Jewish Christian missionaries targeting Gentile converts (were Apollos and Cephas doing so?),94 if on different terms. Whether we treat them as part of 'Gentile Christianity' depends of course on how we define the category.95 Johannine Christians may well represent a form of Gentile mission in Asia independent of Paul's (see esp. John 7:35; 12:20-1).96 Even if the main Gentile mission in these provinces was Pauline, we should also expect there were other missionaries (including members of the wider Pauline missionary network, perhaps,97 but not limited to them) who worked in between the urban areas that Paul made the measure of his circuit around the Mediterranean, such that he could say when writing Romans that he 'no longer had a place in these regions' (Rom 15:22).
What about other provinces? Luke depicts an early mission that may extend to Ethiopia, though he does not tell what happened when the eunuch baptised by Philip completed the journey home to his land and queen, Candace (Acts 8:26-40). There is little early information about missions in eastern Asia Minor and Mesopotamia,98 though later traditions associate them with the apostle Thomas.99 The situation is similar with other provinces that were out of the Pauline 'orbit', such as Egypt, North Africa and Mauretania, and Gaul; original missionary efforts there may have been amongJews or among Gentiles, or both.100 Once any Christian communities have been founded, however, 'mission' may be reconfigured from itinerant outreach to networking in the present context.101 No matter the locale, the household (and perhaps by extension the neighbourhood) seems to have been a central locus for the propagation of the faith.102
This phrase is sometimes used to refer to the developments in Gentile, particularly Pauline, Christian communities in the third generation, as they are known
94 1 Cor 1:12 and 3:5, 22. Luke calls Apollos an Alexandrine Jew (Acts 18:24); Becker, Paul, 93, a Gentile Christian missionary.
95 See discussion above, pp. 103-5.
97 The Pastoral Epistles assume Paul had delegated Ephesus, Crete and other eastern areas to his trusted emissaries when he turned west.
98 Bauckham, 'What if Paul had travelled east?'
100 See the essays in pt iv, below, for discussion of each region.
101 Stark, Rise of Christianity.
102 See Klauck, Hausgemeinde; MacDonald, Early Christian women; and discussion in pt iii, ch. 14, below.
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