Well crap that was a good post - but this one point mars it for me.
(a) Assuming this is original Tacitus says that: There arose in the people a sense of pity. For it was felt that they (the Chrestus-ians) were being sacrificed for one man’s glut of cruelty rather than to the public interest." Nothing about Christian bravery etc. just that folks felt that it was pretty far to go even by Roman 1st century standards.
(b) the Romans seem to have thought the Christians a bunch of sissies – who won’t fight and die for the Empire – in fact not serving in the Army and hating gladiatorial valor was one of the major weapons late pagan Romans used against the Christians. I submit tha vast majority of Romans (in an admittedly earlier era) at the Circus would be impressed only by a Christian who defiantly fought death, not one who went stoically (read by them as meekly) to death. Imagine if you will a Hare Krishna pulled out before a WWE crowd, humbly allowing the Rock to kick his butt and you have more a feel (I submit) what the crowd in the Circus was feeling.
Tacitus does talk about the Roman people being sickened by the harshness of the punishments inflicted on the Christians by Nero. Another source (can’t remember who and probably not referring to the same era) mentions the crowds at the Circus being angered by a particularly large slaughter of wild beasts. The point is that the Roman crowds were quite capable of pity. Gladiatorial contents were one thing – that was a sport. Execution of criminals could also be seen as a spectacle worth enjoying. But the mass slaughter of defenseless people (including women and children) was not something they were accustomed to seeing, and not something they would have approved of. It’s to be expected that they would take the attitude Tacitus describes, and this would certainly cause them to pity the poor, persecuted Christians. Whether or not the Christians came to be admired for their courage is probably not something Tacitus would have concerned himself with, IMHO. He was much more concerned with smearing Nero.
As to Christians being thought of as sissies for not fighting back in the arena, I can’t quite agree. Of course I’m talking about the first century AD – I shamefully neglected my studies when it came to the later empire. A Roman of Nero’s time would have despised someone who cowered in fear and begged to be spared. But it takes an incredible amount of courage to face down one’s executions and defy them to the end. This, I think, would have had a very odd effect on the crowds. I realize I’m drifting into conjecture and can’t support this with primary sources, but it’s my feeling that a Roman crowd viewing such a spectacle would be moved by the victims’ courage. Personal dignity was a virtue highly prized among Romans. Think of how admired Cato the Younger was for his ferocious stubbornness and his willingness to die rather than live in a Caesar-dominated world.
Whatever the cause, though, it is certainly true that after the persecution had begun the ranks of the Church swelled with Roman citizens. Part of it may have been the lure of participating in something forbidden, but it makes perfect sense to me that many of those who joined were searching for whatever “it” was that made the martyrs capable of facing their deaths with such dignity.
The problem actually arose when Christians were no longer seen as Jews. Jews were also monotheistic and refused to worship the state-approved gods, but they had a special exemption based on their ancient tradition. Christianity was bad because it was new.
Christians came from pretty much the whole social spectrum. In the 2nd century, for example, the owner of a shipping company named Marcion donated 200,000 sesterces to the church. (He was later declared a heretic and the church gave the money back, or so says Tertullian.)
The Didache (cited already) probably records 1st-century traditions. It reveals a group that lived communally, eating and praying together. Interestingly, their Eucharist makes no mention of Jesus’s Last Supper, nor does it refer to the bread and wine as his body/blood. Another fascinating point is their solution to the problem of freeloaders. If a traveling preacher stayed for one day or two days, that was OK, but if he(/she?) stayed for three days without working, he was a “false prophet”.
That’s quite a conclusive leap you got there. From what I’ve heard there are two theories of why Jesus is depicted the way he is:
Theory A: When it came time to paint him, nobody was left alive who had seen him, and someone confused Nazarene and Nazarite, one of which was a place to live (or a title, depending on who you ask), and the other of which was a vow that required (among other things) that your hair never be cut. However, even if this was true, both Jewish law and the Nazarite vow forbid trimming beards, so he defintely wouldn’t have been clean-shaven.
Theory B: The images that depict him were styled off of Saturn, which was put forth on some PBS and/or Discovery documentary. They attempted to make their point by doing a morph from Saturn to Jesus, but I couldn’t see the similarity.
I don’t understand how that verse makes any difference as to an official day of worship for Christians. Breaking bread can mean anything from having a snack, to beginning a meal, to partaking of communion. Another verse, Acts 2:46, says that Jesus’ followers broke bread daily.
And usually, to be official, there has to be a statement or a commandment from someone in authority; there’s no such statement in the New Testement (Paul strongly implied that there wasn’t an official day of worship), so I would have to assume that worship on Sunday arose from tradition.
From what I have read, many original Christians kept the Sabbath. As time went by, more and more kept Sunday as holy as well. According to wikipedia, the keeping of the Sabbath as a holy day of rest declined after the destruction of the Temple, but didn’t fall into oblivion. The decree that made keeping the Sabbath illegal for Christians did that.
Do you have an example of the phrase “breaking bread” to mean anything other than a liturgical celebration among Christians of the first three centuries? I see the phrase being used in connection with the with the Eucharist (e.g., in the Didache), but I do not recall seeing it used colloquially.
My citation to Acts was offered only as an example, not proof, but as I noted in my final paragraph:
In addition, one of the early liturgical disputes in the church was whether to celebrate Easter annually, since the church was already celebrating the Resurrection weekly on Sunday.