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Notes -
This line of argument goes at least as far back as Gibbon's claim that Christianity fatally weakened the Roman Empire and the modern online form includes a heavy dose of Nietzschean master-slave morality in the way they contrast supposedly Pagan and Christian ethics. In a sense they are correct, in that if one is committed to permanent racial separatism and inequality then any universalist and egalitarian ideology, be it Christianity, Communism, etc. represents a beachhead from which future moral attacks may be launched on your position. What they don't have is any sort of workable replacement, retreating instead into memes and BAP-type shitposting rather than doing the hard work of building a philosophy to replace the one they continue to hack away at even as it holds up the ground beneath their feet.
It goes back to Celsus:
And it won, because there are always going to be more of the ignorant, servile, and downtrodden. See the French Revolution. Guys who are "we want to go back to the days when the likes of us were rightfully the nobles and rulers" should remember the rattle of the tumbrils taking the lords and nobles to execution before the jeering crowds as entertainment.
It is impossible for Christianity to have “won” by only being attractive to the poor and the servants. For one, they have no rights or military training, so it would be impossible for them to ever exert influence on the middle or upper classes, who controlled everything and made up the military leadership. But it’s also impossible given the wealth of early Christian writings we have — it’s expensive to have dedicated theologians who copy and write thousands of pages. There’s also no reason that a pagan mystery cult couldn’t have defeated Christianity, if the only thing of importance was the promise of an afterlife (there were lots, including Mithras for the soldiers!). And if the poorest members were being converted on the promise of an afterlife, they would pose zero political threat and the powerful Pagans would be happy about this as it would reduce the problem of slave rebellions. (Is Christianity the opium of the people, or is Christianity its own “slave revolt” against the powerful? It cannot be both, so please make up your mind, 19th century.) Lastly, we know as early as the Apostles that they had issues with how to treat wealthy Christians, and they were writing rules on how to subsidize poor widows — things that wouldn’t be worth writing about if it was just a religion of the poor.
Julian wanted to bring back the gracious days of yore before the Christians turned it all to shit, and was frustrated that those shitty Christians managed to appeal to the people who should be following the lead of their betters:
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