Ancient World Review

The Roman Cult Of The Vestal Virgins

Video from 2013.

The cult of the Vestals was the heart of the Roman empire, the symbol of its life and future. It's importance to the state can be seen in the continual improvements made to the Atrium Vestae, the House of the Vestals:

"Researchers have carried out scientific analysis of the materials used to build the Atrium Vestae in Rome. They found that successive phases of modification to the building saw improvements, including higher quality raw materials, higher brick firing temperatures, and better ratios between carbonate and silicate building materials." Source: Science Daily (2019).

Video from 2011.

This whole area was sacred. "[The Atrium Vestae was] the house of the Vestal Virgins at the foot of the Palatine, just east of the forum proper. By the end of the republic this term had come to mean their dwelling-house, in which sense it is ordinarily used in extant literature ... but originally it included the whole precinct of Vesta ... This precinct contained the temple of Vesta, the dwelling of the Vestals, the sacred grove, and the Regia or house of the king. This group was called both Regia and atrium Vestae ... and regia Vestae." Source: University of Chicago.

The cult of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, home and family, "expressed and guaranteed Rome's permanence," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised). "...The sacral status of the six sacerdotes Vestales, the Vestal Virgins (the sole female priesthood in Rome), was manifested in many ways. Though they were required to maintain strict sexual purity during their minimum of 30 years' service, their dress alluded to matrons' wear, their hairstyle probably to a bride's."

Most Vestals came from senatorial families, reflecting their elite religious function. "Though they had many ceremonial roles, their main ritual tasks were the preparation of the grain mixed with salt for public sacrifices and the tending of Vesta's 'undying fire.' The extinction of the fire provided the prima-facie evidence that a Vestal was impure: impurity spelled danger to Rome."

When Rome was still Rome, the cult of the Vestals was taken seriously. The punishment for impurity was to be buried alive. According to the OCD, "the last known case of living entombment ... occurred under Domitian in AD? 89. The last known chief vestal is Coelia Concordia (AD 380); the cult was finally abandoned in 394."

The cult of the Vestals was abandoned 14 years after Nicene Christianity was established as the state church of the Roman empire. Perhaps more than any other change that took place during that time, the dissolution of the Vestals shows just how radically the new religion had transformed Roman culture. The sacred fire symbolized the permanence of Rome. In many ways, it was Rome. When the fire was extinguished by official decree Rome -- the real Rome -- had basically ceased to exist. It's future was gone. By 394, when the last chief Vestal stepped down from her post, Rome was already in serious trouble. Eighty-two years later, the empire officially collapsed in the West when the last Roman emperor was deposed by the barbarians.

Closing down the cult of the Vestals was literally an act of cultural suicide.

Medusa And The Gorgons

"In Greek mythology, a Gorgon ... is a mythical creature portrayed in ancient literature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair made of living, venomous snakes, as well as a horrifying visage that turned those who beheld her to stone. Traditionally, while two of the Gorgons were immortal, Stheno and Euryale, their sister Medusa was not and she was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus." (Wikipedia)

Related: Ancient World Monsters in the Museums and Monuments of Rome.

From Clash of the Titans, 1981.

Note: The depiction of Medusa's death in Clash of the Titans deviates from the traditional story:

"According to the canonical version of the [Gorgo/Medusa] myth, Perseus was ordered to fetch the head of Medusa, the mortal sister of Sthenno and Euryale; through their horrific appearance these Gorgons turned to stone anyone who looked at them. With the help of Athena, Hermes and nymphs, who had supplied him with winged sandals, Hades' cap of invisibility, and a sickle Perseus managed to behead Medusa in her sleep; from her head sprang Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus [according to Wikipedia, Medusa foaled Pegasus when she died]. Although pursued by Medusa's sisters, Perseus escaped and, eventually, turned his enemy Polydectes [1] to stone by means of Medusa's head." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised)

[1] Polydectes, king of the island of Seriphos, is said to have fallen in love with Perseus' mother, Danae, but the protective Perseus wouldn't let the king anywhere near her. In order to get her meddlesome son out of the way, Polydectes sent Perseus on a suicidal mission to bring him Medusa's head.

When Perseus returned, he discovered that the king had been threatening and abusing his mother in his absence. Polydectes, less than pleased to see Perseus still alive, demanded to know if he had succeeded in his mission and Perseus held up the gorgon's severed head, turning the king and all his advisors into stone.

Note: "Petrifaction, or petrification as defined as turning people to stone, is a common theme in folklore and mythology, as well as in some works of modern literature." (Wikipedia)

One classic example of the use of petrifaction in modern fiction can be found in the great story Out of the Aeons by H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald. One of the best of Lovecraft's collaborations, this is a truly dark and frightening story about a museum which obtains a mysterious mummy that turns out to be the petrified remains of a man who confronted the ancient god Ghatanothoa, a gorgon-like entity so horrible that anyone who looks at it is instantly turned to stone while their brain remains alive and conscious for all eternity. Highly recommended.

8-Ft-Tall Pagan Idol Unearthed In Irish Bog

Video from 2020.

"A 1,600-year-old pagan idol, made from a wooden pole carved from an oak tree, has been unearthed in a bog in western Ireland." Source: Live Science.

"Archaeologists say the idol dates to the very late stage of pagan Ireland, only about 100 years before the conversion of the Irish to Christianity during the mission of St. Patrick in the fifth century.

"The idol appears to have been broken in two — a common practice with sacrificial objects, perhaps signifying that it was 'dead' and could no longer be used — and deliberately deposited in the bog, maybe as a substitute for a human sacrifice or 'bog body,' according to the archaeologists."

Note: This idol was unearthed in Gortnacrannagh, a rural area in the western region of Ireland (see video above), a few miles from Rathcroghan, a complex of archaeological sites in the western region of Ireland. This was a sacred place, according to one of the archaeologists:

"'It was a sacred bog, a place that would have been special or important for several thousand years, from the late Neolithic all the way through to the early medieval period ... People came and deposited objects, like our idol, into the wetland — essentially a fen [a strip of marshy land] along a river."

Next video (2015) shows an aerial view of the Rathcroghan Mound, the central feature of the prehistoric complex.

Was The Byzantine Empire Roman?

Documentary from 2014.

"The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire [see comment]  in the Greek-speaking, eastern part of the Mediterranean. Christian in nature, it was perennially at war with the Muslims, Flourishing during the reign of the Macedonian emperors, its demise was the consequence of attacks by Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Comment: The Byzantine Empire is usually referred to as the "Roman empire in the East," but I've never thought there was anything particularly Roman about the Byzantines. Romans weren't Greek-speaking Christians; they were pagans who spoke Latin. If you ask me, the real Roman empire had already ceased to exist as a distinct social organism by the time Constantinople was founded by Constantine in 324 - 337.  After Italy and the western provinces of the old empire were overrun by Germanic tribes in the fifth century AD the Byzantines retained Roman institutions, but they were essentially an Oriental kingdom, a hybrid of western and eastern traditions.

According to this view the Roman Empire collapsed as a culture long before it was conquered militarily. When Rome fell in the West, that was the end of it. Parts of its territory still remained, however, most of it in the East, but it's hard to see these surviving territories as Roman.

The picture is very complicated, naturally. There were similarities and differences between the Roman and Byzantine empires. It would be surprising if nothing had carried over from the old world. As a general rule, civilizations aren't suddenly obliterated, leaving no trace behind. Collapse doesn't work that way. Kingdoms and empires rise and fall and evolve into new political systems, usually after a period of chaos and warfare. Zombie civilizations are common in history -- nations that still exist long after their cultures have died or changed out of all recognition. Christian Rome and the Roman Byzantine Empire are both good examples, I think, of zombie empires.

The Byzantine empire was a "continuation" of the Roman Empire in the sense that it was once part of the Roman empire with all of its legal and political institutions, but it was Roman in name only. The main difference, I think, was religious. Paganism had been outlawed and driven underground, replaced by Christianity, an essentially Oriental religion.

Here's a modern analogy. Let's say that the United States becomes an Islamic caliphate, but keeps all of its current institutions in place. There's a White House, a Congress, a Supreme Court, and so on. People still vote, but all the candidates are Muslims. The county courthouse still looks the same, but Christianity is illegal and the judges enforce Shariah Law. Then the western half of the country is invaded and overrun by savage barbarians who settle down and take over the existing legislative machinery. The eastern half of the country still survives as an independent nation, but is it American? The answer is obvious.

Related: Continuity and change in the Byzantine Empire.

Is It Possible To Live An Iron Age Life In The Modern World?

Many groups including experimental archaeologists have tried to replicate the lifestyles of prehistoric and medieval cultures. Some of these groups, like the one in the 1978 BBC documentary, Living In The Past, have spent various lengths of time living under past conditions, but they always ended up returning to the modern world with its undeniable comforts and labor-saving devices. And who can blame them? After all, these were just temporary experiments. But what if a group of modern "neopagans" actually tried to do this for real? What would happen?

Most people living in the modern West would die like flies if they were suddenly transported back to the Iron Age and couldn't return after a few weeks or months. Just staying alive back then was a full-time job in itself, at least for most of the population, and it must have been precarious, but despite all the hardships life couldn't have been too harsh, at least not all the time, or no one would have survived.

Let's say that a group of modern "pagans" decided to start living like this full-time. They could band together, form an agricultural co-op or something, buy some land and return to an Iron Age way of life, building their own shelters, making their own clothes and tools, growing and hunting their own food. To be truly authentic, their community should be based on solid archaeological evidence, which means, for one thing, that they would have to dispense with their idiotic and ahistorical New Age "religions." 

Real pagans were agrarian and they practiced blood sacrifice. They didn't live in cities and drive out to Stonehenge a couple times a year to get loaded and dance around like Hollywood Apaches to the beat of drum circles while the cops kept an eye out for drunks and dope dealers. I've written several posts on this site mocking the "pagans, Druids and pantheists" who swarm over Stonehenge for every solstice and equinox, but I can understand their alienation from Christianity and the modern world.

Modern pagans have a serious problem. There's very little evidence about how people lived back then and what they believed, so the modern pagan has to make it all up and the result is usually ludicrous. This got me thinking about what an authentic neopagan movement would look like and two basic requirements came to mind.

First of all, as I've already said, real neopagans should toss out everything that isn't backed by solid archaeological evidence. Second, they should drop out of the modern world and go back to living in the Iron Age like the people in this video did. Note: They couldn't recreate a migratory Stone Age hunting and gathering existence for obvious reasons.

They would have to live like this all the time, though. There would be no going back. They would essentially have to live like Iron Age farmers and, given enough time, some of them might actually figure out how to survive as clans, living in many ways like the modern Amish. Even if they did, though, they would still be surrounded by the modern world and there would be no way to escape it entirely. They would have to pay taxes on their land, for instance, so they would need to set up small businesses or something.

And that's the catch. There's no way to escape the over-policed total state in the modern world. Not completely. These neopagans would be anachronisms, psychologically modern humans living an Iron Age life in the center of a decaying, post-industrial civilization. Keeping their communities going at that point would probably be even harder than learning how to feed themselves and stay warm in the winter.

It could be done, but the first generations would be in for a shock and a lot of them would drop out very quickly. Living without electricity is one thing, raising your own food another, but to be truly authentic, they couldn't use modern medicines or hospitals and the women would have to give birth naturally out there in the woods. There would be sickness, malnutrition, deaths. Their children couldn't go to modern schools. The dead would have to be buried right there on the land -- something that could be done here in the States as recently as the the middle of the 20th Century, but which is probably illegal now. The list of problems goes on and on, but this biggest problem is this:

The modern state would never allow people to live like this. An authentic Iron Age life is impossible in the modern world because we have lost too much freedom.

Note: The rest of the Living in the Past documentary can be found here.

The Pagan Origins Of Judaism

There doesn't seem to be any doubt that the ancient Israelites were originally polytheistic. Back in the Iron and Early Bronze ages, Yahweh was a tribal weather/storm/warrior deity and the Israelites worshiped a multitude of gods:

"At that time the Israelites [originally Canaanites themselves] worshiped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal, but in time El and Yahweh became conflated, El-linked epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, and other gods and goddesses such as Baal and Asherah were absorbed into the Yahwistic religion." (Wikipedia)

None of this is too surprising. The famous Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac shows that the Israelites once practiced human sacrifice, a distinctly pagan ritual. In the current version of the story, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test of faith, but when Abraham starts to carry out the order God stops him and Abraham sacrifices a ram instead. Some scholars believe that the original version of this tale may have ended differently:

"Francesca Stavrakopoulou has speculated that it is possible that the story 'contains traces of a tradition in which Abraham does sacrifice Isaac.' R.E. Friedman argued that in the original ... story, Abraham may have carried out the sacrifice of Isaac, but that later repugnance at the idea of a human sacrifice led the redactor of JE to add the lines in which a ram is substituted for Isaac. Likewise, Terence Fretheim wrote that the text bears no specific mark of being a polemic against child sacrifice." (Wikipedia)

One way or another, the story shows that the Israelites once carried out ritual child sacrifices.

It would have been nice if this clip had actually shown the results of the examination of the infant skeleton.

The ancient Israelites also conducted animal sacrifices, a practice which is still recreated on special occasions in Israel today.

Video from 2016. Rituals like this are clear evidence of ancient Israelite paganism.

The Cult Of Dionysus - The God Of Ritual Madness (Updated)

"Throughout antiquity, [Dionysus] was first and foremost the god of wine and intoxication. His other provinces include ritual madness or ecstasy (mania); the mask, impersonation, and the fictional world of the theater; and, almost antonymically, the mysterious realm of the dead and the expectation of an afterlife blessed with the joys of Dionysus." -- Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised).

The cult of Dionysus may have originated as far back as the 13th century BC. He was a foreign, perhaps Thracian god, a barbarian deity whose "wild nature was ultimately civilized and sublimated with the help of the Delphic Apollo," according to the German classical scholar, Erwin Rohde (OCD). The rites of the Dionysian Mysteries were "based on a seasonal death-rebirth theme (common among agricultural cults) and spirit possession" (Wikipedia) and centered around wild, trance-inducing processions and ceremonies:

"Following the torches as they dipped and swayed in the darkness, they climbed mountain paths with head thrown back and eyes glazed, dancing to the beat of the drum which stirred their blood' [or 'staggered drunkenly with what was known as the Dionysus gait']. 'In this state of ekstasis or enthusiasmos, they abandoned themselves, dancing wildly and shouting 'Euoi!' [the god's name] and at that moment of intense rapture became identified with the god himself. They became filled with his spirit and acquired divine powers." -- Hoyle, Peter, Delphi, London : Cassell, 1967. Cf. p. 76. 

The cult of Dionysus is said to have included slaves and (according to the myths) women known as maenads who engaged in orgies of irrational, bloody slaughter while possessed by their god. In The Bacchae by Euripedes, for example, the hapless king of Thebes, Pentheus, hides in a tree to spy on the secret rituals, only to come to a very bad end.  According to Wikipedia, "Dionysus, revealing himself, called out to his followers and pointed out the man in the tree. This drove the Maenads wild. Led by Agave, [Pentheus's mother], they forced the trapped Pentheus down from the tree top, ripped off his limbs, his head, and tore his body into pieces."

The Bacchae is a fantastic play, by the way. Very dark and violent. Highly recommended.

In the myths the followers of Dionysus took "delight in eating raw flesh," but this probably never happened in real life (?) According to the OCD, "in poetry and vase-painting, Dionysus and his mythical maenads tear apart live animals with their bare hands and eat them raw. But the divinely inflicted madness of myth was not a blueprint for actual rites, and the notion that maenadism 'swept over Greece like wildfire' is a Romantic construct that has to be abandoned along with the suggestion that the maenads sacramentally consumed Dionysus in the shape of his sacred animal."

Maybe that's true. Maybe not. The spread of maenadism could have been exaggerated in the sources, I suppose, but I'm not sure how the OCD comes to the conclusion that the Dionysian madness described in the myths "was not a blueprint for actual rites." Personally, I like the picture of frenzied, half-naked maenads ripping animals to shreds and eating them raw -- don't ask me why -- so I'm going to believe that's what actually happened.

Note: I'm not sure it's accurate to say that the Bacchanalia were popular with the Roman elites. The impression I get is that these rites mostly appealed to the plebeians.

The cult of Dionysus spread from Greece into central and southern Italy through Etruria around 200 BC. The region of Etruria was Etruscan in origin and "the Etruscan civilization was responsible for much of the Greek culture imported into early Republican Rome, including the twelve Olympian gods ..." (Wikipedia) The cult apparently infiltrated or transformed through a process of cultural osmosis an existing and similar Roman cult devoted to Liber, a god of wine, fertility and prophecy popular with the plebeians.

The Romans called Dionysus Bacchus and his rites the Bacchanalia. Always suspicious of private organizations, both religious and secular, the Roman authorities saw the cult as subversive and morally degenerate. The cult made them suspicious because it was divided into cells with their own oaths of loyalty, most of the members were apparently women, and its festivals were said to include orgies and animal sacrifices. As a result, the Roman Senate banned the cult in 186 BC.

Note: The Roman government had good reason to be suspicious of underground groups like this. In their experience, private organizations such as craft guilds and trade associations (which usually had a religious component) had a tendency to become centers of political agitation. The cell structure of the Dionysian cult in Rome was a bad sign as well, at least from the Senate's point of view (cells have always been a common feature of espionage networks and terrorist groups). Note that the organization of the cult was almost identical to the (supposed) organization of early Christianity, another cult surrounded with rumors of foreign rituals and bizarre sexual practices.

Next video shows the Dionysian frescos in the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii.

The cult of Dionysus or Eleutherios, "the liberator," as he was sometimes referred to, hasn't died out. It's been transformed. The irrationalism, mania and ritual madness of the Dionysian rites can still be seen in the modern world, though these rituals have lost all their form and religious significance. Dark and primordial, these chaotic impulses surface in everything from raves to sports riots and the destructive and meaningless street riots which have spread across the West recently. The only difference between the Dionysian excesses of today and those of the ancient world is that they're much more widespread now and these outbursts take place in urban environments instead of somewhere out in the wilderness where they belong.

The Romans knew how to deal with this kind of mass insanity.

The Temple Of Isis In Pompeii

"The Temple of Isis is a Roman temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis. This small and almost intact temple was among one of the first discoveries during the excavation of Pompeii in 1764." (Wikipedia)

"... The preserved Pompeian temple is actually the second structure; the original building built during the reign of Augustus was damaged in an earlier earthquake of 62 AD. Seventeen years later with the massive volcanic eruption, the Iseum [Isis temple] alone was the sole temple to be completely rebuilt—ahead even of the Capitolium."

Next video shows the standing ruins of the temple as they appeared in 2009. All of its wall paintings and statues were apparently moved to the Archaeological Museum at Naples.

"The worship of Isis was [originally] treated with suspicion in official circles [in Rome] because of its associations with Ptolemaic Egypt," according to Pompeii: The Last Day by Paul Wilkinson (p.47). "After the annexation of Egypt by Augustus in 30 BC, however, attitudes relaxed and by AD 38 Rome itself had a Temple of Isis. The cult of Isis had its own full-time priests, whereas the more official Roman religions did not[??]."

More views of the temple (including the entrance to an underground ritual purification chamber) can be seen in the next video. Turn up the volume.

According to Pompeii: The Last Day (pp. 176-177), "The sanctuary around the Temple of Isis is enclosed by walls on its east and north sides. It adjoins the Samnite Gymnasium [1] to the west and the theaters to the south. Very little is left of the original temple because it had been almost completely destroyed by the earthquake of AD 62. It was completely rebuilt in interesting circumstances by Numerius Popidius Celsinus. He was a six-year-old child who was admitted into the ruling body of Pompeii, the collegium decurionum, as a reward for his generosity (his father having actually provided the finances)." [2]

[1] "In the 5th century BC, the Samnites conquered [Pompeii] (and all the other towns of Campania); the new rulers imposed their architecture and enlarged the town. After the Samnite Wars (4th century BC), Pompeii was forced to accept the status of socium of Rome, maintaining, however, linguistic and administrative autonomy. In the 4th century BC, it was fortified. Pompeii remained faithful to Rome during the Second Punic War." (Wikipedia)

[2] According to Wilkinson, Numerius Popidius Celsinus was the name of the six-year-old child, but other sources give this as the father's name. It's possible that they both had the same name, however. One of the temple inscriptions reads "'Numerius Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerius, rebuilt at his own expense from its foundations, the Temple of Isis, which had collapsed in an earthquake; because of his generosity, although he was only six years old, the town councilors nominated him into their number free of charge.'" Source: The Post Hole. The Latin and an English translation of the inscription can be found here.

Note: The video above is part of a longer lecture series on a variety of ancient history topics.

Isis was an important deity in Pompeii, probably because of the goddess's association with water:

"Because this temple served the Isis cult and was not a public civil space, the Temple of Isis, or Iseum, and Isis herself must have held special meaning and value for the city of Pompeii. Pompeii’s seafaring economy and the rise of personal religion in the Roman world may explain this high value. Since Pompeii relied on commercial seafaring to support its economy, Isis’s emphasis on stable and life-giving water defeating the often treacherous, unpredictable, and sometimes-deadly water of the sea, strengthened the local cult. The confluence of architecture, art, and rituals implies why the Pompeiians so highly valued a cult sanctuary – gentle Isis, offering resurrection and regulated water, provided a comforting counterbalance to unpredictable Neptune." (The Post Hole).

Related: The Temples of Pompeii

Oriental and Mystery Cults in Pompeii

A Brief History Of Hell (Updated)

The myth of Hell can be traced all the way back to the first civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, but I'm guessing that the concept of an "underworld of the dead" had its origins in the earliest funerary religions of the Stone Age. The dead were buried under the earth, so the land of the dead was also seen as being somewhere underground.

Hell wasn't called Hell in Mesopotamia and it wasn't a place of punishment for sinners. That's a much more modern idea. Originally, the place we call Hell was just a grim vision of the afterlife waiting for everyone. In other words, back around 3,000 BC or so, everybody went to "Hell" so I guess you could say that Hell was the original Heaven:

"The Sumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue ^'a shadowy version of life on earth^'. This bleak domain was known as Kur, and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal. All souls went to the same afterlife, and a person's actions during life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world to come." Source: Wikipedia.

Closed-captions helpful. Sort of.

The Old Testament Sheol, also known as Hades, is basically identical to the Mesopotamian Kur. According to Wikipedia, "Sheol is a place of darkness to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, a place of stillness and darkness cut off from life and from God."

The concept of an underworld where sinners are punished after death seems to have evolved in ancient Egypt and Greece, but several different versions of the myth were floating around the Near East and Mediterranean world back then.

The Greeks, for instance, had a concept of the underworld (Hades) as a "deep, gloomy place" where everyone went after death, but the element of judgment was also present in their mythology. " In the Gorgias, Plato (c. 400 BC) wrote that souls were judged after death and those who received punishment were sent to Tartarus," a pit or cave in Hades that was used as a dungeon. (Wikipedia) "Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans."

The next clip is from the great 1997 miniseries, The Odyssey, with Armand Assante (highly recommended). It starts off with the scene where Odysseus travels to Hades to ask the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home. The Hades in this scene is more of an underworld of shades than a place of divine punishment.

Hades was not only a place, but the name of the god of the underworld. Originally, he appears to have been one of many anonymous chthonic deities and it was dangerous to mention his actual name:

"...Hades lacked a proper name; as in the case of other nameless chthonians, his anonymity was a precaution. He was referred to by descriptive circumlocutions as 'chthonian Zeus' ... 'the chthonian god,' 'king of those below,' 'Zeus of the departed' ... 'the other Zeus,' 'the god below,' or simply 'lord.' As the Lord of the Dead, he was dark and sinister, a god to be feared and kept at a distance." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised).

The history of Hell and its demons is too long and complex to describe in detail here, but our modern concept of Hell apparently originated with the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity. From what I've read, Judaism sees Hell as a state of shame and atonement rather than a physical place. The full-blown description of Hell as a literal pit of fire and brimstone and eternal torment seems to be an invention of the medieval Christian church. 

Interestingly enough, "[t]he Christian doctrine of hell derives from passages in the New Testament. The word hell does not appear in the Greek New Testament; instead one of three words is used: the Greek words Tartarus or Hades, or the Hebrew word Gehinnom (1)." So the Hell of the New Testament has clear roots in the underworld of the dead as described by the ancient Greeks and Mesopotamians.

(1) The word Gehinnom derives from Gehenna, a reference to the "Valley of Hinnom," a garbage dump outside of Jersualem where people burned their trash. According to Wikipedia, "[b]odies of those deemed to have died in sin without hope of salvation (such as people who committed suicide) were thrown there to be destroyed. Gehenna is used in the New Testament as a metaphor for the final place of punishment for the wicked after the resurrection."

The valley is said to be cursed because some of the early kings of Judah sacrificed children to Moloch there.

These days, a majority of Americans still believe in Hell and a 2007 Harris poll revealed that more Americans believe in a literal Hell and Devil than they do in the theory of evolution. Some Christian denominations reject the concept of Hell altogether, while others still embrace the literal version of Hell famously described by Jonathan Edwards in his notorious 1741 sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

The full text of this sermon is a classic well worth reading.

Back in 2018, Pope Francis created a storm of controversy when he supposedly said that Hell doesn't exist and that condemned souls just disappear, though it's possible that his actual words were misreported. If Francis doesn't believe in Hell, he apparently still believes in demons, however, because the Vatican announced in the same year that it would hold a "training course for priests in exorcism ... amid claims that demands for deliverance from demonic possession have greatly increased across the world."

Modern Pagans Aren't Real Pagans

Modern neopaganism isn't a "revival of the old traditions." It never will be as long as it ignores the ancient practice of blood sacrifice which was central to the real thing.

Modern pagans like to say they're "keeping the old ways alive," but the truth is that they're not pagans at all, at least not in any real historical sense of the term. Whatever they call themselves -- "Odinists," "Heathens," "Neo-Druids," Wiccans, etc. -- they're basically just Live Action Role Players who make up their rituals and beliefs as they go along, ignoring the little we do know about actual pagan religions.

The most glaring problem with modern pagans is that they don't conduct ritual sacrifices -- except in an extremely watered-down, safe and above all legal form. They replace this central aspect of real pagan religion with various invented rituals and "theologies" that never actually existed in the ancient world, and the result is usually ludicrous.

For example, the Odinist Fellowship (UK) web site openly admits that "It is a well-known fact that the most widespread form of communal worship practised in ancient times by pagans of every nationality was the sacrifice." They then go on to say that "Odinists in modern times do not practise elaborate rituals, such as animal sacrifices, that were common in olden days; it would be neither legal nor necessary to do so."

In other words, the Odinist Fellowship admits that it doesn't follow actual pagan rituals. Instead, its members rely on their own "interpretations" of pagan "theology" and these interpretations inevitably reflect their own thoroughly modern political and social ideologies -- environmentalism, intersectional feminism, political correctness, vegetarianism, egalitarianism, New Age spiritualism, whatever.

These UK Odinists explain away the fact that they don't conduct "unnecessary" sacrificial rituals by saying "What is necessary is that we understand the theological principles that underlie ancient practice, and apply those principles in forms better suited to contemporary conditions." As it turns out, "the form of sacrifice practised by modern Odinists is the libation of mead, accounts of which have been recorded in the literature."

They're sort of correct here. Mead and other things such as wine, milk and honey were frequently used for libations or offerings, but in the old days libations usually accompanied sacrifices. I'm not sure if libations and sacrifices can be considered the same thing, but never mind that.

There is nothing ancient about this path whatsoever.

The word "pagan" has two different senses. According to Merriam-Webster, a pagan is either "a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)" or "one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods: an irreligious or hedonistic person." Personally, I'd say that modern pagans fit more into the latter category than anything else, but whatever the case they can't call themselves pagans in the religious sense and claim to be following the "old ways" if they don't conduct ritual sacrifices.

This is an absolutely critical distinction. Sacrifice, especially blood sacrifice, was central to ancient paganism and I think it's accurate to say that authentic pagan religions consisted almost entirely of the correct practice of sacrificial rituals according to prescribed forms. There's no doubt at all that sacrifice was the major element in all pagan religions.

"Sacrifice was the most important form of action in Greek religion," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), and "Roman sacrificial practices were not functionally different from Greek." And it was the same with the so-called barbarian tribes of western Europe. There is a lot of archaeological evidence for Celtic/Druidic sacrifice, including human sacrifices. According to the OCD, "The ancients knew them [the Celts] as fierce fighters and superb horsemen, and noticed the savagery of their religious rites conducted by the priesthood, the Druids..." (Emphasis added.)

Ancient Greek sacrifice. Real pagan sacrifices were a straight-up transaction with the gods, a blood-offering in exchange for protection or other favors . There was no "theology" involved here.

Modern Druids and other neopagans can hardly be described as "savage" and I'm not sure where they get their "pagan theologies" from. In the case of the Druids, the little we know about their religious practices has been written from the perspective of the Romans and early Christian scholars. The Druids had an oral tradition and one thing we know about them, according to the OCD, is that they believed in sacral, i.e. sacred kingship. I doubt if today's neopagans would accept this concept any more than they accept the necessity of making sacrifices.

The one thing missing from every description of pagan religion I've ever come across is what we would now refer to as a "theology." Ancient people had their myths, but they didn't have theologies or dogmas as such, so it's difficult to see how the Odinist Fellowship (or any other neopagan group) can "understand the theological principles that underlie ancient practice."

Pagan religions were inherently ritualistic in nature. Unlike modern Christians, pagans didn't have to accept a particular doctrine or set or moral principles in order to be pagans. The correct execution of ritual was the heart of the matter. In Rome, for instance, it was perfectly possible, even common among the educated classes, to be "religious" without actually believing in the gods. Religion was ritual to the Romans. "Belief" had nothing to do with it. Ref: Cicero and the Religion of his Day, Eli Edard Burriss, 1926.

Images of Roman sacrifice. The pagan gods liked blood and the smell of burning flesh and offal.

The importance of ritual as opposed to dogma can be seen in the practice of Santeria, an example of a real pagan (see below) religion that still exists in the modern world. According to Wikipedia, "Santeria does not use a central creed for its religious practice; though it is understood in terms of its rituals and ceremonies." And one of its rituals involves animal sacrifices offered up to the gods for initiations and healing:

"As the sacrificial hour approaches, several priests (Santeros) are preparing the 40 assorted goats, roosters, hens, guinea hens, pigeons, quail, turtle and duck who grow noisy and nervous in their cages. Their lives will be taken in an exchange mandated by Olofi, Santería's supreme god and source of all energy, to heal the broken body and spirit of Virginia Rosario-Nevarez and to initiate her into the Santería priesthood." Source: Dallas Observer (2009).

Note: According to the Santeria Church of the Orishas, "The sacrifice method commonly used in Santeria involves the severing of the carotid arteries with a knife to cause the animal to pass out before it dies."

Just to qualify what I said earlier, I'm not sure if it's technically correct to call Santeria a "pagan" religion since it incorporates elements of Catholicism, but then again Catholicism itself also incorporates elements of paganism, so the picture gets kind of muddled. Santeria as we know it isn't very old, having originated in the Caribbean under the Spanish Empire, but it has deep roots in the Yaruba religion of West Africa. Yaruba is definitely pre-Christian, but has apparently been influenced by both Christianity and Islam over the centuries. Whatever the case, however, Santeria, at least in its ritualistic and sacrificial aspects, seems to have much more in common with authentic European paganism than any of these modern neopagan movements.

Real paganism as practiced in Santeria.

Modern pagans could easily incorporate sacrificial rituals into their ceremonies. The sources have detailed descriptions of how these rites were carried out, at least by the Greeks and Romans, and Celtic sacrifices were probably very similar. The legality of blood sacrifices is another matter. The US Supreme Court ruled back in 1993 that "city laws directed at animal sacrifice as part of the Santeria religion violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment," but I'm not sure if that ruling still stands. If it does, that hasn't stopped local officials from trying to prevent animal sacrifices for religious purposes. I don't know what the legal situation is in the UK and other European countries.

Blood sacrifices aren't absolutely necessary, of course, but the ancients believed that they had the most power to influence the gods and let's face it -- anything less would be kind of lame. Modern pagans could start sacrificing pigs, goats, cows, chickens, and so on. They might have to do it in secret, but it could be done. Neo-Druids serious about keeping the old ways alive could sacrifice the occasional baby or cheerleader as well, but here's the thing. The thought of killing animals, let alone human beings, would disgust and repel them -- most of them, at any rate. They're too civilized to do things like that.

And that's why they'll never be real pagans.

Modern neopagans have more in common with the Christians in this scene than they do with the pagans. They would run away screaming from a ritual sacrifice like this.