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In the history of Christianity (q.v. for detailed discussion), "Pauline Christianity" is a useful term in specifically identifying the eventually dominant form taken by "official" Christianity, the evangelists to the Gentiles as it was organized by Paul and amended by the tradition of Johannine theology in the 2nd century and in the 4th century protected by Constantine and finally authorized by Imperial sanction in the Theodosian decrees of 391 in both the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. In opposition to this Pauline tradition, the forerunners of mainstream Christianity, there were various rival philosophies and formalized churches evolving in the first couple of centuries after the Crucifixion. An important figure excluded from Pauline Christianity was James, the brother of Jesus according to the Gospels (Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55-56) and Paul himself (Galatians 1:18), the head of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, a "pillar of the church" according to Paul. There were other interpreters of the message of Jesus: the Ebionites and Nazarenes form one contrast to Pauline Christianity; the philosophies of Gnosticism form another.
Partisans of the Roman Catholic position declare that "Pauline Christianity" is a tautology, that Paul's organization is the only Christianity. Other critics point out that the expression, like most historical designations, is an anachronism, not used by contemporaries.
Pauline Christianity was organized by Paul, who declared himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles," and his circle. Paul and his followers denounced other formulations of the Christian oral tradition as heresies. For their part, according to Epiphanius, the Jerusalem-based Christians denied that Paul was even a Jew. Some modern revisionists see Pauline Christianity as a method of taming a dangerous sect among radical Jews and making it palatable to Roman authorities.
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Ancient Roman Christianity
