SPIEGEL: Professor Frankopan, seldom has there been so much religious diversity in the Middle East as in antiquity: Greco-Roman divine world, Egyptian cults, Judaism and much more. Then, however, Christianity rose from Palestine. A consistent development - or is the expert astonished?
Peter Frankopan: Of course the process is amazing, for at least two reasons: Christianity was far more stable than other faiths, and it soon extended to a surprisingly large area, especially to the east, so that it could eventually become a world religion.
SPIEGEL: But how does that explain? Salvation preachers existed at the time of Jesus in Mengen, as the British film satirists of the "Monty Python" troupe have already shown in their cheeky Gospel parody "The Life of Brian". One argument even sounds plausible: Jesus gained prominence just by being crucified; someone like that was obviously serious.
Frankopan: An abundant cynical view. Equally important to me is that very early in Christianity structures were formed. This does not usually happen to social outsiders. So Jesus gave a real echo with his message; the people who followed him and his teachings really felt changed, and that impressed more and more people.
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Peter Frankopan is Professor of World History in Oxford, where he heads the Center for Byzantine Studies. In 2016 he published his book "Light from the East. A new history of the world "(Verlag Rowohlt Berlin).
SPIEGEL: Did not there initially rather small, scattered communities, as is the case in Paul's letters around the year 55, often with different teaching focuses?
Frankopan: It is true that the sources often draw a one-sided picture. Thus, Christianity did not spread very rapidly on the Mediterranean. In the East, in Asia, on the other hand, it was quicker to reach India. Around the year 600, from Mesopotamia, for example in Basra, to today's Afghanistan and Kashgar, there are a lot of archbishops, in other words very well-established structures.
SPIEGEL: This is hardly mentioned in Western church histories. Why did things go faster in the East?
Frankopan: We can almost only speculate. Apparently, just the right mix of motivations, the right atmosphere for conversions, developed. Why did I become a historian? Out of interest, but also because I earn money with it, because coincidence and luck played a part, because to me it seems meaningful and sustainable, what I do, and so on.
SPIEGEL: What does that mean, transferred to Christianity?
Frankopan: Religions that promised eternal life were obviously quite attractive. The Christian lifestyle with its basic view that virtues are rewarded seemed plausible. Not to steal, not to harm the neighbor, and such was no longer a mere legal sentence, nor tied to reward or profit, but was upgraded to personal conviction. Christians who were serious appeared to be better people than people with a true purpose in life. Of course, there is also peer pressure, of course it needs a critical mass to convince the majority of the population. But that succeeded just amazingly often. By the way, around the Mediterranean, Christianity seems to have spread mainly through women, especially women of high social status. They obviously found a voice, both socially and spiritually. In the Middle East another factor played a part: here the view was wider, one dealt with cultures all over the world, was curious about a wise worldview.
SPIEGEL: Are you implying that it suddenly became fashionable to be a Christian?
Frankopan: That would go too far - after all, you risked a lot in the early centuries. Christians were subjected to persecution, not only in the Roman Empire, but also among the Sassanids, who enforced the Zarathustra faith quite violently in Persia. But in fact "saints" who lived their faith, even and especially as asceticism, made a great impression. Strict and disciplined, just such antiindividualistic features enjoyed respect. Interestingly enough, similar things can be observed today in radical Islam.
SPIEGEL: Not only did Christianity demand self-discipline, Jews, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and others did that as well.
Frankopan: May be, but by whom? Christianity explicitly appeared as non-elitist. It was beyond the social barriers, beyond them. It was subversive and internally community-building at the same time, so it seemed so dangerous to the emperors. And it was also clever in adapting - for example, we know a document in which the Holy Spirit is parallelized with the holiness of a Buddha.
SPIEGEL: Not to mention Hellenistic thinkers like Clement of Alexandria around the year 200, who lent Christianity its philosophical dignity with its imagery close to popular belief and made it so acceptable to the educated.
Frankopan: We should not forget that Christianity is a very human religion, that it accompanies the faithful on its journey of life, that it allows midtones, while in Zarathustra and Buddha it is more of a black and white, of purification from earthly baggage and suffering goes.
SPIEGEL: Constantine the Great, the founder of Constantinople and first emperor, who recognized Christianity as a religious belief, was even before shortly before his death admirer of the Sol invictus, thus paying homage to the sun as supreme deity. Was monotheism created in such cults?
Frankopan: Oh, that's more a question for professors. Sol invictus was one of many deities in the amazingly rich, plural spectrum of ancient religiosity. More importantly, the Gospels testified that Christ was the Son of God. And he will be executed! And he overcomes death! This victory in defeat emotionally touches people, connecting them with the deity much more existentially than the ancient faith, where demigods, demons, and countless other intermediaries operate. All in all: Christianity seems to have simply offered an attractive overall concept.
"There are a lot of martyr stories"
SPIEGEL: But did not secular factors also play a role? In your world history, you tell how Christianity flourished in the Caucasus, because it made you even better separated from the hated Sassanids.
Frankopan: People showed their identity in faith. Even later, Armenian Christianity proves to be particularly idiosyncratic.
SPIEGEL: What do you answer to the old question of whether Christianity was to blame for the fall of the Roman Empire?
Frankopan: I doubt that. The migration of peoples was a chain reaction, triggered by climatic changes leading to warlike pressure from the northeastern steppe peoples. When the Empire fell on the defensive under waves of attack, it was already Christian inside; The emperors had chosen Christianity, precisely because they considered it a stabilizing factor.
SPIEGEL: The belief in Jesus was by no means normalized in the early centuries. Do we know of syncretists who worshiped several religions at the same time or a mishmash?
Frankopan: Little - usually one paid attention to exclusivity. But there are inscriptions and coins from the Kushan empire centered in Northwest India and the Hindu Kush, which show that although the ruler, in principle, promoted Buddhism, he presented himself as the Redeemer, even as the Son of God. That may have been a smart move politically, but of course it's just as much a spiritual statement in which Christian elements are apparently taken up.
SPIEGEL: Did Christian persecutions also take place in the East?
Frankopan: Yes, there are a lot of martyr stories, mostly from the Sassanid period. We need to understand what that means: people were certainly no more limited intellect at that time than they are today. They usually chose to follow a religion very consciously. Questions like: "Where can I find peace of mind, which doctrine I trust?" could be very important existentially.
SPIEGEL: But not all were deeply religious?
Frankopan: Of course not. Most in the Persian Empire will have looked at the problem of faith as much as today's Europeans think in the majority: they scarcely cared. But there were always vociferous minorities who announced their messages and were in constant dispute.
SPIEGEL: You called the competition of religions a race ...
Frankopan: Yes, there was a lot of competition for followers. For example, if the Shah protected the Christians, it was a breakthrough.
SPIEGEL: Especially in the first few centuries, new, often dualistic, religious systems appeared, such as Manichaeism or the worship of Mithras, the bull-torment savior. Did not Christianity have to constantly sharpen its profile in the midst of such competition?
Frankopan: When it comes to redemption and the right way to God, then there is no approximation. Everything has to be right: what did Jesus really say? What is a Bible saying or a dogmatic rule? Or beyond the scriptures: Under what circumstances can someone marry again? May I flog my slave? If a child dies before baptism, can it still go to heaven? Thus, the bishops began to debate in pamphlets and councils on issues that sometimes seem terribly petty and even for experts are not easy to understand.
SPIEGEL: Did not you risk scare off many believers?
Frankopan: That may be, but in the first place, you're actually fighting for the right answers. Now anyone who has ever sat on a committee knows that compromises are needed. But often one gets tangled up in bizarre special cases. The bishops have mastered the challenge surprisingly well overall. Soon after the year 300, the clergy were so influential that their decisions were respected. Heretic pursuit becomes an important way to assert authority. This can be seen centuries later in the various church divisions, from the Great Schism 1054 to the Reformation and on.
SPIEGEL: A decisive step was the spread of Christianity beyond the densely populated zone from Gibraltar to the Ganges, roughly to the north. Steppe peoples, Slavic tribes, Germanic tribes, even nomads were proselytized. Why did Christians do that better than other religions?
Frankopan: City dwellers have always been prone to look down on rural people, to despise them as stupid farmers and savage barbarians. Christianity also had a metropolis version for intellectuals, but ultimately its message was addressed to all people. "Go and teach all nations," Jesus had said. That drove the missionaries - along with the prospect of doing a sacred work, saving one's soul and, in the worst case, ending it as a martyr. Around 550, even on the island of Ceylon, today's Sri Lanka, a Christian community witnessed.
Divyakant Solanki / EPA / DPA
Not only Christians have used the symbol of the halo since antiquity, but also other faiths, such as the Hinduism of the elephant god Ganesha.
SPIEGEL: But was the Christian doctrine with the Trinity and other formulas no more difficult to communicate than, say, the Zarathustra Faith?
Frankopan: In principle, yes. Nevertheless, the missionaries had much success. They were probably good preachers - I do not have a better explanation either. At times, they adapted their teaching to local conditions, picking up on Buddhist or Germanic concepts of the beyond.
SPIEGEL: But how did they manage to ensure that even the Emperor of China in 635 gave up his demarcation and recognized the Christian faith as equal?
Frankopan: Persistence, purposefulness? Exactly, you do not know it. On the part of the Emperor, it seems likely that he understood that it did not diminish his position, but benefited her when trading partners from the far west saw themselves respected.
SPIEGEL: Early on, Christianity, which had penetrated far to the East, was disconnected from theological debates in the West: at the Council of Nicaea in 325, Persian Christians no longer participate. In many church histories, the East is no longer mentioned. What happened to these communities?
Frankopan: They continued to flourish for an astonishingly long time. When the Portuguese arrived in India at the end of the 15th century and wanted to talk about Jesus and Christianity, they got the answer: Here is our church. Until about 1300 there were more Christians in Asia than in Europe. Even early Islam often left Christians unmolested; The Caliph has restored synagogues and Christian churches, in some cases even had them built.
SPIEGEL: Why?
Frankopan: Of course for the sake of political stability. But the so-called scripture religions are treated in the Koran - with its complicated, often contradictory text - just special. To spread the faith by fear seemed unwise; Jerusalem and Alexandria did not just let themselves be Islamic.
SPIEGEL: That sounds mild now. Was not the faith of the Prophet spread in swift, brutal conquests?
Frankopan: From a Christian point of view, it certainly seemed that way, and Muslim historians understandably tell of the triumph of Islam. Of course, there was always oppression, but not incessantly and everywhere. Far to the east, in central Samarkand, for example, Muslims are interested in the success of the Christian faith. In Tatarstan, one pays homage to Islam after the conquest, but when the new masters look away, they pray again for the trusted sun god. Such mixtures, such permeability have been many times.
SPIEGEL: As a historian, you seem to be more interested in similarities and cultural relationships than in the fate of a group.
Frankopan: Certainly - everything else would be one-sided and lead to wrong conclusions. That's why the matter of the halo is important to me.
SPIEGEL: What do you mean?
Frankopan: Few know that the halo as a symbol of images exists in a surprising number of religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and, of course, Christianity. There must be mutual influences at work. Exactly this will not be cleared up. But the facts are enough. If you know something like this, it becomes clear that religions are constantly stimulating each other and the spiritual search of man finds ever new forms.
SPIEGEL: Professor Frankopan, we thank you for this interview.