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This has long been an issue of debate within and outside of the community. Pagan is a word with a Latin origin (paganus) that carries a heavy burden with it. The ancient Hellenes btw did not speak Latin. Although originally used to describe people who lived in a pagus "rural district" (eg. Servius, Vergil G. 2.382), by the time of the Galilean writers Tertullian and Prudentius such usage had become to describe people who were debase and impure (Tert. De corona 11.4f, Prudent. Symm. 1.449). Jewish writers preferred the term gentiles/gentilia (eg. Filastrius 111.2). There are a number of other problems with the word pagan. Such a word also ignores the sheer variety of cultic practices and beliefs that are non-Galilean and attempts to syncretise religions under a single umbrella when many of these religions have very little in common eg. Mithraism and Hellenic civic cults. The worship of the dôdekatheoi (The Twelve Gods) developed along a polis-centric, not specifically rural, basis.
The emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Iulianus) went someway to correct this imbalance by describing believers in the pantheon of Hellenic gods as Hellênismos. The earliest instances of such usage within this context goes back to the Neoplatonist writer Iamblikhos at the beginning of the fourth century C.E. This is a conscious reflection amongst believers in the old gods of Hellas to heighten self-awareness, identity, and distinctiveness. It was enough to anger Galilean writers such as Gregory of Nazianzos on Julian's use of language as a form of empowerment (Greg. Naz. Orat. 4 (Inv. against Jul. 1) 5.79-81). It is however the very cultural basis on which the dôdekatheoi are worshipped, quite clearly, a belief system that is neither "pagan" nor Roman nor Jewish nor Galilean and as such should be recognised as a seperate identifiable entity.
If you truly believe in religious tolerance and acceptance of other beliefs then it is up to those who worship the ancient gods of Hellas to define themselves on their own terms. |