“Over time, critical reflection on the transformation of the message of Jesus of Nazareth through various historical processes following his death has taken on special relevance. This transformation culminated in the consolidation of an ecclesiastical institution associated with imperial power, whose features differed considerably from the original message preached by Jesus in Palestine.
The founding of Christianity cannot be attributed to the authorities who promoted his condemnation, although certain later practices reproduce mechanisms similar to those he directly criticized.
With the institutional development of the Church, forms of legitimization, exclusion, and exercise of authority were incorporated that contradict the unstructured character of the original movement.
The Gospel of John clearly identifies the political and religious motivations that led to his execution:
Συνεβουλεύσαντο οὖν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ἵνα ἀποκτείνωσιν αὐτόν·
“So the chief priests and the Pharisees took counsel to put him to death.”
(John 11:53).
The cause of this decision was not a simple doctrinal disagreement, but a reaction to the threat his teaching posed to the balance between the temple and the Roman occupation.
If we let him go like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our place and our nation.
“If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our place and our nation.”
(John 11:48).
In its early decades, Christianity was a marginal, eschatological movement that was highly critical of religious ritualization and the hierarchical institutionalization of spiritual experience.
The early Christian communities were scattered, frequently persecuted, lacked a fixed structure, and held varying interpretations of the figure and teachings of Jesus. In this pre-legal recognition stage, Christianity was characterized by remarkable theological diversity, with Gnostic, apocalyptic, and sapiential influences and no established canon.
The situation changed radically in the fourth century with the conversion of Emperor Constantine and the promulgation of the Edict of Milan in 313 AD. This political-religious shift began a process of incorporating Christianity into the Roman state apparatus, marking its transition to a structured religion.
Not only was its practice legalized, but its doctrine was also reconfigured with the aim of consolidating the ideological unity necessary for the cohesion of the Empire.
Ecumenical councils, dogmatic formulas, and liturgical canons progressively defined an orthodoxy under episcopal control and in close relationship with civil power.
The figure of Jesus, itinerant preacher, critic of legalism, and promoter of a direct relationship with the divine, was reinterpreted by official theology. This reinterpretation responded both to theological needs and imperial interests, adapting his image to a new political and ecclesiastical context.
Thus, from the proclamation of a Kingdom not of this world… Ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου or “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36),
there was a shift to a Church embedded in imperial structures.
The new Church assumed legal, administrative, and symbolic functions, operating as a mediator between the sacred and the state order. This phenomenon should not be interpreted as a conscious betrayal, but rather as the result of a complex institutional reconfiguration. The goal was to ensure the survival of the message in political and cultural conditions profoundly different from those of the Palestinian context of the first century.
The historical tension is not limited to the execution of Jesus, but continues in the doctrinal transformation of his legacy into structures that he had openly criticized.”
Prabhuji
