Summary
- This book has 2 parts:
- first part deals with the ancient world of religion that had no history
- in the ancient world, scholars didn’t write books on the history of religion because religion was so seamlessly interwoven into everyday life - p. 4
- second part deals with what happened when religion acquired a history in the 4th century CE
- first part deals with the ancient world of religion that had no history
Part One: Religion Without History
Chapter 1: The Tour Guide’s Version
- Judaism and Christianity were a shock to the pagan Romans because the Romans lived a life and lived in a society of tolerance, people believed whatever gods they wanted to and everyone respected each other. Jews and Christians came along with their own god but also said that only they were correct and everyone else was wrong
Chapter 2: The Games of the Century
- Apollo is the only god known by the same name in both Greek and Roman mythology - p. 39
Chapter 3: An Eloquent Man Who Loved His Country
Chapter 4: What is a God?
- even early Christians believed the pagan gods to be real, but that their Christian god was above all others - p. 64-65
Chapter 5: Divine Butchery
Chapter 6: Ways of Knowing
- astrology was a big practice in pagan Rome, so much so that emperors feared it because they believed ordinary citizens could use astrology to learn about the lives of the rulers - p. 94
Chapter 7: The Specter of Atheism
- For Christians, ‘believe in God’ has nothing to do with accepting the preposition that divine being exists, rather it means to believe in the saving power of that divine being
- For the Roman pagans, they essentially viewed Christians as atheists because they disbelieved in all the gods, and the god they preached was one who no one has heard of, has no temples, has no signs of power, etc - p. 99
Chapter 8: Gods at Home
- Judaism originated with the pagan cult of YHWH
Chapter 9: Divine Exaltation
- “the philosophers did not challenge or deny the old gods. They simply made them smaller.” p. 118
Part Two: The History of Paganism
Chapter 10: Constantine in His World
- Constantine killed his eldest son by his first wife, and then later killed his second wife Fausta, the mother of his 3 sons Constantine, Constantius, and Constans - p. 125
- Marcus Aurelius constructed a new temple for his god, the sun god, whose cult object was a black stone, allegedly said to be a meteorite sent by the god - p. 127
Chapter 11: A New Leaf
- It’s most accurate to say Constantine was not a full Christian. He was somewhat between Christian and Pagan, but politically was giving more to the Christians
Chapter 12: The Birth of Paganism
- Constantine called the council of Nicaea due to the intense debates around Arianism in his time - p. 152
- the standardization of Christianity starting with Constantine’s efforts was also the birth of Paganism because in order for Christianity to define itself as different from Paganism, Paganism needed to be defined - p. 158
Chapter 13: The Baptism of Paganism
- Pagan etymology: comes from the word Paganus which means ‘peasant’ in Latin
- Pagan isn’t an identity of people, it’s a term early Christians invented to describe non-Christians - p. 162
Chapter 14: The First Christian Emperor
Chapter 15: The Servant of Christianity
- Paganism died down gradually. The government began with preference for Christianity over Paganism, then went with reducing financial support for Pagan institutions like temples, etc. Eventually a comprehensive ban on Pagan practices went into effect - p. 179
Chapter 16: The Triumph of Paganism
Chapter 17: What Remained
Chapter 18: Cicero Reborn
Chapter 19: A Roman Religion
Reflections
Overall I didn’t like this book too much. It was very disconnected and seemed to hop from topic to topic. I got so lost while reading it hence why so much of the summary is empty.