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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 ...
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 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 ...
393: A council of early Christian bishops listed and approved a biblical canon for the first time at the Synod of Hippo. 400: Saint Augustine exhorts his congregation to smash all pagan artefacts, saying "for that all superstition of pagans and heathens should be annihilated is what God wants, God commands, God proclaims!"
In the twenty-first century, the idea that Christianity became dominant through conflict with paganism has become marginalized, while a grassroots theory has developed. [ 14 ] [ 15 ] In 529 CE, the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the closing of the Academy at Athens.
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 ...
Germanic peoples began entering the Roman Empire in large numbers at the same time that Christianity was spreading there. [1] The connection of Christianity to the Roman Empire was both a factor in encouraging conversion as well as, at times, a motive for persecuting Christians. [2]
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”. [51] In Christian communities, care of the sick reduced mortality by, possibly, as much as two-thirds.