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This chapter considers the idea that the whole business of pagan oracles was a sham, perpetrated for money or political gain. It discusses the so-called “imposture thesis”—that pagan religions were built on an edifice of priestly fraud, maintained by the laity's fear of divine authority. This thesis has been widely studied as an element of the Enlightenment and its immediate precursors, especially French libertinism eérudit and English Deism. Many thinkers associated with these movements applied the imposture thesis to the pagan oracles, and indeed, the oracles slotted into their narratives as neatly as they had into those of Catholic theologians.

The original aim of the research that led to this book was to explore the confrontation between Buddhism and Himalayan “pagan” religion, based on the sacrificial cult of territorial gods. It was hypothesised that such a study might shed light on the interaction between Buddhism and indigenous religion in early Tibet. When this hypothesis was found to be misleadingly simple, the inquiry shifted to the way in which both Buddhism and pagan religion were just two components of a complex “civil religion,” revealed by the history of the community, its social institutions, and the dialectical relationship between the individual and the collective. The theoretical position adopted here is essentially a Durkheimian perspective as modified by authors such as Berger and Luckmann. A discussion of the concept of civil religion and the main literature on the subject is followed by an outline of the book's chapters.

This chapter considers Hobbes’s treatment of religion in the early chapters of Leviathan, especially in Chapter 12, “Of Religion.” In that chapter, Hobbes presents an account of the psychological “seed” of religion in anxiety and ignorance, an account of God as the mysterious first cause, an analysis of the political differences between pagan religion and biblical religion, and a sketch of the “resolution” of religion back into its first seeds. An examination of these argument brings to light key aspects of Hobbes’s critique of religion and provides evidence of his atheism and antireligious intentions in Leviathan.

This chapter focuses on Delphi, arguing that it has fallen out of our world. Since it yielded to the archaeologists, and to the tourists, it has become ashrine only to curiosity, to be approached with a disinterested wonder. In opening our minds to its mysteries, and to the beauty of its setting, we have rendered the oracle unable to tell us about ourselves. The fictions and half-fictions spun of the oracles since Petrarch and Ciriaco have both echoed and shaped our views of our own culture and history. Early modern constructions of Delphi, and of pagan religion, were, at the last count, constructions of self, even as that self changed. The oracles could have no higher calling.

This chapter argues that Niccolò Machiavelli considers the Roman leaders' use of pagan religion to maintain popular support as pernicious. It enabled the leaders of the people to put this religion to a very different purpose. The successive innovations of aspiring tyrants strengthened such appeals and eventuated in the destruction of the republic. Christianity transcends the methods of Caesar and the Gracchi in a critical way. Christ's followers pique the passions of the people not merely with lands that many Romans have not seen, but with domains beyond human experience. This appeal to transcendence trumped all the benefits the city of Rome could offer. When the Roman people accepted the imported doctrine, they no longer needed to devote themselves to the earthly city to receive their rewards, and thus “civil life” was utterly transcended in Rome. Therefore, only when the critical element of a promise of divine provision was added to the familiar litany of private benefits did the line of ingenious aspiring tyrants, who wished to transcend civil life, achieve its goal.

Following on from the previous chapter, this chapter addresses the status of awliya’, or saints and holy men, and other icons venerated by the general populace for different reasons. The chapter discusses the need for a tangible, rather than an abstract, form of spirituality and takes a critical stance towards the over-veneration of such icons almost to the point of sanctification, tying it to remnants of pagan religions as well as historical customs and traditions kept alive by the general populace.

Amin explores the development of Sufism in this chapter. He ties it to popular religious practices and the traces of ancient pagan religions in various geographical locations of the Muslim Empire. He explores how theologians and jurists reacted to the development of Sufi concepts and rituals. He also questions several of these rituals, tying them to the historical, political and sectarian contexts at the time of their emergence.

This chapter provides the original text and translation of Book IV of Augustine's The City of God. It investigates the nature and the roles of the gods that the demons impersonate and demonstrate how the pagan religion is riddled with illogicalities and improbabilities. It also discusses the deities to whom the Romans ascribe the prosperity of their empire, the prominence of abstract deities, and the attitudes of Roman intellectuals towards their gods. The chapter describes how Augustine roundly condemns rampant imperialism and describes how the Roman gods had no care for the welfare of the state. It cites the evidence of Pompeius Trogus on the claim that Ninus, king of the Assyrians, was the first ruler in history to launch aggressive wars.

This chapter discusses the rise, development, and Romanization of ancient Carthage in the early Christian period after the formation of the province of Africa Proconsularis in the Augustan period; the physical topography of the city of Carthage, including the Byrsa, the Antonine Baths, and the amphitheater; and it describes the tophet or outdoor sacrificial area and whether human sacrifice was practiced among the Carthaginians. It also covers the life, influence, and African roots of Septimius Severus, the Roman emperor during Perpetua’s life and death. Also discussed are the social, religious, and intellectual conditions for pagans in Roman Carthage, who their local gods were (Tanit, Saturn, Juno Caelestis, Baal Hammon), and the connections between civic and religious life.

Michael Squire explores how Greek and Roman materials can illuminate the thinking behind Lessing’s Laocoon. While Lessing’s project is structured around the interpretation of an ancient statue, the Laocoon’s conclusions about aesthetic media—not least, its implicit argument concerning the superiority of ‘ancient’ words over images—are predicated on a particular set of ‘modern’ ideas, themselves conditioned by a certain theological outlook. While purporting to talk about antiquity, Lessing re-imagines a Graeco-Roman ‘world full of gods’ in distinctly ‘Protestant’ terms.

Chapter 1 gives a reading of the Mesopotamian The Epic of Gilgamesh. At the outset an account is provided of the historical context of the work in antiquity and its discovery and translation in the nineteenth century. An interpretation is given of the creation of the wild man Enkidu. Parallels are pointed out between this story and that of the Fall in Genesis. The nature of the Mesopotamian gods is also explored in the context of an interpretation of the episode featuring the goddess Ishtar. Angered by Gilgamesh’s rejection of her advances, Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy Uruk. Gilgamesh and Enkidu manage to kill it, but only after it has caused much death and destruction. Enkidu insults Ishtar, and she in turn causes his death. Gilgamesh is deeply distraught by the death of his friend and goes in search of a solution to the problem of human mortality. He has many adventures and ultimately finds Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah, who survives the Flood and is made immortal. An account is given to the parallels of this episode and that of the Flood in Genesis. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh about a magic plant that can restore youth. Gilgamesh manages to find it, but he loses it right away to a snake. The story is interpreted as a statement of the finitude and limitations of the human condition.