Christianity and Paganism

Christianity And Paganism

Early Christianity developed in an era of the Roman Empire during which many religions were practiced, that are, due to the lack of a better term, labeled paganism. Paganism, in spite of its etymological meaning of rural, has a number of distinct meanings. It refers to the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire period, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, as well as philosophic monotheistic religions such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism and the tribal religions practiced on the fringes of the Empire.

From the point of view of the early Christians these religions all qualified as ethnic (or gentile, ethnikos, gentilis, the term translating goyim, later rendered as paganus) in contrast with Judaism. Since the Council of Jerusalem, the Christian apostles accepted both Jewish and pagan converts, and there was a precarious balance between the Jewish believers, insisting on the obedience to the Torah Laws by all Christians, on one hand, and Gentile Christians, developed in the gentile missionary context, on the other.

Christianity during the Middle Ages stood in opposition to the pagan ethnic religions of the peoples outside the former Roman Empire, i.e. Germanic paganism, Slavic paganism etc.