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To Whom it may concern….
From the outside, Christianity appears to be a global movement rooted in the teachings of a crucified Jewish Messiah. But peel back the centuries of ritual, architecture, and doctrine, and you’ll find something else entirely: the empire of Rome, beating beneath the robe. This is the beginning of a five-part series that will trace the origins of Christianity not through blind tradition, but through historical truth. To understand what Christianity has become, we must return to the seed from which it grew. That seed is not the teachings of Yehoshua. It is not the Spirit-filled gatherings of early believers. The root of what the world calls Christianity today is the Roman Catholic Church—an institution born not in the upper room, but in the emperor’s court. This first chapter is the root, and that matters because a root defines everything that grows from it. There is no such thing as a corrupted root that produces pure fruit. If the origin is polluted, so is the outcome. If the seed is imperial, the fruit will be control, hierarchy, and deception. And so we begin not with theology, but with power—because that is where the Roman Catholic Church was planted.
The term “Catholic” is widely misunderstood. It does not mean holy, nor does it imply faithfulness to the teachings of Yehoshua. It comes from the Greek word katholikos, meaning “according to the whole,” or more simply, “universal.” From the beginning, the concept of Catholicism was about systemization, not sanctification. To be Catholic was to be part of a centralized, all-encompassing order that left no room for deviation or distinction. This is not the language of holiness. This is the language of empire. Universalism, in the Roman sense, meant the flattening of all difference under the banner of Caesar’s control. It was Rome’s strategy to unify people not through truth, but through absorption—by taking the gods, traditions, and cultures of its conquered subjects and folding them into a single, controllable narrative. In this way, Catholicism was not the flowering of early faith—it was the political repackaging of it.
Rome had no interest in destroying religions. Its brilliance lay in its ability to absorb them. The empire routinely conquered territories with distinct spiritual systems and then rebranded those systems into Roman-compatible formats. Greek gods were renamed Roman gods. Foreign deities were matched with Roman equivalents. Sacred sites were rededicated. Local customs were not banned but absorbed and renamed until their origin became unrecognizable. Religion was not sacred to Rome—it was strategic. It was the mortar that held the empire’s bricks together. And it was this imperial genius that Rome eventually applied to the growing movement of Yehoshua’s followers, not out of reverence, but out of necessity. When a group of people could not be absorbed—when they refused to acknowledge Caesar’s authority or participate in Roman civic life—they became a problem. That’s what the early followers of Yehoshua were: a problem. Not because of theology, but because of loyalty. They bowed to no emperor, refused Roman festivals, rejected idols, and lived by a code Rome did not write.
The early believers were not “Christians” in the modern sense. They were known as Nazarenes, as recorded in Acts 24:5, and they followed Yehoshua not as the founder of a new religion, but as the prophesied fulfillment of a very old covenant. They were Jews who had come to believe that their Messiah had arrived—and they lived accordingly. They observed Torah. They celebrated the Feasts of Yahwey. They gathered in homes and walked in the power of the Spirit. They were deeply communal, intentionally set apart, and uncompromising in their allegiance to Yehoshua alone. What they practiced was not a ritualized religion but a living way—a fulfillment of prophetic expectation, not a replacement of it. They had no churches, no cathedrals, no vestments, and no councils. What they had was faith, fellowship, and fire. They didn’t need permission from the state to gather, and they certainly didn’t ask Rome how to worship.
The word used to describe these gatherings in the original Greek was ekklesia. This word does not mean “church.” It means “the called-out ones.” It is a compound of ek (out) and kaleo (to call), and it referred originally to a civic assembly—an official gathering of citizens summoned to deliberate on matters of importance. In the context of faith, ekklesia meant those whom God had called out from the world to gather under His headship, not under Rome’s. It was a people, not a place. It was a living body, not a brick-and-mortar institution. The English word “church,” which comes from the Greek kuriakē (meaning “of the lord”), is a later distortion that subtly shifted focus from people to property, from relationship to religion, from assembly to hierarchy. This mistranslation was not accidental — it aligned perfectly with Rome’s desire to institutionalize what was once intimate.
As Gentiles increasingly joined the movement, tensions began to rise—not just within the gatherings, but in the empire itself. Rome tolerated Judaism under its own religious exemptions, but the Nazarenes were different. They were growing, multiplying, and refusing to assimilate. Their Jewish roots made them politically suspicious, especially in the wake of several Jewish revolts. The empire began to recognize that any movement linked to Hebrew identity carried with it the risk of insurrection, subversion, and disruption. Rome did not want a Jewish messiah in its temples or in its political imagination. This created the perfect opportunity for a new identity to form—one that could retain the appeal of spiritual salvation without the threat of Hebrew rebellion. And that identity would be crafted, not by apostles, but by emperors.
Enter Constantine. He ruled as emperor from 306 to 337 AD and would go down in history not as a prophet, but as the architect of Christianity. In 312 AD, Constantine claimed to have seen a vision before battle—a cross in the sky with the Latin words in hoc signo vinces, meaning “In this sign, conquer.” The message was clear: use the sign of the cross as a weapon. A year later, he issued the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity for the first time in Roman history. This was hailed as a victory for the faith, but in reality, it was a hostile takeover. Constantine did not surrender to the teachings of Yehoshua—he absorbed them into the machinery of empire. He began funding the construction of churches, granting land to clergy, and integrating Christian symbols into Roman regalia. He called councils to determine doctrine. He wrapped the name of the Messiah around a Roman sword. This was not faith. This was fusion.
And Constantine made sure to sever all remaining ties to the Jews. After the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD—a council he personally convened and presided over—Constantine wrote the following in a letter to the Church: “It appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin… we ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews.” That single declaration is the smoking gun. With it, Constantine made it clear that Christianity was no longer Jewish in origin or spirit. The Feasts were replaced. Passover became Easter. The Sabbath was abandoned in favor of Sunday. The Messiah of Israel became the figurehead of Roman religion. And the people through whom the promises were first given were now labeled heretics, Christ-killers, and enemies of the empire. Constantine institutionalized antisemitism, and that hatred would seep into every corner of the Church he helped build.
What emerged from this fusion was not the ekklesia of Yehoshua but the empire of Constantine. The Roman Catholic Church did not sprout from the teachings of the Messiah. It was planted in Roman soil, watered by Roman politics, and pruned by Roman councils. It bore no resemblance to the faith it claimed to represent. It was not called out—it was called up by Caesar. The institution that took the name of Christ did not carry His Spirit. It carried the spirit of empire, control, hierarchy, fear, and power. The root was Roman. The foundation was Caesar. The center was empire. Everything built upon it, from its doctrines to its rituals to its holidays, was shaped by the desires of men—not the heart of God.
And so we must never forget: the root defines the fruit. If the foundation is built on absorption, antisemitism, and ambition, then the religion that grew from it cannot be holy. There is no separating the parts from the whole. You cannot sanctify what was born in compromise. Every chapter that follows in this series will echo this truth, because it must be echoed. You cannot fix the branches if the root is poisoned. And the root of Christianity, as we now know it, is Rome. In the next chapter—The Trunk—we will explore how this imperial root grew into a towering structure of councils, creeds, crusades, and clerical authority. We will examine how the trunk of the Catholic Church shaped the world’s understanding of God through systems, rituals, and violence, all while claiming to be the vine. But remember this always: nothing that grows from a corrupted root can produce the fruit of life. Only the Tree of Life Himself can do that. Everything else is just the forest of deception.
