The prophecies of Daniel - part 2

In the latter stages of the first century AD, the most powerful empire the world has ever known began to take notice of a small religious sect originating in one of its smallest provinces. Pagan Rome decided that this new faith was nuisance and waged a war against it. It was an absolute impossibility that mighty Rome would 'lose' this battle. Yet that is exactly what happened.

To put this into a modern context consider the American campaign against the Al Qaida forces in Afghanistan after 9/11. Not the campaign against the country itself -- then the analogy wouldn't fit -- just the small pockets of Al Qaida and her sympathizers. Then imagine that thirty years after the campaign began (converting centuries into decades here to represent the faster flow of events these days) America lost. No, I don't mean that they failed to meet their initial objectives, I mean lost. As in -- Al Qaida sitting in the white house, Sharia law is the law of the land, every woman has to wear a burka... lost. Doesn't seem possible, does it?

And yet that's a fair symbol for what actually happened in Rome. But you say, "It wasn't a military conquest. It was cultural." That's true. But that doesn't make it any less implausible. Consider what a empire is:

A monarchy is a political unit that basically serves as a means of trying to keep its people alive. Every one has their place, whether noble, soldier, or peasant, and is expected to perform their function within the overall realm. But an empire is different (I talked about this in What does 666 mean). An empire moves wealth from the periphery to the center. It exploits the labor and resources of others for the benefit of its own. In doing this, an empire creates an apparatus that surrounds its citizens in a kind of protective bubble. That apparatus is meant to keep the citizens alive without forcing the citizens to spend all their time doing the ugly business themselves, thus allowing those same citizens things like leisure time and social mobility.

When you add that onto the nature of the Roman pagan religion you are left with a culture that existed primarily to satisfy the wants of its people. You can try and fight that statement all you want. You'll fail. But the Caesars took the power away from the Senate -- yes, with popular support from a people who wanted and single liable entity rather than the complexity of broad representation in precisely the same way that modern Americans place undo credit/blame on their sitting president. But the Plebeians were an oppressed class -- more like a less fortunate class, which every empire has, but also a class that their rulers took great pains to placate.

First century Rome was a land of free love and dramatic entertainments (gladiators, chariot races, etc.), of opulent wealth and unmatched prosperity. Within three hundred years from the first contact, the decadent people of Rome would cast away the supposed charms of all their good fortune (their idols) and bow down to worship the son of a Jewish laborer whom their forefathers had executed on a wooden cross.

Here's how it happened:

When the emperor Constantine issued an edict of toleration for Christianity in 313 AD, Christians were still a small minority of the overall population -- maybe 10%. That number, however, misses an important detail; by 313 Christianity was already extremely popular. There's several reasons for this. Two of the big ones had to do with martyrdom and the early church hospitality ministries.

I have no doubt that a great many Christians plead for their lives, begged, cried, soiled themselves, etc, before becoming lion food, but a great many didn't. These died the kind of noble, no-fear deaths that demanded a grudging respect from their audiences. In Greco-Roman paganism there is no Heaven, only Hades. Even the heroes had a nasty afterlife (just not as bad). Seeing people unafraid of dying was a real eye-opener in a world that taught you to fear the end of life.

But even more important was the Christian concept of hospitality. The early church did not spread through door to door "cold calls". It was spread by caring for the poor and needy. Some of the stories boggle the mind. For example, a group of early Christians sold themselves into slavery, then took the proceeds and purchased the freedom of another group of slaves. Materialism found itself looking face to face with lives lived for a higher calling, and the materialists felt dirty by comparison. Because of this, even before Christianity became the established religion it had a whole slew of 't-shirt' fans, people who wanted to change but couldn't quite give up their old ways. In other words, its influence was growing.

After Constantine's death Christianity fell in and back out of favor, twice being the subject of eradication campaigns. But it was never enough, and about a century after the first edict of toleration Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Paganism was outlawed. Every knee bowed. Every tongue confessed. They had to, it was the law.

And the moment that happened Christianity's influence began to diminish.

(to be cont.)