The debates among these groups resulted in numerous synods, among them the Council of Sardica in 343, the Council of Sirmium in 358 and the double Council of Rimini and Seleucia in 359, and no fewer than fourteen further creed formulas between 340 and 360, leading the pagan observer Ammianus Marcellinus to comment sarcastically: " The highways were covered with galloping bishops.

Having due regard to the magic papyri, in which many of the unintelligible names of the Abrasax-stones reappear, besides directions for making and using gems with similar figures and formulas for magical purposes, it can scarcely be doubted that many of these stones are pagan amulets and instruments of magic.

Despite these activities, for some time, the Alemanni seem to have continued their pagan cult activities, with only superficial or syncretistic Christian elements.

The western Sanhaja had been converted to Islam sometime in the 9th C. They were subsequently united in the 10th C., and with the zeal of neophyte converts launched several campaigns against the " Sudanese " ( pagan black peoples of sub-Saharan Africa ).

He was formerly identified with an Egyptian priest who, after the destruction of the pagan temple at Alexandria ( 389 ), fled to Constantinople, where he became the tutor of the ecclesiastical historian Socrates.

Whether seen as a pagan work with “ Christian coloring ” added by scribes or as a “ Christian historical novel, with selected bits of paganism deliberately laid on as ' local color ', as Margaret E. Goldsmith did in “ The Christian Theme of Beowulf ,” it cannot be denied that Christianity pervades the text, and with that, the use of the Bible as a source.

There is a third view that sees merit in both arguments above and attempts to bridge them, and so cannot be articulated as starkly as they can ; it sees more than one Christianity and more than one attitude towards paganism at work in the poem, separated from each other by hundreds of years ; it sees the poem as originally the product of a literate Christian author with one foot in the pagan world and one in the Christian, himself a convert perhaps or one whose forbears had been pagan, a poet who was conversant in both oral and literary milieus and was capable of a masterful " repurposing " of poetry from the oral tradition ; this early Christian poet saw virtue manifest in a willingness to sacrifice oneself in a devotion to justice and in an attempt to aid and protect those in need of help and greater safety ; good pagan men had trodden that noble path and so this poet presents pagan culture with equanimity and respect ; yet overlaid upon this early Christian poet's composition are verses from a much later reformist " fire-and-brimstone " Christian poet who vilifies pagan practice as dark and sinful and who adds satanic aspects to its monsters.

Bede was familiar with pagan authors such as Virgil, but it was not considered appropriate to teach biblical grammar from such texts, and in De schematibus ... Bede argues for the superiority of Christian texts in understanding Christian literature.

In c. 1000, a pagan völva was buried with considerable splendour in Hagebyhöga in Östergötland.

The Consolation of Philosophy stands, by its note of fatalism and its affinities with the Christian doctrine of humility, midway between the pagan philosophy of Seneca the Younger and the later Christian philosophy of consolation represented by Thomas Aquinas.

Skeat “… in at least three cases and probably in all, in the form of codices " and he theorized that this form of notebook was invented in Rome and then “… must have spread rapidly to the Near East …” In his discussion of one of the earliest pagan parchment codices to survive from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, Eric Turner seems to challenge Skeat ’ s notion when stating “… its mere existence is evidence that this book form had a prehistory ” and that “ early experiments with this book form may well have taken place outside of Egypt .” Early codices of parchment or papyrus appear to have been widely used as personal notebooks, for instance in recording copies of letters sent ( Cicero Fam.

This victory ends with the re-Christianization of pagan England, and King Oswald as ruler of all Britain.

The figure of Orpheus is prominent throughout the narrative, and Clement contrasts his song, representing pagan superstition, with the divine Logos of Christ.

Parallel with the exposition of the Creed as it was then received in the Church of Jerusalem are vigorous polemics against pagan, Jewish, and heretical errors.

After Constantius ' death in 361, his successor Julian the Apostate, a devotee of Rome's pagan gods, declared that he would no longer attempt to favor one church faction over another, and allowed all exiled bishops to return ; this had the objective of further increasing dissension among Christians.

Addas was shocked because he knew that the pagan Arabs had no knowledge of the prophet Jonah.

While pagan is attested in English from the 14th century, there is no evidence that the term paganism was in use in English before the 17th century.

Ronald Hutton notes that while medieval Irish authors do attribute a historical pagan significance to the Beltane festival, they are silent in this respect in regard to Samhain, apparently because no tradition of pagan ritual had survived into the Christian period.

He argued that the gods have no existence and thus there is no pagan religion against which Christians may offend.

There pagan religious rites were applied and the names of pagan divinities invoked ; there the precepts of modesty, purity, and humanity were ignored or set aside, and there no place was offered to the onlookers for the cultivation of the Christian graces.

Contemporary Unitarian Universalism espouses a pluralist approach to religious belief, whereby members may describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, deist, monotheist, pantheist, polytheist, pagan, or assume no label at all.

Zosimus was a pagan, and is by no means sparing of the faults and crimes of the Christian emperors.

A late third series, composed of The Incorporated Knight and The Pixilated Peeress, is set in the medieval era of another alternate world sharing the geography of our own, but in which a Neapolitan empire filled the role of Rome and no universal religion like Christianity ever arose, leaving its nations split among competing pagan sects.

He also stated, " eldom do the Indians, pagan or Christian, meet for any function [...] without a kettle of o < sup > n </ sup > no ' kwǎ ', hot and savory, to regale the crowd ".

Eusebius's Life of Constantine claims that Constantius was himself a Christian, although he pretended to be a pagan, and while Caesar under Diocletian, took no part in the Emperor's persecutions.

( Traditional Catholics argue that Constantine, as a pagan Emperor, would have had no authority over the Church in doctrinal matters anyway.

Koch says that the older view that the battle cut the two British areas off from each other is now " generally understood " to be outdated, as Æthelfrith died soon after, and there is " almost no archaeological evidence for Anglo-Saxon settlement within the pagan period in Cheshire or Lancashire ", and in any case the sea would have been the primary means of communication.

The fact that the pagan Aurelian ruled on a dispute among Christian bishops was an acknowledgement of the status of the Christian church and the position of early Christians as Roman citizens in a period when there was no persecution.

A major problem sometimes pointed out with that view is that it entails circular proof: we know next to nothing about how the authority of the ruler was envisaged in heathen times, while we know some more of the Christian ideology of kingship, and obviously the Christian kingdom would underline the break with the pagan past, but this does not really allow the conclusion that there could have been no fixed and religiously connected ideas of the authority of the ruler in pre-Christian times.

Roland proudly refuses to do so, claiming that they need no help, that the rear guard can easily take on the pagan hordes.

In Ireland, it is a popular legend that the Celtic Christian cross was introduced by Saint Patrick or possibly Saint Declan during his time converting the pagan Irish, though there are no examples from this early period.

" Partisanship, over-confidence, absolutism, and fawning to please authority were other errors that no doubt Muslim scholars, in their zeal for archaeology and ethnology, noted in Roman records of both a pagan and a Christian character .</ ref >

The letter includes no Christian themes and the author is presumed to be a pagan.

It was in this period that Judea became normatively known as Syria Palestina, a name reflecting both the large scale killing of the suppression of the 2nd Jewish revolt, and a Roman policy, pagan, then Christian, to further alienate Jews from the land, ensuring that no Jewish temple, Jerusalem or state ever rose again.

These pagan currents coincided with Romanticist interest in folklore and occultism, the widespread emergence of pagan themes in popular literature, and the rise of nationalism.

The 1980s and 1990s also saw an increasing interest in serious academic research and reconstructionist pagan traditions.

The 19th century also saw much scholarly interest in the reconstruction of pagan mythology from folklore or fairy tales.

The structure of the poem, according to McGann, is influenced by Coleridge's interest in higher criticism, and its function " was to illustrate a significant continuity of meaning between cultural phenomena that seemed as diverse as pagan superstitions, Catholic theology, Aristotelian science, and contemporary philological theory, to name only a few of the work's ostentatiously present materials.

She led numerous workshops for, and was an active member of The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans ( CUUPS ), an interest group of Unitarians honoring goddess-based, earth-centered, tribal, and pagan spiritual paths.

In 1984, Bock raised public interest and discussion when he claimed that his family line ( Boxström ) had been keepers of an ancient folklore tradition that provides insight into the pagan culture of Finland, including hitherto unknown autofellatio exercises connected to old fertility rites.

After the Jewish – Roman wars ( 66 – 135 ), which Epiphanius believed the Cenacle survived, the significance of Jerusalem to Christians entered a period of decline, Jerusalem having been temporarily converted to the pagan Aelia Capitolina, but interest resumed again with the pilgrimage of Helena ( the mother of Constantine the Great ) to the Holy Land c. 326 – 28.

Although the primary interest of the Germanic mystical movement was the revival of native pagan traditions and customs ( often set in the context of a quasi-Theosophical esotericism ), a marked preoccupation with purity of race came to motivate its more politically oriented offshoots such as the Germanenorden, the Germanic or Teutonic Order.

After the Jewish – Roman wars ( 66 – 135 ), which Epiphanius believed the Cenacle survived, the significance of Jerusalem to Christians entered a period of decline, Jerusalem having been temporarily converted to the pagan Aelia Capitolina, but interest resumed again with the pilgrimage of Helena ( the mother of Constantine the Great ) to the Holy Land c. 326 – 28.

His writings on Algonquian and gypsy culture were part of the contemporary interest in pagan and Aryan traditions.

Tancred appears as a character in Torquato Tasso's 16th-century poem Jerusalem Delivered, in which he is portrayed as an epic hero and given a fictional love interest, the pagan warrior-maiden Clorinda.

The saga is characterized by a distinct interest in old lore, rituals, pagan practices and superstitions. The saga includes several references to the colonization of Greenland and one reference to an expedition to Vinland.

In retrospect ( according to the Encyclopedia of World Biography entry ) these books ' "... persuasive power came from Merezhkovsky's success in catching currents then around him: strong contrasts between social life and spiritual values, fresh interest in the drama of pagan ancient Athens, and identification with general western European culture ".