tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post3527105063880767548..comments2023-11-05T04:09:26.194-05:00Comments on e g r e g o r e s: Hic sunt draconesApuleius Platonicushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-51906377993446923782019-06-05T06:23:08.814-04:002019-06-05T06:23:08.814-04:00the so-called "pagan monotheism" was nev...the so-called "pagan monotheism" was never monotheism, because it did not deny the existence of other Gods or deny the legitimacy of their worship. It was a philosophical/metaphysical "qualification" or rather "elaboration" of the very same religion that pagans had always followed. And it has very ancient precedent, since the pre-Socratic philosopher Xenophanes had already broached this subject, not to mention Plato himself, whose Laws show he was very big on traditional polytheistic cultus.WMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08655633813142146789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-46311158130811555922013-06-20T16:43:11.680-04:002013-06-20T16:43:11.680-04:00Great sources, thank you for writing this article!...Great sources, thank you for writing this article! <br /><br />I wanted to thank you greatly for having this blog. It has been immensely rewarding for me to read as I am struggling internally with many religious quandaries. <br /><br />I myself was raised a cradle Catholic, and have been wrestling with the tension, historical and otherwise, between Paganism and Christianity into my young adulthood. <br /><br />To me, the implications of either side being true are staggeringly important. While it seems like our mutual interest in Late Antiquity is niche and to many these are obscure "first world" and ivory tower" types of debates, I think the results of researching this will be far-reaching and staggering. <br /><br />When I discovered the "other side" in Paganism, and real, experiential verification of the encounters our Pre-Christian (and medieval, Renaissance, etc!) ancestors experienced (the world over!) it threw me so hard that I have been trying to pick up the pieces ever since. <br /><br />Reading works like Ramsay MacMullen's [u]Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries[/u] has been like washing a dirty window in my mind. I am beginning to see past the decades of sooty and polluting Catholic indoctrination to see what the reality of the shift from Pagan to Christian belief really means. <br /><br />(If you haven't read MacMullen, I heartily suggest you do so... It reiterates and verifies much of what you are trying to say here!)<br /><br />I am beginning to wonder whether or not the vast majority of illiterate peasants were every truly Christian. The more I read about folk belief in the Early Modern period and everything prior to it, it points me in the suggestive direction of assuming that, for all intents and purposes, our ancestors were pagans that have been veiling their native, natural spiritual experiences in the imagery and language of Christianity. <br /><br />I still struggle greatly with totally detaching myself from my Catholic perspective. I even have disjointed and sometimes startling dreams involving a need for a return to being a believing Christian.<br /><br />Upon waking, I find my quest just the opposite. I am desperately trying to find out what the Pagan actually said.<br /><br />If you have any recommendations for important works that are very perception-altering regarding this topic, I would greatly appreciate your help. <br /><br />I understand, as "mamiel" pointed out, that there is such an institutional and cultural bias toward a monotheistic view point, and its subsequent ideological children, that it makes it hard to find ones bearings in an intellectual sense without feeling a marginalized, fringe weirdo. <br /><br />I applaud you for presenting information in a mature and entertaining manner that really holds its own against the onslaught of criticism. <br /><br />Keep it up! <br /><br /> <br />L.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-11727182170369747252011-04-22T16:21:47.702-04:002011-04-22T16:21:47.702-04:00Hi Freeman, the Corpus Hermeticum presents a very ...Hi Freeman, the Corpus Hermeticum presents a very interesting case study. First of all, during the Renaissance there was a conscious decision made by Ficino and others to exaggerate superficial similarities between Christianity and Hermeticism/Platonism, while downplaying the serious points of divergence. Hermeticism is intrinsically incompatible with monotheism, while at the same time it has strong elements of pantheism and monism. To this day there is still a great deal of confusion (sometimes intentional, mostly not) concerning monotheism, monism and pantheism.<br /><br />But more directly to your point about monotheizing interpretations of "to agathon", up to and including translation that into English as "God". In my opinion it has already been demonstrated that even transating "ho theos" as "God" is misleading to the point of being unacceptable. A French philologist actually went through every single occurrence of all singular and plural references to deities in all classical Greek literature from Homer up to Plato, and concluded that the Greeks themselves made no distinction, and that when they used "ho theos" without reference to a particular deity, they were referring to "the totality of the Gods", and, furthermore, that precisely the same meaning could be and was frequently communicated by "hoi theoi", to the point that "ho theos" and "hoi theoi" were often used interchangeably.Apuleius Platonicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-3626888250811297262011-04-22T01:38:08.350-04:002011-04-22T01:38:08.350-04:00Have you looked into the matter of translation of ...Have you looked into the matter of translation of the Corpus Hermeticum? There seems to be another bias operating there, that goes as far as rendering "to agathon" as "God." I haven't read the translation I have, in case there's a better one to be had, so I have not developed an opinion one way or another on its supposed monism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-50303425875333127942010-10-20T17:09:37.692-04:002010-10-20T17:09:37.692-04:00Hi Thomas,
It's fine with me if you use the i...Hi Thomas,<br /><br />It's fine with me if you use the information here, but please acknowledge that it came from this blog and provide a link to this particular post.<br /><br />Also I would greatly appreciate if you would post another comment here linking to whatever it is that you are working on, where people can see how you have put the information to use!<br /><br />ApuleiusApuleius Platonicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-38841834996976568312010-10-15T05:43:46.281-04:002010-10-15T05:43:46.281-04:00Hello there,
This is a message for the webmaste...Hello there,<br /> <br /> This is a message for the webmaster/admin here at egregores.blogspot.com.<br /><br />May I use part of the information from this blog post right above if I provide a link back to this website?<br /><br />Thanks,<br />ThomasAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-61031324340218381352010-09-03T17:50:13.963-04:002010-09-03T17:50:13.963-04:00It is very educational to examine Hart's misch...It is very educational to examine Hart's mischaracterization of Julian's philosophical Paganism.<br /><br />According to Hart Julian was a "credulous religious enthusiast, who delighted in blood sacrifice, magic, astrology, and mystery."<br /><br />Also according to Hart, "when he tried his hand at philosophy, the results were embarrassing." <br /><br />Rowland Smith, in his "Julian's Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate", shows convincingly that Julian's religious ideas were very much in line with those of his Pagan contemporaries, including especially, but not limited to, the educated elites.<br /><br />And Peter Brown, himself a Christian, shows that half a century after Julian, Christians still considered themselves very much intellectually inferior to the remaining Pagans of the early fifth century (see Brown's biography of Augustine).<br /><br />Rowland Smith also shows that as a philosopher Julian had nothing to be embarrassed about. For that matter, the Church certainly felt that Julian's philosophical critique of Christianity was not to be taken lightly, which is why today we have only scattered fragments of his three volume "Against the Christians", in which Julian relies heavily on the writings of Plato, especially the Timaeus.Apuleius Platonicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-68366503460164482862010-09-03T17:26:57.098-04:002010-09-03T17:26:57.098-04:00This sort of reminds me of this essay, written by ...This sort of reminds me of this essay, written by a prominent Christian philosopher in a right-wing magazine:<br /><br />http://tinyurl.com/34ko6gh<br /><br />The chickens come home to roost?Arturo Vasquezhttp://arturovasquez.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-46580296257050940252009-06-12T00:06:35.889-04:002009-06-12T00:06:35.889-04:00Yeah, I saw that article by Beard a few weeks ago ...Yeah, I saw that article by Beard a few weeks ago online and it made me hopping mad. How silly to treat Hellenism as a monolith. The way people practiced probably depended on their bioregion, their ancestors, their town and city/state, and their profession. In other words, no two families probably practiced exactly alike.<br /><br />But what you are addressing here is what I have come to identify as a monotheist institutional bias. It is so ingrained and there is no self-awareness on behalf of the people who have bought into it.<br /><br />Julian not a pagan? i have read similar comments comments about Hypatia. It is totally maddening.Ellen Catalina, LCSWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05370543572803320295noreply@blogger.com