Butters

Posted by Bede,
Maybe I'm the one that is confused, but weren't the barbarians that finished off the roman empire Christians BEFORE they invaded Rome?

Fiach

The German barbarians were converted to Christianity a century before they toppled the Western Roman Empire. They were converted by missionaries from the Empire itself at an earlier time when the dominant Christian sect was the Arians. Arianism preached by Bishop Arius taught that there was only one High God and that the High God created everything and even created Jesus as a lesser god, Son of the real God. They didn't bother to invent a Holy Ghost or Trinity. This was before the Hun conquest. Barbarians and Romans alike were Arian Christians. Trinitarian Christianity developed in North Africa. Part of the drive perhaps came from Gnostics who saw Jesus as a major not minor god. But that created a duality which is unstable. Trinities were common in pagan religions. Tertullian, familiar with the Egyptian Trinity of Father (Atum or Amum,) Son (Aten or Horus), and Holy Spirit (Ra or Knepf). Tertullian proposed this as a model for the Christian God. But to preserve the delusion of Monotheism, had one god but three persons in that god. Those three persons were essentially indentical with the ancient Egyptian Trinity found in the wall murals of the Holy of Holies in the Temple at Luxor, Egypt.

This proved popular in polytheistic Rome. Emperor Constantine's Mother adopted it. He, Constantine, was a believer in Aten the Sun god. He need to unify his fragmenting empire. So he merged the three largest cults: Christianity, Mithraism, and the Cult of the Sun god. He supported Athanasius who further defined Tertullian's Trinity and Jesus's full god-hood. At the Council of Nicaea, Constantine's troops ensured that the bishops condemned Arianism and supporte Athanasian Trinitarianism. And so Rome became Athanasian (Catholic) while the Germans beyond the borders remained Arian.

When the Visigoths, Vandals, Suevi, Ostrogoths, Burgundians, Alemani, and Franks divided up the West they founded Monarchies with Arian ruling elites and Athanasian ruled classes. It stayed that way in Spain until the 7th Century. The Franks wisely converted to Catholicism to win support in Gaul from the populace. The Ostrogoths were eliminated by the Byzantine Armies of Belisarius and Narses for the Orthodox Catholic Emperor Justinian.

Ultimately politics decided the victory of Christianity and which form of Christianity would survive among 8 or 9 contenters. A little known woman, the mother of Constantine, decided the fate of the European world and the western hemisphere much later by her influence on little Constantine. She whoever she was, should be given credit for founding modern Christianity.

Fiach

Bede

At home and with books...

On the Newton v the Cartesians, I've looked up a couple of illustrative passages from Steven Shapin's "The Scientific Revolution":

p 63: "Such rival philosophers such as the German Leibniz [who had plenty of other issues with Newton too] violently accused [Newton] of using the enormous cultural prestige of mathematics to reintroduce occult principles. For Leibniz, and others, the paramount condition for intelligibility was the provision of a plausible mechanical cause."

(note occult here means 'hidden' rather than strictly magical but the idea is bound up with neo platonism. The Cartesians thought that a hidden cause was worse than none at all.)

[Newton wanted to be a mechanicist and looked for a mechanical cause of gravity. But finding none he admitted,] "These prinicples, I consider not as occult qualities... but as general Laws of Nature, though their causes be not yet discovered. For these are manifest qualities and their causes only are occult." p157.

Shapin is a forceful exponent of the Feyerbandian idea of science as a bundle of conflicting ideas, rational and irrational, mathematical and qualitive, religious and sceptical, empirical and causal which makes the idea of the rise of a scientific method absurd. His book begins (p1) "There was no such thing as the scientific revolution, and this is a book about it." I would add, the results of science may be rational, how we got to them was anything but.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

PS: While the religious colour of each barbarian tribe that invaded the Empire may be of interest, there is no evidence that the Christian ones were any more adverse of civilisation than the pagan ones. This evidence would be necessary to suggest that, for the barbarians, Christianity was a factor in them not continuing Roman secular culture. No one had quite said this but I sense some might be trying to lean towards it.

Butters

Posted by Bede,
May be of interest! You have portrayed this period as a time when Pagan religion caused the decline of the Empire, alllowing "Barbarians" to finish it off, with "Christians" saving what they could of knowledge. Now we can see that it was "Christians", Barbarian and civilized that destroyed the Roman empire, destroyed the Temples that were the seats of knowledge, destroyed or allowed to rot away, anything that did not agree with their religion, and you have the nerve to say Christianity was not anti-science!

It's really funny. Here is my earlier view of history as taught in school.

The Romans fell into decline through greed and bad politics. This left them weak, and allowed "barbarians to invade. (Somehow I got the impression that they were "Heathens or Pagans").
The Christians destroyed much Pagan religious writings, but preserved much secular writings,and although they later suppressed new ideas, at least they had preserved enough for future men to make a new start at science.

Now I see that the "Barbarians" Were also Christians. That Christians of all sorts destroyed as much of the Greco/Roman knowledge as they could. The attempts of people like the Nestorians to preserve the pagan knowledge were met with banishment. They were the principle preservers of knowledge at this time, although they had to do it in Egypt. The more I listen to you, the worse my opinion of Christianity becomes, instead of being innocent bystanders at the fall of Rome, they were the direct cause!
Thanks for the history lesson!

Bede

Just a note to remind headbangers that I have no interest in wasting my time with you whether you bump up threads or not. Also, please keep off this thread as all you will do is end the conversation between Sojourner and myself.

B

Butters

Although I enjoy the title of "headbanger", I must assume that the real reason you don't answer me is because you are attempting to promote a false view of history, and cannot defend it.
I will continue to expose your false presentation
of history whehter you answer or not.

Sojourner553

Just got back

Don't have much time tonight, will really hit most of this over the next weeek...

Do you not do the same, when you ask me to READ a list of books?

Here I have cut and pasted some of the relevent sections -- much less effort than reading whole books that touch on many topics not related to what we are discussing.

ALSO: Why do you assume all of the details were also ONLY for you???? I thought Vork for one might like to read some of this.

Just keep focused on the "*" summaries if you like.


Ding a ling. You are HEADBANGING here Bede!###

I can just as easily sling your empty rhetoric back and state you are the one PRETENDING YOU KNOW BETTER.
Can we discuss our positions freely without alluding to "authority".

It has gotten me in trouble before referring to authorities. But is has gotten you in troule before -- if you remember our discussion regarding Henry Chadwick's book THE EARLY CHURCH and his summary that Augustine was against physical beatings of heretics.

Excellent. This is EXACTLY the type of discourse I want. I won't have time to answer tonight, but will put out a response over the next couple of night.

I agree with Lindberg there was plenty of scholarship -- but this was with few exceptions following PLATONIC philoshophy. While we see a DECLINE of scientific scholarship in the East (ie Byzantine Empire) there was virtually a HALT or ABSENCE of all scientific scholarship in the West.

Again, I will address your challenge why this was so over the next few nights.

Not at all

But you do seem to imply mass riots and formal eviction is the same. Care to ask any Jew to mediate which was worse? You like to "pretend" they are the same.


So, keep it short and compact. We are supposed to be debating - not writing books to each other.

I'll be back tomorrow.

Sojourner

[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Bede

Good to see you back, Sojourner,

First off, you accused me of headbanging. I do sometimes feeling I am having to bash my head against a brick wall here but your accusation was unfair. Put simply, you said:

“Today, historians tend to attribute EXTERNAL causes to the Dark Ages -- specifically the barbarian invasions.”

To which I replied:

“You are trying to show how current historians are wrong to show that the Dark Ages were down to barbarian invasions and that you know better.”

You respond:

“Ding a ling. You are HEADBANGING here Bede!###”

Let’s leave this, noting only that it is a good idea to look at what we have written as well as what our opponent has.

On authorities: I am afraid a debate on history without them is impossible. The question is what authorities are allowed. The answer is primary sources properly referenced (which excludes your Bacon quote, for instance) and academic historians properly referenced (not scientists writing popular history). Incidentally, a chap in my class was savagely marked down in an essay for referencing the Encyclopaedia Britannica which our tutor called a ‘bizarre’ thing to do. However, as we are not engaged in an academic debate and your quotes from the EB do not advance your case, we will let that stand.

We agree the near total halt in scientific study in the West, caused by the invasion of Germanic nomads, driven before the Huns, who destroyed the infrastructure of the Western Empire. Christianity had nothing to do with this and was responsible for the learning that survived. In the East, I do not agree there was a decline in science and have yet to see you produce any evidence for it. I accept science declined after the seventh century but this was due to the effect of the Arab invasions and the near continual siege and warfare that the Byzantine Empire found itself under. Once it had recovered, intellectual giants like Leo the Mathematician and Photius arose in the ninth century. In practical matters like automatons and Greek fire, the Byzantines were supreme. That said, as Edward Grant mentions in Foundations of Modern Science, there are vast numbers of unstudied, unread and sometimes uncatalogued Byzantine scientific manuscripts which await future scholars to delve into.

You are wrong about John Philoponus being theologically focused. You should read his entry in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. He did attack Aristotle and more often than not he was right and Aristotle was wrong. For instance, John said that heavy objects do not fall faster than light ones – he was correct – and contrary to Aristotle. I fail to see the relevance of your point about the politics of his appointment as head of school. He was the best scholar of his day and that is why he got the job. While Platonism could be taken the wrong way, it was as important a thread in the history of science as Aristotle. The problem in the early middle ages in the West is they only had Platonism rather than a constructive dialogue between the two. Aristotle alone is also not nearly enough and it was only throwing him off that allowed modern science to emerge.

The fact is Alexandria’s importance as a scholastic centre did not decline after Christianity arrived, great scientific work like John’s continued, it still enjoyed a near monopoly in secular medicine and this continued until the Persian invasion.

Your point on the eviction of the Jews is irrelevant to our discussion. While it was a very unpleasant thing it had nothing to do with the alleged decline in scholarship (which, as we have seen, never happened anyway). If the Jewish eviction from Alex is bad, how much worse the fate of the Jews of Palestine under pagan Emperors Vespasian and Hadrian (when they were expelled from Jerusalem – their capital – and the city razed to the ground)? Or the Jews of Cyprus, who Hadrian practically slaughtered to a man? Does this have any relevance to Greek learning in the first and second century? I very much doubt it. Please restrict yourself to points relevant to the question that heads this thread.

See you tomorrow.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede’s Library – faith and reason</a>

Sojourner553

We have been over this before: I rely on authorities for FACTS, but not their INTERPRETATION. However, I do feel bound when I stray from a leading authority's interpretation, to explain exactly why I do so.

Indeed my original interest in debating with you, Bede, was to try and read other points of view where I can use these as a test. Hopefully some of your motivation in debating falls along the same lines...

Because at this juncture, I am fully in agreement with Lindberg and think you are not. You will need therefore to explain your DEVIATIONS, Bede:

Obviously you have not checked out Lindberg’s THE BEGINNINGS OF WESTERN SCIENCE??? Let me help you out. (I think you know me well enough now that I attempt to be 100% honest at quotes. But if you want to check me out, you will find this towards the beginning of Chapter 8)

PLEASE DO NOTE THE WORD "SMALL" USED ABOVE BY LINDBERG to describe the Byzantine output of natural philosophy, mathematical science, and medicine. This is not the adjective(s) he uses to describe Islamic science, as I have demonstrated earlier.

Bede, Lindberg found Byzantium science so inconsequential, he does not devote even ONE chapter to them in his book THE BEGINNING OF WESTERN SCIENCE. Nor is this due to their location in the “East” – Why? Because Lindberg does praise Islamic science and devotes a whole chapter to them entitled “Science in Islam”.

More important the quotes above on the lack of science in Byzantium are a lead in to the chapter on scientific accomplishments of the Arabs. The main importance of Byzantium was as a conduit of Greek knowledge to the Arabs who actually did add to the body of science with the information. Per Lindberg:

Here is the lead in from Lindberg: First he states it is important to note the “small amount of natural philosophy, mathematical science, and medicene” did not mean there was no lack of scholarly achievement in Byzantium. {such a good politician that Lindberg} Then he continues:

After this point, Lindberg immediately discusses Themistius and Philoponus.

Again, Bede: Like Lindberg, I did not question whether Philoponus was a great scholar – only rather this scholarship fell along the SCIENTIFIC TRADITION!!!

The relevance is that this was reasoned by metaphysical means – Platonic theory – not science – ie observation of the world and the use of reason to IMPROVE our understanding of the natural laws governing the universe.

What we see in the Renaissance was the throwing off the medieval mindset that one COULD NOT QUESTION AUTHORITIES. This happened through stages. That is the relevence of challenging Aristotle. By the way, Lindberg implies throughout that the rediscovery of Aristotle in the West was a necessary step on the road towards becoming scientific.

It was still an important scholarly center. But science quickly became a handmaiden of religion and fell into decline. Do you “dare” (smile) disagree with Lindberg.

And did you perhaps forget what I was responding to?? Let me replay it for you:

Ie I was responding directly to an item you had listed AND:
I thought it was important to respond to this, that the DEGREE of riots and rebellion was just as important as cataloguing that they happened.

Perhaps I misread the tone “you know better”. But surely you know my style by now Bede: throwing back at others what they start first:

I think I have demonstrated above you you have not always read some of your own current historians very carefully… Do YOU “know better” than Lindberg, #1 authority on the issue Bede??

And of course: I want the tone to be exactly as the one you first implied. (Whatever that means, smile)

Sojourner


[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Sojourner553

Let me catch up on some past posts:

By the way, I liked your response on this post, Bede:

Per Sojourner:
"Contemporaries such as Ammianus Marcellinus (c.330 - 395 C.E.) wrote how certain people in Rome 'hated learning like poison' and that 'libraries were closed for ever like the tomb'."

Per Bede:

Rome at the time was till in large part pagan and earlier on, AM complains about how they worship statues (AM was a pagan too, but thought himself a bit above that sort of thing). These are not Christians he is complaining about. OK, some of them might be, but his complaints have nothing to do with Christianity at all. Sojourner implies strongly that the hatred of learning and the shutting of libraries was because they had all become religious fanatics. In fact, AM is complaining that had all become party animals. Indeed, this does look like a case of sedation rather than sedition.
[/quote]

Bravo! As you are (I think) aware: This quote came from Mostafa El-Abbadi, in his The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Part III, ch. 5 "The Fate of the Library and the Mouseion", 1992, pp. 164-167).

Now I had noticed Marcellinus’ death (395 CE) seemed a tad too early for the time period I was describing and should have followed up on my instincts. (Of course who has time to follow up on all these...) Anyway, looks like I fell for the trap of thinking an authority who SPECIALIZED in this period should at least show the full quote.

This is too much of a gray area for me as I wish to discuss HISTORICAL events as thoroughly as possible; and therefore will be removing it. The vast majority of my material on this topic came from other sources.

This parallels by the way, Bede, how I noted one of your respected authorities, Henry Chadwick had argued that Augustine was against the use of force against heretics. I showed you quotes from Augustine himself which strongly recommended beatings of heretics. (Agreed, though: Augustine was never for outright torture, although his justifications for beatings would be used by later generations of Christians to torture heretics).

BTW: Let me explain why I see a difference between the above and the horse analogy Bede: The story of (not) counting teeth in the horse’s mouth is discussed as a philosophical construct; and not history– As such, it is illustrative of ideas of proponents and critics of that time period. Therefore the exact authorship of the work is of secondary importance to me.

ie: The ideas from that time period were more important than who said it or whether it can be perfectly documented as a historical event.

May I remind you, this is your outlook on the Bible, Bede: ie You cannot “prove” the Bible’s exact authorship nor 100% document all its historical events; yet you consider its IDEAS important enough for you to follow and quote from.

You act as if all the Roman Christians died off and all their stock was replaced by barbarians. By "respect", I was referring to how easily they were converted over from ARIAN Christianity into Catholic Christianity.

How did the barbarians somehow force "only" their secular culture onto the Roman Christians and not their religious culture????

One more point to answer: The Greeks, as with most ancient peoples, faced wars. Why did not the Greek scientific tradition die out when they were conquered first by Macedonia and later Rome??
Could theology have something to do with it (ie maintain a dogma that was not "opposed" to all or a subset of the scientific outlook -- that causes are natural and one can find these causes through rational inquiry??)

Wasn’t the abysmal state of Rome due in large part to the Wars of Justinian in a futile attempt to rejoin the Western and Eastern halves of the Empire. I read somewhere the ruin and devastation of Rome from this was greater than from the sacking of the barbarians.

Who said “Christianity” was to blame? I have not blamed Christianity per se, ONLY the ultra-conservative ORTHODOX/CATHOLIC CHRISTIANS of this time period. Their partnership with corrupt governments helped established the policies that led to economic collapse.
Also, the Church was more interested in declaring all doctrine other than theirs as heresy. {It made a great scapegoat to hide their political corruptions, yes}. The internal purges and social unrest from this further weakened the empire. Combine that with the social impact (feudalization, etc) resulting form the political corruption, and the general populace no longer cared whether the barbarians took over or not.

Remember: The barbarians were fewer in number and had far less money than the Roman Christians. Byzantium had more cash and used it to bribe the barbarians time and again before the collapse.

But your assertion has been that Christianity is naturally pro-science in outlook. That is, modern science could "only" have emerged in a “Christian-like” society with its general outlooks.

Combine that with the common myth, that the Church preserved all Greco-Roman writings, and the statistic gives us a clue as to what was really going on.

Gee Bede: Are we arguing about whether the Church was “scholarly” or instead whether it had a scientific proclivity? You seem to wiggle a lot on this one. Are you changing the premise?

I’ll let you respond also why Lindberg is wrong about how in the West “natural philosophy was being transformed into the handmaiden of theology and religion”.

Lindberg has already done some of my work for me in explaining some of the differences between Western and Eastern Christianity. Obviously he does not consider within the scope of his book to discuss theological doctrine and here is where I think one can locate a difference in attitudes between East and West on the sciences.

It is late, so I think I will stop now and continue tomorrow.

But, I don’t think it will be any surprise who I identify as the genius behind the difference in East and Western Christian dogma...

Sojourner

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>