Ancient
The original meaning of pagan is "rural" as opposed to "urban", and only came to refer to "non-Abrahamic" as opposed to Jewish, Christian and Islam in the 6th century, and it is therefore strictly an anachronism to apply the term to earlier times, although this is sometimes done (e.g. the three pagan "worthies" of William Caxton, Hector, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar). The list includes only individuals of the Common Era who were "pagan" in contrast to emerging Christianity.
Read more about this topic: List Of Pagans
Famous quotes containing the word ancient:
“Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman pass by!”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We Irish, born into that ancient sect
But thrown upon this filthy modern tide
And by its formless spawning fury wrecked,
Climb to our proper dark, that we may trace
The lineaments of a plummet-measured face.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)