A recent revelation in my religious studies has taken more than the usual amount of time to digest. The resulting effervescent fountain of nested implications has kept me busy for a while
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There was no shift or change, because the establishment of Christianity required none for the average Roman citizen. Culturally, matters of theology, philosophy, culture, and religion had already been slowly winding towards the position it attained in about 300AD.
I think your hypothesis is somewhat corroborated in Scott's Hermetica. He discusses this at some length in his Introduction because, as he notes, the Hermetica were written in Alexandria by the last generation of pagan Neoplatonic writers. By 207-13 EV, at least some Hermetica were available; by 310 EV "most, if not all, of the extant Hermetica were in existence". In fact, Scott hypothesizes that the Greek original of Asclepius Latin III was "written within a year or two of 270 [EV]". [Scott, pg. 8.]
"It is not to be supposed that the Christian Church took over this or that theological dogma ready made from Hermetists, or from any other Pagans. And yet the Christian Church took over a good deal; for it took over the men themselves. If not the very men by whom our Hermetica
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Alexandria was a hotbed for religious innovation since, well, Alexander. It wasn't surprising, then, that they were major players in the defining of the new cult on the block.
One of our problems of historical perspective in the 21st century is the experience of modern totalitarianisms as modes of belief propagation and enforcement. Although these often grew out of a Western Christian culture with a heritage of centralizing religio-political authority, totalitarian makeover is not the way that culture came to be. In a recent conversation, I found myself explaining that despite the myths attaching to the forgery of the Donation of Constantine--and although there have been occasional setbacks (read: the Reformation) in the extent of Roman Catholicism--there has never been any time in which decentralization was the rule in the development of Papal authority in that church. Viewed century-to-century, it's always been a pretty steady racheting of regularization and control, adapting to the "market" of the laity, and disciplining the "salesforce" of the various orders of clergy.
The Donation of Constantine was itself a medieval forgery used primarily (if not created expressly) to support the myth of a prior political authority in the papacy that informed the creation of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 c.e. Until the Fourth Lateran Council in the High Middle Ages--and for practical purposes, long after in many areas--local bishops had enormous autonomy and Rome was of symbolic value only.
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I think your hypothesis is somewhat corroborated in Scott's Hermetica. He discusses this at some length in his Introduction because, as he notes, the Hermetica were written in Alexandria by the last generation of pagan Neoplatonic writers. By 207-13 EV, at least some Hermetica were available; by 310 EV "most, if not all, of the extant Hermetica were in existence". In fact, Scott hypothesizes that the Greek original of Asclepius Latin III was "written within a year or two of 270 [EV]". [Scott, pg. 8.]
"It is not to be supposed that the Christian Church took over this or that theological dogma ready made from Hermetists, or from any other Pagans. And yet the Christian Church took over a good deal; for it took over the men themselves. If not the very men by whom our Hermetica ( ... )
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One of our problems of historical perspective in the 21st century is the experience of modern totalitarianisms as modes of belief propagation and enforcement. Although these often grew out of a Western Christian culture with a heritage of centralizing religio-political authority, totalitarian makeover is not the way that culture came to be. In a recent conversation, I found myself explaining that despite the myths attaching to the forgery of the Donation of Constantine--and although there have been occasional setbacks (read: the Reformation) in the extent of Roman Catholicism--there has never been any time in which decentralization was the rule in the development of Papal authority in that church. Viewed century-to-century, it's always been a pretty steady racheting of regularization and control, adapting to the "market" of the laity, and disciplining the "salesforce" of the various orders of clergy.
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What's the myth regarding the Donation of Constantine that implies that the Pope wasn't always in charge in the West?
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