Christianity was not the first monotheistic religion. There are hints of monotheism in the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. The Persians were henotheists: they seemed to have believed in many gods but with one supreme god who was more powerful than the others. The Jews were the first monotheists, embracing the concept of one God who embodies all the virtues and who is the sole deity deserving of human worship and obedience: “thou shall have no other gods before me.” In the Old Testament we can witness the battle raging between Jewish monotheism and the still powerful temptation to polytheism, represented in the episodes of the Israelites who worshipped Baal, Moloch, and the golden calf.
Christianity adopted Jewish monotheism and gave it both a universal and an individualistic interpretation. There was no individualism in the Judaism of ancient Israel; the Jews worshipped Yahweh as a tribe and as a community. Individual Jews were not given a choice in this matter. When Moses came down from the mountain and saw the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, he did not think they were simply choosing to follow a different faith. “Freedom of religion” was not an issue here. Moses’s approach was a bit more severe: either embrace Yahweh, the monotheistic God of the Jews, or be killed. Some people imprudently chose to stick with calf worship, and Moses ordered them massacred.
The God of the Old Testament is a universal deity, yet at the same time He seems to be atribal God. He relates mainly to His chosen people, and the enemies of Israel become His enemies. Egyptians and Romans are not expected to follow Him, even though the Jews regarded Him as superior to the Egyptian and Roman deities. No wonder Jewish monotheism was generally unthreatening to Roman paganism. Indeed, the Romans simply integrated the Jews’ god into their pantheon. Judaism was a legal religion in the Roman empire; Christianity was not, at least not until the conversion of the emperor Constantine. The reason for the prohibition and persecution of Christianity was that Christians claimed one God not only for themselves but for the whole world.
