|
|
The reign of the roman emperor Octavian was over. Somewhere in Palestine, a Jewish preacher named Joshua, or Jesus in Greek started spreading a message of messianic deliverance and eternal life that would become the basis for a new world religion, a religion called Christianity. Christianity can be said to be a combination of three totally different cultural traditions: the Greco-Roman, the Near Eastern or West Asian, and Hebraic. Like Roman culture, its religion was a blend of native and borrowed traditions. Society worshipped gods of non-Roman people and honored them along with the Roman gods, but this religion did not promise retribution in the afterlife or the outcome of eternal life. The most influential philosophies in the Greco-roman background were stoicism and Neo-Platonism. Stoicism viewed the people as equal, in which the people should live together and no gaps should be found between the different social classes. Neo-Platonism was characterized by the union between the soul and “the One” or Ultimate Being. In Greece, Egypt and southwest Asia, there existed different cults that influenced Christianity. The most important being Mithraism, in which a hero-god related to the powers of Light and Good existed.
|
