Was the Dominance of Abrahamic Religions Inevitable?

[athanaric]

Since someone has mentioned Mithra in this thread, I wonder if Sol Invictus was influenced by him. I mean, both were solar gods, and both were depicted with radiant halos around their heads. The fact that Mithraism was common in the Roman Empire makes this a possibility.

You have to take into account though that Roman Mithraism was quite different from Iranian/Zoroastrian religion and, in essence, a Roman invention with some Iranian/Anatolian elements.

[Ecthelion]

One also has to wonder why the Romans, especially the fighting men who spent so much time on the Rhine and Danube frontiers did not adopt Germanic paganism in the way they picked up Sol Invictus, Elagabalus, and Mithras from the Persian frontier.

One would think that given the high percentage of Germanic legionaries and auxiliaries in the ranks and the warlike nature of Germanic paganism, it would have been far more popular within the Empire.
From what I understand, the Romans stereotyped Persians as being effeminate and cowardly, so adopting elements of their religion makes little sense... The Germans, on the other hand, were viewed as aggressively masculine and savage, far more attractive traits for warriors to adopt and be associated with.

[sumskilz]

One also has to wonder why the Romans, especially the fighting men who spent so much time on the Rhine and Danube frontiers did not adopt Germanic paganism in the way they picked up Sol Invictus, Elagabalus, and Mithras from the Persian frontier.

One would think that given the high percentage of Germanic legionaries and auxiliaries in the ranks and the warlike nature of Germanic paganism, it would have been far more popular within the Empire.
From what I understand, the Romans stereotyped Persians as being effeminate and cowardly, so adopting elements of their religion makes little sense... The Germans, on the other hand, were viewed as aggressively masculine and savage, far more attractive traits for warriors to adopt and be associated with.

Elagabalus is definitely Semitic. It looks like it's from Aramaic ʾElāh Gebāl, which is like "God of the Mountain Peak" or "God Most High", basically a cognate of the names used for Yahweh and Baal and almost identical to the Ugaritic El whose title used the constants ʾl gbl.

I don't think the same stereotypes where applied to Syrians as to Persians, but there seems to have been a lot of syncretism between these various cults.

Sanct Deo Soli Elagabal:

[Ecthelion]

Elagabalus is definitely Semitic. It looks like it's from Aramaic ʾElāh Gebāl, which is like "God of the Mountain Peak" or "God Most High", basically a cognate of the names used for Yahweh and Baal and almost identical to the Ugaritic El whose title used the constants ʾl gbl.

I don't think the same stereotypes where applied to Syrians as to Persians, but there seems to have been a lot of syncretism between these various cults.

Sanct Deo Soli Elagabal:

From what I understand, none of the late Imperial Eastern cults had a clear history. What we do know is that they were spread westward mainly by the legions.
And the stereotypes were applied to all Easterners. People were quite ignorant and racist back then haha

[Sharukinu]

From what I understand, the Romans stereotyped Persians as being effeminate and cowardly, so adopting elements of their religion makes little sense.

Well, the Romans were probably similar to modern people who speak ill of Americans whilst stuffing their faces with Big Macs.

[Ecthelion]

Whatever the reasons for the Roman perception of the East, it is still odd that they chose to adopt Eastern cults rather than Germanic ones where the warrior was the most celebrated man in society.

[Sharukinu]

Eastern religions, especially Iranian, were arguably philosophically more sophisticated than German or Roman paganism. Perhaps the Romans sought tranquility by worshipping benevolent and universal gods rather than some generic warrior deity. Nevertheless Mithra was also a chariot-riding warrior-god, though I'm not sure whether Roman Mithraism depicted him as such.

[Ecthelion]

Eastern religions, especially Iranian, were arguably philosophically more sophisticated than German or Roman paganism. Perhaps the Romans sought tranquility by worshipping benevolent and universal gods rather than some generic warrior deity. Nevertheless Mithra was also a chariot-riding warrior-god, though I'm not sure whether Roman Mithraism depicted him as such.

I believe he was depicted as a bull god of some sort.

And really, when have we ever seen the Romans opt for tranquility over violence? When they took over Greece, they replaced a lot of the old gymnasiums with gladiatorial stadiums.
The Romans loved violence. They worshiped it to an extent never seen before nor since.

Germanic pagan gods like Wotan, a cunning, brutal, one-eyed, raven-borne bringer of death and battle would seem far more marketable to me to Roman audiences than a Hebrew carpenter who got crucified for religious infractions and preached the whole "turn the other cheek" philosophy.

But Christianity won out in the end. I guess those Romans were all softies on the inside?

[ArmoredCore]

I think the reason chose Christianity is because it has many elements and themes that are found in many other religions. Christianity is actually a syncretic religion and the Roman pantheon was syncretic as well. The Romans adopted many preexisting deities into their belief systems, altering or adapting them to their own particular circumstance. Christianity is also linked with Roman Egypt in that the roots of Christianity actually lie in Egypt. And the Romans adopted Isis worship as one of their chief cults in the West and they carried Isis worship to Europe. The reason for this is most likely due to the prestige attached to these earlier cultures and beliefs along with the cosmopolitan nature of the empire. They needed to have everything for everyone in their religious system. On top of that, Christianity itself is a syncretic religion having absorbed many previous deities identified as 'sun gods' along with many preexisting traditions in scripture, cosmology and theology. The Greeks first introduced a rigorous pattern of syncretization and formal theology in Alexandria which ultimately led to the creation of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, which featured many prominent religious scholars, including Origen, who is often identified as the father of theology. However, at this time there were a lot of criticisms leveled at the early church fathers as being plagiarists of earlier religions and cultures. That gave rise to the series of works penned by these church fathers called 'the apologies' where they tried to argue against such claims. Once the Romans took over and adopted Christianity, they followed up on this pattern of syncretisation by having a series of ecumenical councils establishing the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, trying to put to rest the continued controversies and schisms within the wider church. One of the most fundamental controversies being how can god be a flesh and blood mortal creature like 'us'. From that the Romans did away with all the other cults, except maybe Isis worship, which ended a century or so later and many see as continued in the Virgin Mary. This move was probably done to simplify the process of appealing to the hearts and minds of the masses, by having 'one religion to rule all'. So from an imperial perspective, it was as much about power and control as religious belief. And part of the logic behind this was that the themes of Christianity were universal archetypes, found in many religions: the sun/son as a solar deity, the cycles of life, death and regeneration(resurrection), divine motherhood, sacred blood of life and above all, the patriarchal jealous god of fire, thunder and war who was relentless in attacking enemies of the flock and so forth. With such universal archetypes, it would be easy to assimilate many other traditions and cultures over to the new faith through conquest or conversion. And one other key feature of Christianity is that Christ is symbolized as the 'ruler of the earth/cosmos' through his life and word, upon whom all secular leaders are modeled after. So basically it was easy to maintain the imperial cult of divine right to rule under the guise of Christian piety.

Keep in mind when reading the apologies that the key difference between Christianity and other religions is that you MUST believe that Jesus Christ actually walked the earth as a real life person and his life is documented by the apostles and all of these are literal truths. This is against most other religions where the deities were always considered as symbolic of the essence of creation in nature as opposed to literal figures (and survived among the gnostics). In Greece you had myths and legends, which also was similar to Roman cults. But with Christianity they uphold Christ as the living incarnation of 'the word' and therefore the only TRUE god in the sense of being the only one that actually existed in real life. This is a common theme of the Abrahamic religions, such as Islam where you have to accept the Quran as the literal word of the prophet, revealed by god through the angel gabriel, or Judaism where the Talmud is the literal word of god from the old testament of Abraham and Moses. All of these have as a core tenet that their belief is based on historical facts not superstition, allegory or mythology and therefore are "real" whereas all others are lesser religions based on primitive belief and cult worship. The fact that no other religion makes such a claim or has such a core tenet makes them quite different and to be an unbeliever is almost on the same level as a blasphemer. Therefore, it makes it easy to label non believers as heretics and enemies in order to justify conquest and domination. You have never heard such a thing from most other religions.

All of that being said, many of the early thinkers and theologists made it quite clear that 'the word' existed from time immemorial and that in a sense Christianity always existed, albeit not by that name. Again we are talking about symbolic, theological and cosmological principles over and above any dogma or ritual. Nevertheless, these arguments are lost as a result of later controversies, heresies and upheavals that caused the ecumenical councils to define what has become christian tradition.

Apologies of Justin Martyr
http://www.tertullian.org/articles/bindley_apol/bindley_apol.htm

On a side note, you will notice tertullian is writing about accusations of rituals of blood drinking from the bloody chalice of the blessed sacrament which itself is a holdover from other practices involving cannibalism and ritual sacrifice among various cults in Europe and elsewhere.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/....x.ii.iii.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_A..._Justin_Martyr

Apologies of Origen and associated controversies:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11306b.htm

The key issue being, how do you PROVE the existence of Christ and how do you distinguish worship at alters of images of such from something pagan? How is it any different? (This is the best document on the treatise where as the links above are written in a somewhat hard to read obscure manner.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0412.htm
Note the passages related to the solar symbolism, the symbolism of Christ as 'the logos' or the word, which are all defenses against Christianity being a regurgitation of older solar cults and cosmology systems based on 'the word'. And note the inherent contradictions in trying to contain symbolic and literal understanding to the same deity and cosmology.

[War lord]

Christianity was so successful mainly because it's an ideological grab bag one can use to give ones political, philosophical or moral leanings divine backing.