red to Jesus Christ as God, then to the pagans this was a contradiction. "Christians threatened the hard-won view that there was only one God, a conviction shared by many pagan intellectuals in the early empire, and which was thought to be distinctly superior to the polytheism and anthropomorphism of popular religion" (Wilken p.106). The pagan philosophers gained from the scriptures that God was viewed as the father of all creation, so in accordance with this belief, how can the son be equal to the father? The pagans believed that "Excessive adoration of Jesus robbed the one high God of his proper due" (Wilken p.107). With major contradictions such as this in the Christian doctrine, it was not very difficult for paganism to postpone its end by pointing out these shortcomings.Although Christianity could be considered the underdog among the religions of its time, and despite of the heavy criticism that it received, it slowly began to grow and gain influence throughout the Roman Empire. As Christianity became more widespread throughout the land it began to muscle out the other religions, not literally, but the strength of the Christian faith overwhelmed most of the other religions. During instances where this was not the case, Christianity would draw on elements from its competing religions to create a newer Christianity which would appeal to the followers of the other religions. This was most common with paganism. "There was indeed hardly any basic pagan idea which could not somehow be transformed, and fitted into Christianity" (Murray p.36).One of the best examples examples of this adaptation of ideas is the development of the Christmas holiday. Many different factors went into the choice of a suitable date for the Christmas celebration. The earlier pagan religions had held a feast on December 25th in celebration of the winter solstice. The solstice was very meaningful to them because it was the time when their was the least a...
