ABSTRACT
The promptings which led the author to this second exploration of early Christianity were quite different from those which led to the first, though the outward stimulus—Wolfgang Schluchter’s conferences on Max Weber’s work—was the same. The tension between a particularistic and a universalist ethic refers to both Judaism and Christianity, albeit in different ways. The contrast between the son devoted to God and his parents solely preoccupied with family life is part of Christ’s story as a youth. The problem of Christ’s succession helps to illuminate the political side of the early Christian movement. The appearance of the Son of God was a unique historico-mythological event. To be Christian means membership in a specific Christian community. Such communities were characterized by regular closed meetings without separation of the sexes, and usually at times other than those of the regular day.
