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Ancient Greek Religions:
The Ancient Greek Religion was polytheistic in nature exactly like most other ancient religions. Polytheism is belief in or worship of multiple gods or divinities. Greeks believed that the gods give protection to their country and safeguard them from the enemies. Ancient Greek religion had no creeds and no code of system of morality attached with it to be accepted by the devotees. They tried to please the gods in order to live a life free of oppression and hardship. The essence of most ancient religions was the perseverance of rites, which was considered as the process by which a balanced relation is maintained with the uncharted forces of this world. Although common shrines were located at holy places, most of the houses had a family shrine at home. There was no priestly class in the ancient Greek religion and common people performed the sacrifices. Only the special category in the society was the Sooth-Sayers who pretended to prognosticate future events and what was expedient to the inquirer. Sacrifices were offered for the self-purification and petitions. It was not proper to make a petition to the deity without bringing a sacrifice.

Religious thoughts in the Hellenistic and Roman periods were built over the epics of Homer. Though the Homeric thoughts were more secular which had great permeating influence in the development of the Greek education, culture and religion, it had also great bias in setting up the religiosity of the Greek people. Some of the Greek heroes won entrance to Olympus were turned out to the status of Greek gods. These hero-turned gods like Castor, Pollux, Dioscuri etc. were very popular among mariners as their protectors during the sea journey. [Acts 28:11]

Greek gods were described as of human in appearance with the exception that they were believed as ageless, immortal, capable to take any shape, capable to penetrate in any media and without any physical entity. Some of the deities were believed to abide on the earth and others abide in the sky. [1 Cor. 8:5] Very popular deities of ancient Greek were Athena or Zeus. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and she was the daughter of Zeus.

Majority of the Greek religious festivals were based on the agrarian cycle. Celebrations were in honor of the deities who gave fertility to the crops and herds. Apollo was one of the most important Olympian gods, concerned especially with prophecy, medicine, music and poetry, archery, and various bucolic arts, particularly the care of flocks and herds. Majority of the Greek population were religious and committed to religious observances.

Ancient Roman Religions:
Ancient Romans believed that their gods had great influence on the human in their day-to-day life. Unlike the Greek mythological gods, Romans had gods in spiritual form. They believed in many spirits, which had their own dominion over their materialistic wealth and over their efforts. In spite of their own spiritual gods, Romans imported foreign gods especially from Greece and linked them with their indigenous deities. As the empire expanded, they imported more and more gods from Egypt, Britain, Germany and Persia.

Unlike the Greek religion, Roman religion was more organized and appointed-priests performed the rituals and rites. The sacrifices were offered for the accomplishment of the wished-for and to avoid unpleasant things and happenings. The wordings of the rituals were recited from pre-prepared holy books. It was very particular that the ceremonies to be legally accurate and right with exact minute prescription from the beginning to end. If anything went wrong in between, the full ceremonial process was repeated for its entirety with utmost accuracy. As Romans had great faith in omen, the priests used to cover their heads with a veil during the performance, so that they do not watch anything inauspicious during that time. Another important aspect of religion in Roman times was the divinity of the Emperor.

Ancient Egyptian Religion:
Egyptian gods were very different from their Greek and Roman counter-parts, as most of the Egyptian deities were of human body and animal head or vice versa. Egyptian deities were the first of the eastern deities, to become popular in the Hellenistic world. The deities varied considerably over ages and hence Egyptian tradition had a great variety of gods, known to be over 2000, spread over the entire land of Egypt. Some of the common deities who lived in Egyptian religion over many years were Isis, Osiris and Sarapis. Isis, which survived more than thousand years, was the goddess for love, magic, motherhood, children, medicine and peace. People used to worship her to make their marriage happy. Osiris was the god of nature and agriculture to whom the Isis got married. Sarapis was emerged later as a combination of Osiris and Apis.

Egyptians believed that many dead people may survive for an after-life and the soul could survive if the body was preserved. The embalming and mummification were practiced on the dead body to preserve it intact. The Priests of Anubis conducted the mummification process under the vigil of Anubis. As the king was considered divine, the bodies of the Pharaohs were well preserved in Pyramids. A damaged body was believed, not to be recognized by the soul and it may loose the chance for a rebirth.

Ancient Syrian Religion:
Baal, which was referred many times in the Bible, was the major deity in ancient Syria. Each city in Syria had Baal and his spouse. The worship of Baal extended from the Canaanites to the Phoenicians who were engaged in agriculture as he was considered the god of fertility and resided in the firmament. Baal was the master of their land and associated religiously to sun and moon. Worship of Baal was seen back even to fourteenth century. Baal is considered as the son of Dagon who referred in the Bible as the Philistine god especially in the city of Ashdod. On Mount Carmel it was the prophet Elijah who discredited King Ahab's belief in the power of Baal.

Atargatis was the cohort of Baal and was a very popular deity in ancient Syria. She was popularly described as the mermaid-goddess. From Syria her worship extended to Greece and to the furthest west. She was the goddess of fertility represented as half woman and half fish. Those who go for the pilgrimage to the god or goddess used to shave his head and eyebrows and sacrificed a sheep.

Ancient Persian Religion:
Persia is identified as an ancient source of important new religious ideas. The main Persian god, who became popular in Roman Empire, was Mithra. The Aryan who worshipped Mithra carried this god to India and Iran. The Mithra sanctuaries were commonly located near rocks or springs of water. In the Indian Vedic culture Mithra appeared in close relationship with Varuna and as one of the Adityas, a solar deity and the god of honesty, friendship, and contracts. In Iranian religious tradition name Mithra was maintained and distinguished by his close relationship with Ahura Mazda and he became very popular deity of Zoroastrianism. The Hellenistic and Roman god Mithras, worshipped by male initiates from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD, combined Persian Mithra with other Persian cult. Mithraism became a unofficial cult among the Roman army.

Ancient Judaism:
Judaism is one of the oldest religious traditions in the world, which is still practiced. It is first recorded Monotheistic faith in which only one God is worshipped and totally rejects idolatry. The tenets and history of Judaism constitute the historical foundation for the Christianity. Torah the first five books of Hebrew Bible, specifies a number of laws in Judaism to be followed by the Children of Israel. The subject of the Hebrew Bible is an account of their relationship with God as reflected in their history from the beginning of time until the building of the Second Temple [approx. 350 BCE]. According to religious History, Jews are the children of the Biblical Patriarch Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. God set aside the descendants of Aaron, Moses' brother, to be a priestly class within the Israelite community. Most of the Jews, especially from the Hellenic period, believe that their God is the only God and thus, the God of everyone, and that the universal truths are revealed through the Torah.

As per Judaism, God is omnipotent, as well as omniscient and the True Words of God were revealed to the mankind through His prophets, among which Moses was the chief prophet. Judaism believes that people can atone for sins through words and deeds, and without intermediaries.

Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been displaced from both their original homeland, and the areas in which they have resided. Though the Jews spread around different countries spread over many periods, they maintained the Hebrew language and followed strict religious upbringing. So, there was no much difference between Palestinian Judaism and Diaspora Judaism except for its geographical diversity. The Jewish background on which Christianity was born was already Hellenized.

There is no clear demarcation between the history of Jews and the history of the religion Judaism as the secular society and the religion was closely knit together over its entire known history of more than 4000 years. An Israelite's kingdom was established by Saul and continued under King David and King Solomon. Jerusalem was made the Capital of the kingdom during the reign of King David. Solomon constructed first Israeli Temple in the city of Jerusalem. After Solomon, the nation was divided into two parts: Kingdom of Israel on the north and Kingdom of Judah on the south. The Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser V conquered the Kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC and Jews were assimilated into vivid cultures in the empire and became known as the Ten Lost Tribes. The kingdom of Judah survived as an independent state till the Babylonian Army conquered it during 6th century B.C. and destroyed the first temple built by Solomon. Many of the elite Judeans were forced to exile to Babylonia. After seventy years of this capture, Babylonia was conquered by the Persians and a part of the Judeans of Babylonian Captivity [2 Kings 24-25] and from Assyria [2 Kings 17] could return to their homeland during the reign of the Persian Emperor Cyrus. Thus a new Second Temple was constructed, and old religious practices were resumed in Jerusalem.[2 Chron. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4] However, many of the Jews decided to stay back in Babylonia and some migrated to Egypt. During the time of Ezra Nabi, the divine community of Jews learned to mediate Law under the leadership of Ezra and they became literarily unique to be the teachers of all nations of the ancient world. Scribes, a teaching class in the synagogues arose during the Diaspora.

Alexander the Great took possession of Palestine in 332 B.C. Jewish historian Josephus recorded that Alexander was greeted by high priest Jaddua. With his arrival, Greek became the language for commerce, government and literature in place of Hebrew in Palestine. Alexandria, a new city in Egypt was emerged out with a lot of Jewish population. Syria became another significant commercial center, especially Antioch as a trade center.

Flavius Josephus in his works Jewish Antiquities and Jewish Wars describes that there were three Jewish religious philosophical sects during the period of destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. While the Pharisees primarily came from middle-class families and were zealous for the Mosaic Law, the Sadducees were generally wealthy members of the Jewish aristocracy who had very pleasantly embraced Hellenism. Faith-wise the major contention between the Pharisees and Sadducees was that Pharisees believed in the resurrection from the dead and the existence of spirit beings such as angels and demons while the latter disbelieved it. The third sect, Essenes, pretended to a severe discipline. The first two categories were referred in the New Testament, but none were referred in the Old Testament. Both, to some extent, opposed Christ during his ministry and received condemnation from him, especially John the Baptist used severe language to describe the Pharisees as the brood of vipers. Also The Pharisees were brain behind the plot to capture and to crucify Jesus.

[TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT ISSUE]