Religions 600 BCE to 600 CE - AP World History: Modern

Zoroastrianism was the official religion of both the Achaemenid and Sassanid Persian empires. It is still practiced today, though the number of followers that adhere to Zoroastrianism is low in comparison to religions such as Christianity or Islam.

Augury had been the preferred method of divination within the Roman Empire until the popularization of Christianity in the Fourth Century. Things even as important as matters of state would be solved with a visit to the augur. Ephor were ancient Spartan leaders. Pontefix Maximus were high priests, but they were not necessarily concerned with augury. Princeps was a term for the Roman Emperor.

The First Council of Nicaea effectively ended the view of Christianity as foreign or harmful to the Roman Empire and allowed it to grow into a state-sanctioned religion, supported by a rigid structure of bishops ruling over diocese, much like the structure of Roman state designations.

The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was one of the first temples built in the city of Rome and was the largest in Italy at the time of its construction. It stood on the Capitoline Hill and was one of the highest points in the city until it was burned down in 83 BCE. The Pantheon was built in about 128 BCE. The Temple of Hercules Victor was built in the late 2nd century. The Temple of Mars Ultor was built over a very long period of time, and it was inaugurated in 2 BCE. The Temple of Caesar was opened in 29 BCE.

Arianism, proposed by Arius in the Third Century CE, proposed that Jesus Christ could not be God because God himself is unique and immutable. This would mean that Jesus Christ was created by God and therefore lesser. This was considered heretical and banned from Orthodoxy, but caught on in Germanic cultures.

Although initially Rome's government persecuted early Christian communities, the Roman emperor Constantine tolerated Christians and even converted to Christianity himself; Christianity became the official state religion. The Athenian Empire and the Nabataeans existed before Christianity. The Hunnic Empire, a great enemy to Rome, was never Christian. The Mongol Empire had a Christian population that was tolerated but was never officially Christian.

The path of Buddhist philosophy is to attempt to reach Nirvana, this is done through meditation and the philosophy of the eight-fold path. Nirvana is the state reached were the practitioner abolishes ignorance and worldly cravings, and is therefore released from suffering.

Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, was born into a wealthy and powerful noble family.

His family was neither poor, nor carpenters, nor merchants but rather warriors and landowners.

Moses, and the more secular historical figure Sargon, were both leaders who were recorded as being placed in baskets and sent down rivers as infants (for Moses this was the Nile, for Sargon the Euphrates). The Buddha, on the other hand, was raised in a pleasure palace with his family.

Known as the Hijrah, Mohammed fled the city of Mecca with his followers; this event marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

The death of Ali, Mohammed's grandson, is important to understanding the difference between Sunnis and Shias, but it is not the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

Mohammed's birth date is celebrated in some Muslim communities as the holiday Mawlid, but it is not the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

Mohammed's death is an important event in Muslim history but not the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

Mohammed's return to Mecca is a triumphant event in the history of Islam and the Middle East, but it is not the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

In the early 300s, Byzantine authorities adopted Christianity as the empire's religion. Archaeological finds from that era document this increasing Christianization, especially visual motifs such as crosses.

Although there may have been a vibrant counter-culture celebrating paganism, Byzantium did not suffer from widespread civil wars between pagans and Christians.

Mohammed lived in the 7th century, centuries after Byzantine authorities adopted Christianity.

Byzantine authorities never forced suspected to pagans to march over stone portraits of pagan deities, although this was actually a Japanese practice in the 17th through 19th centuries against suspected Christian communities.

Some Byzantine emperors were more religious than others, but they tended to rule with absolute power; as a general rule they were not hermitic and did not delegate political power to generals in the army due to religious beliefs.

People in the ancient world largely felt as secular as many people today, at least when it came to the circles of educated advisers and bodyguards surrounding the emperor; declarations of divinity were always troubling to some.

Caesar was Julius Caesar's name but became a title over time; he was considered a person whose actions were exemplified and to be followed by capable and militaristic men.

For many centuries Japanese emperors were forced to live near poverty, even having their household staff sell their signature in the streets of major cities to raise funds, because they were considered spiritual beings; Rome's imperial behavior never politically demeaned the emperor as a matter of ideological purity.

Universities are institutions of education with legally binding academic freedom that stem from the Middle Ages in which groups of young scholars and a single teacher, often an older monk, would meet in a predetermined location and discuss matters of nature and philosophy; Rome had no such institutions.

No Praetorian in history ever declared himself emperor.

At Caesar's funeral, Mark Antony celebrated him as a fallen god.

Octavian was Caesar's ally who outlasted him.

Marcus Aurelius was a later emperor of Rome.

Stilicho was a powerful field commander of the Roman army very late in the empire's existence, essentially the last successful defender of Rome before it was sacked by the Germanic tribes and its technology and knowledge was destroyed.

Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, came from a royal family in what is today Northern India and Nepal.

He was wealthy and grew up in a palace.

Siddhartha was from a family native to Northern India and Nepal, not China.

Siddhartha never worked as a merchant.

Siddhartha lived a good portion of his life as an ascetic; starving himself in a spiritual quest of denying the body sustenance to force the supplicant to engage in nearly superhuman feats of meditation.

While Greek and Roman gods often had different names, they were essentially similar characters, but with certain different attributes largely relating to the nature of Greek vs Roman political life; Roman deities were preoccupied with the running of the Roman state, whereas Greek deities were interested in all aspects of life.

The Romans were invaded many times, including very early on by a tribe called the Etruscans. While the Greeks and Romans both worshipped warlike deities, Greek gods of war were often considered fundamentally destructive, whereas the Roman god of war, Mars, was also the Roman god of agriculture; essentially, for the Romans, war could bring peace, stability, and order rather than just death and destruction.

The Romans considered Greek religion to be very similar to their own, and used the religious similarities to attempt to build trust in the government within the Greek communities of the Roman empire.

Many Roman religious and political leaders wanted to use the similarities between Greek and Roman deities to instill trust amongst the Greek speaking people of the Latin speaking Roman empire.

While the Romans often chastised Greek culture for being more emotional and irrational, Romans held large festivals and feasts for their supernatural deities.

Bodhisattvas are those who aspire to attain enlightenment and help others achieve it.

In Buddhism, teachers, such as Bodhisattvas, can be integral in attaining enlightenment.

Bodhisattvas are not considered enlightened, yet, but certainly not supremely ignorant; they're on the right path.

Bodhisattvas were never the enemies of the Buddha.

In Buddhist theology, Bodhissatvas were not born enlightened; if they attain enlightenment that is due to their spiritual work.

Buddhist worship often includes meditation, spinning prayer wheels, and walking around stupas.

Making pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina is a prerequisite act of worship in many forms of Islam, to Buddhism.

Jerusalem is a pilgrimage site for Jews, Muslims, and Christians, as well as a few other religions, but not traditionally Buddhism.

Most Buddhists do not consider Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyamuni, the first Buddha or enlightened being, to be a messiah; rather worship of the death and resurrection of a messiah is primarily a function of Christianity.

Judaism includes important rituals relating to an escape from Egypt where the Israelites were in bondage, not Buddhism.

The Wheel of Existence explains the Buddhist idea of the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth.

The most famous story of Buddha's death is that he received a gift of food he knew to be spoiled but ate it anyway so as not to offend the offerer, a very poor person; Buddha was not crucified upon a cross, so there are no depictions of crucifixions of him in temples and monasteries.

The River Styx was a religious concept in ancient pagan religions, specifically ancient Greece and Rome, never in Buddhism; Buddhist temples and monasteries do not contain depictions of the River Styx.

Heaven in ancient Norse religion, or Valhalla, was oftentimes depicted as a giant mead hall, or drinking establishment, and adjacent battlefield. Every day Valhalla's denizens fight to the death in a grand battle, with the winners spending the night partying in the mead hall, and every morning the dead are reborn to fight again; Buddhism has no similar concept.

Certain forms of Confucianism and Chinese folklore religion contain the concept that the afterlife is organized like regular life in that there is a governmental bureaucracy that oversees and administers.

Jainism is a religion that emerged in India and continues to enjoy a small following today. The exact origins of the religion are obscure, but it is thought to have been practiced for at least two thousand years in the Indian subcontinent. The primary tenet of Jainism is the practice of nonviolence towards all living things. Jainism, although rarely a majority religion in India at any period of history, has had a lasting impact on Indian culture and the Hindu faith.

Taoism, like Confucianism and Legalism, arose in China during the turbulent period known as the Warring States Period. Taoism emphasizes living a virtuous life in accordance with nature and seeking to achieve a harmony between mankind and nature.