The Second-Century Apologists. Alvyn Pettersen

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СКАЧАТЬ of the second-century Greco-Roman world for two main reasons. Firstly, in the pursuit of religion it was rites that were important. What therefore the cult demanded of an individual was an act, particularly the religious ceremony of sacrificing to the gods. Secondly, there was no particular interest in a person’s beliefs, no demand that an individual should affirm certain beliefs and deny others. So, to accuse people of being “atheists” was therefore to accuse them, not of failing to believe in a god or gods, but of being unwilling to engage in the act of sacrificing to the empire’s gods, which, to most people then, amounted to both an unreadiness to honor the god or gods and a refusal to seek to appease them, and so to take part in the common effort to sustain or to restore the pax Romana. Heresy (haeresis) then, therefore, had no sense of “heresy” as now generally understood. Rather, it meant “choice,” an individual’s choosing the thinking and associated practices of one or more schools of thought. Thus, “heresy” for most people then bore not a sense of false doctrine but of choice, where no choice in and of itself was wrong. The opposite of heterodoxy therefore was not orthodoxy, but homodoxy, “agreement.”

      At least two social consequences followed from this. Firstly, given that, in the second-century empire, there was a galaxy of gods, a variety of cults, and a readiness of people to respect, if not to engage in, the differing religious practices of the time, imperial religion, not surprisingly, became a very strong, widely shared bond that held the empire together, particularly in times of internal turmoil and external threat.

Secondly, beliefs were important for people like the Jews and the Christ­ians, even to the point of being the basis both used for excluding certain religious choices, certain “haereses,” and for directing the doing of (or refraining from) particular acts, whatever the cost. Any belief-based resistance on the part of a Jew or a Christ­ian to, for example, sacrificing to a Roman deity therefore reeked of obstinacy and intransigence.8 Indeed, often it was interpreted as a standing in the way of that which united the empire, especially when the empire was particularly vulnerable to fragmentation. Such religious people seemed therefore to stand in marked contrast with those who practiced the cult of the empire; and their understandings of proper social engagement differed greatly.

      Nor could these contrasts and differences be seen as easy bedfellows. Practicing the imperial cult involved the giving of gifts and the making of sacrifices, given and made in thanksgiving and for propitiation. As in daily life, so in the imperial cult, two themes dominated, that of personal honor and that of giving in order that one might receive in return. It was, therefore, thought, firstly, that deities, being not just important patrons but also powers of immense superiority, demanded the highest honors. Secondly, it was further believed that, if deities were not granted the highest honors, they might become angry. Thirdly, it was also thought that, although deities could be very generous givers, they were not committed givers, bound to giving regular gifts in return. For these reasons it was therefore necessary always to honor all gods (other people’s as well as one’s own), not to allow anyone to dishonor any gods through, for example, excluding themselves from the cults, and always to appease the gods, for fear lest they might, just possibly, be angry. For a person never knew if, when, or how a god might have been outraged; and if a god, by chance, had been outraged, that same person never knew whether the result would be that the god would then not support or would even punish that individual, his family or her city-state or empire. Such contrasted greatly with Christ­ian beliefs, which insisted on monotheism, resisted the thought that people, mere creatures, could lay any claim upon God, the Creator of all, and maintained that God was ever faithful, always generous. God, Christ­ians held, was to be honored, and the divine name was to be hallowed, simply and solely because God was God.

      That people held that the gods of the empire needed appeasing is evidenced variously. A local leader might call upon his people to sacrifice to the local deities when he wished to win the favor of the gods in order to counter a local threat. A school teacher, introducing pupils to the Homeric myths, could not avoid those passages that spoke of gods being angered either by the absence or the dishonorable practice of sacrifice. Pausanias [c.110–180], given to rationalizing the more bizarre aspects of myths, nevertheless left untouched those that told of a god’s anger, to be discerned in earthquakes and famines and to be appeased by people performing appropriate religious rituals at local shrines. In a speech to the Roman Senate in c.203, Manilius Fuscus, a future governor of Asia, advocated all due worship and veneration of the immortal gods, so as to ensure the continuing security of the empire. Marcus Aurelius [121–180] may have dismissed as superstition belief in the anger of the gods, but many of his contemporaries did not. Faced with famine or threat, they still consulted oracles, heeded the god’s advice as to which rite would appease the divine wrath, and performed those commended, in order to persuade the heavens to end whatever evil had befallen them.

      Alongside this worship of the gods there was also the cult of the emperor. For like the gods of the cult, emperors also were held to be powerful but unreliable benefactors, whom their subjects needed always to honor. In this “human” field the precept, “give to the giver that hopefully the giver may reciprocate, and not to the person who cannot reciprocate,” was also to be followed. The powerful always needed to be gratified.

Very clearly the cult was an aspect of every part of a person’s life. It was not simply a “leisure time” pursuit, the modern day equivalent of a “weekend” hobby. People of the second century “did god” in the temple and in civic life. They “did god” in education, in tradesmen’s guilds, and in clubs. Their painters, engravers, and carvers could scarcely survive without making images of the gods or creating designs containing cultic symbols. Their soldiers had to swear loyalty to the “divine” emperor as well as to the god Mithras. Their emperor needed ever to be “kept sweet.” In short, the cult was integral to daily life, and every citizen probably had a role in it. Further, people “did god” more indirectly. For the cult impacted upon local economies. At the most basic level, any meat bought in a market probably had been slaughtered as a sacrifice in a temple. The annual feasts of societies of tradesmen generally were held in the temple of their tutelary god, their meal previously having been offered to the gods. A cult often had its own funds, its gods receiving rents from lands, offerings from collection boxes, and taxes from sacrifices. Cults and their priesthoods were therefore financially valuable. Not surprisingly therefore Greek cities increasingly both multiplied their priesthoods and then put these up for sale. In first-century Miletus, for example, the authorities decreed the number of sacrifices to be offered annually to the god Asclepius and stipulated that the cult priests should receive the hides, the entrails, and the best cuts of all animals sacrificed. This financially attractive lot the city authorities then sold, to the benefit of three parties: (i) the city authorities who devised and then auctioned the lot would have gained financially; (ii) whoever was successful in bidding for the cult’s priesthood benefitted from the cult’s increased annual business; and (iii) local merchants and businesses found their services the more in demand, especially at the times of major festivals, when pilgrims required the services of not only the cult but also market traders and providers of accommodation. Anyone then who might oppose such a local cult could find themselves having to defend their position before, at the very least, the local cult, local businesses, and other interested parties. Witness the events in Ephesus where Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, joined with others of the same trade, and rose up against the apostle Paul.9

      Christ­ianity in the empire

Within this world Christ­ianity was viewed with caution, if not suspicion. In comparison with the imperial cults and with Judaism it was seen as new. Its profession and practice were as yet unauthorized. Its followers met, not publicly, but privately, in house groups. Its teaching was open to anyone who would be a catechumen, but attendance at the eucharistic mysteries was permitted only to the baptized. For many, the imperial authorities included, Christ­ianity was therefore a religion about which they could discover little. There were rumors of “love feasts,” at which attendees were urged to love their brothers and sisters, greeting one another with a kiss. There was mention of gatherings at which worshippers met to eat another’s flesh and to drink his blood. Details of such also were scarce and explanations were vague. Cults СКАЧАТЬ