Doug Shaver

I meant I haven't gotten my degree yet but am working on it. If you think "uncredentialed" means "unqualified," too bad for you.

I am aware of all those meanings. I also know what they have in common.

Maybe. Your quote proves at most that he and I would have disagreed. There is nothing in it that proves he was right. It conveys his opinion, not any evidence supporting his opinion.

mountainman

This discussion forum is intended for the discussion of biblical criticism and history not biblical criticism and philosophy.

Evidence from philosophy or journalism is either subsiduary or irrelevant to BC&H.
BC&H seeks evidence primarily from the field of ancient history.


Please do your homework on Acton, and the historical context of this quote. The absolute power of the Popes corrupted the Popes absolutely enough for Pope Pius IX's promulgation of his everlasting gobbstopper doctrine of papal infallibility. Why did Pope Pius IX's and other popes think that they are infallible? They are deluded and corrupted by the absolute power the Papacy and the Church held/holds in this political and religious world.

Doug Shaver

You have some homework to do yourself, if you're dismissing philosophy as "subsidiary or irrelevant" to historical inquiries.

mountainman

Good point Doug. But I do reserve the right to try and discuss the use and the abuse of the various degrees of "absolute power held by the successive Roman Emperors " with respect to the various political and military events in the Roman empire during the entire saga of the story of "Early Christian Origins", without having to justify its existence (ie: the imperial power) in any philosophical sense. I mean we are dealing with an epoch where perhaps as many as a third of the population were slaves.

How philosophical do you want to get about the relative scales of political and military power? The successive procession of "Lord God Caesars" held the power of life and death for many in their hands and their decisions and laws, or as far as the gladiators went, with their thumb signals. This is what most people, philosophers and non philosophers alike, might commonly term "absolute power".

Doug Shaver

Very well. In certain places, in certain situations at certain times, when Caesar said "Frog!" everybody jumped. You seem to be suggesting that that was the situation in all places throughout the empire at all times.

mountainman

When Lord God Caesar pronounced himself King and legislated in the year 326 CE:

"Religious privileges are reserved for Christians." .........:....(Theod 16.5.1)

we may safely presume from the evidence that not everyone throughout the empire jumped at once for joy. For example, Crispus had been executed. Also for example, there were certain religious controversies still "unsettled in the details" - such as finding some sort of authority on which books were in or out of the NT canon - despite the lavish 50 codices of the "Boss". Other "Gnostic" books authored by heretics and other vile specimens of the human race were being prohibited and searched out for destruction by the army. In certain places, in certain situations at certain times, when Caesar said "Damnatio memoriae!" everybody jumped. These are historical facts.

We can be reasonably sure as historians however, that Eusebius, the researcher of the roots of the historical truth, and the Sect of the Chrestians, jumped for joy on that occassion. (See Eusebius's "Life of Bullneck" where Hermes relinquishes the title of "Thrice Blessed" to "Bullneck".)