03-12-2006, 12:35 PM
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#2
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Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Los Angeles area
Posts: 40,549
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The Reaction to the Bible in Paganism
Quote:
Around the time of the Great Persecution of Diocletian (303), Sossianus Hierocles wrote a two-volume work for the Christians entitled The Lover of Truth. It comprised a comparison of Jesus and the first-century holy man, philosopher, and wonder worker named Apollonius of Tyana. Hierocles served in various administrative positions in the Empire. In Bithynia, as governor, he participated in and helped plan Diocletian’s persecution. Later, as prefect of Egypt, he delivered Christian virgins to brothel keepers. But shortly before he began this activity, he seems to have written his work to "humanely and kindly counsel them." Presumably he was counseling the Christians to abandon their faith and avoid physical destruction. For Hierocles, the scriptures were contradictory, and he accused Peter and Paul of being sowers of falsehood. Christ was a magician because he did miracles. One of his comparisons between Apollonius and Jesus is as follows: "Why have I remembered these things? In order that it might be possible to compare our precise and certain judgment on each point with the lightheadedness of the Christians. For on the one hand we think that the one [Apollonius] who did such things is not a god but a man favored by the gods, but they proclaim Jesus god on the basis of a few prodigies." He believed Jesus gathered 900 men and committed robberies. Hierocles also denigrated the trial of Jesus. When Domitian wanted to punish Apollonius, he (Apollonius) suddenly disappeared, but when Jesus was arrested, he was crucified. Apparently shortly after he finished his "humane" book, Hierocles began the less humane work of killing and enslaving Christians.
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[3] Cf. my books on the OT and NT in paganism, which include translations of the texts I discuss. English translations of the pagans’ material include (in scattered form): Origen: Contra Celsum. Translated with an Introduction & Notes, ed. and trans. Henry Chadwick, Cambridge 1953 (a magisterial translation that includes the material from Celsus); part of Hierocles’ material is in The Treatise of Eusebius which can be found in Philostratus. The Life of Apollonius, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library, trans. F. C. Conybeare, London/Cambridge 1969 (a new translation by C. P. Jones will appear in 2006); the Against the Galilaeans of Julian may be found in The Works of the Emperor Julian, ed. and trans. W. C. Wright, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA/London 1923. For a grand collection, see Biblia Gentium …, ed. Giancarlo Rinaldi, Rome 1989 (a collection in Latin and Greek of pagan authors on the Bible with accompanying ET).
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