Book: "God Against the Gods: A History of the War Between

Monotheism & Polytheism" by Jonathan Kirsch

 

The central idea of the book is that monotheism has a tendency to Be intolerant: ("My God is the ONLY True God, and your god is the Devil, believe as I believe, or Else.") This attitude is foreign to polytheism; Polytheism tends to welcome new Gods into the pantheon, or at least tolerate someone else's worship of other Gods. He often uses a term, "rigorists" to refer to the worst of the monotheists.

 

Rigorism is defined as "extreme strictness" in religious belief and practice. He does recognize that there is a range of strictness, flexibility and toleration within monotheism.

 

The book is chronological starting with the Egyptian King Akhenaten, the first monotheist. It's adequate, but for more thorough information see "Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet" by Nicholas Reeves. He is

More interested in focusing on Judaism and Christianity.

 

He goes over the stories in the Old Testament where God commands various prophets to slaughter people, either foreigners who worship idols, or Hebrews who have strayed from God's commands. When Moses catches the Hebrews worshipping the golden calf, God tells Moses "Now let me be, that my anger my blaze forth against them, and that I May destroy them." Moses organizes what the author refers to as a

"Death squad" and some 3000 men and women are put to the sword for worshipping the golden

calf.

 

These sort of scenes occur throughout the Bible, not only demonstrating rigorist intolerance, but also the tendency of the Hebrews to lapse into polytheism.

 

He goes over the monotheist arguments against polytheism. The unforgivable crime, when stripped of its rhetoric, boils down to worshipping any other deity than the One True God. Pagans are

Accused of human sacrifice, cannibalism, sex orgies, etc. The author demonstrates that while some Pagans had extreme practices, there was a wide range of practices among Pagans, most being law abiding citizens.

 

His focuses especially on the Roman Empire, the pagan persecution of the Christians starting with Nero. It was interesting to me that the persecutions of the Christians only strengthened them. Monotheists

invented martyrdom he says. Monotheists saw religion as something to fight for, and to die for. This is not to say that Pagans are cowards, but the open-mindedness and flexibility of polytheism makes the

idea of fighting over religion foreign. However, the Christian's courage in facing death rather than compromising on their faith was inspiring to many Pagans the Christians had most of their converts during the period of persecution.

 

Emperor Constantine gave royal favor to the Christians. He was bloody and power-hungry. His sons were worse, and made Christianity the state religion and closed the Pagan temples. They killed every male in

Their family, except for 2 young boys, then they killed each other off until only Constantius II remained.

 

One of the spared boys was Julian, who becomes the hero of this book. He and his brother are kept isolated and trained as Christians, with strict orders not to be exposed to Pagan thought. But someone the

Young Julian becomes a secret convert to Paganism. He would have been killed had Constantius II or others discovered this. When Julian becomes emperor, he restores religious freedom, and fights the Christians' bid for total control without violence. Julian is for religious freedom. Christians are allowed to worship as they please. They are just denied the ability to repress everyone else. He calls back the Christians who were banished as heretics. This freedom and toleration infuriates the Christians. The presence of the heretics disrupts the unity of the Christians. They were killing each other over whether Jesus was the son of God, or God incarnate. They didn't want freedom, they wanted the emperor to side with their faction and repress the others.

 

Julian was a very inspiring example. This was the first time I had read of Julian, I was very impressed.

 

Unfortunately, Julian dies early in a battle with the Persians, and the throne goes back to the Christians. The repression against not only polytheism, but against Christian heresies and Jews starts again within

the second emperor after Julian. All the book burning, the destruction of the temples, the assassination of pagan priests, etc…

 

The author points out that today we have something of the religious freedom Julian strived for. But that we are still contending with the forces of monotheistic rigorism.

 

Tamara