Grace Institute: General Epistles & Revelation: Overview: Social Context

Overview Survey of the New Testament: General Epistles & Revelation Winter 2007

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Social Context

Social Structure

The Roman Empire was primarily driven by agriculture. There were some craftsmen and merchants, but this was by far the minority. The land was owned by a relatively small number of wealthy land owners.

There was very little technology involved in farming, and as such landowners required a great deal of human labor in order to work the fields and tend the flocks. In that day, labor came from two sources: slave labor, and free laborers. Slaves were usually the descendents of people conquered by the Romans. In cases of extreme poverty, people could also voluntarily become slaves as a means of economic support. These people could buy their way back out of slavery if they accumulated enough wealth.

Slavery, while a harsh way to live, did not carry the same social stigma as American slavery in the 19 th century. Many great Roman scholars, teachers, musicians and craftsmen were slaves to the Roman aristocracy. For those slaves who found themselves with a benevolent master, slavery was a secure way of life.

The Roman family household was the predominant social structure. The patriarch (father) of the household had absolute authority over all the members of that household, including the slaves, the wife and the children. Roman patriarchs could even order the execution of a member of his household. The absolute rule of the patriarch was seen as a microcosm of the absolute authority of the Roman emperor, and was the basis of all social and political power in the empire.

The Peter, in his epistle, will challenge this absolute authority, telling the patriarch that he should seek to understand and honor his wife (1 Peter 3:7).

Greek and Roman Religion

The first century was a time of great change in the Greek and Roman religious practices and understanding. Old religions were passing out of favor and people were increasingly willing to hear new religious ideas.

Traditional Religions

Traditional Pantheism

Classical Greek and Roman pantheism believed in numerous gods and goddesses who each exercised dominion over an aspect of life. The chief of these gods was known as Zeus (Greek) or Jupiter (Romans). Devotion to the gods was at its apex in the fourth and fifth centuries BC. But by the first century few people truly believed in the pantheon, and the ceremonial worship of the gods was mostly just tradition.

Greek Philosophy

The Greeks are well known for their great philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Stoicism was probably the most influential of philosophy of the first century. Stoicism taught that there is a distinction between matter and spirit. Matter, of which the body was a part, was passive and something to be subdued by the spirit. The spirit, which was called the logos (Greek for “word”) was conceived of divine logic or reason, and that one could find fulfillment through conformity to the logos . Stoicism has four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice and temperance (Stoicism 2006) . Stoicism had such a wide spread influence that it even was incorporated in Judaic and Christian thought in the first and second century.

Emperor Worship

As the Roman army systematically conquered other nations, belief in the national gods who were to protect them waned. If the Roman emperors could defeat those gods, then the emperor must be a god himself. The first emperor to be deified was Julius Caesar. Augustus was also declared a god, but only after his death. Nero was the first to try to enforce the worship of himself while he was alive. The emperor Domitian tried to enforce widespread worship of himself throughout the empire, leading to great persecution of Christians who refused to worship him.

Gnosticism

Mystery & Magic Religions

The mystery religions were secret societies where the few elite would be allowed to enter into secret knowledge and rituals. In combination with this was the belief in magic rites, incantations, spells, and rituals through which one could coerce the gods.

Gnostic Religion

Gnosticism was a belief system which sought to meld together the traditional Greek pantheism, Greek philosophy and Jewish and Christian monotheistic beliefs together. It most likely grew out of the Hellenistic Greek philosophers in Egypt during the first century (Scholer 1998) . By the second and third centuries grew to the point where it threatened to overtake orthodox Christian theology within the church.

Gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis. It is the belief that salvation comes through knowledge rather than through redemption and atonement. People don't need to be saved from their sin, but from their lack of understanding about the true nature of God, the universe and humanity.

Gnostic beliefs began with the Platonic dualistic philosophy which stated that the material world was evil while the spiritual world is good. Therefore, even the creation of the material world could not have been the act of the one true God. Instead, the material world was created by an inferior demi-god who dwelt between heaven and earth. Often Christian Gnostics of the second and third century equated this demi-god with the creator god of the Old Testament, whom they saw as a vengeful and jealous god unlike the loving compassionate true spiritual God.

The story of Adam and Eve is turned on its head. The snake was not Satan, but a manifestation of the true ultimate God who was trying to provide knowledge to Adam and Eve that they could be like God. The demi-god was angry that humans would go around him to get to the true God and thus threw them out of the garden. For this reason the snake is often a Gnostic symbol of knowledge and true spirituality.

While the demi-god created the earth and humanity, humanity yet retained the pure spirituality of the ultimate God. The human spirit then is considered to be trapped within a physical body and can only be delivered from the evil shell through knowledge of your true self as being part of the divine spiritual realm. In practical terms, this led to one of two extremes: either an ascetic lifestyle which tried to suppress the evils of the body, or hedonism which indulged the body since only the spirit survived.

Christian influenced Gnostics believed that Jesus was one sent by the ultimate God to rescue people from the influence of the demi-God. But such salvation is not through the appeasement of the demi-God's wrath, but by revealing the secret knowledge that salvation lies within and that the divine spirit within only needs to be awakened and revealed as part of the spirit of the ultimate God. For this reason, Gnostics tended to be docetic, which means they believed that Jesus was fully divine, but not fully human. He only appeared to be human so as to be able to interact with us. Since he was not a real human being, he could not have really died, and someone else who appeared like Jesus is who really died on the cross.

Condemnation of Gnosticism

The letters of 1 John, 2 Peter and Jude all address the Gnostic beliefs. John uses Gnostic key words, such as light and darkness to communicate the truth with the terms of this heresy. He emphasizes the reality of Jesus humanity (1 John 1:1-4), and provides believers with tests for determining who is teaching truth and who is not (1 John 4:1-3, 4:15-16, 5:1-2). John wants to assure believers that indeed they have the true message of Christianity. Peter assures his readers that there is no additional “secret knowledge” that was needed. Indeed, they had all the knowledge they needed regarding life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Peter gives harsh warning for those who would bring heresy into the church (2 Peter 2:1).

Gnosticism Today

Our knowledge of Gnosticism was very limited until the discovery in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi texts. These were 13 books found buried in jar in Egypt which contain 52 books, almost all of which are written by Gnostics. Prior to this find, the only way to determine Gnostic beliefs was through the criticism of these beliefs by early Christian writers.

These Gnostic texts have more recently found new popularity in the fictional book (and also movie) The Da Vinci Code. Ironically, the author of the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, misrepresents true Gnostic beliefs. Gnosticism readily accepted the deity of Jesus, but rejected his humanity. But Brown portrays Gnostic beliefs as denying his divinity while emphasizing his humanity, including hypothesizing that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. A true Gnostic would have rejected that Jesus married, for sexual intercourse would have been perceived as a materialistic or physical act which would have been rejected by the asceticism of most Gnostics.

However, the real danger of Gnosticism is not found in threats from the Da Vinci Code , but in way Gnostic dualism is held by many within the church today. Many ignorant believers have been taught and believe that we are saved so that we can “go to heaven.” Their hope is not in the resurrection of our physical bodies which will dwell with God in a physical new earth, but in having our physical bodies die and our spirits go to heaven.

Such a belief leads to an improper view of spirituality and an unbalanced view of what it means to be human. Furthermore, Gnostic dualism leads to one of two extremes. If the body doesn't matter, it either leads to unhealthy hedonism where we ignore the body and just indulge our physical urges, or it leads to asceticism where we deny the body any pleasures. Either result creates a negative impression of the physical pleasures which God has given to humanity to enjoy (e.g. sex, food, etc.).

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