Religious Syncretism: The Ideal Policy.

One of the things that I admire most about The Macedonian and Roman Empires is their policy of religious syncretism.

(Brief History Lesson: Skip If needed)

Alexander, in his westward conquest, sought to unify his empire by re-identifying gods. Zues, became the same as the Egyptian god Amun. Often gos were then re-named (Zues-Ammon). This concept was extended to the Greek, Persian, and Egyptian gods.

The Romans continued this practice with their much larger and religiously diverse empire. Of course, since the Romans themselves expanded on the Greek system, they had the added benefit of having many synthesized gods (that matched up with their own) already in place.

Before conquering a city, the Romans would often engage in the practice of evocatio. Basically, a Roman priest would go to a city, call out to its patron god, saying in essence "(God's name). These people here do not worship you well. Come instead to Rome. We will build you a grand temple, and show you the true meaning of worship"

Thus, the local people often would believe that their god had abandoned them for Rome and often fought demoralized and "alone." The Romans then would go back to Rome and build a temple for the new god, or identify it with a co-existing one.

This practice led to 100s of cults in Roman society.

(Sorry...but its OK...its over now)

My questions would be....what ever happened to this practice? Is it a good idea to start pursuing this religious policy again, identifying gods and policies with one another? There is still evidences of syncretism in modern culture. SO you think this helps or hurts religion? Society?

Originally posted by Alliance
One of the things that I admire most about The Macedonian and Roman Empires is their policy of religious syncretism.

(Brief History Lesson: Skip If needed)

Alexander, in his westward conquest, sought to unify his empire by re-identifying gods. Zues, became the same as the Egyptian god Amun. Often gos were then re-named (Zues-Ammon). This concept was extended to the Greek, Persian, and Egyptian gods.

The Romans continued this practice with their much larger and religiously diverse empire. Of course, since the Romans themselves expanded on the Greek system, they had the added benefit of having many synthesized gods (that matched up with their own) already in place.

Before conquering a city, the Romans would often engage in the practice of evocatio. Basically, a Roman priest would go to a city, call out to its patron god, saying in essence "(God's name). These people here do not worship you well. Come instead to Rome. We will build you a grand temple, and show you the true meaning of worship"

Thus, the local people often would believe that their god had abandoned them for Rome and often fought demoralized and "alone." The Romans then would go back to Rome and build a temple for the new god, or identify it with a co-existing one.

This practice led to 100s of cults in Roman society.

(Sorry...but its OK...its over now)

My questions would be....what ever happened to this practice? Is it a good idea to start pursuing this religious policy again, identifying gods and policies with one another? There is still evidences of syncretism in modern culture. SO you think this helps or hurts religion? Society?

It would, in the end, hurt it since Religious fanatics would increasingly get more violent and ignorant. Unlike the Romans, we can't disprove different Gods' devotion to their respective peoples.

Thats wasn't really the point...it was more as if we should make all gods one god.

Originally posted by Alliance
Thats wasn't really the point...it was more as if we should make all gods one god.

And that's what I'm talking about. It's a good idea, but will never work.

Originally posted by Alliance
One of the things that I admire most about The Macedonian and Roman Empires is their policy of religious syncretism.

(Brief History Lesson: Skip If needed)

Alexander, in his westward conquest, sought to unify his empire by re-identifying gods. Zues, became the same as the Egyptian god Amun. Often gos were then re-named (Zues-Ammon). This concept was extended to the Greek, Persian, and Egyptian gods.

The Romans continued this practice with their much larger and religiously diverse empire. Of course, since the Romans themselves expanded on the Greek system, they had the added benefit of having many synthesized gods (that matched up with their own) already in place.

Before conquering a city, the Romans would often engage in the practice of evocatio. Basically, a Roman priest would go to a city, call out to its patron god, saying in essence "(God's name). These people here do not worship you well. Come instead to Rome. We will build you a grand temple, and show you the true meaning of worship"

Thus, the local people often would believe that their god had abandoned them for Rome and often fought demoralized and "alone." The Romans then would go back to Rome and build a temple for the new god, or identify it with a co-existing one.

This practice led to 100s of cults in Roman society.

(Sorry...but its OK...its over now)

My questions would be....what ever happened to this practice? Is it a good idea to start pursuing this religious policy again, identifying gods and policies with one another? There is still evidences of syncretism in modern culture. SO you think this helps or hurts religion? Society?

Wasn't the Catholic method similar? They went in and said, "We have been worshipping as you do, only in the correct fashion, here is the correct fashion."

But then I was too lazy to look up "religious syncretism", I do believe it is synchronizing their beliefs with the novel culture's.

Thats not really the policy i was referring to. It might be similar, but in the Greco-Roman way...god were not replaced, they were joined.

It was more like..."What we call Zues, you call Amun. Let both worship Zues-Ammon"

There was no...we do it correctly.

The evocatio comment wasn't meant as derroagory, the romans thought they could show the god more respect and devotion than the to-be-conquered city could.

Ahh, I think that would be near impossible today, religions have evolved into very different beasts.

Originally posted by Alliance
One of the things that I admire most about The Macedonian and Roman Empires is their policy of religious syncretism.

Why thank you. We had a grip on religions long before Abrahamic religions came and imposed it on us. 😛

No, but seriously, the paganism of our territories (Macedonian and Greek for me, but also Easern Roman), was all based on the same system of God's, but differed in practice.

I don't believe this kind of religious system would work today.

An interesting fact is that idea of One God, was actually introduced in Ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh who only implemented worshiping of one god ordered destruction of all others.
Perhaps thats where Moses got his inspiration from.

Anyway, I think it should technically be helpful regarding religions, if everyone is thought to be ''right''. I personally believe that religions which emphasise God too much, go about doing crazy things.

Polytheism is however, far more attractive than Monotheism.

In some ways I agree...in some I dont. The three major monothesims could integrate fairly effectively, if they stopped arguing over who was a prophet and who was not.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Toaism, and Confucanism are different peasts though. While more philosophical....there are perhaps some irreconcilable philosophies.

The whole Akenaten think in Egypt was screwy, and mainly just a political ploy to take power away from the priests (who were quickly gaining power, influencem and wealth). If you are already god on Earth, why not simply proclaim that you are the ONLY way to acess the ONE god. 😛

It also explains why Tut was so popular, he gave a lot of very wealthy people back ther power. ✅

But I agree that syncretism wouldn't work today...unfortunately.