Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World

Silly stupid irrational simple. Wicked hateful obstinate anti-social. Extravagant perverse. The Roman world rendered harsh judgments upon early Christianityâincluding branding Christianity new. Novelty was no Roman religious virtue. Neverthelessas Larry W. Hurtado shows in Destroyer of the gods Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a bookish religion with the production copying distribution and reading of texts as central to its faith even preferring a distinctive book-form the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably to the Roman world Christianity was both new and different and to a good many it threatened social and religious conventions of the day. In the rejection of the gods and in the centrality of texts early Christianity obviously reflected commitments inherited from its Jewish origins. But these particular features were no longer identified with Jewish ethnicity and early Christianity quickly became aggressively trans-ethnicâa novel kind of religious movement. Its ethical teaching too bore some resemblance to the philosophers of the day yet in contrast with these great teachers and their small circles of dedicated students early Christianity laid its hard demands upon all adherents from the moment of conversion producing a novel social project. Christianitys novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected ofpolitical subversion Christiansearned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates inan irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.