Suppose there was a heretical sect of Christianity that proclaimed jesus to be the key to salvation but didn't deny the existence of other gods, gain wide spread traction within Rome and eventually being adopted by an emperor potentially earlier than OTL. how might this polytheistic Christianity interact and influence the rest of europe?
WI: Christianity was polytheistic
- Thread starter Billy the Goat
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Kick
Well , I've seen some stupid questions on this board but this takes the biscuit. First Commandment as per King James Bible, " Thou shalt have no other gods before Me". So its not a Christian heresy, indeed none of the Abrahamic religions allow even the suggestion of multiple Gods, so it would be a pagan sect. Not going to say more as I'm pretty convinced you are just trying to troll the faithful given your username.
But what you just described was more or less Early Christianity - they weren't exactly claiming that these other gods didn't exist, they claimed that they were actually demons which were mistaken for gods, and who shouldn't be worshipped.
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rude
Anyways, the first commandment didn't stop early hebrews from being monolatrous (?), so it's hardly impossible
Maybe foreign deities can be identified w/ angelic beings created by the Big G to help Him rule and organize creation, kinda like Valar and Maiar in the Silmarillion
Maybe the cult of saints'd be less important as minor pagan deities can still fill that role
Idea about polytheist Christianity is so much against basic principles of Judaims and Christianity that such idea being succesful is pretty much ASB. Even Catholics against some ridicolous accusations didn't think saints being gods. Christianity was clearly built as monotheist religion which denied existence of other gods.
I think it could be plenty successful, just not as a form of Christianity. It would just be an adaption of the Jewish God into the Roman pantheon (he was identified with Caelus and sometimes Bacchus) with Jesus deified as his son. That gives some weird theological questions since it makes Jesus Saturn's half-brother and Jupiter's uncle.
And depending on how you define Judaism, at one point it did acknowledge the existence of other gods, just they were not worthy of worship. This seems apparent from passages in Jewish scripture.
Not sure why you think some Hebrews doing it matters. The entire point of the 1st Commandment was to combat the practice of monolatry and put it beyond the pale. It was never seen as a valid Jewish belief, those practicing it are depicted as have faltered and turned away from the Lord. Its why Elijah in 1 Kings 18:21-40 confronts, and casts down, the priests of Ba'al as false prophets.
So its a big no no, it needs any/all of Abrahamic religions to deny their key tenant, that there is only one God. You cannot believe in monolatry and be seen as Jewish, Christian or Muslim. You would not be simply a heretic , you would be apostolate.
Wasn’t there also a brief period of time before the full Christianization of Scandinavia when people would worship Jesus alongside the Norse gods? IIRC there are some archaeological finds whose status as Mjolnirs or crosses is ambiguous, perhaps even deliberately; this plus the Hellenistic identification of Yahweh with Caelus and the Manichaean utilization of Jesus as a prophet might provide some jumping point. I agree that such a religion would not be Christian, more of a pagan faith with elements borrowed/syncretized from Christianity.
Maybe one could end up with a functionally (if not doctrinally) polytheistic sect if the sect in question is willing to play loose with the definition of “worship”. I’m imagining something like pagan-descended folk practices and beliefs, except somewhat more explicit in doctrinally incorporating the existence and appeasement of other beings, even if they don’t refer to them as gods (after all, things like leaving porridge out for the nisse and certain practices relating to Mary and the saints are basically a form of offering or sacrifice even if doctrinally recognizing them as worship would be heretical). Basically like early forms of Christianity, except the folk religion is actually incorporated into the sect’s canon (so Celtic Christianity would end up considering the Sidhe as a canonical part of their doctrines, for example). Or maybe the sect resembles OTL Christianity, but pagan deities are more explicitly equated with Christian ones to the point that their worshippers are linguistically pagan but ideologically syncretic (so a Norse Christian might worship the trinity of Odin, Balder, and… idk, Hermod? while a Roman Christian might worship the same deities but with the different names/myths/canon of Caelus, Bacchus, and Proserpina - obviously the actual deities identified with different angels/demons/Trinity facets/saints would probably be different since I’m just thinking of equivalents off the top of my head). This would probably necessitate a less united Church to begin with and either diverge at or butterfly Constantine, since if Christianity becomes the state religion it becomes easier for the Church to enforce orthodoxy (see what happened to Arianism in Germania).
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
There is no rule that religious PODs can’t be discussed on this board and I told you recently that you can’t fly off the handle at people you disagree with. Don’t accuse people of trolling just because you don’t like their reasonable posts.
Kicked for a week. Don’t respond so aggressively to things you disagree with when you come back.
dcharles
Banned
Don't put the cart before the horse. The doctrine doesn't precede the faith. The doctrine validates what already exists. It's always possible that doctrine develops in a different way.
danteheadman
Banned
From a strictly Orthodox Jewish perspective, the Trinity is polytheistic.
From a certain Protestant perspective, Catholic veneration of Mary and the Saints is polytheistic.
ATL, meet OTL!
From a certain Protestant perspective, Catholic veneration of Mary and the Saints is polytheistic.
ATL, meet OTL!
Concerned Brazilian
Gone Fishin'
I can see this religion being popular in frontier regions of the Roman Empire, and among the foederati
have no other gods before me ... my literalist shoulder-devil would then argue that people are perfectly allowed to have gods underneath/behind God, and as such aren't inherently incompatible with some variants of polytheism, as long as God is acknowlegded as some sort of over-deity.
As others mentioned, it could be argued that the Catholic veneration of Saints and especially Mary that for all intends and purposes might as well be considered semi-polytheistic in nature, even if it doesn't self-acknowledges this.
That'd be Henotheistic: believing other gods exist but not worshipping them.
Polytheism is worshipping multiple gods.
danteheadman
Banned
Genetic fallacy. Things don't have to carry the traits of their ancestors, including ideologies.
Of course they do, both Christianity and Islam are built off the monotheistic foundations of Judaism. Any religion that grows out of Judaism can't be polytheistic without repudiating it. But then it wouldn't be Christianity
And yet Jews and Muslims will sometimes say Christianity is polytheistic because they worship Christ as God.
Anyways- please read OP's post and not just the title....they clearly said no worship is done, only that these people would not deny other gods.
danteheadman
Banned
Christianity already repudiates many of Judaism's theological claims. And Islam does the same to Christianity.