Sabbath and Passover. The Sabbath was changed to Sunday and Passover was transferred to Easter-Sunday.

Scholars usually recognize the anti-Judaic motivation for the repudiation of the Jewish reckoning of Passover and adoption of Easter-Sunday instead. Joachim Jeremias attributes such a development to “the inclination to break away from Judaism.” In a similar vein, J.B. Lightfoot explains that Rome and Alexandria adopted Easter-Sunday to avoid “even the semblance of Judaism” (Bacchiocchi S. God’s Festival in Scripture and History. Biblical Perspectives. Befriend Springs (MI), 1995, pp. 101,102,103).

So, basically, yes, it looks like it was at least partially cowardice (fear of offending Roman authorities) and not scripture that was the motivating force for changing to Sunday. The Church of Rome, itself, has boldly asserted that it changed the date and that there was no basis in scripture to do so (see The Christian Sabbath in the Catholic Mirror).

While it was later claimed by Protestant scholars that the change to Sunday was made because of the resurrection of Jesus, the explicit argument that Christians meet on Sunday because Jesus rose on Sunday does not appear in extant Christian literature until the mid-second century. This was something asserted by the apostate known as Justin Martyr who wrote:

To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Cæsar, … And on the day called Sunday … we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, (Justin. First Apology, Chapters 1, 67. Translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885)

For the bolded portion, the Greek expression he used was τῇ τοῦ Ηλίου λεγομένη ἡμέρᾳ which literally seems to mean “on the day said to be Helios” (Helios was the name of the Greek sun god). Notice that Justin tried to link the pagan god Saturn to this. This looks like a way to try to appeal to the pagan Roman Emperor. Of course, when taking the Holy Days into account, scripture points to Jesus being killed on what we commonly call Wednesday and was resurrected late on the Sabbath (for details check out the article What Happened in the ‘Crucifixion Week’?). Justin’s chronology differs and it may be his lack of keeping the Spring biblical holy days may have affected that.

Back in the 130s, it was actually a desire for many to live in Ælia Capitolina (ancient Jerusalem) as well as seemingly fear of offending Roman authorities that brought about Sunday for Rome and other areas.

What about biblically unclean meat?

Many Protestants assert that Jesus’ statements in Mark 7 are proof there are no unclean meats. Here is a translation of that:

18 … Don’t you perceive that anything that enters into a man from outside is not able to defile him? 19 For it does not enter into his heart, but into the belly, and then passes out into the sewer, purging all food. (Mark 7:18-19)

Yet, the Apostle Peter did not take that to mean he was to eat unclean meat. Well after Jesus said the above, Peter stated:

14… I have never eaten anything common or unclean. (Acts 10:14)

Even the Orthodox scholar and teacher Origen realized that early Christians were not eating unclean meat after Jesus died as he wrote:

Peter himself seems to have observed for a considerable time the Jewish observances enjoined by the law of Moses, not having yet learned from Jesus to ascend from the law… Peter “went up into the upper room to pray about the sixth hour. And he became very hungry, and would have eaten” … Peter is represented as still observing the Jewish customs respecting clean and unclean animals. (Origen.  Contra Celsus, Book II, Chapter 1)

It should be noted that Acts 10:28 provides Peter’s own interpretation of the vision: “God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.” Peter was emphasizing that the vision was explicitly about people (Gentiles), not dietary laws.

Although some believe that Peter’s vision in Acts 10 removed the biblical restrictions against eating unclean animals, that was NOT the view of early Christians. Until sometime in the second century, the vast bulk of those who professed Christianity did NOT eat biblically unclean meat. This is supported by writings by people such as Irenaeus of Lyon (Irenaeus. Adversus haereses, Book V, Chapter 8 , Verse 4. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885) and Theophilus of Antioch (Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book III, Chapter XV. Translated by Marcus Dods, A.M. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885).

Now, while in the 2nd century, the allegorists who wrote the falsely labels Epistle of Barnabas as well as apostates like Justin Martyr accepted eating unclean meats, even the Church of Rome did not formally accept that until after 175 A.D. as it asserts this came from a decree claimed to have been issued by Bishop of Rome Eleutherius.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states:

The “Liber Pontificalis” ascribes to Pope Eleutherius a decree that no kind of food should be despised by Christians (Et hoc iterum firmavit ut nulla esca a Christians repudiaretur, maxime fidelibus, quod Deus creavit, quæ tamen rationalis et humana est). (Kirsch, Johann Peter. Pope St. Eleutherius (Eleutheros). The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909)

It should be noted that Roman bishops were not called Popes that early (that did not happen until the late fourth century). Anyway, according to Lopes book The Popes, Eleutherius was bishop of Rome from 175-189 AD. This book (which I purchased at the Vatican itself) states this about Eleutherius:

He dispensed with the obligations of Christians to follow dietary laws of Judaic origin. (Lopes A. The Popes: The lives of the pontiffs through 2000 years of history. Futura Edizoni, Roma, 1997, p. 5)

The above book should have said the obligations of biblical origin as the dietary restrictions began with God and not Jews (the distinction between clean and unclean animals was known by at least Noah’s time, since God so declared in Genesis 7:2-3).

The fact is that numerous passages in the New Testament warn against the unclean (Matthew 7:9-11, 23:24; Luke 11:11-12; 2 Corinthians 6:17, 12:20-21; Galatians 5:19; Colossians 3:5; Ephesians 5:3-5; 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8; 2 Peter 2:9-10; cf. Revelation 16:13, 18:2), faithful Christians did NOT depart from the way to consume unclean animals (see also The New Testament Church, History, and Unclean Meats).

What about the biblical Holy Days?

In addition to references in the New Testament pointing to Christians to observe them, not only does history show that Christians kept them after the New Testament was finalized (see Should You Keep God’s Holy Days or Demonic Holidays?), even the Greco-Roman Catholics and Protestants retain 1-2 of them to this day (though they changed the name, date, and meaning of one of them).

Keeping the Sabbath, avoiding consuming unclean animals, and keeping the biblical Holy Days were ALL part of the original Christian faith.

James’ brother Jude was inspired to write:

3 … to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 3)

We in the Continuing Church of God do contend for that original faith as scripture and properly understood church history supports our views on what contributed to what is known as the parting of the ways.

The Continuing Church of God is pleased to announce the following sermon from its ContinuingCOG channel:

1:21:14

Parting from THE WAY

Related to early Christian church history, many Protestant scholars teach what is known as ‘the parting of the ways.’ Basically, this is the view that they refer to as ‘Jewish Christianity’ separated from ‘Gentile Christianity’ and that that ‘Jewish’ version died out. In his book, The Parting of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity, Dr. James Dunn points to a parting in the second century, then mentions other partings. After admitting what original Christianity was, Dr. Dunn wrote, “Whether Jewish Christianity could or should have been retained within the spectrum of catholic Christianity is an important question which it may now be impossible to answer.” Dr. Thiel says that is NOT impossible to answer if you believe the Bible and will look at often overlooked aspects of early Christian church history. After quoting scriptures, Dr. Thiel pointed out that people parted from the Apostles, like Paul and John, rejected hierarchical church governance, preferred their own opinions, and were influenced by pagan philosophies. Quotes about what happened in Jerusalem related to the Bar Kochba revolt that ended c. 135 and a split between the faithful and the cowardly compromisers were provided. Faithful heresy fighters like Polycarp of Smyrna, Polycrates of Ephesus, and Serapion of Antioch were mentioned, as well as the unfaithful such as Simon Magus, Thebuthis, Marcus of Jerusalem, Justin Martyr, Marcion, and Valentinus. Gregory the Wonder Worker, Emperor Constantine, and Emperor Theodosius were discussed and denounced. The original date of Passover and the Council of Nicea’s date change to Easter Sunday was mentioned. The fact of supposedly ‘Christian’ emperors, like Constantine decreeing the death penalty for the faithful who would not eat unclean animals and Theodosius decreeing the death penalty for those willing to be faithful to the date of Passover was mentioned. Dr. Thiel cited Protestant as well as Roman Catholic scholars who agree that the bulk of those who profess Christianity post third century do not hold to the teachings and practices of the original Christians. Numerous scriptures pointing to THE WAY, including Jesus’ warnings about those who will not follow the narrow way were also quoted.