The inevtiable decline of paganism It is surely not so that the rise of catholic christianity was an occurrence that could

have been stopped. Some historians like to dabble into the what-if-analysis of religious interaction. What if the Romans had reformed their religion to combat christianity? The answer is simple: then they would have turned their pagan religion into a christian heresy. In this text I will put certain pagan views opposed to Christian views. Important to notice is that my Christian sources will mostly be those of the first centuries as they knew and experience paganism firsthand. Many of them were converts who had seen the truth when they had been raised in the old ways. They were often the first generation to see how the old ways and this new religion were actually the same, the latter being the fulfillment and the arrival of knowledge mankind had sought for millennia. Logos versus myth One of the central pillars on which classical paganism rests is the mythology. The pagan mythology however is static. What happened has happened and the history of their gods is in the past. Unlike in the past they do not reveal themselves anymore to mankind. Which might be a good thing as in the past their interventions in human life has been often times malign. Furthermore, this mythology makes a clear distinction between the gods and mankind. The gods hold knowledge forbidden to man and will punish any severely who dares to share it. We need only to hold up the suffering of Prometheus as he dared bring fire to mankind. Also interesting in paganism is the rise and fall of cults of many kind. Some of them quite innocent, some of them quite devastating for society. Mystery cults undermined the stability of the mythology. As mentioned, pagan mythology was static and the introduction of new elements were a large problem. New gods or half gods or religious views, such as the arrival of Dionysus into Greek paganism, were a traumatic experience for pagan religion as the passed down mythological tradition had to be adapted, sometimes severely. Compare this to Christianity where not the myth, but the Logos is one of the central pillars. The Logos as eternal World and eternal creative Reason. Contrary to pagan myth, or gnostic heresy, is the fact that every person as a rational being has its share of the Logos. This share can perceive glimmers of the truth that the Divine Will radiates. This radiation of Divine Will and truth is however not limited to the Hebrews of the ancient times. Contrary to pagan myth once again, perceiving, however fragmented, the Divine Will is not limited to one ethnicity. We find not only the truth in Hebrew history and law but we may also search for it with success in Greek philosophy. In the Second Apology of Saint Justin Martyr we see that Catholicism not only means that the truth is to be spread to all peoples, but that all peoples have already caught glimmers of this truth. He states it as whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians . Some might think that is a greedy view of Christianity claiming other views. However, this phrasing does not hide a motive for intellectual theft, but reveals the catholic nature of the truth. Universal in preaching and universal in recovering. For many glimmers of the truth were spread across the Earth and catholic Christianity seeks to recover them all so that man may know the truth. Greeks and Hebrew for example do not see their old views die with the advent of Christianity, but see them grow to absolute fulfillment. Coming back to the static mythology of paganism we see that they do not hold a vibrant and living metaphysical view of the world. Despite their claims on a path to knowledge and truth, they rejected the Logos and clung to myth. The contradiction in this is most visible in the ancient Greek view on the

world and the place of man. They recognized that mythology was void of consistency with the rational truth they had derived from philosophy. Interestingly enough, in Greece it was the philosophy, and not the pagan mythology, which had caught glimmers of the truth. This in contrast to Germanic mythology which held more glimmers of truth, but then again lacked the philosophy. In Greek culture we find that it are not the oracles or priests who bear witness to these grains of truth but that it are the philosophers and first scientists (Plato, Aristoteles, etc). Their rational endeavors, oftentimes clashing with the pagan religious view, stumbled upon the truth of one God who had put all in motion and was not put in motion by any other person or thing. It should also be noted that contrary to the pagan religious fads whereby cults would pop in and out of existence, Christianity holds a truth of being against changeable customs and religious fashion. Tertullian summarized this difference very well: Dominus noster Christus veritatem se, non consuetudinem, cognominavit (Christ has said that he is truth, not fasion). Salvation versus subjection Another important difference, which also shows how Christianity is the fulfillment of pagan belief, is the mysticism of meeting that which holds reign over the material world. In pagan religion the only semi-direct contact with their idols was through an oracle or a shaman. Priests could execute rituals of many kind, but always did that as a slave to their master. Never would they be able to gain insight of the divine structure. And, unless the product of divine and mortal sexual intercourse, they would never be able to imitate the divine in an acceptable way, let alone gain unity of any sorts. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a Syrian, was more than an apologetic Christian. He was a Christian, a Church Father, who took one of the first steps in the revealing of the Christian mysticism. Within his person, and the teachings he bravely gifted to all on his path before his martyrdom at Rome, two pathways within Christian teaching met and joined. That of John the Evangelist whose passage in the Gospel on the vine (Jesus), sought life in Christ. This pathway meets with that of Paul whose bitter feud with Christianity turned as he lay down, smitten down by God, into an energetic and emotionally quest for imitation of Christ. Saint Ignatius sets out in his Epistle to the Romans that his martyrdom should not in any way be prevented. The two pathways meet in this Epistle as he says that it is difficult for me to attain to God, if you spare me and asks Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of my God.. The unity with God that he sought through this martyrdom also reflects his views on God and His Church. God, as Saint Ignatius would point out on many occasions, is One in absolute unity. Thus, he correctly concluded, His Church should also be a perfect unity. Saint Ignatius preaches this in eloquent images of musical instruments and song. As the string and the harp form a symphony when played in concert, so must the Church be harmonious in His worship. In his Epistel to the Ephesians he summons the image of man by man, you become a choir [] taking up the song of God in unison, you may with one voice sing to the Father. The unity he seeks is one of the Christians with their bishops who should bear the heavy burden of maintaining harmony and concert. But when praise is given to Him, that bishop is one among many believers. In the view of Saint Ignatius we find again two pathways merging. On the one hand, the need for hierarchical structure of Church community. On the other hand, we find the fundamental unity and equality of all believers before God. All might share in learning from the Logos without a complicated set of rituals benefitting only a few that forms the core of the heretical gnosticism.

This unity and imitation that so passionately fulfilled Saint Ignatius with the faith needed to undergo, even embrace, his death by the mauling of many wild beasts in the arena, is one the main difference with pagan religion in his day. Whereas man could only rise to semi-divinity through birth, and still had to go through several trials (we see once again the pagan roots of Gnosticism appear), Christianity not only revealed the extent of Divine Mystery, but also gave us the way to experience and know it and through doing that, knowing of Him. It is not surprise then that Saint Ignatius, Doctor of Unity, was also the first to attribute to His church the term catholic, universal. He invites us to enter into the process of welding together the configuration to Christ through life in Him and the dedication to the Church of Christ through unity with the bishop and unity of the bishop with the faith. We see how that contradicts the clear pagan separation between their divine, static and closed world and the vibrant, living and open Divine Mystery that Christianity has opened for us to partake in and to eventually know and experience. For classical pagans this did not mean a separation between them and their ancestors, it meant the fulfillment of that what their ancestors had treasured dearly, but had found incomplete and lacking of ennoblement.