The Church, the Roman Empire and pagan society. Part IV. The collision and the relationship of the two “castles” (I–II centuries) (Reaction educated pagans to the religion of Christ)

Abstract

The publication is a continuation of the essay on the history of the formation of the early Christian Church, based on first-hand evidence and engaging a wide range of views of domestic and foreign researchers of early Church history. The negative attitude towards Christians by the pagan Roman educated society and the authorities is seen as a clash of ideas of the ancient «Paidea» (lat. Humanitas), which placed man in the place of God, and a Christian worldview. The article examines the witness of Christianity and the change in view of the Roman intelligentsia, using examples from the works of Marcus Aurelius, who understood Christianity to be a dangerous and evil superstition, Minucius Felix, who criticized the Christian teaching of God’s Providence, Lucian of Samosata, who composed a satirical work about Christians “On the death of Peregrinus”, Celsus, who thought that the best of what there was in Christianity is a borrowing from Plato and other Greek philosophers, Galen, who placed Greek philosophy and the Christian religion on the same level, and also Numenius, who tried to somehow include Christianity into his synthetic world view.