The Transformation of Early Christianity From An Eschatological to a Socialized
The book The Transformation of Early Christianity From An Eschatological to a Socialized was written by author Lyford Paterson Edwards Here you can read free online of The Transformation of Early Christianity From An Eschatological to a Socialized book, rate and share your impressions in comments. If you don't know what to write, just answer the question: Why is The Transformation of Early Christianity From An Eschatological to a Socialized a good or bad book?
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By the further process of idealization or sublimation, using the terms in their technical sense, the populace came to believe that Christianity was the great and superhuman (daemoniac) source of all evils; earthquakes, disease epidemics, famine etc. Seeking release for psychic tensions which were not understood and largely sub- conscious, they found it in a reversion to the oldest of the ' releasing instincts' that of hunting. The primary thing about the persecutions is that they were man hunts.... The cruelty exhibited, while also serving as a tension release for mob feeling, is psychologically a secondary form of such release — though a very old form. The dis- charge of the accumulated public sentiment and of the severe social tensions produced group action of two kinds: (a) Direct action: tearing the victim in pieces, gathering wood to burn him, striking him with sticks, stones, etc. (b) Expressive action, taking the form THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE POPULACE 67 ot shouts, cries and ejaculations which became customary and tradi- tional, 'Christianos ad leones.
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