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Comparison of Approaches used by Hopkins in
A World Full of Gods The Strange Triumph of Christianity
(Chapters 1-4)
In his book, A World Full of Gods The Strange Triumph of Christianity, Keith Hopkins attempts a new way of presenting the history of early Christianity through an array of approaches.In his creative and interesting endeavor, Hopkins includes fiction, scholarly analysis, storytelling, and informal response letters from critical colleagues to formulate his views on early Christianity.These different, and somewhat daring, approaches incorporate a number of literary devices which may be seen as deviating from orthodox scholarship.However, this experimental method in how to write religious history employed by Hopkins gives his book a postmodern turn and directly affects the way the reader looks at early Christianity.
Hopkins begins with two imaginary time travelers, James and Martha, whom he has hired to go back in time to report the religious aspects of the Roman world and pagan society they encounter.After reading Hopkins' advertisement for volunteers, and his instructions to the two modern time-travelers, James and Martha begin their journey in Pompeii just before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.We learn of what Martha thinks of James, of her experience in a Roman bathhouse, and of James' experience in the public restrooms.From their reports, we see that they are intrigued, puzzled, and even shocked at the widespread "inappropriate" crudeness of Roman culture and practice, particularly in the open displays of sexuality.Martha makes the observation that, "These Romans seem to have a sexual fixation." (p. 1)
From this first chapter, we mostly witness how pervasive religion invaded public life.Martha expresses, "…there were temples and Gods, and humans praying to them, all over the place at the entrance to the town, at the entrance to the Forum; there were altar at crossroads, Gods in niches as you went along…" (p. 1).And from James, "…religion in the Roman world, as we saw it, was largely a matter of performance.Romans join in rituals-…as participants or spectators." (p. 4)These descriptions place early Roman religions in contrast to Christianity.These early Romans seemed to place no emphasis on the exact nature of their beliefs by the many ceremonies and rituals that seemed to include all; while Christianity is "an insider religion" with ceremonies strictly reserved for believers.Hopkins uses James' and Martha's reports to reveal the prevalent and unavoidable paganism in early Roman societies.However, he makes us aware of the difficulties in recreating the past by the fact that such accounts are made through modern eyes, leaving the history of ancient Rome open to various interpretation.
Hopkins changes scenes in chapter two by writing about the Dead Sea Scrolls in the form of a television transcript and once again entwines modernity with history. In this chapter, a modern television crew is sent back to Rome circa A.D. 71 to interview Isaac, a former Essene leader who committed a minor infraction and was removed from the order just before the Qumran community was annihilated and then moves to Rome with his nephew, Hilary.In the interview, given by the skeptical Jeffrey Axeman, Isaac interacts with a Jewish Christian preacher named Justin.In the dialogues, debate ensues between Isaac the Essene and Justin the Preacher because of their opposing religious views and there are detailed references to their positions in the respective Dead Sea Scrolls and the writings of Christian refuters.Through slippages in the show, there is commentary and interventions by a distinguished historian of religions (i.e., Professor Pelikan) and the television crew which makes comparisons to modern fringe Christian fundamentalists.Through this approach, Hopkins is suggesting the passion of the Qumran sect of Judaism that produced the scrolls.However, criticism arises that Justin Martyr lived several decades after the alleged debate and contests the legibility of the television show.This is Hopkins' way of revealing the difficulties in objectively documenting a religious movement's history.Hopkins' use of the method of dramatic narrative may appeal to modern readers but at the same time, it presents a view of the first Christian centuries that may be too vivid.
In his next chapter, "The Christian Revolution", Hopkins uses a much more straightforward approach.Hopkins recounts how Christianity, across four centuries, became tradition-bound and hierarchical, in part because of persecution and martyrdom, and many voices became one orthodox voice.Through conventional, objective analysis, Hopkins argues that Christianity really was a revolution.He says, "For the first time in Mediterranean history, religion had become a matter of choice, not of birth." (p. 80)This statement is due to Christianity being a religion of belief, in opposition to Judaism and paganism where traditional practice with settled adherents was predominant.Furthermore, Christianity evolved into a church united in orthodoxy of faith and tradition.It made progress toward its own institutionalization even though it was fractured by a variety of heretics throughout the second century such as Marcionites, Gnostics, and Montanists.Three developments, designed to defeat heresy, were fundamental in the supremacy of the Great Church the creation of a closed canon of specifically Christian scriptures, the tradition of apostolic succession legitimating episcopal power, and the assertion that a rule of faith existed.At the turn of the third century, such Christian ideologues served to carefully and continually specify the precise terms of their beliefs and were thus vital to Christianity's unification.
With the rule of Constantine and end of Christian persecution came the Roman government's support for the church's own self-regulation and such state support allowed the church to move toward a centralization of power.In addition, the first universal church council at Nicaea in 5, followed by others, gave even more strength to Christianity by homogenizing ritual and belief.Hopkins claims that symbolic growth, achieved through the construction of churches as central monuments and the pervasive penetration of Christian symbolism into the visual and private worlds, was one of the church's greatest advances during the fourth century.The Christian visual world was of extreme importance because its image and meaning were so different from the classical world of paganism.
This third chapter reveals how the whole symbolic world of the Roman empire had changed from paganism to Christianity by the end of the fourth century.In all the efforts for this conversion to take place and then to unify the different sects of Christianity in ancient Rome, Hopkins acknowledges that ambiguities do exist in the possible patterns of growth.Even though his accounts in this chapter seem to be objective, Hopkins makes us question whether true objectivity can be reached when we are not even sure of the dynamics of the transition from paganism to Christianity and presents further implications for the idea of an all-encompassing form of Christianity.
In chapter 4, Hopkins centers on some of the non-orthodox, non-canonical stories that supplemented the New Testament.Hopkins emphasizes the importance of stories in the recruitment of believers for a religion.For Christianity to grab followers and hold them, their stories had to compete with those of the polytheistic world and claim not only to be the only truth, but prove that all other religious stories are false.As a result, missionaries of Christianity re-told old stories and even told new stories to attract followers.For example, Jesus was a figure that could be piously reduplicated in the earlier stages of Christianity.So, in order to attract converts, this message had to be made through multiple reappearances and was done in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew where Andrew is a Jesus look-alike and thus one manifestation of God's spiritual emanation, appearing to humans in bodily form.Judas Thomas, presented as Jesus' twin, is interpreted in one instance as a metaphor for Jesus' own identity as a lesser reflection of himself, and believers' alternative identities as an enhanced image, not as elevated as Jesus, but that is within reach.Jesus' twin brother is also a symbol of a need to search within oneself for God.
As Hopkins re-tells some of these apocryphal stories, he urges us to recognize their important functions, despite their naivety.Hopkins states that, "All of them were proposing ethical and metaphysical solutions to core human problems." (p. 175)In the early stages of Christianity's development, intermediary figures, such as Andrew or Thomas, helped bridge the gap between the invisible God and the historical Jesus and quite possibly made Christianity more acceptable in a polytheistic world.This approach by Hopkins may, however, lead us to question the validity of canonical texts of the New Testament that partially arouse from stories with fictitious elements.
These first four chapters reveal a new approach to history which kept my interest as a reader as well as informed me of the early trends and origins of Christianity.Hopkins' original approaches also allow for the realization of the complexities that inevitably exist in the documentation of religious history.
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