What would Europe be like if Rome fell to barbarian invasions without converting to Christianity

Mikestone8

Fabius Maximus said:
Mithraism and the Mother Goddess cults were probably too exclusive. A cult which deliberately makes it difficult to join is unlikely to achieve widespread penetration, for obvious reasons.
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Did it have any female initiates?

Christianity seems to have had a strong appeal to women, and various anecdotes survive about mothers quietly teaching their sons about it whenever a pagan father's back was turned. Indeed, Constantine himself may be an instance of this, since his mother was apparently a Christian. Was anything similar true for pagan cults?
 

Lalli

Mikestone8 said:
Did it have any female initiates?

Christianity seems to have had a strong appeal to women, and various anecdotes survive about mothers quietly teaching their sons about it whenever a pagan father's back was turned. Indeed, Constantine himself may be an instance of this, since his mother was apparently a Christian. Was anything similar true for pagan cults?
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With my knowledge Mithraism was very militaristic cult which women couldn't practise. So too exclusive being succesful.
 

Fabius Maximus

Mikestone8 said:
Did it have any female initiates?
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Mithras in the Roman Empire was basically a soldiers' god, so probably not,

Mikestone8 said:
Christianity seems to have had a strong appeal to women, and various anecdotes survive about mothers quietly teaching their sons about it whenever a pagan father's back was turned. Indeed, Constantine himself may be an instance of this, since his mother was apparently a Christian. Was anything similar true for pagan cults?
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Not as far as I'm aware.
 

Johnrankins

joeyanonymous said:
Perhaps that means Muslims could more easily conquer Europe



So are you telling me that Muhammad's exposure to Christianity would be butterflied away?
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Most likely Muhammed's very existence is butterflied away. At the very least he would be living a very different life. The failure of Christianity is hardly a minor event.
 

Mikestone8

Johnrankins said:
Most likely Muhammed's very existence is butterflied away. At the very least he would be living a very different life. The failure of Christianity is hardly a minor event.
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And of course much depends on what sort of failure. If it's a "no Constantine" scenario you could still have Christian communities in Arabia, possibly growing a lot bigger sans Islam.
 

joeyanonymous

Mikestone8 said:
And of course much depends on what sort of failure. If it's a "no Constantine" scenario you could still have Christian communities in Arabia, possibly growing a lot bigger sans Islam.
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And would that therefore mean a more militant form of Christianity developing in Saudi Arabia and then being spread by Arab invasions instead of Islam?
 

Arkenfolm

CtrlAltHistory said:
The Germanic and Norse religions are rather... grim. Christianity is very hopeful and idealistic about afterlife and posthumous rewards, but the pagan faiths are pretty fatalistic or even nihilist at times. Hel exists, but the alternatives are either eternal nothingness or a place of eternal training for a doomsday that will destroy everything (that's only for warriors who die in battle and women who die in childbirth.) Roman polytheism was much the same way, though a little lighter and with a dash of hedonism. I can't comment on the intellectual side of things, though I imagine it wouldn't be as strong.

The Dark Ages may have truly been dark.
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Not necessarily much more dark than Hinduism saying the same thing about the gods and everyone else endlessly being destroyed and being reborn along with the world. And there's no reason the idea can't modify into something a bit more bright.
 
Practical Lobster

Practical Lobster

CtrlAltHistory said:
The Germanic and Norse religions are rather... grim. Christianity is very hopeful and idealistic about afterlife and posthumous rewards, but the pagan faiths are pretty fatalistic or even nihilist at times. Hel exists, but the alternatives are either eternal nothingness or a place of eternal training for a doomsday that will destroy everything (that's only for warriors who die in battle and women who die in childbirth.) Roman polytheism was much the same way, though a little lighter and with a dash of hedonism. I can't comment on the intellectual side of things, though I imagine it wouldn't be as strong.

The Dark Ages may have truly been dark.
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At least a few of the Greek mystery religions were moving towards reincarnation, which might have alleviated some of the fatalism. Alternatively, I believe the goddess Isis at the least offered her followers some sort of redemptive afterlife. The idea might well spring up absent Jesus - after all, the clear portrait of the afterlife is very much a Christian innovation on Judaism.

Also, while they're perhaps less resilient than monasteries, I expect that the elite classes and various academies and libraries in the east at the very least would preserve the intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman world.

As to some of the other comments I've seen, I don't see why "mother goddess" cults have to be too exclusive. What if Isis is an aspect of some sort of platonic divine and also has a husband named Serapis who covers the male elements of divinity, and you can worship them together as the true names of the God? Wouldn't something like that be appropriately universal.

In general, people liked the rituals of paganism - they were tangible and in times of peace provided for a well-regulated, well-ordered world. Where they fell down, I think, was that they didn't provide enough of a community in times of upheaval. The trend in the Roman world is going to be towards universal religion to match the scope of its empire. The various mystery cults will have to adapt a lot to survive.

Unrelated thought - without Arianism to define them against the Chalcedonian Roman world, might the Germans assimilate even faster?
 
Timaeus

Timaeus

Practical Lobster said:
As to some of the other comments I've seen, I don't see why "mother goddess" cults have to be too exclusive. What if Isis is an aspect of some sort of platonic divine and also has a husband named Serapis who covers the male elements of divinity, and you can worship them together as the true names of the God? Wouldn't something like that be appropriately universal.
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Include Dionysus Horus Borealis the Son of Heaven, and we have ourselves a Divine Family.

Practical Lobster said:
Unrelated thought - without Arianism to define them against the Chalcedonian Roman world, might the Germans assimilate even faster?
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Without something like Christianity, they might not assimilate fully at all.
 
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