Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

I have long suspected that the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church were in fact the Roman Empire by another name.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

Mal, I meant the saints and what they claim to do. As in miracle cures, raising the dead, levitation etc. We can't prove those things.

I don't know enough about the Saints but I recall many of their miracles are things attributed to them after they passed not something they did while alive. Willing to admit I might be wrong in that but that is what I seem to recall about their miracles.

[Malflick]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

Mal, I meant the saints and what they claim to do. As in miracle cures, raising the dead, levitation etc. We can't prove those things.

...But if the gods aren't real, and the saints didn't do miracles, that doesn't actually change the discussion we're having one bit, as its about the historical impact of them.

[Medusa]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

...But if the gods aren't real, and the saints didn't do miracles, that doesn't actually change the discussion we're having one bit, as its about the historical impact of them.

I'm up for 'hisotircal' impact talk and all. It just started to drift into something a bit more heated. And the thought of a heater argument over fake stuff makes me cringe. That's all.

About the miracles of saints. http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/
I'm a reformed Catholic!

[Corvus]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

I have long suspected that the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church were in fact the Roman Empire by another name.

The Byzantine Empire which contained the Eastern Orthodox church was originally the Eastern Roman empire and as such had many things in common with Roman culture that it integrated into it's more Grecian traditions. In the west the Holy Roman Empire was formed roughly 300 years after Rome's fall and claimed to be a continuation of the Western Roman Empire. Emperor Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope at the time. In both continuations of the Roman Empire, latin culture was integrated or evolved with diffusion from local cultures (Germanic tribes in the west and Greece/Hellenistic in the east). The churches had great political power in the empires as well as sway with their rulers. In this way both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches could be considered extensions of the Roman Empire

[Heka]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

Er, no. We can prove saints were real people, as much as we can prove any other documented historical person was real. The claim that they were Pagan Gods is ridiculous, because the "evidence" is always that there are a few saints with names that are the same as Gods, or sound similar to Pagan God names, because their parents named them that.

Its like saying Apollo Ono the athlete is actually Apollo because his parents named him Apollo.

er no, I wasn't saying that. I know full well that saints were real people. I'm referring to symbolism and attributes that overlap. Is that for convenience or is it fully a coincidence?

i never claimed they were pagan gods.

[ethelwulf]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

To: Tylluan Penry Thank you. My point here is that the Roman Empire essentially changed into the Roman Catholic Church and its power structure was adopted by the ruling Germanic tribes which ultimately took the place of the existing Roman empire.

Rome was extremely effective of removing any opposition in its path including any sect of Christianity other than its own form - the Orthodox Roman Catholic Church. Rome never had a problem with assimilating other cultures beliefs into its empire so had no problem taking pagan symbols and religious days and making them into Christian symbols or religious days. Those symbols that were not possible to assimilate easily were then destroyed or demonized. Pagans did not believe in Satan so make Satan the god they worship. The new leaders of post Rome Europe appreciated how effective the Roman system was to maintain their power and used the Roman Catholic Church to help maintain social order in their favor. Christianity had the advantage that there was one God who would select one King to be the divine appointed ruler over the people with hierarchy keeping a few people well cared for at the expense of the people. Roman Christianity was perfect for an authoritarian style government. In contrast a democratic style government was developed in a pagan society as in the case of Greece. When the Magna Carta of England was formed which suggested that the kings power was not absolute it was seen by Rome as an attack on Christianity. I am not saying the barons were pagan but they were drawing from there distant pagan past. I believe that paganism was almost completely eliminated in the beginning because it was a threat to the political power as much as anything else. Rome had the advantage of the written language. The oral traditions of the Pagans was almost completely lost when pagan could not openly continue their religion and everything we know of their myths and beliefs comes from Christian writers.

I think that understanding why paganism was almost completely lost is important in understanding why it has returned. I do not believe it was concepts like heaven or that there was a clear superiority of Christianity over paganism that caused the elimination of paganism in Europe. In the case of heaven the Leaders of Northern England rejected it when they were told that their ancestors would not be in heaven. My point is that there was nothing wrong with the pagan beliefs or its religious structure. It more the casualty of a war from a Roman Catholic Church and the political desire of the leaders for an absolute Monarchy.

[ethelwulf]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

There is no evidence that I could find that paganism was on a decline prior to the conversion of Constantine. There is archeological and recorded evidence that there was an increase in the number of temples and activity in pagan religions at least in the area of Rome. Evidently there was a general increase in religious activity at the time Christianity was being introduced in Rome. Bart Ehrman who specializes in Christian history discusses the myth that paganism was on the decline allowing Christianity to fill in the gap and provides evidence why this was not true. He also shows there was evidence that people did feel a personal relationship with the deity which they worshiped.

With respect to a comment made in this thread I would argue that nature was the source of pre-pagans beliefs. It is hard to find prove anything about what they actually believed because we do not have any writings from pagans that are present today and the oral tradition was clearly interrupted with only pieces preserved by Christian writers who thankfully had the foresight to preserve. The oral tradition of the Norse people for instance was recorded in writing in Iceland by Christians and it does correlate with what we have found from burial sites and from archeology. Despite these issues there is evidence which supports the connection of pagan religion with nature. This raises a very interesting question. Since there was no written sacred text handed down to define what pagan's should believe in, then where does a pagan’ s knowledge come from? I do not mean this in a negative way but to see want other people think.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

It is generally held that whereas 'paganism' in the Graeco-Roman empire was ritualistic, Christianity was 'credal' i.e. it was based upon belief. [ this is from : Dowden (2000) European paganism, the realities of cult from antiquity to the Middle Ages, Routledge (London and New York) - it's well worth a read if you can get hold of a copy].

This is why the pagan Roman Empire had no difficulties with people being both Christian and observing political rituals such as the Imperial cult. Indeed, the authorities rarely cared what people believed provided they observed the Imperial cult. (And this is what caused problems with other faiths such as Judaism, too). The Imperial cult tended to be regarded as the glue that held the Roman Empire together. By the time Christianity was first accepted as the 'official' religion, the Roman Empire was already pretty much divided - hence the removal of the capital out to Constantinople. (The problems with the cult of Isis that arose from time to time tended to be based more on where the money was going but that's quite another story...)

[Yazichestvo]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

This is a question that needs to be separated into at least two phases; 1- Within the Roman Empire, and 2- Outside of the Roman Empire.

#1. While many Roman pagans were highly devout prior to Christianity, paganism was changing. One thing noteworthy about the period is the amount of religious syncretism. Cultures were coming into contact with one another, and attempting to iron out the differences between various religious traditions. In Egypt, for example, one sees the attempt to fluidly assimilate Hellenic and Egyptian religious tradition. In addition to this, Greek and Roman philosophers were now speaking of the "oneness" of the divine. I think that this was a natural development for a large empire containing multiple religious traditions. As cultural melding increases, the question arises- how do you reconcile all of them? There may have also been a desire to combine religion and philosophy, two things that were once held separately- orthodoxy and orthopraxy- into a single practice.

There are a number of directions this could have evolved. The Roman Empire could have followed in the footsteps of India, producing a Hindu-like religion that combined various local polytheistic traditions with philosophical monism. This is essentially the brand of Paganism that the last pagan Emperor, Emperor Julian tried to promote. However, exclusive monotheism also dealt with the issue of multiple religious/spiritual traditions in the Empire by simply saying they were all wrong instead of trying to reconcile them all. As for philosophy, Abrahamic monotheism imbibed a fair amount of that during the Hellenizing transition from Judaism to Christianity.

That's one small part of it, at least. Why Christianity arose in Roman times is a complex question. When it comes to #2, Christianity spreading from the Roman Empire to the rest of Europe, and consequently the rest of the world, it's all much simpler. It's the inevitable result of the type of religion that was formed within the Empire centuries earlier; the most aggressive proselytizing religion that the world had ever seen. A religion custom-designed to seek and destroy all others by any means. The mediterranean and Germanic regions that had been Christianized during imperial times were also romanized, which gave them the edge civilization-wise. Many parts of Eastern Europe, for instance, were still every bit as disorganized and tribal after the fall of Rome as the Gauls had been before Rome's expansion. The only way that Northern European and Eastern European monarchs could forge ties with these influential states is by founding Christian monarchies of their own, and making all of their people convert. Then of course, there was colonial imperialism, which I don't have the energy to get into, but is somewhat similar.

[ethelwulf]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

I really appreciate the comments from both Tylluan Penry and Yazichestuvo about the effect of the Roman Catholic Church. It campaigned a war against pagans murdering anyone who stood in its way with the backing of Leaders of Europe at that time followed by a massive propaganda war to convert any possible symbol that was pagan into a Christian symbol. Symbols were not easily transformed were demonized and associated with their own concept of Satan. I believe this is a very important concept for anyone who is pagan to understand especially of what followed. After paganism in Europe was reduced to outlying regions and within families, the church created the illusion that the transformation to Christianity was inevitable because it was a superior religion. They used pagan myths and stories out of context to show how primitive the religion was and how ridiculous it was to believe in anything other than one god. Their was superior to any other god. Islam did the same thing in its region with a campaign to destroy all pagan religions. They developed the myth of the natural progression to go from many gods to one god as a sign of becoming civilized and therefore superior. Christian writings that followed the collapse of paganism in Europe went to great length to show how ignorant people were who believed in the old ways.
There was nothing superior about Christianity to paganism with respect to religion. There was a superior military organization to Christianity as it was the old Roman Empire converted into the Roman Catholic Church. The church used this power very effectively to remove any opposition. The church used military, legal and fear tactics to convert everyone it could. The exclusionary aspect of Christianity and fear tactic of going to hell played right into the power of the church and the ruling class. It was ok to watch a person burn to death just of their beliefs because you were saving others.
Despite everything the church did, they did not completely remove paganism. The myths, stories and beliefs were recorded by Christians themselves which kept paganism alive in the minds of the people in Europe. In addition there were families who were willing to chance the consequences to keep some of the ways alive. My point to this thread is to understand that the collapse of paganism was not about the superiority of the Christian religion with respect to the beliefs of both religions.

[thalassa]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

Go read God Against the Gods---pagans were plenty guilty of killing Christians too.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

The early Church - and its later medieval counterpart - were not 'against pagans' per se, they were against anyone and anything that did not follow the official line. Heretics suffered just as much, if not worse, than pagans. And don't forget that the 4th Crusade was fought in mainland Europe, not in Jerusalem.

[Yazichestvo]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

Go read God Against the Gods---pagans were plenty guilty of killing Christians too.

Definitely worth remembering. The book records pagan atrocities, although I think the author of that same book also acknowledges that exclusive monotheism made things worse. That's pretty much my position.

I feel that the differences between the killings are often overlooked. The Romans could accommodate monotheism. There was never an attempt to extinguish Judaism itself. Only Jewish insurrections were punished, not their religion. The Roman atrocities were always very practical, not religious. If they persecuted someone, it was for the state, not the polytheistic Roman religion. Even today, humans have plenty of political motives for committing atrocities without religion adding to them.

[ethelwulf]

Re: Why did paganism collapse in the medieval period?

First I would like to point out that I never said pagans did not kill Christians. I prefaced this discussion with how the Roman Catholic Church first eliminated all other sects of Christianity. Christians were used as scapegoats in Rome at time but there was not specific effort to eliminate Christianity from the Roman Empire. There was a ongoing Church sanctified effort to remove pagans and they effectively did just that in Western Europe. It is true the Roman Catholic Church would kill anyone who strayed from what they believed thus the period called the Reformation if filled with bloodshed. Anyone who reads John Foxes Book of Martyrs can see what the Roman Catholic Church would do and if it could I am sure it would have removed all protestants from existence if it could have but it couldn't. Both sides of the Reformation were willing to shed blood for their side. But can anyone name a pagan faith that systematically eliminated another religion? Even the pagans of Rome never tried to remove all Christians from the Empire but the Roman Catholic Church with the leaders from western Europe with their support did effectively remove paganism from Western Europe and spend years demonizing any pagan belief. The important thing for Pagans today was there was not the mass conversion because Christianity was superior to Paganism. There were clear motive for the emerging kings to utilized the Roman Catholic System to justify the removal of all other opposition. The Christian religion was perfect to justify the hierarchy which placed them on top. Pagan religious systems would pose a clear opposition to their power. The power structures in pre-Christian Germanic tribes was much more open. Again is still say the collapse of the paganism in western Europe was not about the superiority of the Christian faith.