Keenir said:
Proof, please.
If you're concerned about pogroms, the Library of Alexandria, etc. that was AFTER the power-corrupts process started, not before.
Historical "Good Guys and Regimes"
- Thread starter zoomar
- Start date
Proof, please.
If you're concerned about pogroms, the Library of Alexandria, etc. that was AFTER the power-corrupts process started, not before.
Leo Caesius
Banned
I think Keenir's probably familiar with the scholarship of Peter Brown; he's probably the ranking St. Augustine expert, and a world leader in the study of Early Christianity. Here's what he has to say about the Syrian and Egyptian monks:
The Syrians were the 'stars' of the ascetic movement: wild vagrants dressed in skins, their matted hair making them look like eagles, these 'men of fire' amazed and disquieted the Greco-Roman world by their histrionic gestures.
When the citizens of Antioch expected savage punishment after a riot in 387, the imperial commissioners suddenly found their way to the doomed city barred by a group of Syriac-speaking holy men. While these wild figures interceded for the city, and their speeches were translated from Syriac into Greek, the bystanders 'stood around', wrote a witness, 'and shivered'.
From Mesopotamia to North Africa, a wave of religious violence swept town and countryside: in 388 the monks burnt a synagogue at Callinicum near the Euphrates; at the same time, they terrorized the village-temples of Syria; in 391, the patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilus, called them in to 'purge' the city of the great shrine of Serapis, the Serapeum. Bands of monastic vigilantes, led by Schenudi of Atripe (died c. 466), patrolled the towns of Upper Egypt, ransacking the houses of pagan notables for idols. In North Africa, similar wandering monks, the 'Circumcellions', armed with cudgels called 'Israels', stalked the great estates, their cry of 'Praise be to God' more fearful than the roaring of a mountain lion. In 415, the Egyptian monks shocked educated opinion by lynching a noble Alexandrian woman, Hypatia.
Paganism, therefore, was brutally demolished from below. For the pagans, cowed by this unexpected wave of terrorism, it was the end of the world. 'If we are alive,' wrote one, 'then life itself is dead.'
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose...When the citizens of Antioch expected savage punishment after a riot in 387, the imperial commissioners suddenly found their way to the doomed city barred by a group of Syriac-speaking holy men. While these wild figures interceded for the city, and their speeches were translated from Syriac into Greek, the bystanders 'stood around', wrote a witness, 'and shivered'.
From Mesopotamia to North Africa, a wave of religious violence swept town and countryside: in 388 the monks burnt a synagogue at Callinicum near the Euphrates; at the same time, they terrorized the village-temples of Syria; in 391, the patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilus, called them in to 'purge' the city of the great shrine of Serapis, the Serapeum. Bands of monastic vigilantes, led by Schenudi of Atripe (died c. 466), patrolled the towns of Upper Egypt, ransacking the houses of pagan notables for idols. In North Africa, similar wandering monks, the 'Circumcellions', armed with cudgels called 'Israels', stalked the great estates, their cry of 'Praise be to God' more fearful than the roaring of a mountain lion. In 415, the Egyptian monks shocked educated opinion by lynching a noble Alexandrian woman, Hypatia.
Paganism, therefore, was brutally demolished from below. For the pagans, cowed by this unexpected wave of terrorism, it was the end of the world. 'If we are alive,' wrote one, 'then life itself is dead.'
I thought "early Christians" referred to the pre-Constantine period, or even just the first 2 centuries. The mobs of fanatic monks, attacks on pagans, temples, etc., became a big deal 2-3 generations after Constantine, when Christianity had become a state religion.
With the early Christians, it was more likely to be the pagans coming to destroy their churches since they condemned other religions.
With the early Christians, it was more likely to be the pagans coming to destroy their churches since they condemned other religions.
Leo Caesius
Banned
Constantine didn't make Christianity the state religion; he merely legalized it. It didn't really become the official religion of the state until much later.Paul Spring said:
Paul Spring said:
Proof would be difficult to come by, given that the early Christians certainly had precious little opportunity to terrorise anyone in a state that disapproved of rebellion and disloyalty. However, the fate of some early dissenters within Christianity leaves me relatively little hope that they would have proved any different from their later cousins. Especially since the official church actually largely disapproved of the violent actions of mons and mobs, and in the case of the circumcellions went so far as to - what's the phrase - abandon them to the secular arm?.
carlton_bach said:
Christians in the pre-Constantine period killed dissenters within their own ranks? I'd never heard of that. I was under the impression that early Christian communities were pretty autonomous - if the community didn't like the views of a person or a small group, they were generally expelled, and ended up founding their own group.
By the end of the 4th-beginning of the 5th century, most of the important government officials were at least nominally Christian, and they usually condoned or encouraged mobs that attacked pagans. It seems to have been as much about politics and power as about religion - the government was promoting a "new order" partly based on the "official" version of Christianity, and they wanted to get rid of centers of rival groups, whether pagan temples or the churches of Christian groups that didn't follow the official line - ie "heretics".
Keenir
Banned
my real post
well, here's my votes...sorry this is late.
disqualified, as I don't really know anything about their policies in Confucius' lifetime.
very remarkable, both for their time & since then....how many other monarchs have married outside their religions?
(the English kings married the Welsh; the Ottomans married the Armenians)
bread and circuses, the pair of them.
and, tied for the nearly-the-worst-of-the-best:
and the absolute worst:
given explosives, and they'd be indistinguishable from a modern suicide bomber.
zoomar said:
well, here's my votes...sorry this is late.
disqualified, as I don't really know anything about their policies in Confucius' lifetime.
very remarkable, both for their time & since then....how many other monarchs have married outside their religions?
(the English kings married the Welsh; the Ottomans married the Armenians)
(9) The United States[/quote]
bread and circuses, the pair of them.
and, tied for the nearly-the-worst-of-the-best:
and the absolute worst:
given explosives, and they'd be indistinguishable from a modern suicide bomber.
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Paul Spring said:
They may have killed, but if they did, it was rare. What they did do was anathematise - exclude them from the community completely. And it appears many groups did this with gay abandon. Now, this may not sound like much, but the anathema does basically mean "you matter nothing, now go away and die and go to hell!". Any group with that degree of conern over spiritual purity and unanimity is bad news when given power.
Grey Wolf said:
Ironically, isn't this in the background of the current situation in Iraq? That is, the Ottomans left local affairs largely in the hand of Sunni or Shia traditional leaders, so that those affinities were the basis of community identity and much of local government.
Needless to say, this does not make the Ottomans responsible for events 90 years after the end of their rule.
-- Rick
Keenir said:
REally, how do you figure? Ive been reading into them lately. They ran the gamut in terms of theology, but I havent seen any evidence of violence.
There where a few violent acts against Rome, but mostly in retaliation for mass genocide. (In one day the Romans crucified 5000 Christians, and burned their bodies to illuminate the roads into the city).
The early Christian Church was a very peaceful and enlightened movement.
they are slod the only ones on the list without a terrible blackmark on their record, so they get my vote.
SkyEmperor said:
Now that would require proof. Mass cricifixions on this scale were so rare in Roman days that they were invariably recorded and commented on, and this one - I'd like to see the source.
They are the only ones on the list never to govern a nation or Empire. Opposition is always easier. That is also why I would exclude them from this list altogether - they belong grouped with other religious movements outside of or in opposition to government, not with Empires and dominant ideologies.