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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 ...
Folklorist Jack Santino says "Her day and its traditions almost certainly are traceable to pre-Christian celebrations that took place at this time, on the first of May". [12] Art historian Pamela Berger noted Walpurga's association with sheaves of grain, and suggested that her cult was adapted from pagan agrarian goddesses. [13]
Not all historical pagan traditions were pre-Christian or indigenous to their places of worship. [36] Owing to the history of its nomenclature, paganism traditionally encompasses the collective pre- and non-Christian cultures in and around the classical world; including those of the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes. [40]
Lupercalia: Valentine's Day pagan connections. Lupercalia was a debaucherous festival that celebrated the coming of spring. It included animal sacrifices and drunken revelry to honor Faunus, the ...
[140] [141] [142] Theodosius also turned pagan holidays into workdays, but the festivals associated with them continued. [143] A number of laws against sacrifice and divination, closing temples that continued to allow them, were issued towards the end of his reign, but historians have tended to downplay their practical effects and even the ...
[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]
Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia , the British Isles , modern Germany, the Netherlands, and at times other parts of Europe, the beliefs and practices of Germanic ...
Most of the movement's followers reject the traditional Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter which many regard as either extra-biblical or of pagan origin. [7] Many within the Hebrew Roots movement also reject mainstream Christian doctrines such as the Trinity , with some viewing Jesus as a human prophet and others taking views similar ...