Wednesday, April 21, 2010

When Christianity began it wasn’t very accepted, and even when it was made to the official religion it still was not very popular among many. The people had to accept the new religion and learn its doctrines. The fusion of pagan art into Christian elements was the best way to approach all of the different population and make them interested. One of the advantages of doing this would be that the Romans would be able to identify more if elements that they knew were used in Christian art. It would be easier to learn stories from the Bible if they were perceived from pagan culture. Characters from the Bible would be dressed in clothing and styles that were used during the time of the spread of Christianity.

Pagan influences were the best way to convert people to Christianity. But then again, pagan art has to do with polytheistic religions, so why use it to convert people into a monotheistic faith? This will possibly be one of the biggest disadvantages that leaders of the Christian church had to deal with. If Jesus would be portrayed with the godlike characteristic that say Apollo would have, then why would it be so wrong to worship Apollo and not Jesus’ faith? Or maybe to worship them all at the same time? This might have been some of the confusing questions that people did not understand about the Christian faith. So after everything, Christian art kept changing throughout the centuries, it has never settled to a certain portrayal of Bible characters or even the image of Jesus himself. Pagan blend was a good idea to start with for drafting people, but it wasn’t the best one, because it was not permanent.

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