That's a good question. I think the most "important" proto-Christian movement was probably that of the Cilician Christ-cult to which Paul belonged, mainly because it established a protocol bridging its Jewish and Gentile members, and set the precedent for Gentiles being an integral part of "the New Israel" (as many 1st-century Christians called themselves). All the other movements, by contrast, were made up primarily of ethnic Jews; while they all held Hellenic beliefs of one sort or another, they don't appear to have had much extra-Jewish appeal. |