Chapter 6: The Beginnings of Christianity- Constantine

1. Chapter 6: The Beginnings of Christianity- Constantine Kelsey Griswold

2. Jesus Fundamental fact with which to study Jesus is to remember that he was a Jew, born during the reign of Roman Emperor Augustus in the Roman occupied land of Judaea. Most of what we know of him comes from the four Gospels (Matt., Mark, Luke, John) aside from a few small mentions in pagan and Jewish literature.

3. Jesus preached the coming of God�s kingdom, which would be a reign of justice and mercy. He preached a life of repentance, an abandonment of earthly concerns, love of God and neighbor, compassion for the poor, downcast and marginalized, and set forth his own life as an example. Most of his views were found in his parables and in the moral code, he expressed what is variously called the Beautitudes or the Sermon on the Mount.

4. Jesus� teachings reflect a profound grasp of the piety and wisdom of the Jewish traditions, but the Gospels make a further claim of Jesus, depicting him as the Christ- the Savior promised by the ancient biblical prophets who would bring about God�s kingdom. His death by crucifixion (a punishment so degrading that it could not be inflicted on Roman citizens) would seem to have ended the public career of Jesus, however the early Christian church insisted that Jesus overcame death by rising three days after being placed in the tomb. This belief became a centerpiece of Christian faith and preaching and the basis on which early Christianity proclaimed Jesus as the Christ.

5. Christianity Spreads The slow growth of the Christian movement was given an early boost by the conversion of the Jewish zealot, Saul of Tarsus, around the year 35 C.E. near Damascus, Syria. Paul (his post-conversion name) won a crucial battle in the early Christian church, insisting that non-Jewish converts to the movement would not have to adhere to all Jewish religious customs. One dramatic example of Paul�s approach to the pagan world was to give a public sermon in Athens in which he used the language of Greek culture to speak with the message of the Christian movement.

6. Eventually Emperor Nero was able to use the Christians as scapegoats for a fire that destroyed the city of Rome Even before Nero�s persecution in 64 C.E Christians had been expelled from the city of Rome by Emperor Claudius. In 250 C.E. there was an empire-wide persecution under Emperor Decius, with two others coming in 257 (under Emperor Valerian) and in 303 (under Emperor Diocletian). Finally in 312 C.E., Emperor Constantine issued a decree in Milan allowing Christianity toleration as a religion.

7. A common charge made by Christians against the Romans was that they were atheists: Christians refused to acknowledge the Roman Gods. Romans conceived of their society as bound together in a seamless web of piet�s, a virtue that meant a combination of love and reverential fear. The Romans felt that one should express piet�s to the parents of a family, the fmaily should express piet�s toward the state, and the state in turn owed piet�s to the gods. Thus Christians were viewed as enemies of the state.

8. Christian writers insisted that they wanted to be good citizens, these writers were called the apologists. They wrote about the moral code of Christianity, about their beliefs and the reasons they could not worship the Roman dieties. Their radical monotheism, inherited from Judaism, forbade such worship. One important early apologist was Justin Martyr whom wrote to letters to Emperors explaining Christianity and asking for toleration.

9. Early Christian Art Cemeteries known as the catacombs (coemetrium ad catacumbas) were the burial places of thousands of Christians. Contrary to romantic notions, these underground galleries hewn from the soft rock known as tufa, were never hiding laces for Christians during times of persecution, neither were they places of worship. Similarly, only a miniscule number of the tombs contained the bodies of martyrs; none do today, because the martyrs were reburied inside the walls of the city of Rome in the early Middle Ages.

10. Frescoes These were wall paintings done on wet plaster. They were found frequently in the catacombs. Most depict biblical subjects that reflect the Christian hope of salvation and eternal life. Common themes like the story of Jonah or the raising of Lazarus from the dead allude to the Christian belief that everyone would be raised at the end of time. Another common motif was the communion meal of Jesus at the Last Supper.

11. Glass and Sculpture Sculpture is rare before the fourth century, however a statue of Christ as the Good Shepherd may be dated from this period. The figure repeats a common theme in the catacomb fresco art of the period. More common are the glass disks with gold paper cutouts pressed in them are found in both Jewish and Christian catacombs as a decorative motif on individual tomb slots. After the period of Constantine, carved sarcophagi also became both common and elaborate.

12. Inscriptions Each tomb was covered by a slab of marble that was cemented in place. On those slabs would be carved the name and death date of the buried person. Quite frequently, there was also a decorative symbol such as an anchor or a dove with an olive branch. One of the most common symbols was that of a fish. The greek letters that spell out the word fish were considered an anagram for the phrase �Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior� so that the fish became a shorthand way of making that brief confession of faith.

13. Dura-Europos Despite the persecutions of the Christians and the hostility of the Romans to the Jews, the religions manage to coexist and, to a certain extent, thrive in the Roman Empire. One small indication of this fact can be seen in the spectacular archaeological finds made in the 1930s at a small town in present day Syria called Dura-Europos. The scholars who excavated it found a street that ran roughly north and south along the city wall and contained a Christian house church with some intact frescoes, a temple to a Semitic god called Aphlad, a temple to the god Zeus (Roman Jupiter), a meeting place for the worshippers of the cult of Mithra, and a Jewish synagogue with more than twenty well-preserved fresco paintings of scenes from the Hebrew Scriptures.