When did the last people who believed in the Greek gods die? Did it last until the end of the Roman Empire? Beyond it?
I’m still alive.
I suppose you really wanted to know when the last culture to worship them went away.
The answer is pretty much one word: Constantine.
Technically speaking he managed to maintain his belief in both the ancient gods and the christian gods through the miracle that is human rationalization.
But, he is an easy target for looking for the beginning of the end.
Unofficially, the religions continued on after Constantine, and still exist today. But as a society/cultural religion…Constantine is the begining of the end of Greco-Roman paganism.
It will take the invention of warp drive and big honking phasers to finally wipe the last of them from this galaxy, along with some arrogant and ungrateful military officers 
>>Unofficially, the religions continued on after Constantine, and still exist today.
There are people alive today who believe in a literal Zeus and his wife Hera and Athena that sprang from Zeus’s head? And that they live on Mount Olympus? Do you have a cite?
What you’ve said in the first sentence quoted is true, but misleading. What exists today is not exactly a direct continuation of ancient Greco-Roman paganism, as it has a strong overlay of Christianity. Syncretism inevitably brings change to both systems.
There was a gradual assimilation into Christianity. Early Mediterranean Christians largely kept the same places of worship; they took over some pagan institutions (the pontificate is pre-Christian). Many of the same beliefs and practices would have continued, rationalized as Christian. It’s probable that some of the gods’ attributes were transferred to the saints (for instance, there seems to be some continuity with the worship of the Dioskouroi in Christian sailors’ folk belief). Latin Juppiter, for instance, is etymologically simply a run-together Deus pater, still the name for the chief God worshipped in Italy. For unChristianized paganism, that’s more difficult. It would have continued longest in remote rural areas where we have no documentation. Best guesses that I’ve seen put it in the Dark Ages sometime.
You have a misunderstanding of mythology. People did not believe in Athena springing from Zeus’s head in the same way that they believed water is wet. Most of them would have believed that the same way Christians believe in talking, fruit-bearing snakes. Myths are considered true, but not in that way. It’s more useful to think of them as important multivalent metaphors than literal truths for idiots.
>And that they live on Mount Olympus? Do you have a cite?
Probably some neopagans that accept them as valid deities. I dont see why not. Its as rational as monotheism.
I personally know several - including me.
How literal they take it - most of us are more into the allegorical than the literal translations.
There are both neo-pagans and classical pagans in existence today. Not to mention all the feminist stuff about finding your inner athena and such. (Most people consider anyone practicing paganism to be a neo-pagan as there was not an organized religion for centuries.) But, people have never stopped leaving offerings at the surviving temples throughout greece(the area that once was greece). I’m not sure if that last point actually constitutes belief or people desperate to try anything or covering all their bases, just in case.
There are currently two major organized religions pertaining to ancient greek gods and at least one dedicated to ancient roman gods. Of course, by major, there are probably less than 10,000 official members. I am not part of any organized religion - like most modern pagans, I see the relationship between man and his gods to be a personal thing and I don’t need mass validation.
I am also fully aware of the absurdity of it all. But I take my religion seriously.
Whoa, I was a little aware of that but when I searched for sources I came empty, do you have cites?
I do believe you BTW but I have tried many times before to find the reasons and sources on why the Catholic church and almost all protestants nowadays dismiss the idea that there was supposed to be 12 heads of the church as it was written.
It lingered for quite some time. The last great philosophical center of paganism ( Neoplatonism in this case ) in the west at Athens was shut down by the emperor Justinian in 529. However there were reportedly still pagan Greeks on the mainland until at least the 9th and possibly the 10th century.
This is where the word pagan comes from, as the old beliefs lingered longest in rural areas.
From OED’s etymology:
It depends on whom you’re talking about, and when. Certainly deep thinkers in the Golden Age of Greece no longer took the myths literally, and began seeing them as metaphors, but I don’t doubt that many of your close-to-the-soil accepted these stories as literal truth. Furthermore, I suspect that even heavy thinkers accepted more of the stories as literally true during earlier times. In all likelihood you had a spectrum of beliefs running from complete acceptance a-la-Biblical fundamentalism to freethinkers like Socrates (who, if you accept Plato’s version of him, refused to comment on precisely how much he accepted as true).
You can’t make a blanket statement about belief in the Classical Myths – you’re talking about over a thousand years of history spread out over the Medieterranean and beyond. Nothing is consistent over that range. Christianity certainly isn’t.
Somehow I have the impression that the Romans considered their gods to be more explicitly metaphors rather than personalities, if that makes sense.
ETA: not through greater philosophical perceptiveness, but a simple lack of imagination. From the way they’re portrayed, I get the idea that the Romans were a rather wooden-headed lot.
Sort of. This http://www.livius.org/pn-po/pontifex/maximus.html explains what the “pontifex maximus” was in Roman times; the papacy inherited the office. Any good history of the papacy will explain the transition period.
This http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/03/style/03iht-pagan.t.html explains how pagan iconography contributed to Western Christianity, specifically the way in which we envision Jesus.
Here’s another art one: http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/pagan-imagery.asp
This one: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318012,00.html is about the early celebration of Christmas. It’s not the best article, but if you look into the history of Christmas, even avoiding the more insane fundamentalist sites it’s pretty clear that there’s a non-Christian festival underlying.
The best cites are in books:
Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries by R MacMullen
Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford-Warburg Studies) by Prof Arnaldo Momigliano
Paganism and Christianity, 100-425 C.E.: A Sourcebook by Ramsay MacMullen and Eugene N. Lane
Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversion of Western Europe (Middle Ages) by J.N. Hillgarth
>I am also fully aware of the absurdity of it all. But I take my religion seriously.
A lot of ancient Greeks and Romans felt the same way, especially the educated class. There was a lot of open doubt about the gods and the acceptance as religion as metaphor/social convention. We dont really see this “no doubt, no heresy” attitude until monotheism came around. Or at least it really brought this to the forefront. I think the modern christian or islamic really lacks the sophistication of belief the ancients had. Its interesting to see how much more strict religion has gotten as society has otherwise progressed since then.
Thank you for the balance – in my zeal to combat the all-pagans-were-literalists, I didn’t really allow that they could be. But they could.
I would agree with everything you said here except for the slight implications that people were morely to be literalists in the past than in the Golden Age. There’s a tendency (then and now) to think that we educated folk are more rational than our forebears and less educated brethren, but I don’t think there’s any solid evidence they actually WERE more literal. I apologize if I’m misrepresenting you.
Extending into non-Graeco-Roman paganism, I’ve read somewhere (maybe on this board) that among Mexican Catholics, an explicitly bloody and wounded body of Christ on the cross harks back to Aztec iconography and practices; or it’s at least speculated that there’s a connection.
Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313 which was obviously a major step in the eventual disappearance of classical paganism. But paganism did not immediately disappear - it was also still a legal religion and there were more pagans than Chrisitians in 313.
But Christianity took off quickly. In addition to being legal it was also favored by Constantine. So a lot of pagans had converted to Christianity and it had become the majority religion by the time of Constantine’s death in 337.
Constantine’s nephew Julian became Emperor in 355. Julian was a pagan and tried to restore paganism. But Christianity had already become too powerful and Julian only reigned for nineteen months.
Theodosius, who became Emperor in 378, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380. After that, eliminating paganism was pretty much just a matter of wiping out any remants.
The last (old-school) pagan temple in Europe was in Uppsalam in Sweden. It was destroyed in the 11th or 12th century.
Not sure about when the last Greco-Roman temple closed (and probably soon after opened “under new management”)