Bede

This is a common mis-conception about the Christian attitudes towards pagan and heretical literature. Porphyry wrote a polemical attack on Christianity which was condemned by Christian emporers (I'm not sure if their was an ecclesiastical condemnation as well) several times and survives only in fragments. Several of his other works do survive. These include an introductory textbook in logic (Aristotle was very important to the neo-Platonists, Peter, who went to great efforts to harmonise him with Plato. If you don't know it, you'll find the work of Richard Sorabji of great interest). Prophyry's work on logic was considered so useful that it was translated into Latin by the Christian Boethius and remained a mainstay of the university syllabus until the sixteenth century.

The moral of the story is that Christians preserved the work of even their enemies like Porphyry (and Julian the Apostate many of whose works are still extant) if they thought they were useful or interesting. More here:

http://bede.org.uk/literature.htm

Best wishes

Bede

Phlox Pyros

I understand this is a controversial topic, but Paganism, to me, is the religion of Julian the apostate and those like him. In other words, they believed in many Gods, even foreign ones were incorporated and related to their own Gods. Though their beliefs were complicated and inclusive, they probably would have seen things as an overarching belief in the Gods of their fathers as Julian mentions toward the end of his "Upon the Mother Goddess".

What I meant by "true Christianity" is that if there was a historical Jesus, then his "true" stories and lessons would have been passed on by some branch. If Orthodoxy took in anyone and told them stories as truth and did not try to find a "higher meaning" or "knowledge" by using the philosophies of the time, it seems as if they are more likely to have carried the "truth" (at least more so than the Gnostics).

Phlox Pyros

Thanks. I stand corrected on Porphyry's other works. His work against Christianity was thoroughly destroyed, however, except for the challenged excerpts in the "heresiologists", correct?

I could swear that I read an early church father who actually mentioned many Christians being swayed by Porphyry's writings against Christianity, but I cannot remember whom it was. Perhaps I am only remembering the writings of the historians commenting on the events.

cognac

IIRC, (and it's been a long time since I've studied this, so I can't recall the references) a critical difference between the proto-orthodox groups and the "gnostics" related to governance and ecclesiastical authority, gnostics having a more democratic view of revelation (evidenced by the numerous takes on the gospel they produced), while the proto-orthodox placed emphasis on the church leadership (and thus a narrowing of the corpus of accepted revelation).

Peter Kirby

Paganism as a category will necessarily either be too amorphous, including wildly contradictory and disparate views, or leave out too much, arbitrarily picking a single representative (such as Julian). Its main academic use is negative (to say, neither Christian nor Jewish). Its original use is pejorative (to say, religiously and intellectually backwards; pagan literally means something like country bumpkin).

That does not follow. For example, it would not be the case if Jesus were a gnostic type. Thus, you beg the question.

regards,
Peter Kirby

Roger Pearse

Read Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, chapters 1-7 (and the last two chapters also: cc.42-43? I forget the numbers), and see just this thesis expounded. Read it in Greenslade's marvellous translation, which I used to have online, but the copyright holder wouldn't grant me permission. But you can find it at archive.org using this link.

In it he connects each heresy with its origin.

We tend to get confused by the term 'philosophy' in our day. In antiquity it meant much more, including forms of pop-paganism. Each teacher would invent some collection of ideas, which were distinctively his, and this would be his selection (haeresis). There was nothing whatever to stop such people including Christian (or Jewish, or any other) ideas, and, if they did so beyond a certain point, we might well see them being classified as Christian heresies in antiquity or now. But the selection motif is distinctive. Valentinus' disciples felt free to change his ideas. So did Marcion's. This is the point that the fathers make, and this process -- innocuous and normal in pagan philosophy -- is what they attack, and why they use the term 'heresy' (meaning a set of ideas made up, not received from the apostles).

This is only a personal idea, but I suspect that if we had more examples of popular pagan literature, we would find them far closer to gnostic texts than we suspect.

None of this should be a surprise, of course. Any ideology will have people who wander off in the direction of outside influences. While Christianity was a Jewish subset, they wandered in the direction of Judaism; when it was a gentile religion, they wandered in the direction of whatever the pagans were then preaching. And, of course, the process continues today.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Phlox Pyros

I agree in part, but not about the negativism. Is there a better word to use collectively of the various beliefs held by the masses during the time periods in question? Perhaps I am just not aware of a better technical term.

The problem is that beliefs were all so disparate and amorphous as you say, yet most seemed to believe that their Gods were all related and were emanations from "The One" or "The Good". So, while disparate, they were also almost one, thus many seemed to be fine with sacrificing to any God. I am simply referring to this general "belief in the Gods of our ancestors" as Paganism. Otherwise, I do not know how to refer to it...

Understood. Do you believe, from what you have studied, that Jesus' teachings were originally gnostic, or do you believe that they were Jewish in origin? I believe the latter from what I have studied. To me, the gnostic texts are seeming more and more a derivative of what original Christianity must have been. I do not understand their recent inclusion as an alternate history of Christianity. Rather they seem to me a syncretistic offshoot that borrowed some of the Christian teachings and meshed them with the philosophical ideas of their day.

Phlox Pyros

Don't we have many more examples of popular pagan literature (pardon me for not being able to think of the names for examples at the moment). It amazes me how late paganistic ideas survived. Paganism obviously abounds in Shakespeares works. I wonder how many still believed in these Gods in his time? Why did they still know the stories so well at such a late time period?

Anyways, reading the texts I've read lately, I'd have to agree that the pagan ideas are very close to gnostic ideas (or more likely visa versa).

Peter Kirby

By negative, I mean that paganism is defined, in a sort of via negativa, by what it is not: not Jewish, not Christian. That's all.

I don't believe that Jesus' teachings were gnostic.

The same charge could be leveled against Augustine or Aquinas.

regards,
Peter Kirby

Toto

Freke and Gandy in the Jesus Mysteries make an interesting attempt to glean information about the mystery religions from surviving classical writers.