The activity of Jesus - religious prophet and reformer who preaches year 27 at year 30 of our era in Palestine - mark the beginning of Christianity. At that time, Palestine belongs to Rome and is characterized by its religion, the Judaism, which has a particular status in the Empire because of its faith in single God (monotheism). The foreign occupation is strongly felt in the country, where the local political power more and more is reduced and shared.

The sons of Hérode, the last Jewish king, itself dependant on Rome, are under the control of a Roman prefect depend on the legate of the province of Syria. The taxes are heavy and the social and political destabilization is accompanied by a religious agitation. The Judaism is shared in several currents, but the religious practices and the role of the Temple of Jerusalem are elements common to the dominant currents.  

After the conquests of Alexandre to the IV E front century J. - C., the meeting of the worlds Greek and Eastern produced a culture which became that of all the Mediterranean basin: the Hellenism was adopted with its language (the Greek) by the Roman Empire. But its aiming assimilatrice and religious and political compromisings with the power dominating cause protest movements inside the Judaism, which are often based on feverish waiting of a Messiah sent by God to restore justice and peace.

The currents of revival of the Judaism are multiple. They can be tinted of nationalism (like the movement Zealot) or centered on the religious protest (like the movement of the esséniens, alive in communities in the desert). One of them is that of Jean the Baptist, who preaches and baptizes far from the important centers. Its baptism assumes the role (forgiveness of the sins) that the orthodoxe Judaism allots to the sacrifices offered in the Temple of Jerusalem.  

The activity of Jesus and Judaism
Jesus, following Jean-Baptiste, announces the imminent arrival of the reign and the judgment of God. Like him, he announces the reign of God. But it separates from the Baptist in this which it insists on the love more than on anger of God.  

Principal testimony on the historical life of Jesus, who was of Nazareth, as a Galileo, where it began his ministry, is that of the Gospels. However these books are not biographies, but interpretations of its life from the catechetic point of view. Nevertheless, it is established with a relative certainty that Jesus was an itinerant preacher, who brought together disciples around him, is taught and operated cures. He wanted to cause a reform of the Judaism by announcing the proximity of God, by proposing another manner of understanding his will that offered by the Jewish Law and by removing the sacred character from the institution of the Temple. On these the last two points it caused the opposition of the religious leaders, which led to its execution in the form of the Roman torment of the cross. After its death, its disciples met around the faith in its resurrection, which authenticates it like the true envoy of God. Thus is born the movement from Jesus, who is, at his origin, a movement of revival inside the Judaism.  

The disciples of Jesus gather initially in Jerusalem, where they announce the Gospel, the “good news” that God appeared in the person of Jesus: the Messiah (or Christ) awaited. Among those which are integrated into their group find Jews who lived outside Palestine and who are opened with the Greek culture and its universalism. The disciples of Jesus coming from this Hellenistic Judaism are more critical with regard to the Jewish institutions than those coming from the Palestinian Judaism.

The Hellenistic jews cause confrontations with the religious leaders and are persecuted. Obliged to flee, they transmit the contents of the preaching of Jesus to the margins of Palestine, in particular in cities where the populations are very frays, in particular in Antioche (Syria), where a Jewish diaspora and followers of various Eastern religions are. Not-Jews are convinced by their preaching and set up with Jews a group of disciples of Jesus Christ.  

The movement of Jesus exceeds the borders of the Judaism then. It accepts, indeed, of the members who do not belong to God's people, do not carry the mark of their membership to the Jewish people (the circumcision) and do not obey the Jewish regulations (for example, on the pure one and the impure one). In Antioche, one gives the followers of Jesus, Christ, the name of Christians. The rupture is consumed, Christianity was born.  
 

For the followers of the one of the currents of primitive Christianity, which are found for the prayer, the baptism of faithful and the common meal, Jesus is before all the announced Messiah, which one awaits the return. For those of a close current, the Christian faith is before a a whole new obedience, a fidelity with the message of Jesus and its reinterpretation of the Jewish Law. Different from the two precedents, another current, whose center is Jerusalem, sees as a Jesus the Judge of the end of time, which sends its Spirit to its disciples. Leaving family and goods, those become itinerant preachers; living in waiting of the end of the world and practitioner of the acts of cure, they evangelize Palestine and Syria. For their part, the Christians resulting from the Hellenistic Judaism direct their preaching towards the nonJewish mediums. D' Antioche, their general headquarter, they leave on mission to carry to the Eastern Mediterranean their confession of faith, which gives the priority to the cross and the resurrection of Jesus for the safety of the men. A last current, badly known, is that of the movement johannic, which undoubtedly begins in Asia Mineure.  

Each one of these currents has its emblematic characters. In the relatively broad circle disciples (men and women) which surrounds Jesus, in particular in the group of the Twelve selected ones as apostles (“sent”), it is Pierre who is detached. After the death of Jesus, his close relations acquire also influence: Jacques will become the chief of the community of Jerusalem after the departure of Pierre for Rome. The hellenists are represented by Paul. With Pierre, it is one of the two great figures of the origins.  

Palestinian campaign at the cities of the Empire
The preaching of Jesus himself reached a Palestinian world still very country. Then the movement of Jesus extends in Syria-Palestine and its cities. Incipient Christianity quickly exceeds the borders of religion and national origin, benefitting from what makes the force of the Roman Empire: its terrestrial and maritime roads of the Mediterranean, its language of culture and administration. It is propagated in the vast markets of cultural goods and monk who are the cities. Christian preaching profits there from the attraction which the Jewish monotheism and the high-quality of its morals exert.  

In the big cities of the Empire, where Jewish communities live, the missionaries propose initially their message within the framework of the synagogs. The sympathizers of the Judaism (called them “fearing God”) are attracted by this preaching which breaks with a particularism of the national type. But the failure of Christianity near the Jews themselves made that the new religion is spread more and more in a context where it is confronted with the ways of thinking religious and philosophical of the hellenized world.  

Extremely abundant to I er century, the religions of hello coming from the East offer a mystical experiment and a hope in beyond to those which are initiated there, while remaining tolerant between them. The Christianity, which is in an intense religious competition, is dissociated by the fact that he proposes a safety being the subject of a public advertisement (thus not reserved with initiates) and that he refuses any coexistence with other religions, any form of syncretism.  

The Roman Empire leaves free course to this profusion of religions, but it imposes a unit ideology, which is the worship of the emperor. In this syncretistic context where a new worship can be added to another, the Judaism - affirming that there is only one God, the single object of the human worship - observes a strict monotheism and profits from a recognition of this particular design. The Christians, also monotheistic, profit initially from the same statute as the Jews, exempted by the Roman law of the worship of the emperor. But when their membership of another religion appears clearly, they are weakened. Second half of Ier century in IIe century, they undergo on the part of the imperial power of specific persecutions, then increasingly frequent and systematic in IIIe century and the beginning of the IV E century.  

Disparate communities
The expansion of Christianity is organized around two poles: itinerant preachers and sedentary groups of sympathizers that the first leave after their passage. Little by little local communities constitute themselves which take the name of Church (ecclesia, “assembled convened”, a typical institution of the Greek city). The term will take a double significance: that of the group of believers who gather in a given place, and that of the whole of the believers who, in their totality, constitute the Church of Christ. Not having a clean building, the Churches join together in particular houses of people of very varied social origin (slaves, free men, rising classes, lower classes), with the image of the groups which surrounded Jesus in Palestine.  

These communities are generally made up of Christians of pagan origin (pagano-Christians) and Christians of Jewish origin (Judaeo-Chistian) or coming from close circles. This disparity is not long in creating problems: the Christians of Jewish origin, attached to their identity and their membership of the people chosen by God, are reticent to take the meals, in particular the eucharistie (the division of the bread and the wine, by which constitutes the communion of the believers and their bond with God) in common with the Christians of pagan origin, who are unaware of their food precepts. Very early the question arises of knowing if it is necessary to pass by the Judaism to be able to profit from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if it is necessary to be integrated initially into God's people by the mark of membership of the circumcision and the practice of the Jewish regulations for bénéficer of the grace (free forgiveness) of God. The conviction of the apostle Paul, the principal craftsman of the opening without condition of the Gospel to pagan, carried it, not without to have involved debates and conflicts.  
 
Christian Writings

The religious texts of reference of the first followers of Jesus are those of the Judaism: the books that they called then the Old Testament, from which they draw elements which, in their eyes, announce the arrival of Jesus-Christ and reveal the direction of its mission. But these texts do not enable them to be located compared to the company and at the religions of origin, or to regulate the divergences inside the communities and between the itinerant preachers.

To help the Churches, the Paul apostle writes, between 50 and 60 after J. - C., a certain number of letters which, gathered, form a collection, whose each community can have a specimen. These letters and the Gospels, composed between 70 and the end of Ier century, are used for the catechesis (teaching) and the readings during the assemblies. The production of Christian writings continues throughout IIe century not to dry up more.  

About the middle of the II E century appears the need for establishing a selection among the writings to preserve a fidelity at the origin at the same time as a bond between the Churches which occupy an increasingly vast space, which supports the development of independent traditions. In the middle of the IV E century, a single list is fixed: it contains the writings which form New Testament.

God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit

The first Christian communities give many titles to Jesus, of which most important are “Lord”, “Son of God” and “Christ”. For the Christians of pagan origin, the title of Christ was not in charge of the same direction as in the Jewish world; it very quickly took an eigenvalue and, joined to Jesus, formed a double name. In the name of Jesus-Christ, Jesus returns to the life and the death of the man of Nazareth, and Christ with the mission and dignity particular recognized in Jesus in the faith in his resurrection. The relation between God and Jesus-Christ constitutes the originality of the Christian faith.  

Jesus-Christ is that which reveals in a particular way the will and work of hello of God. In the texts of the Old Testament, God is the creator of the world, that which names and realizes the beings and the things, which allows the life by expressing requirements with regard to the men. This God is also God of dialog, personal God, whose history merges with that of humanity. For Christian theology, the human being has access to God only by Jesus-Christ, who is the face delivered to the world. The single and major relation of God and Christ is translated in the terms of Father and Son.

God one in three people
After the death of Jesus, the faith in his resurrection affirms the victory of God over death like a gift of life in spite of death and beyond of it, at the same time as it guarantees another form of presence of Jesus-Christ. This one appears in particular by the Holy Spirit, which is at the same time a comforter and a support. It gives in memory and makes it possible to understand the words of Christ, and thus inspires the life of the believers. The various methods of the presence of God and his relation with the man were the object of an intense reflection in the primitive Churches.  

The debates initially related to the christology: it was a question of explaining how Jesus-Christ can be at the same time man and God, and how single God can be at the same time Père, Fils and Holy Spirit. The creed old, like the symbol of the Apostles (III E century), tried to fix the broad outlines of the faith by developing the relation between God and Jesus-Christ. But of the dissensions took place quickly and, when Christianity became the religion of the Empire at the beginning of the IV E century, the emperors convened councils known as “oecumenical”, charged to formulate the dogmas of the Church in its universality. The Trinitarian doctrines - which affirm that God is one in three people - are one of these dogmas recognized by all the Churches. It is not expressed like such in New Testament, but is based on its testimony. The Trinity indicates that God is in itself a structure of dialog and that it contains a mystery and a freedom.  

According to their religious sensitivities and their own history, the Christian Churches grant a function and a place different to the demonstrations from God. That is true in particular for the Holy Spirit. But they are based all on the definitions of the first great councils of the IV E and O C centuries.

Christian Churches in the history

The life of the local Churches shapes in the worship, teaching, the evangelization and works of solidarity. Very early, the Christian worships are celebrated Sunday, day of the resurrection of Christ. They comprise a liturgy (a confession of faith and songs) and the reading of biblical texts, possibly followed of comments. The baptism, which mark the entry in the Church, and the eucharistie (also called Sainte Holy Communion), which celebrates the union of the Christians with Jesus-Christ, are the two sacraments practiced in the primitive Churches and commun runs with all the Christian Churches. A sacrament expresses the gift of God, whereas the sacrifices are gifts offered by the men to the divinity.  

To live in the duration, the Churches admit in their center of the called particular services ministries. At the beginning of Christianity, these ministries are little instituted and vary from one community to another. New Testament gives a report on ministries for the word (doctors and prophets), of ministries of order and government (old and épiscopes) and of ministries of assistance (deacons).  

The organization of the Churches
In spite of persecutions, Christianity makes fast great strides in Ier and to IIe century and extends towards the Western part of the Empire, where one speaks Latin. The multiplication of the Churches and the distance of the period of the first witnesses (Apostles) lead to an organization exceeding the local level. It is a question of preserving the faith of the origins in a visible unit. The local Churches have from now on at their head only one bishop, who has authority on the priests. Certain episcopal sees are placed above the others, but as of Ier century the Roman seat has primacy on all. The bishop is regarded as a father (“dad”), who will give the title reserved to the bishop of Rome (pope). The organization of the Churches is modelled on the political organization, administrative and economic of the company, especially in Occident, which inherits Latin legalism.  

Churches and political power
The Roman Empire, with its two poles - the Westerner and the Eastern one -, knows faults as of IIIe century. The Constantin emperor authorizes the exercise of the Christian worship into 313. Christianity will be made up in official religion at the end of the IV E century. After the disappearance of the Western Empire, in 476, the Latin Church is freed from the supervision of Constantinople and compensates in many cases the political power which disaggregates. With X E century, the christianization of Europe is completed. The pope becomes the main character of Occident, adding a temporal power to his spiritual power. In the East, on the other hand, the Greek Church generally depends on the emperor.  

Appeared as of the constitution of the Churches, the monachism takes at the beginning the form of the departure with the desert (hermits), then that of the Community life (coenobites). Whereas for the long period of ambiguous relationships to the power, the Churches replaced the failing State (education, health), the monastic orders played a big role in the development of Eastern and Western civilizations.

Separations in different branches

After the end of the Western Empire, the East and the Occident have increasingly rare exchanges, and the cultural and spiritual divergences are accentuated. The Christian literatures, in Greek on a side, Latin of the other, develop separately. The East, which lives under a political unit (the Empire continues until the medium of the XV E century), is centralizing from the ecclesiastical point of view than the Occident. Four episcopal sees of the East, or patriarchates, are represented by the patriarch of Constantinople; they recognize a primacy of honor to the bishop of Rome.

But a competition of influence settles between Rome and Constantinople. Moreover, the Eastern ones reproach Latin for introducing not justified innovations (use of the host, fasts, celibacy of the priests). The most serious crisis relates to the dogma of the Trinity. To the VI E century, to the formula “the Holy Spirit proceeds of the Father”, a council adds “and of the Son”. With the eyes of Eastern, it is to give to the Spirit a secondary role and to break the balance of the Trinity. At the end of the IX E century, it appears a dissension of an institutional nature, when papacy becomes the centralizing authority of the Christian Churches. The rupture, which was in germ for a long time, is concretized in 1054, when the pope Leon IX excommunicates the patriarch of Constantinople and that this one retorts in a similar way to him. The Church of the East takes the name of Greek Orthodox Church then.  

The European Reform
To the XVI E century, with the Rebirth, humanism, of the inventions like printing works, and the discovery of America, a desire of change appears with regard to the Church of Occident, or Roman Church, marked by the temporal ambitions of papacy, the luxury of the high clergy and the ignorance in which is maintained the people. After his excommunication in 1520, the German monk Martin Luther organizes the Reform under the protection of prince de Saxe. Parallel movements are born in Switzerland and France, with Zwingli, then Calvin. In spite of their common sights on the place of the Bible, free safety and the role of laic, the reformers do not found a Church linked vis-a-vis the Roman Church.  

Christian confessions

From the XVI E century, Christianity thus knows three large branches: Catholicism, orthodoxy and Protestantism. Each confession developed in relation to a culture which it fertilized: Catholicism and Protestantism marked the Occidental culture; orthodoxy, the Eastern world and Eastern Europe.  

Catholicism
The Church, which had its center in Rome and retained the term of catholic (in Greek, “universal”) as of the IV E century, with the council of Nicée (325), is equipped with a centralized and hierarchical organization. The power is exerted there by the pope and the ecumenical councils. The pope, in Rome, constitutes the visible unit of the Church. The mediation between God and the faithful ones are ensured by the religious authorities, which transmit and manage the safety offered to the human beings in several fields, in particular that of the teaching and that of the distribution of the grace. Another element of mediation is the mass, conceived as a sacrifice where the gift of Jesus-Christ is renewed on the cross in the sacrament of the eucharistie. The sacraments, seven, necessary to the reception of the grace, are exempted by the priests. Another mediation appears in the worship of the Virgin Mary and that of the saints.  

Orthodoxy
The contents of the faith go back there to the formulation of the first centuries. Orthodoxy (“the opinion or right faith”, in Greek) sticks indeed to the dogmas defined by the first eight ecumenical councils. Faithful at the origins, it is characterized by a relation of collegial structure between the Churches, which are autocéphales and elect their own bosses. The patriarch of Constantinople (today Istanbul) preserves a primacy of honor: he convenes conferences panorthodoxes, placed under the sign of interdependence of the Churches. The orthodoxe priests (but not monks) can marry.  

Protestantism
The term of Protestant refers to an historical event: in 1529, the German princes favorable to the Reform protested against the attitude of Charles Quint, who required the tender of all in Rome. Protestantism knows a great ecclesiastical parcelling out, consequence of its choice in favor of the freedom of conscience. The Protestant Churches have their design of the Church in common, the refusal of mediations in the management of the grace, and the assertion of personal liabilities in the ethical choices. The ecclesiastical organization is the business of the communities, which give each other common rules on democratic bases. The protesting worship is characterized by the importance given to the word (preaching) and by the administration of two sacraments: baptism and the Holy Communion. The pastors are married and, in the near total of the Churches, the women have access to the ministries. The face-to-face discussion of the man with God removes all the other mediations, in particular that of a hierarchy and a clergy.

Christianity at the end of the XXe century

After Christianity had become the official religion of the Empire gréco-Roman, of the modes of Christendom were established around the Mediterranean basin and in the Slavic world. Thus, during the European Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was cement of the company, also organized hierarchically, with at its head the king, representative of God on ground. The religion is then the source of morals, the guarantor of the order.

As for theology - the first science -, it delimits the field of the knowledge and tries to control it. Breaches take place as of the XIII E century, which are extended to the Rebirth until fracturing the system at the time of the Reform.

To the XVIII E century, the movement of the Lights accelerates the process. The human reason, freed from the religious supervision, from now on will explore all the fields of reality. A new frame of mind settles in Occident, involving a liberalization of manners and a reform of the institutions. Catholicism resists it in a frontal way, whereas Protestantism more integrates the transformations of the thought and the socio-economic life. The movement of the Lights, whose certain aspects were contained in germ in Christianity, is directed mainly against the Churches.

To the XIX E century, confrontation continues and is accentuated with the appearance of a critical atheism which works out new systems of analysis of the world and the man.  

The religion does not make any more the law with science and becomes itself object of science. To the XX E century, the European companies are secularized and know a whole a process of laicization. Secularization reaches the culture, whereas laicization relates to the institutions, but the two phenomena are influenced mutually. In addition, secularization produces also a change inside the Churches (council the Vatican II).