The fourth-century
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical p ...
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christi ...
and
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis ( grc-gre, Ἐπιφάνιος; c. 310–320 – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He g ...
cite a tradition that before the
destruction of Jerusalem
The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of ...
in AD 70 the
early Christians
Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...
had been warned to flee to
Pella
Pella ( el, Πέλλα) is an ancient city located in Central Macedonia, Greece. It is best-known for serving as the capital city of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, and was the birthplace of Alexander the Great.
On site of the ancient c ...
in the region of the
Decapolis
The Decapolis (Greek: grc, Δεκάπολις, Dekápolis, Ten Cities, label=none) was a group of ten Hellenistic cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in the Southern Levant in the first centuries BCE and CE. They formed a group b ...
across the
Jordan River
The Jordan River or River Jordan ( ar, نَهْر الْأُرْدُنّ, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn'', he, נְהַר הַיַּרְדֵּן, ''Nəhar hayYardēn''; syc, ܢܗܪܐ ܕܝܘܪܕܢܢ ''Nahrāʾ Yurdnan''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Shariea ...
. The flight to Pella probably did not include the
Ebionites
Ebionites ( grc-gre, Ἐβιωναῖοι, ''Ebionaioi'', derived from Hebrew (or ) ''ebyonim'', ''ebionim'', meaning 'the poor' or 'poor ones') as a term refers to a Jewish Christian sect, which viewed poverty as a blessing, that existed durin ...
.
[G. Uhlhorn, "Ebionites", in: ''A Religious Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology'', 3rd ed. (edited by Philip Schaff), p. 684–685 (vol. 2).][O. Cullmann, "Ebioniten", in: ''Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', p. 7435 (vol. 2).]
The authenticity of this tradition has been a much debated question since 1951 when
S. G. F. Brandon in his work ''The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church'' argued that the Christians would have been allied to their compatriots, the
Zealots
The Zealots were a political movement in 1st-century Second Temple Judaism which sought to incite the people of Judea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy Land by force of arms, most notably during the First Jew ...
; only after the destruction of the Jewish community would
Christianity have emerged as a universalist religion.
The Christian–Zealot alliance has hardly been taken seriously, but the historicity of the flight to Pella has been controversial ever since.
Ancient sources
References
{{Reflist
Further reading
*Brandon, Samuel G. F., ''The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church'', (London: SPCK, 1957), p. 167-184.
*Bourgel, Jonathan,
The Jewish Christians’ Move from Jerusalem as a pragmatic choice, in: Dan JAFFÉ (ed), ''Studies in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity'', (Leyden: Brill, 2010), p. 107-138.
*Pritz, Ray A., "On Brandon’s Rejection of the Pella Tradition", ''Immanuel'' 13 (1981), p. 39-43.
*Gray, Barbara C., "The Movements of the Jerusalem Church during the First Jewish War", ''Journal of Ecclesiastical History'' 24 (1973), p. 1-7.
*Gunther, John J., "The Fate of the Jerusalem Church. The Flight to Pella", ''Theologische Zeitschrift'' 29 (1973), p. 81-94.
*Koester, Craig, "The Origin and Significance of the Flight to Pella Tradition", ''Catholic Biblical Quarterly'' 51 (1989), p. 90-106.
*Sowers Sidney, "The Circumstances and Recollection of the Pella Flight", ''Theologische Zeitschrift'' 26 (1970), p. 305-320.
1st-century Christianity