1.
It is popularly supposed that Jesus and his twelve Apostles formulated the doctrines of Christianity and founded the Christian church. Paul was the real author of this religion and the founder of the church.
“Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (Acts xi, 25, 26).
Jesus Christ was a Jew. Peter, John, James, and the other Apostles in Palestine were not Christians, but Jews—orthodox Jews—who differed from other Jews chiefly in accepting Jesus as the expected Jewish Messiah. Paul and his followers were the first Christians. The Dutch critics frankly admit that “Christianity has to thank him more than any other for its existence,” that he was “the founder of the Christian church,” and that “without him it would have remained an insignificant or forgotten Jewish sect” (Bible for Learners, Vol. III. pp. 20, 642, 643).