The Religions That Ended

This part sets out what the cited sources date for Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman religion, for the Mithras cult and the Manichaeans, for the Norse and for the state religions of the Aztec and Inca, and counts the Zoroastrians, whose religion was once the state religion of Iran and was practiced by 111,691 people in 2012, by the FEZANA count.

Spans

Britannica dates Egyptian religion from the 4th millennium BCE and Mesopotamian religion to the 4th millennium BCE and even earlier. The last datable cuneiform tablet, an astronomical diary, is from 75 CE, according to the Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Mathematical Texts; Egypt’s Temple of Isis at Philae was closed in 535–537 CE on the order of the emperor Justinian, by the dating reported in a review of Jitse Dijkstra’s study (Exhibit 43).

Endings

In the Roman Empire, Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica on February 28, 380, and an edict of 392 CE proscribed pagan cult, by the dating of the Encyclopaedia Romana. The last known hieroglyphic inscription is dated 394 CE; Dijkstra places it at Philae on August 24, 394, and the last demotic inscription there on December 2, 452. In the north, Iceland’s assembly accepted Christianity about 1000, and public pagan sacrifice continued at Uppsala in Sweden until the late 11th century. In the Americas, Britannica dates the fall of Tenochtitlan to August 13, 1521 and the Battle of Cajamarca, where the Inca ruler was captured, to November 15, 1532; the last Inca rulers held out at Vilcabamba until 1572, in its words; and the last independent Maya kingdom, at Nojpetén, fell on March 13, 1697 (Exhibit 44).

The Manichaeans

Mani began preaching in southern Babylonia about 240 CE. In Britannica’s words, “with his ‘annunciation’ at the age of 24, he obeyed a heavenly order.” His religion spread west into the Roman Empire, where Diocletian ordered the proconsul of Africa to suppress it, probably 297 or 302 CE, and where Augustine, later bishop of Hippo, became an auditor in 373, and east along the trade routes. The Uyghur ruler adopted it about 762. In China it was banned in 843 and, in Britannica’s words, “continued there at least until the 14th century” (Exhibit 45). The Church of the East, whose stele at Xi’an dates to 781, was destroyed east of Iraq by Timur in the 14th century, in Britannica’s account.

The Zoroastrians who remain

Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the Sasanian empire, 224–651 CE, which Arab armies destroyed 637–651. Some Zoroastrians migrated to India, where they became the Parsis; Britannica gives the 8th century (tradition) or as late as the 10th for that migration. In 2012 a survey compiled by FEZANA, the federation of Zoroastrian associations of North America, counted 111,691 Zoroastrians worldwide, 13,262 fewer than in 2004. Its figure for India, a projection made before the 2011 census results, fell from 69,601 to 61,000, and for Iran, where the estimator changed, from 24,000 to 15,000; North America’s rose (Exhibit 46).