Roman influence on Christian doctrine?

[caesar novus]

Besides simply adopting Christianity, I wonder if a case could be made that the Roman world shaped it's very doctrine. Not in passive ways, like a Christian reaction against Roman ways, or having Roman citizens defect to it... but as a flexing of Roman power to shape Christianity to Roman interests in some degree.

 

One example might be the Apostle Paul http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/paul/paul.htm who was an early persecutor of Christians and seemed to be funded in this by the Romans although maybe had other motivations. His later life as a Christian convert seems to involve removing some Jewish aspects out of Christianity, and some think this was to make it especially convert-friendly and to seem less foreign to the average Roman citizen. That took a long while, but maybe still is effective today in conversion efforts.

 

Another example is Constantine, who kind of chaired committees such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea on Christian doctrine. Sometimes described as a passive role in settling esoteric questions, but I think other accounts suggest the stifling of alternative Christian doctrines that would be harder to manage in the context of his empire, such as more mystic and decentralized ones. Could modern Christianity still include echos of things that were "for the good of the Roman Empire"?

[Caesar CXXXVII]

Just for re thinking about the whole matter, see - Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus,by Joseph Atwill

 

http://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Cons...d/dp/1569754578

[Lost_Warrior]

You know I've never thought of it like that.

 

The "salvation" idea was one that was already present in Roman times. The Cult of Mithras springs to mind.

 

I think it's fairly safe to say that anything that was present in any noticeable degree in Roman times got noticed, and shaped as the Romans saw fit. Christianity certainly didn't go unnoticed and as it gained popularity, chances are the Romans were using it in order to further their own agenda.

[Ursus]

I think a religion that severs an individual's ties from the family and the public life of the city-state, as Christianity did, is not something that the Roman state really could have "used" for its own agenda. That early Christianity was so counter to normative Greco-Roman culture is why it was sporadically persecuted in the first place.

 

Paulist Christianity subverted the Roman state, not vice versa.

[ASCLEPIADES]

I think a religion that severs an individual's ties from the family and the public life of the city-state, as Christianity did, is not something that the Roman state really could have "used" for its own agenda. That early Christianity was so counter to normative Greco-Roman culture is why it was sporadically persecuted in the first place.

 

Paulist Christianity subverted the Roman state, not vice versa.

Why couldn't it happen both ways?

Edited December 1, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[caesar novus]

I think a religion that severs an individual's ties from the family and the public life of the city-state, as Christianity did, is not something that the Roman state really could have "used" for its own agenda.

 

Professors in http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...timization.html argue that Constantine allied himself with one of the sects of Christianity that was most compatible with centralized government, and that he persecuted alternate Christian sects (eg. gnostics?), which I gather had a lasting influence.

[Northern Neil]

Could modern Christianity still include echos of things that were "for the good of the Roman Empire"?

The scriptures were certainly 'tidied up' to appeal to Roman tastes. Take for example the only prominent Roman character in the Bible, Pilate. He is portrayed as a reluctant player in the whole crucifixion affair, verging on merciful. Later christian accounts of him remorsefully commiting suicide and his wife converting are plain baloney. Conversely, the skewing of the crucifixion story to blame the jews came in very handy round about 325, when once again the jews were awkwardly resisting the Roman authorities.

[gentleexit]

I think it's better to say that Christianity was "tidied up" or even made for Greek tastes, to live up to Plato and his ilk. The Latin west was a late comer to the Christian party. Nicea says it best. The dilemma there (is Jesus the son as high and mighty as God the Father or is he a creature of the father) is very Greek. This wasn't Jewish stuff and it wasn't a game for worthy, ritual-loving Romans or any westerners for that matter. The first "universal" conference of the Church was all Greek, all the way - Greek Alexandrians against Greeks from Nicomedia and Antioch and Palestine. And of course, the bible was Greek - the Septuagint for the Jewish writings, the Christian, all in Greek that drew on that "inspired" Greek. Now the Romans should have known better. Their greatest poet told them to beware of Greeks and their gifts.

[gentleexit]

Crudely, two opponents define Christian literature and dogmas. First non-Jesus Jews and then Plato's Greeks.

 

When Titus burnt the Jerusalem temple, Jewish Christianity withered (along with most other Jewish sects), leaving one Christianity, the Greek. It takes a lot of bile to justify taking another nation's history, to tell it that it doesn't understand its writings but these Greeks were up to the task - as Asclepiades and others say, their writings (the gospels) reflect that. But I think placate-the-Romans is overemphasized. The focus was wrestling holy texts and their legitimacy from the last rival standing (the forerunners of the rabbi's).

 

Jesus as a god was very Greek and the doctrine was refined debating Greeks. The "begotten, not made" son of God admitted by the vast majority of Christians today only crystallized in the early fourth century. It is beyond the gospels, even "logos" John - certainly, I defy anyone to find the creator of the universe in the the demon-chasing, faith healer of Mark (28 short pages!). Here Rome (western, latin-speaking, Augustus, eternal Rome) again has at most a secondary part. Constantine summoned Nicea but the dispute and its "resolution" was not his, not Rome's.

 

p.s. On Language. "the gospels were written in Greek for the general Roman population". Um. Language use and spread (how much Berber used in North Africa, any "Celtic" left in Gaul, use of Greek vs Coptic in Egypt, how much Greek, known by the upper classes in the west) is a huge topic in itself. Not necessary here 'cause the west had little influence on Christianity. But it's a good'un too!

[ASCLEPIADES]

p.s. On Language. "the gospels were written in Greek for the general Roman population". Um. Language use and spread (how much Berber used in North Africa, any "Celtic" left in Gaul, use of Greek vs Coptic in Egypt, how much Greek, known by the upper classes in the west) is a huge topic in itself. Not necessary here 'cause the west had little influence on Christianity. But it's a good'un too!

That demotic Greek was the lingua franca .

Edited December 1, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[gentleexit]

p.s. On Language. "the gospels were written in Greek for the general Roman population". Um. Language use and spread (how much Berber used in North Africa, any "Celtic" left in Gaul, use of Greek vs Coptic in Egypt, how much Greek, known by the upper classes in the west) is a huge topic in itself. Not necessary here 'cause the west had little influence on Christianity. But it's a good'un too!

That demotic Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern side of the Roman empire is a well established fact. Actualle, when Roman law was introduced in the conquered Palestine, the legal language that displaced the local Aramaic was Greek, not Latin Just check on HM Cotton:

 

"Having previously used Aramaic and Nabatean, they now resort to Greek in their legal documents, for no other reason, it seems, than to make them valid in a Roman court of Law".

 

Yep Greek in the east if you were literate, with Syriac, Coptic, Hebrew/Aramaic written too. The law as you say was Latin - so Beirut was both law school and presumably a latin bastion. From Antioch, Libanius bemoans Latin's influence, how it was watering down learning. Still, beyond the law, Latin stayed west. Important (for Christianity and otherwise) was the loss of Greek among the upper classes in the west as the empire went on. Augustine, the product of fine schooling, knew little or no Greek and Constantine only knew enough for simple conversation but not for speeches or writing. Learning-wise, the Rome and west of the fourth century was a shadow of its former Ciceronian self.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Methinks that part of the problem in Roman-Christian relations was the deifying by a minority sect of a person who was ostensibly crucified for sedition against the empire. To modern eyes this may not seem much of an issue but put in it's proper historical context the import is enormous. Can you imagine how a sect that adored Spartacus as a deity would have fared in those times? The analogy might be a little grotesque but we have to bear in mind that people back then understand a simple fact that escapes our modern minds - crucifixion was a standard punishment for sedition and rebellion, which were considered heinous crimes in most classes of Roman society. The fact that Christians adored a crucified figure would have been, as they say in the Indian subcontinent, a bone in the kebab, the only solution for which would have been extensive doctoring and remaking of Christian doctrine and wholesale borrowing of pagan religious and social paraphernalia.

[gentleexit]

Methinks that part of the problem in Roman-Christian relations was the deifying by a minority sect of a person who was ostensibly crucified for sedition against the empire. To modern eyes this may not seem much of an issue but put in it's proper historical context the import is enormous. Can you imagine how a sect that adored Spartacus as a deity would have fared in those times? The analogy might be a little grotesque but we have to bear in mind that people back then understand a simple fact that escapes our modern minds - crucifixion was a standard punishment for sedition and rebellion, which were considered heinous crimes in most classes of Roman society. The fact that Christians adored a crucified figure would have been, as they say in the Indian subcontinent, a bone in the kebab, the only solution for which would have been extensive doctoring and remaking of Christian doctrine and wholesale borrowing of pagan religious and social paraphernalia.

And in part why the crucifix only rose as a Christian symbol from the mid fourth century onwards. Though persecution per se didn't banish a sect from respectability - Rome tried to suppress Isis, once disliked the Great Mother, Apollonius of Tyana was in and out of favor etc. I think Christianity's morphing to be more Greek (and so more widely understood and acceptable) was more positive than defensive. From early on, it was universalist. It (alone) knew the god of all and everyone should join it. To get everyone, its ways had be somewhat normal. As its numbers grew so did its normality and vica-versa.

[caesar novus]

The dilemma there (is Jesus the son as high and mighty as God the Father or is he a creature of the father) is very Greek. This wasn't Jewish stuff and it wasn't a game for worthy, ritual-loving Romans or any westerners for that matter.

Yeah, I'm starting to suspect that "doctrine" isn't the key issue, and it may be Christian-centric to see religions as modular belief systems... and to worry so much about the differences of doctrine and whether they were influenced more or less legitimately. Maybe the more important thing was Christianity was primarily about beliefs as opposed to practices or community stratification, and the ageing Roman empire needed that kind of ideological energy to hold together, whatever the doctrine.

 

In a very naive attempt of anthropology of religion, I gather that Roman approach was more related to practices/rituals and they didn't care or expect this to go together with belief. Sort of like the way a gangster might have a neighboorhood in fear, and everyone wanting you to show respect toward regardless of your thoughts, so as to not mess up a fragile community peace. Another approach might not need you to believe or practice anything (although prefer that you do), but the essential thing is to accept your defined place in its ideology (hinduism?). And I hear Jewish approach was less defined by beliefs than practises and community self definition (so even though monotheistic, was not the threat to Rome as evangelical belief-obsessed Christianity).

 

I probably mangled this badly, but probably Christianity provided an opportunity/threat that Rome had to either join or fight. Maybe the choice of doctrine wasn't too important to them. If it was greco-centric, maybe that even led to a downfall because of the Italian crusaders later attacking and fatally wounding Contantinople. I gather that emperors after Constantine (esp western?) were not always supportive of Christian doctrine. Also there is an interesting question of Emperors mothers/wives having influence in pushing Christian ideology onto skeptical emperors.

Edited December 2, 2008 by caesar novus

[gentleexit]

but the essential thing is to accept your defined place in its ideology (hinduism?). ... there is an interesting question of Emperors mothers/wives having influence in pushing Christian ideology onto skeptical emperors.

 

Interesting things. But these two (Hinduism and women) jump out.

 

What would have happened to Christianity had Constantine not become Christian and that probably would never have happened were it not for his mother. Christians were a small(ish) sect. You hear of 10% of the empire when it was adopted but that's pure speculation. Archeology doesn't back that up at all. There's a lot of logic along the lines of "it dominated by the end of the fourth century, therefore it was around 10% at its beginning" or "Constantine used the Christians as a 'fifth column' (which isn't true) which means that they were sizable" or "why would Diocletian try to wipe them if they were less than that number (perhaps large in his area?)".

 

And Hinduism - which I believe started formalizing its caste system in the early centuries (1-3). Platonists refer often to Brahmins, visiting them, learning from them. Greek "high thought" centered on re-incarnation, cycle of life etc, very "eastern" or maybe, western and common everywhere but in beliefs derived from Judaism. They interplay of India and Europe died when Christianity was adopted by the western state. What if, what if ...