EvaWolves

Beg to disagree. Afterall there is a field of Study called Mariology and it gets just as much focus as Biblical Studies and Christology in one Church. (even more in some Orders and Regions)...........

This topic was inspired by a chat I saw on Discord.  So I'd have to ask despite the sexism of Roman civilization, why were Romans as well as Greeks so enthusiastically quickly chose Mary Mother of Jesus Christ to become the Goddess like figure of Christianity? While other converted places esp the Middle Est even Christian were not energetic about Mary prayers?  Why the Greco-Roman regions had to create a Goddess standin in contrast to Judaism and Islam? Is there something unique about Greco-Roman culture for this to happen? If Judaism and even Islam ever took over Ancient Rome, would they twist doctrines to create a new standin? LIke say Fatima daughter of MUhammad to be treated like a sacred virgin or Khadjiya his first life as a standin for Mother Goddess? Would a Romanized Judaism try to interpret Yahweh as having male and female forms? Why did Blessed Holy Virgin Mother Mary get elevated into a borderline Goddess in ancient Greece and moreso Ancient Rome (esp the homeland of the Empire, the Italian Peninsula) after Christianity became the monopoly religion in throughout the Empire)? Why did other Christian regions esp the MidEast did not go to Venerate the Sacred Mother of God to nowhere close to the same level? Was there something unique in Europe esp in the modern location of current Italy lacking elsewhere in Africa and the rest of the world during early Abrahamic Religions esp before the Catholic Church canonized its core dogma in the Dark Ages?

When I was a lurker, I saw this link. https://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/18854-the-catholic-church-as-the-beacon-of-order-and-stability-even-peace-after-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire-the-church-as-the-light-of-the-brutal-dark-ages-of-europe/ Along with a question I had about barbarians, its what inspired me to sign up in this UNRV forum. So I have to ask why? Why did the Romans fail even with use of their mighty armies as the OP pointed out while Church missionaries and priests eventually converted entire regions and barbarian peoples Rome could never subjugate like the Picts of Scotland even with military force (often suffering immense defeats when they entered regions like Northern Netherlands)? Yet the Catholic Church was not only able to convert these various regions and barbaric tribes through peaceful means yet also make even the most backwards and warlike of them like the Germanics of Northern Germany submissive to the Church and adopt order and civilization! How did the Church do it despite advocating a religion that condemned violence esp war and advocated order and stable civilization where as mighty armies of the most powerful civilization to have ever existed in Europe have failed so miserably? It just doesn't make sense that the Germanics north of the Rhine who did human sacrifices and killed and killed each other for fun would eventually find a religion where a God sacrifices himself for mankind appealing to convert to! The Picts committed preying of the weak because much of their culture vouched the rule of the strong and violence as the prime laws-yet all of Scotland would convert through peaceful missionaries to Christianity which is a religion that ruled for the rich and strong to aid the poor in poverty. The Irish clans practised nature worshipping but some how Catholic priests convinced them that it is better to live in villages and have a strong organized government than to live as random settlements in the woods and other uncultivated wilderness. Its simple to miraculous that the Catholic Church didn't have to send knights to convert Northern Germany but did this with a couple of martyred saints! And that the Picts could be convinced by hermits wandering around to start sending charity to the poor and convert to a religion advocating responsibility to watch over the weak and needy! And for people who lived in the wild for centuries in Ireland to throw away their old Gods and follow a Church that encourages a more urban livelihood! All without needing to send massive armies! The Romans tried to civilize these warlike savages through conquest and subjugation but they failed (often facing mass slaughter of their military forces sent to these barbarian areas they can never actually colonize). But the Church did it through peaceful means with just a couple of preachers voluntarily going across Europe! How did this unbelievable miracle happen?

One of the cliches always repeated was that warfare by the time of Medieval Ages has regressed so much from the Greco-Roman era and armies of the Medieval Ages were so much more primitive that a typical Greek city like the Argives had much more organized and disciplined armies than the best knights and even a generic Roman auxiliary drafted during the time of Spartacus revolt would destroy any Crusader army. So it makes me wonder........... Did warfare in Europe become so primitive that even against untrained disorganized barbarians who weren't bloodthirsty in nature like say a large farming community in Gaul and warriors living in buildings made out of straws in Spain easily beat a bunch of Medieval KNights? Would Dacia slaughter the entire force of over 100 K troops that volunteered for the first Crusade? Like not a single Dacian city would have ever been captured by the over 10,000 remnants of the exhausted battered Crusader army that besieged and captured Jerusalem because Dacian warfare must have been more advanced than 13th century European military science since the Dacians have defeated the Romans? Its always made out of how much the Feudal System had degraded the quality of Greco-Roman warfare especially in organization and tactics (particularly use of formations). So it makes me wonder if a Medieval Army was so backwards that even primitive more docile barbarians who weren't the most warlike of that the Romans fought (and in fact the Roman Legions easily slaughtered) like mountain people in Turkey would easily beat them? If not, than how would say the army of King Henry V would have fared against the more aggressive barbarian groups like the specific Gauls Vercingetorix came from or the Picts of Scotland and the Northern Germanic tribes that slaughtered Varus's Legions? Were the Iceni more organized than William Wallace's rebels?