A day in the life of an early Christian
May 6, 2011 3:14 PM Subscribe
What can you tell me about what life was like for early Christians in the first century AD in Jerusalem, specifically 33 AD to 70 AD?
I'm curious as to what the day-to-day impact of being a believer in Christ might have been in the years after the crucifixion, but before the Romans came to sack Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, did the fledgling followers of Christ live and work in conjunction with the Jews? Would an early Christian ever have been employed by a Jew (or vice versa) or was it forbidden? Did they keep their religion secret? Did early Christians tend to be of one particular social strata (slave, merchants, farmers,) versus another? Etc.
I apologize for my obvious ignorance-- I'm curious and am asking purely for historical (as opposed to religious) context.
Thanks!
I'm curious as to what the day-to-day impact of being a believer in Christ might have been in the years after the crucifixion, but before the Romans came to sack Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, did the fledgling followers of Christ live and work in conjunction with the Jews? Would an early Christian ever have been employed by a Jew (or vice versa) or was it forbidden? Did they keep their religion secret? Did early Christians tend to be of one particular social strata (slave, merchants, farmers,) versus another? Etc.
I apologize for my obvious ignorance-- I'm curious and am asking purely for historical (as opposed to religious) context.
Thanks!
Best answer: According the Jewish historian, Josephus, James, the brother of Jesus (not one the of the original 12 disciples) is the one who initially kept the cult of Jesus alive after his death. Peter played an increasingly important role, but it was Saul (Paul) of Tarsus who really began a process of expanding the cult.
To most Jews in Jerusalem in the first century AD, Christianity would have been seen as a strange wildly unorthodox social movement. Few Romans in Jerusalem would have been distinguished them in anyway from the rest of the Jewish population.
The real power brokers in Jerusalem during and immediately after Jesus's life were Romans. Romans controlled many of the most important industries, especially things they were important to international trade. Bitumen production, for example. Bitumen is a gooey mineral deposit, which can be found all over Judea, but especially near the Dead Sea. Bitumen was used to make mortar, and was critical to much of Roman Architecture. A Roman owning a business in the bitumen industry (mining, refinery, shipping, whatever), would have made no distinction between Jew and Christian. They were all Jews, and they were all expendable.
Kings of Juea during this period were all client kings of the Roman Empire. Some Emperors, like Caligula, changed the King of Judea on a whim.
posted by Flood at 4:03 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]
To most Jews in Jerusalem in the first century AD, Christianity would have been seen as a strange wildly unorthodox social movement. Few Romans in Jerusalem would have been distinguished them in anyway from the rest of the Jewish population.
The real power brokers in Jerusalem during and immediately after Jesus's life were Romans. Romans controlled many of the most important industries, especially things they were important to international trade. Bitumen production, for example. Bitumen is a gooey mineral deposit, which can be found all over Judea, but especially near the Dead Sea. Bitumen was used to make mortar, and was critical to much of Roman Architecture. A Roman owning a business in the bitumen industry (mining, refinery, shipping, whatever), would have made no distinction between Jew and Christian. They were all Jews, and they were all expendable.
Kings of Juea during this period were all client kings of the Roman Empire. Some Emperors, like Caligula, changed the King of Judea on a whim.
posted by Flood at 4:03 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I'm sure you understand that a question like this is necessarily somewhat speculative; I am throwing my hat in the ring with that caveat.
For one thing, I'm not really sure there were "Christians" during that particular period in the sense that we currently understand the term. The wikipedia article on the historical Jesus notes that, after the temple disturbance/incident, the disciples more or less disbanded to avoid getting in trouble, even before the crucifixion, and then either fled to Galilee or laid low in Jerusalem, depending on who you believe.
One person who did keep the faith, so to speak, in the immediate decades after the crucifixion was James the Just, Jesus's (allegedly literal) brother. James along with Mary and at least some of the apostles withdrew into a small community within Jerusalem where they apparently practiced "Jewish Christianity", essentially following rabbinical teachings but also maintaining a sort of cult belief in Jesus as the Jewish messiah. This apparently persisted until roughly the 5th century AD, at least among a small community.
... and I was just about to start writing about Paul's more radical departure from Jewish tradition, but I see Flood has gotten into that a bit.
posted by rkent at 4:08 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
For one thing, I'm not really sure there were "Christians" during that particular period in the sense that we currently understand the term. The wikipedia article on the historical Jesus notes that, after the temple disturbance/incident, the disciples more or less disbanded to avoid getting in trouble, even before the crucifixion, and then either fled to Galilee or laid low in Jerusalem, depending on who you believe.
One person who did keep the faith, so to speak, in the immediate decades after the crucifixion was James the Just, Jesus's (allegedly literal) brother. James along with Mary and at least some of the apostles withdrew into a small community within Jerusalem where they apparently practiced "Jewish Christianity", essentially following rabbinical teachings but also maintaining a sort of cult belief in Jesus as the Jewish messiah. This apparently persisted until roughly the 5th century AD, at least among a small community.
... and I was just about to start writing about Paul's more radical departure from Jewish tradition, but I see Flood has gotten into that a bit.
posted by rkent at 4:08 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Acts 21:20 says, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law." This is attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, and the elders of the church in Jerusalem. They were speaking to Paul. This jibes with other indications in the Acts and the epistles that the first-century Jewish believers lived just as their ancestors had, keeping the law and traditions of Judaism.
posted by partner at 5:27 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by partner at 5:27 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Thinking more about your question, Rome provided a sort of religious freedom in its empires (the client states around the mediterrean that it controlled). The Roman goal was stability (to increase financial gain). You didnt have to worship Roman gods (though if you really wanted to move up in power, you did) - and you could worship any God you wanted, so long as it didnt disrupt the peace.
As a result, every major city would have had several different religious sites in the various ethnic enclaves in the city. Roman military garrisons would have had temples to Mars and Apollo in them. There would have temples for Egyptian Gods too. Certainly there was a Cult of Isis in Jerusalem at that time. When Cleopatra and Mark Antony passed through the city around 25BC, they were claiming to be Isis and Dionysus re-born (not the Roman Bacchus, but the Greek Dionysus) - and there were people there who worshiped them as such.
33AD to 70AD was a particular hard time in Judea, which lead directly to the revolts and eventual diaspora. There was violence, economic depression, and all sorts of social problems. All this contributed to make a place that had a mix of cults and rituals and ideologies. No doubt some among the early Christians bounced around different religious and social groups.
For example, someone may have been born into a Jewish family, and have had have strict religious parents. His older brother may have worshiped Roman Gods sometimes, for his business, and that angered the parents. His crazy younger brother was sent to Alexandra to study there, but ended up joining a cult of Dionysus, dedicated to carnal pleasure. The younger brother was the shame to the parents.
It was definitely a time and place with lots of different belief systems happening.
posted by Flood at 6:11 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
As a result, every major city would have had several different religious sites in the various ethnic enclaves in the city. Roman military garrisons would have had temples to Mars and Apollo in them. There would have temples for Egyptian Gods too. Certainly there was a Cult of Isis in Jerusalem at that time. When Cleopatra and Mark Antony passed through the city around 25BC, they were claiming to be Isis and Dionysus re-born (not the Roman Bacchus, but the Greek Dionysus) - and there were people there who worshiped them as such.
33AD to 70AD was a particular hard time in Judea, which lead directly to the revolts and eventual diaspora. There was violence, economic depression, and all sorts of social problems. All this contributed to make a place that had a mix of cults and rituals and ideologies. No doubt some among the early Christians bounced around different religious and social groups.
For example, someone may have been born into a Jewish family, and have had have strict religious parents. His older brother may have worshiped Roman Gods sometimes, for his business, and that angered the parents. His crazy younger brother was sent to Alexandra to study there, but ended up joining a cult of Dionysus, dedicated to carnal pleasure. The younger brother was the shame to the parents.
It was definitely a time and place with lots of different belief systems happening.
posted by Flood at 6:11 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You might be interested in this bit of graffiti, which is the earliest surviving depiction of Jesus on the cross. Also this wikipedia article might help.
This is speculative, messy and I'm not expert, but like rkent I'm going to take a crack at it, because I've been reading a lot about this subject lately.
To understand the early Christianities (and it is fair to use the plural, because what became the Orthodox/Catholic Churches was one thread among many), we might as well start with the political landscape, and that means the Romans.
The Romans had no problem with other people's Gods. In fact, they often incorporated them into their own pantheon. This is hard for us to get our head around, but for pagans, religion wasn't about belief, it was about ritual. It only mattered that you performed the necessary rituals to appease the state Gods. Because if you didn't, the Gods might get pissed off, and who wants to take that chance? So performing the rituals isn't a duty to the Gods, it's a duty to the State and to your fellow townspeople (pissed-off Gods are notoriously indiscriminate). Like paying taxes or having car insurance.
The Romans were ridiculously conservative: old == good, and older == better. So the Jews, having been around for a long time, got a free pass on the whole ritual thing. But once Christians started breaking away from Judaism, claiming to be something new and refusing to perform sacrifices, the Romans got kinda down on them. But for the most part it wasn't being Christian that got them in trouble, it was refusing to do their duty as citizens.
So, on to the historical Jesus. It seems reasonable to me that Jesus was a first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophet. He was basically running around with a sign saying "the end of the world is nigh":
Paul's letters are the earliest Christian documents we have - he actually predates the Gospels. As far as we know, Paul would ride into town, set up shop (leather-working or tent-making), head over to the local synagogue and preach. He'd get beaten up or thrown in prison, but would gain enough followers to found a Church, teach, move on and start over again. His letters tend to be to Churches he or his followers have founded, and run along the lines of "What the hell are you playing at? That's not what I told you to do. Stop listening to that guy, no, you're completely wrong about that, and definitely stop doing that with your step-mother."
We can infer that other people were doing the itinerant preacher thing because they'd turn up at his Churches and "lead them astray", but none of their writings have survived. So, we've got a whole bunch of people who all say they're followers of Jesus, but all have a different conception of Him. This is from First Corinthians:
Christianity was primarily a religion of the cities, probably because the population in the countryside was thinly spread. If you look at Paul's letters, they're all to chuches in large towns - Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, etc)
Ok, that's enough. I kinda hope someone swings by to pull all that apart and stomp on it, because then I'd learn something.
posted by Leon at 8:23 PM on May 6, 2011 [5 favorites]
This is speculative, messy and I'm not expert, but like rkent I'm going to take a crack at it, because I've been reading a lot about this subject lately.
To understand the early Christianities (and it is fair to use the plural, because what became the Orthodox/Catholic Churches was one thread among many), we might as well start with the political landscape, and that means the Romans.
The Romans had no problem with other people's Gods. In fact, they often incorporated them into their own pantheon. This is hard for us to get our head around, but for pagans, religion wasn't about belief, it was about ritual. It only mattered that you performed the necessary rituals to appease the state Gods. Because if you didn't, the Gods might get pissed off, and who wants to take that chance? So performing the rituals isn't a duty to the Gods, it's a duty to the State and to your fellow townspeople (pissed-off Gods are notoriously indiscriminate). Like paying taxes or having car insurance.
The Romans were ridiculously conservative: old == good, and older == better. So the Jews, having been around for a long time, got a free pass on the whole ritual thing. But once Christians started breaking away from Judaism, claiming to be something new and refusing to perform sacrifices, the Romans got kinda down on them. But for the most part it wasn't being Christian that got them in trouble, it was refusing to do their duty as citizens.
So, on to the historical Jesus. It seems reasonable to me that Jesus was a first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophet. He was basically running around with a sign saying "the end of the world is nigh":
But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven… I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.He certainly wasn't arguing that everyone should stop being Jewish and start being Christian:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.Anyway, he passes on, as people who upset the authorities tend to, and his followers go out into the world and start preach his message. But it's a giant game of Chinese Whispers, conducted over decades, so we end up with lots of different shades of Christianity. There's Pauline Christianity (the thread that "won" and became orthodoxy), but there's also the Ebionites (Jewish Christians who kept the Mosaic Laws, but accepted Jesus as the Messiah), Gnostics, etc. My favourites (a little later than your time period) are the Marcionites, who believed there were two Gods, and that Jesus was sent by the second one.
Paul's letters are the earliest Christian documents we have - he actually predates the Gospels. As far as we know, Paul would ride into town, set up shop (leather-working or tent-making), head over to the local synagogue and preach. He'd get beaten up or thrown in prison, but would gain enough followers to found a Church, teach, move on and start over again. His letters tend to be to Churches he or his followers have founded, and run along the lines of "What the hell are you playing at? That's not what I told you to do. Stop listening to that guy, no, you're completely wrong about that, and definitely stop doing that with your step-mother."
We can infer that other people were doing the itinerant preacher thing because they'd turn up at his Churches and "lead them astray", but none of their writings have survived. So, we've got a whole bunch of people who all say they're followers of Jesus, but all have a different conception of Him. This is from First Corinthians:
I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas (Peter)"; still another, "I follow Christ."One message that seems to have been preached fairly consistently is that everyone is equal, spiritually. This was ridiculous, possibly blasphemous, to the Romans - how could a slave be the equal of a Senator in any way? - but it appealed to the down-trodden in society. Early churches seemed to house a disproportionate number of freed slaves, and women were often quite important (Priscilla was a follower of Paul, and Junia was "in Christ before [Paul]", Phoebe was a deacon).
Christianity was primarily a religion of the cities, probably because the population in the countryside was thinly spread. If you look at Paul's letters, they're all to chuches in large towns - Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, etc)
Ok, that's enough. I kinda hope someone swings by to pull all that apart and stomp on it, because then I'd learn something.
posted by Leon at 8:23 PM on May 6, 2011 [5 favorites]
Best answer: To add something about the early membership, from memory. Some of this stuff is from later, but it is all pre-Constantine (except Julian, obviously).
Some followers of Christ thought that Baptism had saved them, so they didn't have to worry about sin any more, and so they were, fairly logically, busy sinning.
Early Churches had weekly pot-luck dinners (they called them Love Feasts. Damn hippies), and had problems with social class leaking into the Church - the socially superior were eating first, and eating better. Paul had to put a stop to this, and explained that everyone should serve each other.
This is why Paul gained converts among the Gentiles while the more conservative sects didn't. They dressed it up in all kinds of fancy language, but basically it's about getting your bits operated on without anaesthetic. I suspect its ability to grow faster among Gentiles was the main reason Pauline Christianity became orthodoxy.
The Ultimate Test of being a Christian was to walk into the local Roman Governor's office, and say "Hi, I'm a Christian, I don't perform sacrifices". This is how you test whether or not you've really got what it takes to walk in Jesus' footsteps. Some Romans really bent over backwards to try to avoid killing these guys ("well, ok, what if you didn't sacrifice to the Gods, but just to the Emperor? Sure, sure, we get that, so what if you didn't sacrifice an animal, but just some incense? What if it was a really small pinch of incense?" "k guys, I've been ordered to burn all the Gospels I can find. Problem is, I don't really know what a Gospel looks like. So if you bring me a book and tell me it's a Gospel, I'll just have to take your word for it"). Others were creative in the other direction (sprinkling the blood from sacrificed animals over goods in the marketplace, and watching to see who wouldn't touch them). Once Constantine legalized Christianity, this avenue of testing your faith wasn't available any more, so there was a move towards becoming a hermit/anchorite as the ultimate test of faith ("athletes of God"). These are the guys who eventually gave birth to the monastic movement, as a kind of less-hardcore by-product.
Romans were all about the glory. If you paid for a public work (say, an aqueduct), you stuck your name on it in foot-high letters, so everyone knew what a great guy you were. The reward for doing good was the glory. The Christians were saying that doing good was its own reward, and anyway, foot-high letters were gauche. That got right up powerful Romans' noses, which is another reason that the early Church filled from the bottom up, rather than the top down. The big puzzle is why Constantine would convert... who'd want the support of these guys over Senators, soldiers, movers and shakers?
Once the whole "meekness" thing really took hold, Julian the Apostate tried to incorporate some of it into Paganism, but it was too little too late, and he didn't last long enough to see the job through, anyway. Gibbon was really down on Christianity, BTW - he thought that the Romans were these great, proud, noble guys, and Christian values rotted their culture from the inside.
posted by Leon at 5:13 AM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]
Some followers of Christ thought that Baptism had saved them, so they didn't have to worry about sin any more, and so they were, fairly logically, busy sinning.
Early Churches had weekly pot-luck dinners (they called them Love Feasts. Damn hippies), and had problems with social class leaking into the Church - the socially superior were eating first, and eating better. Paul had to put a stop to this, and explained that everyone should serve each other.
This is why Paul gained converts among the Gentiles while the more conservative sects didn't. They dressed it up in all kinds of fancy language, but basically it's about getting your bits operated on without anaesthetic. I suspect its ability to grow faster among Gentiles was the main reason Pauline Christianity became orthodoxy.
The Ultimate Test of being a Christian was to walk into the local Roman Governor's office, and say "Hi, I'm a Christian, I don't perform sacrifices". This is how you test whether or not you've really got what it takes to walk in Jesus' footsteps. Some Romans really bent over backwards to try to avoid killing these guys ("well, ok, what if you didn't sacrifice to the Gods, but just to the Emperor? Sure, sure, we get that, so what if you didn't sacrifice an animal, but just some incense? What if it was a really small pinch of incense?" "k guys, I've been ordered to burn all the Gospels I can find. Problem is, I don't really know what a Gospel looks like. So if you bring me a book and tell me it's a Gospel, I'll just have to take your word for it"). Others were creative in the other direction (sprinkling the blood from sacrificed animals over goods in the marketplace, and watching to see who wouldn't touch them). Once Constantine legalized Christianity, this avenue of testing your faith wasn't available any more, so there was a move towards becoming a hermit/anchorite as the ultimate test of faith ("athletes of God"). These are the guys who eventually gave birth to the monastic movement, as a kind of less-hardcore by-product.
Romans were all about the glory. If you paid for a public work (say, an aqueduct), you stuck your name on it in foot-high letters, so everyone knew what a great guy you were. The reward for doing good was the glory. The Christians were saying that doing good was its own reward, and anyway, foot-high letters were gauche. That got right up powerful Romans' noses, which is another reason that the early Church filled from the bottom up, rather than the top down. The big puzzle is why Constantine would convert... who'd want the support of these guys over Senators, soldiers, movers and shakers?
Once the whole "meekness" thing really took hold, Julian the Apostate tried to incorporate some of it into Paganism, but it was too little too late, and he didn't last long enough to see the job through, anyway. Gibbon was really down on Christianity, BTW - he thought that the Romans were these great, proud, noble guys, and Christian values rotted their culture from the inside.
posted by Leon at 5:13 AM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]
Best answer: The Avodah Zarah (a tractate in the Mishnah) is putatively about idolatry but is really about how Jews living in the early/middle Roman empire could have business dealings with Romans without themselves aiding in idolatry. For instance, Jews are forbidden to have business with Romans three days before or after the major Roman holidays, because the money or goods they trade to the Romans might be used to make sacrifices to the Roman gods, and that's too close to participating directly in idolatry. I really don't know how the Christians fit in (I'd guess the converted Romans, at least, were more lenient-- can't see them giving up garum), but it gives a good sense of the intricate and frustrating social and economic relationships between Jews and Romans.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:00 AM on May 7, 2011
posted by oinopaponton at 6:00 AM on May 7, 2011
Daily Life in Palestine at the Time of Christ is kind of a classic.
posted by KMH at 6:23 AM on May 9, 2011
posted by KMH at 6:23 AM on May 9, 2011
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