So a fact, that comes up in any modern history of the later Roman empire, is that long before Christianity became the dominant religion, Roman society had basically become monotheistic. By late antiquity (approx the reign of Diocletian in 284CE) the kind of pagan polytheism we think of when we think of Roman religion, based on a pantheon of anthropomorphic gods (who acted like arseholes and had no interest in the salvation or well being of humanity) was not what your average Roman believed in. Instead they had been replaced by a set of Eastern “mystery cults” that if not literally monotheistic were very close to it (focusing on a senior deity) and just as focused on personal salvation as Christianity.
My question is how do we know this? The mystery cults were well, mysterious. The cult of Mithras, the most widespread of them, was famously extremely secretive and we know absolutely nothing about what it’s followers believed, and the tiny amount we do know doesn’t contradict belief in a traditional Greco-Roman polytheistic pantheon. While that was outlier (in that we know almost nothing about it’s followers beliefs) the beliefs of the others are not loads better known to modern scholars.
I was just listening to the Literature and History podcast (which is incidentally excellent, and I would highly recommend) which has finished its series on late antiquity. The podcaster pointed out, in their discussion of the early Christian authors, that none of them mention this aspect of Roman Christian belief in their criticism of Pagan religion (even though many of them were previously pagans who were part of these cults, before converting to Christianity). They point this out as an example of sources with an axe to grind being unreliable. But that doesn’t seem convincing to me. It’s not like those writers were speaking to the historical record, and were deliberately omitting them so they would be lost to history. They were taking to their contemporaries and trying to present Christianity as a better alternative to paganism. Why would they use arguments against paganism, as a polytheistic religion with countless silly Gods, if that was not what pagans of the day believed in ? Something they well knew as a former pagan themselves.
I had the impression from my university history class that mystery cults (like Mithras or Isis) were popular, but by no means universal around the time of Christianity. Is that incorrect?
When I learned about syncretism and the similarities between early Christianity and pre-existing mystery cults, that was sort of the last nail in the coffin for my Christian beliefs.
My understanding is they had become so widespread as to represent a majority of the population by that era. But IANAC (I am not a classicist).
Though that could mean the majority of people that our sources wrote about, so just the tiny wealthy elite. The cult of Mithras was incredibly widespread particularly in the military and some have proposed that if Christianity hadn’t won out it would have ended up being the dominant religion of Europe
That’s a quote from the podcast I mentioned, which while just a podcast is by an academic not some random dude:
When we went through the first half of Augustine’s City of God , we watched him disparage the gods and goddesses of Roman tradition. He made fun of the sheer number of Roman deities whose names were on record by the 410s CE – a god of waves hitting the shore, a god of waves receding from the shore, a god to help a groom lead a bride home, a goddess to help the groom pierce the bride’s hymen, and the point, of course, is that Romans had an absurd number of Gods in their theological annals. What Augustine ignored, however, was that in 410 CE, when he was writing all of this, most Roman religions looked like Christianity – there were cultic groups, esoteric rites based on personal salvation, and if not actual monotheism, at least ascendant savior deities
Tbh I’m with you. Everything I’ve read or heard about these cults seems much more similar to Greco-Roman polytheism than Abrahamic monotheism. Sure Dionysus came back from the dead, but other than that he acts like a traditional Greco-Roman god or demigod not a Christian savior.
But I’ve heard or read this idea (that Roman beliefs were basically monotheistic long before Christianity came along) repeated as a fact in numerous places.
According to the podcast site, “Doug Metzger finished his Ph.D. in literature in 2011. His chief scholarly interest, following his dissertation work, continues to be 19th-century realism and postbellum American philosophy.”
One doctorate in literature, and a chief “scholarly interest” in 19th century America.
Thanks for the quote. I’m not seeing it. The Christian idea of salvation is that the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ was needed to redeem humanity from Original Sin. Original sin is a Christian concept.Non Christian Romans would not be praying to any deity to save them.
I have heard plenty of things that are demonstrably false repeated in numerous places. It may be true that some mystery cults were monotheistic. Except for the possibility of Mithras, all the ones I know of were henotheistic. They acknowledged the existence of a whole pantheon of gods, but picked one out as special and devoted their worship to that deity.
I don’t care what that podcaster’s credentials are. Unless they do some serious citing, I’m not remotely convinced. “Ascendant savior deities” Again saving their worshippers from what exactly?
I stand corrected possibly I mixed him up with anothr podcaster who was still in academia.
But still this is not an idea I just got from him, it’s something I’ve heard or read in numerous places, including from actual professional historians.
I don’t think anyone’s denying that. The theory is that in doing so they ended up with something that looked a lot more like Abrahamic monotheism than traditional Roman polytheism. I am pretty skeptical about that.
Even the fact they were mystery religions kind of speaks against that. That’s a very traditional part of greco roman polytheism but the antithesis of Abrahamic religions (well Christianity and Islam) where its your duty to tell as many people as possible about the one true path to god.
Again, many things that are demonstrably false have been spread by many people, some of who should have definitely known better.
I doubt in the extreme they ended up with anything resembling monotheism. If the god your mystery cult prays to is the brother/sister/mother/father etc of the god your neighbor’s mystery cult prays to, it makes things theologically speaking very different.
When I first learned of the ironclad ships of the Civil War, the Monitor and the Merrimac, I did a report on them. I took out three books from the library. One book said that in the batte between the two, the Monitor won. One book said the Merrimac won. One book said it was a draw.
Clearly, two out of those three books were wrong.
We have had many threads on various ‘facts’ that are false.
I can’t speak to the Roman case, but plenty of religions besides Christianity feature a soteriological element, some form of refuge from the travails of the mundane, be it an afterlife, or freedom from the cycle of rebirth as in Hinduism or Buddhism, or an enlightened state of being. Typically, that’s one of the desirable traits of religion: some promised land or state of being where you finally get to reap the rewards for faithfully playing by the rules in this life, no matter how miserable your conditions. (The wiki article does discuss the mystery religions briefly.)
I am aware of samsara and the desire to stop being reincarnated on earth. It is the use of the words savior and salvation that I have a problem with. As the Wikipedia article you linked to uses them as well, I don’t know if there are others who object or if this is just a me problem.
The more generic term of art for that topic in religious studies is “soteriology” (which admittedly, just shifts the language from Latin to Greek, since it translates as “the study of salvation”).
The Wiki article for that topic even has a section for the soteriology of mystery religions.
I went looking for this out of curiousity and found this 1949 essay on Mithraism by one Martin Luther King Jr.
Which includes this passage:
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was another view which was very prominent in Mithraism. Mithraism insisted that the soul was immortal and its temporary sojourn in a body was a period of trial. The worshipper’s action determined the posthumous fate of his soul. Of course, he was not alone in his attempt to attain purity and truth; Mithra stood by his side as a divine helper.10
The background of Mithraic eschatology was provided by that theory of the relation of the soul to the universe. It was believed that the soul descended at birth {from} the eternal home of light through the gate of Cancer, passing down through the seven planetary spheres to earth. As the soul passed through each stage it accumulated more and more impurity. It was possible for the initiate, while in his trial period on earth, to gain purity through the practice of courage and truth.11
After death there was judgment of the soul. Mithra, the protector of the truth, presided over the judgment court. If the soul had lived an impure life, it was dragged down to the infernal depths, where it received a thousand tortures. If, on the contrary, its good qualities outweighed the bad, it rises through the gate of capricorn, passing in reverse order through the planetary sphere. At each stage the impurities which the soul picked up in its downward flow gradually diminished. The end of this great rise was supreme happiness and eternal bliss.
Anyhow, that looks to me like serious scholarship saying that the cult of Mithra offered adherents personal salvation of their immortal souls from sin accumulated before birth.
NB I did also find cites suggesting that the cults of Isis and Cybele also offered personal salvation, but none of them were as good as an essay by MLK Jr.
Half_Man_Half_Wit linked to that section in the post I was replying to. The idea of praying to a Buddha to be reborn into their paradise is not new to me. It is Zen Flesh, Zen Bones which I have read many times since it was given to me in the early 1990’s. That always struck me as very un Buddhist. Gautma goes through I can’t recall how many lifetimes (1,000?10,000) before finding enlightenment. He does a variety of miracles. Not one of those miracles is waving his hand and giving his followers enlightenment. The way to enlightenment is right speech, right effort etc- a lot of hard work.
ETA
Stanislaus I am not denying that these religions believed in some variety of immortal soul or an afterlife. I am arguing that what they believed should not be called “salvation”.
Whether or not thats the case my point is there is definitely a huge practical difference between “I’m obliged to tell everyone I can about the true path to god” and “the true path to god is only for a select few and I promise not tell anyone else the secret to it on pain of death”. The former is a distinguishing feature of Christianity and Islam, the latter is very much part of traditional greco-roman paganism.
Much of the distinction among the various traditions and lines of transmission boils down to “what is the most effective practice of Buddhism?”
My own ancestors were of the Sōtō Zen faith (my great-grandfather was a priest) so enlightenment was by meditation, famously zazen seated meditation. But practically speaking, in my mother’s and my generation, it was really just about the socially-customary life events like funerals and weddings, much like Christianity is for many nominally Christian Westerners.
Well, I don’t think anyone is going to begrudge you your own idiosyncratic defintion of “salvation”, but since it’s an established term of art in a formal area of sociological study, this is not a fight you will win.