Jeffrey Gibson

Only in print: Pervo, R., "The Acts of Titus: a PreliminaryTranslation with an Introduction, Notes and Appendices", Society of Biblical Literature: Seminar Papers, Number 35 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) 455-482.

Jeffrey

striderlives

That's because apparently - you are an intellectual snob.
:wave:


As a lay person simply trying to learn things apart from my non-academic, 10 hour a day job, I see a LOT of value in what Richard has been willing to do....reaching out to us great unwashed, as it were.
:Cheeky:

Thank you Richard.

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

How generous of you.

I will admit to this.


I will admit to this.


Will you accept the following mitigated claim that Constantine did engage in " the selective destruction of some of the most highly reverred and most ancient "pagan" temples and shrines in the eastern empire at that time. If you are happy with the mitigated claim I am happy to admit that the original one was excessive -- and inappropriate.

Not all, but some, I will admit.

Dont forget it has to be sent to rural Australia, but that I have always offered to pay for time and running.

Best wishes,


Pee

mountainman

Dear Roger,

I try and be nice to everyone I meet but sometimes my ideas get in the way. If I have offended anyone by my ideas then I am sorry. Since I know none of us will live forever I am happy to seek the common ground of ideas with anyone if indeed such can be found.

What is an "ILL"?

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

ILL = interlibrary loan

Jeffrey Gibson

No. It is too vague and it is undocumented. And he did not do what he did to wipe out the cults to whom the Temples/shrines belonged.

Whether you admit it or not, it was excessive and inappropriate and uninformed as well. Plus you've never answered my question of what the percentage of the "pagan" temples that existed in the first half of the 4th century the ones that Constantine had destroyed (and it was fewer than 18) was. I take it you have no idea.

Since I can send it via e-mail, I have no idea why this is relevant. And what you've offered to pay is a pittance. Ten Austrailian dollars is less than $7.00 US.

Jeffrey

mountainman

Dear Jeffrey,

The Temple of Asclepius Aegae, Cilicia patronised by Apollonius of Tyana in 324/325 was utterly destroyed by Constantine (Eus VC 3.56-58; SS HE 1.18; Zonaras HE 13.12.30-34; Soz HE 2.5 "This temple was most highly honored and reverenced by the ancients" ). Three contemporary authors --- from my reading (and I may have missed something) --- seem to find no consensus on why Constantine may have done this:
Constantine and the Problem of Anti-Pagan Legislation in the Fourth Century
Scott Bradbury, Classical Philology, Vol. 89, No. 2 (Apr., 1994), pp. 120-139,
Constantine's Prohibition of Pagan Sacrifice T. D. Barnes, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 69-72, and "Pagans and Christians" - RL Fox. This is just the first with no explanation. Others temples were destroyed with specific jusifications of "idolatory" etc.

If tabulated with a percentage I would be interested in looking at your source(s), and whether the catalog mentions any of the temples and shrines to Asclepia in Italy, and particularly the central temple in Rome.


I had doubled this.

Best wishes,


Pete

Jeffrey Gibson

So some = one?

Have you actually read this article in its entirety, let alone the passage that notes:

Quote:

1t is revealing in this regard to compare his generalizing remarks in the opening of Book 3 with his accounts of individual actions against pagan cult sites. The claim at VC 3.1 is bold and sweeping: the persecutors had sumptuously adorned the temples, but Constantine "razed to their foundations those [temples] which had been the chief objects of superstitious reverence." Eusebius actually cites, however, only four examples, three of which involve temples of Aphrodite. One of these temples stood on the site of the Lord's resurrection-it polluted a Christian holy site. At the other two temples of Aphrodite, ritual prostitution was practiced. Only the attack on the Temple of Asclepius at Aegae eludes easy explanation. {but he then cites Lane Fox] Thus, all but one of the known attacks on temples appear to have been motivated by a desire to recover a Christian site or to suppress indecent sexuality. The bold claim of a campaign against the temples is not borne out by the evidence, and it is understandable that scholars have suspected the same thing to be true of the claim about the total prohibition on sacrifices

Constantine's Prohibition of Pagan Sacrifice T. D. Barnes, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 69-72,[/quote]

Have you actually read this one? Barnes does not speak of the destruction of the Temple of Asclepius at Aegae or that of any other Temples, for that matter..

And now I'm beginning to suspect that you haven't read Lane Fox either, or at least very closely. Here's what he says:

Quote:

Pagans, too, were not spared abuse in the Emperor's letters, but only six of their sites are known to have suffered in his reign. Perhaps the list was longer, but each of the known places was a special case. One, at Mambre, was a site of great holiness in the Old Testament; allother, a shrine of Aphrodite, stood on the site of the Crucifixion and the Holy Sepulchre injerusalem. A third, at Aphaca, was an offensive Phoenician centre of sacred prostitution. The other three told a (It fferent story. At Didyma, Christians seized a prophet of Apollo and I i I i d him tortured, as also at Antioch. At Algal, in Cilicia, they are said to have razed the shrine of Asclepius, a misfortune, however, from which it partially recovered. Why were these latter shrines singled out so promptly? At Algal, the the pagan wise man Apollonius was believed to have "turned the temple into an Academy": this temple, or a nearby shrine, had been honoured with a fine pagan inscription in honour of "godlike" Apollonius, perhaps as recently as the reign of Diocletian. In the last phase of the Great Persecution, Hierocles, a prorninent governor, wrote a book exhalting Apollonitis as the pagan superior to Christ. Not so long before him Porphyry had compiled the books of Philosophy from Oracles which publicized texts from Didyma. At Didyma the Emperors then underwent the encounter which set the Great Persecution on its course. When Constantine conquered the East Christians therefore struck at Didyma and Algal, the two shrines which were closely linked with the origins of their recent suffering.

.

Really? Then, as I suspected, you've not actually read (and/or you've certainly misread) Bradbury, Barnes, and Lane-Fox.


.

Hold on! Why am I being asked to tabulate how many pagan temples and shrines were in existence in the first half of the fourth century when the question was whether you knew what the percentage of all extant "pagan" Temples and shrines the five or six destroyed by Constantine was.

So, the answer is, as I suspected it would be, no, you don't.


Wow! $14! I can now retire.

Jeffrey