Buridan

Spin, I have been reading your messages to see where you document your position that Bruno "was a staunch advocate of science" (your message # 108). Something which must mean that he (staunchly) advocated a scientific method, vocabularly, mathematics, experimentations etc.

I have found no such thing?

You have made assertions only, about a man who - luckily (as he did no seem to have done any practical or theoretical science/astronomy) - in some areas come to have some viewpoints that real scientists later discovered and proved that (to some extent) were true.

The only possible conclusion is that you are not able to document your position on Bruno. It seems to be based on "faith" (or whatever one should call it), and not on facts.

Why then do you then still maintain this position in a forum that seems to oppose basing thing on faith?

countjulian

"Palimpsests are another interesting case. The ruinous cost of parchment combined with its ability to withstand centuries of wear and tear meant that it was frequently reused. The old writing was scrapped off and the new written over the top. However, the process left faint images of the original text which later scholars have been able to read. Some important pagan works have been accidentally preserved in this way such as part of Cicero's De Republica and the recently rediscovered Archimedes palimpsest. There is no evidence that the monks doing the scrapping were deliberately targeting pagan texts although we may sometimes find their priorities unfortunate. The text they were scrapping off had, itself, been transcribed by earlier Christians and a perusal of a manuscript catalogue (such as the British Library's on-line) shows that in most cases the underlying material on a palimpsest is Christian as well. One of the earliest known bibles, the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, had the sermons of Ephraemus written over the top of it."

As you pointed out, Cicero's de Republica comes to us in only fragmentary form. And I hardly see where any of this is of any use at all, since none of the scholars of the middle ages seemed to have known much about palimpsests, so any document "preserved" in this fashion was for all intents and purposes lost to the people of the middle ages. Your assertion that "There is no evidence that the monks doing the scrapping were deliberately targeting pagan texts" is repudiated on your own site, where you admit that Celsus and Porphyry, amongst others (surely these and Julian were not Christianity's only detractors?) were deliberately not copied, burned, and expunged from manuscripts repudiates this. MacMullen cites Hier. de viris ill. 113 (Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina and Graeca 23 707) Also, on your site, you say that the spectacle of Christians "burning manuscripts in the city center" is a pure myth. In doing so, you seem to be calling MacMullen out on this on. He cites Soc. H.E. 1.9 of 325 (Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina and Graeca 67.85A). BTW, I've read your Blog for quite a while, and if you respond I look forward to talking with you. Nice job on this thread, BTW, you and your friends have been mopping the floor with your opponents' claims. Hope I can change that

"Nicole Oresme (14th century) rejected astrology and revived some Greek concepts and even brough his own contributions. Regiomontanus is also known for refining and even critiquing the Almagest and for his own observations. These guys are pre-Copernican. But indeed there's a gap between 7th century and 12th, a period some historians like to center in 1000 (for a bit other reasons than those concerning our discussion). However the phenomena involved are very complex (and that keeping Byzantine world out of the discussion ).
Regarding your association, let's notice that in 5-6th century the Christianity of the Germanic tribes was way different of the Western Christianity of 15th century. If one makes a case of Christian-specific backwardness has to take several factors in account, the dynamic ones being most difficult to encompass in a brief conclusive claim."

Oresme pondered challenging Ptolemy on the earth’s rotation, but in the ed rejected this idea (mainly because of pressure from the academy not to contradict Ptolemy) so while it may be said that he "revived" some Greek concepts, he did not really add to them. The world would still have to wait for Copernicus to do something other than write another commentary of Ptolemy. Regiomontanus proves my point perfectly, because all he really did was write commentaries on Ptolemy, and then mainly for the creation of horoscopes. 5-6ht century Christianity was backward, but it was not confined the barbarian tribes. The Italians, though there technology had been destroyed by Justinian's destructive rampage through Western Europe and their ability to replace it was gone thanks to the suppression of the academy, they still retained some degree of Roman "civility." And let's not forget the Byzantines or the highly touted "Carolingian Renaissance."

"Isn't that a nice coincidence with the rise of Medieval University? "

As I said, if Christianity didn't retard science, then why did the emerging Universities do nothing but teach theology and classical science, shouldn't they have had a thousand years of Christian science at their backs?

"No.
Hygiene (and bathing in particular as you mention it) had ups and downs. Amazingly some of its downs even during Enlightenment when various theories about water and diseases were en vogue. In medieval London there were public baths called stews. In Florence there were public baths. Solid soap came from Asia during Medieval Ages."

Yes. Up until the Eighteenth Century bathing was still considered damaging to ones health, and all of the people who spouted this, "Enlightenment" or not, got this idea from Christianity's hatred of the practice of public bathing, for no pagan (with the rare exception of the cynics, who did not really write anything anyway) ever inveighed against bathing. There certainly are "ups and downs" in personal hygiene, and it remains up to Christians to explain why there's was the "down". And while there were short-lived baths in Florence and Britain, shortly lived, unpopular, and generally during the Renaissance, this does not make up for the fact that during the dark and middle ages not only was bathing not done but it was considered sinful and unhealthy (compare this to the Chinese (not Mongols) and Japanese who were well bathed when they first met European explorers). Baths were generally only attended by the wealthy, whereas in Hellenic culture slave were routinely bathed. Quotes from the church father like Jerome "He who has bathed in Christ does not need a second bath" make it clear that those few times where bathing was condoned and carried out by Christians they were in variance with their tradition.

"I am not too sure about that gap (or other of Freeman's assertions), though this may be a matter of definitions of terms. "Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe" by Stephen C. McCluskey (Cambridge University Press, 2001) presents the story rather differently, by actually looking at the sources.

Astronomical observations went on in the whole period for various practical reasons, also done by a certain Bede"

I looked into the table of contents of your book, and it confirmed just what I have been saying. The only Christian astronomy before Copernicus was really just commentaries of Ptolemy that rarely challenged his authority and that focused mostly on astrology and constructing horoscopes. I cannot find any information on Bede's astronomy. Most likely, it was obscured by his truly voluminous theological writings, and it seems to have not amounted to very much. Would you please enlighten me?

Bede

We can talk about Galileo in detail a bit later. For the moment, we can just note that a myth is not necessarily fantasy but can be based on facts. Most elements of the Galileo story as told by White are untrue, so is his editorialising. But that doesn't mean their isn't a backbone of truth. You may disagree with Brooke's analysis but he is right to say White's story is mythical.

We'll get back to this once we have agreed our common ground.

OK.

Can you see why I get so frustrated here? When I say accept that I am arguing that in good faith it means accept that I am what I say I am - a professionally trained academic historian who is competent in his research and not lying about his conclusions. I have given an academic article that utterly debunks the old story that the CE (now almost 100 years old itself) was no aware off. Here's what the Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1970-80), still a highly respected source says of the controversy "In 1564, Vesalius left Spain for a trip to the Holy Land. Contrary to various legends, the journey appears to have been made with the friendly approbation of the King." (vol 14, p. 6) In other words the whole controversy is dismissed in one line. That's how dead the subject is now and was 20 years ago. If you want to challenge this you cannot just google until you find a resource that helps your case. You have to go to a university library, check the databases, read the article I referred to, engage with that article and challenge it on the basis of the documentation. To do anything less is to assume that I am incompetent and not acting in good faith. You could say, "perhaps 'not a hint' was a bit strong given their was a rumour however groundless we now know it to have been'". People trying to second guess them with internet research is now the number one boggie man for many academics.

OK.

OK, I wasn't clear. You are right that there are apologists. I tend to call them on that too as my reviews here and here demonstrate. However, you seemed to imply that Lindberg, Brooke, Grant (and I if I dare mention myself in such august company) are engaged in apologetics too. This is not true and is disrespectful to some great scholars (and, er, me). In my case, the waters are muddied because I do write apologetics but I try to be clear about what is what. Basically, if I list it on this page it is straight history. If it is elsewhere on my site, it is either apologetics or for Christian consumption.

Are you happy with what I have said above. If so, we can move on to Galileo or Darwin (one at a time, though!).

Best wishes

Bede

Bede

I'll just respond to this point as it directly addresses my work.

You are right to say that Christians actively destroyed certain categories of texts. These fall into four groups - those written by pagans that directly attacked Christianity, those written by Christian heretics, some Jewish religious thought and magical documents. They were quite efficient about the first two although once paganism ceased to be a threat what was left (such as Julian, Libanius and a few others) was allowed to survive. What Christians did not do was target texts because they were written by pagans. A pagan text was not assumed to be worthy of destruction unless is was specifically aimed against Christianity. In this, Christians were exactly the same as every other group in world history before modern liberalism. I think MacMullen's citiations to Socrates Scholasticus and Jerome are both about heretical texts.

What about science? Well here are some interesting numbers. We have 10 million words of pagan Greek. Of these, 2 million are medical works by Galen, 1.5 are technical philosophy by Aristotle and at least another 500,000 is by Plato. It is certain that Archimedes, Ptolemy and Euclid account for well over another million words. (figures largely from John Vincent, An Intelligent Person's Guide to History) So, over half of all classical Greek preserved was technical or scientific. This is despite the fact that it was a tiny proportion of the total Greek output (Greeks, on the whole, not being a very rational bunch as we have known since ER Dodds seminal work Greeks and the Irrational). Conclusion: Christians must have gone to a lot of trouble to copy out five million words of difficult texts in order to preserve the best of Greek science and medicine.

Best wishes

Bede

Chris Weimer

I wonder why they burned Sappho too? Or is that another "myth".

Buridan

I am not quite sure why you fall for these myths?

The point seems to be quite the opposite of yours. In Medieval times
http://www.godecookery.com/mtales/mtales08.htm, bathing was popular. There was even a Guild of Bathhouse Keepers. It seems to have been after the medieval and renaissance period that bathing fell out of fashion or got a bad reputation.

This does not imply daily showers for all, looking at this as a romantic period, or that there were no critical comments on it from moralizers. However, both in Byzantium (as shown by e.g. Anna Comnenia) and in Medieval Europe, people did bath with far more vigour than what has been commonly understod, as shown herehttp://gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/baths.html:

"So either you have better sources than the links I have provided (and their sources), or you may perhaps want to reconsider your position?

Clivedurdle

Funny I thought we got Galen via Islam....

Chris Weimer

...

Philadelphia Lawyer

Before, you said the revisionists did not call the Galileo story a "myth". Now, you admit that they do call it a myth, but fall back to the position that a myth may have a "backbone of truth". As for Brooke being "right", neither he, nor anyone else, has demonstrated that any of the important elements of the so-called "myth" are untrue. I have made this point several times, but you refuse to respond to it. Rather than telling me that we can talk about this "later", or informing me what I may or may not disagree with, why don't you simply address my argument?

More deferral. Why don't you address the argument?

I never said that you were lying or were not acting in good faith. As for you're being an academically trained historian, I simply take you at your word. I merely pointed out that your website article seems to ignore a source of documentation that the Catholic Encyclopedia, an explicity pro-Catholic work endorsed by the Church, makes mention of. This is an internet discussion board, not a classroom or a tea party. I am not required to phrase my objection to your article in the exact words that you find acceptable. As far as that goes, I still find your stance objectionable because you call the Inquisition prosecution a "groundless rumour", while the Catholic Encyclopedia says that there is a contemporary letter that supports it. If you have some argument about this letter, why don't you present it? Moreover, the line you quoted says that Vesalius' journey appears to have been with the King's blessing. But that is not the crux of the controversy. As I understand it, everyone accepts that the King wanted the surgeon to take the journey. The question is whether this was done so that Vesalius could avoid prosecution by the Inquisition.

Instead of treating every disagreement about historical fact as an attack on your dignity and integrity, why don't you simply respond to the argument? On this board, laypeople make unfounded statements about the law all the time, but I don't say to them, "I am a lawyer. If you disagree with me about the law you are attacking my integrity and disparaging my competence. Get thee to the library and spend the rest of your life searching the databases and then I may deign to discuss the matter with you."

Actually, what I said was that scholars like Lindberg and Brooke themselves have decried apologetics posing as history. As to whether they themselves are apologists, I haven't said that they are. Instead, I have suggested that they may be biased. In any event, what good reason do you have for insisting that I certify that any or all of your colleagues are non-apologists? Present their work and I will evaluate it. Once again, when another poster attacks a particular lawyer or judge, or even all lawyers and judges generally, I don't say to them that they must swear to never do it again or I will not have a civilized debate with them.

No I am not happy. I proposed that we both stop the snarky comments and engage in a civilized debate. You responded that you would only do so if I made four concessions. Why a scholar should need concessions before agreeing to engage in civilized debate is a question I didn't pursue. I agreed to two and a half of the concessions, and gave you my reasons for not agreeing to the rest. I asked you, politely, to either accept my admissions and resume civilized discussion, or, it you felt that they were inadequate, to leave me out of the debate and, in return, I would withdraw from it. Instead, of giving me a straight answer, you now repeat your demands and insist that I be "happy" about them.

To repeat, I would like to have a discussion about the issues with you. If you do not feel that I am worthy of such a discussion, then please stop mentioning me in your responses to other posters.

spin

Another in depth response.

Considering in Catholic countries his works were placed on the list that doesn't mean too much. As my interest was that the church attempted to stifle science, they didn't do a bad job in this case. My original response was regarding the correctness of some of his views. Only astronomers would have had the possibility to have "any hint about that at the time". It's not relevant that they did for the response.


spin