Chapter 11.                                         (continued) 

Under the Christian world view, the earth was the centre of the universe, specially created by God to house man, his most beloved creation. But man’s role was not to enjoy life as much as he could (as the ancients had) in this garden turned, by human’s sin, to a barren plain. Humans were here to praise God and gratefully accept all that God sent their way, all joy and all suffering. Getting ready for the next life after death was what mattered. This sounds like a backward step, and in many ways it was.

                               

                            artist's conception of Good Samaritan helping injured stranger (Morot)  

But Christianity added some useful ideas of its own. Christians were taught to act humanely toward all other people, not just other Romans, to behave honestly and compassionately in their dealings with others, and to commit in a personal way to Christ’s kind of faith and his simple, honest, compassionate way of life. Christians were programmed to live as if being kind to all was a desirable, moral way to be, even if kind actions might not get any material rewards for their doer in this lifetime.

This was a huge change from the ways of the slave-owning, gladiator-loving, militaristic, sensual, mid-Empire Romans. Why the Church later became so cynical as to conduct wars and own property while the individual serf was not to even contemplate such things (unless the pope told him to make war on the heathens) became vague. But the grip and the social utility of Christianity’s good ideas was so strong that for centuries hypocritical authorities found ways to steer ordinary followers’ thoughts and perceptions past the Church’s inconsistencies.

For ten centuries, the Church’s explanations of the entirety of the universe and human experience were enough to attract, build, and retain a large following for the Church and the values and morés it endorsed. The values, in turn, fostered communities that worked. In evolutionary terms, that was all that mattered. Christian communities began to enjoy long periods of growing prosperity because they were internally stable, even though by modern standards, they were not very progressive. The chaos that had followed the fall of the Roman Empire created conditions that taught everyone to long for mere order. Stability came to be seen as everything.

The behaviors these values produced had seemed effete to most of the citizens of the middle Roman Empire. What was this “Chrestus”? What system had he proposed that was stealing their children into its cult? The cross as its symbol yet! The cross was a symbol for losers.

But that system, which gave legal status to all humans (even serfs had rights), mutual support through all tribulations (mutual aid in war, famine, and plague), and honesty in all dealings (God was watching!) proved superior to the Roman one in the final test. Dissatisfied with what had become the Roman way of life, a life filled with material comforts and pleasures but devoid of ideals, more and more people became converts.

   

                                 artist's conception of gladiators' combat in ancient Rome (Gerome)

Christianity offered something else—a worldview that felt personal and a way of life that made sense to them because they believed it was what God wanted of humans and, more importantly, over the long term, it fostered more efficient, more inclusive communities. As contemptible as Christianity seemed to many of the mid-Empire Romans, who cheered themselves hoarse as men killed each other in the arena, it nevertheless assimilated the old Roman system under which it had risen. Its beliefs didn’t just sound nice; over millions of people and hundreds of years, they worked.