A Pagan Rome?

Great Debates
41

Because I forgot to address this earlier, thank you rat avatar – I talked about a divine source to legal power among the Romans, but didn’t mention the even more obvious example of the early Franks. The symbolism of the Pope crowning the Holy Roman Emperor rather than the other way around was clear – it put God above Man, especially because Charlemagne was kneeling to pray when he was crowned.

You’re right, senoy, but that doesn’t grant much glory to Christians, especially because Louis X didn’t free the slaves for religious reasons – he did it for economic ones, since he made the serfs buy their freedom from the state, solving France’s financial problems that he inherited. If we want to look at individual monarchs who tried to abolish slavery, many Chinese emperors completely or partially abolished slavery, as early as Emperor Gao of the Han dynasty, long before Christianity was founded. You may say that their abolitionist movements didn’t permanently or completely abolish slavery, but neither did Louis X. He freed the serfs, but he required them to buy their own freedom; and colonial slavery wasn’t abolished until 1848.

And while Humanism was a movement among Christians, here is its definition:

Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition.

If you’re honestly going to argue that this is in accordance with Christian doctrine as practiced throughout the VAST majority of the last two thousand years, I don’t know what to tell you.

I’m not saying that Christianity was particularly worse than any other religion of its time in terms of the brutal things its followers did in its name, often despite rather than because of what it actually preaches. But a pagan Europe in the Middle Ages is presumable a more disjointed one, and perhaps one less hostile to the outside world. If the kingdoms of Europe weren’t united by a single religion, I’d think they’d fight each other more, and the rest of the world less, no? Where might that lead the world? That’s what I’m really interested in, not whether Christianity made the world less “barbaric”. If you think that inquisitions and crusades are the LESSER evil, you don’t think very highly of humanity, do you? Not that pagans can’t be brutal, mind you. I don’t think Christianity made the world less CIVILIZED, either.

42

it became more a State one in its open syncretism absorbing and merging, I think one can saylike this in fact:

not even very different lens…

By revelation.:slight_smile:
But removing the divine, it is the emergence in the Judaic influence and the Habash - ethiopic influence - of course Babale the OP said nothing of no christianity, just no Imperial Christianity.

This reaction is very Western european centric.

there is no need for the imperial christianity for the flows of the influence in the arabian region, never under Roman imperial control, and flows from areas themselves not under the Roman (like the Mesopotamia, like the Habash, the Abassyinine, etc).

and the slavic Wends, and the other west slav neighbors of them… the drive to the east was also conversion by the sword. Not just the Baltics, but the entire eastern region that is now the catholic.

Excepting the northern sudan (modern) and the Ethiopia regions, which converted even to the state christianity before or about the same time as the Roman state.

and it is again that this is Western roman centric in the observation for the non Roman world contacts - the Habash (abassyinine) loom very large in the Hadith and in the earliest emergence, along with the non roman regions of the mesopotamia, also with their christians.

If there is no idea that there is zero christianity, there is no reason to think there is not the I

The specific Syriac claim, this is a claim of certain western european scholars of a certain kind of coloration of thinking.

I do not find it true or supported very well. But let us say that it is not a solid claim and can be discarded.

funny the christian congratulation…

Ridiculous.
It was the new western Humanist rationalists, not the “christianity” in the general

And yes - to ascribe to christianity generally when very large majority of the denomminations had no problems at all with the institution and even the core of the western churches for the long time. It was indeed the western human rationalists.

yes agree.

43

Yes Humanism was a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman thought, or pre-Christian logic.

To be clear it wasn’t an anti-Christian movement, but it was an new interest in the older ideas in response to the then current conditions. They may have assumed these earlier writings were some form of divine revelation but they were looking to unify humankind.

Early Humanists clearly see no conflict with the church and their beliefs and that split between reason and religion happens much later.

“Christian humanism” is a later term when some turned back to the church and seem to be seeking ideas that are compatible with the teachings of the Church.

While I hate to link to wikipedia, maybe it is useful to review the page on Renaissance humanism to prevent the competing uses of the modern term.

That page still suffers from some wiki limits and romanticized ideas of the Renaissance, but will show how it was a renewed nostalgia in Roman and Greek ideas that just seem pretty hard to claim as “Christian”.

44

Well, let me just state that you are wrong.

But this is kinda a hijack.

Let’s get back to pagan Rome, and what would the world be like without Christianity.

45

Please provide a cite, even if it is a hijack I would far rather learn something than win a point. As Rome was mixed and probably best thought of as “Pagan” until it was sacked I am not sure if there is much that can be discussed there.

Constantinople had all sorts of temples both pagan and Christian too.

46

I don’t think we’d end up with a world without Christianity, not at all. You still have a few officially Christian states regardless of how early the divergence happens – personally, I’ve been imagining it fairly late, such as with a successful return to a Pagan state under Emperor Julian, which would still leave a sizable minority of Rome’s population Christian. Which, the more I think about it, would probably lead to quite a bit of internal strife. By that point, even if a strong emperor returns Rome to Paganism, you’ve still got lots of Roman Christians who aren’t going to be happy until they’re in charge. So Rome would probably have to deal with a few more big revolts, and that might make things worse for the Christians living there. But even so, you’ve got lots of Christian citizens, and you have a few officially Christian countries – Armenia, Aksum, and so on. We probably end up in a world without Catholicism, or with a very different sect arising from the West, but you do still have Christianity.

We also have to wonder whether a Pagan Western Roman Empire has a different relationship with the barbarian tribes. That’s not to say that the Germanic tribes don’t end up Christian anyways, mind you – the Goths, for example, converted after taking Christian captives. Unless this Pagan Rome persecutes Christians with renewed vigor, there are likely still many Christian citizens for the Goths to take captive. A Pagan Rome might actually be MORE hostile to the barbarian tribes, in that case, and in fact this could lead to renewed waves of persecutions… And it doesn’t necessarily help save the Western Roman Empire in any way. If this is the case, then at least some of the feudal kingdoms that form in the wake of Rome’s fall might end up Christian. Without a concept like the Holy Roman Empire, I doubt the forced conversions that follow happen with as much vigor, though. Perhaps Europe ends up mostly Christian anyways, with just a few more Pagan states left standing? If the Saxons don’t convert, then we probably have a pagan Britain, the Norse are never converted, or the Russians; but Spain, Italy, North Africa, Greece, the Middle East… Who knows. The Eastern Romans, too, might convert eventually, just much later than in our history. Or they might keep the same gods.

I don’t think any of these religions would stay the same, mind you. They’d probably become a lot more complex and ordered. You can’t control a late-antiquity state with a shamanistic religion. But there were other organized religions – like Zoroastrianism. That’s what I imagine these pagan states would eventually evolve. But if we take Zoroastrianism as an example, it wasn’t a particularly proselytizing religion, and these new Pagan ones may or may not evolve to become proselytizing. It’s entirely possible that sometime in the last twelve hundred years, some Germanic religion reformed and spread the word of Thor to every corner of Europe. But it doesn’t seem that likely to happen that way, considering the sorts of background these religions would be evolving from.

Since a lot of you brought up Islam, we have to consider: is the fate of the Sasanid empire any different? That kind of depends on the fate of Rome, too - does Rome still split and decay in the West?

The only big difference I can think of is, Orthodox Christianity brings lots of money to the East, in our world. Also, the silk trade is very profitable, and enriches both the Eastern Romans and Aksum, in Ethiopia. Aksum is an interesting case. It converted before Rome, so even if Christianity never becomes dominant in Rome, it still benefits. However, without the benefit of shared religion, does their relationship stay peaceful as long as it did in our timeline? Aksum and Rome became close, with Aksum serving as a Christian option for trade with India, rather than dealing with the Zoroastrian Sasanids. But would the Pagan Romans have fared better? It does seem that historically the Sasanids had more problems with Christianity than with other religions, so if the Romans and Sasanids form a closer relationship (they actually had a very long period of peaceful trade that only ended well after Rome converted, during the reign of a particularly zealous Emperor, in fact) does Aksum rise to the same prevalence? Especially if Rome views them with hostility due to the religious differences.

I guess that doesn’t really answer either the question about the Sasanids. I suppose if we presume that Pagan Rome has a better relationship with them than Christian Rome did, then maybe the empire doesn’t lose so much Silk Road business to the Christian Aksumites and it does a lot better. In that case, Islam might not form, or at least it might not be able to break the hold that Zoroastrianism had there before the fall of the Sasanids.

47

No. You are.

You started it.

And, nice save.

48

It is necessary to clearly decide on the scenario.

There being never a Christianity is a radically different proposition than

I think you state here a clear hypothetical timeline of the successful restoration of the pagan power.

Then it is the question what kind of circumstances are generated by such a restoration?

It is necessary to look where the Christian centers were in this time, maybe you are looking at the provoking of exoduses of the christians towards rebel peripheries, to the Sassanid mesopotamia already the refuge of the non conforming christian sects in the real time line.

And if you are not Western European centric or even Western centric, in this scenario that is the hypothesis of the pagan government retaining imperial power, there remain in the same time as you note but not directly, the quite independently Christian states, for example the Christian states of the North east africa, the Aksum and the Nuba christian states.

This may make the retention of the Egyptian valley difficult, and it is these African developments that are more economically important in this time than the European focus you all are having.

Is there any reason why the Roman and the Sassanid states would not engage in the same warfare as they did?

Is there any real genuine religious motivation? I think no, pagan or not, christian or not, they still are the competing empires and they still want to fight over the rich LEevantine and Mesopotamian territories.

The only question becomes if the Roman power weight is shifted due to the difference of the power dynamics, so do they by weakness cede the Levant? But this would have put the Egyptian valley grain basket in great danger, I think they have to fight.

Here it is a return to the observation that so many of the comments here have been Western european biased in their thinking and not understanding the weight of the eastern ec

For the Islamic development it is also tied there - it is to there, the Aksum, that the early Muslims went for refuge, not to the Levant, the Red Sea is the important basin with the trade ties of the Mecca and the Medina oriented there as well as to the north.

There is no reason to think that the Roman christian is the instigator of the islamic development (taking the secular analysis here without complexes). the only differences are
(1) whether the two empires find themselves in the same weakened state, particularly the Sassanid who fell so easily - if not militarily exhausted the Sassanids may not fall quickly, and
(2) the ease of the penetration as the opressed non conforming christians of the Coptic church and the schismatic segments of the Levantine welcomed the Islamic invasion over the oppresion of the Constantinople authorities - but it is perhaps only a different version of the same dynamic.

49

Actually, I think Islam derives from Judaism. I know that Jesus is supposed to considered as a prophet, but, from what little I’ve read of the Koran, it seems to me to be based heavily on the Pentateuch. If I am wrong, I welcome correction.

50

A point that gets obscured by the label “Christian” is that there were a plethora of Christian sects which did not get along terribly well with each other. Without something like Constantine’s decision to not only endorse Christianity but call a council where the church leadership hammered out one unified orthodox creed, much of Christianity’s influence would have been dissipated in internal squabbling (which happened anyway to a degree, but considerably less so that it did given the imperial imprimatur upon the One True Christian Church[tm]).

51

Most likely, it was a kind of split of Christianity. I say “kind of” because it’s pretty clear that Muhammed invented large aspects of the religion as his own take-away version, and there’s no evidence that he was Christian or Jewish. Christian missionaries (I believe of the Maronite Catholic church) were proselytizing in the region just before the founding of Islam. My view is that Muhammed crossed these beliefs with Judaism and also a lot of folk beliefs and culture common to the Arabian tribes to create Islam.

Rome had been fighting various Persian empires off-and-on since before Christianity existed, and continued to do so basically until the rise of the Caliphate occupied what us now Iraq, separating them until Persia fell. The issues between East and West were primarily geopolitical although they sometimes had wars purely because one leader or another wanted glory. Religion was no more than a side issue that occaisionally influenced later conflicts, but doesn’t seem to have been a major point of contention.

52

Maronites do not exist until the middle ages. The Syriac missionaries, yes, but they had already led to the conversion in the 300s of the Nubian principalities and the Aksum, state conversion before Rome itself, that then also sent its missionaries.

Whatever origin is wanted to be imagined, what is clear is the Islamic precepts were a a great departure from the folk beliefs, excepting the hajj, of the western arabian tribes.

As a matter of historical facticity, it is the case in the Arabian west, there were already, quite independent from the Roman state, the communities of the Jews and the various christians, and that the missionaries and the relations in the commerce went north to the Levant and the Mesopotamia but also and as important to the Red Sea and to the African shores where the christian Aksum was important to them in trade - as noted it was there and not to the north that early Muslims took refuge.

Yes, I know. That was my point.

53

This is nonsense without grounding in the history.

The internal divisions and the futile attempts of the Constantinople to impose one orthodoxy continued right through to the Islamic conquest and indeed it was those divisions that led the ‘heretical’ factions actually welcoming the Islamic armies (who imposed the lower taxes and gave no fucks about imposing an orthodoxy).

54

I’m pretty sure the Maronites were indeed active. They weren’t necessarily a formalized church as such at the time, sure. But the movement was clearly there, travelling and proselytizing from at least 500 AD, although they didn’t that far south immediately. I’m open to correction, but I did double-check my dates.

That I’m not entirely in agreement with. Yes, outside influences were clearly mixed in. But an awful lot of Islam seems to be grounded in the tribal culture of Arabia.

Yes. I wasn’t disagreeing with you.

And don’t get me started on the Donatists. :smiley:

55

The maronite church are a formation from the post crusades era.

The variety of the schisms that eventually coalesced to them, yes they existed and doubtless in the bubbling of the many schisms of the era of the 300s to the 500s there are no doubt the missionaries of various tendencies from the Syria - Levant region, but an entity that is the Maronites as the church entity, no - that is the Maronite church writing itself back into history deeper, a political fiction. Saying Maronite implies the later coherence and that to me is a political fiction.

as you wish, I do not agree. And I am not arabe.

56

Yes, and to add to this the premise of the OP was not that Christianity never existed at all, but that it never took root as the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. Jesus would presumably still have existed as a prophet- indeed the existence of a more limited-in-scope christianity is not precluded by the OP. I don’t see what would prevent Islam from existing in this scenario.

58

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