---

Christmas - Customs - Legends - St. Nicholas - 12th Night - Carols - Games - E-Cards

The majority of Romans lived in crowded squalid tenements and their diet consisted of bread, porridge, vegetables, and lard. 1/3 of the population of the city of Rome were slaves. Another 1/3 were dependant on subsidized grain from the government. Slaves and freedmen were not able to vote. (4)

Jesus Christ was a Jewish man of the artisan class. He proposed the revolutionary idea that the Kingdom of God was the kingdom of the Unclean, Degraded, and Expendable people. It was open to women and children; who were not considered holy people at the time. He performed baptism; a new, inexpensive, generally available, divinely authorized rite, effective for the remission of all sins... Jerusalem was the only place a sacrifice could be offered by law at the time and it was expensive. These actions flouted the social orders of the day. John the Baptist, who invented baptism and baptised Christ, was executed by Herod Antipas to prevent an uprising. Jesus Christ was crucified in 30 B.C. E. by the Romans under Pontius Pilate. (3)