The Roman Empire and Christian Persecution

Have they been in power?

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

I think so?

They haven't "ruled" anywhere in a long time I don't think but they have had a great deal of pull in India.

edited 29th Sep '11 11:03:19 AM by JosefBugman

The Byzantine Emperor was not precisely the head of the Eastern Church, not exactly. They sometimes liked to style themselves as such, which led to such conflicts as the Iconoclastic Controversy; but they did not have full authority on religious matters.

And on the other hand, the Pope did not have true secular authority over the territories of Western Europe, except for the Pontifical State of course; this led to such situations as the investiture controversy, in which monarchs tried to have authority over spiritual matters while, at the same time, the Pope tried to have authority over temporal ones.

But in any case, neither the Pope nor the Byzantine Emperor ever styled themselves as personally divine, or as deserving of worship; and this is a very significant difference from the God-Emperor ideology.

edited 29th Sep '11 11:05:50 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Not as much as you may think.

They both represent Gods returned to earth and a direct link with them, they both communicate more easily with the divine etc etc.

The only difference is that they are elected offices, whereas the Emperorships (tended) to be hereditary.

So I read the BBC article and I'm concerned that it regards Christian triumph over Pagans as progress.

I don't like the fact it regards Christianity as getting progress by beating out pagan religions.

I really don't think that the Pope and the Byzantine Emperor were (are) so much more humble than the Roman Emperors. You have to consider that the Romans had roughly ... a gazillion (don't nail me down there) of gods, so in that line of thinking, claiming to be divine was not really such an exclusive claim.

Christianity however makes it a point that there is exactly one god. Being that one and only God's deputy is a quite strong claim, certainly not more humble than claiming to be a living deity among (let's say) thousands.

Let's just say and leave it at that.

Well, if it is "beating" other religions through predication and conversions, I do not see problem. But making Christianity into some sort of state religion, as Constantine and many of his successors did, goes, I think, against its very core principles — to say nothing about harassing or persecuting unbelievers.

I have a lot of respect for emperor Julian, actually. Yeah, he personally converted from Christianity to Paganism; but he did not lead any persecution, he allowed freedom of religion, he created charity institutions open to everyone (Christians and Pagans alike), and he even attempted (unsuccessfully) to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem.

Quite plainly, he was a better Christian that many of the "Christian" emperors who preceded him.

edited 29th Sep '11 11:29:15 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

@Bugman: Ok, you got me with the Jains, but with 10-12 million of adherents (less than 1 percent of people in its native India) (sources: Wikipedia), I think it's justifiable to not call it a "major" religion.

@Carciofus: It's natural that the Pope or the Byz. Emp. were not worshipped as deities, because Christianity makes it a dogma that you can't worship anything other than God. On the other hand, I think the underlying principle is the same: Derive legitimacy of autocratic rulership from religion.

About the "core principles of Christianity": I am sure you are aware that what you define as the "core principles of Christianity" varies depending on which brand of Christianity you subscribe to.

edited 29th Sep '11 11:37:53 AM by LordGro

Let's just say and leave it at that.

Yeah, us Christians can discuss pretty much endlessly about this. But I think that I can say with confidence that forced conversions and religiously motivated murders are not in keeping with the principles discussed in the Gospels.

And I still think that there is a huge difference between "claiming to have been granted some special authority by God" and "claiming to be more than human themselves".

By the way, now I am skimming through Emperor Julian's Oration Upon the Sovereign Sun. Pretty interesting stuff.*

edited 29th Sep '11 11:43:26 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

From a religious perspective, naturally. From a political perspective, not so much.

You wrote this about Julian the Apostate:

Well, that's the old No True Scotsman chestnut.

When someone does something ugly in the name of Christianity, he's "no true Christian." If someone does something nice without identifying as a Christian, he's "actually a Christian without knowing it."

That's nice but you can play the same game with "Muslim" and "Islam" instead of "Christian" and "Christianity", and so on.

Let's just say and leave it at that.

Actually, it isn't. I did not deny that he was not Christian, nor did I deny that his predecessors were so: I merely stated that his actions respected, in my opinion, the ideals of Christianity far more than those of his predecessors (who really should have known better).

Nothing else.

Well, a political difference is that it makes it easier, conceptually, to criticize the Pope or the Byzantine Emperor than it was to criticize the Roman Emperor.

If the Pope is a representative of God, it is possible to accuse him not to do his job correctly — to betray his task, so to say. And in a number of instances, various powers of Medieval Christianity did just that.

But if the Emperor is a god himself, there is no "higher authority" to appeal to, or to accuse the Emperor to betray; he's a superhuman being, and this is it.

edited 29th Sep '11 12:01:49 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

How Did I Not Notice This Thread Before?

About the "No True Scotsman" fallacy: if there was a book somewhere that said in it, "All true Scotsman follow the following rules", and every Identifying Scotsman said that this book was the truth, we could use the rules in that book to tell whether or not someone was a Scotsman couldn't we? We would be able to say "Hey, the thing you say is true says to do this, and you aren't doing that, so you obviously aren't following the rules, so you aren't a Scotsman". And we could say to someone who doesn't identify as a Scotsman "Hey, you are following those rules, you would make a good Scotsman. You should look it up sometime." And we could do this without committing a logical fallacy!

Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.

The problem is, that true scotsman book doesnt have a trillion people interpreting "truth" different ways.

Not exactly: The interpretations vary, but the core details are always there. Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, forgive others always, trust in the lord with all your heart soul and mind, love your neighbor as yourself, pretty much anyone saying "I am a Christian" agrees on those things. Julian, I guess, followed these rules, while Constantine didn't. Nero, well, let's not go there.

Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.

But the point is, I never said that the predecessors of Julian the Apostate were not Christian. Yeah, I put "Christian" between quotes when talking about them; but that was just to emphasize that they behaved in ways which are, I think, very unbecoming for a Christian.

And conversely, I did state that Julian was a Pagan, as he was; as I already said, the statement that he "was a better Christian than his predecessor" was merely a somewhat rhetorical way of saying that his actions were, I think, more in keeping with the principles of the Christian Faith than those of his predecessors.

Really, that's all that was to it.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

No, if the Pope is a representative of God, accusing him would mean accusing God. Where there's only one representative of God, there is no authority on earth that can criticize that representative legitimately.

Yes I know that happened a lot, but it happened just as well with the Roman Emperors. To get an impression, take a look at Wikipedia's list of Roman usurpers. Both the Roman Empires (pagan and Christian) were notorious for their countless usurptions and palace revolts.

Let's just say and leave it at that.

I don't want to pound on the No True Scotsman thing. To elaborate on what I want to say:

I come from a Christian background myself and I saw myself as a "philosophical Christian" for a long time: I did not really believe in God, that Jesus was God's son, that there was a life after death, that there was a Heaven or a Hell, that there was a hereditary sin, that Jesus' crucifixion had redeemed humanity or somehow "atoned for my sins", or that Jesus ever came back from the dead.

Yet I still thought that the gospel contained worthwhile and important ethical teachings.

The problem with this outlook is that it's theologically wrong. Christian teaching is: You don't believe in God — you go to hell. You don't believe Jesus is the son of God — you go to hell. You don't believe that only Jesus can save you — you go to hell.

If you think that Jesus was just a philosopher who taught great ideals and ethics, you're no Christian, and accordingly will go to hell. Christians (as you know) don't see Jesus as a philosopher; they see him as the saviour of mankind and the son of God. That's the core of Christianity, the actual thing what it's about.

Anybody can be a philosopher. You don't have to be divine to be a philosopher. Philosophers make philosophy, not a religion. A philosophy in itself is not intrinsically linked to a certain person, institution or cultus.

You (Carciofus and Jimmyman) emphasize Christian ideals and Christian ethics. But you overlook that "being a Christian" is much, much more than that. Ethical teachings and ideals are not the core of the religion called Christianity. For you neither have to be a Christian to appreciate this ideals, nor does appreciating these ideals make you a Christian, nor is it, according to Christian teachings, in any way sufficient to appreciate these ideals.

Let's just say and leave it at that.

Actually, it is still possible to criticize him — just like, for example, a knight could criticize his liege if he believed that the liege was betraying the Emperor. Conceptually, it works just fine, and arguments of this sort were used quite often in the conflicts between Papacy and Empire.

The very fact that these two powers were separated (and often in conflict), and not united in one single person as during the Roman Empire, makes it clear that the political situation was wildly different.

EDIT:

Bloody hell, no. This is a — hopelessly simplistic — interpretation which is apparently very popular with a number of Protestant groups, but which is rejected in its entirely by both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, among others.

But I agree that Christianity requires more than thinking that "Jesus was just a philosopher who taught great ideals and ethics".

edited 29th Sep '11 12:54:57 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

On pagans and Hell: Christians have found answers to this problem.

THAT'S JUST ONE. I am sure there are more.

edited 29th Sep '11 12:46:48 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Protip to god: if you don't mean "nonbelievers go to hell", don't put it in the holy book.

Protip to humans: read, and then try to use your head to understand the meaning of what you have read.

Also, the Bible is inspired, not dictated, and it was never thought to be textually perfect, blah blah, contradictions everywhere, blah blah, even from a stylistic point of view plenty of books in it are pretty bad Greek, blah blah, I am sure I wrote this already more than a few times.

edited 29th Sep '11 1:01:05 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Protip: I WILL SHANK WHO USES THIS FROM NOW ON.

Same goes for >implying.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Actually, I'm right. As an aside, I did grow up Catholic and never was member of or sympathized with a Protestant group. Quoting the Catholic Catechism via Wikipedia:

"Those who through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience — those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Now I do know the Gospel and 'His Church', and I don't believe in Jesus' Godhood, the Ressurection and all that other weird mystical fantasy stuff, and I do not "seek God", whatever that phrase may mean. So I can't achieve eternal salvation.

The same goes for Julian the Apostate, who knew about the Gospel of God and rejected it.

The "virtuous pagan" a.k.a. "anonymous Christian" clause is only applicable to those that never heard of Christ and the Gospel, or got it never correctly explained. But once the Gospel is taught and explained to you, and you don't convert, and you die — down you go.

Let's just say and leave it at that.

"I am sure there are more."

This includes things so simple as an outright refusal of the thing and making salvation primarily works based as opposed to faith based (faith just getting you a supposed extra edge).

Christianity is about as consistent belief wise across everything as cats are pacifistic hippies who practice ahimsa on a daily basis.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

OK, let's see what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say on the matter:

"Receiving the Gospel" here does not mean simply "being aware that Christianity exists". That would make no sense — all Jewish and Muslim people know that, presumably, and pretty much everyone else too by now. As my second quote says, Salvation comes from Christ and through the Church; but this does not mean that it does cannot reach even the people who do not belong to the Church proper. The only category of people that these quotes say that cannot be saved are those who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded by God for the salvation of humankind, choose to stay outside it. Julian, quite apparently, knew nothing of that sort — he would have dismissed that claim as false, in fact. The same, I presume, holds for you.

edited 29th Sep '11 1:30:36 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.