Primitive Christianity

Primitive Christianity was Jewish and did not survive the Apostle Paul's well-intended Gentilization of the faith. The closest approximation to primitive Christianity to survive into the 21st century is tasawwuf.

Whereas Jesus was the Great Reformer of Israelite religion, Muhammad was the Great Revivalist of Jesus' Galilean reforms.

Christianity, then, is a vast archive of Gentile misunderstandings of a Jewish reform movement and Islam is the Perso-Arabic reception and continuation of the Muhammadan revival of that movement.

The Protestant Reformers of the 16th century came too late in the game to be able to effect a movement like tasawwuf. Not only that, but they were the European heirs of a long history of Christian antisemitism. Consequently, they were incapable of embracing anything close to the Jewish halakha that was undoubtedly the underlying habitus of the primitive church.

History, we must never forget, is the record of unintended consequences.