AH Challenge: Christian India and Persia, Stoic/"Hindu" Europe.

IOTL, Paul the Apostle made Christianity palatable to the West. He was told by the Holy Spirit (or by a rationalization by the later Church Fathers, for the Atheists. to explain why he ignored the Sassanid Persian empire) to go to the West. Supposing God (or, again, Church history saying God told him) told him to turn east?

The challenge is to get a Christianity that is a product of Eastern civilization, and the West to have its original gods until at least the age of exploration. The basic scenario I want is that Christianity in India at least has an Asoka figure, though it could be as Hinduized as ever, while Stoicism's pantheistic God comes to have the same role in a future Europe as Brahman had in India when he displaced the original pantheon.

What happens? In this scenario, Christianity in the West becomes an Anatolian "ethnic" religion similar in a sense to Yezidism and Manichaeism as well. With a West that is more "Hindu" (in the sense of monotheism superimposed on old polytheism) and an East operating on what would be OTL Western culture, what changes?

Answers would be duly appreciated...;)
 
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.
 
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Some More Thoughts (Part II)

What would happen to the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire? I don’t know. Perhaps something like it would emerge, only more "Neo-platonic".It may be based on an elaborate, if short lived, political/religious philosophy. There probably wouldn’t have been the debilitating series of wars between Sassanid Persia and the Byzantine Empire. I could be wrong.
Something like Islam might emerge, but it might be more a form of militant Judaism. The Persian conquest would not occur and
Zoroastrianismwould remain the state religion of Persia. Iranian religion and culture would influence Russia and eastern Europe. This started to happen in OTL but would continue here. Eastern Europe might not become Zoroastrianism but would follow a melange of Iranian spirituality melded with Slavic paganism. On the other hand perhaps Kiev in this AH would emerge as the center of a Zoroastrianism Slavic state.
It’s a bit more difficult to see a Brahmin Christian India .The Jesuits almost converted the Chinese aristocracy during the Ming Dynasty but I think India had a different dynamic.
Perhaps though Christianity, failing to catch on in Europe, might reach Central Asia. Missionaries might have some success in converting at least the leaders of Turkic/Mongol tribes. Something like a Mughal conquest could then occur, only w/the Mughals being Christian instead of Muslim. Lower caste Hindus, seeking advancement and escape from oppression, would convert to the religion of the new rulers. In this world the division between Christianity and Hinduism would not be as radical as that between Islam and Hinduism. There might be a gradual merger or at least a meeting of the minds;.

In another scenario different form of Christianity might come to India much earlier. It would be from the 2nd century, before any of the church councils codified it and would be highly gnostic and more paganistic than in OTL. It would incoporate and absorb Buddhism. It would spread and then then might be adopted by some conquering Turkic group like the Marathas, who would set it up as a state relgion. It would gradually absorb Hinduism. Christianity exiss in the West as an small, offbeat Middle Eastern religion.
 
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