Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World by Larry W. Hurtado

Abstract

Reviewed by: Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World by Larry W. Hurtado Najeeb Haddad larry w. hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016). Pp. xiv + 290. $29.95. For Larry Hurtado, what seems to be normal “religion” to us now is not what was normal during the first centuries of Christianity’s inception. Ultimately, H. is seeking to “address our cultural amnesia” (p. 1). His argument is twofold: first, he contends, by means of historical inquiry, that early Christian worship was distinct from other Greco-Roman religious and philosophical cults. He does not deny that the early Jesus movement resembles its Greco-Roman environment, arguing rather that early Christianity avoids being completely alien while maintaining its distinctiveness. Second, H. claims that what we now consider “religion” or “religious” is a result of Christian influence and was not true of Roman-era Christianity. In five chapters, he methodically demonstrates how Roman-era Christianity was radically different, not only in its approach to worship but also in its ethics. In chap. 1, H. discusses how Roman-era Christianity was a distinct religious phenomenon by examining Jewish and pagan criticism of the early Jesus movement. For a Jewish response to the early Jesus movement, H. appeals to the letters of Paul. I think this aspect of Paul is often overlooked, but H. makes excellent use of what we find in the Pauline corpus. H. then appeals to non-Christian Greco-Romans like Pliny “the younger,” Galen, Marcus Aurelius, Lucian, Celsus, as well as others. He suggests that their negative responses to Christianity were partly due to Christian withdrawal from cultic worship, which may have had negative ramifications, both social and economic (pp. 23–24). Furthermore, because Christians, unlike their Jewish counterparts, were actively trying to dissuade Greco-Romans from their gods, they were understood to be a threat to the Greco-Roman religious establishment. H. concludes that Roman-era pagans saw Christians as being very different from themselves. In chap. 2, H. shows how Christianity represents a “new kind of faith.” It was the Christians’ monotheism, their refusal of Greco-Roman cultic worship, and their denial of the existence of the Greco-Roman gods that made Christianity culturally odd. Indeed, Christianity lacked those things that were typical of ancient cults: “no altar, no cult-image, no priesthood, no sacrifices, and no shrines” (p. 43). H. emphasizes an exclusivity found in Christianity that is unparalleled in other Greco-Roman cults, for example, the cult of Isis or that of Mithras. Unlike the voluntary associations of the Greco-Roman world, Christianity demanded an exclusive devotion to the faith. In chap. 3, H. highlights Christianity as a shared faith, not by means of ethnicity as in Judaism but by means of belief and practice. He draws on the example of Jewish proselytization: Greeks who became Jewish would give up their Greek identity (ethnos) in exchange for a Jewish identity (ethnos), but Christian converts would remain Greeks, or Romans, or Jews. Their identity (ethnos) would not change, but instead their religious practice and way of life would become the defining aspects of their new religion. Chapters 4 and 5 shift from Christianity as distinctive in religious identity to distinctive in practice. H. suggests that early Christianity was a “bookish” religion, meaning that there was a great focus on Christianity’s efforts to make “reading, writing, copying, and dissemination of texts” common among its adherents (p. 105). For example, H. draws on the tradition that Pauline letters, though written to a specific community, were shared trans-locally [End Page 714] and read aloud (p. 112). Christianity also popularized and preferred the codex to the widely used scroll. H. points to the codex as an example of Christians deliberately trying to accommodate a larger body of documents, which shows that they were actively copying texts and sharing them. In summary, Christianity was uniquely text oriented “in the context of the varied religious environment of the time” (p. 141). In chap. 5, H. highlights Christianity’s distinctive ethic. Contrary to their Greco-Roman neighbors, Christians engaged in certain practices that made them unique, including...