Jesus probably accepted the Essene idea of the Messiah, that is, he was less concerned with ushering in an earthly than a heavenly kingdom.
This distinction was not clearly realized by the simple masses of the people, groaning under a hated yoke; certainly it was not realized by the Romans, who saw in every Messianic claim treason against Rome, a plot to win independence for Judea again. On the other hand, Jesus applying to himself on one occasion the term "son of God"—that may mean so little or so much—awakened the alarm and antagonism of the priesthood and lost for him many supporters. So Jesus, who was probably innocent of any blasphemous assumptions against Judaism and guiltless of any conspiracy against Rome to seize the throne and be made "King of the Jews," was nevertheless condemned to death like the Messiahs before him and was executed by the Roman method of capital punishment, crucifixion. But unlike the Messiahs before him—all mediocre men—his name has been treasured ever since as one of the great religious teachers of the world.
Christianity.
For although he died without bringing the redemption which would have proven his Messiahship, his followers did not lose faith in him. His turning kindly to the poor and despised folk, even to the sinful and degraded with his message of comfort, had won all hearts. As they believed he had performed miracles in his life-time, so now they tried to persuade themselves that a greater miracle had been fulfilled in his death—that he had not really died, but had been translated to heaven like Elijah or Enoch and that he would return some day and complete his unfinished work. In those unlettered days belief in the supernatural was very common. Among certain folk it is not so uncommon to-day.
So these believers that Jesus was the Messiah became a new sect called Christians. What does "Christian" mean? Christ (Christos) is the Greek for Messiah. So the name Christians meant Messians, and the name Jesus Christ means Jesus the Messiah. Though Jesus himself did not speak Greek, but Aramaic, the Christian Scriptures were written in Greek.
The Jewish Christians continued to live much as the Essenes before them, like them assuming voluntary poverty and faithful as of old to the Jewish Law. But in later years when many pagans joined this sect, they introduced into it many idolatrous notions, borrowed from the cults of Greece, Rome and Egypt. The man Jesus was exalted into a divinity and worshipped as such. The shedding of his blood at his execution was regarded as a sacrifice intended by God to atone for the sins of mankind, based on the ancient idea that the priest shed the blood of an animal in atoning for the sins of the people; but the Hebrew prophets and some of the psalmists had all condemned animal sacrifice as a means of atonement. This belief was a stage of religion beyond which the Jews were advancing. It died out altogether before the century was over—just when it was being revived in this way by Christians.
The next step which separated the Jews from the Christians was the depreciation and ultimately the abrogation of the Jewish Law. This was brought about by a later teacher, Paul, at first opposed to Christians, but later their most eloquent advocate. This abandonment of the Law, ultimately conceded by the early Messians, who had so far still clung to it, severed their relationship with the parent faith. Thus Paul made Christianity a new religion for the heathen world.
The process by which this Jewish sect became a new religion, most of whose adherents came from the heathen world, was slow and gradual. We shall refer to the different steps in the development of this Faith as they occur, and we shall see how this sect, born in Judaism, became its antagonist and persecutor in later days.