Toto

Deschner's work still does not seem to be available in English. He was mentioned in these forums here and here.

Malachi151

The facts speak plaintly against you. If this was no big thing that "any old society could do", then where are the other societies?

Why didn't these same ideas and abilities develop in Australia, in China, in India, in Africa, in South America, etc., etc.?

If its "no big thing" then we should expect that while the Christians were throwing Europe into the Dark Ages they would have been overcome by all of the other rapdily developing modern societies, yet, this didn't happen.

The Chinese/Koreans/Japanese, etc., certianly developed some good technology, but nothing that compares to the Greeks in terms of overall instutions and fundamental ideas.

Indeed many of the ideas of the Greek actually did come from the Persians, and the Indians and Persians both have many things that can compare or be said to surpass the ancient Greeks in terms of technology and certian specific advances, but I think that in terms of the philosophic tradition that developed in Greece, combined with the practical traditions of Rome, this was the best combinations that evolved among people, though it was clearly lacking in mahy respects, it IS what laid the groundwork for modern society, the Indians didn't, and the Persians didn't.

Now, perhaps Hinduism and Islam also held India and Persia back and in reality their story is similar to that of ancient Greece, with freethought and advance being overturned by religion and dogma, I think this is true to a degree, but the Renessance happened in Europe, based on Greek ideas, not in Persia or India, though the Mongols certianly had something to do with this, I am not personally aware, nor am I totally knoweldgable, of the ideas in Persian or Indian society that would have given rise to the modern world.

But, you say its so easy, but I disagree. Nothing in the Americas was forming that was even close to moving in the direction of modern society. Even teh most advanced civilizations there, the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, etc., were religiously and philosophically miles apart from Europe, they were sacraficing people, very oppressive dogmas and instutitions, major state religions built on drug use and cannabilism, no use of the wheel, only minor use of animal labor, almost everything was done by a massive underclass that was by all accounts seeming very subserviant.

Bede

My oh my. What a useful button this is.

Roger Pearse

Indeed. The causes of the renaissance are doubtless various, but the return of enough wealth to permit educated men of leisure to exist must come into it somewhere. When before the time of Petrarch had a renaissance been possible? But let us recall that in the days of Charlemagne, scholars like Alcuin and Lupus of Ferrieres were out, tracking down the works of Cicero and swapping copies to improve the text.

Now before this debate gets too polarised, I don't think that any of us should dismiss the dependence of all civilised men on the classical world, Roman and Greek. Had this world not existed, the renaissance could not have existed. But had that world not existed -- good and bad as it was -- then frankly what reference points do we have to decide what kind of world would exist instead? Christianity itself was a product of that age, and relied heavily in human terms on the world that the Hellenistic era had created in order to propagate east and west.

Let us not forget also that the Roman world did perish. It had many inbuilt evils, very apparent in late antiquity. It did not perish because the Goths were strong. It perished because of its own weaknesses. If a general won a victory, his army would proclaim him emperor, meaning that he abandoned his campaign and marched to fight with the emperor. If he lost, of course, he lost. Thus a victory was as good as a defeat; heads the Romans lose, tails the Barbarians win. With such a system, it is remarkable that the collapse did not come centuries earlier. This system had to be destroyed and forgotten before a healthier system could come into existence. This was one of the things in which the late Romans themselves saw the Christian Germans as superior to themselves, and rightly so.

One other point I would make, as it needs to be made, but with diffidence. Many in this forum hold views of the transmission of texts which involve believing that all the texts of antiquity that have reached us, by copying, are to a greater or lesser extent corrupt or interpolated, and that, for all practical purposes, we cannot be certain to what extent any ancient text represents what the author wrote, or who that author is, or what indeed happened in antiquity.

For instance, we have all seen, I'm sure, people complain that Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, are not evidence for the existence of Jesus, because they were not contemporaries. But of course they were not contemporaries of most of what they described.

Before this idea of setting the Greeks and Romans against the Christians who preserved their works gets too far advanced, may I point out that such an argument relies rather heavily on the idea that the texts transmitted from antiquity are not forged, not interpolated, not composed by Christian monks of the middle ages.

I realise that it is possible to hold either position: that all the books are corrupt and we know nothing; or that all the books are accurate and the Christians ca. 1400 owe everything to them. But it is not possible, surely, to hold both views at once!

While we are discussing the finding of books in the renaissance, we should acknowledge the genius of Poggio Bracciolini and his efforts to search libraries for manuscripts of classical authors. As a rule his name is only mentioned in order to accuse him anachronistically of forging Annals xv.44.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

This must be so. But we need to remember that people did not copy works thinking "what do Christians regard as valuable" -- they copied books thinking "I need a copy of this" or "the abbot wants me to copy something; what's on the shelf at the moment that looks easy to read" or "I know that bishop/earl/emperor/abbot is a scumbag, what can I find that will show him up for what he is": in short, for all the reasons that men have ever sought to obtain copies of texts.

We cannot always predict what those reasons might be. Consider that Cicero's Hortensius has perished, despite the fact that Augustine was a standard father in church libraries, and no-one who has read the Confessions could be ignorant of the importance of that work for his conversion. On the other hand portions of Petronius survive. Four of Tertullian's heretical works survive because the Carolingian monks who came into possession of what was probably the last copy in the world often had strained relations with their worldly bishops, and so did not necessarily disapprove of works condemning such bishops, and encouraging chastity and fasting, even if to an uncanonical extent.

So we need to be careful before letting our imaginations run too wildly. Different times, you know. Looking over medieval inventories of books, one gets quite an interesting picture of what they might contain, and it has a very definite feel all of its own:

12th century catalogue of Cluny

Various catalogues of Corbie

Catalogue from 833 of Cologne Cathedral - after a long German introduction

11th century catalogue of Durham Cathedral

Various 15th century priories in Lincolnshire

All these are in Latin, of course, but people should be able to recognise names and books. There is a volume of these by G. Becker, Catalogi Antiquiori Bibliothecarum. I wish it were online.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Johann_Kaspar

Wrong. He did not accept it, he is treating it as a mere supposition:

Moreover, the most important issue is not the rund planet, but geocentrism and the history of the earth.
The very scientific position of Augustinus is bolded here:
quoniam nullo modo scriptura ista mentitur

Johann_Kaspar

People could start to learn German...

Johann_Kaspar

I see that it is indeed very useful for you to skip my questions here:

The atomists were atheists? Please, give me any references in support of this statement.

Apparently you do not know who were the first atheists... "Misreading the texts" or not reading them?

I will be waiting...:wave:

Wads4

I know it is only one incident and may not be typical; but what about the lynching of Hypatia, and the subsequent flight of pagan scientists and philosophers from Alexandria, leaving the Christians to write history in their own image, or have we got all that wrong as well? It seems to me that Christians may have copied and preserved some texts,-but it was the pagan writers who initiated them. Were there any Christian scholars who wrote on original scientific themes that had nothing to do with spreading the Faith or musing on obscure theological points?
Was the knowledge of Aristotle which the Arabs re-introduced to the West nothing to do with the pagan Aristotle himself, but only acreditable to the Christian scribes who took over from the pagan scribes the job of copying his original works? Who should we admire most, the Master or his pupils and imitators?

Malachi151

Of course, Democritus was not an atheist, and they railed against him, and of course, the opposition was not just against "atheism" it was against the idea, the concepts, the use of atoms as a way to explain the world.

They railed against atomism because it provided an explanation for the world that didn't rely on a creator, and there was no way around that issue, because you simply didn't need to introduce that aspect if you followed the principles and logic of the atomists.

But make no mistake, they argued about the detailes, claming that small invisible bodies couldn't make up larger visible bodies, etc.