ABSTRACT
The years 43-44 were both for the church in Jerusalem and in a more general way for the development of Christianity a period of crisis. The early church at Jerusalem lived in the expectation of the return of the Lord, waiting for the day when he would return to reign over his own. The antidynastic points to be found in the book of the Acts and in the gospels are all the more striking since dynastic Christianity seems to have been an entirely Palestinian affair and there is no sign that it played any part in Greek Christianity. Dynastic Christianity contributed nothing to primitive catholicism because, when Christianity shifted its centre of gravity to the Greek world, it discarded all the forms which linked its fate to that of Judaism. As Judaism crystallised and became identified with Pharisaism keeping itself hostile to every form of Christianity, Judaising Christians were placed in a delicate and precarious position.
