Holy Mother-Fuckin' Jesus-Christ! Asshole IRELAND Unveils New Blasphemy Law!
BIGtits
INTOLERANCE!
Thankfully, some Irish atheists are "moonin'" it!
-------------
"Atheists challenge Ireland's new blasphemy law with online postings"
By Karla Adam
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 3, 2010; A08
LONDON -- Atheists in Ireland are risking possible prosecution with an
audacious online challenge to the country's new blasphemy law.
Under the law, which went into effect Friday, a person can be found
guilty of blasphemy if "he or she publishes or utters matter that is
grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any
religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the
adherents of that religion."
The penalty is a fine of up to 25,000 euros, or more than $35,000.
In a bid to demonstrate that the law is outdated and largely
unenforceable, a group named Atheist Ireland published on its Web site
on Friday 25 potentially blasphemous quotations from figures such as
Jesus Christ, Muhammad, George Carlin, Pope Benedict XVI and Mark
Twain, who opined in 1909: "When the Lord God of Heaven and Earth,
adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. . . . He slays,
slays, slays!"
"Two days ago, there was no question over whether these quotes were
legal. Now there is a question, and that is very bizarre," Michael
Nugent, the group's chairman, said in an interview Saturday.
Blasphemy was already a criminal offense in Ireland under the
country's 1937 constitution. But until now, the language had been too
murky to make prosecutions feasible. In 1999, Ireland's Supreme Court
dismissed the last case to test the law because blasphemy was not
clearly defined.
By clarifying the term and imposing a hefty fine, the government has
angered critics, who say the law undermines the state's increasing
independence from the Catholic Church.
There was "no clamor" for a new blasphemy law, said Eoin O'Dell, a
senior lecturer in law at Trinity College Dublin. "Most of the
commentary in Ireland has been pretty negative," he added.
When Ireland's constitution was drafted, church and state were tightly
entwined, O'Dell said, noting that the preamble begins, "In the Name
of the Most Holy Trinity," in contrast to the U.S. Constitution's "We
the People of the United States."
But despite the charter's "very Christian framework," O'Dell said, the
close relationship between church and state in Ireland has waned in
recent years -- the "special position" of the Catholic Church was
removed from the constitution by referendum in 1972, and the ban on
divorce was repealed in 1995.
Dermot Ahern, Ireland's justice minister, has said that he would have
preferred simply to abolish the previous blasphemy law.
"My personal position is that church and state should be separate," he
said in a speech in May. "But I do not have the luxury of ignoring our
constitution." Faced with choosing between the pricey referendum that
would be required to amend the constitution and reform that would help
judges address the 1999 Supreme Court ruling, he said, "I chose
reform."
Nugent, who estimates that there are a quarter-million atheists in
Ireland, said the new law is "silly" and "literally medieval."
[Adam is a special correspondent.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/02/AR2010010201846.html
J. Fartlington Poopnagel
world comity?
Paul Carr
"J. Fartlington Poopnagel" <lilh...@yahoo.com>
??????:b7844e98-fa34-40f2...@p32g2000vbi.googlegroups.com...
> Besides getting drunk and throwing up, what have the Irish done for
> world comity?
>
Well, I don't know about comity, but we do export abroad a good wholesome
and family-friendly conservatism and religious fundamentalism which serves
as a model for up-and-coming developing states. For example, Islamic states
led by Pakistan are already using the wording of the new Irish blasphemy law
to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---
The Pedo Priest
> a person can be found guilty of blasphemy if "he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion,
So if a 10 year old altar boy says "NO" to a pedophile priest, is this
blasphemy?
If a victim of a pedophile priest files charges against the
archdiocese, is this blasphemy?
Father Haskell
wrote:
> Besides getting drunk and throwing up, what have the Irish done for
> world comity?
Shane McGowan?
Special Care
wrote:
> Besides getting drunk and throwing up, what have the Irish done for
> world comity?
Probably built the floor your standing on and the road you drive on.
Special Care
> ...Faced with choosing between the pricey referendum that
> would be required to amend the constitution and reform ...
> he said, "I chose reform."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Wrong.
He could have tagged the question onto the recent EU referendum at no
extra cost.
Or whatever the next referendum is, any number of additional questions
can be included for convenience and cost cutting.
Special Care
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.apollonius.net/bernard1e.html
Apollonius the Nazarene
Part 1
The Historical Apollonius Versus The Mythical Jesus
By Dr. R. W. Bernard, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. (1964)
In the year 325 A.D. was perpetrated one of the most colossal frauds
and deceptions in the annals of history. This was the date of the
Council of Nicaea, whose task it was to create a new religion that
would be acceptable to Emperor Constantine, who, at the time, was
engaged in the bloody persecution of those communists and pacifists of
ancient times who were known as early Christians. What made
Constantine, in the midst of his inhuman massacre of these defenseless
and despised people, suddenly take over their religion and become its
staunchest protagonist, is one of the enigmas of history which has
never before been elucidated. On this point Reville, a Catholic
apologist, writes :
"The acknowledged triumph of Christianity during the reign of
Constantine has always been considered one of the unaccountable
revolutions and one of those historical surprises which, unconnected
as they seem to be with any phenomena of the past, might almost seem
miraculous. One longs to find out by what process the human mind
passes so rapidly from a contemptuous and utter denial of the
teachings of Christianity to an interest and avowed sympathy for the
doctrines of the new creed. ... It was in the Fourth Century,
immediately after the most violent persecutions, that Christianity,
though embraced and professed by a minority only, succeeded in
attaining to a commanding position in matters both social and
political."
Aware that the old religion of Rome was in a state of advanced decay
and was daily losing its hold on the people, while the persecuted cult
of the Essenes, or early Christians, in spite of all the efforts to
suppress it through the most bloody and inhuman means, continued to
thrive and win the increasing respect of the masses, the Church
Fathers, themselves previously pagans whose hands were stained with
the blood of those from whom they stole their religion, saw that by
adopting Christianity (in a revised form) they could take advantage of
the popular prestige created by the martyrdom of the early Christian
saints and at the same time win the support of Constantine who, in
being converted to the Christian faith, could cover up his own past
crimes, gain increased public favor and extend and consolidate his
empire.
In order to make the previously despised cult of the Essenes, or early
Christians, acceptable to Constantine, Emperor of Rome, the Church
Fathers had to remove from its teachings certain doctrines which they
knew were objectionable to him. Chief among these was the prohibition
against the use of meats and wines, which was a cardinal doctrine of
early Essene Christianity. It was for this reason that the churchmen
at Nicaea found it necessary to remove from the Gospels these
objectionable doctrines, for they knew that Constantine loved the red
meats and flowing wines of his midnight revels too much to be willing
to accept a religion which required from its adherents complete
abstinence from these indulgences, as early Essene Christianity did.
To accomplish this, certain "correctors" were appointed, whose task it
was to rewrite the Gospels, omitting all that pertained to
vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol. The Church Fathers had an
additional reason to do this -- for they themselves had no desire to
make such a radical change in their own living habits.
That the original Gospels were rewritten and altered at the Council of
Nicaea is indicated by the following statement by Archdeacon
Wilberforce, who writes :
"Some are not aware that, after the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325, the
manuscripts of the New Testament were considerably tampered with.
Prof. Nestle, in his 'Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the
Greek Testament,' tells us that certain scholars, called
'correctores,' were appointed by the ecclesiastical authorities, and
actually commissioned to correct the text of the Scripture in the
interest of what was considered orthodoxy."
Commenting on this statement, Rev. G. J. Ouseley in his "Gospel of the
Holy Twelve" writes :
"What these 'correctores' did was to cut out of the Gospels with
minute care, certain teachings of our Lord which they did not propose
to follow -- namely, those against the eating of flesh and taking of
strong drink -- and everything which might serve as an argument
against flesh-eating, such as the accounts of our Lord's interference
on several occasions, to save animals from ill-treatment."
There is evidence to indicate that not only were the original
doctrines of early Essene Christianity radically changed at the
Council of Nicaea and replaced by others entirely different, but that
the man whose life was an embodiment of the original doctrines was
likewise replaced by another man who exemplified the new doctrines.
The name of the second man, who was not a vegetarian and who did not
prohibit the killing of animals, was Jesus Christ, who was put in the
place of Apollonius of Tyana, the historical world teacher of the
First Century.
The first act of the Church Fathers, after they created their new
religion and its messiah, neither of which existed previously, was to
burn all books they could lay their hands on, especially those written
during the first few centuries, which made no mention of Jesus and
which referred to Apollonius as the spiritual leader of the First
Century, realizing as they did that such books, if not destroyed,
constituted a dangerous menace to the survival of their deception. It
was for this reason that the churchmen took such great pains to burn
the ancient libraries, including the famous Alexandrian Library with
its 400,000 volumes, which was burnt to the ground by edict of
Theodosius, when a Christian mob destroyed the Serapeum where the
scrolls and manuscripts were kept.
[Comment: This act of destruction was carried out in the year 389, or
64 years following the Council of Nicaea. For additional information
regarding the brutality and destruction ordered by Emperor Theodosius,
you are referred to the earlier section of this volume.]
However, the churchmen failed to their purpose, for prior to its
burning which they foresaw, the librarians of the Alexandrian Library
had secretly removed from it some of the most precious volumes, which
they carried eastward for safety.
Among the works which were thus saved from the flames of the
Alexandrian Library, the one which has created the most widespread and
long-continued discussion was the The Life of Apollonius of Tyana,
written by Flavius Philostratus at the beginning of the Third Century
A.D. As if by ironic fate, this book -- which of all books burnt in
the Alexandrian Library was one of the most dangerous -- was preserved
down through the centuries, resisting all attempts to destroy it. The
reason why this book was so much dreaded by the churchmen was because,
while it made no mention whatsoever of the existence of Jesus or of
Christianity, it presented Apollonius of Tyana as the universally
acclaimed world teacher of the First Century, reverenced from one end
of the Roman Empire to the other by everyone, from the lowest slave to
the Emperor himself.
No book ever written has aroused such a heated argument over a longer
period of time than this biography by Philostratus. From the early
centuries of our era, when Hercules and Eusebius first started it,
until the days of Blount, Voltaire and the Deists, the controversy
raged unabated. For Philostratus in his book described a character
born in the very year of the birth of Christ who, in every respect,
was the equal, if not the superior, of the Christian messiah.
W. B. Wallace, writing on "The Apollonius of Philostratus," calls
Philostratus' biography a "pagan counterblast to the gospel of
Galilee, representing a Greek saviour as an alternative to the Semitic
one." (Westminster Review, July-Dec. 1902). Furthermore, the main
events of the lives of both men were so closely parallel that the
reader cannot help but conclude that if Jesus is not a fictitious
imitation of Apollonius, then Apollonius must be an imitation of him,
since it would be highly improbable for two such similar men to have
been born the same year and to have such similar biographies.
F. A. Campbell, in his "Apollonius of Tyana," writes :
"The birth of Apollonius is assigned to the year 4 B.C. But as
everybody knows, the current computation of the beginning of the
Christian era is incorrect, and the first year of our Lord ought to be
dated four or five years earlier. If the Apollonian and Christian
nativities both belong to the same year, the coincidence is entitled
the more attention than it has received."
[Comment: This is clearly wrong. The inauguration of the Julian
Calendar had nothing to do with the inauguration of Christianity. It
is purely coincidental that Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar proclaimed
the commencement of the Julian Calendar in a year which ultimately
neatly coincided with the birth of this so-called Messiah.]
"Thankful Tyana, like ungrateful Nazareth, had nursed a prophet of
blameless life, of miraculous power, of super-abundant loving-
kindness, and of heroic virtue. Both Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus of
Nazareth were born in the same lustrum, if not the same year. Both
Tyana's babe and Bethlehem's were said to have sprung from a divine
Father and a human mother, and both of these holy ones drew their
first breath amid gracious portents and supernatural singings. Nor
were these the only parallels in the memoirs of the Tyanaean and the
Nazarene.
"Orthodox Christians had been accustomed to affirm boldly the finality
of Mary's son; but like a bolt from the blue, here was Philostratus
opposing himself to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and offering an
alternative Messiah."
Also it is strange that, though they were both supposed to be the
greatest men of their age, they did not know of each other's
existence. And since there is absolutely authentic historical evidence
of the existence of Apollonius, but not a shred of genuine proof of
the existence of Jesus, we must conclude that if one of these figures
is fictitious and an imitation of the other, it is Jesus who is the
fiction and Apollonius the historical personage. Concerning the
existence or, rather, the non-existence, of Jesus, Tschendorf writes :
"Author after author, volume after volume, of the life of Christ may
appear until the archives of the universe are filled, and yet all we
have of the life of Jesus is to be found in Matthew's gospel. Not a
single person specially associated with Jesus impinges history."
In Taylor's "Diegesis" (1829, Oaknam, England) we read :
"We have investigated the claims of every document possessing a
plausible claim to be investigated which history has preserved of the
transactions of the First Century and not so much as a single passage,
purporting to have been written at any time within the first hundred
years, can be produced to show the existence of such a man as Jesus
Christ or of such a set of men as could be accounted to be his
disciples."
Commenting on this statement by Taylor, J. M. Roberts, in his
"Antiquity Unveiled" (1892, Oriental Publishing Co., Philadelphia)
writes :
"On the other hand we have abundant proof that Jesus Christ is founded
on the known life of Apollonius of Tyana, the earthly existence of
whom has never been questioned, to which is added passages from the
lives of various personages and teachings concerning the mythical gods
of other lands. The Prometheus of the Greeks was the character which
suggested the crucifixion (also the crucifixion of Krishna in
Kristosite traditions). The Eleusinian Mysteries suggested that the
'Last Supper,' and these together with doctrines of ancient sun
worship, were gathered and represented to be a history of the events
connected with the life of the Christian Jesus. (Prometheus on the
crag, suffering for the good of mankind, suggests Jesus on the cross,
changing Prometheus for Jesus and the Scythian crag for the cross.)
"In the first chapter of Matthew the genealogy of Jesus is given as
the twenty-eighth generation from David down through Joseph to Christ.
In the third chapter of Luke the same genealogy is given as being the
forty-third generation from Christ through Joseph to David. This is a
very remarkable oversight on the part of the translators, for if there
was anything they could agree on, it is in regard to the descent of
Christ.
"All the Christians that ever lived or ever will live will find their
ideal Jesus but a phantom -- a myth. They can chase it as a child
would a butterfly through a meadow on a summer's afternoon, and it
will elude their grasp. The Christian Jesus is nothing more than the
Krishna of the Hindus."
[Comment: Note the linguistic similarity of the words "Krishna" and
"Christian." In linguistics, the K and CH are often equivalent as
consonant sounds, and in most cases vowels are not counted in
comparative linguistics -- for if vowels were considered in the
evolution of words, then modern Texans would speak a different
language than modern New Yorkers, to provide a simple example. Thus,
when these two words are analyzed linguistically, both have the
consonant sequence of KRS(T)N, indicating a common cultural source.]
No contemporary writers who lived at the time when Jesus is supposed
to have lived made mention of him; though forged allusions to Jesus
occur in the books of Livy and Josephus. In his "History of the Jews,"
written in the First Century, at a time when Jesus would have enjoyed
his greatest popularity among the Jews if he had existed, though pages
and pages are devoted to persons of no importance whatever and who
would have been forgotten forever had not Josephus mentioned them,
there is not a single mention of Jesus in the original edition. On
this point, Dr. Edmond B. Szekely, in his "Origin of Christianity,"
writes :
"There is not a word or, better, there is no longer a word in the
works of Flavius Josephus about the Messiah, the Christ crucified by
Pontius Pilate, except for a crude interpolation, quite obviously
false. ... The silence of Josephus is not due to disdain or studied
neutrality."
In an Eighth Century Slavonic edition of Josephus' book, such an
interpolation occurs, referring to a certain Jesus, son of Joseph, and
which covers only a passing paragraph, the brevity of which clearly
reveals its fraudulent origin; for if Jesus were mentioned at all,
much more space would have been devoted to him. And coincident with
such interpolations of early authors occurred the censorship of all
books making reference to Apollonius, whose name was omitted or
abbreviated. (Thus, in the original Pauline Epistles, which we have
reason to believe originally had Apollonius as their central figure
and were written by him, his name is abbreviated to "Apollos" and
"Pol," or Paul.)
That Apollos (conceded by no less an authority than the Encyclopedia
Britannica to be an abbreviation of Apollonius) was the real author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, falsely attributed to Paul, was the
opinion of Martin Luther and other eminent scholars.
And if Apollonius wrote some of the so-called Pauline Epistles, there
is a possibility that he may have written others, and, in fact, all.
Plutarch, the eminent biographer, who lived between 46 and 120 A. D.,
would certainly have made mention of Jesus if he had existed, since he
wrote when Jesus' fame would have been at its height. Yet in the
voluminous works of Plutarch, not a single reference to any such man
as Jesus can be found. Although Plutarch's miscellaneous writings make
mention of or allude with unerring certainty to nearly every religious
and ethical opinion of his time, he is absolutely silent on the
subject of Christianity and the existence of Jesus. Though he knew the
utmost detail of the lives of great men who lived centuries ago, we
could hardly believe that Plutarch could have been entirely unaware of
the existence of such a great man as Jesus who lived only a few years
previously. This is all the more surprising because the provinces of
Bithynia and Pontus, where Plutarch lived, were only a few days'
journey from Boetia, where, if we may believe Christian writers, the
proselytes of Christianity were swarming at the time.
But while Plutarch belonged to a different race and was born after the
alleged crucifixion, Philo, a Jew, who lived at exactly the same time
in the first part of the First Century, and who visited the Essenes
and wrote about them, should, and above all others, have made mention
of Jesus, who, if he had lived, would undoubtedly have been the leader
of this sect. Yet not one word is found in Philo's writings concerning
the existence of Jesus, any more than is there one word in the
original edition of the "History of the Jews" of Josephus. Nor did any
other writer in the First Century mention Jesus. They did not because
he did not yet exist. He was first born three centuries later, created
by the churchmen at Nicaea, in their effort to find an alternative
messiah more pleasing to Constantine and the Romans, to be put in the
place of Apollonius.
That the early Christians themselves, and not only the Pagans, were
ignorant of the existence of any such man as Jesus has been clearly
proven by the catacomb researches of Eisler, a student of early
Christian archaeology. In his work "Orpheus the Fisher," Eisler shows
that no representations can be found among the catacomb inscriptions
that depict Jesus, the cross or the crucifixion. Instead, a Greek
figure is represented as the leader of the sect, a vegetarian and
friend of animals, depicted either under the fig -- of Orpheus playing
his lyre and surrounded by friendly animals -- or as the Good Shepherd
(Hermes) carrying a lamb around his neck. These representations
obviously refer to Apollonius whose cardinal teachings consisted of
vegetarianism and the abolition of animal sacrifices. Eisler's
findings were further verified by Lundy, who in his "Monumental
Christianity," a work on early Christian archaeology, likewise reports
the entire absence of any reference in the catacomb inscriptions to
Jesus or a crucified saviour, in whose place is found the familiar
Greek figures of Orpheus and the Good Shepherd, who are represented as
friends of animals.
The closest original that can be found of the Jesus of the New
Testament is a rabbi named Jehoshua Ben Pandira, who lived about a
century B. C. In his "Life of Jehoshua," Dr. Franz Hartman states that
this illegitimate child of a Jewish maiden, Stada, and a Roman
soldier, Pandira, who is mentioned in the Talmud, was the original
Jesus. He was referred to as a rabbi of not very great importance, who
studied the mysteries in Egypt and who was put to death by stoning
after an attempted crucifixion.
Seeking a substitute for Apollonius, the Church Fathers seized upon
Jehoshua; and changing his name to that of the Druid sun god "Hesus"
and shifting the date of his birth forward a century, he was
transformed into Jesus. On this subject Manly Hall writes : "It is
very possible that the early Church Fathers, seeking desperately for a
concrete human being on which to hang the fabric of their faith,
picked Jehoshua Ben Pandira as the nearest parallel to be found among
the Jewish rabbins. Armed with this small fragment of history, they
proceeded to correlate the two -- building in a little here and
removing some contradictory fragment there -- until, lo and behold,
the 'King of Kings' is a Nazarene, in spite of the popular opinion
that nothing good can come out of Nazareth.
"This further explains why Helena, the mother of Constantine, within
three hundred years after the death of Jesus, was unable to find in
all of Jewry any man who had even heard of him. According to the
story, she finally came upon one aged man who claimed to have heard
that Jesus had lived. He took her to an old Roman execution field
where the excavation revealed a number of crosses. When the whole
matter had been settled to everyone's satisfaction, Constantine, to
show his extreme veneration, had one of the passion nails pounded into
a bit for his horse.
"The most perplexing and comparatively unsolved mystery with which the
Christian theologian is faced is the almost complete lack of
historical evidence concerning the life of Christ. If we accept a few
palpable forgeries, our knowledge of the life of Christ is based
principally upon the accounts given in the Gospels. ... The gravest
doubts exist as to the authorship of the gospels of the New Testament.
Encyclopedia Britannica acknowledges not only these doubts but admits
that there is no proof of any kind that the Gospels were written by
the men whose names have been affixed to them in more recent time."
In 1894, there appeared a remarkable book written by J. M. Roberts
titled Antiquity Unveiled, in which evidence was presented to prove
that no such man as Jesus of Nazareth ever lived; but the name was
adopted by the framers of Christianity to cover the identity of
Apollonius of Tyana whose teachings and mode of life they purloined
and made use of as a model upon which to construct their system. He
adds : "The world has the incontrovertible testimony that Christianity
is of spurious origin and the most consummate piece of plagiarism in
human history."
In sharp contrast with the scarcity, or rather the absence, of
information regarding Jesus is the abundance of reliable historical
data available concerning Apollonius of Tyana, who during the First
Century enjoyed universal fame from one end of the Roman Empire to the
other, being honored by all. More than seventeen temples were
dedicated to him in various parts of the empire. Nearly a dozen Roman
Emperors held him in awe and reverence. (The Roman Emperors Vespasian,
Titus and Nerva were all, prior to their elevation to the throne,
friends and admirers of Apollonius, while Nero and Domitian regarded
the philosopher with dismay.) The Emperor Septimius Severus (A.D.
193-211) erected a statue to him in his gallery of deities in the
Pantheon while his son, Emperor Caracalla, honored his memory with a
chapel or monument.
Lampridus, who lived in the Third Century, further informs us that the
Emperor Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-235) placed a statue of Apollonius
in his labarium side by side with one of Orpheus.
It was the wife of Septimius Severus, the Empress Julia Domna, who
commissioned the philosopher Philostratus, a member of a circle of
writers who collected around her, to write the life of Apollonius of
Tyana based on manuscripts in her possession, chiefly the memoirs of
Apollonius' disciple and traveling companion Damis, in addition to
records preserved in different cities where Apollonius was held in
esteem -- from temples whose long-disused rite he restored, from
traditions, from epistles of Apollonius addressed to kings and
sophists and from his letters -- of which the Emperor Hadrian had made
a collection which he deposited in his palace at Antium.
Julia Domna, known as the philosopher-empress because she was
surrounded by men of letters and philosophers and dispensed
enlightened patronage to thought and learning, was the daughter of
Bassianus, priest of the sun at Emesa in Syria. Philostratus was a
member of a group of famous writers and thinkers who gathered around
her. She was a woman of high intelligence and remarkable purity of
character, living in seclusion and devoting her time to literature and
philosophy in her extensive library. As in the case of Sappho, a woman
of equally exemplary morality, she was falsely defamed by the scribes
of the same churchmen who were later responsible for the brutal murder
of Hypatia. These three greatest women of antiquity, together with
Joan of Arc, the greatest woman of modern times, were all victims of a
criminally jealous male clerical fraternity.
Another biography of Apollonius was written by Soterichur of Oasis
during the reign of Diocletian but is non-existent, having been
destroyed by the Christians together with other ancient writings
referring to him. Still another biography was written by Moeragenes,
which was likewise lost.
Though written in the early part of the Third Century A.D.,
Philostratus' biography of Apollonius of Tyana was not permitted to be
published in Europe until the year 1501, when Aldus printed the first
Latin edition to appear in Europe. This was followed by Italian and
French translations, but it was not until 1680 that the first English
translation was made by Blount, an English Deist.
Blount's notes on the book raised such an outcry that in 1693 the book
was condemned by the church and its further publication forbidden.
(Concerning the effects of Blount's translation, Campbell, in his
"Apollonius of Tyana," writes : "Fierce passions were let loose.
Sermons, pamphlets and volumes descended upon the presumptuous Blount
like fireballs and hailstones and his adversaries did not rest until
the authorities had forbidden him to print the remaining six books of
his translation.")
In his notes Blount pointed out that "we must either admit the truth
of the miracles of Apollonius as well as those of Jesus, or, if the
former were untrue, there would be no better ground to believe in the
latter." A century later Blount's notes were translated into French by
the Encyclopedists. However, a century before Blount, Voltaire, Le
Grand d'Aussy, Castillon and other French Deists wrote to the same
effect, considering Apollonius as a far more authentic historical
figure than Jesus and fully his equal in every respect and as worthy
of performing miracles if such were possible. (Francis Bacon also
spoke of Apollonius in the highest terms. In Burton's "Anatomy of
Melancholy" -- which some have attributed to Bacon's authorship --
appeared a quotation from Philostratus' biography of Apollonius to
which Keats later referred in a footnote to his "Lamia.")
Blount, however, had translated only the first two books of
Philostratus' work (there were eight in all, the final six remaining
unpublished); and it was not until 1809 that the first complete
English version was made by Edward Herwick. (In his preface of his
work titled "The First Two Books of Philostratus Concerning the Life
of Apollonius Tyanaeus, written originally in Greek, and now published
in English," Blount, in self-protection, and obviously expressing
opinions the opposite of what he really believed, humbly described his
book as "no more than a bare narrative of the life of a philosopher,
not of a new Messiah, or any ways in opposition to the old; no,
Philostratus does not anywhere so much as mention the name of Christ.
And if one Heathen Writer (Hierocles) did make an issue of this
history, by comparing Apollonius with Christ, what is that to
Philostratus, who never meant nor designed it so, as I can anywhere
find? However Eusebius hath already confuted Hierocles, which
confutation I had intended to have annexed to Philostratus as an
antidote.
"The whole translation I have already finished, and had proceeded thus
far as you see in my illustration, when I found the alarm was given in
all parts what a Dangerous Book was coming out; such a book as would
unmask all practical atheists, which (they being the greater number of
men) might therefore prove of pernicious consequence to the public.
Above all, the Popish Clergy thought themselves chiefly concerned
herein, who are so zealously revengeful and malicious, that I feared
it might fare with me as it did with poor Esop (who, notwithstanding
he had broken jests upon several great kings and potentates without
being punished for the same, yet only speaking against the priests of
Delphos cost him his life).
"Wherefore, if the Clergy would have Apollonius esteemed a Rogue and a
Juggler, that being risen from the dead, he is one of the principal
fomenters of this Popish Plot; or that there never was any such man as
Apollonius, with all my heart, what they please. For I had much rather
have him decried in his reputation than that some grave Cardinal, with
his long beard, and his excommunicative 'Ha,' should have me burnt for
a heretic."
Herwick's volume became so rare that in 1907, two London book dealers
of worldwide reputation searched and even advertised in vain for a
copy. This indicates how well the ecclesiastical suppression of this
dreaded book had succeeded. And while today scarcely a person can be
found, even among the most educated, who even heard the name of
Apollonius of Tyana, much less knew anything about him, according to
Campbell, "There was a day when the name of Philostratus and
Apollonius of Tyana was on every educated Englishman's tongue," even
though sectarian prejudice against Apollonius characterizes every
writer prior to the Nineteenth Century. The popularity of Apollonius
in ancient times stands in sharp contrast to his almost complete
oblivion today.
That Apollonius, a mere man, should rival Jesus, a god, in so many
important respects, in the eyes of the churchmen constituted an
important reason to suppress Philostratus' book, since it tended to
belittle the dignity of their savior. That Philostratus composed The
Life of Apollonius of Tyana as a pagan counterblast to the Christian
gospels is an opinion which has been held by reputable scholars both
before and after Blount's day. (This opinion, which has been widely
held by Christian writers, is evidently false, since Christianity as
we know it did not exist at the time when Philostratus wrote, for he
makes no mention of Jesus or of Christianity. In spite of this fact,
the book has always been held with the greatest suspicion; and even
after the Renaissance, when it was introduced into Europe, Aldus
hesitated for a time before he gave the right to publish it, at last
resolving to do so, but adding to the text a reply by Eusebius to
Hierocles' criticism of Christianity, in which he opposed the
Apollonian to the Christian miracles, thereby, as he expressed it,
giving "the antidote with the poison.")
Thus, the Bishop of Avranches, writing in the Seventeenth Century,
expressed this view as follows: "Philostratus seems to have made it
his chief aim to deprecate both the Christian faith and Christian
doctrine, both of which were progressing wonderfully at that time, by
the exhibition on the opposite side of that shallow representation of
a miraculous science, holiness and virtue. He invented a character in
imitation of Christ, and introduced almost all the incidents in the
life of Jesus Christ into the history of Apollonius, in order that the
pagans might have no cause to envy the Christians, by doing which he
inadvertently enhanced the glory of Christ, for by falsely attributing
to another the real character of the Savior, he gave to the latter the
praise which is His just due, and indirectly held Him up as the
admiration and praise of others."
Tredwell, in his "Sketch of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana," writes :
"From the time that disputes began concerning the Christian religion,
Christians have charged Philostratus with having appropriated the
events and miracles contained in Matthew's gospel to adorn his life of
Apollonius of Tyana, and the pagans have made countercharges of
plagiarism against the writer of this gospel. Upon the earlier
accounts of Apollonius these charges have been held to be of
sufficient importance to meet with efforts of refutation from eminent
Christians; even as late as our day, Rev. Albert Réville did not think
it beneath his dignity nor his great learning, to attempt in 1866 a
refutation of 'this great and monstrous infidel slander.' He attempted
to show in a little book bearing the title of 'Apollonius the Pagan
Christ of the Third Century' (meaning the First Century) that
Philostratus had borrowed leading facts from the Gospel of Matthew.
Miraculous phenomena were related almost identical with that record by
Matthew in his gospel of Jesus Christ. And while Jesus is said to have
been casting out devils in Galilee, Apollonius was, according to a
tradition quite as trustworthy, rendering mankind a similar service in
Greece. Such was the opinion of Catholic writers on the subject; and
according to Daniel Huet, this statement by the Bishop of Avranches
'ever since that time has had great weight with all thoughtful
minds.'"
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Father Haskell
> INTOLERANCE!
>
> Thankfully, some Irish atheists are "moonin'" it!
>
> -------------
> "Atheists challenge Ireland's new blasphemy law with online postings"
So under current law, is possession of toilet paper
with the pope's face on it misdemeanor blasphemy,
or felony? Could you throw yourself upon the judge's
mercy and plead necessity under extraordinary
circumstances, i.e. you were out of regular paper?
Budikka666
The Holy Spirit can kiss my ass.
Budikka