Dead center in Roman history a new world view inauspiciously began in the east. In the Age of Augustus, a tremendously obscure religion, Christianity, arose among the Judaeans and quickly died out (with only a few people hanging on). This Jewish religion was, however, very quickly translated into a non-Jewish religion and spread among the Africans and the Greeks and Romans.
Two things aided the spread of this religion in the Roman world. At some level, aspects of the foundational religion accorded with the values, culture, and historical experience of Romans and Greeks. At another level, the religion was transformed into something more akin to Roman and Greek world views. In other words, it became less Jewish and more Roman.
The Good Shepherd
The Romans spent a great deal of energy "talking to themselves" about what it means to be Roman in terms of values, identity, and historical experience. One of the most common ways that Romans represent their experience and ideology is the genre of "the good shepherd," which has both literary and artistic representations. You will see below a statue of the "good shepherd." This is the single most common motif in domestic Roman art; as such it represents what the Romans thought of themselves and it articulated Roman values. The "good shepherd" is the ideal Roman. When the Romans "translate" Christ into their own culture, they draw on this pictorial tradition of the good shepherd, representing Christ in exactly the same terms as they represent the ideal Roman (so ingrained is this aspect of Roman Christianity that western Christianity still focuses on the nature of Christ as the "good shepherd" as a predominant aspect of the nature of Christ.
Your Argument
Identify what Roman values this sculpture represents and then use that explanation of those values to write a speculative paragraph on how you think those Roman values would change the nature or affect the Roman understanding of Christianity. That the Romans transformed Christianity is indisputable; in this assignment you should speculate on how they transformed Christianity.
The Materials of Your Argument
You are going to use the sculpture to describe how it represents Roman values. To do so, you need to use terms that are specifically about Roman values. You should define those terms and show how the painting represents those terms. You should also include historical and cultural information derived from the readings.
For the second part of your argument, you should use your discussion of Roman values in describing how the Romans might have understood Christianity and transformed it to better match their world view.
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