Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36369
Title: The daily life of second century Christians
Authors: Grech, Prospero
Keywords: Christianity -- 2nd century
Christian life -- 2nd century
Stoics
Christianity and other religions
Issue Date: 1990
Publisher: University of Malta. Faculty of Theology
Citation: Grech, P. (1990). The daily life of second century Christians. Melita Theologica, 41(2), 87-96.
Abstract: The Church in the second century is a church in search of identity. It is born from Judaism but it is not Jewish. It lives among pagans and shares some of their customs and beliefs, as we shall see, but it is not pagan. It has philosophers but it is not a philosophy. It is a faith in a risen person; it is faith in the risen Christ. This faith is preached first to the Jews, then to the pagan world. What is this pagan world? It is not an atheistic world, by any means. Greeks and Romans believed in a divinity and in divinities. They had in common with the Christians a religious feeling; in fact, St. Paul, in his speech on the Aeropagus begins with praising the religious sensibility of the pagans of Athens. Some schools of philosophy, especially Stoicism, had very much in common with Christian doctrine. Stoic philosophers believed in one god, an immanent god, the soul of the world. They demythologized the many pagan gods, and professed a strict morality which can be compared with Pauline or Jewish ethics. The mystery religions took a more mystical turn and inspired their followers to escape from this world and entrust themselves to some divinity in a very personal manner.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/36369
Appears in Collections:MT - Volume 41, Issue 2 - 1990
MT - Volume 41, Issue 2 - 1990

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