ABSTRACT
Judaism became completely hostile even to those forms of Christianity, which it had till then tolerated, but it was left without any means of direct action against the Christians. It will be useful to examine two important points before we try to form any idea as to the attitude of Judaism towards the preaching of the gospel and the small groups of Christians which, at a quite early date, came into existence in Jerusalem and Judaea. First-century Judaism expected the coming of the Messiah to be the prelude to ‘Israel’s deliverance’ and yet, when John Baptist appeared and proclaimed the appearance of the Messiah as something to be dreaded, his preaching met with a great response and no one thought of accusing him of heresy. It is not impossible that speculations that a second Adam would come and that the Messiah would be some sort of a man had already begun to be entertained by certain circles in Palestine.
