IsItBullshit: early Christian historians rewrote religions specifically when it came to goddesses?
I don’t remember where I read this (possibly Reddit?) I know early Christians changed a lot of historical stuff to better fit their narrative, but I’m specifically wondering about goddesses. I read somewhere that old religious had super badass goddesses of all kinds of stuff but that most of them were written out of history and only goddesses of fertility, harvest, and other “lady like” things were left in.
I’d love some reading material if this is the case. Thanks!
EDIT for clarity: I’m talking about early historians (either Christian or not but early historians) re-writing the stories of OTHER polytheistic religions and excluding goddesses that didn’t portray the “womanly” attributes of the time. So did they “get rid of” every non-fertility/harvest goddesses?
No? Why would they?
Christian historians had no reason to make already unpalatable pagan deities slightly more palatable to Christian audiences by deliberately obfuscating non-feminine characteristics of former deities. The fact of their status as false gods would have been far more important than making sure that they were the right kind of false god, overseeing appropriately feminine fields.
Nor were many goddesses of traditionally non-feminine fields "written out" of history even in majority Christian areas early on in Christianity's history. For example in Egypt, a hotbed of late Antique Christian developments, depictions of goddesses such as Sekhmet survived alongside traditionally more feminine deities such as Isis or Hathor. Likewise in Greece and Italy, depictions of deities such as Athena, were not shorn of her more war like aspects to make her more palatable to the Christian population, instead her statues were removed and the Parthenon became a Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This is in general more indicative of how non-Christian deities were dealt with, especially in the Mediterranean world.
Outside of the Mediterranean world where there was much less in the way of a longstanding monumental/literary tradition of paganism such efforts were likewise unnecessary but for different reasons. Often the Church would co-opt local figures and re-brand them as saints, the most infamous example is of St. Brigid in Ireland. St. Brigid was, according to Irish monastics, a nun in Ireland who was involved in charitable and religious life in the area. However she shares a name and a feast date with an Irish pagan deity as well, and it is unclear whether Brigid became St. Brigid in a process of cynical co-option, or if the saint and goddess gradually were given the same attributes over time. However even if this was the case, and it is by no means certain, the deity was not suppressed because of her status as a female deity who covered traditional male fields such as blacksmithing and poetry, but because of her status as, well, a pagan goddess.
I know this is something of a short answer, but if you have follow up questions about conversion or what we do and don't know about pagan deities, I'd be happy to field them.