Argument From The Fall of Rome
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Just a thought: has anyone ever argued that the Roman Gods must be true and the old religions of the Roman Empire are correct?
The reasoning being that after the worship of them declined, especially after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, they allowed the Empire to be destroyed as punishment. Or at least they removed whatever magical divine protection they had over it and hence the various invasions that occurred in the 3rd century onward went badly for the Romans. Or they caused whatever theory you like or find is liked better by current historians – salinity, epidemic disease, financial collapse, lead poisoning, moral decay, etc….
It seems to me to be an argument that fits better with reality than most of what I hear from the religious.
Since at least the 290s, yes, if not before. There’s a substantial argument that the Great Persecution under Diocletian’s Tetrarchy was partly ideologically justified by the political decay of the previous 50 years – the “C3rd Crisis” – being caused by Christians existing, and pagans during the Crisis may made similar claims.
In the latter C4th, after Constantine and his sons, there is what’s often called the pagan revival, wherein a partly political, partly religious opposition to the now openly Christian emperors of the Theodosian house is found in Rome – there is a huge argument over the Ara Victoriae, the Altar of Victory, being removed from the Senate-house. Eventually Ambrose of Milan wins out and it’s taken away. Cut to a couple of decades later and Rome is sacked. The pagans instantly blame Christianity. Orosius even publishes ‘The Seven Books of History against the Pagans’, basically a catalogue of everything bad that had ever happened to Rome, to argue that bad stuff happened before Constantine, and bad stuff would happen again.
So, yes. There is NOTHING new under the Sun.