WI The Roman Empire adopted Zoroastrianism instead of Christianity?

I don't see any evidence that people were looking for a superior religion to practice. I find the whole premise to be absolutely false. Christianity's rise to cultural importance was no more than an accident of history.

I agree. I find it a bizarrely Christianocentric argument to say that it was destined to become a major religion because of its superior traits. I find it to be one of the more bizarre, but not fated, rises.
 
I agree. I find it a bizarrely Christianocentric argument to say that it was destined to become a major religion because of its superior traits. I find it to be one of the more bizarre, but not fated, rises.

If anyone uses an argument that even approaches to saying that it was "God's plan", then it means absolutely nothing to me.
 
If anyone uses an argument that even approaches to saying that it was "God's plan", then it means absolutely nothing to me.

If one uses that argument, then one could say that it was "Jupiter's plan that his religion fade from sight," Gods are ineffable and all that jazz. :D

(And I'm a practicing Catholic... I'm just somewhat too logical to attribute divine will to whether my toast falls butter side down or up.)
 
What about Buddhism? Or a syncretic faith like Helleno-Hinduism/Buddhism? As for the Mystery Cults if it could be made possible that you could be a member of them and still hold a native faith too instead of them being exclusive would be interesting. Like for example mother is a follower of Isis, dad follows Mithra, and the family as a whole is Greaco-Roman.
 
Let's go back to Zoroastrianism. I don't think it's totally impossible, you just need an earlier POD to get the religion to Rome. The main POD I can think of is to prevent the rise of Christianity. Say the historical Jesus dies in infancy or is run over by a wagon or something, and no one emerges to replace him and create a universalist proselytizing version of Judaism. Without a competing monotheist religion Zoroastrianism could spread westward through the Middle East and ultimately to Rome and the rest of the Empire. Once you've got a significant Zoroastrian population running around it has a chance of getting into the same flukey situation that Christianity was put in of being co-opted by the empire and going from a weird minority religion to the official imperial faith.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Let's go back to Zoroastrianism. I don't think it's totally impossible, you just need an earlier POD to get the religion to Rome. The main POD I can think of is to prevent the rise of Christianity. Say the historical Jesus dies in infancy or is run over by a wagon or something, and no one emerges to replace him and create a universalist proselytizing version of Judaism. Without a competing monotheist religion Zoroastrianism could spread westward through the Middle East and ultimately to Rome and the rest of the Empire. Once you've got a significant Zoroastrian population running around it has a chance of getting into the same flukey situation that Christianity was put in of being co-opted by the empire and going from a weird minority religion to the official imperial faith.

Sorry to necro this thread, but I've been away for a while, and just read these responses. Very interesting post, I'd like to add that the idea of Jesus as the prophesised Messiah was made retrospectively, by those who wanted to fit jesus into Jewish messianic prophecy.
I think the key would be through Greece, the Romans basically hero-worshipped the Greeks, with most Romans actually speaking Greek and adopting their customs. It was Greeks who first adopted Christianity, via the Byzantine Empire.
 
It would need that Jews made mass converted, adress themselves far more to "Gentiles from the door" (non-Jews present in jewish prayers), split from Shanderin and adapt themselves to greco-roman uses by adopting the classical philosophy into their dogmas and rejecting the more annoying issues as circumcision and taboo in food.

Wait a minute...

This happened OTL, see Philo of Alexandria. The early Christian hellenizers drew on him pretty heavily.

I think for this to happen you need to get rid of Christianity, which absorbed a lot of the universalistic and hellenistic elements in Judaism.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Sorry to necro this thread, but I've been away for a while, and just read these responses. Very interesting post, I'd like to add that the idea of Jesus as the prophesised Messiah was made retrospectively, by those who wanted to fit jesus into Jewish messianic prophecy.
I think the key would be through Greece, the Romans basically hero-worshipped the Greeks, with most Romans actually speaking Greek and adopting their customs. It was Greeks who first adopted Christianity, via the Byzantine Empire.
Its your thread. As the OP you can reopen it whenever you want.
 
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