Amedeo

Saved? If his objective were to save as many people as possible, the Council of the Apostles would not have put any time limitation on the process of converting.

Paul called himself a Jews of Jews and certaing was not the founder of the universal community of Christ (to replace Israel). I know he has called the founder of Catholicism because of his apostolate to the Gentiles, but the theologians who thought so spoke from a late Catholic standpoint The apostolate to the Gentiles was intended to result in a bigger Israel, not to replace Israel.

So, when the theologians speak of the NEW Covenant and, therefore, of the establishment of a new People of God or Christ, they confuse "Catholic Church" with "Expanded Israel" -- a confusion precipitated by the fact that Israel got disbanded and the Israelitic sect of Christ came to an end. It's Gentiles that founded Catholicism and the very idea of a new covenant. There never occurred a covenant (contract between people and the divine Jesus wherefore one might speak of the people (Church) of Christ. This is a theological fiction.

By what must be an interpolation in the oral tales, Jesus founded his church (people) on Peter. The Greek Gospel writers did not realize that this would mean that Jesus abandoned Israel and founded his own People. Aside from this statement, everything in the Gospels shows that Jesus was the messiah of ISRAEL -- never mind abandoning Israel and establishing his own own people. The interpolator even resorts on calling the Apostle Simon "Petros" so that Jesus could say that Simon was a rock, and that he was building his church on this rock.

If the famous line was not an interpolation, then the theologians are wrong in interpreting it as saying that Jesus founded a new chuch/people, and that this church was the Catholic Church (i.e., non-Israel). In that case, we must think of the royal Jesus as thinking of the liberated Israel in which the royal dynasty would not be on a biological basis. Thus Jesus' royal descendant would be Simon -- who in the future will be called the Pontiff (a priest-king). -- If there was no interpolation, then I am re-writing in part the historic essence of the catholic Church.

This alternative leads me to think that the Gentile Church or at least Peter's church (in Rome) was not simply a religious community, the new society constituted by the followers of the Messiah. Like the concrete Israel in Palestine, the Church was at once a religious and a political community. Interestingly, only the church of Rome (not the Greek or the Syrian church) had political clashes with the secular government of Rome.

The historians of such clashes totally obscure the historic truth. They speak of the persecutions of the Christians, of demands placed on them to worship the emperor, etc.. But the truth of the matter is that there was total freedom of religion in Rome. The Roman, Mitraic, Egyptian and other religions thrived. The Roman state could not care less what the citizens believed or how they worshipped. But there is one thing that the Christians did not understand, namely that a republic is a society of free person, with mutual rights and duties. To be a citizen is to have allegiance to the republic (the freedom institution). If a Christian [like an Israelite] belonged to a different political society, his allegiance was to his own People, Nation, or Tribe. The Christians turned out to be a nation within a nation, and when they sought to have political control of the hosting nation, then hell broke lose. They were expelled or persecuted, just as the Israelites have been in European hosting countries.

As the church built upon Peter has always been conceived as a religious/spiritual church, I supposed that the scriptural "Peter" lines were interpolated. But they may be original, if we admit of the political dimension of the church (of at least the Church of Rome), which is in line with Jesus the King, not Jesus the Messiah. Needless to say, the Roman Church in time created a curia and developed Canon Law, which is the Church's political law for the church citizens. The historic Medieval strife between Pope and Emperor is ultimately about who should have political jurisdiction over a Catholic population. There was no separation of Church and State either in Israel or in the Catholic Church. When Dante, the devout Catholic and divine poet, wrote on the appropriatedness of the separation of the spiritual Church and the political State, he was practically the first person to split that union which was always there in in principle in the Catholic Church. Not for nothing Dante, on the footsteps of Francis of Assisi, called Lord Jesus LOVE rather than KING. Understanding what was going on, people started talking about "the NEW RELIGION" of Francis of Assisi, and new it was.