CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
THE RELIGION OF THE JEWS. Among the cities captured by the Romans
was Jerusalem, about which cluster so many stories from the Old
Testament. There, hundreds of years before, lived David, the shepherd
boy who, after wonderful adventures, became king of his people. There
his son Solomon built a temple of dazzling splendor. Among this people
had arisen great preachers,--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah,--who declared that
religion did not consist in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, but in
justice, in mercy, and in humility. They had a genius for religion, just
as the Greeks had a genius for art, and the Romans a genius for
government.
THE JEWS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS. When the Jews first heard of the
Romans they admired these citizens of a republic who made and unmade
kings. In later years they learned that the Romans were hard masters and
they feared and hated them. The Jewish kingdom was one of the last
countries along the shores of the Mediterranean which the Romans
conquered, but like all the others it finally became a Roman province.
JESUS OF NAZARETH. A few years before the Jewish kingdom became a
Roman province there was born in a village near Jerusalem a child named
Jesus. After he had grown to manhood in Nazareth he gathered about him
followers or disciples whom he taught to live and act as is told in the
books of the New Testament.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF JERUSALEM Showing the Mount of Olives
in the distance]
This was the beginning of the Christian religion. It was first held by a
little band of Jews, but Paul, a Jew born in Tarsus, a city of Asia
whose inhabitants had received the rights of Roman citizenship, believed
that the message of the new religion was meant for all nations. He
taught it in many cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and even went as far
west as Rome. Several of the epistles or letters in the New Testament
were written by Paul to churches which he had founded or where he had
taught. So it happens that from Palestine came religious teachings which
multitudes consider even more important than the art and literature of
the Greeks or the laws and political methods of the Romans.
WHY THE CHRISTIANS WERE PERSECUTED. The Romans at first refused to
permit any one in their empire to call himself a Christian. They
disliked the Jews because the Jews denied that the Roman gods were real
gods, asserting that these gods were mere images in wood and stone. The
Christians did this also, but in the eyes of the Roman rulers the worst
offense of the Christians was that they appeared to form a sort of
secret society and held meetings to which other persons were not
admitted. The emperor had forbidden such societies.
The Romans also disliked the Christians because of their refusal to join
in the public ceremonies which honored the emperor as if he were a god
who had given peace and order to the world and who was able to reward
the good and punish the evil. The Christians believed it to be wrong to
join in the worship of an emperor, whether he were alive or dead.
CHRISTIANS PUT TO DEATH. The Romans were cruel in their manner of
punishing disobedience, and many Christians suffered death in its most
horrible forms. Some were burned, others were tortured, others were torn
to pieces by wild animals in the great amphitheaters to satisfy the
fierce Roman crowd. Nero, the worst of the Roman emperors, who, many
thought, set Rome on fire in order that he might enjoy the sight of the
burning city, tried to turn suspicion from himself by accusing the
Christians of the crime. He punished them by tying them to poles,
smearing their bodies with pitch, and burning them at night as torches.
THE CHRISTIANS ALLOWED TO WORSHIP. The new religion spread rapidly
from province to province in spite of these persecutions. At first the
Christians worshiped secretly, but later they ventured to build
churches. Finally, three centuries after the birth of Christ, the
emperors promised that the persecutions should cease and that the
Christians might worship undisturbed.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE]
THE ROMAN EMPIRE BECOMES CHRISTIAN ABOUT 325 A.D. Constantine was
the first emperor to become Christian. He was the one who made the Greek
city Byzantium the capital of the empire and for whom it was renamed
Constantinople. For a time both the old Roman religion and the Christian
religion were favored by the emperors, but before the fourth century
closed the old religion was forbidden. In later days worshipers of the
Roman gods were mostly country people, called in Latin _pagani_, and
therefore their religion was called "paganism."
HOW THE CHURCH WAS RULED. One of the reasons why the Christians had
been successful in their struggle with the Roman emperors was that they
were united under wise and brave leaders. The Christians in each large
city were ruled by a bishop, and the bishops of several cities were
directed by an archbishop. In the western part of the empire the bishop
of Rome, who was called the pope, was honored as the chief of the
bishops and archbishops, and the successor of the Apostle Peter. In the
eastern part the archbishops or patriarchs of Constantinople and
Alexandria and Jerusalem honored the pope, but claimed to be equal in
authority with him.
There were also two kinds of clergy, parish priests and monks. The
priests were pastors of ordinary parishes, but the monks lived in groups
in buildings called monasteries. Sometimes their purpose was to dwell
far from the bustle and wrongs of ordinary life and give themselves to
prayer and fasting; sometimes they acted as a brotherhood of teachers in
barbarous communities, teaching the people better methods of farming,
and carrying the arts of civilized life beyond the borders of
the empire.
QUESTIONS
1. Where did the Jews live in Ancient Times?
2. Do you remember any of the stories of David?
3. What finally became of the kingdom over which David ruled?
4. What era in the history of the world begins with the birth of
Jesus Christ?
5. Why did the Romans forbid the Christians to worship? How did the
Romans punish them? How long after the birth of Christ before the
emperors allowed the Christians to worship undisturbed?
[Illustration: A MONASTERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES Abbey of
Saint-Germain des Prés as it appeared in 1361 with wall, towers, and
moat or ditch]
6. What is the name of the first Roman emperor who became a
Christian? What name was soon given to the worshipers of the old
Roman gods?
7. By what titles were the leaders of the Christians named? What two
kinds of clergy were there?
_Important date_: 325 A.D., when the Roman Empire became Christian.