Guided reading for R:/Rel261/profnote/Greco-Roman Religion.htm
Find the answer to each of these questions as it is given in the textbook before moving on to the next question.
Some answers, drawn from the textbook alone, will be rather simplistic. They can, and should, be elaborated upon as your knowledge of the subject grows.
It is part of the Guided Reading assignments that student should ASK as well as answer questions.
The symbol (*) after a question indicates that these might be used for longer
essays in your quizzes.
- What three groups inhabited the Italian Peninsula?
- What marked the end of traditional Roman religion and the beginning of its most decadent period?
- What was the extent of the Roman Empire in the second century B.C.E.?
- What happened to the Roman Empire in the fourth century of the Christian era?
- When were the texts of the Hebrew Bible (at least the Torah) translated into Greek?
- Explain the "tripartite division of Indo-European ideologies." (*)
- Where did mystery religion most likely begin?
- What is "votive religion?"
- What is the relevance of votive religion for mystery cults? (*)
- What is known about Mithraism? From what sources?
- Describe and discuss the Tauroctony.
- What can we understand about the popularity of Mithraism from the little evidence we have?
- What was the Mithraic attitude to the afterlife? How can this be compared to the Hebrew attitude?
- Who composed the main reservoir of initiates for the cult of Mithras? Why might they have become involved?
- What did Gnosticism inherit from the Greek iatromantes?
- What is the main indication of gnosticism in the early centuries of the Christian era?
- Who was the Demiurge? Why was this figure often identified with the god of the Hebrew Bible? (*)
- What two major principles of Christianity and Judaism does Gnosticism thus contradict?
- What does the docetic Christology claim?