Roman religion without christianity

I'm wondering about what direction Roman religion would have gone if Christianity had never existed, or Julian the apostate had succeeded.

Sol Invictus appears to have been the rising star for deities, maybe even replacing Jupiter as the most important deity of the Roman world? Isis and Serapis was also on the rise.

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Julian the Apostate was a Neo-Platonist so that

>Neo-Platonist

Did Platonism have any influence at all on the thinking of the Hoi Polloi?

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Not really because it didn't get enough of a following before Christianity overtook it.

Mithraism

>Sol Invictus appears to have been the rising star for deities, maybe even replacing Jupiter as the most important deity of the Roman world?
What was the story behind that even? Why did Sol Invictus suddenly become so popular in the mid-late empire?

One god for one Empire.

Monotheism doesn't require long lists of names for gods and their specific functions, like the Indigitamenta of the Roman polytheist religion.

Christianity was just one out of many possible monotheist religions.

The Sol Invictus came from paganism itself, like Atenism in Egypt, there were mystery cults, Mithraism, etc.

(Neo-)Platonism dealt with the god of philosophers. Whichever monotheism that was going to conquer Rome would inevitably be reinterpreted according to Plato & friends.

This was already happening with the Gnostic sects, Acts 17 has the apostles telling mystery cults in Athens their god is the same as theirs, even in Judaism itself you see Philo being acquainted with Platonism.

Plotinus, a pagan, influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, he would've influenced anything else as well.

>Julian the apostate

Christianity won out because Christians had a higher survival rate than Pagans.

0.81 percent of all Christians survived the Plagues, while only 0.41 percent of pagans did.

Julian couldn't copy their ethics of charity, it was absolutely alien to the pagans that their gods would care if they helped someone else out.

Tldr: Christians would win no matter what

>apostate
That's Julian the Philosopher for you.

Isis, Serapis and Mithras were all worshiped in Rome by mystery cults that were dwarfed by the population at large. They were never popular religions like Christianity, nor did they make up a major part of individual's lives like Hellenic Pantheism did for Roman citizens. They never had a chance of competing with either religion.

I actually find this unlikely. As a mystery religion, it wasn't very accessible to the common man. Something a little more open probably would have come along instead.

>They never had a chance of competing with either religion.
The chance is having the emperors, not just one, converting to them and declaring them state religions.

Wasn´t it a movie (Think I saw it in the 90s) about howthe Rpman Empire survived and still believed in their gods?

Both scenarios would certainly result in very different outcomes. Julian's plan to undermine christianity included granting christian elements to the traditional religion, basically those that made christianity succesful like an organized hierarchical church and a priesthood with attractive moral obligations.

Christianity wasn't big either in the times of Constantine.

>it was absolutely alien to the pagans that their gods would care if they helped someone else out.
No, it wasn't.

>charity
You mean social welfare. Giving poor people food and aid in return for political support and conversion.


We'd probably see something like the religious situation in India, but managed like that of China: Lots of little folk religions making up a "Roman Folk Religion" with several big names (Christianity, Mithraism, (Neo-)Platonism, some other mystery cults, etc).

Watch Coriolanus.

If the Romans didn't become Christians, how would they see the eventual meeting between them and the greeko-buddhist kingdoms?

Their very being misteric cults meant that any emperor belonging to them would consider mass convertion pure heresy.

>heresy

Only spoilering the mysteries of the cult would be bad for them. The simple belief in polytheistic deities for the average man would be fine.

You're seeing it. It exists. It's called roman catholicism, and it has nothing to do with Christianity. It's a continuation of the Babylonian Queen of Heaven worship.

I'm by no means an expert on this subject, but from what I've read and seen in documentaries, it would not have been very different from what Christianity became just with a different name and a different person as the central figure. Christianity before its adoption by Rome was very different in every single way (its imagery, art and architecture, its methods of practice, even core perceptions of Jesus). Rome seems to have adopted Christianity to neutralise a potentially dangerous group of poor folk and slaves who were increasingly becoming radicalised and make sure the state was in charge of their religion/movement. AFAIK Roman Christianity drew a lot of influence from existing religions like the cult of the Apollo etc.

So what you are saying is that roman Christianity is just a bunch of pagan concepts and deities mixed together and merged into Christianity?

Isn't there a lot of connections that could be made with Isis and the virgin Marry?

Which is exactly what happened. Romans scratched off the names on their Isis and Horus idols and wrote in Mary and Jesus. Nothing changed. Pagans then, pagans now.

Will you protestant heretics ever get over yourselves? You literally use the same holy book, believe in the trinity, and defer to the writings of old popes and Catholic writers. Calm your shit.

As this guy says , yes.
Jesus is basically Apollo, of the latter days of the Apollo cult. Who do you think the gentleman in this image is?

And it wasn't just pagan values etc., this extended beyond religion. Christianity (and religion in general) was an incredibly potent tool in the hands of the Roman state in terms of propaganda and social control. Jesus went from being a modestly dressed, ascetic figure in pre-Roman Christianity, to a gloriously dressed (imperial purple tunics etc), bethroned figure, who liked identical to the depictions of Roman emperors at the time, making a rather obvious connection between the two.

There's also an interesting theory that shows how early Christian depictions, before the introduction of Mary as a central figure, show Jesus as being androgynous because there was no female figure in the religion as of yet and Jesus had to fill that role too as female figures had traditionally been a central part of every religion that preceeded it. It's only after Mary gets introduced that depictions of Jesus become more masculine. I'll find pictures to show you what I mean.

Found it. That slightly meek looking child in the middle is meant to be Jesus. This blog-post is pretty good for information on the matter, although I got most of my info from one of Waldemar Januczczak's documentaries.

Link

elpidiovaldes.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/jesus-in-early-christian-art-wizard-boy-to-royal-god/

I think a certain emperor made it happen, and just caught on from there.

>early Christian depictions, before the introduction of Mary as a central figure, show Jesus as being androgynous
I dunno about all that. There was a trend in the late medieval period that lasted into the Counter-Reformation to depict Jesus with feminine characteristics to emphasize the holiness of motherhood and stuff. Pic related

That's interesting I didn't know about that. Were those just depictions of him as a child? I'm not convinced of that theory I mentioned 100%, but it does make sort of sense. I was surprised by how long it took for Mary to become a central figure.

Another depiction of less than masculine Jesus.

Literally Manichaeism. Look it up.

Manichaeism is likely to have developed with some influence from Christianity though. I suppose if Julian had managed to stomp it out than Manichaeism could have moved in later though.

Fuck, it sometimes boggles my mind to think Manichaeism went from one of the largest religions in the world to being extinct. I hope someday we manage to find a collection of lost Manichaean texts.

Mani explicitly says he is a follower of Jesus.

>it sometimes boggles my mind to think Manichaeism went from one of the largest religions in the world to being extinct.

Whats the stoiry with that. anyways?

Zoroastrianism survives to this day. but not Manichaeism?

Zoroastrianism had a really long history behind it which help it survive even when persecuted while Manichaeism was just a random mash-up of a bunch of stuff by one dude so naturally it would have less staying-power.

No, your "book" has heretical books in it; you never read it; you not only do not understand it but are TOLD you CANNOT understand it, and speaking only for myself, I have NEVER deferred to any writings not in the bible to support the bible, ESPECIALLY from papists and proto-papists.

Such a thing is obnoxious.

Zoroaster disappeared for almost 2000 years.

It's just Judaism with a little pagan fire god thrown in for good measure.

No, actual volunteer charity.
Christianity had small groups of monks and other guys who were really into helping folk, taking care of dead bodies.
Of course, the mortality rate for these guys was massive, but it limited infection rates for the wider population in these christian-populated districts.

Humanity gradually shifted towards a model where the universe was guided by one unified principle (God/ YHWH/ Allah/ Siva/ Krishna, etc.), so it likely would have declined in the face of some kind of monotheism either way.

Hellenistic mysticism and philosophy was gaining ground in Rome at the time, as well as Mithraism and the Sol Invictus cults.

My guess is that there would have been a range of different cults, but all geared towards one principle governing all creation

Maybe because the early Christians had a death wish because they thought the end of days and resurrection was going to happen 'any day now, soon', and wanted to martyr themselves so so much.

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I don't think it would have declined, but rather adopt these new concepts.

I think it could have been like Indian religions, with different schools religions based on worshiping the gods.