Leading to Salvation

 

Christianity was a strange and novel religion in which the believers refused to worship more than their own God.  To the Romans, this concept of unrelenting monotheism was radical and absurd.  For centuries, the Romans had encountered every form of religious sentiment from the mystery religions in the Orient to the Cult of Isis toward the South in Africa.  For some of these religions, the Romans would incorporate the elements which were not too offensive into their own religion. When Christ instituted the Religion of All Ages, the Romans, who had already encountered every sort of strange religion, were shocked and perturbed by the belief held by the Christians, ultimately persecuting them, indicating that there is fundamental difference between this new religion and every other religion throughout history. 

On the surface, it would seem that there are not that many differences between Christianity and other religions. The Jewish people claimed to be monotheistic.  The love for the dead, or at least for relics, is a practice that has been employed in human religion and is associated “with many other religious systems besides that of Christianity” (Thurston para. 1).  The Gospel, or the Message of Christ, when written down does contain some similarities to other religions.  It can be argued that the Gospel is deeply rooted in the Jewish Religious traditions through the mention of the Law, Festivals, and the governing Hebrew scriptural passages associated with the Judaism of the day (Davies 391). Still, the Gospel is situated in the Greco-Roman world soundly as that it appeals to the “Greek religious intelligentsia…in documents called The Hermetica” (Davies 398).  Some of the Greeks who followed the discipline of Hermetica adapted a philosophical amalgam in a “synthesis of Platonism and other philosophies” (Davies 399).  The Hermetica, like the Gospel, empathized knowledge, truth, true life, and the Word who is “The Son of the Primal God” (Davies 401).  Thus, the themes of the Gospel are embedded in both the Jewish Religion and Greek Philosophy.   

Following Greek thought, there was an element of stoicism which the Christians possessed.  They looked toward the second coming, ignoring the cares of the world.  Some Christian communities had such a radical position on this that a Christian leader has to rebuke the Christians saying, “The charge we gave you on our visit was that the man who refuses to work must be left to starve” (2 Thess. 3:10).  Because of the Greek influence all over the known world, conquered by the Romans, quickly after the form of Christianity, there was influences by the Greeks.  Gnosticism, which was one of the first challenges of the Church, proposed the concept that human beings gain salvation through special knowledge (Harris 258).  The speculative idea that man needs to know in order to gain salvation is reflected in the thinks of Greek society. 

Christianity is even not without its sacrifice.  Jesus is the “Lamb of God” and His death a fulfillment of the “ritual slaying of the paschal lambs” (Harris 256).  The worship of the Christians is an unbloody continuation of the ultimate sacrifice at Calvary where the Incarnate God took on the fault of all men and died.  This is the most perfect sacrifice from which all life springs forth.  This sacrifice, although in reparation, was not needed by God.  Instead, this was a gift freely given.  The sacrifices of the pagans were demanded.  

Many religions typically worship toward a direction, but for Christians, it is different than Islam and Judaism. The Muslims worship toward Mecca and the Jews worship toward the Temple in Jerusalem.  Christians pray toward the rising sun, as Christ will return as the Sun of Righteousness. St. John of Damascus stated: 

It is not without reason or by chance that we worship towards the East. But seeing that we are composed of a visible and an invisible nature…being sharers in the Mysteries and in the grace of the Spirit…Since, therefore, God is spiritual light, and Christ is called in the Scriptures Sun of Righteousness and Dayspring, the East is the direction that must be assigned to His worship (“Why We Pray Facing East” 1). 

So, as it can be seen, there are elements which false religions share with the True Religion, these are purely external.  The real differences lie not in the liturgical practices of the religion, but the belief.  

One striking fact which took place in the Modern Age is the Protestant Persecution of the Catholics is that these English Catholics would rather face death than pray with those who were unpleasing to God.  The early Christian martyrs took this one step further.  Although they could have simply offered incense to the gods of the pagans.  Like the English Catholics who refused to pray the Lord’s Prayer with the Protestants, the Early Christians refused to fall into this trap.  In the words of Justin Martyr, “No right-thinking person falls away from piety to impiety” after the Roman prefect said, “Let us, then, now come to the matter in hand, and which presses. Having come together, offer sacrifice with one accord to the gods” in the account of his martyrdom (Ante-Nicene Fathers).  This shows his strong fidelity to the Faith.  

The Faith established by Christ, the beliefs of the Christians, is different than every other religious belief system throughout the history of the world.  Because, as St. Paul wrote, this shows “that the obligations of the law are written in their hearts; their conscience utters its own testimony,” all religion points to the truth of the Christian Faith (Roman 2:15).  This idea is acknowledged by the Church herself as she references the Sibyl, ancient seerers of the gods in antiquity, in the Dies Irae of the Requiem Mass.  The elements to the pagan religions which hold similarities to the True Faith are due to the fact that the Truth is written in the hearts of men.  All creation was preparing for the coming of her Creator and Lord which was echoed in the bits of truth in the pagan religions.  There are those who might even argue that Socrates found truth before Truth was born.  Christianity is fundamentally different than every other religion; however, the religions of man often have elements of the Truth attached to them.  This provides for an interesting and insightful study of the history of religion and how this applies to man today. 

Works Cited

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.) 7 Dec. 2013 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0133.htm. Web. 

Davies, W.D. Invitation to the New Testament. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1966. Print.

Harris, Stephen L. The New Testament (7th ed.) New York: McGraw Hill, 2012. Print.

Thurston, Herbert. "Relics." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 5 Dec. 2013 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12734a.htm. Web. 

“Why We Pray Facing the East”. (2013). Orthodox Prayer. 7 Dec. 2013 http://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Facing%20East.html Web.