Talk:Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Symmachus was not a 'pagan'
If you called Symmachus a pagan, you would've been insulting him: see this definition of "Pagan" from the great Peter Brown, from which I give an extract:
 * "The adoption of paganus by Latin Christians as an all-embracing, pejorative term for polytheists represents an unforeseen and singularly long-lasting victory, within a religious group, of a word of Latin slang originally devoid of religious meaning. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church. Elsewhere, 'Hellene' or 'gentile' (ethnikos) remained the word for 'pagan'; and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace."

There was no such thing as "paganism" at the time of Symmachus; there were the traditional religions of antiquity that Symmachus attempted to preserve in the face of Christian hegemony. People who had not converted to Christianity, particularly educated people such as Symmachus and Libanius, called themselves Hellenes if they wished to make a point of it. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:38, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * One definition is not the be-all, end-all - you have to take into account how "pagan" is used in modern English.50.111.19.250 (talk) 18:25, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

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