Customer Reviews

Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book has an intriguing thesis: that monotheism was not the exclusive property of Jews just before the advent of Christianity and as Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire. In this group of essays, its authors explore how pagan groups successfully mastered the concept of ethical and religious monotheism in their pagan religions. Particularly illuminating are the essays "Towards Monotheism," and "Monotheism and Pagan Philosophy in Later Antiquity." Both essays throw into crisis the whole idea that there is an essential different between Hellenistic and Christian concepts of God and divine beings. It also shows how robust late paganism was, in contrast to the Christian notion that later paganism died because of its inherent moral and spiritual weakness.

The various authors of this book do not produce one single Pagan source who proclaims "I have renounced the belief in many Gods". Going back to at least Homer (8th century BC or earlier) Pagans had been able to conceive of a "Supreme" God (ie, Zeus) - without in any way abandoning all the other Goddesses and Gods.

The authors of this book want us to believe that the more well educated, and especially the philosophically inclined, Pagans of late antiquity had completely abandoned polytheism. But no Pagan is more representative of this group than the 5th century Athenian philosopher Proclus. Proclus' biographer (his student Marinus) goes out of his way to list the various Goddesses and Gods that were most revered by Proclus: Pan, Cybele, Asclepius, and Hermes - among others. Another figure representative of late antique Paganism is, of course, Julian ("the Apostate") - whose biographer (Libanius) tells us that Julian was loved by the Gods - especially Zeus, Athena, Hermes, the Muses, Artemis and Ares.

There is no there there. There were no "pagan monotheists". No one can name even one person who fits that label among all the Pagans from late antiquity. It is really too bad for all those who have jumped on this faddish bandwagon that Pagans wrote extensively about their beliefs concerning religion. No amount of hand waving can explain away the explicitly polytheistic nature of Paganism - including most emphatically the philosophically inclined Paganism of late antiquity.

The most perverse thing about this book is that it puts forward the Orwellian argument that the philosophical Paganism of people like Julian and Proclus provides a "missing link" in the transition from Paganism to Christianity. In fact, and as all students of this period know full well, Julian and Proclus (etc) were the most determined opponents that Christianity faced!