Early Modern Europe through the
Eighteenth Century
The detailed study of Roman religion reappeared, but in its earlier patristics guise
as polemical cudgel wielded against theological opponents, and this continued even
during the Renaissance conflation and utilization of Greek and Roman religion and
their mythologies. For rationalists, particularly of the Enlightenment, the ancients’
religion demonstrated savagery combined with stupidity, apparently an excellent
justification for anti-clericalism. The Christian view of late antiquity reappeared: Greco-
Roman religion trafficked in false gods, the Foul Fiend’s invention. Finally, the deists,
partially co-extensive with the rationalists, saw the ancients’ religion as organized reli-
gion of the Judeo-Christian ilk. Their misconstruction justified their problems with
contemporary organized religion. In all these cases, precise understanding of Roman
religion went by the board in favor of honing the attractive intellectual weapon pro-
vided by “ancient wisdom.”
Martin Luther looms large with the critique of ritualism, both in his Theses and
elsewhere, that Christianity meant an inner state, from which it followed that absent
the appropriate inner state, external ritual has no effect. Thus Roman Catholic rituals,
relying on ritual efficacy (ex opere operato), became meaningless. Luther’s followers
elaborated, the more so since the Roman church unrepentantly reaffirmed the prin-
ciple at the Council of Trent in 1543 – 65 (7.8). Geography helped; the city of Rome
constituted the seat of not only Roman Catholicism, but also the “pagan” past, from
which it seemed patent then that Roman Catholicism had inherited its allegedly
godless attitude to ritual from the “pagans.”
But the way was clear for a further development, which reached an apex in the
early eighteenth century (J. Smith 1990) and actually led to an interest in Roman
religion per se. Conyers Middleton produced in 1729 a treatise which went off at
least like a firecracker if not a bombshell: A Letter from Rome, Shewing an Exact
Conformity between Popery and Paganism; Or, The Religion of the Present Romans
derived from that of their Heathen Ancestors. Here Middleton built on the combina-
tion of Luther and geography to demonstrate an exact equation between Roman
Catholic and “pagan” rituals. First, he marshaled substantial quotations from Greco-
Roman sources to prove the equation once again. Second, he expanded the logic
through demonstration that ancient “pagans” trumped Roman Catholics because the
former had rejected allegedly odious aspects of their rituals while the latter had remained
perversely mired in their allegedly odious rituals. Put differently, Roman Catholics
were “bad pagans.” For example, Numa and the religion traditionally ascribed to
him appears frequently, notably in his chapter 4 (Middleton’s emphasis): “As to that
celebrated act of Popish idolatry, the adoration of the host, I must confess that I can-
not find the least resemblance of it in any part of the Pagan worship... ,” which
he supported with Cicero Nat.3.41 (sed ecquem tam amentem esse putas, qui illud,
quo vescatur, Deum credat esse). Here lies the reappearance of scholarship on Roman
religion, albeit for polemical purposes.
Deists and rationalists alike in the Enlightenment used Greco-Roman texts both
traditionally and originally. For some, the alleged “primitive” observances provided
18 C. Robert Phillips, III