Greco-Roman Religious Context of Early Christianity

Question 1

Greco-Roman religion was

Answer 1

• Polytheistic: the belief in more than one god

- Syncretistic: the mixing of various belief systems into a new belief system

Question 2

Romans were ______________ of foreign religions

Answer 2

highly tolerant

Question 3

Christians were persecuted when perceived as…

Answer 3

• Incestuous (brother/sister)
• Atheistic (refusal to worship state-recognized deities)
• Cannibalistic (this is my body, this is my blood)

Question 4

Zeus

Answer 4

Jupiter

Question 5

Hera

Answer 5

Juno

Question 6

Athena

Answer 6

Minverva

Question 7

Ares

Answer 7

Mars

Question 8

Cronus

Answer 8

Saturn

Question 9

Hestia

Answer 9

Vesta

Question 10

Demeter

Answer 10

Ceres

Question 11

Hermes

Answer 11

Mercury

Question 12

Hephaestus

Answer 12

Vulcan

Question 13

Poseidon

Answer 13

Neptune

Question 14

Artemis

Answer 14

Diana

Question 15

Aphrodite

Answer 15

Venus

Question 16

Nero, Domitian, Caligula

Answer 16

All three openly proclaimed their own divinity, upon their death the Roman senate refused to place this status upon them.

Question 17

5 common characteristics of mystery religions

Answer 17

1) use of secret ceremonies/mysteries connected to an initiation right such as baptism
2) annual vegetation cycle in which life is renewed each spring and dies each fall
3) central myth in which the deity either returned to life after death or triumphed over his adversaries
4) importance of the emotional life as opposed to any formalised doctrine or core belief
5) promise of the deity’s direct involvement in the life and affairs of the initiated.

Question 18

Sibylline

Answer 18

a group of charismatic women who made prophetic utterances, often with strong apocalyptic overtones

Question 19

Delphic Oracles

Answer 19

older and inspired women in a state of ecstasy who prophesied the coming of future events and revealed the will of the gods, in particular Apollo. [300]

Question 20

Platonism

Answer 20

• material or phenomenal reality is only a pale reflection of a higher reality.
• Emphasizes the importance of rising from knowledge
• The beginning of all philosophical activity is the love and admiration of the beautiful.
• All matter and physical world is wicked.
• Champions the goodness of the soul.
• Death frees the soul from the material body and enables it to secure total deliverance from everything physical and material, finally returning to its original perfection

Question 21

Stoicism

Answer 21

• Emphasized human reason, natural law, tolerance, human-centered morality, cosmopolitanism
• Stoic philosophers were materialists, pantheists (all is divine) and fatalists (unemotional resignation to one’s unavoidable fate/destiny)
• Believe that everything that exists is physical or worldy in nature; yet all things originally came from an absolute and ultimate divinity
• This divinity is impersonal.

Question 22

Gnosticism

Answer 22

-Salvation came about through an enlightened savior

• Salvation was dependent upon attainment of special knowledge that revealed the secrets of the universe:
  1) knowledge of God’s actions in the universe
  2) knowledge of the nature of one’s true self
  3) knowledge of how one might find escape from this world (true salvation)

Question 23

Christian Gnosticism

Answer 23

• Stressed the evil nature of physical matter and importance of uncovering a secret esoteric knowledge that could “set free” the soul from its imprisonment in the physical body/material world.
• Separated the God of the OT from the loving God of the NT
• Christ merged with the human Jesus at his baptism then departed from him at his crucifixion.