The Faith Instinct

by Wade, Nicholas

  On the theological side, the Bible argued for centralizing Yahweh-worship in Jerusalem, for national observance of Passover and other festivals, and for suppression of local cults, which the Bible’s authors saw as symbolic of chaotic social diversity.

  The Bible’s message of political and theological unification was reinforced with a thorough rewriting of history. The Israelites had been defeated by the Assyrians whenever their kings had affronted Yahweh by worshipping other gods, the Bible stated. They had enjoyed political success, and would do so again in the future, as long as they worshipped Yahweh correctly, as specified in the book of Deuteronomy. “In what can only be called an extraordinary outpouring of retrospective theology,” write Finkelstein and Silberman, “the new, centralized kingdom of Judah and the Jerusalem-centered worship of YHWH was read back into Israelite history as the way things should always have been.”172

  History, unfortunately, did not take the course the Bible’s authors had hoped for. Before Josiah could unite the two kingdoms, he was killed in battle in 610 B.C. by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II. A few years later the Assyrian empire itself was shattered by the Babylonians. The new Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, set out to reconquer the territory the Assyrians had held. He captured Jerusalem in 597 B.C. Following a rebellion he destroyed both the city and its temple in 587 B.C. and deported much of the population of Judah, with many prominent citizens, to Babylon.

  These unexpected events required an explanation of why, if Josiah was as righteous as the Bible had said, he and his people suffered such a harsh fate. The Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic History were revised during or after the exile, and the new edition supplied an explanation. The turn of events was blamed on Manasseh, who had been king of Judah from 698 to 642 B.C. Because Manasseh had resisted religious reforms and reintroduced pagan worship into the temple, Jerusalem and Judah were to be destroyed, said a prophecy inserted into the first edition’s text.

  Wasn’t this a little harsh on Josiah, who was hardly responsible for his predecessor’s transgressions? Another insert to the revised edition explained the bleak reward for Josiah’s piety. The prophetess Huldah conveyed to him this message from the Lord God of Israel: “Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.”173

  Though the Bible failed in its political goal of uniting the two kingdoms, it succeeded beyond measure in creating a sacred text that bound believers together in a common purpose. The Israelites would surely have disappeared as a distinct people, along with the Midianites and Amonites and Moabites, had they not grown into a cohesive community through allegiance to their new sacred text.

  The text elicited in the strongest possible way the innate propensity for religious behavior. It satisfied the desire for contact with the supernatural by providing, in place of trance dances, a more intellectually satisfying alternative in the form of prophets who had communed with the deity. It furnished a theological explanation for the historical disasters that continued to rain down on a small people caught between warring superpowers. It wove the deeds of the deity into a historical narrative, embedding a supernatural presence into ordinary human affairs. An elaborate system of rituals and sacrifices allowed the faithful to believe they could manipulate Yahweh’s behavior to their advantage. And Judaism required a set of demanding rituals and behaviors, in particular circumcision and a ban on marrying foreigners, that kept the community confined to committed believers.

  The binding force of the new religion was almost too strong. Jews resisted Roman rule and the requirement for adherence, or at least lip service, to the Roman state religion. They were drawn into a succession of disastrous revolts against Roman rule, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple by the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70. But Judaism also preserved Jews as a people during the diaspora around the Mediterranean world, a process already in train but accelerated by the loss of the temple. And remarkably, Judaism inspired two major sects, Christianity and Islam, as well as more recent offshoots such as Mormonism, all of which have claimed access to their own special revelations that update and improve on that of the Old Testament.

  The Rise of Christianity

  Judaism, both before and for some time after the Babylonian exile, was not just a religion but a system of belief constructed around a specific political goal, the restoration of a Davidic kingdom centered on the temple at Jerusalem. In general form it resembled most other religions of settled societies of the period, which were essentially tribal religions shaped so as to reinforce the authority of the ruler.

  These tribal religions had been successfully adapted to the social cohesion problems faced by archaic states. They were less suitable for large, polyglot polities such as the Roman empire. Roman emperors were well aware of the cohesive properties of religion and insisted that subject peoples acknowledge Roman gods and engage in emperor worship, though they were free to have whatever other religion they wished. But Roman religion was largely one of outward observance and was not a compelling faith for many people. Many competing sects, originating from the Romans’ subject peoples, spread into this creedal void. The worship of the goddess Isis spread from Egypt to all corners of the Roman empire. The wild priests of Cybele, with their public self-castrations, amazed and shocked the Roman public. Gnosticism was popular among sophisticated urban elites of the first century A.D. The strange mystery cult of Mithras took hold among Roman soldiers but quickly disappeared after a peak of popularity in the third century A.D. “The Darwinian image is appropriate: the central and eastern Mediterranean in the first and second centuries AD swarmed with an infinite multitude of religious ideas, struggling to propagate themselves,” writes the historian Paul Johnson.174

  The most successful of these competing sects was a new version of Judaism. Well before the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, Jews had set up thriving communities in the major cities of the Roman empire. In Antioch, Tarsus, Ephesus, Alexandria and Rome, Jews had synagogues, and freedom of association, and were accorded considerable privileges. They were exempted from the official emperor worship and allowed to make sacrifices instead.

  These expatriate Jewish communities were influenced not only by Judaism but also by the powerful ideas of ancient Greek literature and philosophy. They spoke Greek, which had become the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean in the fourth century B.C., and were so Hellenized that many no longer spoke Hebrew. They used a special translation into Greek of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, which differed frequently from its original.

  These Hellenized Jews of the first century B.C. were unlike their counterparts in Judaea in several ways. They were a sophisticated urban elite, whereas the Jews in Judaea were a more rural population, centered on the Jerusalem temple’s main activity, that of serving as a vast sacred abattoir for sacrificial cattle. The Jews of the Septuagint were more interested in spreading their religion than were the Jews of the Hebrew Bible. And the population of expatriate Jews seems to have been around 4 million, far outnumbering the 1 million Jews in Judaea.

  This vibrant network of urbanized, Hellenized Jewish communities probably provided the fertile ground in which Christianity spread so widely within the Roman empire. Several special factors then eased the transmission of Christianity from the expatriate Jewish community to Roman citizens at large. The Hellenized Jews were well integrated into Roman society, in which they enjoyed special status. Jewish ethics and commitment to charity were noticed and well regarded in the Roman world. “Jews were admired for their stable family life, for their attachment to chastity while avoiding the excesses of celibacy, for the peculiar value they attached to human life, for their abhorrence of theft and their scrupulosity in business,” writes Johnson.175 Because of the attractions of the Jewish faith, an important class of non-Jews had sought and received membership in synagogues. Known as God-fearers, they did not have to be circu
mcised but were affiliated in various degrees with Jewish worship.

  The Hellenized Jews and the God-fearers would have been the most receptive audience for Christianity, a creed that claimed continuity with Judaism. The sociologist Rodney Stark, after doing fieldwork with modern religious movements such as the Moonies and the Mormons, noted that missionary efforts are most likely to yield results when pursued within existing social networks. People often convert if approached by or through close friends or family members. Cold calls seldom succeed. This is much as would be expected on the evolutionary assumption that religious behavior evolved as a means of group cohesion: there is good reason to follow the same rituals as one’s friends and families, none to adhere to that of strangers unless one is seeking to assimilate with them.

  Stark considers that Christianity too must have spread through already existing social networks. These would naturally have been the networks between the Jews of Judaea and those elsewhere in the Roman empire. The expatriate Jewish communities were used to visiting teachers from Jerusalem. Even though the apostle Paul declared that his mission was to the gentiles, it would have been the Hellenized Jews and God-fearers who were most receptive to his message.

  It is clear from Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s epistles that there was a tussle in the early church between those who wished to remain in the Jewish fold and those, like Paul, who sought to broaden the appeal of the new sect beyond ethnic Jews by dropping barriers to entry such as strict observance of Jewish laws including circumcision.

  At first Paul’s opponents, based in Jerusalem, seemed likely to prevail. They set in motion the train of events that led to Paul’s transfer in custody to Rome, where he is believed to have been executed in or shortly after A.D. 64 during the emperor Nero’s crackdown on Christians. The little sect, numbering at most a few thousand, would in the normal course of events have doubtless been reined in by the authorities in Jerusalem. But in the disaster of A.D. 70, many of the Jerusalem-based members of the early church perished. The central focus of Christian activity passed from Jerusalem to the large group at Rome. They and the Jewish communities in Antioch, Alexandria and other Roman cities now had a free hand to shape the new faith as they thought best.

  Evidence that the early missionaries focused their efforts on expatriate Jewish communities comes from the following facts, Stark argues. Many of the converts mentioned in the New Testament can be identified as Hellenized Jews. Many of the New Testament’s quotations come not from the Hebrew Bible but from the Septuagint. And archaeological evidence shows that the first Christian churches outside Judaea tended to be in the Jewish quarter of Roman cities.176

  Jews of the diaspora “provided the initial basis for church growth during the first and early second centuries,” Stark estimates. They were a significant source of Christian converts until about A.D. 400, and Jewish Christianity remained significant for another century. How could the diaspora community, with a population of just 4 to 5 million people, have had such an impact on the rise of Christianity? The number of Christians was very small for 250 years. But if there were 1,000 Christians in A.D. 40, and if the community grew by 40 percent per decade, which is close to the 43 percent growth rate per decade achieved by the Mormon church over the last century, then the population growth would have been as follows, Stark calculates177:

  A.D. 40: 1,000

  50: 1,400

  100: 7,530

  150: 40,496

  200: 217,795

  250: 1,171,356

  300: 6,299,832

  350: 33,882,008

  Two factors that may well have spurred such a striking growth of early Christianity were its social cohesion and the high birthrate induced by its doctrines. The cohesion of the Christians was evident even to their enemies. Celsus, an anti-Christian writer of the second century A.D., commented on their close-knit structure, even though he attributed it to their fear of persecution. The Christians’ willingness to help one another was particularly noticeable in a society like that of the Roman empire which was severely lacking in social services. Living conditions in Roman cities were appalling, since most people lacked proper sanitation or heating systems. Buildings frequently collapsed. Major disasters like fire, earthquake, famine or epidemics ravaged the major city of Antioch once every 15 years during the 600 years of Roman rule.178

  The numbers of Christians started to increase because of the ethical attraction of the new creed and its provision of a mutual assistance network that provided better social services than those on offer from the Roman authorities. But there was a more decisive factor that drove the Christians’ swelling population: they achieved a far higher fertility rate.

  The population of the Roman empire was failing to reproduce itself. As early as 59 B.C., Julius Caesar had passed a law awarding land to the fathers of three or more children. The falling birthrate was of increasing concern to Roman emperors, who had to rely on mercenaries to fill the army’s ranks. The reasons for declining fertility were not obscure. Female infanticide was common. Husbands could order their wives to have abortions, which often ended in the mother’s death or infertility. Homosexuality was common; Roman and Greek cities maintained large numbers of male prostitutes. Many different methods of contraception were practiced. “It is notable too,” observes the historian Sarah Pomeroy, “that the woman with a small rump was not considered desirable, owing, no doubt, to the practice of anal intercourse which was also a useful method of contraception.”179

  All these practices, with the possible exception of contraception, were forbidden by the new creed. Fertility among Christians presumably rose as a result although its exact contribution to demographic increase cannot be estimated. “All that can be claimed,” says Stark, “is that a nontrivial portion of Christian growth probably was due to superior fertility.”180 The role of religion as a significant demographic force is discussed in a later chapter.

  Roman emperors frowned on the threat to social order posed by the Christians’ growing numbers and by their refusal to sacrifice to Roman gods. But even as the emperors sporadically persecuted the Christians, they came to perceive the need for an improved state religion and cast about for deities more compelling than the Roman pantheon. Astrology was one of the swirl of new beliefs competing for the Roman public’s allegiance. Aurelian, a successful general who restored the empire’s territorial integrity in the late third century, made Sol, the sun god, the principal divinity of the Roman pantheon, with the intent of giving citizens throughout the empire a single god to worship in addition to their local gods.

  Diocletian, one of Aurelian’s successors a few decades later, also favored unity of religion, but under the traditional Roman pantheon. He first suppressed the Manichaeans and then, in 303, launched against the Christians the severest persecution to which they had yet been subjected.

  But the campaign did not last long. Diocletian was eventually succeeded by Constantine, who reversed the policy. In his Edict of Milan of 313, Constantine granted tolerance for all religions. He showed many favors to Christianity and was the first emperor to become a convert. In pursuit of his interest in having Christianity serve as a unifying imperial creed, he convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 to deal with the heresy of Arianism and to settle unresolved issues such as the date of Easter.

  Constantine’s support of Christianity may have been as much a political decision as a matter of personal faith. Though he built two churches in his new capital city of Constantinople, he also placed a statue of the Sun god, bearing his own features, in the forum, as well as a statue of the cult goddess Cybele.181 Nor did he make Christianity the official religion of the empire, though he paved the way for his successor to do so; in 380 Theodosius made Christianity and belief in the Trinity, as defined by the Nicene Creed, the religion of the Roman state. The emperors’ interest in a cohesive religion was probably a decisive factor in the eventual success of Christianity. “It is possible, therefore, to speculate that Christianity achieved its success in the e
mpire in part because it answered best to the empire’s need for a universal religion with which it could identify itself,” writes the church historian Henry Chadwick.182

  In just 300 years, a tiny cult from a population that regularly defied Roman rule had grown to become the dominant religion of the empire. What made the new religion so attractive to so many?

  The Shaping of Christianity

  Early Christianity has two distinctive features that greatly influenced its later development. The first is that its founding prophet of record seems to have had little or no intention of founding a new religion. The second is that, whereas Jesus’ language was Aramaic, Hebrew in his time being no longer a spoken language, the founding language of Christianity was Greek. Somehow, in the transition zone between these two strong cultures, a powerful new religion took shape.

  Despite the occasional sparring with Pharisees depicted in the gospels, Jesus seems to have been a conventional Jew, observant of the Jewish law. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil,” he says in Matthew.183 E. P. Sanders, an authority on the New Testament, concludes: “In view of the indisputable fact that Jesus thought that the Jewish scripture contained the revealed word of God, and that Moses had issued commandments that should be followed, we should be very hesitant to accept the common view of New Testament scholars that he had actually opposed the Jewish law.”184

  Jesus urged people to repent before an imminent catastrophe heralding the kingdom of God but seems to have had little interest in spreading his views beyond the world of Judaism. He instructed his apostles, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”185 Later, a command to “teach all nations” is attributed to him but only after the resurrection.186