Doctrines of Antiquity for Abrahamic religions to vanquish
Pythagoreans (of Samos) c. 570 BCE – c. 495 BCE), Neopythagoreanism was a revival in the 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD period of various ideas traditionally associated with the followers of Pythagoras, the Pythagoreans. Notable Neopythagoreans include Nigidius Figulus, Apollonius of Tyana and Moderatus of Gades. Middle and Neo-Platonists such as Numenius and Plotinus also showed some Neopythagorean influence. They emphasized the distinction between the soul and the body. God must be worshipped spiritually by prayer and the will to be good. The soul must be freed from its material surroundings by an ascetic habit of life. Bodily pleasures and all sensuous impulses must be abandoned as detrimental to the spiritual purity of the soul. God is the principle of good; Matter the groundwork of Evil. The non-material universe was regarded as the sphere of mind or spirit. [more: Wikipedia Pythagoreanism]
Neoplatonism, is Platonic in seeing the material world as a secondary "phenomenon", that one should go beyond to understand the real world: the world of ideas. Going beyond you may attain knowledge and wisdom surpassing the fluent, visible and tangible material things that we observe living our lives. On this intellectual road one first discovers the "world-soul", which handsomely might, in a first approach, be thought to provide the virtual moulds (models) for the different things that move around in the material world. These virtual models better show us the nature of material things they produce, because the latter are never perfect, wear out, etc. while the virtual mould shows us how they really are meant to be (to get a picture, they can be compared with the file library for 3-D printers: if a hard copy is defective you print another one - from the same file). This world-soul emanates from the "One", which is the homogenous infinite source of all. The One produces a prior mould for the world-soul moulds called nous or demiurge. Hence One ⇒ nous/demiurge ⇒ world-soul ⇒ world of phenomenal observable matter. Gods are no actors in this process but in some stage the emanate, are coming into existence. This is the standard view in most variations of classical thought. Nevertheless christians with some intellectual inclinations eagerly embraced one of the many popularized version of neoplatonism, apparently because they found it easy to identify the One, neoplatonism's rigorously unique source of being, with the Christian unique god. [more: Wikipedia Neoplatonism]
Original Germanic religions, sources
concerning this are highly inconsistent. Many gods were primarily associated
with natural phenomena like sun, moon and lightning. Like in the classical
world, they held specific "portfolios" like fertility, victory in war, etc.
and in contact with the classical world got syncretized (i.e. they assumed
aspects of the associated god in the neighbouring culture). By the fourth
century missionary Ulfilas, himself a half-Goth from Constantinople traveled
North, designed the Gothic alphabet to translate the bible in Gothic and
initiated a swift conversion of most of the Germanic world to Arianism (were
Christ is a human). This is what came to influence the Late Antique Roman
world through the German mercenaries of the Roman legions. Military leaders
were eager to integrate German religious notions in the armies as a unifying
and motivating force. Quite some military leaders were Germanic themselves.
The German enemy once it broke the empire's border defense and settled,
often as an elite, prompted their Roman tax payers to adapt their discourse
to absorb Germanic religious elements.
What for long was called the
conversion of Germans to Christianity (associated with Bonifacius,
Willibrord) was the mere transition from Arianism to Chalcedonic version of
Christianity (trinitarianism). The bible was available there and respected
for more than a century. That transition to the trinitarian variant
concluded with the Visigoths (then a ruling elite) instigated by their own
leadership, in 589. The Germanic tribes passively underwent the schism of
1054 between the East and West Roman churches, but then, judging the
overhead of popery to costly, again separately went into the reformation to
protestantism (pope = devil) in the early 16th century. This was most
pronounced in the towns and left quite some catholic pockets, mainly in
rural areas. [more: Wikipedia
Germanic paganism]
Zoroastrianism: originally Persian dualistic cosmology Ahura Mazda (creator, good, gender: male) and Angra Mainyu (destructive, gender: female). AM transcendental, represented on Earth by Yazatas (to be worshipped) like Amesha Spentas. Good will win from bad at the end of time, the dead will return to life. Some proselytize, some do not. Mithra (Avestan: Miθra, Old Persian: Miça) is the Zoroastrian angelic divinity (yazata) of covenant and oath. In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-seeing protector of Truth, and the guardian of cattle, the harvest and of The Waters.[more Wikipedia Zoroastrianism]
Mazdakists (Mazdak) non-establishment "egalitarian" dualistic cosmology-Zoroastroid heretics in Persia, may have influenced Shia. [more: Wikipedia Mazdak]
Manichaeans (Mani 216-76) dualistic Zoroastroid cosmology [more: Wikipedia Manichaeism]
Thrice Great Hermes Already mentioned by Plutarch 1st CE. The three parts of the wisdom are alchemy, astrology, and theurgy. Hermes Trismegistus was damned good in them all. Claim the oneness and goodness of God, urge purification of the soul, and defend pagan religious practices such as the veneration of images. Their predominant literary form is the dialogue: Hermes Trismegistus instructs a perplexed disciple upon various teachings of the hidden wisdom. WLA53 pupils experience "rebirth". [more: Wikipedia Hermes Trismegistus]
Chaldaean Oracles (ref since 2nd CE) inspiration for contemporary hermetic teachings: fiery emanations initiate from the transcendental First Paternal Intellect, from whom the Second Intellect, the Demiurge comprehends the cosmos as well as himself. Within the First Intellect, a female Power, designated Hecate, is, like Sophia, the mediating World-Soul. At the base of all lies created Matter, made by the Demiurgic Intellect. The matter farthest from the Highest God (First Father/ Intellect) was considered a dense shell from which the enlightened soul must emerge, shedding its bodily garments. A combination of ascetic conduct and correct ritual are recommended to free the soul from the confines of matter and limitations, and to defend it against the demonic powers lurking in some of the realms between Gods and mortals. Probably the "Chaldaeans" positively referred to by later church fathers. [more: Wikipedia Chaldean Oracles]
Gnosis, (looks stealth Christian), WLA53 "spiritual man" [of gn.] "felt a glass wall stood between his new life and his past: his new behaviour owed everything to God and nothing to society" Valentinus (100-160) "children of the understanding of the heart": Jezus did not defecate. [more: Wikipedia Gnosis]
Mithra in Roman Empire. Sect with 7 grades of initiation, prominent in Rome, Though the name is identical to that of a Zoroastrian yamata (lesser god), it is markedly different from, if not alien to Persian Zoroastrianism. Featuring Classical Gods, but also Sun and Moon (from Germanic religion?). Mithras-cult not shy of identifying Aurelian Sol Invictus with Mithras, neither of adopting Christian features. Christians retaliated in kind. (WLA56 Mithras, members rose to heaven, armed for the trip against devils) [more: Wikipedia Mithraic mysteries]
Orphism The main elements of Orphism differed from popular ancient Greek religion in the following ways: By characterizing human souls as divine and immortal but doomed to live (for a period) in a "grievous circle" of successive bodily lives through metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls. By prescribing an ascetic way of life which, together with secret initiation rites, was supposed to guarantee not only eventual release from the "grievous circle" but also communion with god(s). By warning of postmortem punishment for certain transgressions committed during life. By being founded upon sacred writings about the origin of gods and human beings. [more: Wikipedia Orphism]
Helios, originally the Greek Titan God of the Sun, in 274 the Roman emperor Aurelian emancipated the cult. ('Sol Invictus", Unconquered Sun), and a patron of soldiers, often from Germanic tribes used to worship the sun. Emperor Julian the Apostate, succeeding some Christian emperors, turned this into the best competitor of Christianity in Late Antiquity. He had the funds to do some miracles and show the benefits of the Helios view on the universe and was well underway draining Christianity back out of the governing classes of the empire when he died, 31 years old without a successor of similar calibre. [more: Wikipedia Helios]
Druids (persecuted) were seen as essentially non-Roman: a prescript of Augustus forbade Roman citizens to practice "druidical" rites. Pliny reports that under Tiberius the druids were suppressed —along with diviners and physicians— by a decree of the Senate, and Claudius forbade their rites completely in AD 54. Druids were alleged to practice human sacrifice, a practice abhorrent to the Romans. Pliny the Elder (23 AD - 79 AD) wrote “It is beyond calculation how great is the debt owed to the Romans, who swept away the monstrous rites, in which to kill a man was the highest religious duty and for him to be eaten a passport to health.” [more: Wikipedia Druid]
Bacchanals (persecuted) In 186 BC, the Roman senate issued a decree that severely restricted the Bacchanals, ecstatic rites celebrated in honor of Dionysus. [more: Wikipedia Bacchanalia]