Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 05-04-2008, 02:09 AM

Anyone want to ask Mayor Boris to expand on his views?

gurugeorge · 05-04-2008, 03:15 PM

I think the parallel is extremely interesting and thought-provoking, but it could fit the "man mythologised" idea of Christian origins as well as the "myth all the way down" or "totally fictive made-up crap" ideas. IOW it doesn't help us decide which of these is more likely, it just gives us some insight into the motivations of either:

1) those who mythologised a man, or

2) those who (further) developed a mythology, or

3) those who made up some crap to hoodwink others.

We're still left with these three options though.

Solitary Man · 05-04-2008, 05:59 PM

Just wanted to go back to some of these more ridiculous claims:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Augustus has Horace and Virgil drawing on themes from Isaiah

Which is garbage.

Quote:

Johnson notes the Sibylline oracles are a mixture of Greek and Jewish religious arcana

That's because they are, but this is irrelevant to Christian origins.

Quote:

Horace and Virgil explicitly break with precedent and ascribe divinity to Augustus.

Oh re-he-heally? This is why Augustus was son of God, son of the divine Julius Caesar who was deified in the East before even the Romans did.

Quote:

The Sibyl sees Augustus in the underworld.

Someone never read the Aeneid. What actually happened was the Sibyl took Aeneas to the underworld, and there Anchises, Aeneas' father, showed him the future, including the tragedy of Julius Caesar's death and the emperor Augustus who will reinstate the Golden Age. Funny how Vergil doesn't call him a god t here.

Quote:

Virgil's Eclogue - he will free mankind from sin "The goats will come home by themselves with milk filled udders."

Non sequitur anyone? Someone isn't familiar with Classics at all.

Quote:

Oh and one other thing - Augustus is the son of God.

+1.

Quote:

There is more - the slaughter of the innocents told by Seutonius in relation to Augustus, a copy of the annunciation - this time with Apollo as dad.

Do we have references for anything? This garbled garbage is getting annoying to decipher.

Quote:

Augustus' birthday celebrations are echoed later by xians. Conception is nine months earlier than birth - 23 December.

Augustus was born 23 September, not December.

Quote:

Christianity triumphed, but it was largely thanks to the imagination of Augustus that the Roman imperial method lasted for so long; and it was the success of the imperial system that made Christianity possible.

This is confused. Augustus didn't imagine the imperial cult development.

Quote:

I like the idea of christianity being a parasite that eventually weakens its host so much only a minimal institutional structure is left - a classic co-evolutionary arms race.

You might like the idea, it may be true, but not with the utter refuse listed above.

Toto · 05-04-2008, 06:16 PM

Hmm - just realized that this is about current events. Boris Johnson was just elected Mayor of Rome, and there is another thead on some allegedly anti-Muslim remarks that he made. This book was written after Johnson produced a BBC program of the same name.

Wiki is quick on the draw:

Boris_Johnson

But it's not clear what above comes from the book and what comes from Clivedurdle.

There is a review here

Quote:

If, like me, you have thought of Boris Johnson as an amiable buffoon who hasn’t been much credit to politics in the UK since he was elected MP, this book may surprise you. (If you are reading this as a non-UK citizen, it’s unlikely you would ever have heard of him). The book came as something of a revelation. Johnson obviously knows his classics, and is conversant in Greek and Latin. He also knows his classical history, and can discuss the merits of classical architecture with the technical vocabulary of an expert. (The observations on the architecture of ancient Ephesus on pp117-118 bring this out to the full).

. . .

From the point of view of this site, the most interesting part of the book will probably be Johnson’s observations on the relationship between Christianity and 1st century Rome – and the Emperor Augustus in particular. The book provides the perfect framework for viewing and understanding the political conflict between the Christian faith and Rome – and why the declaration of Jesus as Lord became such a heinous offence in the Roman Empire. The parallels (and therefore conflicts) drawn out between the language applied to Christ and the language applied to the Roman Emperor are eerie. Although these observations are not new, Johnson draws the parallels together to suggest that Christianity deliberately, and therefore provocatively, highlighted them.

karlmarx · 05-04-2008, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solitary Man

Just wanted to go back to some of these more ridiculous claims:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Augustus has Horace and Virgil drawing on themes from Isaiah

Which is garbage.

True. Virgil in particular draws from Homer. Odysseus, like Aeneas, visits the underworld also. I don't see Isaiah there at all.

Quote:

Oh re-he-heally? This is why Augustus was son of God, son of the divine Julius Caesar who was deified in the East before even the Romans did.

The East had a tradition of deifying heads of states, e.g. Darius, Xerxes, Alexander. The west did not. The fact that Caesar had been deified in the East would have struck Romans as odd at first. In any case, they quickly learned the value of deifying their leaders - Caesar was deified in death, and Augustus was deified while still alive. It's not clear how much of this was intended to be for the consumption of the provinces, and how much to impress Roman locals ("what sort of king is this Augustus", easterners could have said, "that he isn't even a god?")

It's also worth pointing out that the Julii family had always been considered to be descended from Venus herself.

In any case, why would the deification of Augustus be news to Jews? The Hellenistic kings were deified, so were Persians, so were Babylonians, so were Egyptians - Augustus would have been the latest in a long line of foreign kings claiming divinity. The claim only makes sense if Christianity was a *roman* phenomenon instead of a jewish one.

Solitary Man · 05-04-2008, 09:21 PM

Could you also please cite where you saw that Augustus was deified before his death? I had thought that also happened after his death, though he was granted his own flamen, but I do not remember when. Wasn't it during the reign of Tiberius?

karlmarx · 05-04-2008, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solitary Man

Could you also please cite where you saw that Augustus was deified before his death? I had thought that also happened after his death, though he was granted his own flamen, but I do not remember when. Wasn't it during the reign of Tiberius?

He was apparently deified by senatorial decree in 14AD, after his death. How about that - my apologies. However, even without official sanction, he did have - while still alive - a temple dedicated to him in Pergamum where he was venerated as a god (according to Tacitus' Annals IV 37). Tacitus has Tiberius saying:

Quote:

Inasmuch as the Divine Augustus did not forbid the founding of a temple at Pergamos to himself and to the city of Rome, I who respect as law all his actions and sayings, have the more readily followed a precedent once approved, seeing that with the worship of myself was linked an expression of reverence towards the Senate.

"...towards the Senate"... did Tiberius say this with a straight face?

Solitary Man · 05-05-2008, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by karlmarx

He was apparently deified by senatorial decree in 14AD, after his death. How about that - my apologies.

Repeated for emphasis to Clivedurdle as well.

Quote:

However, even without official sanction, he did have - while still alive - a temple dedicated to him in Pergamum where he was venerated as a god (according to Tacitus' Annals IV 37).

This is nothing new in the area. From Greece to Persia, human veneration was not unheard of.

Toto · 05-05-2008, 01:13 PM

aa hijack split off here

Clivedurdle · 05-06-2008, 06:16 AM

OP has direct quotes and my precis of his views - you need to take any arguments up with the Mayor of London. He has plenty of time - they are not letting him do anything!

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05-04-2008, 02:09 AM	#11
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Anyone want to ask Mayor Boris to expand on his views?

05-04-2008, 03:15 PM	#12
gurugeorge Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: London, UK Posts: 3,210	I think the parallel is extremely interesting and thought-provoking, but it could fit the "man mythologised" idea of Christian origins as well as the "myth all the way down" or "totally fictive made-up crap" ideas. IOW it doesn't help us decide which of these is more likely, it just gives us some insight into the motivations of either: 1) those who mythologised a man, or 2) those who (further) developed a mythology, or 3) those who made up some crap to hoodwink others. We're still left with these three options though.

05-04-2008, 09:21 PM	#16
Solitary Man Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: ירושלים Posts: 1,701	Could you also please cite where you saw that Augustus was deified before his death? I had thought that also happened after his death, though he was granted his own flamen, but I do not remember when. Wasn't it during the reign of Tiberius?

05-05-2008, 01:13 PM	#19
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	aa hijack split off here

05-06-2008, 06:16 AM	#20
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	OP has direct quotes and my precis of his views - you need to take any arguments up with the Mayor of London. He has plenty of time - they are not letting him do anything!

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