One superstition of the pagans never fails to assert its influence upon spots like this--the genius loci is always ascendant" (DEANE).
From this viewpoint, the temper of mind of the mediæval Christians differed little from that of the pagans of the empire.
When the pagansused them against the Christians of the first centuries, all agreed in stigmatizing them as the extreme of barbarism, or as inventions of the devil.
The paganswould naturally follow the example of their 'spiritual' advisers.
Moreover, a long ray of light, reaching up to heaven, shone every night above them wheresoever they chanced to be, and that too in the sight of the very pagans that had slain them.
After this he gave battle with a very small army: indeed, it is reported that the pagans had thirty times the number of men; for they had thirty legions, drawn up under most noted commanders.
But the triumph of the Koran is more pure and meritorious, as it was not assisted by any visible splendor of worship which might allure the Pagans by some resemblance of idolatry.
The king, Thurston, welcomed him, and had soon occasion to employ him; for at Christmas came into court a giant, with a message from pagans newly arrived.
Both among the pagans of the Roman Empire and among the barbarians of the North the Christian missionaries had found it easier to prove the new God supreme than to prove the old gods powerless.
Such exceptional preservation of bodies has been common enough in all ages, and, alas for the claims of the Church, quite as common of pagans or Protestants as of good Catholics.
Were not the customs of the pagans to be held unbeseeming for Christians, as well as the customs of the Jews?
Who then can think that any special accident, as Hooker imagineth, was the reason why the rites and customs of pagans were forbidden to Christians?
For in the fathers and councils which we have cited to this purpose, there is no other reason mentioned why it behoved Christians to abstain from those forbidden customs, but only because the pagans and infidels used so.
Hence Tertullian justifieth the soldier who refused to wear a garland as the pagans did.
However, to pursue the story, St. Patrick began explaining to the Pagansabout the light and glory of the heavens.
They are all pagans or idolaters (from the interior regions).
Might we not expect a gradual diffusion of the principles of Christianity among the muselmen, as well as among the pagansand idolaters, of Africa?
Considering also these things, he endeavored to accustom the pagans to Christian practices.
All penalties which have been introduced by previous emperors against the errors of pagans or in favor of the orthodox faith are to remain in force and effect forever and guarded by this present pious legislation.
He was aware, also, that the pagans were extremely discontented because they had been forbidden to sacrifice to their gods, and were anxious to get their temples opened and to be at liberty to offer sacrifices to their idols.
Although the pagans that remain ought to be subjected to capital punishment if at any time they are detected in the abominable sacrifices of demons, let exile and confiscation of goods be their punishment.
These things, therefore, we decree against the abominablepagans and the Manichæans, of which Manichæans the Borborani are a part.
After all, the pagans were wiser than we, and the heads of families were household priests, setting examples of piety at every rising of the sun.
Israel's laws and form of government were as odious and decried among the pagans as the hostility to that people was fierce and implacable.
They gave thanks for the rain and the victory to the one omnipotent God who had heard their prayers, while the pagans rendered like honor to Jupiter, the Rain-giver and the Thunderer.
They convinced the better sort of pagans that the hour of their deliverance from a tyranny so monstrous and so disgraceful was near at hand.
That he might secure himself a victory, he attached the pagans to his cause by severely oppressing the Christians, and putting not a few of their bishops to death.
Many pagans who had watched the behavior of the Christians under persecution now came forward and asked to join the Church, among them some Greek ladies of noble family whom Athanasius himself instructed and baptized.
He was received in an ominous silence, for he was held in abhorrence almost as much by the pagans as by the Christians.
Even the martyrdom of the holy Peter had not brought him back to his allegiance: the Meletians were rebels still, to the crying scandal of Christians and pagans alike.
Chapter 10 THE LAST EXILE IT was not safe for Athanasius to remain long in the neighborhood of Alexandria, for the pagans were now having it all their own way.
The first few years of Athanasius' rule were years of peace during which he devoted himself to the work he loved, the conversion of the pagans and the visitation of his huge diocese, the Patriarchate of Alexander.
Privileges were granted to the pagans which were denied to the Church; the Galileans, as Julian called the Christians, were ridiculed, and paganism was praised as the only religion worthy of educated men.
At the end of two years he had exhausted the patience of the Alexandrians, pagansand Christians alike.
The guard hewed down the pagans by crowds, till the earth was heaped with full two hundred thousand heathen dead.
For this is a greater multitude of pagans than has ever been gathered together in the world before.
The savage pagans were for killing all Christians.
Then Roland hasted to his help, and cutting the pagans down for a wide space about, came to his old companion to lift him from his horse.
The pagans came and looked on him, and gave him up for dead.
The pagansheard the clarions ringing behind the mountains, and they said, "These are the clarions of Charles the Great.
But the king utterly destroyed the pagans there and slew King Baligant and King Marsilius, and brake down the gates of Zaragoz and took the city.
The Russians refused a passage to the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert the Pagans beyond the Tanais; [9] and their refusal was justified by the maxim, that the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism.
This being so, and quite unquestionably so with all the male and female pagansof our acquaintance, it is natural that literature dominated by the various forces of the sexual emotion should prevail.
The pious "Puritan Fathers" found it convenient to assume that they were God's chosen Israel, and the pagansabout them were Amalek and Amorites.
What, I beseech you, must the Jews and the Pagans conceive of you and of your religion?
For the rest, although they remain masters of Narbonne, these pagans worry me little.
Let us drink to love, the god of the world, as the pagans used to say!
He makes good use of the Jewish prophecies; but he brings forward no proofs in support of the truth of the gospel history; they were not wanted, as Celsus and the pagans had not considered it necessary to call it into question.
Thus the pagansstill held up their heads in the schools.
As the pagans and Arians of Alexandria were no longer worthy of his enmity, he fanned into a flame a new quarrel which was then breaking out in the Egyptian church.
He challenges his readers to a comparison between the Christians and pagans in point of morals, in Alexandria or in any other city.
Olympius, who was the priest of Serapis when the temple was sacked, and as such the head of the pagans of Alexandria, was a man in every respect the opposite of the Bishop Theophilus.
For the conversion of pagans to Christianity, many exterior proofs of revelation were vouchsafed by God to man in addition to the interior impulse of his grace.
They saw that pagans were actually ruling their holy isle, and changing a paradise of sanctity into a pandemonium of brutal passion, presided over by a superstitious and cruel idolatry.
Enough for our purpose to remark that even some Christian writers, of the age immediately succeeding that of the early martyrs, showed themselves more than half pagans in their tastes and productions.
The cause of the immorality prevailing at these several epochs is well known, and has been told very plainly by conscientious historians, some of them pagans themselves.
It is known, moreover, that the dissemination of the Gospel in those rural districts was a work of centuries, and that, for nearly a thousand years after Christ, pagans were to be found in villages of countries already Christian.
I will not let the Pagans boast of having eaten my oxen," Black said, wrathfully.
Black said, with a gesture of disgust; "do these Pagans fancy we are like themselves?
I must confess that these most accursed Pagans have made enormous progress in military tactics.
Let us die, then; but first kill as many of thesePagans as we can," John Black answered.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "pagans" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
