In a cartoonist's drawing, a group of American Indians is
represented rushing to greet Columbus and his crew as they arrive
at the island of Hispaniola in the New World. The caption reads:
'Thank God! We've been discovered.' The point, of course, is that
we cannot assume that the modern historian's perspective, in this
case, the importance of the discovery of America, was shared by
the persons who are the subject of his enquiry.

The first followers of Jesus were quite unconscious that they
were making history. When the modern historian investigates the
origins of Christianity, he not only goes beyond the viewpoint and
methods of ancient historians, but his enterprise is marked by a
historical consciousness which was largely absent from the self-
understanding of those whom he is studying. The history which
culminated in the 'last days' ( Acts 2:17) inaugurated by Jesus'
death and resurrection was not the secular sort written by the
Greek authors whose style Luke imitates in his prologue ( Luke 1:
1-4). The earliest Christians saw their movement as the climax of
the history of salvation--'the mighty works of God' ( Acts 2:11)--
narrated in 'the scriptures', i.e. the books of the Old Testament.

Jesus of Nazareth, like John the Baptist before him, left behind
no writings to record his activities or to preserve his teachings.
The earliest Christian author whose works have survived, the
apostle Paul, did not write with posterity in mind. Most of his
epistles are a substitute for his physical presence when he is
separated from the communities which he has founded (cf. 2 Cor.
10:10). The principal issues which he addresses are those which
have arisen within the life of these same communities (cf. 1 Cor.
7:1; 8:1, 12:1; 15:12).

Only towards the end of the century, when the first generation
of disciples had passed away (cf. Mark 13:30 par.) and the Lord
had still not returned, did Christians come to view themselves as
part of a wider history and look ahead to the fate of their com-
munity in a hostile world. The use of the word 'Christian'
expresses a new consciousness of the historical significance of the
movement as something distinct from both Judaism and the other
cults of the Graeco-Roman world. It is surely no accident that of
the three occurrences of this word in the New Testament, two are
to be found in the book of Acts (11:26; 26:28).

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