Since the dawn of humanity, people have sought to understand the reality of the world in which they live. A common theme held by these seekers suggests that a supreme being exists (typically referred to as “God”) who interacts with the inhabitants of earth. Many people groups have expanded upon this idea throughout history and offered their own perspectives on the realities of God.
For centuries, Christian theologians have also examined, pondered, and debated the texts of the Bible in search for the true interpretation of scripture. Their studies have brought to the surface succinct tenets of what it means to be an orthodox Christian and what actually constitutes the being of God. In Westernized countries, Christianity has offered the most widely accepted understanding of God and the world. Modern Christianity embraces the belief of a Triune Deity, made up of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit—three separate personages in one. For many, this is a trustworthy explanation of the nature of God; for others, it is not so cut and dry.
These skeptics are quick to point out that amidst the formulation of religions such as Christianity, there has been much cultural, political, and social change surrounding them. Because of the ageless interactions between nations, cultures, and beliefs, many skeptic claim that unseen influences have occurred, surely influencing Christian beliefs from what they may have been, originally. These doubters sense controversy concerning the possible intersections of other religions with early Christianity—such as from African, Persian, and Greek/Roman cultures. These challenges may have some merit, so, in the interest of truth, an investigation is warranted.
To this end, this article will first offer to the reader a general understanding of who and what orthodox Christianity believes God to be. Secondly, the reader will be presented with the rudimentary beliefs of several religions that the early Christians would have come into contact with in their lives. Furthermore, the possibility of historical inconsistencies and weak theological integrity of these various religions will be touched upon, briefly. From these surveys, it will hopefully shed light on whether early Christianity borrowed any doctrinal ideas in the understanding of God from their regional neighbors.
The Christian Understanding of God
Perhaps the clearest example of the Christian orthodox view of God comes from the Nicene Creed—a statement of faith composed by the early Church by the Church Council at Nicæa in 325 CE, under the authority of Constantine the Great.[1] In it, the basic understanding of God and Christianity was articulated (as well as someone so transcendent can be). The Nicene Creed states,
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made...We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son], who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.[2]
God is seen as the creator but also as a person, one with Jesus, His son, who is also God and one with the Holy Spirit, who is also God. Thus, the orthodox view of God is as a Triune entity, made up three distinctive yet encompassing persons. The key statement from the Nicene Creed for this paper’s purposes is, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son], who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.” One can see that the statement promotes the Trinity as more than just a force or simple personage. God is a complex being, made up of three members who intricately share in their lives together—Father, Son, and Spirit.
Of course, this understanding is not without problems. The reality of the Trinity is a difficult concept to understand and questions have arisen over the centuries as to its origins. Many skeptics have pointed out that though the New Testament is replete with references to the Holy Spirit, the Old Testament lacks similar proof. Yet, although the same exact terms may not necessarily be used in both Testaments, nevertheless, a clear presentation of the Holy Spirit as Hiss own person can be perceived from a variety of scriptural sources.
Genesis 1:2 states, “The Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” Note the author of Genesis purposefully chose the words, “Spirit of God” and not just “God.” Genesis 1:26 states, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The use of “us” and “our” indicate plurality of persons, not singularity. Exodus 31:3 further states, “And I have filled him with the Spirit of God.” Again, the Spirit is spoken of as a real entity, not just a mood or passion. The Spirit is seen to have purpose and intent in its actions.
These verses demonstrate that the Spirit of God, as a unique personage with and in God, was included in the Biblical texts from 2500-4000 BCE.[3] As such, the Old Testament and New Testaments are still able to make claims to a monotheistic God. Other religions may make similar claims to Christianity, but the authenticity of their sources is often suspect due to the time frame of their arrival on the religious scene, dubious authorship, and unsanctioned alterations or additions.
As mentioned earlier, for a full examination of the question of extra-cultural influence on early Christianity, it is essential that the religions surrounding the early Christians be inspected. Therefore, three main regions will be examined—Africa to the south, Persia to the East, and Northern Europe.
The African Understanding of God
In considering the African understanding of God, it must be acknowledged that owing to the size of that continent, a great number of divergent theologies exist. So, to narrow down African Theistic thought to a few concepts is difficult, to say the least. However, in the pursuit of truth, some generalizations will be made.
First of all, the “most minimal and fundamental idea about God, found in all African societies”[4] has God as “the Supreme Being.”[5] He is considered “omniscient”[6] and “knows everything, observes everything and hears everything, without limitation and without exception.”[7] At this level, African theology may have some things in commonality with Christianity; however, from there on, the theology shifts in a dramatically different direction.
God is considered Spirit but not in the Orthodox Christian way. For the African people, “In theory God is transcendental but in practice He is immanent.”[8] In other words, although God resides in a dimension outside of normal time and space, He still manifests Himself to humanity in “natural objects and phenomena.”[9] This belief crosses over to animism (the attribution of conscious life to natural objects or to nature itself) and pantheism (identifying the deity with the universe and its phenomena) in a variety of ways. Widening the gap further, many African tribes believe that God “does not eat, and has no messengers”[10] nor family—completely contradicting the life and nature of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as well as the whole Trinity as presented in the Bible.
Perhaps most importantly, the African understanding of the nature of God suggests that “People might know some of His activities and manifestations, but of His essential nature they know nothing.”[11] God, then, is “mysterious and incomprehensible, as indescribable and beyond human vocabulary.”[12] This concept completely disagrees with the Christian view of God.
According to the Bible, God has revealed Himself in so many ways that it would be hard to say that humanity has no notion of His nature. The Apostle Paul proclaims in Romans 1:20,
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
Moreover, in 1 John 4:16, it states that “God is Love” whereas in African Theology, “There are practically no direct sayings that God loves.”[13]
This lack of intimate connection with God is further exemplified in the theology of ancient Egypt. One of the more ancient civilizations that clearly should have influenced Middle East thought, Egyptian religious thought was rather superficial. Their theology “did not possess the terminology for the expression of a system of abstract thought...[they] thought in concrete pictures.”[14] Thus, the two most important parts of life to the Egyptians were the sun and the Nile and the Egyptians molded their religion around those forces of nature.
Furthermore, as the Egyptian theology evolved, “The forms of the state began to pass over into the world of the gods.” Religion in Egypt became politicized. In Egyptian theology, through reincarnation, “The deceased Pharaoh became Osiris and enjoyed the same resuscitation by Horus and Isis, all the divine privileges, and the same felicity in the hereafter which had been accorded to the dead god.”[15] Ironically, whereas in the majority of Africa, God was a transcendent spirit, untouchable by humanity, in Egypt, God was a mortal, human pharaoh.
Clearly, Egyptian and Christian theology have little in common. There is no Egyptian counter-part to the Trinity. In Egypt, theology was used to govern the people through power and might. In Christianity, love and servanthood were (and still are) the hallmarks of godly living. Egypt enjoyed many separate and distinct gods but early Christianity had just one God.
The Persian Understanding of God
As Christianity got its start in Judea and Galilee, it is reasonable to wonder how much its Persian neighbors to the east influenced its development. A great deal of trading, both of goods and social conventions, passed back and forth in the Middle East and religious movements—such as the Zoroastrians, who interestingly appear to share commonalities with Christianity.
In fact, many Zoroastrians claim that “It is probable that the Jews were influenced by the Zoroastrian faith of Iran in those days—and took the concepts of heaven/hell, God’s evil adversary, the resurrection and the final purification of the world-the virgin birth, the Saviour, etc.”[16] from them. In addition, they assign a date of 6000 BCE[17] as the date of the founding of Zoroastrianism. With the similarities to Christianity and the claim of an earlier historical origin than that of both Christianity and Judaism, it appears that Zoroastrianism could have a valid claim of being a strong influence.
Yet, appearance is not always reality, and put to the scrutiny of historians, scholars, and theologians, the Zoroastrians’ assertion lacks merit. To begin with, the time frame suggested by most conservative Zoroastrians can easily be debated because “The collection of Zoroastrian teachings was not completed until the fourth century CE—centuries after the early Christian movement began, leaving in some doubt who may have influenced whom in such matters as angels, resurrection, and eschatology.”[18]
Additionally, eight hundred years is a long time to maintain textual integrity during such an intense period of social change and upheaval. Secondly, even accepting the date of 600 BCE as the birth of Zoroaster[19]—(the Greek name for Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism), the Jews in captivity in Persia had been reading for hundreds (if not thousands) of years of a God of justice, love, and mercy and of the coming messiah in David’s Psalms and Isaiah’s prophecies. To say that the Jews owed their theology to the Zoroastrians is like claiming the United States owes its freedom to the Young Democrats.
Beyond these historical problems, an in-depth study of the Zoroastrian understanding of God shows it falls far short of the Christian view. Much like the Egyptians, Zoroastrian theology is superficial and operates at a more basic level than Christianity. The Zoroastrians worship “a single god, Ahura Mazda, who is supreme.”[20] As spirit, their God “has no size, form or weight and therefore, it cannot be described physically.”[21] The Zoroastrian God, like the Egyptian god, Re, is a god of light and fire, which “is a symbol of their God.”[22] There is a strong dualistic nature to the Zoroastrian God and their whole faith.
Although the Gospel of John also makes reference to God as light, it is presented in conjunction with God coming in the form of a human being, sent to be humanity’s redeemer. In Christianity, this paradoxical and simultaneous ontology of humanity and divinity occurs through Jesus Christ. Zoroastrianism solely promotes the idea that “Humans are responsible for their own fate.”[23] Furthermore, contrary to the Christian principle of sharing the Gospel with the World, the Zoroastrians do not accept converts. To be part of the faith, one has to be born into it. Such an approach clearly suggests Gnostic tendencies.
The Greco/Roman Understanding of God
Christianity did not only have to face pantheism, polytheism, Gnosticism, and dualism in its fledgling days. It also had to contend with the Hellenism of the Roman Empire, which promoted all things Greek—including its religions. This is perhaps one of the strongest areas of debate for the skeptic because the philosophic approach of the Greeks and Romans had a sophistication and depth similar to that of Christianity. The Christian ideals of heaven, perfection, and godliness have long been attributed to platonic influences and most of the Epistles in the New Testament show form and function commonly used in the Greco/Roman culture.
Philosophic approaches aside, theologically, the Greeks and Romans were polytheists, at least in word, and had a number of Gods to choose from. The Roman gods were the same as the Greek gods but with different names. The Romans also promoted their gods in status to “state-gods and were caught up in political religion.”[24]
Zeus, as the head deity or “sky-god,”[25] stood for “righteousness”[26] although he and the other deities were less than perfect. Often, the Greco-Roman gods suffered from poor choices and ill-fated occurrences. Zeus was often adulterous and deceptive in his dealings with mortals and immortals. Although Zeus was a supreme being, he had a father—Cronus—and a mother—Rhea.[27] Thus, he was a created, flawed, yet all-powerful being.
As the Roman Empire progressed through time, religion became more syncretistic and “a new stress on the demons, the intermediate spirits, and new gods from the east and south came in alongside the old.”[28] The Romans worried little about tainting their faith with new gods. In fact, their approach went hand-in-hand with the nature of Hellenism. The historian Polybius considered the Greco-Roman gods to be merely “an opiate for the people.”[29] Eventually, much like the Egyptian pharaoh’s, the flawed (and often unbalanced)Roman emperors even began to be worshiped as divine.[30]
Suggesting that Christians borrowed their doctrine from Greco-Roman theology is a weak position to take for not much of the Greco-Roman gods corresponds with the Christian God. The Christian God, however, was above all one of purity, love, and goodness, but the Greco-Roman Gods were more like mortals with special powers (think “postmodern Avengers”). The Christian God required piety and self-control, but Greco-Roman gods (like Bacchus and Mars) promoted lustful, epicurean living. In a strong sense, then, the Greco-Roman gods probably would have been considered by the early Christians as models of everything bad and therefore, undesirable.
Conclusion
By casually reviewing the various religions surrounding the early Christian church, it is easy to superficially presume that it might seem realistic that some elements of Christianity may have been borrowed from other cultures. There are hazy similarities that could lead one to propose such a theory. Terminology and religious metaphors are tossed around in such a fashion as to imply sameness.
However, upon deeper inspection, it is clear that in most cases, in principle, early Christianity operated on a much different depth than other religions. Whereas most other religions appeared to focus on humanity’s role in life, Christianity mandated focusing on a pure and holy God. This surely lead to a high standard of consistency and integrity and one demonstrated by the words of John in the New Testament. He writes,
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”
Likewise, in the present time of syncretistic embrace and substitutional pretense, the postmodern church should heed John’s words and keep its eyes Heavenward toward a Triune God who is authentically and authoritatively one in Person, Spirit, and Love.
Bibliography
Breasted, James. Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. Philadelphia: University of Pennslyvania Press, 1972.
Hailey, Henry, ed. Halley’s Bible Handbook. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965.
Havewala, Porus Homi, “Who are the Zoroastrians,” [Online] August 6, 2001, <http://members.ozemail.com.au/~zarathus/zor33.html>
Jeffers, James. The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament. Illinois: InterVarsity, 1999.
Keller, Werner. The Bible As History. New York: Bantam, 1980.
Mbiti, John. African Religions and Philosophy. New York: Anchor, 1970.
Mistry, Pervin J., “Spirituality in Zoroastrianism,” [Online] August 6, 2001, <http://members.ozemail.com.au/~zarathus/spirit33.html>
Lewis, James and William Travis, Religious Traditions of the World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.
Parada, Carlos, “Zeus, Greek Mythology Link,”[Online] August 6, 2001, <http://www.hsa.brown.edu/~maicar/Zeus.html>
Parrinder, Geoffrey, World Religions From Ancient History to the Present. New York: Hamlyn, 1971.
Robinson, B.A., “Zoroastrianism,” [Online] August 6, 2000, <http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm>
”The Nicene Creed,” [Online] August 6, 2001, <http://www.mit.edu/~tb/anglican/intro/lr-nicene- creed.html>
Endnotes
[1] Livingstone, Oxford Concise Dictionary, 400.
[2] http://www.mit.edu/~tb/anglican/intro/lr-nicene-creed.html.
[3] Halley’s Bible Handbook, 34.
[4] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 37.
[5] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 37.
[6] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 39.
[7] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 40.
[8] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 43.
[9] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 43.
[10] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 43.
[11] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 45.
[12] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 45.
[13] Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 49.
[14] Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought, 8–9.
[15] Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought, 39.
[16] Havewala, “Who are the Zoroastrians.”
[17] Robinson, “Zoroastrianism.”
[18] Lewis and Travis, Religious Traditions of the World, 57.
[19] Havewala, “Who are the Zoroastrians,” [Online] August 6, 2001.
[20] Robinson, “Zoroastrianism.”
[21] Mistry, “Spirituality in Zoroastrianism.”
[22] Mistry, “Spirituality in Zoroastrianism.”
[23] Mistry, “Spirituality in Zoroastrianism.”
[24] Parrinder, World Religions, 149.
[25] Parrinder, World Religions, 147.
[26] Parrinder, World Religions, 148.
[27] http://www.hsa.brown.edu/~maicar/Zeus.html.
[28] Parrinder, World Religions, 159.
[29] Parrinder, World Religions, 166.
[30] Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World, 17.