Thomas_More
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“In his comprehensive study, Pagans and Christians Lane Fox breaks down the social origins of early converts: [1]
The Lower Classes & Poor: The church provided a strong community and social network that appealed to marginalized groups, including the urban mob and slaves. However, he explicitly dispels the old misconception that the early church was primarily a religion strictly of slaves. [1, 2, 3]
The “Middling” Sort: A significant portion of the movement consisted of independent tradespeople, merchants, and freedmen who had a certain degree of property or localized authority. [1]
Women of Property: Women of independent status and moderate wealth played a crucial role. They often served as patrons of early Christian congregations, hosting meetings in their homes and funding local leaders. [1]
The Elite: While the highest echelons of the Roman civic aristocracy and imperial elite were rare in the earliest days, the faith did reach the ears and homes of upper-tier individuals, including slaves within “Caesar’s household” and high-ranking provincial priests. [1]
Ultimately, Lane Fox illustrates that Christianity’s ability to draw from this multi-tiered social mix—from abysmal poverty to minor local magistrates—was a major factor in its resilience and growth.”I think you somewhat idealise the first Christians. Even “first” or “early” Christians are problematic. The first would have been Jewish Zealots, and they kept all the Jewish religious laws and did not trust “Paul”‘s Gentile Christians. So right from the beginning the Christians were not a united group but bitterly at loggerheads and in mutual hatred of each other.
No, there are similarities, but the Roman proletariat were not the working class, the slaves were. The proletariat were largely poor, though.
Engels also dated the Apocalypse of John to the CE 60s, whereas it is now dated to the 90s. But there are a multiplicity of Apocalypses, the one we have as “John’s” probably based on, hence repeating allusions to Nero. Yet Nero was maligned.
Saying Marx and Engels are wrong about details does not make me a “Bernsteinian” and does not invalidate historical materialism. Marx and Engels are not Apostles!
The current fall in new births which is hitting Japan and S. Korea must be a consequence of the extreme stress workers are under there. The hikikomori phenomenon (young men taking to their rooms and only leaving for solitary meals) and the rise to 40% (is it?) of men in their 30s remaining not only celibate but virginal is another sign of social stagnation.
Different pressures lay on the Roman prole, but in common with today’s was poverty. His reason for being (his farm) snatched from him, he was thrown into the dangerous metropolis, often to live amid filth and squalor and condemned to idleness. The dole covered his immediate needs, yet his life was sordid. New cults boomed as he sought meaning in life, and the more exotic the cult the greater its success as the Empire, having reached its full extent, declined. On one hand were the new cults and on the other ever more sickening blood-letting “games” to preoccupy him against his better judgment. Celestial paradises became more attractive as his days in this world got ever uglier and fearful. Doom prophets found a ready audience, as they do today.
But you can’t call the Roman proletariat a working class. Of course, there would have been those who did some work, shopkeepers etc., but their livelihood was the dole, paid by the Emperor. The Imperial dole was paid to all who applied, as long as they were freemen, was paid for life, and had nothing to do with work or the lack of it.
Yet the proletariat furnished the ranks of the early Christians, not the slaves (contrary to popular belief). Kautsky explains the rise of the large landed estates (worked by slaves) and the consequent expropriation of the small farmers, who thus became the urban proletariat.
Robin Lane Fox: Pagans and Christians is another splendid source.I know most atheists, like most anyone, do not comprehend socialism and are dismissive of Marxism, equating it with religious sects. Lenin and Mao persecuted and killed priests, nuns and monks, and destroyed ancient buildings, books and art. Buddhist monks in Mongolia were forced into the army.
Fair enough. The Roman aristocracy, however, seemed to get along atheistically, with public worship (religion’s original definition) serving a purely social cohesive function. This was so with Judaism too, except for the Zealot fanatics. Only with Christianity does “faith”/belief become conflated with religion. For “Paul” belief is everything, and subsequent Christians will kill people for not believing as they do. For the Roman state belief was of no importance and, as in Hinduism, religion was about ritual, not belief.
Moses, David and Solomon are myths, and there is no evidence for any first Temple in Jerusalem, only the Temple permitted by Cyrus and which was destroyed by the Romans. None before that.
What non-Christian evidence for Paul is there? How do we know that Josephus’ “Saulus” is him? For someone apparently well-heeled and a Roman citizen we only have the New Testament letters; no date or details of trial and execution. Kautsky accepts Paul as real, but what qualifies that? As for persecutions of Christians, there were none, at least not systematically. The dates assumed for Paul place him in the middle of the Jewish war – hardly a time for the Romans to be bothered with Christians.
The Christians were not working class. The work of the Empire was done by slaves, and slaves were not the main source of converts. Most converts were from the proletariat – not a working proletariat like today’s, but the dispossessed farmers who boosted the urban populations and lived on the Imperial dole.
The New Testament Paul does not refer to any meeting with a fleshly Jesus, but speaks only of Jesus in a non-physical Gnostic sense. The Marcionites claimed a Paul as theirs, and they did not believe in Jesus as a man.
We only have the Acts to say he travelled to Rome, and they are fiction. No Roman source mentions him.
David did not exist.
I too hold to the materialist conception of history, but that doesn’t mean Kautsky was correct about Paul. Paul is every much a composite, like Jesus, for several anonymous people.Price talks about the “myth of the early Church.”
How sure are we of a communist early Church, and are we thus doing the same as evangelical protestants who think of themselves as being like an “early Church” that never was?
A myth of an early Church could have been invented to browbeat Christians of different traditions later on. To be sure, the early Christians would not have been Trinitarians/orthodox, who were late on the scene.
