The following post is the transcription of the first part of the talk I gave last summer at the ROM conference in Crikvenica!

Thank you, Bojan for the kind introduction. We know each other for more than seven years and I’m honored to be here. I’m a historian. My primary area of research is the history of early Christianity. The initial plan was to talk to you about the Historical Jesus; whether he existed and what can we know about him from a historical perspective. After giving it some thought, I decided it would be better to talk about something else – about the impact this incredible person from 2 000 years ago had in shaping our culture and life. As a preliminary note, I have to emphasize that my approach today will be historical. In other words, I’m not claiming any religious affiliation. This is pure history regardless of one’s religious identity. After the lecture, you are more than welcome to ask questions about anything related to the historical Jesus and early Christianity.

Despite Jesus’ warnings about the danger of greed, it seems that there were times when the medieval Church forgot about it. There were clerics living their lives in luxury forgetting the needs of the poor and less fortunate. The famous Italian poet Petrarch looked at the reality of the papal state in Avignon (14th century) and wrote these words: Here reign the successors of the poor fishermen of Galilee. They have strangely forgotten their origins. I’m astounded, as I recall their predecessors, to see these men loaded with gold and clad in purple, boasting of the spoils of princes and nations to see luxurious palaces and heights crowned with fortifications, instead of a boat turned downwards for shelter. To be honest, criticism of the Church came also from within its own ranks – one can mention St. Odo (10th century) who exceeded in his care for the poor and his criticism of the luxury with which some bishops surrounded themselves. But, where did this idea that charity is a good idea – even a moral obligation – came from? Did we always know how important it is to help the poor and destitute? In this lecture, I want to go back in time to Ancient Rome – to see whether Jesus and his followers had anything to do with it.

The expression “A Good Samaritan” is one most of us are familiar with. It comes from a story, a parable, Jesus told about a man who was robbed and left dead on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Two religious types walk by (one of them a priest), and they do nothing. Afterward, a Samaritan (an outsider despised by the majority of the Jews in Palestine) comes and he happens to be the one who helps an unfortunate victim. In Jesus’ eyes, this Samaritan is an ethical hero even though he is, in the predominant Jewish context, an antihero. Jesus expected his followers to care for people in need regardless of race, religion, or morality. By emphasizing the heroism of this Samaritan, and the antiheroism of the priest, Jesus was pointing out that sometimes religion gets in the way of universal compassion. If this idea of universal compassion sounds familiar to all of you, it’s because of the fact that Jesus influenced our world more than most people can realize. As a historian, I’m quite aware that ideas and ethical values cannot come out of thin air. Although we are accustomed to this idea of helping others (especially the poor and helpless), we must realize that this isn’t something that was always around. For the next few centuries after Jesus’ death, his followers searched for numerous and effective ways to follow his teachings and redress poverty. Our sources tell us that by the year 250 C.E. church of Rome was supporting 1500 destitute people a day! That means the church’s daily food roster for the poor was as large as the largest civic associations in the Roman Empire. And followers of Jesus were doing all this while their own legal status wasn’t that good. True, they weren’t constantly persecuted, but they had been ostracised in numerous ways! During the Diocletian’s persecutions (4th century) many churches were destroyed! Court records of the time highlight just how important charity was to the activities of Christians. For example, On May 19, 304 the Roman officials have burst into the church of Cirta (north Africa) hoping there were treasures hidden in the basement, just as there often were in the pagan temples. What they found was a simple storage room for the church’s work among the poor. The official records list the items:

1. 16 tunics for men
2. 82 dresses for women
3. 13 pairs of men’s shoes
4. 47 pairs of women’s shoes
5. 19 peasant capes
6. 10 vats of oil, and wine for the poor

Given this rich tradition of charity, I guess you could say the Roman really did find the true treasure of Christians! Here I have to emphasize that the Christian idea of charity itself relied on a much older idea. Long before Jesus, the laws of ancient Israel called on people to care for the poor, regardless of citizenship or social status. The underlying assumption was, as one ancient historian noted, that the surplus of the rich actually belongs to the poor. It is by no means an exaggeration to say that the ancient Jews invented what we call charity. The true innovation of the first Christians (who had a role model in Jesus himself) was to open up this charity to the world more strongly: to Jews, Samaritans, Greeks, Romans, believers, and unbelievers. The church’s reputation for charity was so strong that in the year 329 C.E. the emperor Constantine decided that churches should be exempt from taxation. The reason he cited was entirely practical: Who else is going to look after the poor and needy? The legislation itself explains: The wealthy must be there to support the obligations of the secular world, while the poor are maintained by the wealth of the churches. Long before anyone had thought of state-sponsored welfare, charitable services in the western world were entirely the business of the church. In a world that had no social services, in a world that had many slaves and very poor people (living on the edge as Peter Brown stated), followers of Jesus formed an organization in which people took care of one another, which in a sense provided social services that weren’t there for anyone else. In the mids of the 4th century, one emperor panicked. Emperor Julian was a devout student of Greek philosophy and pagan religion. So naturally, he did not look favorably on Christianity. As it turns out, he was the last pagan emperor! Julian left us a collection of letters to various imperial officials where he complained that these Christians helped everyone. He couldn’t stand that since he was afraid they are going to take over the Roman world with the help of their good deeds. In one of these letters, Julian wrote: The Galileans (as he called Christians) have devoted themselves to philanthropy. They have their so-called love feasts or hospitality or service of tables. They call it by many names because they have many ways of carrying it out. And the result is that they have led very many others into their atheism. Like many Romans before him, Julian considered Christians atheists since they rejected the worship of the traditional Roman gods. But perhaps the most interesting letter is one he wrote a few months later to the pagan high priest of Galatia named Acacius. In it, he gives something like a million dollars to establish a welfare system in the pagan temples modeled on the one he saw in the Churches of the Roman Empire. To put it bluntly: Julian wanted to beet Jesus’ followers at their own game. He saw how they helped poor people regardless of their religious status.

As my students know, Julian was unsuccessful. Part of the problem was the fact that he died after 18 months on the throne. But the real issue wasn’t the brevity of his reign. Nor was it the money: Julian was more than happy to give all the money he had to pagan priests in order to establish some kind of a welfare system. The real problem was much deeper. That leads us to the heart of the Graeco-Roman culture – an issue I’ll be dealing with next time.