Christianity in the hands of the ancient Romans.

1. Its general knowledge that Christianity, a semitic religion was adopted by the ancient Romans. However, the Romans did not just simply adopt Christianity. They had quite a bit to do with Christianity, before they adopted it. They had, at one point occupied the holy land, executed Jesus for the Jews and later brutally persecuted the Christians. Then a funny thing happened, they not only only adopted Christianity as a state religion, but also established the biggest church... the Roman Catholic church.


2. Now lets have a look at the ancient Romans religious culture.
The ancient Romans, in general were a people who had a history of adopting the religious beliefs of others around them, such as the Greeks. The Romans preferred to absorb the religions of people they had subjugated, instead of imposing Roman religious beliefs on them. This is a very important thing to bear in mind, as you continue reading.

The Romans are known for the great number of deities they honored, a capacity that earned the mockery of early Christian polemicists. The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Roman culture, introducing some religious practices that became as fundamental as the cult of Apollo. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks, adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art.

As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb the deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them, since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability.

wiki

Christianity was just another of the many religious cultures that the ancient Romans had absorbed into their way of life. I highly doubt that the ancient Romans converted because they were genuinely moved by the teachings of Jesus (or even Paul).


3a) The politics behind the Christianizing of the Roman empire is also a key factor to consider.
Constantine the great, the so called first "Christian" emperor of Rome claimed to have had a dream of a flaming cross in the sky with the message "with this sign, you will conquer". Really now? The symbol of Jesus' sacrifice to take away the sins of the world (as Christians believe) was a sign for some pagan emperor to "conquer"? Don't Christians see something wrong with this picture?

3b) Constantine was a friend to Christianity, (funding churches and stopping their persecution).... while at the same time, worshipped the "Sol Invictus", the sun god of the Roman empire.

3c) Constantine later became more and more Christian and turned against paganism and tore down pagan temples towards the end of his reign. Though he played a great role in Christianizing the Roman empire, his own "Christianness" was questionable. For starters, this guy killed his own wife and son!. You decide.

3d) Constantine also led the council of Nicea, with the intent to define and canonize important doctrines (such as the trinity, deity of Jesus etc.) that religious leaders were quarelling over... BY VOTE! Constantine himself did not vote...as he lacked understanding of the very theological issues the council intended to resolve.

Constantine had little theological understanding of the issues at stake, and did not particularly care which view of Christ's nature prevailed so long as it resulted in a unified church. This can be seen in his initial acceptance of the Homoousian view of Christ's nature, only to abandon the belief several years later for political reasons; under the influence of Eusebius of Nicomedia and others.

wiki

He did not care about the nature of Christ, but just wanted a unified church. How many things went wrong there?


4. Then we all know of the horrors of the inquisition perpetrated by the Roman Catholic church... which was essentially a product of the ancient Romans.


5a) Do Christians honestly believe the original Christianity that the Romans started to adopt survived corruption in their hands?
Do Christians believe that the ancient Romans simply decided to do away with their religious practices and adopted a SEMITIC religion from a different part of the world?Remember the Romans were a people who used to absorb and integrate foreign deities and religions into their own. There is zero guarantee that Christianity survived corruption at the hands of the Romans.

5b)I'm not just talking about pagan influences like Christmas and Easter, but far more important theological issues..... which were wrongly canonized as "Christianity" under the watch of an leader who was not exactly a shining example of a good Christian. The thing is, the Romans didn't just adopt christianity the way people in Asia adopted Islam or Buddhism. What the Romans did was establish an organization that became THE authority on a semitic religion, which decided whats truth and whats not.... punishing severely those who questioned their version of the "truth".


6) To those who might say that the doctrines of the trinity and the deity of Jesus was already established in the bible.... think again. The reason why Constantine held the council of Nicea was because Christians (even back then) were quarreling over theology... despite reading from the same bibles in their hands. So evidently, there was already a division among Christians. Which is why Constantine, for the sake of achieving unity, commanded religious leaders to decide and frame the doctrines that all of Christianity would follow. This doctrine was upheld by the Church and enforced by the Constantine. They had the absolute power to tweak the scriptures to fit their view, which they forced upon everybody else.

The "Christianity" established under Constantine pretty much laid the groundwork for modern Christianity.


Discuss.

well its sure nice for someone to see the real truth of how christianity came about!!!
you nailed it on the head friend!!!
i'm tired of banging my head against the wall trying to explain these simple facts to people,
but they still look at me like i have 2 heads!
if the christ did come back(don't worry,i'm not waiting!) he would think it blasphemy
this religion that was named after his title!
ya,christ wasn't his name folks,so when you say your a 'christian',
you are claiming to be part of a cult of the anointed one!
the romans pulled off the biggest population control experiment in history
with its fake sol invictus(invinsible sun) cult ever!!!
only on his death bed did constantine 'convert' to christianity--- just in case!!!
the romans took most of the other religious doctrines,and shoved them all into what is now christianity.
every aspect of modern christianity can be traced back to older pagan beliefs.
i now ask the christians who will argue against all this to choose your words wisely,
because there are more than a few of us on ats that are well equipped to argue this fact!
thank you for so elegantly breaking down the obvious reality of this fake religion!
to my christian friends,you have been duped into following a radical jewish sect,not unlike the
people from qunran who authered the dead sea scrolls.
there was a reason john the baptist and yeshua ben yoshif were murdered by the romans.
they were a threat to roman authority!
there is one line in the new testament that sums up jesus' mission-
"i have not come to change the law(of moses)not even by one letter!
i have come to fulfill it"!!!
he was jewish people!!!

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

To those who might say that the doctrines of the trinity and the deity of Jesus was already established in the bible.... think again.

Those things, the trinity and Jesus' membership in it, were established by the time of Constantine.
Matthew says it at the end of his Gospel, "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
The quarrel was more about if there was a church authority to decide theological questions, and if those decisions can then be enforced upon the membership.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n


Well, I suppose when ordered to "Discuss" I better discuss

A great post and tons of stuff in there. My .02 on a few items.

Constantine was in the business of keeping the empire calm and together. While I cannot prove it as I did now him personally, his adoption of Christianity was most likely an ends to that means versus an indicator of his inner most beliefs of spirituality.

Many Christian practices are really just left overs from pre-existing pagan practices. This in no way detracts from the matter of faith but lends to greater understanding of the religion. A great book on that subject is here. The Romans just lent to that

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349619872&sr=8-1&keywords=pagan+christianity

The canonization of doctrine (Council of Nicea) is a great example of a window into the past. It provides an opportunity to indirectly appreciate what was trying to be achieved by what was kept and what was tossed.

S & F

Until people learn to look at world history as a whole, instead of just cherry picking from Western history, then discussion is pointless. So much history is ignored in discussions like these because it doesn't fit into the average anti-Christian agenda of those who live in the West. People love to think they know Church history and theology- yet they know only a very distorted and small part of it. Also, they usually get their time-lines wrong, as evidenced by the pagan Easter accusations. You don't know what you're talking about with that. Even the Romans didn't call it Easter. It's Pascha. It's a Christianized Jewish feast. Well, at least you acknowledge that Constantine didn't decide anything at Nicea. You've already got a leg up on the usual naysayers.

And before anyone mentions Mithraism, let me clue you in. There were two very different forms of Mithraism in the world, practiced by two very different peoples in two very different times. One was practiced in ancient Persia. The other post-dates Christianity and was a Roman mystery religion. So, any similarities on that front were the Romans borrowing from the Christians and not the other way around, as is usually asserted by those who haven't done their research and only take their talking points from anti-Christian sources.

ETA: If you seriously want to learn about the history and theology of Christianity, then I suggest you check out the works of Jaroslav Pelikan. He was a Yale Professor who was quite well-known and celebrated for his scholarship when it came to Christian history and theology (yes- even in the secular community).

The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vols. (1973–1990). Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100–600 (1973) ISBN 0-226-65371-4
Volume 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom 600–1700 (1974) ISBN 0-226-65373-0
Volume 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology 600–1300 (1978) ISBN 0-226-65375-7
Volume 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma 1300–1700 (1984) ISBN 0-226-65377-3
Volume 5: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture since 1700 (1990) ISBN 0-226-65380-3

reply to post by reficul

. . . he was jewish people!!!

That is a pretty weak support for something you consider the central theme of Jesus' message.
Jesus saw what was being passed off as "law" incorrect, and said as much.
It gets spelled out in the Gospels that Moses gave a law that took into consideration the hardness of the people's hearts.
He was saying in his kingdom, the Law is stricter and you need to be as holy as God's angels in heaven, if you ever want to be among them in the life to come.
Jesus was not on earth to promote Judaism, and what he pointed out that was important to take away from that religion was the prophecies that were about himself.
As Moses had his congregation in the wilderness, Jesus had his own congregation that he called the church, and he had his own law, given from the mount, taking on the role of the great I Am, representing God, being His manifestation on earth that could be tolerated by human kind.

reply to post by jmdewey60


well,as pope leo X so nicely put it-
"it has served us well this myth of christ"!

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

3a) The politics behind the Christianizing of the Roman empire is also a key factor to consider.
Constantine the great, the so called first "Christian" emperor of Rome claimed to have had a dream of a flaming cross in the sky with the message "with this sign, you will conquer". Really now? The symbol of Jesus' sacrifice to take away the sins of the world (as Christians believe) was a sign for some pagan emperor to "conquer"? Don't Christians see something wrong with this picture?

You want to see the sign Constantine saw? It wasn't so much a cross he was seeing, as it was something else entirely different.



A cross emblazoned under the sun.



Symbol for female+star= idol of Ishtar. The pagan roman version of this goddess would be Venus. The Roman Catholics call Mary the "bright and morning star" which is actually one of Jesus the Christ's titles and doesn't belong to her. They also call her the "queen of heaven" which is one of ishtar's (or Ashera,Astarte,Ashtoreth) titles and "Mother of God" which derives from Semiramis and Nimrod.

I suspect Constantine was not ever a christian. My reason is because he waited till the end of his life to be baptised because a he believed a emperor would rack up alot of sins in his reign (wars and killing), so he waited to the end of his life to be baptised believing baptism washes away a person's sin, which christianity says it's the blood of Jesus that washes away sins, not the act of baptism. Belief that baptism washes away man's sins comes from Mithraism not christianity.

reply to post by LeSigh

Until people learn to look at world history as a whole, instead of just cherry picking from Western history, then discussion is pointless.

I had to "cherry pick" from western history...especially from the Roman empire, because they were the ones who had control over Christianity. I didn't bring up Africa or South America because they did NOTHING to help shape Christianity like the Romans did.

Christians seem to assume that their bible floated upwards from the middle east...moved towards wherever they lived and then, landed in their laps.
The reality is that the bible was re-directed to them via the Romans.... who took control over a religion that came from the semites, established their perspectives on somebody elses religion and then declared their perspective on it as "truth".

The Romans played a major role in modifying a religion they got from somewhere else.

So much history is ignored in discussions like these because it doesn't fit into the average anti-Christian agenda of those who live in the West.

I don't live in the west....and I don't have an "anti-christian" agenda.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

I suspect Constantine was not ever a christian. My reason is because he waited till the end of his life to be baptised because a he believed a emperor would rack up alot of sins in his reign (wars and killing), so he waited to the end of his life to be baptised believing baptism washes away a person's sin

Constantine comes across as a rather unstable guy.
At best, he was another of those charismatic and powerful rulers who had a whiff of religion and spirituality, got high... and did a bunch of things common believers wouldn't do.

He was probably infatuated with certain ideas presented by Christianity...and got a little carried away by those ideas. I get the impression that he seemed to be more interested in keeping his empire running... in one piece.

reply to post by jmdewey60

The quarrel was more about if there was a church authority to decide theological questions, and if those decisions can then be enforced upon the membership.

There was also something about another point of view regarding Jesus and God who sent him.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n


reply to post by lonewolf19792000

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000


You want to see the sign Constantine saw? It wasn't so much a cross he was seeing, as it was something else entirely different.

LL
you're so close you actually nearly avoided tripping on it

what constantine probably saw:



comet lovejoy


the romans were very good at battlefield psychology,and notorious for taking such signs as in their favor.

as for the "vision"...

the thing you and many scholars fail to factor in your theories/interpretations, my friend,

is that the way humans in the past saw the world and even THOUGHT
was waaaayyy different from the modern western paradigm, which is, along with an excessive left-brained reliance on Logic and Reason, barely a half millennium old.

what is referred to by constantine [and saul of tarsus before him]
having a blinding flash of ILLUMINATION or VISION
is what we nowadays call: having an IDEA or ORIGINAL THOUGHT, often pictured like this: or:

constantine's Vision: him coming up with a way to unify his crumbling empire,via monotheistic xtianity.

saul's vision: the realization that his efforts at destroying the primitive church was severely hampered by the common peoples memory, AND image of jesus and his followers, that a direct approach made these 1st xtians into underdogs and gained them sympathy, and that an infiltrate and destroy from within approach would, if not totally corrupt, would at least disassociate it from judaism.

this student of the cabalist gamaliel then used self-hypnosis to induce hysterical blindness and reprogram himself so as to "fool the elect", as he did; to the point that he was so caught up in his deception, he wound up getting martyred.

as for constantine's baptism: this was not his desire, but too weak on his deathbed to refuse or prevent them from doing so, the priests, in typical priestly fashion, forcibly baptized him, this merely involved pouring a little water over his head and reciting a formula.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n
reply to post by lonewolf19792000

 

I suspect Constantine was not ever a christian. My reason is because he waited till the end of his life to be baptised because a he believed a emperor would rack up alot of sins in his reign (wars and killing), so he waited to the end of his life to be baptised believing baptism washes away a person's sin

Constantine comes across as a rather unstable guy.
At best, he was another of those charismatic and powerful rulers who had a whiff of religion and spirituality, got high... and did a bunch of things common believers wouldn't do.

He was probably infatuated with certain ideas presented by Christianity...and got a little carried away by those ideas. I get the impression that he seemed to be more interested in keeping his empire running... in one piece.

Well christianity was growing by leaps and bounds even under persecution, for every person martyred in the name of Jesus 10 more stood up and took their place. it was growing amoung the mob, and amoung politicians and their wives and even amoung the soldiers. I'm pretty sure he saw the growing faith as a threat and saw an opportunity to keep the empire unified. He probably sought a balance and the burgeoning catholic church of the time would have been a great medium.

Alot of the statues today still standing in Rome, like the statues of Mary and baby Jesus were originally the statues of Venus and Cupid, and the statue of St. Peter is actually the statue of Jupiter or possibly Saturn. The Vatican itself is built ontop of the temple of Cybele as its foundation. It would have been easy for the pagan roman religion to masquarade as christianity by swapping the praying to and worship of pagan gods and goddesses for Mary and the Saints and angels. Now there is a Pope sitting on a throne between 2 cherubim calling himself the Vicar of Christ which means the "human (physical) representative of Christ" and the blaphemies pile high.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n
Christianity was just another of the many religious cultures that the ancient Romans had absorbed into their way of life. I highly doubt that the ancient Romans converted because they were genuinely moved by the teachings of Jesus (or even Paul).

Who do you mean? The Romans prior to Constantine? Or those after him? The reality of the matter is that there was a significant percentage of Roman citizens who were converting to Christianity, even in the face of persecution, so one can make the case that Constantine was just "going with the flow."

He did not care about the nature of Christ, but just wanted a unified church. How many things went wrong there?

He didn't care, because he wasn't a Christian. If he converted at all, it was at the end of his life, long after Nicaea.

4. Then we all know of the horrors of the inquisition perpetrated by the Roman Catholic church... which was essentially a product of the ancient Romans.

This kind of comes in from left field, but you're aware that less than 5,000 people died in the Inquisitions, right? One person is too many, of course, but there are those who believe that millions died, a complete fiction.

Do Christians believe that the ancient Romans simply decided to do away with their religious practices and adopted a SEMITIC religion from a different part of the world?Remember the Romans were a people who used to absorb and integrate foreign deities and religions into their own.

Like I said, Christianity was sweeping through the Empire long before Constantine came along. In addition, we can look at the writings of the early church fathers (like Irenaeus or Origen) and see that there was no dramatic shift in theology following Nicaea. There are definitely points of difference, but they aren't game changing -- it is likely that if Paul had a time machine and zipped from 64AD to 640AD, he probably wouldn't have had too many complaints with the state of the church.

reply to post by adjensen

This kind of comes in from left field, but you're aware that less than 5,000 people died in the Inquisitions, right? One person is too many, of course, but there are those who believe that millions died, a complete fiction.

I doubt it was just 5000, records back then over such matters were probably not kept up and in the interest of Rome the church probably fibbed on that number. People started wising up that the church was screwing them out of the bread of life, and i'm not talking about the Jesus cookie either. The war between the french Hugenaughts and Rome 1 million Hugenaughts were killed in that war. Peter Waldo started figuring out something was hinky which was what later became the movement of the Waldensies.

There's a whole lot of not real kosher things the church of Rome does that has no root based in christianity and it's jewish roots, such as a mandatory celibate priesthood which Christ did not command, nor did Jesus command confession for sins to priests, nor penances like Hail Mary's, nor did he create any clergy, for all believers in him are priests of God, Bishops were established as leaders of each church center by the Apostles. Then there's the replacing of Immersion that Christ did command, with sprinkling, and the "baptism" of infants that is completely pointless and utterly useless as infants have no sin and cannot ackowledge any wrong doing and thus repent. Neither do i agree with transubstatiation during communion as it stinks of sorcery and turns a symbolic gesture of remembrance into something more sinister. These are major reasons why i am not a catholic, even though some catholic theology does appear to be sound, but it is the mixing of the wrong things with the right ones i find the most alarming and the most dangerous. As a christian who has sought after his jewish roots to find the connection to the Apostles, there is alot i am diametrically oppossed with when it comes to Rome and i do not blame the laity but i do hold the clergy responsible.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n


Discuss.

Did you miss the reformation and Luther and protestantism
Discuss

Whispers of Christ Jesus swept the world over with story and manuscripts. Saint Constantine wanted to combine the writings into a book for the faithful but had to assemble knowledge of what writings were accurate and from trustful sources. We can thank him for putting together an accurate record of his birth, life, death and resurrection by faithfully and honestly taking into account the source, history and beginning of the knowledge.

Can you imagine if he hadn't? We would have millions of accounts as memory changes with time.

EDIT: Opening Poster, your avatar is an ancient baptismal symbol, was/is that intentional?

reply to post by kinglizard

Opening Poster, your avatar is an ancient baptismal symbol, was/is that intentional?

I ran a few searches and found this....


Its a baptismal cross. Your'e right it does look similar to what I use in my avatar. Its the symbol of chaos... showing arrows moving in all directions.

Another thing that looks like the baptismal cross and the chaos is this buddhist symbol...

Its the Dharmachakra... representing the buddhist eight fold path.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

Well christianity was growing by leaps and bounds even under persecution, for every person martyred in the name of Jesus 10 more stood up and took their place. it was growing amoung the mob, and amoung politicians and their wives and even amoung the soldiers.

reply to post by adjensen

Who do you mean? The Romans prior to Constantine? Or those after him? The reality of the matter is that there was a significant percentage of Roman citizens who were converting to Christianity, even in the face of persecution, so one can make the case that Constantine was just "going with the flow."

1. The Romans may have converted to Christianity in large numbers, but they were still following a rather Romanized version of Christianity. This is made obvious by the fact that Romanized Christianity had no regard for the 2nd commandment. They just wen't ahead and made images depicting God and the angels. In other words, they practiced their own form of Christianity... which had strayed far from the original.

2. Religions are known to spread from the land of its origin.....and people who convert almost always follow the tenets of the religion as it was passed on to them. They don't take liberties when it comes to following the laws of the religion...and they most certainly don't make laws for the original people who they got the religion from.

Can you imagine Chinese muslim converts making religious laws for muslims in middle east, the place where Islam originated? Thats exactly what happened with the Romans and the council of Nicea.
The Roman converts went on to become THE authority on a religion that originated with the Semitic people.
Don't you find that strange?

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n
1. The Romans may have converted to Christianity in large numbers, but they were still following a rather Romanized version of Christianity. This is made obvious by the fact that Romanized Christianity had no regard for the 2nd commandment. They just wen't ahead and made images depicting God and the angels.

I think that you're missing the point of the Second Commandment, which is against idolatry, not against images.

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6 NIV)

Unless you want to go "Taliban crazy" and start blowing up statues and stuff, there isn't a prohibition on artwork representing anything, but rather on the worship of such as a god, which was a common practice in the time of Moses.

You're probably also confusing the (largely) Eastern Orthodox practice of the veneration of icons, which, again, isn't worshiping a statue of Jesus in the belief that it IS Jesus, rather that it is simply a visual representation of him. In veneration, you don't worship the statue, but it is used as a focus. It's kind of confusing, and I honestly just don't "get it", but it isn't viewed as something akin to idolatry.

Can you imagine Chinese muslim converts making religious laws for muslims in middle east, the place where Islam originated? Thats exactly what happened with the Romans and the council of Nicea.
The Roman converts went on to become THE authority on a religion that originated with the Semitic people.
Don't you find that strange?

Not really, because there weren't many Jewish Christians at that point. If you look at the actual establishment of Christianity in the Gentile community, it was done by Jews -- Paul was Jewish, the Council in Jerusalem that determined what Law applied to Gentiles was Jewish, and so forth. But the fall of Jerusalem and the scattering of people that resulted from that pretty well ensured that growth of Christianity would be among the Gentiles, not the Jews.

You're using "Roman" in a fashion that implies that you think these are outsiders, but the odds are pretty good that this Council, which was a world-wide gathering, consisted of nothing BUT Roman citizens, though they were all Bishops in the church, and thus long respected leaders.

The important thing to bear in mind, when looking at this stuff, is whether the decision made conflicts with the Bible or not -- in the case of Arias at the Council of Nicaea, there are obvious conflicts between what he taught and the Gospel of John and several epistles.

The Catholic church holds that there cannot be any establishment of new doctrine in the post-Apostolic age. Everything that we might look at as "new doctrine", like the Doctrine of the Trinity, is actually just a way of explaining behaviour that had been a part of the church at the time of the writing of the New Testament. In a way, it's something of a counter to the Protestant tenet of Sola Scriptura, applied differently, and explains why Arias lost, at Nicaea, but in a way that doesn't open the door to your belief that it's "strange" that Gentiles would be defining the doctrines of a Semitic religion.