The Epistle to Diognetus and To Scapula were texts written to defend Christianity against accusers of Greece and Persecutors of Rome. Even though the two texts are discussing about the same matter, both authors approaches the problem with a different attitude and method. While the author of epistle talks more about the Christian ways and how God is truly the creator and ruler of heaven and earth, the author of To Scapula talks about how the Christians don’t want any trouble and that killing them will anger God. After looking at the two sources, The Epistle to Diognetus provides more insight to the Christian life and is more persuading to defend against accusers.
The author of The Epistle To Diognetus intended this text to defend Christianity against its accusers. Throughout the passages, the author answers Diognetus’ questions one by one. In Chapter II, the author talks about how the Christian haters worship valuable artifacts made of silver, gold, iron. These things they call, worship, and serve as gods make them hate the Christians, because Christians don’t consider these goods to be gods.
In Chapter III, the author explains that the Christians do not practice the same forms of divine worship, as do the Jews. Jews regard it proper to worship one God as being the lard of all. But if they offer God worship in the way described above, they are greatly mistaken. On the other hand, the Gentiles think that offering things to God, as if he needed them, is the way of worship. However, God, who is the creator of heaven and earth and gives to us all the things we need, doesn’t need these offerings and reckons it rather an act of foolishness than divine worship.
In chapter V, the author describes Christian is not distinguished by count...
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... the Jews were in before Christ came to earth. They were at the lowest class of the society, while the church was corrupted and the ruler oppressed them.
Overall, The Epistle to Diogentus provided better information about the Christian life and God’s grace, while To Scapula was majorly on defending Christianity against the charges of treason against Rome. To Scapula focused too much on telling the Romans to stop killing them. It didn’t really provide any information about their way of life, their beliefs, and God’s grace. There were even threats, or as Tertullian calls warning, to the Roman Emperor about angering God and the consequences to it. The Epistle to Diogentus talked about how they were persecuted when they’ve done things that meant good. It talked about how God saved the people by sending his own son and set a better persuasion compared to To Scapula’s.
Jews, a religious group of people originating from Israel, have lived in Europe, including Germany, for about 1500 years (Carr; Shyovitz). As Jews moved away from Israel, agriculture was no longer their main form of breadwinning. They have become more educated and many acquired skilled professions. In Europe, Christians were not allowed to lend money and the Jews have become the main money lenders. The knowledge, skills, and money lending abilities that Jews possessed allowed them to become extremely prosperous. During 1000-1500, most Rulers in Europe were Christians, who disliked the Jews (Carr). Although they lived peacefully with their neighbors, Christians blamed
Paul establishes his credentials forthrightly and formally. This was crucial in terms of validating the ensuing message of the epistle. His readership, as well as his critics (the Judaizers), needed to be reminded of his apostolic authority as he attacked the heresy that had taken foothold in the Galatian Christian community.
The Christians were in an area called Christendom, which is now called Europe. People used to center their lives around the church. Most people that time were Christians. If you weren’t a Christian, you would be considered second-class. Many Jews were persecuted in the era.
It is mentioned that the bishops tell the common folk that “the Jews have stolen your religion and yet the Jews live with you in your own land.” As a result, these words create violence as the common folk “rush out together in search of Jews, and when they find one they kill him.” The killings and violence committed during this time was also predominately recognized as acts of vengeance for many bishops and other Christians deem “the Jews as Christ-killers.” Again, this idea supports the notion that Jews created mischief and thus, the cruelty directed to them is understandable and
...he Jews the chosen people of god but the bible says that the Jews made a plan to kill Jesus in Rome.One of the bible stories, say that several Jews had a meeting telling that the only way to deal with Jesus is to kill him and that if they arrest him, rioting will occur. Due to the Jews killed Jesus Christ, the lord and saviour, this creates anger in Christian communities and the hatred of Jews. The reasons why this occurs is because it was written in the biblical books, which several Christians believe. Christians say that Judaism is not a religion becauses that Jesus was not the messiah and that there is another coming. More people react a hatred view to Jews while other do not agree what the Jews did but not in complete animosity of the Jews. Religion has created Anti-semitism and can not be removed since there are several who believe in the word of the bible.
3. Reading "The Grand Inquisitor" while considering the history of early Christianity, the question can be asked, "Did orthodox Christians really believe in God?" Or is the God they believed in a guise that Christianity has put forward to have humanity believe in Him through its teachings only. The Roman Church had taken God's celebrations of nature and converted them to Christian celebration. In The dark side of Christian history, Ellerbe supports this when she writes "Unable to convince people of the absence of God in nature, the early Church instead incorporated aspects of the very nature worship it condemned..." (Ellerbe 143).
The Jews have practically always been persecuted ever since they dispersed from biblical Israel throughout the countries of Europe. Much of Europe’s religious base has been Catholic throughout the years since the days that the Roman Empire conquered most of Europe, hence the term, “all roads lead to Rome”. The spread of Catholicism instilled the story of Christ to the people and many people held/hold Jewish people responsible
The only thing that the authors would agree on is the main idea that God revealed Himself to Greek philosophers. By delving deeper into this idea, we can find the disagreements that both authors would have. Justin Martyr would say that Christ promulgated Himself as the Word of God, and both Christians and philosophers would be involved in this Word even if they are involved in different ways. For example, Christians would know Christ as a whole while philosophers would know Christ through the wisdom of logic which could be a contradiction. This is okay because Christ is made known to humanity in an already secular way. The only contradiction would be that philosophers don’t know Christ in the religious way, but they don’t need to know Christ in this way because religion is not their forte. Clement of Alexandria would disagree, saying that Christ isn’t revealed to us as one thing (logos), but as everything. God revealed Himself to the Hebrews in the Ten Commandments, the Ten Plagues, bread falling from the sky, rainbow, and through the universe. Clement just says the Law of God because it is most familiar to Christians. The way God revealed Himself here is similar to the way he did so to the Greeks, because God’s Law to the Greeks is
Later on in history Judaism and Jews caught even more flack. In Europe which was very strong in the early Christian Church; Jews were a clear minority. Because the Church kind of ran Europe, prejudice and anti Semitic laws came about. One in the sixth century was the Justinian Code, the Jews couldn’t read their Bible in Hebrew, and Jews couldn’t testify in court against Christians. Specifically in 533 Jews couldn’t marry Christians, work with them, hold a public office or appear on the streets of Holy Week. These ideas continued and became violent.
The purpose of this essay is to examine the barriers to the spread of Christianity during the Roman Empire. The relationship between Christians, Jews, and the Roman Empire was quite complicated. The Romans became involved with the Jews in 63 B.C.E. as part of their domination of the eastern Mediterranean. Christianity originated 6 B.C.E – 29 C. E. by a Palestinian Jew named Jesus, proclaiming to be the Messiah. The NIV Bible is the primary source for this essay. Leviticus from the Old Testament is written as a series of rituals or laws given to Moses by God. The book of Acts, I Corinthians and Galatians are from the New Testament. Acts was written by Luke, one of Jesus’ disciples, and outlines the spread of Christianity. I Corinthians and Galatians are letters to the early church written by Paul, a leader and missionary. The authors of the books of the Bible record eye witness accounts and revelations from God. The World History I textbook and The Survey of World History/Civilization online content are secondary sources used to connect events in the Bible to historical events during the Roman Empire. Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire despite opposition from the Jews, the Romans, and problems with the early church.
The rise of Christianity in Rome did not come easily. It came with much destruction and death. The spark of Christianity in Rome came from an appearance of Martyrs in Rome. Martyrs were people that were executed for going against the common beliefs of pagan (polytheistic) ways. (Tignor, 2011, p. 286) Because of these awful executions, Christianity is said to be based off of “the blood of martyrs.” One of their main ways of spreading Christianity was through the sharing of their writings and by 300 CE there was an exceptional amount of book production throughout Rome. (Tignor, 2011, p. 289) “Christianity operated as one among many minority religions in the Roman Empire, and on several occasions experienced widespread persecution, especially under the emperors Nero (r. 54–68), Decius (r. 249–251), and Diocletian (r. 284–305). However, the situation changed radically under the emperor Constantine (r. 306–337), who in 313 issued the Edict of Milan that made Christianity a legitimate religion in the empire.” (Melton, 2010, p. 634)
...ng God but instead he wants to resurrect the faith that his people gave up once they took part in erecting the bull calf and forgot God. His success as a leader is shown in the final parts of the text where he has his people build God a tabernacle and give up gold, silver and other precious items for sacrifice.
Public expressions of hatred towards the Jewish people built on this very concept formed the basis of Christian anti-Semitism. The Roman church, in many instances, actually preached anti-Semitism based on the claim that the Jews were connected to killing Jesus. St. Augustine, one of the major influencing characters of the early Catholic Church, reportedly believed
When Christianity emerged in the Roman Empire, it was immediately marked as a superstitious and mysterious cult composed of revolutionaries, adulterers, cannibals, atheists, and sexual perverts. Fueled by these rumours, local governors such as Pliny the Younger, began the first wave of Christian persecution lasting from 30 CE - 250 CE. Though violent, resulting in the execution and torture of tens of thousands of Christians, the second phase of Christian persecution was far more violent, with its varying imperial edicts. Diocletian, a common man, launched the bloodiest attack against Christians in 303 CE resulting in the destruction of Christian meeting houses, Christian scripture, and the deaths of thousands of Christians. However, as much as Diocletian tried to squash Christianity, Christians refused to yield. Though much of his reign he wanted to destroy the Christian faith, his reign eventually led to the succession of Emperor Constantine and birthing Christianity as the main religion of the Roman
Jesus and Paul are two crucial characters in the New Testament. They both depict the Gospel on which Christianity is based upon, but there is debate about rather these two versions of the Gospel are complementary. Scholars like George Shaw claim that Paul is “anti-Christian,” and he “produced a fantastic theology” (Shaw 415-416). On the other hand, I believe that even though Jesus and Paul may present the Gospel different at times, they are still advocating the same religion. Through the understanding of the Gospels and Paul’s letters it is clear that Jesus and Paul have the same underlining goals and values.