Page 179 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

of so many unless it had overcome and risen above the opposition by divine power, so that it has conquered the whole world that was conspiring against it. . . .
He [also] ridicules our teachers of the gospel who try to elevate the soul in every way to the Creator of the universe. . . . He compares them [Christians] to wool-workers in houses, cobblers, laundry-workers, and the most obtuse yokels, as if they called children quite in infancy and women to evil practices, telling them to leave their father and teachers and to follow them. But let Celsus . . . tell us how we make women and children leave noble and sound teaching, and call them to wicked practices. But he will not be able to prove
anything of any kind against us. On the contrary, we deliver women from licentiousness and from perver- sion caused by their associates, and from all mania for theaters and dancing, and from superstition.
Q What were Pliny’s personal opinions of Christians? Why was he willing to execute them? What was Trajan’s response, and what were its consequences for the Christians? What major points did Origen make about the benefits of the Christian religion? Why did the Roman authorities consider these ideas dangerous to the Roman state?
Sources: An Exchange Between Pliny and Trajan. From The Letters of the Younger Pliny, translated with an introduction by Betty Radice (Penguin Classics 1963, Reprinted 1969). Copyright a Betty Radice, 1963, 1969. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. Origen, Against Celsus. From Origen, Contra Celsum. Trans Henry Chadwick. Copyright a 1953. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.
God’s kingdom on earth, Jesus spoke of a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly one: “My kingdom is not of this world.”16 In this he disappointed the radicals. At the same time, conservative religious leaders believed that Jesus was another false Messiah who was under- mining respect for traditional Jewish religion. To the Roman authorities of Palestine and their local allies, the Nazarene was a potential revolutionary who might transform Jewish expectations of a messianic kingdom into a revolt against Rome. Jesus thus found himself denounced on many sides and was given over to the Roman authorities. The procurator Pontius Pilate or- dered his crucifixion. But that did not solve the prob- lem. A few loyal disciples spread the story that Jesus had overcome death, had been resurrected, and had then ascended into heaven. The belief in Jesus’s resur- rection became an important tenet of Christian doctrine. Jesus was now hailed by his followers as the “anointed one” (Christ in Greek), the Messiah who would return and usher in the kingdom of God on earth.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PAUL Christianity began, then, as a religious movement within Judaism and was viewed that way by Roman authorities for many decades. Although tradition holds that one of Jesus’s disciples, Peter, founded the Christian church at Rome, the most important figure in early Christianity after Jesus was Paul of Tarsus (ca. 5–ca. 67). Paul reached out to non- Jews and transformed Christianity from a Jewish sect into a broader religious movement.
Called the “second founder of Christianity,” Paul was a Jewish Roman citizen who had been strongly influenced by Hellenistic Greek culture. He believed that the message of Jesus should be preached not only to Jews but to Gentiles (non-Jews) as well. Paul was responsible for founding Christian communities through- out Asia Minor and along the shores of the Aegean.
It was Paul who provided a universal foundation for the spread of Jesus’s ideas. He taught that Jesus was, in effect, a savior-God, the son of God, who had come to earth to save all humans, who were basically sinners as a result of Adam’s original sin of disobedience against God as recorded in the Old Testament. By his death, Jesus had atoned for the sins of all humans and made it possible for all men and women to experience a new beginning with the potential for individual salva- tion. By accepting Jesus Christ as their savior, they too could be saved.
THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY At first, Christianity spread slowly. Although the teachings of early Christianity were disseminated primarily by the preaching of con- vinced Christians, written materials also appeared. Paul had written a series of epistles (letters) outlining Chris- tian beliefs for different Christian communities. Some of Jesus’s disciples may also have preserved some of the sayings of the master in writing and would have passed on personal memories that became the basis of the written gospels—the “good news” concerning Jesus as recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—which
Transformation of the Roman World: The Rise of Christianity 141
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