Did Paganism Last Longer in the West Than Is Generally Understood?

[Secret Alias]

[Secret Alias]

Stilicho tolerant to Paganism

[Leucius Charinus]

Cited at the end of the vid. Pretty good summary SA.

Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Here's another few perspectives from the epigrams of Palladas:

AP 10.90

We Hellenes are men reduced to ashes,
holding to our buried hopes in the dead;
for everything has now been turned on its head.

///

API 282:

Here we are, the Victories, the laughing maidens,
bearing victories to the Christ-loving city.
Those who love the city fashioned us,
stamping figures appropriate to the victories.

///

AP 9.441

I marvelled, seeing at the cross-roads Jove’s brazen son,
once constantly invoked, now cast aside, and in wrath I said :

“Averter of woes, offspring of three nights,
thou, who never didst suffer defeat, art to-day laid low.”

But at night the god stood by my bed smiling, and said :

“Even though I am a god I have learnt to serve the times.”

[Secret Alias]

If your agenda was limited to extolling the splendor of pagan antiquity I think we would be good friends Pete.

[dbz]

LOL, in the podcast version, O'Neill adds that christian accounts of human sacrifice are not valid evidence for a "Halloween Pagan" because said evidence is discounted by modern normative historical methodologies as being unreliable and biased.

Is it really hard to adduce evidence that in Europe, with a nine month pregnancy, optimal conception occurs before winter with sacrifice rituals followed by fornication festivals to impregnate any women not yet impregnated since giving birth in July?

There is certainly some evidence that November 1 was a key date for several cultures across the Celtic language group, marking the end of summer.
[...]
So, is it “Pagan”?

The short answer is “no”. [...] But how much of that idea comes from pre-Christian beliefs and how much of it is a result of a Christian feast focused on the afterlife and the dead is, again, impossible to tell.

---

O'Neill, Tim (17 October 2021). "Is Halloween Pagan?". History for Atheists.

[dbz]

FYI:

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Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953

In comparison to

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which collapses to the text width.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light....

and

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[Leucius Charinus]

LOL, in the podcast version, O'Neill adds that christian accounts of human sacrifice are not valid evidence for a "Halloween Pagan" because said evidence is discounted by modern normative historical methodologies as being unreliable and biased.

O'Neill thinks that there was a decline in the Greek intellectual traditions during the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the common era, to the extent that the dark ages never happened. He also thinks that it was "the church" which, having preserved the Greek classics, saved civilisation as we know it.

I am not convinced of any of that.

Palladas: A few more Hellenic epigrams (from the Nicene Boundary Event in the Age of Constantine?) AP 9.528 The owners of Olympian palaces, having become Christian, dwell here unharmed; for the pot that produces the life-giving coins will not put them in the fire. AP 10.82 Surely we are dead and only seem to live, we Hellenes, having fallen into misfortune, pretending that a dream is in fact a way of life. Or are we alive while our way of life is dead? AP 10.89 If Rumour is a goddess, she too is angry with the Hellenes, leading them astray with uncertain reports. Rumour, should you suffer anything at all, is at once manifestly true; and the swiftness of events often anticipates even Rumour. Palladas and the Age of Constantine Author(s): KEVIN W. WILKINSON Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 99 (2009), pp. 36-60 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4059973 Palladas and the Foundation of Constantinople Author(s): KEVIN W. WILKINSON Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 100 (2010), pp. 179-194 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41724771