Quote from: Rincewind1;500354The tolerance of polytheistic religions is best described by the catholic missionaries slaughtered by pagans - saint Wojciech for example, if anything. Romans were tolerant of religions as long as they weren't trying to spread dissent in the Empire - that's why druids were purged in Britain (that, and human sacrifice).

As for Christianity's appeal in Rome - Pundit somewhat got it right. It was a religion beloved by slaves, as it abolished slavery. It's not rocket science. That's why it spread mostly in the "novau riche" (sp?) parts of Roman social structure.

If I remember correctly, Constantine the Great shifted to Christianity mostly because of a supposed "sign from God" during the battle of Milvian Bridge, in form of a comet, and he still only did that on a deathbed.

Is there any source for the human sacrifice thing other than Ceasar's description of it?

It's not directly linked to the druids, but there is definitely archeological evidence of human sacrifice in Britain prior to the arrival of the Romans. The bog men are probably the most famous examples.

Quote from: Cranewings;500408Is there any source for the human sacrifice thing other than Ceasar's description of it?

My understanding is there is some archaelogical evidence and accounts other than caesar's (though I don't know how many are merely repeating caesar's claims later and how many are additional eye witness accounts).

Quite a few, including Caesar's contemporary, Cicero. Plino the Elder is synonymous with "I am pulling this out of my ass" when it comes to medicine of the Ancients, but he was a decent enough historian. Best that Pundit speak up on that topic. Though supposedly mainland Celts shared such practices with their British brethren, and druidism was mostly exterminated because druids actively stirred the population for rebellion.

It was not until 54 AD that druidism was banned and exterminated actively - many years into the Empire.

Quote from: Ancientgamer1970;500401Why are those advantages???

Surgically removing part of the penis.  On adult men.  Without anesthetic.  You tell me how it's not an advantage.

Quote from: Rincewind1;5004041) Harder to identify the members of the religion, therefore making persecution harder.
2) There's no ban on any particular kind of food etc. etc, which makes following the principles of the religion simpler.
3) I really think that if you had a choice between circumcision and not, the choice is rather not that hard. I, for one, like my turtleneck.

HA HA HA HA, as a practicing Jew, you are just too funny....LOL

Proof positive that 3 year old threads are more useful.

Quote from: Ancientgamer1970;500433HA HA HA HA, as a practicing Jew, you are just too funny....LOL

Keep on digging that hole for yourself.

Quote from: Ancientgamer1970;500433HA HA HA HA, as a practicing Jew, you are just too funny....LOL

What are you laughing about? All of Rincewind's points are valid.

1) The presence or non-presence of circumcision has been used to identify and persecute Jewish people in the past. It was done in the ancient world, and it's been done in the past century. In terms of gaining converts and spreading the religion during periods of persecution, it is definitely an advantage to forgo circumcision.

2) The requirement to eat certain foods can pose large problems for some of the very same reasons. It's more difficult to integrate with the dominant culture (or hide among it, if need be) if you cannot eat the same foods as people in the dominant culture.

3) When it comes to attracting adult converts, the requirement for circumcision is unquestionably a barrier for entry, and this has historically been the dividing line between a truly dedicated convert and someone who is simply a sympathizer.

Either keep to the original topic or say goodbye.

Quote from: Settembrini;500361As to my earlier remark, I just checked it and C.'s army at the Milvian bridge consisted mostly of Britons and other Barbarians. If anybody knows how farspread christianity was among Barbarians at that time, I would be interested to find out.

Not widespread at all.
 
The following is taken from the "original" Catholic Encyclopedia. The other two (or more?) Catholic Encyclopedias available online suffer from undocumented updates, additions, and deletions to the text.
 
Original Catholic Encyclopedia
In all directions new and vigorous national forces began to show themselves. Only two policies were possible: either to give way to the various national movements, or to take a firm stand on the foundation of antiquity, to revive old Roman principles, the ancient military severity, and the patriotism of Old Rome. Several emperors had tried to follow this latter course, but in vain. It was just as impossible to bring men back to the old simplicity as to make them return to the old pagan beliefs and to the national form of worship. Consequently, the empire had to identify itself with the progressive movement, employ as far as possible the existing resources of national life, exercise tolerance, make concessions to the new religious tendencies, and receive the Germanic tribes into the empire. This conviction constantly spread, especially as Constantine's father had obtained good results there from. In Gaul, Britain, and Spain, where Constantius Chlorus ruled, peace and contentment prevailed, and the prosperity of the provinces visibly increased, while in the East prosperity was undermined by the existing confusion and instability. But it was especially in the western part of the empire that the veneration of Mithras predominated. Would it not be possible to gather all the different nationalities around his altars? Could not Sol Deus Invictus, to whom even Constantine dedicated his coins for a long time, or Sol Mithras Deus Invictus, venerated by Diocletian and Galerius, become the supreme god of the empire? Constantine may have pondered over this. Nor had he absolutely rejected the thought even after a miraculous event had strongly influenced him in favor of the God of the Christians.
In deciding for Christianity he was no doubt also influenced by reasons of conscience—reasons resulting from the impression made on every unprejudiced person both by the Christians and by the moral force of Christianity, and from the practical knowledge which the emperors had of the Christian military officers and state officials. These reasons are, however, not mentioned in history, which gives the chief prominence to a miraculous event. Before Constantine advanced against his rival Maxentius, according to ancient custom he summoned the haruspices, who prophesied disaster; so reports a pagan panegyrist. But when the gods would not aid him, continues this writer, one particular god urged him on, for Constantine had close relations with the divinity itself. Under what form this connection with the deity manifested itself is told by Lactantius (De mort. persec., ch. xliv) and Eusebius (Vita Const., I, xxvi-xxxi). He saw, according to the one in a dream, according to the other in a vision, a heavenly manifestation, a brilliant light in which he believed he descried the cross or the monogram of Christ. Strengthened by this apparition, he advanced courageously to battle, defeated his rival, and won the supreme power. It was the result that gave to this vision its full importance, for when the emperor afterwards reflected on the event it was clear to him that the cross bore the inscription: HOC VINCES (in this sign wilt thou conquer). A monogram combining the first letters, X and P, of the name of Christ (XPIMTOE), a form that cannot be proved to have been used by Christians before, was made one of the tokens of the standard and placed upon the Labarum (q.v.). In addition, this ensign was placed in the hand of a statue of the emperor at Rome, the pedestal of which bore the inscription: "By the aid of this salutary token of strength I have freed my city from the yoke of tyranny and restored to the Roman Senate and People the ancient splendor and glory." ...

I, for one, am going to take a stab at a four year old question that wasn't touched in the Alt History catagory, the presence or lack of Islam in a world where christianity never existed.

Now, without a doubt Mohammed would have lived. From a purely secular view of the world (that is, no Allah driving him, no God protecting Jesus...) in line with the original thread, he would still have been a moralizing guy experiencing some visions.   Would he have gone straight monothesist out the box?

That's really a sharp question, as many of his earlier influences were strongly bastardized monothesist philosophies that could be called bastardized christianity.   I think he would have continued on a similar path he did, however, even lacking the monothesistic influences in Mecca. I'll address this in a bit.

The key point is that Mohammed was in a political conflict with the ruling tribe of Mecca (which was a religious pilgrimage site even before Islam) and was driven out of Mecca with his followers for that reason, not for his beliefs.

In the secular world view, Mohammed would still have been a political agitator with followers and would still be driven from Mecca by The Man, and simple geography would put him in Medina as a result.

In Medina at the time was a large and old Jewish community. We can argue, as some historians do, about the authenticity of the Medinan Jews, but they can and would exist without christianity, and Mohammed would have met them, learned from them, and allied with them and ultimately betrayed them as he did.

Thus I think it safe to say that Islam would have existed, and probably in a form not too dissimilar in the gross details, as it does today in this alternate history.  Lacking those early monotheist teachers in Mecca there would probably be some changes in the underlying mythology of Islam, maybe less emphasis on a single all knowing God, maybe not.  But ultimately, whatever drove Mohammed in his teachings and the ultimate form of Islam owes far less to christianity than to mohammed himself.


Thus, how a lack of christianity influences the rise and spread of Islam is far more relevant than a question about wether or not Islam would exist.

And that is about as far as I care to dive into creating Alt History. I love reading it, but I prefer to leave the work to experts.

Malleus,

that is fine and dandy, but I am not sure the question as to wht the Barbarian Legionaries believed mostly at the time is adressed in the excerpt you posted. In fact, barbarian officers being christians is mentioned, right?

So it is not incoceivable that among Constantine seeing the light, maybe the barbarian Legionaries were in favor of Christendom, or at least a sizable element.
So, where the Legions go, the Empire goes? In more general terms, there are many arguments supporting that hypothesis. I utterly just do not know if it could work for religion, too. So if anybody has some more insight, I gladly appreciate.

That would narrow down the underlying question of what is driving change in history to what happened with the Legions ethnically, socially and spiritually. It seems to me, a more attainable question than the general idea of the Empire being "ripe for (new) religion".

The ethnical and social changes in the roman military are way easier explainable by material and positive arguments than say, the whole of the society.

Quote from: two_fishes;5004423) When it comes to attracting adult converts, the requirement for circumcision is unquestionably a barrier for entry, and this has historically been the dividing line between a truly dedicated convert and someone who is simply a sympathizer.

This was in fact one of the first major conflicts of the early christian movement: James (Jesus' brother and leader of the community after him) and ALL of the other disciples agreed that gentiles could become followers of Christ but had to be circumcised, on the one hand.  Paul, a guy who had never actually met Jesus and had no authority in the early church and had in fact been actively persecuting Christians until a recent bout of sunstroke, was of the opinion that you did not need to be circumcised.

The argument was so intense that apparently the disciples wanted to kill Paul and he had to go into hiding.   Eventually he managed to get one guy over to his side, Peter, who was not in any way the leader of the church in Jerusalem (again, that would be James, Jesus' brother). What he did to convince Peter is up for debate, I personally think he played into the idea of a "universal religion" that transcended jewish mysticism on the one hand, and took advantage of maybe some jealousy or lust for authority on Peter's behalf on the other; Peter might have felt flattered by just how much Paul would actually NEED him, as Paul would be desperate for a real disciple to give his sect a sense of legitimacy.

Anyways, the rest is history; Christianity went from an obscure Jewish sect that very few were willing to join, into a huge and massively growing movement in only a couple of decades, because Paul said "you don't have to stop eating pork and you don't have to get your foreskins cut off, you just need to believe in Jeebus!".

RPGPundit

The Germans, including the significant numbers of barbarian troops in the legions by then, were very strongly Arian Christian.  At the time of Constantine, Arian Christianity was BY FAR the largest branch of Christianity, specifically because it had found great success spreading throughout the german territories.  Pauline/Proto-catholic christianity, on the other hand, was largely a small affair by comparison, popular among the successful elements of the plebeian class, while Mithraism/Sol Invictus was extremely popular among the proper Roman element of the Legions, particularly the officer classes.

RPGpundit