There is a pernicious misconception that seems to be popular among the historically illiterate, the idea that Christianity emerged from an exotic void to displace the conservative pagan religion of Rome. This sentiment is espoused by the Neo-Pagan and Nietzchean vitalist types, who assert that the Christian cult was an insular ethnic religion completely alien to Greco-Roman or “European” culture, and by taking root it subverted the staunchly conservative and masculine morality and religious frameworks of the Roman empire. Allow me to play the part of a cultural exorcist, and expel this fallacious phantom once and for all.
With the advent of the first century BC, both traditional Hellenic polytheism and the ancient Roman religion were in a period of abject decline. This notion that Hellenic and Roman paganism had both remained unperverted since the days of Homer (and in Rome’s case the days of Numa Pompilius) only to be displaced by the subversive germ of “Semitic” Christianity betrays a deep lack of understanding in regards to the very nature of Hellenic and Roman religion. Christianity did not simply pop onto the scene and eradicate religious frameworks that were at the height of their historic popularity and power. Both were already in states of tremendous decline due to factors completely unrelated to Christ. Moreover, I would assert that Christianity actually instigated a wave of heightened morality that displaced the degenerate cultural and religious systems that had begun to fester in the late republic and early empire, due to perverse mystery cults and a lack of pure spirituality. Finally, I will demonstrate that Christianity was far less foreign and exotic to Greco Roman society then some would have you believe. Let us first begin by exploring the reasons for the dissolution of traditional Greek Polytheism.
By the first century BC, traditional devotion to the Homeric gods had been dealt a death blow by the various “rationalistic” criticisms of the gods. The rational doctrines of the philosophical schools, such as the Stoics and Epicureans, cleaved into the traditional beliefs of the anthropomorphic gods of old. “The monistic doctrine of the Stoics, which offered the doctrine of a divine providence and of the Logos as world-reason pervading and ordering the universe, did not lead to the acceptance of a personal, supernatural God; for even the Stoic world-reason was subject to the iron law of Heimarmene, which watches over the course of earthly events as they revolve in an eternal circle, and thus deprives the Logos of freedom of action. Epicurus, for his part, did indeed reject the existence of such an inalterable fate, but his view of the world, following Democritus' doctrine of atomic laws, led only to a physically determined universe and likewise left no room for the mythical world of the gods or for a personal God directing all things.” (Jedin).
Now the metaphysical cosmologies of the different philosophical schools varied and did not all flat-out reject the traditional gods of Homer, but their critiques of the Homeric myths and anthropomorphic qualities attributed to the deities were fairly consistent. Traditional understandings of the gods were also under assault by the theories of Euhemeros, who posited that the gods were in fact but cultural memories of great men, whose outstanding qualities had been mythicized into apotheosis. Initially, these lofty theories were confined to the upper classes, but through the popular writings of the Cynics and Stoics, these critiques were disseminated and popularized among the masses. Traditional Greek polytheism was also losing its distinct flavor due to the Hellenization of the Far East, which resulted in a kind of cultural osmosis between Greece and the Orient. The age of the Great Hellenic Kingdoms following the conquests of Alexander resulted in mass cultural and religious syncretism, in places as far as Bactria the Buddha was depicted in the Hellenic style, while back in Greece the oriental cults streamed in. And this double migration eroded the old character of all the deities involved.
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In Rome, the decline took a different shape. In fact, the first real blow to traditional Roman religion came from Greece itself. “Since the Second Punic War there had been a steadily growing hellenization of Roman religion, which expressed itself in the erection in increasing numbers of temples and statues of Greek gods on Roman territory. While the Hellenistic gods were introduced mainly by way of the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily, it was the direct influence of Greek literature on the beginnings of Latin literature which very largely promoted the hellenization of religion. The stage, with its Latin versions of Greek comedies and other poetical works, also made the people familiar with the world of the Greek gods and mythology. In the face of such an invasion, the ancient gods and their festivals receded into the background, and this, in turn, led to a decline in influence of the colleges of priests who maintained the worship of the old Roman gods.” (Jedin).
The great irony to be found in all of this is that the majority of people probably conceive of the traditional Roman religion in its purest state as already Greco-Roman. There is a popular notion among the masses that Roman polytheism was from the beginning but a copy and paste of the gods of Greece, Zeus becoming Jupiter, Aphrodite becoming Venus, and so on and so on. And the very fact that some of us moderns hold on to this delusion bears testament to the success that Hellenic religiosity had in penetrating Roman society. I would wager that this is why I remember so many confused looks when Cato the Elder was discussed in a Roman history class I took as an undergrad. Cato constantly bemoaned the influence of Hellenism and its ‘subversion’ of traditional Roman values. “But wait, I thought they were basically the same thing! Why is he mad!” The tension between Roman culture and what they perceived as decadent aspects of Hellenism, (the Romans were basically self-hating philohellenists) is complex and fascinating and I will write an article on it in the future. To return to the critiques of our neo-pagan vitalist friends, the very nature of the Roman religion’s decline hilariously invalidates the initial premises of the vitalists. When the modern neo-pagan LARPer opines the dissolution of Roman religiosity at the hands of the “feminine” and “eastern” cult of Christ, they fail to realize that their very conception of Roman religiosity was already viewed as perverted by the “feminine” and “eastern” touch of Greece.
Before continuing, I would like to return to a section of the last Jedin quote. “It was the direct influence of Greek literature on the beginnings of Latin literature which very largely promoted the hellenization of religion. The stage, with its Latin versions of Greek comedies and other poetical works, also made the people familiar with the world of the Greek gods and mythology. In the face of such an invasion, the ancient gods and their festivals receded into the background, and this, in turn, led to a decline in influence of the colleges of priests who maintained the worship of the old Roman gods.” We are getting a glimpse into a cultural process that is quite extraordinary. The sheer power of popular entertainment to subvert and warp a culture entirely. It was not a foreign sword that Hellenized aspects of Rome, no, it was the stage. Reflect on that. Literature and stories created for entertainment so effectively Hellenized Roman religion, that 2000 years later the masses are under the impression that it was Hellenized from its inception.
(For more on the power of the stage, read this article)
No one was more keenly attuned to this distressing loss of religious identity than Caesar Augustus himself. As he assumed power at the end of the first century BC, he initiated far-reaching reforms to the religious fabric of the late republic. “The old colleges of priests were indeed reorganized, shrines were restored, forgotten feasts revived, and members of the leading families once more assumed religious offices and functions.” (Jedin). Even today, if you venture into the old ruins of Rome’s historic center, the oldest of the temples still standing are for the most part reconstructions and renovations from the time of Augustus. But something had already been hopelessly lost. The spiritual essence of Roman religiosity had all but evaporated, and no amount of marble could recapture the luster. “This is especially apparent in Horace, whose Carmen Saeculare, written in 17 B.C. to celebrate the dawn of a new epoch in Rome, reflects his own scepticism by its lack of deep religious feeling.”
But Augustus introduced another truly radical innovation to the heart of Roman religiosity, one now perceived as just another integral aspect of Roman paganism. The Cult of the Emperor. It is hard to convey to modern audiences just how abhorrent the idea of a living person holding divine status would have been to the average Roman before its eventual acceptance. The popular imagination today just accepts the notion of the Romans venerating a divine emperor as an integral part of their religious imagination. But this was never the case, and ironically enough, the cult of the emperor was itself an Eastern innovation. The Roman imperial cult was itself adapted and modified from the Oriental Cult of the Ruler. “Religious veneration of the ruler had its origin in the East, where royal power was early regarded as having a religious basis. Alexander and his successors were able to build on this foundation when they added to it elements of Greek hero cult and Stoic ideas about the superiority of the wise man, and thus succeeded in introducing the religious cult of Hellenistic kingship.” So unseemly to the Roman sensibility was the idea of a living deity that Augustus and his successors had to progressively institute the imperial cult in an incredibly shrewd and cunning way. But this is a topic for a later article. The point I am getting at is that even the imperial cult, a supposed cornerstone of Roman paganism in the modern imagination, was itself percieved as a foreign and unseemly import from the East.
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Let us now turn to another area that deserves our attention, the eastern mystery cults, which had so thoroughly penetrated every stratum of Roman society. As previously stated, the cliche narrative that circulates in certain right wing circles is that Christianity was this foreign cult that emerged out of the blue to disrupt traditional Roman morality and religiosity. What this fails to account for is the fact that a multitude of eastern cults had already penetrated Roman life far before Christ, cults of unspeakable degeneracy and depravity. These were private, initiation based societies, born of the mixing of Oriental and Hellenic culture. “The chief reason for their attraction is to be found in their claim to be able to give the individual a liberating answer to his questions about his fate in the next world. They claimed to show him how, by ordering his way of life in this world, he could assure his survival in the next; in a word, how he could find his eternal salvation.” (Jedin). Traditional Roman and Hellenic cults had very little to offer the common man hope of a “hereafter.” Some kind of cultural hunger had been awakened in this period, the people yearned for something more then an afterlife full of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” It is not my intention to give a comprehensive overview of the mystery cults, (if you are interested I will do a different article on them), but instead to impress upon you the widespread popularity of them and their utterly degenerate nature. Intoxication, frenzy, self castration, these were all involved in their various rituals. For example:
“Asia Minor was the home of the cult of the Great Mother, the fertility goddess Cybele, who was early known to the Greeks. In the Hellenistic age her worship spread quickly beyond her homeland and was introduced into Rome as early as 204 B.C. She too was connected with a male divinity, the Nature hero Attis, her lover. According to the myth (of which more than one version exists), Attis was unfaithful to her, wherefore he was cast into a frenzy, from the consequences of which he died. He was awakened to new life and reunited with the Great Mother. This myth became the basis of a wild and strange mystery cult, served by a special college of priests, the Galli. These, by ecstatic dancing and flagellation, brought on their own "mystical" frenzy, in which they were driven even to self-castration. In the rite of initiation, the candidate or mysta symbolically relived the fate of his god in death and resurrection; he was sprinkled with the blood of a bull and then entered the "bridal chamber", which he left as one reborn.” (Jedin).
Longhouse’d
Another scorn worthy mystery cult was the devotees of the Egyptian Goddess Isis. Augustus found the cult to be “pornographic,” and if a Roman is saying as much then you know it had to have been pretty bad. I will recite for you a historical episode involving the cult which will serve as a perfect microcosm for its utter decadence. In Rome in the first century AD there lived a married couple of high birth, Paulina and Saturninus, who were by all accounts a couple of the highest virtue (atleast for Roman standards). Enter Decius Mundus. Decius had the hots for Paulina and wanted to come to know her (in the Biblical sense). Now are horny friend Decius did everything in his power to seduce her, but had zero success in cuckolding Saturninus. But Decius had more then a few tricks up his sleeve. Decius knew that Paulina was a devotee to Isis, and so he hatched an ingenious plan. He went to the temple of the goddess and bribed the priests to assist in the plot. I will allow Josephus to explain the rest.
“She went to some of Isis’s priests: and upon the strongest assurances [of concealment,] she persuaded them by words; but chiefly by the offer of money: of twenty five thousand drachmæ in hand; and as much more when the thing had taken effect: and told them the passion of the young man: and persuaded them to use all means possible to beguile the woman. So they were drawn in to promise so to do, by that large sum of gold they were to have. Accordingly the oldest of them went immediately to Paulina: and, upon his admittance, he desired to speak with her by her self. When that was granted him, he told her, that “He was sent by the God Anubis, who was fallen in love with her, and enjoined her to come to him.” Upon this she took the message very kindly; and valued herself greatly upon this condescension of Anubis: and told her husband, that she had a message sent her, and was to sup and lie with Anubis. So he agreed to her acceptance of the offer: as fully satisfied with the chastity of his wife. Accordingly she went to the temple: and after she had supped there, and it was the hour to go to sleep, the priest shut the doors of the temple: when in the holy part of it the lights were also put out. Then did Mundus leap out: for he was hidden therein: and did not fail of enjoying her: who was at his service all the night long: as supposing he was the God. And when he was gone away; which was before those priests who knew nothing of this stratagem were stirring; Paulina came early to her husband, and told him how the God Anubis had appeared to her. Among her friends also she declared how great a value she put upon this favour. Who partly disbelieved the thing, when they reflected on its nature: and partly were amazed at it; as having no pretence for not believing it, when they considered the modesty and the dignity of the person. But now on the third day after what had been done, Mundus met Paulina, and said, “Nay Paulina, thou hast saved me two hundred thousand drachmæ: which sum thou mightest have added to thy own family. Yet hast thou not failed to be at my service in the manner I invited thee. As for the reproaches thou hast laid upon Mundus, I value not the business of names: but I rejoice in the pleasure I reaped by what I did, while I took to myself the name of Anubis.” (Josephus Antiquities Book 18).
What we have here is a woman devoted to both her husband and her religion, who is influenced by this mystery cult into believing sex is fine if its with a jackal headed divinity of death. And this moral perversion obviously leads to someone being completely taken advantage of in this way. And here lies the beauty of Christianity. Christianity arrives upon the scene, and while superficially appearing to the masses as just another eastern mystery cult (it certainly would have been contextualized as such at the time), it diferentiates itself by its calls to moral perfection. Especially in regards to sexual ethics. It demands strict heterosexual monogamy, nothing like what occurred between Decius and Paulina could have occurred in a Christian context. And in regards to the castration rites of the Galli, Christianity utterly negated that as well. A little known fact, the first ecumenical council, the first council of Nicaea, banned self castration of the clergy. The ingestion of intoxicants, so common in the orgiastic rites of the mystery cults, was also extinguished with the coming tide of Christian sensibility. Christianity may have come from the east, but what it brought was a moral perfection to a degenerate Roman society. It most certainly did not upend a strictly conservative ethos as some would have you believe.
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Now we turn to our final topic of consideration. The final myth to dispel. That Christianity was from its inception an exotic and foreign religion that was only later syncretized with “european” culture. This is bogus. Christianity from its very beginnings was utterly hellenic, in more ways then you can imagine. I assume that most are aware that the New Testament was written in Koine Greek and spread primarily through the Greek language. Most know that Paul preached in Greek, and that the traditional liturgies were in Greek as well. This is usually accepted by our vitalist friends. But there is this misconception that Jesus the man was a provincial and closed off fellow, with no connections to the wider medditeranean (and therefore Greco Roman) world. That it was purely through Paul in which this small jewish sect was transformed and spread outwards. Wrong.
What must be understood is that prior to the Islamic expansion, the Levant and North Africa in large parts were culturally Hellenic. And Jesus the man came from an area of the Levant that was profoundly Greco Roman, a part of the world that would have been considered ‘European’ today (or at least part of western cutlure and its shared heritage, at least as much as Athens is). Christ was not from Jerusalem, he was from Galilee, which was near and (depending on who you ask) overlapping with Decapolis, which was the center of Greco Roman culture in the eastern frontier. (Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson asserts Decapolis was for all intents and purposes just another name for Galilee, and I will be drawing on some of his lectures for this next section). Jesus was from Nazareth, a small town on the outskirts of the bustling city hub of Sepphoris. Tradition explains that it was Sepphoris where the Virgin Mary was born. Sepphoris, as the name implies, was a Greek city, full of Greco Roman culture (including its own theater and bathhouse). Sepphoris even sided with Rome during the first great rebellion. Christ in his early years was a Carpenter, a tradesman, and he most certainly would have made the mile or two journey from Nazareth to Sepphoris to conduct in trade of his goods, as Nazareth was but a small hamlet. To do so, he would have needed to conduct business in Greek. And where did Jesus begin preaching? Caupernaum, a greek city. Many of the early apostles had Greek names. Look no further then Andrew and Philip.
According to Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson, the very reason his origin is thrown at him as a pejorative (Nazarene), is because the Pharisees and Sadducees saw him as a foreigner, a man from a Greco Roman region steeped in hellenic culture. Johnson asserts that part of the reason the jewish authorities despised him so much is not only was he turning to the Greek world and Greek culture, but he was preaching in the same way as the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah. He was preaching chastisement of the Jewish people, in the same way Jeremiah sides with the Babylonians as they sack Jerusalem.
Johnson makes another fascinating point that reinforces his thesis that Christ was intentionally turning away from the Judaic power structures and displayed Pro-Roman sympathies.
This passage is usually misinterpreted as a simple commentary on taxation. But Johnson asserts that this is not the case. The Pharisees are looking to entrap Christ here, in a way now lost to us moderns engaged in a superficial reading. These coins had depictions of Caesar on them, therefore making them blasphemous to use as legal tender for religious jews at the time. By exclaiming the now famous line “Render unto Caesars what is Caesars,” he is in effect spitting in the faces of the degenerate ruling elite, and siding with Rome.
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I hope I have made my point. Christianity was inherently Greco Roman from the very beginning. To claim that Christianity was a religion foreign to the cultural heritage of Rome, is to claim that the totality of Greek culture is foreign as well. Rome was infested with a multitude of degenerate eastern cults before Christ was placed in a manger in Bethlehem. And unless you are willing to defend the sexual ecstasies of the mystery cults as conservative, I would suggest rethinking just how “conservative” the empire was at the turn of the millenium. Christianity, far from destroying Greco Roman religiosity, in reality emerged from Greco Roman culture and brought with it a spiritual revival across the empire, one that will shine on until the consummation of the age.
This was VERY well done!
Mind. Blown.
It makes sense considering not just the "Caesar's Coin" story but also the "Faithful Centurion".