How Christianity Changed The World For The Better
tj
Part II: How Christianity changed the world - Life, Sex, Marriage &
Status of Women
Dr. Alvin Schmidt was interviewed in a series on the excellent
Lutheran podcast Issues Etc regarding his new book, How Christianity
Changed the World. I am blogging through the interviews because I
think their content are a great introduction to what appears to be a
great book that re-revises history in an effort to fix the errors of
modern anti-theists, as well as the dominance of anti-Catholic and
anti-theist spin among the enlightenment historians.
Just imagine if all of these evils done away with PRIMARILY by
Christianity were still prevalent. Oh sure, "Christianity is evil."
Wake up from ignorance of history. The evils of the Catholic Church
and such misrepresented events such as the Crusades and the
Inquisition, while important, pale in comparison to the substantial,
if not critical impact of Chrsitianity on the west. Advances which
paganism, humanism, and atheism had naught to do with, except
sometimes as OPPONENTS to such advances.
Here's the audio, and I have brought out some points below.
Here are some of Schmidt's points, taken from the interview and this
article:
HUMAN LIFE
1. Life was miserably cheap in Christ's day
* Islam: We see this even today in Islamic society
* Romans: Frederic Farrar has noted that "infanticide was
infamously universal" among the Greeks and Romans during the early
years of Christianity."
* The East: Historical research shows that infanticide was common
not only in the Greco-Roman culture but in many other cultures of the
world as well. Susan Scrimshaw notes that it was common in India,
China, Japan, and the Brazilian jungles as well as among the Eskimos.
2. Outlawing infanticide
* The Didache (written between ca. 85 and 110) enjoins Christians,
"[T]hou shalt not. . . commit infanticide."
* The Epistle of Barnabas: One finds infanticide also condemned in
the Epistle of Barnabas (ca. 130) as it comments on the Didache's
opposition to this immoral practice.
* Callistus of Rome (d. ca. 222), a onetime slave who later became
bishop of Rome, was equally appalled at this common method of
disposing of unwanted infants.
* Abandoned Children in Rome: Callistus of Rome gave refuge to
abandoned children by placing them in Christian homes. Benignus of
Dijon (late second century), who like his spiritual mentor Polycarp
was martyred, provided protection and nourishment for abandoned
children, some of whom were deformed as a result of failed abortions.
Afra of Augsburg (late third century) was a prostitute in her pagan
life, but after her conversion to Christianity she "developed a
ministry to abandoned children of prisoners, thieves, smugglers,
pirates, runaway slaves, and brigands." 17 Christian writings are
replete with examples of Christians adopting throw-away children.
* Infanticide Outlawed: Only a half century after Christianity
attained legal status, Valentinian, a Christian emperor who was
sufficiently influenced by Bishop Basil of Caesarea in Cappadocia,
formally outlawed infanticide in 374 (Codex Theodosius 9.41.1). He was
the first Roman emperor to do so.
* Global Condemnation until modern west: This led to the global
criminalization of intanticide across the west - not until the 20th
century can you find ANY Christian country that approved of, or even
discussed infanticide
3. Christians opposed the gladitorial games
* Minucius Felix cites a Roman pagan who strongly criticized the
Christians for their anti-gladiatorial posture: "You do not go to our
shows; you take no part in our processions. . .you shrink in horror
from our sacred [gladiatorial] games."
* Most people think that the sacredness of human life came from
humanist roots, but they really did not. Greece and Rome did not
provide them, Christianity did.
4. Abandonment of Religious Human Sacrifice
* Cannanites: Sacrificing human beings for religious reasons was
not confined to the pagan Canaanites and the spiritually fallen Hebrew
kings.
* The Irish: before St. Patrick had brought the Christian gospel
to them, "sacrificed prisoners of war to war gods and newborns to the
harvest gods."
* Prussians: Sacrificing humans was also a common practice among
the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians even until the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. The British author Edward Ryan noted in 1802
that these people "would have done so to this day were it not for
Christianity."
* Aztecs: Another place where widespread human sacrifices occurred
was in what is now Mexico. Here the Aztec Indians, a warlike people,
frequently fought in order to acquire prisoners whom they used for
human sacrifices.
NO MAN BEING ABOVE THE LAW
1. St. Ambrose
* In Roman and Greek society, the Emperor was a God, and above the
law. Ambrose and other Christian scholars helped debunk this idea,
supporting equality under the law.
2. The Magna Carta (1215)
* Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton: Led the charge to get
this document enacted into law, provided legal procedures that were
binding upon ALL, limited the power of kings
* The Magna Carta was the first creedal governmental declaration,
modeled after the precedent of the Nicene creed.
SEXUALITY
1. Pederasty was common in Rome
* It was almost impossible for a boy to grow up and not be
accosted by an older, adult male
* Christianity introduced the criminality of sexual molestation of
children to the West
2. Bestiality
* Bestiality was not widely condemned society wide before
Christianity
* Many objects from Roman culture show women and men having sex
with animals - it was common because it was not condemned, but a
matter of fact.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND MARRIAGE
1. Outlawing of Patria potestas
* In the 4th table of Roman law, the father had the right of life
and death over his wife and children, even when they were adult.
* Under Emporer Valentinian, this too was outlawed.
2. Safety for female prisoners
* Constantine's son, Constantias (337 - 361), ordered the
segregation of jailed male and female prisoners. To most people today
the segregation of male and female prisoners seems rather obvious. But
it should be remembered that the pagan Romans had little or no regard
for the welfare of women, especially for women who were no longer
under the manus (controlling hand) of their husbands. And since it was
quite acceptable to have sexual relations with such women, the Romans
had no moral qualms about housing men and women in the same prison
quarters.
3. Support for Marital Equality
* Wedding ceremonies among the Greeks and Romans were often joked
about
* The Apostle Paul's admonitions of mutual love, submission, and
service in marriage conflicted with the truly paternalistic Roman and
Greek practices
3. Outlawing of Polygamy
* Very common before Christ - it was not practiced among
Christians, but rather entirely discouraged. This became the rule in
the west.
4. Outlawing of Sati in India (widow burning)
* While various provinces and governors of India tried to suppress
or outlaw Sati, in 1829, the British outlawed this practice across the
country under Lord William Bentinck [NOTE: he does not seem to have
been motivated by Christianity, only by Christian values in Britain
and his desire to anglicize India's system of laws and government].
5. Outlawing of Chinese foot binding
* Due to the direct influence and work of Christian missionaries,
in 1912, footbinding was finally oulawed.
6. Outlawing of Female Genital Mutilation
* [Not enough time to clarify in the interview.]
For much more on this first subject read The Sanctification of Human
Life
Witziges R�tsel
news:98773de6-2334-4095...@e23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>
> Hasn't Zoroastrianism changed the world for the better? What about Snake
> Handling and Voodoo? Have you considered the far-reaching effects of
> worshipping the Almighty Buck?
>
thomas p.
thomas p.
> http://www.twoorthree.net/2009/07/part-ii-how-christianity-changed-the-world-life-sex-marriage-status-of-women.html
>
>
> Part II: How Christianity changed the world - Life, Sex, Marriage &
> Status of Women
All improved in spite of the intense opposition of Christian churches, which
still goes on today.
snip Christian spin doctoring.
thomas p.
A good argument can be made for the last one. It was modern capitalism that
made possible a great number of improvements in the life of ordinary people,
even
if that was not the purpose of capitalism and certainly not that of the
early
capitalists. Of course a great number of unpleasant details have to be
ignored, just
as they were in the argument presented by tj.
It was rather breathtaking how the Crusades, inquisition etc were just
dismissed as
not important enough to weigh in. One has to admire the chutzpah of
Christian
apologists.
Thurisaz, Germanic barbarian
--
"To his friend a man a friend shall prove, and gifts with gifts requite;
But men shall mocking with mockery answer, and fraud with falsehood meet."
(The Poetic Edda)
Must have been written with fundies in mind...
My personal judgment of monotheism:
http://www.carcosa.de/nojebus
Syd M.
> http://www.twoorthree.net/2009/07/part-ii-how-christianity-changed-th...
>
> Part II: How Christianity changed the world - Life, Sex, Marriage &
> Status of Women
>
Yeah... It lowered life, and the status of women, and made sex nasty
and dirty.
PDW
W.T.S.
news:98773de6-2334-4095...@e23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
Life improved in spite of religion, especially Christian religion, a
particularly hateful and intolerant religion.
Life improved mainly due to science and skeptical inquiry. Religion, has
done nothing to make life better. Religion held back science by about 2,000
years. Imagine having antibiotics and vaccines in about 100 AD instead of
about the 1900s AD. The loss of those 2,000 years may send the human race
to extinction the same way the T-Rex went.
You can dream up of the lying excuses for the ugly, hateful history of
religious belief, particularly Christian religion. But, you can't sell it
to people who know the truth. The truth is in the historical record, not in
something the church dreamed up to gain power and wealth for itself. The
truth actually does make you free. Religious lectures should be confined to
the young, the uneducated, the uninformed and the outright low of
intelligence.
Church, bad. Science, good.
--
http://folding.stanford.edu
Save lives, visit today!
thomas p.
Yeah but it built some really pretty churches, which makes it all worth
while.
panam...@hotmail.com
snip
> Just imagine if all of these evils done away with PRIMARILY by
> Christianity were still prevalent.
The author has yet to do anything other than declare that Christianity
was the primary cause of the decline of those "evils". He also seems
to be ignorant of the fact that many of the situations he describes
haven't been really "done away with" at all. In fact, they are still
prevalent in many of the world's more religious areas-including the
Christian enclaves in Africa and the Americas.
> Oh sure, "Christianity is evil."
> Wake up from ignorance of history. The evils of the Catholic Church
> and such misrepresented events such as the Crusades and the
> Inquisition, while important, pale in comparison to the substantial,
> if not critical impact of Chrsitianity on the west. Advances which
> paganism, humanism, and atheism had naught to do with, except
> sometimes as OPPONENTS to such advances.
The author owes me an ironymeter. Or else needs to look up the
definition of "advance" somewhere..
-Panama Floyd, Atlanta.
aa#2015/Member, Knights of BAAWA!
Christopher A. Lee
It's not just Catholicism but Protestantism as well.
Don't they teach history at school any more?
Which includes the evils on both sides during and after the
Reformation, where both Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each
other?
For example the Thirty Years War which killed about 30% of the German
population?
Or are Protestants just in denial about their own denomination's
bloody history? John Calvin's reign of terror in Geneva? Martin
Luther's "On The Jews And Their Lies"?
It was the enlightenment which dragged Western Europe out of 1000
years of Christian dark ages, in spite of both Protestand and
Catholic churches, not because of them.
Where do they get this bullshit from?
SkyEyes
> It was the enlightenment which dragged Western Europe out of 1000
> years of Christian dark ages, in spite of both Protestand and
> Catholic churches, not because of them.
>
> Where do they get this bullshit from?
Their ministers! Duh! Dontcha know that no Protestant (or non-
Protestant non-Catholic christian*) has ever done *anything* wrong????
;->
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
BAAWA Knight
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes nine at cox dot net
*That's a sop to the Baptists, who claim that they're not *really*
Protestants - who, after all, evolved out of Catholicism. They don't
want to be the descendants of Catholics any more than they want to be
the descendants of apes.
pyotr filipivich
Christopher A. Lee <ca...@optonline.net> wrote on Tue, 01 Dec 2009
17:59:35 -0500 in soc.history.what-if :
>
>It was the enlightenment which dragged Western Europe out of 1000
>years of Christian dark ages,
ROFL.
Yeah, right. Say, where do the enlightened progressives get the
idea that the universe is understandable? that it is possible to
study the universe around you, and be able to come to some conclusion
about how it goes?
Say, that whole French Revolution, how'd that work out? Nice
peaceful transition, until they replace one set of Religious
Superstition with a more "modern version".
>in spite of both Protestand and Catholic churches, not because of them.
>
>Where do they get this bullshit from?
Same place you got yours: uncritically swallowing what your
teachers told you, because they knew more than you, and besides, We
All Know - Those People(tm) are Deluded and Stupid.
toodles
pyotr
-
pyotr filipivich
Most of the intelligentsia haven't studied history, so much
as they've absorbed the Correct Position on "History".
IAAH
> [Default] I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that
> Christopher A. Lee <ca...@optonline.net> wrote on Tue, 01 Dec 2009
> 17:59:35 -0500 in soc.history.what-if :
>> It was the enlightenment which dragged Western Europe out of 1000
>> years of Christian dark ages,
>
> ROFL.
>
> Yeah, right. Say, where do the enlightened progressives get the
> idea that the universe is understandable? that it is possible to
> study the universe around you, and be able to come to some conclusion
> about how it goes?
Where'd they get that idea?
From people who discarded the contemporaneous
religious view that knowledge should be kept away
from laypeople.
--
"I do not pretend to be able to prove that there
is no God. I equally cannot
prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god
may exist; so may the gods of
Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But
no one of these hypotheses is
more probable than any other: they lie outside the
region of even probable
knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to
consider any of them."
-Bertrand Russell
Dr. Smartass, Troll Veterinarian
news:98773de6-2334-4095...@e23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
> h[CLIP]
That's too much shit for one shovel; why don't you summarize it in 10 words
or less?
--
Doc Smartass | BAAWA Knight of Troll Medication | aa # 1939
Book reviews: http://jw-bookblog.blogspot.com/
Kook Clearinghouse! http://kookclearinghouse.blogspot.com/
Pray for Goppers the way they pray for Obama! Psalm 109!
The Chief Instigator
> tj <timjo...@hushmail.com> wrote in
> news:98773de6-2334-4095...@e23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
>
>> h[CLIP]
>
> That's too much shit for one shovel; why don't you summarize it in 10 words
> or less?
You're still assuming he can count that high...
--
Patrick L. "The Chief Instigator" Humphrey (pat...@io.com) Houston, Texas
www.io.com/~patrick/aeros.php (TCI's 2009-10 Houston Aeros) AA#2273
LAST GAME: Houston 2, Toronto 1 (OT, November 28)
NEXT GAME: Thursday, December 3 vs. San Antonio, 11:05 AM
Dr. Smartass, Troll Veterinarian
news:slrnhhbs2s....@eris.io.com:
> On Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:36:21 -0600, Dr. Smartass, Troll Veterinarian
> <gek...@astroskivviesboymail.com> wrote:
>> tj <timjo...@hushmail.com> wrote in
>> news:98773de6-2334-4095...@e23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com
>> :
>>
>>> h[CLIP]
>>
>> That's too much shit for one shovel; why don't you summarize it in 10
>> words or less?
>
> You're still assuming he can count that high...
>
I'm an optimist. Ask anyone! *g*
The Chief Instigator
> The Chief Instigator <pat...@io.com> wrote in
> news:slrnhhbs2s....@eris.io.com:
>
>> On Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:36:21 -0600, Dr. Smartass, Troll Veterinarian
>> <gek...@astroskivviesboymail.com> wrote:
>>> tj <timjo...@hushmail.com> wrote in
>>> news:98773de6-2334-4095...@e23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com
>>> :
>>>
>>>> h[CLIP]
>>>
>>> That's too much shit for one shovel; why don't you summarize it in 10
>>> words or less?
>>
>> You're still assuming he can count that high...
>>
>
> I'm an optimist. Ask anyone! *g*
No problem, but timjones? That's one _long_ stretch...;-)
thomas p.
"Christopher A. Lee" <ca...@optonline.net> skrev i meddelelsen
news:3f7bh5dg502qtliqs...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 14:48:21 -0800 (PST), panam...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>On Dec 1, 8:42 am, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>snip
>>
>>> Just imagine if all of these evils done away with PRIMARILY by
>>> Christianity were still prevalent.
>>
>>The author has yet to do anything other than declare that Christianity
>>was the primary cause of the decline of those "evils". He also seems
>>to be ignorant of the fact that many of the situations he describes
>>haven't been really "done away with" at all. In fact, they are still
>>prevalent in many of the world's more religious areas-including the
>>Christian enclaves in Africa and the Americas.
>>
>>> Oh sure, "Christianity is evil."
>>> Wake up from ignorance of history. The evils of the Catholic Church
>>> and such misrepresented events such as the Crusades and the
>>> Inquisition, while important, pale in comparison to the substantial,
>>> if not critical impact of Chrsitianity on the west. Advances which
>>> paganism, humanism, and atheism had naught to do with, except
>>> sometimes as OPPONENTS to such advances.
>>
>>The author owes me an ironymeter. Or else needs to look up the
>>definition of "advance" somewhere..
>
> It's not just Catholicism but Protestantism as well.
>
> Don't they teach history at school any more?
Religion teaches selective blindness.
>
> Which includes the evils on both sides during and after the
> Reformation, where both Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each
> other?
>
> For example the Thirty Years War which killed about 30% of the German
> population?
>
> Or are Protestants just in denial about their own denomination's
> bloody history? John Calvin's reign of terror in Geneva? Martin
> Luther's "On The Jews And Their Lies"?
>
> It was the enlightenment which dragged Western Europe out of 1000
> years of Christian dark ages, in spite of both Protestand and
> Catholic churches, not because of them.
>
> Where do they get this bullshit from?
Where does one usually get shit?
Sanity's Little Helper
>
ifypfy
--
David Silverman
aa #2208
Defender of Civilisation
"Christian" (n). A person who views insulting non-Christians as a sacred
duity, and any response as persecution
Not authentic without this signature.
Jon Schild
> [url deleted]
Rather like good "christians" who criticize me for not spending all day
Sunday watching sports on TV.
> * Most people think that the sacredness of human life came from
> humanist roots, but they really did not. Greece and Rome did not
> provide them, Christianity did.
>
> 4. Abandonment of Religious Human Sacrifice
>
> * Cannanites: Sacrificing human beings for religious reasons was
> not confined to the pagan Canaanites and the spiritually fallen Hebrew
> kings.
> * The Irish: before St. Patrick had brought the Christian gospel
> to them, "sacrificed prisoners of war to war gods and newborns to the
> harvest gods."
> * Prussians: Sacrificing humans was also a common practice among
> the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians even until the thirteenth and
> fourteenth centuries. The British author Edward Ryan noted in 1802
> that these people "would have done so to this day were it not for
> Christianity."
> * Aztecs: Another place where widespread human sacrifices occurred
> was in what is now Mexico. Here the Aztec Indians, a warlike people,
> frequently fought in order to acquire prisoners whom they used for
> human sacrifices.
And left considerable literature, most of which was destroyed by bigoted
conquistadores with the idea (like yours apparently) that anything not
produced by christians was of the devil.
> NO MAN BEING ABOVE THE LAW
But the church is, and it can protect its prople from any legal action.
And the pope must have his own country, even a little pretend country
like Vatican City, so he can act above the law.
> 1. St. Ambrose
>
> * In Roman and Greek society, the Emperor was a God, and above the
> law. Ambrose and other Christian scholars helped debunk this idea,
> supporting equality under the law.
>
> 2. The Magna Carta (1215)
>
> * Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton: Led the charge to get
> this document enacted into law, provided legal procedures that were
> binding upon ALL, limited the power of kings
> * The Magna Carta was the first creedal governmental declaration,
> modeled after the precedent of the Nicene creed.
>
> SEXUALITY
>
> 1. Pederasty was common in Rome
>
> * It was almost impossible for a boy to grow up and not be
> accosted by an older, adult male
> * Christianity introduced the criminality of sexual molestation of
> children to the West
And later introduced the practice of protecting priests guilty of such
crime from any criminal prosecution.
> 2. Bestiality
>
> * Bestiality was not widely condemned society wide before
> Christianity
But the early christian attitude against it comes not from any statement
in the new testament, but from the law of moses. So we should give the
jews the credit for this one, not the christians.
> * Many objects from Roman culture show women and men having sex
> with animals - it was common because it was not condemned, but a
> matter of fact.
>
> WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND MARRIAGE
>
> 1. Outlawing of Patria potestas
>
> * In the 4th table of Roman law, the father had the right of life
> and death over his wife and children, even when they were adult.
> * Under Emporer Valentinian, this too was outlawed.
>
> 2. Safety for female prisoners
>
> * Constantine's son, Constantias (337 - 361), ordered the
> segregation of jailed male and female prisoners. To most people today
> the segregation of male and female prisoners seems rather obvious. But
> it should be remembered that the pagan Romans had little or no regard
> for the welfare of women, especially for women who were no longer
> under the manus (controlling hand) of their husbands. And since it was
> quite acceptable to have sexual relations with such women, the Romans
> had no moral qualms about housing men and women in the same prison
> quarters.
And yet popes who had taken a vow of chastity fathered many illegitimate
children and are still considered saints. Not that all popes did this,
but the ones who did should at least be condemned today.
> 3. Support for Marital Equality
>
> * Wedding ceremonies among the Greeks and Romans were often joked
> about
> * The Apostle Paul's admonitions of mutual love, submission, and
> service in marriage conflicted with the truly paternalistic Roman and
> Greek practices
>
> 3. Outlawing of Polygamy
>
> * Very common before Christ - it was not practiced among
> Christians, but rather entirely discouraged. This became the rule in
> the west.
> 4. Outlawing of Sati in India (widow burning)
>
> * While various provinces and governors of India tried to suppress
> or outlaw Sati, in 1829, the British outlawed this practice across the
> country under Lord William Bentinck [NOTE: he does not seem to have
> been motivated by Christianity, only by Christian values in Britain
> and his desire to anglicize India's system of laws and government].
So burning a widow is a horrible heathen crime, but burning a woman at
the stake because someone accused her of being a witch is a christian
virtue. Hypocrisy is wonderful!
Syd M.
That's prolly it's main positive force, yeah.
PDW
pyotr filipivich
<n...@email.exist> wrote on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:59:12 -0500 in
soc.history.what-if :
>On 12/1/09 7:55 PM, * pyotr filipivich wrote:
>> [Default] I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that
>> Christopher A. Lee <ca...@optonline.net> wrote on Tue, 01 Dec 2009
>> 17:59:35 -0500 in soc.history.what-if :
>>> It was the enlightenment which dragged Western Europe out of 1000
>>> years of Christian dark ages,
>>
>> ROFL.
>>
>> Yeah, right. Say, where do the enlightened progressives get the
>> idea that the universe is understandable? that it is possible to
>> study the universe around you, and be able to come to some conclusion
>> about how it goes?
>
>Where'd they get that idea?
>
> From people who discarded the contemporaneous
>religious view that knowledge should be kept away
>from laypeople.
LOL.
Let me see if I have this right. You're claiming that because the
establishment wished to control the spread of information, that meant
that the basic presuppositions that the universe is understandable
couldn't have been part and parcel of the culture.
Okay, if you insist. I still believe you need to read a little
more history, especially of the whole history of scholarly
development.
Say, how's that paragon of intellectual vigor the Climate Research
Unit doing on controlling the flow of information?
Martin
"Syd M." <pdwri...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:68fc43bd-733b-4acd...@e22g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...
As it should be when done properly... ahem!
Sex never came into this however, if you read throigh the gospels that the
Xtian Church chose to leave out and ignotr (when desperately trying to make
themselves attractive to Romean tastes), you will find the horrots of both
vegitarianism AND 'womens rights' expoused by Jesus... such things could
obviously never be acceptable in any decent society!
Michael Kuettner
"Martin" schrieb :
>
<crossposting removed>
> "Syd M." wrote :
> On Dec 1, 8:42 am, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>> http://www.twoorthree.net/2009/07/part-ii-how-christianity-changed-th...
>>
>> Part II: How Christianity changed the world - Life, Sex, Marriage &
>> Status of Women
>>
>
> Yeah... It lowered life, and the status of women, and made sex nasty
> and dirty.
>
> As it should be when done properly... ahem!
>
Exactly. Amen - err, ahem ;-)
> Sex never came into this however, if you read throigh the gospels that the
> Xtian Church chose to leave out and ignotr (when desperately trying to
> make
> themselves attractive to Romean tastes), you will find the horrots of both
> vegitarianism AND 'womens rights' expoused by Jesus... such things could
> obviously never be acceptable in any decent society!
>
Not again. The "Xtian Church" didn't exist at Nicea; just many
splintergroups
which fought each other.
The Nicean creed was forced by the emperor, who needed peace in his church.
It was the smallest common denominator which all the Christian sects present
at the council could agree upon.
The "making themselves attractive to the Romans" happened under Paulus ...
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Weland
>
> "Martin" schrieb :
>>
> <crossposting removed>
>
>> "Syd M." wrote :
>> On Dec 1, 8:42 am, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>>> http://www.twoorthree.net/2009/07/part-ii-how-christianity-changed-th...
>>>
>>> Part II: How Christianity changed the world - Life, Sex, Marriage &
>>> Status of Women
>>>
>>
>> Yeah... It lowered life, and the status of women, and made sex nasty
>> and dirty.
>>
>> As it should be when done properly... ahem!
>>
> Exactly. Amen - err, ahem ;-)
>
>> Sex never came into this however, if you read throigh the gospels that
>> the
>> Xtian Church chose to leave out and ignotr (when desperately trying to
>> make
>> themselves attractive to Romean tastes), you will find the horrots of
>> both
>> vegitarianism AND 'womens rights' expoused by Jesus... such things could
>> obviously never be acceptable in any decent society!
>>
> Not again.
Oh, Michael, you can't tell Reboul the Ridiculous anything about
history, particularly religious history. You should know that by now!
This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all kinds
of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly held
beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must be true!
There have been a number of good studies on sexuality in the ancient
world out of which Christianity came. For those interested a few such are:
Law, sex, and Christian society in medieval Europe
By James A. Brundage
The first two chapters of this excellent volume cover the ancient world
and late antique Judaism and Christianity.
Virginitas: An Essay in the History of the Medieval Ideal by John Bugge
The body and society: men, women, and sexual renunciation in early
Christianity By Peter Brown is the locus classicus now
Women in late antiquity: pagan and Christian life-styles
By Gillian Clark
This female man of God: women and spiritual power in the Patristic Age,
AD 350-450 By Gillian Cloke
Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval
Societies ed Angeliki Laiou
What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there was
a broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that attitudes in
early Christianity developed over centuries, not overnight at Nicea.
There were those who were far more restrictive than what is represented
in what has become the New Testament (and Paul is pretty liberal for his
day) and those that are far more liberal and pretty much everything in
between. Further, during the period of early Christianity, attitudes
toward sex and sexuality were in flux in the Roman world as witnessed by
changes in Roman legislation before Constantine.
Likewise with vegetarianism. Some Jewish and Early Christian groups
were vegetarian, others not. Some, even of those whose writings became
part of the "great church's" tradition and rule of faith took on
vegetarianism as a more spiritual habit and a reutrn to pre-lapsarian
state. But it wasn't a major issue, and certainly the claim that other
gospels written in the second and later centuries present Jesus and the
early Christian movement as vegetarian is false. One or two perhaps do,
but these are rather late additions and tell us more about those groups
within the early Christian movement in the third century than they do
about Christianity as a whole or even the origins of the movement.
The "Xtian Church" didn't exist at Nicea; just many
> splintergroups
> which fought each other.
> The Nicean creed was forced by the emperor, who needed peace in his church.
> It was the smallest common denominator which all the Christian sects
> present
> at the council could agree upon.
> The "making themselves attractive to the Romans" happened under Paulus ...
Oh, not so much. There was one concern about "the Romans" that Paul did
want to address and that was loyalty to the emperor in spite of not
participating in the emperor cult as it was known in the East,
particularly in the cities of Asia Minor where most of Paul's activity
seemed to have been. It was a problem that would vex Christians for
centuries to come and even after Christianity becomes dominant the
problem of loyalty to the empire and being a "Christian" soldier
continue to be issues considered and written about. Paul's version of
Christianity wasn't a program to become attriactive to "Romans" so much
as a radical reinterpretation of Judaism, sectors of which were not far
from Paul's position, including the rather inclusive Gamaliel,
purportedly Pauls' teacher.
It's good to have you posting again, Michael. What are you working on
these days?
Michael Kuettner
"Weland" schrieb :
> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>
>> "Martin" schrieb :
>>>
>> <crossposting removed>
>>
>>> "Syd M." wrote :
>>> On Dec 1, 8:42 am, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>>>> http://www.twoorthree.net/2009/07/part-ii-how-christianity-changed-th...
>>>>
>>>> Part II: How Christianity changed the world - Life, Sex, Marriage &
>>>> Status of Women
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yeah... It lowered life, and the status of women, and made sex nasty
>>> and dirty.
>>>
>>> As it should be when done properly... ahem!
>>>
>> Exactly. Amen - err, ahem ;-)
>>
>>> Sex never came into this however, if you read throigh the gospels that
>>> the
>>> Xtian Church chose to leave out and ignotr (when desperately trying to
>>> make
>>> themselves attractive to Romean tastes), you will find the horrots of
>>> both
>>> vegitarianism AND 'womens rights' expoused by Jesus... such things could
>>> obviously never be acceptable in any decent society!
>>>
>> Not again.
>
> Oh, Michael, you can't tell Reboul the Ridiculous anything about history,
> particularly religious history. You should know that by now!
Not exactly true. Martin is usually rational; that's why I was so astonished
about his obsession with the church and those conspiration theories.
> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all kinds
> of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly held
> beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must be true!
Here I must defend Martin; apart from that special bee in his bonnett
he is way above the "Da Vinci Code" crowd.
> There have been a number of good studies on sexuality in the ancient
> world out of which Christianity came. For those interested a few such
> are:
>
> Law, sex, and Christian society in medieval Europe
> By James A. Brundage
>
> The first two chapters of this excellent volume cover the ancient world
> and late antique Judaism and Christianity.
>
> Virginitas: An Essay in the History of the Medieval Ideal by John Bugge
>
> The body and society: men, women, and sexual renunciation in early
> Christianity By Peter Brown is the locus classicus now
>
> Women in late antiquity: pagan and Christian life-styles
> By Gillian Clark
>
> This female man of God: women and spiritual power in the Patristic Age, AD
> 350-450 By Gillian Cloke
>
> Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies
> ed Angeliki Laiou
>
Nice list. I makes me believe that this ng is about med. history ;-)
> What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there was a
> broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that attitudes in early
> Christianity developed over centuries, not overnight at Nicea.
Exactly. But at Nicea it was all about stopping Christian sects fighting
in the streets. The emperor needed a stable church; with _one_ canon.
So the smallest common denominator was chosen.
> There were those who were far more restrictive than what is represented in
> what has become the New Testament (and Paul is pretty liberal for his day)
> and those that are far more liberal and pretty much everything in between.
> Further, during the period of early Christianity, attitudes toward sex and
> sexuality were in flux in the Roman world as witnessed by changes in Roman
> legislation before Constantine.
>
Exactly. But as long as Martin isn't prepared to look a little closer at
such details, it makes little sense to mention it.
> Likewise with vegetarianism. Some Jewish and Early Christian groups were
> vegetarian, others not. Some, even of those whose writings became part of
> the "great church's" tradition and rule of faith took on vegetarianism as
> a more spiritual habit and a reutrn to pre-lapsarian state. But it wasn't
> a major issue, and certainly the claim that other gospels written in the
> second and later centuries present Jesus and the early Christian movement
> as vegetarian is false. One or two perhaps do, but these are rather late
> additions and tell us more about those groups within the early Christian
> movement in the third century than they do about Christianity as a whole
> or even the origins of the movement.
>
Yes.
Another interesting aspect from that time is the antagonism between the
Manicheans and the Christian movement. Would be a nice thread which
could cover the heretics in the 11th century ...
> The "Xtian Church" didn't exist at Nicea; just many
>> splintergroups
>> which fought each other.
>> The Nicean creed was forced by the emperor, who needed peace in his
>> church.
>> It was the smallest common denominator which all the Christian sects
>> present
>> at the council could agree upon.
>> The "making themselves attractive to the Romans" happened under Paulus
>> ...
>
> Oh, not so much. There was one concern about "the Romans" that Paul did
> want to address and that was loyalty to the emperor in spite of not
> participating in the emperor cult as it was known in the East,
> particularly in the cities of Asia Minor where most of Paul's activity
> seemed to have been.
You've forgotten two major aspects : No snipping of the foreskin (self-
mutilation was abhorrent to Romans) and no dietary constrictions (pig
was allowed).
That's a major part of what I consider importatnt in "making the religion
compatible with Romans".
> It was a problem that would vex Christians for centuries to come and even
> after Christianity becomes dominant the problem of loyalty to the empire
> and being a "Christian" soldier continue to be issues considered and
> written about. Paul's version of Christianity wasn't a program to become
> attriactive to "Romans" so much as a radical reinterpretation of Judaism,
> sectors of which were not far from Paul's position, including the rather
> inclusive Gamaliel, purportedly Pauls' teacher.
>
Yes and no. He's given up two major obstacles to become accepted; see above.
> It's good to have you posting again, Michael. What are you working on
> these days?
Right now I'm finishing a digital atlas for Yemen.
Next I get my archaeological project : A book about the Limes and other
Roman fortifications. UNESCO already likes it ;-)
I'm reading Vegetius this weekend and books about the Roman army and
the organizational structure of the empire.
I hope that I can start the book in 3 months.
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Weland
If you say so.
>
>> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all
>> kinds of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly
>> held beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must
>> be true!
>
> Here I must defend Martin; apart from that special bee in his bonnett
> he is way above the "Da Vinci Code" crowd.
Not from the "evidence" I've seen. After all, he takes as a serious
ancient document something appearing in the 20th century only in
translation discovered by a guy who needed something to confirm his own
beliefs and for which there is no manuscript in existence. But Martin
believes it. It must be true.
>> There have been a number of good studies on sexuality in the ancient
>> world out of which Christianity came. For those interested a few such
>> are:
>>
>> Law, sex, and Christian society in medieval Europe
>> By James A. Brundage
>>
>> The first two chapters of this excellent volume cover the ancient
>> world and late antique Judaism and Christianity.
>>
>> Virginitas: An Essay in the History of the Medieval Ideal by John Bugge
>>
>> The body and society: men, women, and sexual renunciation in early
>> Christianity By Peter Brown is the locus classicus now
>>
>> Women in late antiquity: pagan and Christian life-styles
>> By Gillian Clark
>>
>> This female man of God: women and spiritual power in the Patristic
>> Age, AD 350-450 By Gillian Cloke
>>
>> Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval
>> Societies ed Angeliki Laiou
>>
> Nice list. I makes me believe that this ng is about med. history ;-)
Every third week and fourth Saturday.
>
>
>> What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there
>> was a broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that
>> attitudes in early Christianity developed over centuries, not
>> overnight at Nicea.
>
> Exactly. But at Nicea it was all about stopping Christian sects fighting
> in the streets. The emperor needed a stable church; with _one_ canon.
> So the smallest common denominator was chosen.
Oh yes, except in one particular. Nicea, in spite of the oft repeated
idea that Nicea and Constantine "made" the Bible, had nothing to do with
the formation of the New Testament or the Bible. This just wasn't a
major issue or one of the issues Nicea dealt with. In fact, the *only*
so-called ecumenical council to deal with the question of the contents
of the New Testament and the Bible as a whole in the history of
Christianity is the Council of Trent in 1549. The *first LOCAL* council
to deal with the question was the Council of Laodicea circa *363*.
I think the notion that Constantine and/or Nicea had anything to do with
it stems from Constantine's order of 50 pandects of the complete Bible
from Eusebius. But neither Constantine nor Eusebius tells us the
details of what that consists of, nor that all 50 were finished, and
there is little evidence of any influence these pandects had on
subsequent copies or conciliar discussions. They essentially disappear
from history almost as soon as the idea appears in the historical record.
>
>> There were those who were far more restrictive than what is
>> represented in what has become the New Testament (and Paul is pretty
>> liberal for his day) and those that are far more liberal and pretty
>> much everything in between. Further, during the period of early
>> Christianity, attitudes toward sex and sexuality were in flux in the
>> Roman world as witnessed by changes in Roman legislation before
>> Constantine.
>>
> Exactly. But as long as Martin isn't prepared to look a little closer at
> such details, it makes little sense to mention it.
>
>> Likewise with vegetarianism. Some Jewish and Early Christian groups
>> were vegetarian, others not. Some, even of those whose writings
>> became part of the "great church's" tradition and rule of faith took
>> on vegetarianism as a more spiritual habit and a reutrn to
>> pre-lapsarian state. But it wasn't a major issue, and certainly the
>> claim that other gospels written in the second and later centuries
>> present Jesus and the early Christian movement as vegetarian is
>> false. One or two perhaps do, but these are rather late additions and
>> tell us more about those groups within the early Christian movement in
>> the third century than they do about Christianity as a whole or even
>> the origins of the movement.
>>
> Yes.
> Another interesting aspect from that time is the antagonism between the
> Manicheans and the Christian movement. Would be a nice thread which
> could cover the heretics in the 11th century ...
Yes, a very interesting movement and how really very close in many ways
it was to Christianity. The twelfth century revivals of Late Antique
"heresies" and sects is an interesting study, and one I've not examined
in some time. And probably one that hasn't been discussed to death here.
>
>> The "Xtian Church" didn't exist at Nicea; just many
>>> splintergroups
>>> which fought each other.
>>> The Nicean creed was forced by the emperor, who needed peace in his
>>> church.
>>> It was the smallest common denominator which all the Christian sects
>>> present
>>> at the council could agree upon.
>>> The "making themselves attractive to the Romans" happened under
>>> Paulus ...
>>
>> Oh, not so much. There was one concern about "the Romans" that Paul
>> did want to address and that was loyalty to the emperor in spite of
>> not participating in the emperor cult as it was known in the East,
>> particularly in the cities of Asia Minor where most of Paul's activity
>> seemed to have been.
>
> You've forgotten two major aspects : No snipping of the foreskin (self-
> mutilation was abhorrent to Romans) and no dietary constrictions (pig
> was allowed).
I'm not convinced that was a move to make it more acceptable to the
Romans so much as it was a major discussion within Judaism: how and in
what ways could a non-Jew take part in Judaism, a religion that many
admired for its moral code at the time, if not for their special status.
Remember that Paul and other early Christians before the troubles
of the late 60s had no notion that they were *not* just simply a sect of
Judaism--the *right* sect with the *TRUTH* and full divine revelation,
but Jewish nonetheless. Paul's answer was to distinguish a Gentile
approach and a Jewish approach, a Gentile need not become a Jew to
access the divine in Judaism.
> That's a major part of what I consider importatnt in "making the religion
> compatible with Romans".
I guess to me there are several issues there: who are "the Romans"? If
you mean simply the populace of the empire, that's something different
than indicating Roman officialdom. Second, are we talking result or
intent? If intent, I doubt very much that Paul was thinking about
making the new movement more Gentile friendly. Certainly the result of
his radicalizing of certain elements already being debated in Judaism(s)
was that it was more attractive to the Gentile God-fearers already
attracted to Judaism since it provided them full membership without the
dietary restrictions and more importantly not the automutilation
(circumcision) that would certainly make them stand out in the gymnasia
and bath houses. But that's the result.
It was a problem that would vex Christians for centuries to come and
>> even after Christianity becomes dominant the problem of loyalty to the
>> empire and being a "Christian" soldier continue to be issues
>> considered and written about. Paul's version of Christianity wasn't a
>> program to become attriactive to "Romans" so much as a radical
>> reinterpretation of Judaism, sectors of which were not far from Paul's
>> position, including the rather inclusive Gamaliel, purportedly Pauls'
>> teacher.
>>
> Yes and no. He's given up two major obstacles to become accepted; see
> above.
>
>> It's good to have you posting again, Michael. What are you working on
>> these days?
>
> Right now I'm finishing a digital atlas for Yemen.
> Next I get my archaeological project : A book about the Limes and other
> Roman fortifications. UNESCO already likes it ;-)
Sounds excellent...keep me posted, what period, region?
> I'm reading Vegetius this weekend and books about the Roman army and
> the organizational structure of the empire.
> I hope that I can start the book in 3 months.
Do keep us abreast of developments!
Martin
"Weland" <gi...@poetic.com> wrote in message
news:hg0qc7$6gh$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>
>> "Martin" schrieb :
>>>
>> <crossposting removed>
>>
>>> "Syd M." wrote :
>>> On Dec 1, 8:42 am, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>>>> http://www.twoorthree.net/2009/07/part-ii-how-christianity-changed-th...
>>>>
>>>> Part II: How Christianity changed the world - Life, Sex, Marriage &
>>>> Status of Women
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yeah... It lowered life, and the status of women, and made sex nasty
>>> and dirty.
>>>
>>> As it should be when done properly... ahem!
>>>
>> Exactly. Amen - err, ahem ;-)
>>
>>> Sex never came into this however, if you read throigh the gospels that
>>> the
>>> Xtian Church chose to leave out and ignotr (when desperately trying to
>>> make
>>> themselves attractive to Romean tastes), you will find the horrots of
>>> both
>>> vegitarianism AND 'womens rights' expoused by Jesus... such things could
>>> obviously never be acceptable in any decent society!
>>>
>> Not again.
>
> Oh, Michael, you can't tell Reboul the Ridiculous anything about history,
> particularly religious history. You should know that by now!
Nobody can 'tell' me about anything in the way you insist upon Larry - you
are not my teacher, in fact you are no teacher at all - just a rather dismal
preacher.
> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all kinds
> of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly held
> beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must be true!
Alas, I never read it... and haven't even seen the film. I prefer Tom Hanks
In Saving Pte Ryan and Big - it could spoil everything.
> There have been a number of good studies on sexuality in the ancient
> world out of which Christianity came. For those interested a few such
> are:
>
> Law, sex, and Christian society in medieval Europe
> By James A. Brundage
>
> The first two chapters of this excellent volume cover the ancient world
> and late antique Judaism and Christianity.
'Brundage' eh? Oooer, sounds a bit like....
But enough, this is no time for cheap jokes! Perhaps a quick review of Roman
sexual practice will make you more painfully aware of yoir failings Larry?
> Virginitas: An Essay in the History of the Medieval Ideal by John Bugge
>
> The body and society: men, women, and sexual renunciation in early
> Christianity By Peter Brown is the locus classicus now
Medieval ideals and medieval reality were far removed from each other, as
Peter will no doubt confirm. 'Renunciation' was a word they would not have
known... or practised. Have you not read Chaucer Larry? A little racy for
you perhaps, but worth the effort - wear a hair shirt before you start
reading.
> Women in late antiquity: pagan and Christian life-styles
> By Gillian Clark
>
> This female man of God: women and spiritual power in the Patristic Age, AD
> 350-450 By Gillian Cloke
Any relation to Ms Clark? I'd imagine this is uneasy reading for you Larry,
and have you reaching for your sword to protect the pure reputation of the
BVM - adopted by the church to fill the glaring gap in their appeal to the
masses - a Mother goddess.
> Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies
> ed Angeliki Laiou
>
> What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there was a
> broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that attitudes in early
> Christianity developed over centuries, not overnight at Nicea.
One would think you attended that conference yourself Larry, from your
clearly absurd insistences and assurances?
> There were those who were far more restrictive than what is represented in
> what has become the New Testament (and Paul is pretty liberal for his
> day).....
Ahem! I think not... the misogynistic old homphobe, who clearly hadn't ever
enjoyed ****ong anyone in his life, boy, girl, man, woman, sheep or goat!
>..... and those that are far more liberal and pretty much everything in
>between. Further, during the period of early Christianity, attitudes
>toward sex and sexuality were in flux in the Roman world as witnessed by
>changes in Roman legislation before Constantine.
Well, the good 'ole Roman fluxed an awful lot, in any way conceivable -
whether partners were willing or not. They indeed fluxed most of the world,
bothe before and after their conversion to the pure, benevolent and
considerate religion of Christianity.
> Likewise with vegetarianism. Some Jewish and Early Christian groups were
> vegetarian, others not.
Jesus was of course a bit of an 'independent', yet seems to have expoused
vegitarianism with enthusiasm. I am not of that persuasion myself, but
admire his daring attitude and kindly humanity in this respect, way out of
keeping with his time, and doubtless controversial.
> Some, even of those whose writings became part of the "great church's"
> tradition and rule of faith took on vegetarianism as a more spiritual
> habit and a reutrn to pre-lapsarian state.
Odd that? I wonder where they got such strange ideas?
> But it wasn't a major issue, and certainly the claim that other gospels
> written in the second and later centuries present Jesus and the early
> Christian movement as vegetarian is false.
Aha... are we making progress here? So Larry, you admit such gospels WERE
written?
> One or two perhaps do....
NB More than one!
> ....but these are rather late additions and tell us more about those
> groups within the early Christian movement in the third century than they
> do about Christianity as a whole or even the origins of the movement.
Ahem... the "late additions" come from the time when the gospeld were
censored, edited, altered, revised then destroyed, to manufacture the first
'authourised Bible' - a very appropriate term! The 'authors' of it wewre
motivated by political ambition, not spurutual or historical accuracy - it
was (and has ever since been) NOT the word(s) of God or Jesus, but the work
of clever, secretive and unscrupulous editors and revisioners - written to
please, not to enlighten or inform.
> The "Xtian Church" didn't exist at Nicea; just many
>> splintergroups
>> which fought each other.
The Xtian Church (so precious to your prejudice and faith Larry) has always
been a bunch of splinter groups who fought each other! Cathars butned at the
stake, templars butchered for their cash, 'heretics' tortured and murdered
for dating to question, then finally (the one too big to fix by mass murder)
the split twixt Catholic and Protestant, the subspllits between countless
divisions, Wesleyans, Mormons, SCA's, Puritans, Baptists, Anabaptists, High
and Lo churches, Presbyterians, Jesuits... it goes on and on.
Nothing founded on truth and any worthwhile, basic message could have ended
up so corrupt, factioned and arrogantly divided, nor so viciously
authoritarian and greedy.
It's a sad business IMO, as the message and teachings of Jesus were rather
appealing, morally sound and unquestionably kindly, sensible and generous.
Unfortunately for him and for history, they were not 'good news' to despots,
dictators, authoritarians and Romans - so they were hi-jacked, censored,
distorted and altered to serve the purpose of greedy, ambitious and ruthless
men who were running the church centuries after Jesus was executed.
I understand their motivation, see their ambitions and their methods are all
too apparent (and a matter of historical record too!). I consider them
despicable, but cannot blame them for what they did - seeing the 'main
chance' they went for it, and succeeded. Had they known the misery this
would have caused for many centuries, I daresay many would not have done
what they did - but hindsight is a luxury they didn't have.
Why you can't accept that this happened is a matter for you and your
concience Larry? I can't believe it is mere stupidity, for despite outward
appearances you are not unintelligent, or so it seems. I cannot possibly
respect you as an objective historian however, since you rant on reguardless
like some demented, patronising fundamentalist, obviously guided by what you
have been trained or told to believe, rather than what you must by now
realise is the truth.
I am truly sad that a man of your talent and intelligence continues to be so
arrogant, voluble and insistent, in view of common sense, and all the facts
before you?
>> The Nicean creed was forced by the emperor, who needed peace in his
>> church.
>> It was the smallest common denominator which all the Christian sects
>> present
>> at the council could agree upon.
>> The "making themselves attractive to the Romans" happened under Paulus
>> ...
>
> Oh, not so much. There was one concern about "the Romans" that Paul did
> want to address and that was loyalty to the emperor in spite of not
> participating in the emperor cult as it was known in the East,
> particularly in the cities of Asia Minor where most of Paul's activity
> seemed to have been. It was a problem that would vex Christians for
> centuries to come and even after Christianity becomes dominant the problem
> of loyalty to the empire and being a "Christian" soldier continue to be
> issues considered and written about. Paul's version of Christianity
> wasn't a program to become attriactive to "Romans" so much as a radical
> reinterpretation of Judaism, sectors of which were not far from Paul's
> position, including the rather inclusive Gamaliel, purportedly Pauls'
> teacher.
Paul was Very Bad News for the Christian church, and continues to be so. I
notice that all of the most unreasonable, venomous and arrogant Christian
apologists you come across venerate Paul as a virtual god... never mind a
saint! Too eager to trust Syrian Tax Collectors who work for the Romans...
he was a bad man!
As for 'appealing to Rome', as we all know, Roman women liked to 'do it
doggy' and get on top, as Pompeii has revealed. I'm glad to see that most
civilised chaps these days accept that this is a nice way to go without
prejudice, and have given 'Saint' Paul an Agincourt, twi fingered salute!
Martin
"Michael Kuettner" <Michael....@gmx.at> wrote in message
news:hg0vk2$g7j$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Thank you Michael - rational I am, and remain. The original debate has been
long, long obscured by obfustication, smokescreens, red herrings and the
onset of Larry's attacks of Sepponic Dementis - he's even writing in
capitals,.rather disturbing?
There is no 'Yuri Konspiracy' theory here, other in Larry's imagination (I
suspect reading the DaVinci Code has affected him adversely, and caused him
to exhibut uncharacteristic Seppotic tendendencirs of late).
As always, I deal with facts, however cold, hard and uncomfortable to step
on.
>> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all kinds
>> of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly held
>> beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must be true!
>
> Here I must defend Martin; apart from that special bee in his bonnett
> he is way above the "Da Vinci Code" crowd.
Thank you! I have honestly never read it, seen the film or wish to do so.
Bad history - and bad FOR history!
>> There have been a number of good studies on sexuality in the ancient
>> world out of which Christianity came. For those interested a few such
>> are:
>>
>> Law, sex, and Christian society in medieval Europe
>> By James A. Brundage
>>
>> The first two chapters of this excellent volume cover the ancient world
>> and late antique Judaism and Christianity.
>>
>> Virginitas: An Essay in the History of the Medieval Ideal by John Bugge
>>
>> The body and society: men, women, and sexual renunciation in early
>> Christianity By Peter Brown is the locus classicus now
>>
>> Women in late antiquity: pagan and Christian life-styles
>> By Gillian Clark
>>
>> This female man of God: women and spiritual power in the Patristic Age,
>> AD 350-450 By Gillian Cloke
>>
>> Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval
>> Societies ed Angeliki Laiou
>>
> Nice list. I makes me believe that this ng is about med. history ;-)
>
>
>> What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there was
>> a broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that attitudes in
>> early Christianity developed over centuries, not overnight at Nicea.
>
> Exactly. But at Nicea it was all about stopping Christian sects fighting
> in the streets. The emperor needed a stable church; with _one_ canon.
> So the smallest common denominator was chosen.
And that's where it all went pear shaped...
Martin
But not if you say so Larry!
>>> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all kinds
>>> of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly held
>>> beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must be true!
>>
>> Here I must defend Martin; apart from that special bee in his bonnett
>> he is way above the "Da Vinci Code" crowd.
>
> Not from the "evidence" I've seen. After all, he takes as a serious
> ancient document something appearing in the 20th century only in
> translation discovered by a guy who needed something to confirm his own
> beliefs and for which there is no manuscript in existence. But Martin
> believes it. It must be true.
The fact is, the manuscripts you require to prove your insistent statements
are not there. They were destroyed after the 'first bible' was produced -
along with as many of the reference sources as possible that were not
included in it were. You have never adequately answered why rhis was done?
I say it was an attempt to cover up the way the Bible was corripted, edited
and altered, so that its veracity was beyond question. You say it is not -
but that's all. You are wanting - and I am asking, yet again!
Luckily, despite strenuous efforts, they failed in that shameful mission -
just as you are clearly failing in yours Larry, when attempting to support
them in the face of reason and evidence.
I predict your next tiresome, repetitive response will be 'what evidence'?
again. If you can't see it yet, you have utterly and completely failed as a
historian!
(Snip).
> Do keep us abreast of developments!
I always do - try it!
Michael Kuettner
Well, yes. You've gotten off on the wrong foot, I guess.
But flame on ;-P
>>
>>> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all kinds
>>> of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly held
>>> beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must be true!
>>
>> Here I must defend Martin; apart from that special bee in his bonnett
>> he is way above the "Da Vinci Code" crowd.
>
> Not from the "evidence" I've seen. After all, he takes as a serious
> ancient document something appearing in the 20th century only in
> translation discovered by a guy who needed something to confirm his own
> beliefs and for which there is no manuscript in existence. But Martin
> believes it. It must be true.
>
Martin has the problem that he thinks there was a "truth" in the gospels
which
was edited out later.
He never considered that any heavy editing would also have removed
the contradictions in the four gospels which are <ahem> not exactly
an indicator for heavy "editoring".
<snip list>
>> Nice list. I makes me believe that this ng is about med. history ;-)
>
> Every third week and fourth Saturday.
And when I get around to it.
Re - Med. history : Got another nice book from Arno Borst
about the medieval world. Has he ever been translated into
English ?
>>
>>
>>> What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there was
>>> a broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that attitudes in
>>> early Christianity developed over centuries, not overnight at Nicea.
>>
>> Exactly. But at Nicea it was all about stopping Christian sects fighting
>> in the streets. The emperor needed a stable church; with _one_ canon.
>> So the smallest common denominator was chosen.
>
> Oh yes, except in one particular. Nicea, in spite of the oft repeated
> idea that Nicea and Constantine "made" the Bible, had nothing to do with
> the formation of the New Testament or the Bible.
Oh, but he had. He forced all the splinter groups to agree on
a canon which everyone could live with.
He didn't care for the theological framework.
Sorry, should have made that clearer.
There were, of course, still groups which didn't agree with the
"minimal script". But they weren't in the "official" (for want of a better
word) church anymore.
> This just wasn't a major issue or one of the issues Nicea dealt with. In
> fact, the *only* so-called ecumenical council to deal with the question of
> the contents of the New Testament and the Bible as a whole in the history
> of Christianity is the Council of Trent in 1549. The *first LOCAL*
> council to deal with the question was the Council of Laodicea circa *363*.
>
Yes, we went over that in another thread long past.
Trent includes more texts than Nicea, eg. So much for editing.
> I think the notion that Constantine and/or Nicea had anything to do with
> it stems from Constantine's order of 50 pandects of the complete Bible
> from Eusebius. But neither Constantine nor Eusebius tells us the details
> of what that consists of, nor that all 50 were finished, and there is
> little evidence of any influence these pandects had on subsequent copies
> or conciliar discussions. They essentially disappear from history almost
> as soon as the idea appears in the historical record.
>
Well, yes and no. On the state side, C. had his "official" church.
That not everyone was happy with it, should be obvious.
But Nicea stamped (or coined) the least common denominator
upon which all groups could agree.
That lead to a stabile church-state relationship.
The theological bickering went on, of course.
<snip>
>> Another interesting aspect from that time is the antagonism between the
>> Manicheans and the Christian movement. Would be a nice thread which
>> could cover the heretics in the 11th century ...
>
> Yes, a very interesting movement and how really very close in many ways it
> was to Christianity. The twelfth century revivals of Late Antique
> "heresies" and sects is an interesting study, and one I've not examined in
> some time. And probably one that hasn't been discussed to death here.
>
Revival ? That's a point in question. The path seems to have been
over Bulgaria (Neo-Paulianer, AFAIR).
The seminal work about the Catars stems only from 1956 (A. Borst);
the "gospel" of the Catars was then just discovered (in 1942, AFAIR).
How the dualism spreadfrom Mani to the Catars remains to be
discovered (the Iron Curtain wasn't very helpful in this regard ;-P)
<snip oh, in this context - ouch>
>> You've forgotten two major aspects : No snipping of the foreskin (self-
>> mutilation was abhorrent to Romans) and no dietary constrictions (pig
>> was allowed).
>
> I'm not convinced that was a move to make it more acceptable to the Romans
> so much as it was a major discussion within Judaism: how and in what ways
> could a non-Jew take part in Judaism, a religion that many admired for its
> moral code at the time, if not for their special status.
I was talking in Martin's words; non-gentiles may be better ?
> Remember that Paul and other early Christians before the troubles of
> the late 60s had no notion that they were *not* just simply a sect of
> Judaism--the *right* sect with the *TRUTH* and full divine revelation, but
> Jewish nonetheless. Paul's answer was to distinguish a Gentile approach
> and a Jewish approach, a Gentile need not become a Jew to access the
> divine in Judaism.
>
Exactly. That's what I've said.
The religion already was "sexy" to Romans and Greeks; live in paradise
for a just life obeying the commends.
Roman and Greek afterlife was just a world of shades and shadows;
it didn't matter how you lived, you ended up as a grey, unhappy ghost
(Odysseus, Orpheus & Euridike, etc). living in a dreary place.
Unless you were a Half-God, then you lucked out, of course ;-)
Paulus only "removed the brakes" to make his religion universally
accepted in the Greco-Roman culture.
>> That's a major part of what I consider importatnt in "making the religion
>> compatible with Romans".
>
>
> I guess to me there are several issues there: who are "the Romans"? If
> you mean simply the populace of the empire, that's something different
> than indicating Roman officialdom. Second, are we talking result or
> intent?
(a) See above
(b) Intent ? I can't speak about intent. But I guess that it was Paul's
idea to make the religion universal (and Roma est universum held
true those days).
> If intent, I doubt very much that Paul was thinking about making the new
> movement more Gentile friendly. Certainly the result of his radicalizing
> of certain elements already being debated in Judaism(s) was that it was
> more attractive to the Gentile God-fearers already attracted to Judaism
> since it provided them full membership without the dietary restrictions
> and more importantly not the automutilation (circumcision) that would
> certainly make them stand out in the gymnasia and bath houses. But that's
> the result.
>
Exactly. Whether it was intentional or not, I cannot say. I just can
state the result.
It might very well be that Paul just needed more paying followers;
rabbis didn't work for their bread. But well, I'm cynical.
Until (hopefully) new documents are discovered, we can't say
why he did what he did. We can only look at what he did and the results.
<snip>
>>> It's good to have you posting again, Michael. What are you working on
>>> these days?
>>
>> Right now I'm finishing a digital atlas for Yemen.
>> Next I get my archaeological project : A book about the Limes and other
>> Roman fortifications. UNESCO already likes it ;-)
>
> Sounds excellent...keep me posted, what period, region?
>
All the border regions (planned) from the 2nd century onwards.
That's when the empire started deflating (or stopped expanding ;-P)
>> I'm reading Vegetius this weekend and books about the Roman army and
>> the organizational structure of the empire.
>> I hope that I can start the book in 3 months.
>
> Do keep us abreast of developments!
Development (a) :
Roman fortifications are not according to manuals ;-)
Development (b) :
I remember one old text from Alex M. about castles and Mongols.
I'll use that one ;-P
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Weland
Perhaps. But last year I also went through list archives and maybe my
experience with the Ridiculous has colored my perception, but I don't
see anything even in the distant past that justifies your defense of
him. Argument by ridicule (ad hominem) is still fallacious even if
enlisted for the historically valid position--and that's Ridiculous'
stock in trade: ad hominem rhetoric and cheap jokes. All very amusing,
but hardly the sort of discourse one wants to defend.
I tried flames, along with every other approach I could think of to get
Ridiculous to actually engage with real history. He isn't interested.
Even when he is informed by a friend that something he touts as
"accurate" is universally being panned by experts having nothing to do
with me, he nonetheless will remain by the unhistorical because it seems
to confirm his beliefs. After all this time, he is content to charge at
straw windmills he's constructed and calls by my name, but have nothing
at all to do with me or the positions I've outlined. So let him: his
posturing is amusing to me now. So no flames.
>>>
>>>> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all
>>>> kinds of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his
>>>> dearly held beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so
>>>> it must be true!
>>>
>>> Here I must defend Martin; apart from that special bee in his bonnett
>>> he is way above the "Da Vinci Code" crowd.
>>
>> Not from the "evidence" I've seen. After all, he takes as a serious
>> ancient document something appearing in the 20th century only in
>> translation discovered by a guy who needed something to confirm his
>> own beliefs and for which there is no manuscript in existence. But
>> Martin believes it. It must be true.
>>
> Martin has the problem that he thinks there was a "truth" in the gospels
> which> was edited out later.
That's only one problem. Another is the assumption that the Roman world
had a problem with vegetarianism. There were several groups and
religions that advocated vegetarianism and plenty of "practical"
vegetarianism (meat simply not being affordable for many on a regular
basis), much less the vegetarian meals available even at feasts. There
are several more problems I pointed out at the time.
> He never considered that any heavy editing would also have removed
> the contradictions in the four gospels which are <ahem> not exactly
> an indicator for heavy "editoring".
I recall making that point, among several others based in textual criticism.
> <snip list>
>>> Nice list. I makes me believe that this ng is about med. history ;-)
>>
>> Every third week and fourth Saturday.
>
> And when I get around to it.
> Re - Med. history : Got another nice book from Arno Borst
> about the medieval world. Has he ever been translated into
> English ?
>
Which one? Some of his works have been translated.
>>>
>>>
>>>> What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there
>>>> was a broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that
>>>> attitudes in early Christianity developed over centuries, not
>>>> overnight at Nicea.
>>>
>>> Exactly. But at Nicea it was all about stopping Christian sects fighting
>>> in the streets. The emperor needed a stable church; with _one_ canon.
>>> So the smallest common denominator was chosen.
>>
>> Oh yes, except in one particular. Nicea, in spite of the oft repeated
>> idea that Nicea and Constantine "made" the Bible, had nothing to do
>> with the formation of the New Testament or the Bible.
>
> Oh, but he had. He forced all the splinter groups to agree on
> a canon which everyone could live with.
But he didn't. There's simply no evidence for this with reference to a
canon of the Christian bible. Not in Constantine's decrees, not in the
canons of Nicea, not in any reference by any supporter of Constantine,
not in any reference by detractors, not in any subsequent authors of the
period. So far as I've been able to discover, and it is a question I
have researched, I've found no ancient evidence for this: only modern
claims unsupported by ancient references.
So I'm going to push you a little on this one. What specific primary
evidence exists to support "He forced all the splinter groups to agree
on a canon which everyone could live with."
> He didn't care for the theological framework.
> Sorry, should have made that clearer.
> There were, of course, still groups which didn't agree with the
> "minimal script". But they weren't in the "official" (for want of a better
> word) church anymore.
>
>> This just wasn't a major issue or one of the issues Nicea dealt with.
>> In fact, the *only* so-called ecumenical council to deal with the
>> question of the contents of the New Testament and the Bible as a whole
>> in the history of Christianity is the Council of Trent in 1549. The
>> *first LOCAL* council to deal with the question was the Council of
>> Laodicea circa *363*.
>>
> Yes, we went over that in another thread long past.
> Trent includes more texts than Nicea, eg. So much for editing.
>
>> I think the notion that Constantine and/or Nicea had anything to do
>> with it stems from Constantine's order of 50 pandects of the complete
>> Bible from Eusebius. But neither Constantine nor Eusebius tells us
>> the details of what that consists of, nor that all 50 were finished,
>> and there is little evidence of any influence these pandects had on
>> subsequent copies or conciliar discussions. They essentially
>> disappear from history almost as soon as the idea appears in the
>> historical record.
>>
> Well, yes and no. On the state side, C. had his "official" church.
Well, yes and no. C. and his successors kept changing who was
"official", hence C was baptized not by an "orthodox" bishop who signed
Nicea, nor even a good fence sitter like Eusebius of Caesaria, but by
Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian....who also used his court influence to
get Arians into key govt and church positions during the reign of
Constantine, *AFTER* Nicea. And let's not forget that C recalled Arius
from exile and banished one of Arius' chief opponents Athanasius....so
who was official? Arians? NOn-Arians? Donatists?
> That not everyone was happy with it, should be obvious.
> But Nicea stamped (or coined) the least common denominator
> upon which all groups could agree.
As the creed defining "right doctrine" on the question of Arianism, but
not on what was to become the "Bible"
> That lead to a stabile church-state relationship.
Eventually, but not really until after Julian the Apostate, and really
during the reign of Theodosius post 382. During Constantine's reign, he
switched from side to side and did things that were quite unpopular.
> The theological bickering went on, of course.
More than mere bickering....Constantine effectively changed sides of his
"official" church....more than once.
> <snip>
>>> Another interesting aspect from that time is the antagonism between the
>>> Manicheans and the Christian movement. Would be a nice thread which
>>> could cover the heretics in the 11th century ...
>>
>> Yes, a very interesting movement and how really very close in many
>> ways it was to Christianity. The twelfth century revivals of Late
>> Antique "heresies" and sects is an interesting study, and one I've not
>> examined in some time. And probably one that hasn't been discussed to
>> death here.
>>
> Revival ? That's a point in question. The path seems to have been
> over Bulgaria (Neo-Paulianer, AFAIR).
Sure...but Catharism, while influenced by Manichaeism, isn't
Manichaeism. So far as I know, we can't trace a direct line of descent
from the early fifth century to the tenth...hence my use of the word
"revival" rather than "survival and reascendance".
> The seminal work about the Catars stems only from 1956 (A. Borst);
> the "gospel" of the Catars was then just discovered (in 1942, AFAIR).
> How the dualism spreadfrom Mani to the Catars remains to be
> discovered (the Iron Curtain wasn't very helpful in this regard ;-P)
I'm not expert in this, but didn't a group in Armenia have an influence
on the Bogomils, and then the Bogomils on the Cathars?
> <snip oh, in this context - ouch>
>>> You've forgotten two major aspects : No snipping of the foreskin (self-
>>> mutilation was abhorrent to Romans) and no dietary constrictions (pig
>>> was allowed).
>>
>> I'm not convinced that was a move to make it more acceptable to the
>> Romans so much as it was a major discussion within Judaism: how and in
>> what ways could a non-Jew take part in Judaism, a religion that many
>> admired for its moral code at the time, if not for their special status.
>
> I was talking in Martin's words; non-gentiles may be better ?
Ok...I think we're in agreement here.
I've snipped the rest because we are in agreement and on the same page,
so no need to belabor things.
>
> <snip>
>>>> It's good to have you posting again, Michael. What are you working
>>>> on these days?
>>>
>>> Right now I'm finishing a digital atlas for Yemen.
>>> Next I get my archaeological project : A book about the Limes and other
>>> Roman fortifications. UNESCO already likes it ;-)
>>
>> Sounds excellent...keep me posted, what period, region?
>>
> All the border regions (planned) from the 2nd century onwards.
> That's when the empire started deflating (or stopped expanding ;-P)
Yep, good stuff going on there. Please do keep us up to date.
>
>>> I'm reading Vegetius this weekend and books about the Roman army and
>>> the organizational structure of the empire.
>>> I hope that I can start the book in 3 months.
>>
>> Do keep us abreast of developments!
>
> Development (a) :
>
> Roman fortifications are not according to manuals ;-)
In border regions from the second century?
erilar
Weland <gi...@poetic.com> wrote:
> I'm not expert in this, but didn't a group in Armenia have an influence
> on the Bogomils, and then the Bogomils on the Cathars?
It's too long since I was reading up on this, but I certainly remember
the Bogomil--Cathar link.
--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist
Curt Emanuel
news:drache-6E524A....@news.eternal-september.org...
More a Bulgaria/Bosnia origination point - the Bogomils developed an entire
Eastern European heretical Church. There is some (or was - I haven't kept up
on where things have gone over the past 4-5 years) debate over whether the
Languedoc Cathars inherited dualism directly from E Europe or whether there
was a N Italian transmission, or even from the Rhineland where there is some
mid-12th century evidence.
My apologies for the vagueness. Been some years since I read my
Lambert/Costen/Strayer, etc.
--
Curt Emanuel
cema...@ffni.com
Michael Kuettner
"Weland" <gi...@poetic.com> schrieb :
First : Merry Christmas to you and the other members of shm.
> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>
>> "Weland" schrieb :
>>> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>>>
>>>> "Weland" schrieb :
>>>>> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>>>>>
<snip>
>> And when I get around to it.
>> Re - Med. history : Got another nice book from Arno Borst
>> about the medieval world. Has he ever been translated into
>> English ?
>>
>
> Which one? Some of his works have been translated.
His seminal work about the Catars, for example ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> What Michael gets right but doesn't explore thoroughly is that there
>>>>> was a broad spectrum of responses to human sexuality and that
>>>>> attitudes in early Christianity developed over centuries, not
>>>>> overnight at Nicea.
>>>>
>>>> Exactly. But at Nicea it was all about stopping Christian sects
>>>> fighting
>>>> in the streets. The emperor needed a stable church; with _one_ canon.
>>>> So the smallest common denominator was chosen.
>>>
>>> Oh yes, except in one particular. Nicea, in spite of the oft repeated
>>> idea that Nicea and Constantine "made" the Bible, had nothing to do with
>>> the formation of the New Testament or the Bible.
>>
>> Oh, but he had. He forced all the splinter groups to agree on
>> a canon which everyone could live with.
>
> But he didn't. There's simply no evidence for this with reference to a
> canon of the Christian bible. Not in Constantine's decrees, not in the
> canons of Nicea, not in any reference by any supporter of Constantine,
> not in any reference by detractors, not in any subsequent authors of the
> period. So far as I've been able to discover, and it is a question I
> have researched, I've found no ancient evidence for this: only modern
> claims unsupported by ancient references.
>
> So I'm going to push you a little on this one. What specific primary
> evidence exists to support "He forced all the splinter groups to agree
> on a canon which everyone could live with."
>
Well, the development of the Catholic church points to it.
Here I don't mean the theological development, but the administrative
network - the organization.
Had the church been divided into splintergroups (which it was before
Nicaea), the whole structure would never have happened.
While there were "heresies" like Arianism, those didn't hinder the
development of the "main stream".
While the Arians built churches (which co-existed for a rather long
time peacefully beside the Catholic churches, as Archaeology shows
e.g. at Magdalensberg, Austria), they were never able to create an
organization like the offficial church.
<snip>
>>> I think the notion that Constantine and/or Nicea had anything to do with
>>> it stems from Constantine's order of 50 pandects of the complete Bible
>>> from Eusebius. But neither Constantine nor Eusebius tells us the
>>> details of what that consists of, nor that all 50 were finished, and
>>> there is little evidence of any influence these pandects had on
>>> subsequent copies or conciliar discussions. They essentially disappear
>>> from history almost as soon as the idea appears in the historical
>>> record.
>>>
>> Well, yes and no. On the state side, C. had his "official" church.
>
> Well, yes and no. C. and his successors kept changing who was
> "official", hence C was baptized not by an "orthodox" bishop who signed
> Nicea, nor even a good fence sitter like Eusebius of Caesaria, but by
> Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian....who also used his court influence to
> get Arians into key govt and church positions during the reign of
> Constantine, *AFTER* Nicea. And let's not forget that C recalled Arius
> from exile and banished one of Arius' chief opponents Athanasius....so who
> was official? Arians? NOn-Arians? Donatists?
>
That's a rather good question; shall we call them proto-Catholics ?
Those who agreed on Nicaea and the teaching of the church-fathers.
OK, here we have to take into account that the churches of Eastern and
Western Rome developed into different directions even during C.s time.
I'm talking only about Western Rome here; the emerging Catholic church.
>> That not everyone was happy with it, should be obvious.
>> But Nicea stamped (or coined) the least common denominator
>> upon which all groups could agree.
>
> As the creed defining "right doctrine" on the question of Arianism, but
> not on what was to become the "Bible"
>
Please note that I didn't mention the bible, I said canon. Some groups
added other scriptures, but those from Nicaea were adopted by all of
them.
Arianism was a debate _within_ this corpus; namely whether the word
read homoios or homoiousios.
>> That lead to a stabile church-state relationship.
>
> Eventually, but not really until after Julian the Apostate, and really
> during the reign of Theodosius post 382. During Constantine's reign, he
> switched from side to side and did things that were quite unpopular.
>
Yes, but the administrative framework of the church developed nevertheless
and survived even the fall of Westen Rome. That shows that the majority
of Christians in the West believed in roughly the same things - the smallest
common denominator - otherwise the organization would hve broken apart.
>> The theological bickering went on, of course.
>
> More than mere bickering....Constantine effectively changed sides of his
> "official" church....more than once.
>
Yes, but those churches seemed to have co-existed peacefully during those
times, as Archaeology (Magdalensberg, e.g.) shows.
>> <snip>
>>>> Another interesting aspect from that time is the antagonism between the
>>>> Manicheans and the Christian movement. Would be a nice thread which
>>>> could cover the heretics in the 11th century ...
>>>
>>> Yes, a very interesting movement and how really very close in many ways
>>> it was to Christianity. The twelfth century revivals of Late Antique
>>> "heresies" and sects is an interesting study, and one I've not examined
>>> in some time. And probably one that hasn't been discussed to death
>>> here.
>>>
>> Revival ? That's a point in question. The path seems to have been
>> over Bulgaria (Neo-Paulianer, AFAIR).
>
> Sure...but Catharism, while influenced by Manichaeism, isn't
> Manichaeism. So far as I know, we can't trace a direct line of descent
> from the early fifth century to the tenth...hence my use of the word
> "revival" rather than "survival and reascendance".
>
Oh sorry, there is a misunderstanding. The Catars were of course
not survivors; it's just the name the Catholic church used for them
when they became aware of their existance.
So Mani seems to have left a rather strong impression ...
>> The seminal work about the Catars stems only from 1956 (A. Borst);
>> the "gospel" of the Catars was then just discovered (in 1942, AFAIR).
>> How the dualism spreadfrom Mani to the Catars remains to be
>> discovered (the Iron Curtain wasn't very helpful in this regard ;-P)
>
> I'm not expert in this, but didn't a group in Armenia have an influence
> on the Bogomils, and then the Bogomils on the Cathars?
>
You mean the Paulikianer ?
<snip>
>>>>> It's good to have you posting again, Michael. What are you working on
>>>>> these days?
>>>>
>>>> Right now I'm finishing a digital atlas for Yemen.
>>>> Next I get my archaeological project : A book about the Limes and other
>>>> Roman fortifications. UNESCO already likes it ;-)
>>>
>>> Sounds excellent...keep me posted, what period, region?
>>>
>> All the border regions (planned) from the 2nd century onwards.
>> That's when the empire started deflating (or stopped expanding ;-P)
>
> Yep, good stuff going on there. Please do keep us up to date.
I've finished putting together my skeleton reading list (luckily I had 2
thirds
of the books in my library ;-))
>>
>>>> I'm reading Vegetius this weekend and books about the Roman army and
>>>> the organizational structure of the empire.
>>>> I hope that I can start the book in 3 months.
>>>
>>> Do keep us abreast of developments!
>>
>> Development (a) :
>>
>> Roman fortifications are not according to manuals ;-)
>
> In border regions from the second century?
>
It's a little confusing; but it seems as if the military doctrine in
Italy and the border regions went separate ways early on.
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Martin
I have to say, I am in agreement here!
The only thing I loathe more than Ad Hominem attacks is hypocrisy...
>>>>> This model of his about a monolithic "Christian Church" making all
>>>>> kinds of decisions at Nicea that were never made is one of his dearly
>>>>> held beliefs! He read it in The Da Vinci Code after all, so it must
>>>>> be true!
>>>>
>>>> Here I must defend Martin; apart from that special bee in his bonnett
>>>> he is way above the "Da Vinci Code" crowd.
>>>
>>> Not from the "evidence" I've seen. After all, he takes as a serious
>>> ancient document something appearing in the 20th century only in
>>> translation discovered by a guy who needed something to confirm his own
>>> beliefs and for which there is no manuscript in existence. But Martin
>>> believes it. It must be true.
>>>
>> Martin has the problem that he thinks there was a "truth" in the gospels
>> which> was edited out later.
>
> That's only one problem. Another is the assumption that the Roman world
> had a problem with vegetarianism. There were several groups and
> religions that advocated vegetarianism and plenty of "practical"
> vegetarianism (meat simply not being affordable for many on a regular
> basis), much less the vegetarian meals available even at feasts. There
> are several more problems I pointed out at the time.
The only real problem is that which you have with reason, logic and staying
on topic Larry.
When it comes to 'belief' and 'truth', you clearly put all those aside in
favour of arrogance, insulting behaviour and blinkered repetitiveness...
with a folorn hope of red-herrings now and then.
Laughable...
>> He never considered that any heavy editing would also have removed
>> the contradictions in the four gospels which are <ahem> not exactly
>> an indicator for heavy "editoring".
>
> I recall making that point, among several others based in textual
> criticism.
Aha... so the point was conceded that some editing had occured? Thank you
Larry!
I made the point (which you seem to have missed?) that even in the foutyh
century, a unanimous conformity un the four gospels would have been viewed
with suspicion - why have four, when there only need ne one? This is sich a
painfully obvious point, I'm almost embarrassed to repeat it!
You fool! Your 'research' leaves much to be desired Larry, you haven't even
tried the 'History Channel' it seems?
The whole point is that Constantine was a pagan - he did not decree, design
or 'canon' anything. To persuade him to convert, the Bible was produced,
designed by clever, politically ambitious men to meet with his approval -
not by his request or order. It worked - in conjumction with other
circumstances, supertstitious persuaders and natural events. Against the
odds, Rome became Christian.
You no doubt put that down to Divine Intervention Larry... bit I, and most
objective historians, put it down to an arch piece of cunning political
manouvering, by the clever men who ran the Church.
They sure were clever, that can't be denied, and I salute them - not for
their motal principals or honesty of course, but their ruthless, secretive
machinations, which have fooled poor, gullible, blinkered fellows like you
for two thousand years.
Just be thankful you no longer have to stake your life on it!
> So I'm going to push you a little on this one. What specific primary
> evidence exists to support "He forced all the splinter groups to agree
> on a canon which everyone could live with."
As much specific, primary evidence as you have to hand to support your
absurd claims Larry!
Have you never come across the notion of 'common sense'?
Who cares? C. was a politician, not a churchman. Had the Christians not
usefully suited his pirposes, he would have treated them as Nero did. Your
precious 'C.' was a Roman through and throigh first, ruthless, ambitious,
greedy and paranoid... the very opposite of what Jesus reccomended!
>> That not everyone was happy with it, should be obvious.
>> But Nicea stamped (or coined) the least common denominator
>> upon which all groups could agree.
>
> As the creed defining "right doctrine" on the question of Arianism, but
> not on what was to become the "Bible"
Perhaps 'Right Wing' would have been more appropriate?
>> That lead to a stabile church-state relationship.
>
> Eventually, but not really until after Julian the Apostate, and really
> during the reign of Theodosius post 382. During Constantine's reign, he
> switched from side to side and did things that were quite unpopular.
Quite - see above...
>> The theological bickering went on, of course.
>
> More than mere bickering....Constantine effectively changed sides of his
> "official" church....more than once.
It goes on to this day! You consider this as part of it, do you not Larry?
>> <snip>
>>>> Another interesting aspect from that time is the antagonism between the
>>>> Manicheans and the Christian movement. Would be a nice thread which
>>>> could cover the heretics in the 11th century ...
>>>
>>> Yes, a very interesting movement and how really very close in many ways
>>> it was to Christianity. The twelfth century revivals of Late Antique
>>> "heresies" and sects is an interesting study, and one I've not examined
>>> in some time. And probably one that hasn't been discussed to death
>>> here.
>>>
>> Revival ? That's a point in question. The path seems to have been
>> over Bulgaria (Neo-Paulianer, AFAIR).
>
> Sure...but Catharism, while influenced by Manichaeism, isn't
> Manichaeism. So far as I know, we can't trace a direct line of descent
> from the early fifth century to the tenth...hence my use of the word
> "revival" rather than "survival and reascendance".
Some of my ancestors were Cathars, but that is not why I show such disdain
for you and your silly beliefs Larry. This is because I am objectivem and
you are not, I am logical and you are not, I consider everything, and you
consider only what you like to see, and my mind is truly open, while yours
can never be thanks to your misguided 'faith'.
Faith in something so absurd, corript and antiquated, most sensible people
abandoned it long ago. Do you consider yourself the last gasp, and one of
the last tools of the Holy Inqusirion? I have to tell you, you merely look
like a tool here...
>> The seminal work about the Catars stems only from 1956 (A. Borst);
>> the "gospel" of the Catars was then just discovered (in 1942, AFAIR).
>> How the dualism spreadfrom Mani to the Catars remains to be
>> discovered (the Iron Curtain wasn't very helpful in this regard ;-P)
>
> I'm not expert in this, but didn't a group in Armenia have an influence
> on the Bogomils, and then the Bogomils on the Cathars?
>
>
>> <snip oh, in this context - ouch>
>>>> You've forgotten two major aspects : No snipping of the foreskin (self-
>>>> mutilation was abhorrent to Romans) and no dietary constrictions (pig
>>>> was allowed).
>>>
>>> I'm not convinced that was a move to make it more acceptable to the
>>> Romans so much as it was a major discussion within Judaism: how and in
>>> what ways could a non-Jew take part in Judaism, a religion that many
>>> admired for its moral code at the time, if not for their special status.
>>
>> I was talking in Martin's words; non-gentiles may be better ?
>
> Ok...I think we're in agreement here.
Oh dear - please do be careful Michael! Not good...
> I've snipped the rest because we are in agreement and on the same page, so
> no need to belabor things.
That makes a nice change Larry!
(general creeping and sycophantic comments snipped)
Oh well, never mind - I believe it is your Lord's birthday tomorrow old
chap? Thank Heaven he isn't around to see all the nastiness done in his
name, quite atrocious! Merry Xmas...
Brian M. Scott
<Michael....@gmx.at> wrote in
<news:hgvuga$rmn$1...@news.eternal-september.org> in
soc.history.medieval:
> "Weland" <gi...@poetic.com> schrieb :
> First : Merry Christmas to you and the other members of shm.
>> Michael Kuettner wrote:
[...]
>>> Re - Med. history : Got another nice book from Arno Borst
>>> about the medieval world. Has he ever been translated into
>>> English ?
>> Which one? Some of his works have been translated.
> His seminal work about the Catars, for example ?
Not that I could discover in a very quick search, though it
has been translated into French (_Les Cathares_, Payot,
Paris, 1984). I found only two English translations:
_Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics and Artists in the
Middle Ages_, which I assume is a translation of _Barbaren,
Ketzer und Artisten_, and _The Ordering of Time: From the
Ancient Computus to the Modern Computer_, presumably a
translation of _Computus. Zeit und Zahl im Mittelalter_.
(Curiously, both of the originals are from 1988.)
[...]
Brian
Michael Kuettner
"Brian M. Scott" schrieb :
> On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:39:55 +0100, Michael Kuettner wrote :
>> "Weland" <gi...@poetic.com> schrieb :
>
>> First : Merry Christmas to you and the other members of shm.
>
>>> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>>> Re - Med. history : Got another nice book from Arno Borst
>>>> about the medieval world. Has he ever been translated into
>>>> English ?
>
>>> Which one? Some of his works have been translated.
>
>> His seminal work about the Catars, for example ?
>
> Not that I could discover in a very quick search, though it
> has been translated into French (_Les Cathares_, Payot,
> Paris, 1984). I found only two English translations:
> _Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics and Artists in the
> Middle Ages_, which I assume is a translation of _Barbaren,
> Ketzer und Artisten_, and _The Ordering of Time: From the
> Ancient Computus to the Modern Computer_, presumably a
> translation of _Computus. Zeit und Zahl im Mittelalter_.
> (Curiously, both of the originals are from 1988.)
>
"to the modern computer".
(b) Why is it curious that both originals are from 1988 ?
(c) Thank you !
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Weland
>
> "Weland" <gi...@poetic.com> schrieb :
>
> First : Merry Christmas to you and the other members of shm.
>
>> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>>
>>> "Weland" schrieb :
>>>> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Weland" schrieb :
>>>>>> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>>>>>>
> <snip>
>>> And when I get around to it.
>>> Re - Med. history : Got another nice book from Arno Borst
>>> about the medieval world. Has he ever been translated into
>>> English ?
>>>
>>
>> Which one? Some of his works have been translated.
>
> His seminal work about the Catars, for example ?
No, as far as I know that remains untranslated. I thought more of his
work was in English, but I see Brian has shown that not to be true.
Except that the organization was already in place, even among splinter
groups....the Christians had since the beginning of the third century
had imitated Roman administration; and even more so when Diocletian
reorganized the empire. Further, there is no such imposition of
organization on Christians in Constantine's laws that I'm aware of nor
significant changes in organization between 324 and 326.
> Had the church been divided into splintergroups (which it was before
> Nicaea), the whole structure would never have happened.
Except that it was divided into splintergroups AFTER Nicea, and these
splintergroups generally had similar structures all copied from Roman
administration. Just compare the "orthodox" and the Donatists in No
Africa *before* Nicea.
> While there were "heresies" like Arianism, those didn't hinder the
> development of the "main stream".
Why would they? Especially since many of the fourth century heresies
were either within the "main stream" or had the same structural
development.
> While the Arians built churches (which co-existed for a rather long
> time peacefully beside the Catholic churches, as Archaeology shows
> e.g. at Magdalensberg, Austria),
For the most part, the bitter debates were largely verbal---not
exclusively, but largely.
they were never able to create an
> organization like the offficial church.
But they did: they had their own bishops, archbishops, etc, diocese and
archdiocese, etc. And at various times throughout the fourth century,
Arians were the Christians in charge of the faith in the empire holding
all the key positions. Since Arianism broke off from the "main stream"
after the Christians had already adopted Roman administration as the
model for church administration, the Arians had essentially the same
structure. Enough so that it continues to survive into the modern world.
It should not be confused however with the Arian church outside the
empire or under the Germanic kings. Here, the Arians adapted to the
government structure of that society and focused on the figure of the
king, something we see throughout the early middle ages as well.
>
> <snip>
>>>> I think the notion that Constantine and/or Nicea had anything to do
>>>> with it stems from Constantine's order of 50 pandects of the
>>>> complete Bible from Eusebius. But neither Constantine nor Eusebius
>>>> tells us the details of what that consists of, nor that all 50 were
>>>> finished, and there is little evidence of any influence these
>>>> pandects had on subsequent copies or conciliar discussions. They
>>>> essentially disappear from history almost as soon as the idea
>>>> appears in the historical record.
>>>>
>>> Well, yes and no. On the state side, C. had his "official" church.
>>
>> Well, yes and no. C. and his successors kept changing who was
>> "official", hence C was baptized not by an "orthodox" bishop who signed
>> Nicea, nor even a good fence sitter like Eusebius of Caesaria, but by
>> Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian....who also used his court influence to
>> get Arians into key govt and church positions during the reign of
>> Constantine, *AFTER* Nicea. And let's not forget that C recalled Arius
>> from exile and banished one of Arius' chief opponents Athanasius....so
>> who was official? Arians? NOn-Arians? Donatists?
>>
> That's a rather good question; shall we call them proto-Catholics ?
> Those who agreed on Nicaea and the teaching of the church-fathers.
> OK, here we have to take into account that the churches of Eastern and
> Western Rome developed into different directions even during C.s time.
> I'm talking only about Western Rome here; the emerging Catholic church.
While recognizing that the roots of the differences in development are
already present in the fourth century, nonetheless one can not yet speak
of two different churches. Further, you claimed above that Constantine
had his "official" church, to which I responded: the Arian controversy
in the early fourth century was much more an Eastern phenomenon than a
Western: only 2 Western representatives were present at Nicea and all
the major players of the period were from the East. The structures of
the Western church that you invoke in contrast to say the Arians are
those of the Empire and were largely shared by Romanized churches all
over the Empire. It was when the Arians ventured out to then largely
unRomanized tribes that they dropped the Roman style organization and
realized that if they converted the king and centered on the king, that
they'd convert the whole people (a pattern we see in the conversion
periods for other non-Romanized peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons, the
Irish, the Saxons, the Franks, etc). Thus, the apparent difference.
>
>>> That not everyone was happy with it, should be obvious.
>>> But Nicea stamped (or coined) the least common denominator
>>> upon which all groups could agree.
>>
>> As the creed defining "right doctrine" on the question of Arianism, but
>> not on what was to become the "Bible"
>>
> Please note that I didn't mention the bible, I said canon.
Ok, fair enough. So are you speaking of the canon of scripture, or one
of the other canons, such as canon law, canons of law, canons of
conciliar decisions, etc? If canon of scripture, my statements stand.
If another canon, then I'd like you to enlarge on your comments for the
sake of clarity what it is exactly you are trying to say.
>Some groups added other scriptures, but those from Nicaea were adopted by all of
> them.
Nope. The only evidence for "adding other scriptures" is what does one
do with texts at the end of the surviving pandects, such as I
Clement....was this considered "scripture" or not...and it is impossible
to say certainly based on the available evidence. But in the fourth
century, there were a few texts that were rejected yet, but none that I
know of that were added by any group. SO I'll have to challenge you to
produce the canonical lists or other sorts of evidence that show some
groups adding other texts part of a canon of scripture.
And this by the way runs us up to the problem of nomenclature. It is
too readily assumed even among scholars that the production and use of a
text as authoritative by any group means that they thought of it as
*SCRIPTURE* which is an unqualified and dangerous assumption. It
certainly distorts the evidence (as does the opposite assumption that
because a particular work was listed among the canonical scriptural
books it therefore was authoritative or equally authoritative with the
others---which is also not true at this period.)
> Arianism was a debate _within_ this corpus; namely whether the word
> read homoios or homoiousios.
It actually had nothing to do with any reading of the text in the canon
of scripture. The debate was about the nature of Christ, which isn't
spelled out in the Christian scriptural canon, so while scriptural texts
are referred to in the debate in order to justify one or another
position, the debate itself isn't about a reading of the text.
>
>>> That lead to a stabile church-state relationship.
>>
>> Eventually, but not really until after Julian the Apostate, and really
>> during the reign of Theodosius post 382. During Constantine's reign, he
>> switched from side to side and did things that were quite unpopular.
>>
> Yes, but the administrative framework of the church developed nevertheless
> and survived even the fall of Westen Rome.
Because the structure predated Constantine and Nicea.
That shows that the majority
> of Christians in the West believed in roughly the same things - the
> smallest
> common denominator - otherwise the organization would hve broken apart.
Oh certainly, and had before that. The age of great "heresies" in terms
of groups of Christians believing drastically different things is long
gone by the time we get to Nicea, and we're entering into the period
when Greek philosophy is being reconciled with the Christian in ways it
had not been theretofore.
>
>
>>> The theological bickering went on, of course.
>>
>> More than mere bickering....Constantine effectively changed sides of his
>> "official" church....more than once.
>>
> Yes, but those churches seemed to have co-existed peacefully during those
> times, as Archaeology (Magdalensberg, e.g.) shows.
But as I recall that church is not fourth century, but actually
sixth...correct me if I'm misremembering...but if I'm not, this would be
under the Goth and Lombard regimes when peace was imposed from above and
so your example shows nothing about the fourth century and C's
"official" church that kept changing.
>
>>> <snip>
>>>>> Another interesting aspect from that time is the antagonism between
>>>>> the
>>>>> Manicheans and the Christian movement. Would be a nice thread which
>>>>> could cover the heretics in the 11th century ...
>>>>
>>>> Yes, a very interesting movement and how really very close in many
>>>> ways it was to Christianity. The twelfth century revivals of Late
>>>> Antique "heresies" and sects is an interesting study, and one I've
>>>> not examined in some time. And probably one that hasn't been
>>>> discussed to death here.
>>>>
>>> Revival ? That's a point in question. The path seems to have been
>>> over Bulgaria (Neo-Paulianer, AFAIR).
>>
>> Sure...but Catharism, while influenced by Manichaeism, isn't
>> Manichaeism. So far as I know, we can't trace a direct line of descent
>> from the early fifth century to the tenth...hence my use of the word
>> "revival" rather than "survival and reascendance".
>>
> Oh sorry, there is a misunderstanding. The Catars were of course
> not survivors; it's just the name the Catholic church used for them
> when they became aware of their existance.
> So Mani seems to have left a rather strong impression ...
Indeed. In some areas of the old empire, so much so that Mani's
religion all but overwhelmed christianity.
>
>>> The seminal work about the Catars stems only from 1956 (A. Borst);
>>> the "gospel" of the Catars was then just discovered (in 1942, AFAIR).
>>> How the dualism spreadfrom Mani to the Catars remains to be
>>> discovered (the Iron Curtain wasn't very helpful in this regard ;-P)
>>
>> I'm not expert in this, but didn't a group in Armenia have an influence
>> on the Bogomils, and then the Bogomils on the Cathars?
>>
> You mean the Paulikianer ?
Yes,
> <snip>
>>>>>> It's good to have you posting again, Michael. What are you
>>>>>> working on these days?
>>>>>
>>>>> Right now I'm finishing a digital atlas for Yemen.
>>>>> Next I get my archaeological project : A book about the Limes and
>>>>> other
>>>>> Roman fortifications. UNESCO already likes it ;-)
>>>>
>>>> Sounds excellent...keep me posted, what period, region?
>>>>
>>> All the border regions (planned) from the 2nd century onwards.
>>> That's when the empire started deflating (or stopped expanding ;-P)
>>
>> Yep, good stuff going on there. Please do keep us up to date.
>
> I've finished putting together my skeleton reading list (luckily I had 2
> thirds
> of the books in my library ;-))
Always a decided advantage!
>
>>>
>>>>> I'm reading Vegetius this weekend and books about the Roman army and
>>>>> the organizational structure of the empire.
>>>>> I hope that I can start the book in 3 months.
>>>>
>>>> Do keep us abreast of developments!
>>>
>>> Development (a) :
>>>
>>> Roman fortifications are not according to manuals ;-)
>>
>> In border regions from the second century?
>>
> It's a little confusing; but it seems as if the military doctrine in
> Italy and the border regions went separate ways early on.
Care to elaborate or are you going to keep teasing us?