Elijah

I’m sure the temples had some associations with Greek literature or places in them were some books were kept but do you have anything saying that Constantine was going after the medical knowledge or philosophical works? Or is it all directed at temples with idols and sacrifices?

He didn’t do anything; the roman citizens who respected his authority did all the work. I don’t think it’s me who doesn’t understand politics if you think a person at any position can just do whatever they want to an empire’s ideology and direction without first getting at least a sizeable portion of consent from the people. An emperor didn’t just stand up there and go this is how we are going to think and go tear down these temples, he’s reflective of a popular ideology that goes back to Plato who had a problem with superstition and idols.
“Pagan Sacrifice” That’s what he is after, not philosophical reasoning.
Yes I am familiar with the text. Do you think it’s reflective of what you consider Gnostic thought and why? I’m not familiar with any archaeological data associated with their temples. Has any Gnostic texts been uncovered there?
So your reasoning for why Constantine chooses a Jewish religion is that it wasn’t Hellenistic and by that you mean it lacked both pagan superstitions and Greek philosophy?

What does some of the ideas and language originating in an earlier Jewish work have to do with why Constantine choose a Jewish religion?

Explain how you think it is anti-gentile since I’m unsure how you are even using that word?
Is it written for gentiles here or is it an anti-gentile piece like you just said.

I agree that they were forcing them to give up their old cultural practices (idolatry/sacrifice) but you haven’t presented any information that shows he was targeting the philosophers as well and actually presented evidence of him speaking highly of Plato.

From wiki:

Socrates Scholasticus provides the following account of the destruction of the temples in Alexandria in the fifth book of his Historia Ecclesiastica, written around 440:

“ At the solicitation of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, the Emperor issued an order at this time for the demolition of the heathen temples in that city; commanding also that it should be put in execution under the direction of Theophilus. Seizing this opportunity, Theophilus exerted himself to the utmost to expose the pagan mysteries to contempt. And to begin with, he caused the Mithreum to be cleaned out, and exhibited to public view the tokens of its bloody mysteries. Then he destroyed the Serapeum, and the bloody rites of the Mithreum he publicly caricatured; the Serapeum also he showed full of extravagant superstitions, and he had the phalli of Priapus carried through the midst of the forum. Thus this disturbance having been terminated, the governor of Alexandria, and the commander-in-chief of the troops in Egypt, assisted Theophilus in demolishing the heathen temples. ”

The Mithraeum was an underground temple for worship of the god Mithras. Hundreds of such temples have been discovered throughout Europe, northern Africa, the Near East, and Great Britain.

The Serapeum once housed part of the Great Library, but it is not known how many, if any, books were contained in it at the time of destruction. Notably, the passage by Socrates Scholasticus, unlike that of Ammianus Marcellinus, makes no clear reference to a library or library contents being destroyed, only to religious objects being destroyed. The pagan author Eunapius of Sardis witnessed the demolition, and though he detested Christians, and was a scholar, his account of the Serapeum's destruction makes no mention of any library. Paulus Orosius admitted in the sixth book of his History against the pagans:

If you have no evidence they were after the philosophers work then what is the reason for the desire to believe that they were? I just don’t understand why you need to believe they were after both the pagans and the philosophers if there is no evidence? Is there any reasoning behind why you want Rome to be going after both? Or is this just a case of an individual not being able to differentiate between different ideologies no matter how radically different they are?

mountainman

I think Constantine's efforts were directed at the authority of the "Guardian Class" of the Alexandrian Greek empire. He got rid of this authority by destroying their architecture. We might depict it diagramatically as follows:

The Original Greek Civilisation described by Plato

Note that the Romans had left this virtually intact when they took over.
They may have hauled a few Egyptian obelisks back to Rome as trophies
but they did not destroy the Graeco-Roman temple networks, and they
in fact continued to sponsor and support it.





The Situation BEFORE c.324 CE





The Situation AFTER c.324 CE



It seems that Constantine did not appreciate any other authority other than his own.
He knew he had won a military victory in the East and that he was the supreme ruler of the empire.
But that was apparently not enough. He started tearing down the architecture associated with culture.
He replaced the Hellenistic temples with Christian basilicas and he replaced the Hellenistic philosophical
literature with the new testament.



Where do you get this from? Do you think they voted that Constantine should establish the "Christianity cult"?
Do you think anyone had any say about when Constantine should attack the Eastern empire?

It was Constantine's army that did all the important work and who respected C's authority.
The army was led by Barbarian (Gallic and Germanic) chieftains. He had dismissed the Praetorian Guard.


Did Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao seek consent from the people for their initiatives?
I am presenting Constantine as a military supremacist and fascist dictator.


On the contrary I suggest that this is precisely what happened.
It was a novel approach that no earlier Roman emperor had followed.



The final words of Socrates was for Crito to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius.


YES. The key characters are the Greek Hermes and the Greek Asclepius. The Hermetic literature is thought to be typically "pagan-gnostic". Asclepius - the "Healing God of the Graeco-Roman empire" is well known to archaeology.

The network of temples and shrines to Asclepius c.324 CE was extensive. I have listed some archaeological date
here. I dont know if any gnostic texts have been uncovered from such sites but I would be surprised if any had survived the destruction of the temple.


The philosophers were part of the "Guardian Class".
They preserved the literature of Euclid for example.
Think of Porphyry. Constantine ordered his books
to be burnt and destroyed.

According to Lane-Fox Constantine stated that :
"Plato's critical questioning is a menace to the state".
This is not speaking highly of Plato.


The "pagans" and the "philosophers" were one and the same class. The works and literature of the Greek academics were being preserved by "Pagan Greek academics", where "pagan" is a fourth century christian perjoritive term meaning "non christian".

Constantine got rid of the old Graeco-Roman "guardian class" of priests associated with the temples by destroying their temples and prohibiting the use of the temples. That the temples also held literature was neither here nor there, because it is evident that Constantine and his christian followers were only concerned with the "New Testament literature". All other philosophy and all other literature about philosophy had become redundant.

Elijah

I like the idea better when he was trying to get all the religious energy nationalized and working for Rome as the Persians were doing much more than Constantine the social reformer trying to get rid of the religious authority which I assume is what you mean when you say the “Guardian Class”. Or was he after more than just the religious authority?
You are misunderstanding what I am saying here. The leader makes his own decisions but the people follow his decisions because they believe in his authority. Without the belief in the emperor or a king’s authority by the people or at least a sizable portion of the people no ruler can do anything. Understanding that is actually a fundamental principle to understanding why they were trying to push a dead king for the people to serve.
Are you saying that Constantine funded a private army and took Rome and then rewrote his history to make him seem like he more legitimately assumed the position while establishing a new religion that no one had ever heard of? How did he pay for this army?
Yea, they had consent of the members of the party they were the leaders of and those who supported that parties particular agenda.
Yea you said that already. Even if you do believe Socrates at the time of his death suddenly stopped using reason and went back into superstition mode (which is retarded) it really doesn’t matter much. What’s important is that you realize and understand that the ideology that he and his student Plato was putting forward reasoned out that sacrificing to gods was pointless because they didn’t change and idols were deceiving since the spiritual elements in the universe were formless. This thinking is what forces Philo to try and reinterpret Judaism because Judaism was based around sacrifice and worship of a god that was now made unknowable so something had to change.

The one area that a type of idolatry was still persistent at the time was found in the mystics who themselves were trying to personify their particular spiritual element in their lives, be it wisdom or reason or an unknowable/mystery like the Tao. The Asclepius text you mentioned actually has the guy arguing against calling mysticism a form of idolatry which is why I was wondering if considering it a Gnostic text would be correct.

Anyway this is where the Jesus personifying Logos or God itself if you were a pantheist comes from. You couldn’t connect with god via sacrifice or thru idols but could via the intellect of the mind which they believed was showing them the spiritual side of the universe. Now this gets confused, then and now, by people who are unfamiliar with the philosophical developments of the time as just more of the same old thing where it’s just the story of a biological offspring from a superstitions understanding of god. Which leads to craaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzy interpretations of what is going on in the story.
Do you think the individuals in the work are men talking or are they poetic interpretation of an actual god talking to another god?

Again what makes this a Gnostic text? What is the ideology that you think identifies a Gnostic work?
If they were practicing a religion based around knowledge and texts then why would it be surprising to find any Gnostic texts? I think finding no texts would be a sign that the focus of the temples was generally worship, sacrifice and mystical connection with little emphasis on actually teaching the people.
Do you think his books were burnt because he wrote about philosophers or because he wrote a work against the Christians?
Him speaking highly of Plato was in the text you referenced. Where is him saying the above so I can read the context?
Yea I get that pagan isn’t the best of words but it’s generally used to describe non Christians who hold to superstitious beliefs not Greek philosophers. The point is that you need to distinguish between the Greek philosophers and the Greeks who believed in superstition based around taking the poems of gods literally? You can choose whatever wording you want but throwing them in the same box is incorrect.
What the temples were being used for is here and there. That’s what Constantine is after. If by temples he means any building which they teach anything then he is doing something completely different then if he is just attacking the fact that temples practice what he considers superstitious rituals because of his philosophical education.

I turned on some Xavier Rudd to see if channeling some Australian vibe would help with me getting thru to you some. Help any?

mountainman

I think he was after ALL authority, and this included those with
the authority of knowledge: incuding the Academy of Plato.

A supreme military commander and ruler who is prepared to use the army
to control the people in a fascist manner may coerce certain classes of
people against their wishes, especially if the army has invaded an area.

I suggest that Constantine had no respect for authority of any form
except his own authority, but that this situation developed over the
three successive decades of his rule - which might be described as
"The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" - he got worse as he succommed to
the forces of supreme power, like each of the twelve caesars that
are described by Suetonius. These decades are roughly:

THE GOOD: 305 to 315 CE
THE BAD: 315 to 325 CE
THE UGLY: 325 to 337 CE

NOTE: This follows Sextus Aurelius Victor ...

"[Constantine] was a mocker rather than a flatterer.
From this he was called "Bullneck",

for ten years a most excellent man,
for the following second ten a brigand,
for the last, on account of his unrestrained prodigality,
a ward irresponsible for his own actions."

He became the leader of Constantius Chlorus' army in 305 CE.
He consolidated his position from that point on until he took Rome.

Which victorious leader does not rewrite history? I think that there is evidence
to suggest also that he fabricated his own geneology


He was the "Pontifex Maximus" and was legally entitled to sponsor any religious
cult of his own choosing. Eusebius calls it a "New and Strange Religion".



GOLD.

The gold in the West was his from 305 CE.
This gold staked the taking of Rome 312 CE.
The gold in Rome staked the taking of Alexandria 324 CE.
The gold in the east was the JACKPOT.
The army payroll was secure for a while after 324 CE




Fourth century politics was short and brutish. Constantine was the leader
of the Army Party, and had no real alliegence to the Roman senate.
Trier was more of a base than Rome, since Rome was a stepping stone
to the bounteous riches of the eastern empire which Constantine hoped
and actively planned to steal. And using his army, he did just that.
He robbed the temples. He left Rome never to return, and built his own
city in emulation of Alexander the great.

I think he also robbed and looted the literary
world with the fabrication of the new testament.

The people needed a new GOOD GOD.
So he gave them the CHRESTOS GOD.
He himself, was utterly irreligious.
His rule was described as "Neronian".



This thing which you call "superstition mode" and "retarded" was
nevertheless par for the course in antiquity. We have only to see
that Emperor Julian was nicknamed "BULL-BURNER" to understand that
the sacrifice of animals was part of the culture.

Apollonius of Tyana is cited by Eusbebius as an expert on the avoidance
of sacrifice, so we know that the animal sacrifice culture itself already
had its philosophical detractors --- but never before political ones,
unless perhaps (tangentially) we consider the case of India.

Socrates was confortable with it.
We may not be comfortable with it.
But it was part of the ancient landscape.
It was mixed into the landscape.


The philosphers were part of the "Guardian Class".
They could read and write and hey preserved books.
They were the experts in many disciplines of knowledge.

However the common people continued in the old traditional belief
of animal sacrifice because it had been traditional to do this.

Its the case of:

"Religion is regarded
by the common people as true,
by the wise as false,
and by the ruler as useful"

---- Seneca the Younger

I think the author is trying to preserve the wisdom of his epoch.
He is using the gods of that epoch to do the talking in question
and answer format.

I think that Constantine ordered Eusebius to forge additional works
in the name of Porphyry against the christian cult so that Constantine
could them justifiably burn the philosophy of the Greeks - the followers
of Pythagoreans, and Plato and Ammonias Saccas, and Plotinus, etc.


See my notes on Lane-Fox's "Pagans and Christians" here
You will have to scroll down to the section headed "Constantine's Orations to the Saints"


Music is good for the soul they say.
Thanks. I am not sure we are agreeing
or disagreeing on anything yet.

It appears difficult to agree on an answer
to the question "Who were the Gnostics?"

gurugeorge

It's actually quite handy for mystics to have living traditions, supported by physical premises. There's a bit of a knack to getting mystical or visionary experiences, and it helps to have someone who's "been there" take you through it, it's like a form of apprenticeship.

Not everything can be written down, some of it can only be conveyed personally, in a context where meaning comes across partly through body language.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say, with most mystical or visionary texts that we have, they are more like "crib sheets" than full explanations of matters. It's why most of the Asian texts seem somewhat cryptic.

That's because they are cryptic; many of the terms use are "terms of art" that borrow from surrounding religious or philosophical contexts, but actually refer to changes in the psyche.

Two comparative examples come to mind immediately in the case of Asian non-dual mysticisms - Nagarjuna's Middle Way in Mahayana Buddhism, and the Advaita Vedanta texts of Shankaracharya. These two form an interesting contrast, because the tradition of interpretation is still living for the latter, whereas the tradition for the former was broken (the living interpretation would have been part of a Buddhist "university" curriculum, and that tradition was destroyed by Islam and then the resurgence of "Hinduism", although there are some remnants of it in Tibetan Buddhism). Another example is the Daoist canon - there are tons of these kinds of cryptic teaching texts in the Daoist canon, but only some of them still have living interpretations of tradition for them. The living traditions for the Daodejing as it was originally conceived (or more likely collated) were long lost before the DDJ became a popular text in China. That's why it's now such an intellectual and moral Rorschach blot.

So a religion, particularly a mystically-inclined religion, is partly composed of writing and thought about writing, and the discussion of ideas; but that's almost the least important part. The first thing is the experience - either mystical experience (unitive experience), or visionary experience (meeting "gods" and the like). The more important part is the practices that people have to be taught, initiated into, tricks of the trade that have to be passed on. And for that, you need relatively stable physical premises. (In fact, for many mystics, natural formations like caves have served very well as such, and they're free; but the trouble is they're usually in remote places.)

Elijah

Did he attack or try to tear down the Academy of Plato in Athens? Or any decree that is directed at him or philosophers in general?
Yea but why does the soldier respect his authority. Him having an army to help enforce his will is a given but why the army is respecting his orders is where we seem to be disagreeing.
Constantine the ultimate anarchist! An outsider to Rome builds an army and overtakes Rome just to destroy their leadership structure and establish a dead king religion for the people to worship instead of a religion that supports the living rulers of the empire. The most super awesome version of Constantine ever! The theory where Constantine is the actual messiah but just too anarchist to exalt himself as the authority so he places a dead Jewish commoner in the seat of authority… I like it.
Who was Constantine a ward of and why was he irresponsible for his own actions?
How did he become leader of this group and why did this army follow him and his predecessor?
What do you think he was covering up? Where do you think he was native to? What is his original culture/religion before he invented Christianity? Is his mom a player in this?
Where does Eusebius say this? When I googled it I got him saying the opposite.

1. But that no one may suppose that his doctrine is new and strange, as if it were framed by a man of recent origin, differing in no respect from other men, let us now briefly consider this point also.

15. What then should prevent the confession that we who are of Christ practice one and the same mode of life and have one and the same religion as those divinely favored men of old? Whence it is evident that the perfect religion committed to us by the teaching of Christ is not new and strange, but, if the truth must be spoken, it is the first and the true religion. This may suffice for this subject.

So he was a foreign plunder without the support of a nation who built up enough momentum/capital to overtake Rome? How big of a battle was it between Constantine’s foreign army and the Roman army? Or if there was no battle how did he pull that off?

Why and how was the gold from the west his from 305?
Man he sure sound like a pimp.
Yea it was par for the course for the uneducated then. It’s assumed of everyone back then by the uneducated today. Because they were/are unfamiliar with the ideological changes the natural philosophers like Plato brought to the discussion in regards to the spiritual. You don’t want to be in that category unaware of the ideological argument so here are some quotes from Plato’s works to hopefully help illustrate what I’m talking about in regards to how the philosophers were viewing the superstitions surrounding the stories of the gods.

“Soc. And do you really believe that the gods, fought with one another, and had dire quarrels, battles, and the like, as the poets say, and as you may see represented in the works of great artists? The temples are full of them; and notably the robe of Athene, which is carried up to the Acropolis at the great Panathenaea, is embroidered with them. Are all these tales of the gods true, Euthyphro?” Euthyphro

“But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod;” Republic

“And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses--that is what they say-- according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us.” Republic

“As to that class of monstrous natures who not only believe that there are no Gods, or that they are negligent, or to be propitiated, but in contempt of mankind conjure the souls of the living and say that they can conjure the dead and promise to charm the Gods with sacrifices and prayers, and will utterly overthrow individuals and whole houses and states for the sake of money-let him who is guilty of any of these things be condemned by the court to be bound according to law in the prison” Laws

"To be sure" he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices.” Republic

“Ath. At Athens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtue of your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of the Gods in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of the origin of the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginning of their story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, and how after they were born they behaved to one another. Whether these stories have in other ways a good or a bad influence, I should not like to be severe upon them, because they are ancient; but, looking at them with reference to the duties of children to their parents, I cannot praise them, or think that they are useful, or at all true. Of the words of the ancients I have nothing more to say; and I should wish to say of them only what is pleasing to the Gods. But as to our younger generation and their wisdom, I cannot let them off when they do mischief. For do but mark the effect of their words: when you and I argue for the existence of the Gods, and produce the sun, moon, stars, and earth, claiming for them a divine being, if we would listen to the aforesaid philosophers we should say that they are earth and stones only, which can have no care at all of human affairs, and that all religion is a cooking up of words and a make-believe.” Laws

“Ath. I will explain my meaning still more clearly. They say that fire and water, and earth and air, all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. Art sprang up afterwards and out of these, mortal and of mortal birth, and produced in play certain images and very partial imitations of the truth, having an affinity to one another, such as music and painting create and their companion arts.” Laws

I tried to look into some of the texts credited to Julian to see how he was justifying sacrifices still but didn’t see him explain it. I don’t know what your story is behind him, if you think he was created later by some Christians or if his works are genuine. But the writer of Against the Galileans is another example of a philosophically minded individual not taking the stories literally because that leads to superstition.

I think sacrifice being part of the culture is the correct reasoning for why Julian was ok with it. Plato was ok with it as well because he considered the temples and ceremonies important to a healthy city even though there is no reason for the sacrifices in regards to appeasing the gods.
Well now that you are aware that there was a philosophical argument against sacrifice all have to do is imagine that argument much larger and impactful on ancient western thinking then you currently are.

You are correct in that politically being opposed to sacrifice is a big step up from ideologically opposing it because it’s hard to see the benefit of upsetting the status quo so much. Unless Constantine was more of a philosopher than an emperor and him taking over Rome was just a easy way to spread his ideology.
Yea it was a part of a lot of cultures and traditions that people were comfortable with but still went away when the idea of gods evolved.
I think the masses got the information eventually via trickle down like the gnostics, but still would be inclined to continue their traditions of sacrifice long after they lost the reasoning behind the sacrifice itself.
I think its two people with gods’ names. Why would a god need to be educated about the nature of gods? And again what makes this a Gnostic text?
Why need to justify it if you’re an emperor who can just do whatever you want without the peoples consent? And why need to make him appear antichristian if he is already attacking the philosophers? What need does he have to do that?
Yea I’m getting your own site back on the search but I’m not getting the actual text where Constantine actually says this. His oration of the saints supports my position that he was philosophical inclined towards Plato; the statement of him being a menace to the state I’m not seeing other than from your citation, I guess from Lane-Fox but not Constantine’s text.
Yea it’s the labeling of the Gnostics where most of the problems can be seen. Right now you are using the word so broadly that it doesn’t convey any information at all about how you are specifically using the word so it has no meaning at all.

That and not seeing Constantine going after the superstition in his empire instead of the greek.

Elijah

Yea I divide the Gnostics from the mystics on the lines of seeing the Gnostics as wanting to teach you about the nature of the universe and the mystics want to teach you how to connect to the spiritual within the universe via altering your consciousness, which as you said is something that is better shown/guided in person than read about in a text. I see philosophers of the time as trying for a middle way where they’re trying to connect to reason/logos to uncover the truth/gnosis.

I see Jesus’ form of mysticism like I view Taoism but that may be because I became familiar with Taoism from a Christian’s translation, which I don’t consider to be unitive or visionary even though I agree with those terms as being a good divide between the receptive forms of mysticism. But I do consider Taoism and what Jesus was doing to be a little bit more active and less reflective form of mysticism. Not that I don’t think that if Jesus was a real mystic then he could have been proficient and used unitive and probably more often/likely visionary states but that his active form of mysticism is what he was spreading thru to the people via faith.

I think most people with desire and some practice can be taught or put in the proper conditions to shut down their senses and connect to the spiritual in some way but the difficulty is being able to stay connected when you need to communicate and work with people. I’m guessing there is a Buddhist tradition that is more active with their mysticism but I’m just uninformed of it.

mountainman

Just a quich response on the subject of
Constantine and gold and the Roman Army ...

I have just recently come across and read an excellent article providing in part a political and economic analysis of the period between the first and the fifth centuries entitled Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire - [This is a transcript of Professor Joseph Peden's 50-minute lecture "Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire," given at the Seminar on Money and Government in Houston, Texas, on October 27, 1984. The original audio recording is available as a free MP3 download.]

I hope many readers find this interesting background to the epoch.

gurugeorge

Well I think with most of those traditions, there are what's called "non-dual" sub-traditions within them, for whom mystical experience is almost the least important thing (although they will of course tend to have some familiarity with it). For those traditions, full-blown Enlightenment (as opposed to something like an "awakening experience") is more of a cognitive phenomenon (a question of a certain subtle understanding).

To put it roughly, those systems of mysticism which involve cessation of normal cognitive functioning afford a "glimpse" of a state of being without the ordinary sense of self being present, but full-blown Enlightenment is not an "awakening experience" like this, it's more like a deep understanding that whether the sense of self is present or absent, and regardless of what may be being experienced, what's present is already "IT".

So for those systems, there's no problem about "normal functioning" - to them, there is no essential difference whether they are in an "awakening experience" state (i.e. a state, perhaps of stillness, with no sense of self being present), or in an ordinary egoic state. It's all just this, and all "divine", all "God". It sounds rather obvious in intellectual terms, but it seems to be rather rare to actually have that as a lived, internalized, settled understanding.

There do seem to be hints of a kind of non-dualism in some of the Gnostic texts, particularly GThomas, but also in others. Whether those come from a human Jesus founder, or were products of communities of mystics originally, or perhaps a "Paul" founder, or just much later leftfield interpretations of the story given to us by the orthodox interpretation (as the orthodox - e.g. the "heresiologists" would tell you), we can't yet say with any certainty.

(Side note: I'd be careful about that old distinction between "philosophical" and "religious" Daoism, scholars are now coming to see that that distinction may be misleading, and an artefact of the 19th century Confucian interpretation of Daoism that the earliest Western investigators of this stuff had access to. Daoism has always had psycho-spiritual-physical practices attached, even ritual magical practices, right from when we can first catch glimpses of living communities of Daoists. It's likely that the DDJ was connected with such practices too - and in fact, the earliest known commentary on it is from a "practice" point of view. Again, the point is, lots of the terms found in such texts are likely to be "terms of art" that later get interpreted and argued about as metaphysical postulates, etc., and the "true interpretation" dies if the tradition dies.)

mountainman

Thanks for these contributions regarding the possible relationships between eastern non-dualistic religion-philosophy-metaphysics and some elements of 'christian origins" and the mystery of the "gnostics". Both posts are very interesting.

Was the Eastern Roman empire a "Little India" ?

Earlier you wrote:

It is often commented that the culture of the east, and particularly India, has supported the tradition of the mystics by reserving for them a place in its society, the giving of alms, and the provision of sponsorship to this class of people by rich patrons. Anyone who has travelled through India can see that this culture is different to "western culture" which does not overtly recognise the social integration of these concepts of religion-philosophy-metaphysics into the "collective lifestyle" and political arena.

I have two questions:

(1) In India, when temples are built, who uses these temples once the owners have died and new generations pass through? Do the temples get populated in a custodial fashion from one generation to the next? And by "temples" I mean any shrines which are constructed on behalf of any concept of divinity (Hindu. Buddhist, etc). How does India actually use its temples after the epoch of the builders? Does anyone know?

(2) In the Eastern Roman empire, many temples were constructed in respect of one or another Graeco-Roman divinity. In the line of argument above directed at India, what was the custodial (long-term) mechanisms in the use of these temples by other following generations?

Answers to these questions might like to encompass the activity of the preservation of literature, which has certain mandatory requirements, such as a place to write and read and store scrolls and/or codices out of the weather and a place to perhaps instruct other people how to read and or write, etc.

Finally, with respect to the Eastern ROman empire, may the religion-philosophy-metaphysics preserved in the Enneads of Plotinus be perceived as a form of eastern non-dialism. My opinion is that they may be so perceived.