Early Christianity

Why was Christianity more successful than any other spiritual movement within the ancient world?

By Jorge Aliaga Cacho.

'The decisive figures in early Christianity were travelling apostles, prophets, and disciples who move from place to place and could rely on small groups of sympathizers in these places. For the organisation, these groups of sympathizers remained within the framework of Judaism'. (Ref.8.p.8). 

Theissen defines the salient characteristics of these charismatics as homelessness, lack of family, lack of possessions, and lack of protection.

The wandering Cynic philosophers, he says, are in some ways analogous. 

In three centuries, Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, unique in its imperial sponsorship. Eusebius (c.260-340, Bishop of Caesarea from c.313, prominent in the Council of Nicaea. He wrote an Ecclesiastical History down to 324 AD) divided the expansion of Christendom into three phases:

1- The mission of the Apostles.

2- The period around the 180s.

3- The period preceding the conversion of Constantine (312 AD).

The missionary activity of Pauline Christianity is the best-documented segment of the early Christian movement (Ref.3,p,7). Even at this early stage in its development, fundamental internal changes were in process:

Pauline Christianity...was entirely urban. In that respect, it stood on the growing edge of the Christian movement, for it was in the cities of the Roman empire that Christianity, though born in the village culture of Palestine, had its greatest successes until well after the time of Constantine'. (Ref.3,p.8).

'Whereas in earliest Palestinian Christianity the wandering charismatics were the decisive authorities, in a Hellenistic setting, the chief emphasis was soon laid on the local communities'. (Ref.8,p.115).

'Paul hardly quotes the words of Jesus. And even if he had known a number of them, the ethnic radicalism of the Jesus movement, its pattern of dispensing with family, homeland, possessions, and protection, would hardly have found a place in the communities which he founded'. (Ref.8,p.115).

Political and social change swept through the Mediterranean from the age of Alexander the Great to the time of Constantine, a period of six and a half centuries. These changes were urban-based, carried vìa the process of Hellenisation perfected by Alexander, a process which consisted of founding cities and establishing in them the Greek institutions of the body of citizens (demos), governing council (boule ) and educational system. This process of urbanization was continued by the Roman Empire, ushered in by the victory of Octavian at Actium (31 BC). Colonies were useful: they compensated veterans, provided potential military strength in dangerous areas, and revived the eastern economy. The early empire created a climate of stability and security for urban people in the provinces. Urbansociet developed and became even more complex than it had been during the Hellenistic age. These changes were in the general direction of a common Graeco-Roman culture, a culture where Greek was the standard urban language of the eastern Roman provinces, where Christianity originated. The Greek language, however, did not penetrate far into the countryside, where numerous local dialects prevailed.

Because of the cities of the Eastern Roman Empire shared a common language and culture, the early Pauline missionaries could travel from city to city, confident that they would be able to communicate their message when they arrived. The Roman Empire depended on fast, reliable communication by land and sea both for the movement of troops and for trade. The imperial government built and maintained the legendary Roman Road System, while the military presence of land and sea minimized brigandage and piracy. Most of the early Christian ministry was carried out by people who were travelling from place to place for other reasons, as merchants or artisans, for example. Paul himself was a tentmaker. It was not unusual for artisans to move from place to place with the tools of their trade, seeking out the appropriate district (tentmakers quarter, street of the spice merchants, or whatever). of whichever town they came to.

'...The spread of foreign cults closely followed the spread of trade...Christianity repeated this already established pattern'. (Ref.3,p.18).

According to the ''Acts of the Apostles'', the Pauline missionaries would go first to the Jewish synagogue and find opportunities to speak and debate at the regular Sabbath services. Following the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by Roman forces in 70 AD., many Jews scattered to new settlements throughout the Mediterranean, a process often referred to as the 'Diàspora'; Jewish communities were therefore widely dispersed and provided the seedbed for the Christian movement. The missionaries could also make use of extended family ties and networks of relationships within and between cities. 'Family' in this period included not only the bonds of kinship but the master/slave and patron/client relationships; a large 'household' could thus extend to hundreds of people.

Another useful form of social relationship was voluntary association. These have been known in Greek cities since the 5th century. Friends, neighbors, relations, or working associates could find a meeting place, draw up a constitution, and declare themselves an association, whether professional or purely social.

The pagan Roman Empire was tolerant of all the gods. Jews and Christians were persecuted (Jews occasionally, Christian more frequently) because these monotheistic, intolerant religions denied the validity of any other form of belief. MacMullen (Ref.4,p.2) quotes Eusebius:

'The pagans...have thoroughly persuaded themselves that they act rightly in honoring the deities and that we are guilty of the greatest impiety in making no account of powers so manifest and so beneficent, but directly break the laws which require everyone to reverence ancestral custom, la Patria, and not disturb what should be inviolable, but to work orderly in following the religion of our forefathers, and not to be meddlesome through a love of innovation'.

The Ancient World, drawing on the cultures of ancient Greece and Egypt, the Phoenician, Hellenistic, and finally, Roman Empires, supported myriad gods and their associated cults, festival, and oracles. The essence of belief in the pagan world was its diversity. The concepts of heresy and schism were unknown: the pagan writer Celsus speaks of the fury with which a heretic was pursued by those who professed religion of love. Gods were often worshipped far outside their local areas of origin, carried by traders, soldiers, mercenaries, slaves, and government officials. Even a superficial study of Roman Britain reveals numerous Celtic deities bearing the name of a Romano-Celtic equivalent. Romano-Celtic temple friezes depict Celtic gods alongside those from the Roman pantheon. It was accepted custom to pay one's respects to many gods, depending on civic requirements or individual needs and personal preference. The word 'pagan' used as a generic term for 'non- Christian' first appear in Christian inscriptions of the early fourth century (Ref.2,p.30). In everyday use, it meant either a civilian or a rustic. Christians used it as a slang to describe those who did not belong to their 'faith' - an equivalent of the Greek use of the word 'barbarian'. The principal pagan civic cults were rich:

'In Syria, the sanctuary wall of Damascus embraced a sacral area twice the size of a football field, constituting at the same time the principal bazaar of that great caravan city'. (Ref.4,p.26).

'Religious centers constituting also cultural centers, with zoological parks, aviaries, museums, concerts, art galleries, and public lectures, or the equivalent of all these things provided nowhere else in mos cities...In this description, we encounter a distinctive and ubiquitous feature of cult centers, a place where several people could seat down together to eat and drink'. (Ref.4,p.35).

Pagan religious beliefs and cult practices thus served to maintain the very fabric of society. The early Roman Empire saw the rise of the host of new cults and mystery religions including Mithraism and the many sects of Gnosticism. The mystery religions often included elements of belief in reincarnation or metempsychosis (the latter particularly among the Pythagoreans) while some of their practices are not dissimilar to those of the Christians:

'As to Mithraism, it grew like Syrian cults, cell by cell. All meetings in underground chapels, members dined together, sang hymns, and from time to time participated in rites that brought promotion through a series of titles and roles'.(Ref.4,p.53).

The educated classes had the leisure to dabble in philosophy. After the first century BC, the dominant philosophy of the Roman ruling class was Stoicism. The Stoics were pantheistic materialists who believed that happiness lies in accepting the law of the universe; their outlook was international and they denounce slavery. The emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), who presided over a period in which Christian were persecuted, was a prominent Stoic philosopher of his day.

It was expected those wealthy citizens, as a matter of civic duty, would support the important cults. This was a financial burden which holders of public office were required to bear. The prestige of magistrates and other officials was a reflection of their public munificence:

'The obverse was the dodgers in their midst, people who claimed one of the various exemptions from voluntary service which Roman law resected, or who tried to pass the most expensive types of magistracy to somebody better placed to take them'. (Ref.2,p.52).

The cities relied on these public benefactors to finance services (such as the heated public baths) and public life, as income from rents and taxes was limited and there was no direct taxation of the rich. In contrast to this reliance of the pagan civic cults on rich benefactors, Troelsch states:

''...The Early Church sought and won her new adherents chiefly among the lower classes in the cities, and that member of the well-to-do, educated upper classes only began to enter the Church in the second century, and then only very gradually...from the beginning no class distinctions were recognized'. (Ref.7,p.41).

However, he also points out that:

'From the very outset some of the members come from the upper classes; indeed it was they who were chiefly responsible for providing the necessary financial support and places where the Christians could gather for fellowship and worship'. (Ref.7,p.42).

In the 180s, according to Eusebius, there seems to have been a rise in the number of prominent Christians in Rome, Carthage, and Alexandria and it seems reasonable to accept the view that Christianity grew and spread in numbers. However, as Herrin states, 'Christianity was only one among many thriving cults. It appears to have spread easily among the urban poor, who were doubtless attracted by its egalitarian insistence on the worth of every individual' (Ref.6,p.58). Before the time of Constantine, it is difficult to estimate the size and distribution of the Christian population. Fox quotes one statistic, from a letter written by the Bishop of Rome:

'A staff of 154 ministers of varying rank (including fifty-two exorcists and more than fifteen hundred widows and poor people'. were said by the Bishop of Rome to be supported by Rome`s Christians in the year 251'. (Ref.2,p.268).

In the 240s the Christian thinker Origen admitted that Christians were only a tiny fraction of the world's inhabitants. They were prolific authors, however: 'most of the best Greek and Latin literature which survives is Christian' (Ref.2,p.270). In Fox's opinion, this literary production is the world of a small, but an extremely articulate minority. Most of it could be termed pro-Christian propaganda. Christian writers do not inform us of the degree to which Christians lapsed into paganism or Judaism. The Christian church did not have an impact on society as a whole:

'The inscriptions, pagan histories, texts, and papyri make next to no reference to Christians before 250...At this date, there were no church buildings on public ground, yet the tradition of regular attendance at services was very strong. Christians met in enlarged private houses or rooms'. (Ref.2,pp.269,271).

What the Church has developed, however, was its internal organisation.

According to Theissen:

'In the relatively peaceful period down to the beginning of the third century AD, it succeeded in building up a stable organisation and establishing institutional norms like a pattern of ministry, a canon, and a confession of faith'. (Ref.8,p.118).

When Constantine granted the Christian Church his imperial support, structures and administrative mechanisms had been developed over the preceding three centuries which enabled the Church to develop into an economically powerful and overtly political body:

'When he reorganised the empire, Constantine could rely on a small, well organised Christian minority...Christianity became more and more the social cement of the totalitarian state of late antiquity'. (Ref.8,p.119).

The impression given by the previous quote is of a monolithic, structured system of belief, but in the beginning, Christianity was home to a wide variety of sects and heresies (see appendix). Arianism was widespread during the fourth century and there were various Gnostic Christian sects. Over this variety of beliefs was gradually impose on an organised administrative structure. Before the end of the second century, quite apart from the bishops themselves, the hierarchy comprised sub-deacons, who assisted the deacons in their secular duties; a distinct order of lectors, whose duty was to read the scriptures to the congregation, and to take care of the copies used in the church; acolytes, who waited on the bishop; exorcists (the church was renowned by the quality of its exorcists); and ostarii or vergers, who cleansed and arrange the church, and opened and shut it at the due times (see Ref.9,p.206). It had not taken long for the original equalitarian ethos to be altered out of recognition.

Herrin (Ref.6). believes that the rise of Christianity delayed the decline of the Roman Empire. Constantine removed the imperial capital to Constantinople, which developed a Christian character, while Rome, which remained the largest and richest city in the West retained its pagan administration. Christianity was established as the Roman state religion by the fourth-century emperor Theodosius. Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries, the Roman empire was physically whittled away by a variety of invaders including Goths, Huns, and Vandals. In the fifth century, theWestern half of the Roman empire ceased to have any formal existence. The invaders, however, took on the trappings of Roman culture so that, although the imperial order was disrupted, it was not destroyed. Roman administration, coinage, ceremonial, and patronage was adopted for the barbarians' own use. The barbarian tribes had converted to Arian Christianity during the fourth century, and most of the barbarian leaders tried to maintain diplomatic links with Constantinople, the capital of the eastern empire, to in some sense legitimize their occupation.

The Christian church for a long time helped transmit Latin and Greek culture, recommending the study of classical authors. It was not until the sixth century that western bishops began to pressure for conformity in belief and began to denounce pagan learning. According to Herrin:

'Ancient cults, usually emptied of their original belief, persisted nonetheless, perhaps because people had always celebrated the wine harvest and looked forward to the festivities'. (Ref.6,p.76).

A recent program recounted the experience of a visitor to Spain who attended the celebrations for the local saint's day. The image of the saint (whose name escapes me) was respectfully carried to the village square where the local population proceeded to pelt it with rotten fruit in retribution for a poor harvest. Had the harvest been a good one, incense and donations of food would have been the order of the day. This seems to be a clear indication of the echoes of paganism persisting into the present.

By the sixth century, the Christian church held a dominant social position and became openly antagonistic to classical pagan learning and beliefs. In the opinion of Herrin:

'It was in the East where continuity of language made ancient writings so much more accessible that serious commitment to paganism could live on, albeit among very tiny circles of intellectuals who were no threat to the church'. (Ref.6,p.77).

In 529 the emperor Justinian prohibited pagans from holding positions of public education financed by city councils.

'Classical learning, being dependent upon imperial and civic support for its propagation, also had to accommodate the new belief that so rapidly altered the religious allegiance of its paymasters. But in so doing, it lost its monopoly on teaching and provoked the opposition of ecclesiastical culture'.

Social control had therefore passed into the hands of the Christian church. It controlled education: its hierarchy provided a means of social advancement: the doctrines of hell, damnation, and everlasting tortures had had time to be absorbed into the human psyche enabling the Church to dominate by fear. By the fourth century, many prominent pagans had been driven to the refuge of their villages or into bankruptcy and were unable to support the public facade of paganism; by the sixth century professed pagans could not legally pass on their states; they could not enter on profitable carers: their sanctuaries had been stripped of land and wealth.

The mantle of power cloaked the Christian Church which entered a period of cultural dominance which endured until the Renaissance of the 14th to 16th centuries once again encouraged the development of free thought.

Harvie Ferguson in his book ''Religious Transformation in Western Society'' corroborates the last point when he states that in the formation of the West Christianity played a very important role. According to Ferguson the new conception of God, brought up by Christianity, ...' sought to unite two fundamentally different ideas: God as a Creator, as the first cause of all material things; and God as personal salvation, as the end for which human existence was contrived. The ultimate significance and fate of the individual were thus linked, necessarily and essentially, to a cosmic principle'. (Ref.5,p.xi).

However, coming back to the end of antiquity, we would like to argue that the fait acompli of early Christianity was heavily influenced by the conversion of Constantin. It is true that this not mean the immediate adoption of Christianity by the empire but it did influence the future development of Christianity until it acquired the form of a state religion. Exemption of taxes, gifts of money, legal status, etc., gained which provided Christians with a better chance of defeating their religious rivals.

By the end of antiquity, Christianity had endowed the empire with an official religion and, as Harvie Ferguson states: 'it was a state religion in the sense that it was the beneficiary of authoritative protection and privilege. The state encouraged in some circumstances its exclusive services...' Hence the continuous efforts it made to wrest from the state those immunities and privileges which would secure its secular survival'. (Ref.5,p.72). Later when barbarian leaders adopted Christianity, it infringed more on the political terrain, exploiting credal orthodoxy in pursuit of further power and political authority.

Summary

Early Christianity spread from city to city in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, thanks to the common urban language (Greek), culture and ties to religion (initially Jewish), family networks, and trade associations.

Christianity expanded (slowly) during a long period of persecution up to the age of Constantine (312 AD).

Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 AD, after his victory over the co-emperor of the Western Empire, Maxentius, at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome. During his campaign he was said to have seen a vision of the Cross o Christ superimposed on the sun, accompanied by the words 'In this sign conquer'. By the Edict of Milan (313) he formally recognized Christianity as one of the religions legally permitted within the Roman Empire. He summoned and presided over the first general council of the church of Nicaea in 325.

Christianity perhaps it would be fairer to say the ''Church'', thus gradually attained a position of economic and cultural dominance, superimposing itself on the structure of paganism, taking over the old religious sites and festivals, converting the gods into saints, Isis into Mary, Osiris into Jesus.

After Constantine, Christian propaganda became dominant, and the voices of paganism were gradually stifled.

References

1  Mcmullen, Ramsay

    Christianising the Roman Empire - Yale University Press, 1984.

2   Fox, Robin Lane

     Pagans and Christians - Penguin, 1986.

3   Meeks, Wayne A.

     The first urban Christians - Yale University Press, 1983.

4   Mcmullen, Ramsay

     Paganism in the Roman Empire - Yale University Press, 1981.

5   Ferguson, Harvie

     Religious transformation in western society - London: Routledge, 1992.

6   Herrin, Judith

     The formation of Christendom - Princeton University Press, 1987.

7   Troelsch, Ernst

     The social teaching of the Christian Churches (Vol.1) - University of Chicago Press, 1960.

     (Originally published in London: Allen&Udwin, 1931).

8   Theissen, Gerd

     The first followers of Jesus - London: SCM Press, 1978.

9    Kellett, E.E.

      A short history of religious - London: Gollancz, 1993.