Pillars of the Church

Pillars of the Church, in the first Christian century, seems to have referred to the leaders of the Nazarenes, as the Jerusalem Jesus movement was called, principally, the Family of Jesus, later known as the Desposyni, including his brothers James, Joses or Joseph, Simon or Simeon, and Jude or Judas, and possibly his mother, Mary, and his leading Apostles, principally Cephas or Peter and the Apostle John. in Galatians 2:9 (KJV) Paul refers to "... James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars..." The leadership of the developing community seems to have been maintained in Jerusalem at least till the first Jewish Revolt of 66-70 AD, and later the leaders of the movement were questioned by Domitian and dismissed as unimportant. It may have survived until the destruction of Jerusalem by Emperor Hadrian at the time of the Bar Kochba revolt of 135 AD, after which Jews were forbidden to live near Jerusalem, see also Bishops of Jerusalem.

The leadership of this group seems to have originally passed to James until his martyrdom in about 62 AD, and hence, after the Jewish Revolt to Simeon and then Jude and subsequently to Jude's sons. There seems to have been some degree of conflict between this group and Paul of Tarsus, as initially, under the orders of the previous Jewish High Priest Annas, Paul (then Saul) had persecuted the movement, and after his conversion on the Road to Damascus, due to his statements in Antioch denying the importance of Jewish dietary law, and circumcision, which were both considered important by the Pillars of the Church, who summoned Paul, possibly in the spring of 51 AD, to appear before a Council of Jerusalem and explain his actions. It appears from Acts of the Apostles, after hearing both sides, James as leader ruled that some kind of compromise was reached, permitting non-Jewish converts to the movement to remain uncircumcised, and insisting upon the observance of the Mosaic Law to Jewish Christians. Paul seems to have used this as a belief that Kosher provisions for the Eucharist were not necessary, a view to which Peter in visiting Syria later insisted upon. The account in Acts of the Apostles seems to reflect a Pauline point of view, and seems dismissive of the concerns of the Jerusalem Pillars. This conflict may also account for some of the statements of the Gospels which suggests that Jesus denied that his family understood his message, see also Rejection of Jesus. It may also account for the split amongst Jewish Christians, between the Ebionites, who rejected the virgin birth and possibly the resurrection, and the Nazarenes who accepted these Pauline beliefs.

By AD 150, the term "Pillars of the Church" no longer applied to Jesus' family, as the importance of the movement seems to have declined with the increasing growth in the numbers of Gentilic converts to Christianity, and to the rejection of Jewish Apocalyptic writing by Yochanan ben Zakkai and Yavne. Some go as far as to claim that Rabbi Akiva's statements in favour of Bar Kochba were calculated to split the early Jewish Christians and bring the Nazarenes into disrepute. Caught between the revivalised Rabbinic Judaism and Proto-orthodox Christianity and Gnostic Christianity, leadership of the Jerusalem community passed henceforth to Greeks. A deputation from the family is said to have approached Pope Sylvester I, who dismissed their claims. The term "Pillars of the Church" was subsequently used by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon to refer to the four canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

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