sky kunde

Did the early church really burn or destroy a lot of "dangerous" documents? Which evidences supports that?

Gooch's dad

Well, for starters you have Acts 19:19:

"And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver."

fta

The anti-Christian writings of the philosophers Celsus and Porphyry immediately spring to mind.

Roger Pearse

Do they?

The work of Celsus is known only from two sources. Origen read it, and said he'd never heard of it or met anyone who had. But at the request of the person who sent it to him, he wrote Contra Celsum, which preserves a lot of it. Origen didn't destroy it. The only other mention of the work in the whole of antiquity is by Eusebius of Caesarea in Contra Hieroclem. It is not clear whether he had seen it, or had merely read Origen. So what evidence of deliberate destruction exists?

As for Porphyry's libel against the Christians, Constantine (not the church) ordered that it should be destroyed, ca. 325. But there is no evidence that anything happened, and some that it did not; Theodosius II in 448 issued the same order. But again we have no evidence that anything happened -- the very same legal code contains repeated evidence that late emperors could not get their edicts through the bureaucracy that was choking the empire. Again, what evidence of actual destruction exists, or of any order by the church?

The real reason both works are lost is the same reason that 99% of ancient literature is lost: the society that gave it birth perished. Indeed much literature was lost before the end of antiquity -- the compiler of the Theodosian code complains that he couldn't obtain earlier codes by second-century jurists such as Ulpian and Papinian. Books may occasionally continue to physically exist (such as the 5th century codex of Livy which alone preserves books 41-45, which was never copied and just loitered for centuries in a monastery tower in Germany). But most require someone to copy them. Books written to insult those who have to do that copying have few chances to exist. Yet even so, the other works of Porphyry were copied, and much anti-Christian material by Julian the Apostate. Even the New History of Zosimus was copied by Christian monks.

Celsus' pamphlet probably perished long before the end of antiquity. But the work of Porphyry probably perished because it was too stupid for words, in the eyes of the potential copyists. Have a look at this for why.

Note that Wikipedia is not a source of reliable information, and is often a source of deliberately distorted information on matters of religion.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following:

Elaine Pagels: For nearly 2,000 years, Christian tradition has preserved and revered orthodox writings that denounce the Gnostics, while suppressing and virtually destroying the Gnostic writings themselves. Now, for the first time, certain texts discovered at Nag Hammadi reveal the other side of the coin: how Gnostics denounced the orthodox. The 'Second Treatise of the Great Seth' polemicizes against orthodox Christianity, contrasting it with the 'true church' of the Gnostics. Speaking for those he calls the sons of light, the author says: '...we were hated and persecuted, not only by those who are ignorant (pagans), but also by those think they are advancing the name of Christ, since they were unknowingly empty, not knowing who they are, like dumb animals.'"

From the Internet: As a young researcher at Barnard College, Elaine Pagels changed forever the historical landscape of the Christian religion by exploding the myth of the early Christian Church as a unified movement. Her findings were published in 1979 in the best selling book, The Gnostic Gospels, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award. The is was followed later that year with her selection as one of the first three recipients of the MacArthur Award.

Pagels' latest book, Beyond Belief, was published in May. Her other books include The Origin of Satan and Adam and Eve and the Serpent. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University and has published widely on Gnosticism and early Christianity.

Larry Taylor: How does this apply to the story of Jesus? Simply that all of the early critics are dead. Skeptical opinions were banned. Christian opinions, other than those of the establishment, were banned. Books were destroyed, and later, heretics were burned.

Larry Taylor bio:

B.A. Math, Ambassador College (1973)
M.A. History, Cal. State LA, (1982)
M.S. Computer Science, Cal. Poly. Pomona (1988)
Ph.D. Computer Science, UCLA (1997).

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2002:

By the 3rd century Gnosticism began to succumb to orthodox Christian opposition and persecution. Partly in reaction to the Gnostic heresy, the church strengthened its organization by centralizing authority in the office of bishop, which made its effort to suppress the poorly organized Gnostics more effective.

Christian author S. Angus, Ph.D., D.Lit., D.D., from his book ‘The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World':

No one could have dreamed that the Christians, who had themselves suffered so much from persecution and protested so vehemently against the injustice and futility of persecution, would so quickly have turned persecutors and surpassed their Pagan predecessors in fanatical savagery and efficiency, utterly oblivious of the Beatitude of the Divine Master (Matt. V. 10, 44, 45). It became ominous for subsequent history that the first General Council of the Church was signalized by bitter excommunications and banishments. Christians, having acquired the art of disposing of hostile criticism by searching out and burning the objectionable books of their Pagan adversaries, learned to apply the same method to the works of such groups of Christians as were not in power or in favour for the time; when this method proved unsatisfactory, they found it expedient to burn their bodies. The chained skeleton found in the Mithraic chapel at Sarrebourg testified to the drastic means employed by Christians in making the truth conquer otherwise than by the methods and exemplified by the Founder. The stripping and torture to death with oyster-shells in a Christian church and the subsequent mangling of limb from limb of Hypatia, the noblest representative of Neo-Platonism of her day, by the violent Nitrian monks and servitors of a Christian bishop, and probably with his connivance, were symptomatic and prophetic of the intolerance and fanaticism which Christianity was to direct throughout the centuries upon its disobedient members and troublesome minorities until the day – yet to dawn – when a purer, more convincing because more spiritual, Christianity gains ‘the consent of happier generation, the applause of less superstitious ages.'

Not content with what their ancestors did, in later centuries, Christians conquered the largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion.

Cat59

Elaine Pagel in the Gnostic Gospels (p130) refers to Athansasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, as sending out an order to purge all "apocryphal books" with "heretical " tendencies in 367. This Wiki arcticle also refers to him as being willing to back up his theological views with the use of force.
I am unable to find the document she refers to quoted or referenced directly in her book, however.

Roger Pearse

Isn't that infuriating?!? Why do people make such statements in print, if they won't reference them. If you come up with anything, do let me know.

It would be most interesting to see on what, if anything, the statement is based. I am guessing that possibly the Archbishop merely told his clergy, perhaps in a Paschal letter (these exist for Athanasius) to remove apocrypha and heretical material from their churches? (I don't see that this would support the original comment -- isn't any private organisation entitled to self-definition? Some of the coptic apocrypha is even derived from folk-tales or similar, such as the Legend of Hilaria).

I think that I'd be more willing to believe in church-sponsored violence in this area later on, as the Greek church becomes entangled with and compromised by the state. People like the Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria seem difficult to distinguish from local gang bosses, to me anyway.

It's not an issue that I want to discuss here, but if such people were alive today, might they jeer that we who live in the age of political correctness can't reasonably object to the censorship of other ages? Let's be fair to all sides.

Could I add a caution on the sources above: I know from personal experience that Wikipedia articles on religion are being deliberately corrupted by people of extreme views who are quite ignorant, but will accept no edit that contradicts their prejudices. Read these accordingly.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

FreezBee

Ok, quite an assertion you have here Maybe it's as true as the claim that the early church really destroyed documents?

- FreezBee

Chili

They must have because we can't make sense out of it.

Intelligent people would argue that the truth factor is great enough to study it but the total absense of success is sufficient evidence that the good stuff got burned 2000 years ago.

Roger Pearse

Possibly Festal Letter 39.

All the best,

Roger Pearse