Religions and State: Equally True, Equally False and Equally Useful

Historian and author Edward Gibbon argues in the first volume of his trilogy of historical works, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that the empire’s chief successes and stability were sustained by common conventions concerning government, religion, and the maintenance of state stability.

In his book, he analyses these: the people regard religion as equally true, the political administrators as equally false, and the philosophers regard religion as equally useful.

In practical terms, the Roman state was not divided on religious grounds.

As the Roman Empire extended from the Italian peninsula to incorporate North Africa, parts of the Middle East and swathes of Western Europe, the Romans also incorporated those religions into the Roman pantheon of religions.

What also helped the Roman state was that these religions had no absolutism regarding faith and doctrine and the requirements that each faith spoke or demanded the absolute truth.

In contrast with Abraham’s religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, these faiths can only tolerate the existence of one God, and all three faiths demand total obedience from the population and its government structures.

More contemporary and modern institutions have not diluted these religions in the early forms of their time.