Jordan unearths world's oldest Christian church?

Photo via report in the 'Jordan Times'

While i commend Mr. Parker's caution, which is in the best historiographic tradition, i rather suspect that if any further conclusive evidence is found, it would tend to confirm the conclusion to which the Jordanian archaeologists have leapt. The earliest non-christian records of christian communities is that they were seen by those outside Judaism as a radical Jewish sect, and a sect even more unwelcome than were the Jews were themselves. In the Roman empire, communities were required to at least pay lip service to the civic religion, apart from which people were free to practice any religion they wished. First Jews, and then later, christians, were unwelcome in many communities because they were unwilling to do even that little to placate Roman authority. Many stories of early christian persecution are likely apocryphal because imperial authorities didn't really care about sectarianism, but members of communities who thought the entire community might suffer from the refusal of Jews (and to them, early christians were just another flavor of Jew) to give superficial acknowledgement to the civic religion. As that region would have been a likely place for early christian settlement, i have little doubt that there would have been a christian paranoia operative from the earliest days, and that if the community there did not actually persecute them, they would have probably thought they were targets for persecution.

I don't see any Christian evidence in the article except that there was a circular place with stone seats around. Did early Christians worship like that?

They may have, however two things are worth noting. One is that Mr. Hussein was basing his claim inferentially, based on the inscription on the floor of the later church (St. Georgius) which alleges that a church was founded there by "70 beloved of God." So, in fact, he was basing his claim on an expectation of finding an earlier church, and not necessarily on any direct evidence in the site that it was a christian church.

The second thing worth noting was the comment by Mr. Parker urging caution about the conclusions at which Mr. Hussein has arrived. Mr. Hussein seems to have indulged in a classic case of having found what he hoped to find, as opposed to having found clear, undeniable evidence for what he claims to have found. That was why i began my post by pointing out the worth of Mr. Parker's caution, and then noted that if any further conclusive evidence were found, it might support the thesis.

Finally, it is worth noting that Mr. Hussein might be the beneficiary of the financial support of christians who wish to support an investigation into what they, too, wish to believe is true.

Thanks Set. You have an excellent way of reminding people to stay in touch the facts. It is much too easy to fantasize about what might have been.

Setanta, why would Jordan be a likely region for early Christian settlements? Did any of the 11 (or 12?) disciples of Jesus go there?

Checking in to follow. As we probably all know, many christian churches were built over sites of other religions, as well as over earlier christian churches. I'm not sure if that was the primary mode or just occasional, and my interest isn't all that intense.

Which is to say, bookmark.

You can walk there from Jerusalem in a day.

I guess that helps. Thanks, Setanta.

OK, i'll give you the long answer. At that time, the Roman province of Iudaea (you might recognize the similarity to the place name Judea) was governed from the administrative center at Caesarea Maritima on the coast of Palestine, near where Tel Aviv is located today. The trade route which ran from the Persian Gulf (near the location of modern Basra) reached the Mediterranean at that point. That route ran to the north of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was pretty much unimportant in Roman affairs, except as the center of Jewish culture. Jews weren't very popular with the Romans for a variety of reasons which i won't go into here. To the Romans, those whom we call "Christians" (they didn't even call themselves that in the first century CE) were just another variety of Jew, if they even noticed a difference at all.

Jordan did not then exist, either as a "nation" (an anachronism 2000 years ago) or even as a concept. Rihab, the Jordanian city where this site is located, probably didn't exitst then, either, except perhaps as a village--but the location is significant because it is along the line of the trade route which began at the Persian Gulf and terminated at Caesarea Maritima. That trade route was protected. The Roman attitude was more or less a cordial and cheerful "you can rot for all we care" as regards most of Iudaea, but they took the trade route completely seriously. So if you were a Jewish sectary (which is what the early "Christians" were), and you had to get out of Dodge, the safest thing for you to have done would have been to go north to the Roman road, and then east till you found a village the residents of which would not run you off or attempt to kill you.

I was being flippant when i said you can walk there in a day. With a wife, the kids, grandma and all the household goods on a donkey, it would probably take two or three days to get there. The important fact, though, is that you would have been on a Roman road, and were probably safe from molestation by overzealous Jews if you got up really early and made a good start the day you left Jerusalem.

Molested by overzealous Jews? Did the Jews molest the early Christians? How would they know the difference between a Christian Jew and a non-Christian Jew, they would look the same, I guess.

I'll tell yah what, Cello, let's just say i made all that up, and you think whatever the hell you want.

I read about the Romans persecuting the Christians, throwing them into the Coliseum for the lions to eat, but did not realize the Jews persecuted them also. I wonder whether the Jews used to wear something distinctive like a small hat or long tresses on the sides like I have seen some Jewish people do, such that they could recognize the Christians from non-Christians. I also wonder when did the persecution of Christians stop.

Pardon me, but you're being awfully dense. Do you assume that all of your neighbors are Christians, and let it go at that? Does it not occur to you that you live in a very different world than that which obtained in Palestine 2000 years ago? If someone were practicing a different religion, they certainly would not go to the local, established places of worship. If they were not attempting to hide their differing religious practice, it would quickly be known. If they were to attempt to keep their religious practice out of the public eye, then it would quickly be known by the local qidnuncs that they weren't practicing religion as their neighbors were, and that they were going off to a certain place at a certain time, for a gathering of an unspecified purpose. They didn't need to wear some sort of uniform to attract unfavorable attention.

About 90% or more of the stories of the early persecution of christians are very likely apocryphal, especially the popular image of them being "thrown to the lions" in the coliseum. The passage in Tacitus which describes Nero blaming the fire at Rome on christians and persecuting them as a result is almost certainly an interpolation (someone writing a new passage and inserting it into the existing text), and scholars feel they can even pinpoint the year in which it happened. There were already problems with that story, in that even christian did not call themselves christians when Nero was emperor, nor did they yet have the habit of referring to the putative Jesus as "the Christ," because the church has not yet been thoroughly Hellenized at time, and "Christ" come from the Greek.

Nor did the Romans immediately and systematically persecute christians, as the perfervid christians would have everyone believe. Had they done so from the early years of the first century, the odds are pretty good that the christians would not have survived, or would have taken a lot longer to have gotten their religion established. The Emperor Trajan, who ruled from the last years of the first century into the early years of the second century wrote a letter to Pliny the Younger, who was asking for guidance on how to deal with christians, who were a problem because they publicly defied the civic religion. In ancient Rome, you could practice any religion you wanted, and even proselytize publicly, so long as you paid a pro forma lip service to the civic religion. Both christians and Jews refused to do this (and early on, christians were just Jews as far as everyone else was concerned), and were unpopular as a result. Trajan basically outlined a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for Pliny:



No emperor persecuted christians in earnest until Septimius Severus, who was emperor at the end of the second and the beginning of the third century--193 to 211 CE. That was only because Severus was a strict observer of the letter of the law, and did not interfere with local officials who persecuted both christians and Jews, neither of which group was willing to deny their faith and publicly go through the motions of sacrificing to the civic gods simply to save their lives. Even as late as the end of the 2nd century, to the Romans, there was no practical distinction to be made between christians and Jews. When such persecutions took place, they were almost always the product of the anger of local people, who felt they'd suffer for harboring in their midst people who would not observe the civic religion, and therefore either denounced them to local officials, or simply took matters into their own hands. Later in the 3rd century and in the fourth century, christians took sides in the struggles between individuals to become emperor, and it was only then that christians were sought out in earnest by officials at the highest levels, and their motives were political.

The image of christians being thrown to the lions is dramatic, and it is very likely bullshit. Most christians who were persecuted were in southwest Asia (in the province of Syria, which would include Palestine and what we call Jordan; and in Asia Minor, what we call Turkey) and in northern Africa. Christians didn't throng to Rome and the melodramatic bullshit stories of christians dieing in their thousands in the Coliseum are just that--bullshit.

The ealiest persecutors of christians were other Jews. Witness Paul, the alleged "St. Paul":

First Corinthians, 15:9 (in the King James Version)

For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Galatians 1:13 (KJV)

For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it

Christians, to this day, are really fond of the image of martyrs, and even like to think of themselves as martyrs--as long as they don't themselves actually suffer real, physical pain. Witness the whining of modern fundamentalists in the United States, who are practitioners of what is overwhelmingly the majority confession in this nation, and yet who claim that they are persecuted, and that their religion is under attack.

The "persecution" of christians stopped (it was never widespread or continuous) in the early 4th century, when the christians finally picked a winner to back, Constantine, and were allowed publicly to practice their religion. Constantine's wife and mother-in-law (Dog help him) were christian, but contrary to christian bullshit, there is no reason to believe that Constantine himself was a christian, and it was to be a while before christianity became the state religion, and christians got the chance to slaughter others for their religious convictions.

Pardon me, Setanta, but you are being awfully impolite, and I have decided not to bother reading your posts any more in the future.

Good.

Set, what a great read. Fascinating. Thank you. I always love reading your history posts.

I'll be sorry if this thread dies here.

I would hope that Walter posts new information as it becomes available.