Survival of Greco-Roman paganism

[Ares Land]

I like to play with alternate history now and then... That's not quite the main focus of the board... then again I always appreciated the sound advice I got here.

Some recent talk about religion got me thinking. Would a scenario where 'paganism' in whatever form would survive to the present day make any sense? Or was it inevitable that Christianity replaced everything in Europe?

Let's say, I don't know, Julian the Apostate somehow lives to a ripe old age and Christianity doesn't become the official religion after all...

Would it have only delayed the inevitable? Or could paganism have survived somehow?
If so, what kind of paganism? I always liked the baroque monotheism of the latter Neo-Platonicians. Would the sacrifices and ritual have survived in some way? Would we have anything like the Church? (I mean, the Church bureaucracy and hierarchy would be very well suited to a ritualistic/kind of bureaucratic approach to religion.)
Perhaps more interestingly... It seems likely to me that Christianity would have thrived anyway; except maybe with a plethora of currents and odd doctrines? (Without official sanction, there's no such thing as heresy so conceivably there could be Arians and Niceans living side to side)

[Raphael]

This makes me wonder, has anyone here read Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age (I haven't), and if you have, what do you think of it?

[Richard W]

Some recent talk about religion got me thinking. Would a scenario where 'paganism' in whatever form would survive to the present day make any sense? Or was it inevitable that Christianity replaced everything in Europe?

I thought it had survived - see harsh words on Mariolatry. Remnants of Lithuanian religion seem the best preserved.

I presume you're talking about the European tradition. We have missionary Hindu (Hare Krishna) and Buddhist temples within easy reach, and there are offerings to Ganesha within 3 yards of me.

[keenir]

Some recent talk about religion got me thinking. Would a scenario where 'paganism' in whatever form would survive to the present day make any sense? Or was it inevitable that Christianity replaced everything in Europe?

well, its hard to undo once a monarch is a convert to it...see also Georgia, Armenia, and Ethiopia(sp). So maybe keep it small, like in Central Asia, China, and Japan.

Would it have only delayed the inevitable? Or could paganism have survived somehow?

yes and no...under the name "paganism", no, under a more specific name, yes. (think of India or Asia - nobody calls their faiths "paganism"...people refer to specific and groups of faiths)

If so, what kind of paganism? I always liked the baroque monotheism of the latter Neo-Platonicians. Would the sacrifices and ritual have survived in some way? Would we have anything like the Church?

that was basically inherited from the Imperial system, right? so I'd think the structure might survive...possibly in Christianity and the other faiths (though not all of them - Judaism did fine without a Pontifex)

Perhaps if Julian's attempt to formalize "paganism" as a faith unto itself, then that would be heavily Imperial-structured.

Perhaps more interestingly... It seems likely to me that Christianity would have thrived anyway; except maybe with a plethora of currents and odd doctrines? (Without official sanction, there's no such thing as heresy so conceivably there could be Arians and Niceans living side to side)

Yyyyeah, they tried that...their inability to live side by side, is why Constantine called for that Council.

(also remember, Hypatia wasn't killed on Papal or Metropolitan orders - it was by a Bishop's mob, if my memory serves)

[Ares Land]

This makes me wonder, has anyone here read Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age (I haven't), and if you have, what do you think of it?

I haven't read it; but I'll add it to my reading list

well, its hard to undo once a monarch is a convert to it...see also Georgia, Armenia, and Ethiopia(sp). So maybe keep it small, like in Central Asia, China, and Japan.

[...]

yes and no...under the name "paganism", no, under a more specific name, yes. (think of India or Asia - nobody calls their faiths "paganism"...people refer to specific and groups of faiths)

India would probably be a good model; it's interesting also in the way Buddhism waxed and waned.

[xxx]

the Roman Catholic Church has always been very inculturating,
even to the point of syncretism...
one could easily find in it a survival of paganism...

[hwhatting]

I'm not sure whether Roman paganism could have survived, but I'm quite sure that by Julian's time it was too late to save it.

[Ares Land]

I'm not sure whether Roman paganism could have survived, but I'm quite sure that by Julian's time it was too late to save it.

I'm curious as to why you think that

I don't know if Christianity would have gotten a monopoly, so to speak, without Imperial sanction. And Julian hypothetically living to a old ripe age would have put a stop to that...

I'm not sure 'Roman paganism' would be quite the appropriate monitor; more like alternate religions, so to speak.

[hwhatting]

I'm not sure whether Roman paganism could have survived, but I'm quite sure that by Julian's time it was too late to save it.

I'm curious as to why you think that

I don't know if Christianity would have gotten a monopoly, so to speak, without Imperial sanction. And Julian hypothetically living to a old ripe age would have put a stop to that...

Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire due to its popularity with the urban masses and many soldiers; by Julian's time, it had gained wide influence also with part of the elites, especially women - who mostly didn't play an official role, but influenced the thinking of their husbands and sons. To succeed, Julian's project would have needed to win over those urban masses and elites, for whom Christianity fulfilled a spiritual need that the cult of Sol Invictus was not able to. Even if Julian would have lived longer, one of his successors would have given in to the pressure, like Echnaton's successor did with that monarch's experiment.

I'm not sure 'Roman paganism' would be quite the appropriate monitor; more like alternate religions, so to speak.

The Sol invictus cult was imbued with neoplatonic ideas to an extent comparable to Christianity, but it had a place for the old deities. I guess the individual followers on the ground could have chosen to ignore those ideas and simply continue to worship their local gods, somthing they couldn't do openly under Christianity (we know that they did that without official sanction, and that many of the local cults morphed into the veneration of saints).

[Ares Land]

Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire due to its popularity with the urban masses and many soldiers; by Julian's time, it had gained wide influence also with part of the elites, especially women - who mostly didn't play an official role, but influenced the thinking of their husbands and sons. To succeed, Julian's project would have needed to win over those urban masses and elites, for whom Christianity fulfilled a spiritual need that the cult of Sol Invictus was not able to. Even if Julian would have lived longer, one of his successors would have given in to the pressure, like Echnaton's successor did with that monarch's experiment.

*nods*
How about something happening sometime during the reign of Diocletian, or Constantine not converting after all?
I think Constantine not converting isn't particularly unlikely -- as far as I know, he was an opportunist; another idea I'm toying with is Diocletian dying before the Persecution.
I hope you don't mind the question -- I'm trying to gauge the plausibility of the idea.

The Sol invictus cult was imbued with neoplatonic ideas to an extent comparable to Christianity, but it had a place for the old deities. I guess the individual followers on the ground could have chosen to ignore those ideas and simply continue to worship their local gods, somthing they couldn't do openly under Christianity (we know that they did that without official sanction, and that many of the local cults morphed into the veneration of saints).

Or even absorbing Christian ideas at times; which would make folk religion look a bit like something out of C.S. Lewis.

[hwhatting]

How about something happening sometime during the reign of Diocletian, or Constantine not converting after all?
I think Constantine not converting isn't particularly unlikely -- as far as I know, he was an opportunist; another idea I'm toying with is Diocletian dying before the Persecution.
I hope you don't mind the question -- I'm trying to gauge the plausibility of the idea.

I don't think that the positions or politics of individual emperors would have been decisive. There clearly was a desire for a religion with a message of a personal, mystical relationship with a deity, with a message of personal election / salvation, something going beyond the "If I'm doing the right sacrifices and say the right words, the gods may assist me and my community" practicality of Graeco-Roman paganism. Maybe some of the competing mystery cults could have become more successful and knocked Christianity out of the race in the 1st or 2nd century CE. After that, it was too late, IMHO.
Another idea would be for Christianity to never to "jump hosts" to gentiles and staying a purely Jewish sect. Or Christianity not arising at all. But again, all these scenarios wouldn't be triggered by the views on religion of various emperors, but by developments on the ground, what messages of which cults would attract adherents, the preachers of which cults would be successful, what vectors would be available for cults to spread (e.g., to me it looks like Mithraism found a successful vector in becoming a cult for soldiers, but by that also limited its attractiveness to other segments of the population and therefore never made it into a mass religion).

[Ares Land]

I don't think that the positions or politics of individual emperors would have been decisive. There clearly was a desire for a religion with a message of a personal, mystical relationship with a deity, with a message of personal election / salvation, something going beyond the "If I'm doing the right sacrifices and say the right words, the gods may assist me and my community" practicality of Graeco-Roman paganism. Maybe some of the competing mystery cults could have become more successful and knocked Christianity out of the race in the 1st or 2nd century CE. After that, it was too late, IMHO.
Another idea would be for Christianity to never to "jump hosts" to gentiles and staying a purely Jewish sect. Or Christianity not arising at all. But again, all these scenarios wouldn't be triggered by the views on religion of various emperors, but by developments on the ground, what messages of which cults would attract adherents, the preachers of which cults would be successful, what vectors would be available for cults to spread (e.g., to me it looks like Mithraism found a successful vector in becoming a cult for soldiers, but by that also limited its attractiveness to other segments of the population and therefore never made it into a mass religion).

I get your point!
The idea though, would be not to have Christianity disappear entirely, but it coexisting with other religions (some of them deriving from paganism). So you'd have multiple cults/religions occupying diverse niches.

I don't know if Christianity could have gotten the "monopolistic", universalist status it had if it hadn't been enmeshed with the state as it did. Though maybe that's inherent in the nature of it? I'm not sure it was at the early stages.

[hwhatting]

I get your point!
The idea though, would be not to have Christianity disappear entirely, but it coexisting with other religions (some of them deriving from paganism). So you'd have multiple cults/religions occupying diverse niches.

I don't know if Christianity could have gotten the "monopolistic", universalist status it had if it hadn't been enmeshed with the state as it did. Though maybe that's inherent in the nature of it? I'm not sure it was at the early stages.

Due to their unwillingness to recognize and venerate other gods besides the Christian one, Christians couldn't be integrated into the Roman state's system of religions. The problem with the Christians was not per se that they believed in only one god, but that this had the effect that they wouldn't take part in the cults that affirmed the state and were thought as necessary for ensuring the well-being of the state ("If I'm doing the right sacrifices and say the right words, the gods may assist me and my community", see above.) That was a problem with Judaism, too, resulting in the destruction of the Temple, but I guess the fact that Judaism was the religion of a small, mostly ethnically defined group, made that easier to handle. From the moment Christianity reached a certain critical mass, especially among the army and the upper classes, it could be neither ignored nor integrated, so the only options, both tried, were extermination and making it the official religion (it seems the idea of not having a state cult at all didn't occur to the Romans, in any case I don't know that it was ever considered. I guess the only alternative they saw to propitiating the traditional gods was to find a different, powerful god that could protect the community instead.)
So the only option is Christianity not spreading so widely, and that would mean some other cult which satisfied similar needs to be more successful. If that cult would have tolerated if its followers venerated the traditional gods, the outcome you aim for would have been possible. Christianity would have remained a minority religion in that case, sometimes prosecuted, sometimes tolerated.

[zompist]

I like to play with alternate history now and then... That's not quite the main focus of the board... then again I always appreciated the sound advice I got here.

Some recent talk about religion got me thinking. Would a scenario where 'paganism' in whatever form would survive to the present day make any sense? Or was it inevitable that Christianity replaced everything in Europe?

Let's say, I don't know, Julian the Apostate somehow lives to a ripe old age and Christianity doesn't become the official religion after all...

Would it have only delayed the inevitable? Or could paganism have survived somehow?

I was just reading about the 4th century as it happens. (Beard/North/Price, Religions of Rome.) My impression is that our actual history is very arbitrary and contingent. Look up Constantine's life: there were just so many places where things could have gone the other way. (E.g. there's a time when he had no role in the system, and was trapped in Italy with one of the Augusti. The civil wars could have gone the other way. He might have not had his vision. He might have, like Julian, been cut down before he could do much.)

It's notable that the year after he conquered the east— the rich, stable part of the Empire— he called the Nicene Council. It's always tempting to project later facts into the past, in this case orthodox Catholicism. But it was the Council, backed up by the power of the Roman state, that produced that orthodoxy.

It's also striking how fast paganism crumbled without state support. But then, it really was a civic religion, purposely designed to be coterminous with the state, supervised by the state, supporting the state. The priests and the civic officials were the same people. And it was allergic to zeal and passion, whether it was Greek Mysteries or Judaism or Christianity.

If you want a model, I'd suggest India, which for two thousand years has been intensely resistant to both Christianity and Islam. But there was an intermediate stage, when Buddhism and Jainism were very strong, and often had the ruling power, and these can both be considered reform movements within Hinduism. Hinduism itself changed in response to these rivals, creating devotion cults that ordinary people could get into. Vedic Hinduism probably couldn't have survived; bhakti Hinduism thrived.

So I'd suggest the overall scenario: Constantine gets hit by a bus, and turning the official-favor machine from paganism to Christianity is delayed. This proceeds long enough that a more fervent, more personal paganism can arise. (There are candidates: the Magna Mater cult, the Mysteries, Mithraism, etc. Maybe someone combines Neo-Platonism with Hindu-style puja toward the gods.) The Western empire falls before anything can be imposed empire-wide. Christianity survives, but with schisms that never disappear, notably Arian vs Catholic.

I agree with Hans-Werner on this point— "Christianity fulfilled a spiritual need that the cult of Sol Invictus was not able to"— but I think that's too narrow. If the Romans made one mistake in religion, it was in pursuing cults that the emperors themselves liked. Subjects raised temples to the Emperor, even begged for the right to do so, but it must have looked pretty silly when "emperors" were hailed by army garrisons and tore up the countryside fighting each other. But cults of the people were not lacking. (In fact we know way too little about them: sometimes archeologists discover that a particular cult was found a century earlier, or in a way different location, than had been thought.)

One other thought: please don't center your para-paganism on the Twelve Roman/Greek Gods we know from mythology. It never worked that way. The Romans were constantly inventing or importing gods... Rome itself had a dozen temples of Isis, a dozen for Magna Mater (Cybele), three dozen for Mithra. The Republic instituted cults to divine abstractions: Victory, Honor, etc. Ba'al got imported, under the alias Jupiter Dolichenus. If the empire had survived a little more, it would undoubtedly have imported some German gods.

[Man in Space]

So I'd suggest the overall scenario: Constantine gets hit by a bus

First-Century steam engines would’ve had to have been a lot better for this. The introduction of the automobile to Rome would have been huge.

[Travis B.]

A better question is whether Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, or Finnic paganism could have survived (and all things considered, Baltic paganism survived to a surprisingly late date).

[äreo]

As a pagan and Platonist I have mulled this over a lot. I don't think "Christianity replaced paganism; the latter did not survive" is a satisfactory summary of what happened, especially if we understand "paganism" to include not just civic religion but all already existing "non-creedal" or "natural" religion. It isn't just a matter of "syncretism" either, except in the sense that Old French was a "syncretism" of Latin and Gaulish (i.e. not exactly, but kind of).

Christianity became official, then dominant, and then ended up following a dual process of supplanting and enfolding within itself various aspects of existing Roman religion (again, not just civic cults), starting with the most urban and public-facing (public sacrifices, official holidays) and proceeding to more rural and private domains.

Christianity would not be the same religion today if it had not become official in Rome--not just because, as zompist noted, Constantine called the council of Nicea which established definitive Orthodoxy, but because of who it was adopted by (i.e. Mediterraneans and then more distant Europeans). Just as the sound changes that made Latin into French must have been conditioned in part (at least at first) by the existing language of the Gauls, Christianity as we know it is the result of its adoption, interpretation, and continuing construction by Roman citizens and eventually other Europeans and Near Easterners.

The Eleusinian Mysteries were in a sad state of decline by Julian's time, as were many of the Empire's temples. Julian's zeal for lavish public sacrifices, combined with his selective leniency towards certain Christians, may have also damaged his support from contemporary pagans. His costly (and doomed) efforts in Persia also hampered his project. It may indeed have been too late to retain paganism as a kind of polycentric system of the kind we see in Indian religion today. But elements persisted and became an indispensable part of the Christian world. Christianity wouldn't be the same without European and Near Eastern civic, ethnic, and mystery traditions, just as our understanding of those traditions is colored by the Christian world that followed.

If you ever feel like diving deep into this subject, I recommend Ramsay MacMullen's Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. Jan Assmann's Moses the Egyptian and Charles Taylor's work on secularism would also help round out one's perspective on ancient/pagan religion, as it can be easy for us to misunderstand. For a more personal view, Gore Vidal's novel Julian is very good, and Vidal got into the voices of the main/frame characters by "tracing" their extant writings longhand. The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity might be worth reading too.

[Ares Land]

So I'd suggest the overall scenario: Constantine gets hit by a bus, and turning the official-favor machine from paganism to Christianity is delayed. This proceeds long enough that a more fervent, more personal paganism can arise. (There are candidates: the Magna Mater cult, the Mysteries, Mithraism, etc. Maybe someone combines Neo-Platonism with Hindu-style puja toward the gods.) The Western empire falls before anything can be imposed empire-wide. Christianity survives, but with schisms that never disappear, notably Arian vs Catholic.

Thanks a lot for all the comments -- and I'll definitely look into such a scenario.

One other thought: please don't center your para-paganism on the Twelve Roman/Greek Gods we know from mythology. It never worked that way. The Romans were constantly inventing or importing gods... Rome itself had a dozen temples of Isis, a dozen for Magna Mater (Cybele), three dozen for Mithra. The Republic instituted cults to divine abstractions: Victory, Honor, etc. Ba'al got imported, under the alias Jupiter Dolichenus. If the empire had survived a little more, it would undoubtedly have imported some German gods.

We're in agreement here!
What got me thinking, really, is the parallel you drew a few weeks back between Roman and Meso-American religions... I'd like to get to a point where European adopting some Mesoamerican beliefs would make sense in context. (Without the sacrifices, I hasten to add)

A better question is whether Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, or Finnic paganism could have survived (and all things considered, Baltic paganism survived to a surprisingly late date).

I think what happened within the limes was key. The Germans were keen to imitate everything Roman, so adopting some form of Christianity was a given. Ditto with the Slavs and the Greeks. Once the bulk of Europe was Christian, the Balts and Finns ultimately had no choice in the matter. I think Lithuanian religion held out longer because Lithuania was relatively out of the way.

If you ever feel like diving deep into this subject, I recommend Ramsay MacMullen's Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. Jan Assmann's Moses the Egyptian and Charles Taylor's work on secularism would also help round out one's perspective on ancient/pagan religion, as it can be easy for us to misunderstand. For a more personal view, Gore Vidal's novel Julian is very good, and Vidal got into the voices of the main/frame characters by "tracing" their extant writings longhand. The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity might be worth reading too.

Thanks -- I will look into all of these.

[rotting bones]

Christianity became exclusivist from the Orthodox reaction against the early Gnostic theologies. Something that shocked me is that the pagan theurgists in the tradition of Iamblichus who were the contemporaries of early Christians were almost as anti-intellectual as the Orthodox. All major sides were opposing rational thought and promoting supernaturalism in order to make people be okay with authoritarianism. The Stoics probably started it with their opposition to book learning and their spiritual hermeneutics, a major fact nobody remembers about them.

This is very similar to today's world, where barely anyone finds truths believable anymore.

PS. Also, a lot of European paganism survived as folk beliefs. Fickle gods became fairies.

[zompist]

Christianity would not be the same religion today if it had not become official in Rome--not just because, as zompist noted, Constantine called the council of Nicea which established definitive Orthodoxy, but because of who it was adopted by (i.e. Mediterraneans and then more distant Europeans). Just as the sound changes that made Latin into French must have been conditioned in part (at least at first) by the existing language of the Gauls, Christianity as we know it is the result of its adoption, interpretation, and continuing construction by Roman citizens and eventually other Europeans and Near Easterners.

I agree with this... everything is contingent, and Christianity is deeply indebted to Greek philosophy and the example of Roman civic religion. And even Roman architecture: churches were based on basilicae... not temples, which were not intended for public worship, but law courts, markets, and public forums.

If you ever feel like diving deep into this subject, I recommend Ramsay MacMullen's Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. Jan Assmann's Moses the Egyptian and Charles Taylor's work on secularism would also help round out one's perspective on ancient/pagan religion, as it can be easy for us to misunderstand. For a more personal view, Gore Vidal's novel Julian is very good, and Vidal got into the voices of the main/frame characters by "tracing" their extant writings longhand. The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity might be worth reading too.

I may have to look into these too, thanks for the recs!