sibyx and ronincats tackle Pagans and Christians

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sibyx and ronincats tackle Pagans and Christians

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1ronincats
Modificato: Set 22, 2011, 5:16 pm



Yes, we are an equal opportunity attack squad. Following Peggy's (LizzieD) review of Pagans and Christians earlier this year (http://www.librarything.com/topic/116751#2807374), we are attempting to follow in her illustrious footsteps. At 681 pages not counting notes, we will be moving at a slow but hopefully steady pace.

Anyone should feel free to join us, either reading or in making comments.

2sibylline
Modificato: Set 23, 2011, 10:23 pm

Sorry I took so long getting here. My sister is visiting! I have finished Chapter One which seems to be setting the scene for developing the relationship between christians and pagans sociologically speaking. Fox's main point seem to be that christianity, at least initially, was a city focused phenomenon. He makes the point that this was not a society that had a middle or merchant class. There were artisans, but they were as likely as not to be slaves. There were loose groups of craftsmen, but nothing at all like the guilds that would later emerge. Another point he makes is that the only people with significant amounts of money were the same ones who were educated and also politically powerful. Roman culture put a lot of pressure on these folks to beautify and care for their cities and, to a lesser degree, the people who lived in those cities. The noble families would compete of course, and that led to much of the spectacular building. Soldiers were among the most upwardly mobile population, but most people were born and died in more or less the same circumstances, very little movement either way, although noble families did die out...... In one intriguing passage Fox talks about how incredibly uninformed the average fellow was -- many seemed to believe the Odysseus was a living person. They knew there was always a living Caesar, but not necessarily who that person was specifically. The nobles had huge landholdings from which they derived their wealth. I do find myself wondering how goods would travel around if there was almost no merchant class. But I suppose each aristocrat would have his own craftspeople, and their goods somehow or other, trickled out and about? I mean, who made the stuff for the soldiers, say? Tons more in this chapter, but these are a few things that I seem to still remember!

On to chapter 2.

3Chatterbox
Set 23, 2011, 5:35 pm

I had to laugh when I saw this topic. I just had a vision of the two of you standing back to back, wielding broadswords, and preparing to defend yourselves from two vast armies, one entering stage left and the other stage right... Sorry for the flippant mental image, but...

4sibylline
Set 23, 2011, 5:49 pm

I don't blame you, Suz,-- the title is rather 'bald'.

Roni, I'm just reporting in that I read nothing today as my sister is visiting! I'm hoping to get to it seriously tomorrow afternoon, perhaps a a few pages tonight.

5ronincats
Modificato: Set 23, 2011, 11:30 pm

'Sfine, Lucy. I've only finished the first two chapters and I reviewed the first one last night.

In chapter one, I liked the way Fox introduced us to 6 individuals, half pagan and half Christian, all considered good examples of piety and putting a personal face onto all this information.

He makes the point that in essentially one lifetime, from about 300 A.D. to 335 A.D., Christianity went from being a persecuted minority to being in positions of promotion and patronage.

He discusses the traditional pagan cults, which go back with little essential change to Homer and Herodotus. Then, mostly through looking at Cyprian's life, she looks at aspects of Christian influence, setting up future chapter themes involving how Christianity affected self-awareness, social organization, and introduced the concept of sin.

Chapter Two

I still need to review this with my wakened mind--last night before bed wasn't working. This was a chapter where it was easy to get lost in the wealth of detail. I did find interesting the information that "pagan" is a Christian term first seen in the early 300s.

6sibylline
Modificato: Set 23, 2011, 10:25 pm

Whoa! Is Robin an Ms or a Mr? I don't have any idea. The name Robin is so neutral. I better go run and see.

You put that so well -- the focus on the six individuals had zipped right by me. I love how we all see and absorb different things!

I'm going to try to get a few pages into Two tonight.

I'm back to say I think Lane Fox is of the male persuasion.

7ronincats
Set 23, 2011, 11:30 pm

Yah, Peggy clued me in. I'm going up and changing "she" to "he'.

8Chatterbox
Set 24, 2011, 12:24 am

Robin is male in this case; it's a not-uncommon male name in England. (A close friend of mine named her son Robin...)

9ronincats
Set 24, 2011, 1:10 am

Of course. After all, sweet Puck is quintessentially British, yes? And I had to chuckle at your image of Lucy and I back-to-back confronting the hordes, Suzanne.

10sibylline
Set 24, 2011, 8:39 am

Actually I feel more worried about me old brain -- When I got in bed and proceeded to tackle P&C I found that I had jumped from the brief preface to Chapter 2, happily reading it as if it was the first chapter. I was puzzled, a bit about the six, as I mentioned above so I riffled through the pages and saw....... so I'm reading up on those. It IS clever because it brings the individual alive right away.

So...... I'm going to go mention that above in 2 -- when I finish Ch. 1 I will stick a few comments up in that space.

11sibylline
Set 24, 2011, 2:18 pm

After much puzzling I have figured out what happened -- I simply started reading where the bookmark was which was at the beginning of Ch. 2 from when I started the book last spring. So I went back to Ch. 1 and began to remember most of it as I read. V. important was Constantine's conversion. Cyprian was important as an example of an early xtian saint -- he differed in many many ways from model figures of the Roman and Greek eras. In particular I think the fact that poverty does not indicate unworthiness - sometimes quite the opposite. Also the inclusion of women and children as being worthy of social services, just not boy babies who might grow up to be useful soldiers. I have noticed in my own reading around this time period how influential the women of the upper classes could be when they converted -- and that they were more apt to convert than the men -- I'll be interested to see how Lane Fox tackles that.

Noteworthy items: On Cyprian's success in blessing racehorses Jerome reports: "'the decisive victory in those games.... caused very many people to turn to the faith.' His comment throws an unusual Irish light on the reasons why people were thought to have become Xtians."
I believe this is an attempt at humor?

Importantly at the end of this Ch. Lane Fox states some of the big points he wants to make -- one that 'pagan' cult practices did not continue unabated and hidden after the spread of Xtianity -- he likens the practices that persisted to 'neutral technology of life'. He states, "Emphasis on these 'pagan survivals' has hopened long perspectives. In the West, it has led to the study of popular religion and medieval folklore as if they were living alternatives to Xtian culture.... However, almost all of this continuity is spurious." That will be an interesting argument to follow. He also sees Xtianity as something very new, very different, not particularly related to religions that went before.

As Roni points out sin comes into its own as a concept, attitude toward death changes, relationships between men and women change.... Also Xtianity 'induced a much sharper rise in religious intolerance.... Christians were quick to mobilize force against the pagan cults and against their own unorthodox Christian brethren, a reaction which was not the late creation of Constantine and his reign."

So that is Chapter One, and I seem to have written it up here out of order and so be it.

NOW I'll move on to Chapter 3!

12ronincats
Set 24, 2011, 8:31 pm

That is a logical explanation--I was trying to figure out how that happened! Today is my busy day, with pottery class, but I'll buckle down to finish Chapter 3 tomorrow.

13sibylline
Set 25, 2011, 9:26 am

I'm indulging in a very very lazy day, lots of reading, and I am planning to tackle P&C as soon as I finish idling about here on LT!

14ronincats
Set 25, 2011, 6:16 pm

I'm going to let your summary stand for Chapter 2, except for this quote:

"...pagan religion has been defined as essentially a matter of cult acts...Pagans performed rites but professed no creed or doctrine. They did pay detailed acts of cult...but they were not committed to revealed beliefs in the strong Christian sense of the term. They were not exhorted to faith: 'to anyone brought up on classical Greek philosophy, faith was the lowest grade of cognition...the state of mind of the uneducated'...There was also no pagan concept of heresy. To pagans, the Greek word 'hairesis' meant a school of thought, not a false and pernicious doctrine"

With chapter 2 having established the social structure of pagan cities and society, chapter 3 moves into how religion was connected to this infrastructure by pagan cults. First, Fox justifies the use of cult records rather than written documents of the period, noting that the latter were severely restricted by class and number and represent a few "individual's thoughts in their loneliness' in contrast to the wide participation in cult activities.

Much of the chapter is devoted to the festivals which were the way the temple and city cults promoted themselves and sustained themselves economically. There was widespread growth in the building and expansion of temples in the second century, showing a concommitant involvement of the population. City festivals created pride in the populace at large and reinforced the order of society, while the schedule of festivals evoked an image of stable and enduring to order, not to mention breaking up the year in a world without weekends. Temple cults could exist on every social level, with some gods being imports of foreign slaves. Individual worship took place in the homes with private altars, family and household cults, and funerary foundations.

In summary, cult acts sustained and gave public expression to social order. The ceremonies included the offerings of animals and libations, speeches praising the gods, processions, the vowing of monuments, and fixed patterns of prayer and hymns and incense. Cult acts mediated in the prosperity of crops, birth and death as well as life milestones, and relations between men and women. The calendar of festivals evoked the image of stable and enduring growth across the generations and the seasons.

15sibylline
Set 26, 2011, 2:15 pm

What do you think about both the use of the blanket word 'pagan' to describe everything not either Judaic or Christian, and this phrase 'cult acts'. It seems... reductive.... to me - and also attributing to Xtianity more without basis (as yet). Not that there might not be some truth in what he is assuming, just that these statements and uses are as yet 'unearned' by the text, Lane Fox has made a number of bold statements and word choices that have set off alarms - a priori kinds of statements -- to accept those definitions and terms right off, then one will be led to agree with whatever his thesis ends up being, in other words. Again, I'm not saying he's wrong, just that I don't like the approach.

16ronincats
Set 26, 2011, 5:21 pm

As far as 'pagan', I don't have a problem with that. It is clear from the context that what Fox is referring to is the overall Greco-Roman culture that permeated the Mediterranean. 'Pagan' is a loaded term in that it was created, as noted above, by Christians to refer to that particular culture, with its accretions, to mean THEM, not US, in the early 300s. I think we have to be careful not to load the term with modern connotations of how we tend to use 'pagan', to refer to a belief system that is one of many within a culture, or across a wide variety of world religions. IMO Fox is using it simply as a convenient referent to the Greco-Roman culture of the times.

Can you clarify your second sentence? I'm not sure what you mean by it, and I want to understand.

I think 'cult acts' are important because they are the way the culture expressed its religiosity rather than through statement of belief or credos--it is through action that is tied to everyday life and the calendar. This needs to be clarified because, especially over the last 300 years, there is often a big divide between what people profess and how they act, and I think that is why the emphasis I saw in chapter 3 on how the actions were not tied to a particular belief system but were a way of life that tended only to be challenged by the philosophers. If we look at the word 'believe' in a historical context, until about 200-300 years ago, it simply meant 'right action', rather than mental assent to a set of propositions. Many modern readers would tend to assume the latter and that is why it needed to be clarified rather thoroughly.

I may be being too much the apologist for Fox--please, please, please keep bringing up things you feel he hasn't substantiated.

17LizzieD
Set 26, 2011, 7:43 pm

I think that it would be helpful to have Amber comment on this. My oversimplified understanding of Roman cult is that it's pretty much vending machine religion. You determine what the god wants and if you do it correctly - that is, put in the right change, you get your desired result. RLF has a lot to say about oracles through which the gods made their wishes known, but what the peasants in the country really did was to continue the ritual for their local numina that had been passed down for eons.

18sibylline
Set 26, 2011, 10:01 pm

Why not just say greco-roman then? Why choose the word pagan if it is so loaded? I find it strange for a scholar to make such an emotional choice - especially for the title "Cult acts" also grates. To me it feels as though Fox is using words that help his argument in a way I find 'creepy.' I use those quotation marks, btw, because I find Fox's 'constant' use of them 'annoying'. (Note use of q marks both american and british style as per discussed on Peggy's thread a while back.)

What makes a statement or credo not a cult act?

19LizzieD
Modificato: Set 26, 2011, 11:29 pm

Hmmm. If you are standing and proclaiming before everybody what you believe, I guess that is a cult act. The '"pagans"' didn't do that; they just sacrificed or sang their hymns and did their dances. Your objections to RLF's use of loaded words (but who loaded pagan) strikes me as funny because he isn't Xn. I don't know what he is. I don't know. I think I'm getting out of this!

20labwriter
Set 27, 2011, 8:06 am

I've been following the thread with interest, and I have a question--for anyone. Is the use of "Xn" or "Xtian" or "Xtianity" used simply as a shortcut, or does it have some other connotation? Of course I've seen the form used for "Xmas," but I've never seen it used the way it's being used here. Without any other context, the format strikes me as sort of...reductive. Just askin'.

21sibylline
Set 27, 2011, 8:42 am

I'm just lazy (using the x) Don't want to offend anyone, so I'll spell it out from here on. I feel like I've seen others use that freely, but maybe it's not?

That's very helpful Peggy about Fox -- I had figured that anyway -- Fox strikes me as being, as a historian, who prides himself on being unemotional and rigorously rational in his approach, so rational in fact, that he can use these words in their strictest sense and be understood. He reminds me a little of Richard Dawkins -- worth it, but also somewhat limited by the rules he follows. No poetry. Maybe fresh from my reread of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I am hyper-aware of the fallacies of the super-rational approach.

Don't get me wrong anybody, the monotheistic religions, generally, are a huge - even immense -- step forward from what came earlier -- I'm no closet goddess worshipper or anything. The contribution of the Greeks and Romans to delineating the facets of 'personality' through projection into the stories of the gods and goddesses, however, is a huge and marvelous thing. The Greeks invented the concept of metaphor, so I am guessing many of them knew what they were about and just who they were really appeasing, than Fox gives them credit for. There is little 'proof' so he dismisses it, but who could prove now from what we do, say and write that most people now are motivated by an internal moral compass?

If I'm being annoying to anyone, I will just limit myself to outlining chapters!

Now, I have some time so I will finish up Ch. 3 and come back. Promise to behave myself!

22labwriter
Set 27, 2011, 9:26 am

I didn't mean to come across as critical, Sib. You have a right to use any form of the word you want. I was just wanting to know if there was something behind the use of that form that goes beyond just a simple abbreviation. I know you to be a fair person, so I assumed it wasn't something agenda-driven. I just thought there might be a connotation that I'm not aware of.

Sorry, didn't mean to butt in. I will now butt out.

23sibylline
Modificato: Set 27, 2011, 9:43 am

No worries, B.

Here is the link to my bro reciting -- it is very short, sadly: HOMER

If this doesn't work another avenue to it that does work is to type Avery Andrews Homer into your search engine.

24LizzieD
Modificato: Set 27, 2011, 10:57 am

>20 labwriter:, >21 sibylline:, >22 labwriter: You're quite right, Becky. The X is the chi for Christus, and its use is ancient and absolutely acceptable according to my Yale Divinity School-educated Bible and Religion professor.

25markon
Modificato: Set 27, 2011, 11:06 am

De-lurking so you'll know I'm following this discussion with interest. I'm with Sib on the use of pagan - it is used derogatively so often that I have to make a conscious effort to say greco-roman in my head.

Was it used historically by the "pagans" as well as the Christians to differentiate between the polytheistic traditions and monotheistic Christianity? I think it was a term the Roman Christians came up with . . .

26sibylline
Set 27, 2011, 11:15 am

Chapter 3 I admit I found this a jumbled chapter, full of information that I haven't processed very well, so forgive any rambling, I hope it might help me. The main point seems to be that at this period the Romans were feeling some anxiety about their culture -- Fox suggests that the anxiety might be rooted in awareness of the suppressed anger of large numbers of oppressed peoples "Should the Antonine 'age of anxiety' be rephrased as an 'age of anger,' rooted in the social order and its division between master and slave?" Fox puts the idea out there, does not say yea or nay as for as I can see. He also suggests that the upper classes were 'detached' more and more from the ceremonies and traditions of their religious practices and compares it to the pre-reformation mood in England in the 17th.

Having been in an Italian town on a saint's day, witnessing the wild excitement of young men racing up an incredibly steep hill with the saint's relics seemed barely related to anything Christian......

I enjoyed the stuff about the fact that the people preferred games and stadiums to libraries and serious performance venues...... some things never change!

On p. 94 of my book is a complex page about ways Platonists, etc. did search their souls, internally or externally in a rapport with nature (shades of Emerson!).... I didn't entirely follow Fox and will have to read this more carefully a few more times, I think.

The last part of this chapter addresses a perenially tough issue for all historians -- the truthfulness of various accounts of witnessing early miracles. Given that no two people at a traffic accident see the same thing, tell a story similarly, who knows what anybody sees at any time????? It's really an impossible inquiry. From my pov the 'spirit' of the stories, the 'lean' of them reveals at least what people were wanting to see and believe at the time, esp. at the period when the stories 'congeal' and start to stay more or less the same, with a coherence about them.

27labwriter
Modificato: Set 27, 2011, 11:19 am

>24 LizzieD:. Peggy, of course! Thank you. The symbol Chi Rho is a christogram, XP, the first two letters of the Greek word meaning "Christ." I've seen this used literally thousands of times in the Episcopal Church. Duh--wake up, Becky.



28gennyt
Set 28, 2011, 5:26 pm

#24, 27 Yes, Xn and Xianity, also Xst for Christ etc are not only convenient shorthand but have a good and appropriate pedigree. I and my fellow trainee ministers would never have got all our lecture notes taken down at theological college if we were writing out Christian and Christianity in full every time - certainly nothing reductive intended!

Interesting discussion - another book that I'd really like to read...

29thornton37814
Set 29, 2011, 11:15 am

>28 gennyt: - You made the abbreviation for Christianity entirely too long. I used X'ty or Xty when I was note-taking.

30sibylline
Set 29, 2011, 11:31 am

Confessing I haven't read anything yet in Ch. 4 and am thrilled to have official permission to abbreviate all the way to Xty! Wow!

31sibylline
Modificato: Set 30, 2011, 10:35 am

I've read section 1 of Ch. 4 -- He wants to make sure we get that the Greeks and Romans really did feel a personal relationship with their gods and goddesses -- he does say that the more sophisticated Greeks (say Plato) thought the gods and goddesses were a bit ridiculous, but that he was exceptional. He also is skeptical of the bicameral mind idea - that the left and right brain were not hooked up so that people mistook stuff going on in their own brains for reality. Hmmm. Seems like that still happens a lot. Maybe he doesn't see so much of that in Oxbridge. I've felt the impulse too, more than once, to make a 'votive' shrine in a particulalry resonant spot - there's a small stream that runs not far from our house with a big dying cottonwood, that has always felt 'special' so I piled up some rocks there one time when I was feeling badly about things. I can't see Fox ever doing anything like that, although I did love his description of museums as aquariums..... I have a love/hate relationship with museums..... don't get me started, but I was glad that he gets that aspect that ripping artifacts out of their context is a bit crazy and essentially 'kills' any meaning and resonance they might have had when in their intended location. (the on the other hand, of course, is about preservation).

I read the Bicameral book a million years ago (80's, that would be) and was not entirely convinced, but was not quite so dismissive either. Cognitive leaps happen -- new ideas cause new wiring -- behaviorists studying animals who 'learn' new tricks and teach them to others see brain patterns shift.... doubt I'll read much more of Ch 4 today, I'm happy I got started on it!

32LizzieD
Set 30, 2011, 10:59 am

I was going to mention the bicameral book as I read your first paragraph, Lucy. I bought it a million years ago and then didn't read it because I read that it had been discounted scientifically. It's still an interesting concept. I sort of wish that it were so - very useful.

33cushlareads
Set 30, 2011, 11:19 am

Just found your discussion and am going to go back to the start. Did you know Robin Lane Fox writes the gardening column in the Financial Times weekend edition?

34sibylline
Set 30, 2011, 1:53 pm

No I did not! That is very interesting. Hope you enjoy our discussion!

35ronincats
Modificato: Set 30, 2011, 4:32 pm

I read the Julian Jaynes's book when it came out too, Lucy, with much the same reaction as you. It's still up there on the top shelf here in my office. I'm only halfway through the first section of Chapter 4 so far. I find Fox's assertion that the relationship between men and gods can be inferred from Homer's writings 1000 years earlier to be a reach, but at least he's putting it out front and defending it. My husband retired two weeks ago, and even though he said "I don't want to change your schedule"--he has! So we went for a drive up to the mountains to Julian yesterday and, by the time we got home, I was too exhausted to tackle P&C--although not to tired to totally enjoy Kat, Incorrigible. Go figure.

I didn't know that--I wonder how his gardening advice is?

I have some housework to do--then back to P&C. (Get OFF the threads, girl, there is nothing for you here. Off, I say, off!)

36qebo
Ott 1, 2011, 8:47 pm

Discovered this thread today, and I'm reading with interest. I could maybe go for the abridged version, but not 681 pages.

31: He also is skeptical of the bicameral mind idea - that the left and right brain were not hooked up so that people mistook stuff going on in their own brains for reality. Hmmm. Seems like that still happens a lot. Maybe he doesn't see so much of that in Oxbridge.

OK, this had me literally laughing out loud. Though I suspect it happens quite often in Oxbridge, at an esoteric level.

37ronincats
Ott 2, 2011, 6:21 pm

Chapter 4: Seeing the Gods (66 pages)

This chapter is a whole lot of detail from books and inscription to rebut a dominant thesis that the gods were retreating from pagans in the second and third centuries. On the contrary, visions and sightings continued an integral part of the religious life of pagans during this time. 'Nuff said!

Now on to 94 pages on the Language of Gods before turning to the Christians.

38sibylline
Ott 2, 2011, 7:19 pm

That was such a brilliant summing up, so completely accurate I am tempted to move on to Ch 5 even though I have about 20 pages to go......

39ronincats
Ott 4, 2011, 8:28 pm

Chapter 5: The Language of the Gods (94 pages)

This chapter primarily relies on the inscribed messages from oracles found on stones all over today's Turkey to talk about the role of oracles in the life of people and cities from about 60 A.D. to 270 A.D. The oracles liked to speak in verse, often precise hexameters. The largest oracles had a staff which included highly educated men who interpreted the gods' words. Fox peeps through a bit.

"In the Hellenistic age, Claros was the home of the poet Nicander, who had probably served Apollo's shrine and was credited with books on 'all oracles.' His surviving poems are among the most contorted in Greek literature, but oracles would welcome his 'combination of a repulsive style with a considerable metrical accomplishment.'"

"Much of the shrine's daily business was the familiar diet of a local oracle, the sort of requests which were being handled in Egypt by any competent crocodile god."

Again, the oracles tended to reflect and support the cities' social order, as did the cult acts. Surprisingly enough, the gods tended to agree with the human oracle in attitude, but many of the questions had to do with the nature of the gods and their worship and so some philosophical and theological insights began to emerge. There was no prophesy involved--the questions were about the here and now, as in "what should I do?"

There was competition between the oracles, but they would also support each other, sending delegations to other oracles as well. There was no condemning of other oracles as being false or "wrong"--all were considered to be manifestations of the gods. There was no orthodoxy to support, and new oracles could emerge. In the same way, there was no attempt by any agency to "control" the messages that emerged. "...pagans' religious fear was a fear of the random anger of gods, not the ambitions of upstart men."

And now it is time to turn to the "Christian option" during the same period, so that Fox can then compare the two in context.

But I may wait a day or two...

40sibylline
Ott 5, 2011, 6:52 am

Heroic work! Really helpful summing up. Oh Roni, I think I am approx. 115 pages behind you..... but it helps to know what I'm in for. What an elaborate put down! 'Repulsive style with considerable metrical accomplishment' Sounds like something the 'Beyond the Fringe' fellows would have said while making fun of Oxbridge dons! I do fear that Fox is 'too close' to his subject. That he's studied so hard he just isn't entirely present in the day to day world. It's good he gardens. I keep meaning to look up one of his columns and see how he is loosened up.

41gennyt
Ott 5, 2011, 7:43 am

I liked "the sort of requests which were being handled in Egypt by any competent crocodile god."!

42sibylline
Ott 6, 2011, 2:09 pm

Finished Chapter 4. I can't get past Fox's need to 'reduce' the interactions of the Greeks and Romans with their gods and goddesses. To me, he makes the belief of these folk that they were interacting 'for real' with deities, dreaming of them, keeping company with them in various ways, appear ... I don't know.... childlike or quaint. Perhaps the fact that several times he refers to these experiences (in italics, as ever) as 'close encounters'.

He spends a long time over the power of the statues to trigger the imaginations of the viewers, how important they were. He focusses on one city, Miletus, where everyone seems to have seen or experienced the gods and goddesses personally -- not entirely welcome, as it is a burden too. He connects the finds of dinosaur relics to belief in the gigantism of the gods and ends with a long description of the different ways in which the people sought dreams, and the often quite strict interpretations people gave them.

The key moment of the chapter comes near the end, I think when he quote somebody or other (refuting them, naturally) for saying that 'Christianity came into a world tantalized by a belief that some men at least had seen God and had found in the vision the sum of human happiness, a world aching with the hope that the same vision was attainable by all." He has made the point that large numbers of people in the ancient world routinely saw the gods and goddesses, so that is one of several unsurprising to them (as it is to us) pieces of the new religion.

I am now trailing about 100 pages behind you, Roni, and so unlikely to catch up. You are disappearing over the horizon......

43ronincats
Ott 6, 2011, 4:35 pm

No, I'm reading Northanger Abbey and One Salt Sea at the moment, and probably won't delve back into P&C until Sunday, so here's your chance to close the gap!

44sibylline
Ott 6, 2011, 6:14 pm

I'll do the best I can to catch up!

45sibylline
Ott 9, 2011, 6:49 pm

Reporting in that I'm on page 216 -- I think about halfway through The Language of the Gods chapter. 46 pages to go........ I think that means, with any luck, I'll get this section done Tuesday. Kind of depends what the week throws at me. Fri through Tues I am going to be seriously busy, reading very unlikely. I am going to try and get a good start on Wed and Thurs. I know you have a time limit w/ your book! I am feeling very read to learn what he is going to say about the christians... feel like I have the picture of the greco-romans as he interprets them.

46ronincats
Ott 9, 2011, 8:46 pm

I'm on page 328, 64 pages into The Spread of Christianity. He's trying to establish rough size and demographics of the Christian population. "To Christians of the mid-third century the End had receded over the horizon." What languages did they preach in? Who were they, and how many? So far he's dealt with languages--all the literate languages, no evidence re: preaching in the smaller arenas, but no evidence of written translation into dialects. Numbers--maybe 2% of the total population of the area. Mostly in the cities and small towns all around the Mediterranean--not in the rural countryside and especially not among the agricultural and mining slaves upon which the economy depended. After the first wave of evangelism, Christianity spreads mostly within families and among neighbors rather than by preaching to pagan audiences. By definition, this tended not to reach into the slaves mentioned above or into those whose position and wealth made them the privileged elite. Town slaves were often members, but Christian texts were unanimous in that it did not change social position, although those with property were expected to help support charity. "Christian teaching was not concerned with worldly status, because it was inessential to spiritual worth."

There was no middle class. Church membership lay in the humbler free classes, although some slaves and wealthier members existed. Prominent Christians might be Roman knights, respectable women and Imperial slaves. Widow were encouraged not to re-marry, and young women to remain virginal--as a result, their assets accrued to the Church. "Bishop Callistus, himself a former slave, was reviled for a ruling which permitted Christian women to live in 'just concubinage' with Christian men whom they had not formally married." This was because there were very few well-born men in the Church compared to the women, and if they married beneath their rank, the women were often deprived of their former status and legal privileges. "Marriages between women of high status and prominent slaves in the Imperial service were already familiar and had caused problems of legal disability: in a Christian community, men of high, free birth were rarer and Callistus allowed women their social mesalliances in order to evade the secular laws."

Fox is now starting to look at what made Christianity attractive to pagans, on page 312, and that is the section I am in now.

I have two more weeks before the book is due. I'll just keep plugging away! I'm hoping that as we get closer to the end, the density of detail supporting argument might let up a bit.

47LizzieD
Ott 9, 2011, 10:22 pm

Good luck on that, Roni! That's a wonderful summary though!

48ronincats
Ott 9, 2011, 10:32 pm

Oh dear, the voice of experience speaks. Okay, Peggy, I won't expect any reduction in detail density then.

49sibylline
Ott 10, 2011, 9:24 am

You have written another very good summary -- I know what to expect! I'm still at 216, regrettably.

50sibylline
Ott 11, 2011, 2:07 pm

Still nothing really to report -- only that I have twenty pages to go in Section One! Yay!

51sibylline
Modificato: Ott 12, 2011, 7:06 pm

I have finished, chapter Four and thus also Part One and now know more about the oracles et al than I ever wanted to know, really. I did greatly enjoy the story Lucian tells of Alexander and his snake god 'hoax' Glycon. Looking around on the 'net there is a sort of performance artists person who professes to be a follower of Glycon, all mildly funny.

Roni did a fine job with this chapter (Language of the Gods) so I will just add a few little amusements -- apparently there was a thought that the gods sometimes use a child who " 'would give prophecies when touched on the head and clothed in a fair white cloak.' Earlier in this (last) century, children, dressed in white, were still being given a prominent role in the drawing of the winners in Italian state lotteries." Now there's a factoid for you!

Here's a snide moment: "Like us the ancients were deceived: just as macro-economics has traded on mathematics or sociology on science, in antiquity too, dubious attendants found a home in the company of rational astronomy, mathematics, and medicine." (The 'dubious attendants' are those who practice the various arts of divination.....). I was a bit surprised by the comment about the sociologists! I had no idea this argument was still raging on.

Anyhow -- all this wealth of detail is to prove the point that whatever the greco-romans were doing with all their statue making and oracling was not really religion as we know it. They were tolerant of others, because nothing, really was at stake. You placated Gods and hoped for the best, there wasn't a deeper underpinning of belief that might be threatened by other beliefs. He suggest, rather interestingly, that a good deal of the rancor against xtians was maybe the result of the fact they did not participate in the placating process, and this did anger and worry others that this would set off the gods.

Anyhow. I'm 1/3 done and that is something to be pleased about. I am interested in turning to a new topic.

52ronincats
Ott 13, 2011, 12:14 am

Bravo! I'm reading the new Terry Pratchett right now instead of P&C, where I'm about halfway through the next chapter.

53ronincats
Ott 16, 2011, 8:27 pm

Chapter 7: Living Like Angels (39 pages)

At last, a short chapter! Or maybe it was the subject matter made it go so quickly. ;-)

Fox starts by pointing out that Christianity was different in its disdain of rank and the worldly competition that city benefactors engaged in. However, a new competition was engendered in terms of spiritual perfection. So now, "it brought the tensions and evasions of a double standard into the experience of every Christian man and woman," whereas for pagans, there had been one ideal for the supremely wise and virtuous, another for persons of lower capacity, and no penalty or reward in the afterlife nor did anything require it to be lifelong.

Christians had two times of mass forgiveness: once when baptized, and one and only one episode of repentance. This led, among other things, to arguments about when to be baptized to maximize your POW of forgiveness.

Christian "overachievers" were responsible for many of the apochrypha that emerged during this time period, wishing to support their behavior by texts of a spurious authority. "Their methods were very simple: where no authority existed they invented texts and ascribed them to authors who never wrote them." "Nobody wrote in this style on the surrender of riches or on support for the poor. Perfectionist texts described other qualities: virginity, visions and martyrdom."

And then the rest of the chapter is about sex and remarriage. First, we have to review what was the norm in pagan practice, and then to look at Christianity as a movement founded by a 30 year-old unmarried man (rare) and further compounded by Paul's suggestion that we abstain from sex altogether if we can. Although he continued with the advice to marry rather than sin if we cannot, many of the teachings of the Church were different even from the Jews, especially regarding virginity or celibacy, divorce and remarriage. And those who are very concerned with sexual mores are more likely to police them. All very interesting and very confusing. I'll let Lucy comment on this last section.

54sibylline
Ott 17, 2011, 8:24 am

Oh, you are dodging a bullet, my friend! Rilly, if anything percolates up please divulge! Anyhow it will be forever til I catch up. I didn't even bring it with me for this road trip, too big and I knew I would be too busy. But it sounds like an absorbing chapter at least. That is something to look forward to.

55LizzieD
Ott 17, 2011, 9:06 am

"Nobody wrote in this style on the surrender of riches or on support for the poor. Perfectionist texts described other qualities: virginity, visions and martyrdom." plus ca change, eh?

56souloftherose
Ott 18, 2011, 6:56 am

Just caught up on this thread and it all sounds fascinating. If only I weren't up to my eyes in books already...

57sibylline
Ott 18, 2011, 9:24 pm

Reporting in that I am back and rarin' to go, of course, I'm reading a novel I can't put down which is going to be a bit of a distraction.......

58ronincats
Ott 18, 2011, 10:07 pm

Excuses, excuses... ;-)

59ronincats
Ott 23, 2011, 2:32 pm

Well, my book is due back at the library. They only allow one three-week renewal. :-( So (isn't this silly?) what will have to happen is that I will finish chapter 8 today, turn the book in, it will go back to its home library, I will request it again and they will send it back to my branch so I can finish it. So, Lucy, that gives you a great opportunity to catch up!

60sibylline
Ott 24, 2011, 4:02 pm

It really is great news for me as the last two weeks were so busy.... I am hoping that the next few weeks will be much less frenetic.

61ronincats
Modificato: Ott 24, 2011, 10:49 pm

Chapter 8 Visions and Prophecy (44 pages)

Fox points out that there has been a constant history of sightings and visions up until the present day. However, "Historians of the early Church have tended to overlook that they, too, are living in this golden age of visions: encounters and sightings have not yet occurred in scholarly libraries."

It seems the way the early Church dealt with visions, to keep them under control and to distinguish them from the dreams and oracles of the pagans, was presumably to only accept the visions of martyrs. These were frequent in the nights before the executions, stimulated by darkness and lack of food, and were accepted as true visions from God. The visions of others, however, especially those of women, were denounced. Montanus preached the Spirit moving through current mouths, including two prophetesses, to bring Christian "discipline" up to date. In his movement, women were honored as prophets and participants. "If Montanus had triumphed, Christian doctrine would have been developed not under the superintendence of the Christian teachers most esteemed for wisdom, but of wild and excitable women." (written by G. Salmon in 1882)

62gennyt
Ott 26, 2011, 6:22 am

They only allow one three-week renewal. How annoying! My library allows infinite renewals for 4 weeks at a time, unless someone else requests the book...

Thank goodness the women, wild and excitable or otherwise, were eventually were allowed a voice, and even superintendence of doctrine - though it took far too long! Thinking of later medieval women visionaries and mystics who were accepted or at least tolerated - like Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen - that was a very different era, but it is still amazing that they managed to be as influential and respected as they were - but perhaps they were careful not to present themselves as too wild or excitable... I have a biography of Hildegard that I really must get round to: Hildegard of Bingen: the woman of her age.

63sibylline
Ott 26, 2011, 7:10 am

I am sure there have been wild and excitable men having visions in the Bodleian. The man never seems to have heard of inspiration, possibly has never experienced it. Nothing happens at all, nothing gets invented or written or painted or thought of without beginning with 'a vision'. Really, I think he is terrified to venture outside this 'only the utterly provable' bulls-eye of 'verifiable' (snort) historical research. History is not and never will be 'a science' - in fact, it is turning out that science is as much of fantasy la-la as..... uh.... well..... having visions.

Why then am I still reading? Because of the bulls-eye aspect of it -- he has chosen his 'angle' and it is a worthy one. He doesn't need to believe it is the ONLY one, and yet he does. I keep thinking, though, of GILCHRIST in The Doomsday Book.

64LizzieD
Ott 26, 2011, 10:37 am

Yee-ha, Lucy!
I am forcefully reminded of my college friend (woman) who went to Princeton Seminary to "find God." The rest of us figured that she expected to locate him hiding out in the stacks.

65qebo
Modificato: Ott 26, 2011, 7:38 pm

Questo messaggio è stato cancellato dall'autore.

66sibylline
Ott 26, 2011, 7:10 pm

64: Snort.

I would add that God is also an emanation of the human mind, as in, erm, vision, inspiration, whatever. Science, art, history? Flawed? Not necessarily. The 'flaw' is only if you believe there is an Aristotelian (sp) model of perfection to measure up against, and that is, erm, a flawed concept, wishful thinking of a noble but misguided sort, at least to me, and creates no end of misery. I'm with the dears -- Mrs. Whosit and Whatsit (and I forget the name of the third one) in (A Wrinkle in Time - every fine act and thought helps 'light' up the universe.

67sibylline
Modificato: Ott 26, 2011, 7:25 pm

What I really came here to do was to report that I'm actually reading P&C again and got through part one of chapter 6 today. It's interesting to pick it up after a two week hiatus; somehow I'm comfortable now with Fox's style, that is, I've found my own way through it, not reading to absorb every wee detail but to grasp his overall point, for he is painstakingly thorough and very very organized. In this bit he is examining how and where, to whom, in what languages one can definitively say Christianity was spreading...... The chapter opens with various elders and teachers getting together to decide that there definitely wouldn't be any sex after death, which totally cracked me up! I mean, what a way to start this section! Fox is a sly one, well named. His point is that this sort of debating of doctrinal points is something new. The Greeks and Romans never worried over these issues.

It ultimately seems, that Xtianity was mostly spread in Greek and Latin, that while it appealed more to the urban in-between set and probably women and 'the poor' who were not disenfranchised, there is some evidence for rural appeal as well, although it is spotty. Xtianity appears to have perhaps traveled with soldiers and merchants mostly -- as they were the most peripatetic, although in general there was, in the still peaceful Roman Empire fairly free movement for anyone of some means. A very interesting point he makes is that it is unknown how many folks dipped in and then out of Christianity. I didn't totally absorb his point about heretical sects, mainly gathering since the doctrine had hardly begun to gell it was not all that identifiable who was or wasn't a heretic yet.

There doesn't seem to have been a concerted or organized effort to 'convert' others, although here and there a fanatically religious figure did go to extremes -- as Symeon somewhere on the Euphrates takes over all the children in a village, chops off their hair, tells their parents they are ignorant savages and he is going to fix all that, teaches boys and girls to read and write.....

I had to write all this up before going on as I used up all my post-its that I keep on the back side of my bookmark!!!!

68sibylline
Modificato: Ott 27, 2011, 6:20 pm

Got through the next section of Ch 6 -- mainly about who exactly was converted and how..... the evidence is that it didn't spread laterally through groups of a like age, but from older to younger, that there were more women of means than men -- that was quite interesting about how the Xtians discouraged women from remarrying and made a big thing of virginity from early on -- and guess who got their money? Also dispensations for Xtian women of class NOT marrying but living with Xtian men of lesser social standing. To marry beneath them would cause them to lose their status and money. Also very interesting. About 24 pages to go in this chapter and then it's on to 7. I may catch up to you yet, Roni!

69ronincats
Ott 27, 2011, 7:28 pm

Genny, in SOME denominations women are allowed a nearly equal voice! And yes, it is very irritating that my library only allows one renewal. Luckily, when I took the book in to the branch library physically, the librarian saw my point of view and renewed it for me. But I won't tell Lucy yet, until she catches up. Shhh!

You all are so funny! Qebo, I thought that was a perfectly valid comment--why did you remove it?

You WILL catch up, Lucy, never doubt it. And don't read what I wrote Genny above. ;-)

70Chatterbox
Ott 27, 2011, 9:23 pm

Hmmm, maybe should find this book and join in the reading.

What is the root of the word pagan? Would that shed any light on Fox's usage of it? I remain intrigued by the apparent gap between this kind of catch-all phrase and the perhaps more respectful references to religions that now are established -- eg Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism. Who are pagans, and what does paganism literally mean? Is it really a collective system of belief that could encompass everything from worshipping Mithridates in the East to the Druids in Britain?

This probably is not a good time to tell you that I can take out 99 items at a time from my library, and renew books for 3 weeks at a time, up to 99 renewals. In other words, as long as no one else slaps a hold on it, I could conceivably hold on to a book for more than 5 years, as long as I keep remembering to renew it...

71ronincats
Ott 27, 2011, 9:31 pm

Fox says Christians created the word "pagani" to refer to the non-Christian, non-Jewish culture around them. So my feeling is that the way it is used here is specifically to Greco-Roman culture of the times. Nowadays, of course, it is often used by self-identified groups to refer to nature-worshippers, for example. I think the Druids wouldn't be included, as they were not assimilated, but certainly worship of Mithras and many other Eastern gods was assimilated into the general culture during that time.

72qebo
Ott 27, 2011, 9:45 pm

69: Well, I'm less cranky than I was yesterday...

I read post 63 as flip dismissal: "in fact, it is turning out that science is as much of fantasy la-la as..... uh.... well..... having visions". Perhaps I did not understand the context, or misinterpreted playful hyperbole as semi-serious. I don't recall my exact words. "Alas, history and science are emanations of the human mind, but the effort can be appreciated even if the result is flawed." or some such. And the response was post 66, which, well, thoroughly pissed me off. I was not claiming a philosophical "model of perfection", and I was rather stunned at the disparagement.

73sibylline
Ott 28, 2011, 10:02 am

I truly did not mean to offend you. Fox irritates me, and I have been flippant here and there about him, and I wasn't thinking when I wrote that that I wasn't addressing him, but your comment.

In fact, I'm horrified. We've been having so much fun reading together. Please forgive me.

Suz - early on I said I didn't like the use of the word 'pagan' as a catch-all for everything not of Christian/Jewish origin and i still don't care for it. The word has taken on such unpredictable connotations -- the word itself might be quite accurate -'correct' -- but I think one has to allow for the evolution of words so that an original meaning can shift irrevocably which I think this one has.... now it means not just 'not-Christian' but to many people, something 'evil'. Of course, Graeco-Roman is not at all a sexy phrase, whereas 'Pagan' with its bit of taint is.

74qebo
Ott 28, 2011, 1:49 pm

73: Ah, a case of mistaken identity. :-) If I hadn't been in an LT funk, I'd've stepped back and realized.

75labwriter
Ott 28, 2011, 3:20 pm

Well, I said earlier I would butt out of this conversation; however, for good or ill, I'm back.

>69 ronincats:. Genny, in SOME denominations women are allowed a nearly equal voice!

I often post in a sort of snarky, half-sarcastic way; I also often post quite seriously. I can understand that it's difficult for people who don't know me to know for sure which way I'm flying on a particular day. I would say that this comment is hitting me the same way. Is this a snark or is it serious?

If it's serious, then I would just like to add to the discussion that the Presiding Bishop (the Big Poo-bah) of the Episcopal Church is a woman--Katharine Jefferts Schori--whose conversation with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates is one a lot of us Episcopalians would love to overhear, but that's an entirely different issue.

>73 sibylline:. Has anyone looked up "pagan" in the OED? If I would get my butt over to the county library and apply for a library card there, then I would have access to the online OED database. It occurs to me that perhaps it would be useful to look up the way that word has been used in a more historical rather than contemporary context, since it's something that seems to be a real concern to posters on this thread. Does he mean it only to indicate those who are not of Xtian/Jewish origin (would Fox also include Islamic in that?), or do you think he's using it in some sort of derogatory sense--like maybe "irreligious"? If you're annoyed with his use of the word--because of contemporary connotations--then can you suggest a substitute that he should have used? My question is this: Is he using the word as a shortcut sort of word, or does he have a specific meaning that he attaches to the word? Another question I have: Who would you say his audience is for this book?

Where do you get the connotation of "evil" from the word pagan? Is it something specific, or is it just a general feeling? My darling 80-year-old Aunt Sue gets together with a group of women friends and they dance outside on the night of each full moon. She laughingly refers to the group as "my pagan women friends." It wouldn't occur to me to think that what they are doing as having any sort of evil connotation.

I wonder if in some way you're confusing the word pagan with "heathen"? To me, the word "pagan" is benign, while the word "heathen" seems perjorative. Maybe it's because when reading the Bible, "heathen" is used quite extensively, whereas "pagan"--not so much. Had Fox titled his book Heathens and Christians, then that would have given it a very different feel--for me at least. I really don't know--it's just a question.

76Chatterbox
Ott 28, 2011, 3:36 pm

I def agree with you about the title -- my grandmother used to refer to my brother and I as little heathens, and it wasn't said admiringly!!

I think both words can be used in a context that is perjorative. But in that case, it's in the eyes of the reader. I'd hate to see a perfectly good word vanish because of PC-ism. For my part, I'm intrigued as to whether this was a word that might have been used by the "pagans" themselves to describe their own set of beliefs, or whether it was a word that evolved to denote a particular set of pre-Christian, non-Jewish beliefs, or a group noun that came to be applied to all those who didn't have a systematic set of beliefs revolving around a revealed religion. It seems to me that "heathen" denotes those whose religious beliefs or actions aren't readily discernable by those observing them -- perhaps animists? Heathen seems to me to denote an absence of religious practice, rather than an alternative form of practice.

If anyone does have access to the OED I'd love to know this... I'm not bent out of shape or irritated or anything, just v.v.v. curious!!

77ronincats
Ott 28, 2011, 5:59 pm

>75 labwriter: Becky, that was me, lapsed Catholic, being envious of the mainstream Episcopalian church, which I think is doing so much rightly.

78LizzieD
Ott 28, 2011, 6:38 pm

I'm going to try to speak to one thing here and then go look it up. I think that "pagan" is from Latin "pagus" - country people, peasants, or the countryside itself. The city-based Xns applied it to the rubes. OED says, "{ad L. paganus, orig. "villager, rustic'; In Christian L. (Tertullian, Augustine) 'heathen' as opposed to Christian or Jewish; indicating the fact that the ancient idolatry lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets after Christianity had been generally accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire: see Trench, Study of Words 102; and cf. Orosius 1 Praef 'Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur.' Cf. PAYEN} At least, that's as close as my eyes will get to what it says.

79sibylline
Modificato: Ott 28, 2011, 6:54 pm

OK, so I have the Shorter OED, and I will write out the whole thing, minus the pronunciation parts and italics:

******
(Anything in regular parantheses is me) so: sb. and a. late ME. (Okay, that means 'substantive' and 'adjective' and Middle English) {- L. paganus, orig. 'civilian', opp. to 'miles' (as in) soldier; in Christian Latin'heathen' as opp. to Christian or Jewish (this would exclude Muslims, I guess? Although I'm guessing not really, and this is just Eurocentricity at work); the Christians called themselves 'milites' (as in) 'enrolled soldiers of Christ'; f. (form of) 'pagus' (as in) 'rural' district, the country; - see -AN}

A. sb. 1. One of a nation or community which does not worship the true God; a heathen. (Here a symbol of a sword which I can't reproduce but which means that the next meaning is Obsolete) - in earlier use practically = a non-Christian. (This is how Fox, I believe, is using the word -- and yet -- the OED says it is obsolete) 2. transf. and fig. (transferred and in figurative use) A person of heathenish character or habits, or one who holds a position analogous to that of a heathen 1841. B. obsolete - spec.(specifically) a paramour, prostitute - 1632

Follows a quote from Shakespeare with the B. usage 1. Adue most beautiful Pagan, most sweete Iew. SHAKS. 2.b. 2 Henry IV, II.ii.168. (I have no idea what Iew means!!!! 'eye' maybe?)

B. adj. 1. Not belonging to a nation or community that acknowledges the true God; heathen 1586. 2. fig. Heathenish 1550. 1. The ideal, cheerful, sensuous pagan life. M. Arnold (Matthew Arnold)

******

Most interesting and curious. I think I equate heathen/pagan as the same and the OED would appear to concur - although I will go look up heathen now to see how they cross-ref it. I would agree, Becky, that if one seriously used the word 'heathen' to describe someone it would have the added connotation of very wild and even a bit dangerous (colonists calling the natives heathens, not pagans) Pagan, to me, implies more of a choice (a bit of the lifestyle implied by Matthew Arnold) and more a choice as opposed to no exposure at all to Xtianity? Evil is definitely too strong a word, I sat and fumbled around for awhile before I used it. But not quite ---- I can't think of what it is -- not quite..... acceptable? One of us?

Greco-Roman would have been the most accurate choice to use to describe the people he is studying -- and that, as I said, is just too much of a mouthful.

That was fun, I do love that dictionary!

80sibylline
Ott 28, 2011, 7:01 pm

The entry on Heathen is unbelievably fascinating and is in much greater depth -- similar and yet different from pagan -- a more 'heated' word all around. It has older roots -- in Old English, Old High German, Old Norse etc.... The word first excluded muslims and then came to include them and refer to anyone with polytheistic beliefs. They do link it as synonymous to pagan.

81ronincats
Ott 28, 2011, 8:46 pm

Of course, Muslims didn't exist when the word came into usage.

82aulsmith
Modificato: Ott 29, 2011, 8:58 am

81: For high church Christians there was once a hierarchy of unbelievers. This can be found in older service books/missals in the prayers for Good Friday. (I believe this is the prayer that the current pope put back in the Good Friday liturgy). I no longer have a copy of my service book, so the rest of this is reconstructed from memory.

Jews: The people Jesus was sent to preach to who didn't hear him.

Pagans: People who have not yet heard the gospel

Infidels: People who claim to believe in the same God as the Christians but refuse to be faithful (are in-fidelis) to the Christian message (the Muslims and probably some sects of Christians like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witness)

Apostates: Literally "people who went away". I think this is the Orthodox churches. (Even though, actually it's the Roman church that "went away")

Heretics: People within the community who refuse to toe the line.

I think Fox means to use Pagan in a very academic sense (the obsolete sense in the OED). I also don't think the word has the pejorative connotations in Great Britain that it does in the US, but I could be wrong.

Edited for grammar and clarity

83sibylline
Ott 29, 2011, 9:11 am

82 - Oh yes, I agree absolutely that he is using the word in the obsolete form -- it's very revealing about where he is coming from, no? Really you can look at it in two ways: brave - he's determined to take the emotional baggage out of the word and use it this way; or arrogant, he's ignoring the emotional/cultural baggage this word has acquired over the centuries..... I think it is risky to use a meaning that has become obsolete without discussing why -- that is really my beef. He never goes into why he chooses that word. He could have just said: 'Greco-Roman is too big a mouthful and my editors hated it' and I would have said, Gotcha. Anyhow, I've gotten loads out of this discussion but I need to get back to reading before Roni gets going again, since the librarian let her keep it!

84gennyt
Ott 30, 2011, 6:36 pm

Fascinating discussion!

Graeco-Roman would not do to replace 'pagan', surely, because it would cover everyone living in that culture, including the Christians. But 'followers of Graeco-Roman traditional religions' would be even more of a mouthful...

I didn't have any ambivalent feelings about the use of pagan, I guess I assumed he was using it in a technical sense and did not imply any of the accretions of meaning and association that pagan may have in more popular, contemporary usage. But I think Becky asked an important question earlier on - what is the intended audience for this book? If it's aimed at academics, the technical usage is not a problem, if it's a more general audience he's aiming at, perhaps he should have been more aware of the issues people might have with this term? As you say, Lucy, if he'd just addressed a paragraph or two to why he had chosen that word, it would have helped.

85sibylline
Modificato: Ott 30, 2011, 9:31 pm

Great point and well put, Genny. You've really nailed it. Who indeed is this book meant for? It's not entirely obvious. And what does it say about me that I am reading it!!!!! Anyhow, I'm getting out of here to go read it!

86ronincats
Ott 30, 2011, 9:36 pm

As much academic detail as he puts into backing up each of his points, and I mean piling on the academic evidence, the impression I get is this is the culmination of years of study and intended to justify himself to those in his field--but if it just happens to draw in the casual reader and boost sales, there is no problem with that. I truly do not see this as a popularization of the material--it is just too detailed.

87Chatterbox
Ott 31, 2011, 1:47 am

Fascinating; thanks for the dictionary-digging, folks!

Lane Fox is known more for being a classicist than a religious scholar, I think. He's written a bio of Alexander the Great and a book called Travelling Heroes that is sitting on my Kindle TBR...

88gennyt
Ott 31, 2011, 4:59 pm

Great point and well put, Genny. Well it was really Becky's point first.

if it just happens to draw in the casual reader and boost sales, And I wonder how significant was the use of those juxtaposed terms 'pagan' and 'christian' in the title itself in attracting non-specialist readers? Perhaps it all goes back to a marketing gimmick!

89sibylline
Ott 31, 2011, 6:37 pm

Quite true, Genny -- so kudos to Becky too. And I do think it is meant to be a 'provocative' title. But onwards. I actually finished Ch. 6 today, which was about...... I guess.... the nature of the attraction of Xitianity, what was different about it, what did it offer that 'cult' worship didn't. Fox, as always, is very cautious, but the evidence would be that it offered, at the very least equality after death, a concept of loving even your enemy, and a new idea, humility as a virtue, not a sign of weakness..... On the less appealing side it also offered the concepts of Satan, sin, demonic possession (and thus the need for exorcisms) and thus fear may have well attracted or at least kept some converts (and that was new to0 -- to convert rather than simply attract 'adherents'). Miracles may have played a small part, but conversion was a long process, but that had a certain appeal as well, that it wasn't a simple process. Christian community also extended beyond the borders of the towns -- whereas in the Pagan cult, cities competed, the adherents of Athena in one city did not feel linked with those of Athena in another city.

On to Chapter 7 which if I recall Roni said was short. Hooray! Six was endless, frankly!

90sibylline
Nov 3, 2011, 11:50 am

Chapter 7, done! And Roni has left me to comment on the racy part of this chapter! (See 53 for a very good summary). The deeper question, so troubling really, is where all the ideas about purity through abstention come from in the first place. The chapter is called 'Living Like Angels' and it was decided somewhere along the way that angels definitely didn't have sex, and maybe didn't even have gender...... and it all folllows from that. Fox does a good job at touching on the basics -- Christians had to look around for ways to 'earn' their way into heaven, and since sexuality was a perennially complicated and fraught matter, it was a perfect candidate. Somewhat cyncially poverty was not as attractive an option as the growing church could well see the uses of money to gain influence. So, as Roni points out, in the course of 'making up' the various books of the Bible, all sorts of stuff gets woven in. Was it a further way to subjugate women? I've read arguments both ways, and I don't think there was any conscious plan of that kind, only a search for ways to live that would fit with the new vision. Some of it is quite ludicrous, like pre-owned virgins -- a widow could 'become' a virgin again by forswearing a second marriage and that sort of thing. Priests and virgins could 'cohabit' - sleep chastely in the same bed in some sects...... Twice Fox jocosely points out that these new virgin widows were basically better off - free from sexual predation and from childbearing, but never free from the 'perennial housework'. Franky it just makes my heart ache with how much suffering people cause each other with invisible ideas and obsessions. But I'm not in the best frame of mind at them moment. Probably this is a terrible summary, but the best I can manage. If I think of something else to say, I will.

91ronincats
Nov 3, 2011, 11:40 pm

Heck no, great summary! One more chapter and you'll be caught up and I'll start reading again!

92sibylline
Nov 4, 2011, 1:39 pm

I am counting on that extra hour this weekend.

93gennyt
Nov 4, 2011, 1:41 pm

Oh, are your clocks going back this weekend? We had that last weekend - I wish it were every weekend!

94sibylline
Nov 6, 2011, 12:44 pm

I'm getting there, Roni, I've read the section 1 of chapter 8- only 18 or so pages to go to the end of the chapter! Best of all, I've got 'only' 281 pages to go.....

Ch 8 investigates "Visions and Prophecy' -- how it was similar and different from the pagan methods. After the first generation, there were no more visions or appearances of Christ. He discusses the next manifestation - the 'epiphanies' the visions of the Virgin Mary or Christ and how these experiences do share patterns with the pagans, but also some huge differences. They are not 'image' dependent, they seem to take more from Jewish tradition, in that they are more closely attached to 'history'. Fox closely examines the visions of one Hermas, who demonstrates a full range of what is both similar and different to the pagan experience. He has repeated visions, each one elaborating on what went before, but also staying within the context of what is sanctioned by the church - answering questions of tricky doctrine, relating the idea of sin and responsibility to a collective guilt, glorifying the growth and development of 'the church'. This collective aspect of Christianity -- the 'we're all in this together' piece is developing and showing itself to be entirely different from the pagan, individuated, model. You are responsible not only for yourself but everyone around you -- and one can see how this gave rise to the missionary spirit, eventually, although not at this early date. For now, it has begun to extend into the family and the community, but no further.

This last chapter has characterized strongly both the brilliance and weakness of P&C - remarkable depth of scholarship and sensitivity to small changes in emphasis, nuance, detail in the 'manner' of visions, writings, art (or lack of)....... coupled, however, with a doggedly prosaic insistence on ignoring anything unverifiable as wishful thinking. As I knew he would, sooner or later, he dismisses Jung and the power of archetype in one sentence! About four or five times in this chapter he states that the nature of a vision depended on the individual -- his or her expectations of what they might see determined what they saw......well, duh. But why insist on this so stridently? This is the chapter that crows about no visions in the Bodleian. Whereas I would say that the vision, when it happened, was described by the experiencee 'according to his or expectations' -- probably in language and ideas sophisticated enough to 'pass' as 'inspiration' which is de rigueur and acceptable in academic circles as a reward for immersion in study.

Let me give you the dismissal of Jung: He is discussing once again the dependence of a vision on the individual's knowledge and expectations -- Christ appearing in a variety of forms from child to old man (most often though as a radiant young man). "These contours were shared by pagan dreams of divinity: are they, therefore a lasting core of experience, "archetypes," in Jung's view, embedded in the human mind? There is no need to believe this fancy."

Well, stun me with a cold mullet, dude, but dismissing Jung thus, so airily, strikes me as so breathtakingly arrogant I am left speechless. Even though I saw it coming.

NONETHELESS the scholarship is impeccable and fascinating. It is only when Fox ventures outside of his comfort zone to make pronouncements about 'the invisibles and intangibles' that he ceases to convince me.

With any luck I'll finish this chapter today, Roni! Wouldn't that be marvelous?

95ronincats
Nov 6, 2011, 1:00 pm

Indeed! Great comments--yes, I had to laugh when he made that comment about Jung, but indeed it is out of his comfort zone.

I have to confess that I have started the chapter on Persecution and Martyrdom.

96sibylline
Nov 7, 2011, 6:52 am

Well, I have at last finished Ch. 8 - this second section was about the closing down of 'visionaries' and the narrowing of the definition and scope of epiphanies -- who got to have them etc. Except there are always those who go ahead and break the rules and have to be dealt with..... A distrust of 'ecstatic' visions develops too. The point being, I think, that this is a true difference between pagan and christian practice - visions etc. could only come to those who were 'pure' -- and might few could make that claim. I do enjoy Fox's definition of the intense Christians as 'overachievers' and 'perfectionists'. Like sportsmen, they had to keep increasing the stakes.

He starts hinting about how all this leads to the need for Purgatory - to keep hope alive, I guess, that even the somewhat unworthy can eventually make it to heaven?

OK Roni, so how far ahead of you are me now?? The ever-receding horizon!

97ronincats
Nov 7, 2011, 11:38 am

It's not that bad! I did finish Chapter 9 last night--but I know this book is due back in a week and a half.

Yes, those were the things I found most interesting as well--the race to see who could be "most" pure, and how Purgatory starts to emerge.

98sibylline
Nov 7, 2011, 12:48 pm

Oh agonies, that chapter is over 80 pages long....... on the other hand, only five more to go. Four for you. One helpful thing is that Fox is, along with being hyper-rational, hyper-organized so it's easy to know what he is up to. It's the wealth of detail that you have to wade through. I thought of another funny thing -- as a scholar he is not that different from the 'overachieving' christians.

99LizzieD
Nov 7, 2011, 7:22 pm

This is one time that LOL seems absolutely perfect! So --- LOL, Lucy!

100sibylline
Nov 8, 2011, 6:46 pm

This chapter is a doozy -- around 90 pages, so I'm going to tackle it one chapter at a time. Fox is puzzling out what exactly it was about Christians that led them to be martyred and persecuted so ferociously in the early days. There is, he says, risk of a circular argument -- but really-- it seems that it all devolves on Paul and something that emerged from his trial..... which will be covered in the next section (2) of this chapter (9). However, more generally, it does seem that the Christian unwillingness to observe Roman cult rites was infuriating and insulting to the Romans, who couldn't understand why the Xtians made such a Big Deal out of it. It made them nervous that the gods would be angry and it seemed disrespectful, an insult and a threat to the Roman order. Jews were more or less tolerated - but their religion was seen as being venerable and generally Jews were less obnoxious about participating to some minor degree in some cult observations (giving money for festivals, for ex, or & to honor the emperor with a carved inscription). As is often the case when people feel frightened or threatened by something new, rumors abounded of depravity and immorality, but they seemed to evaporate when investigated with any seriousness. On to 2 or what seems like 4 parts to this endless chapter.

101sibylline
Nov 9, 2011, 12:02 pm

Phew! Just noticed we've hit 100 Roni...... I've finished the 2nd section of the 9th chapter...... which seems to be about the emerging appeal of martyrdom -- how it fit in with the overachieving aspects of the Xtian aspirant (total forgiveness and immediate entry into heaven) -- and while still on earth, imprisoned and miserable -- the soon-to-be martyr gained an authority and importance that may have seemed more appealing than life as a nonentity lived through to whatever natural conclusion. He examines the antecedents (mainly Jewish) of martyrdom and in what ways attitudes differ (Jewish martyrs tended to be warriors dying to save others while a Xtian martyr died for the faith and for his or her own salvation, mainly). He writes rather nicely of how the early martyrs' general naivete and innocence, their utter faith in what they were doing, did a lot to build the esteem in which martyrs were regarded (by other Xtians anyway). He touches lightly too, on how Islam will eventually pick up the martyrdom theme and make it their own as well.

This was useful to me in that up into even the 19th century... 'The Lives of the Martyrs' were such popular reading with so many - including children - and this has always mystified me -- I think I have an inkling now of how these early martyrs seized everyone's imagination and zeal. They were horrible but also full of strong positive sentiments, usually ending with some positive take away -- remarkably like, well, TV often is. A different message to be sure, but one that the audiences were familiar with from the cradle.

Onward! 230 to go!

102sibylline
Modificato: Nov 10, 2011, 1:14 pm

Quickly then, before it all fades, in the 3rd section Fox examines the causes for an increase and change in persecution of Xtians around 250 AD -- attributing it to the rise of the Emperor Decius, succeeding Phillip (who he murdered) restoring pagan cult as part of his campaign of self-legitimization. People had to get certificates that they were making the appropriate sacrifices -- a huge bureaucratic burden on larger cities. At the same time, the newly minted martyrs, while hanging about in prison, became 'confessors' and, with many of the bishops gone into hiding, ended up having the ultimate authority -- and THEY often issued certificates to lapsed Xtians, reinstating them, etc. So you could sacrifice one day, get your roman cert. then trot off the prison and beg leniency from a confessor. Toward the end of this section Fox brings up one Pionius as a perfect example of a martyr from this period -- because the texts that survive (from many places in many languages) have a remarkable similarity that would argue that it is a text from an original journal. I've begun 4, and indeed it is all focussed on this man and the evidence. The point too seems to be that once Decius dies, this latest fervor of persecution also dies down. I hope very much to finish this chapter tonight -- about 16 more pages which will get me down around 190 p to go.

103qebo
Nov 10, 2011, 1:24 pm

This stuff is fascinating. So glad you're documenting as you read. I'm _almost_ wishing I'd joined in...

104sibylline
Nov 10, 2011, 6:23 pm

Thanks, Q! I'm glad you find it interesting. I'm glad that I'll have these notes to refer to if I need them. I'm sure only a few stray shreds will stick in my brain cells.

O Happiness, I have finished Ch 9. It'll be on to those bad bishops next (they tended to run away when martyrdom beckoned and more than a few would succumb and eat the Pagan sacrificial meat. I'm sure MOST of them were good, of course.)

The rest of 9 is concerned with the manner and timing of the deaths of various martyrs, Pionius in particular. Xtians could only be condemned by the governor of the area, therefore they had to wait until the governor came to sit assizes, which he had to do annually at least as people were quite litigious -- this also gave them the ability to predict, pretty much to the day, when they would be offed. The distinction is made between the highly cultivated xtians that city officials were very reluctant to condemn and it also is revealed that the town leaders made a distinction between worshipping the gods and worshipping the emperor -- the second was lesser and they encouraged the xtians to just eat the sacrifice because, I guess, it wasn't so potent or meaningful.... The last part of this section addresses the growing animosity, in the mid-200's between the Jews and Christians - there were 'proofs' that Jesus was nothing special. At the same time, the mood was shifting toward recognition that Xtians were around to stay.

High points. martyr Saint Cassian " ... in 250 he was stabbed to death by the pens of pupils who could bear his austerity no longer'. p.460

Word of the day - Eumolpid -- someone who has experienced the Eleusinian mysteries apparently, but I'm off to read more about it.

So it is on to 10 and the Bishops. 189p to go!

105gennyt
Nov 11, 2011, 4:49 am

Saint Cassian " ... in 250 he was stabbed to death by the pens of pupils who could bear his austerity no longer' All stern and austere teachers, beware...

106sibylline
Nov 11, 2011, 6:26 pm

I'm tackling the bishops at present - section 1 of Chapter 10 addresses the hows and whys (in the form of likelihoods) of the development of the system of having a single very powerful local authority represent 'the church' - the bishop. Among the reasons - the need for a single central authority to cut down on splinter groups is maybe the most compelling one. Bishops were chosen by a complicated dance of consensus by the laity, approval by other area bishops, and by a sign from God himself. (Like a dove landing on yr. head). Bishops had a huge amount of power and many succumbed - it was not easy to discipline a bishop and it was not unheard of in the worst cases to appeal to the Roman authorities, which is quite interesting, considering at the same time they were at odds.

I need to clarify too -- apparently Confessors were people who were accused and imprisoned by the roman authorities but not martyred.... or.... maybe some of them were and some survived..... they could be a thorn in the side of bishops as they had a lot of their own authority.

Section 2 will follow the life of one of the few bishops of the time period about whom something is known.

164 to go! At the most a week, as I seem able to read 20 pages a day at the very least. This is good news indeed!

107ronincats
Nov 11, 2011, 7:37 pm

Hey, Lucy, savor the moment! You are ahead of me. I shall start Chapter 10 this evening. Sorry I didn't respond to your chapter 9 comments earlier--the (retired) husband has been keeping me busy, an incoming low front has been messing with my mind, and I had seeds and transplants to get in before tonight's rain.

Fox continues to beat his drum in Chapter 9, I noticed.

"The persecutions, therefore, connect neatly with the features which we identified as the living heart of pagan religiousness: honour and anger, and the appeasing advice of the oracles. Persecution would have occurred at any period, because it attached to the bedrock of this religiousness, as old as the age of Homer, in which it was first expressed for us."

"Nobody minded too much what Christians did or did not believe. A gesture of honour to the gods and conformity to tradition was all that was required of them."

Another hobbyhorse is that many experts evidently have ruled many of the martyrdom texts, such as those of Phileas and Pionius, as forgeries or fictions. Fox goes to great pains to establish them as authentic at the core. Great pains. Lucy talked about the cult of martyrdom that arose and, yes, it was not at all difficult when the power of martyrs to forgive all sins and of the act of martyrdom to ensure immediate salvation was discussed to think of the similar attitudes of the Islamic extremists today.

"Behind every martyrdom, whether or not the texts chose to dwell on it, lay the self-sacrifice of Jesus himself. To be a Christian, baptized or not, was to recognize the supreme value of this selfless death at the hands of misguided authorities. At its heart, Christianity glorified suffering and passive endurance; did this ideal and its rewards perhaps encourage Christians to seek arrest in the first place?

Martyrdom brought great publicity and near-universal admiration. It had no use for sophistication or for a complex awareness of the complexities in human choices. It required a simple, persistent response, which was admirable even if it irrititated others and had only to be repeated to attain its end. This compound of qualities has an appeal for various sorts of person, but it appeals especially to the young or the inexperienced and to those who do not reflect habitually that all may not be quite as it seems."

The acquisition of martyrs' body parts was an early development--this was something unknown among Pagans and Jews.

"Among the Jews, the idea of the immortal martyr had developed late in a religion whose Mosaic law had declared a grave to be unclean for the living. In Christianity, however, the dead were a primary focus of home and interest from the beginning, "sleeping" merely, until the restitution of transformation of their former bodies. There was no uncleanness about tombs and corpses, and there was good reason to treasure the bones or dust of a martyr already in heaven."

And on to the bishops and their authority in Chapter 10.

108sibylline
Nov 11, 2011, 10:25 pm

Oh excellent work Roni - everything from noticing where Fox is determined to prove something otherwise than the 'popular' interpretation (what a 'corrector' he is!) to the body parts. I worked one summer as an aupair and there was a little box with some saint's relic in it on the wall right over my bed (this was in central France). Somewhere I noted the name of the saint but I don't remember now, but it was an ancient thing, very ornately displayed, and, at sixteen I was both fascinated and appalled by it. I read about fifty Simenon mysteries that summer...... en francais...... since I had no choice. Oh dear, it must be late, I'm not sure how I got here from there.....

109ronincats
Nov 12, 2011, 12:05 am

Thank, Lucy. YOu did all the hard work, just letting me add those things that caught my interest. I did find one other quote I had marked that I missed above:

"Among pagans, a fault in nature was explained by an old and impersonal myth. Among Christians, it was traced to the faults of men themselves. The contrast goes far in the change from a pagan to a Christian way of life."

You know, I get the feeling that psychotherapy would never have become a paying industry in the pagan world...

110sibylline
Nov 12, 2011, 7:04 am

chortle.

111qebo
Nov 12, 2011, 7:39 am

108: Oct 10 NYer has an article about Simenon.

112gennyt
Nov 12, 2011, 1:55 pm

(On your digression onto Simenon - I just picked up a Maigret book in the library at random, and I see it is no. 31 in the series - out of 75!! That's quite a series!)

Have spent this morning at a lengthy church synod debating proposed legislation for enabling women to be bishops in the Church of England, and what form of provision should be made for those who don't agree in conscience with this, and whether the provision is sufficient to maintain the unity of the church or if made more robust (as the objectors wish) would detract from the authority of the bishop and make women into second-class bishops with limited jurisdiction. A difficult and emotive morning, handled with reasonable sensitivity, but your comments about the place of martyrdom and the almost relishing of persecution are interesting in the light of how some of the objectors are keen to portray themselves as victims and a kind of persecuted minority and in doing so place themselves in the footsteps of Christ (one of them spoke of having his cross to bear as a result of the proposed legislation).

113sibylline
Modificato: Nov 12, 2011, 3:15 pm

Utterly and absolutely fascinating insight, Genny. You will want, I think, at some point to read this book, massive and maddening as it is. This second half, about the development of Christian 'custom', if I can call it that, is deeply fascinating as well as disturbing.

I'm plowing through Ch 10 and the life of Gregory of Pontus, ten pages to go, but somehow I can't read any more right now. i also can't think of anything to say about it. How unusual is that???

No, not true -- the description of the area Pontus (NorthernTurkey) makes it sound utterly beautiful.

114sibylline
Nov 13, 2011, 11:23 am

I did finish up the Bishops -- sections 2-3 covered Gregory and a little more about Cyprian and the Bishop Dionysius (which name seems..... well..... odd). The focus is on what was true and what not, and Fox tries hard to thread the narrow 'probable' range. For example, despite the 'legends' probably he did not convert much of anybody, the process was proceeding inexorably, as xtianity offered something that pagan cult didn't. Origen, who seems to have taught and influenced all these early bishops hugely, begins to seem like the mover and shaker of the time like no one else, quietly huge.

- A truly horrifying passage about how women who were raped by Goths around this time were decided to be 'asking for it' by, basically, simply being women and being sexually appealing to men -- plus a piece of bizarre 'in' and 'out' idea that defies all reason and is simply one of the meanest pieces of illogic ever devised - this is Gregory, btw, "Did not Scripture prove that man is defiled by 'what goes out,' not by 'what goes in'? With embarassing pedantry, Gregory applied this text to the Goths' female victims. Rape, which 'goes in,' was not a defilement, a point which a human text in Deuteronomy supported. What, though, of the looks and enticements which 'went out' of the supposed victims? With the precision of a High Court judge, Gregory classed these victims as sinners, defiled by the looks which 'went out' and urged the Goths to come 'in' He ordered a search among the Christian communities for any women who were known, on past form, to be flirtatatious. The result, no doubt, was a horrible witch hunt."

On to Part 3 - 136 p to go.

115sibylline
Nov 14, 2011, 6:20 pm

I've begun Ch. 11, Saints and Sinners -- this chapter seems to be concerned with the period preceding Constantine, when at least in some areas, persecution had quieted down and in some ways the church was floundering around with an newfound peace, not entirely welcome as it totally lacked the sort of excitement that drew converts. The harshness of early Xtianity about sexual matters seemed to be softening, although there is plenty about how 'widows' are supposed to behave. But basically there was a growing need to define doctrine and squash heresy which threatened to rip apart the fabric of the young religion. That's more or less my take-away from the first part -- the next three parts of this section appear to follow the heretical Manicheans.

116ronincats
Nov 14, 2011, 7:09 pm

Chapter 10 is done, and I'm just a few pages into Saints and Sinners.

The chapter on Bishops and Authority seems like it was an important one to Fox.

"Unlike any people whom we found in the pagan cults, Christian groups had accepted single leaders with wide powers, to be exercised for life. Was there any precedent for this type of authority so essential to the degree of cohesion which Christian churches maintained?"

There doesn't seem to have been any precedent. And yet that organization, he thinks, is probably responsible for Christianity surviving through those first few centuries. It developed early and strongly, and "all the more remarkable, as there had not been a hint of bishops in anything said by Jesus in the Gospels."

He also notes the frequent misquoting and misapplication of scriptures, especially from the OT, by these bishops.

Fox is concerned with how the role of the bishops emerged, how they were selected, and their influence on the Church. He spends a lot of time on the life of Gregory, a student of Origen who became a bishop in the Pontus area of Turkey. I had to laugh when Fox is talking about Gregory's farewell letter to Origen--"After two of the clumsiest sentences in the history of Greek prose, he refuted his disclaimer by a fluent abundance which does not lack ingenuity."

Fox concludes that in addition to the other differences between pagan and Christian cultures, the type of authority which aimed to control and lead the ideals of the latter was quite different.

I have to read a book for a discussion group tomorrow evening so won't get back to Chapter 11 until tomorrow night.

117ronincats
Nov 14, 2011, 7:21 pm

Also wanted to say how much I appreciated your comments, Genny; so germane!

118sibylline
Nov 14, 2011, 7:59 pm

Your comments were superb again..... my brain seems to be in a scattered mode where it fastens on details and loses the big pic. I couldn't find a way to express what you did so neatly. Bravo. And I think you are quite right that this was a 'special' chapter to him -- the puzzle being why/how did Xtianity prevail so totally. To him, this feels like one clue.

119gennyt
Nov 15, 2011, 10:39 am

More interesting comments from both of you - your different ways of summarising the same chapters are beautifully complementary.

On the bishops' misapplication of scripture, the awful passage Lucy refers to about the women who'd been raped is a prime example: the scripture that states that man is defiled by 'what goes out,' not by 'what goes in' refers to the mouth, and is about how harmful words coming out of the mouth (and all that follows from them) are far more defiling of a person than any 'unclean' food going into the mouth.

#117 Thanks, Roni, and earlier (#113) Lucy. I guess I will have to get round to reading this myself one day... Probably when I retire!

120sibylline
Modificato: Nov 15, 2011, 9:34 pm

This is definitely one of those books that can't be read much faster than 20-40 pages a day..... not if you seriously plan to retain any of it, anyway. I'm ready to be done but
Fox is dragging along through this breathless period of slow and steady decline in the Empire, the appearance of various heresies - I was interested to read about Mani and his followers, the Manicheans in section 2 of the chapter, but I'm bogged down in section 3 now where Fox is weaving through various cities talking of changes in how money appears to be being spent (on defense and games instead of inscriptions and entertainments)-- it's hard to disentangle the various threads to see whether things were happening that caused pagans to grow dissatisfied with cult practices or if christianity was offering something that appealed to a sea-change, some leap in development perhaps that was nudging people away from polytheism, honor, pacification towards monotheism and a practice that required and asked more of the individual at a deeper cognitive and emotional level. I'm almost at the end of section 3 of this chapter, but I can't read another word! Overall I've got about 102 pages to go.

121ronincats
Nov 15, 2011, 9:00 pm

Just finished my book for my book club, 15 minutes before discussion begins! So timely. So after the KU basketball game tonight I'll try to finish section one at least.

122sibylline
Nov 15, 2011, 9:35 pm

Have fun at yr. book club! -- I'm hurrying so you can get your book back to the library!

123ronincats
Nov 15, 2011, 9:47 pm

Too late, it was due today, but I'm going to keep it until we finish.

124sibylline
Nov 16, 2011, 7:55 pm

I am arbitrarily stopping reading today at p 600..... if I could read a few more I'd finish this chapter, but I have maxed out for today. The narrative weaves back and forth between the evidence for the reduction of cult worship and the increase in Christianity in the pre-Constantine period. Evidence would indicate that the tipping of the scales was proceeding much as it had earlier, waxing and waning, depending on several factors -- the state of the economy, disasters, and the inclinations of the emperors. The Christians themselves were becoming part of the landscape, no one believed crazy stuff about them anymore and furthermore they were among the most generous and courageous during famines and plagues which worked in their favor. I imagine, barring some huge surprise, the rest of this chapter will continue in the same vein. I won't report on it, unless something unexpected turns up. I will finish it tomorrow, and then move on. 81 p. to go, for which I am heartily thankful!

125ronincats
Nov 17, 2011, 12:44 pm

I know what you mean--I got as far as page 590 last night before I HAD to stop. 18 more pages to finish this chapter--and I just couldn't do it.

126calm
Nov 17, 2011, 12:55 pm

Well I've been lurking on this thread and enjoying all your comments. I might have been silent but inspired by you I started reading P&C in October and finished it today. I'm still thinking about it and I'll try to add something here within the next few days.

127sibylline
Nov 17, 2011, 1:02 pm

125: It's funny that way, no Roni? I'll be reading along, thinking, this isn't too bad, but then a curtain will drop and I can't read another sentence. (Or more like, I'll realize I've 'read' a page retaining zilch!)

126: I am in awe. I can't wait to hear your thoughts and reactions.

Don't know that I'll get in more than a couple of pages today, a busy one, but I will at least read a few.

128sibylline
Nov 17, 2011, 1:05 pm

Roni -- if we can, let's coordinate finishing at more or less the same time so we can toast each other? Maybe sometime Sunday, taking the time diff. into account? Think we can do it?? I leave for a week in Florida on Monday and it would be very satisfying! And if you do go ahead and finish sooner, just don't tell me and I won't tell you but we'll drink our toast!

129ronincats
Nov 17, 2011, 6:03 pm

I finished Sinners and Saints this morning. Lucy, I think that's a great idea! I see two chapters to go. Chapter 12 has 54 pages and chapter 13 has 19 pages, and today is Thursday. Thirteen more pages today in addition to finishing Chapter 11, and 20 pages each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? How does that sound? What time shall we aim for on Sunday, given that I am 3 hours earlier than you?

Chapter 12 Saints and Sinners, a chapter in 5 parts.

One of the major purposes of this chapter is to give an accurate picture of the Christian community in the years between 250 and 310 A.D. These years have often been touted as showing major growth in the Church and establishing the Church as a increasing power in social life. Fox believes the evidence is not there for this picture and lays out his alternative picture.

Part 1: Decius' persecution of Christians in 250 and 251 resulted in large numbers of "lapsed" Christians who avoided the persecution by forgery, guile, or recanting. This would have resulted in severe penalties administered by the bishops, except that a plague in 252 was killing large numbers of Christians plus raised the possibility of another persecution in response to the plague. So the lapsed were pardoned in 252 and Decius died in 253, so the persecutions stopped as well. When they were initiated again in 257 by Emperors Valerian and Gallienus, it was focused on the bishops and elders rather than the general congregation, and forbade meetings. These emperors were reinvigorating the ceremonies to the gods . "For the first time, Christians were not merely obliged to compromise. Their worship and common life were threatened with extinction." Another difference was this time, it was the authorities directing the persecution, not the man on the street agitating for it. In fact, the general populace tended to compromise and abet the Christians in avoiding punishment. "If asked to choose between Christians and visiting soldiers, most people would have preferred Christians."

Then Valerian was captured and killed by the king of Persia and his son and co-emperor ordered churches and cemeteries to be restored to the Christians in 260. Dionysius wrote an influential letter in praise of the Emperor, damning his rivals, in biblical terms.

From 262 until 299, Christians were left alone, then. "After 260, there were no persecutions to revive fears of an immanent End: Christians were more than ever at risk to boredom, that powerful enemy of religious commitment."

Fox charts how "rigorist views" on sin were relaxed and penances were relaxed in terms of time and degree. Alms became one way to repent of sin. The over-achievers complained and proposed more stringent life styles but the simpler Christians became "becalmed on a millpond of worldly temptation and petty sin."

Part 2: In addition to sin (see above), another issue arose--fellow Christian's deviant beliefs. "If the history of forgiveness was one of falling barriers, the history of heresy was one of closing paths." Fox goes into a detailed history of the rise of Manichaeism. A powerful mythology together with outstanding art and books, the sect proved very popular in the East. Fox tells a legend of Mani converting a prince who was a fervent gardener and another who loved hunting (the cult did not eat meat or cultivate plants), commenting that "In each case, the story has grown from the sect's own teaching. A knowledge of the mood on the hunting field or among owners of very good gardens is enough to refute these stories of conversion, worked by an uninvited spoilsport."

Part 3: The Church also had to deal with events in the civic life of the period. Between 250 and the early 270s, "cities in the Empire were beset by barbarian raiders, plague and notorious inflation."
Finally, in 293, the Emperors created a restoration of order, including reorganization of the Roman army and a new system of taxation. The number of provinces and governors were increased, to more closely police the increased taxes. "By Diocletian, governors were given deputies, their 'vicars,' and provinces were grouped into bigger regions or 'dioceses.' A generation later, the Christians' own organizations followed this framework, giving these pagan words an unexpected history."

Christians were influential in responding to plague and ransoming prisoners from barbarians during the widespread insecurity of the times. Inscriptions to the gods diminished greatly in numbers, but probably more due to the changes in political structure and the level of expense increasing on fewer wealthy families. The games continued in the records in the 260s and 270s, but often were at least partly financed by grants from the Emperor.

Part 4: Although the ceremonies of the pagan gods were in a relative lull in the later 3rd century, belief does not appear to have declined. Fox refutes the usual view that Christianity increased dramatically during these decades, saying that Christians continued to be about 4-5% of the population even as they became more accepted and integrated into civic life.

However, in 299, Diocletian purged Christians from the army and 3 years later wrote that "the greatest crime" was to abandon "what has been decided and fixed by the ancients." This initiated the last of the persecutions in 303. The churches were to be destroyed, the Scriptures to be burned and all services banned.

Part 5: "Persecution came and went in varying bursts of ferocity." It was strongest in the East,but even there enforcement was haphazard. There is no solid evidence that the edict was applied in the West with the exception of Africa. Western Christians were deprived of their scriptures and meeting places but not martyred systematically. Caesar Maximin in the East was the ruler who did most to enforce persecution in his province. Again, the local populace was not that interested in killing Christians and often helped them escape or avoid consequences. "Provocative martyrs received a cool and guarded comment,whereas guile was respected: 'against those who gave money that they might be undisturbed by trouble, no accusation can be brought.' " wrote Peter, bishop of Alexandria in 306.

Persecution resulted an enduring cult of martyrs and intercessors, it split the churches into schisms, and scattered believers more widely. Over-achievers began to withdraw into the desert or countryside to lead more "pure" lives, undistracted by their fellow Christians. Fox describes this movement in detail, as always, before finishing by looking at the writings of two Christians who are the only documenters of the events leading up to Constantine. Lactantius and Eusebius were invigorated in their writing by an apprehension of the End Days spurred by the renewed persecutions, when they were overtaken by events in 312 when Constantine took power. "He (Eusebius) had moved from a vivid sense of the imminent End to a new sense that history was happening quickly and that a Christian needed to write and explain why his Church was now where it was," creating the need to radically revise his earlier writing. And here the chapter ends and we move into "Constantine and the Church."

130sibylline
Modificato: Nov 17, 2011, 10:00 pm

Maybe just a little after dinner time for me 8:30 and around 5:30 for you?

I know I sound repetitive, but I so appreciate this summary and I'm dazzled -- one thing I have found confusing throughout is chronology -- while Fox has moved steadily through the 200 plus year time frame, he also seems to jump around referring to previous or future events so that sometimes I've had to work hard to figure out what time period he really is talking about. Your clarity in this chapter was helpful.

That is perfect -- esp only 13 more pages today! I think I can. I think I can.

131sibylline
Nov 18, 2011, 3:31 pm

Just giving myself the satisfaction of saying I'm on schedule. Ironically -- I'm finding this chapter on Constantine more readable, downright interesting, in fact, so I could have almost kept going..... 40 pages to go!

132gennyt
Nov 18, 2011, 3:50 pm

You can do it!!

133calm
Nov 18, 2011, 4:04 pm

Yes those last two chapters read a lot faster:)

134sibylline
Modificato: Nov 19, 2011, 6:23 pm

I've finished the penultimate chapter. (Now that penultimate word in that sentence is a word I LOVE to find a use for!). More seriously. This chapter follows the conversion, motivations, actions, and writings of Constantine, ending with a neat comparison to Marcus Aurelius, the emperor just passing where P&C begins -- both thoughtful men, says Fox, one earlier a weary man too smart to be comforted by the cult practices of his world, but aware that reason can't do it all; and therefore confronting a world without real hope, whereas Constantine emerges as a man energized and motivated by his beliefs. The main questions are: how Christian was Constantine? Did his tolerance of pagans show ambivalence or was it common sense and practical politics on his part? Did he think for himself? Did he write his most famous speeches himself? Who were his primary religious teachers and advisors? Much time is also spent on when and where one speech in particular known as the Oration -- Fox settles on Good Friday in, um, 324 or is it 5?, in Antioch after a painstaking outlay of details -- I'll take his word for it.
Constantine is intrinsically an interesting figure, so the chapter had a certain life to it.

Twenty pages to go!!!!!

135ronincats
Nov 19, 2011, 10:59 pm

Just finished Chapter 12 myself, and am ready to read the ultimate chapter on the morrow.

136Chatterbox
Nov 19, 2011, 11:13 pm

Marcus Aurelius has always intrigued me...

I've been reading The Swerve, about Poggio's rediscovery of De rerum natura by Lucretius. There's a section where Greenblatt goes back to the causes of the loss of so many classical manuscripts, in which the concept of pagan comes up. It arises in the context of conflicts between "pagans" and Christians in Alexandria (eg Hypatia's murder.)

"The eventual success of this argumentative strategy ((Greenblatt is referring to the Christian method of disputation over the roots of Christian beliefs such as the last judgment and hell in pagan culture)) is suggested by the very word we have been using for those who clung to the old polytheistic faith. Believers in Jupiter, Minerva, and Mars did not think of themselves as "pagans"; the word, which appeared in the late fourth century, is etymologically related to the word "peasant". It is an insult, then, a sign that the laughter at rustic ignorance had decisively reversed direction." (p. 93 in the ARC)

137mckait
Nov 20, 2011, 8:44 am

The interesting discussion here makes me want to read this one again.
(It also reminds me that I have a whole book case filled with books that I never added to my
library here. ) There was a time when I read many books involving worship and religion.. searching for nothing, I might add. I am simply interested..

138sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 11:50 am

I can't imagine ever reading through this again, although I don't doubt that I will occasionally use it as a reference.

I'm the same as you Kath, a 'quester'. Part of our human program does seem to be a longing for a spiritual underpinning -- although that may come from our insatiable need to make sense of what may in fact be senseless. But...... then one is unable to refrain from asking..... where does the desire to make order come from then...... and then one is off and running again!

We always assume, too, that we are 'progressing' as in getting wiser and better, but are we? Fox is very careful not to mess with that question - contented to point out how xtianity as in intent and effect differed from what came before. He does make it clear though that xtianity asks a lot more of the practitioner and that people embraced that.

Thank you so much Suz - this is exactly what bothered me about his use of the word Pagan to describe the Greek and Roman religions. In Foxian manner, however, based on my now extensive knowledge of his 'thorough' nature, I am guessing it wasn't Fox's idea and that the problem of 'titling' the book with something snappy was a big one.

I also find Marcus Aurelius one of the most engaging of the emperors, he seems very accessible, and so trapped and sad. Altogether an anomaly.

Suz Have you seen this movie Agora? Tackles Hypatia's death. Very bloody and depressing. Oi. I didn't finish it.

Off to do my 20 p.

139sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 1:02 pm

Here's a link to the mosaic in Dorset: here .

140ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 4:31 pm

I read a lot in the area as well. It took me two years to work through the first three volumes of John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, which was fascinating. The fourth volume came out in the last year, and I still haven't acquired it but I want to. If you look for the tag "religion" in my books, you can see most of my reading in this area.

Lucy, I'm now ready for our toast in 4 hours! Then I'll make my comments on the final chapter.

141sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 4:58 pm

I'm also having the same thought, I'm going to be having a snootful of Glenfyddych Single Malt, medium expensive grade! THEN I'll write my last comment. I have (I confess) finished, but I am holding off.

142ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 5:17 pm

I also--that's what I meant by "ready". I'm just going for a glass of Zin, I think--although if it continues to cool down, I may have some Irish Cream instead.

143qebo
Nov 20, 2011, 5:41 pm

I look forward to the drunken finale.

144ronincats
Modificato: Nov 20, 2011, 8:32 pm

I am here, Lucy! Are you?

I'll keep refreshing until I see your message.

145ronincats
Modificato: Nov 20, 2011, 9:09 pm

Alas and alack, I fear me I have been stood up, and shall have to finish off this glass of fine wine by myself...

Chapter 13 quickly sums up the consequences of Constantine's patronage of Christians, not hesitating to promote Fox's conclusions about the authenticity of some documents over the opinions of others. The saddest thing to see was how quickly Christians gave over to persecuting fellow Christians.

Still hanging out, in case my partner in crime shows up...

146sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 9:10 pm

No no no, I got waylaid by the family but I am here now -- I had to do some carpooling...... I was a little worried that would happen, and then I thought all was well, then I did have to jump in the car.....but I am back and I have my little bit of scotch, and man I need it now!

147ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 9:10 pm

Welcome!

148ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 9:11 pm

What is the toast to be?

149sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 9:13 pm

Hmmmm what indeed. To perseverance? That is another of my favorite words!

150ronincats
Modificato: Nov 20, 2011, 9:15 pm

To perseverance and completion!

And comradeship!

151sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 9:14 pm

Yes!!!

152ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 9:15 pm

Note my addition of a third component, a little late.

Here's to us, then!

153sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 9:17 pm

I'm too rattled right this second to write up my final chapter, but maybe when the scotch settles a bit. Which are you having after all -- the Irish cream or the Zin?

154ronincats
Modificato: Nov 20, 2011, 9:20 pm

The Zin. A little more acidic but with plenty of body, just like our book.

155ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 9:24 pm

Congratulations, Lucy, you made it through all of Fox's non-pellucid prose (although it could be snarky at times) to the bitter end.

156sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 9:25 pm

Comradeship is maybe the most important of all. I am not at all sure I would have been able to get through P&C without your company -- and all of the rest of you who followed and commented thankyou!

157ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 9:25 pm

Yes, let us recognize our audience, who kept us motivated and honest!

158sibylline
Modificato: Nov 20, 2011, 9:27 pm

I wonder too how this book will settle in my mind - the information in it is staggering in its scope.

159ronincats
Modificato: Nov 20, 2011, 9:29 pm

Well, we can always come back to this thread for the short version. I think I'll retain the broad sweep rather than all the details.

160ronincats
Nov 20, 2011, 9:31 pm

Since that's what I usually do anyhow. ;-)

Thank YOU, Lucy, for your companionship on this book.

161sibylline
Nov 20, 2011, 10:02 pm

And thank you too, Roni!

Sorry about slow reply, I had to go wash some dishes and pretend to pack for a bit. Suddenly it is getting late. Hmmm....when am I ever going to do that summary?

I can't believe I'm done. Wow!

162calm
Nov 21, 2011, 4:54 am

Congratulations on finishing Lucy and Roni.

163Chatterbox
Nov 21, 2011, 6:20 am

Fab discussion; fun to follow. Made me think a lot, but still not sure I'll take the plunge and read the book... But kudos to you both for doing so!

164aulsmith
Nov 21, 2011, 9:17 am

Thank you so much for your summaries. I start this book back in the spring and quickly realized that it was much too detailed for my interests. But your notes were extremely helpful.

165qebo
Nov 21, 2011, 9:26 am

Congratulations! And thanks for an interesting two months.

166gennyt
Nov 21, 2011, 10:20 am

Thanks to both of you for sharing so much of your reading as you were going along - very interesting! And well done for making it through to the end and the well deserved toast!

167sibylline
Nov 21, 2011, 12:20 pm

I'm adding a brief postscript - the a few notes on the final chapter.
- complexities of people's lives make 'rulings' difficult
-Constantine, in Fox's view, tolerated pagans because he had to but with the attitude of one 'tolerating fools'.
- the fact that persecution was ended and that, in fact, xtians now had the advantages legally may have done the most to win converts
-despite failing many see Xtianity as a 'just and gentle' religion in its fundaments.
- the collapse of the 'gymnasia' -- which was seen as corrupt and sinful -- may have done more to end Hellenism and, more thann 'any other single event brought in the Middle Ages.'
-Fox makes the interesting argument then that the co-opting of various sites of temples, and of such things as divination and prophecy, the worship and closeness to saints and angels despite their resemblances to pagan cult practice, were kept up more because it is in the human psyche to crave these things (my words) -- and yet - that airy dismissal of Jung early?
-One small difference though is that xtian search for epiphany seemed to focus on 'historical sites' as opposed to dream contact with a god or goddess while at the temple. The place itself takes on the potential for the epiphany -- which will be, presumably, an insight into improved xtian practice and behaviour.
-a good bit about the co-opting of both Virgil and the Sibyl as harbingers of xtianity.
-the lack of art initially is quite interesting -- the spaces themselves were inspiring at first and people tried to obey the 'no graven image' idea, plus it made a break from pagan practice, emphasizing the internal process. But gradually -- certainly by the late 4th, art was creeping back into the picture. So interesting that the oldest known probable portrait of Christ is in Dorset (see above for link)
-Instead of blaming the gods or God for catastrophes, now sin explained all -- people themselves, their own deeds, brought calamity.

The book ends a bit ambiguously with the statement that when religious epiphany (of whatever kind) ends then so will religion. and an unattributed quote from.... this line "not to everyone do the gods appear' (I'm sure I'm supposed to know!)

And that is that!

168quicksiva
Gen 6, 2012, 11:57 am


Sibyx
What do you think about both the use of the blanket word 'pagan' to describe everything not either Judaic or Christian, and this phrase 'cult acts'. It seems... reductive.... to me - and also attributing to Xtianity more without basis (as yet). Not that there might not be some truth in what he is assuming, just that these statements and uses are as yet 'unearned' by the text, Lane Fox has made a number of bold statements and word choices that have set off alarms - a priori kinds of statements -- to accept those definitions and terms right off, then one will be led to agree with whatever his thesis ends up being, in other words. Again, I'm not saying he's wrong, just that I don't like the approach.

Sibyx
""Follows a quote from Shakespeare with the B. usage 1. Adue most beautiful Pagan, most sweete Iew. SHAKS. 2.b. 2 Henry IV, II.ii.168. (I have no idea what Iew means!!!! 'eye' maybe?)"

=========
I recently finished Pagans and Christians and I would like to share some observations with the scholars on this thread. Many points were raised in other posts, so don't think I'm spamming if something sounds familiar. I share your concerns about Fox's objectivity.


Maybe "Jew" after the I's became J's in the early modern era. A seemingly small change took place in the first quarter of the 17th Century. It appears to have passed notice that any number of J words did not exist in the originals of Shakespeare or the KJV. Before this change, King James was Iames and Ben Jonson was Ionson. Maybe this explains the I in the initials on Thomas Jefferson's sword..

169quicksiva
Gen 6, 2012, 12:37 pm

About Robin Lane Fox and Pagans and Christians
I have problems with this statement from early in the book.
“I will say most about the pagan cults of Greek tradition; then I will explore the presence and oracles of the gods, using evidence which is entirely Greek. The so called Oriental gods, Mithras, Serapis, Isis and others were themselves Greek creations.” p.36.

Since I refuse to believe Fox is this ignorant, I have to suppose that he is lying. But why? Who has the more correct assessment of this type of history, Martin Bernal, Napoleon, or the writers at The Onion?

The book gives rise to questions such as A) Where and what is “the Orient”. B) Where is the” Greek East”? C) Where is” Greek Asia”? D) Why do Fox’s maps so often exclude Important North African educational centers? E) To what is the near East near? There is only room on one of Fox’s maps for the north African provinces of Mauretania, Numidia, Africa, Proconsularis, Cyrenne, and Egypt. Yet many of the most important chararcters in early Christian and later pagan history come from this part of the world.

Serapis is referred to by Robert Wright as “a mutant Osiris formed by fusing Osiris with the Greek god Apis. Wright repeats the idea that this creation was “Greek”. “First called Oserapis this image of god was designed by the Greeks and later used by the Romans to facilitate their acceptance by the native Egyptian populace.” Wright also calls the author of The Golden Ass, Lucius Apuleius "Africanus, a “Greek author”, so his credentials are suspect.

This quotation by Lucius Apuleius “Africanus” should be better known.
"It is true I am not a Roman, and you call me a Barbarian. Yes, I am a Barbarian, and say I have no shame in my origins. Moreover, I can use your own language so well, so proficiently, and with such virtuosity as to make you look ridiculous in your charges of barbarism. The tools of consciousness are my own, delivered in words from your language that I throw back at you with such ease and dexterity, and the mirror image that I am placing before you is that of the other you despise through ignorance. In this defense of my identity, I am aided by all the powers of the earth, ancient wisdom, our African heritage, all the powers of transformation and true knowledge. We are the heirs to ancient Egyptian wisdom, to the Isis/Osiris mysteries of ancestral truth, to the transcendental consciousness that will outlive and outwit the centuries, and this message, I know, by the grace bestowed upon me by my dreams, will live on and become my long lived legacy as a North African philosopher and not a Roman, even though I use your language to send the message off."

Serapis is widely understood to have been created by the Ptolemy dynasty as part of the Greek rulers’ attempt to be accepted by Egyptians as divine. Serapis gave the world a European icon with long straight hair. To most modern Christians, this is the image of God.

Two priests, one from the Eleusinian Mysteries and one from the Egyptian were given the task of merging the two faiths by Ptolemy I, The Savior. The Greeks must have seemed like saviors to the Egyptians after ten years of Persian abuse.

Egyptologists, however, see The cult of the Apis bull as existing from the very beginning of Egyptian history, probably as a fertility god connected to grain and the herds. In a funerary context, the Apis was a protector of the deceased, and linked to the pharaoh. This animal was chosen because it symbolized the king’s courageous heart, great strength, virility, and fighting spirit. The Apis bull was considered to be a manifestation of the pharaoh, as bulls were symbols of strength and fertility, qualities which are closely linked with kingship ("strong bull of his mother Hathor " was a common title for gods and pharaohs). Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt by Eric Hornung

The image of the pharaohs in latter times was shaped above all in Memphis. This was due to a number of factors: first from a theological point of view, Apis of Memphis was related to the king by virtue of the fact that the latter held a divine office; second, Apis played an especially important role in the royal year festivals and coronation festivals and as the city- god on the standard of the king, he was the protector of the king at his coronation. ….In stark contrast to the Persians who had killed the Apis Bull, Alexander was careful to pay public sacrifice to Apis and he thereby set a precedent which would be followed by the Ptolemies.”
Gunther Holbl, A history of the Ptolemaic Empire pp 80-81.

The early Alexanderian Christian community appears to have been rather syncretic in their worship of Serapis and Jesus and would prostrate themselves without distinction between the two. A letter ascribed in the Augustan History to the Emperor Hadrian refers to the worship of Serapis by residents of Egypt who described themselves as Christians, and Christian worship by those claiming to worship Serapis, suggesting a great confusion of the cults and practices:
The land of Egypt, the praises of which you have been recounting to me, my dear Servianus, I have found to be wholly light-minded, unstable, and blown about by every breath of rumour. There those who worship Serapis are, in fact, Christians, and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are, in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ. Augustan History, Firmus et al. 8)

The worship of Mithras, including the Tauroctony, was introduced into the empire by returning soldiers who had picked it up in India and Persia. Some sources have claimed that Constantine remained committed to Mithras until his deathbed baptism.
Many attributes of the early Roman Church were borrowed from the Cult of Mithras which was located at the present site of the Vatican. Long before “the Passion” the anointed, who called their leader “Pope”, could boast of “being covered with the blood of their savior”. The cult disappeared earlier than that of Isis. Isis was still remembered in the middle ages as a pagan deity, but Mithras was already forgotten in late antiquity.
Statues of Isis from the Old Kingdom have been dated circa, 2635 B.C.E. From the earliest to the latest dynasties, Isis was the greatest goddess of Egypt.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead holds Osiris to be the great god of the dead.
“….it was Osiris, the god-man himself, who had risen from the dead and was living in a body perfect in all its members, who was the cause of the resurrection. Osiris could give life after death because he had attained to it, and he could give eternal life to the souls of men in their transformed bodies because he had made himself incorruptible and immortal. Moreover, he was himself “Eternity and Everlastingness,” and it was he who made men and women to be born again,…., the new birth was into the new life of the world which is beyond the grave and is everlasting.”
E.A. Budge,The Gods of the Egyptians v.2,p.141

In 1600, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake on Ash Wednesday. Like later scholars, Bruno had argued that not only was Christianity strongly influenced by the cults of Isis and Osiris, but that ancient Egypt offered a model of spiritual harmony far superior to Christianity.

170sibylline
Gen 6, 2012, 3:00 pm

No argument from me.

I would guess that Lane Fox would say, sure, but the Osiris/Serapis connection is used to a different 'end' - a 'new' and 'Christian' one: where each individual has his or her own relationship, responsibilities to a single God etc. One point Lane Fox makes that seems credible is that everyone was beginning to lose faith in the notion of placating 'the gods' -- some kind of ennui, prelude to a genuine cognitive shift was sweeping through the whole Mediterranean region leaving room for 'something new'. (You could say it is a process that begins with Achilles sulking and refusing to do the god's bidding) It is a new paradigm, taking responsibility for yourself, that is true enough, although Lane Fox can't take any credit for illuminating it.

I reread Middlemarch last year and since then this kind of scholar just makes me sigh. Casaubon Complex. Too much information, not enough ideas.