countjulian

I have seen this list of Christian atrocities batted around on Hellenic Pagan websites:

<snipped until written permission is provided - see links below>

I've looked at the Council of Ancyra and, as emberrassing as it is to Christians (it discusses what should be done with Christians who got amorous with their animals) it makes no reference to paganism. That's why it's not on my list. I've seen that many of the things said here confirmed in outside sources, the temples destroyed under Constantine was mentioned by Robin Lane Fox, for instance. But, it seemed to leave out some of the smalled crimes, such as the case of two pagans burned to death in a boat, recorded by John of Ephesus, or the skeleton of a man found buried (perphaps alive) in a Sarrebourg Mithraeum (destroyed by iconoclast Christians), his hands chained behind his back. But for the vast majority, I am unsure (the only one I have been able to verify is false is the one about Ancyra) of their veracity. Any help?

mod note: the source of this list, which seems to be reprinted numerous places on the web with no indication of copyright is cited here as Vlasis Rassias' book "DEMOLISH THEM..", published in Greek,
Athens 2000 (2nd edition), Anichti Poli Editions, ISBN 960-7748-20-4

But this page states:

// Any use of the following timetable in other webpages needs a previous V. Rassias' written permission)

Bede

This may help:

http://www.tektonics.org/af/crimeline.htm

The lack of any references and the fact that so many entries are instantly recognisable as bogus (e.g. that one about 580AD about the wild beasts refusing to eat pagans and them getting crucified when this was abolished centuries before as it would mean letting criminals copy Christ. The inquisition was only founded in the late twelfth century and never in the east. etc etc) suggests the whole thing is paranoid fantasy with the odd fact thrown in for good measure. You'll find a lot of it paraphrases the Theodosian Code and then assumes that it was implemented rigorously when historians know perfectly well that it wasn't. That's why the same thing gets enacted over and over again - no one is taking much notice.

By the way, CJ, are you a pagan. You seem to have a massively inflated opinion of late antique paganism.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

mata leao

bring it on! all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly. The Bible "should" read the way it does, because that is exactly how people and cultures were in ancient and medieval times. If the Bible were written to "sound in utopia" rather than "to sound in dystopia" we would know it to be a falisification. In fact, people haven't changed that much in modern times. The Bible is an accurate ,reliable treatise.

countjulian

You cited Tekton

:rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

<edit>Since you cry bloody murder everytime I cite a scholar, I'll just give you the primary text on this one, John Ephesus, Eccliastical History 3:27 :

“In the second year of Tiberius' reign, A. D. 579, the news reached the capital that the wicked heathens at Baalbec, otherwise called Heliopolis, who were professed worshippers of Satan, were plotting whenever they could find an opportunity to destroy and wipe out the very remembrance of the Christians in that town, who were few and poor, while they all were in the constant enjoyment of wealth and dignity. They indulged moreover in scoffs at Christ, and all who believed in him, and had already ventured upon many acts of open violence. Upon the news reaching Tiberius, he intrusted the matter to an officer who had already a short time before been sent to the East by Justin, upon the occasion of a revolt and disturbance created by the Jews and Samaritans in Palestine: and who on his arrival there had effectually reduced them to order, exterminating some and crucifying others, and destroying their property, and compelling them, by the severity of his measures, to submission. On receiving the king's commands, this officer, whose name was Theophilus, proceeded at once from Palestine to Heliopolis, and having arrested numerous heathens, recompensed them as their audacity deserved, humbling them and |210 crucifying them, and slaying them with the sword. And on being put to the torture, and required to give the names of those who were guilty like themselves of heathenish error, they mentioned numerous persons in every district and city in their land, and in almost every town in the East, but especially at Antioch the Great. Of most of these he was contented with sending the names to the magistrates of the place where they resided, with orders that they should be arrested immediately, and sent to him : but Theophilus despatched one of his own attendants to secure the person of Rufinus, whom they had mentioned as holding the office of high-priest at Antioch. On the officer's arrival, however, he found that Rufinus was not there, but had lately gone on a visit to Anatolius, the governor and procurator of Edessa. Having demanded therefore the services of a magistrate to escort him, and of a bishop to conduct the examination; as soon as they were granted him, with an officer of the church court, he started for Edessa, in the hope of arresting Rufinus there.�

The rest of the book is filled with more of the Christians wonderful deeds of love towards those silly Jews, Samaritans, pagans and heretics who disagreed with them. Praise the Lord! Jesus, St. Paul, Mohammed, George Bush and Pope Ratzinger would be proud.
For more on the Tiberian persecution of the pagans, see F.R. Trombly Hellenic Religion and Christianization (1994) (I was directed to the passage above by MacMullen,BTW).

As for the tearing up of the pagans by the wild beasts, the text of Evagrius Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History (3:18) has this to say:


“HERE was residing at Theopolis a certain Anatolius, who was originally one of the vulgar and an artisan, but had subsequently, by some means or other, obtained admission into public offices and other posts of importance. In this city he was pursuing his engagements, from which resulted an intimacy with Gregory, president of that Church, and frequent visits to him, partly for the purpose of conversing on matters of business, and partly with a view to obtain greater influence on the ground of his intercourse with the prelate. This person was detected in the practice of sacrificial rites, and being called to account was proved to be a miscreant and a sorcerer, and implicated in innumerable enormities. He gains over, however, by bribery, the governor of the East, and would have obtained an acquittal, together with his accomplices, for he was |273associated with others of a similar stamp who were involved in the detection, had not the people risen, and, by exciting a universal stir, frustrated the design.

They also clamoured against the bishop, saying that he was a party to the scheme; and some turbulent a:id malignant demon induced persons to believe that he had also taken part with Anatolius in the sacrificial rites. By this means Gregory was brought into extreme danger, from the vehement efforts of the populace against him; and the suspicion was so far prevalent, that even the emperor Tiberius was desirous of learning the truth from the mouth of Anatolius. Accordingly, he orders Anatolius and his associates to be conveyed forthwith to the imperial city. On learning this, Anatolius rushed to a certain image of the Mother of God, which was suspended by a cord in the prison, and folding his hands behind his back, announced himself as a suppliant: but she, in detestation and conviction of the guilty and God-hated man, turned herself quite round, presenting a prodigy awful and worthy of perpetual remembrance; which, having been witnessed by all the prisoners as well as by those who had the charge of Anatolius and his associates, was thus published to the world. She also appeared in a vision to some of the faithful, exhorting them against the wretch, and saying that Anatolius was guilty of insult against her Son.

When he had been conveyed to the imperial city, |274and, on being subjected to the extreme of torture, was unable to allege anything against the bishop, he and his associates were the cause of still greater disturbances and a general rising of the populace: for, when some of the party had received sentence of banishment instead of death, the populace, inflamed with a sort of divine zeal, caused a general commotion, in their fury and indignation, and having seized the persons condemned to banishment and put them into a skiff, they committed them alive to the flames; such being the people's verdict. They also clamoured against the emperor and their own bishop Eutychius as betrayers of the faith; and they would have inevitably despatched Eutychius, and those who had been charged with the investigation, making search for them in every quarter, had not all-preserving Providence rescued them from their pursuers, and gradually lulled the anger of so numerous a population; so that no outrage was perpetrated at their hands. Anatolius himself, after being first exposed to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre and mangled by them, was then impaled, without terminating even then his punishment in this world; for the wolves, tearing down his polluted body, divided it as a feast among themselves; a circumstance never before noticed. There was also one of my fellow-citizens, who, before these events took place, affirmed that he had been informed by a dream, that the judgment upon Anatolius and his associates was in the |275hands of the populace. A person too of high distinction, being the curator of the palace, who had resolutely protected Anatolius, said that he had seen the Mother of God, demanding of him how long he intended to defend Anatolius, who had so grievously outraged herself and her Son. Such was the termination of this business.�


I believe the thing about the animals refusing to touch them comes from the fact that he was torn to peaces by the animals and then impaled. There is some falsehood and some truth to what the list said. And as to the Theodosian code not being enforced, you just have to wake up. What do you think happened at Alexandria, to the Serapeum? At one point in the fifth century, Byzantium was able to field 300,000 troops; do you think they had trouble killing unarmed civilians and breaking down temples? Both from literary resources and the archaeological evidence, we know that massive numbers of temples were destroyed, occasionally by the army, as in Baalbek above, but usually by monks and Christian laymen. What happened did the pagans tear down their own temples in order to discredit Christianity 2,000 years in the future? The Theodosian code and other like it were enforced, and quite contrary to you, the fact that they had to be re-issued over and over again merely demonstrates that the Empire had to be violently dragged kicking and screaming into the church of Christ. To say otherwise is merely libelous Christian rubbish deceitfully put out by Christian apologists in order to perpetuate one of the most tired and disgusting of Christian myths, that "paganism" was just a dead husk and that the people were just waiting for something better to come along.

As for you, Bede, thanks for going completely off topic, merely dismissing the article in question out of hand <edit>, contributing nothing to the discussion. And for the record, I am a complete and total metaphysical naturalist, I see no need for imaginary fairies in the sky to explain my philosophical stances and save me from my intellectual laziness, unlike some people we know.

Oh, and Bede, I just have to ask, are you a Christian? You seem to have a massively inflated opinion of late antique Christianity.

And BTW, mata leao, I think you have the wrong thread. And everything you said is wrong .

Roger Pearse

The page seems very relevant to me. The list of statements which you started with is primarily nonsense, of course. It starts with the idea that Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the state -- not to happen for 50 years after his time -- and proceeds to imaginary statements based on this.

It looks incredibly like (in terms of genre) some of the anti-semitic "lists of Jewish atrocities" I have seen floating around the web.

I don't know about anyone else but I tend not to believe anything else. There are too many people with an agenda to offer on Christian origins.

I'm not sure that the acts of the Byzantine empire are particularly a Christian problem, tho. As a whole Christians see the religious disputes of that period as merely a stalking horse for politics in a despotism. No Eastern council later than Chalcedon is recognised in the West.

Interesting indeed.

To be found here.

ActuallyEvagrius 5, 18

Interesting indeed. Were the games really still going on at this late date? Or is this merely part of the mob violence endemic at Constantinople?

I have a vague memory that they had been reintroduced some time in the 6th century and been greeted as a novelty -- anyone know the facts of the matter?

Well, if you read the introduction to the English translation of the Code, you will find various instances given where the code itself witnesses to imperial impotence, by the measures that the emperors are driven to enact in a faint hope of getting any compliance at all. I'd have put it online, but it's in copyright.

It was destroyed by the local gang-boss Theodosius. But I'd have thought, as an atheist, you would rejoice at the destruction of superstition?

Ahem. Those who have had to try to get a bureaucracy to do *anything*, even equipped with political power, will read this with a sad smile.

I thought Bede's comments very fair and relevant, actually.

I expect that like most people you live by conformity to some subset of the societal values that happened to be fashionable and convenient in the period of space-time in which you happened to be born. Isn't this right? But it's not a position requiring a great deal of thought; and it is a position which those who follow it tend, as you do here, to treat as a default. Laziness might be a harsh word for this.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Bede

I am fascinated by the references to late crucifixion. You see, CJ, how useful a reference can be to you. On the other hand, a list that we know to contain plenty of errors and which has no references is worse than useless.

I suggest you go through it, find all the references, make corrections and then you will have a useful resource. Try to avoid anachronism and not confuse politics with religion. You will also need to do the same thing with the late pagan empire. Then you will have a fair comparison between Christianity and paganism. Just listing events in the Christian empire without context doesn't tell us anything. I think you'll find, as I wrote some time ago, "Certainly, although Constantine made Christianity the official religion, the Roman Empire remained just as much of a military despotism as it ever was. It was not until Theodosius was reprimanded by Archbishop Ambrose that some of the Emperors' megalomaniac proclivities were to be at all circumscribed by Christianity and even then, not by much." (here)

Yes, I am a Christian, so I assume you are a pagan.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

countjulian

Jee, ya think? Check what I wrote at the top. This was the point of the whole thread, I was just asking for some help.


What are you talking about? Christianity made the emperor's "megalomaniac proclivities" worse, not better, and Theodosius was one of the most fanatical mass-murdering butchers the Empire had yet seen, in great part because of Ambrose's reprimand to Theodosius, about not punishing Christians for burning down synagogues and stuff. Ambrose made Theodosius into the murdering fanatic he was; need we rehash the Serapeum event?

BTW, in case you did not get it, in the last part at the bottom I was poking fun at you. Just FYI
And if you mean by pagan, a non-believer living in a Christian society under a Christian government (approximate to the Muslim term, Dhimmi, but not quite), then yes I am a pagan. No, I do not believe in the old pagan gods, or any of the abstract pagan philosophical gods like the Platonic form of the Good or Stoic Zeus, but I am an enthusiast of Hellenistic philosophy. As such, I have been thinking of experimenting in worship of the Epicurean gods, for 2 reasons (a) because idolatry (if I did it I owuld most certainly build a Hellenic altar) really seems to piss off Christians, and (b) if these folks, http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/21/13392/6893 and don't forget their homepage http://www.chalcedon.edu/ , ever take over (which they have succeeded in to a large degree), I want them to be able to nail me under some draconian Theodosian laws against idolatry, not some technicality. As for the actual merits of the Epicureans, I don't think that the Epicureans ever actually believed their gods existed in any meaningful way (see Lucian's satire Zeus rants, here http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/Zeus.html ) but that they were merely thought constructs. They worshipped their perfect gods so they could become gods, kind of like a Buddhist worshipping his boddhivista, etc.


Pearse, so nice to speak to you again. In case you did not get it, I was deliberately mocking Bede's (in my opinion) pedagogic style, especially with my use of the word "bigoted" and so forth.

I utilized your text of John and Evagrius, thank you very much. wonderful collections, nice job, BTW. The Secret History, which documents many more persecutions of heretics and non-believers by Christians can be found here http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html , if anyone did not know. Oh, and thanks for correcting me on Evegrius. I think they may have had sports at the time, not sure about death spectacles, unless a pagan happened to be drawn in, off course. But really, I have no idea, I think it would be good to know.
Quote:


In George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, he describes that when he first got into Republican (in this case anarchist) territory, people who saw the church as nothing but a racket and a burden on them were willfully tearing down their own churches. That is the type of destruction of superstition I would like to see; not an particularly intolerant and bloodthirsty superstition wiping out a considerably more tolerant one by force and killing many people in the process (don't forget, they offered to let the pagans come out if they would let the army destroy the temple, but they refused, and were promptly slaughtered; so much for Bede's statement that pagans "did not feel that any faith was worth dying for.")


No disagreement from me. But in most situations, it was Christian monks and laity enacting the law, not the army. And as we saw from Tiberius and his commission to Theophilus, the army did continue to get called into action against the non-believers.

Bede

Ambrose, Theodosius and Thesslonica.

I'm not surprised you knew nothing about this as your knowledge is completely one sided. As for Christianity making the Empire worse, that is impossible to justify. Look up Caligula, Commodus, Caracalla (that's just the Cs), the Jewish revolts (all three), what happened to Alexandria when it was rude to the Emperor.... I could go on but it would be as pointless as the list you cribbed in the OP.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Bede

I'll be blogging on this last post. People often ask me if people like Count Julian really exist and its good to have an example.

If you visit any Spanish church or cathedral you will see a memorial, not unlike British war memorials, to the local clergy murdered by the Republicans. In all 7,000 priests and other clergy were killed during the Spanish Civil War for no other reason than their religious calling. They were shot without trial or due process. It is this sort of mass murder that Count Julian likes to see - not two thousand years ago but within living memory. I don't even need to comment on the irony of his support for these massacres and his crocodile tears for the alleged crimes of early Christians.

I'll be dropping out of discussions with him now. It's hardly worth arguing with some one who 'likes to see' thousands of people being murdered.

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Vorkosigan

Can we stop this nonsense? They weren't murdered "for no other reason" than their religious calling, as if the last several hundred years of Church history had never occurred. They certainly didn't deserve to be murdered, but the murders didn't happen in a historical vaccuum either. Can you tell me which side the Spanish Church supported during the war? Would that be the side that Hitler and Mussolini also backed? Killing tends to occur when one brand of violent, controlling, authoritarianism clashes with another, you know.

Vorkosigan