BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Well in a lot of ways from certain traditions, to architecture, to literature, to rhetoric, to how Jesus was portrayed and how certain events were portrayed. We must remember that the first Christians were the disciples themselves and the various others who followed them. These were Jews who believed that Jesus was a Jew, who came on behalf of the Jews, to fulfill Jewish Messianic prophecies. They were highly apocalyptic and they believed that the path to righteousness with God was to follow the Law. By the time of Constantine, the church had and continued to experience anti-semitic viewpoints, the depiction of Jesus had changed to having Him come for all mankind instead of just the Jews, the apocalyptic tradition had been heavily glossed over, and the path to righteousness with God had become Paul's doctrine of Grace.
How did that happen?
Well that's a very long story, and my guess is that you know a great deal of it already. We also have to keep in mind that it was Paul who was the most successful at spreading Christianity in the early church. Paul was a Jew, but he was also a Roman and he was converting Gentiles (Romans) so the message had to accessible and impactful for them and it had to appeal to them in a way that would be accepted from a Roman viewpoint.
An example of this would be the depiction of the trial of jesus before Pilate. This is heavily Romanized in order to appeal to a Gentile population. The portrayals of Pilate going to such lengths to save Jesus and making a show of washing his hands of it, and the Jews screaming "His blood be upon us and our children." after Pilate calls Jesus a righteous man. (Matt. 27:24-25, NIV). Pffft...give me a break. Pilate wouldn't have given two shits about Jesus. He was just the headache of the day. Pilate would probably have crucified Jesus, went to have a nice breakfast, made love to his wife, took a pleasant afternoon nap, and it wouldn't have crossed his mind further. That was thrown in there to appeal to Gentiles and instead cast responsibility upon the Jews as an entire community as evidenced by the addition of "....and our children". The author is making the point that all Jews are to blame. I highly doubt that is something that Peter, John, or even Paul, being Jews themselves, would have agreed with or made a central point of their teaching.
Another example would be the apocalyptic tradition. The disciples and especially Paul were apocalypticists. They believed the Kingdom of God was at hand. Jesus had fulfilled the Messianic prophecies, the first would be last and the last would be first. It was time! It was here! Revelation, even being written so much later, upheld that tradition. It was a great Judeo-Christian apocalypse that said just those things. The time is at hand! Rome will fall. Down with Caesar! Ok what do you do with that book and that tradition when suddenly Rome IS the church and the church IS Roman? You can't have books in your set of scripture that says 'down with Caesar, down with Rome' when the church IS Rome. So what do you do? You change the meaning and insist that author meant something else. You smooth out and gloss over the apocalyptic tradition that was absolutely vital to the beliefs and early teachings of the earliest Christians.
So there's a couple examples. I could go on but this post is long enough as it is and I think that you, being a knowledgeable and reasonable person, are already aware of these things anyhow. So there you go.
Permeation works in both directions. It is equally--perhaps even more-- correct to say Rome was Christianized. The Book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature, written during the time Rome was persecuting Christians. As we know, apocalyptic literature dealt with end times. Jewish thought had changed from a king who would change the world so that it was always good, to a more realistic interpretation that the rule of good in the world could only ever be short-term. Therefore godliness would only last for a thousand years after the crowning of a human, Jewish king, at which time the world would end.
In Revelation, John, with his imagery, reminded Jewish followers of all the times Jews were persecuted, and how they were always revived to go on to bigger and better things because God is always victorious.
Christianity wasn't Romanized to appeal to the Roman. Christianity appealed to Romans, and brought some non-Jewish ways into Christianity. Christianity was open to this because of the Noachide Laws that both Jews and Christians agreed ruled both Jews and non-Jews. Jews, however, were committed to following additional customs God set for specifically for Jews.
Gentiles could better grasp the idea of Father-Son-Holy Spirit, the idea of One God encompassing creator-word-spirit. Since The Word had a human, as well as divine nature, this was a breaking point for Jews who held God could in no way be human.
I agree with you that the story of Pilate and crucifixion had some dramatic addition and--I believe--some equally dramatic deletions. However, I also believe the crux of the story survived both. More than anything else, I would love to know the real story of the crucifixion. I think most people would be devastated by the truth, but I think, for the rest of us, it would become even more awesome.
So yes. Christianity was Judaized, Romanized, Greeked, Spanished, Anglicized, Germanticized, Americanized, Chinesed, Africanized, and etc, etc. etc. It will also be futurized because Christianity is not a static religion because the Holy Spirit is not static--and neither are we. However, the heart of all is Christ.
Anyway, great sharing thoughts with you!
Well sure...Rome eventually became Christianized. I mean that is obvious. But what form of Christianity? Was it the form that Peter spoke of? I don't think so. They met somewhere in the middle. As far as Christianity appealing to Romans...wow...I don't see that at all. Romans respected power. People today sometimes argue that Christianity spread in part because the Romans saw these brave Christians willing to be martyred for their faith and that sparked their interest. No way! Romans respected people who fought. They would have seen the willingness to die without even putting up a fight as being cowardly. To a Roman there was nothing appealing about that at all.
Christianity did spread, of course, but it had no influence or legitimacy in Roman society until Constantine started winning battles backed by the Christian God. Before that, Romans would say 'what power or authority does this Christian God have? We haven't seen anything. We have seen great battles won by the grace of Mars. We have seen what happens when you do not appease Vulcan...you get a volcanic eruption.' These were signs of the power of the gods and that's what Romans paid attention to.
Now after Constantine and Constantius started kicking ass backed by the Christian God...ok NOW there is a God Romans can get behind because He is making the Empire more powerful. Then Julian comes in, re-establishes the pagan gods and subsequently gets his ass kicked. Jovian restores Christianity, Valentinian starts kicking ass again and that's it. That's all the Romans needed to see. Game, set, and match baby.
Now....can you imagine how Peter, Matthew, Andrew, or even Paul would have reacted had you told them that in a few centuries Jesus/God would be granting victories to Rome?!?!?!
As always...love your input
