Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Duvduv · 01-16-2013, 08:37 AM

I have been wondering whether any information exists about the sociological context of the Europeans first drawn to Protestantism in the 16th century, and whether any of those Europeans had had a direct or indirect association with the ideas of the so-called heretics known as Cathars, Waldenses and Bogomils in terms of rejecting the power and claims of Roman Catholicism. It would appear that so many Europeans were drawn to Protestantism so quickly because they were elements who were not so deeply invested in Catholicism to begin with, and not that they were ALL loyal Catholics who gave up Orthodoxy. I presume there were many other unknown groups who were in Europe.

The church apologists ascribe Manichaean/gnostic heresy against Christianity to the early enemies, and yet argue that the sects accepted the NT canon. But perhaps as remnants from pre-Christian society (even if they were not part of the sects) they simply never fully accepted the official empire religion and adopted the Orthodox canon as part of their own syncretic beliefs. On the other hand, perhaps these later apologists labeled these sects with the convenient descriptions due to the rejection by these sects of the official Orthodox church.

This might explain the rapid growth of Protestantism in certain areas while not in others.

Regarding the usual history describing the Manichaeans, this also seems to be an attempt by early Church writers at legitimizing the authenticity of the NT texts by claiming that the Manichaeans had beliefs about Jesus as early as the second century.

sotto voce · 01-16-2013, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

[SIZE="2"]I have been wondering whether any information exists about the sociological context of the Europeans first drawn to Protestantism in the 16th century, and whether any of those Europeans had had a direct or indirect association with the ideas of the so-called heretics known as Cathars, Waldenses and Bogomils in terms of rejecting the power and claims of Roman Catholicism. It would appear that so many Europeans were drawn to Protestantism so quickly because they were elements who were not so deeply invested in Catholicism to begin with, and not that they were ALL loyal Catholics who gave up Orthodoxy.

Presumably Duvduv's finger slipped, and he meant to write 'orthodoxy', because many Orthodox still to this day consider the RCC to be as heretical as it is possible to be.

In which case, we seem to have the Chronic Duvduv Delusion that shit-holes, buggers and bastards properly represent Jesus of Nazareth.

Which is an achievement for the latter artisan, I suppose.

Iskander · 01-16-2013, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

I have been wondering whether any information exists about the sociological context of the Europeans first drawn to Protestantism in the 16th century, and whether any of those Europeans had had a direct or indirect association with the ideas of the so-called heretics known as Cathars, Waldenses and Bogomils in terms of rejecting the power and claims of Roman Catholicism. It would appear that so many Europeans were drawn to Protestantism so quickly because they were elements who were not so deeply invested in Catholicism to begin with, and not that they were ALL loyal Catholics who gave up Orthodoxy. I presume there were many other unknown groups who were in Europe.

The church apologists ascribe Manichaean/gnostic heresy against Christianity to the early enemies, and yet argue that the sects accepted the NT canon. But perhaps as remnants from pre-Christian society (even if they were not part of the sects) they simply never fully accepted the official empire religion and adopted the Orthodox canon as part of their own syncretic beliefs. On the other hand, perhaps these later apologists labeled these sects with the convenient descriptions due to the rejection by these sects of the official Orthodox church.

This might explain the rapid growth of Protestantism in certain areas while not in others.

Regarding the usual history describing the Manichaeans, this also seems to be an attempt by early Church writers at legitimizing the authenticity of the NT texts by claiming that the Manichaeans had beliefs about Jesus as early as the second century.

You may want to read the work of Phillip Schaff. It is a pdf online

Quote:

§ 79. The Mediaeval Dissenters.

The centralization of ecclesiastical authority in the papacy was met by a widespread counter-movement of religious individualism and dissent. It was when the theocratic programme of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. was being pressed most vigorously that an ominous spiritual revolt showed itself in communities of dissenters. While the crusading armaments were battling against the infidel abroad, heretical depravity, to use the official term, arose in the Church at home to disturb its peace.

In the second half of the eleventh century here and there, in Milan, Orleans, Strassburg, Cologne, and Mainz, little flames of heresy shot forth; but they were quickly put out and the Church went on its way again in peace. In the twelfth century, heresy again broke out simultaneously in different parts of Europe, from Hungary to the Pyrenees and northwards to Bremen.

The two burning centres of the infection were Milan in Northern Italy and Toulouse in Southern France. The Church authorities looked on with alarm, and, led by the pope, proceeded to employ vigorous measures to stamp out the threatening evil. Jacques of Vitry, after visiting Milan, called it a pit of heretics, fovea aereticorum, and declared that there was hardly a person left to resist the spiritual rebels, so numerous were they in that city.942 in the very vicinity of Rome, the Patarenes were in the majority in 1205, as Innocent III. testified.

But it was in Languedoc that the situation was most alarming, and there papal armies were marshalled to crush out the contagion.

The dissenting movement started with the people and not with the schools or princes, much provocation as the princes had for showing their resentment at the avarice and worldliness of the clergy and their invasion of the realm of civil authority. The vast majority of those who suffered punishment as heretics were of the common people...

History of the Christian Church, Volume V: The Middle Ages. A.D. 1049-1294.
By Philip Schaff

sotto voce · 01-16-2013, 09:33 AM

The proto-Protestants of Europe were mostly clerics in universities, who did not conceive of a church that could be in schism, but rather, should be reformed to be in line with New Testament precepts. (This was despite the NT's teaching that the church could never be a volkskirche, could never be universal.) So the likes of Cathars were an irrelevance; and, because the early thinkers were mostly in England and Scotland, largely out of mind, anyway.

It was papacy that ensured schism, by its total refusal to change; not by the intentions of those who wanted change.

The papacy was right, of course. Rather than modify its theology in a biblical direction, it actually hardened its stance in the Counter-Reformation, in a bid to quell dissent. The reason for this was that it was ever a political, rather than spiritual organisation. The early reformers had supposed otherwise.

Sheshbazzar · 01-16-2013, 01:40 PM

Most of 'common people', were illiterate even in their own languages, and the Orthodox church had long kept the Scriptural texts locked up in Latin and thus quite inaccessible to anyone who did not go through the Catholic 'system' to get their religious education, and by the time anyone had went through that wringer they might know Latin, but they had also well learned not to mess with the dogmas and Decrees of Catholicism.
And the Church of Rome kept a very tight rein on the teachings and opinions of its Bishops and Friars.

The common persons religion in Medieval Europe thus consisted of what the Roman Church told them about Iesu Khristos, mixed in with folk superstitions and barely syncretized holdovers from their older ancestral religions. (gee.. that sounds a lot like modern America.)
Perhaps quite a few detected that they were being screwed by the Popery, but they knew enough to keep their mouths shut, and wait for a better time to throw off Roman control.
When that opportunity finally came, when they no longer had to live in daily terror of the long arm of Rome, they abandoned her in droves.
But it has been a hard road for Protestantism to throw off many of the perverse ideas and doctrines that long bedding with that old whore has infected them with.
Clinging to her lying history, and her fabricated 'church fathers' and 'saints' and what they allegedly taught has always, and still does, burden Protestantism with a load of Popish horse shit.

Duvduv · 01-16-2013, 03:23 PM

But the fact that Protestantism did not conquer all or most of Europe means that not everyone was looking to throw off the yoke of the papacy (and never did even later on), which is why I was wondering whether those who did who historically more inclined to do so because of some affiliation either with the Cathars, Waldenses, etc., or some informal beliefs that they got away with under the nose of the monolith that contradicted the Orthodox church, and they specifically thereby gravitated easily to Luther, Zwingli, etc.

For that matter I wonder if earlier reformers such as Wycliffe themselves were actually part of some tendency that wasn't completely part of the orthodox church, although I understand that the movement was more among the intellectual class.

sotto voce · 01-16-2013, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

But the fact that Protestantism did not conquer all or most of Europe means that not everyone was looking to throw off the yoke of the papacy

Why don't you ask? Though you shouldn't need to, as you have had it explained several times already.

Protestantism flourished where there was economic growth, and the superstitions and ignorance of medieval religion encumbered the development of knowledge, commerce, trade and science. That growth required capital, and southern Europe just did not have enough of it. So it was Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and some of the German states who fostered Protestantism, and the south, Italy, Spain, Portugal, with Poland, that stayed Catholic. France was an in-betweener, having a sizeable Calvinist population, but Catholics massacred most of them. Modern Europe still shows all the evidence of this, and in fact it is largely behind the current problems of the EU. It is very well documented, all standard literature. Elementary, in fact.

Any attempt to associate Protestantism with Cathars, Bogomils and Albigensians is risible, frankly.

mountainman · 01-16-2013, 03:44 PM

Catharism

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Catharism (/ˈkæθərɪzəm/; from Greek: καθαρός, katharos, pure)[1] was a name given to a Christian religious movement with dualistic and gnostic elements that first appeared in the historical record in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1208, Pope Innocent III attempted to use diplomacy to end Catharism, but in that year, his papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered while returning to Rome. This prompted the Pope into action and resulted in the Albigensian Crusade. The Albigensian Crusade sought to extinguish the movement in the early decades of the thirteenth century but was not entirely successful. When the pope realized the crusade had failed to eliminate the Catharist movement, he launched the Medieval Inquisition to finish the task.

Catharism had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and the Bogomils of Bulgaria, which took influences from the Paulicians. Though the term "Cathar" (kath-ahr) has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether the movement identified itself with this name is debatable.[2] In Cathar texts, the terms "Good Men" (Bons Hommes) or "Good Christians" are the common terms of self-identification.

Perhaps they preferred "CHRESTOS" over the "CHRISTOS" alternative?
The earliest mentions between these two terms favour the former.

Waldensians

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Waldensians, Waldenses, Vallenses [1] or Vaudois are names for a Christian movement which started in Lyon, France, in the late 1170s.

The movement was started partly in response to the schisms that had consumed the Catholic church in the 12th century and advocated a return to the vows of poverty and preaching of the Gospel as advocated by Jesus and his disciples in the New Testament. Originally a reform movement within the Catholic Church, the movement was declared heretical by 1215 and became persecuted by Church officials.

Upon the rise of the Protestant Reformation, church leaders met with Swiss and German Calvinists and agreed to join with the Reformed church, adopting many of the Calvinist tenets and becoming its Italian arm.

Protestantism

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Protestantism is one of the major divisions within Christianity. It has been defined as "any of several church denominations denying the universal authority of the Pope and affirming the Reformation principles of justification by faith alone, the priesthood of all believers, and the primacy of the Bible as the only source of revealed truth" and, more broadly, to mean Christianity outside "of a Catholic or Eastern church".[1] It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regard to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology. The doctrines of the over 33,000 Protestant denominations vary, but most include justification by grace through faith alone, known as Sola Gratia and Sola Fide respectively, the priesthood of all believers, and the Bible as the supreme authority in matters of faith and morals, known as Sola Scriptura, Latin for "by scripture alone".

Authorized King James Version

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

The Authorized Version (AV), commonly known as the King James Version (KJV) or King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611.[3] First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker,[4][5] this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities.

The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII, and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568.[6] In January 1604, King James VI of Scotland and I of England convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans,[7] a faction within the Church of England.[8]

James gave the translators instructions intended to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy.[9] The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England.[10]

In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek,
the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew text,
while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek and Latin

Henry VIII of England

Quote:

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the House of Tudor, succeeding his father, Henry VII.

Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry's struggles with Rome led to the separation of the Church of England from papal authority, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and establishing himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Yet he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings, even after his excommunication from the Catholic Church.[1]

Duvduv there is a long period of many centuries covering your OP.

Where did you want to focus our attention?

Duvduv · 01-16-2013, 04:02 PM

I know it was a long period. I was just wondering whether in fact there were elements of the population who for centuries in Europe were never really invested in Catholicism, and who had either been part of actual sects or just informally did not follow the teachings of the church in favor of other traditions, and that it was these populations who joined Protestantism as opposed to other old populations remained with Catholicism. However, Sotto Voce seems to offer a different and useful explanation of economic conditions in the various countries as being a major factor for whether or not people joined Protestantism. I suppose Germany and Austria were also in between since they are divided between Catholics and Protestants..

sotto voce · 01-16-2013, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Catharism

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Catharism (/ˈkæθərɪzəm/; from Greek: καθαρός, katharos, pure)[1] was a name given to a Christian religious movement with dualistic and gnostic elements that first appeared in the historical record in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1208, Pope Innocent III attempted to use diplomacy to end Catharism, but in that year, his papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered while returning to Rome. This prompted the Pope into action and resulted in the Albigensian Crusade. The Albigensian Crusade sought to extinguish the movement in the early decades of the thirteenth century but was not entirely successful. When the pope realized the crusade had failed to eliminate the Catharist movement, he launched the Medieval Inquisition to finish the task.

Catharism had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and the Bogomils of Bulgaria, which took influences from the Paulicians. Though the term "Cathar" (kath-ahr) has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether the movement identified itself with this name is debatable.[2] In Cathar texts, the terms "Good Men" (Bons Hommes) or "Good Christians" are the common terms of self-identification.

Perhaps they preferred "CHRESTOS" over the "CHRISTOS" alternative?
The earliest mentions between these two terms favour the former.

Waldensians

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Waldensians, Waldenses, Vallenses [1] or Vaudois are names for a Christian movement which started in Lyon, France, in the late 1170s.

The movement was started partly in response to the schisms that had consumed the Catholic church in the 12th century and advocated a return to the vows of poverty and preaching of the Gospel as advocated by Jesus and his disciples in the New Testament. Originally a reform movement within the Catholic Church, the movement was declared heretical by 1215 and became persecuted by Church officials.

Upon the rise of the Protestant Reformation, church leaders met with Swiss and German Calvinists and agreed to join with the Reformed church, adopting many of the Calvinist tenets and becoming its Italian arm.

Protestantism

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Protestantism is one of the major divisions within Christianity. It has been defined as "any of several church denominations denying the universal authority of the Pope and affirming the Reformation principles of justification by faith alone, the priesthood of all believers, and the primacy of the Bible as the only source of revealed truth" and, more broadly, to mean Christianity outside "of a Catholic or Eastern church".[1] It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regard to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology. The doctrines of the over 33,000 Protestant denominations vary, but most include justification by grace through faith alone, known as Sola Gratia and Sola Fide respectively, the priesthood of all believers, and the Bible as the supreme authority in matters of faith and morals, known as Sola Scriptura, Latin for "by scripture alone".

Authorized King James Version

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

The Authorized Version (AV), commonly known as the King James Version (KJV) or King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611.[3] First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker,[4][5] this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities.

The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII, and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568.[6] In January 1604, King James VI of Scotland and I of England convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans,[7] a faction within the Church of England.[8]

James gave the translators instructions intended to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy.[9] The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England.[10]

In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek,
the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew text,
while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek and Latin

Henry VIII of England

Quote:

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the House of Tudor, succeeding his father, Henry VII.

Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry's struggles with Rome led to the separation of the Church of England from papal authority, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and establishing himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Yet he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings, even after his excommunication from the Catholic Church.[1]

Duvduv there is a long period of many centuries covering your OP.

Where did you want to focus our attention?

:devil1:

01-16-2013, 08:37 AM	#1
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	Cathars, Waldenses and Protestants I have been wondering whether any information exists about the sociological context of the Europeans first drawn to Protestantism in the 16th century, and whether any of those Europeans had had a direct or indirect association with the ideas of the so-called heretics known as Cathars, Waldenses and Bogomils in terms of rejecting the power and claims of Roman Catholicism. It would appear that so many Europeans were drawn to Protestantism so quickly because they were elements who were not so deeply invested in Catholicism to begin with, and not that they were ALL loyal Catholics who gave up Orthodoxy. I presume there were many other unknown groups who were in Europe. The church apologists ascribe Manichaean/gnostic heresy against Christianity to the early enemies, and yet argue that the sects accepted the NT canon. But perhaps as remnants from pre-Christian society (even if they were not part of the sects) they simply never fully accepted the official empire religion and adopted the Orthodox canon as part of their own syncretic beliefs. On the other hand, perhaps these later apologists labeled these sects with the convenient descriptions due to the rejection by these sects of the official Orthodox church. This might explain the rapid growth of Protestantism in certain areas while not in others. Regarding the usual history describing the Manichaeans, this also seems to be an attempt by early Church writers at legitimizing the authenticity of the NT texts by claiming that the Manichaeans had beliefs about Jesus as early as the second century.

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01-16-2013, 09:33 AM	#4
sotto voce Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: UK Posts: 3,057	The proto-Protestants of Europe were mostly clerics in universities, who did not conceive of a church that could be in schism, but rather, should be reformed to be in line with New Testament precepts. (This was despite the NT's teaching that the church could never be a volkskirche, could never be universal.) So the likes of Cathars were an irrelevance; and, because the early thinkers were mostly in England and Scotland, largely out of mind, anyway. It was papacy that ensured schism, by its total refusal to change; not by the intentions of those who wanted change. The papacy was right, of course. Rather than modify its theology in a biblical direction, it actually hardened its stance in the Counter-Reformation, in a bid to quell dissent. The reason for this was that it was ever a political, rather than spiritual organisation. The early reformers had supposed otherwise.

01-16-2013, 01:40 PM	#5
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	Most of 'common people', were illiterate even in their own languages, and the Orthodox church had long kept the Scriptural texts locked up in Latin and thus quite inaccessible to anyone who did not go through the Catholic 'system' to get their religious education, and by the time anyone had went through that wringer they might know Latin, but they had also well learned not to mess with the dogmas and Decrees of Catholicism. And the Church of Rome kept a very tight rein on the teachings and opinions of its Bishops and Friars. The common persons religion in Medieval Europe thus consisted of what the Roman Church told them about Iesu Khristos, mixed in with folk superstitions and barely syncretized holdovers from their older ancestral religions. (gee.. that sounds a lot like modern America.) Perhaps quite a few detected that they were being screwed by the Popery, but they knew enough to keep their mouths shut, and wait for a better time to throw off Roman control. When that opportunity finally came, when they no longer had to live in daily terror of the long arm of Rome, they abandoned her in droves. But it has been a hard road for Protestantism to throw off many of the perverse ideas and doctrines that long bedding with that old whore has infected them with. Clinging to her lying history, and her fabricated 'church fathers' and 'saints' and what they allegedly taught has always, and still does, burden Protestantism with a load of Popish horse shit.

01-16-2013, 03:23 PM	#6
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	But the fact that Protestantism did not conquer all or most of Europe means that not everyone was looking to throw off the yoke of the papacy (and never did even later on), which is why I was wondering whether those who did who historically more inclined to do so because of some affiliation either with the Cathars, Waldenses, etc., or some informal beliefs that they got away with under the nose of the monolith that contradicted the Orthodox church, and they specifically thereby gravitated easily to Luther, Zwingli, etc. For that matter I wonder if earlier reformers such as Wycliffe themselves were actually part of some tendency that wasn't completely part of the orthodox church, although I understand that the movement was more among the intellectual class.

01-16-2013, 04:02 PM	#9
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	I know it was a long period. I was just wondering whether in fact there were elements of the population who for centuries in Europe were never really invested in Catholicism, and who had either been part of actual sects or just informally did not follow the teachings of the church in favor of other traditions, and that it was these populations who joined Protestantism as opposed to other old populations remained with Catholicism. However, Sotto Voce seems to offer a different and useful explanation of economic conditions in the various countries as being a major factor for whether or not people joined Protestantism. I suppose Germany and Austria were also in between since they are divided between Catholics and Protestants..

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