Religion in Antiquity and Late Antiquity
This area examines the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world and their transformation in late antiquity, from Greek and Roman civic cults to the rise of Christianity and the rich religious pluralism of the period.
Definition
The study of the religions of the Greco-Roman world and their transformation during late antiquity.
Scope
It covers Greek and Roman religion, the mystery cults and Hellenistic religious movements, the emergence of Christianity within late-antique society, and currents such as Gnosticism alongside the broader religious diversity of the era. The treatment is historical and comparative, describing cults, texts, and debates without affirming the truth of any tradition.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- How were Greek and Roman religion organized around cult, civic life, and the gods?
- What were the mystery religions and what did they offer their initiates?
- How did Christianity emerge and grow within the late-antique world?
- How should the religious pluralism and transformation of late antiquity be understood?
Key theories
- Civic and embedded religion
- The view, developed in works such as Beard, North, and Price's Religions of Rome, that ancient Mediterranean religion was embedded in civic and political life rather than organized around belief or separate religious institutions.
- Late antiquity as transformation
- Peter Brown's influential reframing of late antiquity not as decline but as a distinct, creative period in which new religious forms, including Christianity and the cult of saints, took shape.
History
The civic polytheism of the Greek and Roman worlds gave way, over the Hellenistic and imperial periods, to a more cosmopolitan religious landscape of mystery cults, philosophical religion, Judaism, and emerging Christianity, culminating in the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the religious transformations of late antiquity.
Debates
- How and why Christianity succeeded
- Scholars debate the social, political, and religious factors behind the spread of Christianity in the Roman world and the speed and depth of the empire's Christianization.
Key figures
- Walter Burkert
- Mary Beard
- Peter Brown
Related topics
Seminal works
- beard1998
- burkert1985
- brown1971
Frequently asked questions
- Did ancient Greeks and Romans have a 'religion' like modern ones?
- Their religious life centred on ritual, sacrifice, and civic festivals rather than creed or scripture, and was woven into political and social life, so it differs in important ways from many modern conceptions of religion.
- What is 'late antiquity'?
- It is the term, popularized by Peter Brown, for the transitional period roughly from the third to the seventh or eighth century CE, marked by major religious and cultural transformation in the Mediterranean world.