Religion

[alb0679]

What was the main religion in Britain before the Romans brought Christianity ? Also, pardon my ignorance, how come the Romans practised this faith when it was they who ordered the slaughter of the babies and also crucified Jesus ?

[Haggisdj]

A quick version is that the Romans worshipped their own Gods (and persecuted Christians) until an Emperor, think it was Constantine, adopted Christianity circa 400AD.

Until then the Romans had let the countries they conquered keep their religions and Gods but now the forced everyone to convert to Christianity. This was also the reason the Egyptians lost their Gods as well.

As for Britain I think it was Druids and people like that.

[Ethel]

Celtic Paganism and Druids.

http://www.druidry.org/obod/druid-path/beandru i.html

[Clanad]

Pedantically, it was not the Romans who ordered the slaughter of all male children under the age of two following the birth of Jesus, but rather Herod the Great, the Idumaean , who, through a series of manipulated events, was recognized by Rome as the King of Israel (actually, Judaea). Additionally, it was Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, who was responsible, along with the Sadducees and Pharisees, for the crucifixion of Jesus. The Romans did carry out the orders, but only at the behest of the Jewish authorities...

[jno]

I imagine that after the Romans came, the locals would still have carried on their owl religion, while the Romans would have worshipped their own gods. No doubt as society became more romanised, there would have been some convergence. Constantine was serving in York when he was proclaimed emperor in 306, and may have encountered Christianity there; he later made it the formal religion of the empire. But it may well have faded away after the Romans left and been introduced again in northern and southern England by missionaries like St Augustine.

[jno]

ahem... their OWN religion... worshipping owls was never that popular

[jake-the-peg]

I wouldn't put to much faith in the literal truth of the massacre of the innocents.

It only appears in one Gospel and no contemporary writer like Josephus refers to it.

I'd have thought that if it were literally true it might just be a large enough event to warrant a mention don't you think?

It's worth noting though that even if Herod didn't do it there's little doubt he would have done had he the mind to.

[Clanad]

There does exist periferal refernces to the event. One is late, (4th century) but obviously refers to a generally known event "... When Augustus heard that Herod king of the Jews had ordered all the boys in Syria under the age of two years to be put to death and that the king's son was among those killed, he said, "I'd rather be Herod's sow than Herod�s son." ― Macrobius, The Saturnalia, trans. Percival Davies (New York 1969), p. 171.

Additionally, Matthew's Gospel indicates the event was confined to Bethlehem and probably would have included relatively few male children, probably fewer than two dozen or so, if that many.
Two additional points about events reported in the Gospels and other ancient writings.... Matthew is fairly early. The Gospel was, apparently, originally written in Aramaic and was, unlike the other Synoptic Gospels meant specifically for those who would read and understand that language. Those who read the recitation would have recognized its reality or would have rejected, challenged and disputed it and we would have no references two thousand years later.
Secondly, many, if not most events recorded in all ancient documents, were witnessed by only a few people, sometimes only individuals. This didn't negate the reality of the event. As an example, while in Britain, Titus is said to have saved Vespasian's life... however the actual references to this seemingly important event are few and far between, with those in dispute... But Jake is correct in surmising Herod was certainly capable of the massacre...

[jake-the-peg]

I'd heard of that source but I don't think you can rely on a writer some 300 years later quoting "generally known source" - which could after all have been Mathew's gospell in the first place!

That's like me writing about the American War of independance.

Confined to Bethlehem or not I tend to think there'd have been evidence and accounts from the time.

[Lil O'lady]

It might interest folks that some kind of archaeological evidence exists for mass 'disposal' of neonatal infants in the Roman period. One is from Ashkelon in Israel : http://www.exn.ca/Stories/1997/01/17/03.asp

This might, or equally might not, mean that the slaughter of the innocents actually took place.

The Romans viewed Judaism and Christianity as one and the same - at the beginning of the first millenium it was fashionable to follow eastern mediterranean cults such as those of Osiris, Isis, serapis, Jesus, all the various Gnostic branches, and Judaeism, Mithras, and so on.

'The Romans' were polyglot and multicultural with two no-no's: pay your taxes and no human sacrifices, thank you. The latter was used to justify the wars against the Carthaginians; Christians and Jews drew themselves to the notice of local Roman authorities by refusing the annual homage to the emperor that marked you as a loyal ie tax-paying Roman.
Understandable I suppose as this involved making a token sacrifice (a pinch of incense) to the god-emperor.

I've gone on too long, time for me cocoa.