Henotheism and the Papacy
Most Roman
citizens and emperors believed in many gods
but focused on one particular god or considered one god higher than the others.
This is Henotheism. When the Catholic Church absorbed Roman paganism, it replaced
all their god’s with the saints. The
Romans had a god of love, war, peace, strength, wisdom and many other gods. The Catholic Church has a saint in charge
over each of these , as well as, many other catagories. Each city had it’s own
god so the Catholic Church provided a saint for each city.
The papacy
was created with the support of the Roman emperors. The city of Rome was the
center of government for the whole Empire, and with the Roman emperors living there
as well, the city rose to prominence. Constantine and his succesor's gave their
support to the bishop of Rome as the supreme ruler of the church. It was best for the Roman empire that the
government and state religion be centralized. Most other bishops and Christians
alike resisted the idea of the Roman bishop as
being supreme. Due to the power and influence of Roman emperors, the Roman bishop eventually reigned supreme. When the
empire collapsed in 476, the pope’s took the title Pontifex Maximus, a title
that had previously belonged to the Roman emperors.
The origin
of the Catholic church is nothing more than a compromise of Christianity and pagan religions. Instead
of converting pagans they “Christianized” the pagan religions, and paganized
Christianity. The cult of Isis and Mithraism are two more of many pagan
religions. I will talk about these two later.
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