Europe's inner demons

Yet this is not the whole story. If one compares the accusations against the Christians, as described by Minucius Felix, with the stereotypes concerning conspiratorial groups, the former are much the more outrageous; they represent, as it were, fantastically exaggerated variations on the traditional material. The conspiratorial groups around Catiline, Tarquinius and Apollodorus were said to have eaten flesh and drunk the blood of a man or a boy on one occasion only, to inaugurate the conspiracy; but Christians were said to devour babies as a matter of routine, every time a new member was initiated. And whereas the Bacchanalia were said to include homosexual practices, the erotic orgies of the Christians were said to be absolutely promiscuous and to include even incest between brothers and sisters, parents and their children. Moreover, it seems that only Christians were accused of worshipping the genitals of their religious leader. Such fantasies have a deeper meaning.

In almost every society sexual intercourse between close relatives— father and daughter, mother and son, brother and sister — is absolutely forbidden and is regarded as “against human nature”. The same may be said of the worship of a man’s genitals; that too is generally felt to be “against human nature”. Similarly, babies and small children, as helpless beings who are nevertheless the bearers of new life and the guarantors of the future, are expected to be protected and nurtured. To kill them and use them for one’s own nourishment is felt to be as “unnatural” an act as anyone could perform. To this one may add that, in societies which are not cannibalistic, cannibalism in any form is felt to be “against human nature”. In most societies, therefore, to say that a group practises incest, worships genitals, kills and eats children, amounts to saying that it is an incarnation of the anti-human. Such a group is absolutely outside humanity; and its relationship to mankind as a whole can only be one of implacable enmity. And that is in fact how the Christians were seen in the Graeco-Roman world in the second century.⁽³⁸⁾

That the Christian god was supposed to be worshipped in the form of a donkey points in the same direction.

The explanation lies in the absolute incompatibility of primitive Christianity with the religion of the Roman state. Roman religion had always been less a matter of personal devotion than a national cult. Ever since the days of the Republic the gods of Rome had been regarded as, collectively, its guardians — indeed, they were religious embodiments of the supernatural power and holiness which were felt to be indwelling in the Roman community. It was the duty of all Roman citizens to pay them due respect and reverence, in rites which were rigidly prescribed by traditions of immemorial antiquity. If this was done, the gods in turn would carry out their task of protecting the Roman people; but any slackness in observance would bring disaster upon the whole community. Innovations could be made, and were made over the centuries, without affecting this basic attitude. Thus when, from the second century B.C. onwards, vast numbers of foreigners streamed into Rome, every effort was made to harmonize their deities with the indigenous gods. The resulting syncretism was still a national cult.

Under the Empire, the Roman gods were intimately associated with the imperial mission. They came to be seen as guardians of the peace and order that the Empire brought, guarantors that the Empire would never pass away. And in addition, the emperor himself was deified. The worship of the emperor began in a veiled form already under Augustus, and was carried on quite openly under his successors. Deriving partly from the Hellenistic concept of divine kingship, partly from the Roman habit of identifying high office-holders with the protecting gods, and partly from political calculation, it bound together the western and eastern halves of the Empire. More and more, from around A.D. 70 onwards, a conscious policy of Romanization brought the native religions in the various provinces into association with the imperial cult. Throughout the Empire the emperor’s birthday was a religious festival, on which libation was offered. The emperor and the traditional gods together upheld the Empire, and reverence for them created and sustained a unified Graeco-Roman world.