Please skim through Athenagoras'
Plea for the Christians. Like Justin, Athenagoras defends Christians against the incest and cannibalism slanders. He also uses pagan sources to point toward Christian truth. What do you see in this work that might have been especially helpful in drawing educated pagans toward Christianity, or at least in making them more tolerant of Christians?
This writing would have helped people understand Christianity a little better. It would have helped make people more tolerant of it. To understand that Christianity is just another religion that people want to follow. It is not that much different from those who worship Zeus or any other pagan religion. Christianity gives people something to believe in and people are able to feel better because of it. It is the feeling that people get when they are a part of something. Many pagans would understand this feeling and be able to tolerate Christians a little more. Hopefully it would even bring a few over to the light side. -Kelly Longden
ReplyDeleteHe states, "the name we bear has more force than any evidence used against us. . ." He also states that Christians will have no fear in persecution because of the power of their God. I believe this would draw educated Pagans toward Christianity because they would want to learn more about this religion and figure out what it is that makes them so brave and confident.
ReplyDelete-Melinda Quade
This work is the basic underling of what it meant to be a Christian in the old world. It would help with the basic understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. It also talks about the few things that must be done to start with tolerance of the community of the whole. Pagans were only afraid of what their Gods would think when everyone is switching to this new religion. Pagans were fearful, and they only thing they could think of was killing of their problems. But, with Christians knowing that God is all powerful, persecution was nothing to fear. So because of his simple belief it brought more people to Christianity. -Liz Matson
ReplyDeleteThis writing gives a lot of general information of Christians, and more importantly a good viewpoint on how they view themselves. Athengoras makes many comparisons to other groups in his regards to atheism for instance. He says "Poets and philosophers have not been voted atheists for inquiring concerning God." This is a compelling argument to educated individuals as it compares the Christians, who are persecuted, to the poets who are not for questioning many of the same things the questions are doing openly. He also makes note that Christianity has a superior Doctrine that would interest many educated people into at least taking a look at to assess such a bold claim. Athengoras says all the right things in this article to appeal to a Pagan towards Christianity.
ReplyDelete-Zack Krage
Athenagoras writes much like Justin Martyr in that it seems that Christians are only being persecuted for being Christians, not because they have done anything wrong. He defends Christianity against the accusations of incest, cannibalism and atheism by showing that to a Christian all of these activities are considered immoral and wrong. I think he does a good job trying to let people understand what Christianity really is and that the people were just scared of it because they did not know what it was. And now Christianity is much superior to the other religious practices of sacrifice and such.
ReplyDeleteUltimately Athenagoras is trying to point out that Christians are being persecuted for accusations by which most people in the time previous and present were also living. He speaks about the absurdity of polytheism, and also the ridiculousness or Christians being referred to as Atheists. The difficulty which these accusations brought about remind me much of the current view of Christianity in todays society. The people are dealing with accusations which are carbon copies of the accusations of today. Though the consequences are far less harsh today, but the goal stands the same, and that is to pollute the gospel. Regardless of the persecution they did not succeed in the past and they will not succeed today.
ReplyDeleteAthenagoras is addressing many things that Christians are being accused of: atheism, incest, cannibalism. He tries to shed some light on the matter, granted I think he has a little bit of a “holier than thou art” attitude. There are a few things in which I think would help either improve pagan tolerance, or even open them up to the idea of conversion.
ReplyDeleteThroughout his plea, he addresses Christianity as not being atheism. “But to us, who distinguish God from matter, and teach that matter is one thing and God another… is it not absurd to apply the name of atheism?” He says on several accounts that God is of understanding, and not of the senses, and separates God from the idols/house gods that pagans worship.
In Chapter 6 he even quotes Plato talking about the “Maker and Father of this universe.” So he connects monotheism to a figure which most educated people would know, and probably respect. In Chapter 9, he says “The voices of the prophets confirm our arguments.” Including prophets is akin to some of the mythology pagans are have, granted they could attribute it to lies, the avenue of the prophetic is a nice move on Athenagoras’ part.
In Chapters 11 and 12 He talks about piety, and alludes that it used to be revered as grand by Romans, and now they’ve let their morals slip over the years. If one is faithful and good, they will be rewarded in heaven. This is unlike some pagan mythology, where even those who have been just get an unjust reward. In Chapter 16, he talks about not worshipping the universe, but rather appreciating it. It’s to my understanding that many pagan beliefs for thousands of years saw creation in a negative context, as well as their own existence. Here, he is just reiterating that creation is a good thing, all created by God.
Later, he makes a few examples of how Christians are actually more virtuous or moral than the pagans. With an example from Chapter 33, he says, “A person should either remain as he was born, or be content with one marriage; for a second marriage is only a specious adultery.” Here he is using something directly from Jesus, and it serves as just one example to the scruples Christians have.
~AARON JOHNSTON