Source: TW
A thread on the historical progression of Hinduism and Hellenism. Quoting for higher visibility.
Hindus and Greeks started of very similar. Both had shared origins, shared epics, similar religious pantheons, myths and systems of morality. Both were living in places surrounded by once great civilizations. Both had a similar environment, surrounded by other polytheistic cultures, it was an abundance of Gods and Goddesses, sacrifices, deified heroes, and remnants of a Bronze Age culture mingling with an urban one.
However, there was one key difference which happens right at the beginning. Indics & Iranics, unlike any other polytheists of the time, and unlike the Greeks, begin a very early canonization of their source material, of the oldest hymns in their religion. They systematically compile these oral hymns into books, note down the individual poet’s name, the names of the diety, and canonize the whole corpus as divine, sacred and immutable. This gives the foundations of our religion a security of supra-Biblical proportions, an anchor point from where it all begins. NO other polytheist has such a canon. The Greeks have their orally transmitted Epics, just as we do, but they do not really consider them so profane so as to not question them, not doubt their divine character, neither are these Epics canonically binding on every Hellene as the “source” of their cults, nor do they provide an explanation of their ritual or religion.
Unlike the Iranics, the Indics also develop a varnashrama or a society based on four codified varnas “castes” where the priestly caste spent centuries explaining the hymns of the Vedas and the ritual behind them. This leads to philosophical explanation of the ritual, and you can say by 400-500 BCE, the entirety of what defines Hindu philosophy, ritual, pantheon has already come into existence.
In contrast, the Greeks have a flourishing civilization in Mycene but after the Bronze Age Collapse, they have to start from scratch and they have neither the Vedas (canonical text), nor the ritualistic explanations, philosophy or a dedicated priestly class who considers this corpus its personal responsibility.
This is based on a conversation I had with @ResonantPyre an year ago, but I am expanding it to include a broader time period (and to save time).
In Greece, you had Homer and Hesiod given somewhat quasi-canonical status but there never was a “Bible” which bound all Hellenes and over which they wrote extensive commentaries, etc So what was the approach the Greeks used? There was some diversity when it comes to this. One clear trend was that the Gods of Mycene Greece were seen as corporeal, immanent and as taking part in human life. Coming to earth, meeting humans, fathering children, having relationships, getting involved in wars. Once the philosophers started applying reason to their own native religion, there was a gradual move away from the corporeality and historical immanence of the Gods. Epicureans had pseudo-deist positions, Xenophanes famously said animals would have Gods that looked and talked like animals, thus moving away from anthropomorphization; Euhemerus said they were deified men, and Prodicus thought they were deified nature itself. Socrates began the criticism of the epic poets, saying they had misrepresented the Gods, and the criticism of the playwrighters. It was continued by Plato and Aristotle, but toned down and generally reverence was shown to Homer and Hesiod.
This tension is finally “solved” by the Neoplatonists who manage to reconcile all the contradictory positions, the metaphysics of Plato, the hieratic rites, the scandalous myths and plurality of the divine in their system.
Christianity hit
The problem is this “solution” of the Neoplatonists comes too late and they got hit by Christianity right when they were at a crucial Hegelian synthesis stage of solving millenia old problems in their religious system.
The Indics did not save their religion due to Adi Shankaracharya discovering Brahman (he always says he is merely telling us what the Upanishads say), in fact, Shankaracharya was born when Hellenism had been wiped out and Platonism was on it’s last legs.
The Indics saved it because their ancestors had done the hard work millenia ago and codified an entire defense of Hindu philosophy and ritual ready by 200-100 BCE.
Now the thing is, Platonism isn’t really monotheism. That’s not why Christianity could swallow Hellenism. Platonism is monistic, non-dualistic and argues for a single ultimate reality while preserving the polytheistic diversity of Greece. However, the two are very close, and a sleight of hand is all it requires to make Plato your strongest ally, than strongest critic. Keep in mind that Augustine of Hippo, was an ex-Neo Platonist.
Christianity could swallow Platonism up because it appropriated the Greek criticism of their own ancestral cults/ritual for itself, took the language of Plato for its own theology at the higher level, and simultaneouly became more polytheistic at the lower level (adopting deities as saints, praying/worshipping to them, pilgrimages, etc)
Think of it this way. Western Europe is undergoing the Protestant reformation and the Renaissance, right at that moment the elite of Western Europe convert to Islam and have decisive military victories over the elite that still remains Christian. You just use the Protestant criticism of Catholicism as criticism of Christianity, you appropriate the Protestant theology as “well this is already half Muslim to begin with, why not become fully Muslim?” and you shut down the Catholic church, seizing its land and closing down all its Universities. This is what happened in the Mediterannean from 300-600.
विश्वास-टिप्पनी
I’m a skeptical - masses convert due to petty reasons - “miracle cure”, “social uplift” offered by the counterreligion, avoiding being butchered, not being economically suppressed - and not due to philosophical competition.