Religious Koine in Private Cult and Ritual:
Shared Religious Traditions in Roman Religion
in the First Half of the Fourth Century CE
The religious koinereflected in the public calendar of Rome was very much alive in
the middle of the fourth century in public ceremonies and rituals which, in origin
and meaning, still had strong religious implications. But in private cult too, there is
ample evidence for shared traditions – this religious koine– surviving among pagans
and Christians. Here, I will stress two elements of private religiosity that reveal this
shared outlook. First, there is ample evidence that especially among educated pagans,
but also even in the lower orders, a religiosity that approached monotheism was very
much alive; and second, religious practices and burial places for the dead were shared
by pagans and Christians alike. In both of these areas concerning private religiosity,
we see the persistence of shared attitudes among fourth-century Romans of the Medi-
terranean world, pagan and Christian. And, as in the case of public cult, we find
Christian clergy and emperors attempting to redefine these private shared religious
attitudes as sinful.
Pagans approaching monotheism
Monotheism was “perfectly compatible with belief in the existence of a plurality of
divine beings” in the view of certain Greek philosophers (Athanassiadi and Frede
1999: 8). Platonic teaching had proposed a strict hierarchy subordinated to the supreme
God. “These lower gods were executors or manifestations of the divine will rather
than independent principles of reality. Whether they are called gods, demons,
angels, or numina, these immortal beings are emanations of the One, and their degree
of reality depends on their proximity to the apex of the theological pyramid”
(Athanassiadi and Frede 1999: 8). The principle of polyonymy, articulated, for
example, by the Neoplatonist Maximus of Tyre (39.5; cf. 2.5), stated that: “the gods
have one nature but many names.” This was a wide-spread belief that extended notions
of monotheism beyond those who were philosophically oriented to the upper classes
more generally. Such a system was made more understandable by the drawing of
parallels with the human order; the lesser gods were like provincial governors who
were subject to the emperor (Celsus CC8.35; Aelius Aristides 43.18ff ).
Among the educated upper classes of the fourth century especially, there are indi-
cations that some pagans seem to have been approaching monotheism. So, around
390 ce, the grammarian Maximus of Madaura argued in a letter to Augustine
that pagans and Christians agreed about the nature of the one God, but that only
their systems of veneration differed (Maximus apudAugustine, Epist.16.1 [CSEL
34.1.37, 34.1.38 –9]). Another pagan, Longinianus, in another letter to Augustine
similarly describes his pagan journey toward the “one, universal, incomprehensible,
ineffable and untiring Creator” (Longinianus apudAugustine, Epist.234.2 [CSEL
57.520]). Perhaps one of the fullest expressions of pagan monotheism survives in a
Religious Koineand Religious Dissent 113