Rome inherited the Greek’s polytheistic religion, but in the first century AD, a new religion emerged. Christianity took the world by storm. Eventually, it made the ancient Greek religion obsolete. Nero, Titus, and Domitian were a few of the emperors who persecuted the Christian Church because it undermined their gods. Eventually, Rome, Christianity’s biggest persecutor, accepted the religion. Today, Rome is the Catholic Church’s headquarters. The reversal stemmed from a lack of fulfillment in Greek religion, which focused heavily on external sacrifice instead of the heart. However, Jesus’ teachings resonated because He prioritized inward purification, not an external one. Clearly, the difference between the Greeks and Christians was significant. This essay is about the differences between the conflicting religions.
The first difference is about creation.
In Christianity, God created everything in six days by the power of His word. The only thing that existed “in the beginning” was the Triune God. One of His creations was the cherubim (warrior angel) Lucifer. The prophet Isaiah described Lucifer as the seal of perfection. Pridefully, he challenged Jehovah’s authority but lost the war when Jesus Christ, the Messiah, was crucified on the cross. That imperative event was the decisive blow that crushed Lucifer’s rebellion. The period between the crucifixion and Christ’s second coming was when Jesus subdued all His enemies, i.e., the other fallen angels who allied with Lucifer. However, the patriarch Job wrote about an event in the court of heaven. Satan/Lucifer was giving an account to Jehovah in the heavenly court. Why is that important? Because even during the peak of the rebellion, Satan was still in subjection to God. Throughout the entire war, God was sovereign. I address sovereignty in more depth later in this essay.
The Greek religion told a different story. In the beginning, there was nothing in the universe except Chaos. Chaos created other gods, sons, and daughters. Earth was one daughter who gave birth to a son, Heaven. She committed incest with him and bore the Titan gods. Cronus was chief among the Titans, and he castrated his father by his mother’s wishes. Zeus was the son of Cronus, and he waged a war against all the Titans. His allies were the Olympians. Eventually, Zeus defeated his father and declared Olympian sovereignty.
The Greek gods were created by each other. They also fought each other for power. Sovereignty switched from Heaven to Cronus and Cronus to Zeus through violence. Unlike the Christian God, who was always sovereign, power shuffled from one god to another. This is crucial because a deity’s authority is dependent on their power. If a more powerful god was born, their authority was threatened. Meaning the Greek gods only had authority insofar as they had power. However, the Christian Triune God was always the most powerful and always had the most authority. Yes, Lucifer challenged God, but he still recognized Jehovah’s authority when he gave an account of his actions in the heavenly court, as described by Job.
The second difference was over sovereignty.
As I alluded to earlier, the Christian Triune God in the Bible was always sovereign. The fallen angels still reported to God during Satan’s rebellion. Also, destiny and fate were products of Godly will, and divine providence governed all of life.
The opposite is true in the Greek religion. Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Dionysus, and others, had sovereignty under the authority of fate/destiny. Regardless of the gods’ desires, they could not intervene with destiny.
The Greek gods were bound by fate, they did not rule over it. That is an important distinction, which in some respects, robs from their divinesness. Unlike the Christian God, Zeus and his Olympian subservants were not omnipotent. Their power was still restricted by fate, giving them a quasi-sovereignty.
The third difference regards ethics for men and the gods/God.
In Christianity, the Triune God was the epitome of righteousness. He couldn’t sin since He was the standard of justice. His actions were perfection and an example to men. It was the duty of men to follow in God’s footsteps by following the law. The entire law was summarized in the Ten Commandments, which Jesus summarized as, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” In a nutshell, the law was love. The boundaries restricting men’s actions directed them to a perfect law of liberty, i.e., love. The Messiah came saying everyone forgot what the purpose of the law was. Israel taught externally legalistic rules that God never commanded and prioritized external purification through sacrifice. However, Jesus said that was missing the point. God commanded external sacrifice to signify the internal regeneration of our hearts, but in their zeal to obey the external, Israel forgot about the condition of their hearts. The Christian message was to repent from sin and strive to follow God’s law with a pure heart.
In the Greek religion, there was an emphasis on sacrifice. Since the gods were fornicators, murderers, deceivers, adulterers, and committed heinous sins, they provided no ethical standard. Zeus was not an uplifting and righteous god. Neither were his colleagues on Mount Olympus. For that reason, the gods ignored ethical behavior and purity of heart. Instead, they wanted sacrifices.
In the Bible, the Triune God said that if someone loves Him, they will keep His commandments. However, the Olympians wanted sacrifices if their followers loved them. Eventually, much of the world found the sacrificially focused religion insufficient, and the ethically driven Christian message of mercy attracted a huge following. The loving message Jesus Christ brought was so powerful, that thousands of people willingly gave their lives as martyrs in Rome.
In conclusion, the Greek polytheistic religion was the polar opposite of Christianity. Some of the differences surrounded creation, sovereignty, and ethics. Zeus was created and fought a war to earn sovereignty. The Triune God was not created, but He was the creator, and always had sovereignty. Zeus desired his followers to offer sacrifices, but the Triune God wanted obedience, morality, the law, and love. Those opposite characteristics are a few reasons why they are fundamentally conflicting religions.
Asher Sisneros 