98 C.E.

Antinomian Apostasy at Antioch Complete

As early as the first century many of the gentile assemblies were already having problems
with the anti-nomian heresy. Now the first Gentile Assembly was at Antioch in Syria
(Acts 11:19-26) it was here that Gentile Messianic Believers were first called
“Christians”. After the assembly was established Bar Nabba (Barnabas) was sent from
Jerusalem to the assembly. Bar Nabba seems to have felt that he need help because he
went to Tarsus to get Paul and bring him back to Antioch with him. Antioch became the
initial center of the Gentile Messianic movement and became a sort of “home base” from
which Paul launched his voyages to take the message to the nations (Acts 14:21-28).
Early on there was a debate raised at Antioch over whether or not a gentile had to become
circumcised to be saved (Acts 15:1) which escalated to an issue brought before the Beit-
Din in Jerusalem (Acts 15) and the sending of a letter to Antioch setting basic essential
standards for gentiles just coming to the faith. Now even in his own era Paul’s teachings
were being twisted and misinterpreted. Kefa writes of Paul that in his letters he speaks of
things “in which are some things hard to understand, which those who are untaught and
unstable twist to their own destruction” (2Pt. 3:15-16). Paul himself speaks of
“slanderous reports” that “some affirm that we say” That we may “do evil” and “sin”
because “we are not under Torah but under grace” (Rom. 3:8; 6:1-2, 15). When he
returned to Jerusalem in Acts 21 he was informed that the Jews of Jerusalem had been
“informed about” him that he was teaching “the Jews who are among the Gentiles to
forsake Moses” and that “they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk
according to the customs.” (Acts 21:20-21). No doubt these slanderous reports,
misinformation and twistings of Paul’s teachings were coming largely out of Antioch, his
home base. From the very beginning there were unstable individuals at Antioch twisting
Paul’s teaching into anti-nomianism. Paul also said to the Ephesians on his last visit to
them:
I know that after I am gone fierce wolves will enter in among you
without mercy upon the flock.
32And also from among you there will rise up men speaking
perverse things, so that they might turn away the talmidim
to follow after them.
(Acts 20:29-30)
Paul seems to indicate that after his death leaders would begin to rise up in his stead that
would draw people to follow themselves and draw them away from Torah. Perhaps the
some of the very men who had twisted Paul’s teaching into anti-nomianism would one
day become the leadership. In fact Paul died in 66 C.E. and the first overseer (Bishop) of
Antioch to take office after his death was Ignatius in 98 C.E.. Ignatius fulfilled Paul’s
words precisely. Upon taking the office of Bishop over Antioch Ignatius sent out a series
of epistles to other assemblies. His letters to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallianns,
Romans, Philadelphians and Smyrnaeans as well as a personal letter to Polycarp overseer
of Smyrnaea have survived to us.
Ignatius is claimed to be the first known Christian writer to argue in favor of
Christianity's replacement of the Sabbath with the Lord's Day:

“ Be not seduced by strange doctrines nor by antiquated fables, which are profitless. For
if even unto this day we live after the manner of Judaism, we avow that we have not
received grace.... If then those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness
of hope, no longer observing Sabbaths but fashioning their lives after the Lord's day, on
which our life also arose through Him and through His death which some men deny ...
how shall we be able to live apart from Him? ... It is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and
to practise Judaism. For Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in
Christianity — Ignatius to the Magnesians 8:1, 9:1-2, 10:3, Lightfoot translation.

Ignatius drew men away from Torah, not only at Antioch but at other Gentile
assemblies to which he wrote:
Be not deceived with strange doctrines;
nor with old fables which are unprofitable.
For if we still continue to live according to the Jewish Law,
we do confess ourselves not to have received grace…
let us learn to live according to the rules of Christianity,
for whosoever is called by any other name
besides this, he is not of God….
It is absurd to name Jesus Christ, and to Judaize.
For the Christian religion did not embrace the Jewish.
But the Jewish the Christian…
(Mag. 3:1, 8, 11)
(This is the first time in History that Christianity is characterized as a new and different
religion apart from Judaism).
But if any one shall preach the Jewish law unto you,
hearken not unto him…
(Phil. 2:6)
Now Paul’s prophecy was being fulfilled. Gentile leaders were causing men to follow
after themselves and drawing people away from Torah, and it was springing forth from
the first Gentile assembly. The result was the birth of a new Gentile religion that had
effectively rebelled against Torah based Judaism, a religion known as Christianity.
Thus the Ancient Nazarene Historian and commentator Hegesippus (c. 180 CE) writes of
the time immediately following the death of Shim’on, who succeeded Ya’akov HaTzadik
as Nasi of the Nazarene Sanhedrin and who died in 98 CE:
Up to that period (98 CE) the Assembly had remained like a virgin
pure and uncorrupted: for, if there were any persons who were
disposed to tamper with the wholesome rule of the preaching
34
of salvation, they still lurked in some dark place of concealment
or other. But, when the sacred band of Emissaries had in various
ways closed their lives, and that generation of men to whom it
had been vouchsafed to listen to the Godlike Wisdom with their
own ears had passed away, then did the confederacy of godless
error take its rise through the treachery of false teachers, who,
seeing that none of the apostles any longer survived, at length
attempted with bare and uplifted head to oppose the preaching
of the truth by preaching "knowledge falsely so called."
(Hegesippus the Nazarene; c. 185 CE)
Hegisippus indicates the apostasy began the very same year that Ignatious became bishop
of Antioch!
Ironically Antioch is where the early Nazarene truth was forsaken and Torah- less-ness
Christianity was established as history repeated itself when Ignatius became bishop in
direct opposition to the Jerusalem elders like Yaakov and Shimeon, who continued in
Yahshua’s royal succession!