On the Origin and Spread of Christianity

This is an attempt to analyze the social and psychological conditions under which Christianity developed. I distinguish between a Christianity I (for the poor class) and a Christianity II (for all social classes).

In Jewish Palestine during the Augustan period, the population consisted of three strata.

At the bottom were the proletariat, the impoverished craftsmen, peasants and impoverished beggars. The peasants suffered so much from the tax burden that many fell into debt bondage or lost their property and became part of the urban proletariat. The suffering of these poor, especially in Jerusalem, was greater than that of the Roman proletariat because, unlike the latter, they did not have Roman citizenship and could not enjoy grain donations and circus games. Jerusalem had probably the most extensive urban proletariat after Rome in the entire Roman Empire.

The next higher class was a bourgeoisie which was materially in just enough condition to be able to come to terms with the existing conditions. Above it stood the thin layer of aristocracy, composed of nobility, priests, and rich merchants.

The three layers can be assigned to the three politico-religious groups of the Saduceans, Pharisees and Zealots. The Saduzees represented the ideology of the upper class. According to Josephus, they were few in number, but together they belonged to the rich and powerful. The representatives of the middle class, the bourgeoisie, were the Pharisees, even though they partly sprang from the proletariat. According to Josephus, they determined the religious-cult practices of the people and taught the interassociation of divinely placed destiny and personal choice.

The Pharisees, and even more of course the Saducees, had nothing to do with the proletariat. There was even blatant enmity between the poor and the Pharisees. Of the women of the proletariat, for example, the Pharisees said that they were like animals and should not be married under any circumstances. In the Talmud there are many expressions of this kind. Correspondingly great was the hatred thrown at the Pharisees from the proletariat.

No less great was the hatred of the poor for the Romans, with whom the middle class and especially the upper class collaborated. Thus from the first decade CE. the Zealots' Party emerged with the aim of forcibly driving the root of social evil, the Romans, out of Palestine. In particular, the imperial cult was a thorn in the side of the Zealots - and of the poor in general - because the Emperor formed the centre of the system that oppressed the poor.

In addition to the military-politically oriented Zealots, some religious groups also tried in their own way to cope with the socially oppressive situation, which they found unbearable. In contrast to the Zealots, they propagated what can be modernly called ´escape into phantasy', drawing on the old Jewish idea of the 'Messiah', who liberates the oppressed people and leads them to divine salvation. Among the representatives of the messianic movement was the group around John the Baptist, who was historically documented by Josephus. The Messiah fantasy, which had developed under the excessive political pressure of hostile powers such as the Assyrians and the Babylonians, had become highly topical again in times of the Roman occupation, and the number of candidates applying for recognition as Messiah was correspondingly large. Josephus calls them "swindlers" and distinguishes them from the "robbers", i.e. the Zealots. Some messianic groups were classified by Romans as political danger, as their anti-Roman hatred was unmistakable, and violently suppressed. The Zealots, in turn, radicalized themselves in part ("Sicarians"), assassinated Jerusalem middle-class citizens, and destroyed entire villages if they did not want to join them.

What role does the Jesus movement play in all this? I want to leave open here whether this figure has historical character or whether it was perhaps the fantasized hero of a Jewish secret cult, because this is secondary for the development of Christological ideas. It is well known that even Paul (if historical) did not care about biographical details of his idol, his Jesus is hardly distinguishable from a fantasy figure and seems to serve only as a vehicle for Pauline ideas. The fantasy as a religious factor is to be estimated so highly with the given topic because the social reality in the form of the insurmountable Roman power made every concrete action for the improvement of the situation appear as hopeless, so that the fantasy offered itself as liberating valve.

It is crucial that the idea of a man raised ('adopted') by Yahweh to son-God, who delivers the Jewish people from their suffering, met the need of the proletarian masses one-to-one. For the attractiveness of this figure two components combined: on the one hand the desire for liberation from a socially awkward situation, on the other hand the hatred for the Roman imperial authority and its imperial cult as well as for the Pharisees. The figure of Jesus, crucified by the Romans (real or fictional) like thousands of others from the ranks of the poor who rose up against Rome, and ascending to heaven as the post-mortem adopted Son of God to judge the world at the Father's side — through this fantasy the earthly oppressed could excellently come to terms with their emotional suffering. Through his suffering on the cross Jesus was an ideal object of identification, whose elevation to son-god moreover compensated the father-hate which the poor, quite consciously, harbored for the emperor (the overpowering father figure of the kingdom) and, rather unconsciously, for Yahweh, who obviously had no interest in the welfare of the poor. Through Jesus as the world-governing Christ, the imperial power is disempowered — of course only in the imagination — and a representative of the oppressed class is set aside for the Yahweh, who until then had been the sole ruler in heaven, and his power is thus curtailed, for the judgment of the people at the end of time will be brought by Jesus, not Yahweh.

In the course of this heavenly palace revolution 'Jesus' becomes the heavenly Son-Christ and Yahweh the Christian Father-God. Two characteristics of the Christian faith stand out here: the end of the world or the appearance of the kingdom of heaven is expected within a few decades (so-called near expectation), and Jesus is not originally the Son of God, but is raised by God to sonship with God only after his death on the cross (so-called adoptionism).

What made the cult of Christ so attractive in the Jewish environment, namely the rebellion against social oppression enjoyed in imagination and thus against the authority of the emperor, could of course also find support among the oppressed outside Palestine, namely gradually throughout the entire Roman Empire. The members of the Corinthian community, for example, are certified in 1 Cor 1,26 f. to be "foolish", "weak" and "despised" in the eyes of the world:

27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.

For easily recognizable reasons, this version of Christianity (= Christianity I) with its social rebellious note could hardly have spread and established itself in the Roman Empire outside the lower classes. Should a Roman nobleman worship a crucified criminal who only becomes a god post mortem? No, several changes had to occur in order for Christianity to become compatible for higher classes.

1)

2)

The original moral severity of the way of life is loosened. It is no longer decisive to lead a pious life inwardly and outwardly; it is now sufficient to bind oneself inwardly to Christ, even if one pursues outwardly activities which — according to Christianity I — contradict the true faith, e.g. a service for the state. In this way Christianity becomes acceptable also to people who do not want to give up their bourgeois identity. This change from the rejection of the state to the recognition of the state (whose order is now considered God's will) is carried out by Christianity from the beginning of the 3rd century. Accordingly, the Church has evolved as an authoritarian system that contradicts the anti-authoritarian tendency of the original doctrine (as far as reconstructable). The church structure has thus adapted to the state structure.

3)

Particularly important: the transformation of the Jesus figure from a man elevated to God (adoptionism) to the (pre-existent) Son of God existing since the...