Week 262: Paganism in Gaza, "Demon-Worship", Bangladeshi Hindus, Aesthetic
12/21/2024 - Modern Hindu Content
Welcome to Eternal Path! This week we feature: Paganism in Gaza and its Fall, a meme on “demon-worship”, the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus, and an aesthetic!
History Feature: The Pagans of Gaza and their Fall
One of the prominent interreligious conflicts on our planet, the conflict between Muslims and Jews, has flared up in the past year with the October 7, 2023 Hamas Attacks on Israel, followed by Israel’s military response in Gaza, with attacks on Lebanon and the fall of the Assad government in Syria happening in more recent months.
This however is a publication about Hinduism, not Islam or Judaism. What is more interesting to us (and to you the reader) is understanding that Gaza used to be a place where people practiced Pagan religions, worshipping local Gods and the Roman pantheon during the time of the Roman Empire. In fact Gaza had one of the temples to the “Great Gods” during the time of the Roman Empire. As always, understanding Pagan religions, their history, their beliefs, and their philosophies can help us better contextualize and understand our own religion.
One of the most significant deities worshiped in ancient Gaza was Dagon, a West Semitic deity associated with agriculture and fertility, often depicted as a half-fish half-man. References to Dagon go back to nearly 2500 BCE, with Ras Shamra in modern-day Syria being a key center of belief alongside Palestine. It is likely that the Mitanni that we covered in Week 261 were familiar with and maybe worshipped the deity!
Over time, Dagon evolved into Marna/s (possibly meaning “Our Lord” in Aramaic), a sky god allegedly from Crete who absorbed characteristics from the Greek deity Zeus and the Roman deity Jupiter (the Eastern part of the Roman empire maintained stronger ties to the Greek pantheon), and was said to control the rain. Temples to Marna were central to Gazan religious life, and of the eight major temples in Gaza, the Marza/Zeus temple was said to be the most important. Even as the Roman empire Christianized, especially after Emperor Constantine (306-337CE), local rulers in Gaza, regardless of religious belief continued to organize festivals to Zeus/Marna, a testament to the deity’s importance amongst the population.
The book “Hellenic Religion and Christianization: C. 370-529, Volume 1” by Frank Trombley has a lot of interesting material on the Pagan religion of Gaza, shoutout to Spatel from X for digging it up!
Interestingly, the people of Gaza were said to be so hostile toward Christians that a church had to be constructed at a safe distance outside the city walls. In fact, during the 4th century, Christian bishops were specifically referred to as "bishops of the churches surrounding Gaza." Unfortunately, as a cursory glance at the current demographics of Gaza would show, Paganism in Gaza, the broader “Holy Land”, and the Middle East as a whole is largely dead (other than the Yazidis of Syria and Iraq). How did this center for Pagan worship fall?
As we covered in Week 203, in 380CE “Emperor Theodosius I declares Nicene Christianity to be the only official religion and practise of polytheism is punishable by death." Trombley notes in the year 392, Hellenic/Pagan cults still maintained some vitality even in the face of explicit religious persecution.
The Bishop of Gaza, Porphyrius, ascended to his role in 395 CE, and served as Bishop until 420CE. He was a noted Christian zealot. He petitioned the emperor in 398CE to close the Pagan temples of Gaza, but the Emperor’s representative was bribed with a hefty sum. However, the winds were clearly shifting, and by 399CE, across the empire, the Roman Empire’s view on their own religious temples became quite clear.
The year 402 is said to be the year that the temple to Marna/Zeus was destroyed. Porphyrius, along with Christian inhabitants of Gaza laid siege to the temple but were first thwarted by the priests, who locked the temple from the inside. However, treacherous inhabitants of Gaza told the Bishop to light up the temple with pitch, sulfur and fat, which burned the temple down and the ensuing flame burned for days. Then stones of the temple were used to pave the streets of Gaza. Seven other major temples in the area fell to the Bishop, Roman forces, and the Christian population within the next five years, and soldiers went door to door in Gaza burning idols and private book collections. Some historians think that the burning of Gaza’s Marna Temple was a crucial point that marked the point of no return for Roman Paganism.
Why this long read on Paganism in Gaza? Because the destruction of Hindu temples and heritage was part and parcel of the Islamic invasions of India as well as European colonialism. More recently, in Sri Lanka, Sinhala Buddhist extremists aided by the army burned down the Library of Jaffna, which housed countless irreplaceable cultural artifacts and documents relevant to Tamil Hinduism. Knowing the history and beliefs of fallen Pagan civilizations should provide us the resolve to take action to not be like them.
To read more on the fall of Roman Paganism, Week 47 references a great book called “The Final Pagan Generation” by Edward Watts which goes into this in much more depth as well. We recommend reading the book, but Hindupost has a great review linked here: https://hindupost.in/history/the-final-pagan-generation-life-in-4th-century-rome/
Meme Highlight: Christian Seethe over “Demon-Worship”
Christians love to call Hindu Gods “demons”. Worshipping the Gods is superior to worshipping a corpse.
Hinduphobia Highlight: Webinar on the Ethnic Cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus
Aesthetic: Karnataka Temple
