The following is an expanded excerpt from my book, The Delusion of Christianity, Chapter 7.
In the early apologetic work Demonstratio Evangelica (1:2), ch'ristian polemicist and (not only in my view) proto-Antisemite Eusebius makes an interesting assertion (emphasis added):
These men [the apostles and early Yeshu disciples], then, were not involved in the errors of idolatry, moreover they were outside the pale of Judaism; yet, though they were neither Jew nor Greek by birth, we know them to have been conspicuously pious, holy, and just. This compels us to conceive some other ideal of religion, by which they must have guided their lives. Would not this be exactly that third form of religion midway between Judaism and Hellenism, which I have already deduced, as the most ancient and most venerable of all religions, and which has been preached of late to all nations through our Savior. Christianity would therefore be not a form of Hellenism nor of Judaism, but something between the two, the most ancient organization for holiness, and the most venerable philosophy, only lately codified as the law for all mankind in the whole world.
Moreover in Chapter 5 of the same book, Eusebius claims he successfully "proved" that the Torah and its commandments only applied to the Jews and to nobody else outside the Land of Israel. In Chapter 7 he writes:
So then we are not apostates from Hellenism who have embraced Judaism, nor are we at fault in accepting the law of Moses and the Hebrew Prophets, and we do not live as Jews, but according to the system of the men of G-d who lived before Moses.
In defining a practical strategy to convert Non-Jews into the emerging cult of ch'ristianity, Eusebius must have been aware of how the apostles debated among them in regards to what Tanakh laws would be conveniently applicable to Non-Jews. The Book of Acts must have circulated around those times in one form or another. Thus, in Acts 15:19–20, we are given a snippet of commandments Non-Jews ought to observe (emphasis added):
Therefore, it is my judgment that we do not cause trouble for those from the Gentiles who are turning to G-d, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols, from acts of sexual immorality, from what has been strangled, and from blood.
Even James, who we read rose to propose the above, could not hide the fact that these prohibitions are but a subset of the Noahide Laws: the prohibition of idolatry, the prohibition of sexual immorality, eating from a live animal, and the consumption of blood (which must have been a common practice among the pagans of his time).
It is painfully amazing to observe the great extents to which early church polemicists and, in modern terms, propagandists of the new Greco-Roman cult have gone to justify their dogma as the primordial faith of all humanity. Eusebius ought to have done himself and his Hellenistic pagan followers a favor by demonstrating that the "system of the men of G-d who lived before Moses" was, as a matter of fact, the universal moral bedrock that we have come to term the Noahidic Code. Had humanity not forgotten the roots of that primordial faith, Non-Jews would have had their own received tradition and "rabbis," as one of my modern-day heroes, Rabbi Dr. Yitzchak Breitowitz, has lectured so perceptively.
Indeed, we, observant Noahides, would have had our own received tradition had we not withdrawn over the centuries into what Qoheleth dismisses as "vanity of vanities" (Eccl. 1:2). In that respect, we ought to be grateful to HaShem and Jewish Nation who, despite persistent persecution over the centuries, never gave up preserving our primordial faith through their strict generational transmission of the Written and the Oral Torah. It is due to that unblemished preservation that Eusebius and other early ch'ristians cannot have their positive (or intentional) ignorance justified, for they should have investigated the matter further (e.g., by inquiring with the Jewish teachers of the time). Had he done so, Eusebius would have written that the primordial faith was not something halfway between Judaism and Hellenism, but the primordial faith in the one true G-d that preceded Judaism and the human-made doctrines that were invented in spite of Torah Judaism.
Brought by Yair Borici
Yair Borici embraced the opportunity to observe the Torah for Non-Jews in 2014 upon running into a talk on the Crown of the Torah by Rabbi Manis Friedman while learning Biblical Hebrew on his own. He studied the Sheva Miztwoth Hashem (Divine Code) by Rabbi Moshe Weiner and took the various courses with Rabbi Moshe Perets in the World Noahide Academy starting in 2016. Yair also attended courses with Sephardi Rabbis going beyond the seven categories, including studying Mishneh Torah by the Rambam. Yair has studied is'lam and ch'ristianity extensively for the past 22 years. His focus is raising awareness of and edifying various audiences on the ancient faith in the one true G-d that the Jewish Nation has carefully preserved since they received the Torah at Sinai
Related Articles on the Noahide Academy
Yair Borici. Introducing The Delusion of Christianity.
Yair Borici. On the Universality of the Noahide Code.
Angelique Sijbolts. Why do Noahide not Believe in j'sus?
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