Christianity in the later Roman Empire - Essay Example

In what ways can Christianity be said to have made a transition from superstitio to religio in the later Roman Empire Introduction Christianity has its own struggles before it became the widely accepted and practiced religion in the world. Its history has its own share of historical significance that had made it become more meaningful to its followers. There had been too many stories to tell that eventually made the Christian faith even stronger and richer. Looking into the Christian faith today, it could be drawn from the mere observation of the society at present "that the most important basis for this development is to be found in the fact that the genuine Roman view concerning the general nature of the supernatural remained a national religiosity of peasantry and patrimonial strata." ("The Sociology") What Christianity offers its believers and followers is with a rich context of human religion that requires the least of his capabilities in honor of the god they now admire and respect. After Christianity had gone through various transitions and reformation; after it had confronted and overcome all the challenges that it had faced, what results is a polished, spiritually stimulating and that is more universally accepted and acclaimed. The Christian religion has not only taught the purest and sublimest code of morals ever known among men, but actually exhibited it in the life sufferings, and death of its founder and true followers. ("Literary Contest") Religio from Superstitio In the Roman context, religio is defined as the "proper reasonable awe of the gods." ("Reclaiming") The primary characteristics of the Roman tradition were conserved virtually unchanged in ritual practices. Looking at its historical context, Roman religio was associated into two derivations such as "religare," which means to tie, "relegere," which is to consider, that is tied with tested cultic formulae and a consideration for "numina" or spirits - which are active everywhere. ("The Sociology") Every member of the Roman Empire is acquainted with his or her duty regarding the traditional rituals that constituted religio even if the nature of the gods whom they offer these rituals is vague. Romans in the ancient Rome had continued to perform rites and rituals in honor of the gods they have traditionally praised. "Religio meant fulfilling an understood contractual relationship with the gods. It involved acts, rather than beliefs; it centered on cult, instead of theology." ("Reclaiming") Life in the case of the Roman was spent under conditions of austere restraint, and, the nobler he was, the less he was a free man. All-powerful custom restricted him to a narrow range of thought and action; and to have led a serious and strict or, to use the characteristic Latin expressions, a sad and severe life, was his glory. No one had more and no one had less to do than to keep his household in good order and manfully bear his part of counsel and action in public affairs. But, while the individual had neither the wish nor the power to be aught else than a member of the community, the glory and the might of that community were felt by every individual burgess as a personal possession to be transmitted along with his name and his homestead to his posterity; and thus, as one generation after another was laid in the tomb and each in succession added its fresh contribution to the stock of ancient honors, the collective sense of dignity in the noble families of Rome swelled into that mighty civic pride, the like of which the earth has never seen again, and the traces of which, as strange as they are grand, seem to us, wherever we meet them, to belong as it were to another world. It was one of the characteristic peculiarities of this powerful sense of citizenship, that it was, while not suppressed, yet compelled by the rigid simplicity and equality that prevailed among the citizens to remain locked up within the breast during life, and was only allowed to find expression after death; but then it was displayed in the funeral rites of the man of distinction so conspicuously and intensely, that this ceremonial is better fitted than any other phenomenon of Roman life to give to us who live in later times a glimpse of that wonderful spirit of the Romans. ("The History") The Roman priestly lists (indigitamenta) contained an almost infinite number of gods, particularized and specialized. Every act and indeed every specific element of an act stood under the influence of special god or the spirit (numina). It was therefore a precaution for one engaged in an important activity to invoke and honor, besides the certain god called dii certi to whom tradition had already established causal relationships and competence, the uncertain gods (incerti) whose competence was not established and indeed whose sex, effectiveness, and possibly even existence were dubious. As many as a dozen of the certain gods might be involved in certain farming activities. While the Romans tended to regard the ekstasis (Latin: superstitio) of the Greeks as a mental alienation (balienatio mentis) that was socially false, the casuistry of Roman religio (and of the Etruscan, which went even further) appeared to the Greek as slavery demon. The Roman interest in keeping the gods satisfied had the effect of producing a conceptual attribution of all individual actions into their components, each being assigned to the a particular god whose special protection it enjoyed. ("The Sociology of Religion") More often, the counterpart of religio is the superstitio. (Beard et al 1998) The Christian religion found at first as little favor with the representatives of literature and art as with princes and statesmen. In the secular literature of the latter part of the first century and the beginning of the second, we find little more than ignorant, careless and hostile allusions to Christianity as a new form of superstition which then began to attract the attention of the Roman government. In this point of view also Christ's kingdom was not of the world, and was compelled to force its way through the greatest difficulties; yet it proved at last the mother of an intellectual and moral culture far in advance of the Graeco-Roman, capable of endless progress, and full of the vigor of perpetual youth. ("Literary Contest") The term superstitio is of fundamental importance for scholars of Roman religion and history, for it addresses the question of vital importance to the Roman state: how does the state deal with religious beliefs and practices - either Roma or alien - which are not part of the state religion and are not easily susceptible to state control Given its importance, the term superstitio has deservedly been the subject of several scholarly studies. These studies have, by and large, examined this term in the texts from antiquity; but the wide range of its meaning and its changing associations in the eight centuries of its usage necessitate that we discuss this term as closely as possible within its historical and literary context. (Salzman 1987) In the course of the fourth century, as Christianity gradually replaced paganism as the religion of the Roman state, a series of laws were passed against paganism, many of which survived in the Codex Theodosianus. In these laws, the term superstitio recurs in context which have created certain problems of interpretation for scholars of late Roman religion and history. (Salzman 1987) It appears that in the literature of Republican Rome, at least through Cicero, and excepting Ennius and Plautus, superstitio is pejorative, as are its adjective and adverb. Apparently metaphorical meanings arose in the literature of the early empire and the word itself comes into vogue only in silver Latin, where it is with few exceptions derisive and abstract. ("Reclaiming") The policy of the Roman government, the fanaticism of the superstitious people, and the self-interest of the pagan priests conspired for the persecution of a religion which threatened to demolish the tottering fabric of idolatry; and they left no expedients of legislation, of violence, of craft, and of wickedness untried, to blot it from the earth. ("Reclaiming") The distinctive Roman religiosity had, besides the feature of formalism, another important characteristic trait, in contrast with Greek culture, namely the impersonality which had an affinity with objective rationality. The consideration of the Romans in entire daily life and every act were temporally and quantitatively occupied by the ritual obligations and casuistry of a sacred law quite as much as that of the Jews and Hindus was occupied by their ritual laws, quite as much as that of the Chinese was occupied by the sacred laws of Taoism. On the other hand, religion so far as it remains stubbornly positive and denies or suppresses its essential link with secular life, becomes itself an externalizing mentality, from which externalization "flows every other phase of externality: of bondage, non-spirituality, and superstition": religion as a mere "moving of lips", the worship of prophets and saints, the devotion to images, bones and rituals, reliance on a scripture that itself declares that 'the letter killeth'. It promotes holiness over freedom. ("Hegel") Pietas as the sincere expression of religio, the unshakeable belief in the aid of the Roman gods; religio as opposed to superstitio, that only sought for the rescue of the individual who tried to break away from the community of the nomen Romanum so as to ensure for himself and his kindred an improper salvation. ("Reclaiming") Superstitio then, was something selfish, something that put the individual above the state, the needs of the one above the needs of the many. Superstitio itself is an interesting word. It is first used in the Latin language by Cicero, who felt that religio becomes supstitiosa if it is infected with "new or strange rites" or, as noted above, if it arouses "irrational fears". It was, to his mind, something of which a person should be ashamed and try to correct. ("Reclaiming") Conclusion A transition from superstitio to religio of the Christian faith may not be referred to as such since they would have been co-existed. These two beliefs may have intertwined such that the lack or the excess of one, the result is its counterpart. The ancient world of Greece and Rome generally was based upon the absolutism of the state, which mercilessly trampled under foot the individual rights of men. It is Christianity which taught and acknowledged them. ("Persecution") Based from several historical articles concerning the said transition within Christianity, there is no clear event as such since they are merely counterparts of each other. No concrete evidence in the historical claims of the historians shows that there is truly a transition from superstition to religion. These two terms existed in the past, as well as it still exists in the present. Though authors of the history of Christianity and its religion have a common definition of religio and superstitio which are very significant factors in the historical events, they have varying opinions as to which among these two factors came first and which has made a transition from what. This situation could have been brought about by their own personal inclinations and religious backgrounds that include the practices they have acquired from their ancestors of the religious belief. There were however hints that superstition is a product of too much religio in such a way that overwhelming faith in God and overdoing the acts of worshipping Him may eventually become fallacious - therefore religion becomes a superstition. The act of honoring an abstract or a mysterious God in the ancient times may be regarded as superstition, on the other hand it could also be regarded as a religion such that religio follows the same acts of worship to the God whom they believed in. This widespread cleavage between religion and intelligence, making the one a dear illusion, the other a rigorous adaptation to natural processes, is disastrous. It works like a deadly poison both upon intelligence and upon religion. It is one of the great evils of human life. Our present endeavor is to portray a form and method of religion which overleaps this cleavage and renders religion inclusive of all the initiative, discipline and insight which human nature can display. (Wierman 1927) The advancement of human intelligence may have contributed in a more profound Christian faith that is widespread in the nations these days. Christianity now offers no more false beliefs of the god it honors and respects. The acts of worships are with a purpose and reason - though not exactly with a concrete one. References and Works Cited: Beard, M. et al. (1998) Religions of Rome: Volume 1: A History. Cambridge University Press; New Edition. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Retrieved from http://edge.org/q2007/q07_1.html on February 23, 2007. Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2001) Retrieved from http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2001/2001-07-18.html on February 23, 2007. Christian Persecution. Retrieved from http://www.unrv.com/culture/christian-persecution.php on February 23, 2007. Hegel on Secularity and Consummated Religion. Retrieved from http://www.swgc.mun.ca/animus/2004vol9/jackson.htm on February 23, 2007. Literary Contest of Christianity with Judaism and Heathenism. Retrieved from http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/2_ch03.htm on February 23, 2007. Persecution of Christianity and Christian Martyrdom. Retrieved from http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/2_ch02.htm on February 23, 2007. "Reclaiming Religion" Retrieved from http://alheithinn.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html on February 23, 2007. Salzman, M. (1987) 'Superstitio' in the "Codex Theodosianus" and the Persecution of Pagans. Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 41 (2). The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen. Retrieved from http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_mommsen_3_13_1.htm on February 23, 2007. The Sociology of Religion. Retrieved from http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber/society/socio_relig/socio_relig.html on February 23, 2007. The Rising Cycle. (1927) Theosophy 15 (7) Retrieved from http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/theosophicalmovement/TheRisingCycle8.html on February 23, 2007. The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. Retrieved from http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/courses/535/Harnack/bk2ch7o.htm on February 23, 2007. Wierman, H. (1927) The Wrestle of Religion with Truth. Macmillan, New York. Read More