I find it pretty cool how the spread of Christianity can be tracked so finely that a 50 update in earliest arrival time is exciting!
I started listening to a podcast called "the history of the early church" to learn a bit more about that but unfortunately I think the target audience was Christians interested in theology rather than nerds interested in history. Recommendations for books etc are welcome!
I think the more interesting developments occurred after the fall of the western Roman empire. The eastern empire (Constantinople) had frequent arguments and disputes with the west over nearly everything, including Christianity. The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church, which was changed forever in 1200 when the largest Christian city in the world (Constantinople) was destroyed. The destruction took two years, and most of the writings, art and treasure of the richest city in the world was either destroyed, stolen, or lost.
> The eastern Orthodox church refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" in internal documents. After the west fell in 476, they continued to present themselves as "the" Catholic church...
Is that really so odd? Doesn't "catholic" mean something like "universal," and I think it would be very odd for one faction of a split organization to cede that kind of title to its rival faction.
I might be misunderstanding your point, but I kinda feel it should be followed up with a kind of "Did you know, Western European, that these two different things are actually similar in this way you didn't know about?"
It’s frequently explained to mean “universal” but my growing understanding of it is that it means that the wholeness of the faith exists at the local level, meaning that it does not have a dependency on some remote administrator in order to provide the Sacraments, etc.
This became an important point for the survival of Orthodoxy during the Arian crisis.
Christians make a distinction between churches and the church. The former is the physical building or even denominations like Lutherans or Roman Catholics. The latter is the group of people that are part of Christianity, across time and denominations. The Universal Church refers to the latter.
Galatians 1:2 "…the churches of Galatia…" vs Colossians 1:24 "…for the sake of his body, that is, the church…"
Your interpretation is correct - every single one of us was redeemed at the Cross. Essentially, Jesus came here to correct a kind of mistake.
God laid down laws and then people laid down further laws and eventually all the people, even those living by the law, were guilty of having committed sin - breaking the established laws of God and that crime meant their souls would be claimed by Satan, as being people "of the world" - but mostly the sins we committed we were led to commit. Most of humanity was guilty of only ignorance "Forgive them Father, for they kno not what they do" and yet by the terms of the law, the ignorant were also guilty of sin and all souls with sin would be redeemed by the one to whom God granted authority here...
So, Satan thought he won bc he beat God on a technicality, by confusing us so that even if we follow the law, we will not be saved by it, as it it not the true law. So, God choose option C and forgave all the sins - all of them, no picking and choosing and left in their place only one law, so that it couldn't easily be perverted as the previous teachings, as ALL PREVIOUS TEACHINGS had been. As Christianity has now. This act of God required his son, someone closer to him than us or angels, to die bc of sin but without cause as he had none.
CS Lewis does a fine job with this mythos in the Chronicles of Narnia - the older deeper magic that has authority over all other magics.
The whole thing, the crucification, was a trap set by God so that Satan would kill Jesus - to save us all from being Satan's property and it worked, we were/are saved, rn - it's already done and over.
Now we just have come home and it doesn't matter how bad we are - the prodigal son speaks to those of us with such concerns.
God, Jesus and anyone claiming to follow them ought to universally love everyone and anyone by default and without reason, expectations or cause - without exception and without judgement.
Some we see that weak and take advantage - let them do so, help even - turn the other cheek. As Mother Theresa said so eloquently, " Helping hurts - help anyway" - that is our calling.
To me God is like the Watsky song Sloppy Seconds - he'll take us regardless of anything we've done and he will love us as fucked up as we are at our worse amd loves us no more when we are at our best bc his love is without conditions.
That is the story of the crucification and how one man, preaching universal love, executed for that at the age of 33, is still spoken of 2500 years later.
We owe him for that - he expects nothing in return from us. All he wants is that we do what we know we ought to, that we not do what we kno we shouldn't or what we hate to do and to love each other as we love ourselves.
That sounds like a light yoke to me - these other people speaking for him rn, they all have such a heavy yoke of rules and morals and ethics and tradition and that's all wrong.
Then why can’t I wear my tie dye shirt at most churches?
I’ve completely fallen out of the church and Christianity. I do believe in a force that exists and acts and behaves as we described God as I grew up, which is in us and all things and all around us throughout all of creation, but I do not believe that that is God. I just call that the Universe now.
Wastky concerts are more my church than anywhere else in the world. I feel connected and holy in his crowds. I wear my clothes until they’re threadbare because of that song.
When I analyze my life now, I recognize it as what Jesus commanded us to do, but none none none of what I have motivated myself to do has been motivated by Christianity or God‘s calling.
Watsky broke me free from the Christian church, but he shaped my behavior to be more Christian than it ever would’ve been then when I was in and a part of Christianity and taking my teachings from the Bible.
Did the fact that Christians from Western Europe looted Constantinople in 1200 play a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church, or were there already deep theological and political divides?
The pope who sent the schism message delegation died before it reached Constantinople. And the patriarch of Constantinople at the time, also died before his reply made it back to Rome.
> a role in the Eastern Roman Empire's decision to stop identifying themselves as part of the Catholic Church
From their point of view, the West abandoned the true (i.e. orthodox) faith.
Also, it's hard to argue that the Eastern Christians changed more than Western ones. For example, since the 12th century the pope has forbidden priest marriage. There is some debate in the Catholic Church about allowing this again. If that is implemented, it would simply be a reversion to what the Orthodox Church has always done.
Catholic means universal, so both present themselves as the original and true church, with the head either in Rome or Constantinople/Pentarchy. The actual break of communion comes from 1054 but really began much earlier.
Even in protestant churches like the Presbyterians and the Methodists you will hear references to the "Catholic Church" where it refers to the universal church that is inclusive all all believers regardless of denomination. For example in shows up in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed.
Both churches have always identified themselves as "Catholic", or universal in the Greek language (katholikos). Orthodox Churches still use the creed in every service, where they say "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church".
Also, it's not like the Roman Catholics claim to be heterodox or something, they also claim that their faith is "orthodox".
In the 1180s the Empire was governed by a French princess (regent for her son) and her late husband was very pro-western/latin. The relations between the Catholic crusader states and the Byzantine empire were also very good and Italian merchants controlled most of its economy.
Then.. an anti-western emperor came to power had all the Latins/Italians in Constantinople massacred (>10% of the population) and things went pretty much downhill from there. It was very rapid, though. There were of course disagreements before the late 12th century but both sides generally acknowledged that they were part of the same Christian word/universal empire (even if they didn't quite agree who was in charge).
1054, in fact, but the 1204 ransacking of Constantinople certainly didn't help with how the "Franks" (because that's how the Catholics were mostly called) were seen by the Christian-Orthodox (if it matters I'm a Christian-Orthodox myself).
I was reading a travelogue written by a Russian monk (? not sure, either a monk or a wealthy boyar predisposed to the Holy stuff) who was visiting Constantinople sometimes in the early 1300s, so a century after the whole tragedy, and he was still describing how destroyed the city looked because of the Franks and what big of a tragedy that was.
If you read Wikipedia, there was the Massacre of the "Latins" in Constantinople in 1182. That almost certainly made it easy to make it a revenge play for the Venetians and associates.
What I find most interesting is the Romans were unbeatable in battle, even the Byzantines. However, maintaining a large military presence was expensive and politically difficult to manage. So they used annual mercenaries from the north for the usual frontier squabbles, and the main army did the heavy lifting. It fell apart when there was a major conflict, and didn't help that the army held the city hostage demanding more money. So everyone was corrupt it would seem. Also there were the persistence of rumors of knights that may have kept most of the treasure for themselves and headed off to Cyprus. The Knights Templar were insanely wealthy given the times and cost of resources to mount expeditions.
They were, though? Adrianople, Yarmoud, Manzikert, Myriokephalon etc. it's just that the empire was extremely resilient and was generally able to recover from disasters which would have led to the collapse of most other states.
I think Hannibal is owed some credit for marching elephants over the alps - I believe Rome razed and erased Carthage on their 3rd or 4th try? No matter really, it wasn't their 1st.
By 1200 the Romans had been beaten in battle many times. Their loss at Manzikert to the Turks in 1071 severely weakened the empire, and they never really recovered from it.
It's funny how the Battle of Manzikert went from being an obscure battle only a handful of scholars cared about to a major topic in popular consciousness.
It's actually not quite so clear cut. 1053/1054 was when mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople happened, but (as the schism itself is evidence of) Constantinople did not speak for the entire church, and other eastern sees continued communion with Rome for quite some time afterward.
It really wasn't obvious at the time, though and it took at least 100 years or more for the split to become permanent.
e.g. There is currently a schism between the Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church which technically is not that different. Does that mean that the Russian Church is no longer Orthodox?
The Catholic church also consider itself to be Orthodox, just like the Orthodox Church is Catholic. Technically both are still the same same church (e.g. relative to Protestant churches) they just can't agree who is in charge.
The "Great Schism" wasn't even that great at the time, there were plenty of schisms that proceeded it, it just happened to be the last one and nobody really knew what it mean for the next few hundred years.
I'd be very careful what you let others tell you about Early Christianity - almost exclusively they will explain to you how whatever belief they have now came out of it and compare the two and determine today we have truth...
Early was earlier tho - the people that twist our recent revelations about the content of the testaments to support the perverted teaching today are literally twisting the closest text in existence to Jesus himself, to "explain" (pervert) a statement Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas - a text predating all Gospels, may actually be perverting words truly spoke by Jesus, which is "leading astray" the truth that has come out from the millenia - as he said it would...
Not one sentence of this have I heard someone speak or have I read on someone's page.
I am not sure what do you mean by your hint. Stating that the Gospel of Thomas predates all other Gospels is not a view that is shared by many scientists.
Well, it actually is commonly accepted either as the "Q Text" - or as possibly the "Q" text. The "Q" text is the single document long speculated to be the primary source for the 4 Gospels in the Bible, and that was before we had the Gospel of Thomas as we do now - nothing at all to do with a conspiracy theory that shares the letter.
Anyways, I've also read the Gospel of Thomas - it most certainly predates the other Gospels.
If it doesn't, the others have been so edited and changed over time that they've been rendered more likely to be a copy than an original work.
It's also fantastic and Jesus himself says things the Church doesn't want you to believe - hence why a book comprised exclusively of the sayings of Jesus Christ (many of which are in the other Gospels) isn't in the Bible, bc THAT Jesus preached a different Christianity than the one we have. Weird...
It's one of my favorite texts in general. Super easy read... perhaps think for yourself?
I mean fr, scientist made up dark matter and dark energy bc by their own realization, their maths didn't work - so they invent an invisible thing to make their maths work and it now turns out, the maths did work, if the universe was simply older than they accounted - they obviously didn't consider that or I would kno all about how embarrassingly stupid they have been to avoid looking somewhere they have "decided" the answer already. They just pulled it out their ass - it's in textbooks, I doubt it exists at all but the people with papers on it will keep on as "a theory" until they die, solely out of pride.
That's just my one example of today. You as capable as almost every other person - let's discuss when you've read it.
I’d recommend “2,000 Years of Christ's Power” by Nick Needham. I am not sure where it falls on your theology/history spectrum but it has some of both. I enjoyed the audiobook of Volume 1 immensely.
For me it did a great job describing the context in which the church began, the major figures throughout the early church, and the spread, schisms, and events that helped shape the church in its formative years.
I think one of the oldest historical mentions of Jesus is by Josephus [1][2]. There is, however, scholarly discussion about whether parts of his references to Jesus were altered by later Christian scribes [3].
The traditional view held by Christians is that the Gospel of Matthew was written within 10 years of Jesus' death. Modern scholars (often atheists) do not believe it though.
Do you have a source for this? I've never heard anyone claim that they written so early. For Catholics at least, I think it's a point that the Church and some Tradition are older than the Gospels, i.e. that the Gospels are written by the Church, for the Church (not the other way around)
Catholics traditionally held Matthew was written shortly after Jesus' death (there is some debate about the actual date). Many modern Catholics, accept the modern scholarship nowadays though. There are traditions created prior to the gospels regardless of the dating. I would also mention the Bible explicitly states there are non-written traditions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
Irenaeus said "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church."
There is some debate on Peter's death, but it is usually placed in 64-68 AD. Paul died either 64 or 65 ad. This is prior to when modern scholars state.
I don't have a quote, but Eusebius said he thought it was written about 12 years after Jesus' death.
There are plenty of other early Christians who took the position that the gospels were prior to 70 AD, but I am on my phone and don't want to try to find them. I was looking for a Catholic one that I previously saw that said it was 5 years, but couldn't find it.
As far as I can tell, every prominent Christian until the 1800s thought they were earlier than modern scholars say.
The reason I am using the 70 AD date is because of the temple being destroyed then. One of the arguments modern scholars use is that Jesus prophesized that the temple was going to be destroyed. Since God does not exist, Jesus could not have known that and as such it had to be written after 70 ad.
Someone already said The Rest is History, but one of the presenters of that podcast Tom Holland (not the actor) has also written extensively about the history of the catholic church in Millennium and Dominion. Highly recommended.
Not read Millennium, but Dominion is brilliant. its not just the history of the church, it explains how the West came to be what it is and the influence of Christianity.
It is also a useful corrective to the Western tendency to see its values and attitudes as universal, even where they are a product of a particular history and culture.
Second the recommendation on Millennium, just note that for some stupid reason the US publisher decided to retitle the book "The Forge of Christendom". So if you're in the US you won't find it under its real title.
Data over dogma is a pretty good podcast about Christianity and Judaism. It's mostly about taking Bible stories and putting them into their historic context with the best evidence we have.
It's not about converting, just covering the history.
Produced by a Mormon whose dissertation was supervised by an atheist Professor of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion. This may be a data point in favor of the trustworthiness of the podcast, or it may be an argument against, depending on your own personal point of view.
I can't speak for the particular material referenced, but ... good faith is a lot to ask for in religious meta-literature. So often I see arguments based on the following:
* Start by assuming all the weird stuff didn't actually happen. We all know that fiction is stranger than truth.
* Next, assume it's impossible to foretell the future (in particular, "people who hate each other will start a war" can obviously only have been written after the fact), so clearly the author lied about the date they wrote it. Also, assume that nobody ever updated the grammar (due to linguistic drift) while copying it, and that the oldest surviving copy.
* Finally, assume that all previous translations were made by utter imbeciles and reject the wording they used, even if that means picking words that mean something completely unrelated to the original. You can always just assume that the words were a typo or something, and not a blatant reference to other books on the same topic.
The most basic sign of rigorous scholarship is saying "well, maybe" a lot, with just an occasional "but definitely not that".
I can say with certainty that it is not impossible to predict the future. We can scientifically do so - advertising is a form of future prediction.
All things that exist have a cause and a consequence - nothing is unknowable if we could simply see a the data, everything could be explained exactly.
The future without is easier bc ppl are almost exactly the same based regardless of culture, ethnicity, religion or class and collectively we have been simply repeating the same mistakes, in cyclical pattern, for our entire history.
Everything has done before and everything will be done again - different eras tho, same humanity broken in the identical ways living the sames lives leading to the same mistakes and then forgetting all that and doing it again.
I gave one episode a listen and can now say it's not what you described. They conveyed actual scholarship but kept it light-hearted. Religious fundamentalists might not like it because it doesn't start from the assumption that the canonical Bible is inerrant, but for anyone who wants to learn about the Bible from an open-minded viewpoint, I think it's worth a listen.
I had a long drive where I listened to The Great Courses, which had a set on early Christianity. I think the professor was from Notre Dame. The early church was wrestling with polytheism (is the OT god seemed really different from the NT god) and it eventually had to get resolved by the Council at Nicaea at Constantine's behest.
I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism. Maybe that's my bias nestled in Christian circles of not using that word, in favour of something more like "the nature of the triune Godhead", etc.
Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism (Whether or not any of these flirt with polytheism is up for debate.)
Meanwhile, the Catholic church's own profusion of saints whom you are supposed to beseech for specific blessings is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
As an Atheist (formally Orthodox), I think I can adjudicate this.
The problem with the First Council of Nicaea was that it was decided wrong. The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing. There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again. All the new nations who have been introduced to this aspect of Christianity find it bizarre.
If the decision would have been more along the lines of Islam (i.e. Jesus is super holy, but not God) then it would have been easier to maintain unity. In fact, Islam's adoption of a form of Arianism is one of the reasons it replaced Christianity so quickly in North Africa and the Middle East. (Well, that and the sword.)
> The whole "there are three gods, but only one god" is inherently confusing.
I imagine it would be. But that's not what the council of Nicaea decided, nor what Christians believe.
It's further developed in the Athanasian creed that the Trinity is understood as one God (homoousios - same substance), but three persons. Whether or not the philosophy of consubstantiation is that useful to modern believers is another issue; attempts to reformulate the doctrine (like "there are three gods, but only one god") usually end in heterodoxy, or at least misunderstanding.
This is just the same one vs the many dialectic that always leads to self-refuting positions over time. Orthodoxy is the only faith to resolve this problem.
> There's a reason why Arianism keeps recurring over and over again.
I don't have the numbers on hand, but I recently read that a remarkable number of US Evangelicals regard each member of the Trinity as an autonomous entity. This might invite you to scoff at sola scriptura, but I can't imagine the numbers being better for other denominations.
It's a strange thought: how many, maybe most devotees are actually heretics, especially when you consider more remote cultures. I've been looking for fiction that explores this idea. I think Black Robe touches upon it, but I haven't seen it in two decades and could be misremembering.
> Even today plenty of Christian sects refuse to recognize the council of Nicaea's interpretation of the trinity, including the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses
In some ways the (English) word "God" has become 'overloaded' over time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque - to this day the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church disagree on whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son.
Yeah but most lay people from either branch couldn't tell you the practical consequences of this. It's widely known & considered important because it's a remaining theological justification for the schism, not the other way around.
An interesting take on the dilemma between the two 'sides':
> You see the problem. If you include the filioque, you fight the Arians in the West while inadvertently supporting the Sabellians in the East. But if you exclude it, you fight the Sabellians while inadvertently supporting the Arians. At its heart, the filioque is really a linguistic debate, not a theological one.
I don't know either. To me (an orthodox christian) the filioque seems like a post hoc justification for a schism that was already well underway if not inevitable. By 1054 what became the two churches had already clearly differentiated religious traditions, local saints, and liturgical practices with very little interchange between them, not to mention language, governance, and secular culture.
I have heard some fairly convincing (to a lay person) discussion between orthodox and catholic scholars that the filioque is potentially resolvable as a linguistic problem yes. But it's not worth really pursuing without a solution for the bigger issue of papal primacy. I don't know anyone who claims to have a viable path to reconciliation there. Plus, you know, the thousand years of mutual distrust and enmity.
Ok - I'm not saying that I believe Jesus was born of a virgin and placed within the womb by an angel, I mean maybe, but very very likely Jesus was a man, Joseph was his father or his Mother for away with the biggest lie ever to cover her adultery - obviously either of those things that actually have and do happen are more likely than something that never has, save this one time... maybe.
Jesus said he was the Son of God bc WE - HUMANITY is in fact that. It's not an actual parent child relationship but 2500 years ago Jesus had nothing in his pocket to explain better than the family analogy.
The actual OG basis of almost all religious teachings in almost every religion is that WE are in fact God, living as human, experiencing his creation first hand, as US.
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and didn't lie even if not true the way we believe it to be. It was also prolly a great way to get attention as he had a Father, ppl must have spoke of that.
Consider the analogy: the difference between two programs is one line of source, and most end users couldn’t tell you the practical consequences of that change.
The Orthodox allege that the Filioque amounts to a demotion of the Holy Spirit. Comparing the liturgies, disciplines and general character of the two churches, it’s difficult to feel totally confident that they don’t have a point.
From the Father, as all things are, but the Son directs it thereafter.
The Holy Spirit is like the force - it's behind all things, like lines of code behind a web page - but more specifically it's similar to a background process within a system that allows for all actions on the page to exist, by their causes, their consequences and the ensuing causes and consequences and so on forever and since the start of time.
The Holy Spirit is similar to fate but unlike fate we have ability to dictate and direct our reality - like in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" this is the force within reality that delivers what we expect and believe will be.
This is what pushes us along
- individually and collectively, that which is behind evolution and behind the miracle rain dance is the same thing.
Faith that moves mountains is merely the most known example of the ability attained by our true understanding of the Holy Spirit - it allows us to access all the powers and forces and laws and systems of this reality and utilize them to our benefit and ends. One who knows and has faith has higher authority than all worldly authorities and can bend them to utilize them to attain whatever desires.
If one needs the Queen of England to write a letter, that person must only believe - enough to kno for certain, that she has already done so and it will be so.
Expectation is part of asking when we have desires of God - ask and expect to receive - expect more, ask less. Asking is less important than expecting - faith is part belief, for example a belief that you can ask God - the other part is expecting God to deliver as he said he would...
Again, this is a rant but this conversation hopefully adds to your spiritual progression faster than the teachings I'm reading professed here will allow any of you.
I have faith that those with hears will hear and act accordingly, there are no limits - only consequences.
In a taxonomy of religious belief the communion of saints is much closer to ancestor veneration than it is polytheism. If you're going to see anything in christianity as potentially polytheistic it's the triune god come on.
I think, in a technical sense, you're right. But the difference between ancestor veneration (especially semi-legendary ancestor veneration) and veneration of a pantheon of lower-tier dieties is practically nonexistent. Its a distinction without difference.
Nobody hesitates to call Shintoism polytheistic, and its core practices, to an outsider, seem strikingly similar to how a Christian, especially a Roman Catholic, interacts with the saints.
I don't disagree really. I do think there are in-this-context significant differences between how individual saints are interacted with. A personal or family patron saint tends much more towards looking like ancestor veneration, compared to eg mary who in practice takes a role that would in other religions be filled by a deity of femininity/motherhood/nurturing/etc.
But overall in any case I think it's sometimes valuable to think of christianity this way and sometimes not. It is a syncretic religion so of course it has regional variations and contradictory remnants of absorbed practices. IIRC some of the specific saint traditions, like icons in the home, predate christianity in the mediterranean.
But on the other hand there are practices and relationships common in true polytheistic religions that you don't see in christianity at all. If taking the saints as minor deities, you don't find sects exalting one of them exclusively, nor do you see individual christians "defect" from one saint to another for personal advantage. There's no theology of competition or opposition between the saints to base such practices on at all. So there are limits to the usefulness of this perspective too.
The shintoism example is interesting, I'll need to look more into it. I had considered it polytheistic but now that I think about it I haven't read shinto writings on the subject so I don't know if most shinto practitioners experience it that way. Outside perspectives aren't completely invalid of course but they aren't as interesting to me as how believers experience their own religions.
God is in 3 parts that comprise a whole in their sum.
Legislative, Executive, Judicial = Govt of US
Strike 1, 2 and 3 = an out
Mind, Body, soul = A person
I could list hundreds of these examples.
3=1 is a rule found all over reality. The easiest way to create something that will exist for awhile, as it has a sound foundation, is build the foundation in 3 parts that make the whole.
Almost all dichotomies have a hidden third aspect. The fight is over how obvious it was at the time - the church was scared people may discover the secret way to create like the divine, so they convoluted it until they couldn't understand it uniformly anymore.
> is dangerously close to a polytheistic practice in its own right.
I don't really think so. We're supposed to pray with Mary to God and everyone recognizes that all of creation came through Christ, not Mary or any other saint.
Indeed, I'm not trying to argue that the tradition of Catholic saints doesn't obey an absolute hierarchy. I'm referring to practices that are specific to the domains of various patron saints, such as placing medals of Saint Christopher in your car for protection (him being the patron saint of transporters and travelers, as well as athletics, bachelors, surfing, storms, epilepsy, gardeners, and toothache). One of the reasons that Protestants objected to saintly veneration was precisely because they felt it took focus away from Jesus.
Even if the Catholic church might technically be not polytheistic, it is hard to argue that the cult of saints didn't replace the ancient Roman lares in the day to day cult. Yes, saints are supposed to intercede to provide favors and protection, but the practical effects [1] are the same. Religious syncretism is very well attested.
As Mary asked Jesus to perform the miracle at the wedding at Cana, for the said of her friend, we too are called to pray to ask Mary to intercede for us for our intentions.
Yes, with "saint" I wasn't even trying to invoke a discussion involving Mary at all, because in practice she's so far above the saints that to equate them feels like heresy (and might literally be heresy in some contexts; hyperdulia vs. dulia and all). In practice the absolute adulation of Mary is such that she nearly feels like the fourth member of the trinity.
We can have separate interpretations of how things play out in practice, anything I list is free to be dismissed as anecdotal. But when I think of famous Christian art, I think of art that depicts Mary (and baby Jesus, yes, but the artists deliberately chose not to depict a scene of Jesus without Mary); there's so many of these that it became its own genre (which is literally named after Mary, not Jesus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art) . And when I think of famous Christian cathedrals, I think of the Notre Dame, among the other zillion "Our Lady Of"s that are named after Mary. And when I think of people pointing out modern miracles I think of weeping statues of Mary or people finding Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich; this once again has its own entire genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_apparition . And in Catholic parts of the US at least, IME you're more likely to see a Bathtub Mary outside of a house than a cross: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_Madonna . And when I think of the most important prayers, I think of exactly two: the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
I was taught as a child, and this was Protestant with a clear anti-Catholic bias, that:
* Catholics prayed _to_ Mary (eg asking to intercede on your behalf);
* This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
I'm guessing you're Catholic from your response; would you mind explaining to this somewhat lost person how Catholics view these two topics please? (I've never heard a good explanation, and even praying "with" Mary is new to me.) I admire Catholicism and wish I felt more trust in it, which is something that comes from childhood indoctrination, I know. Things stick into adulthood even when you're consciously aware of their root. So I'm keen to hear countering views :)
>This was speaking to the dead, and expecting a response, and thus a sin in some way I am not sure of.
Catholics believe that people in heaven are not dead, and can hear your prayers for intercession (this is the case with most protestants too). Jesus said, after all, that he is the God of the living not the God of the dead[1], and that those in heaven will be reborn in a new and everlasting life. Catholics further believe that the saints in heaven can pray on your behalf and are, in fact, excited to do so, and possibly better at it than anyone on earth.
I’d be careful describing a belief to “most” Protestants. Many, many Protestants don’t believe any soul will enter Heaven until the last judgement.
Many more believe that only God (and Jesus if they don’t believe they are the same) can exist in heaven and the promise of Christianity is to make Earth like Heaven. Some of those groups believe that prayers to the dead, including to Mary or the saints, is therefore forbidden or an overt act of devil worship or paganism.
Even more controversial is the idea that the dead can intercede on your earthly behalf. That would be seen as pretty outside the view of many very mainline Protestant denominations.
The dead are dead - they cannot hear those prayers. God may be able to but if he hears our laments to our lost loved ones, even if we ask them to help us, I cannot conceive how he could anything but pity us, he loves us after all.
People punish - Jesus loves. That's a super easy way to see the lies from the truth
1. Prayer means several things - "I then prayed my friend that he would accompany me on my trip to Italy" does not mean that you worshiped your friend. Mary (and all the saints) are prayed to in that intercessory way, not in the worshipful way that we pray to God. The man at the Beautiful Gate asked Peter for charity and Peter gave him the ability to walk, not by his own power by by the power of Jesus (Acts 3:2-6). And again intercessory prayer as an important part of the life of the Church is well-attested - e. g., St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:5 says "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men". Finally, why the focus on Mary above all other saints? "Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me" says Elizabeth "filled with the Holy Spirit" and before that "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" says Gabriel bringing God's message to Mary. And what does Mary say in response? "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior" and "I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said". When trying to draw closer to Christ, who would you want with you on your journey more than she who was called to be His mother? And who among all mankind would be more eager to have you come to the throne than she for whom "the Almighty has done [great things for]"?
2. "In fact, [God has not forbidden contact with the dead], because he at times has given it — for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. " Via https://www.catholic.com/tract/praying-to-the-saints
> I've never heard anyone say the early church wrestled with polytheism.
See:
> Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus Christ into the world as the savior was the true Supreme Being, different and opposed to the malevolent Demiurge or creator god, identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament.[2][3][5]
I find myself agreeing with a lot of these “gnostic” interpretations tbh. When you read stuff like Numbers 14, God just comes off as a total asshole lol
Although the whole theology they cooked up around the “true god” reads like bad fan fiction usually.
For those curious about the trinity what it is and why it is important to Christian faith I highly recommend Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves [1]
"...what kind of God could outstrip the attractions of all other things? Could any unitary, single-person god do so? Hardly, or at least not for long. Single-person gods must, by definition, have spent eternity in absolute solitude. Before creation, having no other persons with whom they could commune, they must have been entirely alone.
Love for others, then, cannot go very deep in them if they can go for eternity without it. And so, not being essentially loving, such gods are inevitably less than lovely. They may demand our worship, but they cannot win our hearts. They must be served with gritted teeth.
How wonderfully different it is with the triune God. In John 17:24, Jesus speaks of how the Father loved Him even before the creation of the world. That is the triune, living God: a Father, whose very being has eternally been about loving His Son, pouring out the Spirit of love and life on Him. Here is a God who is love, who is so full of life and blessing that for eternity He has been overflowing with it..."
This is something best between you and God - let kno others tell you what this is, it is perhaps the most powerful thing ever revealed to us.
3 that equal 1.
It's a fundamental rule found everywhere - there is a softer voice within that will speak to of it but you have to ask it to tell you and then have ears to hear it.
While I agree that many of us are headed from different parts of the city or countryside, if we are Christians or seekers we are all headed to the same destination. So while our satnav path may look different, there are inevitably similar experiences along the way from which we can learn. Beyond that if you are a Christian you believe the Word will apply to all of those situations. Those who study the word can therefore offer insight. I believe this also includes truths like the trinity. So in those sense I would say no it's no purely internal. That being said yes, faith is head knowledge acting in anticipation from the heart as a relationship between you and God.
"It's a fundamental rule found everywhere - there is a softer voice within that will speak to of it but you have to ask it to tell you and then have ears to hear it."
But without experience and until you learn to discern the softer voice you must test it against scripture, to know whose it is.
this seems like a sideways retelling of the "Gospels of Thomas" stories.. this is a nuanced topic and shrouded by history.. Suffice it to say that intellectuals and pious people knew very well the cults of Apollo, astrology of High Priests, nature worship, Egyptian deism, goddess worship, and pantheonism while the Christian scriptures were solidifying as a social blueprint.
My favorite find in the last few months is the youtube channel "esoterica" - here's his video on the origins of yaweh as a storm god https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKst8zeh-U
He recommends books and primary sources for every episode and they vary from interesting more pubscience type stuff to incredibly expensive and deep academic sources out of print.
The gentleman who runs it is very obviously jewish in practice but only uses that to inform his historical context instead of override it, its very refreshing as someone who is an atheist.
I've been reading a lot about the early church for about a year and really enjoying it. I'm an atheist but I'm also a history nerd so it's been truly fascinating. Here are some that I've enjoyed:
- The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels; I read this one so casually that I don't have a good summary due to poor memory.
- The Passover Plot by Hugh J Schonfield; author contends that Jesus believed that he was the prophesied Messiah and engineered his arrest and crucifixion out of sheer genius and clever actions. Fantastic read.
- Jesus the Jew by Géza Vermes; author sees Jesus as a sincere apocalyptic preacher who believed he was the Messiah.
- From Jesus to Christ by Paula Fredriksen; author looks at how Jesus went from the Jewish Messiah to the head of a major religion.
- Becoming God by Bart Ehrman (you can find him doing interesting interviews or debates on YouTube); same as the one directly above.
- The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty; author contends that Jesus was not a historical figure, but rather another heavenly figure understood to have been crucified in the firmament between heaven and earth. I'm really impressed by the argument so far. I'm not quite finished with this one.
That's exactly what Jesus did and every prophet that has been before him also.
Each prophet sows the seeds for the next within their teachings - each prophet knows how their teachings will become perverted over time, each knows the end of the end of their religion before they start it but they start it anyways bc of the seeds - they can't unseen the fruits borne of them, to them it's plain how people areiving incorrectly and obvious as to what is important and why - it is up to each prophet to determine how to do this in their time and place, speaking to the hearts of the people at that time.
Then they only must pull a Muadib to transform their society - only those with great conviction and faith can do it bc it's quite likely that after a point the prophet also believes themselves to be "real" (they always were of course - if not they would not have had the ears to hear the truth behind what the last prophet said) -
A person playing prophet bc they have the ability to, believing that they are fact a prophet, and having true faith in what they teach - like John the Baptist, they will attain powers they had not - they will attain thru their faith alone not a divine intervention or blessing and not for certain reasons or with limit, it isn't necessary to need something to miracle it so, wanting alone is enough.
All prophets faked it til they made it - every one of can do exactly as they have, it only requires right belief, that we can.
Anyways I'm ranting what I should really just make into another Testament - it will be much, much shorter if I ever do.
> The Passover Plot by Hugh J Schonfield; author contends that Jesus believed that he was the prophesied Messiah and engineered his arrest and crucifixion out of sheer genius and clever actions. Fantastic read.
Orchestrating the destruction of the Jewish temple (and thus most Jewish religious practices) at the hands of the Roman Empire after his own death would have been quite the feat
Last thing - the Jews revolted against Rome 3 times - they were spared twice and the third time Jews and Jerusalem ceased to exist bc they should not have done that.
Elaine Pagels is the one who got publication credit for the lost Gospels of Thomas.. that was discussed across the globe in literate circles. That book you mention by her is new to me
(1995). The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-679-40140-7
A lecture series by The Teaching Company called "The New Testament" taught by Bart Ehrman is an enjoyable academic introduction to the history of Early Christianity.
I also recommend another lecture series called "From Jesus to Christianity" by The Modern Scholar taught by Thomas F. Madden.
I know it's been a long time, but alongside the horsemen of atheism and reading the actual bible, The Teaching Company is where I got so much of my education.
Speaking of history podcasts, I've gone through Mike Duncan's Rome and Revolutions, the Fall of Civilizations, Dan Carlin's Hardcore Histories... any suggestions for more like this? I noticed there is a Byzantium history series that seemed interesting.
The History of English podcast is worth a listen. It's about the development of the English language, so it covers a lot of history and prehistory, and also linguistics. The presenter Kevin Stroud has a deep passion for the subject matter. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to repeat himself and over-explain simple examples so the effect can be somewhat soporific.
Assuming you want more Long form, narrative style historical podcasts. History of the Germans, The French History Podcast, and The History of England are all very good in depth podcasts. I also enjoy the History of The Crusades, which is good, narrative and similar to Revolutions following various crusades.
Thanks for the recommendation, however, I really disliked the presenters tone and language. I love the topic, but he came across as too bubbly and informal - "but anyways, whatever!", etc.
Thought pointedly not a podcast, the YouTube channel Historia Civilis was my go to thing to fall asleep to for a while. The simple animation style and depth I found very soothing.
The excellent podcast The Rest is History has a vaguely connected series of episodes on the Roman Empire and its fall that includes a lot of discussion about the evolution of Christianity. The newest cycle, "Warlords of the West" (3 episodes on the emergence of the Frankish kingdom following the fall of the Roman Empire, a fascinating period not often talked about) and "Charlemagne" (3-part episode just on Charlemagne, who did more than any other Medieval figure ensured the spread of Christianity) have excellent about the political and religious forces that spread Christianity through Europe.
If you want a non-religious take on the history of Abrahamic religions, a recent episode 393 of the podcast by Sam Harriss, where he interviews historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, should be an interesting listen.
I mean, wouldn't you find it strange if historians from the year 4000 believed the sexual revolution of 1968 happened in 2018? Quite a discrepancy "only" 50 years
I started listening to a podcast called "the history of the early church" to learn a bit more about that but unfortunately I think the target audience was Christians interested in theology rather than nerds interested in history. Recommendations for books etc are welcome!