i just recently found your channel. its my new favorite. ive been watching lectures nightly. your knowledge of history and languages and the way you make things easy to understand is remarkable. thank you very much for sharing. i think ive actually learned a lot.

I love these lectures here, the professor does an amazing job. I wish these questions from students were screened, however. Many of them are not questions but more like attempts from the student to try display their knowledge. Very few simply ask a question or offer real insight. I often skip them, some make me cringe/

What a wonderful talk; I love the multi-layered explanation. Thank you, John Hamer, for your clear, yet nuanced, explanation. Be well.

Loved that off topic moment when 3 people who didn’t know the difference between personify and anthropomorphize weighed in with their best guesses 😅

🏛️ 1:07:35 The Olympian Rome lasted 1000 years, and Post-Rennassance Olympian Reincarnation World is still going on several centuries thus far whereas the Christian Western Rome lasted only 300 years.

You have this mentioned on the slide at 44:12 but it is worth pointing out a little more specifically what the Crisis of the Third Century was and the role it played. The Roman Empire was in the process of falling apart. It became divided into several more or less independent regions, was in near constant civil war or intrigue for a number of decades, and went through dozens of emperors, most of whom were assassinated. Aurelian was able to begin pulling this together in the 270s and reunited the empire. There seemed to be a real sense that a spiritual and ideological disunity underlied the political disunity. Earlier emperors had tried to force sacrifices and persecuted those who did not participate (typically including Christians) in an attempt to solve this problem. The Valerian Persecution of the 250s is a good example. Aurelian went a different route and attempted to unite the empire under one religious tradition which was that of Sol Invictus. This was a logical choice since it was the traditional practice of those in the military. The military was a decent percentage of the male population (most of the common people would have known someone in the military) and it was also the source of unity or division depending on how it was used. As such it was a belief system that would have been familiar across the empire and would have united the important elements of society. This attempt of course did not pan out and Aurelian was assassinated in 275, with some degree of stability not returning until the 280s under Diocletian. Later in his reign he would again adopt the earlier practice of seeking unity by persecuting those not participating in sacrifices for the empire's well being (the Diocletian Persecution roughly in the first decade of the 300s). After his retirement things began to look shaky again as civil wars popped up, and it is at this point that Constantine successfully unites the empire both politically and spiritually under his newly converted Christian rule. Christianity was also a belief extant, if not exactly common, within the military and that was fairly well known across the empire (it was not a regional belief, in other words). So in this sense, if one wants to be a bit cynical, it made sense to use Christianity for the purpose of imperial unity. Needless to say, this attempt was much more successful than the earlier one.

From Delhi India. I watch your teachings and like your clarity on each subject. Horizon pub.

You da man John! Excellent scholarship and great presentation. I look forward to your next lecture. Thanks!

I got baptized by an elder in the rlds church back in the1980s. I've attended a number of different churches throughout the years and I got to say there needs to be more lectures like this in other churches.

Thank you for subject was searching for it. Nicely presented and explained 👌

Thank you so much for this! My history class was cancelled today, so tuning in to learn about the Decline of Roman Paganism instead was such a treat! I didn’t know much about the subject of pagans in Rome, And this lesson was super enlightening

So is it fair to say that hellenism was more transcendental and intellectual, while Romanism was legalistic and practical?

This lecture is astronomically amazing by the way. Sincere thanks to the speaker.

I love the series of lectures given on this station

You're the best lecturer I've seen on Theology. Love this channel.

How did historians figure out the approximate percentages of religious beliefs in the year 300 - 600?

My new favorite channel!

I am very grateful for learning this. Thank you so much.

The Roman bassilica in my city had a saxon Christian church built on top of the part where the pagan temple was. Many saxon churches in England are built on top of earlier pagan temples .

This guy is quite amazing! He is, for the most part, academically slot on. He is like a self deprecating old Norwegian. This guy is special. He should be in a fine university with a huge audience!

The lecture was good. The interruptions not so much.

Just wonderful! I listen your lectures here in Hamburg Germany and its always such a joy! Thank you sooo much!

I took Economics courses in college. But....I always loved history. Always enjoyed history classes.

Buildings: it is the Catholic buildings that have the look which is actually Roman. I’ve heard it said that to find the ghost of Rome look no further than Catholicism.

I didn't expect hearing Xmas carols sung in French in this channel... I'm a native French speaker so I'm not complaining, but she did have a heavy English accent! :p

Although this was a Lecture; it was Very Entertaining. Thank You ...

the audience interrupts too much, just chill

Great lecture!

Audience commentary, random Q+A mid lecture: more disruptive than additive. Esp so when topic is so diffuse & rambling as here. Please reconsider as format? Q+A much more enjoyable when concentrated at the end.

Christianity grew as the Roman empire collapsed. They invented Catholicism and a pope to keep the power and of an emperor and empire. Christianity was even forced on people who didn't want to convert from the old pagan gods. That's why days of the week are named after pagan gods and months of the year are named after pagan gods Not jesus or Christian saints.

I love John. He helps me understand. He is good natured and i enjoy his humor. I want to move to Toronto 😎

What do you think about the accounts of Trajan being pro-Christian? @59:46, Was Neoplatonism the dominant form of Paganism at that point?

The reason why Romans stopped building public buildings in the middle of the 3rd century was because the empire was in the middle of a crisis. At the time they were dealing with constant invasions, wars, emperors being usurped very frequently, the currency being extremely debased, high inflation, etc.

another informative lecture ....the question time is good too [ imo]

At timestamp 24:24, you talk about the Romans doing divination with the livers of “gooses.” Why did you say “gooses” instead of “geese” there? Have I been wrong to say and write “geese” all these years? (I’m asking because I’d thought I spoke this language natively. Is “gooses” current standard English, and has it superseded “geese”?)

Possible nitpick but for most of Japanese history they didn't distinguish between Shinto and Buddhism, in fact Shinto as we know it has its origins in the 19th century. When Buddhism arrived in Japan it was inflected by the local traditions and for much of its history (and even today) the two were indistinguishable. Yes, Kami worship was going on but most people would have seen that as part of their Buddhism practice. And that's something that happened with Buddhism, it combined with various local traditions so each Buddhist practice is locally inflected where it went. It was really after the Meiji restoration and they were looking for an indigenous alternative to Christianity that they began distinguishing them. The thing was that Buddhism was also foreign so the regime began trying to split off what was "Shinto" and therefore indigenous to Japan and what was "Buddhist" which was foreign. They then infused into Shintoism nationalism so that's how they came to declaring the Emperor to be a living god and began to serve as an ideological basis for their militarism. At that point Shinto became an established religion and is arguibly becoming a world religion as Japanese diaspora communities have spread it and allowed "converts" so to speak. Catholicism

Thank you John. Great lecture. Do you think that the real inner life of Paganism moved into the Mystery religions? It was this personal transformation through initiation that people sought and it was open to all. There are those who claim that Christianity started as a Jewish version of the Pagan Mysteries and that what happened was that myth became historicised and literalised. ❤

The bright red shirt is a great choice for yt

More like, "The Fading Away of Paganism". Great idea for a talk, and very interesting speculation that the species of state religion didn't matter, the structure and the functionality of social coercion would have been similar, or identical as it turns out. Great food for thought.

Is this available in a podcast format?

Thank you

1:15:30. Atheist angels. Explains the secular spiritual activities noted in Q&A.

When did the new construction stop? When he referred to no new temples being built?

29:15 Maybe another way to put it, is that paganism struggled mainly with the problem of why bad things happen to allegedly good people, and how a good person thus can use ritual to avoid suffering or being its locus, and how to socially fit in or appear to fit in as a person with that goal (“doing what everyone else does with the same goal everyone else has”). This focus on avoiding suffering represents a big contrast to Judaism (example: Book of Job), Buddhism, and Christianity, and post Axial Age secular philosophies such as Stoicism. Indeed one of the insights of the Axial Age and later major religions is that the pagan goal simply is the wrong (primary) goal.

Listening from Rome. Grazie.

I would say that the Seven Gods religion of a Song of Ice and Fire depicts what a "polytheistic" western medieval religion could have looked like

Please do a lecture on Norse Mythology

Question: with which authority does a group called another group pagan? If you're not agreeing with me or vice-versa I should call you, pagan or you will do the same to me?

58:40 to 1:02:15 - I'm intrigued by the scenario he's proposed of a Roman paganistic "world religion" based on stoicism.

So there is apparently a confusion about personification vs anthropomorphism. Personification is when someone fully radiates, so to speak, an idealist ie non human, element. Anthropomorphism is when HUMANS ascribe HUMAN traits to NON humans. I saw this same confusion in the comments previously, and the speaker at 34:54 is doing the same stuff. Hint: if you CANT PRONOUNCE the word, YOUR WHOLE STATEMENT is probably not fully informed. Smart people can be super annoying

I find it more than distressing that Paganism is described often in a mocking manner rather than as the social background that pertained at the onset of Christianity, and in fact the origin of many practices incorporated into the corpus of Christian thought and practice. The latter happened as a way to make Christianity more palatable to the (perhaps understandably) suspicious pagans who were (eventually) forced to become Christians, regardless. Paganism was essentially more human and humane than Christianity, the former being more accepting of different variants and local beliefs than the uniformity demanded of Christians (including the purge of heretical variants). Has Christian persecution of Jews has been a consequence of Jesus being himself a Jew or has is it been because Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ; I've never been sure what the doctrinal basis of the anti-Semitic thread in Christianity has been, but it is execrable. Christianity has also been so intolerant of the (classical) sciences that it took the Arabs to restore knowledge of Greek and Roman writings to the Christian West after more than a thousand years. This suggests that Christianity has had, as part of its basis, a contempt for physical reality unheard of in pagan times. This may be one reason knowledge of classical science has been difficult to find. Pagan gods were based on the forces of nature married with pointed observations of human behavior (accurate enough to have been of great interest to modern thinkers), while the core beliefs of Christianity are based on a strange amalgam of Jewish tradition, sketchy accounts of Jesus, whose very historicity is openly questioned and whose life and teachings were heavily redacted (for instance, by the Counsel of Nicaea), while alternative interpretations (and believers) were suppressed or destroyed, creating careers for Biblical scholars ever since. ;-) Worst of all, Christianity is otherworldly, causing "true believers" to denigrate the physical reality of "this" world in favor of being obsessed with jockeying for position in the "next". This makes Christianity positively toxic for everyone who is still concerned with the world of here and now, all living things, and the viability of long-term, planetary survival. Also, the entire Christian tradition has been carried forward by strict top-down hierarchies (Rome, Kings, states), whose aim has been to survive and accrue power for itself throughout history. It may have survived its first couple of centuries in the form of small groups of believers, tied to a written tradition (the Bible), but every since Constantine, it has been identified with political power. Contrast this with pagans, whose beliefs/traditions/mythologies developed over centuries in concert with the societies they were part of, and, as importantly, imported and integrated from surrounding beliefs, be they of neighbors or the conquered. Paganism reflected the world rather than being pitted against it.

History of religions is a very wide subject. Asia and africa own a lot of small religions. Animisms and paganisms!

Excellent

I think that polytheism is in one level a matter of administrative convenience. There is a god of the home; therefore, there is a priest who must sanctify the dwelling. But, the practical aspect is that he is the equivalent of a modern building inspector. There would be a god for the butcher shop. So, a priest of the butcher shop temple would visit the business and give blessing or not. But, this was just theatre surrounding the inspection of the food production facility. In fact, the demise of paganism may have had more to do with ths rise of cities and division of labour. Your village baker may be a lousy chef, but he's the only one in two days journey, what can you do? In the city, your neighborhood baker is unskilled, so you walk over to another neighborhood. In this way, making the butchering a lamb into an elaborate ritual no longer made any sense. The shop next door follows the holy book, but the meat is awful. The shop in the Jewish sector has way better quality.

The evil eye can be given from a loving person also so evil can come from good people too. Strange but true

If you look closely you can see Aeneas is wearing a helmet in the picture but it does strongly resemble a baseball cap.

Its about stopping blood sacrifice, in a woo woo way. Find the paradox

Does median age of the people influences the religious thought? Maybe pagans where generaly younger people, so the more colorful religions where more appeling to them?

The woman who keeps interrupting and actually sung a verse in the 1:02 minute is a pedantic show off. I'm stunned she thought people came there to hear her sing. Around 1:19 during question time, the same pedant decided to tell a story instead of asking an actual question.

A hint or example is the palaichristian churches built from ancient temple stones in some regions in ballkans and elsewhere. a proof that people never forgot their past but alternated it.

Thanks!

great lecture, too many interruptions.

The shift towards extreme individualism has been devastating to western culture and to the biosphere---the single most pathological divergence in history.

Before Christ and After Death..... still works for me and I still use it......

Julian the Apostate allowed all the persecuted heterodox Christian sects to also return along with the suppressed pagan cults, it might have been a bit chaotic but also more interesting ?We seem to have gone back to that experiment now, perhaps these institutions can only survive in a completely secular state? Hopefully we can try this out for another thousand years to see which type of government works better.

The cross symbolises the sun also in flower shapes too.

The Fall or Destroyed?

I feel this lecture is good but too black and white. Humans affairs are very complex and nuanced. The point of Constantine converting to Christianity because of war and God's sign, or perhaps he didn't really understand doesn't make sense to me. Constantine was a Roman Polytheist, but the power of Rome's ethnic religion was by then an empty shell. The Gods CANNOT FORGIVE such cruelty of killing your own son, and steam your wife to death, only the Christian God can forgive anything to anyone as long as you convert and believe. He did convert out of complete loss of faith in himself, in humans and family, and by fear to be cast out to Tartarus. Also, during Rome's republic age, the traditional big families (Julii, Brutii for example) were long gone. So the ancient families that created Rome were all dead by two civil wars (Sulla VS Marius and Ceasar VS Pompey). By the time of Constantine, they were but "new" houses, families that took over Rome with different cults. Such as Mithra or Sol Invictus. Rome was then no more a power to put every nations under her law, but a man an "Emperor" imposing his will on the City, often outside Italy. Around the Mediterranean World, all city states shared the same fate. No longer ethnic/cultural people but with immigration the cities lost their integrity and their real identity. The old religion of Ancient Cities States were just an other cult among so many. New religions emerged and Christianity among them, which is all about having the most influence over the Ancient world. Christianity was very successful because anyone goes with this cult. Doesn't matter if you are a woman or slave, or rich, you could all adhere. While Mithraism was more for the upper class, and the old religion were more geographical and designed only for the ethnic people of that religion. And so, the old religions stated to die out, no more ancient strong families originated from the cities. Athena was the Goddess for Athens and the Hellas. Jesus was for all. Constantine saw few advantages and relief. First, his place in paradise is secured, while with the Gods he would be sent to Tartarus for his crime. The Roman state religion was ethnic, with the Roman Gods, but not so many believed in them aside from Italians perhaps and the integrity of the Empire was falling. Constantine saw a way to sew it back together. Also, like Emperors before him, it was about living a mark on Rome's history of being the best. Being the first Christian was certainly a way to shock history for ever. I think the war between Christianity and Paganism was very Christian obsession as little was done against Christians while Pagan Emperors ruled. As soon as Theodosius arrived in power, all was but put an end to Paganism. It was always the purpose of Christianity to eliminate all other form of worship. The war was on the Christians, they always wanted to conquer, that's how they got "structured" unless Paganism which no one thought on spiritual war. Paganism is not very well understood by scholars. They take too much from Homer for example which is only a poem. The Gods of Ancient time were there to set an example. Even Gods can fail, so us as humans we must be super careful!! It's not because you are good today that you can be horrible tomorrow. No one is above the natural law or Gods. By the time of Constantine, most people were Pagans, nothing was wrong with it. It was a close relationship with the land, the ancestors, values, and explore the world of spirituality through whatever you like. It wasn't necessary to believe in Gods, but it was important to keep the integrity of your culture by ceremonies. Because it was ethnic, most people recognised that the Gods or the neighbours are the same as his, only different view angle and names. What was important is to live a life worth of the Gods. But they were not all forgiving... As soon as Christians could destroy other religions they did. The real danger was "My religion is true not yours". It didn't exist at the time such concept. Then, well we know...All temples, all altars, all pagans were destroyed or convert. Christianity main strength is that everything can be forgiving as long as you believe and also baptise. Christians only for Christians, and so they built communities all across the World. But for the Pagans again, there were no war, no need for such thing, you were free to follow whoever you wanted. And maybe "converted" to Christianity but simply didn't fully know what it meant to not worship other gods. Until Theodosius. Most altars and temples could be ravaged because 1 Empire's functionary for 10 000 people. Rome didn't have that man power to keep the keep everywhere, it was very easy to set fire in a temple without much persecution. Most temples were already old, needed much money and it was the duty of the city state with a god/goddess patron to keep the temples up and running with the taxes. Christianity has their own stream of money income, but the result is the same, people paid the church because they were "poor". Rome in the time of Caesar was long long gone by the time of Theodosius. In fact could Caesar imagine what would happen to his ethnic Rome? Removing the altar of victory? Rome was Rome only by name and by her institution but her soul and her identity got comprised too many times, and most "real ancient romans" were long gone. She was for the taking.

Interesting argument that you understand modern philosophical and religious phenomena in India as a unified modern world religion. Maybe whatt ever ideas or sects that reach America. But in India itself it feels more like the pagan scenario you described for ancient rom. Many school of thought many practices and life styles god part in everyday activities regional variety

idk who needs to hear this but anthropomorphism vs personification is waaaay simpler than they made it out to be. Suffice to say without knowing the intention of the speaker you can't know for sure if a statement is using anthropomorphism or personification. Could be either. If its meant literally, anthropomorphism. IF it's meant figuratively/ metaphorically, personification. Period. The end.

I give you permission to write a book about the New Testament according to your research into the circle ⭕️ without Judgment. This will change the people’s lives forever and heal the world of suffering.❤

Repeat after me: "all questions and comments at the end of the lecture please!" 1:02:34.. that is not on topic and clearly she just wanted to sing

The title fits well with unitarian

Pagans? Pagan is the word invented by christians. All non-abrahamic religions were called pagans. Paganism isn't a particular religion.

Athina emerged from Zeusis head fully armoured with spear and shield. Her name means Grey haired and symbolises Sophia or foresight and wisdom if the middle aged men.

Paganism died in some places and in some other regions flourished under christian symbols and names.

I reassure you paganism is still rampant in the Christians religion eater Christmas Halloween pagan feasts have become idols to them

It's actually knocking and spitting and saying may it go on woods and stones. still used today not to pronounce a death.

Christianity is also a pagan religion, they use the same system of belief, but they put more emphasis on the value and power of their divinities, using angels, trinity and ceremonies are the other way of paganism

If an Eagle sat behind one man's sleeping toward his head that man was a soon becoming king.

Actually the slaying of lambs is a pagan ritual. it took place on top of high mou tains and in pasquale or eastern felstivs

Greeks of that time called themselves Romioi. So its region was something like Romiania

Next episode. The rise of Paganism.

So in pre Christian rome religion and god was in everything ( also wine sex and celebrating). You understand the difference to Christianity where only quiet celebration takes place like Christmas and easter but the carnival is seen as the big sin where you party drink before easter lent and repent. The pagan mindset would mean to approach carnival also as a religious duty ( that would be great in Germany less alcohol escalation because you would still have god in mind to not exaggerate. Same like holy or Krishna birthday in. India they have fun but its still a service to the religion so you make sure to not drink too much to end up in hospital🎉😂❤

Limiting knowledge from humans now keeps them in sin. Before knowledge we didn't sacrifice blood of lesser beings as humans we didn't know about any of that. Now we know. One should reread the book of Enoch.

🏛️ 39:54 Greek Polytheism dates even 12th century bc.

The great thing is that now it's Christianity that's getting smaller and smaller and paganism is getting bigger and bigger.. praise the gods!

Dude has the same haircut as Geddy Lee.

54:30

While watching this presentation at one point while analyzing Constantine’s avowal of Monotheist Christianity, it struck me that the military cult of Mithraism was a kind of secret society non compliance. Today’s political stance of geopolitics, while appearing to be rationally based is rather in fact a sort of carryover of this sort of military cult that believes that looting of conquered peoples is a kind of given that is fundamentally unchanging. This belief system that different races, nations or indeed types of economics are at a constant war of each against all is equivalent to a worldview of imperialism. This is no different in essence than Roman war cults.

Anytime I post about Emperor Julian, it gets censored. Oh well, jump to 55 minutes and decide for yourself. I know many pagans who leave offerings to Julian, he's ANYTHING but a nobody. Also Porphyry, one of the greatest Neoplatonic philosophers who was hugely influential much into the post-Christian medieval age, also wrote against it. And that just some of the fragments that survived. Interestingly suppressed as Arian literature rather than pagan. There's many good christians in the world but they weren't part of the Roman elite. And guess what the elite was before they converted? Constantine couldn't have cared less if Jesus or Sol Invictus got in. Also Julian (who was pious unlike his uncle) was backstabbed by his own soldier. There's good Christians, bad Christians. The ones smashing the holy temples, and burning our world's history are the bad ones. The elite were suppressing the Bacchants before they ever converted. Suppression, document burning and iconoclasm is the evil thing. They rewrote history and vestiges of that remain today! I wish Julian would've succeeded, because he would've banned Christian homeschooling. As someone who suffered Bob Jones University growing up. It would've made a difference in the lives of Pascal, Nietszche, to have Julian's reason-based Neoplatonism over faith. But go ahead and marginalize my perspective :/ Also I mean this super seriously, this lecture is a bit triggering and could use a content warning.

Actually, all Christianity did was adopt Pagans gods and change their name. Todays Christians would spit on Jesus and call him a socialist.

If paganism can technically be snuffed out... so can Scientology.

I'm cringing at the class interrupting the teacher the whole time

So basically like hindu society in India

Let’s Go Christians!

It's mostly Greco-southIllyrio-Thrakian.mythology.

You mean the old pagenism that transformed into the NEW pagenism, right?

Paganism never fell! Nor did their gods! Interwined with all worlds! Only the blind cannot see! The light, blinds them... The dark scares them, the shadows controls them!

Poo poo in the garden of eden, well that's not that difficult but the grind seems optional