The Rise of Christianity

The Origins of Christianity

Christianity started small, as a Jewish sect. Before the Jewish revolt of 70CE Jewish sources describe Christians as Minim, i.e. heretics for believing that Jesus was the Messiah [LS1985, pp 51-61]. Sixty years later, after the Bar-Kokhba rebellion, Christianity appears as a separate religion. [ibid, p. 75]. We can only speculate about the reasons for that development.

The Oxford theologian C. H. Dodd has characterized the period 100-180CE as one when the Christian Church went through a dark tunnel [SA1997, p.13]. Christian theological writings from that period focus on developing a distinct identity from Judaism, Hellenism, and, particularly, Gnosticism [ibid]. The latter was a second century CE movement that emphasized knowledge (gnosis in Greek) as opposed to the Christian emphasis on faith [EB82]. The knowledge of the Gnostics was supposed to be esoteric obtained by divine revelation. While many of the Gnostic beliefs can be traced to Greek, Jewish, and even Zoroastrian beliefs, Gnosticism did not become prominent until after Christianity [EB82]. Most of the modern knowledge about Gnosticism is derived from Christian polemics against them and as a result it is limited. However, echoes of it appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls so the Essenes might have had an interest in Gnosticism.

A remarkable development of the period was the rejection of Greek philosophers by Christian apologists that was expressed as follows: "Anything correct in the treatises of the philosophers has either been taken from the Prophets or has been inserted there by demons in order to create problems for Christianity" [SA1997, p. 117 attributing the summary of ancient Christian views to the German theologian Adolf von Harnack]. This attitude was going to have enormous consequences and it is still held by some Christian fundamentalists today.

Even though Christianity became a separate religion, its connection to Jewish beliefs survives in its name that is derived from the Greek word for Messiah. The correspondence of the words is shown in the table below. The word Χριστος is related to the word χρισμα meaning unction or, metaphorically, approval. It should not be confused with the word χρηστος meaning virtuous.

We should add that first Christians (more precisely Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah) expected the end of the world to come very soon (there are statements in the Gospels that the kingdom of God would arrive during the lifetime of those present). Under Roman rule, living conditions in the land of Israel were at odds with Jewish religious practices and the belief that the end of the world was near had a certain appeal. The destruction of Jerusalem after the 70CE encouraged the belief that "the end of time was near". When the end of the world did not arrive as expected the belief on future life and the immortality of soul took the place of offering hope to the oppressed.

Why Christianity Spread

The classic work of Gibbon [EG] includes two long chapters (XV and XVI) on Christianity. Chapter XV lists five reasons for the spread of Christianity. (I) "The intolerant zeal of the Christians"; (II) "The doctrine of a future life"; (III) The miracles "ascribed to the primitive church"; (IV) The "pure and austere morals of the Christians"; and (V) "The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire." [EG, vol. 1, p. 431].

Gibbon's analysis of the first reason exhibits a negative attitude towards the Jews. In essence he claims that the Christians had the "intolerant zeal" of the Jews but not their "exclusivity". However, Gibbon is wrong about the "exclusivity" of the Jews because that is a relatively modern phenomenon as we pointed out in Chapter 2 (Section on Hellenism and Judaism). Therefore Gibbon's first reason is based on a false premise and leaves open the question why Christians were more successful than Jews.

The second reason is also disputable because other religions also promise future life, starting with the ancient Egyptians. The immortality of the soul was also accepted in Judaism after the Babylonian exile. Gibbon states that the immortality and pre-existence of the soul was accepted "from the philosophy of religion of the eastern nations" [EG, vol. 1, p. 452]. We can also dispense with the third reason because few if any people ever witnessed the miracles. Therefore the last two reasons seemed to be the most important.

Wright [Wr09, pp. 266-287] presents the following theory for the spread of Christianity. The large extent of the Roman Empire in the first century CE encouraged the migration of people from far away places into the major cities. These migrants sought the support of voluntary associations, some of them centered around a cult. This was similar to what happened in the United States in modern times. Christian churches, according to E. R. Dodds (quoted by Wright [ibid]), provided "the essentials of social security". According to Wright this is where the Christian emphasis on brotherly love proved useful providing a stronger bond amongst the members of a church than that provided by other associations. Paul of Tarsus was an organizational genius and Wright details how his action led to the spread of Christianity. In essence, Wright's reasons for the spread fit with reasons (IV) and (V) of Gibbon.

What was unique in Christianity compared to the pre-existing pagan religions was the hierarchical structure where different churches were supervised by a bishop and different bishops by a metropolitan. Gibbon asserts that the office the bishop was introduced before the end of the first century [EG, vol. 1, p. 470] and the office of the metropolitan before the end of the second century [ibid, vol. 1, p. 473). However, this organization may have older origins in the Jewish sect of the Essenes. Gibbon [ibid, vol. 1, p. 489] does credit the influence on the Essenes on Christianity but he lists only "their fasts and excommunications; the community of goods; the love of celibacy; their zeal for martyrdom; and the warmth ... of their faith."

It turns out that the Essenes had the office of bishop. According to information found in the Dead Sea Scrolls as described by Eisenman and Wise [EW92, pp. 215-216] the Essenes had the office of Mebakker that in Hebrew means Overseer. The Greek word for Overseer is Episkopos from which the English word Bishop is derived. Eisenman and Wise [ibid] point out that according to at least one document the Mebakker did act "as a kind of 'Bishop'". Thus we have similarity of both the functions and the name of the official. If we accept the hypothesis that Christianity started as an off-shoot of the Essenes, the office of the bishop was there from the beginning. Most likely, the Essenes took the office of the bishop from the Zoroastrians (see Chapter 1).

In short, the Christians were a well organized group within the Roman empire, truly a state within a state. The Roman emperor Maximin (308-313CE) was alarmed by the growth of Christianity and he recognized the importance of bishops so he tried to impose a similar structure on the old religions. "...the officiating priests of the various deities were subjected to the authority of a superior pontiff destined to oppose the bishop, and to promote the cause of paganism" [EG, Chapter XVI, vol. 2, p. 64]. However Maximin died soon afterwards and his reform of paganism was abandoned.

The appeal of a belief to a future life (after death) should not be discounted as a factor for the spread of Christianity since these were unhappy times for many people. The rule of Rome was oppressive and the civil wars that went on and off for nearly 150 years made matters even worse. The thought of an afterlife made it easier to suffer through the present life [JB83, pp. 163-214].

Developments in Rome

Starting with Nero, Roman emperors were hostile to Christians. This attitude is not surprising if we accept that the Christians were well organized and as such presented a challenge to an autocratic ruler. There were several persecutions, although some historians claim they were not as severe as the Christians themselves claim. Gibbon points out the "melancholy truth" that "the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other then they had experienced from the zeal of infidels" [ibid, p. 68]. (The rest of this Section relies on material from Burckhardt [JB83, pp. 43-70].

Emperor Constantine

When Constantine the Great (272-337CE) became the sole emperor, his first act was to move the imperial capital from Rome to the site of the Greek colony Byzantium and build there a new city, Constantinople. (The English name is a corruption of the Greek name Constantinoupolis meaning city of Constantine.) The change of attitude toward Christianity and the move of the capital were monumental acts and Constantine is truly a person who changed history.

The move of the capital reflected the increasing importance of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and it was a less drastic act than it may appear at first sight. Rome had been losing status since the time of Diocletian who created provincial administrative centers and had his palace at Nicomedia, not that far from Byzantium (see previous section). The specific choice of Byzantium had to do with the advantages its geographic location that made very hard for an attacker to overtake the city. Indeed Constantinople survived many sieges until 1205 when it was taken by the Crusaders.

It has been customary to refer to the state that had as capital Constantinople as the Byzantine Empire. However that is a modern designation. The state continued to be called the Roman Empire until its end, when the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople in 1453. The name even survived under the Ottomans when Orthodox Christians formed the Rom millet (religious community). The term Ρωμηος (Romios) meaning Greek is in use even today, although it has acquired a somewhat pejorative sense.

Constantine's support of Christians was not as sudden a change in policy as it might appear because his father, Constantius, had entrusted Christians with important positions. "The principal offices of (Constantius) were exercised by Christians" [EG, Chapter XVI, vol. 2, pp. 58]. The most likely explanation of the favorable attitude towards Christians is that Constantine saw then as a cohesive force for the empire.

Additional Bibliography