christianity/religion in rome

Religion in Rome was in no way dominated by only one religion. Throughout time Rome has had many uprisings in different religions among its people. Long before Christianity had really established its foothold in the Roman society, there were many other small religions. These “mystery-religions” all had an influence on people, but none of them were all that widespread and did not ever attain the lasting appeal that Christianity did with the people of Rome.

The mystery religions were usually not originated in Rome, many that came Romeward came from Syria, Egypt, Anatolia, and Persia. As there were few native Roman mysteries these mystery-religions did not evolve from any other kind of Roman religion. They were thought to represent the yielding of the old Roman spirit to older Oriental thought and practice.

The mystery religions had a cult-like following in Rome. Some of the rituals and festivals of these religions, such as the festival of the Megalenisia, were found to be menaces to morality. The rituals were very un-roman and were very di

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

Having these people as his audience, Paul relaxed the laws of the church pertaining to food and circumcision. Nero had to divert attention from himself so he offered up a scapegoat, Christianity. After a week on the twenty-second, a pine tree was cut down and prepared with woolen fillets and violets to represent a corpse.

Another ritual, also part of the Cybele Cult that was seen as de-moralizing was the communion in a bath of bulls blood.

The mystery religions did not last in Rome because of their un-roman rites and rituals. It was a faith they could follow without having all the radical rituals of the mystery religions. Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1946. While Jesus only had preached Christianity to Jews, Paul would preach to mainly people of non-Jewish decent, the gentiles of the Roman society. At the annual festival of Megalenisia in the Cybele Cult, a bull was sacrificed on the Ides. It was then carried by the Dendrophori to the temple. On the twenty-third the log was buried. His sins were to be washed away when he emerged and he was given milk as a sign of his rebirth.

Approximate Word count = 735
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.