How religious were Ancient Romans? Was their devotion comparable to how devoted the Byzantines were to Christianity later on? Or was it just a background thing in the lives of Romans?
Pax deorum
>>454054
Religion for the Pagans was really a lot different than we would imagine it today.
most modern people have no appreciation what so ever for the pagan-Roman mindset or how they saw the world, they look at a few superficial things and build this asinine idea that the Romans and other pagans were somehow "less religious" when in reality it was just a whole different kind of fervor.
the Romans were incredibly superstitious, in their daily lives they prayed to all sorts of spirits, deities, and other entities for everything from the mundane to the most grand. they had a strong belief in magic and many codified magical formula (I have a copy of a Roman fortune telling manual myself) and they regularly made use of such charms, curses and spells to have their will done or for really anything.
"religion" for them was not some external other, it was intertwined with absolutely everything, even the state was a religious entity and all the trappings of legalism were bound up with mystical ideas and the gods.
if you read the 12 tables of Rome there is extensive mention of magic and witchcraft and what degree of magic is alright.
all in all it was pretty silly when you look back at stories like one farmer throwing a cow fetus at his neighbor all under the watch of magistrates to ensure the curse was legal.
Christianity represented a major shift away from superstition towards more rational thought.
Romans were obsessed with getting their rituals right and "collecting" patron deities so that the empire would be under the protection of all divinity.
>>454054
Compared to Classical COntemporary Greeks who made fun of their gods in comedies: Romans didn't.
Furthermore unlike Greeks, Romans worshipped their ancestors. Which makes them more religious than a lot of their counterparts as ancestor worship made shit personal.
>>454113
I wouldn't say the Greeks were less "religious" but they were definitely far less superstitious, and in general tended to lean more to monotheism of some sort, at least in Athens.
>>454054
Your conception of "religious" thought or behavior is wholly informed by American Protestantism.
>>454054
One of the fascinating things about this is how similar most of the early Roman arguments against Christianity were similar to the arguments Christians try to use against non-believers today.
See the paragraph on 'reasons for persecution'.
http://www.religionfacts.com/persecution-of-early-church
tl;dr Very, but differently.
First of all you have to realize that Pagan religions do not have a clear cut list of deities. There's thousands if not millions and what constitutes a deity is very broad. The closest thing there is to a European pagan religion is Shinto, which has thousands of spirits ranging from "Spirit of this grain of rice" to "Spirit of the concept of war". Cultural Diffusion between the Romans and the Etruscans also meant that the Romans got a hefty dose of non-Indo-European spirituality in them.
You had everything from spirits of the home (As in, spirits of an individual house), to guardian deities of every single person (Lares), all of your ancestors who were constantly watching over you, any familial gods (essentially a deity only your family or bloodline worshiped, or a specific way of worshiping a deity and said way of worship is unique to your family/bloodline), gods of specific regions, gods or spirits of specific landmarks ("Guardian of this river"), gods of specific cities, gods of specific REGIONS of cities, gods of your home (which is completely unrelated to the spirit of your home), and let's not forget hero cults. And all of that is just the non-Olympians.
Pagan Indo-European religions were highly formulaic and ritual based. A spiritual contract. You give a cow after performing a specific ritual, Jupiter will give you a good harvest. How you felt, what was in your heart, how good of a person you are, mattered zilch except in the context of a contract. Of course, at any given time a single person was part of innumerable contracts and one big part of every contract was "Be Roman", which of course meant you had to be moral and all that.
>>454161
What we have from Julian the Apostates "Against the Galileans" is actually really interesting. It's a fragment of a 1,700 year old document that mirrors modern critiques of Christianity (From numerous groups and angles) in many ways.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_galileans_1_text.htm
>>454102
9/11 answer
>>454102
>Christianity represented a major shift away from superstition towards more rational thought.
Not particularly they just introduced a new species of it. Even folks like Aquinas belived in witchcraft. Outside of augury and like most supersititon found its counterpart in Christianity.
>>454054
>How religious were Ancient Romans?
Varied a lot among individuals tbqh, but on average they were closer to superstitious than religious.
>Was their devotion comparable to how devoted the Byzantines were to Christianity later on?
Top kek absolutely not. The byzs were fucking nutjobs in comparison.
>Or was it just a background thing in the lives of Romans?
More or less this.
>>454303
>Top kek absolutely not. The byzs were fucking nutjobs in comparison.
How so?
>>454320
The byzantines killed each other over theological issues, come on. "Superstitious" is a much fitter term for roman religiosity than "religious". Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrism, Judaism all had far, far more fervent practitioners.
>>454341
>The byzantines killed each other over theological issues,
Is the iconoclast the only example of that?
>>454349
No, Monophysitism was another, but really early christians were so litigious it beggars belief, they started well before the split.
>>454300
>Even folks like Aquinas believed in witchcraft
and yet legal codes like the Salic Law, and the Lombard Code specifically stated that witches were complete nonsense and don't exist.
>>454409
>and yet legal codes like the Salic Law, and the Lombard Code specifically stated that witches were complete nonsense and don't exist.
Yeah because a king totally understands theology better than a Doctor of the Church and a Saint like Aquinas.
>>454381
Any good sources on people actually being murdered or tortured for beliving in that?
>>454102
Sounds like Christianity marked the decline of spirituality. The spirit forces used to be everywhere than they sort of started fading away. Than the Protestant theology happened and they disappeared from all the rituals. Than we got deism and the God is just a glorified watch-maker. Finally atheism removed the God completely.
Modern China and Japan are good examples of how state sanctioned polytheism functions in a society.
>>456006
Catholicism and Orthodoxy didn't really do away with all the spirits, they just said they were demons. Protestants were the ones who started to outright say they didn't exist.
>>454458
Why dont you read some shit about the time period yourself? I seem to recall Alexandria had some ridiculous mobs killing each other over minor religious issues
>>456166
Japan's shinto religion is often how I imagine roman paganism might be practiced with prayers at temples on holidays, ancestor worship, a strong spirituality bordering superstition but in a more healthy manner.
Actually one of the few interesting religion threads on this board. Thanks
