Why was paganism smited by the Abrahamic faith?

[Ivashanko]

Christianity spread in many different areas, for many different reasons. It is simplistic (and in many cases wrong) to assume that it only spread because 'men of power' converted, though that certainly did occur. By the Mongol Invasions as many as 1/3rd of Christians lived in areas that had never had Christian rulers, and as many as 1/2 lived in places that did not have Christian political elite. Many historians (but by no means all) believe that there is enough evidence to suggest that Christians were disproportional uncommon in their nation's armies up until the fifth century, so it certainly was not because rulers wanted their martial strength.

Christianity certainly did encourage many disposed to join its ranks. In particular in appealed to women. In the Roman Empire in the second century there were 70-75 million people; of these, 25 million were women. This is because infanticide was particularly common, as it is in most agricultural societies (females, on average, produced far less food than men, which encouraged their parents to kill them as children before they began to take up resources). The Christian community effectively went to war against infanticide and were well known for digging through trash pits looking for babies and begging from door to door for people to give their unwanted children to them.

Also it can be argued that the conceptualization of the modern charity organization originates with the Christians in Rome. Julian (known as the 'Apostate', which I think sounds pretty awesome) was known to lament how the Christians take care of not only their own but the pagans as well- this line of thought was not knew to Julian, but had gone on for at least a hundred and fifty years before him.

There is a current trend of thought in historical circles that the conversion of many pagans to Christianity was similar to the Christians conversion to Islam latter, in that it was mostly a cultural diffusion rather than outright violence. Less charitably outright violence certainly did occur, in the Roman Empire and elsewhere.

As for Constantine, it seems he began to believe that Sol Invictus was another characterization of Jesus Christ. Many Christians did as well- as late at the 7th century Christians in Rome prayed looking at the sun. That is (likely) why Christmas is set on the birthday of Sol Invictus. His conversion was not as set as many here seem to believe anyways.

 

[diegosimeone]

Wasn't Paul's whole raison d'être to try to make Christianity less Jewish and more appealing to the Romans and Greeks? Or maybe I'm missing something here.

Yes. He succeeded. That's why Christianity should carry the name Pavlinism or Paulinism instead. It's his creation. But Paul had to gain the trust of Jews first, being a rabi, before engaging with non-Christians. From all the sources(nobody knows if they are credible, but since they are religious they are treated as factual), we can conclude that Jesus was some sort of a revolutionary with lots of followers, same way John was (some theologians argue that they may very well have been the same person) who the Jewish leaders did not find very... amusing. The Romans never cared about the religions of others as long as they treated the Emperor as one of the gods. Since everyone but one tribe was polytheist, there was no issue in acccepting the emperor as one of the gods just so that the Romans don't kill them. Rome as an Empire was a very hard place to be for non-Romans. Everyone was upset, there was poverty, there were uprisings and people tried to find new waves of controlling the people. The timing of Christianity's birth is suspect.

From what we know, the Jewish rabis in Judea had control over their people though Rome did the punishing. The punishment of crucifiction during that time was only given to people who participated in uprisings against Rome, not for philosophers or people who preached about religions. It may very well be seen that Jesus was preaching that the Emperor was not a god but that's no different than any other Jew practicing his or hers religion. Starting new religions was not a crime against Rome either. So from crossing historical facts and what the religious scripts say, we can reach to a conclusion that Jesus could have been a figure that plotted against the Jewish leaders, trying to win crowd by preaching against them and Rome.

Paul was a rabi, sent by those Jewish leaders to find Jesus. Before Paul, the followers of Jesus were hunted and probably killed. After Paul, this stopped. So what we have is a change in attitude by the Jews as well as the Romans. This is the melting point which some historians use to say that Paul created Christianity in a way to give Rome a new way to control its population.

Paul wanted to infiltrate the gentiles and get their support. To some extent, he managed to gather a following.

Another thing about Paul is that he allegedly carried the word of the gospel. Paul died in 64AD probably ( but religion says he died in 67AD after Nero's wrath towards the Christians for burning Rome; come on, let's be serious. No one in their right mind can believe that Nero, a wise philhellene emperor would destroy the jewell of his crown). The gospels were written at least 20 years later. So Paul was preaching things of his own. He also had bad relations with the original followers(apostles) of Jesus. Peter was the one to step down and eventually accept this change of status quo. We get this by various religious sources. We can safely assume that when Paul took over, things changed. A different policy. This is perhaps the time when the aggression stops and they start to recruit people of their own to start this new cult. The original followers did not like the fact that Paul wanted to accept new followers without circumstition. This shows that Jesus and his followers were in fact Jews and not Christians themselves.
What Paul preaches is not always found in gospels.The fact that there have been many gospels but only 4 are used also shows that there were varying opinions that didn't match at all. We know that the 4 gospels are contradicting. For example, one of them says that Jacob died at some point, yet in another gospel on something that took place 15 years later, it is said that Jacob, a man who was dead, was present in a meeting. So we don't know which one to believe if we're looking for accuracy [assuming we consider it a historical document and not fiction]


P.S: Historians and theologians argue that most of the letters of Paul were fabricated. Some were written and sent after his death.
P.S2: The only person who followed Paul and who pretty much said the same things as him is today considered a 'heretic' iirc. Marcion. In fact, lots of sects of Christianity today follows what Marcion preached(which was very similar to what Paul preached except 1-2 vital things, such as the god of the old testament is different from the new testament. Some Christians argue that because they don't want to be affiliated with Judaism).



P.S3: Once again, it is very safe to assume that everyone who converted to Christianity willingly did it for political and survival reasons.

 

[Ivashanko]

P.S: Historians and theologians argue that most of the letters of Paul were fabricated. Some were written and sent after his death.
P.S2: The only person who followed Paul and who pretty much said the same things as him is today considered a 'heretic' iirc. Marcion. In fact, lots of sects of Christianity today follows what Marcion preached(which was very similar to what Paul preached except 1-2 vital things, such as the god of the old testament is different from the new testament. Some Christians argue that because they don't want to be affiliated with Judaism).


P.S3: Once again, it is very safe to assume that everyone who converted to Christianity willingly did it for political and survival reasons.

No major historian believes that Marcion was the direct theological decedent of Paul. And it is absurd to state that everyone converted to Christianity did it for political and survival reasons. It rejects every major historian of the subject since the subject was first studied, and is biased to the point where it casts doubts on everything else you say on the subject. Some joined because of political reasons, sure, and many others joined to avoid persecution of some sort or another, but the numbers prove that for the majority that was simply not the case (particularly in lands that were not and never were Christian- which by the rise of the Mongol Empire consisted of 1/3rd of Christians).

 

[diegosimeone]

Who are you referring to and how is it that they did not gain from conversion?

Christianity in Europe served a purpose very similar to vassalization. The feelings towards the philosophical essence of the religion came with the generations that followed which is evident even to this day.

Marcion considered Paul as the only one who had knowledge about Jesus and god. And he was right, Paul invented the whole thing. The others were simply Jews who among other things wanted a Jewish reformation.

 

[Arilou]

From what we know, the Jewish rabis in Judea had control over their people though Rome did the punishing. The punishment of crucifiction during that time was only given to people who participated in uprisings against Rome, not for philosophers or people who preached about religions. It may very well be seen that Jesus was preaching that the Emperor was not a god but that's no different than any other Jew practicing his or hers religion. Starting new religions was not a crime against Rome either. So from crossing historical facts and what the religious scripts say, we can reach to a conclusion that Jesus could have been a figure that plotted against the Jewish leaders, trying to win crowd by preaching against them and Rome.

More likely considering the subject matter, the romans simply misunderstood jewish theology. And when Jesus talked about the coming Kingdom of Heaven and the Son of Man they figured he meant a physical kingdom.

It's also very unlikely christianity was as centralized as you seem to assume: More likely the different followers of Jesus (who at this point, were arguably not all "christians") simply went their own ways. There's no way to make anyone "step" down, whenever someone disagree they'd just move to a different towna and keep preaching their variant. (which is why christianity is so bewildering and full of groups we have no idea who they are)

What Paul preaches is not always found in gospels.The fact that there have been many gospels but only 4 are used also shows that there were varying opinions that didn't match at all. We know that the 4 gospels are contradicting. For example, one of them says that Jacob died at some point, yet in another gospel on something that took place 15 years later, it is said that Jacob, a man who was dead, was present in a meeting. So we don't know which one to believe if we're looking for accuracy [assuming we consider it a historical document and not fiction]

Paul predates the Gospels, and in all likelyhood the Gospels were written by different christian groups than those involved with Paul. (it is possible there were "proto gospels" around at the time of Paul, but we have no idea what they'd be like)

: Once again, it is very safe to assume that everyone who converted to Christianity willingly did it for political and survival reasons.

That is very unlikely. There's simply no real political reason to convert to christianity at that point.

 

[Eusebio]

More likely considering the subject matter, the romans simply misunderstood jewish theology. And when Jesus talked about the coming Kingdom of Heaven and the Son of Man they figured he meant a physical kingdom.

He probably did, that's why the Romans crucified him.

 

[Semper Victor]

He probably did, that's why the Romans crucified him.

Indeed. That's why he was executed at the cross, the punishment that the Romans reserved for fugitive slaves and those who rebelled against Rome. If the only charges against him had been those depicted in the Gospels (which amount basically to blasphemy against the Jewish god), the Roman procurator would have handed him to the Jewish authorities to have him executed in the way prescribed by Deuteronomic Law for such offense, which is death by stoning. The Roman authorities had enough trouble with Judean Jews to create even more problems because of a religious preacher that was not even a Roman citizen to begin with, and Tiberius would have been furious with his procurator if he caused a stir among the Jews over such an insignificant (to Roman eyes) issue.

 

[diegosimeone]

That is very unlikely. There's simply no real political reason to convert to christianity at that point.

I should have noted - what seems obvious to me - that I'm talking about state leaders and people with power. The general folk 'converted' for other reasons. The first ones probably didn't realize it was converting or joining a belief system, they joined a revolution. It's like being appeased by right wing or left wing politics. In most countries these things start at one point per family and it sticks with generations, despite changes in social status or income. Christianity as well as Islam evolved in that way. And previous cults too, though those were ethnocentric so it was the natural course of events. Christianity was the common ground of all enemies of Rome within Rome. In the end there was one outcome which is still not clear to me. Either Rome absorbed Christianity or Christianity beat Rome. Either way, Christianity became the major player in the region and thus, the world.

So neighbours had to find ways to appease Rome. Seeing that there was some sort of fanaticism with religion, converting was the safest course. It was a far more time consuming effort than what is suggested. There were still gentiles around till at least the 1700s in the Mediterranean.

 

[User29]

EDIT: Should've just read the post above mine