Gregory Aldrete: evaluation

Transcript context

…At this time, was a fringe movement that really did- Yeah, very fringe. I mean, it was one of hundreds of little mystery religions, the Romans thought of it as. These are religions that have some sort of revealed knowledge and that make more personal appeals to people. Now, stepping back from this in a broad way, I think you can say that Christianity really was different in some ways, and had some things that maybe the Romans should rightfully have viewed as a threat. I mean, the Romans are a people very focused on this world: citizenship, what you do. Christianity, in essence, has a focus on the next world. So this world isn’t as important as what you’re setting yourself up for. And even worse, from a Roman perspective, I’m kind of saying, “Okay, if I were a Roman,” Romans are all about making distinctions between people. Citizen, non-citizen, man, woman, free, slave. Christianity comes along and says, “In God’s eyes, you’re all equal.” Now, that’s a pretty problematic idea if you’re deeply invested in Roman hierarchy. And I think it is no surprise that among the earliest converts to Christianity are women and slaves, and in particular, female slaves. Now, who are they? They’re the people at the rock bottom of the Roman hierarchy of status, which the Romans are obsessed with status. But here’s a religion that says, “That doesn’t matter.” And in that same letter to Pliny, Pliny says, “Okay, in this group of Christians I’ve heard about, their leaders are two female slaves they call ‘deaconesses.'” Now, this is really early. This is before the church exists, right? There’s no church structure yet. And who is leading the local congregation of Christians? Two slave women. So that’s an interesting moment, and that’s not necessarily the image we get of early Christianity. But you can see how for people in this social structure, that would be very appealing to them. And in some ways, yeah, it is sort of a threat to the Roman system because they’re challenging it. Now, the irony is, of course, 300 years after the life of Christ, the emperor converts to Christianity. And another 100 years later under Theodosius, it becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire. So all of a sudden you have this flip-flop, where now the state itself is not just converted to Christianity, but actively promoting it and now persecuting pagans. And the reason the emperors do that is one of the biggest problems for emperors at that point in time is legitimacy. That there’s tons of civil wars where you have lots of different people saying, “I’m emperor.” So lots of generals declaring themselves emperor. Now under a polytheistic religion, you’re all just fighting. It doesn’t matter. But if you say there is only one God, then if that God picks someone to be His emperor, they’re the only legitimate emperor. Right? polytheistic religion, you’re all just fighting. It doesn’t matter. But if you say there is only one God, then if that God picks someone to be His emperor, they’re the only legitimate emperor. Right? So there is a real advantage to emperors now becoming Christian. Because they can say, “We’re now a Christian empire and there’s only one God, and I’m the guy that God picked to be emperor, that means all these other people claiming to be emperors are illegitimate.”…

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