The Invention of Religion by Christians in 350 CE

How Late Roman Christianity Created Religion as an Institution Separate from Ethnicity, Law, and Politics

Religion as an autonomous institution first crystallized within early Christianity inside the Roman Empire, shaped by a Latin-speaking and Greco-Roman cultural environment. The earliest text to acquire the status of a religious book was Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη (the New Testament). Before this, no standalone religious book or theological monograph existed in Greek Athens, Egypt, or the wider Hellenistic world, and no Latin text treated religion as an independent system. Even Cicero, despite his rhetorical excess, never spoke of religion as such. Likewise, no Hindu religious book was written in Sanskrit, Prakrit, or Pali before 1000 CE; the first is attributed to Madhvacharya (1238–1317 CE), with the Sreemad Bhagavatam presented as the earliest religious book written in India. Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) neither spoke about religion nor founded one; his Saṅgha was a monastic order, not a religion.

The expression Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη appears within the text itself (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25), yet for centuries it did not denote a single sacred volume. Tertullian in the third century may have used it loosely for Christian writings, but until about 375 CE, the phrase “holy book” referred exclusively to the Hebrew Scriptures. Anything not written in Hebrew could not be holy in any sense. The New Testament as a single-volume religious book emerged only around 400–405 CE. Jerome’s Vulgate, often projected back to late antiquity, is better understood as a ninth-century production accompanied by a spurious introductory letter attributed to Jerome.

A serious debate remains over whether Christianity, arguably the first invented religion, was Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. In any case, it was never a Hebrew religion and never the religion of Palestinian Hebrew- or Aramaic-speaking ethnic tribal Jews. Jewish identity was ethnic, tied to descent from one of the Twelve Tribes said to have migrated from Egypt around 1250 BCE. The Temple of David–Solomon and the Second Temple, funded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Persian Empire after the Babylonian Exile (539–538 BCE), functioned as an ethnic and cultural center, not a religious sanctuary. The Beit HaMikdash (“house of learning”) was cultural, not ecclesiastical. Judaism was ethnic before it was religious; “religious Jews” are a late development, comparable to modern secular Jews. Reading the Talmud and observing Halakhah are ethnic practices. Conversion, in this sense, requires adoption into tribal identity, even association with a tribe such as Manasseh, later linked to communities in Northeast India.

Again At the same time in 1250 BCE, people in India were reciting the Ṛgveda and performing Yajña, while neighboring Irano-Persian groups adopted similar sacrificial practices under the guidance of Zarathustra. Egypt already possessed a mature culture with established civilizational practices. Zarathustra reworked elements of the ancient Vedic traditions of Yajña and Dharma within the Persian milieu. The Hebrew Scriptures were later edited and consolidated by Ezra–Nehemiah in the sixth to fifth centuries BCE, together with the ethnic Deuteronomic law code.

Ritual immersion in Jewish law, tevilah, long predates Christianity and served as ritual purification (tumah) rather than physical cleansing. It is not commanded in the Ten Commandments. Ancient Jewish purity rules concerning corpse contact (Numbers 19), skin diseases (Leviticus 15), and bodily emissions parallel Indic practices. The fully developed mikveh, requiring total immersion in “living water” (mayim ḥayyim) with no barrier (chatzitzah), was formalized by ethnic Jews in the third century, partly in resistance to Greek and Roman cultural influence. Circumcision functioned as an ethnic marker, likely adopted from Egyptian culture; its earliest depiction appears in the Tomb of Ankhmahor at Saqqara (c. 2400–2300 BCE).

The term “religion” in Christianity derives from Latin religio, associated with Roman civic or military obligation. In Greek and Latin, ἐκκλησία (ekklesia) denoted a legislative assembly, as used by Herodotus and Thucydides. Thus, Matthew 16:18 (“on this rock I will build my ekklesia”) signals a new law-making body superseding Jewish ethnic law, not a generic spiritual community. The Hebrew qahal likewise meant a gathering, not a religion. Jesus never spoke of religion as a categorized, institutional system; such a concept did not exist before the fourth century.

The first explicit religious edicts emerged in the Roman Empire: the Edict of Serdica (311 CE) under Emperor Galerius, ending the Great Persecution and granting toleration to Christians (attested in De mortibus persecutorum, c. 320 CE); the Edict of Milan (313 CE) under Constantine I and Licinius, establishing universal toleration and property restitution; and the Edict of Thessalonica (380 CE) under Theodosius I, making Nicene Christianity the state religion and suppressing traditional cults. On this basis, religion as an official institution can be dated to around 350 CE. The term Χριστιανισμός (Christianismos) appears only after 250 CE and enters English in the fourteenth century. Early adherents were known as followers of “the Way” (ἡ ὁδός) (Acts 9:2), not as followers of Jesus. Paul preached Christ without knowledge of the historical Jesus; Jesus of Nazareth was incorporated later—after 380 CE—along with figures such as Peter and Thomas.

Religion, defined as an authority separate from politics, administration, legislation, land, and militia, governed by a distinct hierarchy, was born in late Roman Christianity. Subsequent religions arose in imitation of or in reaction to this model. Rabbinic Judaism developed defensively alongside Christianity and Islam. Hinduism and Hindutva emerged in response to Christian and Islamic pressures; Sikhism under Guru Gobind Singh formed to protect Sanatan Dharma; Nāga Sādhus arose around 1300 CE to defend North India and the Kumbh Mela from the Turkish Muslims in Delhi. Sanatan Dharma itself is neither Hinduism nor a “religion” in the European sense, nor merely a “way of life.” What religion is has been stated here in brief; elsewhere, it can be elaborated.

Bibligraphy

1. Wilfred Cantwell Smith
   1962, Harper & Row
   The Meaning and End of Religion
   Foundational work arguing that “religion” as a fixed, reified system is a modern invention. Essential for understanding why ancient societies did not conceive religion as a separate entity.
2. Peter Brown
   1971, University of Chicago Press
   The World of Late Antiquity
   Explains how Late Roman Christianity transformed social, legal, and political life, providing context for the institutional birth of religion.
3. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix
   1981, Duckworth
   Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy
   Details how Christianity moved from sect to state-backed institution, clarifying the role of Roman power in defining religion.
4. Daniel Boyarin
   2004, University of Pennsylvania Press
   Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity
   Demonstrates that Judaism and Christianity separated only after Christianity became institutionalized, supporting the idea that “religious Judaism” is a later response.
5. Brent Nongbri
   2013, Yale University Press
   Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept
   Directly supports the claim that “religion” did not exist as a category in the ancient world and emerged from Christian and Roman legal discourse.
6. Paula Fredriksen
   2017, Yale University Press
   Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle
   Shows that Paul preached Christ without a historical Jesus-centered religion, reinforcing the argument that early Christianity was not “religion” as later defined.
7. Shaye J. D. Cohen
   1999, Yale University Press
   The Beginnings of Jewishness
   Establishes Judaism as originally ethnic rather than religious, crucial for understanding Jewish identity before Christian categories.
8. Mary Douglas
   1966, Routledge
   Purity and Danger
   Explains ritual purity systems (including Jewish tevilah) as social and ethnic regulation rather than religious belief.
9. Jan Assmann
   1997, Harvard University Press
   Moses the Egyptian
   Explores Egyptian influence on Israelite identity and law, relevant to circumcision, purity, and cultural transmission.
10. Samuel N. C. Lieu (ed.)
    1998, Routledge
    The Edict of Milan: Religion and Politics in the Roman World
    Essential for understanding how Roman imperial law formally created “religion” through toleration and enforcement.

De mortibus persecutorum Section 34

“1 Inter cetera quae pro rei publicae semper commodis atque utilitate disponimus, nos quidem volueramus antehac iuxta leges veteres et publicam disciplinam Romanorum cuncta corrigere atque id providere, ut etiam Christiani, qui parentum suorum reliquerant sectam, ad bonas mentes redirent,

2 siquidem quadam ratione tanta eosdem Christianos voluntas invasisset et tanta stultitia occupasset, ut non illa veterum instituta sequerentur, quae forsitan primum parentas eorundem constituerant, sed pro arbitrio suo atque ut isdem erat libitum, ita sibimet leges facerent quas observarent, et per diversa varios populos congregarent.

3 Denique cum eiusmodi nostra iussio extitisset, ut ad veterum se instituta conferrent, multi periculo subiugati, multi etiam deturbati sunt.

4 Atque cum plurimi in proposito perseverarent ac videremus nec diis eosdem cultum ac religionem debitam exhibere nec Christianorum deum observare, contemplatione mitissimae nostrae clementiae intuentes et consuetudinem sempiternam, qua solemus cunctis hominibus veniam indulgere, promptissimam in his quoque indulgentiam nostram credidimus porrigendam. Ut denuo sint Chrsitiani et conventicula sua componant, ita ut ne quid contra disciplinam agant.

5 aliam autem epistolam iudicibus significaturi sumus quid debeant observare. Unde iuxta hanc indulgentiam nostram debebunt deum suum orare pro salute nostra et rei publicae ac sua, ut undique versum res publica praestetur incolumis et securi vivere in sedibus suis possint.”

English Translation

“Among other things that we always arrange for the public good and benefit, we indeed wished to correct everything according to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans and to provide for this, so that even Christians who had abandoned the sect of their parents would return to good minds,

2 since for some reason such a will had invaded the same Christians and such foolishness had taken possession of them, that they did not follow those institutions of the ancients, which perhaps their parents had first established, but at their own discretion and as they pleased, they made laws for themselves to observe, and gathered various peoples together through different places.

3 Finally, when our command of this kind had been issued, that they should conform to the institutions of the ancients, many were subjected to danger, many were also disturbed.

4 And since many persisted in their purpose and we saw that they neither paid due worship and religion to the gods nor observed the Christian gods, contemplating with contemplation our most gentle clemency and the everlasting custom by which we are accustomed to pardon all men to indulge, we believed that our most prompt indulgence should be extended to these also. That they may once again be Christians and arrange their assemblies, so that they may do nothing contrary to discipline.

5 another letter we have indicated to the judges what they should observe. Wherefore, according to this indulgence of ours, they should pray to their God for our safety and that of the republic and their own, so that the republic may be preserved on all sides and they may live in safety and security in their seats.”

Tanmoy Bhattacharyya

26th January 2026

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