onsolidated as a theory of state by the time of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (AD 14-37). The rise of Jesus and the growth of influence of Christian thought was contemporary with these dynamics. During the same period that Rome was transitioning from an unstable republic to an absolute monarchy, Christianity was gaining religious ground that was eventually to supplant imperial Roman rule as well. That is, Jesus' prediction of religious hegemony was to be borne out over the course of the next several centuries.
The death of Jesus was decisive for Christianity as a religion because it became bound up with the doctrine of the Resurrection. What distinguished early Christianity from competing religions of the time was that its orthodox adherents claimed that Jesus was both God and man and that, as man, Jesus (because God) conquered death and rose from it, eventually to be taken up bodily into heaven. Wright (1998) says that to delete the doctrine from Christianity would be to collapse the religion. The Resurrection itself demonstrates the greatness of the response to Roman hegemony in the known world and the overtaking of Jewish hegemony in the monotheistic subculture of that world. According to Catholic doctrine, the Resurrection "is the greatest of all Our Lord's miracles, because all he taught is confirmed by it and depends upon it" (Kinkead, 1921, p. 86). The miracle lends authority and credibility to Christian ethos.
Worship of Jesus as the Son of God proceeded from the example of his life and his teachings while alive, as well as the lesson of his death, which was considered a Redemption of fallen mankind and a wholesale overhaul of Jesus' religion of birth, Judaism. The point of Jesus' life was that his death would in fact defeat death and suffering (Rewak, 1992, p. 11). Further, Christianity considered itself the authoritative successor religion with universal relevance to humanity. In that regard, pious and observant Jews in J...