Source: TW
Friends, can you imagine a Europe or Africa filled like Tamil Nadu, with thousands of temples for a myriad of gods? Well, it was indeed the case. The temple distribution that you see below in Tamil Nadu was the norm all over the world. Read on.
Let us consider the city of Alexandria in Egypt that was founded by Alexander and the capital of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Dynasty and still an important city in the Roman Empire. Let me present to you, a quotation from P.M.Fraser, “A Syriac Notitia Urbis Alexandriae”, JEA 37 [1951]: 103-8. It reads:
At Alexandria, one finds in Quarter A: 308 temples, 5058 houses …. Quarter B: 110 temples, 5990 houses… Quarter C: 855 temples, 2140 houses, …..Quarter D: 800 temples, 5515 houses….. Quarter E: 405 temples, 5593 houses.
This totals to about 2478 temples and 24296 houses. This averages out to about 1 temple for every 10 houses!!
Not only this, shrines of gods and goddesses were also present in every public building, including public baths, courts, gymnasia, etc. There is no reason, to not assume that this same statistic held more or less for other cities as well. So, a pagan city was dotted with lots and lots of temples. Obviously, not all the temples were of equal grandeur, wealth, and importance. There were small roadside temples with priests coming only part time along with large majestic temples where thousands of pilgrims visited per day from all over the empire. These super popular, grand temples tended to be atop mountains.+++(4)+++ For example, in Alexandria, one such popular temple was the Serapeum mount which was visible even from afar containing giant statues of 12 gods with Serapis (a Greco-Egyptian God).
This temple was located atop a hill away from the city and involved climbing a lot of hundreds of stairs. If you are a Hindu, this should remind you of famous hill temple pilgrimage sites like Tirupati or Kedarnath or Sabarimala. In fact, Edward J Watts, an author on paganism explicitly says so.
Not only were images and idols of gods found only in temples but in all sorts of places - ranging from wall paintings in streets to shrines in individual houses and estates. For example, the same church father Rufinus says that when Christian mobs destroyed the temple of Serapeum, they not only destroyed the idols and images in the main hill temple but also images and busts being ripped apart from every nook and corner of the city. The relevant extracts are 11.28, 11.29.
11.28. But after the death of Serapis, who had never been alive, which temples of any other demon could remain standing? It would hardly be enough to say that all the untended shrines in Alexandria, of whichever demon, came down almost column by column. In fact, in all the cities of Egypt, the settlements, the villages, the countryside everywhere, the riverbanks, even the desert, wherever shrines, or rather graveyards, could be found, the persistence of the several bishops resulted in their being wrecked and razed to the ground, so that the countryside, which had been wrongly given over to the demons, was restored to agriculture."
11.29 Another thing was done in Alexandria: the busts of Serapis, which had been in every house in the walls, the entrances, the doorposts, and even the windows, were so cut and filed away that not even a trace or mention of him or any other demon remained anywhere. In their place, everyone painted the sign of the Lord’s cross on doorposts, entrances, windows, walls, and columns.
Despite this rampaging, even 100 years later, Christian mobs were still able to find statues of gods throughout the city and many hidden. They could also find secret pagan shrines within houses. These must tell how devoted the pagans would have been to their gods - they are worshipping them even at dire times of Christian persecution.
It isn’t that pagans were not committed to their gods. Pagan heritage and temples was made to be wiped out through Christianisation.