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The development of the Christian Church

  
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
05:02 / 15.03.07
So I finally finished Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels yesterday, and while the entire book was a fascinating look at the diversity of early Christian beliefs, the conclusion of the book really made me think for a minute. From the last chapter:

It is the winners who write history--their way. No wonder, then, that the viewpoint of the successful majority has dominated all traditional accounts of the origin of Christianity. Ecclesiastical Christians first defined the terms (naming themselves "orthodox" and their opponents "heretics"); then they proceeded to demonstrate--at least to their own satisfaction--that their triumph was historically inevitble, or, in religious terms, "guided by the Holy Spirit."

But the discoveries at Nag Hammadi reopen fundamental questions. They suggest that Christianity might have developed in very different directions--or that Christianity as we know it might not have survived at all. Had Christianity remained multiform, it might well have disappeared from history, along with dozens of rival religious cults of antiquity. I believe that we owe the survival of Christian tradition to the organizational and theological structure that the emerging church developed.

She goes on to tie together some other themes in the book, as befitting a proper conclusion, but it was this bit that I wanted to bring before Barbelith.

The organizational and theological structure she refers to is the bits and pieces that eventually came together to form a strong religous and political movement. Some gnostic branches did not buy into apostolic succession and authority, feeling that it was up to each individual to seek his own answers, or that knowledge could only be passed from teacher to individual pupil. Some branches felt that while Christ's love was given to all, only a select few were capable of gaining the knowledge of Christ neccessary for salvation.

Given that, it's not surprising that those who believed in apostolic succession and authority, as well as the belief that to be a true Christian one need only confess and be baptized, had the numbers and organizational qualities to outlast their opposition, propogate and survive. After reading about the multitude of different beliefs I have no problem believing Pagels when she writes Had Christianity remained multiform, it might well have disappeared from history, along with dozens of rival religious cults of antiquity.

So: is that a good thing, or a bad thing? My own beliefs are not included in any one recognizable Christian sect, either current or ancient; they're scattered around pretty evenly. So I can't really get with the current Catholic Church or any of the Protestant groups either, and thus sort of feel bad that if the Dead Sea Scrolls hadn't been found no one would know just how varied and multiform the early Church was. The knowledge that so many Christians had so many different ideas early on makes me feel better about my right to call myself a "christian" (should I ever choose to do so. I'm still not sure if I will).

How many gnostic churches/cults are kicking around these days? Not many, and none of them are very big I bet. So while it sucks that they didn't last beyond the first few centuries, at least one group made it. And while the history of the Catholic Church has it's share of bloodshed, which looks especially appalling when it's purported goals and ideals are place next to it, you can't say it hasn't done any good. Charity was and is a highly valued virtue of the Church. So, um, maybe it was worth it? I dunno. Thoughts?




P.S. If anyone is going to rant and wail against the evils of the Church, feel free to do so but let's try to stay on topic and avoid gross exaggeration please.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:35 / 15.03.07
Personally i tend to see the church as a sucessful Media corporation, that sold a very good story backed up by temples and statues and a book for a very long time.

People became accustomed to this process through ritual which is a very powerful tool that operates on the level of childhood psychology to transmit messages. The more clever were then taken in by a set of psychological symbols that they engaged with and then created within themselves further elaborating on the symbology set down by prior authors, the same work can be seen in todays formula films and music genres.

The christian churches are a very powerful set of symbol structures that are easy to mistake for an absolute reality because of the way in which they transmit the word, in an environment of reinforcement for that said symbolic structure, once this symbolic structure had been taken on by other media forms which then repeated the same stories using different symbols, those truthes appeared to be everywhere.

This is not to knock the power and effectiveness of such structures as if adopted that indeed become powerful symbol sets and narratives to create a conscious and unconscious psychological environment, in which the faithful can find a large degree of support and help as there are many others who share in this particular psychological set of self mythological narratives.

Christianity is a complex set of stories that interweave and create logical paradoxes, which further engages the mind to engage further and think harder about the content and context of the christian message thus focusing the concentration and intent in the desired direction.

Further searches into the unorthodox areas of christian narratives provides the same recourse, a way to engage with similar stories from differing angles thus slightly altering the context of the message while building on the underlying content and further reinforcing the overall reality of the message being communicated.

Intrestingly i am still talking about it.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:43 / 15.03.07
My Rant.

My view point about the christian religion is coloured by being sexually abused at school aged 5 by my first teacher, who after the abuse used to take me into hymn practice with the other children.

The abuse is in the past but is still being delt with, my current concerns concern things like, for how long will christian institutions turn there head and look the otherway about these issues, the christian church is still developing but during its developement it has know about child abuse for alongtime.

30 years of my life has been coloured by the abuse i recieved as a child, while people in the church and community turned there heads and looked the otherway, how does an organisation or collection of organisations develope if they are not prepared to face the truth about themselves and there guilt in claiming ignorance for the problems and gross abuses they create, its still happening, they are still walking without any kind of real justice.

30 years of my life would have been lived very differently if people had not accepted that priests/religous types were known for and accepted as abusers of children and oppressors of women.

It still continues in the developement of the religion today, where it considers itself big enough to take the blow it recieves from annoying little voices like me and others, whom are finally gathering into alouder voice.

The developement of christianity is characterised by the abuse of different groups of people, it refuses to take responsibility for situations it has created, it refuses to be tolerant to other religions and cultures to the point of totalitarian attitudes.

It has developed degenerately into institutionalised demonology, to focus only on positive developements is a misnomer, this is an organisation that refuses to take responsibility for its atrocious mistakes and claims them as gods work. A survivor of sexual abuse i know was told by a priest that it was gods will, gods wish that it had happened to him.

This is a truely dispicable organisation of churches and faiths, that refuses to apply it own precepts to itself and be measured by its own ethics and morals.
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:00 / 15.03.07
To be fair, i can see that christian organisations would develope more quickly and suitably if they were led by a group of more socially conscious individuals that were more flexible in there approach to biblical teaching.

I dont think all christians remain ignorant of the atrocities that a misapplication of christain philosophy can be utilised for and i believe it would be possible for christianity to be reborn or ressurected.

But in its current form with its attendent baggage, its refusal to atone for the very sins it rallies against i dont see that happening. I would like to see the church stop protecting paedophiles and stop propping up warmongers.

The churches need to stop and think about people and accept and pay the consequences for the damage they have done socially. Inside of me the church is in purgatory.

On my worst days the church is in hell.
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:37 / 15.03.07
I am beginning to think all of these christian topic titles act as triggers for me, just like churches and christians, mostly in a homicidal way emotionally that slowly but surely manifests as passive aggression and then turns into cynicism and depression as i see it all slowly abusing more people.

Time to disengage.
 
 
the permuted man
15:46 / 15.03.07
Wow, that's some powerful stuff to read, wolfangel.

Regrettably, I don't feel I have the knowledge base to offer any factual information on the development of the Christian Church.

If I were to speculate, I'd say it's success is due largely to political ties and a doctrine which exploits fear, guilt, and ignorance.

The church began as an underground movement, a radical revolution starting among and diverging from Judaism, in a polytheistic (well, I'm not convinced how many people actually "worshipped" the gods) Rome. Secret meetings in catacombs, martyrdom, and all that cool stuff.

But this lasted how long until in hoc signo vincit, and we have a new state religion by imperial decree? Not that this was uncommon really. I mean, rulers were always adopting religions and declaring them the only religion for their people. So what was the difference?

I guess Christianity put a much larger emphasis on "saving others" where a lot of other religions had been more about personal progress and reconciliation. The association with other paths as anathema -- and resulting intolerance -- I don't think was a Christian invention. I think it's been present in most every politically-adopted religion, but it was still present.

Moving into the Middle Ages, I imagine its success grew largely due to luck and good fortune of having shrewd people in charge of it. Personal opinion (as is all of this), but the people in power were more important than the religion they were using as a control structure. The church was just another hand of the government and the clergy class had real power and protected this power shrewdly. They maintained a better level of education, had special legal allowances, etc. They could repay the government by (mis)using doctrine to support political agendas (not altogether dissimilar from today).

The interaction between church and parishoner was much less mutually beneficial. The church offered an answer to existential fear, an answer unobtainable without the bundled guilt, specially designed to make control easier.

This continued through Reformation -- designed to combat most of this -- but as much a political statement as a relgious one. I mean it seems only fitting that as we politically shift away from the Monarchy, the Church would have to evolve as well to maintain its grasp on power. I'm not saying it was intentional, but it's interesting because I think it's one of the major evolution points of the Church and shows it will evolve to retain its power. And in the end its still using the same methods: a symbiotic political relationship, and control by guilt, fear, and ignorance.

Anyway, this is all speculation and arrant generalization, so for the most part: worthless. And I'm just talking about the Church itself and not the Christian faith, which has a lot of good things going for it. Plus there are a lot of people in the Church who genuinely believe and that strength of faith is as powerful as any other, and often leads to healthy and good side effects. On the other hand, it's these people that probably (unwittingly) keep the Church alive. People come because there is something there; and if the true believers left it, the whole manipulative power-grabbing infrastructure would probably collapse in on itself.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
17:46 / 15.03.07
Interestingly last Autumn there was a documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls by that fella who does religious programs on British TV while standing around looking Byronic and wearing a hat. While it started out as yer standard documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other non-canon texts and banned sub-groups he then went on to explain theologically why they were banned by the Church or not included in the Bible.

I wish I could remember his name or the name of the program in order to make this post worth writing...
 
 
archim3des
20:52 / 15.03.07
i'm with you on this wolf angel, i just wrote a 700 or 800 word answer, filled with some pretty intense and furiously written stuff and upon reading it i realized it really had nothing to do with this topic.

i think at the end of the day, the author your speaking of is wrong. any successful religious institution, that achieves the level of of a world spanning politically connected religion, will wind up as heirarchial and nihilistically patrisitic. i'm reminded of the televangelists of today and their mega-churches, with their fire and brimstone rhetoric, and how proportional it is in relation to the early church fathers and their millenarian messages, with their gothic cathedrals. chrisitianity today is but one reflection of the classical sun cult, and its mysteries and initiations translate readily into christian terminology, and more matrisitic or equilbriated sects of that religion such as the various gnostic groups held heiros gaimos, holy sex, as one of their main sacraments, and it seems to me that on the patrist end of the spectrum sex is only violence. in this way the apostolically inclined church fathers could not involve sex in their message, they're reality tunnels couldn't accept it, and the cults that did had not interest in political organization in the form of apostolic succession. it was the gangster mentality of priest of any color or creed that bought the success of the apostolic churches, against the disorganized covens of mystic christians, which by their nature where anarchic, trending towards individual spiritual sovereignty, which readily translates to personal/political sovereignty. " only we can get you in with the big guy" vs. "the true temple of solomon is within every man".


my apologies to you wolfangel for your misfortune

*sorry about the lack of capitalization, my shift key is broken.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
23:29 / 15.03.07
i think at the end of the day, the author your speaking of is wrong.

You say this, but then follow it with

any successful religious institution, that achieves the level of of a world spanning politically connected religion, will wind up as heirarchial and nihilistically patrisitic.

I'm going to ignore the "nihilistically patristic" comment, which doesn't make any sense, and focus on the heirarchical bit, which is part of what Pagels was talking about. In most traditions where transmission of sacred knowledge between humans is important, there is going to be some sort of hierarchy. That's more or less unavoidable, and part of what Pagels was talking about. I'm not sure why you think this means she was wrong.

i'm reminded of the televangelists of today and their mega-churches, with their fire and brimstone rhetoric, and how proportional it is in relation to the early church fathers and their millenarian messages, with their gothic cathedrals.

Um...I don't think they had any gothic cathedrals in the times we're discussing, nor were there any millenarian messages. I'm not sure why you were reminded of this or why it is even being mentioned.

chrisitianity today is but one reflection of the classical sun cult,

That's a bit of an overstatment, but we'll let it slide for now...

and its mysteries and initiations translate readily into christian terminology, and more matrisitic or equilbriated sects of that religion...

I don't think "matristic" is actually a word. You seem to be using it in opposition to the world "patristic", your use of "equilibrated" seems to support this--but "patristic" simply means "pertaining to writings of early christian fathers". I'm not sure what you were trying to make "matristic" mean, but just so you know, there are no writings of early christian women.

...such as the various gnostic groups held heiros gaimos, holy sex, as one of their main sacraments, and it seems to me that on the patrist end of the spectrum sex is only violence.

Seems that way to you, hmmm? Care to elaborate on that? And which gnostic groups, exactly, held heiros gamos as one of their main sacrements? I believe that is a predominately pagan tradition.

Once again you're using the word "patrist" ("one versed in patristy") in a way I don't think it was intended to be used.

in this way the apostolically inclined church fathers could not involve sex in their message, they're reality tunnels couldn't accept it, and the cults that did had no interest in political organization in the form of apostolic succession.

Let's all ignore the term "reality tunnels", okay? No need to say anything about it.

Moving on: no, early Christian fathers probably did not include heiros gamos in their message, most likely because it had absolutely no place in their message. Also, apostolic succession was not simply a method of political organization, it was just a method of transmission that lent itself to a type of organization that proved to be very successful.


Let try to understand: you're saying, then, that the church evolved the way it did because certain people, cerain male-centric and domination-oriented people, were more interested in it becoming a powerful political organization, and they held certain views so naturally these views became dominant. You disagree with the idea that certain ideas naturally lent themselves to a more successful kind of organization, which led to the Church developing along certain lines. Am I right?
 
 
SMS
02:54 / 16.03.07
A couple points. First,
It is the winners who write history--their way.
Victors do write history and they do write it from their perspective, but, as a case in point, if we look at the history represented in the Hebrew scriptures, two things become apparent. The people of Israel are not represented as anything like perfect. In addition, the perspectives of the writers of the Hebrew scriptures seems to have differed substantially — those various, differing perspectives were all brought together, placed side by side, sometimes with internal contradictions (ie the creation story) (one not invalid form of biblical interpretation involves seeking syntheses among apparently contradictory ideas presented in the Bible).

Second,
the canon in the New Testament comprises multiple perspectives as well. It is a good bet that the writer of Luke and the writer of John could have gotten into a bar fight over proper eucharistic practice. Both gospels were placed in the canon, with John actually sitting right between two Lukan texts.

Third,
then they proceeded to demonstrate--at least to their own satisfaction--that their triumph was historically inevitble, or, in religious terms, "guided by the Holy Spirit."
As far as I know, the claim that Catholic church has been guided by the Spirit is a normative claim that has its practical meaning within the context of the communion. I may be mistaken about this, but I think that the claim of the church’s infallibility (under certain contexts and conditions) is not intended as an argument for conversion, but an argument to establish a norm for the church itself, on the fairly reasonable assumption that a) the essential teachings of the church cannot be preserved without the establishment of norms and b) questions about the meaning of those norms will need to be decided by designated people within the tradition whenever conflicts about those meanings need resolution. That last point probably supports Pagels in a way, but her account seems not to make a distinction between persuasion and manipulation.

I haven't studied much of hieros gamos in relation to Christianity, but sexuality is fairly often used as an analogy of the joy experienced through the eucharist or other unions with God. It may not be sexual in the sense of, say, ritualistic sex rites, but we don’t really have such a limited notion of sexuality around these parts, do we? Origin (I think) has a sermon on the Song of Songs that I found absolutely delightful when reading it. I’m not at all convinced that the people of old had a less enlightened view of sexuality than anyone today. Augustine believed that if we were truly sinless (ie, in the Garden), all sex would be more pleasurable than it is today, because no one would be embarrassed about it. But, he said, people are embarrassed about it, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do to change that without at the same time failing to recognize our own inner worth. As evidence, he points to the fact that the cynics who had apparently experimented with sex in public in the past had basically failed.

People come because there is something there; and if the true believers left it, the whole manipulative power-grabbing infrastructure would probably collapse in on itself.
hrmph. Here I was cutting and pasting quotes from your post to point out all the parts that I think are mistaken, and then you come along with the last paragraph and do it yourself.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
06:39 / 16.03.07
the canon in the New Testament comprises multiple perspectives as well. It is a good bet that the writer of Luke and the writer of John could have gotten into a bar fight over proper eucharistic practice. Both gospels were placed in the canon, with John actually sitting right between two Lukan texts.

We could compare the gnostic gospels and the canonical gospels to see how different ideas are expressed in each, and from that discern how similar the four canonical gospels are to each other, but I'm pretty sure someone has already done that. I'm going to keep my eye out for an essay or something. But I'm not entirely sure what point you're making--that the canonical gospels present as diverse a collection of ideas as actally existed in the first and second centuries?

I haven't studied much of hieros gamos in relation to Christianity, but sexuality is fairly often used as an analogy of the joy experienced through the eucharist or other unions with God.

If you say so then I'll take your word for it. Rumi, certainly, often characterized union with god in sexual terms, but if it's an analogy used often in Christian texts I'm not familiar with them.

I’m not at all convinced that the people of old had a less enlightened view of sexuality than anyone today.

Uh, me neither. I'm not sure what this has to do with my post.


hrmph. Here I was cutting and pasting quotes from your post to point out all the parts that I think are mistaken, and then you come along with the last paragraph and do it yourself.

Um. Are you talking to me here? I didn't post that.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
11:36 / 16.03.07
Tuna - interesting hypothetical question. Perhaps it'd be useful to examine religious traditions that have retained varying degrees of multivocality and survived?

Your point about charity is well-made. of course, there's ample evidence for charitable activities in pre-Christian cultures, but it has been argued by some historians that early Christians took their other-directed benevolence to a new level - particularly in respect to public emergencies such as plagues. The early Christians initially organised themselves as "burial societies" (such institutions or clubs were a well-known feature of roman social life - formalised house churches don't begin to appear until the late 2nd century A.D.) and it seems that by the end of the 2nd century, Roman public authorities were praising them for their efficient organisation. By the 3rd century, the bishop Fabian had divided Rome into seven districts and appointed a deacon for each, to oversee what we would now refer to as welfare and community work - distributing charitable funds, caring for orphans and widows; the elderly and the sick. Edwin Hatch, in The Organization of the Early Christian Churches suggests that the role of the Bishop emerged out of the necessity to manage church funds. Of course this system was not without its problems. For example, the 4th century bishop Eusibius documents the avarice of bishops who kept church income for their own personal use.
 
 
SMS
11:46 / 16.03.07
Nope. I was talking to the permuted man. All the stuff I had written in response to his post I deleted, since it all pretty much centered on that point. Hence the hrmph.

… that the canonical gospels present as diverse a collection of ideas as actally existed in the first and second centuries?

Well, the gnostic texts do widen the perspectives and the ideas presented in or through those texts will differ from the canonical reading of the gospels (especially since not all gnostics were Christian), but, of course, how great the difference is between any two ideas is going to be measured differently depending on the practical implications within a certain social and political climate. In part, I’m responding to this:

But the discoveries at Nag Hammadi reopen fundamental questions. They suggest that Christianity might have developed in very different directions,

which seems it might be leaning on an assumption that no one knew history could have taken a different course prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, or that no one knew that there were important debates about the fundamental nature of Christianity, and that seems wholly implausible to me. And maybe it isn’t Pagels’ point, so I don’t intend it as a direct rebuttal, but perhaps only as a footnote.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
13:23 / 16.03.07
One of Pagels points, if I remember correctly, is that the presence of the Gnostic Gospels indicates that there was no common standard or orthodoxy of beliefs in the first centuries of Christianity - just competing groups of Christians. She argues that the production of the gospel of John was done largely to refute the gospel of Thomas (and its followers) and that the gospel of John was then taken up by Iranaeus as part of his refutation of gnostic teachers - leading eventually to the foundation and enforcement of the Nicean creed.
 
 
grant
16:32 / 16.03.07
This is a minor footnote to this discussion, possibly, but you all are aware that some groups labeled as gnostic were rather virulently anti-sex and practiced fairly thorough celibacy, right?

There's a bit on that here, in critique of Pagels. Here's the central stuff:

For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. [The Gnostic Gospels, p.49, from the Gospel of Thomas]

How does a woman "make herself male"? Apparently through celibacy. The Gnostics don't care much for the world or for the flesh. Egyptian monasticism, which later become orthodox and spread through the traditional Church (before being rejected by Protestants), began with the Gnostics. It is perhaps the one enduring contribution of Gnosticism to Christian practice. There was a range in Gnostic attitudes towards the material body, from regarding it as evil, or an illusion, to just being inferior. But either way, ordinary activities of marriage, intercourse, and procreation are to be avoided for spiritual growth. Pagels characterizes this side of Gnosticism as due to "some extremists" [ibid. p.67], but I seem to have missed the texts where mainstream Gnostic opinion said something different. It doesn't look like it did. Although some Gnostics were accused of "violating strict warnings concerning sexual abstinence and monogamy" [ibid., p.43], abstinence is actually more consistent with the rest of Gnostic doctrine.

"If spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth [the spirit] has made its home in this poverty [the body]." [p.26, from the Gospel of Thomas, Pagels' brackets and quotation marks]

Compare this with the saucy, sexy language of the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon).

Anyway, you know, if you're not making babies, then your Sunday schools tend to be kind of empty, which leads to bad things for your denomination after a few decades unless you've got some really good sales staff on your side.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
18:07 / 16.03.07
but you all are aware that some groups labeled as gnostic were rather virulently anti-sex and practiced fairly thorough celibacy, right?

Well I certainly am. Thanks for the critique of Pagels tho' Grant. I have to say that I did find her argument to be weak in a number of places and overall not very convincing. More on this later...
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
18:30 / 16.03.07
Thanks for the critique of Pagels tho' Grant. I have to say that I did find her argument to be weak in a number of places and overall not very convincing.

I do do too after reading the link grant provided. It would appear that Pagels has been a little sloppy and has, at best, a selective memory. Good stuff, grant!
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
18:39 / 16.03.07
Well, let me add that while I did at first seem to catch an almost pro-gnosticism/anti-orthodoxy feeling, Pagels denies such preference in the conclusion and I was willing to believe her. She does seem to be unwilling to take into account the idea that Gnosticism just didn't appeal to very many people, however. Not that it's ideas just didn't lend itself to strong organizaton, but that people just didn't go for it. The two may be connected, but Pagels overlooks the latter pretty consistently.
 
 
EvskiG
20:07 / 16.03.07
Compare this with the saucy, sexy language of the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon).

Song of Songs is, of course, Old Testament while the Gnostic Gospels were (rejected) New Testament.

The books that actually made it into the New Testament weren't exactly pro-sex either.

For example: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. [That is, as a celibate.] But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." 1 Corinthians 7:8-9.
 
 
EvskiG
20:20 / 16.03.07
By the way, for a laugh check out Rashi's commentary on the Song of Solomon.

He desperately tries to interpret "[y]our two breasts are like two fawns, the twins of a gazelle, who graze among the roses" as referring to either Moses and Aaron, or the two tablets of the Ten Commandments.

Lame.
 
 
SMS
23:58 / 16.03.07
What does Rashi's interpretation tell us, though? That he thinks poorly of sex or that he thinks that sex is an appropriate symbol of humanity's relationship with God? Also, do you really find his interpretation desperate? It seems more like a kind of imaginative exercise intended to enliven the spirit to me. He doesn't show any signs of desperation.
 
 
EvskiG
02:31 / 17.03.07
Personally, I think that throughout his interpretation of the Song of Songs Rashi is attempting to graft a mystical interpretation on what was most likely a simple series of (quite beautiful) erotic poems.

And yes, I do think that he's at least in part doing this because he's uncomfortable with the overt sexuality of the poems.

Other minds may differ.

Here's the Oxford Jewish Study Bible:

"While it is possible that the allegorical understanding of the poem was already current at the time of the book's canonization, it is also possible that the poems were introduced into the canon because, as secular love songs, they occupied an important place in the culture of ancient Israel in Biblical and Second Temple times. Once the book became part of the canon, the tendency to interpret it allegorically increased."
 
 
Seth
03:53 / 17.03.07
For example: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. [That is, as a celibate.] But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." 1 Corinthians 7:8-9.

Drunk and without sober capabilities for research, but the way that passage was always taught to me was in the sense of *burn* with unexpressed passion rather than *burn* in hell.
 
 
SMS
15:05 / 17.03.07
I know a Paul scholar who agrees with Seth.
 
 
EvskiG
18:11 / 17.03.07
Could be.

I wasn't focusing on the "burn" part of the quote.

My point was that, according to Paul in one of the established books of the New Testament, the Christian ideal was celibacy.
 
 
Seth
18:04 / 19.03.07
The standard response to that I used to get when I was more interested in these things is that Paul advocated celibacy as part of a policy of non-attachment in times of persecution, generally to make life easier on people. I don't have much invested in that response and I've never really looked into it myself. Just repeating stuff in a sad parrot fashion today!
 
 
grant
18:24 / 19.03.07
Does anyone here know more about sexual religious practices (or religious sexual practices) in ancient Rome? I'm developing this suspicion that part of Christianity's "hook" might have been the alternative it presented to the boring old orgies at the temples of Venus or Jupiter, but I don't know enough about that to say for sure.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
11:52 / 20.03.07
I'm developing this suspicion that part of Christianity's "hook" might have been the alternative it presented to the boring old orgies at the temples of Venus or Jupiter, but I don't know enough about that to say for sure.

Grant

I think it'd be an interesting development for this thread to examine the emergence of early Christian attitudes to sexuality, morality etc., and how they related to those of the Greco-Roman world. I think for example that if you want to examine the roots of early Christianity's attitudes towards women you'll find much to go on in the works of Aristotle and Galen, as well as Stoics such as Seneca.

I wonder how much of the popular representation of roman religious orgies is itself myth - especially when you consider instances such as the senate's repression of the Bacchanalia in 186BCE.
 
 
grant
13:51 / 20.03.07
Ooo! What exactly happened there? What does "repression" mean? Outlawed? Why'd they do it??
 
 
trouser the trouserian
14:42 / 20.03.07
Repressed" - as in priests arrested, meetings outlawed, places of worship destroyed, members thrown into prison or executed. It's reckoned that more than 7,000 men and women were implicated.

The Senate's decrees included:
“No one of them shall have a place devoted to the worship of Bacchus: and if there are any who say that they have a need for such a place, they shall appear in Rome before the urban praetor; and when the pleas of these men have been heard, our Senate shall make a decision regarding these matters, provided that not less than 100 senators are present when the matter is discussed. No Roman citizen or man of Latin rights or anyone of the allies shall associate with the Bacchae, unless they have appeared before the urban praetor and he has given permission, in accordance with the opinion of the Senate, delivered while not less than 100 senators were present when the matter was discussed.”

Here's Livy's account of the affair.
 
  
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