Beyond the surface of history myths

[scy12]

Exactly - that's why I put in the "Middle Ages" bit as part of the myth. In fact, witches officially didn't even exist in the Middle Ages, because the church denied the possibility of magic at all. It was only with the redefinition of witches as satanists in the Renaissance that conceptual space was made for accepting their existence in the first place.



But Augustine was hardly the only rational Christian philosopher of antiquity. Obvious other examples include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose of Milan, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and many others. Augustine is just the most famous, and indeed he took some of his best ideas from the other figures mentioned. The thought of Marius Victorinus, for example, is much more philosophically sophisticated and difficult than that of Augustine (which is why he was read only by specialists even in his day, and remains little-known now). I'm sure you know that one of the first things Augustine did after becoming a Christian was to form a sort of Christian version of Plato's Academy and retire there, with the aim of spending the rest of his life in philosophical contemplation. Why did he do that? Because, by his day, the ancient philosophical ideals had become perfectly wedded to Christian thought. This was the work of Christian thinkers before Augustine, particularly the Cappadocians and the nascent monastic figures in Egypt influenced by them. For example, Gregory of Nazianzus used the word philosophia as a technical term for Christian contemplation of God. Evagrius Ponticus used the word theoria (which Aristotle had used to mean leisurely rational contemplation) to refer to the state achieved by a Christian monk through discipline and rational study, in which he could hope to encounter God. Augustine was just part of that tradition, not some amazing one-of-a-kind rationalist in an age of anti-intellectualism. And he was moderate compared to some of them - the Origenist tradition, especially after Evagrius, was far more rationalist and intellectualist (they believed that God is a mind, and that human beings are really minds, which means that coming closer to God is a matter of learning more).

And it is false to suggest that rational theology then disappeared and didn't reappear until the thirteenth century. What of Isidore of Seville, John of Damascus, Faustus of Riez, Alcuin of York, Eriugena, Agobard of Lyon, Anselm of Canterbury, Anselm of Laon, Adelard of Bath, Peter Abelard, etc etc etc...? These people were all perfectly rational and logical (and some, such as Agobard and Adelard, were far more "rationalist" than either Augustine or Aquinas). I don't believe that anyone could be aware of the work of, say, Leontius of Byzantium or Rabanus Maurus and claim that logic and reason had no place in theology in the period between Augustine and Aquinas.

These people weren't hostile to "science" - it would be far more accurate to say that science was hardly done at all during this whole period, and didn't really impinge upon their consciousness at all. The reasons why there wasn't much science to speak of then are various, not least the fact that the scientific method simply hadn't been developed, but I see no reason to list supposed hostility from the church as one of them.



In fact, the classical texts available to the Muslims, such as the writings of Aristotle and Galen, were mostly translated by Persian Christians, not by Muslims at all. In any case, if the Muslim world was technologically ahead of the Christian world during this period, I don't think this had anything to do with familiarity with ancient texts, because technology was not transmitted in texts but through practice. For example, people knew about windmills not by reading about them in books but because there were actual windmills dotted around the place, having been developed by the Romans in late imperial times.

Plotinus what is your opinion about The Orthodox Christianity origins ?

I will just say , that it isn't by luck that Philosophical "organizations " such as Platonistes where integrated into Christian Philosophy. Yet although this aramaic religion was heavilly influenced by Greek tradition it still also had a negative effect on the remaining Greek Culture. And of course it had a positive effect of creating something new. And while some schollars of the early centuries 300 AD combined rationale science and Philosophical thought i think this is unrelated to the spread of Christianity but more related to the Hellenistic educational tradition. In the Later centuries we can better judge the effect of Christian Doctrine into Culture and ofcourse science. Yet since Christianity also has gnostic and other elements that adhere from Greek tradition we can say that Cristianity started different as something more close to it.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

But Augustine was hardly the only rational Christian philosopher of antiquity. Obvious other examples include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose of Milan, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and many others.

Those were mostly people living at a time when Christianity was under attack by non-Christian Romans who were trying to put it down. So they had to challenge them at their own game or face public humiliation. There was the religion at stake, after all. Once the threat diminished, these arguments diminished as well.

I wouldn't even say necessarily that Christianity was always hostile to science. At times it was more apathetic. You can cite all the rational discourses of a thousand Christian theologians, but how do you explain the apathy involved in turning an Archimedean mathematical treatise into a prayer book? Apparently, the Christian interest in reason, what there was of it, was quite selective.

These people weren't hostile to "science" - it would be far more accurate to say that science was hardly done at all during this whole period, and didn't really impinge upon their consciousness at all. The reasons why there wasn't much science to speak of then are various, not least the fact that the scientific method simply hadn't been developed, but I see no reason to list supposed hostility from the church as one of them.

In fact, technology didn't just stagnate for much of the Dark Ages, it actually went backwards.

In fact, the classical texts available to the Muslims, such as the writings of Aristotle and Galen, were mostly translated by Persian Christians, not by Muslims at all. In any case, if the Muslim world was technologically ahead of the Christian world during this period, I don't think this had anything to do with familiarity with ancient texts, because technology was not transmitted in texts but through practice. For example, people knew about windmills not by reading about them in books but because there were actual windmills dotted around the place, having been developed by the Romans in late imperial times.

Somehow I doubt that Persian Christians were translating into Arabic for their own benefit. And as far as windmills go... what happened? There were only windmills and aqueducts in Asia and Africa?

 

[Plotinus]

Those were mostly people living at a time when Christianity was under attack by non-Christian Romans who were trying to put it down. So they had to challenge them at their own game or face public humiliation. There was the religion at stake, after all. Once the threat diminished, these arguments diminished as well.

You are certainly right that many of these people were living during times when Christianity was ridiculed by pagans, and tried to take them on at their own game (sometimes, as in the case of Origen writing against Celsus, easily beating them). But the later ones certainly weren't. For example, the Cappadocians, whom I cited as key figures in the transformation of classical culture into Christian culture (Jaroslav Pelikan even wrote a book about Gregory of Nyssa entitled Christianity and classical culture, so pivotal did he consider them) were writing at a time when, as far as they were concerned, those old intellectual battles between pagans and Christians had been won long ago, and the ideas and ideals of classical philosophy could be regarded as completely Christian without much difficulty. In Gregory of Nyssa's famous metaphor, the Hebrews could plunder the Egyptians without fear of reprisal. This is why, as I stated, Gregory of Nazianzus could consider philosophia a technical term in Christian spirituality.

So I don't see any evidence that the rationality diminished after the period when Christians were trying to defend their ideas against pagans. On the contrary, I think any objective study of these people's writings throughout the period in question will show that they become generally more and more sophisticated, not less, as later writers use the insights and ideas developed by their predecessors and build upon them. After all, John of Damascus' summary of Aristotelian logic and metaphysics is one of the best I know of from any period. And surely you wouldn't say that (for example) Gregory of Nyssa or Photius of Constantinople or Leontius of Byzantium or Eriugena were less rational, or less immersed in the techniques of classical philosophy, than Justin Martyr and Tertullian - would you? If you do think this, can you explain why?

I wouldn't even say necessarily that Christianity was always hostile to science. At times it was more apathetic. You can cite all the rational discourses of a thousand Christian theologians, but how do you explain the apathy involved in turning an Archimedean mathematical treatise into a prayer book? Apparently, the Christian interest in reason, what there was of it, was quite selective.

I don't really see what your point is here. Many of the figures I mentioned wrote about matters other than theology, Isidore of Seville and Adelard of Bath being obvious examples.

Somehow I doubt that Persian Christians were translating into Arabic for their own benefit.

You can doubt as much as you like, but they certainly were. Haven't you heard of Hunain ibn Ishaq? If not I suggest you find out a bit more about this period before you make sweeping statements like that. After the Arabian conquests, the Persian Christians were generally bilingual in Syriac and Arabic, but gradually came to speak only Arabic. The earlier translations were therefore into Syriac, and the later ones into Arabic.

And as far as windmills go... what happened? There were only windmills and aqueducts in Asia and Africa?

I don't understand what your point is here. I just cited windmills as an example of Roman technology which was preserved as artifacts rather than books. I think most technology is preserved like this, or it certainly was in those days. There were plenty of windmills in Europe too.

 

[Sofista]

What about Scholasticism, Nanocyborgasm?