mountainman

Who first started using the word pagan instead of Hellenic?
AFAIK the Romans understood their philosophy was largely Hellenic.
The works of the emperor Julian (361 CE) are sufficient to understand this.

So when did useage of the term "pagan" commence,
and by whom, and for what specific purpose?

And how does it differ from Hellenic?

Thanks for any insights.




Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

Yellum Notnef

Pagan means something like "hick religion" and is an insult used by Christians to insult and belittle every other religion prior to and after the invention of Christianity.

I have no idea why some chose to refer to themselves today as Pagan.

mountainman

It would be interesting to know its precedent.


Perhaps when the literature of the tribe of christians took the high
moral ground of intellectual property, there was not much real estate
left with which to associate other than the lower moral ground as
defined in the pantheon of the tribe of christians?

I'd still be very interested to know who first used the word.
Has anyone researched its dawn-like appearance
amidst the "tribe of man"?


Best wishes,


Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/namaste_2006.htm

Ben C Smith

I have no idea if he was the first to use the Latin word paganus in this manner, but Augustine uses that word in the Christian meaning in City of God. See for example 5.33:

...it was being told us at Carthage that the pagans [paganos] were believing, publishing, and boasting that [Radagaisus, king of the Goths], on account of the help and protection of the gods friendly to him, because of the sacrifices which he was said to be daily offering to them, would certainly not be conquered by those who were not performing such sacrifices to the Roman gods....

The Latin word paganus originally meant someone from a pagus, or hamlet (village, small town), and was extended to mean a country bumpkin or yokel. Perhaps that is what urban Christians after Constantine thought of their rural neighbors who still worshipped Roman deities.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson

My understanding is that a conduit of pagan into its present means was military slang (where it took on the meaning of a "civilian"). A fairly large portion of the Roman army at the time of Constantine was Christian.

Stephen Carlson

mountainman

Having some time on my hands, the thread expands.

Pagan, heathen and gentile need to be considered as a group.
These TERMS are probably of (Roman) christian construction.
(Thanks for the contributions Ben, to the 5th C)

Here is something on the latter term.
A random page from the webulous aether ...


Did the words "pagan", "heathen" or "gentile" appear in the biblical
and patristic literature of antiquity all of a sudden, or is there evidence
of some form of evolution of thought, in terms of this "otherness"
associated with the "exclusivity" of the "tribe of christians" which
compelled certain authors (preNicaean and postNicaean) in its usage?

The above article would tend to support a violent insertion under
Roman imperial rulership of the term "gentile". What do others think?



Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/namaste_2006.htm

mountainman

Hi Stephen,

Granted that the time of Constantine spanned say 306 to 337
and there may have been fluctuations in the statistical distribution
of christians in the Roman army, what primary sources indicate this
distribution was "fairly large" during this period?

Thanks


Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/namaste_2006.htm