Other Natural Religions

[Husky]

Somehow left out the bit that preceded the previous extract. Meant to include it.

My comment in purple. (Uhhh, and the smiley face is my insert too...)

Nor am I inclined to find in Against the Galilaeans any well-articulated Neoplatonist theory of the universality of Roman rule.99 The account of the world's creation in the Timaeus and the Platonic conception of the divine as eternal, self-sufficient, and free from change and passion were the common stuff of pagan theological discourse. 100 It would be astonishing if a professed Neoplatonist had no recourse to them in a critique of Christianity. But that does not mark Against the Galilaeans out as above all else a philosophic critique rooted in the contrast between Platonist reason and Christian faith. In tone at least, it has been observed, Against the Galilaeans stands closer to Celsus' True Word than to Porphyry.101 If that contrast cannot be pressed too hard, it is only because of the very restricted number of fragments that can confidently be said to survive from Porphyry's Against the Christians.102 Certainly, there is nothing in Julian or Celsus that can compare with Porphyry's painstaking and coolly expressed critique of biblical texts on philological and historical grounds.



The tone of what survives of Porphyry's work may deceive, of course: for one thing, some would argue that his critique was written around the time of the Diocletianic persecution, perhaps even at imperial request;103 for another, there are hints elsewhere in Porphyry's works that he too regarded Christians as 'deserters of tradition' 104 and that he did not entirely neglect the defence of traditional worship. 105 The brute fact remains, though, that the defence of polytheist practice to be found in Celsus and Julian finds no close parallel in what survives of Porphyry's work. Porphyry, indeed, while rejecting the notion that the Christian religion constituted a 'universal way of salvation', was prepared (at least at one stage in his career) to speak of Christ himself as a 'pious, just and wise man who has access to the heavens', akin to a Greek hero and worthy to be praised as such. 106 ( The usual/typically heathen self-delusion: the fault stems from heathens not studying the inimical ideologies and their ideological cores - i.e. jeebus in christianism's case. Julian fortunately was in a position to do that: he knew *both* religions very well. Which is also the reason why his position on christianism was so adamant, resolute. He knew only too well what it foreboded and that more evil was to come - as was indeed the case - and would stop it.) There is emphatically nothing of the sort to be found in Julian, and the contrasting tone of Against the Galilaeans remains significant: in this text, the style is the man. It is telling, too, that the defence of polytheist cult in Julian is notably energetic and forthright even in comparison with that of Celsus, which is often judged lukewarm and rather uneasy.107



It was only the ostensible purpose of Against the Galilaeans to prove 'in a court of law' that the 'so-called dogmas' of the Christians were false (41e). The true impulse behind the work was more basic: it was written out of deep hatred for Christian thought and practice, and the social effects they had had throughout the Empire. To Julian, these were most palpable in the indifference of Christians to the cult worship of the ancestral gods, and in their assumption that they could participate in the Greek republic of letters and yet deny what he saw as its religious core: 108 a multiplicity of gods manifesting themselves in helpful epiphanies in return for the honours paid to them by mortals. A modern writer has borrowed a lucid metaphor from Julian's own lips to capture the horror he felt: 'He saw, with a clarity bred of hatred, one blatant feature of his age - Christianity rising like a damp-stain on the wall of his beloved Hellenic culture.'109 Julian was not so self-deceiving as to think that the damp-stain could be checked by one more polemic against Christians. But he could do more than that: the gods had made him Emperor.110 <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Reflection on the public measures directed by the Emperor against his Christian subjects will lend further support to my argument.

The rest of the text that follows on from the above is in #72.



1. Bears remembering ever: Julian knew christianism - intimately, expertly, first-hand, first-person.

And his fight was against christianism itself. It remains uncanny how well he knew the meme.



2. Julian's Contra Galilaeos has a lot more to say. Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, the christian apologist who attempted its 'refutation', explained that he didn't even bother trying to apply his christian apologetics on the more powerful arguments in Julian's work. And the bits of the Contra Galilaeos that do survive at all are precisely from what Cyril dared to extract of it for his apologetics. Moreover, apparently there were many more than 3 volumes to the work, according to some ancient Hieronymus or somebody (mentioned at christianism.com I think).

161. "His [Julian 331 - 363 C.E.] chief work, Kata Christianon, is lost [common euphemism for Burned]. "

[...]

162.[Julian 331 - 363 C.E. (Emperor)] "V. Lost Works. The most important is...[Greek, for "Kata Christianon"], a refutation of the Christian religion, in seven books, according to Hieronymus, although Cyrill only speaks of three. These three books were directed against the dogmatical part of the Christian religion as contained in the Gospels".

[color="#0000FF"]ADDED:[/color]

[quote name='Bharatvarsh2' date='20 May 2010 - 09:07 AM' timestamp='1274326154' post='106467']Smith's book[/quote]It was originally this British lecturer of Ancient History's PhD thesis, from when he was a student at Oxford. He obviously chose the subject matter. I love him dearly for conveying it accurately (especially for the concluding portion of it - pasted in my previous post - which is so obviously the driving core of it, as all the arguments developed earlier meet there) and in perfect language:

it was much needed. The only good and honest textbook material I've read on the whole topic: not just Julian - though he sorely needed an honest presentation, everything else out there is incredibly bad if not down-right psy-ops (Bowersock anyone?) - but also, through him, the wider topic of both the time and the religion, Hellenismos.

Of course, the book is much more than that.



Plus the author's English is just beautiful - it's his own style: not for imitation because it's his originality - and when it is employed in presenting this subject, it just puts a stupid smile on one's face...



For a proper defence of heathenism in English*, apparently heathens need to turn to a British historian and the English-speaking Hellenes at ysee: as a side-effect of explicating Hellenismos and accurately presenting history, they are actually defending all heathenism.

(* None available from the quarter of angelsk-speaking Indian 'intellectualism'. At best they make bad imitators. hudders in fear: At worst - and most frequent - they 'intellectualise' the Hindoo religion away: they sell the Hindu religion and Gods down the river at first opportunity. Not to forget the never-ending apologetics for christianism.) Never mind. What's out there - like Julian's refutation of christianism and defence of his Hellenismos - must suffice. And I'm not remotely ungrateful for it.

which you can access at

That just stole the thunder away from my Best Post Ever <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':o' /> Redirecting potential readers away from my Awesome post... How wrong. Tsss.

I just want to make it clear to any readers out there that *I* have long had my own copy of the (physical) book - all above board - and didn't get the material from any of the links above.