Early followers of Christ were a largely misunderstood group of people.

Because

of this, as Christianity spread and the Church grew larger so did the misconceptions and

rumors about the Church and its practices. Many people wrote about their beliefs of

what Christianity was, and while most were largely false and exaggerated they still took

hold in a society where Christians were very much hated and feared to begin with. There

were many common accusations against Christianity, and the Christian apologists wrote

to defend their faith against these slanders. Some of the most common misconceptions

about Christianity were, that followers of Christ were atheists, cannibals, their faith was

absurd, and that they were naive.

One common accusation against Christianity was that they were atheists. This

rumour took hold because of Christians refusal to take part in the traditional worship of

the empire. Because of this, people began to assume that Christians had no religion and

no god at all. In a time when religion was an integral part of almost every community,

this was completely unheard of to the people of ancient times. It was believed that the

gods that Christians rejected would have revenge by sending natural disasters such as

floods, earthquakes, plagues and invasion by other tribes and country. When anything of

that nature happened to occur, followers of Christ were the first to be blamed. Christians

were also accused of worshipping a crucified “thief”, and idea that they completely

rejected. The idea that Jesus was crucified for a legitimate crime was completely

contrary to the Christian belief that Christ was innocent, but died to save us from sin

and eternity in hell. All this along with the rejection of military service and political

affairs caused people to believe that Christians were bad citizens who wanted to

unstabilize the empire.

 Another accusation against Christians, although not as common, was that they

were cannibals. It was believed that the “body and blood” they consumed as part of the

eucharist was the flesh and blood of a child victim as part of a ritual murder. In AD 200,

Minucius Felix, a Roman lawyer, wrote a letter in which he perpetuated this

misconception. Felix wrote that in order to be “initiated” into the Christian faith, one

must “avidly lick up the blood of an infant and argue over how to share out its limbs.”

Earlier on in the dialogue he writes “The story about the initiation of new recruits is as

detestable as it is well known. An infant, covered with flour, in order to deceive the

unwary, is placed before the one who is to be initiated into the mysteries. Deceived by

this floury mass, which makes him believe that his blows are harmless, the neophyte

kills the infant…” Through this document we see Felix trying to further the belief of

Christians being cannibals. He believes that followers of Christ deliberately deceive new

converts by taking an infant, and covering it in flour in order to make it “resemble”

bread. He says they do this so that the initiated will believe he is doing nothing wrong.

Obviously this rumour is completely false and exaggerated as it goes against all

Christian beliefs and morals.

Christianity was believed to be absurd and believers were seen as naive. The

satirical writer Lucian wrote about Christians saying “The poor wretched have

convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for

all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves

into custody…” His writings are meant purely to ridicule the religion and point

Chriirsitans out as idiots. He believes that the idea of life after death is completely

absurd and that they have convinced themselves of this so much that they naively give

themselves over to death. He goes on to talk of how they deny the Ggreek gods and
worship “that crucified Sophist”. In that quote he is calling Christ a teacher who only

started the religion for some sort of self gain and that his teachings may sound nice but

are actually wrong. He wasn’t the only writer to call Christianity absurd. A Jew,

Porphyry called the virgin birth a reason for Christianity’s absurdity. “Even supposing

that some Greeks were stupid enough to thinl that gods dwell in statues, this would be a

purer conception than to accept that the divine had descended into the womb of the

Virgin Mary…” Porphyry who himself was interested in the occult sciences, rather than

religion, believes that the idea of Ggreek gods literally being in statues made by man was

more reasonable to believe than that of the virgin birth. He goes on to slander Christ,

because of the fact that he willingly took on the crucifixion as part of God’s plan, he says

“Why when he was taken before the high priest and governor, did not the Christ say

anything worthy of a divine man…? He ridicules Jesus for allowing himself to endure

the suffering he went through including, being spat upon and crowned with thorns. If

Porphyry only took some time to read the scriptures he would see that Christ came with

a plan to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah and to save all mankind

from sin. If Jesus had done anything to prevent his death, burial, and resurrection then

Christianity would be meaningless.

Although it seems that the misconceptions and rumours about Christianity were

so rampant that it would be hard to defend what was made out to be such a deceitful,

and evil religion. There were still Christian writer, known as apologists, who were

adamant about defending the faith they held so dear. An unknown author wrote a

deeply felt defense for Christianity addressed to Diognetus. “For Christians cannot be

distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs.” He

talks about how attempting to portray Christians as something almost other than
human is unreasonable because they are no different than any other person of society

from a basic human standpoint. The thing that distinguishes Christians from others is

the way in which they act, which is in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Later on he says “To put it simply what the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the

world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are

scattered through all the cities of the world.Through this quote the writer wants to

emphasize the fact that Christians are everywhere, interacting with everyone, but they

act as followers of Christ should act. They are in the world, but not of the world.

Tertullian of Carthage used many of the same arguments in defense of

Christianity as the previous unknown author did, but added a few more as well. In

addition to pointing out how Christianity has spread to all parts of the world he is also

quick to point out that Christianity is “a body knit together by the sense of one belief,

united in discipline, bound together by a common hope.” He wants to show the fact that

Christians simply share a common hope of eternal life and are not out to destroy and

unstabilize society as previous writers in this essay had believed. Tertullian also points

out that Christians are relentless in showing acts of love and kindness to others, but

these acts of love are ultimately what makes people despise the faith even more. “We

pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and all in authority, for the welfare of the

worlds, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation...But it is

mainly the deeds of a love so noble that leads many to put a brand of infamy on us.” This

is a trend we still see to this day. People will hate Christians simply because of the love

they show to other people. Based on Tertullian's defense of the faith we can see that it

was no different in the earlier days of Christianity.

 As we can see based on evidence provided in this essay, there were many rumours

about early Christianity, such as beliefs that early Christians were atheists, cannibals,

their faith was absurd, and that they were naive, some of which are still being

perpetuated to this day. Through this study, one can conclude that as long as there have

been Christians, there have been false claims and rumours spread about people of the

faith. Whether do to fear, misunderstanding, lack of knowledge, or simple just pure

ridicule people have and will continue to slander the name of Christ and attempt to tear

down believers as well. As long as Christians know that we need to stand strong in what

we believe and provide a strong defense for our faith, nothing will stand in our way.

Amen!

Nice, well-argued and well thought-out essay. Great job!