Originally Posted by Duvduv

I'll read it. It is an amazing issue that needs research. Supposedly Justinian also "suppressed" all the pagans.

Originally Posted by mountainman

I am not sure that I understand your invective against the "pagan corpus of literature" in which the Greek intellectual tradition (i.e. mathematics, science, astronomy, philosophy, medicine, etc, etc, etc) was bound. Yes in that depraved age of mass slavery and short brutish war-bound lives the "sacrifice of animals, etc" was prevalent through all regions of the world. Apollonius of Tyana is cited by the authorities as an authority on sacrifice, and on the unnecessary need to sacrifice to the "god who is above them all".

Am I to understand you would apply the same invective to the "Christian Corpus of literature" - that it was rotten and it stank?





No no no I am not. I am quoting the heretic who had to flee the rise of Mussolini, the Italian-Jewish scholar Momigliano, who was to become one of the world's foremost ancient historians. Momigliano is comparing the sudden and unexpected rise of Mussolini (and his agreements with the Church), with the sudden and unexpected rise of Roman Emperors such as Constantine.

He describes the parallel in these terms as a ...

revival of emperor worship in which it was difficult to
separate the adulation from political emotion, and political
emotion from religious or superstitious exitement.

Yes I do agree with this sentiment. The Roman Emperors may be appropriately described in today's terminology as supreme imperial mafia thugs, who commanded their own permanent armies, minted their own coins, raised their own taxes and fullfilled the age-old "religious" role of "Pontifex Maximus" - the head of all the heads of the milieu of pagan priesthoods.

We must remember that Constantine was one of these.


This is a false historical claim. In the year 324/325 CE, when he became the supreme military commander of the East-West Roman empire, Constantine established a few extremely unprecedented practices:

1) Prohibition of pagan religion in the temples.

This is sometimes referred to as prohibition of pagan sacrifice. The net effect was that the "pagan Egypto-Graeco-Roman" religious activities that were considered "Temple business-as-usual" were prohibited, and the prohibition was enforced by Constantine's army.


2) Destruction of pagan temples and architecture, execution of chief priests

Constantine ordered his army to utterly destroy major pagan temples in the eastern empire. Ammianus tells us he pulled over the remaining last and largest obelisk in Egypt, dedicated to the sun. Archaeology corroborates this story. Eusebius delightedly informs his readers that in some cases the head priests of the pagan temples were publically executed. Constantine is thus seen to be immediately establishing precedents and setting examples.


Therefore it is falso to claim that the pagan roman religion was mercifully buried deep by the common man and the common woman, since it was immediately and unmercifully buried deep by the warlord Constantine, as soon as he became the supreme military commander of the empire.



What was buried deep was the pagan history of these events, and the subsequent events in Constantine's supremacy (324-337 CE).

Originally Posted by Iskander

Pagan religion was dead before Constantine.

Originally Posted by mountainman

The Graeco-Roman god of medicine, Asclepius, sponsored by many emperors through to Diocletian, was thriving until the supremacy of Bullneck c.324 CE. Is the following of Asclepius to be regarded as religious practice or medical practice? See Galen.

Originally Posted by Iskander

Medicine has nothing to do with it.


The roman pagan religion was based on the cult of the emperor who described themselves as living gods.

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Ironically not only are there no records of actual policy and the fate of pagan communities, but despite all the heresiologists, church councils and and Theodosius Code, there are no actual records of what actually happened to heretical communities in a period of several centuries.

Originally Posted by Ammianus Marcellinus Book XIX.12 and mountainman

7. Paulus proceeded, as he was ordered, full of deadly eagerness and rage; inviting all kinds of calumnies, so that numbers from every part of the empire were brought before him, noble and low born alike; some of whom were condemned to imprisonment, others to instant death.

9. One of the first persons accused was Simplicius, the son of Philip; a man who, after having been prefect and consul, ... was condemned to distant banishment.

10. The next victim was Parnasius, who had been prefect of Egypt, ... glad to escape with exile;

11. The next was Andronicus, defended himself so vigorously that he was acquitted.

12. There was also Demetrius, surnamed Chytras, a philosopher, of great age, he was acquitted and allowed to retire to Alexandria, where he was born.

13. These and a few others, justice, coming to the aid of truth, delivered from their imminent dangers. But as accusations extended more widely, involving numbers without end in their snares, many perished; some with their bodies mangled on the rack; others were condemned to death and confiscation of their goods; while Paulus kept on inventing groundless accusations, as if he had a store of lies on which to draw, and suggesting various pretences |for injuring people, so that on his nod, it may he said, the safety of every one in the place depended.

14. For if any one wore on his neck a charm against the quartan ague or any other disease, or if by any information laid by his ill-wishers he was accused of having passed by a sepulchre at nightfall, and therefore of being a sorcerer, and one who dealt in the horrors of tombs and the vain mockeries of the shades which haunt them, he was found guilty and condemned to death.

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Bur these cases don't describe specific sects of heretics in communities reflected in legal codes thate show the causes of disappearance of specific sects.