The Fall of the Pagans
and the Origins
of Medieval Christianity
Professor Kenneth Harl, Tulane University [from my home town, New Orleans, LA]
The Great Courses
as Companion to Bart’s book: The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
Oct 28, 312 AD Maxentius loses to Constantine [battle of milvenian? bridge]
The day before, there was a miracle.
The skies parted and we saw a Chi Rho–we being Constantine and his army.
Constantine went into battle with this Christian symbol.
Controversial, of course, Eusebius’ account.
Despite the vision,
– Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion — didn’t happen until 391 (Theodosius I’s Laws)
– Constantine did not ban paganism
Something about Constantine making haste slowly, like Augustus Caesar.
Peter Brown noted if Julian lived 30 years and not 3 years, he could have reversed Christianity’s history of advancement.
Major Turning Points in Western History:
1 Emergence of self government (Greece)
2 Conversion to Christianity
3 Discovery of the New World
4 Industrial Revolution and the emergence of Modernity
Eusebius the only narrative we have.
Paganism is faulted by their statues.
You have to include Plato’s Apology in the etymology of term Christian Apologists.
Adolf von Harnack wrote “The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries”
All scholars are indebted to him.
Arthur Darby Nock wrote Conversion: The Old and New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo.
Seminal: state of pagan religion at the time of the birth of [the Biblical Jesus]. At this time there was a spiritual crisis in the Roman world.
So, we have to turn to Franz Cumont (Belgian scholar) wrote “Mysteries of Mithra” and was a brilliant scholar.
Avesta became Mithra or Mithras.
The spiritual demise prepared people for the mystery cult of Mithraism and the mystery cult content of Christianity. Also at the time, the philosophical trend was stoicism and neoplatonism, used as a bridge to cross over from paganism to Christianity.
Who has the better interpretation of theology Stociism and the Christians or Neoplatonism and the pagans?
So, the triumph of Christianity isn’t a triumph of religion but philosophy and religion among the literate classes.
So, the triumph of Christianity isn’t about an oral tradition of illiterate communities at all, communities for whom the conflict was above their heads. For the Biblical Jesus to be a main figure in this religious and philosophical debate he would have to have been like the Jesus Justus in Josephus who learned written Greek in order to be a historian, noticed by Josephus. Jesus could not have been an illiterate Galilean but one literate in Greek language and classics. Paul was. So, you need a Jesus literate in Greek language and classics to even appear to Paul. To what extent Paul was a Stoic is an interesting question–Stoic vs Neoplatonist.
A very different view of the divine.
Christians see a Transcendent Divine beyond this world. Yahweh was a local Hebrew God. Some people say the book of Job is not purely a Jewish work. So, when the God of Job tells Job, I transcend you: where were you when … That’s somewhat an example of theological transcendence. But Professor Harl clarifies by saying it’s not so much the transcendence of a god over a human but defining god beyond time and definition.
With the pagan definition of divine, Zeus always intermingled with the human world. In a sense, then, the local Hebrew God of the Hebrew Bible is a pagan god as well, intermingling with Hebrew humans but not so much as we approach the first century–nope, the lack of obedience is not the problem creating the God of Moses’ lack of existence during our exiles and worse, our being ruled by empires of different religions.
A transcendent god, not greatest of many gods, but the only god? ! ?
In effect, as I thought, Jesus is an atheist towards the pagan Hebrew God of Moses, leaving Him for his movement’s new definition of God.
= = =
I Received a Reply
Good day sir. I was made to believe that it is Constantine which decreed for the Christianity/Catholicism to be made official religion of the Empire. Here it said 391 AD! Not after the Council of Nicea, when was that 325AD. Also if Constantine saw the Vision in 319 AD a day before his victory in war, i presumed he was a matured individual to be able to command an Army; and so age of Constantine in 319AD plus 79 years to 391 AD when he declared Christianity an official religion, how old is he, is he rational the time he declared, or somebody did it for him? Just wondering and enjoying the moments sir.
My Reply
He also issued decrees that effectively made Nicene Christianity the official state church of the Roman Empire.
The Fall of the Pagans
and the Origins
of Medieval Christianity
Professor Kenneth Harl, Tulane University [from my home town, New Orleans, LA]
Lecture 2: Gods and Their Cities in the Roman Empire
Temples: home of the Gods, not too much unlike the Holy of Holies was a dwelling place of God’s Presence
One would likely see a Temenos wall around a temple.
kosmos: the clothes you put on a statue
vota: promise – as in votive candle
Example Aezanis (Cavdarhisar) in Western Turkey, there’s a temple to Zeus and his mother Rhea. The altar was in the temenos wall.
Hadrian was petitioned to get Aezanis accepted into the Panhellion which granted games and festivals status.
Northern Africa at Timgad (Thamgaudi) you get more of a Roman Temple rather than a Greek Temple.
The high architecture isn’t your traditional local architecture: you update your local temples to follow the high architecture of Rome.
Cult statue decked out with its kosmos, is paraded to a theater where there is an epiphany, prayers, and sacrifices.
Prayers divorced of sacrifices are only words,
Prayers with sacrifices are animated words,
The words giving power to life and the animation to the word.
Sallustius, 4th century AD
With proper sacrifice the goddess would appear and those in attendance would get gifts. So, it’s not only the people giving to a temple institution but the temple institution giving back to the people.
“They instituted a festival for the entire city and they carefully gave to each of the citizens assembled
in the theater two denarii apiece.”
Hm, Mary parading through Little Italy.
Temples Processions Display – expensive
Ancestor Worship also (think Mexico?)
Monuments of the ancestors are not unlike the above ground graves in New Orleans.
But the ancient cities of the dead outside the cities did not speak about the afterlife (I guess you wouldn’t see a heavenly angel statue in the Ancient cities of the dead.)
There’s no canon. No Bible, no Koran, but morality is taught; and, the Romans were quite pious.
Expensive religious practices were paid for by the upper classes.
All the gods needed to be Roman protectors (empire and emperor).
Evocatio: a ceremony to summon out the gods, strip enemies of their supernatural defenders
Lecture 3: The Roman Imperial Cult
Institution for the veneration of the emperor’s spirit or genius (pronounced ghenius, not jeenius as we do today)
He would join the gods.
Let’s go back to 356-323 BC to Alexander the Great who joined the gods.
Widespread in the Eastern Roman Republic and in Asia Minor (where one would find an acient tumulus–Nemrut Dag; a tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or kurgans, and may be found throughout much of the world).
The pharaoh was a living god and would become Osiris after death.
Augustus started the imperial cult with the veneration of Julius Caesar.
The provinces totally accepted ruler worship while the Roman Republic was against monarchy, averse to it.
There is a goddess, Roma.
An eagle, bird of Jupiter, carries the deified emperor up to the gods.
The imperial cult resembled regular cults.
Lugdunum, in the west was an imperial cult site in the Western Roman empire.
Judaism made sense to the Romans, Christianity did not–the Christians would not venerate the spirit of the emperors and the traditional gods.
= = =
Lecture 4: The Mystery Cults
Franz Cumont 1868 – 1947
Mystery Cults as per Cumont
– a dying or creator god who acted on behalf of humanity
– notions of an afterlife and redemption
– seen as ecstatic/enthusiastic, irrational, and non-classical, more exciting (better music)
– Initiates chose to join the cult and there were rites
– Proselytize to recruit members
E. R. Dodds 1893 – 1979 – the communal and family cults were not fulfilling
So, given the four characteristics of mystery cults, the mystery cults prefigure Christianity.
Cult of Demeter and Persephone
The cult of Mithras emerges in the Flavian Age (69 -96 AD)
associated with the Roman army camps
Cyvele – mother of the Gods
Serapis is also Zeus, not just Osiris and Apis the Bull
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