Page 33 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

The Time Had Fully Come

forerunners of the monastic communities that developed later in the
Christian church. Since the New Testament does not specifically mention
Essenes, this group may not have had a lasting influence on Judaism.

Cairns lists the following contributions of the Jews to the establishment
of Christianity (1996, 45–46):

• Monotheism. Judaism existed in striking contrast to the generality
of pagan religions by its emphasis on a sound spiritual monotheism
(the belief in one God), which was spread by numerous synagogues
scattered throughout the Mediterranean area during the three
centuries preceding the coming of Christ.

• A Messianic Hope. The Jews offered to the world the hope of a
coming Messiah who would bring righteousness to the earth. The
expectancy of many Christians today regarding the coming of
Christ helps one to realize the feeling of expectancy in the Jewish
world concerning the coming of the Messiah.

• An Ethical System (an appropriate standard of conduct). In the
moral part of the Jewish law, Judaism also offered the world the
purest ethical system in existence.

• The Jewish Scriptures. The Jewish people still further prepared the
way for the coming of Christianity by providing the infant church
with its message, the Old Testament.

• A Philosophy of History. The Jews made possible a philosophy of
history by insisting that history had meaning.

• The Synagogue. The Jews also provided an institution that was
most useful in the rise and development of Christianity. This
institution was the Jewish synagogue, which often became the
preaching house of early Christianity. Judaism was indeed the
paidagogos or school master to lead people to Christ.

The Greco-Roman world was to be confronted by the gospel, which
came from what “the bitter anti-Semite Tacitus has called the taeterrima
gens, from the ‘foulest nation’ within the wide compass of the Roman

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