Toto

the Holy Father's Audience teaching

Will this be the end of Catholic scholarship that secular scholars can rely on?

Chris Weimer

I don't see why? Every historian has their biases - now we just have to root out Eusebius' biases and work with it instead of merely dismissing it.

It reminds me of the Jehovah's Witness convert who testifies his life as a Jew under Nazi Germany. He described his ordeal as a test of God, and puts it in a Jehovah's Witness slant - does that mean that we should ignore everything he said? No.

Toto

You miss my point. We all know that Eusebius has his biases. But now the Pope is telling historians that good Catholics do not do history for the sake of just finding out what happened. They must try to win converts.

Is there anyone who can seriously look at the last two millenia of human history and see a God of love with a plan directing it?

Chris Weimer

What does the Pope have to do with the tea in China? I mean, why does the Pope's words have any bearing on what secularists find out about Eusebius?

And yes, I think one can make a case that "the last two millenia of human history" is under God's direction. I mean, Christians do outnumber everyone else, right? Some 60% of the world is Christian? People will see what they want to see.

Roger Pearse

I think that you want to step back a bit and lay out the logical steps by which you got to this conclusion from reading the pope's comments? You may find that there is a bit missing, you see. I couldn't follow the logic, other than by attributing to you some kind of prejudice that you may not hold.

Christians see meaning in the course of history. So, indeed, did Marxists until recently. That's why knowing about history is valuable devotionally. Therefore we need exact knowledge of the facts. The risk, of course, is that to fit our theory we tend to play down inconvenient facts.

Conversely those who think history is meaningless are seldom motivated to study it, except perhaps in order to gratify hatred of others (ask any politician why his opponents study his family tree). Hate has precisely the same characteristics as too much enthusiasm, but in a narrower and worse way.

To presume only those who find history boring can do history would be an odd thing to do, tho. IMHO.

I seem to have located an Armenian interested in Eusebius' Chronicle and its history of publication, interestingly. I've asked him if he can read the Armenian text.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

RalphyS

Don't make it worse than it is. common estimates state that about 33% is Christian.

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Major religious groups

Solo

Toto, you are missing Ratzinger's point. He theologizes Henry Ford's "history is bunk". He does not care one whit what is going to be excavated or discovered or re-analyzed. He knows it can always be "eusebiusized".

Reminds me of a lovely story about Cardinal Spellman: when his gay boat parties on the Hudson in the 1950's became a tad too indiscreet he received warning by the press they would out him if he did not tone it down. The cleric sent one of his boys to deal with the idiots. He told them: "the cardinal says you may print anything you want. Who do you think is going to believe it ?"

Catholics ?

Jiri

gurugeorge

Actually tbh it's not as bad as all that. The "non-religious" seem to be about as numerous as the Hindus.

And actually of course that's "professing" religious people. In many places in the world, it would be unwise not to say you don't actually believe much about the religion you were born into, apart from maybe a few moral maxims - but I think a deeper and closer investigation would claw back a fair percentage from all the other religions into this "underground non-believer" category. Not everyone is brave enough to stand up for their non-belief, but will voice it with close friends and like minded people.

It has been my experience of life that there's a substantial "underground" to every culture, composed of people who merely give lip service to the ruling ideology if they have to, but in their heart of hearts are pretty sceptical (only they can't openly voice it like they can in liberal, capitalist democracies, where the "underground" - which in a delicious paradox is anti-liberal, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, or some combination of these - is pretty much free to express itself publicly).

gstafleu

This is an instance of something that has been signaled before on this forum: that research by confessional people needs extra attention from non-believers to the extent that the research touches upon their beliefs. This extra attention is needed in order to de-bias the research, or to make sure there is no bias there. Unfortunately, for confessional people their religious beliefs can be such an important part of their life that they have trouble distinguishing between the beliefs and science/scholarship. The remarks of the pope are a good illustration of this effect.

That doesn't mean that all research done by believers is bunk, just that the closer it comes to their beliefs, the more bunk is likely to creep in--and even then there are exceptions, Robert Price being a good example. But he is an example of an exception, hence the extra work necessary.

BTW, speaking about catholic research, didn't catholic modernism start as an attempt by the Church to replicate the methods of the liberal protestant critics, knowing, of course, that good catholics would thus discover the real truth and undo the protestants? When this didn't work, modernism was anathematized by the Church. So Ratzinger's confidence in the good outcome might be misplaced.

Gerard Stafleu

andrewcriddle

IIUC the Pope is making more than one claim

a/ He is making a descriptive statement about Eusebius and other early church historians, ie that they were not disinterested objective observers but seeking to encourage Christian faith. The bolded section in the first paragraph above is part of that descriptive statement.

b/ He then makes a prescriptive statement about how Christians looking at the Church should similarly do so as searchers for signs of God's love and other such things.

IIUC statement b/ is not directed to such matters as how Christian scholars should study Early Christian history. It is more directed to encouraging a constructive rather than destructive attitude towards contemporary problems and issues facing the church.

Whether b/ is an attack on objectivity will depend on how far one believes the study of recent events can be detached and objective. In any case I don't think it is really concerned with the study of Christian origins.

Andrew Criddle