Download THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY Religion played a very important role

THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
Religion played a very important role in the daily life of Ancient Rome and the Romans. Roman religion
was centered on gods and explanations for events usually involved the gods in some way or another. This
was the “state religion”, and citizens were expected to follow it. The Romans believed that gods
controlled their lives and, as a result, spent a great deal of their time worshipping them. The Romans had
an elaborate religious system with many groups and types of deities.
The most important god was Jupiter. He was the king of gods who ruled with his wife Juno, the goddess of
the sky and motherhood. Other important gods/goddesses were:
Mars
Mercury
Neptune
Janus
God of War
Messenger of the gods
God of the Sea
God of the Doorway
Diana
Vesta
Minerva
Venus
Goddess of the Hunt
Goddess of the Hearth
Goddess of Wisdom
Goddess of Love
(The entirety of the gods and goddess is called the Pantheon.)
Other deities:
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The heroes -- humans who achieved divine status -- Hercules was the most famous example.
Note that the gap between god and human was not so great as to be uncrossable.
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Local deities -- each region, city, town, and village had its own tutelary gods, and there were
gods who protected field boundaries, storehouses, and every other imaginable thing of value.
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Nature spirits -- each tree, stream, hill, and other natural feature had its in-dwelling spirit.
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Genii -- in addition, each individual had his or her own "genius," deity that was transformed by
the early Christians into the "guardian angel."
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Magic and superstition -- people needed to believe that they had protecting spirits because they
were very superstitious and that they were always in danger of "bad luck" on Fridays, the 13th of
the month, after having broken a mirror, when their stars were not in a good alignment, and so
forth. They also believed in witches, vampires, the evil eye, and other
malevolent forces. Fortune-telling, astrology, numerology were popular
ways of predicting one's future
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The early Romans were ancestor worshippers, and each family and family
home had its "household gods." Each family home would also have a small
altar and shrine. The Romans had personal household gods or spirits called
'lares' which were worshipped every day at home. The shrine contained
statues of the 'lares' and the head of the household led family prayers
around the shrine each day. The service was considered so important that
family slaves were also invited. It is believed that most Romans were
keener to please their 'lares' than the public gods such as Jupiter.
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After the reign of the Emperor Augustus (27 BC to AD 14), the emperor was also considered to
be a god and he was worshipped on special occasions. Each god had a special festival day which
was usually a public holiday. This holiday gave people the opportunity to visit the temple for
whichever god was being celebrated. At this temple, priests would
sacrifice animals and offer them to the god.
Temples to worship the gods were built throughout the Roman
Empire. Temples usually always followed the same building pattern.
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The roof was triangular shaped and supported by great pillars. Steps led up to the main doorway
that was usually built behind the pillars. The inside of the temple would have been very well
decorated and there would have been a statue of the god in it. There would also have been an
altar where a priest would have served the god and made sacrifices. People called augurs could
also be found in the temples. These people used the entrails of the dead animals to predict the
future. The Romans took these predictions very seriously and few ignored the advice of an augur.
**** Worship of the deified emperors (and of the Gods) was a required part of citizenship
and all public office as a show of faith and loyalty to the state; if not, treason****
For the Upper Classes (Patricians) there were also a few of the Philosophical Religions (some that we
studied with Greece), which required education to understand, such as Stoicism and Epicureanism.
For the lower classes, the "Mystery Cults" were more accessible than the ancient rituals of the state
religion or the confusing language of the philosophical religions.
a) these cults promised a life after death, usually with the example of a death-conquering hero who
had died and rose again
b) the Mysteries included education, initiation, ritual and community for all believers
c) they were usually open to all people, although they could be limited (ie. men only), and appealed
mostly to the masses
d) one could belong to some or all of these, including the state religion
Some of these include:
*the Cult of Cybele, from Asia, focused around the Mother Goddess, the goddess of Fertility who
dies each Winter only to return each Spring
(1) initiates would perform wild rituals
(2) priests ritually castrated themselves as an offering of their fertility to the goddess
(a) later, bulls’ testicles were sacrificed in exchange for those of the priests, also allowing
women to be priestesses of Cybele
* the Cult of Isis, the Egyptian goddess, stressed the old myth of her husband, Osiris, who was killed
and later resurrected:
(1) the cult admitted men and women
(2) there was a long initiation process
*the Cult of Mithras, a Persian deity who also was killed and raised from the dead, only admitted
men, and was very popular with soldiers:
(1) Mithras was identified with the Sun, who dies each sunset and is reborn each sunrise
(2) initiates were "baptized" in cow's blood in a ritual called the Taurobolium
These Mystery cults (Isis, Mithra, Orpheus, and many others) offered hope, and sometimes a moral basis
for human action. The mystery cults (so-called because members had to undergo an initiation -- such as a
purifying bath of the eating and drinking of the symbolic body and blood of the cult's founder) and the
nature cults (exemplified in the shepherd's god, Pan, and the fishermen's god, Neptune, who were
combined into the Christian image of the devil and given the name of Lucifer -- "the fire-bringer")
provided Christianity's major competition for converts and supporters.
*****it is within this social context that the Cult of Jesus gained in popularity; Christianity was born,
an offshoot of the very ancient Jewish faith*****
For many of the poor, the state cult was fine for ritual and a beef barbecue every once in a while, but
(1) the Olympian gods made no promises for the after-life, and
(2) the concept of life after death was a new and very popular message of hope for the
beleaguered people of the empire
(3) Roman religion did not provide a moral base or message of hope.
Basics of Christianity:
 Arahamic Faith
 Off shot of Judaism
 Founded by Jesus. Belief in His death and resurrection.
 Spread by Peter and Paul throughout the Mediterranean, the Balkans and Europe.
 Holy Books – the Bible (both the Old and the New Testaments)
 Moral Code = the 10 Commandments
 Belief in and afterlife - either Heaven or Hell
Christianity's advantages in the Roman Empire:
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Its founder was an actual person
It had the Jewish legal code and tradition of morality
It had the ability to adopt and adapt: Christmas was taken from the cult of Mithra, the Madonna
from that of Isis, and many other Christian traditions were borrowed from other religions
Christianity appealed to the downtrodden masses. Women, low-skilled workers, prostitutes, the
uneducated, slaves, fishermen, tax collectors, and so forth were the companions and "beloved"
of Jesus, and a growing class of the oppressed and despised saw Christianity as the only faith that
offered them the hope a better life --- sometime. (Blessed are the poor . . .)
Christianity attracted only the committed, since becoming a Christian was like signing your own
death warrant, and the sect's numbers were periodically purged in a wave of roman persecution.
Those of weak faith did not stay long. It is said that "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the
church," and this was true. The Christians met horrible deaths with pride and even joy,
impressing all who watched with the fact that the Christians seemed to have something worth
dying for. Christianity's ability to survive persecutions impressed those who possessed little faith
of their own.