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Introduction

The first century was a time of great interest in religion. There were numerous local mystery religions, as well as the more formal organised religion of Greece and Rome.

The most important characteristic of first century religion was its capacity for syncretism. During the development of the Greek Empire, the tendency in the Hellenistic religion was to identify the deities of the different peoples and equate them with the Greek gods and goddesses. With the growth of the Roman Empire, the same process was taken further, when Jupiter and the gods of Rome were equated with Zeus and the gods of Greece.

In most first century religions there was usually a belief in some form of religious dualism, with a strong sense of the conflict between good and evil.

Roman state religion

The Christian church was born into a world filled with competing religions, all of which possessed one common characteristic: the struggle to reach a god or gods who remained essentially inaccessible. Scepticism prevailed, for the old gods had lost their power and no new gods had appeared. Men had largely lost the sense of joy and of destiny that made human life worthwhile.

Octavian (27 BC) began a campaign to rehabilitate the old Roman religion as a means of promoting the solidarity and integrity of the state. Even Augustus, despite his organising genius and vast authority, could not check the transition from the unemotional reverence of the ancestral gods, to the more vital personal cults that sprang up all over the Empire. Because of the decline of the state worship, it was a less formidable rival of the new faith than other religions.

Emperor worship

Perhaps the most prominent rival of the new faith was worship of the Roman Emperor. It began in the rule of Augustus (27 BC - AD 14), but he refused to be thought of as divine and considered it to be insulting. Nevertheless, the eastern Greek-speaking provinces, where kings had long been regarded as gods, insisted on deifying him even before his death. Tiberius (14-37), restrained the popular impulse to worship the imperial statues. Gaius, or Caligula, (37-41) broke with tradition in AD 40 by ordering that a statue of Zeus with his features be placed in the Temple in Jerusalem, and demanding that he also be worshipped in Rome. Claudius (41-54) declined to accept a high priest and temple dedicated to him. Nero (54-68) refused the dedication of a temple in his honour built at public expense. Vespasian (69-79) is reported to have said when he was dying, "Alas! I think that I am about to become a god." His son, Domitian (81-96), was the first emperor to demand public worship while he lived. He insisted that he be hailed as "Dominus et Deus" (Lord and God). With the exception of madmen like Caligula, and egotists like Domitian, none of the other emperors in the first century seem to have taken their divinity very seriously.

Politically, however, emperor worship was a very effective bond of unity. Whatever gods the numerous peoples of the empire may have worshipped, they could unite on the adoration of the rule who was the visible guardian of their peace and prosperity. The Romans felt that their security was personified in the head of the state, who was responsible for their food, their pleasures, their safety and their future. Emperor worship was therefore a political rather than a religious cult.

Local mystery religions

The lack of personal involvement with the deity in the state religion, and the obvious humanistic and political character of emperor worship created an intense desire in many people for some religion that would satisfy the individual quest for peace and immortality. Ancestral gods were distant and unreal, often less ethical than their worshippers. The emperor was only a man, even though a fictional godhead was ascribed to him by the Senate at his death. Neither of these could intervene supernaturally in the individual life, or satisfy the desire for salvation and immortality.

The conquest of Alexander in the fourth century BC had established new contacts in the East, which opened the way for eastern mysticism. Eastern deities promised direct revelation to their devotees and might be approached personally through mystic rites. The cults permeated all religious thought and were connected with the worship of all existing deities. Even though worshipping deities, the people still lived in constant fear of the evil powers that might harm them, and whose power must be restrained by magical charms.

Astrology

The concept that fate was determined by the physical powers of the universe was so widespread that astrology became very popular. Tiberius had a horoscope cast regularly. Nero also consulted astrologers in his major decisions. The belief that human life was controlled by the heavenly bodies led to two consequences.

The first was the oppression of a fatalism that left no room for human choice, since the destiny of every man was settled by the star that dominated his birth. The second was the superstitious practice of magic that invoked demonic powers to free man from the tyranny of the planets.

A mood of fatalism predominated, especially in the first century. Manilus, a poet who flourished in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, wrote: "Fate rules the earth and all things stand firm by a fixed law ... the moment of our birth also witnesses our death, and our end depends on our beginning."

Into such a superstitious and materialistic world, Christianity was born. Fate, demons, and gods of every description haunted the atmosphere. Security was obtained by bribing the deities, or ascertaining from horoscopes what course of action to pursue, or by discovering some charm to keep the threatening powers of darkness away. The uncertainty of the future held the masses of mankind in mental and spiritual bondage.

Magic

In the first century, magicians and soothsayers were very numerous. They catered to the taste of a large portion of ordinary pagan society. Most people at some time in their lives, normally in some crisis or trouble, sought the help offered by the magical arts. Many believed that sorcerers were dangerous and evil. People disliked those who practised the magical arts, not because their claims were false, but because they possessed powers which they misused for evil purposes. They were hated because they were feared.

People went to the magicians mainly in the hope to get what they could not obtain or were unwilling to seek for through prayers and acts of religious character. Religion could not work wonders, but magic could work wonders. However, the marvels wrought by magic were unnatural and involved secret and illicit tampering with the proper and moral government of the universe. Magic loved secrecy and darkness; religion was open and fair.

Magicians could make the moon come down from heaven, raise the dead, make animals and stones speak, change man into animals, and animals back again into men, and other marvellous things, to prove the magicians' power. The public normally turned to them for help in the difficulties and troubles of life. Lovers sought charms as a means of possessing the person they desired. People sought for protection against thieves, recovery of lost property, rain in drought, calm weather at sea, prevention of hailstorms dangerous to the crops, or the cure of diseases, fertility in farming and prosperity in business. If what they desired was unlawful and likely to be refused by the divine power, or if they had prayed in vain through the normal religions, they tried to obtain it through magical arts. No one magician was exactly like another. They varied widely in their decrees of knowledge, in their command of the occult power, and in the extent they admitted mere trickery.

In the Book of Acts, the magicians were frequently obstinate and determined opponents of the apostles. In Samaria, Paphos, Philippi, and repeatedly at Ephesus, magicians of various kinds meet and are overcome by Peter and Paul. Luke describes these scenes of conflict in Acts to refute a frequent accusation brought against the Christians. Like the magicians, the people believed that Christians practised secret rites, unlawful acts, and abominable hidden crimes. The supposed letter of the Emperor Hadrian to Julius Servanius (AD 134) is a good witness attesting the popular belief that the Christians dealt in magical arts, "There is no presbyter of the Christians that is not an astrologer, a diviner, and a professional carer for people's physical condition". Luke shows the Christians as inevitably in conflict with all magicians and as invariably superior in power to them. The magicians are described as being against the truth of Christianity, as having no part in the faith, as causing evil and bitterness all around them, as children of the devil, enemies of all righteousness and distorters of the truth.

Greek Philosophy

The Epicureans

The Epicureans were followers of Epicurus (341 - 270 BC). He directed his inquires to two practical questions: “What was the aim of life?”, and “How to attain it?”. The aim of life for every man was his own happiness and happiness was primarily defined as pleasure. The pleasures of the mind came to occupy a larger place than the pleasures of the body. For happiness consisted, not so much in the satisfaction of desires, as in the suppression of wants and in arriving at a state of independence of all circumstances, which secured a peace of mind.

Learning, culture, civilization, and the distractions of social and political life were to be avoided, because they produced many desires difficult to satisfy and so disturbed the peace of mind. Epicurus recommended withdrawal from the complexities and perplexities of civilization, to the bare necessities of nature. Nature for Epicurus was purely physical and material, and the utmost happiness attainable was the complete absence of pain.

His own life was marked by a simplicity verging on asceticism, and by kindly consideration for his friends. Friendship, the supreme virtue of Epicureanism, was based on selfishness, and was to be cultivated for the happiness it gave to its owners.

Epicurus found men's minds full of ideas about the world, immortality, and the gods, which disturbed their peace. It was therefore necessary to find a theory of things outside of man. He fell back on Democritus's atomic theory of the world. Teleology, providence, a moral order of the universe, the arbitrary action of the gods, blind fate, immortality, hell, reward and punishment after death, were all excluded from a universe where atoms moving through space do everything.

On these premises, one would expect the complete denial of any divine beings. Yet Epicurus believed that because men generally possess ideas of gods, therefore gods must exist. They were constituted of the same matter of men, but of a finer atomic texture. They dwelt in the interspace outside the world, where earthly cares and the dissolution of death cannot approach them. They were immortal and completely blessed. They cannot therefore know anything of the world, with its pain and troubles, nor can they be in any way concerned about the life of men or women.

During his lifetime, Epicurus attracted a large following to his teaching, and it continued to flourish well into the Christian era. The system was clear cut and easily understood by ordinary men. Above all, it delivered men from the terrors of dark superstition that had taken the place of religion.

In Athens, Paul taught the Epicureans that God had become men, who had suffered and died to accomplish the utmost self-sacrifice, who had risen from the dead and returned to live among men to guide and fashion their lives and who would finally judge all men. To the Epicureans, this was the revival of all the ancient and hated superstitions.

Stoics

The name Stoics was derived from the Stoa Poikile, the painted porch in the Agora in Athens, where the founders of the school first lectured. It was founded by Zeno from Cyprus (294 BC), and spread widely among the upper classes of Roman society.

The Stoics learnt the ethical precept, "Follow Nature", from the Socratic school of the Cynics. They defined the law of Nature as reason (logos), which was at once the principle of intelligence in man, and the divine reason immanent in the world.

In Stoicism, God was not a personal being, but a more pantheistic spiritual force or soul power immanent in man and in things. He was given many names: Logos or Reason, Nature, Providence, Divine Spirit. His substance was the whole world and the heavens. Evil was only relatively evil, but really good in the harmony of the whole. Therefore the Stoics bore evil with courage and cheerfulness, because they absolutely believed that "all things worked together for good".

The law of Nature was submission to Providence, or the rational order of the universe, and the fulfilment of man's own rational nature. The moral teaching was summed up in the ideal of the wise man, whose characteristic was a calm passionless mastery of all emotions and independence from all circumstances, but purity in one's self, love toward all men, and reverence toward God. The greatness of Stoicism was found in its high ethical concepts and doctrine of human brotherhood. in the end there was re-absorption into the world Soul, but no individual immortality. They strove for a world state (cosmopolis) in which all free souls had rights as equal citizens, breaking down national and class distinctions. They commended suicide as an honourable means of escape from a life that could not be maintained with dignity.

It is probable, when Paul spoke in Athens to the Greek philosophers, that the Epicureans mocked, while the Stoics desired to hear more. They would find much in the apostle's teaching that harmonised with their own views. Paul's quotation from the Greek Classics in his speech was from the Stoic poet, Aratus of Soli in Cilicia: "For we too are his offspring" (Acts 17:28). His doctrine of creation, Divine immanence, of the spirituality and fatherhood of God, would be familiar and acceptable to them. His preaching of Christ would not have been unwelcome to them who were seeking for the ideal wise man.

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