Stoic/Neo-Platonic Europe
These are some interesting ideas for a scenario. I’ve thought about this over the holiday. Here are some thoughts. I’m not entirely sure this is what you’re looking for but this is my take for what its worth. This isn’t mean to be a fully worked out scenario and I admit I may be wrong about some things .These are some tentative suggestions I had fun thinking about.
My understanding of Stoicism is that it was essentially a rationalistic philosophy popular among the Roman elite. .Marcus Aurelius wrote "Meditations" but would think nothing of having people burned alive. I don’t think the version of Stoicism in OTL would have caught on with the Roman masses. The Roman Empire, of the Third Century, had reached an economic, political, technological, and spiritual dead end. The Italian peasantry had been forced off their land and had been largely replaces by slave labor or themselves reduced to virtual serfdom. Latifundia had replaced farms and independent freeholds. Displaced peasants and immigrants flooded into the cities, forming a proletarian class. Cheap labor inhibited development of technology. To continue a supply of slaves the Empire had to keep expanding but ,at the same time the Empire had reached its defensible limits.
Large numbers of immigrants from Egypt came to Italy and joined the oppressed underclass. A syncretic religion developed among these people, combining Egyptian ideas with Greco-Roman saviour cults. Some of these eerily prefigured Christianity. There was a goddess of the sea, Maria, who was the "Mother of God". A hundred years before Jesus people prayed to "Mary, Mother of God". There’s a theory that Christianity, ostensibly a continuation of Judaism, actually owes far more to these Egyptian roots ("The Pagan Christ" by Tom Harpur discusses this )In addition early Christianity had revolutionary aspects to- it was almost a form of socialism . This has been mentioned by many of the early socialist writers. It ended up as a form of "socialism of consumption" rather than production.
While this was going on the ruling classes had long since stopped believing their own official state religion.
I don’t see Stoicism as such filling this role that Christianity filled in OTL, although I’m not super knowledgeable about this. I could see Neo-Platonism more easily taking the place of Christianity, almost by default.. Perhaps an alternate version of Stoicism, in a form both acceptable to the Roman elite and the downtrodden?
Okay in our AH Christianity exists but never catches on as a mass movement. The Jewish Revolt of 69AD either doesn’t happen or happens later. Christianity remains more Judaic. It gradually gains followers, and eventually develops as a separate religion, but this happens much later then in OTL.
A Stoic/Neo-platonic religion incorporating Egyptoid and Greco-Roman savior cults emerges. Perhaps this religion doesn’t quite emerge as a totalistic centralized state church, taking over the functions of the Roman state, as Christianity did in OTL. Or maybe it does. Either way, the messianic savior cults, wildly popular with the urban lower classes and having political *connotations, remains in the realm of myth, despite attempts to create an official state run interpretation.
The collapse of the Empire in the, 4th and 5th centuries ensues pretty much as in OTL. Franks, Vandals, Goths, Saxons, etc. begin their Volkwanderung and chop up the Empire. In OTL the history of the Church and early mediaeval Europe is almost the same thing. Tribal war leaders quickly learned they could gain clear title to their conquests, and rule as a permanent ruling class, by converting. .The Church played off different factions of the Frankish warrior aristocracy to increase their power. Meanwhile missionary monks preserved learning, cleared the wilderness,, and formed the nuclei of what became many cities of Central and Northern Europe.
How would this process have played out in this TL? My guess is that, at least for several centuries, the Stoic/Neo-platonic religion would have remained popular only in the Latin countries-Spain, Italy, Gaul, combining with the earlier Greco-Roman paganism. After a time though Germanic warlords would find in this religion a useful justification for conquest. Aristocratic warlords would fight in the name of various autonomous "Holy Orders" based on the ideas of a teacher or "guru".These movements or mini-movements would not be dissimilar from one another and not mutually exclusive. Eventually monasteries sponsoring different schools of thought would develop. Initially these philosophies might be highly militaristic, reflecting the interests of their sponsors. Eventually the nation states of Europe would emerge, not too different from OTL. The aristocracies and the small number of literate people would follow a religion of monotheism or philosophic monism .As it descends further down the social scale religion would increasingly incorporate gods, goddesses, saints, and holy teachers. The peasantry would continue to follow very ancient fertility cults. Our AH religion would be open ended enough to incorporate this, sort of .
In OTL the rise of an urban middle class, around 1000AD was marked by a "this worldly" spiritual movement. The cults of Mary and various saints began. Their was a massive increase in a form of popular piety and devotion. Something similar might happen here, only the upsurge in devotion may be more along the lines of the Hindu bhakti movement .There might actually be cultural borrowing from India. In "The Prehistory of Sex" Tim Taylor mentions that there is evidence that a form of tantric yoga , imported from India, could have come to Europe shortly before Christianity and, in an alternate scenario could have provided a basis for a different "sexual culture" before being overtaken by Christianity..
How would the Scientific/Industrial/and Capitalist Revolutions play out in this AH? Possibly they would come somewhat earlier in this world .In our world the Moslem Conquest blocked off European trade routes, increased the power of the landed aristocracies and extended the Middle Ages by several centuries. This might occur differently in this AH, both because of geopolitics and religion. Less power might be concentrated in the landed aristocracy leading to faster development of urban commerce and cities. Trade and commerce would revive earlier. Capitalism might emerge both earlier and more gradually. .The revolutions against feudalism-the English Civil war, the French Revolution, might not be necessary . Just some guesses.