I found this site of a rather interesting modern day 'Phoenician' researcher (Christian) who has more than any other compiled the writings of the Roman philosopher Porphyry who himself was born in Tyre. All this drama is humorus, Porphyry the Phoenician wrote 15 books that were popular in Rome titled "Against Christianity" which of course didn't survive , enjoy.
phoenicia.org
Against Christianity, Porphyry Malchus of Tyre, the Phoenecian 230BC
After attacking the chronology of the Old Testament . . . and arguing against Christian allegorical interpretation, Porphyry took up the subject of the writers of the gospels and epistles, whom he regarded as ignorant, clumsy, and deceptive.
The fact that he wages his assault chiefly against the "pillar" apostles, Peter and Paul, suggests that he regarded the destruction of their reputations essential to wiping out the claims of an emergent Catholic Christianity...Thus Paul himself had called Christian believers "wretches" (1 Cor. 6:9f) and promised his followers the resuscitation of the "rotten, stinking corpses of men" (cf. Augustine, City of God 22.27). As for Peter, he had been called "satan" even by Jesus, yet was entrusted with the keys to the kingdom of heaven...The apostles proved themselves traitors, cowards, weaklings, and hypocrites - even in the accounts written by them.
Whatever Porphyry may have thought of Jesus, the bulk of his criticism was reserved for the evangelists, the apostles of Jesus - especially Peter - and the Christian mission epitomized by Paul. . . Macarius' "pagan" deals with most of the same subjects we know, from Augustine's Harmony, to have attracted Porphyry's criticism: that the apostles fabricated genealogies, that there are discrepancies concerning the time of Jesus' death, that Jesus had not claimed to be divine, and that the teaching of Jesus was obscure and self-contradictory. " page 171
17) "A general view of Porphyry's work yields the following picture: Beginning with an introduction in which the ambitions of the Christians were repudiated ("they want riches and glory. . . they are renegades seeking to take control" . . . , Porphyry went on to show their unworthiness. They accepted but misunderstood the "myths" and oracles of the Jews, then turned around and altered these to make them even more contemptible...Their religion had neither a national anchor nor a rational basis; they required initiates to accept everything on blind faith. Moreover, the initiates themselves were the worst sort of people, moral invalids who (cf. Celsus) found security in their common weakness...The Christians had proved that they cared nothing for those who had lived in the era before the coming of Jesus: these could not be saved.
The Christians taught absurd doctrines about the suffering of God or the suffering of a some of the supermen god. They also prayed for the destruction of the world, which they hated because they were hated by it - and believed that at its end they alone would be raised bodily from the dead...The sky would be destroyed and the ruler of the world would be cast into an outer darkness, as a tyrant might be driven out by a good king. By such thinking the Christians showed contempt for God. How could god be angry? How, if all powerful, as even some of their teachers said, could his property have been stolen in the first place?
After attacking the chronology of the Old Testament . . . and arguing against Christian allegorical interpretation, Porphyry took up the subject of the writers of the gospels and epistles, whom he regarded as ignorant, clumsy, and deceptive. The fact that he wages his assault chiefly against the "pillar" apostles, Peter and Paul, suggests that he regarded the destruction of their reputations essential to wiping out the claims of an emergent Catholic Christianity...Thus Paul himself had called Christian believers "wretches" (1 Cor. 6:9f) and promised his followers the resuscitation of the "rotten, stinking corpses of men" (cf. Augustine, City of God 22.27). As for Peter, he had been called "satan" even by Jesus, yet was entrusted with the keys to the kingdom of heaven...The apostles proved themselves traitors, cowards, weaklings, and hypocrites - even in the accounts written by them.
The Jesus allegedly praised for piety and wisdom by Hecate in Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles, finds no grace in Against the Christians. His parables are trivial and incomprehensible. They are "hidden from the wise but revealed to the babes" (Matthew 11:25), a state of affairs which encourages ignorance and unreasonableness. Jesus and his followers represent a lethargic ethic of the status quo, the very opposite of the Greek quest for moral excellence; indeed, his blessing on the poor and downtrodden and his repudiation of the rich make moral effort impossible. Had he not taught that selling everything and giving it to the poor (Matthew 19:21), thereby becoming a lout and a beggar and a burden on others, was the height of Christian perfection?...
Furthermore, Jesus did not follow his own advice. His show of weakness in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to his arrest was disgraceful: having preached fearlessness in time of persecution to his disciples, he exhibited only fear and trembling at the moment of his capture. When Jesus stood before his accusers, he spoke like a guilty man, not like a hero on the order of Apollonius of Tyana who had been hauled before Domitian...Had he been a god on the order of the ancient heroes, he would have flung himself from a parapet of the temple, he would have appeared after his death to haunt Herod and Pilate - or, indeed, to the Senate and People of Rome, to prove he had risen from the dead. That would have convinced everyone of the truth of Christian belief, and it would have spared his followers the punishment they now suffered for their beliefs. In short, had Jesus cared for his followers he could have taken care to spare them their martyrdom." pages 172-173
Read more: Porphyry Malchus of Tyre, Phoenicia, mathematician http://phoenicia.org/porphyry.html#ixzz3HLNW3nDC |
