HISTORY OF

RELIGION
1ST Century BC – 20th Century AD
The Hebrews and Monotheism:
1000 BC
o The Hebrews were the first people to develop the idea of
one God (though a tentative step in that direction has
been made by the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten). The
perception is credited in biblical tradition to Abraham.

o At first the Hebrew God, Yahweh or Jehovah, remains

one god among many (though the only God deserving
worship). This halfway house towards monotheism is
described technically as monolatry. But by the time the
Hebrews got established in Jerusalem, from about 1000
BC, Yahweh was recognized as the only God. This is the
beginning of true monotheism - a faith leaving everyone
else with idolatry and delusion.
INDO-IRANIAN RELIGIONS:
1500 BC
o The Indo-Iranian tribes, who came down to the Iranian
plateau and moved to India between 1500 and 1000 BC,
share a polytheistic religion.

o These special gods are known as ahuras (meaning

'lords') in the Iranian region and as devas among the
Aryans in India. In Iran, under the influence of
Zoroaster, the focus will later fall on one ahura above all
others - effectively moving towards monotheism. In
India, by contrast, polytheism runs riot in the eventual
form of Hinduism. Unlike Hinduism, all the other great
religions have discarded pantheism - proclaiming either
one god or no god at all.
EGYPTIAN GODS AND PRIESTS:
3000 BC
o The pharaoh is the chief priest of the entire nation. In
each temple local priest stand in for him. Their task is to
tend the needs of the Gods. These are locked away in the
innermost reaches of the temple, inaccessible to ordinary
people.

o The two main tasks, for priests and gods alike, are to
guard against encroaching chaos (in particular to
ensure that the sun gets up each morning) and to help
the dead into the next world, which the Egyptians
confidently believe will be just as pleasant as this one
and remarkably similar.
o Appearance in tomb paintings has made some gods more
familiar than others: Anubis, the jackal-headed god, who
conducts the dead through their trials.

o The central divinity of Egyptian religion is the sun, and

the most important is Re the Sun God. He was believed
to sail his boat under the world each night every night
during his journey he has to defeat an evil spirit Apophis
before he can reappear. At Thebes, which becomes the
capital in about 2000 BC, another god Amen is of great
importance. In about 1500 BC Amen combines with Re,
to become Amen-Re and becomes the state god of Egypt.
Mute Monuments:
3000 BC BC
o Some pre-literate societies have left tantalizing traces of
their religion. Stonehenge in Southern England,
constructed from about 3000 BC (and therefore
contemporary with the start of Egyptian civilization), has
prompted endless speculation about its original purpose.

o Climbing up to a temple or altar, as also in the

ziggurats of Mesopotamia from about 2000 BC onwards,
is a recurrent theme of worship. Once there is a temple
of any kind, the gods move in - usually in the form of
idols. A temple is the house of the gods. The priests, their
servants, share their lodgings.
A RELIGIOUS HEYDAY:
5th-6th CENTURY BC
o 600 BC was the surge of religious innovation in different
parts of the world. The earliest example is in Persia,
where Zoroaster reforms the polytheistic Indo-Iranian
religion by introducing a single God Ahura Mazda,
Zoroastrianism becomes the official religion of the
Persian Empire.

o A century later, in neighbouring India, the reforms of

Vardhamana and of Siddartha Gautama lead in an
opposite direction. These teachers persuaded their
followers that each one of us, by our actions and
attitudes, is responsible for our own salvation - without
divine help.
o The same period was the era of Confucius who was
known in the west. His idea of a worthy life -
characterized by socially responsible behavior, with an
added religious dimension in the form of ancestor
worship - becomes the prevailing creed of China for the
next two and half millennia.

o A subversive reaction developed later in the form of

Daoism- a spiritual escape from the heavy
responsibilities of the Confucian ethic.
A Religion from East Asia:
1st CENTURY AD
o Buddhism was the first of the world religions to
expand from its place of origin. It is divided into
two sects: Mahayana and Theravada
Buddhism.

o Therevada Buddhism stresses the necessity of

personal cultivation for salvation. It was brought
by traders and missionaries to Southeast Asia
from India during the 1st Century AD.

o Mahayana Buddhism on the other hand, stresses

the accessibility of enlightenment to all
followers, and the need to work for the
alleviation of suffering. It emerged in the early
2nd Century AD and spread throughout China,
Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
o The cult of Isis spread from Alexandria throughout the
Hellenistic world after the 4th Century BC. Isis was an
Egyptian Goddess of motherhood and fertility and an
enchantress who was able to restore the life of her
husband. Osiris, who is also his brother, after being
sliced into fourteen pieces, scattered all over Egypt.
This cult died out in Rome after the institution of
Christianity.
o Mithraism was practiced in small groups, with ten to
twelve male participants wherein they meet in a small
underground crypt, with at one end, a sculpture of the
God, Mithras, sacrificing a bull whose dying body
sprang all plants and animals beneficial to humanity.

o The Roman deity, Mithras, appears in the historical

record in the late 1st Century AD, and disappeared
from it in the late 4th Century AD.
o Christianity was followed by Christians who
resemble the other mystery cults in having an
initiation ceremony (baptism) and a private
ritual (the Eucharist). The central figure of
Christianity is Jesus Christ who was born in
Jerusalem, in Judea.

o The chronology of Christian era is reckoned

from a 6th century dating the year of his birth.
Christianity and Mithraism share a few things in
common.
SOL INVICTUS:
274 AD
o This sun god features in art as a man with a halo of
light around his head, and his birthday, just after the
darkest day of winter solstice, declared to be on
December 25. Both details were later adopted by
another religion, favored by another emperor.
Mani and Plotinus:
3rd Century AD
o Two contemporaries born in the early 3rd century in
Persia and Egypt, constructed religious and
philosophical systems which considerable influence in
succeeding centuries.

o Mani, the Persian aristocrat who like the founders of

Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, is inspired to establish
a new religion.

o Plotinus, the Egyptian contemporary of Mani, was

educated in Alexandria. His influence derives from his
later years, after 244 AD, when he went to Rome to
teach Philosophy.
A New Imperial Religion:
4th CENTURY AD
o The most significant single event in the spread of any of
the world's great religions is the personal decision of one
man - the Roman emperor Constantine - to favor
Christianity.

o Christianity acquired through Constantine its historic

homelands. For the next three centuries the entire Roman
empire will be Christian. In the 7th century much of the
eastern empire was lost to a newer religion, Islam. But
Christianity compensated by conquering pagan territories
to the north of the Alps. It became the religion of Europe.
Through European colonialism it will spread, in later
empires, across much of the world.
 SHINTOISM:
FROM THE 4TH CENTURY AD
o The first inhabitants of Japan, migrating from the mainland,
bring with them their own version of the shamanism which
prevailed in prehistoric Asia. To the pantheon of the spirits and
forces of nature, the Japanese added famous people, significant
places or any other phenomena seeming worthy of reverence.
The result was a profusion of local deities or kami, the worship
of whom is given the name Shinto, meaning roughly the 'way
of the gods'.

o By the 4th century AD, when the Yamato clan has achieved an
imperial pre-eminence, their forebear has a similarly prominent
place among the gods. The Yamato claim as ancestor the Sun
empress, who shines above all others in the heavens.
Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism:
4th-13th Century
o Greek and the Roman Churches went their separate ways
quite early in Christian History. Yet, there was no total
schism between the churches. The bishop of Constantinople
was the same authority as the Bishop of Rome in their
churches. They had differences in both practice and doctrine
which gradually evolved within the two spheres of
influences. Their difference in practice concerns the
sacraments of ordination and of the Eucharist. In the
Orthodox Church, a married man can be ordained while
Roman Catholicism only the celibate can be ordained.

o A contentious area of doctrine whether the Holy Spirit

derives equally from the Father and the Son. The Western
Church believes, adding the word filoque to the Nicene
Creed in the 6th Century. The Greek Orthodox see this as a
distortion of the doctrine of the Trinity. Even so, at no point
does the dispute lead to a declared schism.
 ISLAM:
7TH Century
o With the rise of Islam, dating from the Hegira in622,
the world's third great monotheistic religion becomes
established. It follows in the tradition of Judaism and
Christianity. Muslims believe that Islam completes the
revelation from God to man which has been partially
begun in the Old and New Testaments.

o On this day in 622, the prophet Muhammad completed

his Hegira, or “flight,” from Mecca to Medina to
escape persecution. In Medina, Muhammad set about
building the followers of his religion–Islam–into an
organized community and Arabian power.
The Hegira would later mark the beginning (year 1) of
the Muslim calendar
ZOROASTRIANS AND PARSEES:
7TH Century
o Zoroastrianism remains of importance in the region. But
gradually the majority of Persians convert to the religion of the
new ruling caste, whether for reasons of conviction or
convenience. A minority of Zoroastrians seek greater liberty
elsewhere. They move to India, where they establish
themselves in Gujarat as the Parsees (the Persian word for
'Persians').

o Parsi, also spelled Parsee, member of a group of followers in

India of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra). The
Parsis, whose name means “Persians,” are descended from
Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious
persecution by Muslims.
INCA SUN RITUALS:
15th-16th CENTURY
o The Incas identify themselves with the sun. And like the
Japanese royal house, they even persuade their people that they
are the living descendants of the monarch of the heavens.

o The most sacred idol in the Inca pantheon is a great golden disc
representing the sun. It is known as Punchao, which means
daylight or dawn. One of the most important festivals in the
Inca year is the eight-day feast which celebrates the harvesting
of the maize crop. One of the last enactments of this Colorful
festival, so much more gentle than the contemporary Aztec sun
rituals.
AZTEC SUN RITUALS:
15th-16th CENTURY
o The Aztecs was a tribe, according to their own legends, from
Aztlan somewhere in the north of modern Mexico. From this
place, which they leave in about the 12th century AD, there
derives the name Aztecs by which they are known to western
historians.

o The patron deity of the Aztecs is Huitzilopochtli, god of war

and symbol of the sun. This is a lethal combination. Every day
the young warrior uses the weapon of sunlight to drive from the
sky the creatures of darkness - the stars and the moon. Every
evening he dies and they return. For the next day's fight he
needs strength. His diet is human blood.