Flee from the Worship of Idols: Becoming Christian in Roman Corinth

INTRODUCTION The religious contexts in which early Christian communities grew were important factors in the first-century development of Christianity, affecting what it meant to become a Christian either as a convert from a background in Judaism or as a convert from a background in Greek, Roman, or Egyptian cults. Surrounding religions and cultural norms strongly influenced the first Christian communities in urban environments throughout the Roman Empire because the first generation of Christian converts came directly from other religious constructs. As the early Christians distinguished themselves from the Diaspora Jewish communities in which they originated and actively pursued Gentile converts, the fusion of believers with differing religious backgrounds caused uncertainty and conflict over acceptable beliefs and practices within Christian communities. Much of the historiography of early Christianity dwells on Christianity's relationship to Judaism. The tendency to highlight the Christian-Jewish relationship is natural since Christianity originated in Israel as a Jewish sect. The conflict throughout the New Testament between the "Judaizers" and Paul lends itself to questions about Christianity's relationship to the Jewish religion and culture: how members of Christian communities were different from those remaining in Jewish communities, when the differentiation occurred, and the extent to which Judaism was monolithic. Answering these questions has occupied volumes upon volumes, and writers such as Judith Lieu continue to address them, especially in Neither Jew nor Greek?, her collection of essays. The discussion of group interactions between the Jewish and Christian communities, however, often does not include the surrounding polytheists or henotheists as a third partner despite Christianity's rapid expansion into the Roman world, and, even when such discussions do occur, they are often deficient. Historians such as William H. C. Frend have treated this topic by discussing only the role of emperors and governors in persecution of the Christians, leaving out an account of ordinary people in the polytheistic population. Treatments of interactions between Christians and members of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cults generally center on encounters between elite members of the two societies. Yet the Roman emperors did not represent the beliefs or practices of all of Greco-Roman society, nor did the Apostle Paul embody the entirety of Christian thought. Left unanswered by this elite-centered approach are questions about the interactions and differences between the general population of Christians and polytheists/henotheists. Writings from non-elite citizens of this time period are rarely extant, leading most historians to focus on leaders such as the Apostle Paul. Several historians, though, have made efforts to fill this hole. Wayne Meeks, in The First Urban Christians, attempted to read between the lines of Paul's letters to understand the Christian communities. Meeks admirably endeavored to reconstruct early urban Christian society but did not discuss the Christians in parallel with their neighbors who followed other cults; he focused on Paul's conception of an ideal Christian instead of trying to discover the lives of non-elite Christians. In Pagans and Christians, Robin Lane Fox did discuss both groups, attempting to describe the transition of the European world from polytheism to Christianity, but he rarely explained how the two groups coincided at the same time and in the same place, which is the focus of my essay. Given the difficulty of providing evidence for broad statements about religious communities throughout the Roman Empire, I have chosen to narrow my focus to one particular setting: Roman Corinth in the first century Analyzing the population in one location during a specific time frame allows clear comparisons among Christians, Jews, and worshipers of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian cults instead of general statements about how most Christians related to most Jews or polytheists throughout the Empire Corinth is a compelling choice for this type of study because its population contained significant numbers of Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians. …