la70119

I think some people would disagree with that. How Christians got rid of the pagans (in Greek) (in English -- abridged), selected from Vlasis Rassias' book DEMOLISH THEM.., published in Greek, Athens 2000 (2nd edition), Anichti Poli Editions, ISBN 960-7748-20-4

Sheshbazzar

Been my persuasion for decades. The transition and replacement religion began in Antioch the day that men first began to call themselves 'Christians', (Acts 11:26) and thereby establish the beginning of a separatist, no longer Jewish, no longer Jerusalem centered, fraudulent replacement religious hierarchy and form of doctrine.

mountainman

There may be a certain element of truth to the claim that Christians were first known by that name at Antioch. Prior to the Council of Nicaea, after becoming the supreme military commander of the Eastern empire, convened a special council at Antioch, in order to make a very important, and perhaps very novel, oration.

After this "council" he issued orders for the torture of leading magistrates of Antioch so that they admitted that pagansim was a religious fraud.


Lane Fox writes about Constantine's persecution of pagans.


Further notes from Robin Lane no hyphen Fox (and a list of other executions) here


The pagans appear to have been intimidated by torture and execution by the orders of Bullneck to admit that their religion was false. The True Religion had arrived in town behind the legions, and it had been codified.

mountainman

There are a range of demographic models for the rise of Christianity, and by default, the disappearance of the pagans. We are all familiar with Stark's model.

The worst case alternative scenario is a mass forced conversion of pagans in the 4th century. The following diagram despicts both of these best and worst case scenarios, and it is suggested that the truth is therefore bound somewhere in between these two possibilities.

mountainman

Thanks la70119.

I can recognise some of Vlasis Rassias's sources in Vita Constantini, the Theodosian Codex and Ammianus, but the source for this following claim has so far evaded my research. Do you - or anyone else - know Vlasis Rassias's source for this .... ?

LegionOnomaMoi

Reading the scholarship might help answer your question. Ronald Hutton's The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy covers paganism before christianity and after it became dominant. Some of his other works (Triumph of the Moon & Witches, Druids, and King Arthur also deal with this subject). G.W. Bowerstock's monograph Hellenism in Late Antiquity is a must read too. In fact, there are a great many important texts on the subject. After all, when Constantine died, Julian attempted to reinstate paganism as the dominant religion.

judge

That depends on whether one takes the defintion from our earliest sources, Paul and Mark, or whether one takes the defintion from say the RCC which is much later and very very different

andrewcriddle

Orthodox (ie non-Arian) Christians were exiled to Scythopolis in the 350's and ill-treated. (AFAIK they were not killed.)

Andrew Criddle

Duvduv

Andrew, could you or anyone else direct me to where in ancient Roman or Christian sources there is an explicit description of what the Constantinian regime did in terms of actual persecution of the so-called heretical sects? And with all the discussion in the writings of heresiologists, why do we not find anything explicit in relation to the various sects that were bothering the Byzantine church regime all the way to the days of Justinian, i.e. in the Thedosian Codes?

With all the clerical councils in Laodicia, Antioch, Constantinople, and the assorted canons of the 4th century, where are the descriptions of how this was all translated into government policy?

Thanks.

Duvduv

For that matter, in view of all the alleged persecution so many apocryphal New Testament texts existed (and still exist) that should have been totally eliminated (even aside from the Nag Hammadi collection)? One can assume that Christians literati knew about so many of the other texts that may have come into existence by the fifth century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_apocrypha
http://www.interfaith.org/christianity/apocrypha/