Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
The conversion of pre-Christian places of worship, rather than their destruction, was particularly true of temples of Mithras, a religion that had been the main rival to Christianity during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, especially among the Roman legions. An early 2nd century Mithraeum stands across the Roman street from the house and can be visited.
Roman investigations into early Christianity found it an irreligious, novel, disobedient, even atheistic sub-sect of Judaism: it appeared to deny all forms of religion and was therefore superstitio. By the end of the Imperial era, Nicene Christianity was the one permitted Roman religio; all other cults were heretical or pagan superstitiones. [187]
Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Greco-Roman religion [4] and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. [4] Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry". [1] [5] During and after the Middle Ages, the term paganism was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a ...
[134] [135] This does not in any way indicate that Christianity itself was derived from paganism, [134] only that early Christians made use of the pre-existing symbols that were readily available in their society. [134] Sometimes Christians deliberately used pagan iconography in conscious effort to show Jesus as superior to the pagan gods. [136]
Christian states 495 AD (en) Christianization of the Franks was the process of converting the pagan Franks to Catholicism during the late 5th century and early 6th century. It was started by Clovis I, regulus of Tournai, with the insistence of his wife, Clotilde and Saint Remigius, the bishop of Reims.
Christianity then rapidly grew in the 4th century - Rodney Stark estimated that Christians accounted for 56.5% of the Roman population by 350. [27] According to Will Durant, the Christian Church prevailed over paganism because it offered a much more attractive doctrine and because the church leaders addressed human needs better than their ...
Christianity is still the largest religion in Europe. [51] According to a survey about Religiosity in the European Union in 2019 by Eurobarometer, Christianity was the largest religion in the European Union accounting 64% of EU population, [18] down from 72% in 2012. [20]