The Roman Empire: Early Judaism And Early Christianity

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.

In the time Paul was writing to the Romans there was conflict between the Gentiles and the Jews. Many of today’s scholars have presented a number of likely reasons as to why Paul may have written the book of Romans. One of these believed reasons was for him to address the continued power struggle between the Gentiles and the Jews. In the book of Romans, Paul encourages unity as people of God and begs the Jews and Gentiles to have peace and love with not only each other but with everyone in the world.

Imperial persecution became wholesale throughout the Empire. Initially the Jewish community was the instigators of this persecution of Christians. The book of Acts outlines several incidents involving such persecution. During the decade of 60 A.D., periods of Roman persecution occurred, however this persecution was sporadic. For example, Nero was ruler of the Roman Empire, under his reign Rome was set on fire and burnt to the ground. Christians became the scapegoat for this cowardly act. Tasitus wrote that perhaps Nero himself started the blaze, as an excuse to persecute the Christians. Nero’s acts of persecution were contained within the confines of Rome.

The Roman Empire had a significant impact upon Christianity for a number of reasons. Firstly, Christianity originated in the Roman Empire. The vast majority of early Christians lived in the Roman Empire. As the religion was made up of Roman citizens and was mainly contained within Rome, it was unavoidable that Christianity be affected by events in the Roman Empire.

The Romans were hard headed when it came to religion, as to a lot of things. This probably explains why they had a really tough time understanding the concept of a single, all knowing and most powerful god. The change from being a Pagan city to a Christian city was hard and it took the city of Rome a long time to get used to it. There are many differences between Paganism and Christianity, Christian beliefs are all centered around the words of the Bible. Also, Christianity has one singular God they worship whereas Paganism have many different Gods they worship.

Roman religion and was a contributing factor to the resulting fall of the Roman Empire.

Due to this within the Roman Empire, Christianity was banned and Christians were punishes and persecuted for many years. Feeding Christians to the lions was seen as entertainment in Ancient Rome. Religion was very important to the Romans. The first few years of Christianity the Christians were prosecuted and they were punished, often death was one of the results of this. The Romans targeted the Christians first to be persecuted as a group by the emperor Nero in 64 AD.

(1) Describe the interrelation between the Roman Empire and Christianity by examining the following: (a) Emperor Constantine (b) The Latin Language (c) Church Ritual.

After a long fought battle by Christians to belong Christianity flourished and spread throughout the Roman Empire. “Christianity, the core religion of the West, was born within the Roman Empire and was greatly influenced by Roman law and organization”(Perry 167). Whether or not Rome wanted Christianity it was there to stay. According to Spielvogel “Christianity fulfilled the human need to belong”(175). Christians formed a bond and communities where people could express their love by helping each other and assisting the needy. It made people feel more like the belonged in a way that just the Roman Empire could not do. The Roman Empire was way too big and impersonal that people needed an outlet and needed a way to feel like they were apart of something bigger than themselves. “The ideal of a single Christian society embracing many different nationalities, so dear to medieval thinkers, was superimposed on the model of the Roman Empire” (Perry 167). No matter what Christianity was spreading rapidly and the Romans were going to embrace this new religion and ended up building a successful empire around its ideals. Much like the Roman Empire the founders of the United States built this country off of Christian ideals.

The relationship between Christianity and the Roman Empire is interconnected with each other in different ways. Heaps of commotion and perspectives were constructed, and it caused several disputes to form all over Europe. In addition to this, there was also a large amount of seclusion, death and persecution during the time. Events such as the Fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, the rise of Christianity, and its expansion throughout the Europe were a result of the political conflict. Due to the actions of many individuals and groups that influenced the course of major events, the relationship between the Roman Empire and Christianity was quite tense, problematic and confrontational.

One out of the many factors the contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire was the new religion Christianity. Christianity is a monotheistic religion (in which you believe in one God). The Roman religion was polytheistic (in which you believed in more than one God). Romans used to persecute the Christians because of what they believed. Until 313 C.E. (Christian era) the Roman Emperor Constantine the great ended all of the persecution against the Christians.

The Edicts of Galerius and Milan were decreed to stop persecution of the Christians that had lasted since the movement began. Persecution of Christians had begun as early as the Emperor Nero’s rule. “Persecution went on automatically, if sporadically…until the third century” (G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, “Early Christians” 15). Christians were persecuted simply for being Christians. At the beginning of their movement, many pagan Romans believed all Christians were incest and cannibals because of the secrecy of their rituals. Once the apologetic works of Augustine and others were written to defend the Christian practices that were the source of these ideas, the only claim against someone being a Christian was their questionable loyalty to the state.

Arguably the most crucial civilization in history is Rome. Rome was very advanced for it’s time and a very well functioning, thriving empire. Rome had a military full of strong, capable soldiers, and a well governed group of citizens. So how could so something so mighty and powerful eventually fall? I believe that Christianity was more of a result than the complete cause of the downfall of The Roman Empire

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.

During the period of the New Testament, two religions, Judaism and the Greco-Roman religion, were prevalent in the Mediterranean. The Greco-Roman religion, spread through Hellenization, held the Gentiles of the Roman Empire in cultural unity, while Judaism served as the cultural basis for the Jewish community. Both religions signified the cultural identity of a community in the Mediterranean and remained as separate entities due to ideological and ethnical differences. Separation, however, did not mean these religions were polar opposites in nature. Judaism, although different from the Greco-Roman religion which was prevalent in the world, can be evaluated as a Greco-Roman religion which diverged.