Religion in the late Roman Empire

Rex Mundi

Banned
Proselytizing is all well and good if people listen, but it doesn't explain why people found its message worth hearing instead of responding with something like - at best - my reaction to someone offering me a bible yesterday.

Nor does it need to. I never said that proselytizing is what made Christianity's message worth listening to for the Romans; that wouldn't even make sense, since proselytizing is a means of spreading the message and doesn't concern the contents of the message itself. I'm answering the question of how Christianity gained so many converts from various pagan cults by saying, "all the effort that Christians spend converting people and Christianity's inherent demand that its adherents convert people."

Obviously a proselytizing faith that encouraged cannibalism or something wouldn't have succeeded. But by the same token, most of the non-proselytizing flavors of Roman paganism did not encourage cannibalism, and presumably some had messages that a Roman would have considered worthwhile.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Proselytizing is all well and good if people listen, but it doesn't explain why people found its message worth hearing instead of responding with something like - at best - my reaction to someone offering me a bible yesterday.
Because chances are you already have a set of "world-explaining" beliefs developed through reading works of science, history and religion and secular political parties/social institutions to express your beliefs through. Someone of the lower class in the mid-late Roman empire will not have similar experience and therefore a lot more open to Christianity's messages.
 
Proselytizing is all well and good if people listen, but it doesn't explain why people found its message worth hearing instead of responding with something like - at best - my reaction to someone offering me a bible yesterday.

Julian the Apostate (who had some... insight on the matter) described Christianity's major advantages as the example of martyrs - a religion that can inspire people to die for it has serious mojo - and charitable work which was open to all, including non-Christians.
 
Julian the Apostate (who had some... insight on the matter) described Christianity's major advantages as the example of martyrs - a religion that can inspire people to die for it has serious mojo - and charitable work which was open to all, including non-Christians.


Yeah, this. Anyone who actually wants to know why Christianity was successful should probably read Julian the Appostate's writings on the subject. Rodney Stark's book The Rise of Christianity is also a good place to go in this regard.
Proselytism is part of the explanation, but only part. Christian charitable efforts were better organized and more effective, and things like total opposition to infanticide--female infanticide in particular--tended to help as well. It's the combination of proselytism and highly organized charitable and educational institutions which have made both Christianity and Islam so incredibly effective at spreading.

My vote on the best rival to Christianity is...Christianity. Between Nicaea and Chalcedon, there are at least three major Christian heresies which could have, if they had succeeded in replacing Orthodoxy, radically altered the post-Roman landscape. For example, butterfly Valentinian's death in the 380s and you've probably got an Arian dominance in the west for a lot longer, and a lot more comprehensively. Which, in turn, probably makes the Catholic church a good bit more skeptical of secular power generally.

Manicheanism is a good option in the east, and Isus could work I guess, but you'd need some fairly early PODs. However, it's interesting to note that, had you asked a first-century Roman what religion he expected to be a majority in the Roman Empire, he would almost certainly have said Judaism. By some estimates, there were a couple million proselyted Jews in the first century, which is where the vast majority of early Christian converts came from. Absent the rise of Christianity, it's probably Judaism that fills the role.
 
Manicheanism is a good option in the east, and Isus could work I guess, but you'd need some fairly early PODs. However, it's interesting to note that, had you asked a first-century Roman what religion he expected to be a majority in the Roman Empire, he would almost certainly have said Judaism. By some estimates, there were a couple million proselyted Jews in the first century, which is where the vast majority of early Christian converts came from. Absent the rise of Christianity, it's probably Judaism that fills the role.

I thought Judaism isn't too fond on actively seeking converts? I could be 100% wrong here though, but I thought that was one of the main differences between Christianity and Judaism at least in the beginning.

Again, I might have no idea what I'm talking about...
 

elkarlo

Banned
Yeah didn't think that Judaism took on too many converts.

Though that might explain how there were so many Jews in the Roman empire
 
Because chances are you already have a set of "world-explaining" beliefs developed through reading works of science, history and religion and secular political parties/social institutions to express your beliefs through. Someone of the lower class in the mid-late Roman empire will not have similar experience and therefore a lot more open to Christianity's messages.

Someone of the lower class already has "world-explaining" beliefs, which they have no reason to change just because someone is yammering at them.

They might not have the experiences I have, but there's no reason why my beliefs should be more entrenched just because I'm literate.

Creation stories, explanations of natural phenomenon, moral lessons, all of that existed with various levels of commitment.

I think the charity+education makes a lot more sense than the idea that people just didn't care about their existing beliefs.
 
Yeah didn't think that Judaism took on too many converts.

Though that might explain how there were so many Jews in the Roman empire

Rabbinical Judaism doesn't but I presume the Hellenistic Judaism based in places like Alexandria was much more open to such things. Much of Christian thought is the extrapolation of Hellenistic Judaism to its logical conclusions
 
I thought Judaism isn't too fond on actively seeking converts? I could be 100% wrong here though, but I thought that was one of the main differences between Christianity and Judaism at least in the beginning.

Again, I might have no idea what I'm talking about...

Yeah didn't think that Judaism took on too many converts.

Though that might explain how there were so many Jews in the Roman empire


Actualy, the Judaism's reluctance to take on converts was a product of the Christianization of the Empire.

After Constantine's conversion, and then Theodosius reign it became increasingly hard for Judaism to accept converts.

For example, it became illegal for a Jewish man to own a Christian slave. It also then became illegal for a Jewish man to circumcise his slaves. This of course was of immense importance to the Jewish people since the Covenant demands that ALL male members of a Jewish man's household must be circumcised.

Active discrimination (not progrom levels) came just a little later. One of the reasons for this is that Judaism and Christianity in the first centuries CE were not clear cut.

Many people existed in a middle area. People would practice Jewish customs but believe in Jesus Christ. Christians would go to Jewish synagogues etc etc. Thus, BOTH sides of the divide sought to define themselves. Christian authorities sought to actively seperate the two populations and define itself beyond its Jewish roots. Judaism, once the Rabbis took a firm hand on the religion, emphasized itself as an ethnic religion rather than a prosletizing one and settled in for the long haul. This trend in Judaism was only further emphasized once the Muslims overan the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanids.

Christian conversion practices, not surprisingly, took alot from Jewish ones. They both appealled to powerful women (often widows) and through them their households and their lines of patronage.

Christianity just took what Judaism did and did it better by appealing to men more effectively as well. One of the things the Romans found distastefull about Judaism was circumcision. They viewed it as the equivalent of being castrated at times. Christianity's ditching of Jewish religious law helped them appeal to the general masses, though again, it should be pointed out that many Christian converts did enter that grey area between Christianity and Judaism.

EDIT: One thing to note, if any sufficiently monotheistic religion takes firm hold of the Empire, competing faiths will be discrimated against. For any sufficiently prosletyzing religion, competition will not be tolerated. The surviving ones will often redefine themselves along more exclusivistic grounds. For examples, see Judaism under Christianity, Zoroastrianism under Islam, and even certain Christian sects in very not Christian environs such as India (Take Floccuencio for example: I believe he is from a Syriac Christian familly in Kerala. From what I understand, they are sort of an ethnic group as much as a religious one).

Ergo, if a different religion other than Christianity takes the helm (such as Manicheanism or Isus), depending on the POD you would probably see Christianity take a similar path to Judaism. You might not even see either really survive seperately, but instead merge into a middle area... like Messianic Jews (this is to point out that modern Rabbinical Judaism was not set in stone during the early centuries CE)
 
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Good point re Syrian Christianity in India- it took root and then eventually solidified as a seperate part of the local caste system almost like Judaism in Europe did (albeit with a high social position and no persecution, unlike the Jews)
 

elkarlo

Banned
Actualy, the Judaism's reluctance to take on converts was a product of the Christianization of the Empire.

After Constantine's conversion, and then Theodosius reign it became increasingly hard for Judaism to accept converts.

For example, it became illegal for a Jewish man to own a Christian slave. It also then became illegal for a Jewish man to circumcise his slaves. This of course was of immense importance to the Jewish people since the Covenant demands that ALL male members of a Jewish man's household must be circumcised.

Active discrimination (not progrom levels) came just a little later. One of the reasons for this is that Judaism and Christianity in the first centuries CE were not clear cut.

Many people existed in a middle area. People would practice Jewish customs but believe in Jesus Christ. Christians would go to Jewish synagogues etc etc. Thus, BOTH sides of the divide sought to define themselves. Christian authorities sought to actively seperate the two populations and define itself beyond its Jewish roots. Judaism, once the Rabbis took a firm hand on the religion, emphasized itself as an ethnic religion rather than a prosletizing one and settled in for the long haul. This trend in Judaism was only further emphasized once the Muslims overan the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanids.

Christian conversion practices, not surprisingly, took alot from Jewish ones. They both appealled to powerful women (often widows) and through them their households and their lines of patronage.

Christianity just took what Judaism did and did it better by appealing to men more effectively as well. One of the things the Romans found distastefull about Judaism was circumcision. They viewed it as the equivalent of being castrated at times. Christianity's ditching of Jewish religious law helped them appeal to the general masses, though again, it should be pointed out that many Christian converts did enter that grey area between Christianity and Judaism.

EDIT: One thing to note, if any sufficiently monotheistic religion takes firm hold of the Empire, competing faiths will be discrimated against. For any sufficiently prosletyzing religion, competition will not be tolerated. The surviving ones will often redefine themselves along more exclusivistic grounds. For examples, see Judaism under Christianity, Zoroastrianism under Islam, and even certain Christian sects in very not Christian environs such as India (Take Floccuencio for example: I believe he is from a Syriac Christian familly in Kerala. From what I understand, they are sort of an ethnic group as much as a religious one).

Ergo, if a different religion other than Christianity takes the helm (such as Manicheanism or Isus), depending on the POD you would probably see Christianity take a similar path to Judaism. You might not even see either really survive seperately, but instead merge into a middle area... like Messianic Jews (this is to point out that modern Rabbinical Judaism was not set in stone during the early centuries CE)


Ok, that makes a great deal of sense. Hellenic Judaism sought out converts. I do know that many Greeks liked to listen to the Jews debate.
It also explains how thee were Berber Jews. I guess they did take on converts at some point.
 
Hinduism is more resilient because it has a history of reacting to evangelical movements with its own offshoot of Buddhism. Buddhism was at one point the dominant faith in India but movements in Hinduism developed that allowed it to regain dominance.

Hinduism has already inoculated itself against Evangelism in a way which most non-evanglical faiths never managed to.

What do you mean by inoculation? I thought the small numbers of Christians in India was a reaction to colonization .
 
What do you mean by inoculation? I thought the small numbers of Christians in India was a reaction to colonization .

Flocc's people have been there for almost 2000 years, thats hardly a reaction to colonialism....

And Im guessing the 'evangelization' mentioned was more Budfhist andMoslem than Christian.
 
What do you mean by inoculation? I thought the small numbers of Christians in India was a reaction to colonization .

Did you read my post? I was talking about Buddhism not Christianity.

Buddhism grew to almost totally dominate India until the Hindu renaissance where Hinduism pushed back and almost totally overwhelmed Buddhism. Post Buddhist Hinduism is a religious complex that is the product of an incredibly successful counterevangelisation- its as if after two centuries of Christianity, organised Roman paganism managed to reconvert the whole of Europe.
 
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