Old Religions Transformed 97as well as the polisreligion, magic rituals as well as the veneration of Isis – and this
list could be continued at length (Leppin 2004). Even Christianity was by no means
homogeneous; there had always been intense competition between divergent doc-
trines and conflicting leaders; the practices and doctrines could be contradictory, even
within a single town, although there was relatively intense communication between
the different Christian groups.
To make things even more complex, there also were a number of common con-
cepts between “paganism” and “Christianity,” which were deeply rooted in the Zeitgeist.
Both groups accepted the importance of miracles as signs of godly intervention; both
admired holy men; many people believed in the existence of the soul after death.
Monotheism itself was by no means limited to Jews or Christians, even though the
exclusive, personal god had special importance for Christians. Common to all groups
was the idea that the emperor bore responsibility for the well-being of his empire,
which could only be guaranteed by the support of the gods. This idea was particu-
larly powerful for an epoch in which many people felt they were living through difficult
times.
An Empire of Religious Variety
Traditional religious practices met two main challenges in the third century: the chal-
lenge of Christianity and of other new, universalistic religions on the one hand and
the challenge of political instability on the other. Nevertheless, the religious traditions
of paganism remained vigorous: public religion lived on although there were with-
out doubt restrictions, engendered by the political and economic difficulties; the
cults of the cities were celebrated as well as the festivals, to which people flocked
even from far away. The great number of private dedications to Roman and local
gods all over the empire show that the traditional religious bonds were still strong
(Alföldy 1989b: 72ff.).
Among the gods revered by the Romans there was a variety of divinities which
have been categorized as oriental by contemporaries and modern scholars, such
as Mithras or Isis and Serapis. This can be misleading. Truly, those gods had their
origin in oriental regions, and some of their cults had been regarded as mere super-
stitions in former times; but many had won recognition progressively, since the
borders between legitimate religion and superstition were always negotiable; new cults
could always hope for acceptance. They should therefore not be seen as rivals to the
traditional religion of the cities, but as an integral part of the religious landscape of
Rome, which could always be enriched by new cults.
There were new developments, which set the old traditions in a new context.
In the middle of the third century Plotinus taught his philosophy, regarded as the
beginning of Neoplatonism. His philosophical teachings were far from the academic
skepticism of former centuries. These texts revealed ways of knowing and achieving
union with the “One,” thus being monotheistic in their core and interpreting
Plato in religious terms. Plotinus also had a special, in part ascetic way of life, which
he shared with his pupils. Many educated pagans turned to those ideas. Plotinus’