mountainman

Well, it depends upon the reading thereof, IMO.

For example, the 1st sentence tells us nothing about the assignment
of "these men". However the subject of the second sentence is clearly
the two men Jesus and Paul. The subject of the second sentence may
also be consistently read as being these same two men, Jesus and Paul,
and in this instance, to be specific, the hope of these two men. In the
same sentence, after the semi colon, the contentment is of Jesus and
Paul, as is the verb "delude", acting upon the objects of the delusion,
amongst whom are listed Cornelius and Serbius.

The final sentence thus simply refers to the subjects in the first two
sentences, who are Jesus and Paul, is thus another reading of this
section of the text.

On the issue that Amaleq13 raised:

Another distinct and clear possibility is that (IMO) Cyril did this, in order
that --- for his consistent motive of ameliorating the invectives of
Julian against Jesus ---- for clearly he is charging both Jesus and Paul
of deluding "maidservants and slaves, and through them the women,
and [FURTHER OBJECTS] men like Cornelius and Sergius".

I find that Cyril presents these phrases together in such a manner as to
purposefully make the interpretation thereof obscure, and open to multiple
initial impressions, dependent upon the reading style.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

lpetrich

How was he an "extremist"?

And this seems too much like the pot calling the kettle black. If anything it was the Xians who were the extremists, violently objecting to all religions but theirs. What else can one say about people who believe that anyone who believes in any religion but theirs deserves nothing less than eternal damnation?

That was very unusual to pagans, who were typically much more tolerant. Worship of one god did not exclude the worship of others; worship of Jupiter Greatest and Best did not exclude worship of Artemis or Dionysus or Isis or Osiris or Mithras or some deified Emperors. And some of them looked down on the Xians with their perpetual doctrinal disputes. Xians weren't even very tolerant of each other!

Like Xians foaming at the mouth at pagans?

I will concede that he was not exactly a rationalist; he had a hankering after the rather mystical philosophy of Neoplatonism.

lpetrich

Does anyone have that book?

I'd like to see primary sources on as many of these assertions as possible; I don't want to wave around such claims unless they can be shown to be well-supported.

Chris Weimer

I don't know what claims mountainman is making, as he's on my ignore list, but I can assure you that until I put him there nothing he said had any evidence for it at all. Unless he's changed, there's no way that Constantine fabricated the entire early Christian history. Downright implausible.

Toto

Rassias wrote that book in modern Greek. It has not been translated, but the same summary list of Christian atrocities is found all over the web.

This is on his website, http://rassias.gr/9011.html

Toto

Note to Loren Petrich: This thread was an attempt to validate Rassias' claims:

Authenticity

although it tended to get off topic and was a bit heated.

lpetrich

I agree with you there on mountainman's claims of the origin of Xianity -- there is too much pre-Constantine evidence.

But mountainman was referring to some post-Constantine history, in particular what is described in the book Demolish Them!, by Vlasis Rassias, published in Greek, Athens 1994.

It describes what it claims is Xian suppression of the worship of pagan deities and the destruction of pagan temples and documents over the next few centuries after Constantine. I was asking how good that history was; what do our primary sources say about that.

lpetrich

It plays an instrumental version of REM's "Losing My Religion", and it has English, Spanish, German, and Italian versions of its summary of Xian persecutions of pagans, as well as a more detailed page in Modern Greek.

I ran some bits of the latter through http://babelfish.altavista.com and found:

The page's title: Christian Persecution of the Greeks

The book's title: A History of Love - The History of Christian Domination (epikratisis - babelfish translated it "predominance", but "domination" seems more reasonable in this context)

spin

He wasn't working hard enough with the text. One has no difficulty making sense of it.

(Does "it" refer to "the issue" or to "the text"??)

Let's go back and read the text again.

But these are rather your own doings; for nowhere did either Jesus or Paul hand down to you such commands. The reason for this is that they never even hoped that you would one day attain to such power as you have; for they were content if they could delude maidservants and slaves, and through them the women, and men like Cornelius and Sergius. But if you can show me that one of these men is mentioned by the well-known writers of that time,----these events happened in the reign of Tiberius or Claudius,----then you may consider that I speak falsely about all matters.

Note the proximity of the two terms in italics. Note the distance from the reference to Jesus and Paul.

Consider this English: "Fred and Bill talked to two men. These men were very tall."

It is normal to consider that "these men" refer to the two men previously mentioned. What's the problem? Do you find it difficult to see that you won't find these men, Cornelius and Sergius, in the literature?


spin

spin

It doesn't and the text doesn't say that. He says "you may consider that I speak falsely about all matters", which I understand as saying "forget about what I have said".

Julian is showing that Jesus and Paul didn't attempt to aim high in their convert targets. They converted lowly people. Cornelius and Sergius were nobodys. You won't find them in any of the well-known writers of that time.

In Julian's eyes Jesus and Paul weren't making claims that would lead to events in the political sphere, as had come in Julian's time when pagans were persecuted. It didn't start off as a religion for powerful people and you can't find anyone of note in the early religion.

If it really made no sense. I don't think you've given the text a sufficient chance yet.


spin