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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 ...
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!"
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 ...
[134] [135] This does not in any way indicate that Christianity itself was derived from paganism, [134] only that early Christians made use of the pre-existing symbols that were readily available in their society. [134] Sometimes Christians deliberately used pagan iconography in conscious effort to show Jesus as superior to the pagan gods. [136]
Still, in Greece and elsewhere, there is evidence that pagan and Christian communities remained essentially segregated from each other, with little mutual cultural influence. [ page needed ] Urban pagans continued to use the civic centers and temple complexes, while Christians set up their own, new places of worship in suburban areas.
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]
Christianity then rapidly grew in the 4th century - Rodney Stark estimated that Christians accounted for 56.5% of the Roman population by 350. [27] According to Will Durant, the Christian Church prevailed over paganism because it offered a much more attractive doctrine and because the church leaders addressed human needs better than their ...