Roger Pearse

I hope you realise the value of Wikipedia as an authority - merely a collection of someone's opinions.

I'm afraid that Diocletian certainly did order an empire-wide persecution, which was the point at issue. Eusebius lists it as 'the great persecution', over a period of 4 years, in his Chronicle -- he lived through it -- and it left an indelible mark on literature of the period. Attempts to minimise such things leave a rather sour taste in the mouth, don't you think?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

Diocletianic_Persecution does not minimize the Diocletian Persecution. It does note:

Malachi151

Interestingly, Caiaphas is not mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, from which the other Gospels originate. It appears that the addition of Caiaphas is simply a later tack-on that has no merit anyway.

Ben C Smith

You are engaging in a semantic game. Alexander did not claim that Glycon was a snake; he claimed that Glycon was a snake with the head of a man, and he showed a snake to the public (in dim light and so forth) to make them think they were seeing a man-headed snake. Lucian tried to show that there was no snake with the head of a man named Glycon.

Lucian did not try to show that Glycon was a real god who had been misrepresented by Alexander. Again, Alexander invented Glycon (both as a god and as a hoax); it was he who, according to Lucian, gave his imaginary snake god (inspired by the Asclepius cult, according to Lucian) the name Glycon.

This is indeed what you asked for. Once more, if it is not what you wanted, then you did not ask for what you wanted.

Ben.

Malachi151

You are totally missing the point. You say "Lucian did not try to show that Glycon was a real god who had been misrepresented by Alexander", yeah, I know, nor did Celsus say that Jesus was a real god that was misrepresented by his followers. The argument of Celsus against Jesus is the same as the argument of Lucan against Glycon. They both argue that these were simply ordinary beings that were being misrepresented as gods. Lucan doesn't provide a model for your claim, he provides a model for my claim.

Both Lucan and Celsus took the Euhemerist view of stories about gods and miracle workers. The Euhemerist view is that the supernatural elements are mythical attachments to real people, places, and events.

Lucan never argued that something never happened or existed at all, he argued that what did happen and what did exist was not a miracle and not a god.

Again, do we find arguments that Hercules never existed at all or arguments that the story of Hercules was based on a real guy, but was exaggerated?

If anything, we find the later among the ancient Greeks in the Euhemerist school.

There is a historical Glycon, the historical Glycon is a snake pulled from a woman's XXX...

By your argument, Celsus DID argue that Jesus never existed, because, as you said, Celsus argued that he was not a god, thus proving that the god Jesus didn't exist, but that's not really a valid point now is it? And neither is yours.

When I said that they never provided proofs that X gods didn't exist, I didn't mean that they didn't exist as gods, I mean that they didn't exist at all. The Euhemerist school argued that none of the named gods were gods, and thus didn't exist... as gods, they existed as real historical people according to the Euhemerists, which, as I keep saying, provides the model for their interpretation of Jesus.

Rusting Car Bumper

The Diocletian persecution was at best a few years long. This topic came up long ago and I quoted Thomas Noble Professor of History and Conway Director of the Medieval Institute at Notre Dame discussing that the persecution was limited.

Keep in mind this a scholar from Notre Dame and not an evil secular atheist trying to minimize suffering of Christians.

See the post here:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...86#post2564586

DC

Ben C Smith

I am missing the point in your head; I am not missing the point of your question.

That may well be, but that is not what you asked for.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

At any rate, I think we have seen the gambit covered on this thread:

1. Lucian tried to disprove that there was really a god Glycon, showing that the supposedly man-headed snake Alexander pointed to was a hoax.
2. Comments by Tatian assume a debate on the existence of Trojan War heroes such as Hector, a debate in which one side argued that they were literary creations.
3. Comments by Critias tell us that he doubted the existence of the Olympian gods and supposed they were foisted on mankind for certain purposes.

Ben.

MaximusDementis

"I hope you realise the value of Wikipedia as an authority - merely a collection of someone's opinions. "

I disagree with this blanket statement. Many of the Wikipedia articles are well done, their sources listed and subject to constant scrutiny. I have taken several college courses on Roman history, but have a tendency to remember generalities better than I do the specifics that support them. I sude Wikipedia as a quick way to hellp my feeble memory of Diocletians persecution, which supports my contention that Roman persecution of Christians was sporadic, and localized and never approached the level that say the Christians persecuted the Jews, or the Turks persecuted the Armenians.

On the other hand, many Christians who were publically executed in entertaining ways in the collesium and similar public arenas throughout the empire went to their deaths with such courage it made an impression on the audiences. What impact this may have had on bringing about conversions is hard to speculate on. However, it undoubtedly did over time.

Malachi151

As said earlier, this was a case of Lucan having fist hand knowledge of a hoaxer, the situation and his argument had nothing to do with disproving the existence of a guy about whom claims were made, what Lucan did was show that the snake that was claimed to be a god was just a normal snake.

I'd have to see this. From what I know Tatian was mostly just intent, by pure invention of nonsense, to argue that Moses was older than Homer and that Greek history and culture was inferior to Christian/Jewish history.

The lines from the play by Critas, while certainly tantalizing, are not any kind of serious investigation into the existence of any god or the basis of any legend. Its a philosophical musing.

The comments by Critas go really no further than the comments by Epicurus, Democritus, etc., they are philosophical musings, not disproves of the existence of claimed earthy god-man or hero.