Home (ego death and self-control
cybernetics)
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/mithras.html
http://jamesarthur.yage.net/mushroom.html -- find "artwork as revelator", for coverage of Christmas Amanita symbology
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/clas/gkinte99.htm
-- "Ken Krause spoke on Paul's ministry in Athens at the
Areopagus. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/clas/kenklect.jpg After Ken's talk, we all climbed up to
admire the view. ... Anita Veltman
speak at the prison where Socrates probably died. The agora is
especially impressive when viewed from the Areopagus. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/clas/areop991.jpg
"
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/determinism
http://www.mashriq.org/ring4.html
knowledge, power, and will are reducible to existence and are
hence universally present in everything, but in a systematically ambiguous way.
Thus, man is not really free in his will, rather he has the appearance of
freedom not the actuality. (cf. Rahman, MS, pg. 168)
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9308/articles/young.html
[a profoundly suggestive esssay -- mh]
In regarding the literary work of art as a subsistent
structure of meaning-that is, in granting it, in some sense, an independent
ontological status-the New Criticism establishes the study of literature as a
principal means of handing on the culture of Western civilization. This is an
educational undertaking of crucial importance.
Now all of this is anathema to the dominant ideologies of
the contemporary university. If the language and tone of the current academic
setting are broadly Marxist, it is helpful to think about the radical
predilection of the modern world in general in terms of the Gnostic paradigm
formulated by Eric Voegelin in The New Science of Politics. Gnostic
dualism both despises the material creation and sees it as decisive in forming
the character and conduct of human beings: the evil that men do is not attributable
to the sinful will of the individual; it is rather an intrinsic and hence
inevitable result of physical existence. At the same time, the Gnostics also
believe that those who attain to a special knowledge, or gnosis, become part of
an elite group who rise above the condition and destiny of ordinary mortals.
[that's the fallacy of "gaining metaphysical freedom through gnosis"
- mh]Combine this with empirical science and technology, and the result looks
very much like modern Marxism: the entirety of human reality, including the
"superstructure" of culture and society, derives from the material
forces and conditions of the economic "infrastructure." Yet again,
there is the elite, now comprising radical intellectuals and politicians, able
somehow to escape the fateful determinism of material life and, in the wake
of the industrial revolution, forge a utopia in which all aspirations are
realized, all desires gratified.
Obviously only a small minority of contemporary academics would expressly subscribe to an overt Marxism, and few (at least of my acquaintance) could even identify Gnosticism with any confidence; nevertheless, a set of analogous attitudes permeates a broad range of the academic community, and the influence of Marxism and associated ideologies has become especially notable on literature faculties in recent years. It is evident in a pervasive malaise in the academic world-a discontent with the limits embedded in the actual nature of human reality-and in the concomitant, if contradictory, preoccupation with the autonomy of the individual and the exaltation of his subjective longings. The literary critic in this frame of mind will be inclined to approach a story or a poem or a play less as an imaginative rendering or revelation of the structure of reality than as an open-ended vehicle for the free play of individual fantasies.
Now it is not hard to see why the New Criticism, with its insistence on the objective integrity of the literary work, would hold little appeal for the contemporary academic ideologue. At its inception the New Criticism was, among other things, a reaction against the impressionistic "appreciations" of literature by genteel dabblers, against the late Romantic worship of the author as prophet or genius, and against a school of literary history that buried individual works under a mass of trivial details about influences and fashions while altogether eschewing the serious task of critical judgment. The New Criticism was, above all, an assertion that a piece of fiction or poetry or drama could matter, could have significance in and of itself.
Such a view of the literary work entails certain metaphysical and moral premises that are incompatible with the radicalism that now dominates academic and intellectual life. First, the New Critics almost all insist that the proper end of literary study is the work itself conceived as an independent object, and that investigations of the author's biography, of the historical situation in which he wrote, of the work's "reception history" and relations to other works of literature-all of this is ancillary to the interpretation and evaluation of the work itself. These premises assume that a literary work exists independently of the interests and purposes (conscious or unconscious) of the author, or of the responses to or experience of the work on the part of any particular reader or collection of readers in any given time or place. A work of literature, then, stands as a testimony to the independence of the human spirit from material necessity: a man who can in words create a structure of significance that transcends the constraints of physical causation, or who can respond to it with sympathy and understanding, is himself in that measure a transcendent being; that is, he is a free, rational agent. By the same token, the work of literature in some ways rehabilitates that very material universe: it is seen neither as the realm of sheer darkness and despair of the ancient Gnostics nor as the meaningless grinding process of their Marxist heirs, but rather as a purposive design in which mankind is, or ought to be, temporarily at home. Literature is precisely humanity's imaginative ordering of the experience of the world.
The moral implications of the New Criticism are equally repugnant to radical ideology: if a literary work is a sign of human freedom, it is also a reminder of the limits of that freedom. As a representation of reality, a literary work is a manifestation of the structure of reality that exists independently of, and sometimes in conflict with, individual expectation and desire. As an embodiment of meaning apart from author and interpreter alike, the literary work is a reminder that human beings can discover significance, but not manufacture it. The New Criticism thus responds affirmatively to what we might call the moral realism of great literature. Consider, for example, how many tragedies manifest the dignity and grandeur of human beings as morally free agents who yet can degrade and destroy themselves through the proud abuse of freedom and the refusal to respect the limitations inherent in the nature of reality. Similarly, the interpreter of the drama is free to explore the richness of the play and draw out as much as he can of its inexhaustible significance, but he must respect the integrity of the text and acknowledge its meaning as its own and not his.
Now virtually every effort to discredit the New Criticism also involves an attack upon the objective integrity of the literary work of art, along with a concomitant exaltation of the reader or interpreter. As Elaine Pagels says of the Gnostics' relation to Christ's message (in her work The Gnostic Gospels), what they sought-and seek-is not a true interpretation of the message, but a unique, wholly subjective self-realization. The authority of canonical scripture and apostolic tradition are set aside in favor of the individual's interior divinity. Gnosticism provides so useful a model because the ancient Gnostic, like the modern Marxist, is preoccupied with escaping or transforming an unsatisfactory reality in the interests of personal domination or self- satisfaction. Because of its fictionality, literature can be regarded as a useful vehicle for this, but only if it is severed from reality by the denial of its status as a representation and rendered entirely responsive to the will of the interpreter.
...
Given the radical perspective of the ideologues who currently dominate the literature departments of universities, literature is a conservative force because it implies a standard of discrimination and judgment. [and acceptance of limits or boundaries on our freedom - mh]
The old New Critics regarded the study of genuine works of imaginative literature as a powerful civilizing force because it is educative in the strict sense: it is a means of leading the student out of the narrow, self-interested realm of individual and peer group; it is a confrontation with landmarks of cultural tradition whose significance and authority persist from generation to generation and provide norms of thought, feeling, and behavior. In the New Critical scheme the work of critics and scholars is ancillary to the masterpieces that constitute this literary culture. Its task is to define and identify literary excellence and through interpretation to point out how literature represents and reveals the nature of reality. [as opposed to wide-open freedom - mh]
Naturally, then, it is precisely for its insistence upon literary quality that the New Criticism is currently hated and feared.
..
"Scholarship" dealing with "popular" literature
is an academic growth industry. For an academic, perhaps the best evidence of
the power of this new industry is the number of his colleagues who seem to spend
more time listening to hard rock and watching music videos than reading poetry.
[actually they might learn a Dionysian principle or two
reading the poetry in acid-rock lyrics such as the album Ride the Lightning -
mh]
There are two main consequences of all this: the reduction of literature to so much grist for the ideological mill and the concomitant total empowerment of the interpreter.
http://208.154.71.60/bcom/eb/article/7/0,5716,108157+8+105859,00.html
It is not impossible, however, to discover through these texts their vision of the world and compare it with the views of the Jewish thinkers who attempted to harmonize the biblical-rabbinical tradition with Greco-Arab philosophy, whether of Neoplatonic or Aristotelian inspiration.
At the base of the Kabbalistic view of the world there is an option of faith: it is by a voluntary decision that the unknowable deity--who is "nothing" or "nothingness" (nonfinite) because he is a fullness of being totally inaccessible to any human cogitation--set into motion the process that leads to the visible world. This concept radically separates Kabbala from the determinism from which the philosophy of the period could not, without internal contradictions, free the principle of being.
http://gnostic.org/underhill/mysticism1_0-preface.html
a critical realism, which found room for the duality of our
full human experience--the Eternal and the Successive, supernatural and natural
reality--would provide a better philosophic background to the experience of the
mystics than the vitalism which appeared, twenty years ago, to offer
so promising a way of escape from scientific determinism. Determinism--more and
more abandoned by its old friends the physicists--is no longer the chief enemy
to such a spiritual interpretation of life as is required by the experience of
the mystics. It is rather a naturalistic monism, a shallow doctrine of
immanence unbalanced by any adequate sense of transcendence, which now
threatens to re-model theology in a sense which leaves no room for the noblest
and purest reaches of the spiritual life.
[This passage has an interesting gathering of the players:
it starts to tell a story of how the determinism of science is against the freedom
of mysticism -- though historically, gnosticism was deterministic.]
- Winrich A[lfried] Löhr, Gnostic Determinism Reconsidered:
VigChr 46 (1992)
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc09/htm/0210=192.htm
[scanned/garbled]
Previous to Augustine there was no serious development in
Christianity of a theory of predestination. Until then the rich materials of
the New Testament, especially of the writings of Paul, remained unutilized i.
The East- or were subject to exegetical discurern Church. siveness. That the
Greek Fathers stopped short with merely superficial historical revelation
and free personality is due to the necessity of asserting over against pagan
and Gnostic naturalistic determinism the autonomy of man; and over against
the evolutionary primal power, the transcendent personality of God. To them this
autonomy was the distinguishing characteristic of human personality, the basis
of moral responsibility, a divine gift whereby man might choose that which
was well-pleasing to God (Justin, 1 Apol., x. 63, xliii. 10, II., vii.
3; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 165-66, 216 177). Sin could not destroy this
autonomy, could at most only weaken it and lead it intellectually astray
(Origen, Contra Celsum, iii. 86-69· Eng. transl., ANF iv. 490-492); and
Ireneeus (Hcer., IV., xxxvii. 3; Eng. transl., ANF, i.
http://csunx2.bsc.edu/~bmyers/WJ1.htm
- A common opinion prevails that the juice has ages ago been pressed out of the
free-will controversy, and that no new champion can do more than warm up stale
arguments which everyone has heard. This is a radical mistake. I know of no
subject less worn out, or in which inventive genius has a better chance of
breaking open new ground--not, perhaps, of forcing a conclusion or of coercing
assent, but of deepening our sense of what the issue between the two parties
really is, of what the ideas of fate and of free will imply.
http://www.bookreviews.org/Reviews/0691005427.html
- Here, Williams argues that the concern over proper ethics and the repeated
notions in "Gnostic" texts to "awaken those that sleep" (Gos.
Truth 33,8) speak to the conclusion that the potential for salvation is
open to all humans.[195] Williams suggests that once the scholar puts aside the
traditional notion of "Gnostic" cosmic determinism, that the
texts speak out about the individual's role in his own salvation--through
free-will and proper ethics--rather than being saved by nature alone as Clement
would have us believe.
http://www.bookreviews.org/Reviews/6apr7.html
- To remedy the seriously deficient scholarship on this difficult complex of
religious ideas, Rösher surveys selected texts (Exodus, Isaiah, Jubilees,
Enoch, 1QH, Romans, and John) that exhibit an apparent incompatibility between
God's will and human free-will. In view of Rösher's comment that the idea of
predeterminism transcends the limits of Judaism or Christianity, the reader
might expect him to handle the topic as a problem in the history of religions.
This expectation, however, is never realized. To be sure, Rösher does make a
crucial distinction between the predetermination of the whole (e.g., the whole
of Israel) and the freedom and personal responsibility of the individual,
largely on the grounds that western "Antiquity" held a determinative
concept of the corporate whole, while essentially lacking any workable concept
of the individual. But he never seriously ventures beyond the borders of Jewish
and Christian texts.
Rösher's thesis is that, despite first appearances, there is
no fundamental contradiction between divine predetermination (expressed, e.g.,
in God's hardening the heart) and the possibility of free, responsible human
action.
The determinism that Rösher finds in John is not Gnostic, "origins-determinism," but predetermination based on works (cf. the recent work of J. Trumbower). Rösher argues that John expresses a synonymity between coming to the light/Jesus, true belief, and true works. The individual's reaction to Jesus is determined by past works (3:19-21), not by one's origin. In John 5:46 Jesus draws a direct correlation between one's correct obedience to Moses and one's acceptance of him. This description emphasizes Rösher's intriguing arguments for the Jewish-Christian character of John. While Rösher admits that Paul's and John's concepts of determinism are radically different, he is nevertheless able, through his concept of "In-Wirken," to integrate the two. Each represents one of the two lines of emphasis that Rösher argues belong together on the basis of his preceding analysis. Paul and John belong together in the same way that predeterminism subsumes, while not eliminating, human responsibility.
In the end, Rösher has produced a provocative biblical theology of determinism. But herein lies the most important problem. Should we not question, methodologically, any attempt to unite two independent and admittedly disparate views on a common theme on the basis of evidence from other, unrelated texts? In other words, John's concept of determinism seems to be so different from Paul's that the two cannot be brought together without some type of biblical-theological presupposition. Despite this general concern, this subtle and captivating book will certainly provoke a lively and productive response from its readers.
http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/doinel.htm
- The [a later] Gnostic Church accepted the Valentinian doctrine that Humanity
is divided into three fundamental classes, the spiritual Pneumatics, to
whom the Gnosis is natural; the materialistic Hylics, for whom the
Gnosis was unreachable; and the intermediate Psychics, for whom the
Gnosis was attainable only through effort. However, it did not accept the rigid
determinism of the Valentinian doctrine.
http://www.essene.com/Church/Conspiracy/OrigenOfAlexandria.html
- So also with the earth— one earth will pass away and another will take its
place, more refined and more perfect. Origen envisioned an endless succession
of worlds and ages all following one another and coming into existence
according to merits and demerits. In Origen's universe, nothing happens by
chance or is predestined. All is the result of freedom of choice and movement.
Origen's understanding of man is just as lofty as the Christian-Gnostics envisioned. Man is created by God as a spiritual being, but one who must prove his goodness so that such goodness becomes natural, not accidental, thus enabling man to share and partake in the Divine Nature. Man, therefore, is capable of becoming as God.
The Golden Age of Christian Theology
The theology of Origen is all- encompassing and universal in scope. It can be considered the representative of the highest Christian Gnosis and the greatest systematized exposition of Christian theology yet advanced. It is ironic that although Origen opposed certain ideas of the Gnostic sectarian Christians such as the concept of a demiurge (Creator- God) considered as inferior to the Supreme God, pairs of Aeons or emanations and the allegorical works such as we find in Valentinus' cosmic myth, he actually popularized key Gnostic doctrines on the soul's preexistence, the fall and descent of the soul into matter, the resurrection of the soul in a celestial or heavenly body, Gnosis as the way of the soul's salvation, and the ultimate restoration into divine unity. The Christology of Origen is significant for its complexity and because it endeavors to give an adequate conception of Christ's humanity, that is, "the moral freedom pertaining to him as a creature."< 49> Origen clearly taught that Christ earned his place as the incarnation of the Logos through choice and self- effort, not because he was God from all eternity. For the Christian-Gnostics, Christ is an emanation of the Pleroma; for Origen, he is one of the created spirits. The doctrines are similar, though not exact.
Harnack also asserts that Origen's eschatology or doctrine of the Last Things is more akin to the Valentinian Gnostics. Origen's doctrine, however, is permeated by his concept of free will, and he rejected what he felt to be deterministic tendencies in certain schools of Gnosis.
Prior to Origen, as we have seen, there were diverse views regarding the nature of Christ among the earliest sects of Christians. Some, such as the Ebionites, are said to have denied Jesus' preexistence while others asserted his preexistence. Harnack, we noted, distinguishes between the Adoption Christology and the Pneumatic Christology in the early church. Orthodox
Christians and Gnostic- Christians each had differing views of the nature of Christianity. I have endeavored to prove that the earliest Christianity was, indeed, gnostic, however diverse. The great work of Origen was to unify the ancient doctrines of Christianity, as Harnack points out: "Origen... contrived to reconcile contradictions and thus acknowledged, outdid, reconciled and united both the theses of the Gnostics and those of orthodox Christians."< 50> Origen, therefore, was the great synthesizer who, as we have said, inadvertently popularized the doctrines of the Christian-Gnostics, based as they were on the secret teaching of Jesus, and evolved them into the soundest, most rational theological system yet attempted. In the works of Origen the Christian world finally had a unified theology and doctrine it could call its own.
From the death of Origen to the close of the third century, the theology of Origen gradually replaced that of the Gnostic-Christian sects and schools. Up until the fourth century, Origen had numerous followers and disciples and, as a result, his theology and doctrines were considered to be the standard on which all other expositions were to be based. Christian theology had truly entered its Golden Age as the works of Origen penetrated the minds and hearts of learned Christians everywhere. Yet this "Golden Age" was soon to enter a period of decline. The same reactionary forces which had attempted to destroy the Christian-Gnostics were at work to destroy Origen.
[We can say gnostic = determinist and orthodox =
freewillist. Origen sought to merge
ideas from these two camps into a single, simply unified system. The Valentinians read Paul as having a different,
better way of merging the two schemes: as layers: lower, uninitiated, freewillists,
moral-agency, orthodox; and higher, initiated, fatalists, puppet/conduits,
gnostics. - mh]
http://208.154.71.60/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,117388+14,00.html
- Impressed by the absolute
unity of all things, the adherents of another philosophic position, that of Eleaticism
(see Eleaticism),
so-named from its centre in Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy, found it
impossible to believe in multiplicity and change. The first step in this
direction was taken by Xenophanes,
a religious thinker and rhapsodist, who, on rational grounds, moved from the
gods and goddesses of Homer and Hesiod to a unitary principle of the divine. He
believed that God is the supreme power of the universe, ruling all things by
the power of his mind. Unmoved, unmoving, and unitary, God perceives, governs,
and apparently contains, or at least he "embraces," all things. So
interpreted, Xenophanes provides an instance of monistic pantheism, inasmuch as,
in this view, the Absolute God is united with a changing world, while the
reality of neither is attenuated. This paradox may have encouraged Parmenides,
possibly one of Xenophanes' disciples (according to Aristotle), to accept the
changeless Absolute, eliminating change and motion from the world. Reality thus
became for him a unitary, indivisible, everlasting, motionless whole. This
position is basically that of absolutistic monistic pantheism in that it views
the world as real but changeless. Insofar as the change and variety of the
world are only apparent, Parmenides also approaches acosmic pantheism.
http://mikhael.home.sprynet.com/hbjbc
for web.html - What were the religious beliefs of the average Goy? There
was nearly universal belief in the influence of the sun, moon and the other
planets and stars upon people and events. They believed that astrologers,
through the study of the stars, were able to predict the future and they paid a
great deal of attention to their horoscopes. The Stoic philosophers used
astrology to confirm their doctrine of predetermined fate. This cosmic
determinism demonstrates itself in many 'Christian' theological systems. Belief
in magic was just as widespread. Few doubted the ability of a magician to to
good or evil to others through the use of nonsense syllables and other
incantations found in ancient chaldean writings. The average Goy also believed
in the public display of religious devotion at the many temples found in every
city. He believed the sacrifices offered there appeased the gods or would
influence them to act favorably on his behalf. In addition to this was the immorality
associated with pagan temple worship, particularly temple prostitution, both
heterosexual and homosexual, and human sacrifice. In addition to the state
recognized and supported religions, there were many 'mystery religions' with
their own peculiar beliefs.
Thus, even if a pagan found monotheism attractive, he would
have already had the idea that the Judaism of the Torah was a corrupting
influence on 'true religion'. These were the attitudes and practices that Rabbi
Sha'ul had to deal with when he started to interact with the Goyim on a larger
scale. If you look at his letters you can see that it is the basic problems
of morality and theology he had to deal with again and again. These things
did not have to be explained to Jews and Geyrim. However, the pagans, coming
out of a completely godless, immoral society, had a lot of trouble
adapting to even the basics of morality, to say nothing of the rest of
Torah. After all, we don’t have letters to the Bereans, for instance; they knew
the Torah and only sought to understand Sha’ul’s message in that context. That
the average Goy who knew anything about Judaism had such negative
presuppositions and deeply ingrained immorality makes the events of the second
half of the first century more understandable.
In the year 49 C.E. the Natzrim met in Yerushalyim to
deliberate on the basic questions concerning the admission of the Geyrim into
the community of the remnant of Israel. The original problem was caused by some
men who went from Judea to Antioch and told the Geyrim there that they could
not be saved unless they were 'circumcised according to the custom of Moshe.'
There were also those from among the P'rushim who believed in Yahushua as
Mashiyakh and added that they needed to be directed to observe the Torah of
Moshe for salvation. The matter being considered is of the utmost importance
and we need to understand the question in order to understand the answer. This
was not a question of what the rules of the community should be. It was not
about whether the Goyim could remain in paganism and still be 'saved'. It was
not about whether there would be a 'Jewish community' and a 'Gentile community'
among the Natzrim. The question was about what is necessary to ensure that one
did not fall under the wrath of God on the coming Day of the Lord. (Acts 15:1).
Did one need to do anything to receive the mercy of God or does one simply
trust in God's mercy with the whole heart. 'Trust', not being simple
intellectual assent to the facts but a wholehearted 'trusting faithfulness'
that demonstrates itself in obedience and devotion. This is the dilemma, trust
or legalism (which is the attempt to obtain the blessing or mercy of God by
putting Him under the obligation to bless by one's actions). There are no
commandments of Torah which comprise rungs on the ladder to salvation; for Jew
or Goy. Yahushua's sacrifice was sufficient and all who rely on God's mercy
thus demonstrated, obtain that mercy. The equation is not 'Yahushua plus Torah
equals salvation', but 'Yahushua equals salvation...then one learns Torah (if
it was not known already as it was to the early talmidim). Obedience to the
mitzvot is the fruit of salvation, not the method of salvation. Legalism
is the antithesis of God's way and of the way of Torah itself.
One must remember why this issue was so divisive. It wasn't
that the Talmidim, or even the P’rushim, were ignoring the eternal destiny of
the rest of the world. It wasn’t that they believed that only Jews could
possibly have a place in the world to come, that only Jews could be ‘saved’.
That wasn’t it at all. What was divisive was the idea that a Goy could become
part of the righteous remnant of Israel. After all, a Goy, by definition, was
subject to the wrath of God, and a lot of Jews, even among the Natzrim, were
looking forward to that day when they would see that wrath poured out and they
would be vindicated. However, now God seemed to be indicating that He was going
to spare some of these Goyim as well as some of the Jewish people. That was
incredible to them, there had to be a catch. There had to be something they
had to do to prove they were ‘saved’, that they were part of the remnant.
They thought the Goyim had to be circumcised, which would have been a formal ‘conversion’
and they had to obey the Law in order to show they were indeed ‘worthy’. The
thing they needed to learn was that no one was ‘worthy’ nor could anyone be
made worthy on the basis of their actions. Deliverance for anyone was solely
God’s prerogative. They needed to emphasize this act of grace for Jew and
Gentile alike.
There was much debate about the subject, as well as others
I'm sure. Shimon stands up to speak and refers to his experience in the house
of Cornelius, a Geyr on whom the Ruach had first fallen as it had on them. He
then tells them not to place 'a yoke on their neck that neither we nor or
fathers have been able to bear'. Was this 'yoke' the yoke of the Torah? It
cannot be. The Torah and obedience to it were commanded by God Himself. If the
'yoke' is the yoke of Torah, it puts God in the position of commanding people
to do something that He knew they were incapable of. This idea, however, is a
popular one in 'Christian' circles. It says that the 'Law' was imposed on the
Jewish people by a God who wanted to demonstrate the fact that no one could
keep it, necessitating the sending of 'Jesus' to get rid of the 'Law' and show
us God's 'Grace'. The Jewish people then have been the unwitting objects of
God's 'demonstration' of man's failure and when the object lesson was over,
they were discarded for another people, the 'Church'. I hope you can see the
absurdity of this theology and the anti-Semitic conclusions it leads to as well
as the cruel jester or 'mad scientist' it portrays God to be. No, this yoke
is not the yoke of obedience to Torah but the yoke of legalism, the yoke of
trying to earn God's favor and one's place among the covenant people or even
one’s place in the world to come. That is the yoke neither they nor their
fathers were able to bear, because it is impossible to accomplish.
http://gfisher.org/chapter_6.htm
- the belief in the determination of destiny by the position of the planets
illustrates, in the last analysis, another defeat of Christianity. Indeed, the Christian Fathers fiercely
attacked the astrological fatalism dominant during the last centuries of the
Roman Empire. 'We are above Fate,'
wrote Tatian; 'the Sun and the Moon are made for us!' In spite of this theology of human freedom, astrology has
never been extirpated in the Christian world.
But never in the past did it reach the proportions and prestige it
enjoys in our times." (Mircea
Eliade, Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions, 1976, p. 59.) It is doubtful that astrology, and astral
religion, is as great a force right nowadays as it was in the Hellenistic era,
but when Eliade was writing (early 1970's) it was enjoying one of its recurrent
upsurges.
24. Eliade speculates on reasons for the popularity of
astrology: "... the discovery that
your life is related to astral phenomena does confer a new meanng on your
existence. You are no longer merely the
anonymous individual described by Heidegger and Sartre, a stranger thrown into
an absurd and meaningless world, condemned to be free, as Sartre used to say,
with a freedom confined to your situation and conditioned by your historical
moment. Rather, the horoscope reveals
to you a new dignity: it shows how intimately you are related to the entire
universe. It is true that your life is
determined by the movements of the stars, but at least this determinant has an
incomparable grandeur. Although, in the
last analysis, a puppet pulled by invisible ropes and strings, you are
nevertheless a part of the heavenly world.
Besides, this cosmic predetermination of your existence constitutes a
mystery: it means that the universe moves on according to a preestablished
plan; that human life and history itself follow a pattern and advance
progressively toward a goal. This
ultimate goal is secret or beyond human understanding; but at least it gives
meaning to a cosmos regarded by most scientists as the result of blind hazard, and it gives sense to the human
existence declared by Sartre to be de trop. This parareligious dimension of astrology is even considered
superior to the existing religions, because it does not imply any of the
difficult theological problems: the existence of a personal or transpersonal
God, the enigma of Creation, the origin of evil, and so on. Following the instructions of your
horoscope, you feel in harmony with the universe and do not have to bother with
hard, tragic, or insoluble problems, At
the same time, you admit, consciously or unconsciously, that a grand, through
incomprehensible, cosmic drama displays itself and that you are a part of it;
accordingly, you are not de trop." (Eliade, ibid., p. 61.) One may wonder to what extent resistance to
notions or the existence of free will and indeterminism, especially in human
affairs, is motivated by yearnings for security, or for being a part of an
astral divine plan.
25. The Church continued to vigorously oppose astrology
throughout the Middle Ages, and since astrology and astronomy were intertwined,
the opposition sometimes spilled over to astronomy. Pierre Duhem says, speaking of medieval Italian
astrologers: "To deny human
freedom, to deny the miraculous action of Providence in the world, to use
superstitious divinations and magical operations, was to contradict all
Christian teaching and to contravene the most strict prescriptions of the
Church. Among the adepts of astrology,
then, and the ministers of Catholicism, a struggle was inevitable. Sometimes it was violent. The unbelieving astrologers who enlivened
the spirit of the Court of Naples harshly attacked orthodox doctrine; and the
mendicant monks, Dominicans and Franciscans, zealously defended dogma. The Church raged against impenitent error
with the toughness which was the rule of the time, and over the history of
Italian astronomy in the Middle Ages the flame of the stake sometimes threw its
bloody gleam." (Pierre Duhem, Le
Système du Monde, 1913, v. 4, p. 187-188.)
the Christian scholars of Europe associated the natural
science of Aristotle with astrology.
This sheds light on the nature of the condemnations of Aristotle by
Church authorities early in the 13th century, which emphasized pernicious
doctrines of astrological fatalism and pantheistic cosmology, and on the
later integration of Aristotle into Christian doctrine made by such scholars as
Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. Lemay goes so far as to say that
"during the thirteenth century, the authority of Abu Ma'shar on
astronomy-astrology, and on cosmology, disputed the first place with Aristotle
himself", and quotes a marginal
note in a medieval manuscript to the effect that Ptolemy in the Almagest is
the authority for the courses of the planets, and Alfraganus for their
geometry, but on the nature of the planets and their influence on the lower world,
Abu Ma'shar is set above Aristotle.
(Lemay, ibid., p. xxxv.)
39. John of Salisbury (1120?-1180) was thoroughly opposed to
astrology, but got into some difficulty trying to reconcile God's omniscience
and foreknowledge with fatal necessity. (Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p.
164-167.) Of the Jewish philosopher
Maimonides (1135-1204), Thorndike says:
"That Maimonides was well acquainted with the art of astrology may
be inferred from his assertion that he has read every book in Arabic on the
subject. Maimonides not only believed
the stars were living, animated beings and that there were as many pure
intelligences as there were spheres, but he states twice in the Guide for
the Perplexed that all philosophers agree that this inferior world of
generation and corruption is ruled by the virtues and influences of the
celestial spheres. While their
influence is diffused through all things, each star or planet also has
particular species especially under its influence." (ibid., p 211.) For some reason, Maimonides identified the
control of human destinies by the constellations with the rule of blind
chance. Maimonides also believed that
God has planned all things in advance, and that this is incompatible with
things occurring fortuitously. John of
Salisbury, on the other hand, attacked both Epicureans and Stoics on the ground
that the former believe in blind chance and the latter in strict necessity, and
both are wrong. It's not clear from
Thorndike's description whether he was talking about everything
happening by chance for Epicureans, and by necessity for Stoics, or just about some
things for each.
42. In another treatise, De impressionibus aeris seu de
prognosticatione, on weather prediction, Grosseteste discusses such things
as the power of the zodiacal signs and planets, including such technical
matters as house, exaltation and aspect.
On the question of free will, he holds that the human body is subject to
two forces: "as part of the world
of cause it is changed in many ways by the movements of the stars, but it is
also subject to the control of the mind especially in voluntary actions."
(idem, p. 446.) He follows Augustine in
The City of God in denying that all our actions which seem freely
willed are predictable from the stars.
J. D. North says: "In his Hexameron
[commentary on the first 6 books of the Bible], Grosseteste's final position on
astrological belief is stated at some length.
Superficially it is hostile -- astrology books are written at the
dictation of the devil, and should be burned -- but his hostility has to do
with the issue of determinism, free will, and theological values. His belief in celestial influence was as
strong as ever. He thought that the science
of the astrologers must fail because the influences they sought are so precisely
focussed in accordance with the momentary stellar configuration, that even the
most accurate astronomer would not find them.
They were real enough, in Grosseteste's view." (J. D. North, "Medieval Concepts of
Celestial Influence: A Survey", in Astrology, Science and Society,
Historical Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 11.)
(2) He affirms with just as much certainty that the influence of
the celestial bodies on human acts is indirect and never necessitating. He very often adds that the contrary opinion
is heretical, since it excludes human free will.
74. Of course there remained the question of free will. Among Protestant theologians, John Calvin,
when speaking of predestination, recommends that we not press matters too
far: "When we attribute
foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things always were, and perpetually
remain, under his eyes, so that to his knowledge there is nothing future or
past, but all things are present ....
We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which he determined with
himself what he willed to become of each man.
For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is
foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others." But Calvin says of "certain men not
otherwise bad": "... let them
remember that when they inquire into predestination they are penetrating the
sacred precincts of divine wisdom. If
anyone with carefree assurance breaks into this place, he will not succeed in
satisfying his curiosity and he will enter a labyrinth from which he can find
no exit. For it is not right for man
unrestrainedly to search out things that the Lord has willed to be hid in
himself, and to unfold from eternity itself the sublimest wisdom, where he
would have us revere but not understand that through this also he should fill
us with wonder. He has set forth by his
Word the secrets of his will that he has decided to reveal to us. These he decided to reveal in so far as he
foresaw that they would concern us and benefit us." (Institutes of the Christian Religion,
1559, translated by Ford Lewis Battles, 1960, xxi.3, v. 2, p. 926, 922-923.)
Calvin was concerned with the distinction between true and
false astrology. The Arminians of this
era rejected astrology on the grounds that men have free will, but the Calvinists,
on account of their determinism, centered more on the impiety of prying into
God's plans. (Jacques Halbronn,
"The Revealing Process of Translation and Criticism", in Astrology,
Science and Society (1987), edited by Patrick Curry, p. 205-207; also Hugh
G. Dick, introduction to Albumazar:
A Comedy (1615)_ y Thomas Tomkis, edited by Dick, 1944, p. 22-23);
the quotations from Calvin are from Halbronn's article; the original sermon of
Calvin is Admonitio adversus astrologiam, 1549.)
77. Keith Thomas observes
that all post-Reformation theologians taught that nothing could happen in this
world without God's permission. They
denied the very possibility of chance or accident. "That which we call fortune," wrote the Elizabethan
bishop, Thomas Cooper, "is nothing but the hand of God, working by causes
and for causes that we know not. Chance
or fortune are gods devised by man and made by our ignorance of the true,
almighty and everlasting God."
"Fortune and adventure,' declared John Knox, 'are the words of Paynims
[pagans], the signification whereof ought in no wise to enter into the heart of
the faithful .... That which ye
scoffingly call Destiny and Stoical necessity ... we call God's eternal
election and purpose immutable." (quoted by Thomas).
78. Thomas notes
that Knox was echoing the words of St. Basil, for the denial of the heathen
concept of Fortune or Destiny had always been a popular Christian theme. "Yet," says Thomas, "there is
some reason for thinking that the Reformation period saw a new insistence on
God's sovereignty. Whereas Aquinas had
stressed that the notion of Divine Providence did not exclude the operation of
chance or luck, a sixteenth-century writer like Bishop Pilkington could declare
categorically that there was no such thing as chance. Medieval Christians from Boethius to Dante had maintained the
pagan tradition of the goddess Fortuna side by side with a belief in God's
omnipotence, but for Tudor theologians the very idea of Fortune was an insult
to God's sovereignty .... Every Christian
thus had the consolation of knowing that life was not a lottery, but reflected
the working-out of God's purposes. If
things went wrong he did not have to blame his luck but could be assured that
God's hand was at work: the events of
this world were not random but ordered." (Keith Thomas, Religion and
the Decline of Magic, 1971, p. 79.)
79. Thomas explains
the post-Reformation emphasis on God's omnipotence as founded on the universal
reluctance to recognize that the rewards and punishments of this world don't
always go to those that (we think) deserve them. The doctrine of Providence was an attempt to impose order on the
apparent randomness of human fortunes.
Thus Thomas' explanation of the turn toward determinism after the
Reformation is the same as the explanation given from antiquity on of the rise
of determinism among the Stoics. And in
both cases, there was a turn toward astrology.
The strictures of St. Augustine against astrology lost force among
many. In his 20's, Augustine says, he consulted
"those imposters, the astrologers, because I argued that they offered no
sacrifices and said no prayers to any spirit to aid their divination."
80. Augustine goes
on: "Nevertheless, true Christian
piety rightly rejects and condemns what they do ..... we must remember Our Lord's words to the cripple: You have
recovered your strength. Do not sin any
more, for fear that worse should befall you. This is our whole salvation, but the astrologers try to do away
with it. They tell us that the cause of
sin is determined in the heavens and we cannot escape it, and that this or that
is the work of Venus or Saturn or Mars.
They want us to believe that man is guiltless, flesh and blood though he
is and doomed to die despite his pride.
Instead they have it that the blame is to be laid on the Creator and
Ruler of the heavens and the stars, none other than our God, himself the very
source of justice, from whom its sweetness is derived -- on you, O God, who will
award to every man what his acts have deserved, you who will never
disdain a heart that is humble and contrite." (Augustine, Confessions, Book IV, Ch
3, translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin, 1961, p. 73.) But one can maintain that if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then
choices to sin or not are equally predestined, and those who will turn away
from sin are elected in advance of their reform. And Christianity has devices of its own for the abatement of
guilt.
81. In place of
unacceptable moral chaos, Protestant theologians of the 17th century erected
the edifice of God's omnipotent sovereignty.
It was impossible for even the most optimistic exponent of the doctrine
of Providence to maintain that virtue was always rewarded. Thus it was necessary to concede that only
the justice of the next world would fully compensate for the apparent
capriciousness of this one. All one
could do was argue that there are many instances in which the link between
morality and material success is too close to be ignored. By the later 17th century even this
proposition seemed unconvincing to some.
It had never been clear by what mechanism God's rewards and punishments
in this world had been distributed. Miracles
as such had been relegated by most Protestants to the days of the early Church. Under the influence of the mechanical
philosophy even the Biblical miracles began to lose their credibility. However, belief in God's immediate
providences did not wither away altogether.
Many intelligent people of the time found it impossible to believe that
catastrophic events like the Great Plague of 1665 had only natural causes. 18th century epidemics, fires and
earthquakes continued to be hailed as acts of God. Victorian clergymen sometimes regarded venereal disease as a
punishment for fornication, and recognized in a cattle plague a retribution for
the ill-treatment of farm labourers.
(Thomas, ibid., p. 107, 109-110.)
82. The theologians
of the post-Reformation period were imposing a doctrine of God's omnipotence on
a populace long
. In John Gower's Confessio
Amantis (1390-1393), the wise man becomes not so much a man of character as
a man of prayer, who only can come to rule the stars by the grace of God. (Wedel, ibid., p. 135-142.)
Interesting - not profound:
http://www.gurus.com/dougdeb/Essays/Nextrel/Nextlong.htm
- the shape of the next religion
http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/XXI/21-3.htm
this is one reason why the church has unconsciously pushed
the Reformation doctrine into the background. If it is allowed to stand in the
forefront, it is too revolutionary and might upset the status quo.
Following a seminar on justification conducted by the Australian Forum, one of
the leaders of a certain religious institution was heard saying, "What we
have heard is very good: but how are we going to fit it in with our
system?"
Ecciesia reformata semper reformanda is a confession that
the Reformation was not completed with Luther and Calvin. The sanctuary of
truth must yet be cleansed from all the errors that were smuggled in under the
cover of the Dark Ages. We have no reason to suppose the restoration was
completed by the Reformers.
Error is like an octopus. It has many tentacles, but one heart. Most of
the books written to expose the errors of certain cults or false systems
tediously fight with all the tentacles of the doctrinal octopus. Few there
are which effectively slay it at the heart with the sharp sword of
justification by faith. [associated with determinism - mh]
Look how Luther dealt with the papacy. Others before and after him spent their
energies crying out against the abuses of Rome. Said Luther:
Doubtless this one article [justification],
by little and little, as it began, had overthrown the whole papacy, with
all her brotherhoods, pardons, religious orders, relics, ceremonies, invocation
of saints, purgatory, masses, watchings, vows, and infinite other like
abominations. . . . We moreover did teach and urge nothing but this article of
justification, which alone at that time did threaten the authority of the Pope
and lay waste his kingdom. . . . Images and other abuses in the church would
have fallen down of themselves, if they [the sects] had but diligently taught
the article of justification. . . . For I have taken away the kernal and leave
him the husks. They contrariwise do take away the husks and leave him the
kernal. - Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, Middleton ed., pp. 218,219.
Luther has been called the greatest reductionist in the
history of the church. He cut through the complicated maze of medieval
theology and reduced all theology to the principle of sola fide. The
Christian church today is inundated with isms of every stripe and hue. We could
spend forever and aye fighting the tentacles of error, but we need to get to
the heart. All error is united in its common opposition to the principle of
justification by faith. All error obscures the bright light of the gospel. What
the church and the world desperately need is the truth of justification by
faith without the encumbrance of the popular errors which have obscured it. We
must be courageous enough to let the truth of justification by Christ alone
call them all into radical question.
http://www-instruct.nmu.edu/psychology/hwhitake/content/Green/Green7.html
During the two centuries before the birth of Christ, as we
have seen, Skepticism's influence began to grow in
philosophical circles. It dominated the Athenian Academy, particularly under
the leadership of Carneades of Cyrene
(213-129 BC), and it seemed able to significantly undermine the arguments of
the leading Stoics of the time, such as
Chrysippus. As a result, the other philosophical and religious schools of the time began to merge with one another,
closing ranks in the face of what was perceived to be a common enemy (see Wallis, 1995, p. 27). The first of these
alliances can be seen in the rise of Antiochus of
Ascalon (ca. 130-ca. 68 BC) to the head of the Academy in ca. 79 BC (Kidd,
1967, p. 384). Although he is known for
bringing Platonic thought back to Plato's old school (which had been dominated by Skeptics for over a century), it was his
expressed intention to unify Platonic and Stoic thought (Rees, 1967 p. 337). With the publication of
Aristotle's school texts by Andronicus in the 1st century BC (Wallis, 1995, p. 27), Antiochus argued that the
Aristotle's work, too, could be brought under the Platonic umbrella. As this new form of Platonism
developed in the early part of the Christian era, it was often infused with elements of a variety of mystical
texts bearing Egyptian and Platonic flavorings: the Chaldaean Oracles, Sibylline Oracles, Asclepius, Corpus
Hermeticum, and the like. Such books offered the
promise of salvation (and other more mundane events) through the use of
special magic and ritual (see Copenhaver,
1992, for an excellent account of their origin and use).
Contrary to most of the philosophies of his time, however, Philo stressed the
absolute freedom of the human will, even in the face of the causal forces of nature (Wolfson, 1967, p. 152). In
coming centuries, many significant Christian theologians would begin to echo many of Philo's sentiments
in their own attempts to reconcile Christianity and
Platonism.
One of the most significant Christian contributions
to theory of soul and mind, and the one that is highlighted
here, was their bringing of the question of the freedom of the will to the
forefront of psychological debate.
As we have seen, other philosophers, dating back even to Plato, had raised the question of the freedom of the will,[4] but it
usually played a relatively peripheral role in their theories of the psyche, the nous, etc. After Philo, however, the
early Christians were among the first to regard it as a crucial element in the proper discourse about
the soul and mind.[5]
Very early Christianity was, of course, mainly
confined to the Jewish people of the Levant. Jews were well-known, if not very numerous, in the Roman
Empire. Their reputation seems to have been, on the
whole, somewhat negative, however. As Chadwick (1993) puts it:
In the ancient world everyone one knew at least three
things about the Jews: they would not be associated either directly or indirectly with any pagan
cult (which seemed antisocial), they refused to eat not only meat that had been offered in sacrifice to the gods
but also all pork (which seemed ridiculous), and they circumcised their male infants (which seemed repulsive). (pp.
18-19)
On the other hand, Jewish communities that had formed
outside of the Levant, due to various economic and
political factors, often gathered around them circles of interested Gentiles; people
drawn by the elegance of
monotheism, by Jewish morality, and by the venerability of Jewish texts.
The Valentinians proposed that in addition to the body and soul (psyche), some people--viz. the Gnostic
elect--have pneuma (often translated as "spirit") as well. This pneuma was thought to give them their
special gnosis, and guarantee them entry into heaven. Regular Christian faithful, they thought, have only
psyche, but no pneuma. This might allow them some sort of afterlife, but there was no hope of their
developing gnosis through study or practice or somesuch. All such matters were said to have been predetermined
by God. Finally, those who were not among even the
Christian faithful were thought not even to have psyche--i.e., to be
nothing but animated bodies The
deterministic belief of the Gnostics that the individual has no control over
his or her ultimate fate--that one
is predestined for salvation or damnation--was a second main point of
contention between Gnostics and
orthodox Christians. It was a debate that would lead the Christians to stress
the importance of the freedom of
the will to such a degree that it would become a core tenet of their religious
beliefs and, simultaneously, of
their psychological theory.
He even viewed Socrates as a martyr of a sort, having been
executed by pagan authorities for
spreading the truth as it had been revealed to him. Justin was a strong
advocate of freedom of the will.
One of his main criticisms of Gnosticism was that their system contained a
strict determinism with respect to
salvation. Those who have pneuma are saved; those without are not. Justin
recognized, however, that without
freedom there can be no moral responsibility, and without freedom the message
of Jesus has no point for it can
change nothing.
This was the beginning of a crucial turning point in the
history of psychological thought. Although Christians were by no means the first to say that humans have free will, in
their battle against Gnosticism, Christians
came to make freedom of the will a central aspect of their psychological
doctrine. It remains a major problem
in the philosophy of mind to the present day.
Justin also rejected the Gnostics' claim that Christ was
never truly incarnate.
Only after discussing all this did Tertullian touch on that
aspect of Christian psychology that was rapidly becoming the most important: freedom of the will. Like his
predecessors, he argued the case for freedom against Gnostic determinism, specifically against the
Valentinians. By way of freedom, he argued, humans are able to turn away from evil and be, as he
put it, "born again and re-made" (ch. XXI, p. 202). Here again, we see why the changeability of the
soul was so important to early Christians and, why, as a result, they were led to reject Gnostic claims of its
immutability.
Like Justin and Tertullian, Origin also fought Gnosticism
on the basis of freedom of the human will. In
Origen one can see the concept of free will continue to grow in
importance. He was the first to write an entire
treatise specifically on the subject (Prat, 19??), but it is now lost.
Fortunately, he also devoted large portions
of his most important work, De principiis,[13] to a discussion of the soul and
its freedom. Although Origen concedes
that the abilities of animals such as hunting dogs and war horses make it
sometimes seem as though they possess
reason,[16] only humans have the faculty of reason (logismos?) fully (Bk III,
ch. 1, sec 3). This allows humans not
only to have images of things they desire, but also to judge the goodness and wickedness of their desire, and to reject
those that are wicked. This ability to make moral judgments, and act upon them, is just what it means to
say that humans have free will, according to Origen. Those that remained good became angels and stars and heavenly
bodies. Those that cooled a little became
humans. Those that cooled even more became demons (inferna), completely alienated from the good. Because
they all have free will, however, Origen allowed that even the demons could return to the good and achieve
salvation. He stressed (contra the Gnostics) that all humans--even those who claim not to be able to
control their desires--have free will and can control themselves through education and the exercise
of reason.
Plotinus can be seen as trying to carve out a middle path between the
ruthless determinism of the Gnostics, on the one hand, and the radical voluntarism of the orthodox
Christians, on the other. Far more important to Plotinus than these two groups, however, were the positions on freedom
laid out by Plato and by Aristotle.
the [most orthodox Catholic - mh] Christians were the first to make freedom a central
aspect of their psychological theory
http://humanists.net/pdhutcheon/Papers
and Presentations/Changing Perspectives on Free Will.htm
[good article on history of free will ideas]
This movement sought to repudiate causality in the realm of
the human altogether and thus to resurrect -- largely in a non-religious
context -- earlier beliefs concerning the sovereignty of the human ego.
The new anti-determinism owed its vitality to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche,
as well as to the work of the pioneering existentialist Soren Kierkegaard,
1. Elimination or
Absorption of Competing Cults
The conversion of Constantine was the decisive event in the
estab-lishment of Christianity as the sole official religion of the Roman Empire
and its successor states. Christians
made up only a small percentage of the population of the Empire at the time of
his conversion (312). Within a century,
though, it went from being one of the tolerated religions of the state to being
the only legal religion. The rivals of
Christianity did not disappear overnight, but were replaced by Christianity in
a slow, complex process, during which Christian doctrines and ritual practices
were modified as other cults were being eliminated or absorbed. Not all vestiges of pagan religions died
out or were adopted by the Christians.
Some beliefs and rites merely disappeared from official view and
continued an underground existence, surfacing from time to time in later centuries. Although the leaders of orthodox
Christianity did the best they could to stamp out all unacceptable religious
expressions, they were unable to eradicate them completely.
Scholars have debated the reasons for Constantine's
conversion and the depth of his sincerity, but there is little disagreement
about its results. In the latter part
of the third century Christians had been persecuted with more severity than
ever before by the Roman emperors, yet, with the conversion of one man, the
fortunes of the religion were completely reversed. After Constantine there was only one non-Christian emperor, his
nephew Julian, whose epithet, the Apostate, explains how he was able to come to
power. Only by appearing to belong to
his uncle's religion could he escape official disapproval (and probable
execution) and be allowed to ascend the throne.
Julian's failure to reverse the policy of favoring
Christianity begun by Constantine was also indicative of how quickly that
religion had become dominant. Since it
is clear that Julian was a very able and intelligent ruler, his attempt to set
up an official rival to Christianity would seem to have had an excellent chance
of success. When he became emperor in
361, he had already shown himself to be an outstanding soldier and
administrator in Gaul. As he had also
been an avid student of Hellenistic philosophy, especially in its astrological
or magical aspect, he immediately began a program of reinstituting the solar
religion and disestablishing Christianity.
He decreed that all religions in the Empire were to be treated equally,
ended subsidies to Christian churches, and removed many Christians from
imperial offices. Christians were not
persecuted by the state, but many churches were destroyed by the people whom
the Christians had officially suppressed since Constantine's time. Julian tried to add Neoplatonic theology and
restyled rituals to the solar religion, and he also attempted to organize a
hierarchy of priests and a thoroughly pagan educational system. In the midst of these reforms he felt it to
be his duty to lead the Roman armies to victory over the Sasanian Shah of
Iran. He was killed during the campaign
in Mesopotamia in 363, after ruling only nineteen months.
Since Julian was the last male descendent in Constantine's
family, the army chose one of its commanders, Jovian, to succeed him. Jovian, a Christian, immediately revoked the
religious laws Julian had promulgated, and his successors Valens (364-78) and
Theodosius (379-95) continued the anti-pagan policies of Constantine and his
sons. In 391 Theodosius ordered the end
of all public sacrifices and closed all of the pagan temples, and in the next
year outlawed even private pagan rituals.
The Christian population of the Empire now felt bold enough to attack
their enemies openly. Sometime around
390 a Christian mob in Alexandria destroyed the temple of Serapis, built by the
first Ptolemies, and burned the great Royal Library. A few years later, in 415, another mob murdered Hypatia, the
greatest mathematician of her time and head of the Neoplatonic school in
Alexandria. Despite Julian's attempt to
restore it, paganism was clearly unable to hold its own against the rapidly
increasing numbers of Christians.
The increasing popularity of Christianity was due largely to
its having become the official religion of the Empire. Other religions were tolerant of rivals, but
Christian advisors to Constantine and his successors argued that it was sinful
to allow anyone in the Empire to belong to any other religion, except Judaism. Once the emperor became a Christian, the
machinery of the state necessarily had to be used to force everyone to become a
Christian.
It was not merely fear of punishment that caused people to
convert to Christianity, nor, for that matter, the opportunity for preferment
in the now Christian imperial administration.
Another process was occurring that led to the ease of conversion to
Christianity, a process of assimilation.
Christian missionaries modified their religion to be less of a barrier
to converts, and the masses of converts brought many of their beliefs and
rituals into their new religion. The
worshippers of Sol Invictus, for example, celebrated the annual rebirth of
their deity shortly after the Winter solstice, on December 25. This date was taken over by the followers of
Mithras when that god was assimilated to Sol Invictus, and later adopted by the
Christians as the date of the nativity of their founder. The Christians also took over the
astrological names for the days of the week, and in 321 Constantine declared
that the Sun's day would be the official day of rest and religious observance
for all Christians. Other pagan
festivals and rituals were similar to those of Christianity, such as the
festivals celebrating the rebirth of the vegetation deities each Spring, which
resembled the Christian ceremonies of Good Friday and Easter. In fact, the date of Easter in western
Christianity is determined astrologically:
it is the Sunday after the first full Moon after the Spring
equinox. The astrological religion of
the late Hellenistic world was very pervasive.
Most pagan beliefs and rituals were rejected outright by
the leaders of Christianity and therefore had to be abandoned or followed in
secret. Animal sacrifices and
orgiastic rituals were forbidden, for example, as was the belief in the
transmigration of souls or any other doctrine about a future life contradictory
to that of Christianity. The pagan gods
were, of course, banished, but some of them reappeared in Christians' beliefs
after they had been transformed into demons or saints. In general, powerful pre-Christian deities
became demons, while unimportant local deities became saints. This was not a conscious process, but one
which took place gradually over several centuries, as the former territories of
the Roman Empire slowly adopted Christianity.
For many centuries after Christianity became the sole legal religion of
the Empire, inhabitants of rural villages—pagani in Latin, hence our word pagan—continued to practice their
ancient fertility religion. As
Christian orthodoxy became more insistent that they give up many of their
beliefs and practices, the pagan religion was followed in secret, in some cases
down to the present day.
Christian leaders and their imperial forces suppressed more
easily those religions that had a visible structure or official status. The opponent that the orthodox leadership
had the most difficult time disposing of, though, was Manicheism, a religion
that resembled Christianity in many respects.
It came into existence in the same atmosphere as Christianity, was
subjected to the same official pressure and competition from other religions,
and had the same need to synthesize the former beliefs of its converts. Manicheism therefore developed a number of
structures and doctrines similar to those of Christianity. It was a close enough resemblance that
orthodox Christian writers considered it a Christian heresy, rather than a
separate religion, and many people passed from one of these religions to the
other without much revision of their beliefs.
Because of some very attractive features in its doctrines, Manicheism could not be completely
suppressed. It has reappeared in
slightly different forms several times during the course of Western religious
history.
Manicheism was founded in Mesopotamia by Mani (or Manes),
who was born in 216 ce, probably in Babylon.
He was raised by his father, a convert to the Mandaean religion. This
group was a baptizing sect, still in existence today, which claimed John the
Baptist as one of its founders. Most of
its followers migrated from Palestine to Mesopotamia in the first century ce,
and at some point were strongly influenced by Gnosticism. At the age of twelve, Mani received his
first revelation: he was to leave the
Mandean sect and prepare himself to be the leader of his own religion. The celestial messenger who revealed this to
Mani also revealed all the truths of religion, including the information that
Mani was the Living Paraclete, or Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus in John's
Gospel (16.7-11). At the age of
twenty-five he was called to his apostleship and traveled to India with his
message, after first converting his father and his father's family. He stayed briefly in India, where he was
deeply impressed by Buddhism, then returned to Mesopotamia. Back in his homeland, he became an
influential counselor in the court of Shapur I (241-73), the second ruler of
the Sasanian dynasty of Iran. Mani
offended both the Zoroastrian priesthood and the Magi, who joined forces against
this religious heretic. Their efforts
showed some success when Shapur chose Zoroastrianism as the official state
religion.
Mani, however, retained the confidence of Shapur and was
allowed to travel through the expanding Sasanian Empire, preaching his new
religion. He also sent groups of
missionaries into the Roman Empire, the most important of which went to
Alexandria. With the death of Shapur
and Shapur's son Hormizd less than a year later, Mani's fortunes changed. The new ruler, Bahram I (273-77), charged
him with disobeying the religious (Zoroastrian) law and imprisoned him. After he spent twenty-six days in prison,
fasting, talking to his disciples, and giving them directions on how the
religion should continue after him, he died (in 276 or 277). The shah, cheated of his opportunity to
execute Mani, had his body dismembered and his severed head placed over the
city gate. His followers later called
this dismemberment his "crucifixion." Mani's religion was persecuted by later Sasanian shahs, at the
insistence of the Zoroastrian priesthood, but it had spread so widely within
and outside the empire that it could not be eradicated. It was outlawed in the Roman Empire as well,
even before Christianity became the official state religion. In 297 the Emperor Diocletian issued an
edict banning this dangerous Iranian religion, probably for both foreign and
domestic political reasons. The
earliest Christian attacks on Manicheism date from the middle of the third century,
and by the fourth century virtually every Christian writer included refutations
of Manicheism in his works. Augustine
of Hippo (354-430), who was a Manichean for nine years, found ways to attack
them in almost all of his writings, whatever the subject.
The violent reactions to Mani's religion stemmed from its
activity as well as its doctrines. It
was an energetic, proselytizing faith, as can be seen from the dynamism of
Mani's life. He not only traveled throughout
the Persian-speaking world and India, but also sent missionaries to preach the
truths of his faith in all parts of the world.
The missionaries sent to Syria, Egypt, and North Africa during his
lifetime were followed by many others in succeeding centuries. At the same time missionaries were sent to
Tibet, India, and Central Asia, and as early as 719 a Manichean missionary was
received by the emperor of China. The
Manicheans were particularly concerned to convert the rulers of any society to
their faith, as Mani had converted two of Shapur's brothers. In later centuries various Arab and Turkish
princes became important followers of this new religion. It is quite likely that this political focus
of Manicheism lay behind Diocletian's outlawing the religion.
It was not Manichean politics but Manichean doctrines that
concerned its Christian, and later Muslim, Buddhist, and Confucian
opponents. The basic principle of
Manicheism was its radical dualism, the belief that the universe is made up of
two elements, God and Matter, both of which are eternal. Light and Truth were seen as aspects of God,
while Darkness and Falsehood were aspects of Matter. Other attributes of God were Power and Wisdom. According to the Manichean creation story,
the forces of Darkness attacked the realm of Light, and the Prince of Darkness
defeated and imprisoned the Primeval Human, who had been created by God to
defend the Light. This basic myth of
Manicheism showed the way to salvation for all humans, in aiding the attempt to
free the Primeval Human. As the
creation myth continued, some particles of light became mixed with darkness and
formed the cosmos as we know it. The
Living Spirit attempted to liberate the light from darkness, but was hindered
in this effort by Matter, who created human beings. Women and men contain both light and darkness and have the desire
to procreate, thus producing many more human beings containing particles of
light imprisoned in darkness. As can be
seen from this brief description, there were close affinities between
Manicheism and Gnosticism. Other
elements in Manichean mythology were related to Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and
Pythagoreanism.
Manicheans adopted elements of Christianity and other
religions as well. They described the
souls of all humans as the "suffering Jesus," but saw the historical
Jesus as only one case of the passion and redemption that everyone must
suffer. The Redeemer of all human souls
was even called the "brilliant Jesus." The Manichean account of the end of the world also resembled
Christian, as well as Zoroastrian beliefs.
Astrological doctrines appeared in Manichean cosmology, which described
the sun and the moon as the pathway by which the particles of light were
returned to their proper realm. All of
the planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac were seen as hostile powers,
though, whose evil intentions could be discovered by noting their
configurations. Manichean doctrines,
then, were a blend of late Zoroastrian, Gnostic, Christian, and Buddhist
beliefs, with additions from the mystery religions and astrology.
Mani's revelations were contained in the Manichean
scriptures, including a Great Gospel , in imitation of the Christian Gospels;
the Treasure of Life , on cosmology and anthropology; the Book of Giants , a
blend of Iranian mythology with parts of the Jewish apocryphal First Book of Enoch;
Letters , of Mani; and Prayers and Psalms .
There were other canonical and non-canonical books as well, but all of
these works have survived only in fragments, some of them quite long, though. The extent of the geographical spread of
Manicheism can be shown in noting the languages in which these fragments were
written: Greek, Coptic (in Egypt),
Syriac (the language in which they were originally written, in Mesopotamia,),
Middle Persian, Latin, Soghdian (a Central Asian language), and Chinese.
Mani's followers were divided into two groups, the Elect and
the Hearers, based on their knowledge of the scriptures and their ascetic
practices. The Elect abstained from all
evil thoughts and deeds, and so tried to avoid blasphemy, were vegetarians, did
not kill plants or animals, and practiced total sexual abstinence. They were supported by the Hearers, because
the only work they did was aimed at the redemption of the particles of light
that formed their souls. The Hearers
followed the example of the Elect only one day each week, Sunday. There was a system of confession and
penitence for those who sinned, with the Hearers confessing to the Elect and
members of the Elect confessing to those Elect who were of higher rank. Although the Manichean religion had an
ecclesiastical hierarchy, it was not as rigidly organized as that of the
Christians, which proved to be a weakness in its competition with Christianity.
There were sacraments as well in Manicheism that were
similar to those of Christianity.
Baptism, for example, could not be with water, an element of Darkness,
and could not grant salvation, which was through gnosis, not faith.
It was performed with oil and probably signified only that a person
had become a member of the Elect. A
month of fasting each year was concluded with a cult meal, the Bema feast,
held on the anniversary of Mani's death.
The bread eaten at this meal was symbolic, not of the flesh of God—no
part of God could be matter and vice versa—but rather of the fruit of the
Tree of Paradise. The Manichean
community joined in this ceremony as an expression of its cohesion and its
belief in the revelations granted to Mani as the last of God's prophets.
These resemblances to orthodox Christian rituals and beliefs
caused the leaders of Christianity to be especially severe in their
condemnation and suppression of Manicheism.
However, Manichean ideas and practices were not eradicated but driven
underground, as was to happen again later in the Islamic world and in
China. The official Confucian hierarchy
in China believed that it had stamped out Manicheism, but it survived as an
underground religion there into the twentieth century. In the Western world Manicheism was to
reappear in several different forms.
The most important of these reappearances was in the medieval Christian
heresy of the Cathari, or Albigensians, of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
2. Rejection and
Acceptance of Hellenistic Philosophy
The opponents of Christianity among the educated class of
the Hellenistic/Roman world posed a different set of problems from those raised
by adherents to other religious cults.
The Hellenistic philosophers had a centuries-old tradition of
speculation about such matters as the nature of God (or the gods), the creation
of the universe, the relationship between body and soul, the possibility of
survival after death, ethical behavior, and virtually every other topic raised
by Christianity. They would therefore
not give up this body of thought very easily in the face of the claims of one
or another mystery cult. The
responses of Christians to this alternative world view ranged from outright
rejection to almost total acceptance.
Tertullian, for example, declared that a Christian did not need to know
any of the false doctrines of the Greeks in order to obtain salvation. Origen, at the other end of the scale,
accepted so many of the ideas of the philosophers that he was tried as a
heretic. An intermediate view was the
one that prevailed, accepting the necessity of studying Hellenistic philosophy,
extracting from it those ideas that were compatible with Christianity, and
rejecting those which contradicted the Scriptures. This position was easier to state than to carry out, but later
Christians agreed that it had been accomplished by the two men who stand at the
pivotal point between the Hellenistic world and the Middle Ages: Augustine and Boethius.
The earliest Christian missionaries in the Roman Empire
spoke primarily to the poor and middle-class city dwellers, but very few of the
well educated were drawn to Christianity at first. As some of this group converted to Christianity, they attempted
to harmonize their new beliefs with their older system of thought. At about the same time (in the middle of the
second century) some Hellenistic philosophers began to notice this new religion
and launched attacks on its superstitions and anti-intellectualism. Lucian of Samosata, for example, parodied
Christianity in the same way as he had attacked the foolishness of Apollonius
of Tyana and his followers. While
Lucian's work could be dismissed as a minor irritation, another writer of the
same period, Celsus, published the True Discourse (c. 170), a treatise in which he attempted to destroy the
philosophical foundations of Christianity.
He tried to show that the doctrines of Jesus and Moses were merely
misinterpretations of the Greek traditions of mythology and philosophy. The terrible crime, in his eyes, was the
deliberate misunderstanding, corruption, or falsification of the correct
traditions. In responding to the
philosophical arguments of Celsus and other philosophers of like mind,
Christians had to learn the vocabulary and techniques of philosophy. In these disputes Christian theology was
brought into existence.
Philo Judaeus, as he is also known, a member of the
Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria, was educated in the Hellenistic
philosophical tradition, as well as in Jewish religious studies. His life's work was to produce a synthesis
of these two bodies of thought. In
doing so he invented theology for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, by
showing how rational philosophy can demonstrate the truths of revealed
religion.
Philo's method of demonstrating the essential unity of the
two systems was that of allegorical interpretation of God's revelation.
His commentary on Genesis, his most important work, showed how Moses used myths and historical narratives to reveal the same truths of religion, natural science, and ethics that had been discovered by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics by the use of their reason. He blamed the apparent differences between the two v
