Friday, March 24, 2017

It's just a little request

Indeed, despite all the alleged stupidities of Christians, Celsus expressed a willingness to tolerate them, if only they would honor the gods and follow the polytheistic customs that everyone else, excepting, of course, Jews, affirmed. By their refusal to do so, Celsus contended, Christians, questioned the validity of the gods upon which the social and political order rested and so were guilty of impiety and, at least impolicitly, of promoting sedition. If masses of people followed the Christians in their madness, Celsus declared, this would provoke the wrath of the gods and the social and political order would fall into anarchy and chaos.— Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World, page 31–32

<idle musing>
He's not asking for much, is he? Just compromise a little bit and we'll accept you—even though you are a bit strange. But, to compromise on that one point is to destroy the entire foundation of Christianity.
</idle musing>

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