Did Most Early Christians Believe The Divinity of Christ?

[TheLightWithin]

I wasn't familiar with the term Culdee, and thought perhaps you had mixed it up with Chaldee.



The only thing I would say is the Middle Ages were long after the early Church.

But yes, if ever there were an incubator to distinguish the teachings of Jesus, it would be at Glastonbury to be found. It would be there that the teachings to non-Jews would seem to be evident and distinct.

Lol no I had not mixed it up with Chaldee. I think the two terms do get confused though.
(despite being pretty far apart in meaning and geography)
Here are a couple of books about it (Culdee Church)
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/590be125ff7c502a07752a5b/t/596e5c83893fc01bf220e546/1500404882089/Moore,+TV+-+Culdee+Church.pdf

Celt, Druid and Culdee: Isabel Hill Elder, Lord Brabazon of Tara P.C. G.B.E. M.C.: 9780934666367: Amazon.com: Books

Celt, Druid and Culdee [Isabel Hill Elder, Lord Brabazon of Tara P.C. G.B.E. M.C.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Celt, Druid and Culdee

www.amazon.com

 

[juantoo3]

Juantoo!!

Hello Faithfulservant!!! Nice to "see" you around. I hope Dor is well.

I've been scarce the past few years, but I lurk and add my two bits from time to time.

 

[juantoo3]

When someone tells me that if I dont follow their path (not a path, but their path) that I will not get to their heaven or will go to their hell... It immediately is a red flag...when they say "But what if you are wrong" I get my coat.

Hmmm...same way I feel about radical liberals and their "in-my-face" authoritarian facist style "mostly peaceful" tactics.

 

[juantoo3]

Lol no I had not mixed it up with Chaldee. I think the two terms do get confused though.
(despite being pretty far apart in meaning and geography)
Here are a couple of books about it (Culdee Church)
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/590be125ff7c502a07752a5b/t/596e5c83893fc01bf220e546/1500404882089/Moore,+TV+-+Culdee+Church.pdf

Celt, Druid and Culdee: Isabel Hill Elder, Lord Brabazon of Tara P.C. G.B.E. M.C.: 9780934666367: Amazon.com: Books

Celt, Druid and Culdee [Isabel Hill Elder, Lord Brabazon of Tara P.C. G.B.E. M.C.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Celt, Druid and Culdee

www.amazon.com

I haven't read the book so I am extrapolating from what you've provided. Since it was Islam at the Alhambra and Toledo and the Irish Monks at Skellig Michael that preserved the knowledge of the Greeks from the Catholic purges and book burnings of the Dark Ages, I presume it was these Culdee Monks that we today owe a debt of gratitude for preserving that knowledge? And it would make sense they were able if they were a stone's throw outside of Catholic reach that they were capable of pulling off this incredible feat.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Can you think of a for-instance? Or a series thereof?

Would the majority of atheists be in favour of Islamic law, for instance?

 

[Faithfulservant]

Hello Faithfulservant!!! Nice to "see" you around. I hope Dor is well.

I've been scarce the past few years, but I lurk and add my two bits from time to time.

Dor passed away in 2016 . My excuse as to being gone for so long is life got busy I guess? I'm very happy to see you though! There are a few more people I would like to see!

 

[Faithfulservant]

is that really the reason?

I mean the Amish, and othe cults tell their people that...but the punishment tells me otherwise.

When someone tells me that if I dont follow their path (not a path, but their path) that I will not get to their heaven or will go to their hell... It immediately is a red flag...when they say "But what if you are wrong" I get my coat.

It is my feeling your teachings should make me willingly want to learn more without the coercion of carrots or whips.

I hope you realize it's because people care about you and not because they want to be "right". If people didn't care about where you ended up they certainly wouldn't put themselves in the way of your sharp wit and scathing responses! Lol

 

[juantoo3]

Dor passed away in 2016 . My excuse as to being gone for so long is life got busy I guess? I'm very happy to see you though! There are a few more people I would like to see!

I am very sorry to hear. My condolences.

 

[Thomas]

... that preserved the knowledge of the Greeks from the Catholic purges and book burnings of the Dark Ages ...

Ooh, dare I say a somewhat hyperbolic statement?

Especially when the Fathers to the 9th century were Platonists, and the Schoolmen who followed were heavily influenced by Aristotle.

And the Scholastic era, beginning in the 10th century, treasured the works of Aristotle, although much by then had been lost.

It was not a Catholic purge that severed communications between east and West, between the Early Middle Ages and Antiquity – the reasons are more complex and compound.

 

[FrankSophia]

Not only did they believe in Christ's divinity but made the point of the faith our own divinity...

 

[FrankSophia]

Ooh, dare I say a somewhat hyperbolic statement?

Especially when the Fathers to the 9th century were Platonists, and the Schoolmen who followed were heavily influenced by Aristotle.

And the Scholastic era, beginning in the 10th century, treasured the works of Aristotle, although much by then had been lost.

It was not a Catholic purge that severed communications between east and West, between the Early Middle Ages and Antiquity – the reasons are more complex and compound.

Take a look at 1 Corinthians 4:1-13...

The title of this section is called "The true nature of Apostleship" and he immediately defines it as a servant of Christ in whom the mysteries have been revealed... the core mystery in Christianity is arguably John 17:20-26 and yet Pope's declared this complete unity heretical for centuries, it is thus impossible that it was guided by the Spirit at all.

I think any investigation into the history of the Catholic church renders this quite obvious.

Scholarship is just a fancy way of saying you're leaning on your own knowledge, you have no relationship with the Spirit but you still think you are in a position to speak authoritatively.

For me places like 2 Corinthians 3:1-18 are quite clear about this.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Would the majority of atheists be in favour of Islamic law, for instance?

You answered the question with a question. What I meant was, can you describe a for-instance, outline a conversation you had, what was said, what happened. Or for the broader question, some historical occurrences and/or particular things that would make you think "atheists" or anybody else "wanted a legal system of their own choosing" Examples.

 

[Thomas]

... he immediately defines it as a servant of Christ in whom the mysteries have been revealed...

The problem is we have people who rock up here telling us they are in receipt of the revealed mysteries ...

the core mystery in Christianity is arguably John 17:20-26 and yet Pope's declared this complete unity heretical for centuries, it is thus impossible that it was guided by the Spirit at all.

What popes, which heresies?

Scholarship is just a fancy way of saying you're leaning on your own knowledge, you have no relationship with the Spirit but you still think you are in a position to speak authoritatively.

Well I agree with Pope Benedict who said (I think it was he) we need more saints and less theologians – but such a bland dismissal of scholarship is, I rather think, somewhat silly.

 

[Thomas]

For me places like 2 Corinthians 3:1-18 are quite clear about this.

But then, if that was absolutely the case, St Paul wouldn't need to have written letters, would he?

I think it's true, and it's also an ideal, but when we say our subjective narrative transcends all else, we are rather claiming infallibility ...

 

[juantoo3]

Ooh, dare I say a somewhat hyperbolic statement?

Especially when the Fathers to the 9th century were Platonists, and the Schoolmen who followed were heavily influenced by Aristotle.

And the Scholastic era, beginning in the 10th century, treasured the works of Aristotle, although much by then had been lost.

It was not a Catholic purge that severed communications between east and West, between the Early Middle Ages and Antiquity – the reasons are more complex and compound.

Indeed, and Islam is also not without fault. Who was it that ordered the contents of the Library of Alexandria (Egypt) to be burned because, paraphrased, if the works agreed with the Quran they were superfluous, and if they disagreed with the Quran they were anathema?

It still remains, for a significant period (centuries!) during the Dark Ages in Europe, the Catholic Church discouraged "learning" among the laity and common people, and there is some evidence that even among the ruling classes and royalty education was sometimes minimal. The Catholic Church went to great lengths to control the thoughts of the people, telling them what to think instead of teaching how to think.

Perfunctory dismissal of this well known historical fact seems unlike a scholar.

From the Wiki:

The Dark Ages is a term for the Early Middle Ages, or occasionally the entire Middle Ages, in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire that characterises it as marked by economic, intellectual and cultural decline.

The concept of a "Dark Age" originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the "light" of classical antiquity.[1][2]
...

Petrarch wrote that history had two periods: the classic period of Greeks and Romans, followed by a time of darkness in which he saw himself living. In around 1343, in the conclusion of his epic Africa, he wrote: "My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. This sleep of forgetfulness will not last forever. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance."[19]

Education in Europe during the Dark Ages was confined to Catholic Monks and those rare few they endorsed. Likewise, and the details are fuzzy to me, Islam was little different...education was confined to Cordoba, the rest of the Islamic world encouraged ignorance on the part of the masses and forcefully discouraged any form of dissent that challenged the Religio-political authority. Two sides of the same coin.

The Islamic Golden Age was a period of scientific, economic and cultural flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century.[1][2][3]

This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom, which saw scholars from all over the Muslim world flock to Baghdad, the world's largest city by then, to translate the known world's classical knowledge into Arabic and Persian.[4] Also, under the Umayyads, al-Andalus became a world centre of science, medicine, philosophy and invention during the Islamic Golden Age.[5][6] The works of philosophy, medicine, and mathematics collected and produced in the Arab world were available in al-Andalus; the Great Library of Córdoba was said to contain 400,000 volumes. Gradually, the intellectual wealth of al-Andalus came to influence the rest of medieval Europe.[7]

 

[FrankSophia]

The problem is we have people who rock up here telling us they are in receipt of the revealed mysteries ...

I would suggest it's useless to you whether anyone knows the mysteries unless they can convey them to you in a meaningful way...

Well I agree with Pope Benedict who said (I think it was he) we need more saints and less theologians – but such a bland dismissal of scholarship is, I rather think, somewhat silly.

It is a wild statement from an Orthodox perspective because a theologian there is just someone who actually knows God.

There should be no distinction between a theologian, saint, and mystic... these are each touched by God directly and should be the goal for all on the way else I don't know how to call it Christian at all.

 

[FrankSophia]

But then, if that was absolutely the case, St Paul wouldn't need to have written letters, would he?

I think it's true, and it's also an ideal, but when we say our subjective narrative transcends all else, we are rather claiming infallibility ...

I think he is explaining how those letters should be received too...

They have a purpose, they are not the purpose.

We take intellectual comprehension to be akin to direct insight, but there is no relation.

 

[Thomas]

Indeed, and Islam is also not without fault. Who was it that ordered the contents of the Library of Alexandria (Egypt) to be burned because, paraphrased, if the works agreed with the Quran they were superfluous, and if they disagreed with the Quran they were anathema?

But these things have to be taken carefully. The library was captured in In 642AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al-As. Only later do Arabic sources ascribe the destruction to a direct order by the Caliph Omar.. That particular paraphrase dates to the 13th century – 600 years later. later scholars doubt the veracity of this, Diana Delia suggests: "Omar's rejection of pagan and Christian wisdom may have been devised and exploited by conservative authorities as a moral exemplum for Muslims to follow in later, uncertain times, when the devotion of the faithful was once again tested by proximity to nonbelievers" (Diana, Delia "From Romance to Rhetoric: The Alexandrian Library in Classical and Islamic Traditions". The American Historical Review. 97 (5): 1449–1467.)

More likely the troops ran amok ...

Overall, I think the word of Kings/Emperors etc are often overblown.

during the Dark Ages in Europe, the Catholic Church discouraged "learning" among the laity and common people...

On what evidence is that?

and there is some evidence that even among the ruling classes and royalty education was sometimes minimal.

Don't disagree ... just the implication that it was directly because of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church went to great lengths to control the thoughts of the people, telling them what to think instead of teaching how to think.

And yet the Catholic church founded schools and universities where Greek philosophy was taught, so not all bad.

Perfunctory dismissal of this well known historical fact seems unlike a scholar.

As the Dark Ages Histiography wiki says:

As the accomplishments of the era came to be better understood in the 19th and the 20th centuries, scholars began restricting the Dark Ages appellation to the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century), and today's scholars also reject its usage for the period. The majority of modern scholars avoid the term altogether due to its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate. Petrarch's pejorative meaning remains in use, typically in popular culture, which often simplistically views the Middle Ages as a time of violence and backwardness.

I could argue that if it were not Catholic monasteries keeping the flame alive, the light would have gone out altogether.

In short, I think you're over-simplifying, casting the Catholic Church as your villain.

 

[Thomas]

We take intellectual comprehension to be akin to direct insight, but there is no relation.

I don't. I assume you do? I think that's rather narrow outlook.

 

[FrankSophia]

I don't. I assume you do? I think that's rather narrow outlook.

I think that pretending to know when you do not is dangerous.

This increases exponentially when ignorance is given authority over truth.