aa5874

Well, it must be obvious that Christians do NOT believe you. If Jesus becomes an allegory then "he" ends up like Greek/Roman Mythology with ZERO theological value.

Horatio Parker

I am not surprised that Xtians don't believe me, tho I think many in the church, if they examined themselves, would end up there. They let sleeping dogs lie, and get what they can out of their faith. IMO.

I think Greek mythology is not the best example since those deities were iirc concerned more with the vicissitudes of life rather than metaphysics or cosmology, but essentially, yes.

But if, as I say, that Jesus on the cross represents an eternal truth, than any earthly instance is irrelevant, and that includes events in the NT. So I can't agree that there is no theological value. "Theological" does not have to equal "historical" or "physical". The only question then is what is the nature of God? Answers such as the Gospels provide ie something like "he lives at 222 Cherry Tree Lane" are not helpful.

aa5874

Well, I was once a Christian but now I think that Jesus on the cross REPRESENTS an ETERNAL LIE.

I don't even want to think about what the CROSS symbolized to Jews.

I consider the CROSS as the MOST DESPICABLE symbol for a religion and I am not even a Jew.

When I read the works of Josephus even the sound of the word "CROSS" TERRIFIES me.

Soon, we may have a NOOSE as a symbol.

The "Cross" is an ETERNAL LIE"

"Wars of the Jews" 5.11.1 The CROSS REPRESENTS DESTRUCTION and DEATH.

Horatio Parker

Ok, it doesn't sound as though Xianity is for you. Maybe Bhuddism?

There is a lot of morbidity in the passion story, and the violence seems to have been an attraction down through history. I remember growing up Catholic and catechism was always a grim experience. Much talk of death and sin.

But could you not also say that we all live at the intersection of the material and spiritual worlds and there suffer?

radius

Indeed. And/or a mythical realm. Though this historicism seems to have become a significant characteristic only at the gospel stage (the earlier epistles are less specific).

Christianity as we now know it is event-driven, linear, and goal-oriented, compared to the timeless cycles of recurrence in say Hinduism or the cult of Isis and Osiris. And in this respect it may have played a significant role in shaping the 'European mind'?

Historicity may be fundamental also to the promise of bodily resurrection.

radius

The text, BTW, is available online in translation, as is the original.

Horatio Parker

Good points. And when I think of the Xtian concept of eternity, it's really immortality. It's not out of time, it just never dies. Also linear...

mountainman

Did the Christians coopt and adapt Plato's ideas?

Horatio Parker

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is an obvious example, tho he isn't until the 6th century.

I would think so, but's hard to know what was an affinity of ideas and what was intentional. THe NT authors must've had Greek educations, would that have included philosophy? I would guess so...

When Plato argues for the immortality of the soul in Phaedo, it seems Xtianlike. Likewise when he argues that it is better to suffer an injustice than commit one.

There's also an affinity between the notion of the Kingdom of God(or Heaven) and the invisible intelligible universe. That may be the most influential idea, since the intelligible is always present alongside us, not in a primordial past.

I've seen books on Hellenic ideas on Judaism, haven't read them, but I'm not aware of any that compare Plato and Xtianity. If there isn't, there should be.

mountainman

I have just finished browing a related book.
FWIW here are my notes ....

The Legacy of Greece - Oxford University Press (1921)

RELIGION
by W. R. Inge, Dean of St.Paulsp.26


"Greece for our purposes means not a race, but a culture,
a language and literature, and still more an attitude
towards life, which for us begins with Homer, and persists,
with many changes but no breaks, till the closure of the
Athenian lecture rooms by Justinian.

The civilization of the Roman Empire was not Italian but Greek.

It was lost to the West for nearly a thousand years. It was recovered
at the Renaissance, and from that time to this has been a potent
element in Western civilization. The Dark Ages and the early Middle Ages
are the period in which the West was cut off from Hellenism ... These
were the ages of the Catholic theocracy; and if we choose one man as the
founder of Catholicism as a theocratic system, we should have to name
neither Augustine not St.Paul,still less Jesus Christ, but Plato, who in
the Laws sketches out with such wonderful prescience the conditions for
such a polity, and the form which it would be compelled to take."


Hellenism then is not the mind of a particular ethnic type, not of a
particular period. It was not destroyed, though it was emasculated,
by the loss of political freedom; it was neither killed nor died a
natural death.

Its religion passed into Christian theology without any real break.
The early church spoke in Greek and thought in Greek.

p.29

It is quite unnecessary to look for Asiatic influences in a school
which clung close to the Attic tradition.

It should not be necessary to remind Hellenists that "Know Thyself"
passed for the supreme word of wisdom in the classical period,
or that Heraclitus revealed his method in the words "I searched myself".

"The teachings of Plato", says Justin, "are not alien to those of Christ;
and the same is true of the Stoics." "Heraclitus and Socrates lived in'
accordance to the divine Logos" and should be recognised as Christians.
Clement says that Plato wrote "by the inspiration of God".

Augustine, much later, finds that "only a few words and phrases" need
to be changed to bring Platonism into complete accord with Christianity.

The ethics of contemporary paganism, as Harnack shows,with special reference
to Porphyry,are almost identical with those of the Christians of his day.

Catholic Christianity is historically continuous with the old civilization,
which indeed continued to live in this region after its other traditions
and customs had been shattered. There are few other examples in history
of so great a difference between appearance and reality. Outwardly, the
continuity with Judaism seems to be unbroken, that with paganism to be
broken. In reality, the opposite is the case.


p.33

Further,too much is made of the conflict between the official cults of
paganism and Christian public worship. It is forgotten how completely,
in Hellenistic times, religion and philosophy were fused. Without under-
estimating the simple piety which, especially in country districts, still
attached itself to the temples and their ritual, we may say confidently
that the vital religion of the empire was associated with mystery-religions
and with the discipline of the "philosophic life".


p.42

Their sacrifices were for the most part of the genial type, a communion
meal with the god. But even in Greece, we must remember the gloomy chthonian
rites, and the degradations of Orphism mentioned by Plato in the "Republic".

"They persuade not only individuals but whole cities
that expiations and atonements for sins may be made
by sacrifice and amusements which fill a vacant hour,
and are equally at the service of the living and the dead;
the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us
from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one
knows what awaits us."

This exploitation of sacramentalism was common enough in Greece; but the
characteristic Caesaro-Papism of Byzantium and modern imperium was wholly
foreign to Hellenism. It was introduced by Constantine as part of the
Orientalizing of the empire begun by Diocletian. As Seely says:

"Constantine purchaced an indefensible title by a charter.
He gave certain liberties and received in return passive
obedience. He gained a sanction for the Oriental theory of
government; in return he accepted the law of the Church.
He became irresponsible to his subjects on condition of
becoming responsible to Christ."

The Greeks never had a book religion, in the sense that Judaism became, and
Islam always was, a book religion. But they were in some degree of treating
Homer and Hesiod as inspired scriptures. To us it is plain that a long
religious history lies behind Homer, and that the treatment of the gods
in Epic poetry proves that they had almost ceased to be the objects of
religious feeling. Some of them are even comic characters, like the devil
in Scottish folklore. To turn these poems into sacred literature was to
court the ridicule of the Christians. But Homer was never supposed to
contain "the faith once delivered to the saints"; no religion of authority
could be built upon him, and Greek speculation remained far more unfettered
that the thought of Christendom has been until our own day.


p.45

Nothing can be further from the truth than to call the Greeks "intellectualists"
in the disparaging sense in which the word is now often used. The object of
philosophy was to teach a man to live well, and with that object to think
rightly about God, the world and himself. This close union between metaphysics,
morals and religion has remained as a permanent possession of the modern world.


The Hellenistic combination of Patonic metaphysics with Stoic ethics is still
the dominant type of Christain religious philosophy.



Asceticism has a continuous history within Hellenism. Even Homer knows of the
priests of chilly Dodona, the Selli, whose bare feet are unwashed, and who sleeps
on the ground.

The worship of Dionysus Zagreus in Thrace was accompanied by ascetic practices
before Pythagoras. Vergetarianism, which has always played an important part in
the ascetic life, was obligatory on all Pythagoreans.



http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene..._of_Greece.htm