I believe that the early Christians, those in the first centuries, followed Jesus' teachings, but ultimately Christianity became the religion of Paul, not the religion of Jesus: As noted in the quote below, the small handful of true Christians’ was Nazarene Christianity, which was already extinct in the fourth century…
Below is an excerpt from the section of a book entitled
The Light Shineth in Darkness, Studies in revelation after Christ by Udo Schaefer which explains how Paul changed the Christianity of Jesus. You can read the entire section of the book which includes the references on the link to my thread below.
"That the figure of the Nazarene, as delivered to us in Mark’s Gospel, is decisively different from the pre-existent risen Christ proclaimed by Paul, is something long recognized by thinkers like Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Herder and Goethe, to mention only a few. The distinction between ‘the religion of Christ’ and ‘the Christian religion’ goes back to Lessing. Critical theological research has now disputed the idea of an uninterrupted chain of historical succession: Luther’s belief that at all times a small handful of true Christians preserved the true apostolic faith. Walter Bauer (226) and Martin Werner (227) have brought evidence that there was conflict from the outset about the central questions of dogma. It has become clear that the beliefs of those who had seen and heard Jesus in the flesh --- the disciples and the original community--- were at odds to an extraordinary degree with the teaching of Paul, who claimed to have been not only called by a vision but instructed by the heavenly Christ. The conflict at Antioch between the apostles Peter and Paul, far more embittered as research has shown (228) than the Bible allows us to see, was the most fateful split in Christianity, which in the Acts of the Apostles was ‘theologically camouflaged’. (229)
Paul, who had never seen Jesus, showed great reserve towards the Palestinian traditions regarding Jesus’ life. (230)
The historical Jesus and his earthly life are without significance for Paul. In all his epistles the name ‘Jesus’ occurs only 15 times, the title ‘Christ’ 378 times. In Jesus’s actual teaching he shows extraordinarily little interest. It is disputed whether in all his epistles he makes two, three or four references to sayings by Jesus. (231) It is not Jesus’ teaching, which he cannot himself have heard at all (short of hearing it in a vision), that is central to his own mission, but the person of the Redeemer and His death on the Cross.
Paul, however, did not pass on the revealed doctrine reflected in the glass of the intellectual categories of his time, as is often asserted; he transformed the ‘Faith of Jesus’ into ‘Faith in Jesus.’ He it was who gave baptism a mysterious significance, ‘so as to connect his mission with the experience of initiates in Hellenic mystery cults’, (232) he turned the last supper into a sacramental union with the Lord of those celebrating it; (233) he was responsible for the sacramentalization of the Christian religion, and took the phrase ‘Son of God’--- in the Jewish religion merely a title for the Messiah --- to be an ontological reality. The idea of the Son of God, come down from heaven to earth, hitherto inconceivable to Jewish thought, (234) was taken from Paul from the ancient religious syncretism of Asia Minor, to fit in with the need at the time for a general savior. It is generally accepted by critical scholarship that the godparents were the triad from the cult of Isia (Isis, Osiris and Horus) and also Attis, Adonis and Hercules. Jesus, who never claimed religious worship for himself was not worshipped in the original community, is for Paul the pre-existent risen Christ……..
This was the ‘Fall’ of Christianity: that Paul with his ‘Gospel’, which became the core of Christian dogma formation, conquered the world, (237) while the historic basis of Christianity was declared a heresy, the preservers of the original branded as ‘Ebionites.’ As Schoeps puts it, the heresy-hunters ‘accused the Ebionites of a lapse or relapse into Judaism, whereas they were really only the Conservatives who could not go along with the Pauline-cum-Hellenistic elaborations’. (238) Schonfield comes to the same conclusion: ‘This Christianity in its teaching about Jesus continued in the tradition it had directly inherited, and could justifiably regard Pauline and catholic Christianity as heretical. It was not, as its opponents alleged, Jewish Christianity which debased the person of Jesus, but the Church in general which was misled into deifying him.’ (239) ‘Pauline heresy served as the basis for Christian orthodoxy, and the legitimate Church was outlawed as heretical’. (240) The ‘small handful of true Christians’ was Nazarene Christianity, which was already extinct in the fourth century……
The centerpiece then, of Christian creedal doctrine, that of Redemption, is something of which—in the judgment of the theologian E. Grimm (244) --- Jesus himself knew nothing; and it goes back to Paul. This is even admitted by some Catholics: ‘Christianity today mostly means Paul.’ (245) And Wilhelm Nestle stated—as noted also by Sabet—‘Christianity is the religion founded by Paul who replaces the Gospel of Jesus by a gospel about Jesus.’ (246) So also Schonfield: ‘Paul produced an amalgamation of ideas which, however unintentionally, did give rise to a new religion.’ (247)……
Measured by the standard of Baha’u’llah revelation, the Pauline doctrine of Justification, the doctrine of Original Sin, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the sacramentalisation of the Christian religion, the whole Church plan of salvation — which not only contradicts the Jewish understanding of God (255) but was also strongly repudiated by the revelation of God which succeeded Christianity (256) — these are a deformation of Jesus’s teaching. Some critical theological scholars have confirmed that these deformations in Christianity started very early, in fact with Paul, and that the arch-apostle, without whom Marcion would not have been possible, was the arch-heretic in Christianity—as Tertullian very rightly saw. (257) Years ago, when I became acquainted with the founder of the Christian religion in the faith of the original community through H. J. Schoep’s
Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums, (258) the standard work on the subject, I was deeply impressed. Here Jesus was not the only-begotten Son of God come down from Heaven, crucified and resurrected, nor the unique Saviour, but the messenger of God to whom the Quran testifies and who is glorified by Baha’u’llah. (259)"
How Paul changed the course of Christianity
That is true, as is noted on the BBC website:
Roman Empire
Paul established Christian churches throughout the Roman Empire, including Europe, and beyond - even into Africa.
Persecution
However, in all cases, the church remained small and was persecuted, particularly under tyrannical Roman emperors like Nero (54-68), Domitian (81-96), under whom being a Christian was an illegal act, and Diocletian (284-305).
Many Christian believers died for their faith and became martyrs for the church (Bishop Polycarp and St Alban amongst others).
Constantine turns the tide
When a Roman soldier, Constantine, won victory over his rival in battle to become the Roman emperor, he attributed his success to the Christian God and immediately proclaimed his conversion to Christianity.
Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Constantine then needed to establish exactly what the Christian faith was and called the First Council of Nicea in 325 AD which formulated and codified the faith.
BBC - Religions - Christianity: The basics of Christian history
Christianity was very small in the first century, before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and Christianity may well have died out if Paul had not established Christian churches throughout the Roman Empire.
“Most scholars of Christian origins tend to exaggerate the size and importance of the early Christian church. This is understandable in the light of the discipline’s intense concentration on the New Testament texts. By confining ourselves in particular to the letters of Paul, the Gospels and Acts, it is all too easy to create a limited and false impression of the ancient world and the place of the Christians within it.
Yet the reality is that for all of the first century the Christians were a tiny and insignificant socio-religious movement within the Graeco-Roman world (Hopkins 1998:195-196). Christianity did of course grow considerably in later centuries and it eventually became the religion of the Roman empire, but we should take care not to retroject its later size and importance into the initial decades of its existence.
Just how small was the Christian movement in the first century is clear from the calculations of the sociologist R Stark (1996:5-7; so too Hopkins 1998:192-193).Stark begins his analysis with a rough estimation of six million Christians in the Roman Empire (or about ten percent of the total population) at the start of the fourth century... There were 1,000 Christians in the year 40, 1,400 Christians in 50, 1,960 Christians in 60, 2,744 Christians in 70, 3,842 Christians in 80, 5,378 Christians in 90 and 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century.
These figures are very suggestive, and reinforce the point that in its initial decades the Christian movement represented a tiny fraction of the ancient world.”
How many Jews became Christians in the first century?
