Religion if Rome survives

General Zod

Banned
This is the spinoff of an ongoing thread, and something that in my knowledge has not been well explored by AH. If the Roman Empire does survive into modern times, what happens to the world's main religions ?

The PoD assumes that the Roman Empire survives as a strong and vital unitary entity (or at most splits into WRE and ERE halves), possibly with occasional "Chinese dynastic cycle" crises, well into the Age of Exploration, it absorbs pretty much all of Europe and the Middle East, and its cultural, scientific, and technological advancement steadily proceeds up to full mastery of Renaissance technology and possibly beyond. Part of the assumed PoD is conquest of whole Germania in the 1st Century and quick development of the heavby plough, and discovery of printing in the 1st-2nd centuries.

It also assumes that China, and possibly India, follow a parallel track development, and the three main Eurasian civilizations maintain a stready circulation of trade and ideas (and eventually global imperial competition) from classical to modern times. It also assumes that neither Rome nor China ever fall into irreversible isolationism or stagnation during the entire timeframe.

The PoD also assumes that Islamic armed expansion is doomed to fail, as Roman legions would swiftly crush it. Apart from this, what happens to the religious landscape ? Would Christianity still rise to dominance in the lack of Rome's collapse ? Would another mystery religion take its place ? Would the Empire remain home to many different competing mystery cults ? Could Roman civic religion become the rough equivalent of Confucianism, an expression of cultural loyalty ? Would some Eastern religion spread into the Empire ? Could Islam arise and spread peacefully ?
 
Last edited:
Would Christianity still rise to dominance in the lack of Rome's collapse ?

Could Islam arise and spread peacefully ?

1. Seeing as Christianity rose to dominance at least two hundred years before Rome fell, I don't see why it would not dominate ITTL.
2. Islam would be butterflied away ITTL.
3. In an old thread I read a while ago, someone (Hendryk maybe?) postulated that Rome's state religion could become some sort of Stoicism while other religions were tolerated. That could make Rome similar to China, at least in regards to religion.

To get a dynastic cycle going, maybe you could have something similar to The Coronation of the Hun, where Attila becomes the Western Emperor. This could set a precedent for barbarians to be crowned, and instead of dividing the empire would unite it after coronation.
 

General Zod

Banned
1. Seeing as Christianity rose to dominance at least two hundred years before Rome fell, I don't see why it would not dominate ITTL.

Yes, but my thought about this was, it might be argued that much of success of Christianity was due to the religion offering spiritual consolation and welfare relief during the hard times of the 3rd century crisis and the late empire death spiral. Now, if a more prosperous, successful empire does away or greately diminishes the severity of the 3rd century crisis and the late empire death spiral, and butterflies away the collapse entirely, might it be that Christianity is deprived of the critical momentum to become the dominant religion ?

2. Islam would be butterflied away ITTL.

OK.

3. In an old thread I read a while ago, someone (Hendryk maybe?) postulated that Rome's state religion could become some sort of Stoicism while other religions were tolerated. That could make Rome similar to China, at least in regards to religion.

Interesting idea.

To get a dynastic cycle going, maybe you could have something similar to The Coronation of the Hun, where Attila becomes the Western Emperor. This could set a precedent for barbarians to be crowned, and instead of dividing the empire would unite it after coronation.

A possible outcome, although in the kind of TL I'm thinking of, Germania and Sarmatia are Romanized, so the Huns cannot be nowhere as successful.
 
Islam, as it were in OTL, may be butterflied away. However, I've read claims that the explosion of Arabs out of the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century can be blamed in part on overpopulation and stresses there, so an attempted Arab invasion of the Roman Empire in the same time period doesn't seem unreasonable.

Religion is a good question... Christianity had some popularity among the Roman lower classes at first, didn't it, due to an emphasis on social welfare? It could still spread that way.. however, whether any of the Emperors would adopt it is a question.
 
Would Christianity still rise to dominance in the lack of Rome's collapse ? Would another mystery religion take its place ? Would the Empire remain home to many different competing mystery cults ? Could Roman civic religion become the rough equivalent of Confucianism, an expression of cultural loyalty ? Would some Eastern religion spread into the Empire ? Could Islam arise and spread peacefully ?
The PoD is a bit after its thought Jesus was born, but he (or his successors) don't necessarily have to be successful. He might not become a martyr, he might die in youth, his successors might be arrested and executed for sedition or somesuch, and so on. There're a great deal of things that could stop christianity in its tracks in its early stages.

Islam came about around seven centuries after the PoD, so that, as has been said, is butterflied away. A future father pausing to scratch his arse in 9 AD has incalculable effects on his descendants, the region they'll dwell in, the regions bordering it and so on, let alone the effects of the conquest of Germania.

Perhaps a kind of european version of hinduism, with the Roman Emperor (and his descendants) being the avatar/living representative of Jupiter, or something?
 
Perhaps a kind of european version of hinduism, with the Roman Emperor (and his descendants) being the avatar/living representative of Jupiter, or something?

A better way to create a European Hinduism is to create something akin to the Brahman caste in Western Indo-European paganism. That didn't exist to a great degree and was one of its big weaknesses when confronting early Christianity with its evolving system of bishops, metropolitans, priests and laymen. Give the Greco-Romans something similar and one of Christianity's advantages just went to the vet. If there's an organized priesthood of any sort in Greco-Roman religion, that means a greater persistence of the Old Religion, and likely butterflies away Christianity as we know it, if the thing comes around at all.
 

General Zod

Banned
A better way to create a European Hinduism is to create something akin to the Brahman caste in Western Indo-European paganism. That didn't exist to a great degree and was one of its big weaknesses when confronting early Christianity with its evolving system of bishops, metropolitans, priests and laymen. Give the Greco-Romans something similar and one of Christianity's advantages just went to the vet. If there's an organized priesthood of any sort in Greco-Roman religion, that means a greater persistence of the Old Religion, and likely butterflies away Christianity as we know it, if the thing comes around at all.

It is rather likey that Druidism was kind of the Western equivalent of the Brahman caste, the one most definite survival in European paganism of the original "priestly" caste in Proto-Indo-European religion according to Dumezil's theory, something that had otherwise withered away in Germanic, Greek, and Italic polytheism. Maybe if Romans had accepted druidism instead of repressing it, it is quite possible that the Druids might be the gateway to the evolution of a syncretistic religion akin to European Hinduism. But that would require another previous PoD, I do not see the conquest of Germania causing such a butterfly.
 
It is rather likey that Druidism was kind of the Western equivalent of the Brahman caste, the one most definite survival in European paganism of the original "priestly" caste in Proto-Indo-European paganism, something that had otherwise withered away in Germanic, Greek, and Italic polytheism. Maybe if Romans had accepted druidism instead of repressing it, it quite possible that the Druids might be the gateway to the evolution of a syncretistic religion akin to European Hinduism. But that would require another previous PoD, I do not see the conquest of Germania causing such a butterfly.

Except that the Druids were not quite Brahmans. They were the literate class, yes, but they were not the sort of thing that the Brahmans are (IOTW a full-time class dedicated solely to the form of Hinduism they followed). When I say Brahmanism, I mean a full-scale priesthood that dedicates itself to the religion and its rituals. Not beliefs, as belief didn't and doesn't matter to the degree outside Christianity that it does within it. The druids were not quite what I'm looking for, but to have this, a change in the Greco-Roman model itself is required. The polis is not conducive to producing a priesthood, and it should be noted that the first example of a Roman equivalent to the Brahmans came from a people with no connection to the Greco-Roman model of civilization (IOTW, the Jews).
 

General Zod

Banned
Except that the Druids were not quite Brahmans. They were the literate class, yes, but they were not the sort of thing that the Brahmans are (IOTW a full-time class dedicated solely to the form of Hinduism they followed). When I say Brahmanism, I mean a full-scale priesthood that dedicates itself to the religion and its rituals. Not beliefs, as belief didn't and doesn't matter to the degree outside Christianity that it does within it. The druids were not quite what I'm looking for, but to have this, a change in the Greco-Roman model itself is required. The polis is not conducive to producing a priesthood, and it should be noted that the first example of a Roman equivalent to the Brahmans came from a people with no connection to the Greco-Roman model of civilization (IOTW, the Jews).

The Druids were not just the literate class. They were a professional class that combined the function of priest, judge, scholar, and teacher, and they were the sole caretakers of the priestly function in the Celtic society. So they were your full-scale priesthood. IMO it is not ncessary to introduce such a massive and remote PoD as to rewrite the whole Greco-Roman soceity and introduce a full-scale native priesthood since its Bronze Age origins (a PoD so massive and remote might well butterfly the Roman Empire itself). You just need one that leads to Roman tolerance and acceptance (or at least underground survival) of the Druids, and their leadership of a syncretistic movement among the various branches of European paganism. Heck, the Druids also fully supported the idea of metempsychosis, what else you need to build a European Hinduism ??
 
Top