Your report, above, is fraught with inaccuracies and generalities, especially as they pertained to first century Christianity and its expecations.
The Romans sent legions to destroy the ability of Jews to continue worship by razing the temple in Jerusalem.
Actually, it was important to both Titus and Vespasian that the temple be spared. The Romans were thus forbidden to torch the temple. Nevertheless, a Roman was witnessed throwing a firebrand into the temple. One of the Roman officers immediately ordered his soldiers to begin battling the blaze and it wasn't long before the Jews were assisting them. But it was too little too late. The temple was doomed, as Jesus had predicted.
In Christianity, fundamentalists proclaim Satan has polluted society and the world at large and only ARMAGEDDON will cleanse the planet and bring about reward for THEMSELVES alone!
In Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity, Armageddon is considered the last great battle of the age. It is to take place in northern Israel and will be an assault on Jerusalem. The Christian authorities knew that the Jews would engage the Romans and that many of them would be killed and that many more would be scattered to the four corners of the earth. They knew that after many years the Jews would return to the lands of their inheritance and reestablish the nation of Israel. The temple would be rebuilt and that the city would come under siege by "the Beast" (see Rev. 11). The Lord would send two prophets to defend them and after three and a half years, they would be killed. The battle would culminate with the return of Jesus, and all nations would behold it. The "cleansing," however, would come later, after the destruction of the Beast and his army, a sixth of which will be spared.
First Century christianity is a MYTH for evangelical christians because it never existed as a SOLIDARITY among the faithful. It only existed as arguments, debates, discord, name-calling and finger-pointing.
First century Christianity began quite well, actually, and there was a solidarity amongst them for awhile. But Jesus, during the 40 days following his resurrection, told the apostles that nothing lay ahead of them but death. The church would not survive, but not because of its enemies outside, but because of wolves entering in the fold not sparing the flock. In the extrabiblical Gospel of Thomas, Jesus tells this parable:
“The kingdom of the Father is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on the road, still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke, and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realize it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty.” [trans. Lambdin (1988)]
The loss of spiritual gifts in the church would happen so slowly that eventually only the form of the church would be left. The substance itself would be gone. But it cannot be successfully argued that the church didn't teach solidarity among the faithful. Just as Moses had been taken from the Israelites, so, too, were the apostles, prophets and others who held the church together. Jesus warned the faithful that it would be the wolves on the inside who would destroy the integity of the church.
