Roman Pagan Life and Worship
2024 ж. 14 Мам.
451 460 Рет қаралды
Ryan M. Reeves (PhD Cambridge) is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Twitter: / ryanmreeves Instagram: / ryreeves4
Website: www.gordonconwell.edu/academic...
This is Lecture 3 in the course 'Church History: Early and Medieval'. All material is copyrighted.
For the entire course, see the playlist: • Early & Medieval History
Everything I've ever found about Greek and Roman religion always goes straight to Zeus and Apollo and the myths without an explanation of how and why they worshiped and what they got for it. Thanks for explaining.
Best video on Roman religion that I've seen, and I've seen a lot.
These lectures are excellent and very well done. I would, however, challenge the notion that the Romans did not embrace "faith" as part of pagan religion. True, "faith played a different role in paganism as compared with Christianity. For example, pagans did not believe that they are ultimately judged on the basis of their faith. But why were rituals so important to pagan worship? Because they believed participating in such rituals won favor with the gods. Faith in the gods is implicit in that. I think we make a mistake if we imagine that Romans were devoted to experience, conformity and ritual but didn't really believe in their gods. Sure, it's easy for US to imagine that because most of us treat these beliefs as mythology. But this was not mythology to the Romans. Faith in their gods was essential to their view of reality.
+citizenghosttown // Thanks for the comment. I think you're taking the point in a direction I'm not intending, though. It's not 'faith' in the sense of do they believe in the gods. They certainly did. Rather the point is they don't believe faith is the ground of their religious experience. They did not locate their religious need in the heart, in the sense that they needed to be fervently loyal to the gods. For them, this was to lack moral integrity and be tossed around by irrational feelings (to use modern language). Rather, they approached it fundamentally as a duty to the gods that required specific rituals. So the point you make is a good one, and I would agree with it. The point I'm trying to make for students here, though, is a way to see what drives Roman sacrifices, rituals, etc. It's so foreign to our world the contrast sometimes helps! :)
Ryan Reeves Makes sense. Thanks for the explanation and for these excellent videos.
The pagans respected victory. The gods were part of thier culture of reciprocity (something Europeans still value highly). The standard was that service to the gods demanded a reciprocal service in return whereas jewish culture is more intolerant, demands obedience, and Faith is part of the "do for me, but expect nothing in return" veneration. One of the reasons the west adopted Christianity was that it was said to win over converts through sacrifice and war, as well as a sort of upper class consolidation of power. The upper classes would much rather not have to show reciprocity to the poor or have stories or meritocratic hero worship.
Love your stuff. I am really learning a lot. Great for my kids Home Schooling. Thank you
I really enjoy your videos, they are well produced, and very informative.
Ryan I'm so thankful to have found your channel. Informative and easy to understand for the layman. Keep up the awesome work and TY for the energy you put into each lecture. The best history class is found right HERE! God bless
Thank you very much for posting these. Very happy I found these. Love history and have always been interested in Theology. Well done, indeed.
So, no one thinks any of those rituals/practices sound a lot like Catholicism?
Absolutely Amazing. I appreciate the rebirth of the hunger for the history.
These are great man! Thanks for putting all the work into them.
subscribed - excellent audio and fantastic english accent and speech for a foreign language to understand - fantastic speed too -GOD BLESS YOUR LIFE.
Great work!
Wow! Awesome, very informative! OM Tat Sat, AUM... May God help us, ALL...
Great video, actually the only one that i ve seen that goes deeper into covering this subject. I wanted to ask, since there was no dogma, do we know how the romans knew what they were supposed to do? Second, since there was no dogma or a certain myth in the foundation of the religion as it is in christianity, how come greeks and romans, who did huge steps in philosophy, didnt question their faith?
This sheds a lot of light on the emerging church in Roman society. We see a very Jewish body of believers that was still going to the synagogues, still keeping the Sabbaths and the feasts, morph into a group that repeated prayers (soon with rosaries and statues), develop creeds and "statements of faith", worshipped now on Sun-day, and also adopted a form of henotheism in changing Yahshua's name to "Jesus" and for the most part banishing YHVH's name from His own book.
Many Roman rituals did influence some structures under which Christianity came to be. However, Christianity is very different than these religions. The concept of a bodily resurrection and how the Early Church described it was both an original idea and something they had no incentive to make up. Too many people who try to find similarities between Christianity and other ancient religions advocate what falls under heterodox views publicized by a few scholars.
They rewrite the Bible because not all other country speak Arabic or Hebrew language. GOD speak and understand every language in the world. There's no language he doesn't speak..
subscribed, thought id seen them all but this guy is really good really enjoyed thumbs up
Dr, Just as a help I wanted to point out a typo. Calvary on this slide should I believe be "cavalry".
This was very informative. As a Roman Pagan myself, it depicts how both the ancient Roman Paganism and modern Roman Paganism (Religio Romana) works. Indeed, I think that dying for a religious cause is crazy and nonsense, and that over-doing the worship of the gods is unnecessary.
The Antiquity Goth that's really interesting. I'm quite into roman paganism myself but I've never seen someone who actually practiced it.
Eduardo Schiavon So guys you are something that you do not really know and not practicing...
Egad! The two-story relic at Ephesus was a LIBRARY given by a son in his father's honor!!! It is shown as you discuss "Temples"; also, the Acropolis was visited once yearly by Athenians in a great procession along the Sacred Way; also, the meeting of Peoples even in Roman times at Eulysis (sp?) for those mysteries was a congregational meeting place where all people, Romans, Greeks, women, men, all peoples if they could afford the trip, met and experienced after-life promises, perhaps the first, and a service that although was sworn to secrecy, was so life-changing for their followers they would return year after year..... why aren't these mentioned? indeed, across from that library in Ephesus your video implies is some "temple", was a house of prostitution with clearly seen today footprints in the sidewalk with the words: FOLLOW ME.... This is the problem with agendized historical interpretations.... there are flagrant errors and misrepresentations that lead to further misunderstandings of history in general and pagan influences on Christianity in particular.
I have always had trouble understanding the difference between venerate and worship. Catholics say they venerate the Saints and this lecture states that Romans venerated the emperor. How is that different from worship?
+Tracy Craft It's just word games played by Catholics to claim they are not engaging in idolatry.
+Tracy Craft // Protestants have always rejected the distinction, but within Catholic thought the notion is that veneration is not idolatry or worshiping creation, but rather using something in an appropriate way in worship. The point in the distinction is to avoid the point Protestants make (that there is no distinction) but its roots go back to the Byzantine-Catholic Iconoclastic Controversy. The issue itself tends to crop up here and there in history, but the Catholic answer is to distinguish the two.
It is because Protestants don't have sacrificial worship of God. Protestant "worship" only rises to the level of veneration. The Christian Liturgy that is the re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice is not something Protestants know. What Christ says in each Gospel telling his church what to do has been rejected by modern religious movements.
Good stuff man:)
Is there any connection between the role of patron saints in Christianity and Greco-Roman pagan gods?
+Gimli Bobert // That is often an allegation by non-Catholics but there is nothing that shows a causal relationship between the two. Also the rise of the majority of patron saint ideas began long after the Greco-Roman world was long gone. It seems as much based on feudal ideas of a hierarchy of authority and rank, for example.
I've always thought of it as people having a kind of need for a larger cast of characters and both of them fulfilling that need in different ways.
in bavaria we have the saying, that st. peter is in the sky and making the weather. if the thunder is coming we say that st. peter is bowling in the sky.. in the fairy tales of grimm, there is a story where "st peter" revived a dead goat, just like thor does in the edda. for me it's clear. at least in the catholic bavarian region, st. peter took over the tasks of thor (donar). we still say "petri heil" in germany if we go fishing, to ask help from st. peter. in pagan times it was thor who was the god for the fishermen.
Gimli Bobert one and the same really
TheStarfkr excellent post
God bless you brother Ryan Reeves. Thank you.
The picture that I attached did not come through. It is the slide at the 12:00 minute mark.
Actually the "suffering" argument that the Pagans brought up was a valid one ! Besides, Rome was sacked not long after legalization of Christianity !
I was looking up and saw a comet, or shooting star? Am I deified too? I was looking up and saw Stars moving to, and fro (moving forward and going back)? Am I deified? God manifested to me that He/She/it is listening and watching over me? Am I deified?
Yes you are.
verily verily I say unto you he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed on the name of the Son of God.
The word is demi god ! , sons of gods , or God or put next to a God is the same thing demi god ! .
What god did the Romans tough Jehova was in their pantheon?
Paganism is awesome. No wishy washy bs. Just duty and sacrifice.
Very interesting. It turns out that after Christianity becomes the state religion of Rome, that these Roman attitudes tend more and more to take over in the Church. The sacraments become completely ritualized, prayer often degenerates to merely rote recitation of prescribed words and the need to engage the heart in actual faith becomes lost. As a result, miracles become rarer and rarer and materialism becomes dominant in Western culture. There are other forces at work too. The church must decide whether sacraments are valid if the priest that administers them subsequently apostesizes due to persecution. They decide that what's important is that the ritual is done in the proper form (prescribed words and actions) by an ordained priest with the intent of the church. Acts of prayer are reduced to mere ritual as is the ancient Roman pagan pattern. There is also the rise of science based entirely on objective materialistic observations. By this time miracles are becoming exceedingly rare and the assumption is that our thoughts and feelings can't directly affect the material world. It takes modern quantum physics to show that this assumption is false. The mere act of observation entangles the observer in the experiment.
So are Vikings Roman?
Simple answer: no. But some Viking tribes eventually do want full incorporation into Roman culture (or at least recognition as non-outsiders).
Thank you for these lectures. I love all kinds of ancient history. But I think your computer spellchecker needs a small update. Consistently, in lots of videos, cavalry is spelled "calvary" which is a bit confusing.
Skadu Skitai // Ha. Nice catch. No it's not the computer issue it's that video editing software has no spell-checker, plus I'm often editing these things at, say, 1am in my off hours. Try as hard as I can to spot every typo there are always some that sneak through. I am keeping a list of these to go back and clean up once I finish the courses. Thanks!
+Ryan Reeves Chevalier =cavalier. I always make spelling mistakes with this word. Chevalry. No! No! That is the wrong language and word. Now: You will be forever confused. Learnt this word at a Jesuit University in France in 1989. Many prof were hung for their religious beliefs during the French Revolution in the court yard of this small school beside the Jardin de Luxembourg. 128 were hung for conspiring against the Rev. Marie Antoinette never said. 'LET THEM EAT CAKE." nor did she cry during her execution. She held her head high with nobility.
+chrisregpick // Yeah I'm zealous at not repeating random legendary sayings of the past. I am more prone to fumbling fingers and misspellings, especially when I was plowing through these video edits quickly. One of the benefits of KZhead is people eagle-eye things for me like this! :)
Great detail on pagans. One thing that struck me was how similar pagan religion and ancient Hewbrew religion was. Other than a stronger written tradition, they seem the same to me.
Monotheism and a covenant relationship with one's Creator separated Hebrew belief from all others. Even in ancient pagan times, one was obligated to serve the god du jour--not love Him, whereas the two big points for Hebrews were to love YHVH and to love ones neighbor as oneself. The broken covenant of Ex 19:5-24:12 resulted in the Levitical sacrificial system until Yahshua came as the perfect mediator. Most people in their cursory understanding of covenant think those sacrifices were some kind of appeasement, when in fact, they were a daily reminder of their turning from YHVH and a daily reminder and hope of the One who had been slain before the foundation of the earth and His promised coming.
TC Coltharp It's arguable that israelite religion *was* pagan - polytheistic, perhaps monolatrous (one-deity-worshipping) - and that it was only exposure to Persian religion at the end of the Captivity that made the 'returning Jews' monotheistic. ;)
+Matthew McVeagh I watched a video on the book "The History of God." so I am aware of that theory. The Old Testament makes a LOT more sense when you realize that it is an edited document of a priesthood that is slowly moving from full blown polytheism to full blown monotheism while trying to keep themselves relevant to the contemporary problems of a minor hill people they serve.
TC Coltharp Yes it does. They have found inscriptions where 'Yahweh' has a wife 'Asherah'. There are several Hebrew names for 'God' in the Bible - Yahweh, Elohim, and some others. 'Elohim' is actually a plural form. The commandment "Thou shalt have no gods/idols before me" sounds more like a choice of worship out of deities believed to exist than a choice of what deity to believe in. Satan in the book of Job sounds like a demigod or angel in God's court performing contrarian tasks for him rather than a damned adversary. There are great parallels between the character of Yahweh and that of Enlil, Amon, Zeus and Jupiter - they are jealous, irascible air/storm gods who cast thunderbolts. And so on, so many examples.
in discussing "henotheism", & the Greek named Zeus, Roman named Jupiter, the carving is actually of the famous Greek hero perhaps one of the most widespread of all the mythic heroes: Herakles, with the Lion cloak & his club, & not the god Jupiter; these small errors in your presentation are troublesome to me... also, the Hebrew people during the time of Moses to the Babylonian exile, were Henotheists, that although their Jehovah was the only god for them, he chose them, that there were definitely other gods out there that they were to have nothing to do with, but were real gods nontheless....
Religion for the average Roman was really more like animism. Propitiation of household or local spirits (lares and penates) was a big part of it. Fear and control over ones circumstances drove this. It was not really like modern western religions focused on ultimate concerns.
so what year was catholicism syncratized into Christian faith?
there is no video showing this theological subject - about paganism and worshiip -l love the Book of Judges -which has all to do with this class - before being a christian l venerated many false gods and sacrifices animals to them as a pagan -that´s why l love this subject-fantastic.
+yasmim minsay You might enjoy the writings of C.S. Lewis. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he began as a pagan and travelled a long and resistant road to Christianity. I cannot find the quote at the moment, but he once remarked on what was then the just emerging trend of people shedding their "unhealthy" inhibitions, as the popular experts were then labeling them. Lewis said to some colleagues something to the effect of "You are laboring so hard to shed inhibitions that I have labored much recently to begin to acquire." I'm sure my quote is not exact, so please pardon my errors. Lewis wrote much of faith and spirituality from a perspective and background immersed in ancient mythology. It makes my understanding of the spiritual realm that much richer and more complete.
+tiggergolah hi, tiggergolah - thanks for the message and suggestion - l will look for Lewis and come back to comment with you still today - they make a very easy way to set us free from demons - but we have to struggle every second of the day to be free - daily reading of the Bible - praying all the time - fasting in Spirit - resisting temptations, being in closestt contact with God - obbeying as much as we can all His laws and keeping the Holly Spirit inside of our brain, soul and spirit - only by daily practice of these spiritual routine we are able to be free from the fallen angel´s influence - God bless your life - will come back.
yasmim minsay Practicing His Prescense. Amen.
conor henderson Droog.
conor henderson A very old reference to a very old, but cult classic, movie.....Clockwork Orange. His avatar pose just looked like a Droog....and he talked not unlike one.....so, yeah, a Droog.
It's not really strange for a more dominant culture to adopt the gods of another culture. Consider the case of Buddhism in the U.S. today. The Buddha as a religious figure would have likely been absurd and foreign to the American founders, but today it is revered by people throughout the culture.
I wonder what life would be like without religion. or isms
pool of isis anyone?
hellinique polytheism has nothing to do with christianity
The Early Christian church actually took a lot from the traditional Roman religion. The Pope is still called the Pontifex Maximus.