Roman Religion And Philosophy After Rome
The following article is an excerpt from a longer work I’ve been working on for a competition. The post as a whole discusses how Roman religion and philosophy lived on after Rome.
Much of civilization stems from its value systems as described by its religions and philosophies. Therefore understanding if the religion and philosophies of the empire survived “the fall of Rome”, one can get some understanding as to whether that civilization also survived.
One might claim it’s obvious that Rome's religion did collapse. In 2011 out of almost 63 million British citizens, only about 56,620 identified themselves as “Pagans”1 which doesn’t even take into account how many of these pagans follow Roman religion as practiced in the days of the empire.
However, Roman Religion doesn’t just exist in the people who claim to identify with that religion. It also consists of religious practices, and ancient Roman religious practices do still live on in contemporary worship. The best example of this is the burning of incense. This practice is found nowhere in the Bible. As Frank Viola and George Barna explain, the practice of burning incense was absorbed from the surrounding pagan society2. It’s not the only example. The Christian practice of venerating saints is also not found in the Bible. When John the Baptist dies there’s no veneration of him. However, the later text of The Martyrdom of Polycarp sees a new veneration of his remains. Dr. Andrew Mark Henry notes that this seems to come from the surrounding Greco-Roman hero cults, where believers would devote prayer and shrines to dead heroes such as Hercules, and Achilles. Greco-Roman hero cults also venerated remains like we see in The Martyrdom of Polycarp. We see this in Plutarch who records that the oracle of Delphi ordered Atheniens to retrieve the bones of Theseus which were eventually put in the Thesion.3 Through practices such as incense burning and hero cults Roman Religious practice lives on
Roman religious symbols also lived on past what many would call the “collapse of Rome”. In Dante’s Divine Comedy Roman monsters are used such as Cerberus in Canto 6, and harpies in Canto 13. In the tomb of the Julii in the Vatican Catacombs, Sol Invictus is used to depict the sun4. Religions after Roman Religion supposedly collapsed didn’t just use Roman symbols, they believed in some of them. For example in 1 Clement, a Christian text, the author writes
‘Let us consider the strange sign which takes place in the eastern regions, that is those regions around Arabia. For there is a bird which is called the Phoenix” (1 Clement 25:1-2)5
Clement doesn’t just discuss the Phoenix as something that is believed in the East but something that actually happens. Writing for Aleteia, Philip Kosloski writes that the Phoenix continued to be important during the Middle Ages6. Therefore one can see that aspects of Roman mythology survived past the fall of the Roman state, both as symbols but also as things to be believed in.
Further, through the Apostle Paul, we can clearly see Roman philosophical ideas surviving in Christianity. More specifically, St. Paul was influenced by Stoicism. Early Christians saw these similarities. For example, Jerome of Stridon claims that Paul and Seneca were in communication. This claim is unlikely but the fact that Jerome saw a possibility of this correspondence shows that Jerome thought stoic ideas and Pauline ideas were similar. Tertullian also speaks of Seneca as “often our own”. It’s also worth noting that Stoicism was a popular philosophy that Paul would have known of.7 So it’s clear therefore that Stoic ideas could have made their way into Paul's teachings, and appear in Paul’s teachings.
Throughout this, we see a trend. Roman Philosophy and Religion survived after the “fall of Rome” because of how they affected Christianity.
Office for National Statistics. “Number of People Who Identified as Wiccan and Pagan in the 2021 Census - Office for National Statistics.” Www.ons.gov.uk, 2 June 2021, www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/numberofpeoplewhoidentifiedaswiccanandpaganinthe2021census.
Viola, Frank, and George Barna. Pagan Christianity? : Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices. Carol Stream, Ill., Barna, 2012.
Henry, Andrew Mark. “The Origin of Christian Saints.” Www.youtube.com, 22 July 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=izgj-AQ7zow.
Fowler, Kimberley. “Tomb of the Julii (Mausoleum M).” Www.judaism-And-Rome.org, 21 Sept. 2016, www.judaism-and-rome.org/tomb-julii-mausoleum-m.
Brannan, Rick. The Apostolic Fathers: A New Translation. Washington, Lexham Press, 2017.
Kosloski, Phillip. “This Is How the Phoenix Became a Christian Symbol.” Aleteia — Catholic Spirituality, Lifestyle, World News, and Culture, 3 July 2017, aleteia.org/2017/07/03/this-is-how-the-phoenix-became-a-christian-symbol/.
Grant, Frederick Clifton. “St. Paul and Stoicism.” The Biblical World, vol. 45, no. 5, 1915, pp. 268–81. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3142715. Accessed 7 May 2024.