World Civilization

St. Augustines Confessions and Religious Diversity in the Roman Empire

In his Confessions book, St Augustine mentions that there was a lot of false gods and
there were three main religions in the Roman Empire. First was the Pagan Religion of which
Augustines father was known of. Second Another was Christianity which Monica Augustine`s
mother practiced and third was Manichaeism; it was a religion that started by a Persian leader
called Mani. Although Augustine was raised in a Christian fashion, initially he was not a
Christian and rejected many of the Christian teachings. He would not accept God unit later in his
life. He would reject Christianity because there was no logical reasoning or scientific evidence
people believe anything the priests told me. St. Augustine started out in a religion called
Manichaeism which he was fascinated with.
In the beginning, the Romans were polytheistic and had many gods and build statues in
their image and likeness. Augustine considered this to be evil and that people are turn away from
away from God and that eventually lead to the Roman Empire collapsed. The Romans viewed
the emperor as their god which cause problems between the gods and the Romans as they would
arrest anyone who would defy their emperor .Yet the Christians would only worship their one
true God also according to the Confessions Christianity was the only monotheistic religion as
every other had multiple gods and had temples to worship these gods.
Augustine was part the Manichaeism Religion which believed in three gods and the body
and soul to be good and evil. St Augustine was interested mainly in this religion despite his
mother wanting to convert him to Christianity. When St. Augustine went to study at Carthage he
joined the Manichaeism sect to study their concept of light and darkness being in earth .Also the

Manichaeism Religion borrowed some concept of Christianity and was replacing the Pagan
religion. They rejected the Old Testament and accepted the New Testament. Augustine was
fascinated about their concept of evil and study their scriptures; he would use logic and reason in
while studying the religion he did not just blindly believe in everything he was taught. As for the
Pagan religion which Augustine father was pagan until before his death when he was baptized
into Christianity. Although the Manichaeism Religion was mostly polytheistic and had a couple
of philosophers that St. Augustine in his Confessions accepted some of their ideas but he blamed
the pagan gods for the moral corruption of the Roman Empire and its people. He also said that
the Roman Empire last long because of The Christian God and that the pagan gods failed a lot of
times to save Rome from its worldly disasters. He also said in his confession the pagan gods
cannot grant eternal life only God can. Paganism was the most dominant religion in the Roman
Empire it was one the reason for the fall of the empire.
Most of Augustine Confessions critiqued all the views of the pagan religion and its
philosophy and gave Christian reason as to why they are all not true. Augustine convert to
Christianity because of Bishop Ambrose and reading the life of St. Anthony of the desert. He
later became a bishop of Hippo and tried to convert them to Christianity. His confession tell us
how the Roman Empire build temple for all their religions including the one that arent their own
the Romans had problems with the Christians because they would reject their gods and only
worship the one truth God this would lead to conflicts between them still the Romans would
have Christian temple built for them . Since the roman would view the emperor as their god the
Christian would not accept this and the roman would be offend by this the Christian would only
accept Jesus Christ as their god and savoir.

Romans would get persecute the Christians for not accepting their emperor and would
kill them they would not be to tolerate of monotheistic religions because they would refuse their
pagan gods. Roman were mostly accepting of polytheistic religions because they accepted even
their gods which so their commitment to the empire. In terms of diversity on religion St.
Augustines Confession Romans had a lot of gods, philosophers, beliefs and principle. They
accepted that people practice their own religion as they did not disrespect their emperor. They
were very accepting of Manichaeism and Paganism because they share in polytheism. For the
Romans as long as you accept their gods they would not interfere and if you praise their emperor.
The Christians were the citizen that experienced most of the hardship because they refused
Roman gods this why the Romans would persecute the Christians.
When the Christians eventually would split themselves into two groups the Catholics and
the Donatists ,St. Augustine was a bishop of Hippo and tries to mediate between the two groups
who were about to have a civil war. The Donatists separated from the Catholics because before
Augustine was a bishop he was a sinner and they could not accept that and they also could not
accept the sacrament of baptism because it was given to sinners. They believed St. Augustine
was unfit to be their bishop that why he had a debate in order to unite the two groups and won,
around this time was when he started writing his Confessions. Augustine in his confession also
mention that Rome fell because Christianity had taken over the empire and they fail to stop
worshiping their pagan gods and convert to Christianity also he took a longtime to covert
because of his sinful nature of lust and sexuality which came from his Manichean past .
Augustine Confessions show us that the Roman Empire had a high level of religious
tolerance that is respected all religions the only had slight problems with monotheistic religions
like Christianity because it did not care for the Roman gods or their emperor. They even had

churches built and allowed people to worship their own god. The other religions such as the
pagans during Bishop Ambrose time would go to the Christian church and listen to his speech
Also the Christians would quote philosophers that had nothing to do with their religion.
Manichaeism which was St. Augustine origin religion borrowed many concepts from
Christianity for example in the creation story instead of their being one god of creation the were
three gods responsible for the creation of the world and human and the good and evil existed
naturally in the universe and that our body are made of evil and our spirits of light. Christians
took quotes from pagan philosophers. Also the pagans would go to Bishop Ambrose basilica and
listen to his sermon the would take ideas from Christianity and also some would worship the
Roman gods .So the religion of the Roman Empire constantly kept borrowing ideas and
concepts from one another also the religion were divided into different subsect like the
Catholics and the Donatists. There was no religion that didnt take stories, quotes, and
philosophy from another religions. What ended up happening is that no religion would have its
original idea Manichaeism stole the creation story and added is only version of God into it. The
diversity in religion Rome lead to some religion fighting each other too. In the confession St.
Augustine would mostly mention his Manichaeism life style and how he would argue with his
mother that try to convert him to Christianity but it would not work because of his logical
reasoning and he just would not accept god in his life to late in his life . The roman empire was
very diverse in religion according to the confession and the temples,churches,and statues built to
support every and each religion they didnt discriminate to much as long as you worshipped
their gods .