Reddit mentions of The Christians as the Romans Saw Them

So in most Hindu traditions, the worldview is panentheistic to some degree, meaning the universes are a part of Brahman, but Brahman is beyond the universe (or universes or multiverse). While it is true for most Hindu traditions that the different deities are aspects of Brahman, this applies to everything in the universe, so humans, animals, plants, and other objects are also aspects of Brahman.

Now some different Hindu traditions believe that Brahman is equivalent to a specific deity, and other deities, along with the rest of the universes, are different aspect of the supreme deity (Vaishnavas believe Vishnu/Krishna is Brahman, Shaktas believe it's the Goddess, etc). The worldview is also animistic to some extent because we have the concept of river goddesses (Ganga River), sacred mountains (Mt. Kailash), tree spirits (Yakshinis), and others.

Now, while on a deeper level, everything is a part of Brahman, that doesn't mean on the ground level we treat everything as if it is Brahman. Just because your coworker, mother, and spouse are all Brahman on a deeper level doesn't mean they're interchangeable on the ground level. They're still "distinct" people. The same applies to deities. Traditionally, the different deities weren't just interchangeable metaphorical aspects of Brahman, but they were "distinct" beings.

Now this worldview completely contradicts Abrahamic monotheism, specifically in mainstream Christianity and Islam (Judaism I can't speak too much about). In mainstream Christianity and Islam, there's a complete separation between God and the universe. The idea that the universe is a part of God and that there's divinity in the universe is heretical for most Christians and Muslims.

Now to get on to the other traditions,

Romans

There's a book called The Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Robert Louis Wilken, which is about early Roman Pagan-Christian interactions. The Romans tried to make a similar argument that modern Hindus make, that the Romans believed in a supreme deity and that other deities are different manifestations of that supreme deity, but the Christians weren't buying it, saying that's not real monotheism.

https://www.amazon.com/Christians-Romans-Saw-Them/dp/0300098391

Greeks

The Greeks also had their own conceptions of panentheism. Neoplatonists like Plotinus and Iamblichus had the concept of "The Ineffable One", which is basically the Hindu Brahman, and the varying Greek deities are emanations of the One.

Here's a blog by someone who identifies as a Julian Hellenist who explains his positions with sources. https://hellenicfaith.com/the-one/

There's another book called Plato's Gods by Gerd Van Riel, which goes into detail about Plato's metaphysics. A lot of monotheists and atheists have respect for Plato, but many of them are unaware about Plato mentioning the importance of being devoted to the gods.

https://www.amazon.com/Ashgate-Studies-History-Philosophical-Theology-ebook/dp/B00E8GOO3Q/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Egyptians

With Egyptians, I'm finding some contradictory info. A few sites are talking about the concept of Netjer, which is basically Brahman. Basically, the different deities, although different aspects of Netjer, are individual beings with their own consciousness. There are other sites that talk about Amun-Re being the source of all the deities.

There's also the animistic aspects of ancient Egyptian traditions, so you have wind gods like Shu, sun gods like Ra, Anuket who is the goddess of the Nile River, Hapi who is the god of the flooding of the Nile River, etc.

Celts

I can't find too much information about panentheism and Celtic traditions because most of the information about Celtic traditions come from Christian monks. However, there is a lot of the animistic aspects, where you have the spirits/gods of lakes, rivers, springs, trees, etc. There's also the concept of faeries in Celtic mythology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_animism

Yoruba

The Olodumare is considered the supreme being similar to Brahman, where the different Orisha (deities) are manifestations of Olodumare, and the goal is to eventually become one with Olodumare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_religion

Native American

I can't find too much detailed information about the different Native American worldviews. There is the concept of the Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit) of the Lakota people, and the Wakan Tanka is supposed to reside within everything in the universe.

The Navajo seem to have something similar with the concept of the Almighty, which flows through the gods/spirits and everything in the universe. http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/North_america/navajo_religion.htm

Zoroastrians

Copied and pasted from another post

Traditional Zoroastrianism really was not as monotheistic as people think it is. The idea that Zoroastrianism is actually monotheistic is a post-colonial interpretation after the Parsis got in contact with Christian missionaries during the British Raj. There are some instances of Zoroastrians being "monotheized" when they got into contact with Islam, but it didn't really take off until after British colonialism (at least for the Parsis).

Basically, the traditional viewpoint was that Ahura Mazda is the supreme deity with the universe being a manifestation of him, but there are other subsidiary deities (Amesha Spentas, Yazatas). Yazatas mean "those who are worthy of worship" or "good gods." The Gathas mention yazatas likes Sraosha, Ashi, etc and how it's important that they be revered. Under the Parthians, Zoroastrians would view Greek deities as yazatas, and the Parsis would view Hindu deities as yazatas. There are some Mumbai Parsi families that come back to their hometowns in Gujarat for Ganesh Chaturthi.

What happened was that during the British Raj, the Parsis would get harassed by Anglicans for being primitive polytheists, and they weren't able to properly defend their traditions to the Anglicans. It was until Martin Haug came into the picture, who reinterpreted Zoroastrian traditions through a Christian lens that Zoroastrianism became viewed as monotheistic. Yazatas started to became translated as "angels", and Parsi Zoroastrians began to claim themselves as the oldest form of monotheism to protect themselves from harassment by Anglicans. This monotheistic interpretation got internalized by the Parsis, when in actuality, this is a post-colonial interpretation.

I posted someone else's blog post about the treatment of polytheistic traditions in the West, which has sections about the "monotheizing" of Zoroastrianism (and Hinduism) in the /r/Zoroastrianism subreddit. There are also other posts in the subreddits that talk about how Zoroastrian traditions are not as monotheistic as people think.

https://np.reddit.com/r/Zoroastrianism/comments/7ud2am/the_disenfranchising_of_polytheism_in_the_secular/

If you only read one book on the subject it should be Robert Grant's Augustus to Constantine. It's a tremendous piece of scholarship, in-depth without being overwhelming or boring, and Grant does an excellent job of situating the rise of Christianity against the background of the larger Roman Empire.

Other suggestions:
Henry Chadwick's The Early Church is a classic survey, but it's a bit dated now. Still a very accessible introduction, cheaper and shorter than the Grant.

Peter Brown is, in my opinion, one of the greatest historians who's ever lived and he has written extensively on Late Antique Christianity. For this specific topic, I'd suggest The World of Late Antiquity or The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity. The advantage of Brown is that he's also a fantastic writer.

Another interesting source is Robert Louis Wilken's *Christians as the Romans Saw Them. While it won't give you a full survey of Christianity's rise, it provides the perspective of pagan thinkers reacting to the strange, barbarous, troubling religion that is Christianity. This one is more of a supplement to the other listed works, but I think it helps really understand Christianity against the religio-cultural background of the Roman Empire.

Finally, the great primary source on the subject is Eusebius's *History of the Church. Obviously Eusebius, the 4th century bishop, doesn't match up to modern standards of historical accuracy, but you still get a comprehensive picture of the rise of Christianity that's pretty darn fun to read. Read with a critical eye, it's a terrific source. Also, it's available for free online. (also Eusebius basically invented documentary history, so that's kinda neat)

If you want more recommendations, or want more specific suggestions, I'd be glad to help out. My strongest recommendation are the Grant and the Brown.

Huge, endlessly fascinating topic. I would love to hear about some reading suggestions on this subject from people here.

I've been reading Christians as the Romans Saw Them. It would seem from what I've read there that paganism was going strong in the first three centuries of Christianity and maybe even beyond.

It's important to not equate paganism with the kind of cartoon image we have of the Olympians from Hollywood. Greco-Roman paganism by the time of Christianity was massive and contained so much, just like modern Hinduism contains so much. It included a strong influence from philosophy—Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics. There were the civic cults, the mystery cults, the imperial cult, oracles, household gods, rural gods, sea gods, daemons, sprites, ancestral spirits. There were the Pythagoreans, Orphists, Jews, Manichaeans, Gnostics, Neoplatonists.

Religion was fused with everyday life to an extraordinary degree. It's hard to even pick them apart. For us, religion is mostly a private matter. For them, it was both private and public, profound and mundane. Everything from games to social gatherings had a religious significance.

Above the local gods, under the influence of Plato, some Greco-Romans believed in a higher, impersonal, henotheistic God, plus to mention the immortality of the human soul. (It went both ways, btw: Philo of Alexandria in an earlier era fused Plato with Judaism; what we know of as Judaism and Islam have a whole lot of Plato in them.)

Christians would claim that they too worshipped this philosophical God--with the caveat that Jesus was his equivalent and that the other local gods known to the world were actually demons and were not to be worshipped. God the Father and Jesus Christ his son, only, were to be worshipped.

Pagan intellectuals were befuddled by this parochialism. The High God does not "do" earthly revelations; he is known through nature and sublime contemplation. Further, Jesus was a man of unremarkable talents; how could he even be a lesser divinity like Heracles? He may have simply been a wise sage who was deified by his misguided followers or he may have been a wily magician who fooled others himself, but certainly he could not be the High God, who is unmoved and beyond change. (Muslims have a similar view, btw!)

Syncretism worked for nearly a millennium in the Greco-Roman world. I don't see why it couldn't have survived, given different circumstances.

The momentum was more in the direction of autocracy and state centralization, from Caesar right up through Diocletian and Constantine and into the Byzantine period. I think that is really the secret of Christian success. The Church and State were fused in a highly effective bureaucracy. To be a good Roman was to be a good Christian. And since Christianity was exclusive, like Judaism, all other religions would have to be extinguished.

Why Christianity and not Mithraism, the Solar cult, or the highly organized Syncretism of the sort that Julian favored? That's the million dollar question. I don't have an answer, except perhaps for the fact that the Christians had better charitable programs and were able to win the support of the masses.

Have you started with the bibliographies or "for further reading" sections in your text books?

Here's a few I pulled of of my shelves.
Medieval Monasticism,
The End of Ancient Christianity,
Charlemagne's Courtier,
The Crusades: A Short History,
The Christians as the Romans Saw Them

You're quite right. A great resource if you're interested in early writings about Christianity is The Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Robert Louis Wilken. It's academic, but still very accessible.

A really great, accessible book of Roman criticism of early Christianity is here: The Christians as the Romans Saw Them http://www.amazon.com/The-Christians-Romans-Saw-Them/dp/0300098391