Hermeticism becomes the state religion of the Empire

Status
Not open for further replies.
Gnomepilled

Gnomepilled

And let's for funnies say that Christianity merged with Hermeticism like what happened in our timeline.

No ASB so no gnomes turning everything into gold

There were plenty of religions competing at the time.
-Mithraism
-Christianity and Manicheaism (these were the two major ones)
-Gnosticism (Debated if it even existed, founded by Simon Magus(yes the wizard))
-Judaism
-Sol Invictus (founded by Elagabalus (yes that Elagabalus))
-There was also Buddhism

All that mattered was that Roman Paganism was a dead religion and everyone was converting to middle eastern religions.
 

HumptyDumpty

I'm not sure Hermeticism was really a coherent ideology. It was more a set of ideas and philosophies from what I understand. I think it lacked many aspects of religion.
 

Evil Crusader

Gnomepilled said:
All that mattered was that Roman Paganism was a dead religion and everyone was converting to middle eastern religions.
Click to expand...
Then isn't Hermeticism doomed as not enough middle eastern?
The main problem of Hermeticism is a lack of organisation, without which it simply gets outcompeted. If it gets one, it won't be too different from Christianity save for butterflies.
 

John I of Brazil

Gnomepilled said:
And let's for funnies say that Christianity merged with Hermeticism like what happened in our timeline.

No ASB so no gnomes turning everything into gold

There were plenty of religions competing at the time.
-Mithraism
-Christianity and Manicheaism (these were the two major ones)
-Gnosticism (Debated if it even existed, founded by Simon Magus(yes the wizard))
-Judaism
-Sol Invictus (founded by Elagabalus (yes that Elagabalus))
-There was also Buddhism

All that mattered was that Roman Paganism was a dead religion and everyone was converting to middle eastern religions.
Click to expand...
Technically, most of these cults were just variations of paganism. They weren't made to substitute the traditional gods, being instead complementary.

For what I know, Mithraism, for example, could be compared to (not so secret) secret societies, like the freemasonry. They weren't exactly eager to proselytize, and instead kept themselves relatively secretive, with their multiple grades of initiation and secret handshakes. Their cult was not an alternative to Rome's other traditional religions, but one of many forms of religious practice, and almost all Mithraea contain statues dedicated to gods of other cults.

Sol Invictus, on the other hand, was an "addition" to traditional roman religion. There's actually a debate on its relation to Elagabalus, since the Syrian god's cult was quite different from Aurelianus' portrayal of Sol Invictus. More specifically, while Elagabalus (the deity) was mostly portrayed as a rock (as that was its form in the traditional Arab religion), Sol Invictus was mostly shown in a traditional, Hellenistic roman fashion (human-like, with a solar crown), not unlike Apollo or the traditional roman god Sol, generally called Sol Indiges (the native sun). So, some believe it was more of a continuation of the traditional roman sun cult than something related to the Syrian novelty.

hermeticism, based on my understanding, wasn't that different from these two, in the sense it was essentially just a variety of pagan cult, rather than a completely new, exclusive thing.
 
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top