When did so many (not all) "christians" become hateful psychopaths?

[malthaussen]

250. The way I interpret the NT tells me there was a helluva power struggle going on

... inside the Church after Yeshua died. Saul muscled in on James, who appears not to have been equipped to handle the challenge. But given the differences between the non-canonical gospels and the ones that made it into the NT, I think that there was a lot going on about which we don't know. Just love the end of the Magdalene gospel, where Levi essentially tells Simon that the latter is an ass. That's one that needs to be widely published, especially given conditions today:

"3) Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things.

4) He questioned them about the Savior: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?

5) Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior?

6) Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered.

7) Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries.

8) But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well."

Interesting bit of gospel (or pseudo-gospel, if you prefer), since the common perception is that Saul was the big misogynist in the crew. Obviously, Simon (and his brother Andrew) were also not fond of women; of course the former had wife troubles to begin with.

Which doesn't really have much to do with your point about Saul the Hebrew vs Paul the Christian. We don't really disagree here. I think Saul allowed his meanness to infect the Christians, but I do agree that he apparently put aside his persecution rags after he fell off his mule on the road to Damascus. The OP was asking, however, when meanness started to infect Christianity, not specifically when persecution did. I think it must have been there from the get-go (and I bet the "true" story of Yeshua's mission would make terrific reading), but that Saul, by his eloquence and example, and due to some significant character flaws in his rivals, institutionalized it. But the NT is a pretty sparse book, and I think a whole lot must have been going on that we'll never know about.

Once the Empire put its finger in, agreed, that opened the gates to the kind of dominance dynamics that Zorra mentions upthread. Indeed, in light of the piece of research he references, the rise of meanness in the Christian church would have occurred anyway, due to the threatening conditions under which they labored. Or, in other words, if Saul hadn't existed, it would have been necessary to invent him.

-- Mal