Early Christianity without State Persecution

I've lately been reading Graves' I, Claudius books, where the first few chapters of the second book are dominated by an account of the career of Herod Agrippa, which Graves interweaves with the story of early Christianity (the origin of the good Samaritan parable, the eventual suicide of Pontius Pilate, up to Herod's own death as recorded in the book of Acts). The book concludes with the death of Claudius and the accession of Nero, the first notable persecutor of Christians as such (there is apparently a bit of ambiguity over whether the "Jews" expelled from the city of Rome by Claudius were in fact Christians, but we'll leave it as read that they weren't), whom he blamed for starting the Great Fire of AD 64.

Taking as our POD Graves' concluding crisis, over whether Britannicus or Nero would inherit the Empire, let's presume that Britannicus comes out on top prior to 64 (whether by assassination in Rome or, more realistically, after a bit of martial seasoning in the North taking over the legions from freshly conquered Britain or the Rhine and coming south Constantine-like as a young man in the late 50s-early 60s.) This (probably) butterflies away the Fire and the early persecutions, the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, alters the book of Revelations (assuming 666='Nero'), with knock-on effects on the history of the late first century (the Jewish War probably goes forward as OTL, but doesn't lead to the accession of the Flavian dynasty-at least not yet).

All this having happened, official persecution never kicks off, so to speak, and social attitudes toward Christianity never harden beyond chilly distaste. What I'd like to hear are your speculations over the future career of Christianity in the late first and early second centuries RE relations with Judaism, the state (particularly how the issue of ritual sacrifice to the Emperor could be resolved peacefully), the eventual content of the New Testament, and on whether Christianity could assume the prominence it did OTL without the cult of martyrdom.

IIRC, persecution of Christians occurred primarily at the local level. Something goes wrong in town, the good Romans blame the atheist (as they were accused) Christians for angering the gods.

IIRC, persecution of Christians occurred primarily at the local level. Something goes wrong in town, the good Romans blame the atheist (as they were accused) Christians for angering the gods.

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True (at least until the Empire-wide persecutions in the third and fourth centuries-look up Maximian and Diocletian.) What I'm looking for is some sort of formulation that would satisfy the locals that the X-tians were good Romans (a prayer for the Emperor's soul for example, but that probably wouldn't be enough) or at least to stop them short of murder, while allowing the Christians to preserve their religious practices. I focus on the persecution in AD 64 Rome because it's the imperial capital and therefore more prominent, and because a POD prior to that allows both St. Peter and Paul to live out their full lives. The New Testament might get some more Epistles, or there might be different versions of it (the two didn't get along, IIRC). Or ironically, allowing the two apostolic fathers to live might wind up making them into less notable figures in subsequent time.

A Christianity without martyrs might be less attractive to the theological shopper of late antiquity. Perhaps Christianity becomes one of those Eastern cults that turned up in Rome, enjoyed a brief heyday, and dies in favor of another.

On the other hand, without intermittent state pressure in the form of persecution, Christianity might never have been subject to the centralization that took place in response. You might wind up with a thousand local Christianities, each with different versions of the New Testament and never agreeing on anything (think of the later ecumenical councils and how much trouble they had with "only" Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria to deal with.)

Also, without martyrology and such an overarching feeling of "Us vs. Them," there might be much more emphasis on living a good life, charity, etc, than on making a good death, Heaven and Hell, and eschatological ponderings. Toss in Gnosticism and all the other early "heresies," and you could easily wind up with a radically different late Antiquity.

Early Christianity

Actually, Vivisfugue, the early Christians did exactly that - concentrate on living a "good" life, charity etc. One of the things that differentiated them from their neighbours was that Christians would refuse to practise abortions or infanticide; in fact they would go pick up the babies left on the roadsides and bring them up. Also, they cared for all poor and sick, not only Christian. Julian the Apostate was very aware of this aspect.
The emphasis on death Last Judgement etc really only came about during the so-called Dark Ages.
Re gnosticism, it was elitist nonsense in the first century - and still is. Dan Brown is good example of a modern gnostic.

Happily, I missed out on the whole Dan Brown phenomenon-never read it, never saw the movie, though I can understand what modern christians find offensive in the whole Holy Blood, Holy Grail myth (my aunt protested The Last Temptation of Christ when it came out, so that sort of controversy is not unfamiliar in my family). I'm not even denying that early Christians were comparative moral paragons to their pagan neighbors (enough so that even with State persecution they made up from a third to a half of the Roman Empire's population by the time of the conversion of Constantine). However, there were a number of contingencies in the apostolic age that profoundly affected subsequent history, and I am interested in exploring the roads not taken. I do not think that Christians were persecuted, on either a local or an empire-wide scale because they were good and the pagans were wicked. They were persecuted in the beginning because they were a small minority with (in-context) deviant practices and especially because, like the Jews, they would not swear to the divinity of the Roman Emperor, even unto death in the case of the martyr-saints. I mention the Jews because they had at least a temporary understanding with the Roman government about not being forced to worship the Emperor (though that probably had more to do with their being concentrated in a restive province close to the Parthian border than, in Graves' words "grounds of mere humanity", and of course after the Jewish revolt all bets were off). It is interesting to speculate what might have become of Christianity if, instead of largely being forged in the crucible of state persecution, they had merely been seen as one unexceptional sect among many.

Vivisfugue said:

What I'm looking for is some sort of formulation that would satisfy the locals that the X-tians were good Romans (a prayer for the Emperor's soul for example, but that probably wouldn't be enough)

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The Christians (Jews, too) did exactly this. Off the top of my head, I can think of twice St Paul is credited with commanding it. St Justin Martyr testified to Marcus Aurelius that all Christians did this (yet still earned his cognomen). I sure I can find other examples if I take some time to think about it.

I focus on the persecution in AD 64 Rome because it's the imperial capital and therefore more prominent, and because a POD prior to that allows both St. Peter and Paul to live out their full lives.

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I am not sure this will be the case. Suppose Caesar frees Paul. There is a good chance he still ends up martyred. I recall on account of him being nearly beaten to death in Greece. He had plenty of enemies in Jerusalem. There is a good chance he still ends up martyred.

Even if both Peter and Paul survive, Christians may still have a tradition of martyrdom. If you accept the Church's history, then all of Apostles except St John were martyred. Add to this Sts Stephen Protomartyr and James, the brother of Jesus, and there is quite a history of martyrdom even without Peter and Paul.

The fact is, Christians simply made too easy of a target. They were atheistic cannibals (at least that was the accusation) who didn't fight back. Add to that their tendency to criticize certain aspects of Roman society, it is hard to image them not being scapegoated from time to time.

The New Testament might get some more Epistles,

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Possible.

or there might be different versions of it (the two didn't get along, IIRC).

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Unlikely (see below).

Or ironically, allowing the two apostolic fathers to live might wind up making them into less notable figures in subsequent time.

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I doubt it. Even without martyrdom, their contributions are just too large.

A Christianity without martyrs might be less attractive to the theological shopper of late antiquity. Perhaps Christianity becomes one of those Eastern cults that turned up in Rome, enjoyed a brief heyday, and dies in favor of another.

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Again, I don't think you can keep them from being martyrs. Even without Imperial persecution (and even in spite of Imperial protection), they were martyred.

On the other hand, without intermittent state pressure in the form of persecution, Christianity might never have been subject to the centralization that took place in response. You might wind up with a thousand local Christianities, each with different versions of the New Testament and never agreeing on anything

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I have heard this claim many times, but I just don't buy it. From the earliest times, Christian groups were sending letters to each other to ensure uniformity. Other groups seem to pop up here and there, but they seem to lack the size and organization of the mainline group. Compare it to Judaism. There were plenty of outlying Jewish groups, including Gnostic ones, but they never really amounted to much (except, of course, for the Christians).

Also, without martyrology and such an overarching feeling of "Us vs. Them," there might be much more emphasis on living a good life, charity, etc, than on making a good death, Heaven and Hell, and eschatological ponderings.

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Um, perhaps you should review the writings of the early Christians.

Vivisfugue said:

I mention the Jews because they had at least a temporary understanding with the Roman government about not being forced to worship the Emperor (though that probably had more to do with their being concentrated in a restive province close to the Parthian border than, in Graves' words "grounds of mere humanity", and of course after the Jewish revolt all bets were off).

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I recall at least one pagan philosopher (can't recall who at the moment) who excused the Jews because their religion was ancient. I believe he took a 'better safe than sorry' approach.

While the Jews were concentrated in Judea, they were quite widespread throughout the empire. I would suspect it was at least the middle of the second century before Christians surpassed them.

Um, perhaps you should review the writings of the early Christians.

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Read? Me?! NEVER! (What authors/books would you recommend? I should mention that I'm driving under the influence of Bart Ehrman and wikipedia as far as my grasp of the history of the early Church goes.)

Actually, the question of literacy in worship is a quite important one. Religious life in the first and second centuries with what is likely to be a majority-illiterate congregation would involve a lot of being read to rather than reading oneself. Christianity didn't have a prominent tradition of lay reading of Scripture until the invention of the printing press (the Protestant Reformation as a knock-on effect of that invention is something of a historical cliche). A lot of the power of martyrdom is that it makes for good, compelling iconography - think of the Pieta, or St Sebastian. In the absence of such imagery, would the Christian message have such moral force? Or would the message of Jesus in the Gospels rather than the imagery of the crucifixion come more to the fore.

I'm perfectly willing to bow before superior scholarship than my own (I bow a lot) but there are three or four questions I'd like answered before I give up a prospective TL on this theme as a non-starter:

1) How much retroactive white-washing of Christian behavior was snuck into the historical sources we have? To give some example of what I mean, take the story of John the Baptist. Pretty much all we can be sure of about him is that he was a Jewish ascetic leader with a large following around the time of the late 20s and the broadest strokes surrounding his death. Yet in the Gospels he is presented as a cousin of Christ, and his message is given as merely prepatory to that of Jesus. I've often felt that the two movements-John's and Jesus'-might have been entirely unrelated or at least never met and that the authors of the gospels, writing decades later, might have skewed the narrative surrounding John into this form in order to further glorify Christ. We simply don't have a neutral account of what was going on at the time, and even if we did it would have been subject to subsequent revisions by generations of copyists and scribes, mainly Christians themselves (there is some question whether the reference to Jesus in Josephus is such an interpolation). In a similar manner, the early Christian apologists would have had an incentive to paint the most "saintly" possible picture of their co-religionists to the Roman authorities. You know how it's impossible to properly convey sarcasm on a text message board? The same holds true with papyrus. One can write that "St. So-and-So then offered a prayer for the emperor's spirit, and yet was martyred anyway." That says nothing about the (whiny, insincere?) tone of voice the saint might have said it in, and what he might have muttered under his breath on the way to the cross/arena/gridiron. Can anyone think of plausible counter-interpretations to the "goody two-shoes gets crucified" narrative that predominates in early Christianity? (btw I of course don't mean the story of Jesus)

I'm not even denying that early Christians were comparative moral paragons to their pagan neighbors

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Boy, that didn't last long, did it?

2) Different religions managed to coexist within the Empire, and I'm wondering what is so unrealistic about Christianity becoming one more of the same with the POD given in the OP. Without the inauguration of a tradition of official intolerance under Nero, what would have happened? Can anyone think of a plausible set of circumstances in which this could happen?

3) It's one thing to say that Christians strove for uniformity from the beginning, and another thing to consider how successful they were at it. It wasn't until after the conversion of Constantine and official recognition and favor that the first ecumenical council was called and they even began to truly hammer out something they could all agree upon - and even then they couldn't be said to have entirely succeeded. Council after council failed to reverse the periodic schisms that rent the church until the 600s when the loss of Egypt to the muslims basically forced the Imperial Church to give up on small-c catholicism.

Another quick thought - in the earliest persecutions, to what extent were the Romans aware of Christians as a religion distinct from Judaism? Was there a feeling analogous to "who do these young whippersnappers (theologically speaking) think they are?" This is the period still before the Jewish War, and so their (the Jews) accommodation from antiquity would still hold, while it wouldn't if the Christians had signifigantly differentiated themselves from the Jews. Only a few years down the line, of course, exactly the opposite would hold true.

Vivisfugue said:

To give some example of what I mean, take the story of John the Baptist. Pretty much all we can be sure of about him is that he was a Jewish ascetic leader with a large following around the time of the late 20s and the broadest strokes surrounding his death. Yet in the Gospels he is presented as a cousin of Christ, and his message is given as merely prepatory to that of Jesus. I've often felt that the two movements-John's and Jesus'-might have been entirely unrelated or at least never met and that the authors of the gospels, writing decades later, might have skewed the narrative surrounding John into this form in order to further glorify Christ.

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There is a lot more than that. Some of Jesus's disciples started out as John's followers (?Andrew?), and there is an explicit mention in Acts of ?Paul? meeting a group of believers who hadn't even heard of the Holy Spirit, all they knew was 'John's baptism'. Going from memory here, so I don't have precise details. At absolute minimum, I think it's clear that Christianity USED John as a fore-runner, and picked up a lot of his people after he was killed. [Personally, of course, I believe that John WAS the fore-runner.]