Throughout its first three centuries, the growing Christian religion was subjected not only to official persecution by the attacks of pagan intellectuals, who looked upon the new sect as a band of fanatics bent on worldwide domination, even while they professed to despise the things of this world. Prominent among the pagan critics was Porphyry of Trre (ca. 232-305), scholar, philosopher, and student of religion. His Against the Christians (Kata Christianon), condemned to be burned in 448, was a work of admirable historical criticism, which, like all of his works, were burned by subsequent Christian cultists. The surviving fragments of Against the Christians, preserved in Macarius Magnes and newly translated by biblical scholar R. Joseph Hoffmann, presents Porphyry's most trenchant comments on key figures, beliefs. and doctrines of Christianity. Critical notes by Hoffmann provide a running commentary on the text. A comprehensive epilogue describes the 'build-up" to the pagan critique of Christianity and helps put Porphyry's work in historical context. Accessible to the general reader as well as to the scholar, this new translation of Porphyry's great work is a worthy addition to both classical and patristic studies.
R. Joseph Hoffmann (Oxford. England) is the editor or co-editor of numerous books of religious criticism including The Gospel and the Church, What the Bible Really Says, Jesus in History and Myth, and Biblical v Secular Ethics. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Duke University, and is now on the faculty of Oxford University.
181 pages Publication date 30th March,1995
ISBN 0-87975-889-9
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