Death by Burning, c.100-300 AD

[Leucius Charinus]

I would like to know whether in his book "Demolish Them!" the author (Rassias) has his massive list of claims footnoted with his sources.

https://www.rassias.gr/9011.html

There is an expanded description available from the above link in Greek. The following from google translate:

395

The emperors Arcadius and Honorius even forbid entry into the Gentile Temples ("Theodosian Code" 16. 10. 13), while with the edicts of July 22 and August 7, they declare new persecutions against the Gentiles. In the same year, the eunuch prime minister of the emperor Arcadius Rufinos directs the hordes of the now Christian Goths, under Alaric, towards the Greek area. Followed by multitudes of fanatical monks, Alaric's Goths (who had fought with Theodosius against Flavian's Gentiles) slaughter countless Gentile Greeks and destroy cities and sanctuaries in Dion, Thessaly, Delphi, Boeotia, Attica, Megara , Corinth, Feneo, Argos, Nemea, Lykosoura, Sparta, Messina, Phigalea, Olympia. In Eleusis the ancient Sanctuary there is set on fire and the Thespian Hierophant Hilarios and all the priests of the Mysteries which had been revived by the Mithraists shortly after the death of Nestorius are killed in the pyre. Around the same time, the desecrated Sanctuary of the Goddess Cleaistidos begins to function again as a Christian church until the year 421 when the Christians will set fire to it because the believers through the Christian worship also honored the Goddess. In his work "Paraenesis", the Spanish bishop of Barcelona Pacianus resents, in a very clever way ("Me Miserum! Quid ego facinoris admisi!"), the fact that despite the persecutions, there are still active in his area Gentiles who honor the "pagan" Gods, an act which, according to his intolerant mind, is to the same degree... "criminal" as homicide!

This does not yet isolate the primary source(s).

[billd89]

Here is a bust of Zosimos dated to "the 3rd C. AD". He would have been long dead and famous, when this statue was carved. Doesn't it seem more logical to suppose he had lived in the 2nd or maybe 1st C. AD, if the statuary's supposed dating is anywhere near correct?



Wiki tells (misinforms?) us: "Zosimos of Panopolis (Greek: Ζώσιμος ὁ Πανοπολίτης; also known by the Latin name Zosimus Alchemista, i.e. "Zosimus the Alchemist") was a Greco-Egyptian alchemist and Gnostic mystic who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century AD."

Precisely what evidence proves that -- or is "300 AD" just another guesstimate from the Late Daters?

Link:

Exploring the Egyptian roots of Zosimus’s life and work, [Shannon] Grimes concludes that ancient temple traditions of statue-making are absolutely critical for understanding Zosimus and the origins of alchemy.

If (we are told), Egyptian temple traditions were in decline in Early Roman Period (c.50 AD and thereafter), doesn't a date c.150 AD make more sense for Zosimos? Work in pagan Egyptian Temples had declined, the secrets of Z.'s craft were just then leaking out, etc.

Zosimos extensively cites Maria the Jewess, a perhaps mythic but as likely 100 BC-35 AD character; again, a 2nd C AD alchemist of Jewish descent might cite the murky antiquity of a Therapeutide ~200 years later.

Link, p.130:

In his Letter to Anebo (c.275 AD), Porphyry implies that theurgists are confused about the nature of the gods, since they seem to hold that immaterial gods are attracted by material sacrifices (Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, 211.19-212.3, ed. des Places). In On the Abstinence of Animal Food he goes further: the true objects of blood sacrifices are daimons, disguised as divinities. He holds that the pneumatic bodies of daimons are replenished by the sacrificial smoke, a view which Zosimos also holds — and with great anxiety — but which Iamblichus rejects (see note 36 infra). For further discussion see especially Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 129ff.

Porphyry's knowledge of Zosimos might suggest Z. was at least several generations older, though this alone is inconclusive. However, Zosimos identifying as an Hermeticist -- rather than a 2nd C. Gnostic -- suggests our Alchemist might well have been a contemporary of Valentinians, if not a generation older. In any case, absolutely nothing suggests Zosimos was embroiled in 2nd or 3rd C. AD Christian struggles; it is much more likely he pre-dated those.

If some aspects of the Apocryphon of John mythos (Sethian Egyptian, 1st C AD) were well-known to Zosimos, he should be a generation later; however, the Christian interpolation or overlay which Christian Gnostics (and Irenaeus) read was apparently unknown to Zosimos. Against this, however, Reitzenstein's correct point shows how rare/incidental 'Christianization' of On the Letter Omega by a later Xian scribe (c.350 AD?) -- exactly where we would expect it -- necessarily muddles our understanding of (Judeo-)Egyptian Hermeticism. Instead, the strong Judeo-Chaldaean and Hermetic characteristics throughout Zosimos point to and prove his true identity.

Wiki:

There are also a number of extant Greek alchemical writings attributed to Democritus, whose author has sometimes likewise been identified as Bolos of Mendes,[2] but who is now thought to have been an anonymous author active during the second half of the first century AD, most likely c. 54–68 AD.[3]

2. As noted by Martelli 2013, p. 47, n. 270, this identification was first proposed by Wellmann 1928, p. 69, who was followed by such scholars as Holmyard 1957, pp. 25–26, Multhauf 1966, pp. 94–101, Lindsay 1970, pp. 90–130, and Irby-Massie & Keyser 2002, p. 235. It was criticized by Kroll 1934, p. 231, as well as by Fraser 1972, vol. I, 440ff., Hershbell 1987, pp. 8, 15, and Letrouit 1995, p. 17.
3.Martelli 2013, pp. 29–31.

Zosimos (c.120-180 AD) knowing Pseudo-Democritus (c.68 AD) is entirely plausible. The 1st C AD Poimandres myth, well-known to Zosimos, is also perfectly consistent with an alchemist of the 2nd C AD.

If correct, Zosimos citing (Near Eastern) Mithraism, in conjunction with the Philosopher's Stone, could also be also entirely possible c.120-180 AD.

[Irish1975]

The left-wing/right-wing distinction, and in general the so-called “political spectrum,” is entirely a product of modern nationalism and its politics. The terminology arose from the custom of sitting to the right or to the left of the presiding officer of the National Assembly during the French Revolution.