Ancient Christian Beliefs

Roman society didn’t care for the Christians very much. They would blame them for communal catastrophes, such as earthquakes and outbreaks of diseases. They would claim that these misfortunes were caused by the Christians angering the gods. Being Christian by itself was illegal. “The crime of being Christians; that is, to belonging to an illegal sect or association. The penalty for such unlicensed association was death.” (pg. 174) There was freedom given to anyone who renounced their faith and was willing to worship a Roman god. The martyrs went through vicious punishments for staying in their faith. This tells us that living in Roman society could be fatal if you don’t follow what the Roman Empire expected you to be.

It was this refusal that caused its practice to be illegal and those who chose to stick with the faith were prosecuted. Although people were being killed for practicing, Christianity started to become even more popular. After seeing Christian martyrs risk their lives for the sake of Christianity, many Romans were compelled and attracted to the faith. Also, there were Apostles who traveled around the empire spreading the message of Christianity. Then in 312 CE, Emperor Constantine proposed the Edict of Milan that banned all laws against Christianity. That allowed people to freely worship, without the fear of harsh punishment. He eventually converted on his deathbed. Then in 392 CE, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of Rome. Christianity went from being an illegal religion to the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Christianity was frowned upon by the Romans. The Roman Emperor wanted the people to worship him and the Roman Gods. Christians were blamed for many of the misfortunes that happened in Rome. Due to the belief that Christians were to blame they were ostracized, tortured and even killed.

‘Christians to the lions’ as Trajan would say, an emperor in the early centuries Christianity to them have alienated the favour of their gods which has and would continue to cause disasters in the Roman Empire. The misfortune of Christians did not stop during this period, but it did come to a composed halt as Galerius, gave Christians the right to worship in some sense. Christianity during the early stages was clearly a course of persecution and forced pagan accusations. Constantine dramatically changed the recourse of religions with the battle of Milvian Bridge as Christianity became the predominant religion of the Roman Empire.

At one time, all of Rome was united by a common religion. This religion, commonly referred to as the Roman religion, was derived from the religion in Greece. Members of this religion, which included the majority, if not all, of the Roman citizens, worshiped many different gods, including the creator or father god, Jupiter, the sun god, Apollo, the god of inspiring wars, Mars, and many others as well. The popularity of this religion began to decline when Christianity arose. It appealed to the majority of the people, particularly the lower class and slaves, who now had something to put their hope and faith in. This religion spread rapidly, and Roman emperors felt that because it was so influential it would become a possible threat. These leaders began persecuting Christians, but many Romans had already committed to this religion and refused to abandon it because they viewed it as the most important part of their life. This led to a lack of patriotism in Roman citizens who then rejected politics and became independent of the government.

There are many differences between Christianity and Roman religion. There are also similarities between the two of how they both worshipped in a place even if the place was different. Big difference is that they believed in gods and also they had different ways of religious. Roman did not like people turning away from Roman religion, and that caused harsh punishment to Christian to occur. Christianity became popular in Rome is after “the Jesus movement” occurred in Judea. Another key point that needs to be discussed is what the Roman did to deal with the people who turned away from Roman religion to Christianity.

The road for Rome to convert to Christianity was a long one with many ups and downs. Rome was tolerant of most religions, as long as they worshipped the Roman gods and the emperor. This was no problem for most polytheists, but posed a predicament for monotheists like Jews and Christians. Romans considered them outcasts and the emperor Nero blamed plagues and fires on the Christians, to turn the population of Rome against them. In 100 CE, a law was passed, making Christianity illegal and the frumentarii (a secret police force who tracked down Christians) was created.

With Rome’s acceptance of the many polytheistic religions around the region, the emergence of a new monotheistic religion created conflicts with the Roman government. Many of the religions practiced in the Roman Republic were polytheistic, but they were accepted by the government as long as the religion worshipped many gods, such as the main worship of the Roman Gods. During the Roman Empire, Christianity was introduced. It was appealing because the new and different religion promised an immediate life after death unlike some religions such as Hinduism in India, where the final goal, Moksha, did not occur right after death. This made it appealing to convert along with the promised personal relationship with God and

The Roman Empire permitted all types of faiths and worshiped numerous Gods, this was allowed as long as it was what the empire worshiped. Christians where not sentenced to death for being a Christian but harassed. They where executed for not placing Caesar first. “Christians refused to sacrifice to the gods, proclaiming instead that there was only one God.” Christians that refused to worship the Roman Gods where killed by animals or even burned alive.

The Romans had a religion that they believed in but was not something concrete and was not of having a central idea. The religion was based on a mix of certain traditions and beliefs. Religion was not never really a big factor in their Empire. The Romans were stubborn with religion and this could be the reason they had an attitude towards these aspects of life. According to St. Augustine’s book Confession, he states that there were a lot of fake gods and there were two major religions in the Roman Empire. The very first religion was Paganism and that’s what his father was known to believe. Then the second main religion was Christianity which his mother believed in. The emperor of Rome at this time, Constantine himself was not a Christian when he conquered Rome, but rather he had a religious conversion when he won the fight with contending tetrarchs at the Milvian bridge in 306 AD, with help of image of the Cross. The

The ancient Romans fought against the Christians. Romans believed that their kings or queens were chosen by the great gods or goddesses that the Romans praised. Christians did not conform to all Roman Laws or religious ideas, including involvement in the church of the emperor. If people did not obey the rules to worship the great gods that the Romans worshipped, and approved of, they would be killed or punished as Christians.

The three cultures; Ancient Greeks, Romans and Modern Western Christianity share a gradual progression through time that has affected these cultures. My research has primarily focussed on these cultures attitudes to death. Starting with the greeks I will show from the fall of the Greeks, to the Romans and from the Romans to Western Christianity how these attitudes were passed on or eradicated to make room for something new.

The ancient belief systems of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were more different because Muslims believe that the Koran corrects the other holy texts, which leads to a difference in their beliefs. All three religions have different holy texts. They also have different stories about people such as Muhammed and Jesus which play different but influential roles in each religion. Some might argue that there are more similarities amongst the beliefs of the Jews, Christians and Muslims because they all believe in the same God. Still, the three religions are far more different than similar Islam requires a pilgrimage in Islam, and Christians and Jews don’t. During 3200 B.C.E through 600 C.E the three religions were founded and all originated in the middle east.

The Roman government was a dominant power, headed by an Emperor. Emperor Nero, depicted as the second beast in the Book of Revelations, was particularly cruel to early Christians. The Roman Government found Christians very threatening as the Christians refused to pay tribute to the Roman gods and goddesses. Not only that, but Christians viewed Christ as their King and refused to acknowledge the Emperor. Due to this, Christians were seen as treasonous and soon became political targets.

The people of Rome, especially the Christians, had strong faith in what they believed in. This is demonstrated when Nero was burning people in the arena, and the others kept singing. It signifies that they are willing to die for their faith, and will not be intimidated into worshipping someone else. In the end, the Christians are triumphant when they rebel against Nero, and are no longer persecuted. These events prove that if one believes in something enough, it will last longer than anything else. After Nero was defeated, the Christians continued to practice their faith and worship God, and because of this, Christianity and Christians still exist today to spread God’s word and keep the faith alive.