Roger Pearse

I would encourage this, as being useful to everyone. What have you in mind? It's hard work, by the way, so start small.

My time is very limited, so I can't. But if I were to do so, I think I would specify precisely what I was trying to determine, work out criteria, and then look for the data to test this. What I wouldn't do is start from a bit of hate-propaganda like this. This is because the main problem is always me -- my personal prejudices. In this case, you're quite keen to prop up this list. So what will inevitably happen -- and would happen to me too if I held your views -- is that you will end up trotting around the data selecting the bits that 'prove' your thesis and ignoring the rest. This is how polemic is written, but it only impresses those already convinced. Usually I want (a) to know the facts myself and (b) show that I didn't make it all up.

So I think your proposition doomed to fail anyway. Sorry and all that.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

countjulian

Sigh. Why would Sozomen have reason to make anything up? Was he trying to make modern day Christians look bad? Anyway, I have no doubt Christian monarchs took stuff from churches and that earlier pagans had appropriated pagan artwork for themselves, but I doubt either of these two smelted down the loot for metal or tore the doors off of the holy places they took from. They were specifically mentioned in context of the destruction of other temples, and were seen as a deliberate persecution of the pagan temples, by both pagans and Christians. That makes them different. Also, Libanius does mention it, in one of his most famous orations, the lamentations for the temples (peri ton leron). I, unfortunately, do not have access to them. See Libanius, Orations 30.6, 37, and 62.8. Theophanes, another sources I cannot seem to get my hands on at the moment, also mentions it, Chronicle a. 322.

Well, I do not believe that I have in this thread said that, but yes, I do believe that paganism was a lot more tolerant than Christianity. So too apparently does James O' Donnel (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/demise.html ) , Ramsay MacMullen (Christianity and Paganism in the 4th to 8th Centuries), Eberhard Sauer (The Archaeology of Religious Hatred) Troels Myrup Kristensen (his blog on Christian Iconoclasm can be found here http://www.iconoclasm.dk/ ) and I believe Robin Lane Fox, although I will have to look up his ideas on the subject, so I am not sure. This mostly comes from the fact that pagan persecution of Christians was so desultory compared to the Christian persecution of pagans. The pagans rules over the Christians for 300 years and persecuted them for perhaps 12 years, while the Christians ruled over the pagans for the next 1500 years and continued persecution for all of them. Don't forgot the barbarians and Charlemagne, et al, and the little remembered Baltic Crusades. In 311 Emperor Galerius issued an edict of toleration for all Christians in the empire (something you seldom read about when one finds mention of Constantine's edict of Milan). When did a Christian emperor ever issue an edict remotely like this? You also have to remember the context of these "persecutions." many times, it was the Christians themselves who often brought death upon themselves. For instance in Carthage in 304, several Christians had been arrested and held in prison. At that time, the jailers did not feed you, it was up to your friends and family. A mob of Christians gathered outside the jail, with "whips and scourges", in order to keep anyone from bringing food or water to the martyrs. Many times, Christians would break into pagan temples, attacking shrines and worshipers, and when caught, would demand to be martyred. Councils such as Council of Elvira had to be convened in order to determine what should be done of such "martyrs." Even during the "Great Persecution" of Diocletian, Christians were apparently bold enough to firebomb the imperial palace in Nicomedia not once, but twice.
As for the gladiatorial games, they continued well past the reign of Theodosius, as we saw with Antiochus, perhaps into the 6th century, whenever one of those darned pagans was found worthy of the arena. The games seem to have collapsed when there was no money in them any longer, similar to the collapse of the slave market in wake of Alaric's sack of Rome. The Stoics had long opposed infanticide as well as the gladiatorial games. I would be interested, what exactly are your sources on the Christians ending the games and infanticide? I am also glad to see that our previous thread on the place of women in Christendom had gotten rid of your somewhat over-egalitarian view of the early church.

If you would like to discuss any of these issues further, I would be glad to continue this on another thread. Perhaps we could also compile a list of Christians persecuted under the pagans? Maybe we could clear up the myriad myths surrounding that phenomenon.

Edit:

I guess I am going to be going against you advices on this one. My first target was Ammianus Mercellinus, who I have thus far not been able to find online. Oh well, perphaps it is better just to "dive in."

I know about time constraints, so I can completely sympathize with you. You say I am trying to "prop up this list", yet my intetnion here has been to debunk whatever is in it which is patently false. This list gets thrown around a lot, so as a Christian I thought you would be eager to falsify any lies contained there in.

Roger Pearse

Of paedophilia, among other things. But perhaps that isn't quite the point you wanted to make. They were not tolerant of druidism, nor of Christianity.

The Loeb English texts are easy enough to scan, although a bit fiddly. I did a couple of texts by Julian the Apostate, and had no real problems. I do have the preceding translation of Ammianus in photocopied form here. It's about 2 inches thick. I had intended to scan it, but never got around to it.

Many thanks.

Well, I wouldn't want to help you manufacture a rather more durable version, would I? Lists of "atrocities of our enemies which justify the atrocities we are about to commit" are a bit revolting, you know.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Bede

Sigh. Sacking pagan temples made Constantine look good as far as Sozomen was concerned.

Actually, I'm given to understand that is exactly what the Romans have always done. We had a discussion here a while back where we concluded that melting down bronzes was par the source for Romans.

Thanks. I knew there was something. I think there's a Loeb of Libanius.

Right. I'm afraid I'm going to have to get pedagogical here because you are making some very basic mistakes.

Christianity was illegal and punished by death in the pagan empire for about three hundred years. But through most of that time, no one bothered hunt down Christians who were just harmless eccentrics. Kill 'em if you find 'em but don't go out of your way was the policy. Why? Because Christianity was not a threat. How did pagan Rome deal with anything they thought was a threat? With extreme prejudice and brutality as you will know from reading MacMullen's Enemies of the Roman Order. Or reading up on the Jewish revolts. Or third century Alexandria. Or any other rebellion. Once Christianity came to be seen as a threat then it was hammered by Diocletian. Why were the pagans hounded by the Christian state. Because they were seen as a threat. Why? Because they had just persecuted Christians had had made the religion illegal for three hundred years. Suddenly Christians had the whip hand and they were not going to let the pagans persecute them again.

The Northern Crusades were wars of conquest by Germany against the tribes to its east. They could be called crusades because the tribes were pagan but that was the only reason. Good for moral perhaps but irrelevant. You might as well call Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul a sign of his intolerence.

I stand by every word in the previous thread. Read it again and you'll see it was about the early church. from my first post, I made cleasr things changed once Christianity became the state religion.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Roger Pearse

I think a lot of Libanius has never been translated into English; I don't know about his orations.

Theophanes has been translated into English twice (Harry Turtledove, 1982, and Cyril Mango/Roger Scott, 1997), but both will be in copyright still so offline when all of us are dead.

But it occurs to me that one might write to Sci-Fi author Harry Turtledove and ask him to release a version onto the net, if one could find an address for him. It might be worth a punt. Anyone know how to contact him?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

countjulian

Where to begin. First off, Gallienus in 260 ceased the persecution, in any form, of Christianity, and the church even became a land owner during this time. So I guess it goes from "Christianity was illegal and punished by death in the pagan empire for about three hundred years." to "Christianity was illegal and punished by death in the pagan empire for about 257 years." Also, after the incident recorded in the letters of Pliny to Trajan, when do we ever hear of official laws again that might attack Christians in some way until Decius? Just wondering. As for the Jewish revolts, some Jews themselves admitted that they had started it. We should not forget the Jewish brutality exacted against the Romans, or each other for that matter, during the war. Josephus, partisan though he is to the Flavians, seems to view things in this light anyway. Again, this is all off topic, and I would be more than glad to start a new thread on the subject. In fact, I'm going to start one right after I get done with this post.

Now as for what you said that was on topic, "Why were the pagans hounded by the Christian state. Because they were seen as a threat. Why? Because they had just persecuted Christians had had made the religion illegal for three hundred years. Suddenly Christians had the whip hand and they were not going to let the pagans persecute them again.", I cannot help but be struck by the ignorance of the literature of the times that this statement exacts. Fox suggests that the torture and killing of the oracle of Apollo was a revenge killing, this is only an educated guess, and indeed the evidence we have seems to go against this. When Bishop Marcellus of Apamae, according to Theodoret the "first [but definitely not last] among the bishops to use the law as a weapon, and to destroy temples", attacked a particularly venerated shrine to Zeus in a quite suburb, he was grabbed by the local pagans while he was watching from the sidelines, and burned alive. Afterwards, a local council decreed that his sons were not to seek revenge, but should instead consider themselves blessed to have a martyr for a father. In 391, following the riots in Alexandria and a mass of pagan-Christian violence, the pagans hold up in the temple of Serapis were told that they would be allowed to come out unharmed, for those that had been killed by them were martyrs, but that Serapeum must go. The message was clear: martyrs were blessed, not to be avenged. In a turn of theology that would seem rather familiar to Usama bin Laden today, martyrs were said to go straight to heaven, were they would receive great reward. I challenge you to find a single reference where the Christians said "we are destroying such and such temple or killing such and such pagan to avenge such and such martyr." It just did not happen. The object was not revenge: it was eradication of all non-Christian (particularly polytheistic) belief.

countjulian

Why? Arn't you interested in history? Don't you want to refute and libelous slander being passed around the net on this subject?



Very amusing. What "atrocities" exactly do I have in mind? I'll say it again: No matter how seemingly superstitious or nonsensical a belief, anyone and everyone has the right to hold it, and no one has the right to try and use physical violence to coerce them. Perphaps you should tell that to your Christian brothers in Papua New Guienie who just arrested 320 members of tribal cargo-cults. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051103/...pua_sorcery_dc

And if you have any questions on the country's religious make-up, see here: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...k/geos/pp.html

Bede

CJ,

On second thoughts, it seems Roger is right. All you want to do is make Christians look bad. You have no interest in history which is all about contexts, causes and reasons. Nor did you seem to understand my post. Where did I say revenge (except the very specific case of Didyma)? You actually take facts and draw the completely wrong conclusions from them. Why? Because you are a hopelessly biased anti-Christian.

Two points before I bow out that demonstrate this. First, the lesson of the lull after the Decian persecution was that even if Christians seem to be accepted by pagans, they can expect that sometime the policy will change. Christians simply will not be safe while paganism has power. The Diocletian persecution proved this.

Second, it was not about revenge - a most unChristian emotion - but about the need to get rid of paganism because it had already proved that it was always a threat. Nor was it about trying to kill pagans. The aim was to render them harmless. The best way was to convert them (which happened in the end) but destroying their temple powerbases was an important first step.

Thus, you are simply feeding your biases to say Christians were more intolerent than pagans. That was not the case. They were rational operators seeking to neutralise a threat that had twice tried to destroy them. When we get to Justinian's reign, paganism was associated with rebellion and treated exactly the same as all other rebellion against the Roman order by pagan and Christian alike.

With that, I'm signing off.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

countjulian

Thank you, Bede, for confirming my deepest suspicions. You have no interest in history, your aim is merely to defend Christianity and make Christians look as good as you can.

Again, what you have said is merely post hoc rationalization. Where did any Christian ever say "we are crucifying those silly pagans at Baalbek and breaking down their temples in Africa so that no Christian will ever again suffer persecution"? You whole thesis is absurd anyway. By the time the persecution of the pagans began in earnest, after and during the reign of Theodosius, the chance that the pagans would make a sudden come back and start murdering the poor Christians once again was slim to nil. By the middle of the fifth century, I find the idea of a pagan anti-Christian revolution sweeping the empire to be just stupid. No Christian ever voiced such fears, they exist only in your head Bede. The point was the eradication of non- Orthodox Christian belief, not to defend Christendom from the evil Pagan Conspiracy. If it was as you say, Bede, why were the Christians attacking Samaritans and heretics? When had the heretics ever persecuted the Orthodox in the 3 preceding centuries?

Your rationalization is brutal anyway. Even during the Persecution under Diocletian, non-Christian magistrates had sometimes hid and helped Christians. Many people before Constantine had never even heard of Christianity. They had nothing to do with the persecution. What's more, it had been certain Roman Emperors, who happened to be pagan, that had persecuted Christians, not paganism itself. Paganism was not the church, it was not a unified system of doctrines and a command structure of clergy like the church. Even when the oracle of Apollo had complained about Christians, it is hard to know whether or not he had wanted them killed. With the exception of that case at Didyma, when did the pagan religion itself ever contribute to the persecution? If I recall, pagan priests did not get up in temple and give sermons whipping pagans up into an anti-Christian flurry. The emperors were the ones calling the shots; by your logic, the Christians should have wanted the destruction of the Roman government, not the pagan religion (and to some point you would be right: more Christians died for their beliefs under the Christian emperors than under Decius or Diocletian).

Anyway, by that same logic, shouldn't Christians in your country, Bede, which boasts a considerable Muslim population, be going out into the streets, tearing down mosques and crucifying Muslims? After all, eastern Christendom has been reduced to almost nothing in the preceding decades of dhimmitude. The Armenian genocide and the persecution of Christians in Sudan speak volumes of what happens to Christians under Muslims rule. Should not they be destroyed, to Bede, so as to protect future Christian generations? Atheists, too, persecuted Christians in places during the twentieth century; should Pearse drop by my house and forcibly convert or kill me? What's more, more Christians have been killed by other Christians than by paganism. Should the Protestants in your country, Bede, tear down your church and lynch you to prevent another reign of bloody Mary?