Pagan

“ Few words and many thoughts make the Christian, many words and few thoughts, the pagan.
"Seeming and bodily prayer is that muttering of the lips, that external babble, which comes forth without attention, striking the eyes and ears of men; but prayer in spirit and in truth is the inward desire, the emotions, and sighs which proceed from the depths of the heart. ”

“ Every Catholic, even the child, is taught the difference between the idol of the pagan and a Catholic image. Pagans looked upon their idols as gods. They thought these senseless objects had power, intelligence, and other attributes of the Deity. ”

“ That the scruples with which they recoiled from all usages and customs which could be associated with the elegant pomp of Pagan worship, and the suspicion with which, as having been linked with idolatry, they looked on every emanation of that spirit of beauty which reigned over the exterior life of Paganism, would operate as a charm in their favor! ”

“ When old Pan was dead and Apollo's bow broken, there were many faithful pagans who would worship at no new shrines, but went out to the hills and caves, truer to the old gods in their discrowned desolation than in their pomp and power. ”

“ In certain instances, however, we are certainly bound to admit that the pagan priesthood, with their characteristic cunning, were careful to perform their superstitious incantations, in such cases only as were likely to receive the sanative assistance of Nature, so that they might attribute the fortunate results of her efforts, to the potent influence of their own arts. ”

“ We find abundant records of the fact that personages high in office, such as consuls and other magistrates, while administering the laws by which the old idolatries were proscribed, actually performed pagan rites, and even erected public statues to pagan divinities. Still more did men, high in the respect of their fellow-Christians, allow themselves to cherish sentiments utterly at variance with the definitions of the Church. Take the instance of the illustrious Bishop Synesius. ”

“ The customs of pagan religion were only baptized with Christian names. Gregory the Great in the latter part of the 6th century, ignoring the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Gospel, directed the Monk Augustine, whom he sent to convert the idolaters of England, ‘not to suspend or abolish the pagan festivals, nor the customs of their worship, but rather retain them, contenting himself with substituting for the names of false gods, the names of saints borne by their temples, and whose relics were deposited in them.’” [188] ”

“ It is not to these that we can look for a warning that the fasts prescribed by the Church had their parallel in the abstinence imposed by certain pagan creeds, and required to be guarded and explained to the people in their true Christian significance ”

“ For it was contrary to the rule of the gospel that Christians should hold fellowship, or have any intercourse, with pagans. Besides which, the number of those that were come over was now so great, that they were a terror to his subjects; and nobody could now know who was a pagan, or who a Christian, since pagans married the daughters and kinswomen of Christians. ”

“ We have preachers who make the pulpit a kind of conjurer's platform, where the conception of the Deity is manipulated by syllogistic legerdemain, appearing here and vanishing there, now under this hat, and now under that, to the due astonishment of all beholders. Of the pagan referred to, one thing must in justice be said, that, although he pummels his god with great irreverence, he never doubts him. ”

“ Others, without sufficient grounds, have referred the title to the papacy, interpreting the First and Second Beasts as Rome pagan and papal. Another interpretation is that the First Beast is the secular persecuting power, pagan or Christian, and the Second Beast is the sacerdotal persecuting power, pagan and Christian; while still another and better interpretation is that world-force is the first, and world-worship, i. e. world-religion and superstition, the second.477 Symbolist interpreters always prefer the wider to a narrower symbolism in accordance with their general view of the book. ”

“ There is great ingenuity displayed in thus turning the pagan legend into a Christian homily by the addition of two lines suggesting that if men were not sinful, this beautiful pagan world and the beautiful forms that inhabited it would be visible to the human ken. ”

“ Chapter VII. Analysis Of The Pagan Rites And Practices Which Have Been Retained By The Roman Catholic As Well As The Græco-Russian Church. I have given (p. 14) the opinion of an eminent Roman Catholic modern author (Chateaubriand) about the introduction of Pagan usages into the Christian worship, and a long extract (pp. 16-28) from another no less distinguished Roman Catholic writer of our day, describing the cause of this corruption. ”

“ Had the various forms of ancient dominant pagan worship been radically and entirely different, with only those features in common that could reasonably be attributed to accident or the inter-communication of races, the inference would be strong that they had different origins ”

“ So much of truth, only under an ancient obsolete vesture, but the spirit of it still true, do I find in the Paganism of old nations. Nature is still divine, the revelation of the workings of God; the Hero is still worshipable: this, under poor cramped incipient forms, is what all Pagan religions have struggled, as they could, to set forth. ”

“ The pagan element is upon the whole the prevailing one, inasmuch as in most Gnostic systems Christianity is not represented as the conclusion and completion of the development of salvation given in the Old Testament, but often merely as the continuation and climax of the pagan religion of nature and the pagan mystery worship. ”

“ We have before us many significant examples of the facility with which the most intelligent of the pagans accepted the outward rite of Christian baptism, and made a nominal profession of the faith, while they retained and openly practised, without rebuke, without remark, with the indulgence even of genuine believers, the rites and usages of the paganism they pretended to have abjured. ”

“ We would let pagans worship as they please, and to the Christians and Mahommedans, and all sects and parties in the world we would say, "Do just as you please, for your volition is free, and you must act upon it for yourselves before the heavens. ”

“ They exercised charity and benevolence, and they forced the respect of the surrounding pagans to a life the motives of which they could not comprehend, unless they resulted from principles higher than those their pagan religion afforded them ”

“ With the zeal of the early apostles of this religion, they are applying themselves, with untiring diligence, to soften and subdue the stony heart of hoary Paganism, receiving but too often, as their only return, curses and threats—now happily vain—and retiring from the assault, leading in glad triumph captive multitudes. ”

“ Whosoever shall impartially compare the rites, customs, usages, and garbs of popery, with those of paganism, will to his admiration find such an exact agreement and consonancy, that he must necessarily conclude that either paganism imitated popery, or popery imitated paganism ”

“ The Pagans were amazed to see a lady of her rank, age, and fortune, possessed of all the advantages necessary to please the world, and yet in a condition to enjoy all that is in it most flattering, to contemn all this, and life itself with such an heroic constancy. ”

“ The whole subject is a very large one; but for reasons given in the Introduction I shall in this and the following chapter—while not ignoring phases (2) and (3) —lay most stress on phase (1) of the question before us.
At the time of the life or recorded appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, and for some centuries before, the Mediterranean and neighboring world had been the scene of a vast number of pagan creeds and rituals. ”

“ Tiele, C. P., on Oriental paganism in Christianity, 6; on political character of Roman religion, 193, 194. Traditionalism largely pagan in origin, 289. U Uhlhorn, Dr. Gerhard, on corruption of Christianity by gnosticism, 68, 70. Usages, pagan, adopted almost without stint by Christians, 26. V Virgil, Polydore, claims that Christianity “meliorated” pagan customs by accepting them, 8. Virgil shows union of water-worship and sun-worship, 74, 75. W Water, pagans believed it contained divine power to cleanse the soul, 72, 73; power to inspire, 74 ”

“ Here the old agricultural life has been less interfered with, and at the same time the Church, whether Roman or Greek, has succeeded in keeping modern ideas away from the people and in maintaining a popular piety that is largely polytheistic in its worship of the saints, and embodies a great amount of traditional paganism. ”

“ The Fathers, as much as in them lies, and as far as they can, avoid and decline all occasions of speaking about the invocation of saints then practised in the Church, fearing lest to the gentiles there might appear a sort of similarity, although untrue and equivocal, between the worship paid to the saints by the Church, and by the Pagans to their false divinities ”

“ Paganism and idolatry, of which we pretend to have so much horror, are simply the localisation and materialisation, more or less conscious, of the divine spirit and of divine grace, whatever may be the visible organ to which you bind them, or on which you make their action to depend,—Pope of Rome or Pythoness of Delphi, images of gods or images of virgin and of saints, sacramental liturgies, the deification of a church, a priesthood, or a book. ”

“ The pagans, even such grand old pagans as the Romans, before undertaking any important action would solemnly consult the auspices. Men with reason given them of God would stand anxiously around the steaming entrails of a bird, to find out whether the fates were propitious to their undertaking. ”

“ These Pagans are more fervent in their religion than we Christians, who have the true knowledge of the Lord God Almighty, and ought, therefore, day and night to give thanks to his Holy Majesty that we have come to that true knowledge, and be more fervent in our prayers than we are. ”

“ H. H., describes Diocletian’s sun-worship, 200; shows pagan character of first Sunday law, 223; shows Constantine made little opposition to paganism, 228. Miracles, reported as wrought through baptism, 253; newly baptized persons reputed to work, 258 f. Mirror, The Catholic, on paganism in Christianity, 286 f; on inability of Protestantism to return to Bible alone, 287. Mithraicism, extent of, in the second century, 19; had ceremonies of purification, and a “holy table,” 119. Monasticism, the product of Oriental paganism, 14. Mongolia, pagan baptism in, 93. ”

“ They imagined the Pagans would receive Christianity with more facility when they saw the rites and ceremonies to which they were accustomed adopted in the church. So the religion of the Christians was made to conform very [Pg 57] nearly to that of the Pagans in external appearance. ”

“ The Pagans, by an official process called deification, frequently exalted men who had lived among them to a position worthy of special honor and worship. Papists, by a similar process called canonisation, raise their former men of prominence to the dignity of saints and then offer up prayers to them.
The foregoing practises are derived from Paganism; also from Judaism or Paganism came their practise of burning incense in public worship, the use of holy water, burning wax candles in the daytime, and votive gifts and offerings. ”

“ B Baal, the worship of, corrupted the Israelites, 156. Baptism, character of, in the N. T., 71, 72; pagans sought spiritual purity by it, 77; mithraic and gnostic, 77; gnostics called it a “purifying fire,” 79; pagans initiated candidates to their “mysteries” by it, 82; by blood, a feature of mithraicism, 82; administered at death as a means of salvation, 83; performed for the dead, 83; associated with serpent worship, 85; pagan, in Egypt, 87; of young children in Thibet and Mongolia, 93; pagan, of the dying, 93; modern Buddhistic, 94 f; various forms of, in Oriental paganism, 97 ”

“ Scratch the Christian and you find the Pagan—spoiled." ”

“ A few of them who visit the king's posts, have been baptized, and taught to mutter something they call prayers, and on this account are esteemed good Christians by their tutors; while every action of their lives proves them to be as much Pagans as ever ”

“ These times, dearest brothers, perhaps will now be fulfilled, when, with the aid of God, the power of the pagans will be pushed back by you, and, with the end of the world already near, even if the nations do not turn to the Lord, because, as the Apostle says, "there must be a falling away from faith." ”

“ But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism."—New York Examiner, Nov. ”

“ It is permitted to the Church to use, for the purpose of piety, the ceremonies which the pagans used for the purpose of impiety in a superstitious religion, after having first expiated them by consecration—to the end, that the devil might receive a greater affront from employing, in honor of Jesus Christ, that which his enemy had destined for his own service. ”

“ Thought he, it’s a wicked world in all meridians; I’ll die a pagan. ”

“ Besides, some of the ancient Christians reproached the pagans with being the dupes of their priests. Observe how Clement of Alexandria speaks of them: "Boast as long as you please of your childish and impertinent oracles, whether of Claros or the Pythian Apollo, of Dindymus or Amphilocus; and add to these your augurs and interpreters of dreams and prodigies. ”

“ Saviour in almost the identical manner in which the Pagans celebrated the resurrection of their Saviours, centuries before the God of the Christians is said to have been born. In Roman Catholic churches, in Catholic countries, the body of a young man is laid on a bier, and placed before the altar ”