Russellonius

Does this quote from that work support your argument?

You said, "Caecilius was reported to have converted long before Constantine." Then why is he the one arguing against Christian belief in this document, as in the above quote?

I'm not claiming that early Christians did not interface with pagans. Of course they did. How could they not? The goal of Christians was to dominate the whole world. I'm just saying they started slow and did not use any miracles in the process.

The earliest reference to them in pagan writings, Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan, refers to Christians interacting with pagans.

Somehow the Christian superstition spread. My claim is that this repugnant superstition spread by normal means and not by supernatural means of conversion. Normal means include mainly interpersonal attachments and rarely the appeal of doctrine to outsiders. It is usually after conversion that doctrine is learned in depth so it cannot account for the bulk of conversions.

And 'gentile' meant "person of one's own kind" until the fourth century. As did 'ethnos'. Paul was not the apostle to people other than his own kind. He ministered to apostate jews a salvation scheme that did not require observance of ancestral customs.

aa5874

You made an erroneous statement. Examine your error.

Are you willing to admit that your statement is in error or not?

show_no_mercy

According to Celcus, Christians were proselytizing:

We see, indeed, in private houses workers in wool and leather, and fullers, and persons of the most uninstructed and rustic character, not venturing to utter a word in the presence of their elders and wiser masters; but when they get hold of the children privately, and certain women as ignorant as themselves, they pour forth wonderful statements, to the effect that they ought not to give heed to their father and to their teachers, but should obey them; that the former are foolish and stupid, and neither know nor can perform anything that is really good, being preoccupied with empty trifles; that they alone know how men ought to live, and that, if the children obey them, they will both be happy themselves, and will make their home happy also. And while thus speaking, if they see one of the instructors of youth approaching, or one of the more intelligent class, or even the father himself, the more timid among them become afraid, while the more forward incite the children to throw off the yoke, whispering that in the presence of father and teachers they neither will nor can explain to them any good thing, seeing they turn away with aversion from the silliness and stupidity of such persons as being altogether corrupt, and far advanced in wickedness, and such as would inflict punishment upon them; but that if they wish (to avail themselves of their aid,) they must leave their father and their instructors, and go with the women and their playfellows to the women's apartments, or to the leather shop, or to the fuller's shop, that they may attain to perfection;--and by words like these they gain them over

Celcus doesn't mention Christians only attempting to convert Jews. If that was the case, he probably wouldn't care about Christianity or would have mentioned that Christians only attempt to convet Jews.

mountainman

According to Eusebius, one of the two 3rd century writers called "Origen" (one a "Christian" and the other a "Neoplatonist") made some statements about an earlier person called Celsus who made some statements about Christians. It was most fortunate for BC&H scholars that Eusebius preserved these statements of Celsus in his monumental work into the "Long and Lonely Path of Research" which connected Eusebius' 4th century to the rule of the Lord God Caesar Augustus in the 1st century, and the strange events which purportedly occurred at this time.

Russellonius

I said Christians mostly debated Jews. You gave an example of a Christian debate with a pagan. It is a text that depicts a debate between a Christian and a pagan that may never have actually taken place. I stand by my statement that Christians mostly debated other Jews based on a survey of the extant sources. If you think that this text you cited is "proselytizing" you may certainly argue that, but you have not done so. It is much more likely that Octavius (not Caecilius as you reported) converted as a result of boinking a Christian woman than having been persuaded of the merits of a metaphysical argument if his conversion was statistically normal. Or else his parents were Christian. How do we know his ethnic background?

I am not disagreeing. Christianity was the Judaic faith that opened the market to non-Abrahamic people. There is no dispute there. Christian apologists and many so-called objective scholars (e.g Ehrmann) uniformly promote the myth that conversion of pagans to Christianity was the result of the appeal of the doctrine and that the doctrine did not appeal to "Jews". It is impossible that this could be the driver of the growth of Christianity because sociologists and modern proselytizing religious firms report that 'doctrinal appeal' accounts for less than a statistically significant proportion of growth.

Religion is a natural phenomenon. It's something that people do. People trying to find a naturalistic explanation of the origin of Christianity (I'm not sure whether that is the goal here) should not accept as fact the Christian theological doctrine of supersessionism.

A good example of proselyting to a pagan is given in Acts. Felix, the Roman procurator, is offered salvation through Christ by Paul. The fact that Felix was boinking Drusilla is more pertinent than the claim that humans are able to have an ongoing exchange relationship with a supernatural being or beings. We can boink people unlike us religiously or ethnically, but we cannot actually have any kind of relations with supernatural beings. The conversion rate for such inter-boinking relationships approaches 50%.

I am somewhat surprised to find so much resistance to a naturalistic point of view on this discussion board. You can believe, if you want to, that pagans converted in droves due to the appeal of Christian doctrine and that the movement did not grow by normal means: by social influence of marriage, friends and parentage. Not sure why you would though. That's a theological claim.

The texts show that Christians were hunkered down, keeping to themselves mostly and trying to avoid local persecutions until the fourth century. The demographics of the Abrahamic people were: 1/3 in Palestine, some of whom were clearly disenchanted with traditional legal observance, and 2/3 dispersed around the Mediterranean region unable to strictly observe ancestral customs associated with the Temple due to geographic distance and likely uninterested in doing so due to level of assimilation into the host culture. The dispersion began in 722BCE and was refreshed in 586.

We ignore this fact of demographics and support a theological doctrine when we go along with the dominant paradigm and agree that the "Jews" rejected their heavenly envoy and that "Gentiles" (incorrectly defined anachronistically)
made up the bulk of converts.

If you want to make this claim, be sure to also point out that the way we know which ones were "the Jews" is that they were the ones who obeyed the Law. You may also want to assert that none of them ever "played the harlot" and worshiped other gods throughout their entire recorded history if you take this tack.

aa5874

What you said has been recorded. And this is what has been recorded that I have challenged.



What you claim may not have actually taken place.

What you claim may not have taken place.

How do we know the ethnic background of your people?

Russellonius

Perhaps my statement was over-reaching. I have not read every single document from the first to the fourth centuries. How about this? The evidence greatly favors the idea that Christians were hunkered down trying to avoid local persecutions over the idea being promoted on this board, and nearly everywhere else, that Christians actively proselytized pagans and that Christianity grew by doctrinal appeal and not by the method actually observed in nature: by social attachment.

That includes the text you cited. I don't know why you bothered to cite a text that supports my claim. Maybe you didn't read it. Maybe you are misrepresenting my assertion in you own mind as, 'Christians did not interact with pagans'. They certainly did. They lived in their cities. They debated with them. They boinked them. It was because of their interactions with pagans that they had demand for a form of their ancestral traditions that did not require observance of the Law. And sociology, as well as existing religious groups, find that boinking is a likely driver of the growth of a religious movement, whereas doctrinal appeal is not.

The document you cited, dear aa5874, is not an instance of proselytizing. It's a debate in textual form. We cannot tell for certain from the text whether it describes an actual event. It does seem to lack tell-tale signs of orality. And if we cannot find external corroborating evidence, we cannot even claim that the participants existed.

Or at least that seems to be the standard of evidence around here: If we cannot ascribe to the data generated in early Christianity the certainty that we expect from more modern record keeping, then we may be able to prove that Christianity did not, in fact, originate. Good luck with that project.

Seems to me we would want to look outside of the texts at the way stuff actually works:

Producers of media control its content.

Religious conversion and re-affiliation is nearly always the result of social attachment and rarely due to the appeal of a doctrine.

charles

For what it is worth Wikipedia notes: