Antiquity
The native religions of Europe were polytheistic but not homogenous - however they were similar insofar as they were predominately Indo-European in origin. Roman religion was similar to but not the same as Hellenic religion - likewise the same for indigenous Germanic polytheism, Celtic polytheism and Slavic polytheism.
During Hellenism and the Roman empire period, "Eastern" (Oriental) religions exerted a considerable influence on "Western" religion, giving rise to Persian influenced traditions like Gnosticism and Mithraism, as well as Egyptian and "Chaldean" influence on mystery religions (Orphism), astrology and magic. Early Christianity itself is a further example of Orientalizing influence on the later Roman empire.
During the same period, inherited traditions of native Roman religion were marginalized or overlaid by interpretatio graeca, and the Roman imperial cult evolved into a civil religion which involved state ritual rather than religious faith or experience. Celtic and Germanic religion was described by Roman ethnography as primitive, but at the same time as pure or unspoiled compared to the so called urban decadence of Rome.
Read more about this topic: Western Religion
Famous quotes containing the word antiquity:
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nothing but great antiquity can make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground,—and to one another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)