Paganism is the term that describes various spiritual practices and religious acts, which are not connected to Christianity. Pre-Christian Europe with Paganism, Judaism, and Islam still spread nowadays; and lots of people want to join these beliefs again. Pagans had their own ides as for significance of their lives and the things, which happened to people after their deaths. In this paper, we are going analyze the points of view of the pagans of the second century AD.
In fact, the word “pagan” meant any aspect “of the world focusing on connection with the land, tradition, and the old spiritual ways.” (DiZerega 2005, 5)[1] This is why Paganism started its development and referred to any person, who was not interested in Christianity; if a person did not want to follow Christianity and all its rules, it was possible to become a pagan and dictate own rules and preferences.
What the peculiarities of their ideas are, why they chose such styles of life, and what made them prefer certain ideology and prove it during a long period of time – all this will be examined within this essay, and reliable sources will be used to prove or disprove the facts concerning the history of the pagans of the 2nd century AD and their preferences in religion.
It is known that “Christians spread and increased: no other cult in the Empire grew at anything like the same speed, and even as a minority, the Christians’ success raises serious questions about the blind spots in pagan cult and society.” (Fox, 272) So, Christians and pagans were always in certain conflict, this is why their relations turn out to be rather interesting issues to consider.
Pagans wanted to develop more and more on the spiritual level and comprehend the responsibility of their own lives. In order to be really knowledgeable in all spheres of this life, pagans tried to practice different skills like meditation or change of energy among the people of one group. The point is that pagans wanted to make their lives better, and truly believed that their extraordinary skills could help to heal other people or have a kind of insight look at the problems of people and help them solve any of the problems.
Pagans also did not want to believe in such things like original sin, atonement of vicarious sins, and even bodily resurrections. Due to such simple lack of faith, pagans’ attitude to religion, their evaluation of life itself and the life after death were quite different from those, which were inherent to the Christians of those times.
Of course, “Jews, Christians, and pagans all looked towards both angels and daimons as integral parts of their lives.” (Janowits 2001, 27)[2] However, it is necessary to admit that pagans did believe in Evil of this Earth, however, all that Evil was caused by the choices of people, and Devil or Lucifer did not participate in this Evil. (Higginbotham 2002, 102)
Selfish nature of people started to control their decisions and their desires, this is why Satan was considered to be people’s inhumanity to each other and even their inability to control their actions.
Greeks and Romans also truly believed in Gods, and their attitude to anger of God always impressed lots of readers, even one more rain and thunder was caused by God’s wish. (Harding, 175) In pagan religion, such blind belief in Gods can be also traced. Pagans were all any race, gender, age, and class. Their mixed stereotypes did not allow to create one certain group and to call all these people Pagans.
The significance of Pagans’ lives was interesting not because of the desire to dominate over the world. They regarded themselves as caretakers, those people, who really respect the Earth and were eager to care about it day by day. (Eilers 2002, 91) So, the vast majority of pagans of the second century AD viewed the significance of their lives as an opportunity to take care about the earth, they lived on, and provide their generation to continue their affairs and create a great world.
Such careful attitude to their Earth may be explained with the help of one simple fact – pagans really believed in the life after death. Re-incarnation was one of the most important things, inherent to all pagans, and the pagans of the second century AD in particular. However, there was no certain belief as for Afterlife, because each pagan had his/her own imagination as for the life after death.
A man is dying and, as he reaches the point of greatest physical distress, he hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor. He begins to hear an uncomfortable noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time feels himself moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel. (Ma’sumian 2002, ix)
The major point is that pagans really believed that their souls had abilities to turn back to this Earth and continue living, but in some other form of life. (Gardell 2003, 161) This reincarnation is caused because people should return again and again in order to learn and comprehend this life. People could choose a path according to which they could check their knowledge and improve it.
Those people, who have certain knowledge and do not have time to share them with the other, should get an opportunity to reborn and find another way to represent significant information. This is why pagans from the second century AD believed that they could reborn after death, and their reincarnation was dependent on their actions in this life. Second Birth was seriously celebrated by the old Pagan world. (Carpenter 2007, 106)
Without any doubts, pagans played a very important role in the history of our world. Nowadays, it is known that more than 6% of the whole religious population is pagans. (York 2009, 8)
This is why the ideas of pagan religion still captivate lots of people. It is crucially important to comprehend that pagans are not one separate group of people with their own rules and principles. Pagans do not have race or gender inequalities, people, who chose this belief may be of any age and class. This is why pagan religion will be always interesting to people. They do not believe in God, Heaven, or Hell.
However, their respect to nature is worthy of attention and recognition. They do believe that people can reborn, and that death is only the beginning of something more significant in this world. Pagans cannot live with Christian people, because their beliefs are too different and even controversial. The conflict of these two religions provides people with an opportunity to evaluate their pros and cons and to make the right choice in order to live and believe, taking into consideration personal preferences, interests, and desires.
Bibliography
Carpenter, Edward. Pagan and Christian Creeds. BiblioBazaar, 2007.
DiZerega, Gus. Pagans & Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience. Llewellyn Worldwide, 2001.
Eilers, Dana, D. the Practical Pagan: Common Sense Guidelines for Modern Practitioners. Career Press, 2002.
Fox, Robin, L. Pagans and Christians. San Francisco: Harper and Raw.
Gardell, Mattias. Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Duke University Press, 2003
Harding, Mark. Early Christian Life and Thought in Social Context. New York: T & T Clark International.
Higginbotham, River. Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions. Llewellyn Worldwide, 2002.
Janowitz, Naomi. Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Routlegde, 2001.
Ma’sumian, Farnaz. Life after Death: A Study of the Afterlife in World Religions. Kalimat Press, 2002.
York, Michael. Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion. NYU Press, 2005.
Footnotes
- DiZerega, Gus.2001. Pagans & Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience. Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 5 The author emphasizes on the five major characteristics of all pagans.
- Janowitz, Naomi. Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Routlegde, 2001.