#ancient Mediterranean theology

[jeannereames]

WHY YOUR MORALITY IS MY PROBLEM: modern holdovers from ancient theology

James Dobson, founder of the ultra-conservative Focus on the Family organization, reputedly said of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, “I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think He has allowed judgment to fall upon us.”

As heartless as that sentiment sounds today when addressing the murder of 20 first-graders (and 6 adults) at an elementary school, it reflects a once-common theology that emerged about four thousand years ago in the ancient near east (ANE*), then bled into the Mediterranean basin and developed an astonishingly long half-life. It’s why some Christians (et al.) are so, so concerned with what their neighbors are doing behind closed doors. Or on their front lawns with all those Pride flags.

In some ways, ANE and Mediterranean religion had a lot in common, being traditional and focused largely on sacrifice/action (orthopraxic). Over time, some orthodoxic religions also arose in that area. So, first, let’s do some quick defining.

Orthopraxic religions focus on what one DOES, not what one believes. Performing the sacrifice correctly, honoring the gods/ancestors appropriately…that’s how one shows piety. Infringing against purity laws or other affronts to the gods (impious actions) can result in expulsion from the community. Fights over correct practice can lead to schism in a community.

Orthodoxic religions focus on what one BELIEVES. Thus, they need some form of authoritative text to determine what IS right belief, resulting in the emergence of a canon (e.g., Zoroastrian Avesta, Jewish Tanakh, Christian New Testament, or Muslim Qur’an). In Orthodoxic religions, wrong beliefs (heresy) can result in expulsion from the community. Fights over correct belief can lead to schism in a community.

(There’s yet a third focus, orthopathic, but that largely doesn’t apply here. “Orthopraxic” can also apply to ethics-based religions, but here, it applies to ritual/cultic behavior.)

Most religions have elements of all three, but it matters where the weight falls. Yes, religions can emphasize two sides of the triangle more heavily, less on the third, but even then, one point will be the chief measurement of devoutness among followers. This also helps us understand why two religions might not understand each other very well sometimes. They’re trying to impose one set of “What religion is for” ideas on another, with entirely different assumptions.

The religions of the ANE and Mediterranean had much in common in terms of the purpose of religion: to maintain the health of a community. This depended on the piety of that communities’ members. Their gods weren’t moral in the modern sense, but could be jealous, fickle, and petty.

Why were they gods then?

Because they were immortal and more powerful.

Yet an important difference between (many) ANE and Mediterranean religions were the concepts of sin and “mesharum” (divine justice/equilibrium). If the latter existed (sorta) in Mediterranean society, “sin” really didn’t. Impiety differs as it can include ritual matters too. So, if murder (especially kin murder) created uncleanness anywhere and is a moral/civil matter, menstruation and sex also created uncleanness, but were not moral/civil matters defined as “bad.” So “unclean” ≠ “sin.”

To be unclean is a matter of cultic purity, different from moral purity. Yes, ANE religions also had ritual uncleanness, to be sure. And yes, some things that make one unclean also have intimations of “badness” without being so extreme as murdering someone. Yet I want to underscore the difference because it’s very real and too often ignored/misunderstood/unfairly conflated.

Many Mediterranean religions did not have “sin,” just unclean and impious. MORAL/ETHICAL matters were dictated by civil law and later, philosophic discussion. Not religion. Yet in the ANE, moral infractions were affronts to mesharum (divine order) and were therefore a religious matter. This oversimplifies, but smash-and-grab works for now. We find actions (like iconoclasm) in the ANE that didn’t often apply in the Mediterranean. (Iconoclasm is the deliberate theft, or in extreme cases, destruction of religious icons or structures.)

Yet what both groups shared was a sense that the gods had, well, “bad aim.” If people in a community were impious and/or sinful, that might draw the ire of the gods. Plagues were often seen as divine retribution for the impiety and/or sin of one or more members of that community, but not necessarily all of them. This led to the exile of impious individuals, as well as the ANE “scapegoat” ritual, et al. (If you’re familiar with the plot of the Iliad, Apollo punished the entire Greek army for the impious actions of Agamemnon.)

I could DIE from your impiety/sin committed in my town/community.

That makes your morality my business.

In addition, especially in the ANE, war on earth was believed to reflect war in heaven. Gods had cities and peoples, not the other way around. They chose you, you didn’t god-shop—hence Israel as a “chosen people.” Well, yeah, pretty much every ethnic group was chosen by some god(s). But as a result, if your side lost in a war, then—theoretically—your gods were weaker. Maybe you should go over and start worshiping their gods. Yet that didn’t sit well with most groups, so by the Middle/Late Bronze Age, we see an emerging idea that my god isn’t “weaker” than yours, rather my general “set forth without the gods’ consent,” or my god permitted the other god(s) to win for whatever reason…usually due to sin or a lack of piety among his (or her) people. Of course we find this in the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, but it’s in a lot of other ANE literature too. Nabû or Marduk didn’t lose, they “went to live with” Ashur for however many years—although the winning side will portray the victory as Nabû and Marduk traveling to Nineveh to bow before (e.g., submit to) Assur.

Again, this is simplified, but we don’t see this sort of language used in Greece where Hera would bow to Athena because the city-state of Athens defeated Argos, even if, as promachos (foremost in battle), Athena might be expected to win in any conflict between the two (as in Euripides’ Children of Herakles). Hera is still queen of the gods, and—even more—these are shared deities. We also don’t see it because notions of “sin” don’t apply and only a handful of wars were ever called “sacred”—all of them concerning Delphi and cultic purity. At least one of those is mythical, the second probably didn’t happen, and the third (which certainly did happen) was labeled “sacred” only by one side. Greek gods just weren’t seen to uphold justice in the same way. Roman gods were more concerned with such things, but still not as we find in the ANE.

Ergo, the ANE faced the problem of theodicy: if god/the gods are good/just, why does tragedy happen?

Early explanations for tragedy were simple: those who suffer must have earned their suffering, sometimes referred to as Deuteronomic Theology: “good things happen to good people”/“bad things happen to bad people” (and maybe their neighbors too, by chance).

Pushback against this notion emerged around the same time a more nuanced view of loss in war emerged. People began to ask the corollary: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

The (c. 1700 BCE) Mesopotamian Ludlul bēl nēmeqi (The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer) attempted an answer. About a thousand years later (600s-500s BCE), the Jewish Book of Job took it on as well. In both, the protagonist asks, “Why does Marduk/Yahweh punish me when I’ve been a faithful servant?” Both protagonists were previously wealthy/powerful, which was seen as divine approval. Losing that wealth/health suggested they had offended their god (and are being punished). Yet each one claims he did not sin—so why?

The answer in both works is similar: there’s not really an answer. Marduk restores Šubši-mašrâ-Šakkan, who ends the poem with a prayer of thanksgiving. Job has a chat with Yahweh, who essentially tells him, “You’re a measly mortal, don’t question me.”

The KEY element in both, however, isn’t the answer, but the assertion that a good person can suffer. They didn’t earn it; it just happened. They remained good and, eventually, their god restored them to their prior station, and then some.

Ergo, if you’re suffering, just be patient. Don’t curse God and die. (As Job is advised to do.)

Today, we may find such an answer wanting but need to recognize it for an advancement on the theology of tragedy.

 Some, however, get stuck in these time-locked answers because they can’t allow their religion to grow. Or rather, they can’t acknowledge that their religion/theology evolves over time, because if it evolves, it wasn’t perfect from the beginning. And that challenges their understanding of their god.

Yet the real fly in the ointment is the notion of a perfect and infallible canon.

This brings me back around to what a canon is. It just means “an authoritative text,” but how that text is understood has nuances. INSPIRED ≠ INFALLIBLE. Most all followers of a canonical text believe it’s inspired by God, but not all (or even most) believe it’s infallible. (Islam is its own category here, note.) That creates some problematic GRAYS.

If it’s only inspired, written by humans with human foibles and history-locked understandings, interpreting it becomes complicated and can lead to disagreements. Taking a literalist view sweeps away the messiness. “God said it; I believe it; that settles it!” Black-and-white.

Those who believe in Biblical literalism/inerrancy (which includes a good chunk of conservative Christian Evangelicals and all Fundamentalists**) will argue ALL the Bible is true. If it’s written by God, it must be perfect from the get-go. Thus, a clash is created between simpler versus more nuanced views: Deuteronomy vs. Job. If an earlier view must be as true as any later one, that reduces everything to the most elementary version. It can’t evolve/grow up, yielding what feels to most like a very archaic (and often harsh) worldview.

In any case, both the traditional orthopraxic and orthodoxic religions of the ANE/Med Basin believed God/gods punished people who offended them. AND these punishments might “spill over” onto family and neighbors.

Ancient divine collateral damage.

Ironically, this is WHY early Christians were prosecuted by the pagan (e.g., traditional) Roman and Greek religious establishments. Christian failure to participate in common civic religious cult could earn divine ire. For their first two/two-and-a-half centuries, Christianity was labeled a religio illicta (illegal religion)—in part for “failure to play well with others.” E.g., make sacrifices to the appropriate Greco-Roman deities. Thus, when disaster struck, a scapegoat was sought. Those antisocial Christians are to blame! They don’t sacrifice to the gods and so, offended XXX god, who is now punishing ALL of us with YYY.

Classic ancient religious thinking, but it’s one reason I find current conservative Christian opposition to Teh Gays, trans folks, etc., enormously ironic. The persecuted have become the persecuting.

I want to emphasize that large sub-groups of Jews, Christians, and Muslims have evolved past such theologies. Yet others have not and stubbornly cling to ancient mindsets. That’s why they argue the mere presence of LGBTQI+ people will bring down the wrath of God on ALL.

Talk of “grooming” and “protecting children” is just an attempt to make palatable a belief they know won’t fly with most people, who they consider deluded by The World (e.g., the devil). Trickery is therefore required. As they’re deeply afraid themselves, they understand fear and use it to motivate others. Many are perfectly happy to make their beds with “unbelievers” long enough to get their agendas passed. God will forgive them.

This, too, is rooted in ancient ideas (discussed above) whereby a people’s own god might employ the enemy to punish them (or others). Thus, a sinful person can be utilized on the way to righteous ends because the victory of God wipes away all else. Using the enemy to effect God’s will just proves that God is in final charge of everything after all. It’s the ultimate PWN.

I hope this helps to explain where these ideas come from, how they originally emerged, and why a subgroup of people still cling to them.

————-

* While Egypt influenced the ANE, as well as Greece and Rome, and is often shoehorned into the ANE, I consider Egypt as NE Africa. It deserves to be treated on its own, or in relation to neighbors such as Kush.

** Fundamentalists and Evangelicals tend to be equated but are not the same. Also, not all Evangelicals are conservatives (although all Fundamentalists are, by definition). Enormous variation exists between Christian denominations, which range from ultra-conservative to (surprise!) ultra-liberal. There is as much of a hard Christian Left as there is a hard Christian Right. We just tend to hear far less about them.

[loemius]

hi! just wanna say that your blog looks super interesting and i'm glad i came across it 😊 i'm wondering if you have any advice for someone new getting into hellenic polytheism. i have been really delving into my views on spirituality and religion for the first time in my life over the past year. i've been venerating Hekate a lot because of the deep calling i feel towards her. i've been thinking more and more about properly worshipping the other gods in the pantheon as well. i've always been very interested in all the mythology too. it feels right to start on so many levels but i am also so nervous at the same time :')

khaire!! thank you very much for your ask!! i'm very touched that you enjoy my blog so much and would ask for my advice. i'd love to give you some, with the caveat that i am absolutely not an expert or an authority and still have a lot to learn myself. i'm literally just a guy who loves the theoi a lot and does my best to worship them and honor them. this got very long so im gonna put this under a cut

first, i would encourage you to work past your nervousness. remember that historically speaking, children worshipped the theoi! there's plenty of evidence of this, from the rituals that youths would do as they became adults (such as cutting a lock of hair and offering it to the river [see iliad book 23 and pausanias 2.32.1 for primary sources on this, as a starting point]) or epithets like kourotropos (roughly translated to 'child nurturer', many theoi have this epithet, including hekate!). don't be scared of them. the theoi are gracious and good, and imo, they're very understanding. when i first started out, i prayed and basically said 'i'm new to this, i want to jump in and do my best, but i'm still learning. please be gentle and understanding to me as i embark on this path, and please guide me to worship you as you see fit.' i think being upfront about it really helps. i see a lot of people say that they want to worship but don't feel like they've done enough research or aren't ready for whatever reason. but you also have to start somewhere, and experience is a valuable tool on this path. it enriches your research to be doing it with a purpose, imo. you have to start somewhere yknow? as long as you're respectful, the theoi will be understanding, imo. i would highly, HIGHLY suggest you spend a lot of time researching. theoi.com is an invaluable resource. i also suggest perseus.edu, which is a digital library that has a wide collection of primary sources, including the epics and plays. i personally suggest the homeric hymns as a starting point, as most of them are rather short and approachable and make fantastic prayers to read aloud. i also suggest reading the epics and plays if you're able. secondary sources are also good. greek religion by walter burkert is a good source. i also suggest understanding greek religion by jennifer larson. people have a lot of divisive opinions on this one, but i think household worship by labrys can be a helpful source for what to do when it actually comes to doing your own worship and rituals. i also like hellenion as a source. use your discretion and critical thinking with all these sources. no one source is perfect. compare and contrast, look for biases, cross check. also, get interdisciplinary with it! look into theology, archeology, anthropology, philosophy, classics. don't be afraid to look in multiple places for information to piece it all together.

another suggestion i have is to spend some time immersing yourself in greek culture, both ancient and modern. religion and culture are deeply intertwined, and understanding the specific ways in which greeks view things will help you greatly. and look outside of greece too! ancient greece had a lot of contact with other areas of the world like italy, the middle east, and egypt, even india, and this absolutely influenced the religion and culture. be respectful to mediterranean people, and listen and elevate their voices. i very much like the blogs @/gemsofgreece and @/alatismeni-theitsa. you're not just learning about a religion, but an entire culture that still exists in the world today. here's my general worship advice: cleansing is important, but it doesn't have to be anything more than washing your hands before an offering or ritual. if you have a space for the theoi, try to keep it clean. offerings can be as simple or grand as you like. i find a lot of beauty in the simple things. a glass of water or sharing a meal goes a LONG way. clean, fresh water was a very coveted thing in the ancient world, so sharing a glass of water is honestly one of my favorite offerings. you can share your meal by praying over it and inviting the theoi to eat the steam/smells of the meal, or you could set aside a little plate for them if you wanted to (NOTE: traditionally, it is considered taboo to share offerings with kthonic deities. they were traditionally buried, and libations were poured onto the ground. in the modern day, i think setting things aside to be appropriately disposed of later or pouring things down the drain can be an acceptable substitute. its fine to share with ouranic deities!). really, just find little ways to involve them in your day to day life. pray. pray a lot, about anything, big or small. express gratitude to the theoi for the things you appreciate in your life, and share your struggles with them. it doesn't have to be formal (but it should be respectful). nurture your connections with the theoi and allow them to nurture you right back. do not feel obligated to share every part of your practice, especially online. keeping things to yourself or a close group of trusted friends can really be beneficial to you. truthfully i only post like .5% of my practice on this website. inherently, polytheistic practice in the modern day is a very personal practice. what might be a sign to you might not be to others. imo, the theoi reach out to us in ways that make sense to us, with the context and knowledge we have available, and that means its not always going to make sense to others. your practice should be for you and nobody else.

when it comes down to it, i suppose my advice is simple. research and just reach out. realize you're going to make mistakes sometimes (i have!) but as long as you have good intentions and respect the theoi, you'll be just fine. mistakes are a part of growing. don't beat yourself up over them -- use them as an opportunity to learn. we're only human, and the gods know this. your practice is going to change as you develop relationships with the theoi and learn more about them. things you might have resonated with at one point might not hit the same later on down the road, and thats okay! embrace that as a feature of polytheism, not a flaw. i realize i've given a lot of advice and this can be rather overwhelming. i've given you multiple places to start researching, and i absolutely was overwhelmed (and still am sometimes) with just how much information is out there. that is a blessing in hellenic polytheism. not every polytheistic religion has that wealth of information available, so take advantage of it, but do it in a way that's approachable for you. since you're interested in hekate, i would highly suggest you start with looking into deipnon . tldr its a monthly holiday on the new moon that honors hekate and her role in leading spirits, as well as purification for a new month. cleaning and purification of your home, food offerings, and charity acts are all great ways to honor this holiday. from there, you can easily incorporate noumenia and agaithos daimon (holidays to celebrate the beginning of a new month, usually devoted to zeus and other household gods such as apollon). ive really went off on a tangent here, so i'll cut myself off here. thank you again for asking a fantastic question, and i hope my answer can be of assistance to you and anyone else who might be in your position. may the gods bless you and look after you, and guide you with a kind hand as you embark on this journey. and have a great day and a fantastic meal friend <3

[transgenderer]

the world really went wrong when the greeks spread the platonic style of theology around the mediterranean and near east. hellenic theology suuuuucks. these dipshits wouldnt know god if he spat in their face. theyre barely even into ritual or myth. theyre like too ashamed of being religious to commit to it. the ancient version of modern normie liberal christians. theyre not even MYSTICS

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran: Cross‐Cultural Encounters 1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE (ATHENS, 11‐13 NOVEMBER 2006) Edited by Seyed Mohammad Reza Darbandi and Antigoni Zournatzi National Hellenic Research Foundation Cultural Center of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Athens Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO Athens, December 2008

Description The extraordinary feats of conquest of Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great have left a lasting imprint in the annals of world history. Successive Persian and Greek rule over vast stretches of territory from the Indus to the eastern Mediterranean also created an international environment in which people, commodities, technological innovations, as well as intellectual, political, and artistic ideas could circulate across the ancient world unhindered by ethno-cultural and territorial barriers, bringing about cross-fertilization between East and West. These broad patterns of cultural phenomena are illustrated in twenty-four contributions to the first international conference on ancient Greek-Iranian interactions, which was organized as a joint Greek and Iranian initiative.

Contents

Preface (Ekaterini Tzitzikosta)

Conference addresses (Dimitrios A. Kyriakidis, Seyed Taha Hashemi Toghraljerdi, Mir Jalaleddin Kazzazi, Vassos Karageorghis, Miltiades Hatzopoulos, Seyed Mohammad Reza Darbandi, Massoud Azarnoush, David Stronach)

Introduction (Seyed Mohammad Reza Darbandi and Antigoni Zournatzi)

Europe and Asia: Aeschylus’ Persians and Homer’s Iliad (Stephen Tracy)

The death of Masistios and the mourning for his loss (Hdt. 9.20-25.1) (Angeliki Petropoulou)

Magi in Athens in the fifth century BC? (Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou)

Hājīābād and the dialogue of civilizations (Massoud Azarnoush)

Zoroastrianism and Christianity in the Sasanian empire (fourth century AD) (Sara Alinia)

Greco-Persian literary interactions in classical Persian literature (Evangelos Venetis)

Pseudo-Aristotelian politics and theology in universal Islam (Garth Fowden)

The system Artaphernes-Mardonius as an example of imperial nostalgia (Michael N. Weiskopf)

Greeks and Iranians in the Cimmerian Bosporus in the second/first century BC: new epigraphic data from Tanais (Askold I. Ivantchik)

The Seleucids and their Achaemenid predecessors: a Persian inheritance? (Christopher Tuplin)

Managing an empire — teacher and pupil (G. G. Aperghis)

The building program of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae and the date of the fall of Sardis (David Stronach)

Persia and Greece: the role of cultural interactions in the architecture of Persepolis— Pasargadae (Mohammad Hassan Talebian)

Reading Persepolis in Greek— Part Two: marriage metaphors and unmanly virtues (Margaret C. Root)

The marble of the Penelope from Persepolis and its historical implications (Olga Palagia)

Cultural interconnections in the Achaemenid West: a few reflections on the testimony of the Cypriot archaeological record (Antigoni Zournatzi)

Greek, Anatolian, and Persian iconography in Asia Minor: material sources, method, and perspectives (Yannick Lintz)

Imaging a tomb chamber: the iconographic program of the Tatarlı wall paintings (Lâtife Summerer). Appendix: Tatarli Project: reconstructing a wooden tomb chamber (Alexander von Kienlin)

The Achaemenid lion-griffin on a Macedonian tomb painting and on a Sicyonian mosaic (Stavros A. Paspalas)

Psychotropic plants on Achaemenid style vessels (Despina Ignatiadou)

Achaemenid toreutics in the Greek periphery (Athanasios Sideris)

Achaemenid influences on Rhodian minor arts and crafts (Pavlos Triantafyllidis)

Historical Iranian and Greek relations in retrospect (Mehdi Rahbar)

Persia and Greece: a forgotten history of cultural relations (Shahrokh Razmjou)

The editors Seyed Mohammad Reza Darbandi is General Director of Cultural Offices of the Islamic Republic of Iran for Europe and the Americas. Antigoni Zournatzi is Senior Researcher in the Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity, National Hellenic Research Foundation. Her work focuses on the relations between Achaemenid Persia and the West.

The whole volume can be found as pdf on:

[creature-wizard]

Bill Schnoebelen, a man who claimed to be an ex-satanist (of the global satanic conspiracy sort) and has been demonstrated time and again to be a fraud, tries to establish a link between witchcraft (of the modern neopagan sort) and Roman Catholicism in Wicca: Satan's Little White Lie:

Both teach “salvation” through ritual acts and good works.

Both have a god and a goddess (Mary) figure in their pantheon.

Both have a slain and risen god who dies and is reborn in a seasonal cycle of ritual dramas.

Both have magic or thaumaturgy (Transubstantiation in the Mass) as central elements in their theology.

Both make extensive use of incense, statues, candles and ceremonial robes in their devotions.

Both believe in a kind of second chance after death (Purgatory).4

Both believe the rituals of the living can affect the dead.

Both believe in rituals of pain and mortification for purification.5

I'm sorry, Bill, but if you think that three and four are actual problems, then you might as well just give up on Christianity altogether, or at least admit that your version of Christianity regards a good portion of the New Testament as heretical. Because you've literally just declared that both Communion and the Resurrection are unchristian.

Also, if the idea of transubstantiation makes you uncomfy, 1 Corinthians 15:35-55 should have you crawling out of your skin.

Regarding number two, Mary is revered because she's a saint and the mother of Jesus. That doesn't make her a "goddess," because Catholicism has clear distinctions between saints and deities.

Regarding number five, this is because Catholic religion makes use of worship traditions that were widespread throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. Modern neopaganism drew from these same traditions. There's nothing sinister or conspiratorial about it.

Regarding number six, Schnoebelen elaborates on this one in the footnotes:

Catholics offer prayers for the dead, to get them out of Purgatory. Witches believe in communicating with the dead, especially at Samhain; and that they can, through mediumship, help lower level spirits achieve higher areas of growth before they incarnate again.

Loads of people believe you can interact with or affect the dead in some way. This doesn't prove any special connection between modern witchcraft and Catholicism.

He elaborates on number eight with:

Although this self-mortification element has been toned down recently in U.S. Catholicism, wearing of hair shirts, barbed wire corsets and self-flagellation (whipping) were regularly practiced within Catholic monasteries and nunneries until at least the 1960’s. It may still be going on today in the U.S. and is definitely still practiced overseas. Witches believe you must be willing to “suffer in order to learn” and most practice at least ceremonial whipping of each other. Wiccan authors also brag about how they whipped each other into a magical frenzy in order to raise a large enough “cone of power” to turn back both the Spanish Armada and the forces of Hitler.

Bill. Bill, my man. You might be shocked to learn that the New Testament has a lot to say about the value of suffering. Romans 5:3-4, 2 Corinthians 1:5, Philippians 1:29 2 Corinthians 11 and 2 Corinthians 12 - Paul was kinda big on this whole suffering thing, ya know?

So basically, Schnoebelen's made up a bunch of problems where none exist, and in doing so, implied that the very religion he professes to follow is actually invalid, lol.

[dairedara]

Taliesin or Dara // she/her // lesbian

about me: I am an insular Celtic (Brythonic + Irish) revivalist pagan with a sprinkling of medieval-based Christianity. IRL I study Classics, so I have a whole lot of love for all things Latin. I have been a practicing pagan for about five years straight now, and in the past, I was a Roman/Hellenic/Etruscan/Egyptian reconstructionist, so expect a lot of blather for me on the Ancient Mediterranean.

topics of interest:

Christo-paganism, Saints & Angels

Latin

Ancestor Work

Appalachian folklore and witchcraft

Divination (Cartomancy, Astrology, etc.)

Writings poetry & prayer

Theology in general

Arthuriana & Celtic lit (the Mabinogion, Cycles, etc.)

Building community between pagans and religious people of all sorts

Creating resources for other Celtic pagans & interested parties

my hearth cult:

The Dagda

The Morrígan

Gwydion

Arawn

Brighid

The Archangels

disclaimer: I am anti-antitheist, anti-folkist, and pro-Christo-paganism. I reserve the right to use the block button liberally and with gusto.

Post Masterlist (under construction)

The Morrigan

What is a Hearth Cult?

Tags

Prayers & Poems - #from the writing desk

[irunevenus]

Divine Syncretism: How Pagan Goddesses Were Transformed into Saints by the Catholic Church

As Christianity began to spread throughout Europe and beyond, the Catholic Church faced a monumental challenge: converting populations deeply rooted in pagan traditions and devotion to a variety of gods and goddesses. To facilitate this transition and ensure acceptance of Christianity, the Church employed a cunning and effective strategy: assimilating pagan figures into its theology, transforming ancient goddesses into venerated saints. This syncretism not only helped smooth the path to Christianization, but also preserved cultural and spiritual aspects that might otherwise have been lost forever.

Bridget of Ireland: From Goddess to Sanctuary

One of the most iconic examples of this transformation is Brigid, a Celtic goddess associated with fertility, healing, poetry, and crafts. Bridget was a central figure in Celtic spirituality, venerated as a goddess of fire and fertility, and celebrated at festivals such as Imbolc, which marked the beginning of spring.

With the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, the Church faced the task of replacing deeply rooted Celtic traditions. Rather than attempting to eradicate devotion to Bridget, the Church adapted it, transforming her into St Bridget of Kildare, one of the patron saints of Ireland. St Bridget has retained many of the characteristics of the goddess: she is associated with fire, sacred springs, and remains a figure of protection and fertility. Her shrine in Kildare, where Bridget’s sacred fire is said to burn eternally, is one of the most revered sites in Ireland.

Artemis/Diana: Goddess of the Hunt and Purity

In the Greco-Roman world, Artemis (known to the Romans as Diana) was the goddess of the hunt, nature, and purity. Artemis was particularly venerated as a protector of young girls and virginity, aspects that became central to the characterization of several Christian saints.

One figure who emerged from this context was Saint Philomena, whose story, though shrouded in mystery, often includes themes of purity, defense of the weak, and a connection to nature—all characteristics that echo the qualities of Artemis. Although Saint Philomena was officially decanonized by the Catholic Church in the 20th century due to the lack of concrete historical evidence for her existence, popular devotion to her continues, reflecting the persistence of pagan traditions adapted to Christianity.

Isis: The Divine Mother Transformed into Mary

The adaptation of pagan figures also extended to Egypt, where the goddess Isis was widely venerated. Isis was a goddess of motherhood, magic, and protection, often depicted nursing her son Horus. Her iconography and attributes as a divine mother were so powerful that, as Christianity spread throughout North Africa and the Mediterranean, many scholars believe that the figure of Isis significantly influenced the development of Marian devotion in the Catholic Church.

Although the Virgin Mary was not a pagan goddess transformed into a saint, the cult of Mary absorbed many aspects of the cult of Isis, especially in regions where Isis was deeply venerated. The transition was smooth, since Mary, as the mother of Jesus, offered a natural continuity for those who were already accustomed to worshiping a divine maternal figure.

Freyja: The Norse Goddess of Love and War

In Scandinavian countries, the goddess Freyja was a central figure in Norse mythology, associated with love, fertility, war and death. Freyja was a complex goddess, ruling over aspects of life and death, and was widely venerated in rituals that marked the passing of the seasons and life transitions.

With the Christianization of the Norse peoples, the figure of Freyja was partly assimilated into saints such as Saint Lucy, whose feast day is celebrated during the winter solstice, a time of special significance in pagan rituals. Although Saint Lucy is a distinctly Christian figure, her celebration in December and her connection with light and hope during the dark winter resonate with the pagan traditions of light and fertility worship that characterize Freyja.

Demeter/Ceres: The Harvest Goddess and Saint Anne

Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture and harvest, was revered as the protector of the fertile earth and the cycle of growth and harvest. In the transition to Christianity, many of her attributes became associated with Saint Anne, the mother of Mary. Saint Anne is often invoked in matters of fertility and protection of the family, reflecting aspects of Demeter as the goddess who nurtured the earth and ensured the continuity of life.

The Legacy of Syncretism

These examples of syncretism between pagan deities and Christian saints are not just historical curiosities; they represent a profound process of cultural and spiritual adaptation that helped shape Christian Europe. By transforming pagan goddesses into saints, the Catholic Church not only facilitated the acceptance of Christianity, but also preserved essential aspects of local cultures, ensuring that ancestral traditions, myths, and practices survived, albeit in new guises.

Today, the memory of these goddesses lives on in the veneration of saints, showing how religions, rather than annihilating each other, often adapt and transform each other, creating new forms of spiritual expression that resonate with deep human needs and aspirations. In a world where past and present often intertwine, these syncretic figures continue to remind us of the enduring power of belief and the human capacity to encounter the divine in many forms.

[ramrodd]

Was Jesus a Follower of John the Baptizer? Why the Ancient Idea of Two M...

COMENTARY:

Jimmy, you are an activist for the Marxist materialism of the Weather Underground and the Jesus Seminar.  You are engaged in the systematic denial of the Holy Spirit.. '

Jesus and John the Baptist are cousins, Jesus is a bastard and John i probably an orphan pretty early in his life. Any scholarship based on the premise that the Gospel of Mark derives from Paul's theology is engaged in time=travel science fiction, not a serious study of the literature of the Bible.

Jesus and John the Baptists were cousins  Jesus was a bastard and John was probably an orphan, early on. By the time he's ten years old, if not earlier.  Jesus was not popular, growing up. He was part of the family business, which, by the time He is baptized, includes a catering service that is part of Mary of Jerusalem's hospitality. The version of Jesus that has Him growing up in the poverty of Roman occupied Galilee. Everybody i Palestine was living large. Tel Aviv is not a new idea. There was a substantial Roman presence that was pumping wealth into the region from the pensions of Roman soldiers and the value added of the arts and crafts of Jerusalem, which was like the Rodeo Drive of the Mediterranean.

However John Dominic Crossan characterizes the cultural diversity of the region is wrong, His Jesus Seminar  posits a moral equation between Palestine under Caesar/Pilate in 33 CE,, the year Jesus is crucified and Ireland under John Bull during the Potato Famine. The Theme Song of the Jesus Seminar is The Patriot Game, Crossan was an IRA chaplain. Jimmy Tabor is a 60s campus radical anti-war draft dodger.  I lived cheek to jowl with the ideology of the Students for a Democratic Society as an ROTC cadet from the start of the draft call ups for Vietnam in July 1965 and  and the first yarr of the Nixon administration before Apollo 11 and Kent State. This interview of his career is what it was like to attend a protest teach-in at any university in America before the SDS take=over of Columbia in 1968. After that, everything went to Post Modern Historic Deconstruction and bull shit movement Like Campus Crusade for Christ and the Young Americans for Freedom began to get real tractions. This was the incubation period of Pat Buchanan and the Plumbers who have morphed into Stephen Miller and Mick Mulvaney. \

And  Immy Tabor and Dom Crossan. Richard Carrier is an authentic atheist. He would fit right in with the Soviet exectuives I was working with when Fred Smith took FedEx public and sucked all the liquidity out of the Wall Street capital markets just at the moment both me and The Donald Trump were looking for venture capital. It wasn't there. Fed Ex sucked it all up.

After Tet 68, the Weather Underground emerged amogh the campus radicals like Jimmy Tabor and they evolved a logical progression of the Trotsky insurgency process to to take the battle to the belly of the beast, What that meant was that an activist elite formed  The Resistance, which recruited serious players to volunteer of the draft and infiltrate the operational mechanisms of the US army in Vietnam and provoke a general mutiny of Sp6 clerks and jerks that made the Army work. I ran into it around Thanksgiving of 1970 as the SO of an infantry company. I kene it was going on but my superiors  were totally clueless because they were transfixed by the Black Power movement in the military that was mostly mis direction.

I think it could have worked if the Army hadn't totally fallen apart as it bugged out of that AO. All of a sudden, all the people they needed for a mutiny were getting early outs and why put up with the hassof a mutiny when it was just a matter of time when you were on the street. The Resistance  largely just evaporated.

But Jimmy Tabor is one of the die=hards from the SSS insurgency.. In the ontology of Cornelius, Jesus is a moral singularity. In the navigation of the Liberation Gospel of Jesus, Cornelius, George Washington and Pope Francis, Jesus is Polaris. Both Jesus and Cornelius submitted to the authority of Yaweh, Queen of Battle, She who must be obeyed. Even Freud was familiar with Yaweh, Queen of Battle. The basis of the Super Ego. What Tabor and Bart Ehrman are trying  to do is to corrupt the literature in order to spread the moral confusion that profits from the Nazification of the January 6 conspiracy.

The evidence of the fraud of the Jesus Seminar's characterization of the cultural milieus of 1st century Palestine is pure sophistry is who much Jimmy Tabor has loved his career as a tour guide of the Holy Land, Was he not living large like Josephus before the Jewish Wars.

Tel Aviv is what Jesus and Paul had in mind with the concept of Christian Judaism. Gal Gadot and Benny Gantz is the nature of the Israeli citizen Jesus represents. The National Unity party is what Josephus would have aligned with. The Jerusalem Commonwealth  is the Republican solution  Pauline Theology is all about. The  Likud is the vestige demographic of the sector of Temple Worship that was offended and threaten by Jesus. Not much has changed.  

[subjects-of-the-king]

The Role of the Church in the Societies of Medieval Europe, Part One

An original essay of Lucas Del Rio

Note: This is the first installment in a two-part essay on how religious institutions affected life in medieval Europe. Part One introduces the subject matter and then gives some historical background on the roots of these medieval institutions. The second installment, which will hopefully be ready next week, shall go into greater detail and provide more analysis on the main topic.

           When the modern world looks back on the Middle Ages, some of the first pictures that come to mind are majestic cathedrals with elegant stained-glass windows, monks praying and performing rituals in monasteries, popes making proclamations to be followed by even the most powerful kings and nobles, and the violent bloodshed of the Crusades. All these images, of course, involve religious institutions. It is certainly no secret that the Church was highly influential across a myriad of aspects of life in medieval Europe. Such a statement is commonly accepted, yet there is often less consensus if the conversation changes to determining specifically what these influences and what, in particular, their effects actually were. As there are debates on this matter even in the highest levels of academia and likely always will be, a variety of different opinions are valid. Here is just one view that will briefly analyze the history of Christianity in medieval Europe and how it affected the continent over the centuries. The subject matter is admittedly controversial, as it involves religion. However, the reader should note that any critical comments made about medieval religious institutions are not an attack on faith or spirituality. Criticism is only of aspects of certain individuals within the Church who may have exploited their positions for power or other personal gain.

           “The Church” here refers to Christianity. As the era being discussed is that of medieval times, the overall focus can be further narrowed down to Christianity in the Middle Ages. However, it cannot be the sole focus, as thinking of medieval Europe as a time and place that was exclusively Christian is a generalization. Islam and Judaism, the other Abrahamic religions, had footholds on the continent throughout most of the era. So-called “pagan” religions were also present, especially in the earlier centuries and in more remote regions. A good starting point, therefore, is how Christianity spread across the continent, starting in antiquity. Prior to the founding of the religion late in in the classical era, there was an abundance of different polytheistic belief systems throughout Europe. Monotheism had already taken hold elsewhere in the world, such as Persian Zoroastrianism, but over in Europe it remained almost nonexistent. Christianity itself was not present in Europe immediately after the religion had originated, as its roots were in Judaism, also monotheistic but with a small following that was largely elsewhere. Since the Roman Empire at the time dominated large swaths of the land around the Mediterranean and beyond, Christianity perhaps had the advantage of being able to spread great distances within a single political entity.

The entity known as the Roman Empire ruled plenty of Europe in the early days of Christianity gaining its followers. Initially seen as a movement within the much older religion of Judaism, it acquired characteristics of its own that would carry on into medieval times. One of the most important was the cornerstone that differentiated Christianity from Judaism. In the beginning, Christians debated the divinity of Jesus. When this question had been settled, the stage was set for the Christian Church of the Middle Ages. Throughout Europe, a Jesus who was divine would become a foundation of the beliefs of nobility and peasantry alike, and the belief gave the Church credibility. Of course, it took time for this belief to become as widespread as it would be by that point in time. Romans did not abandon their traditional pantheon of gods until late in the history of their empire. During these later years, many converts were won by theologians who managed to reconcile the beliefs of Christians with those of “pagans,” but the former continued to be persecuted by Roman authorities. Everything then changed when the Roman Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity.

Up until Emperor Constantine I converting, Christianity had remained an underground movement for the sake of its own survival. With the emperor now legitimizing the religion, it was able to become an institution of Roman society. The Council of Nicaea, which was arranged by Constantine I in 325, essentially established the Catholic Church as it would exist for the remainder of Roman history and then in the Middle Ages that followed. Many of the “official” teachings of Christianity were determined, and the Roman Papacy was organized. Now that Rome had officially adopted Christianity as a state religion, it had switched to persecuting “pagans.” Rome fell in 476, but it was far from the end of the Catholic Church. In fact, its importance to Europe had only begun.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Have I pitched my Acts sitcom to you guys yet? I don’t think so.

Basically, I want a sitcom made based on the book of Acts with a combination of Christian and secular writers and creatives. Preferably a few of the Christians will have served as committee members in some capacity in their local churches. The goal, essentially, is to riff on the human messiness and frequent absurdity of the early church with good humor and some irreverence, but never with God or the Gospel as the butt of the joke.

Characters:

Peter is the young, energetic guy who suddenly has Administrative Responsibilities. He’s energized by his evangelism/discipleship work, but he’s always Tired and Unwell while trying to manage the leadership of the church.  

John is overly affectionate. He’s always hugging people he barely knows, giving people really enthusiastic compliments, that sort of thing.

Luke is quiet and nerdy, maybe even a little nebbish. When he speaks, it’s usually to ask people vaguely uncomfortable questions “for his book.” If you want to go mocumentary style with the show, Luke’s interviews can be the framing device.

Paul is generally a pretty chill guy, but he’s super gung-ho about suffering for the Gospel. People are a little weirded out his wannabe martyr energy.

John Mark is really, really annoying in some way. Like maybe he’s always playing his original music on the lyre and he’s really bad at it. Maybe he’s really flakey and irresponsible and sort of has Jean-Ralphio energy. Paul, in particular, finds him really annoying and always looks absolutely miserable when they’re in a scene together. When Barnabas eventually suggests bringing John Mark on a missionary journey, the “sharp disagreement” is just Paul going “oh hell no” and walking straight out of the room.

Lots of women and people of different races represented, particularly as church members. Lydia should be a major character, although I don’t quite know what her personality should be. Rhoda (the servant who slammed the door in Peter’s face) would be a fun inclusion too. Racial diversity should at least reflect the actual ancient Mediterranean, although I don’t think I’d be super picky about which specific characters are which races.

Ongoing plots:

The organizational nightmares of running a church is a running theme. Basically just crib from the funniest parts of church government and organization. Things are poorly run and disorganized and people have different opinions and everything somehow still gets done. This stuff can have Parks and Rec energy.

Lots of conflict of personality issues, but also an increasing closeness between the Apostles and members of the church  

Lots of missionaries getting run out of town in increasingly comedic ways. Like, I want Paul and Barnabas running out of Random Roman City #52 while getting pelted with eggs.

Lots of what I can only describe as late night theology. Like when you’re sleep deprived and discussing the deep questions of Scripture with your friends in the car, often arriving at weird conclusions. Lots of that kind of stuff. Also, in general, the characters talk about God the way Christians actually do-- casually, often humorously, sometimes irreverently, as an important part of life and not just a serious subject for Important Conversations

Paul’s Roman Citizenship is milked for all it’s worth. Yes, it gets him out of imprisonment and torture, but it also gets him out of like, minor municipal violations.

Episode plots:

Philip finds himself teleported to/from Ethiopia to convert the eunuch and, upon returning to Jerusalem, spends an episode getting startled by sudden movement (knocking things over, accidentally slapping people) because he thinks he’s gonna get teleported again. There’s a long scene where Philip tries to interrogate Peter and find out if teleportation is just like a standard Holy Spirit powerup or if it was a one-time deal. Peter’s just getting progressively more and more confused.

Saul’s conversion from Ananias’s perspective. He’s woken up in the middle of the night and told to go pick Saul the Murder up and take him home. He’s sleep-deprived and low-key freaking out and he hasn’t gone grocery shopping so he’s running around trying to find some food for Saul at 2am. Episode ends with Ananias collapsed sideways on his bed and Paul coming and pulling a blanket over him.

Extended physical comedy scene where they’re lowering Paul over the wall in the basket, but the ropes are uneven and he’s getting tossed from side to side and the guy at the bottom isn’t in place yet and they’re all trying really hard to be inconspicuous.

There’s a whole road episode where it’s just everyone cooped up on a ship or in the middle of the desert or something while they’re on their way to spread the gospel in a new city.  They all get on each others nerves. Somebody goes a little bit stir-crazy and loses it.

The show shouldn’t be ashamed that it’s about people spreading the Gospel, but I don’t want lots of scenes that try to evangelize the viewer. We’re not trying to proselytize, we’re trying to make light of the human messiness that is life in the church. Embrace anachronism (I’d love to see some modern church potlucks, for example), but also lots of nerdy historical and Biblical/theological jokes.

There’s such a dearth of genuinely funny Christian entertainment, particularly that which (a) is entertaining to seculars as well and (b) actually embraces the Bible and not just some form of cultural Christianity. And Acts is right there! It’s hilarious! Top tier sitcom material! Somebody fund me.

@citrussunrises other friends, anything to add?

[fuckyeahisawthat]

I'm just curious (still learning) at what point after 1100 AD would Joe and Nicky been in actual danger due to homophobia? At what point would they have to start lying to people about the nature of their amazing relationship, just to stay safe? Thanks!

(This is in reference to this post, in which I skimmed over like 900 years of sociological changes in identity formation in very very broad strokes.)

So. Here’s the thing. As “western” queer people in the modern world, I think we highly associate safety with being able to be out of the closet. Can I kiss my partner in public or walk down the street holding hands without fear of encountering hate speech or physical violence? Can I tell my friends, family and coworkers about my relationship without fear of social ostracization or economic consequences?

But that’s a very modern perspective. Between “pride parade!!” and “we will definitely be murdered if anyone finds out we are lovers,” there is...A LOT of space for different kinds of historical queer experience.

So it’s not so much that Yusuf and Nicolò could be safely “out of the closet” in 12th century Baghdad but not in 19th century London. It’s not quite as far from that as you might think. But they wouldn’t have thought about it that way.

In the first few hundred years of their existence, the Islamic world was...full of contradictions when it came to homosexuality. You had a strong taboo against adult men being the receptive partner in penetrative sex, but you also had poets--like, the most famous poets of their times--writing tons of homoerotic poetry about desiring young men and boys, and that was normal and even celebrated. (If you’re familiar with the sexual mores of ancient Greece...lots of similarities here.) You had clerics writing about how there should be harsh punishments for “sodomy,” but in practice in everyday life very, very few people were ever actually disciplined in the legal system for something like that. And other forms of sexual activity between men, like kissing and various forms of non-penetrative sex, were just...not a big deal. At the same time there was kind of an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” social contract around sex between men. Like, we know this thing is definitely happening, and we’re not going to talk about it, and that’s what makes it socially acceptable to continue happening. So you can have a society that in the written, religious record looks fairly intolerant toward sex between men; in practice is actually quite tolerant; where everyone sort of knows things about certain people, but where no one is really “out” in the modern sense of the terms.

At the same time, pretty much everywhere in the world at this time but definitely in the Middle East, casual touch between men was much more normalized. Two men holding hands or linking arms when walking down the street, sitting pressed up next to each other, falling asleep with your head on your male companion’s shoulder...a whole range of things that look decidedly snuggly to our modern gaze would have been totally acceptable between friends of the same gender, and would not have been considered sexual in any way. (This is still true in much of the Middle East today.)

So you can easily imagine a scenario where, like, Nicolò is lounging with his head on Yusuf’s shoulder, eating dates and listening to some saucy Abu Nuwas poem being recited, and then they go back to their private quarters and they have as much sex as they want. Are they “out”? Not really. Is anyone bothering them about how they’re living their lives? Not in the slightest. Do some people in that room see them and know? Probably, but that’s their private business and we’re not gonna talk about it. Frankly that sounds like a pretty sweet existence for a 12th century queer.

To be fair, they have a few advantages. They’re men, which means no one will really question them traveling together, without wives or families. They can easily say they’re friends or business partners and no one will really give it a second thought. I’m sure having to break off contact with their families was sad, but it’s also the case that there’s no one around asking when they’re going to get married to a woman and have children so we have someone to inherit the family business. It gives them a kind of freedom that a lot of other queer people around them wouldn’t have had.

I think once they meet up with Andy and Quynh, they do do things like pretending to be two married couples traveling together. But that’s more because of sexism, because two unmarried women traveling with two men who were not their husbands would turn some heads.

In Europe at the time, Christian theology is pretty not-into all kinds of non-procreative sex, but sex between men is not necessarily viewed as a worse sin than, say, masturbation, or sex between men and women out of wedlock. And it’s like, a category of sin that a lot of people are doing all the time, so if you were to confess such a thing to your local priest, you would be told to do penance but the consequences would be fairly mild. And many of the same things regarding casual touch hold true. Various rituals of kissing, including men kissing men on the mouth, are used as greetings, to seal contracts, and as part of mass.

Medieval Europe also had a concept variously called passionate, romantic, or chivalric friendship--close relationships between two people of the same gender that could be long-lasting, physically affectionate, emotionally intense in a way we would today read as romantic, and (allegedly) celibate. Were some of these passionate friendships actually queer relationships with a sexual component that just wasn’t talked about? Probably. Were some of them what we would define as queerplatonic or homoromantic asexual relationships today? Probably. Is it even useful to try to stuff these experiences into modern relationship categories? Debatable. The point is...the borders between what was defined as friendship, romance and love were different. Two men who traveled together, slept in the same bed, shared resources, were emotionally intimate with each other, and otherwise entwined their lives would not necessarily have been assumed to be sex partners in medieval Europe. And (I think this is the important part) Yusuf and Nicolò would not necessarily have seen being perceived as passionate friends as “hiding” the true nature of their relationship or as assigning some lesser value to it.

In terms of how they are perceived in public, I think things really don’t start to change until the early 20th century. It’s a gradual process, but over the first half of the 20th century, more or less, affectionate touch between men becomes defined as “gay” and a mainstream (straight) masculinity that is concerned with defining itself as “not gay” emerges. Affectionate touch, and then any show of loving emotion between men, gradually becomes less and less acceptable, to a degree that probably seems absurd to two 900-year-old Mediterraneans. (The absurdity is really well-expressed in the van scene, which is literally like “Bro is it gay to [checks notes]...express concern about the well-being of the person you were just violently kidnapped with?”)

Like, on the one hand, you have queer people talking openly about their sexuality in ways that were not an option at earlier times in their lives. But at the same time you have to be careful holding hands walking down the high street now because someone might chuck an empty beer bottle at you. Must’ve been a real wild transition for them.

[overgrown-ruins]

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[mercysvigil]

On Folk Magic vs Witchcraft, the Christian East and West

One of the reasons I was drawn to practice Balkan and Eastern Christian folk magic (which I incorporate into my personal practice that I call “mystery work”), in addition to it being the tradition of my Orthodox Christian faith, was that it generally avoids some of the dichotomies that the Western magical tradition ends up getting tangled in. What follows in this piece is a loose reflection based on my experiences, knowledge of theology and limited research. Take with a grain of salt.

From my neopagan and witchy friends, I hear that there is often an emphasis in some witchy traditions on “white magic” vs “black magic”. I also hear many complaints about how this distinction is reductive, and to that I say, fair enough. Having recently skimmed Hutcheson’s “New World Witchery,” as well as a few other Blogs by Traditional witches, I’ve noticed that there is an analogous (though not identical) distinction between Christianized and Christian folk magic vs Witchcraft. The former is a use of the day to day magical practices of a culture in a form that is accommodated to the Christian default of that culture, while the latter is an initiatory tradition with an intentional rejection of Christianity that aims to reconstruct pagan magical practices. Inasmuch as my work falls into either category, it is obviously more aligned with the Christian folk magic category. However, it’s my opinion that the closer you get to Greece and the Middle East, the less useful the distinction between Christian and pagan becomes. There are two reasons for this that I can see; a cultural reason and a theological reason.

Culturally, the divide between what is Christian vs pagan gets fuzzy in Greece, much of the Balkans, and the Arab peninsula for three reasons: i. These regions received Christianity more or less simultaneously with its emergence from Palestine; ii. These cultures were of a similar milieu due to their placement in the Greco-Roman world. As such, the blending of folk customs and religion with Christian practice and theology requires less translation (though the Church Fathers did a lot of leg work to bring Christianity to the Greeks); iii. The Mediterranean and the Eastern Mediterranean in particular were a crossroads of many different religions, both ethnic and pan-ethnic, all encountering each other in a somewhat free exchange of ideas. Even after the Roman Empire was officially Christianized under Emperor Theodosius, other religions continued to make their case. The addition of Islam continued this development as well. I’m not saying that such a complex exchange didn’t happen in Western Europe, but if it did it seems to have happened in a much more ancient time.

Theologically, Eastern Christianity is more fuzzy on the divide between Christian and pagan practice for two reasons that I can see: i. Due to the political stability of the Eastern Roman Empire and the nature of church governance in the East, Christianity was always adapted more organically to the local culture. Liturgy was always in the vernacular, and each National church was allowed much more freedom to assimilate various local customs rather than to duplicate specifically Roman ones. As such, folk magic and pagan practices were not as forcefully removed, but allowed to organically blend. ii. In the medieval era, the East and the West parted ways on the idea of grace and the natural vs the supernatural. Under the influence of Abelard, Thomas Aquinas and others, the West came to the conclusion that God could be most purely understood by reason and articulated theology, and that the ineffable sacred was opposed to the secular, or at the very least separate. By contrast, the East under St Gregory Palamas and others continued to hold that God’s grace (the divine energies) were operative through all creation, and that God could be experienced directly in the body and the heart without reference to mental comprehension of doctrine. As such, while there was certainly a distinction between Christian theology and non-Christian beliefs, divine grace could be encountered in the mundane and “profane” just as easily as the hieratic and “sacred”.

For all these reasons, I tend to refer to my work as folk magic rather than witchcraft, not because of a moral distinction, but because the Christian East generally does not have the same idea of a “witch” as a pagan someone outside the Christian fold, whether intentionally blaspheming or not.

[ayearinfaith]

𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟳𝟬: 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗺 "As Above, So Below" -Common paraphrasing of the 𝘌𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘛𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘵 Hermeticism is a religious/philosophical tradition from which almost all extant forms of Western Esotericism and Occultism stem, at least in part. It is named after the fusional philosopher/deity Hermes Trismegistus. 𝗘𝘀𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗢𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀 Esoteric tradition are broadly defined by two features: secrecy and magic. The word “esoteric” comes from the Greek word for “inner” as in “inner circle”, and typically include a doctrine of knowledge which must be kept secret and only revealed to the properly initiated. The magical aspect of these traditions, typically what we would call “the occult” is often a result simply of the veneration of knowledge; the allure and power is what you can do with it. In the West, meaning Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa (all connected by the Mediterranean Sea), Esotericism was largely spawned by a newfound multiculturalism as the Roman Empire and other states began to erode in the first century of the Common Era. Before then most Mediterranean peoples would have generally practiced some version of either or both a state religion, like the Roman Imperial cult, and an ethnic one, like the pre-Christian “pagan” religions, both more expressions of nationality and heritage than philosophy. As state powers dwindled, cultural boundaries fuzzed and fusional philosophies began to form, not tethered to any one people or state. Originally, the restricting of esoteric knowledge was likely not due to any sinister conspiracy or defense against the state, but simply the fact that they could not be easily grasped without a basic philosophical education. Hermeticism developed in this period during the collapse of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. The Ptolemies were Greeks who took control of Egypt after the collapse of Alexander the Great’s empire. Though they adopted Pharaonic aesthetics to better appeal to the Egyptian populace, the Ptolemies maintained a sharp divide between the Greek culture of the ruling class and the conquered Egyptians. In the years leading to the collapse these boundaries at last blurred and the Greek and Egyptian traditions began to mutate in earnest. Thoth, the Ibis headed Egyptian god if writing, science, and magic, fused with the Greek god of messengers and medicine, Hermes, to become Hermes Trismegistus i.e. Thrice-Great Hermes. As the tradition grew, it also incorporated many aspects of Judaism and the still-developing Christianity and Hermes Trismegistus became equated with patriarchs like Enoch or even Noah and Moses. Hermeticism generally employs three distinctive practices by which knowledge can be achieved, each one broadly attributable to one of the three major sources of the fusional system. Astrology, i.e. the observation of heavenly bodies as a means to discern the will of heavenly forces. was largely born from the Greek tradition. Alchemy, the investigation and pursuit for control over earthly transformations, stems from Egyptian metallurgy, knowledge of which was passed down through the priesthood. And Theurgy, the direct invocation of supernatural entities, stems from Judaism and other Levantine faiths. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵 Part of the continued influence of Hermeticism in western culture is that it has functioned almost like a time capsule of Western magic and philosophy. After its initial popularity, the rise of European Christianity and North African Islam (both occurring around the 5th-7th centuries CE) drove many esoteric traditions, Hermeticism included, extinct or underground. Almost no original 1st century Hermetic texts remain, and we know of them primarily by means of their being referenced in contemporary sources. However Arabic versions of 3rd-8thcentury Hermetic texts made their way into Europe around the 12thcentury and were translated into Latin. These versions would become popularized in Italy at the start of the European Renaissance. During this time rediscovering ancient knowledge from antiquity was popular and romanticized, and as all the Hermetic texts claimed to be authentic dialogues from an ancient Egyptian scholar (Hermes Trismegistus himself) the audience was very receptive. Another advantage Hermeticism had among the Renaissance was its relationship to the sciences. Hermetic teachings actively promote the use of the scientific method as a means to enlightenment. This is clearest in its use of Alchemy, which in the Egyptian method used religious allegory as a means of notation. This appealed to Renaissance thinkers who built an identity on rejecting the anti-intellectual dogma of their medieval forbears. Through Hermeticism, a scientist could also be faithful. This produced the distinct nature of the Renaissance scientist, wherein the person in the room most likely to be able to produce a chemical poultice or devise a new form of irrigation was also the person most likely to believe they could commune with an angel. Isaac Newton, who was deeply influenced by Hermeticism, is a prime example of this. Interest in Hermeticism died down near the end of the 17th and early 18thcentury, but came back a century later with the popularity of Hermetic derived organizations such as the Freemasons and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, of which the famous occultists and Thelema founder Aleister Crowley was a member. Almost all modern Neo-Pagan movements have Hermetic ties, Wicca being the most direct. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗹 Hermetic beliefs are centered on the idea that there is a single true theology which was once know to mankind in a far distant age and echoes of which can be seen in all natural philosophies and religion. The use of quasi-scientific methods, like alchemy and astrology (and even theurgy if you count the mathematics used in its numerology) were core to its principles as even the laws of physics should bely this Truth. The most popularly cited Hermetic wisdom is “As above, so below”, which at its most basic level is a belief in the relation of heavenly bodies to earthly events (astrology), but expands to imply that the workings of the most grand and transcendent elements of the universe can be perceived by observing the small and mundane, and vice versa. This fusing of two things, a kind of dualistic concept of unity, is a common Hermetic idea, which can be seen in its frequent use of sacred androgyny (here being used in its most literal sense; a fusion of man and woman). The concept of a supreme god, typically called The All, is explicitly androgynous, and the original humans were as well. The division of parts, in Hermeticism, is the source of strife and ultimately illusory. Similar to South Asian religions, which may have come directly or via West Asian influence like Gnosticism, the physical world is considered to be a kind of illusion and prison in Hermetic cosmology. Our more perfect androgynous forbears had access to the secret knowledge of the universe, but for various reasons (generally some form of hubris) became trapped in physical bodies incapable of realizing the potential of our transcendent souls. Only by pursuing the true wisdom can we again become free. Image Credit: Illustration of Hermes Trismegistus from 𝘝𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘊𝘩𝘺𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘮 (“The Alchemical Pleasure-Garden”) by Daniel Stolz von Stolzenberg, 1624

[natasa-pantovic]

So privileged to be asked by #BenFox the Founder of Shepherd @bwb to recommend my list of the best Ancient Mediterranean classics. 🙏🙏 If you are interested in the #history beyond the usual, check why the "Perspectives on the Amarna Letters", is the number #1 of many researchers. Better known as Amarna Heresy, a philosophical discussion from Ancient Egypt's Babylon about #God Monotheism and Trinity written 3,000 years ago. No #2 best book is "Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of #Egypt at the Time of the Exodus", no. #3 is "Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the #Sumerian High Priestess". No #4 is the #Macedonian "Derveni Papyrus: #Cosmology, #Theology and Interpretation", and No. #5 is the Ancient Greek "Φερεκύδης - Θεογονία | Pherecydes - Theogony"..., #NatašaPantović

[maxknightley]

While the two religions were - for Fairly Obvious Reasons vis-a-vis “one attempting to destroy the other” - historically at odds, there is a commonality between Jewish and Hellenic theology which must be addressed: namely, Samson and Heracles. 

Both mighty and clever figures, both laid low by the actions of a woman they let close to their hearts (willing betrayer in the former, victim of trickery in the latter), and - ultimately - both going out via suicide engineered by one last feat of incredible strength.

One could argue that these commonalities are coincidence - but is this truly likely when ancient Israel and classical Greece were so near each other, and when Greek society had such an emphasis on seafaring as tool of both war and trade? One could also suggest that the two draw from a pre-existing Ur-Myth, but this too seems unlikely to me, with Greek mythology and language being derived ultimately from Proto-Indo-European sources, while Judaism and Hebrew have Semitic roots; any “point of intersection” would have to be relatively recent.

Thus, I say there are two possible conclusions we can draw:

The stories of Heracles and Samson are both based on an extremely real and extremely buff ancient Mediterranean dude who just went around wrecking all kinds of shop, or,

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it would be cool as hell if a guy killed a lion with his bare hands.