^^^^^ CB: I haven't followed every detail of this interesting , scholarly thread, so I'm not sure that this is on point, but there is the First Commandment on having only one God, so did Constantine start demonizing pagan Gods ? He and following Christian Princes must have done something to dislodge the Roman religions.I'm not sure who began the process but by 396 AD sacrifices to pagan gods had been outlawed and temples were being vandalized by Christian monks. You can read the letter of the orator Libanius in which he appeals to Emperor Theodosius to stop the destruction of pagan shrines:
"They [the monks] are spreading out like torrents across the countryside; and in ruining the temples, they are also ruining the countryside itself at one and the same time. For to snatch from a region the temple which protects it is like tearing out its eye, killing it, annihilating it. The temples are the very life of the countryside; around them are built houses and villages... It is in those temples that farmers have placed their hopes for themselves, their wives and children, for their oxen and for the ground they have sown or planted. A country region whose temple has been destroyed in this manner is lost."
Quoted in "Theurgy and the Soul" by Gregory Shaw, Penn State Press, 1995.