Roman Religion
The Roman rites concerned themselves with maintaining peace between the Roman people and the gods (Pax Deorum). This was a complicated task, since almost every aspect of life was governed by a separate divinity, each with their own demands. Besides Jupiter the Best and Greatest, who was the chief god presiding over the affairs of state, there was Penates, the god of the storeroom, Di Manes, the benevolent dead, and Lemures, the hostile dead. There were the political gods of Victoria (Victory), Fides (Faithfulness), Concordia (Peace), and Salus (Health). There were gods who presided over annoyances, such as Robigo, god of mildew, and gods who presided over geography, such as Terminus, god of the boundary stone. There were gods who intervened just once in the affairs of Rome and were never heard from again, such as Aius Locutus, the voice that warned Rome against the invading Gauls. The Romans freely borrowed gods from other cultures, such as Juno (from the Etruscans) and Minerva, Castor, and Asclepios (from the Greeks). Often, local gods were identified or syncretized with Roman gods, such as the Greek gods Demeter (Roman Ceres), Dionysos (Roman Liber), and Kore (Roman Libera) and the Carthaginian god Baal (Roman Saturn). The Roman pantheon only grew larger and more complicated as the Empire expanded, for the Romans even called upon the gods of their enemies, promising, in return for victory, worship more faithful than that of the god's current worshippers!
The Roman approach to the gods was essentially conservative. They preferred to maintain the divine status quo, allowing indigenous cults to remain intact for fear of offending local gods and enticing calamity. They tended to limit worship only in cases where permitting it seemed sacrilegious or grossly immoral, such as the cult of the Anatolian Great Mother, Cybele, whose worship involved orgiastic practices and the public self-castration of her priests, or the mystery cult of Bacchus, which aroused fears of political conspiracy due to its appeal among slaves and foreigners, and whose meetings were held at night and in secret. But even in these cases, the ever cautious Romans permitted small groups to perform limited, supervised rituals to these gods as a form of appeasement. The influx, in the first three centuries A.D., of a number of other mystery cults, such as the Egyptian cult of Isis, the Mysteries of Mithras, the cult of Cybele's consort, Attis, the cults of Sabazios and Jupiter Dolichenus, and eventually Christianity aroused some concern. But these were generally tolerated along with all the various local cults.
With the fall of the Republic, a cult surrounding the person of the Emperor evolved. It began with the divinization (or "apotheosis") of Julius Caesar at his death, by a vote of the Roman Senate. The Roman senate began granting divine honors to living emperors with Augustus, though Augustus himself restricted worship in the city of Rome itself to reverence for his family's "genius" or procreative spirit. The cult of the Roman Emperor represented reverence for the state and the protections that it provided, and acknowledgment of the role of the emperor as a mediator between the gods and men. With the rise of Christianity in the late third century, the divinity of the emperor evolved into a sense that the emperor was divinely chosen and protected rather than a god himself.
Roman religion was managed by an elaborate priesthood, who were also considered functionaries of the state. The most important religious magistrates were elected by the senate. These included the college of Pontiffs (pontifices), who regulated the religious activities of individuals, kept the calendar, and declared all important religious observances. These were presided over by the King of Religious Rites (Rex Sacrorum), who played the ceremonial role once filled by the old kings of Rome, and the chief pontiff (Pontifex Maximus). The Flamines were fifteen priests of individual deities, and the six Vestal Virgins tended the fire of the state hearth. The sixteen augurs or Haruspices were in charge of the all important task of discerning the voice and will of the gods, which they did by observing the flight of birds, reading the entrails of animals sacrificed to the gods, or consulting the Sibylline Oracle. The Haruspices alone had the power to interrupt the proceedings of the senate. Bad omens might be discerned in unusual weather, deformed births, or miracles, and the avoidance of catastrophe could require special sacrifices or the worship of new divinities.
Roman religion was a communal phenomenon. Its closest analog in American society is the kind of "civil religion" that accompanies veneration of the flag, the pledge of allegiance, the singing of the national anthem before a sporting event, the swearing of oaths in court, and the vague aura of honor that adheres to the office of the President and to other government leaders when they officiate in public functions or ceremonies. In our society, the resistance to gay marriage and the insistence on displaying the ten commandments in public buildings or using the word "God" in the pledge of allegiance are analagous to the ancient Roman belief that failure of the state to uphold certain sacred norms can invoke the wrath of the gods on an entire nation. The Roman form of piety is one of the most natural and common forms of piety there is, and is evident in our society every time an individual or a community "bargains" with God, asking him to spare the life of a loved one or to grant prosperity in return for deepened devotion.
The Roman gods were worshipped through festivities and games, and also through a variety of precisely defined animal sacrifices and rituals. The pontiffs were responsible for rites relating to the maintenance of public order, while heads of household were responsible for the rites related to the maintenance of a prosperous and orderly family. Although the gods had requirements that needed to be fulfilled, the ancient Romans had not yet evolved a concept, as Judaism had, in which God demanded ethical life and moral behavior as a form of, or instead of, sacrifice. Romans felt bound by a sense of personal and familial honor, which placed a variety of obligations on them, obligations which could be owed to the gods as well as men, but which were not necessarily seen as the fulfillment of religious commandments. The concept of personal faith and a religiously required code of ethics, with the focus on an afterlife, were not introduced to Roman society until the advent of cults like Mithraism and Christianity.
The Mysteries of Mithras
The Mithraic cult was most popular among Roman soldiers, state bureaucrats, and merchants, especially in Rome and among the Roman garrisons along the Rhine and the Danube, though its practice was widespread, throughout the entire Empire. The beliefs and practices of Mithraism were kept strictly secret, and its members were prohibited from writing about it, so we know little today about its tenets except for what fragments may have been preserved in the writings of Christian church fathers, Neoplatonic philosophers, and practitioners of magic. Women were excluded from the cult, and its members worshipped in underground temples, probably meant to imitate caves. Members rose through a number of grades of initiation, at each step of which they were introduced into more and greater mysteries. Central to Mithraic iconography was the image of Mithras slaying the Bull. This image was accompanied in Mithraic temples by astrological symbols, so it could have represented the end of the age of Taurus, or it could have represented the culmination of the journey of the soul through the heavens.
Scholars have speculated on the link between Mithraism and the Persian cult of Mithra, though there appears to be debate about whether the Persian god was associated with the slaying of a bull. In Persia, Mithra was the chief "yazata" or good spirit. After the Persian conquest of Mesopotamia in the seventh century B.C. Mithra came to be associated with Sun worship. If Roman Mithraism was related to the Persian cult of Mithra, it is likely that it was introduced to the capital city by Cilician pirates, captured by Pompey the Great and carried in chains to Rome around 68 B.C.
Mithraism was a major competitor of Christianity for adherents, and was similar to Christianity in many key respects, including its elevation of humility and brotherly love, its use of holy water and its practice of rituals like baptism and communion, its adoption of Sunday as its day of worship, and its beliefs in the immortality of the soul, the last judgment and the resurrection. Mithras was believed to have been born on December 25, and worshipped by shepherds at his birth. Many early converts to Christianity were former believers of Mithras, so early Christian communities could have been influenced by Mithraism in this way; or early Christians may have adopted or emphasized tenets common to Mithraism in order to win adherents.
Julian "the Apostate" was an adherent of a Platonized form of Mithraism, but after his death, Christian authorities acted forcefully to stamp out the cult. After the edicts of Theodosian outlawing pagan worship, Mithraism was suppressed everywhere, surviving only in a few isolated pockets.
Because of the Jesus cult's origins among Palestinian Jews, it was looked down upon by many first century Romans, who associated it with other disreputable Hellenized Asian mystery cults that took root in the city of Rome and throughout the empire under the umbrella of the "Pax Romana." Their refusal to invoke the emperor or his guardian spirit, their association with seditious Jews, and the popularity of their beliefs among the poorer classes accounted for occasional outbreaks of persecution against Christians. Contrary to popular belief, these early persecutions were local and rarely lasted long. The official stance of the empire was usually tolerance, and empire-wide persecutions did not occur until after 250 A.D. But the "martyrs" played a powerful role in the spread of early Christianity, as tales of their courage became convincing propaganda for the faith.
Saul of Tarsus' rationalization of the Jesus cult in terms appealing to Gentiles gave it the entree it needed into the pagan cultures of the Mediterranean world. Unlike the Roman state religion, Christianity and other mystery cults offered people a personal code of ethics, a cohesive set of beliefs, and a way of making sense of the world within a tight-knit community of like-minded individuals. But Christianity's openness to women and its universalism gave it a competitive edge over other mystery religions like Mithraism. It appealed most powerfully to the disenfranchised, urban classes of the empire who resented Roman militarism and the social disruptions and tensions caused by Roman conquest and occupation.
The cult spread most quickly in urban areas. By the end of the third century A.D., every part of the empire had major Christian communities that were becoming a significant social force in the centers of Roman power, including in Rome itself. At the same time, Roman central authority was weakening, with tensions rising between the eastern and western halves of the empire that would soon lead to a permanent split. Efforts to suppress Christianity had succeeded only in strengthening it, and the emperors began to realize that they had to come to terms with Christianity as a political force.
In 313 A.D., the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, declaring official tolerance for Christianity. With state patronage, the church began major building programs, erecting impressive centers of worship in the major cities. Its organization began to reflect the political organization of the empire, with parishes and dioceses coinciding with the political divisions of the empire. The church developed a legal structure that relied on the principles of Roman law. The clergy rose as a class distinct from, and superior to, the laity, with increasing power and prestige. And, more fatefully, by convening church councils such as the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., the emperors began to get involved in Christian doctrine and social affairs, centralizing church governance and playing a role in defining and punishing heresy. What had once been a counterculture and a form of resistance to the powers and principalities of this world was being coopted, and was joining the governing status quo, with all that that implies.
Soon after the official recognition of Christianity, with the church becoming increasingly entangled in imperial politics, a protest emerged in the form of the first Christian monastic movements. Large numbers of Christians fled the urban areas and established independent communities in the desert, based on the renunciation of power, wealth, and privilege. The organized church, meanwhile, continued in the path of political power and intrigue. Theodosius consummated the union of church and state by proclaiming Christianity the official religion of the empire. By 410 A.D., all non-Christian religions had been outlawed. Christianity had come full circle, from the simple "way" taught by a humble Galilean carpenter, embracing and embraced by the poor, to a vehicle of state power, validating wealth, marginalizing the poor, and persecuting those who did not submit to its increasingly complicated and esoteric doctrines. The moral code that had once stressed love, solidarity, and equality, winning converts among those who sought a better life, was perverted with a stress on personal sin and absolution, and became a debilitating tool of social control.
The history of western Christianity ever since has been characterized by this tension that emerged in the fourth century, between a church hierarchy compromised by its relationship with the powers that be, and movements of protest, resistance, renewal, and reform that sought to stay true to the church's humble, egalitarian roots.
Christianity Beyond the Borders
Although Christianity was born under Roman rule, early on its disciples carried the message beyond the boundaries of the empire. Christian communities were established in Nubia and Ethiopia, Armenia and the Caucasus by the early fourth century. By the early sixth century Christian communities had been established as far away as India and a century later in Iran and China, and eventually Mongolia. These Christian communities evolved independently of the Roman church, and were unaffected by many of the doctrinal controversies that wrought havoc in the West. They preserved the ethos of the early church as a spiritual "way," less dogmatic and doctrinally focused. With the Islamic conquest of much of the eastern and southern tier of the old Roman Empire, many well established Christian communities came under Muslim rule and were similarly cut off from developments in western Christianity. They too evolved a spirituality based on personal conviction and inner focus rather than adherence to externally mandated creeds. Many of these communities have persisted to this day.
| 4 B.C. | Birth of Jesus |
| ca. 30 A.D. | Crucifixion of Jesus |
| ca. 40 A.D. | Beginning of Greek Christian literature |
| ca. 50-56 A.D. | Paul's letters |
| 70 A.D. | Destruction of Jerusalem |
| ca. 70-125 A.D. | The writing of the four gospels |
| 91-101 A.D. | First Roman Pope |
| ca. 125-130 A.D. | Formation of the New Testament |
| fl. 135-140 A.D. | Christian Gnostic writers (Basilides, Satornilos, Valentinus, Marcion) |
| ca. 172 A.D. | Montanism |
| ca. 190 A.D. | Beginning of Latin Christian literature |
| 284 A.D. | Beginning of Coptic Christian era |
| 297-311 A.D. | "The Great Persecution" |
| 303 A.D. | Armenia becomes first Christian state |
| 313 A.D. | Edict of Milan |
| ca. 320 A.D. | Beginning of Christian monastic movement |
| 325 A.D. | Council of Nicaea |
| 341 A.D. | State Cult of Rome officially disbanded |
| ca. 385 A.D. | Jerome's Vulgate |
| 393 A.D. | Christianity state church of the Roman Empire |
| 410 A.D. | Theodosian Code (non-Christian religions outlawed) |
| 525 A.D. | Benedictine Rule, founding of Monte Casino |