Veleda's speech or sermon has to be performed on screen. The part that we read concludes:
"'Hoofs in heaven heavily ring. Lightning leaps, blazing lances. All the earth resounds with anger. Seas in surge smite the shores. Now will Nerha naught more suffer. Wrathful she rides to bring down Rome, the war gods with her, the wolves and ravens.'" (p. 556)
Whose gods are stronger? Virgil prophesied eternal empire for Rome - which perhaps she still has in the spiritual realm. The Classical and Biblical traditions converged. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Fourth Gospel identifies the prophesied Christ with the philosophical Logos. Although Moses and the prophets displaced Homer and the poets as inspired authorities on theology and morality, the Greeks remained the genesis, as it were, of secular literature. This comprehensive synthesis leaves us Northerners with our Eddas on the periphery of Eurasian civilization where the Time Patrol labours to keep us.
15 comments:
Though the actual conversion of large numbers to Christianity didn't take place until the 3rd century crisis.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I would be a bit hesitant about minimizing too far how many early Catholics there were in the first two centuries AD. I think it's reasonable to think there were about 150,000 Christians in the Empire by Marcus Aurelius' time.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, 100-150K is reasonable. OTOH, note that the Roman Empire's population was around 70 million and that there were over a million Jews. Most early Christian converts were among those who'd been 'fellow-travelers' of the Jews, attracted to monotheism but not the complex religious laws of Judaism.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, the Jewish Diaspora helped to lay the foundations for the spread of Christianity. I get the impression Christians soon became fairly numerous in Asia Minor, the Levant, and Egypt. In the pars Occidens of the Empire Christians were most numerous in the larger cities, such as Rome and Carthage in those first two centuries.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, but you have to keep in mind that all large urban areas in the Roman Empire had negative population growth -- more deaths than births. It required a constant influx from the countryside just to maintain their population. So a religion confined to cities was in constant danger of extinction, because its adherents couldn't reproduce themselves.
Note that most pre-Christian religions were 'site-specific'; that is, they were limited to a particular ethnic and locational context. They traveled with the people who followed them, of course. Universalistic religions were a new development.
Buddhism and Zoroastrianism were potentially universalistic; Buddhism did spread by conversion, though it didn't -replace- previous faiths so much as interact with them. Note the mutual relations of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, for example. The next wave of universalistic religions were more successful -- or less tolerant.
I think Harry's CROSSTIME TRAFFIC -- specifically the first book in the series, GUNPOWDER EMPIRE -- gives a likely outcome of the Roman Empire never falling and not having a 3rd-century crisis because 'Imperator Agrippa" (who lived longer, in that timeline) successfully incorporated Germania into the Empire. In it, various types of Christianity exist, but they never overwhelmed the other religions, which continue to exist as a melange.
NB: in that timeline, Europe and adjacent areas experiences roughly what China did -- periods of chaos, but mostly existing as a unitary state.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, inadequate medical knowledge and BAD hygiene made Roman cities death traps. Christianity survived in them not only because of natural reproduction but also because of converts from that influx of newcomers.
What interested me about you mentioning Zoroastrianism was recalling past comments by you of how Sassanid Persia was well on the way to becoming Christianized by the time of the Arab Muslim invasions. Albeit Zoroastrianism was still the faith of the aristocracy and many other Persians.
Turtledove's GUNPOWDER EMPIRE with the scenario you outlined is one book I would like to get. Agrippan Rome seems to have expanded at least as far as our current Poland.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: GUNPOWDER EMPIRE is well worth the price.
Christianity is less 'ethnic' than Judaism, which contributed to its spread.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
GUNPOWDER EMPIRE is now in the back of my mind to look out for.
I agree it helped a lot that Christianity is not "ethnic," limited to a single nation, and it helped enormously how Christ commanded His disciples to preach the Gospel to all nations in Matthew 28.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, although people have to be ready to buy what you're selling.
One thing to keep in mind is that early Christians expected the Second Coming of Christ -very soon-. Any time now...
That took a few centuries to become a non-mainstream opinion in Christian circles, and it keeps recurring even now.
Paul's insistence on an imminent Second Coming was a delusion.
Post a Comment