How the Jesus Movement Split

Early Christianity was not a single movement but a field of rival groups competing over who Jesus was and who held the authority to say so. This investigation traces how those factions split and why one version — the law-free, largely Gentile Christianity associated with Paul — became dominant while alternatives were redefined as heresy. Several threads run through it. One is a contest between two roots of authority: a handed-down chain of office versus standing earned through personal inner transformation and direct understanding. Another examines how opponents were discredited by naming a "heresy" after a single founder figure. A third looks at how Roman power engaged messianic expectation, including the redirection of Jewish prophecy toward a Roman emperor. A fourth follows the Ebionites, who regarded Jesus as a fully human figure anointed by God rather than a divine being, and asks why their position lost. The aim is historical reconstruction from the sources, kept separate from theological judgment about which view was correct. These claims concern the formation and politics of the movement rather than the contemplative reading of Jesus's sayings, so they are grouped here on their own.