How were and how the early Christians lived?

Animated by an exclusive faith that did not allow compromises, Christians refused any participation in traditional cults: ceremonies and feasts in honor of the gods, but also forms of association connected to them such as banquets and shows, as well as the consumption of meat during sacrificial rites.

Some professions or ways of life were incompatible with baptism and therefore forced them to refuse or postpone: in particular everything that had to do with cults, with temples, with divination, and even more so with the Magic, the amphitheater, the circus or the theater and the prostitution, but also the craft of soldier, the judiciary involving the power of the sword and / or the performance of rites in honor of the gods or emperors could not agree with the baptismal rite. Christians, then, they kept away from a part of public life, and for this they were accused of misanthropy and "hatred of the human race" (Tacit). As their faith determined specific religious practices, both individual and collective, Christians were suspected of being a dangerous sect devoted to a "vain and insane superstition", since they worshiped as a god "a criminal duly condemned by a Roman magistrate to the most infamous of tortures, that of the cross ". They were accused, mistakenly, to perform terrifying or immoral rites for the killing of children, cannibalism, magic - and depraved sexual customs. finally, they were despised by intellectuals and educated circles. For the philosopher Celsus (to the 178), for example, they were people of "supreme ignorance", "Without education" or culture, who duped weak spirits (women and children, craftsmen, slaves and free, taking advantage of their credulity and thus endangering the family and society.

The Christians replied to these accusations: "We don't do anything wrong", our costumes are pure. “We live with you, we lead the same kind of life ", wrote Tertullian Towards the 197, pointing out that Christians cultivated the land, they dedicated themselves to trade, frequented the forum, the market, the term, the shops, the hotels, the fairs, in a word they lived with and like their fellow citizens. In fact, Christians took the distances from the customs and forms of sociality of their world, when they were not compatible with their faith and values.

Their meals in common, agapi - object of much talk -, they were emblematic of Christian sociality: under the gaze of God, they were characterized by modesty, modesty and sobriety (they did not drink too much and sang hymns in honor of God). A Christian could go to the baths, but just to wash; and could light incense in honor of the dead. "As for the shows, we give it up ", still wrote Tertullian, who denounced the madness of the circus - where chariot races unleashed frenetic passions -, the immorality of the theater and the atrocities of the amphitheater - where spectators showed sadistic pleasure in the face of the death of human beings forced to slaughter each other (and gladiators) or to exhibit at fairs - and accused the vanity of sports competitions. If, as regards the races and the bloody games of the amphitheater, Christian criticism approached that of some philosophers (the Stoics), it also contained one denunciation of the idolatrous character and therefore diabolical - since the gods were identified with demons - of certain practices, of which the contemporaries themselves were perhaps not aware, such as the religious character of the procession that preceded the circus races or the fact that gladiator fights originated from human sacrifices in honor of the dead. The renunciation of the shows, then, it is undoubtedly a hallmark of Christians.

Advising Christian women to "please only the [their] husband", and therefore not to resort to seduction devices such as make-up, jewels and luxurious or shameless dresses, Tertullian argued that this rule actually applied to everyone, and that any spouse, Christian or not - a case that was anything but rare - he considered chastity the most beautiful of ornaments. In this, Christian morality was in perfect accord with common morality, if not with customs. However, Tertullian exhorted Christian women to leave the house to help the poor, to participate in the holy sacrifice and hear the word of God; he allowed friendly visits to non-Christian women because they could be an example. Likewise, Clemente Alessandrino, undertaking to "outline" in the Educator (to the 190) as "those who want to call themselves Christian must be for a lifetime", he gave very practical advice for living in the world with simplicity, moderation and self-control, and to make good use of what God had created. We must take into account, But, that these advice on morals and daily life represented a normative discourse addressed to a wealthy social class. We know very little, indeed, of the real life of the anonymous majority of ordinary people, men and women, Christian or non-Christian. Furthermore, postponing baptism to the end of life allowed us to continue living "as before", not to mention the social pressure and the positions from which the notables of the cities could not escape for any reason.

By making the union of Christ and the Church the model of marriage, Christians laid the foundations of a real one ethics of the conjugal union, founded on the self-control and mutual fidelity of the spouses. It followed that, to be admitted to baptism, a man living in concubinage was forced to contract marriage; Unlike, a concubine slave of her master, he had bred it i children and did not have sex with other men, she could still be baptized. Among the sectarian currents, such as the Marcionites, who proclaimed absolute continence for both men and women, as well as among those who denied the primacy of virginity (Gioviniano) or mocked married women (Girolamo), the balance was maintained by the leaders of the communities, who insisted on the value of marriage, although in the fourth century the model of consecrated virginity was exalted together with the development of asceticism. Blaming male and female adultery and the sexual practices of boys without establishing any difference between free and slaves, Christian preachers helped instill the awareness that all men are equal and have the same dignity, contrary to common usage, Christians condemned the practice of exposing unwanted babies, even when it was a question of deformed children.

Responding to the magistrate who had the power to sentence them to death "I am a Christian" e, perhaps even more so in the case of women, "I am Christian", the future martyrs of both sexes, refusing to provide their personal details, to make known their family affiliation or their rank of citizens, accessed, in the name of their faith, to the dignity of people in control of their own destiny. Tertullian was the first to address women, through a treatise on the toilet: an innovation that would have followed. Preachers, Christian rhetoricians and philosophers took care of the education of children of both sexes, then, in the 4th century, they also began to deal with virginity, of marriage and widowhood, in letters and treatises often addressed to women, thus contributing to the development of a new family ethic, first in well-to-do and cultured environments, but later destined to spread to the entire society.

In fact, Christians found themselves in a paradoxical situation, as the anonymous author of the Letter to Diognetus (written in Alessandria between 190 and the 210, and undoubtedly addressed to a magistrate in charge of an investigation on Christians): «Christians differ in nothing from other human beings […] they do not inhabit their own cities, they obey established laws, but with their life they surpass the laws ". Similar and at the same time different, Christians had values ​​and behaviors different from those of their fellow citizens. Unlike the Stoics, who wanted to be "citizens of the world", Christians "dwell in the earth, but they have their citizenship in the sky ". Living in all cities of the world, they were like the soul in the body. Well, "The soul lives in the body, but it is not of the body; so, Christians live in the world, but I'm not of the world ". While aware of their identity and what it entailed, the Christians claimed anyway, except for certain sectarian currents, their belonging to a family, to a city, to the Roman Empire, as well as their attachment to the Greco-Roman culture.

Bibliographic sources

History of Christianity curated by A. Corbin

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