Understanding early Christianity beyond the Church Fathers
Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 1:46 pm
Forgive me if this is a belabored point: basically, I wonder if reading about theological discussion by the intellectual elites of a group isn't the best way to understand that group's more common beliefs, practices, and stories.
When I was in India I read a lot about "Hinduism" beforehand and I was surprised that none of the Hindus I spoke to knew much of anything about atman, moksha, prakriti, dharma, etc. Instead, they normally knew some stories about the gods, sometimes without caring too much about any of the teachings behind it, and a lot of the time any teaching behind it wasn't essential to the story. Even the extremely devout Hindus were this way.
It looks like the real material of early Christianity are the "folk" aspects of it as a "religion" - basically, what the common people thought and did. I felt like I understood early Christianity much more after reading the descriptions of it in the Pliny letter or the portrayal of them in Lucian's (brilliant) Peregrinus Proteus. There even appears to be remnants of the origins of Christianity in the Book of Acts buried under the propaganda, specifically with the Pentecost event (plus the constant healing, exorcising, and miracles going on in the various stories). In Acts, "Christianity" doesn't appear to be much of a bonafide religion as we would define it, but is instead refer to it as an ὁδός (hodós), a path/way, seeming to mean more of a lifestyle or way of life, like that of the ancient Cynics. For what it's worth, Wiktionary includes the definition of "way, means, or manner to some end, method", which, honestly, sounds more like basic Buddhism than the mold of an Abrahamic religion.
When I was in India I read a lot about "Hinduism" beforehand and I was surprised that none of the Hindus I spoke to knew much of anything about atman, moksha, prakriti, dharma, etc. Instead, they normally knew some stories about the gods, sometimes without caring too much about any of the teachings behind it, and a lot of the time any teaching behind it wasn't essential to the story. Even the extremely devout Hindus were this way.
It looks like the real material of early Christianity are the "folk" aspects of it as a "religion" - basically, what the common people thought and did. I felt like I understood early Christianity much more after reading the descriptions of it in the Pliny letter or the portrayal of them in Lucian's (brilliant) Peregrinus Proteus. There even appears to be remnants of the origins of Christianity in the Book of Acts buried under the propaganda, specifically with the Pentecost event (plus the constant healing, exorcising, and miracles going on in the various stories). In Acts, "Christianity" doesn't appear to be much of a bonafide religion as we would define it, but is instead refer to it as an ὁδός (hodós), a path/way, seeming to mean more of a lifestyle or way of life, like that of the ancient Cynics. For what it's worth, Wiktionary includes the definition of "way, means, or manner to some end, method", which, honestly, sounds more like basic Buddhism than the mold of an Abrahamic religion.