What was Roman Religion Like?
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- čas přidán 5. 12. 2023
- In Part One of this episode, we flip the table a bit and try to understand Rome’s relationship to her gods from the inside out so that we can paint a fuller picture of the religious landscape of Christianity’s rise in Late Antiquity.
Heretofore, many scholars have argued that early Christianity was able to spread so rapidly because the religion(s) of the Roman Empire had increasingly lost vitality and failed to fulfill emerging soteriological hopes of Late Antique peoples. But, is any of this true? Is this merely the residue of centuries of anti-pagan bias and propaganda? What was Roman religion really like; how captivating was it; and why did the fledgling Christian movement cause such concern for some of the brightest Roman minds of the second century?
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Great to have you back! You were really missed.
Nice cliff hanger. It’s a great point that is often overlooked; Christianity was in a very vulnerable position against the juggernaut that was the Roman Empire. It seems that only divine providence could transform the empire from the inside out and now Latin is the language of the Church, how poetic! Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat!
This is the kind of content that will help the Orthodox, Catholic and Coptic etc to return to unity, why because we need to remember our common heritage, God bless you.
Yes. I see too many radicals creating divisions. We should never let go of our unique differences but we should also recognise that we are brothers in Christ and we venerate the same Holy Mary mother of God. There is much more that unites us than separates us.
Welcome back! Had forgotten about y'all. Good thing I'm subscribed with the bell.
Great to see you guys back!!!! God bless you both
Dudes; you sure know to how to keep us on a cliffhanger! So glad to be watching your latest video. World class as usual, thanks!
Fantastic work!
Romans seemed very pious. That piety would translate well into Christianity. I’m assuming there’s a part 2? Eager to hear more.
Yep! Part two is already recorded and will be released in about a week and a half
@@TheCatholicBrothers Thank you 🙏❤️
the Aeneid is a literary tale meant to glorify the core of the culture of Rome and it stresses how the protagonist's piety is hard, brings hardships, but commendable and fruitful in the long run. The romans didn't have as great philosophers as the greek but their heart with respect to the divine was quite close to the right place.
Please keep up this work it is very important and your work goes well with the Lord of the spirits podcast, I am Orthodox and I thank you, God bless you
You get it. Thanks for the encouragement, brother!
I would like to add that the first century church was filled with converts prepared for the Gospel such as Priests from the Temple (Acts 6:7 ), Essenes, Jews who had seen Jesus and his miracles and teaching and one more very important group Gentile God-fearers who met with the Jews in the synagogue but did not want to be circumcised or become officially Jews such as Cornelius. The dead sea scrolls tell us that the religion of the Essenes both in teachings and their calender fully predicted Jesus as messiah and the teachings of the Apostles. The early Church was set up by God to be stronger then many understand. God bless you.
Ya it has been awhile, I thought you guys had broken up😉
Nice. Good to see you back Catholic brothers.
This is the best advent present ever!!!!
"gods" or "Gods"? It's useful discussion.
Well it can only be gods since the upper case G God has a conpletely different definition than the other.
I can see the providence of God goes well beyond the Roman roads, technology, globalism, peace, etc. but even Roman piety would be made use of for His Church.
Are there any ancient prophecies that the Jewish Messiah would not only conquer Rome but supplant and rule from Rome?
Closest I think you can get to a prophecy of Christ supplanting Rome is in Daniel 2, when a great stone breaks the feet of the statue (which represented Rome) and then the stone becomes a great mountain that filled the whole earth. The use of mountain imagery there versus statue imagery, by the way, was intentional, because mountains were places of worship and sacrifice in ancient religion… So, the implication is that Christ will tear down the entire pagan cult by taking down Rome, and then His cult (the mountain) will spread throughout the world.
@@TheCatholicBrothers Yeah, I was wondering if there was anything else besides Dan 2 that might actually lend any support to the primacy of the Roman see, rather than just the defeat of the Roman Empire.
I'm familiar with mountains in Greek and Jewish religion (Mt Olympus, oracles, Sinai, Nebo, Temple Mount, etc.), but were there any mountains (in Italy, I assume) that were sacred and used by Roman religion?
@@tonyl3762 well yes, the seven hills of the Vatican.
@@tonyl3762 I'm from Rome and the "civil city" was built and focused on the seven hills at the south of the Tiber river, while the hills at north were kept sacred and were linked with the gods (modern historians believe that was to keep an uninhabited cuchion zone between Rome and Etruria, the land of the etruscans). The vatican is a hill north of the river, the other important northern hill was the Janiculum, the hill of the God of beginnings, endings and transitions Janus (the only main God that was unique to the romans and had no parallel with greek gods), of which Augustus was the high priest.
Obviously by imperial time the distinction between north and south of the river was almost lost, because the city had grown so much, but they still kept the main administrative centers between the seven hills of the south.
Look into Constantine's divine vision(s) or 'aspects of prophecy in Virgil's Aeneid'.. the whole point would be to have a Roman source for it, perhaps in the Sybilline Books, rather than only a Judaean.
Good.
Please tell us how you feel?
Pope blesses same sex marriage’s?
6:31 Christians didn't take over the Roman empire because of a great theology.
Their theology was inferior to Pagans and that is why they had to borrow a great deal of Pagan philosophy such as Plato, Plotinus, stoics or Aristotle.
However Christians were better organised and better at social engineering, appealing to the benighted masses which are always the majority in a state. They were superior ro Paganism as a Socio-political machinery.
You're conflating philosophy with religion. Plato was not an authority in pagan theology, theology wasn't a discipline in pagan times, it's christian revelation with so much solid claims about universal truths associated with historical events that had the basis to turn theology from "just what feels right", an "art", to "what's actually true", a discipline.
1. Those “Christians” people imply took over the Roman Empire, weren’t true Christians when you really observe what Christianity was intended to be from the scriptures themselves, as well as the fact that Roman Catholicism was BORN out of a fornication of Roman political powers with a mingling of false doctrine with a few Christian truths (like the trinity for example).
When the false churches in Rome got connections with pagan politicians, the pagan politicians sought to use the façade of “being” Christian to better unite their already crumbling empire. Rome weakened within before it was taken out. So as a way to alleviate the tension between the true Abrahamic faiths (Judaism and Christianity) and Roman paganism, they combined church and state. Roman politics would collide with religion/faith (not necessarily accurate Christianity).
Think of why the pope is considered the head of the “church”. And why the Anglican Church considers the head to be their King (King Charles as of now). Catholics see their Pope as a Vicar of Christ (which is like a replacement or Christ when He’s not here on earth. He makes important theological decisions for them and not the authority of God inspired scripture. This gives ROME the power over what the so called “Christians” believed. That ideology all came from pagan Europe, particularly Roman political strategy to try and integrate their pagan state with spreading Christianity and diasporic Jews, or at least the knowledge of it. Remember how the Roman rulers would hate how Christian’s called Jesus their King???? So in place of Jesus (the true head of the body of Christ, meaning the true church), they leave a sinful ruler to represent a perfect God…
I know you’re probably an atheist. I’m a born again Christian. I don’t believe in the fornication of church and state because that causes, naturally a corruption of both of those things. Also I am against Roman Catholic dogmas for MANY reasons and don’t see it as accurately biblical.
Today, we Christian’s need to do more separation from the false beliefs and the true, bc pretending that were all the same is part of the reason why Roman paganism hijacked our faith and people believe that it’s something that started in Rome, instead of its actual birth place, the Middle East! I’m tired of nonbelievers referring to Christianity as “the church” like real Christianity is Roman Catholicism. We aren’t the Vatican, we’re the body of Christ, Christ being its head. No King, or sinful priest can be the figurehead of our faith other than Jesus Christ. Who is the true high priest. The only one who can forgive our sins. Not a guy from Rome.
it wasn't 'pagan' philosophy you dolt, it was Greek/Western philosophy, Christianity is the merger between Greek Hellenism/Philosophy/Culture, Roman Imperialism/Militarism and Abrahamic/monotheistic spirituality. - and people act shocked that Christian traditions and holidays have links to Roman & Greek traditions and holidays.
@@JukeBoxDestroyer It was Greek Pagan.
Original goat herders who wrote the Old Testament didn't know a lot about ideas which will later come to dominate the Catholic Church like Platonism/Aristotleanism.
These ideas were far more sophisticated than those goat herders tripping in the desert could come up with.
"Romans," "the people of the Prince," are legitimate judahites. Accepted secular history confirms it.
It is recorded that "ieuds" had been worshipping Saturn / Cronus, the child-eater. Jupiter / Zeus is said to have taken him down and stopped child sacrifice. Zeus was an Hyksos Israelite Pharoah.
The anagram for the Christ is IEUE. Ha-Hovah, YHWH, does not belong in the Holy Bible. That was never a god of Israel, but of ieudomites.
Adonai is the god that came against the hard hearted stiff necked Israelite pharoahs. He (aka "the zadek") had a statue of himself in the holy of holies. All pharoahs were Israelites, and that is a term reserved for their leadership. There are other "gods" listed in the Bible. Adonai, Set, to name a few.
When researching the Holy Bible and the matching secular histories, I found that most of the Biblical characters had been deified by others. They did not request that. We as Christians are commanded to glorify, aka honor, our parents. It is a religious duty. I wonder if statues of them were the household gods.
BTW, "The twelve tribes of Israel scattered abroad" were gentiles, meaning not circumcsised. The great Israelite nations never participated in that blood rite. Evidence is stacking that this was an added corruption. The Biblical Romans, Greeks, Persians are examples of Israelite nations. The royal lines can be traced through them, and a long period of "egyptian" pharoahs.
Aeria was renamed to egypt by Alexander the Great. It doesnt match the ancient descriptions of "Egypt." Similarly, the AD 4th century founded Christian city, a jerusalem, is not Biblical Jerusalem.
Noah planted his vineyard in western Italy. God brought down the heavenly jerusalem and set it at "The City," as it was called. Now, its called Rome, the city that established the hiero / heavenly peace / pax / salem.