za56@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Brian McNeill) (09/05/86)
In article <15566@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> gsmith@brahms.UUCP (Gene Ward Smith) writes: >>>Read what he wrote. > >> I did. He makes the effort to suppress heresy sound more organized >>and consistent than it was, but I think he's basically on the mark. What >>do *you* see as the claim you need documented, Gene? I tried to make >>clear that McNeill exaggerated the knownothingism of the Middle Ages, >>but religious history is the topic, and heresy was suppressed by the >>Church. So was paganism, but not quite as completely. > > I took Brian (putting together what he said in two articles) to be >claiming that the Church destroyed almost *all* documents of any kind >from the first millennium, and that as a consequence our knowledge of >1-1000 AD is very slight. On re-reading, I am not sure what he meant. > Sorry for the misconceptions....as the line said, I got carried away. What I meant basically was the Church took active steps to remove opposing doctrines (if you read my first posting carefully, this is the basic thread I was talking about), by destroying/suppressing heretical/pagan works, as well as changing (by Xianizing) many nonheretical works (see "Beowulf"). Thus, our knowledge of the religious state (and religious confirmation/denial of Xianity) in the 1st coupla centuries is limited, since the Church had supressed all heretical works (which would include any accounts contrary to the OFFICIAL history of Jesus given in the Bible)... > >ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720 >ucbvax!weyl!gsmith Dazed Dupe of the Damager /-----------------------------------------------------------\ | Brian McNeill ARPA : za56@sdcc3.ucsd.edu | | HASA "A" Division UUCP : ...!sdcsvax!sdcc6!sdcc3!za56 | |-----------------------------------------------------------| | Quote of the minute: "I was born a heretic. I always | | distrust people who know so much about what God wants | | them to do to their fellows." -- Susan B. Anthony | \-----------------------------------------------------------/
gsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) (09/06/86)
Since Kenn doesn't deal in non-history, I thought I had better change the subject line. In article <1642@ames.UUCP> barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) writes: > I see this discussion as centering on the question of whether >the medieval Church took steps to rewrite the history of early Xianity. >If so, the matter of Porphyry is not incidental. I can dig up additional >references if you like, but there was a definite pattern of the orthodox >church suppressing non-orthodox thought, and destroying non-orthodox writings. > What is important is that Porphyry was writing against the orthodox >Xianity of his time. His writings might have told us much about the 1st >century of Xianity through whatever references he made to heterodox 1st >century writings that still existed in his time. But we will never know. >What we do know is that there were many early writings that portrayed >Jesus and early Xianity in a very different light than the official version, >and that the Church made real efforts to suppress these. Judging by the kind of stuff that did survive, I doubt that Porphyry would have told us much about 1st century Christianity. But as you say, lacking the documents, we don't know. As I see it, the destruction of heterodox sources cripples our understanding of such things as Gnosticism much more than of the history of the first century. Again, just an opinion. >> This IS NOT documentation of Brian's claim, but of some other claim. >>Read what he wrote. > I did. He makes the effort to suppress heresy sound more organized >and consistent than it was, but I think he's basically on the mark. What >do *you* see as the claim you need documented, Gene? I tried to make >clear that McNeill exaggerated the knownothingism of the Middle Ages, >but religious history is the topic, and heresy was suppressed by the >Church. So was paganism, but not quite as completely. I took Brian (putting together what he said in two articles) to be claiming that the Church destroyed almost *all* documents of any kind from the first millennium, and that as a consequence our knowledge of 1-1000 AD is very slight. On re-reading, I am not sure what he meant. I agree we don't know as much about heterodox Christianity as we might. As I said, I don't see this as something that affects our knowledge of 1-50 AD much. Some heterodox groups (Ebionites) just didn't use a lot of what later came to be considered canonical, but apparently had no extra documents of their own. The Gnostics may have preserved some authentic traditions and "sayings" which latter got suppressed (as in the Gospel Of Thomas, for instance), but most surviving Gnostic literature seems to add little to our understanding of the critical 1-50 AD period. Of course, the more that got suppressed the harder it is to figure out how important it was, and we may be missing very key information. But I see little hard evidence this is true. ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720 ucbvax!weyl!gsmith Dazed Dupe of the Damager