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How would a wealthy, educated, and pious Hellene view the coming tide of Christianity that was overtaking the Empire in its waning years? This is the vision that I set out to capture in this small piece. It is fictional, but I believe that the sentiment it conveys is true enough - it is, at any rate, how I feel when I look back at this woeful period in History.
TO EUNOMIUS FROM SANNION: Greetings! I received your letter just the other day, and it could not have come at a better time, old friend. It pleased me to hear how well things are going for you and your community - I just wish things were going as well here. To begin with, the Christians from the city are spreading out into the countryside and making many converts among the simple and superstitious. Normally this would not matter - after all, who cares what the simple believe, so long as they get their work done - but the conversions are not just among the poor and ignorant, but even my neighbor Marcus has accepted that Jew from Galillee; and if there are not better crops this year, I fear he will not be alone. To make things even worse the local Bishop is a cruel and petty man, as nakedly avarice as any Caesar, for all that he feigns holiness and humility. He preaches conquest and says that good Christians should have nothing to do with Pagani- which is what they are calling those of us who hold to the Hellenic Way. Already I am having some difficulty with the men who tend my land. I have been good to them in the past - that, I think, is the only reason that they still work the land for me. But if this Bishop Ambrose continues spurring them on, and I am left with no one to work my fields or buy my crops - what will I do? I fear that dark times lie ahead for us. But is this not what the Egyptian Hermes said when he proclaimed, "Egypt will be forsaken, and the land which was once the home of religion will be left desolate, bereft of the presence of its deities." And again, "The dead will far outnumber the living; and the survivors will be known for Egyptians by their tongue alone, but in their actions they will seem as men of another race. O Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion nothing will remain but an empty tale, which thine own children in time to come will not believe; nothing will be left but graven words, and only the stones will tell of thy piety." These prophecies were not just about Egypt: they concern all the lands wherein the Gods were given proper honors. Already we are seeing the prophecies come true: the ancient temples have been given up to rats and spiders, desolate for lack of use; men have forgotten what it means to be men, have forgotten the greatness of their ancestors and care now only for themselves and the lie of personal immortality which the priests of Christ deceive them with; the very Gods who once walked the earth now seem to have returned to their home in heaven, abandoning us to our own foolishness. This is the way that it seems: but as a priest of Bacchus
I know that it is not so, and that is the only thing that
helps me to continue. For I know that my worship of Him is
not in vain. Even if all the Gods of Olympus and elsewhere
withdrew to their divine home, Dionysos would remain here
with us in the world below. Truly He is present in the
world, in the ripe fruit of my fields and my green pastures.
He I feel in the earth and wind and mountains. In my wife
and my children and my very own soul. I know He is all about
- you would have to be blind not to. It is a niggardly man
who does not honor the God of life, the very God that brings
him joy and wealth. And so I honor Him with the rites that
He is due, and consider it a joyous burden at that. These
rites that we perform in his honor are old - that is how we
know that they are true, for what is false does not last.
The performance of these rites makes my life better. Even if
I recieved no outward benefit from them, I would still
perform them for there is a great inward benefit which one
recieves for honoring Dionysos, a purification of one's
soul, an immersion in joy. All this the Christians would
destroy, claiming their's is the only way. When it comes to
theology there is no contest. We have Homer, Plato, Plotinus
and all the great minds of Greece and Rome on our side. In
the short time that they have been around, how many great
men have they produced? Few enough, and those that they do
produce are eventually considered heretics by thier fellows,
for they truly despise original thought. So if the contest
is not be intellectual, then let it be spiritual - for we
have ecstacy and all the techniques of the theurge at our
disposal. Further, we have the Immortal Gods on our side,
and whom the Gods favor, that one cannot lose. So I do not
fear the dark days ahead, Eunomius, even if the Christians
beat at my door. Eventually reason will return and the Gods
will be honored again. And we who remained faithful to them
shall be remembered fondly. Heraclitus the Obscure said that
all is flux - let us hope that the flux overtaking our world
is not overly violent. |
