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Month: December 2018

Categories
Christendom Jesus New Testament Richard Carrier

Law’s article

Further to my previous post. I’ve now read the article by philosopher Stephen Law (pic) and largely agree with the two principles he discusses. However, Law is wrong that Carl Sagan invented the principle ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’. I discovered such principle in the writings of CSICOP writers before Sagan became famous. The second principle however is an original of Law:

Where testimony/documents weave together a narrative that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims, and there is good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims, then there is good reason to be sceptical about the mundane claims, at least until we possess good independent evidence of their truth. [emphasis added]

Those who watched Carrier’s lecture embedded in the previous post will remember his presentation of the field of New Testament studies as divided into three competing viewpoints:

(1) Christian historicity: Jesus was an amazing famous superman who could walk on water and shit—the majority of so-called biblical scholars in the US believe this.

(2) Secular historicity: Jesus was an ordinary nobody, whom no one noted but a few fanatical observers. The Gospels are mostly fiction, but there are kernels of historical truth in them. This is what I used to believe up to the last week, when I discovered mythicism or:

(3) Secular non-historicity: Jesus was the name of a celestial being, subordinate to god, with whom Saul/Paul hallucinated conversations. The Gospel began as a mythic allegory about the celestial Jesus, set on earth, as most myths then were (e.g., the god Osiris).

Law elaborates his second principle in the context of the three competing theories to explain the origins of Christianity. His conclusion is that secular non-historicity is the best approach to explain it.

Regular visitors of this site will remember that I have mentioned the work of Albert Schweitzer while discussing the (quixotic) quest of the historical Jesus. Yesterday I was struggling with myself as to who was right, Schweitzer or Carrier. Schweitzer’s view was that the apocalyptic Jesus makes historical sense from the viewpoint of secular historicity because his prophecy was unfulfilled (‘Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God’).

Law’s piece resolved my doubts in a more parsimonious way than Schweitzer because the New Testament ‘is a story developed by myth-makers who had certain radical ethical and other views (e.g. the Kingdom of God being imminent) that they wanted others to accept’. Since those who advanced apocalyptic eschatology were Paul (in his very first epistles), Mark and Matthew, it is unnecessary to postulate a historical Jesus in the secular historicity sense.

I was raised as a Catholic in the 1960s and 70s and then became an eschatologist (William Walter’s ‘Eschatology’ is a schismatic cult originated in Christian Science). After I left the cult, since the middle 1980s through the middle 1990s I became interested in secular historicity and did not change my views on the so-called historical Jesus until last week. However, I doubt that those who have not struggled with religious parental introjects will find this post interesting.

My biography aside, I believe that the ultimate truth about the origins of Christianity is pivotal to save the white race from extinction. Those white nationalists who are traditional Christians have stagnated in Christian historicity, and many secular WNsts assume that the second stage, secular historicity, is the most plausible one. What whites need is a complete rejection of the New Testament, even the notion of a non-miraculous historical Jesus, as the NT was largely written by men of Semitic origin.

If universal, Christian-inspired love, is murdering the Aryan race what we need is full apostasy from Judeo-Christianity. This means that we should consider secular non-historicity seriously.

Categories
Jesus New Testament On the Historicity of Jesus (book) Richard Carrier Videos

Mythicism, a closer look

The last few days I have been immersed in the videos and lectures of Richard Carrier about the Christ myth theory, to the extent that his views are shaking my previous point of view about the so-called historical Jesus (yesterday I ordered his latest book, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt). In this lecture Carrier was younger than he is today but it is a good starting point for his work:

https://youtu.be/yzwS7BfRapw

Today I will be reading the article of another mythicist, Stephen Law, published in Faith and Philosophy 2011, Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011, pages 129-151, which abstract says:

The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed—a principle I call the contamination principle—entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of independent evidence for an historical Jesus, remain sceptical about his existence.

Law’s full article, ‘Evidence, Miracles and the Existence of Jesus’ can be read: here.

Categories
Josephus Richard Carrier

On mythicism and Luke

Watching the video that a commenter recently suggested to me I made a discovery.

The atheist Richard Carrier (pic) is one of the foremost exponents of the Christ myth theory or mythicism. He has even responded to what I consider the strongest argument on the part of secular exegetes about the existence of the historical Jesus.

Remember that we have said that there are seven genuine epistles of Paul. In one of the oldest Paul speaks of the ‘brother of the Lord’. Based on what Paul says in Galatians 1:19 another atheist exegete, Bart Ehrman, believes that this is the strongest argument for thinking about the historicity of a historical Jesus (that is, a Jesus without miracles to distinguish him from the Christ of dogma). Before reading Carrier, I did not know that the mythicists had answers to this argument.

Regardless of who is right, Ehrman or Carrier regarding Galatians 1:19, what impressed me most about one of the conferences of Carrier was what he says about Luke the Evangelist.

From our point of view, it is essential to know if the writers of the New Testament were Hellenized Jews or not. We have already seen that it is highly suspicious that the first gospel from the point of view of chronology, that of Mark, was written right after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. In case Mark was a Hellenized Jew, this smells like a Jewish psyop or subtle revenge on the Hellenes (whites in the Roman Empire).

Yesterday that I watched Carrier’s YouTube lecture ‘Acts as Historical Fiction’, in 23:49 I came across this quote from Steve Mason, a specialist on Josephus, who wrote his history of Judea before Luke wrote his gospel. Mason tells us:

Almost every incident [of Judean history] that [Luke] mentions turns up somewhere in Josephus’ narratives… [And the] coincidence… of aims, themes and vocabulary… seems to suggest that Luke-Acts is building its case on the foundation of Josephus’ defense of Judaism.

Since the gospels claim that Holy Family were Jews, and Paul was a Jew, finding out the ethnicity of the evangelists ought to be fundamental for us (as is finding out the ethnicity of the bishops of Constantine and the bishops of the following Roman emperors that destroyed the Aryan culture).

For a single video of Carrier explaining his work, see: here.

Categories
St Paul

Renaming the problem

This image comes from page 50 of the book Pablo: El Santo Aventurero (Paul: The Holy Adventurer) originally published in English by the David C. Cook Foundation and translated into Spanish in Barcelona, Spain.

Translated back into English, the title of the chapter is ‘The Earthquake (Acts: 16: 20-37)’ and the captions, with a man from a Roman province accusing Paul, say: ‘These men are Jews and are trying to cause problems by teaching customs contrary to Roman law’. The others respond: ‘Yes, we heard him’.

Notice the hair colour of the white Roman leader and his subjects. The message of this illustrated book for white Christians is that the Jew Paul was the good guy, and the pagan whites the bad guys.

How long will it take for white nationalists to awaken to the fact that ‘the Jewish problem’ ought to be renamed as ‘the Judeo-Christian problem’?

Categories
2nd World War Degeneracy England Mauricio (commenter)

J’Accuse…!

by Mauricio

Andrew:

I am not riling you up.

You think you are an atheist, but you actually have a religion.

I remember you stating “the English are my everything”. The English are your ‘god’—your top priority. So you protect this Anglo-Yahweh concept, and won’t let anyone accuse it of wrongdoing. You will defend this Anglophilic religion against all reason.

I accuse the English of race treason of the highest order, and there’s no avoiding the evidence. Your plea to their ignorance does not clear their indictment. Pleading Jewish-contracted insanity won’t either. The verdict is final: guilty. The sentence is extinction by degeneracy, as can be seen every day.

You need to stop defending British innocence and start attacking their self-image of heroes of World War 2. Then perhaps, in the process, you might awaken some of the übermensch Brits who still have ‘it’ in them. The power to overcome their illusions, their pride; the power to remove their wrong assumptions; to accept the fact that their people fucked up immensely, and they owe a huge blood debt to the white race.

Then these few Brits will start paying this debt by declaring war on degeneracy, in their everyday lives; and by doing so, your precious people will be redeemed.

But I get the feeling I am talking to myself, and none of this makes sense to you… If that’s the case, repeat this mantra ad nauseam:

Kill the enemy
Hang the traitor
Purge the weak.

Categories
Autobiography Psychiatry

Shrinks

While, during this vacation, I review the syntax of the texts I spoke about in my entry yesterday, why not keep an eye on the parallel issue of the so-called mental health professions, either on this site (here) or on my Abridged Online Books (here)?

Those who have made the mistake of accepting any sort of ‘treatment’ of psychiatrists, psychoanalysts or clinical psychologists could, after reading the links above, ask me questions and I would gladly answer them.

Or simply leave, in the comments section, your testimonies. For example, Hunter Wallace of Occidental Dissent has confessed that one of these shrinks misdiagnosed him, and the shrink even seems to have suggested committing him.

It seems to me vital that those who have been assaulted by a shrink leave, in writing, their testimonies—even under pseudonyms.

Categories
Hellstorm Holocaust

Last mantra question

The ‘mantra question’ that I used to post on this site—:

Why white nationalists do not nuke the anti-white narrative with the most powerful weapon in their arsenal: the book about the real Holocaust in which the Germans were victims of the Allies?

—has been responded here.(*) So this is the last time I iterate the mantra.

And thanks for the hundred bucks that a regular visitor sent me recently: enough to send James Fields Jr. another book by Goodrich to the Charlottesville penitentiary.

By the way, this vacation I will be reviewing some texts of my books in Spanish and won’t be adding lengthy entries here.

Happy Yule.

___________

(*) By now the crucifixion of Fields should have flooded all white nationalist forums (not only this one). If American WNsts fail to turn their countryman Mr. Fields into a martyr, how can I expect they turn Germans into martyrs?

Categories
Miscegenation New Spain

Octavio Paz

Today in the morning I slightly edited yesterday’s entry, ‘Roma (2018 film)’, and added a postscript.

I must say once again that the paradigm from which I see white decline is different from the monocausal paradigm of many white nationalists.

Here in Latin America it is clear that in addition to the Jews the mestizos also want the whites to disappear, so I call them ‘little Jews’ insofar as they do not have the influence that the Jews have in the West. But the saddest thing is that the white intellectuals in Latin America also want, unconsciously, that the Aryans disappear from the map. And I do not mean only the famous Mexican film directors mentioned in my entry yesterday, but the Creole intellectuals: that is, the top intellectuals of Spanish descent.

Octavio Paz (Mexico City, 1914-1998) was a Mexican poet, essayist and diplomat. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990 and the Cervantes Award in 1981. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century and one of the great intellectuals and poets of the Spanish language of all time.

In 1995 I saw a television program in which Ted Koppel interviewed the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature Octavio Paz, Derek Walcott, Czeslaw Milosz and I think others. When Paz told Koppel that the Anglo-Saxons should miscegenate as the Spaniards had done in Mexico, something in my heart rebelled very deeply…

I knew that these words of Paz represented something wrong, and that it had been insolent to utter them precisely on American television. But at that time the Matrix of political correctness had me in its power and I had not read a single ethno-patriot. However, the resentments against someone I admired were recorded in my memory, so much so that I remember my rejection of Paz’s words in 1995 as if it had been yesterday.

Presently I not only see as wrong the pronouncements of the winners of the Nobel Prize in the Koppel interview: I see them all as true idiots. Let’s see a fraction of the excerpts from the Koppel interview. Octavio Paz said:

A new solution must be found to this problem of the multiplicity of cultures and races and communities that are here [United States]. Such is the relevance of this debate. It differs a lot from Mexico. My country was also founded with a universal idea, only that it was not the Reformation and Protestantism, but Catholicism and the Counter-Reformation. We were also universalists and we are a mestizo country, something that you are not yet [my emphasis: just what made a memory dent after watching the program]. I am quite sure that, if you are wise, you will be multicultural. It would be a great thing.

‘Multicultural’ is a grotesque euphemism for miscegenation (‘something that you are not yet’) and, therefore, a euphemism of white extinction in the US.

Now I see that Paz, like the filmmakers that I mentioned yesterday, did not give a damn that the white race disappeared in the neighbouring northern country. This is the only one of the races (white, black, oriental and Indian) that is actively committing suicide precisely because of ethno-suicidal ideas such as those of Paz and the filmmakers mentioned yesterday. I have called this type of pronouncements the sin against the holy spirit of life: a sin that, personally, I do not forgive.

In the interview with Koppel, Paz also said: ‘Who could have deserved the Nobel prize but never received it was Céline. He was perhaps one of the great novelists of France, but he was anti-Semitic. What to do with it? It is really very complicated’.

Now, twenty years after Paz’s death I see that, like the ultraliberal Swedes who awarded the Nobel Prize to Octavio Paz, Paz himself was an absolute ignorant of the Jewish question. Ultimately, the laureate writers are as stupid as the rest of the treacherous elites.

Categories
Amerindians Film Mexico City

Roma (2018 film)

Yesterday and in the first hours of this day I watched, on Netflix, the latest film by the Mexican Alfonso Cuarón, Roma, which alludes to the Colonia Roma where Cuarón lived as a child, not very far from where I also lived as a child in Mexico City.

Surely some visitors of this site will wonder how a phenotypically Creole family looks like in Mexico; that is to say, a family with little or no Amerindian blood. The autobiographic Cuarón recreates, in a black-and-white film, the daily life of one of these families in the great Mexican capital of the late 1970 and 1971 (a period that I remember so well).

Before talking about the film, I must say that I feel outraged by the awards that the Mexicans Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro have received by cinematographic institutions and film critics. Although none is Jewish, their films navigate the same currents of the anti-white Zeitgeist of our time.

Of Cuarón, who has a huge talent for the seventh art, I would only recommend Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: the film with fewer bad messages for the Aryan cause. In Children of Men and Gravity the bad messages are more conspicuous, and let’s not talk about the 2015 film, The Revenant by González Iñárritu, which won three awards in a Hollywood dominated by Jews.

Exactly the same must be said of Guillermo del Toro, whose monstrous The Shape of Water gave him the Oscar for best director last year. Also, his 2006 Pan’s Labyrinth sides the wrong guys of the Spanish Civil War.

As I said, the film Roma portrays a white family in Mexico City (Cuarón and I even went to the same High School, the Colegio Madrid). As to the plot, I do not know a single father of any of these white Mexican families who, in addition to abandoning his young children and wife, has no intention of seeing them again! From this point of view, the message of Roma is analogous to del Toro’s The Shape of Water, where a typical American man of the 1950s, father of a white family, is the bad guy in the movie.

In Roma the heroine is a Mixtec Indian woman who, by at the end of the film, saves two children from drowning in the sea, putting her life at risk. This image represents the culmination of the Mexican movie with the white kids and the mother embracing the heroic Indian.

My mother has had a legion of Indian maids, and my dear grandmother was a great confidant of them who actually loved them. Needless to say, I never heard of a case in which an Indian maid risked her life to save a white child. Thus Cuarón’s heroine is the counterpart of which I’ve never heard: that a father of a white family in Colonia Roma, or another similar district in Mexico City, abandons his children to the degree of not wanting to see them again. Did Cuarón’s father did exactly this to his children? The autobiographic Cuarón doesn’t specify this in the interviews.

In both Hollywood and in art films, the cultural war against the Aryan is absolute. It bothers me that, in the white nationalist forums, these Mexican directors are not seen for what they are: little Jews even if they do not have a drop of Jewish blood. Even Greg Johnson under a penname recently wrote a review of Children of Men without fully understanding the toxicity of these acclaimed films directed by talented Mexicans.
 

Tuesday update:

Cuarón shows his true colours in this interview in Spanish, from which I translate the essential pronouncements:

To the liberal interviewer he said: ‘La perversa relación que existe en nuestro país entre raza y clase’ (‘The perverse relationship that exists in our country between race and class’) in a context in which Mexico’s poverty is blamed for this ‘perverse relationship’: a phrase that Cuarón repeats twice throughout the interview. On the second occasion, he says that ‘por el color de tu piel también estás determinado socialmente’ (‘by the colour of your skin you are also socially determined’ in Mexico).

He also said: ‘¡México es clasicista y bien racista!, y al mexicano le cuesta mucho trabajo aceptar eso… Si queremos una verdadera transformación, todo empieza con la autorreflexión’ (‘Mexico is classicist and very racist! And the Mexican has a hard time accepting that… If we want a true transformation, everything starts with self-reflection’).

Isn’t it crystal-clear now why the anti-white System has overfilled Cuarón with so many international awards?

Categories
Julian (novel) Literature

Julian, 50

Julian presiding at a conference of Sectarians
(Edward Armitage, 1875)

 
I was placed in the chair of honour beside the fountain, as Prohaeresius presented his wife Amphiclea to me. She is a sad woman who has never got over the deaths of two daughters. She spoke seldom. Obviously philosophy has been no consolation to her. I also met Macrina’s father, Anatolius, a boorish man who looked like an innkeeper, which he was. Macrina was not fond of him.

Basil and Gregory excused themselves. Gregory was most winning. He offered to take me to all the lectures; he would be my guide. Basil was equally pleasant though he said that he might have to excuse himself from most expeditions. “It’s only a few months before I go back. I have a great deal to do, if I’m spared.” And he pressed both hands to his middle, with a look of mock agony. “My liver feels as if Prometheus’s vultures were tearing at it!”

“Stay out of draughts, then,” I found myself saying too quickly, “or you may conceive and lay a vulture’s egg!” Prohaeresius and Macrina both got the allusion and burst out laughing. Basil was not much amused and I regretted the quickness with which I had spoken. I often do this. It is a fault. Gregory shook my hand fondly; then he and Basil left. To this day he is probably afraid that I shall have my revenge on him for what he said about me. But I am not like that, as the world knows.

We drank wine in the garden. Prohaeresius asked me about matters at court. He was most interested in politics; in fact, when my cousin Constans wanted to ennoble him as a sign of admiration, he offered Prohaeresius the honorary title of praetorian prefect. But the old man said that he preferred to be food comptroller for Athens (a significant title Constantius always reserved for himself). Then, exercising the authority that went with his title, he got the corn supply of several islands diverted to Athens. Needless to say, he is a hero to the city.

Prohaeresius was suspicious of me from the beginning. And for all his geniality he seemed by his questions to be trying to get me to confess to some obscure reason for visiting Athens. He spoke of the splendours of Milan and Rome, the vitality of Constantinople, the elegant viciousness of Antioch, the high intellectual tone of Pergamon and Nicomedia; he even praised Caesarea—“the Metropolis of Letters”, as Gregory always refers to it, and not humorously. Any one of these cities, Prohaeresius declared, ought to attract me more than Athens. I told him bluntly that I had come to see him.

“And the beautiful city?” Macrina suddenly interrupted.

“And the beautiful city,” I repeated dutifully.

Prohaeresius rose suddenly. “Let us take a walk by the river,” he said. “Just the two of us.”

At the Ilissos we stopped opposite the Kallirrhoe Fountain, a sort of stone island so hollowed and shaped by nature that it does indeed resemble a fountain; from it is drawn sacred water. We sat on the bank, among long grass brown from August heat. Plane trees sheltered us from the setting sun. The day was golden; the air still. All around us students read or slept. Across the river, above a row of dusty trees, rose Hymettos. I was euphoric.

“My dear boy,” Prohaeresius addressed me now without ceremony as father to son. “You are close to the fire.”

It was a most unexpected beginning. I lay full length on the thick brown turf while he sat cross-legged beside me, very erect, his back to the bole of a plane tree. I looked up at him, noting how rounded and youthful the neck was, how firm the jaw line for one so old.

“Fire? The sun’s? The earth’s?”

Prohaeresius smiled. “Neither. Nor hell’s fire, as the Christians say.”

“As you believe?” I was not certain to what extent he was a Galilean; even now, I don’t know. He has always been evasive. I cannot believe such a fine teacher and Hellenist could be one of them, but anything is possible, as the gods daily demonstrate.

“We are not ready for that dialogue just yet,” he said. He gestured towards the swift shrunken river at our feet. “There, by the way, is where Plato’s Phaidros is set. They had good talk that day, and on this same bank.”

“Shall we equal it?”

“Some day, perhaps.” He paused. I waited, as though for an omen. “You will be emperor one day.” The old man said this evenly, as though stating fact.

“I don’t want to be. I doubt if I shall be. Remember that of all our family, only Constantius and I are left. As the others went, so I shall go. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to see Athens first.”

“Perhaps you mean that. But I… well, I confess to a weakness for oracles.” He paused significantly. That was enough. One word more and he would have committed treason. It is forbidden by law to consult an oracle concerning the emperor—an excellent law, by the way, for who would ever obey a ruler the date of whose death was known and whose successor had been identified? I must say that I was shocked at the old man’s candour. But also pleased that he felt he could trust me.

“Is it predicted?” I was as bold as he. I incriminated myself, hoping to prove to him my own good faith.

He nodded. “Not the day, not the year, merely the fact. But it will be tragedy.”

“For me? Or for the state?”

“No one knows. The oracle was not explicit.” He smiled. “They seldom are. I wonder why we put such faith in them.”

“Because the gods do speak to us in dreams and reveries. That is a fact. Both Homer and Plato…”

“Perhaps they do. Anyway, the habit of believing is an old one… I knew all your family.” Idly he plucked at the brown grass with thick-veined old hands. “Constans was weak. But he had good qualities. He was not the equal of Constantius, of course. You are.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I merely observe.” He turned to me suddenly. “Now it is my guess, Julian, that you mean to restore the worship of the old gods.”

My breath stopped. “You presume too much.” My voice shook despite a hardness of tone which would have done justice to Constantius himself. Sooner or later one learns the Caesarian trick: that abrupt shift in tone which is harsh reminder of the rod and axe we wield over all men.

“I hope that I do,” said the old man, serenely.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken like that. You are the master.”

He shook his head. “No, you are the master, or will be soon. I want only to be useful. To warn you that despite what your teacher Maximus may say, the Christians have won.”

“I don’t believe it!” Fiercely and tactlessly I reminded him that only a small part of the Roman population was actually Galilean.

“Why do you call them Galileans?” he asked, interrupting my harangue.

“Because Galilee was where he came from!”

Prohaeresius saw through me. “You fear the word ‘Christian’,” he said, “for it suggests that those who call themselves that are indeed followers of a king, a great lord.”

“A mere name cannot affect what they are.” I evaded him. But he is right. The name is a danger to us.

I resumed my argument: most of the civilized world is neither Hellenist nor Galilean, but suspended in between. With good reason, a majority of the people hate the Galileans. Too many innocents have been slaughtered in their mindless doctrinal quarrels. I need only mention the murder of Bishop George at Alexandria to recall vividly to those who read this the savagery of that religion not only towards its enemies (whom they term “impious”) but also towards its own followers.

Prohaeresius tried to argue with me, but though he is the world’s most eloquent man, I would not listen to him. Also, he was uncharacteristically artless in his defence of the Galileans, which made me suspect he was not one of them. Like so many, he is in a limbo between Hellenism and the new death cult. Nor do I think he is merely playing it safe. He is truly puzzled. The old gods do seem to have failed us, and I have always accepted the possibility that they have withdrawn from human affairs, terrible as that is to contemplate. But mind has not failed us. Philosophy has not failed us. From Homer to Plato to Iamblichos the true gods continue to be defined in their many aspects and powers: multiplicity contained by the One, all emanating from truth. Or as Plotinus wrote: “Of its nature the soul loves God and longs to be at one with him.” As long as the soul of man exists, there is God. It is all so clear.

I realized that I was making a speech to a master of eloquence, but I could not stop myself. Dozing students sat up and looked at me curiously, convinced I was mad, for I was waving my arms in great arcs as I am prone to do when passionate. Prohaeresius took it all in good part.

“Believe what you must,” he said at last.

“But you believe, too! You believe in what I believe. You must or you could not teach as you do.”

“I see it differently. That is all. But try to be practical. The thing has taken hold. The Christians govern the world through Constantius. They have had almost thirty years of wealth and power. They will not surrender easily. You come too late, Julian. Of course if you were Constantine and this were forty years ago and we were pondering these same problems, then I might say to you: “Strike! Outlaw them! Rebuild the temples!’ But now is not then. You are not Constantine. They have the world. The best one can hope to do is civilize them. That is why I teach. That is why I can never help you.”

I respected him that day. I respect him now. If he is still alive when this campaign is ended, I shall want to talk to him again. How we all long to make conversions!

Like two conspirators, we returned to his house. We now had a bond between us which could not be broken, for each had told the other true and dangerous things. Fear defined our friendship and gave it savour.