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Interesting Take on Christianity as Death Worship and How Pagans Viewed Them

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
The scene bespeaks the ugliness of death, which Romans found anathematic and polluting. This dread shaped pagan views of Christians, who seemed to savour the dead. They frequented burial grounds, celebrated death days, held up martyrs as role models (cherishing their body parts), and circulated stories of Jesus as a heroic figure because he could bring the deceased from the grave. This pursuit of intimacy with the dead repulsed pagans. They suspected that initiates to the new religion engaged in eating human flesh when, during the Eucharistic ritual, they consumed the body and blood of the dead Jesus. To pagans, Christian practices seemed mordant and cannibalistic.
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  Uh, was there a reason for copy-pasting a paragraph from the article with no commentary, and no quote marks?
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Just a mistake. When submitting there is a text box, I thought it would show up differently than regular comment.
    - Tagbert 3y ago
      You can still edit your post to add quotes, a reference to the article, and any comments that you wish to offer.
      - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        It had timed out. The edit feature has a time window.
brodouevencode 3y ago
It is interesting to note that Augustine of Hippo (who of which a lot of this article was centered around) was held in high regard by many early Christians, but even Luther and the Catholics had some major disagreements with him w.r.t. his ecclesiology.
shepardrtc 3y ago
It's much easier to spread a religion when your gods are "dead" or apathetic and you don't have to regularly make miracles happen. Instead, pageantry and edifices are all that's needed to keep people from getting bored.
1MachineElf 3y ago
Coincidentally, I was watching a video yesterday that made a couple points about this. The video is titled Is Jesus Historical? What Do The Romans Say About Him? by creator Metatron. There are many testimonies from non-Christian perspectives (mostly pagan). The part about death worship is at 5m39s, linked here: https://youtu.be/A41Tm5FDKns?t=339 https://youtu.be/A41Tm5FDKns?t=339
lapcat 3y ago
The title of this submission has been editorialized, contrary to the HN guidelines. The actual article title is "Early Christians struggled to distinguish themselves from pagans".
bitsinthesky 3y ago
Christians would bury the dead, pagans would cremate. As Christianity expanded, people wouldn’t know whether they could trust burial as a proper way to keep the dead from monstrously reanimating, think revenants or vampires. So for a couple of generations as the practice of burial took hold, many dead would be buried with a stake through the heart for good measure. And thats one of the origins for the whole staking the dracula comes from in the modern folklore.

The scene bespeaks the ugliness of death, which Romans found anathematic and polluting. This dread shaped pagan views of Christians, who seemed to savour the dead. They frequented burial grounds, celebrated death days, held up martyrs as role models (cherishing their body parts), and circulated stories of Jesus as a heroic figure because he could bring the deceased from the grave. This pursuit of intimacy with the dead repulsed pagans. They suspected that initiates to the new religion engaged in eating human flesh when, during the Eucharistic ritual, they consumed the body and blood of the dead Jesus. To pagans, Christian practices seemed mordant and cannibalistic.

andrewflnr 3y ago
Uh, was there a reason for copy-pasting a paragraph from the article with no commentary, and no quote marks?
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Just a mistake. When submitting there is a text box, I thought it would show up differently than regular comment.
  - Tagbert 3y ago
    You can still edit your post to add quotes, a reference to the article, and any comments that you wish to offer.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      It had timed out. The edit feature has a time window.

brodouevencode 3y ago

It is interesting to note that Augustine of Hippo (who of which a lot of this article was centered around) was held in high regard by many early Christians, but even Luther and the Catholics had some major disagreements with him w.r.t. his ecclesiology.

shepardrtc 3y ago

It's much easier to spread a religion when your gods are "dead" or apathetic and you don't have to regularly make miracles happen. Instead, pageantry and edifices are all that's needed to keep people from getting bored.

1MachineElf 3y ago

Coincidentally, I was watching a video yesterday that made a couple points about this. The video is titled Is Jesus Historical? What Do The Romans Say About Him? by creator Metatron. There are many testimonies from non-Christian perspectives (mostly pagan). The part about death worship is at 5m39s, linked here: https://youtu.be/A41Tm5FDKns?t=339 https://youtu.be/A41Tm5FDKns?t=339

lapcat 3y ago

The title of this submission has been editorialized, contrary to the HN guidelines. The actual article title is "Early Christians struggled to distinguish themselves from pagans".

bitsinthesky 3y ago

Christians would bury the dead, pagans would cremate. As Christianity expanded, people wouldn’t know whether they could trust burial as a proper way to keep the dead from monstrously reanimating, think revenants or vampires. So for a couple of generations as the practice of burial took hold, many dead would be buried with a stake through the heart for good measure. And thats one of the origins for the whole staking the dracula comes from in the modern folklore.