PhilVaz

Andrew << Some suggest that by water Justin really means heavily watered wine, (which was the normal way wine was used in the ancient world), but I am dubious. >>

Yes, it might be wine mixed with water. The same as the Catholic priest does at Mass in the Catholic Eucharist today. In Catholicism the symbolism means (1) union of Christ with His faithful people (according to St. Cyprian), and/or (2) a reference to the Gospel account of flowing blood and water from Christ's side. The old Catholic Encyclopedia on "Liturgical Use of Water" states: "With regard to the water mingled with the wine in the Mass, the Fathers from the earliest times have tried to find reasons why the Church uses a mixed chalice though the Gospel narrative implies that Christ consecrated pure wine." So the early Fathers recognized the "problem." Clauss says in my quote the Mithraic meal was simply bread and wine, but he may go into more detail in that chapter. I'd have to re-check.

Phil P

Minimalist

That's true of course, but then we should also consider the wave of christian book-burning in the aftermath of their coming to power. To complain about a lack of historical sources when it was christians who ran around destroying whatever had been written against them is much like the traditional definition of chutzpah: Killing one's parents and then begging the court for mercy because you are an orphan.

Justin Martyr wrote of the similarities and the rather asinine doctrine which came to be known as diabolical mimicry because there were similarities which caused early christians some concerns....not because there weren't. A rough modern equivalent would be for some public figure to call a press conference to declare that he was not a child molester when no one had accused him of being a child molester.

Toto

To be fair, I think we lack a lot of detailed information about the mysteries because they were hidden, not meant to be recorded for outsiders to know about.

Roger Pearse

Um, but no such events took place, not during the 4th century at any rate.

Constantine did order that the works of Arius be burned after the first council of Nicaea, as Socrates and Sozomen and Theodoret record (iirc). (But Christian heretics are not relevant to your statement, I think).

Furthermore, is there any evidence that even this limited purge actually happened? Certainly Theodosius II in 480-ish enacted the same law about Porphyry's work again, which rather demonstrates that the edict of Constantine was not carried out. So we have precisely one piece of pagan literature ordered burned, but not burned. Do you know of more?

Ancient literature is 99% lost. But the reason for that is the destruction of the society to which it was of value, not some kind of process such as that which obtained in the age of printing, such as the Index expurgatorius of the Spanish Inquisition. In the era of manuscripts, when any reader could be a copier, this seems anachronistic anyway.

Book burnings certainly did occur -- and throughout antiquity -- but they tended to be symbolic. Rather more significant is whether people wanted the works, and so would arrange for them to be copied.

I don't know of any evidence of mass destruction of pagan literature. But of course I am willing to be informed of ancient sources documenting these.

If such events had occurred, for such a reason, and the comment was made with such a motive, no doubt this comment would be justified. As it is, it seems rather hasty.

Conspiracy theorists often make wild claims. When asked for evidence, they proudly reply that the evidence has been hidden by Them (whoever Them may be varies), as if this was an adequate reason for their inability to offer evidence. But of course this is rather silly. If they have no evidence for their theories, how do they know that these theories are not imaginary; if they are not merely flights of fancy, they must be based on *something*, and that something is called 'evidence'.

So it is with history. Whatever we say about Mithras must be based on literary, epigraphic or archaeological sources. Anything else is fiction.

Whatever it is that we wish to assert, it is usually better to be specific: i.e. produce the evidence from ancient sources and then make explicitly the argument showing how the conclusion is forced by the evidence.

As it is, I am afraid that I am unclear what you believe you are saying -- and you will understand, I am sure, if I do not simply presume that you are articulating some kind of stereotyped argument or prejudice, or try to make what I imagine your argument might be for you.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

vid

Yep, lot more, actually everyhing "not in absolute agreement with Nicean trinitarian faith". Unfortunately, I am unable to locate site from where I downloaded these PDFs anymore. If I recall correctly, it's english translation of Codex Theodosianus. There was lot of books, I only downloaded some. I understand you can read latin, there are lot of easily found latin version of codex theodosianus, please check.

Following comes from very first chapter of very first book:

Point 1 is what you mentioned, but point 3 explicitly commands to burn any book "not in absolute agreement with Nicean faith". Basically, this book explicitly forbids any form of other opinion than nicean orthodox one, not just books, also public assembly, personal opinion, expressing opinion, entering town when holding different opinion, etc. All this in very first 3 short chapters of huge Theodosianus codex.

Do you imply this was ignored by people in chrage, and his commands were not fulfilled?

I am not accusing you of dishonesty (I have read many your article and they all seemed very honest to me), but I wonder how it is possible (if this is indeed single document and sole source of Porphyry condemnation) that you remember point 1 of 3rd chapter, but don't remember point 3 of same chapter, and other chapters explicitly commanding people to hold only this single opinion, and forbidding any form of all nonagreeing opinions.

GakuseiDon

Actually, that's wrong. Justin Martyr wrote of the similarities because there weren't similarities, at least from a pagan perspective. That is, the pagans thought Christianity was something weird and different; Justin was trying to convince them that this was not the case, that Christianity shared similarities with pagan religions. It was lack of similarities that concerned Christians at that time. Justin famously said (to paraphrase) "We propound nothing new or different to you lot!" Those are not the words of someone concerned about the similarities.

No. Justin Martyr was responding to accusations that Christianity was something weird. His defense was to say that Christians didn't propound anything different from the pagans. The "diabolical mimicry" charge was that the devil caused pagans to copy from the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish prophets, but that the devil got them wrong. That's why, in Justin's view, the pagans didn't recognise the similarities between Christianity and pagan myths.

Toto

I think that Justin was more concerned about defending Christianity against the charge of subversion than "weirdness" or a general lack of similarities to the other religions that the Romans tolerated.

vid

Now I have found it. It was not Codex Theodosianus, it was Corpus Juris Civilis, which apparently incorporates some laws by Theodosianus, such as those 3 I mentioned. Link follows: http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/blume&justinian/default.asp

I am sorry, but this sounds to me like saying: "Soviet Union ordered Solzhenicyn works to be confiscated in 1964. However, in 1973, it ordered his works to be confiscated again. That means, order was not carried out in 1964.". You seem to ignore possibility that Constatine's regime tried to censor out Porphyry, but simply failed to do so, and so Theodosius tried it again.

Roger Pearse

Um, but aren't we discussing pagan literature here...?

Certainly; but we still have just a single book?

Can you tell me where the translation of the code was? It might be archived on google.

There are several presumptions in all this, which I don't think we can accept, tho.

Firstly we were talking about evidence that *pagan* books were burned. Now unfortunately the existence of stuff in law books is not evidence; nor is the violent language in which it is couched. As the introduction to the English translation of this work indicates, based on statements in the codex itself, late emperors had very great difficulty getting their laws actually carried out. So we have to ask what if any effect this had. As for the language, Cameron and Hall in their Life of Constantine remark that every emperor after Diocletian phrased his laws as violently as possible; but that this reflected weakness, not strength.

Secondly I am not that clear why this passage, plainly referring to the Nestorian disputes, is supposed to have anything to do with *pagan* literature? This is a summary, surely, of the various condemnations of books to be burned arising from various councils, including those of Arius (hence the reference to Nicaea), and running down to Ephesus in 433 and the condemnation of Nestorius? I can see that *you* feel that this, as phrased, extends to cover all sorts of things, but I see something plainly discussing the councils, not pagan literature at all.

I'm nervous that we are wandering off-topic, so I feel that we need to try to keep clear in mind what we are discussing here. The allegation is that all the evidence about Mithras was destroyed in a "wave" of book burnings. So far we have one book, which is ordered destroyed twice, a century apart (so plainly not destroyed the first time). We incidentally have the burnings of heretical books ordered after various Christian councils, which of course is neither here nor there, and for which we don't seem to have much evidence of actual actions.

I hope that I've addressed everything! Incidentally I've never memorised the codex theodosianus (!) -- I recall the condemnation of Porphyry by Theodosius, probably from a secondary source, and the theological stuff goes without saying in the 5th century. I'd have scanned the English of the codex by now, except that it's owned by a bunch of *lawyers*.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

That would seem to be logical, unless it simply means *more* works written since?

Well, I'd like to see evidence that it tried, actually. We have clear evidence that it didn't try very hard, because the book still existed! (I don't suppose Theodosius tried hard either). It's a mistake to suppose that any ancient society was anything like as tightly organised as a modern one, still less a totalitarian state. Emperors couldn't get things done, so slack were the nerves of the state.

But you know, it wouldn't make a lot of difference either way; one book is not a "wave" of destroying pagan literature.

Incidentally some people might presume in this that all Porphyry's works were condemned. This is not so. On the contrary the others were valued and generally preserved by the Greek Christian empire. Think of the Isagogue.

All the best,

Roger Pearse