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Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
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In this book, MacMullen investigates the transition from paganism to Christianity between the fourth and eighth centuries. He reassesses the triumph of Christianity, contending that it was neither tidy nor quick, and he shows that the two religious systems were both vital during an interactive period that lasted far longer than historians have previously believed.
DESCRIPTION:
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 270.2
EAN: 9780300071481
ISBN: 0300071485
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 1997-09-23
Publisher: Yale University Press
Studio: Yale University Press
SIMILAR ITEMS:
• Christianizing the Roman Empire: (A. D. 100-400) (A.D. 100-400)
• Paganism and Christianity 100-425 C.E.
• Paganism in the Roman Empire
• The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity
• The Christians as the Romans Saw Them
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Summary: The History Christianity Never Told
Comment: This is a very important book, one that every student of religious history should read. Ramsay MacMullen has undertaken the task of speaking on behalf of a people who were not allowed to speak for themselves: the pagans of the Roman Empire. He points out that the focus of history has been on Christianity; after all, Christians wrote the histories of that era. But he notes as well that the estimates on Christian numbers by Tertullian and Eusebius are "manifestly absurd", an expression "of the authors' zeal and their sense of the distance traveled by their church since the first century." What this amounts to, in MacMullen's view, is that "the Christians, not only in their triumphant exaggerations but in their sheer bulk, today, seriously misrepresent the true proportions of religious history."
Orthodox Christianity was not interested in voices raised in protest. What were seen as heretical writings were burned, as were non-Christian texts and "copyists were discouraged from replacing them by the threat of having their hands cut off." And Christianity's own historians were not interested in giving a balanced accounting of events. MacMullen comments that Eusebius "disclaimed the telling of the whole truth. Rather, he proposed to limit his account to 'what may be of profit.'"
This book attempts to set the record straight. MacMullen notes that previously scholars had thought that paganism had been defeated by the end of the fourth century and all converted to the new faith. This is not true, he tells us. "Stain Augustine did not live in a Christian world" he says and in the book's five chapters proceeds to demonstrate the truth of this assertion.
We see that paganism of the late Roman Empire was alive and well. "It used to be thought that, at the end, the eradication of paganism really required no effort" and that paganism had become a hollow husk. "But historians seem now to have abandoned this interpretation...The real vitality of paganism is instead recognized; and to explain its eventual fate what must also be recognized is an opposing force, an urgent one, determined on its extinction." And we see the extreme measures to which Christianity was willing to resort to stamp out all opposition: fines, confiscation, exile, improsionment, flogging, torture, beheading, and crucifixtion. "What more could be imagined? Nothing. The extremes of conceivable pressure were brought to bear." Nor was this violence restricted to pagans. Speaking of the fourth century, MacMullen says "more Christians died for their faith at the hands of fellow Christians than had died before in all the persecutions."
Like Pagans and Christians before it, Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries must be read for the truth of the past to be understood. The facts have for long been misrepresented and misunderstood, and MacMullen brushes these obstructions away with a masterful hand to reveal the vibrancy of a pagan world scholarship has long consigned to oblivion. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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Summary: Paganism: Tolerance and Tradition
Comment: As far as I know Ramsay MacMullen could not in any way be accurately described as a Pagan. In fact, he does say some things that indicate that he almost certainly is not one. Nevertheless, this is one history book that every well-educated Pagan should read. It's not a pretty story - in fact its an excrutiatingly painful story.
MacMullen deals with most of the important myths about the rise of Christianity and the downfall of Paganism:
(1) that Pagans voluntarily chose to convert to Christianity without coercion
(2) that women, slaves and the rural populations were less loyal to Paganism than the urban male elites
(3) that Paganism "went quietly"
(4) that Paganism simply disappeared without a trace
All of these myths are laid to rest by MacMullen. May they rest in peace.
Despite (apparently) not being a Pagan himself, MacMullen nevertheless displays an uncanny sympathy for and understanding of Classical Paganism. In particular he adeptly captures the spirit of Paganism with the two words "tradition" and "tolerance". Paganism was a Religion and a world-view in which tradition was honored and revered - it was a way for human beings to feel a strong connection to the past and to each other. And it was also a Religion in which tolerance was taken for granted. This is the real take-home lesson of this book.
MacMullen calmly tells the tale of how Christianity grappled with a simple fact: nobody knew exactly how to go about imposing one religion on everyone. It had never been done before and the very idea was not so much objectionable as it was simply incomprehensible. MacMullen tells the horrifying story of how the Christians slowly perfected the repressive machinery necessary to enforce spiritual and psychological conformity. At first edicts against Paganism could be safely ignored - but as the decades and centuries went on, through a combination of savage mob-violence and state terrorism, Paganism was driven underground.
MacMullen makes it clear that Paganism fought to survive. Without probably intending to, he leaves the door wide open for future investigations of the ways in which Paganism continued to survive as a clandestine Religion.
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Summary: TGIF?
Comment: McMullen has an interesting style that some may find irritating but I rather enjoyed. At times he uses orotund and convoluted sentences reminiscent of Gibbon or Samuel Johnson. At other times he lapses into the first person and uses contractions and old-fashioned slang such as "argy-bargy." It is rather like listening to conversation over the port in the Senior Common room of some ancient college.
I was irritated by the references. These occupy a large part of the book and are grouped as end-notes (Gibbon had footnotes). They often give only a single name of author without date or place of publication. If you track down the author in the bibliography (which is separate) you often still don't get anywhere, even if you remember where in the text you started off. Sometimes the references contain references.
The question of which festivals and folk customs represent survivals of pre-Christian religions is more complex than he acknowledges. It's better dealt with by Ronald Hutton in "Pagan religions of the Ancient British Isles."
I've always been intrigued by the names of the days of the week in Indo-European languages. In French you have Vendredi for Friday. In Welsh we have Dydd Gwener. Who was Gwener?
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Summary: Excellent!
Comment: This is a fantastic research book, & for those of you interested in the history of Christianity & Paganism, this is a good & easy read. I'll leave the details for you to read in the book, but this book should prove enlightening.
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Summary: Superb research nearly swamped by convoluted prose
Comment: Most readers of religious history are familiar with the pagan roots of Christmas, such as tree candles and the date of the feast itself. In this magnificently researched monograph, MacMullen digs far deeper and finds paganism lurking in the dimmest corners of Christianity. His book focuses on the first millennium, but even today's Christians (especially Catholics) will recognize many of the rituals and beliefs he discusses.
The book is not without controversy. The traditional view has been that, during the century after Constantine's conversion, most of the Roman Empire (and lands beyond) converted to Christianity with wholehearted gusto, and pagan beliefs survived only in remote pockets. Not so, according to the author's overwhelming evidence: paganism had an extremely long half-life. MacMullen also dispenses with the long-held traditional argument that women and slaves converted to Christianity because paganism did not offer them much. (If anything, as he clearly and succinctly shows, the reverse is true.) Furthermore, MacMullen discusses how, beginning in the fourth century, upon subsuming power, Christians dealt with pagans in the traditional (non-Christian) way: they persecuted them with intimidation, torture, forced conversions, and death. Persecutions continued for many centuries, indicating that the underlying pagan culture was indeed very hearty.
The problem with the early Church's aggressive approach is obvious: many converts were not true believers, or they didn't quite understand what they were accepting. In addition, the relatively new Christianity, "a religion of the book" that was strong on doctrine, lacked a distinctive culture or the ability to satisfy everyday needs and desires (whether worldly or supernatural). Still, the Christian elites--the educated or the anointed--placed far more faith in the supernatural (God) than did their pagan predecessors, who viewed the reliance on superstition (gods) as a crutch for the lower, especially rural, classes. This difference ironically gave Christianity an advantage: believers at both ends of the social spectrum, from bishops to peasants, looked to the supernatural for explanations of everyday occurrences, from the weather to illness to death. Thus, many pagan rituals provided the basis for Christian traditions: offerings to the gods became cults of the saints, pagan feasts became Christian festivals, etc. As Jerome acknowledged, in MacMullen's paraphrase: "better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."
MacMullen marshals an impressive parade of evidence, both in the text (only 160 pages) and in the notes and bibliography (which occupy only slightly less space). Unlike most scholars, he entirely avoids unfamiliar terminology and spices his treatise with glib comments and wry witticisms--it's been a long time since I've chuckled while reading a scholarly monograph. Unfortunately (alas, like most scholars), MacMullen is just not a very good writer. Perfectly lucid passages alternate with sentences that resemble very rough lecture notes. He has an aversion to direct statement and a fondness for pronouns that will send the most alert reader hunting for an antecedent. A not atypical sentence: "Within tradition, what lacked any supporting scripture or even any conscious reason they might think foolish; but they accepted it as harmless." "They," whose antecedent appears three sentences previous, refers to pagan civic leaders. Even armed with this discovery, most readers will find this sentence difficult, I wager. Other sentences are backwards for no good reason: "But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up." And, finally, there are run-on sentences of such length that a lethal dose of caffeine is required to follow the sense from beginning to end. Such idiosyncratic sentence structures might be amusing affectations when used sparingly, but their overuse in this volume is frustrating and unnecessary.
It's too bad that MacMullen isn't kinder to his readers. Although the book is certainly meant for a scholarly audience, it contains little material that wouldn't be within reach of interested readers outside the academy. (Even professional historians must tire of such sloppiness.) Nevertheless, if you're willing to slog through tortuous prose, you'll find treasures on every page.
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