© 2016 Lawrence J. Bowman
© 2016 The Urantia Book Fellowship
Listen Up Grandparents and YaYAs | Volume 16, Number 1, 2016 (Summer) — Index | Thoughts on the Bestowals of Personality and the Thought Adjuster |
Consider the following passages from The Urantia Book :
Nathaniel’s father (Bartholomew) died shortly after Pentecost, after which this apostle went into Mesopotamia and India proclaiming the glad tidings of the kingdom and baptizing believers. His brethren never knew what became of their onetime philosopher, poet, and humorist. But he was also a great man in the kingdom and did much to spread his Master’s teachings, even though he did not participate in the organization of the subsequent Christian church. Nathaniel died in India. UB 139:6.9
Thomas had a trying time during the days of the trial and crucifixion. He was for a season in the depths of despair, but he rallied his courage, stuck to the apostles, and was present with them to welcome Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. For a while he succumbed to his doubting depression but eventually rallied his faith and courage. He gave wise counsel to the apostles after Pentecost and, when persecutions scattered the believers, went to Cyprus, Crete, the North African coast, and Sicily, preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom and baptizing believers. And Thomas continued preaching and baptizing until he was apprehended by the agents of the Roman government and was put to death in Malta. Just a few weeks before his death he had begun the writing of the life and teachings of Jesus. UB 139:8.13
Philip went on through the trying times of the Master’s death, participated in the reorganization of the twelve, and was the first to go forth to win souls for the kingdom outside of the immediate Jewish ranks, being most successful in his work for the Samaritans and in all his subsequent labors in behalf of the gospel… [H]e was finally crucified for his faith and buried at Hierapolis. UB 139:5.10-12
After the dispersion because of the Jerusalem persecutions, Simon [Zelotees] went into temporary retirement. He was literally crushed. As a nationalist patriot he had surrendered in deference to Jesus’ teachings; now all was lost. He was in despair, but in a few years he rallied his hopes and went forth to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom.
He went to Alexandria and, after working up the Nile, penetrated into the heart of Africa, everywhere preaching the gospel of Jesus and baptizing believers. Thus he labored until he was an old man and feeble. And he died and was buried in the heart of Africa. UB 139:11.10-11
When these persecutions caused the believers to forsake Jerusalem, Matthew journeyed north, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and baptizing believers. He was lost to the knowledge of his former apostolic associates, but on he went, preaching and baptizing, through Syria, Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, and Thrace. And it was in Thrace, at Lysimachia, that certain unbelieving Jews conspired with the Roman soldiers to encompass his death… UB 139:7.10
… And as concerns James [Zebedee], it was literally true—he did drink the cup with the Master, seeing that he was the first of the apostles to experience martyrdom, being early put to death with the sword by Herod Agrippa. James was thus the first of the twelve to sacrifice his life upon the new battle line of the kingdom… UB 139:3.8
When the later persecutions finally scattered the apostles from Jerusalem, Andrew journeyed through Armenia, Asia Minor, and Macedonia and, after bringing many thousands into the kingdom, was finally apprehended and crucified in Patrae in Achaia… UB 139:1.12
Peter’s wife was a very able woman. For years she labored acceptably as a member of the women’s corps, and when Peter was driven out of Jerusalem, she accompanied him upon all his journeys to the churches as well as on all his missionary excursions. And the day her illustrious husband yielded up his life, she was thrown to the wild beasts in the arena at Rome.
And so this man Peter, an intimate of Jesus, one of the inner circle, went forth from Jerusalem… and he regarded himself as the recipient of high honors when his captors informed him that he must die as his Master had died—on the cross. And thus was Simon Peter crucified in Rome. UB 139:2.14-15
John [Zebedee] was in prison several times and was banished to the Isle of Patmos for a period of four years until another emperor came to power in Rome. Had not John been tactful and sagacious, he would undoubtedly have been killed as was his more outspoken brother James. As the years passed, John, together with James the Lord’s brother, learned to practice wise conciliation when they appeared before the civil magistrates… UB 139:4.13
The preceding selections from paper 139, “The Twelve Apostles”—the longest paper in The Urantia Book —briefly summarize what became of the nine apostles who went on to become spokesmen of the teachings of Jesus after the crucifixion and Pentecost. The Alpheus twins played no further role, and Judas Iscariot killed himself before his Master was even nailed to the cross. Of these nine, six were put to death by Roman authorities. The remaining three died natural deaths, with two of them (John and Simon) living long lives. John Zebedee, at 24 the youngest when he was chosen an apostle, lived to be the oldest (101). We can only imagine what he thought about the growth he had witnessed of the religion that had developed over more than seven decades since the death of Jesus.
I have rearranged the above passages by the order that it seems to me the apostles finally left Jerusalem. Although Philip is described as “the first to go forth to win souls for the kingdom outside of the immediate Jewish ranks,” I have placed him as the third to leave. Acts 8:5-13 says he took the gospel to Samaria following the martyrdom of Stephen.[1] Also, as we will see in a moment from a later passage in The Urantia Book, Philip was one of the six apostles who initially played active roles in the early preaching of the gospel. Nathaniel and Thomas had left, and Simon Zelotes seemed to be keeping a low profile.
In the above passages there are tantalizing statements that make readers wonder how long the apostles remained together before they went their separate ways. “When the later persecutions finally scattered the apostles from Jerusalem…” “… was the first to go forth to win souls for the kingdom outside of the immediate Jewish ranks…” “His brethren never knew what became of [Nathaniel]…” “When these persecutions caused the believers to forsake Jerusalem…” “… He was lost to the knowledge of his former apostolic associates…” “… when persecutions scattered the believers…”
We need to have a better understanding of how long the remaining nine apostles stayed together and what events led to their dispersals. We also need to understand the role of Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of the early followers of Jesus who had a spiritual transformation on his way to Damascus and became Paul, the real founder of the Christian church. And we also need to know if there were others who knew Jesus personally who became martyrs to their faith.
Consider again this statement in the passage about John Zebedee: “… As the years passed, John, together with James the Lord’s brother, learned to practice wise conciliation when they appeared before the civil magistrates…” UB 139:4.13
This seems to imply that James, the brother of Jesus, who became the titular head of the Christian church in Jerusalem, eventually died a natural death. However, according to Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived a generation after Jesus and is an important non-Christian source on the period of the early years of the church, James “suffered martyrdom by stoning at the instigation of the high priest Ananus during the interregnum after the death of the procurator Festus in AD 61.”[2] The early Christian writer St. Hegesippus says James was thrown from a Temple tower.[3]
I was startled when I first learned this about James several years ago. I have always wondered why The Urantia Book says nothing about James’s demise.
Rodan of Alexandria, who met Jesus in September, AD 29, and had lengthy discussions with Nathaniel and Thomas, yielded up his life in Greece with others “when the persecutions were at their height.” UB 161:2.12
We know that most of the apostles immediately went into hiding when the Roman authorities arrested Jesus. Only John was with the Master through the long evening and into the terrifying hours of the early morning. Peter followed the temple guards and Roman soldiers to the home of Annas but returned to the camp at Gethsemane after having denied to attendants in the courtyard that he was a follower of Jesus. By Saturday night after the crucifixion, the remaining eleven apostles were assembled in secret in the upper chamber of the home of John Mark’s father. Thomas, however, quickly left for the home of Simon in Bethpage, where he grieved in solitude. He remained there for a week until Peter and John brought him back with them, and Jesus made a morontia appearance to the gathered apostles. The group then left for Galilee and remained there for some two weeks until returning to Jerusalem. They purposely entered the city after nightfall so as not to be seen by the Jewish authorities. They were saddened to learn of the death of Elijah Mark and avoided appearing in public for the funeral.
That evening the apostles met in the upper chamber. All but Thomas, Simon Zelotes, and the Alpheus twins “pledged themselves to go forth in the public preaching of the new gospel of the risen Lord…” “Already had begun the first steps of changing the gospel of the kingdom—sonship with God and brotherhood with man—into the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus. Nathaniel opposed this shift in the burden of their public message, but he could not withstand Peter’s eloquence, neither could he overcome the enthusiasm of the disciples, especially the women believers.” UB 192:4.7
The apostles largely remained in hiding at the home of the widow, Mary Mark, until after Jesus’ ascension and the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth on the day of Pentecost.
Soon after Pentecost the twins returned to their homes in Galilee. Simon Zelotes was in retirement for some time before he went forth preaching the gospel. Thomas worried for a shorter time and then resumed his teaching. Nathaniel differed increasingly with Peter regarding preaching about Jesus in the place of proclaiming the former gospel of the kingdom. This disagreement became so acute by the middle of the following month [June, 30 AD] that Nathaniel withdrew, going to Philadelphia to visit Abner and Lazarus; and after tarrying there for more than a year, he went on into the lands beyond Mesopotamia preaching the gospel as he understood it.
This left but six of the original twelve apostles to become actors on the stage of the early proclamation of the gospel in Jerusalem: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, and Matthew. UB 193:6.4-5 (emphasis added)
Section 4, “Beginnings of the Christian Church,” of paper 194, “Bestowal of the Spirit of Truth,” summarizes how “this Jesus sect” quickly attracted followers and once more gained the attention of the Sadducees. They “began to put the leaders of the Jesus sect in jail until they were prevailed upon to accept the counsel of one of the leading rabbis, Gamaliel, who advised them: ‘Refrain from these men and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them, lest haply you be found even to be fighting against God.’ They decided to follow Gamaliel’s counsel, and there ensued a time of peace and quiet in Jerusalem, during which the new gospel about Jesus spread rapidly.” UB 194:4.10
According to Acts, when the apostles were arrested and put in the common prison, “an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, ‘Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.’ And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and taught.” Acts 5:18-21 The temple officers could not figure out how the prison could be securely locked with sentries standing at the doors, but the apostles were not inside. Instead, they were told, “The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.” Acts 5:23,25
And so all went well in Jerusalem until the time of the coming of the Greeks in large numbers from Alexandria. Two of the pupils of Rodan arrived in Jerusalem and made many converts from among the Hellenists. Among their early converts were Stephen and Barnabas. These able Greeks did not so much have the Jewish viewpoint, and they did not so well conform to the Jewish mode of worship and other ceremonial practices. And it was the doings of these Greek believers that terminated the peaceful relations between the Jesus brotherhood and the Pharisees and Sadducees. Stephen and his Greek associate began to preach more as Jesus taught, and this brought them into immediate conflict with the Jewish rulers. In one of Stephen’s public sermons, when he reached the objectionable part of the discourse, they dispensed with all formalities of trial and proceeded to stone him to death on the spot.
Stephen, the leader of the Greek colony of Jesus’ believers in Jerusalem, thus became the first martyr to the new faith and the specific cause for the formal organization of the early Christian church. This new crisis was met by the recognition that believers could not longer go on as a sect within the Jewish faith. They all agreed that they must separate themselves from unbelievers; and within one month from the death of Stephen the church at Jerusalem had been organized under the leadership of Peter, and James the brother of Jesus had been installed as its titular head.
And thus broke out the new and relentless persecutions by the Jews, so that the active teachers of the new religion about Jesus, which subsequently at Antioch was called Christianity, went forth to the ends of the empire proclaiming Jesus. In carrying this message, before the time of Paul the leadership was in Greek hands; and these first missionaries, as also the later ones, followed the path of Alexander’s march of former days, going by way of Gaza and Tyre to Antioch and then over Asia Minor to Macedonia, then on to Rome and to the uttermost parts of the empire. UB 194:4.11-13
The question arises: When was Stephen martyred? The above paragraphs make it sound like several years passed between Pentecost and his death. But much earlier in The Urantia Book we are given a clue as to when Stephen died. Remember that Stephen had met Jesus when he was in Jerusalem for his first Passover. That was in 17 AD. The two men talked for four hours. Stephen “never even faintly surmised that the Galilean he had talked with some fifteen years previously was the very same person whom he later proclaimed the world’s Savior, and for whom he was so soon to die, thus becoming the first martyr of the newly evolving Christian faith.” UB 128:3.6 (emphasis added) Add fifteen to 17 AD and that brings us to 32 AD, just two years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
As Stephen was being stoned to death, “the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.” Acts 7:58 “And Saul was consenting to his death.” Acts 8:1 This book of the New Testament says that Stephen’s death precipitated a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and many believers scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Only the apostles remained. Saul entered house after house and dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. It was then that Philip began his ministry in Samaria. Acts 8:1-5
The description in Acts of the behavior of Saul of Tarsus at the time of Stephen’s death and awhile afterwards seems to be at odds with what The Urantia Book says of him. According to The Urantia Book, Saul was so affected by Stephen’s steadfast proclamation of his faith in his dying moments that Saul began to question if what he was doing was correct. “… [T]here were aroused in his heart those emotions which eventually led him to espouse the cause for which Ste-phen died; later on he became the aggressive and indomitable Paul, the philosopher, if not the sole founder, of the Christian religion.” UB 128:3.6 A more recent writer offers a different viewpoint on Saul’s role:
… On this occasion [of the stoning of Stephen] Saul, the scribal student and young teacher, played only a small role. But when others of these followers continued to agitate and did not lie low, Saul initiated a series of persecutions against these noisy sectarians. He did not shrink from the use of brute force. Presumably Hellenists were arrested in the synagogues and condemned to the usual punishment of thirty-nine lashes; some may even have suffered more serious physical hurt and even have been killed. In this way the relatively small community of the Hellenists was largely destroyed and fled from Jerusalem to neighboring territories and cities…[4]
It probably was not long after the death of Stephen that Saul went to Damascus in search of runaway converts. It was then that he had his “spectacular” conversion, whose details are not described in The Urantia Book. We are only told that he had a “personal experience” UB 196:2.1 (italics in original) that greatly transformed him. In Galatians 1:12-17, Paul (the former Saul) tells of his former life in Judaism, violently persecuting the followers of Jesus and trying to destroy that church, and says he had a revelation of Jesus Christ. He was told to preach about Jesus among the Gentiles. At the time he discussed this with no one and did not return to Jerusalem to meet the apostles. Instead he went to Arabia for a while and then back to Damascus.
Three accounts of this episode on the road to Damascus are given in Acts, in Chapters 9, 22, and 26. As the book of Acts was written by Luke, a later convert of Paul’s, these would be secondhand descriptions. Saul was blinded by a light from the skies and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” When Saul asks who is speaking, he is told, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” The men who were traveling with Saul heard the voice but saw no one. They led Saul by hand into Damascus, where he was without sight for three days and neither ate nor drank. Acts 22:9 says that those traveling with him saw the light but did not hear the voice.
In the first chapter of Galatians, Paul continues his saga. After three years in Damascus,[5] he “went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas[6] [Peter], and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. (In what I am writing to you, I do not lie!)” I wonder why he did not see at least James and John Zebedee, as well as Andrew and Matthew. Paul then went “into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still not known by sight to the churches of Christ in Judea; they only heard it said, ‘He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’”
This first meeting between Peter and Paul was very important. Peter and the other apostles understandably were suspicious at first of this former persecutor turned proselytizer, but relations between the two men seemed to be off to a good start, and Paul was established as a recognized apostle alongside the founders of the church at Jerusalem. Paul probably chose not to stay longer because he feared reprisals from the Pharisees, who likely thought of him as a renegade.[7] Also, certain Hellenistic Jews wanted to kill him.[8] When Paul left Jerusalem, he returned to his home in Tarsus (according to Acts 9:30) and remained out of touch with the leaders in Jerusalem for several years.
However, Paul himself in Galatians mentions Syria and Cilicia, in that order. Tarsus was in the latter province. The Urantia Book says Paul was in Antioch, the capital of Syria, ten years after Jesus had spent more than two months in that city; three weeks of that time he worked as a tentmaker. This would place Paul’s visit in Antioch in the year 35, the same year that he first met Peter and James the brother of Jesus. When Paul “heard his followers speak of the doctrines of the Damascus scribe, he little knew that his pupils had heard the voice, and listened to the teachings, of the Master himself.” UB 134:7.3 “Though Paul never really surmised the identity of this scribe of Damascus, he did, a short time before his death, because of the similarity of personal descriptions, reach the conclusion that the ‘tentmaker of Antioch’ was also the ‘scribe of Damascus.’” UB 132:0.10 (Paul had once been a tentmaker). UB 89:3.6 (See also Acts 18:3)
The passage from Paper 134 implies that Paul was preaching in Antioch and had followers. We will have to conclude that this visit was just a stopover on his way to Tarsus.
Peter and Paul were to meet again in Jerusalem some fourteen years later. In the meantime, Herod Agrippa came to power. He was the grandson of Herod the Great and a nephew of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee who had put John the Baptist to death and whom Jesus called “that fox.” Agrippa was also a brother-in-law of Antipas, as the latter had married Agrippa’s sister, Herodias. She had left her husband, Philip, a son of Herod the Great, with their daughter Salome. This Philip, a half-brother of Antipas, is not to be confused with another son of Herod the Great, who, upon his father’s death, became a tetrarch and ruled areas northeast and east of the Sea of Galilee, territories now in Israel (the Golan Heights) and Jordan. It was he who built Bethsaida-Julias and rebuilt Panias as Caesarea-Philippi and was a half-hearted believer in Jesus. Oh, and Philip the tetrarch married Salome. Incest seems to have run in the Herod family.
The tetrarch Philip ruled until his death in the winter of 33/34 AD. His territory was incorporated into the province of Syria until 37, when the emperor Caligula granted it to Herod Agrippa. Around that time, Herod Antipas’ tetrarchy was invaded by his former father-in-law, Aretas IV, the Nabataean king of what is now Petra, Jordan. Aretas was not happy that Antipas had divorced his daughter to marry Herodias. The forces of Antipas were heavily defeated, and Josephus says that many people regarded the defeat as divine retribution for Antipas’ killing of John the Baptist.[9] Herodias urged her husband to discredit her brother, Agrippa. Their efforts antagonized Agrippa’s friend, the emperor Caligula, who banished Antipas to Gaul in 39. Herodias chose to go with him. Antipas died in exile shortly after.
Galilee and Perea were added to Agrippa’s kingdom. When Claudius became emperor in 41, he further augmented Agrippa’s territory by giving him Judea and Samaria. Agrippa now ruled over a kingdom roughly equivalent to his grandfather’s, Herod the Great.
Agrippa’s primary object was to court his Jewish subjects by showing great regard for the Mosaic Law and Jewish customs. The Jews regarded him approvingly. James Zebedee’s outspokenness in promulgating the teachings of Jesus led Agrippa to put him to death during Passover in 44 AD. James calmly heard the death sentence and continued to preach. Josiah, one of the false witnesses, was struck by James’s courage and came to believe in Jesus. When the authorities led the apostle forth to his execution, Josiah fell at his feet and asked forgiveness. James embraced him, gave him a kiss and said, “Peace and forgiveness to you.” Both men consequently were beheaded on the same day with the same sword.[10] However, The Urantia Book implies that James’s accuser escaped execution. He “was so touched that he rushed away from the scene of James’s death to join himself to the disciples of Jesus.” UB 139:3.9
Legend has it that James is buried in Spain, at what is now the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Since the ninth century the cathedral has been a destination on the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James), a popular route of pilgrimage that annually attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists. Supposedly, James’s followers arranged for his body to be transported to Galicia on the Iberian Peninsula. According to tradition, James preached in Galicia sometime after Jesus’ crucifixion for several years before returning to Jerusalem. As The Urantia Book says nothing about this, I am very doubtful.
Just after James was martyred, Herod Agrippa had Simon Peter thrown in jail. Despite being bound in chains and under guard, Peter was freed from bondage by the intervention of an “angel.” Acts 12:6-11 relates that Peter thought he was seeing a vision as the angel awoke him and told him to get up quickly. The chains fell off Peter’s hands. He followed the angel past first one guard and then another to an iron gate leading into the city, which opened of its own accord. When the angel left him, Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.” The Urantia Book says this was not an angel but rather a secondary midwayer. UB 77:8.12
When Agrippa heard that Peter had escaped, he had the sentries put to death. From Jerusalem he returned to Caesarea, the city on the Mediterranean that was the capital of Judea. Not long after, a delegation from Tyre and Sidon came to him and asked for peace regarding a dispute. When the king started making an oration, the people flattered him by saying that this was a god speaking, not a man. Immediately Agrippa dropped dead. (Acts 12:18-23) Josephus says that Agrippa died during games held in Caesarea in honor of the emperor Claudius. As he was speaking to the public, a cry went out, “This is not the voice of a man but of a god.” Just then Agrippa had the vision of an owl perched over his head. He had seen this vision once before, when he was imprisoned by Tiberius. At that time the vision of the owl portended that he would become a king, but when he was to see it again, he would soon die. And so he did, after five days.[11] The young Christian sect saw the death of Herod Agrippa as divine justice.
When the midwayer rescued Peter from prison, the apostle went to the home of Mary Mark, the widowed mother of John Mark. Many believers were gathered together and were astonished to see him. After telling them how he had been released from prison, he said, “Tell this to James and to the brethren.” (By “James,” he meant Jesus’ brother.) Then he departed and went to “another place.” (Acts 12:12-17)
After leaving Jerusalem and before Paul became the leading spirit among the gentile Christian churches, Peter traveled extensively, visiting all the churches from Babylon to Corinth. He even visited and ministered to many of the churches which had been raised up by Paul. Although Peter and Paul differed much in temperament and education, even in theology, they worked together harmoniously for the upbuilding of the churches during their later years. UB 139:2.11
New Testament scholars debate the chronology of Peter’s life after leaving Jerusalem in 44 AD, following his escape from prison and the death of Agrippa. There is some speculation that he spent a fair amount of time in Antioch, to which many believers had fled following the martyrdom of Stephen; but whether this means an extended time or just occasional stopovers, cannot be determined from the various sources. Barnabas was one of the leaders in Antioch, and it was about this time that he either went to Tarsus to bring Paul there, or the latter came on his own accord. (Both cities, now in modern Turkey, are about 86 miles apart.) Soon the two left for a missionary journey to Crete and Asia Minor, including the Roman province of Galatia. Barnabas’s cousin, John Mark, accompanied them part of the way but turned back when reaching the mainland and returned to Jerusalem. ( New Catholic Encyclopedia says that Mark’s return to Jerusalem, rather than Antioch, suggests homesickness.[12] I find this rather sweet, although we must realize that Mark was in his late twenties by then. This was probably his first trip away from Palestine.) While in Antioch in Pisidia in Asia Minor in 47 AD, Paul met a physician named Luke, who became a follower. UB 121:8.8 It is unclear whether Peter was in Antioch of Syria when Paul returned from his first missionary journey. It appears that the two did not meet again until about the year 49, at what is known in Church History as the Apostolic Council or Council of Jerusalem. This does not appear to be mentioned in The Urantia Book.
This conference arose from concerns of the church at Jerusalem that Greek converts to the faith did not have to undergo circumcision. Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to meet with James the brother of Jesus, and Acts 15:1-35 says that Peter was also present. (Paul in Galatians says John was also there, saying these three “were reputed to be pillars.”) Ultimately the delegates came to an agreement that baptism would replace the requirement of circumcision. Peter would largely preach to “the circumcised,” and Paul to “the uncircumcised.” (Galatians 2:7) In other words, Peter’s ministry would continue largely to be to the Jewish Christians, while Paul would preach to the Gentiles.
Not long afterward, Peter was in Antioch and met with the mixed congregations. When others showed up from Jerusalem, Peter felt compelled to withdraw from meals with Gentile members. This greatly annoyed Paul, and a rift existed between the two men that took awhile to heal.
It seems highly likely that Peter was never again in Jerusalem after this. Paul was to return there two more times, his final visit under unpleasant circumstances.
It was about this time that John Zebedee married his brother’s widow and became the last apostle to leave Palestine. There was one other apostle whom I have not mentioned for a while: Simon Zelotes. The Urantia Book says that he went into “temporary retirement” “after the dispersion because of the Jerusalem persecutions.” He was in retirement “for some time.” “In a few years” he began his journey into Africa to spread the good news. Due to the lack of specificity in these passages from The Urantia Book, it is difficult to ascertain with certainty just when it was that Simon resumed preaching the gospel, but I will suggest that it was the persecutions following the death of Stephen that sent Simon into retirement, from which he did not emerge for several years, not long before Matthew left just before the execution of James Zebedee. Why Simon would disappear from the scene after Stephen’s martyrdom is a little difficult to understand, considering that the Aramaic-speaking believers (including the apostles) were not affected. See the possible chronology at the end of this article to get an idea of the dates.
As we will describe in a moment, John Mark also left about the same time as John Zebedee. James the brother of Jesus was left in charge of the church at Jerusalem until his execution in 61.
We know nothing of the fate of Jesus’ other siblings. It would be interesting to know how many generations existed of descendants of these children of Joseph and Mary, and if any descendants are still living. As for other followers, Lazarus had fled to Philadelphia in the Decapolis about the time of the crucifixion, became treasurer of Abner’s church, and died at the age of 67, which would be about 61 AD. Abner fell out with Peter and James the brother of Jesus and later denounced Paul. He died in 74.
Paul shortly embarked on a second missionary journey. Barnabas again wanted John Mark to accompany them, but Paul, still angry that Mark had abandoned them on the previous trip, said no. This caused a falling out with Barnabas, and instead Paul chose Silas. The latter was a leading member of the church at Jerusalem. The two traveled trough Syria, Asia Minor, and Macedonia. In the latter province, Paul founded churches at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroea. Paul and Silas were imprisoned at Philippi but were released when they revealed their Roman citizenship. Trouble from hostile Jews in Thessalonica and Beroea forced Paul to move on to Athens. Silas remained at Beroea and then rejoined Paul at Corinth. In the latter city Paul met a couple named Aquila and Priscilla, who had been among the Jews expelled from Rome by the emperor Claudius. They accompanied Paul as far as Ephesus. Paul went on alone to Caesarea, where he went to Jerusalem and then to a brief, final sojourn in Antioch. This journey is covered in Acts 15:36-18:22. In the meantime, when Barnabas was excluded from this tour, he and John Mark went to Cyprus, but little is known about that trip.
It was probably during this second journey that Paul had started writing the letters that are known as the Epistles of Paul and form the earliest writings in the New Testament. More letters were written on his third missionary journey, in which he transferred his base to Ephesus. In the order of their writing they are 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians, and Philemon.[13] This is not the order in which they appear in the Bible. Three other books bearing Paul’s name as the author are in dispute and are designated Deutero-Pauline: 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and Colossians. A third set is designated Pastoral or Pseudo-Paul: 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus.[14] It is believed these latter books were written later in the first century AD, long after Paul had died.
It was on this third missionary journey that Paul learned that Peter had taught at some of the same churches. At Corinth there sprang up factions in the names of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ himself. (1 Corinthians 1:12)
Who was Apollos? He is not mentioned in The Urantia Book, nor Encyclopaedia Britannica. He was a Jew from Alexandria who came to Ephesus in the early 50s, after Paul had briefly returned to Palestine. He displayed an accurate knowledge of the story of Jesus and preached after the style of John the Baptist but did not know the full magnitude of Jesus’ death and resurrection (according to what Paul was teaching) or about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Aquila and Priscilla took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. (Acts 18:24-26) By the time Paul returned to Ephesus, Apollos had moved on to Corinth, where he “watered” what Paul had “sown.” (1 Corinthians 3:6) Because of the polished eloquence of Apollos, against his wishes a faction grew up in his favor, to the exclusion of Paul and Peter. Paul managed to soothe the friction in Corinth. The last mention of Apollos in the New Testament is in the Epistle of Titus, which suggests that Apollos, disturbed by the division in Corinth, traveled with Titus to Crete. If so, we wonder if he met Fortune, “the young man who was afraid,” who “became the leader of the Christians in Crete and the close associate of Titus…” UB 130:6.5 Some believe that Apollos eventually returned to Ephesus to serve the church there.
Martin Luther proposed that Apollos was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and some modern scholars concur. The Urantia Book says that this book is one of the notable exceptions to the statement, “Almost the whole of the New Testament is devoted, not to the portrayal of the significant and inspiring religious life of Jesus, but to a discussion of Paul’s religious experience and to a portrayal of his personal religious convictions.” UB 196:2.1 Furthermore, The Urantia Book says that “one of the writers of the Book of Hebrews” understood the mission of Machiventa Melchizedek. UB 93:9.11
In the late 50s Paul returned to Jerusalem and, with a collection for the poor, arrived during Pentecost. Jewish pilgrims from Ephesus, remembering “the apostle to the Gentiles,” accused him of bringing one of the Gentile delegates into the inner courts of the Temple, beyond the barrier excluding Gentiles. He was arrested, partly to save his life from the mob, but was given good treatment because of his Roman citizenship. To prevent his being lynched, Paul was removed to Caesarea, where the Roman governor imprisoned him for two years. A new governor wanted to send Paul back to Jerusalem to be tried by the Sanhedrin, but Paul urged him to send him to Rome instead. Luke accompanied him on the sea journey, but they were shipwrecked and had to spend the winter in Malta. They reached Rome in the spring, and for the next two years Paul was under house arrest.
And here the story in Acts comes to an end. The Urantia Book says nothing about Paul’s fate. We only know that Luke wrote his Gospel in 82, sometime after the death of Paul. “He planned three books dealing with the history of Christ and Christianity but died in AD 90 just before he finished the second of these works, the ‘Acts of the Apostles.’” UB 121:8.8 It is now generally believed that he died in the persecutions by the mad emperor, Nero, most likely by beheading. One source gives the date as June 29 in the year 67. “This date is open to dispute. Paul’s death has been variously placed between 62 and 67. We shall probably never know for sure.”[15] As The Urantia Book gives that same year for the death of Simon Peter UB 121:8.3, I am inclined to accept this year for Paul as well. When severed from Paul’s body, his head bounced in three different places, from which fountains sprang up. The site of his execution came to be known as Tre Fontane (Three Fountains) Abbey, currently a Trappist monastery of the Cistercian order.[16]
The tradition that Peter was crucified upside down comes from the apocryphal Acts of Peter, which was composed in the second half of the second century. (This same work said that Peter could make dogs talk.)[17]
The persecutions of Christians under Nero are said to have occurred after a great fire in Rome that started in the Circus Maximus (at the opposite end of Palatine Hill from the Roman Forum) on the night of July 18 in the year 64 and burned for several days. Rumors soon spread that Nero himself started the fire or otherwise authorized it and watched its progress from his palace while strumming a lyre. However, the Roman historian Tacitus says that Nero was away from Rome, in Antium, when it started, and quickly returned to the city and took measures to bring in food supplies and open gardens and public buildings to accommodate refugees. Parts of his own palace were destroyed. Tacitus is the source for the story that Nero, looking for a scapegoat, put the blame for the fire on the Christians:
… Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite torture on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.[18]
Tacitus had no love for the Christians. But in the next paragraph he writes that, “even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion,” and the populace relented in favor of the Christians.
Notice that Tacitus says nothing specifically about lions. Christians were not “fed” to the lions until later years—and there is some debate among current writers whether that ever really occurred.[19]
A modern writer says that Nero had no idea that Christians existed. Christians were still known as Jews, and the Roman authorities failed to distinguish Jews from Christians.[20] Another writer states:
It was probably easier for Nero and the court to settle upon the Christians as scape-goats for the fire in Rome, because they were small in number—smaller than Jews. Jews had friends in high places; Christians apparently did not. Christians likely were chosen as scapegoats because of their strong belief in the Second Coming and the general conflagration that would follow, when all non-believers would be destroyed.[21]
We might assume that these persecutions began not long after the embers of the great fire had died out, and the year 64 is frequently given as the date. Other writers say they occurred as late as 67, and since that is the date given in The Urantia Book for the martyrdom of Peter and his wife (who was thrown to the wild beasts in the arena the same day that he was crucified), we will accept that this was when they occurred. While in Rome just before the outbreak of the persecutions, Peter wrote the First Epistle of Peter, which, among other things, warns about the sufferings that are ahead. He mentions that Mark and Silvanus (almost certainly the Silas of Acts) are with him. The Urantia Book says that 1 Peter was subsequently altered by a disciple of Paul. UB 139:2.12 Peter also encouraged Mark to write his Gospel, as he felt the church at Rome needed a written record of the life of Jesus. Mark made many notes before Peter died, “and in accordance with the outline approved by Peter and for the church at Rome, he began his writing soon after Peter’s death. The Gospel was completed near the end of AD 68. Mark wrote entirely from his own memory and Peter’s memory… This record by Mark, in conjunction with Andrew’s and Matthew’s notes, was the written basis for all subsequent Gospel narratives which sought to portray the life and teachings of Jesus.” UB 121:8.3
Where was the arena in which the Christians were thrown to the wild beasts? It most certainly was not the Colosseum. That structure was built after Nero’s death in 68. Construction was begun sometime between 70 and 72 and not completed until some ten years later. The first Christian martyr in the famous arena is said to be Ignatius of Antioch, a student of the apostle John, who was thrown to the lions early in the second century.[22] A more recent writer states that Christians may have died there as common criminals, but Christians who died as martyrs did so at other places, mainly Circus Maximus.[23]
It is generally believed that Nero’s persecutions were held at an arena on Vatican Hill that Caligula had begun and was finished by Nero that became known as the Circus of Nero. Simon Peter most likely was crucified on this hill outside of the arena. This was the future site of the huge basilica that bears his name and for centuries has been the headquarters of the first organized Christian church.
A recent writer clarifies misperceptions about Roman attitudes toward the early Christians,
… thinking, for example, that Rome declared Christianity illegal and sent out the troops to round up the Christians, who survived by hiding in the catacombs. That may be suitable for a Hollywood screenplay, but it is simply not true historically. Christianity was not declared “illegal” until nearly two centuries after the writings of Paul—not until AD 250 under the fervently pagan emperor Decius. Only then were there any empire-wide persecutions (and there is some question about how extensive the persecution was even at that point). Before then, Christians were occasionally persecuted, as were many other groups, but they did not go into hiding en masse and communicate with one another only in private…
The earliest Christians were persecuted in a completely ad hoc and random fashion. It appears that persecution usually began at the grassroots level, as either alienated family members or rebuffed friends took umbrage when Christians removed themselves from everyday life. The problems were exacerbated when small or large disasters occurred, because these were easily laid at the feet of the Christians, who steadfastly refused to worship the gods. If any acts of mob violence occurred, Roman governors might step in and round up the Christians. If the Christians continued to flout authority (e.g., by still refusing to worship the gods), they could be punished or executed. The emperors appear to have sanctioned this kind of activity and why not? If any group caused problems, it had to be dealt with.
It was not for a couple of centuries that Christians grew large enough as a group to begin to worry the Roman administration in any serious way. At that time, in the middle of the 3rd century, serious and systematic persecutions began.[24]
Therefore, when The Urantia Book states that Rodan of Alexandria died “when the persecutions were at their height,” this seems to be an exaggeration. No such period can easily be identified.[25]
Church tradition seems to be in agreement with The Urantia Book regarding the deaths of the apostles Andrew and Philip. There is a tradition that Andrew died on November 30, AD 60, during Nero’s reign. There is some disagreement in early Church History whether Matthew Levi died a martyr and, if so, where. Shortly after Jesus’ crucifixion, he had begun a record of the sayings of the Master and of his personal remembrances as an apostle. This record was written in Aramaic and was edited and added to in AD 40 shortly before Matthew left Jerusalem to engage in evangelistic preaching. A disciple named Isador escaped from that city in 70, after the Roman conquest, “taking with him to Pella a copy of Matthew’s notes. In the year 71, while living at Pella, Isador wrote the Gospel according to Matthew. He also had with him the first four-fifths of Mark’s narrative.” UB 121:8.7 Isador wrote the Gospel in Greek.
Christian tradition regarding the apostle Thomas is most at odds with what The Urantia Book says about his life after the death of Jesus. It is largely believed that it was he who went to India and died there (perhaps unnaturally). Yet The Urantia Book says it was Nathaniel who went to India; Thomas was arrested and put to death in Malta.
As for Nathaniel, there is much confusion regarding him. This is because in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) he is called Bartholomew; only in the Gospel of John is he named Nathaniel. _The Urantia Book tells us that Bartholomew was the father of Nathaniel, and he died just after Pentecost. Two fourth-century church historians, Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome, say that the apostle Bartholomew (Nathaniel) went to India on a missionary journey. According to tradition, he was martyred in Armenia. The Urantia Book says not so.
Regarding followers of Paul, Christian tradition holds that Barnabas was martyred at Salamis, Cyprus, in 61 AD. Beliefs that several other of his followers also met violent deaths are based on flimsy evidence, so we won’t mention them here.
It is not possible to come up with a reliable figure for how many Christians died for their faith during the first forty years after Jesus’ death, so we will make no such attempt here.
It was during Nero’s reign that the Jewish Rebellion broke out in Jerusalem, which eventually led to the destruction in 70 AD of the city and the Temple by the Romans under Titus, the future emperor. With this event, “… Christianity lost its original center and its power of attachment to Judaism. The community of old believers in Jerusalem had been scattered abroad before the siege and continued to exist only in a few small groups in the north of Palestine and beyond the Jordan. The time was not far distant when the capital of the Roman Empire would become in fact the metropolis of the Christian world.”[26]
Dates marked * are from The Urantia Book. Other dates are my adaptations from best guesses of historians.
Year | Event |
---|---|
30* | Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; bestowal of the Spirit of Truth; Nathaniel leaves his fellow apostles |
31* | Death of Mary, mother of Jesus, in Bethsaida UB 187:4.7 |
32* | Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr |
32 | Thomas leaves his fellow apostles; Philip begins his missionary work in Samaria; Simon Zelotes goes into temporary retirement |
32 | Paul’s conversion |
35 | Paul first meets with Peter in Jerusalem; after a few days he heads home for Tarsus, after a stopover in Antioch |
35* | Paul is teaching in Antioch and learns of “the scribe of Damascus” |
40 | The term, “Christian,” is being used by this time for believers in Antioch |
40* | Matthew edits his notes just before leaving Jerusalem to engage in evangelistic preaching |
c40 | Simon Zelotes comes out of retirement about this time and begins preaching in Africa |
c43 | Barnabas travels to Tarsus and persuades Paul to return with him to Antioch |
44 | Execution of James Zebedee, first of the apostles to experience martyrdom |
44 | Third arrest and “miraculous” escape of Peter |
44 | Andrew and Philip have probably left Palestine by this time |
45–47 | Paul and Barnabas on first missionary journey, accompanied by John Mark as far as Asia Minor mainland; he later leaves them and returns to Jerusalem |
47* | Luke becomes a follower of Paul |
c49 | Apostolic Council in Jerusalem, a meeting between Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and maybe John Zebedee; and Paul and Barnabas |
c49 | Peter’s clash with Paul at Antioch |
49 | Paul has begun writing his letters to the churches by this date; these become the earliest books of the New Testament |
49–53 | Paul’s second missionary journey, including two years in Corinth |
50 | Peter, John Zebedee, and John Mark have likely left Palestine by this time, leaving James (Jesus’ brother) in charge of the Jerusalem church |
54–58 | Paul’s third missionary journey, including two years in Ephesus |
58 | Paul returns to Jerusalem; Temple authorities conspire to have him arrested; he is imprisoned for two years in Caesarea |
60 (Sept. 30) | Traditional date of crucifixion of the apostle Andrew |
60–61 | Paul journeys to Rome, accompanied by Luke, and is shipwrecked in Malta |
61–63 | Paul under house arrest in Rome |
61 | Execution of James, the brother of Jesus |
63–67 | Unknown years in Paul’s life; tradition has it that he visited Spain during this time, but I suspect he remained in Rome |
64 | Fire in Rome |
66 | Outbreak of Jewish War against Rome |
67? | Probable year of Nero’s persecution of the Christians as scapegoats for the fire; Paul is likely executed then |
67* | Death of Peter and his wife in Rome |
68 | Death of Nero |
68* | Gospel of Mark completed |
70 | Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans |
Larry Bowman began reading the Urantia Papers a year before their publication. As a member of the Sadler Forum at 533 Diversey in Chicago, his father was in on the Urantia Revelation from the very beginning in 1924/25. Larry had a thirty – four career as a librarian in Illinois, upstate New York, Ohio, and Arizona, where he has lived since 1973. He has been on the Fellowship General Council since 2010 and served as Secretary General from 2012-15. He is now on the Publications Committee. Feline companions Hermes and Marlin usually make room in the bed for Larry at night.
Listen Up Grandparents and YaYAs | Volume 16, Number 1, 2016 (Summer) — Index | Thoughts on the Bestowals of Personality and the Thought Adjuster |
The New Testament makes a distinction between Philip the Apostle and Philip the Evangelist. The latter was one of the Seven Deacons appointed to tend to the early Christians of Jerusalem. This group is not mentioned in The Urantia Book. It was the Evangelist who the book of Acts says went to Samaria and later Gaza. As there is agreement that writers often get these two confused, I will stick with the UB’s depiction of the apostle Philip. It appears that both are the same person. ↩︎
New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, III.: Intervarsity Press, 1996), s.v. “James, 4.” ↩︎
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. “James, Saint, also called James, the Lord’s brother.” ↩︎
Martin Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM Press, 1991) [pages not recorded] ↩︎
Acts 9:19-30, however, does not mention a three-year lapse between Paul’s conversion on the way to Damascus and his return to Jerusalem and his first meeting with leaders of the church (Peter is not specifically mentioned). There is nothing about a period spent in Arabia. When Paul arrives in Jerusalem, the disciples are all afraid of him. It is Barnabas who brings him before the apostles. It seems inconsistent that it would be he who would do so, as Barnabas was one of the persecuted Hellenists and, so The Urantia Book says, an associate of the late Stephen. Barnabas is mentioned only once in the UB but appears several times in the New Testament as a future associate of Paul. As Luke was writing the Acts of the Apostles nearly six decades after the purported events, we will have to accept instead the chronology that Paul himself offered in Galatians. ↩︎
Cephas is rock in Aramaic. Paul, in his various epistles, had a preference to call him Cephas, whereas the Gospels and Acts used the Greek Peter, from Petros. When I began studying French in high school, I was thrilled to learn that the word for stone (and rock) was pierre. ↩︎
Encyclopaedia Britannica Macropaedia, s.v. “The Apostle Paul.” ↩︎
New Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Paul.” ↩︎
Ibid., s.v. “Herod the tetrarch.” ↩︎
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/082279b.htm “Saint James the Greater;” https://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/04/30/101248-apostle-james-the-brother-of-st-john-the-theologian, “Apostle James the Brother of St. John the Theologian;” http://www.biblepath.com/james.html “The Apostle James (Son of Zebedee).” (These sources accessed January 19, 2016.) ↩︎
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, xix, 8.2. ↩︎
New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967-1996), s.v. “Mark, Evangel-ist, St.” ↩︎
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/the-quest-for-the-historical-paul/ James Tabor, “The Quest for the Historical Paul” (accessed September 7, 2015). ↩︎
Ibid. See also Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament (Chantilly, Va.: The Great Courses, 2000) Lecture 14: “Paul—The Man, the Mission, and the Modus Operandi”, 217 ↩︎
http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/apostolic-beheading-the-death-of-paul-11629583.html, “Apostolic Beheading; the Death of Paul”(accessed January 27, 2016) ↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tre_Fontane_Abbey, “Tre Fontane Abbey” (accessed January 27, 2016) ↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peter, “Acts of Peter” (accessed January 27, 2016). ↩︎
Tacitus, The Annals, 15:44. ↩︎
E.g., Candida Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom New York: HarperCollins, 2013. “Moss’s thesis is that the traditional idea of the ‘Age of Martyrdom,’ when Christians suffered persecution from the Roman authorities and lived in fear of being thrown to the lions, is largely fictional. There was never sustained, targeted persecution of Christians by Imperial Roman authorities.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Persecution “ The Myth of Persecution ” (accessed February 8, 2016). See also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319577/Historian-risks-thrown-lions-book-claims-Christian-martyrdom-modern-believers-persecution-complex.html “Historian risks being thrown to the lions for book which claims Christian martyrdom is made up and that modern believers have a persecution complex” (accessed February 8, 2016). ↩︎
Stephen Benko, Pagan Rome and the Early Christians (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986) [page not recorded] ↩︎
Michael Grant, Nero (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970) [page not recorded] ↩︎
Peter Quennell, The Colosseum (New York: Newsweek Book Division, 1971), 60. ↩︎
Norbert C. Brockman, Encyclopedia of Sacred Places [2 volumes] (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 108. ↩︎
Ehrman, The New Testament, Lecture 22: “First Peter and the Persecution of the Early Christians,” 338-39 ; 341 ↩︎
Moss. “According to Moss, although provincial governors in the Roman Empire had a great deal of personal discretion and power to do what they felt was needed in their jurisdiction, and there were local and sporadic incidents of persecution and mob violence against Christians, for most of the first three hundred years of Christian history Christians were able to live in peace, practice professions, and rise to positions of responsibility.” “ The Myth of Persecution,” Wikipedia (cited in footnote 19) (accessed February 8, 2016). ↩︎
Alfred Firman Loisy, The Birth of the Christian Religion (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1948) [page not recorded] ↩︎