VI Difficulties in Ordinary Life Among the Early Christians
But the rapt moments enjoyed by the men and women who met together in these primitive assemblies soon passed. The perfect realization of brotherhood, the sharing in the mystic Eucharist, the fervent prayers, the dwelling on the sunlit words of their Divine Master, the earnest and pressing injunctions to be generous in charity and almsgiving for the benefit of the forlorn and sick in their company, the feeling that the unseen presence of the Lord was all the while in their midst,—all these things contributed to the joy and gladness which permeated each little assembly; every one who assisted at one of these meetings could whisper in his or her heart the words of the “apostle” on the Mount of Transfiguration—“Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
But when the gathering dispersed, a reaction must have quickly set in. From that atmosphere of sympathy, of love and hope, they passed at once into the cold, hard, busy world—into family life—into the workshop, the study, the barrack, and the Forum—all coloured with—permeated by that system of gross and actual idolatry which entered into every home, every trade and profession of the Roman Empire. What was to be their conduct? how were Christians to behave in a world wholly given up to an idolatry they knew was false, and utterly hateful to the Lord whose presence they had just left?
The difficulties of a believer’s life in the early Christian centuries must have been terrible; and it must be borne in mind that these difficulties were not occasional, but of daily, almost of hourly occurrence. To enumerate a few:
1. In the family, in domestic life. Consider the position of a Christian slave—of a son or daughter—of a wife—in a pagan family. What scenes of strain and estrangement if one member was a Christian and the household generally clung to the old Roman religion! The son or daughter might wish to be Christ’s disciple, and yet shrink from “hating father and mother, brothers and sisters.” What constant contests would the Christian have to endure—what bitter reproaches—what perpetual danger of giving way and so endangering the immortal soul! What share could the Christian member of a pagan family take in the ordinary business and pleasures of the everyday existence, to say nothing of the extreme peril to which a member of the sect would be constantly subject of being denounced as a Christian to the authorities, who were often too ready to listen to the informer?
2. In Trade.—Many commercial occupations were more or less closely connected with idol-worship; to say nothing of the makers and decorators of idol-images, a trade that manifestly was impossible for a Christian to be occupied in, there were hosts of artisans employed in the great arenas where the public games were held; then, too, there were the actors—the gladiators—those engaged in the schools and training-homes of these. What were such persons to do?
3. In the ordinary pleasures of the people in which such multitudes took the keenest delight, was the Christian to stand aloof from all these? Was the Christian to attract a painful and dangerous notoriety by refusing to share in such dearly loved amusements, which with rare exceptions were positively hateful to every Christian’s conscience?
4. Was the civil servant or the lawyer to abandon his calling in which the worship of and reverence for the gods of Rome played so prominent a part? Was the soldier, or still more the officer of the Legions, to abandon his post and desert his colours, rather than acquiesce in the daily service and adoration of the gods of Rome. Was he to refuse to pay the customary homage to the awful Cæsar, when the slightest disrespect or failure in homage to this sovereign master, who claimed the rank of Deity, would be construed into treason and disloyalty?
5. Education.—Could a Christian still continue to be a teacher of the young, seeing that in all the manuals of education a knowledge of the old gods still worshipped in Rome—their myths, their prowess, their various attributes—was carefully taught? The very festivals and sacred days had to be carefully observed by them, since it was by means of these the teachers’ fees were reckoned.
All such and many other like questions had to be considered and weighed by the Christian converts living in the world of Rome. Very thorny and rough was the path which had to be travelled by every earnest Christian in his way through life.
A striking and eloquent apologia for or explanation of the reasons which guided many of the early Christian teachers to advocate a certain feeling of toleration in various circumstances of everyday life may be quoted here:
“The (Roman) Empire was originally developed quite apart from Christianity under the shadow of the worship of the old false gods. Everything in it bore the stamp of idolatry. Its laws and its customs, first framed by patricians who were at once priests and lawgivers, then consolidated by Emperors who ranked first and foremost as sovereign pontiffs of the idol-worship, everything was coloured with and permeated by polytheism. Art—Letters—private customs—all were pagan. There was no public monument but was placed under the guardianship of some heathen deity. No poem was composed without special reference to an idol god; no feast began without a libation to an idol; no household omitted the inescapable duty which directed that a sacred fire should burn before the household gods (Lares). Thus absolutely independent of Christianity, such a civilization must needs be intensely hostile to the new faith, and its hostility never faltered one instant. Differing here from the fixed rule of universal toleration, Roman society from the very first displayed towards Christianity the bitterest contempt—insulting treatment—persecution. The religion of Jesus grew up and spread under circumstances of general ignominy and hatred... living in such a highly civilized community—mighty and indeed all-powerful—the Church of Christ destroyed nothing, adopted everything, quietly correcting, gently changing and reforming everything, graving the Cross of its Founder on all the institutions of pagan Rome; breathing its inspiration by degrees into all its laws and customs.”76