The Hellenist Spirit

It's a common misconception nowadays that religious tolerance is a "new," modern phenomenon. Ask the average person on the street where they think the contemporary spirit of live-and-let-live in religious matters comes from, and their answer will most likely have to do with the events of the twentieth century... the 1960s in particular. But the real roots of this way of thinking go considerably further back.

Religious tolerance is literally an ancient, pagan concept. By "pagan" I don't mean New Age or Wiccan; if anything, I mean Old Age. Really Old Age. I mean pagan in the Greco-Roman/Egyptian sense of the word. Previous to the political power grabs by Constantine that paved the way for the early Church's rise to power, religious life in the ancient world was in many ways similar to what we see today in more advanced, urbanized parts of the world. Aside from superficial, outward gestures of acknowledging the Gods of Rome, usually in the form of a pinch of incense offered at a certain altar or shrine, the internal spiritual beliefs of the individual were largely "freestyle" and open to whatever adaptive, personalized variants the individual cared to indulge. Any number of Gods, Goddesses, and doctrines from any number of world cultures were there for the choosing, and the individual's choices were not a matter of concern for the state or even the priesthood of any one particular cult.

Even outside the bounds of pre-Constantine Roman influence, the very concept of a "Holy War" or aggressive evangelism in the modern sense of the word were alien, almost unheard-of concepts in the ancient world. I say "almost" due to the obvious exception of the tribes of Israel and their well-known exploits across the sands of the Middle East as recorded in the Old Testament. But even the ancient Jews were not evangelists out to convert the world. Aside from the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten's strange and ill-fated attempt to impose his cult of the One-God Aton upon Egypt roughly 1300 years before the Common Era, the idea of "One God, One Faith, One World" simply didn't have any significant foothold in the ancient world... at least none that we are aware of.

I know of no scriptural reference -- in Judaism, Islam, or Christianity -- that supports the idea of religious tolerance, but plenty that speak against it. I don't mean Protestants and Catholics getting along with each other -- although that in itself is certainly an improvement from the past -- I mean people of completely different faiths not killing or persecuting each other based on differing religions alone. Contemporary religious tolerance is not a postmodern child of the Flower Power era, either. It's more akin to a gradual recurrence of a far more ancient collective mindset. And it is not monotheistic in any way.

It's the Hellenist Spirit, the polar opposite and obvious antidote to the Spirit of Holy War. And it should be embraced.

 

I hadn't looked at it quite that way before, ECILAM. Very thought-provoking.

I do wish you'd quit adding to my list of stuff I need to read up on, though. I'm behind as it is