Ad
related to: was paganism before christianity invented based on ancient society and beliefs
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Greco-Roman religion [4] and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. [4] Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry". [1] [5] During and after the Middle Ages, the term paganism was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a ...
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
The right half of the front panel of the 7th-century Franks Casket, depicting the Anglo-Saxon (and wider Germanic) legend of Wayland the Smith. Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon heathenism, Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian religion, Anglo-Saxon traditional religion, or Anglo-Saxon polytheism refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th ...
In this work, Hutton attempted to "set out what is at present known about the religious beliefs and practices of the British Isles before their conversion to Christianity. The term 'pagan' is used as a convenient shorthand for those beliefs and practices, and is employed in the title merely to absolve the book from any need to discuss early ...
Baltic Finnic pagans were polytheistic, believing in a number of different deities.Most of the deities ruled over a specific aspect of nature; for instance, Ukko was the god of the sky and thunder (ukkonen and ukonilma ["Ukko's air"] are still used in modern Finnish as terms for thunderstorms).
The encounter with Christianity could also stimulate new and innovative expressions of pagan culture, for instance through influencing various pagan myths. [94] As with other Germanic societies, syncretisation between incoming and traditional belief systems took place. [95]
Pagan society had weak traditions of mutual aid, whereas the Christian community had norms that created "a miniature welfare state in an empire which for the most part lacked social services". [393] In Christian communities, care of the sick reduced mortality by, possibly, as much as two-thirds.
Before Clovis converted to Catholic Christianity, pagan Frankish rulers probably maintained their elevated positions by their "charisma"; their legitimacy and "right to rule" may have been based on their supposed divine descent as well as their financial and military successes. [3] [16] The concept of "charisma" has been controversial. [17]