Well, at least part of that aspect of Christianity is preserved from early Christianity. The Romans didn’t like Christianity because it hit almost all of their taboos at once - and there are entire books written on that, so I won’t get into the other ‘triggers’, if you will - but one of the BIG taboos it hit was refusing to pay respects to the gods. For the Romans, the idea that the Christians ‘didn’t believe’ in the Roman gods was irrelevant - hell, the great Roman senator and orator Cicero was an atheist and a priest - but that they refused to swear oaths by Roman gods and refused to participate in pagan rituals under any circumstances was considered downright dangerous.
They might have escaped, even with all their other problems (secretive meetings, closed community, foreign, one God, popular amongst slaves) because of their associations with the Jews, whose religion the Romans tried to respect (even if they didn’t always understand it well), and who were exempt from certain requirements that other subjects of the Empire were subject to. However, the Jews and early Christians were very much opposed to one another, so Jewish communities across the Empire not only refused to speak up for early Christians, but often were the ones bringing complaints in the first place.
Always! I love sharing what bits and pieces I’ve picked up over the years!
I’m honestly not sure what the relation of early Christian theology is wrt hell as we would understand it in the modern day. I know by the 4th century it was a ‘thing’, but other than that, I’m afraid I don’t have an answer.
There are many aspects of Christianity today that would be unrecognizable to early Christians, but belief in hell probably isn’t.
There are the usual caveats about when passages of the Bible were actually written - the canonical new testament wasn’t solidified until long after when Jesus was supposed to have lived, and it’s understood even among Christian scholars that books attributed to one author (like the gospels) actually draw from multiple earlier texts.
All that said, in Luke Jesus tells a parable about a rich man in hell asking a poor man in heaven to go and warn his friends so they don’t also end up in hell.
Well, at least part of that aspect of Christianity is preserved from early Christianity. The Romans didn’t like Christianity because it hit almost all of their taboos at once - and there are entire books written on that, so I won’t get into the other ‘triggers’, if you will - but one of the BIG taboos it hit was refusing to pay respects to the gods. For the Romans, the idea that the Christians ‘didn’t believe’ in the Roman gods was irrelevant - hell, the great Roman senator and orator Cicero was an atheist and a priest - but that they refused to swear oaths by Roman gods and refused to participate in pagan rituals under any circumstances was considered downright dangerous.
They might have escaped, even with all their other problems (secretive meetings, closed community, foreign, one God, popular amongst slaves) because of their associations with the Jews, whose religion the Romans tried to respect (even if they didn’t always understand it well), and who were exempt from certain requirements that other subjects of the Empire were subject to. However, the Jews and early Christians were very much opposed to one another, so Jewish communities across the Empire not only refused to speak up for early Christians, but often were the ones bringing complaints in the first place.
Monotheists! So contentious!
I learned a lot of new stuff from this post. Thanks, very interesting!
Always happy to share! 🙏
Dude, thanks for sharing!
I am learning a lot.
One question that I do wonder about a lot is: did early Christians believe that their pagan friends and family would burn in hell?
My understanding is that hell (as we know it) was a much later invention.
Always! I love sharing what bits and pieces I’ve picked up over the years!
I’m honestly not sure what the relation of early Christian theology is wrt hell as we would understand it in the modern day. I know by the 4th century it was a ‘thing’, but other than that, I’m afraid I don’t have an answer.
There are many aspects of Christianity today that would be unrecognizable to early Christians, but belief in hell probably isn’t.
There are the usual caveats about when passages of the Bible were actually written - the canonical new testament wasn’t solidified until long after when Jesus was supposed to have lived, and it’s understood even among Christian scholars that books attributed to one author (like the gospels) actually draw from multiple earlier texts.
All that said, in Luke Jesus tells a parable about a rich man in hell asking a poor man in heaven to go and warn his friends so they don’t also end up in hell.