Promiscuous Worship

The Romans were well known for their promiscuity of worship.  They worshiped many gods.  They worshiped their own Etruscan and Latin gods, of course.  They worshiped the gods of their neighbors.  They worshiped the gods of the people they conquered.  Their toleration of a plethora of gods came with the patriotic demand for all others to tolerate their own gods –especially as the empire expanded.  One of their favorite pastimes was god-matching.  It streamlined this toleration process.  Ares is Mars, Thor is Jupiter, Zeus is also Jupiter, Artemis is Diana, Hermes is Mercury, etc.  Even though Parthians, Greeks, and Norseman have different names, they would say, we all still worship the same god(s).

Mars

Ares

The promiscuous nature of Roman worship was not really because they loved honoring and invoking blessings from any and all gods.  Roman worship was primarily a means to another end.  It was for the sake of something else –something more significant in their mind.  They called it pax romana, the peace of Rome or the peace of the empire.  Theological toleration was for the higher goal of maintaining political stability throughout all the territories.  They allowed traditional worship and matched up cross-cultural gods not because of some deep theological reflection.  Romans were statesmen.  They knew what it meant to build and sustain an empire.  And not upsetting their conquered people by uprooting their religion helped maintain the political status quo.  If the god-matching strategy didn’t fit well, at the very least there was an imperial expectation for devotion and sacrifice to the Roman pantheon alongside any local gods.  It was promiscuous worship that demanded the same promiscuity on everyone else.  A toleration that demands toleration.

Romans tolerated most everything religious except one thing.  The god deniers.  They called them “athiests.”  They refused to offer sacrifices to the gods, the gods who could potentially curse the empire into instability and decline.  Ultimately, denying the gods was a political statement of ultimate allegiance.  More specifically, it was an act of treason.  The athiests denied the very foundation of Roman society and way of living. 

Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna

In AD 155, a feeble old bishop was on trial for “atheism” in the ancient arena of Smyrna.  The wild beasts ready to be loosed on the almost 90 year-old man for all to observe what happens to traitors and the “intolerant.”  Rome’s one simple demand for his release was for him to offer incense (as a form of worship) to the emperor (emperor’s were even part of the pantheon in those days) and curse “the atheists.”  Looking around the stadium, the old bishop turned the tables with a curse of his own.  He waved his hand toward the crowd and shouted, “Away with the Atheists!”  The whole stadium was in an uproar.  Instead of being fed to lions because of his age, the emperor graciously allowed him to burn at the stake.

In a culture that worshiped many things…  religious tolerance was the reigning ethic.  Promiscuity in worship was the reality.  Political allegiance was the supreme value.  This is a familiar picture that will always take shape when true worship is subservient to political/social goals.  It is also familiar because the religious tolerance of our day, just like Rome, has little to do with theological reflection.  It has everything to do with establishing an equitable and peaceful society.  When worship only has instrumental value –not ultimate value– will we demand the kind of tolerance that is so prolific today.  It is the kind of tolerance that has “demands” –which is actually very strange.  It is a kind of tolerance that –when fully formed– will work itself out like Rome’s version of it.  I pray not.