History of Christianity

   Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan International Turkmen-Turkish University 
 
 
 

History of  Christianity 
 

                        Prepared by: Askarov Ruslan,                                                                                                                                        

                        the 2^nd year student of translation    

                        and interpreting department  
 

The Origins of Christianity 

     In the initial decades of the Roman Empire, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, a new religion, Christianity, emerged. Much of the impetus for this new religion rested in issues in the Jewish religion, including a long-standing belief in the coming of a Messiah and rigidities that had developed in the Jewish priesthood. Whether or not Christianity was created by God, as Christians believe, the early stages of the religion focused on cleansing the Jewish religion of stiff rituals and haughty leaders. It had little at first to do with Roman culture. Christianity arose in a remote province and appealed particularly to the poorer classes. It is not easy, as a result, to fit Christianity neatly into the patterns of Roman history: It was deliberately separate, and only gradually had wider impact.

     Christianity originated with Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet and teacher who probably came to believe he was the Son of God and certainly was regarded as such by his disciples. Jesus preached in Israel during the time of Augustus, urging a purification of the Jewish religion that would free Israel and establish the kingdom of God on earth. He urged a moral code based on love, charity, and humility, and he asked the faithful to follow his lessons, abandoning worldly concern. Many disciples believed that a Final Judgment day was near at hand, on which God would reward the righteous with immortality and condemn sinners to everlasting hell. 

     Jesus won many followers among the poor. He also roused suspicion among the upper classes and the leaders of the Jewish religion. These helped persuade the Roman governor, already concerned about unrest among the Jews, that Jesus was a dangerous agitator. Jesus was put to death as a result, crucified like a common criminal, about A.D. 30. His fo lowers believed that he was resurrected on the third day after his death, a proof that he was the Son of God. This belief helped the religion spread farther among Jewish communities in the Middle East, both within the Roman Empire and beyond. As they realized that the Messiah was not immediately returning to earth to set up the Kingdom of God, the disciples of Jesus began to fan out, particularly around the eastern Mediterranean, to spread the new Christian message. 

      Initially, Christian converts were Jewish by birth and followed the basic Jewish law. Their belief that Christ was divine as well as human, however, roused hostility among other Jews. When one early convert, Stephen, was stoned to death, many disciples left Israel and traveled throughout western Asia. 

Christianity Gains Converts And Religious Structure 

     Gradually over the next 250 years, Christianity won a growing number of converts. By the 4^th century A.D., about 10 percent of the residents of the Roman Empire were Christian, and the new religion had also made converts elsewhere in the Middle East and Ethiopia. As it spread, Christianityconnected increasingly with larger themes in Roman history.

     With its particularly great appeal to some of the poor, Christianity was well positioned to reflect social grievances in an empire increasingly marked by inequality. Slaves, dispossessed farmers and impoverished city dwellers found hope in a religion that promised rewards after death. Christianity also answered cultural and spiritual needs - especially but not exclusively among the poor - left untended by mainstream Roman religion and culture. Roman values had stressed political goals and ethics suitable for life in this world. They did not join peoples of the empire in more spiritual loyalties, and they did not offer many emotionally satisfying rituals. As the empire consolidated, reducing direct political participation, a number of mystery religions spread from the Middle East and Egypt, religions that offered emotionally charged rituals. Worship of gods such as Mithra or Isis, derived from earlier Mesopotamian or Egyptian beliefs, attracted some Roman soldiers and others with rites of sacrifice and a strong sense of religious community. Christianity, though far more than a mystery religion, had some of these qualities and won converts on this basis as well. Christianity, in sum, gained ground in part because of features of Roman political and cultural life. 

      The spread of Christianity also benefited from some of the positive qualities of Rome's great empire. Political stability and communications over a wide area aided missionary efforts, while the Roman example helped inspire the government forms of the growing Christian church. Early Christian communities regulated themselves, but with expansion more formal government was introduced, with bishops playing a role not unlike Rome's provincial governors. Bishops headed churches in regional centers and supervised the activities of other churches in the area. Bishops in politically powerful cities, including Rome, gained particular authority. Roman principles also helped move what initially had been a religion among Jews to a genuinely cosmopolitan stance. Under the leadership of Paul, converted to Christianity about A.D. 35, Christian missionaries began to move away from insistence that adherents of the new religion must follow Jewish law. Rather, in the spirit of Rome and of Hellenism, the new faith was seen as universal, open to all whether or not they followed Jewish practices in diet, male circumcision, and so on.

      Paul's conversion to Christianity proved vital. Paul was Jewish, but he had been born in a Greek city and was familiar with Greco-Roman culture. He helped explain basic Christian beliefs in terms other adherents of this

culture could grasp, and he preached in Greece and Italy as well as the Middle East. Paul essentially created Christian theology, as a set of intellectual principles that followed from, but generalized, the message of Jesus. Paul also modified certain initial Christian impulses. Jesus himself had drawn a large number of women followers, but Paul emphasized women's subordination to men and the dangers of sexuality. It was Paul's stress on Christianity as a universal religion, requiring abandonment of other religious beliefs, and his related use of Greek - the dominant language of the day throughout the eastern Mediterranean - that particularly transformed the new faith.   

Relations With The Roman Empire 

     The history of Christianity is filled with conflict, controversy, and division. It also has countless instances of brilliant creativity in worship, architecture, painting, sculpture, music, and literature. And in all ages churches have sought to carry out the mission entrusted to them by Jesus. Within this article only a very brief summary of the history can be given.

Early period to AD 380. Christianity became established in nearly all parts of the Roman Empire and in the Middle East during the first two centuries. As it continued to grow and expand, it became the object of persecution by the Roman authorities. The severest persecutions came during the reigns of the emperors Domitian (AD 96), Marcus Aurelius (161-180), Decius (249-251), and Valerian (253-260). Worst of all was the attempt by the Emperor Diocletian (284-305) to extinguish Christianity altogether. But in 313 Constantine the Great issued an edict of toleration for all religions. In 380, Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Middle Ages. Although the church was empire-wide, two cities came to be more influential than others in guiding its affairs: Rome and Constantinople (now Istanbul). Many theological disputes arose in the centuries after Constantine, and these were usually settled by councils. The Roman church, headed by its bishop, the pope, gradually diverged in both belief and practice from the church at Constantinople, headed by its patriarch. The Roman church became dominant in Western Europe, while the church at Constantinople dominated the East. In 1054 the two churches broke off relations with each other.

Modern period. Early in the 16th century a split occurred in the Roman church. Since that time the church in the West has been divided primarily between the Roman Catholic and Protestant segments. The term Protestantism has come to refer to nearly any denomination that is not affiliated with either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox branches. Among the older Protestant denominations are the Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, and Baptist.

In the 20th century there have been attempts to revitalize and reunify the church. The World Council of Churches, founded in 1948, is an organization made up of most denominations except for the Roman Catholic. In the 1960s the Roman Church, in its Second Vatican Council, strove for spiritual renewal and modernization. Thus, after many centuries, most of the denominations that make up the worldwide church are in contact with one another. Many are involved in cooperative projects, and others have undertaken actual merger negotiations. The Roman and Orthodox churches resumed contact in 1965. 

     Gradually, Christian theological leaders made further contact with

Greco-Roman intellectual life. They began to develop a body of Christian

writings beyond the Bible messages written by the disciples of Jesus. By the

4th century A.D., Christian writings became the only creative cultural

expressions in the Roman Empire, as theologians sought not only to explain

issues in the new religion but also to relate it to Greek philosophy and Roman ethics. Ironically, as the Roman Empire was in most respects declining, Christianity produced an outpouring of complex thought and often elegant use of language. In this effort, Christianity redirected Roman culture (never known for abundant religious subtlety) but also preserved many earlier literary and philosophical achievements.  

     Adherents of the new religion clashed with Roman authorities, to be sure.

Christians, who put their duties to God first, would not honor the emperor as

a divinity and might seem to reject the authority of the state in other

spheres. Several early emperors, including the mad Nero, persecuted

Christians, killing some and driving their worship underground. Persecution

was not constant, however, which helps explain why the religion continued to spread. It resumed only in the 4th century, when several emperors sought to use religious conformity and new claims to divinity as a way of cementing

loyalties to a declining state. Roman beliefs, including periodic tolerance,

helped shape a Christian view that the state had a legitimately separate if

subordinate sphere; Western Christians would often cite Christ as saying

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's."  

The full story of early Christianity goes beyond the history of Rome.

Christianity had more to do with opening a new era in the history of the

Mediterranean region than with shaping the later Roman Empire. Yet important connections did exist that explain features of Christianity and of later Roman history. Though not a Roman product and though benefiting in part from the empire's decline, Christianity in some of its qualities can be counted as part of the Greco-Roman legacy.