Ramses the Great: How did the ancient pagan religions view one another?
From what I’ve seen, the whole business of converting people started with the rise of Judaism, so I’m inclined to think that the pagan religions co-existed without conflict.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Gerald Cline
Actually the Jews didn’t have any interest in converting anyone. You were born a Jew or not. Most religions tolerated each other. No one bad-mouthed anyone else’s gods. The thing that irritated other tribes about the Jews was they were not willing to even acknowledge anyone else’s gods (at least once they came back form their exile in Babylon).
Heathen religions were mainly political. When two cities fought they would drag their gods along, and losing side would have to admit their gods were inferior. They would also have their temples plundered and their gods broken into pieces, and often they would be humiliated in some way to demonstrate the superiority of the victorious gods.
The Greeks first came up with the concept of ecumenism, equating their twelve Olympians with twelve Egyptian and Babylonian deities, and the Romans took it further, adding everybody’s gods to their own, hence the term ‘Pantheon’ meaning temple of all gods. The Romans were quite easy about religion until anybody refused to recognize their gods as superior, especially their divine emperors; this is what caused so much persecution of Christians in the first few centuries after Christ. Christians wouldn’t make sacrifices to Roman gods, so they were killed in job lots. All one had to do to prove oneself not a Christian was run to the temple and swear oaths and make sacrifice to Diana or Jupiter and all was forgiven–most of the time. Such was the persecution that Diocletian had monuments erected to himself with the title ‘exterminator of that most pernicious sect of Christians.’ His eventual successor, Constantine I, made Christianity the state religion a few years later. Got to be careful what you brag about, even if you’re an Emperor.
The “whole business of converting people” started long before with Akhenaten and Zarathustra. Akhenaten declared his god Aten to be the only true god and all others false, and is considered by some to be the first monotheist, but that assumes that nobody else ever came up with the idea without going down in history. Zarathustra’s religion has influenced all the later monotheist religions quite a bit, and there are still a few tens of thousands of Zoroastrians in Iran where he lived. The Muslims call them ‘fire worshippers’ and polytheists and persecute them dreadfully, but this is because their religion is dualistic, being balanced between Ahura Mazda, the God of Light, and Angra Mainyu the God of Darkness–Shaitan is not the equal of Allah to a Muslim (which belief is shared by Jews and Christians). Fires are lit because they provide light; it’s symbolic, but they are still considered no better than polytheists by many Muslims in Iran.
The rise of Judaism as opposed to the Abrahamic faith is a bit confused historically. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek in Salem, who some believe was also Shem the son of Noah. Whether or not he was Shem, he was a high priest before the Law of Moses was in existence, and Abraham recognized his authority. So there was some form of monotheistic, or semi-monotheistic religion before the Law of Moses, and Abraham was converted to it, more or less, so it began before Judaism came into existence.
Christianity started out trying to convert everyone through persuasion, and was almost totally eradicated, at least publicly, by several Emperors ending with Diocletian. By 315 AD Christianity was the state religion, and everybody suddenly gave up their ancient gods cause the Emperor said so. Took him a few years to finish off all resistance, and it is claimed he was finally baptized on his deathbed. Many protestants will tell you that Christianity ceased to exist in its proper state at that time, and not until much later, with Wycliffe and Luther among others, did real Christianity return to the world. The Orthodox and Catholic churches of course beg to differ.
One note: pagan was a term of contempt used by the Romans for the religious practices of country bumpkins. ‘Pagan deity’ is like saying ‘hillbilly god.’ The way its used today is completely different from its origins.
Your belief that ‘pagan’ or heathen religions existed without conflict is absolutely false. Their conflicts were political, and religion was just a dimension of that, as a priest-king, pharaoh or Caesar would be considered divine. The Mongols had religious reasons for conquering half the world, and even Buddhists have fought on occasion, especially in Japan. The real difference between heathen beliefs and those of the Israelites, and later Christians, is that the heathen ‘religions’ had no unifying ethics. You could pick your god and behave accordingly. That’s why philosophy arose as it did in Greece, and was of such importance in Rome–the whims of the gods weren’t quite satisfying, and the sympathetic magic of the pagans was too goofy for educated men (and later women). The reason for attempting to convert by persuasion is because of belief, the desire to share happiness and truth. The reasons for attempts to convert by the sword are always political, no matter what excuses are used.
Answer by Scarlet MacBluThe groups who practices pagan religions didn’t co-exist without conflict. All you have to do is look at Rome for evidence of this… the Romans were constantly at war with different pagan tribes and peoples. The Germanic tribes, the celts, the goths… there are records of celtic druids waging psychological warfare on the Roman armies in Britain through religious rituals, sacrifices and curses.
I don’t think ye olde pagans used to be so uptight about which religion was the “right one” and most didn’t engage in “holy war” specifically but they all engaged in war at some point and certainly they believed they were favored by their particular deities to win.
Just like today, it wasn’t wars of religious idealism (and despite all you hear, todays wars aren’t wars of religious idealism), it was wars over land and resources fueled by cultural biases (same as today, despite appearances). Religions are a key part of cultures, so when an enemy calls your culture barbaric and worthy of extermination in order to gain your land, he’s also referring to your religion as barbaric. People don’t change that much over so many centuries.
-Scarlet
The Jews were never interested in converting others. To this day they still aren’t. They just want to be left alone. Likewise, the monotheistic Zoroastrians generally did not force conversion, although they often welcomed new believers.
Pagan religions generally did not have a lot of religious conflict. Accepting that, say, the Celts have their own gods in no way threatens the fact that the Roman gods are also real. When people traveled, they commonly worshiped the local gods (as well as their own more familiar gods) because, after all, they are guests in the lands of those gods.
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