Christianity (Χριστιανισμός)
A Recovered Ebyonim Framing on Pauline-Nicene Doctrines
Ethno-linguistic origins: The earliest “Christians” never called themselves by that name. These men and women of the first decades after Yehoshua’s crucifixion introduced themselves as Ebyonim (Ebionites), Netsarim (Nazarenes), walkers of Derekh ha-Tzedek (the Way of Justice), members of Megale Ekklesia (the Assembled Confederation). The title Christianos was first coined by outsiders in Antioch (Acts 11:26), tagging Yehoshua’s followers as a recognizable movement. At root, this was a Yahwistic renewal project: Jubilee justice enacted as daily covenant, spreading through Judea and the Diaspora.
Original Meaning: In Jerusalem, under Ya’akov ha-Tzaddik (known among Christians as “Saint James the Just”), the Ekklesia embodied Malkuth’a (Commonwealth): debts forgiven, possessions shared, “no needy among them.” Their mission was covenantal restoration, not invention of a new religion. Even Paul’s own chronicles concede that his sanction came only after presenting himself to Ya’akov and Shimon ha-Kefa (known to Christians as “Saint Simon Peter”), the Elders of the Community (ha-Zaken d’Kehilla).
Native Textures: The first followers did not separate themselves from Yahwism. They prayed in the Temple, kept Torah festivals, and proclaimed Yehoshua as the Keeper of Covenant’s promise. Their gatherings were table-fellowships of solidarity, a practical form of resistance to Rome’s market and the Temple’s own predatory economies.
Colonized Definition: Within two generations, the balance shifted. Paul’s assemblies, oriented toward members who openly scorned Yahwistic cultural traditions, grew dominant. His doctrines reframed Jubilee release as “spiritual salvation,” and Torah’s covenantal statutes as burdensome “law.” By c. 150 CE, “Christianity” was forming into a distinct identity, though it was increasingly Greco-Roman in form, and significantly less Yahwistic in content and praxis.
Effect of Colonization: By the time the Empire convened the (First) Council at Nicaea in 325 CE, those imperialist and market structures had almost wholly co-opted the movement. “Xristos” was enthroned as a cosmic emperor, with an earthly Imperator as his unquestioned representative; the Christianos themselves became imperial subjects once more. The liberating Commonwealth became a beastly “Christendom”: a patchwork of brutal, corrupt, hierarchical, creedal, and martial factions all vying for totalizing power. The Ebyonim and other Covenant-faithful communities were intentionally and specifically erased as heretics. The Commonwealth of the Heavens was transmuted into a religion of the state, aligned with crowns, crusades, and conquests.
Critical Insight: To reclaim “Christianity” is not to vilify sincere believers but to distinguish the imperial distortion from the covenantal seed. What empire called “heresy” was often fidelity: the Ebyonim’s solidarity, the Johannine assemblies’ economic boundaries, the radical asceticism of early monastics. Monasticism, mysticism, liberation theologies — these are continuations of the Covenant operating under “deep cover” conditions within Christendom’s totalizing gaze, resisting co-optation through quiet subversion.
Reclaimed Definition: Authentic Christianity is less about assent to creeds than about enacting Malkuth’a: mercy [chesed and rahma] in the streets, bread at the Table, tangible forgiveness in the bank ledger. Wherever followers of Yehoshua practice Jubilee solidarity, the Commonwealth reappears - sometimes inside official houses of worship, sometimes at their edges, most often in spite of them.
“Christianity” has become a world tradition, containing both Empire’s shadow and Covenant’s light. Its resonance is not in its doctrines but in its practices of resistance and renewal:
Eastern Orthodoxy’s hesychasm: silence as counter-power, prayer as breath of liberation.
Catholic monastic orders: vows of poverty and commonwealth as Ebionite echoes.
Protestant radical sects (Anabaptists, Hutterites, Quakers): communities reclaiming covenantal sharing and equality.
Liberation theology in Latin America and Black theology in the U.S.: Y’hshua as present among the oppressed.
Global South churches: embodying radical care economies, often closer to Ebionite practice than to European dogma.
Takeaway: “Christianity” as we know it is both survival and betrayal of the original Ekklesia. It holds cathedrals of empire and monasteries of resistance, crusades and hospitals, inquisitions and sanctuaries. To gloss it truthfully is to hold both: the harm of Christendom and the hope of communities still longing for the Covenant of YHWH to manifest on Earth.