Zachary Tanana’s Reviews > Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World > Status Update

"That there existed a religion called Hinduism, and that it functioned in a dimension distinct from other human spheres of activity, spheres called the secular, was not a conviction native to the subcontinent..when after two centuries Britains rule was brought to an end and India emerged to independence, it would do so as a secular nation. A country didnt need to become Christian to see itself through Christian eyes"

The monk Gratian, in order to form a body of law consistent with the rulings of the Church over the centuries started with the assumption that all souls are equal in the eyes of God in accordance with natural law, and that the law served to equalize humanity, rather than uphold class differences. This view of law led to the idea of "human" rights, which is today the bedrock of all Judeo-Christian societies.

The reforms of Pope Gregory the 7th, that kings could no longer appoint bishops and that the Pope could depose emperors, carved out of the secular kingdoms of the world a properly Christian one, Christendom. The Church was finally separated from the state, something that would change the course of European society forever. Such power reminds me of the prophet Samuel, who took away Saul's authority as king.

With the popularization of the Before Christ (BC)/Anno Domini (AD) system in the 8th century by such people of the Venerable Bede, even the reckoning of time became Christian.

The saeculum, latin for "age" stood as the twin dimension to the religio, the passing generations of man with St Augustine's City of God, which was eternal. The dimension of the secular was envisioned by Christianity. Never before had a distinction been made between what was God's and what was Cesar's. Paradoxically, a secular society can only exist in a world permeated by Christianity.

The last pagan emperor Julian, raised a Christian, admonished the cult of Cybele to re-assert its religio by taking care of the poor like the Christians 'even our poor they care for'. This betrayed his Christian upbringing, the priests however were puzzled by this admonishment, they knew the gods never even pretended to care about the poor. Rome was becoming Christian whether it knew it or not.

The early church stood apart from the society it was embedded in. It was not a religion of temples and rituals, rather its people saw themselves as living stones and correct belief as proper religio. The Roman empire, seeking to rule the world correctly before the divine found itself embroiled in Christian doctrinal issues, things that seemed more appropriate for philosophers, as a matter of national security.

It's hard to overestimate the radical nature of the gospel in the first century, as many of the ethical commands seem obvious to us today after 2000 years of living in a society shaped by Christianity. But in antiquity it wasn't obvious at all that you should help the poor and treat people as having unique dignity before God, and it wasn't clear why one shouldn't revel in any carnal thing permitted by the emperor.

The Mediterranean world was untied by Caesar Augustus, worshiped as the divi filus(son of god). In this world where borders between people were coming down, Paul the Apostle, preaching a crucified Son of God spread his gospel, the Jewish God was now for all. For some like the Galatians, it was a calling to freedom from ritual, both pagan and Jewish, and to others like the Corinthians, it was restraint from sin.

Pompey the Great's conquering of Jerusalem and marching into the Holy of Holies in 63 b.c was only the latest defeat the Jews had to wrestle with. who unlike the cultures around them, believed they had a covenant with the supreme God, who allowed this evil to befall them. Their incorporation into the empire had them mix with cultures, create converts and with the greek Torah, establish a Judaism beyond the temple.