The Pax Romana

The Pax Romana was a deal between conquerors and conquered.  When Rome conquered a territory it offered its inhabitants the peace of Rome.  It was a peace enforced by the sword but in most places the sword was rarely needed.  The people of the territory were to accept the rule of Rome, ususally through their own traditional social and political structures, and pay taxes.  In return they were offered peace; the Romans would defend them from external attack.

Their allegiance to Rome was demonstrated by making an offering of incense before a statue of the Roman God Emperor.  The people were permitted to worship their own gods too; just add another one.  This was reinforced by things like stone friezes showing the local gods subjected to the God Emperor.  More information can be found in In Search of Paul, details in the left sidebar.

Rome hit problems when it subjugated Israel.  They refused to honour any God apart from the one God.  The New Testament was written in the context of this uneasy relationship between Rome and Israel.

Paul's approach was even more provocative.  His theology consistently substitutes Jesus for the Emperor.  So, for example, the term 'Jesus is Lord' may seem anodyne and certainly the way it is used today is unlikely to provoke anyone to anything other than screaming with frustration.  But when it was first used there was only one Lord, the God Emperor.

It seems the early church took on the trappings of Rome as an act of subversion.  At some point about 3 or 4 hundred AD, the tables were turned, what had started as subversion now made the Christian faith pre-eminent amongst religions suitable for Rome.  Many years after his death, Paul's subterfuge backfired and Christianity became a part of the Roman way of life.  Some would argue things would never be the same again.  Christendom had been born.

Comments

[Graham]

And herein lies one of our biggest problems (and I write, ironically, as a minister in an established christendom denomination)...this often means that in the west it is possible to be 'passively' christian or to go, as Newbigin suggests, with the public truths of science and the private truths of faith.

I would love to see more blogging on this theme- I'm looking forward to it!

Thanks for commenting on mine. I will now check into yours to be more open to ecumenism (and I only recently stepped down as a chair of an LEP!)

[Chris Sissons]

Thank you Graham. I will be using Christendom as an underlying theme for my exploration of ecclesiology. One issue is how far can we take critiques based upon Christendom? It seems every new church claims to be a return to the early church - they can't all be doing this - or in what sense are they doing this?

Your quote from Newbigin is interesting. I've just finished a long sequence of posts about science and expressed some impatience with this split between science and faith. It is based upon a misunderstanding of science. I think a lot of people see problems where there aren't any.