Ancient Roman Christians

Christian beliefs and practices in the 2nd and 3rd centuries

Icon of Mary, Rome (6th century or earlier)
Image source: Asia

Given that I have a good understanding of the religious landscape in ancient Rome it seems fitting to look at Christianity during this era. Many contemporary analyses of this kind focuses heavily on the New Testament, with a particular focus on 1st century Christians. As there is nothing I can add to the discussion on 1st century Christians I am instead starting in the 2nd century, with a focus on this nascent religion as it was before it became a major political force in the 4th century CE.

“Within a short time after Christ’s death [certainly by the 2nd century], Christianity became identified as a cult quite separate and distinct from Judaism. Non-Jewish converts often brought to the new cult ideas and rhetoric from their former religions or philosophies [especially Stoicism and Neo-Platonism] … Christianity … was a cult that attracted large numbers of lower-class people and encouraged them to participate in … emotionalism ... [and] private assembly ... [Shelton at 407-409]”

In the early 2nd century a Roman governor wrote to Trajan (ruled 98-117 CE) about the measures he was taking in relation to adherents of the new religion:

“… among those who were brought before me as Christians, I have used the following method, I asked them if they were Christians. If they admitted it, I asked them a second and even a third time, threatening them with punishment. I ordered those who persisted to be led away for execution … I thought that those who denied that they were or had been Christians should be dismissed, if they prayed to our gods, repeating the words after me, and if they dedicated incense and wine to your image … [together] with the statues of the gods, and if, moreover, they cursed Christ. It is said that those who are truly Christians cannot do any of those things. Others who … said that they had indeed been Christians, but had now ceased to be … asserted, however, that this had been the sum total of their offence or error: they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and to sing in responsion a hymn to Christ as if to a god, and to bind themselves by an oath … not to commit theft, robbery, or adultery, not to break their word, and not to refuse to return a deposit when called upon [since there were no banks at this time people sometimes left their money in the home of someone with a secure residence – an unscrupulous person might later refuse to return such money]. When these things had been done, it had been their custom … to depart, and then meet again later to dine together, on food that was ordinary and innocent. They had ceased to do even this … after my edict by which I had forbidden the existence of secret societies … I believed it was necessary to search out the truth … by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. However, I found nothing other than depraved, excessive superstition … The contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities, but also to the villages and even to the farms … [from a letter by Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus in 111 CE, to the emperor, extracted in Shelton at 409-411]”

Germanic Christianity Versus Christianity

Destruction of "Idols" by Protestants (1524)

I have found myself in an awkward spiritual spot. Years ago I thoughtfully rejected Christianity – I even wrote a blogpost in 2013 about my reasons why. But lately a trinity of events have occurred such that I feel compelled to reconsider my position.

First, a good friend persuaded me to look at a particular window at St Mary’s Cathedral (Sydney) for the aesthetics. It showed Mary on a crescent moon with a halo of stars. It was beautiful and as I looked at it I had a strange sense of a medieval and mystical version of Christianity, and a thought “what a shame this type of Christianity no longer exists”.

Second, my approach to religion subtly shifted over a period of many months until I arrived at a position where I was starting to think maybe God exists in some great cosmic sense, and that the Gohonzon (the sacred mandala of Nichiren Buddhism, which I have been venerating for a number of years) is a portrait of God, and that (at least some of) the benevolent Gods might be God’s helpers.

Third, I listened to a podcast on Martin Luther and had a thunderstruck moment when I realised that the religion I had so thoughtfully rejected a long time ago was perhaps not Christianity but something rather more specific – Protestant Christianity, which is quite honestly just the predominant Germanic take on Christianity from the early modern period onwards. In my mind Protestantism was Christianity and vice versa, simply because I didn’t know any other type. The Christianity I knew was rather uninteresting and uninspiring so it never occurred to me to explore any variations of it. More than 400+ years of Protestant ancestry had taught me to look somewhat askance at Roman Catholicism, thus I tended to avoid it. My very limited encounters with Orthodox Christianity suggested it was a religion inextricably tied up with ethnic and cultural identities that had nothing to do with me, so I never thought about it, other than to admire the aesthetic. I did not even know there was a church further to the east than Lebanon until a few months ago, such was my general disinterest in Christianity.

The notions I had thought were synonymous with Christianity but are actually features of Protestantism (mostly inspired by Martin Luther and then John Calvin) include:

Northern European Food Curse – Salicylate Sensitivity

"Kitchen Scene" by van Rijck (17th century)

There is a well-known trope about British people having the runs after a night eating curry. One of the reasons for this, at least for some, is salicylate sensitivity – a heritable food intolerance that many people know nothing about, though it is estimated to affect perhaps around 2.5% of Europeans. An allergy specialist I saw years ago described the phenomenon as “edge of the world syndrome”, she told me that on some days every person in her waiting room with food sensitivities was red-haired, and explained that many people with northern European ancestry are today eating a diet that is utterly alien to that of their ancestors. Basically, northern Europeans adapted to eating a diet that was, for the most part, naturally low in salicylates. In so doing some of them lost the ability to efficiently metabolise the higher amounts of salicylates naturally found in the skin of most fruit, herbs and spices (as well as many vegetables) found further south on the globe – foods that are becoming increasingly common in modern Western diets. Today, many people put up with the symptoms of salicylate sensitivity because the symptoms are either mild enough to ignore or because they don’t understand the root cause of troubling health issues. 

There seems to be a cultural reluctance to point out that there are some significant genetic differences between ethnic groups. If east Asian people live longer then surely their diet is healthier for all humans? Not necessarily – because ethnic groups evolved for tens of thousands of years apart from each other and in so doing their ancestors who flourished did well on food native to their homelands. Northern Europeans prospered on a diet based on animal products, supplemented by small amounts of highly seasonal and localised nuts, fruit and vegetables. Within the last few thousand years grains and legumes (which are mostly low salicylate) were added to the mix. The overwhelming majority of fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices and long-life foods commonly eaten today were totally unavailable. Even the much praised Mediterranean diet is too exotic for people with salicylate sensitivity. By comparison, traditional northern European food tends to be naturally much lower in salicylates, eg, oatmeal with sugar and milk, yoghourt, bread and cheese, bacon and eggs, pancakes, custard, baked pear and cream, fish and chips with mushy peas, fish pie, roast lamb with carrots and parsnips, steak with mashed potato and brussel sprouts, baked potato with sour cream and chives, kasha, ham and pea soup, beef and carrot stew, etc.