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Regist.: 04/04/2011 Topics: 21 Posts: 10
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During the early days of Christianity there was a great enmity between the Jewish and Christians. One of the reasons was that the teaching of Jesus Christ was a heresy and agnostic in the eyes of the Jews. Christians preached Jesus being the Messiah that was promised to the Jews but the Jews denied this saying that Messiah will be coming as King of Kings. Infact they were still talking about Christ's second coming after the Tribulation. Jews did not agree to the idea that Christians were blaspheming their coming Messiah.
Anyway all this led to confusion since the Christians (Jewish Christians and Gentiles) were celebrating Christ's death and resurrection on the same days as the Jews were doing the Passover. The Judaic Christians and Judaism permanently turned their backs on each other in A.D. 66, during an active Jewish revolt against Rome, when the Judaic Christians retired to the far side of the Jordan rather than join the revolt. Up to that time, the Judaic Christians considered themselves observant Jews, and regularly visited the Temple in Jerusalem.
After the Temple was destroyed in 70AD violence against the Jews came about by the Romans and the early church removed itself from any affiliation it had with the Jews to avoid persecution.
Roman Emperor Constantine was also a major player during 272 and 337AD. The relations between Constantine I and Judaism are usually considered to have been rather tense, as Constantine is often cited as one of the earliest examples of a Christian ruler imposing restrictions on Jews because of their problematic relations with the Church.
Constantine also supported the separation of the date of Easter from the Jewish Passover (see also Quartodecimanism), stating in his letter after the First Council of Nicaea:
"... it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. ... Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way."
Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History records The Epistle of the Emperor Constantine, concerning the matters transacted at the Council, addressed to those Bishops who were not present:
"It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded. ... Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. ... Let us ... studiously avoiding all contact with that evil way. ... For how can they entertain right views on any point who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. ... lest your pure minds should appear to share in the customs of a people so utterly depraved. ... Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. ... no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews."
In other words, Church festivals were adjusted to indicate the separation from the Jewish religion.
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