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Early Christian Growth: Was it Actually More Moral? (Scott Alexander & Rodney Stark)
Join us in today's episode as we delve into the remarkable rise of Christianity, examining factors like martyrdom, plagues, and moral dynamics. Building on previous discussions, this standalone exploration dives deep into how Christianity managed to outcompete other religious cultures. We discuss the impact of plagues on Christian growth, the role of martyrdom, and how early Christians' behavior during catastrophes set them apart from pagans. Gain insights into the societal and religious shifts that propelled Christianity to prominence.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be doing an episode where we. Continue exploring how did Christianity outcompete other religious cultures and grow as fast as it did. This is going to build on another podcast that we did on this subject, but it's totally okay to watch as a standalone.
The subjects that we're going to focus on most here are the topic of martyrs as a conversion mechanism.
Plagues, and did christianity actually have a more moral system than the system Against in the mind of the average person in the last time we went on this I mean, certainly when you look at the exposure of babies being a common thing and we mentioned that some like Roman philosophers complained about how and saw it as one of the evils of the Jewish people that they tried to get people to not drown their babies.
Cause they're like, you, you shouldn't expose or kill newborns. And they're like, [00:01:00] no, wait, wait, wait. That's such a Jewish, what, what a, what a Jewish and nefarious thing to complain about.
Speaker 11: I'll take care of this. Hey Clara, there's a Jew outside, trying to poison a well! Ah! Oh my God! Get away from that well, Hebrew! What? I'm putting in water purification tablets. Spanky tricked me!
Malcolm Collins: Which is one of the holdovers that came into Christianity, but let's start with martyrs. And I just want
Simone Collins: to be clear, this is Scott Alexander's book review on the Rides of Christianity by Rodney Stark, in case you want to look at it yourself.
Martyrs. Martyrdom not only occurred in public, often before a large audience, but it was often the culmination of a long period of preparation, during which those faced with martyrdom were the object of intense face to face adulation.
Consider the case of Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius was condemned to death as a Christian, but instead of being executed in Antioch, He was sent off to Rome in the custody of 10 Roman [00:02:00] soldiers, thus begun a long leisurely journey during which local Christians came out to meet him all along the route, which passed through many of the more important sites of early Christianity in Asia Minor.
on its way to the West. At each stop, Ignatius was allowed to preach and meet with those who gathered, none of whom was in any apparent danger, though their Christian identity was obvious. Moreover, his guards allowed Ignatius to write letters to many Christian congregations and cities bypassed along the way, such as Ephesias in Philadelphia.
As William Schnoedl remarked, quote,
Malcolm Collins: Hold on, hold on, before we go further with this. The thing insane is this, so you, I kill you, but you
Simone Collins: get to go on tour first. So don't worry.
Malcolm Collins: No, he's like a famous musician or something. Like, it's like, we're going to have you fed to the lions, but you know, on the way, like imagine, okay.
So this is basically what happened here. You know, the guy who killed the like in, in UNH the, the, you[00:03:00]
If the U. S. arrested him, but then had him do public speaking events in every major U. S. city, while also, like, the cities he didn't get to, he created, like, podcast recordings f
Published on 1 year ago