Posted on 12/31/2012 9:21:49 PM PST by narses
It’s the Nestorianism that deals with the Solemnity of today, The Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.
Christ was true man and true God in one body. And Mary gave him his dna part — the human part.
Amazing how many do not believe that today.
Nestorius on Mary as the Mother of God (Ecumenical)
The Day Nestorius Rocked the Church and an Empire
How Quickly Catholic Heresy Took Over the Church (Immediately)
Hilaire Belloc’s “The Great Heresies” now available in EPUB format
Chapter 6: The Modern Phase [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 5: What Was The Reformation? [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 4: The Albigensian Attack [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 3: The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 2: The Arian Heresy [The Great Heresies
Chapter 1: Scheme Of This Book [The Great Heresies]
Introduction: Heresy [The Great Heresies]
The Great Heresies
John Calvin’s Worst Heresy: That Christ Suffered in Hell
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Succumbs to Heresy
The Bishop Discovers Heresy?
From Orthodox to Heresy: The Secularizing of Catholic Universities
Progressivism/Liberalism is Heresy [Excellent read & reference]
Is heresy better than schism? [Ecumenical]
Modernism: The Modernist Heresy
THE GREAT HERESIES-THE MODERN PHASE
The Protestant Heresy
The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene
Americanism, Then and Now: Our Pet Heresy (encyclical of Pope Leo XIII)
Heresies then and now: ancient Christian heresies practiced in modern times
The Plain Truth About The Baptist Bride Heresy
Balthasar, Hell, and Heresy: An Exchange (is it compatable with the Catholic faith?)
Know Your Heresies
The Rev. John Piper: an interesting look at "heresy vs. schism"
Pietism as an Ecclesiological Heresy
Heresy
Arian Heresy Still Tempts, Says Cardinal Bertone (Mentions Pelagianism As Well)
Catholic Discussion] Church group stays faithful (to heresy!)
An overview of modern anti-Trinitarian heresies
Where heresy and dissent abound [Minnesota]
Gnostic Gospels - the heresy entitled "Gnosticism."
Christian mavericks find affirmation in ancient heresies
The So-Called ‘Gospel’ of Judas: Unmasking an Ancient Heresy
Benedict XVI Heresies and Errors
Donatism (Know your heresies)
The Heresy of Mohammed (Chapter 4, The Great Heresies)
Father & Son Catholic Writers Tag-Team Old & New Heresies
When I challenge a woman deep into the "Spell Casting" and "tarot card reading. " She got me mad when I was helping her husband to move. She decided to "read" me. I covered the Blood of Christ over this as she still insisted that demonic process. Manifestions were resulted. I finally challenge her that she was not a Christian if we practice such " nonsense." We'll to cut to the chase she could not declare Christ came in the Flesh/human as literally words or in the Creeds. When she got to born of a virgin she would contort and stutter that there were " many Gods" . It really opened my eyes even more how the " devil" is making inroads. She was born Christian.
By the way please pray for her she is in a great delusion.
1 John Chapter 4
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:..Read More[Read More]
3 and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already...Read More[Read More]
15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in...Read More[Read More]
2 John Chapter 1
7 For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist...Read More[Read More]
Revelation Chapter 3
5 He that overcometh shall thus be arrayed in white garments; and I will in no wise blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels...Read More[Read More]
The Orthodox Church does NOT teach the doctrine of Original Sin in the Augustinian sense.
We do not believe that Adam’s guilt is inherited by his descendents. Death is inherited but not guilt.
This is why we do not hold to the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. That teaching is not meaningful without inherited guilt.
The Orthodox doctrine of the Fall is usually referred to as Ancestral Sin, rather than Original Sin.
The main difference between the Orthodox teaching and the views of Blessed Augustine of Hippo on the matter is that Augustine regarded all of humanity as sharing in the guilt of Adam’s transgression, while the Orthodox hold that we are guilty only of the sins we, ourselves, commit. Augustine based his view on his notion of the origin of the soul: traductionism, the idea that one’s soul is a fragment of one’s parents’ (father’s) soul, and thus all human souls are part of Adam’s soul. This view of the origin of the soul is actually repudiated by both the Orthodox and the Latins, in favor of creationism, the understanding that each human soul is a new creation. But, for reasons mysterious to me, the Latins (and to a far greater extent most protestants) accepted Augustine’s understanding of what happened in the Fall, albeit (in the case of the Latins and often among protestants, not all of whom are traductionists) without the mechanism Augustine proposed.
Ancestral Sin — the sin of our ancestor — propagates its baleful effects not by inheritance of guilt, but by the inheritance of disordered passions, which create in all of us since Adam a propensity to sin, in the fact that we, unlike Adam at his creation, are not natively clothed with the Holy Spirit (referred to in this context in Orthodox hymnography as ‘the First Robe’ — according to the Fathers it is the loss of the Uncreated Light that made Adam and Eve suddenly perceive themselves as naked), and in the state of the world filled with sins as temptations.
Baptism is understood as, indeed, cleansing us from sin (see, for example the exhortations to catechumens in the Catechetical Homlies of St. Cyril of Jerusalem), but chiefly as uniting us to the Death and Resurrection of Christ as members of His Mystical Body. A great deal of Orthodox baptismal hymnography speaks of “being buried with Christ through Baptism” — the normative use of immersion being connected with the imagery of burial. (”Entry into the community of faith” might be the way a secular sociologist with no conception, Eastern or Western, of the nature of the Church might term being made members of Christ’s Mystical Body, but it’s a denatured description which fails to do justice to the Orthodox understanding.)
Of course, Baptism is not the end of the “Rite of Initiation” — it is normative for the baptized to immediately receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit through anointing with the Holy Chrism (oil upon which the Holy Spirit has descended in a rite performed by the chief hierarch of the local church), the one exception being emergency baptisms, whether performed by a priest on short notice so that he lacks chrism or by a layman, deacon or someone in minor orders. (The form of the rite of Chrismation is that of an ordination, so that some commentators refer to it as “the ordination of the laity” — this being connected with the understanding of all members of the Church as part of the Royal Priesthood. Something goes amiss in the transition from Greek to English here: the English word “priest” is derived from the Greek presbyteros = elder, but also gets used as equivalent to the Greek hiereus, which is the word in the phrase translated as “Royal Priesthood”. Every Orthodox Christian is an hiereus of Christ, but only those who have “the grace of the priesthood” as we say in English are presbyteroi.)
I mention this although it is not strictly in line with your query, chiefly because of your sociologists’ phrase (to give a complete view of what the secular would call “entry into the community of faith” in the Orthodox context), but also because Chrismation, along with Baptism is part of our restoration not only to what Adam was before the fall, but to what he was intended to become — “What Christ is by nature, we are to become by grace” — without the Gift of the Holy Spirit (given to Adam when God breathed into him and he became a living soul) we aren’t restored (even though, being Baptized we have something Adam didn’t: union with Christ in his Burial and Resurrection.)
The Fathers of the Church wrote urgently against killing heretics. All of the great heresiarchs condemned by the Ecumenical Councils died in exile, rather than being executed for heresy (though admittedly some received very harsh treatment during their exile), as did some Fathers of the Church, accused of heresy by heretics (as St. John Chrysostom). It is also true that burning was the prescribed method of execution for heretics from very early on -- but that meant, until contact with Islam created the idea in the West, later, alas, copied in Russia, that heresy per se should be a capital offense, contrary to the teachings of the Fathers -- that heretics found guilty of capital crimes were executed by burning, rather than beheading or hanging. (Oddly to modern sensibilities this was considered a merciful act since the hope was that dying in a foretaste of hell-fire, the heretic might in death abjure his heresy and be saved.)
Can you find any well-attested instances of Christian heretics being executed solely on a charge of heresy, without another capital charge as the basis for the execution, prior to the rise of Islam, and with the approval of the Church? I am aware of none.
The view suggested by donmeaker -- that the Western treatment of heresy as a capital offense is a corruption imported from Islam -- certainly has current scholarly support, cf. Emmett Scott's Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited. Scott also notes a shift in the attitude toward witchcraft after contact with Islam: before that the Church, uniformly, East and West, taught that the notions that witches flew through the air, and the like, were pagan superstitions unworthy of belief by Christians; after, in the West, if one didn't believe nonsense about witches, which largely paralleled Muslim ideas, one was condemned as heretical.
You wrote:
“The Fathers of the Church wrote urgently against killing heretics.”
No. The Fathers wrote against THE CHURCH killing anyone - and the Church never has. Some Fathers also explicitly wrote against the state inferring and executing heretics. None of the Fathers ever once wrote against the state’s authority in executing violent heretics who disturbed the public order.
“All of the great heresiarchs condemned by the Ecumenical Councils died in exile, rather than being executed for heresy (though admittedly some received very harsh treatment during their exile),”
Yes, exile often equaled death.
“Can you find any well-attested instances of Christian heretics being executed solely on a charge of heresy, without another capital charge as the basis for the execution, prior to the rise of Islam, and with the approval of the Church? I am aware of none.”
The place to look is Lambert’s Medieval Heresy. See page 33. There were some 11th-12th century cases, the earliest cases of secretive heresy, the first major cases of group heresy in centuries, where people were apparently executed by the state with the consent of local Church authorities - ‘reluctant’ consent is the word Lambert uses - even though the heretics were not violent. Those cases were few and far between and the heretics were clearly thought of as great disturbers of the peace who were to be stamped out.
“The view suggested by donmeaker — that the Western treatment of heresy as a capital offense is a corruption imported from Islam — certainly has current scholarly support,”
No, it doesn’t.
” cf. Emmett Scott’s Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited. Scott also notes a shift in the attitude toward witchcraft after contact with Islam: before that the Church, uniformly, East and West, taught that the notions that witches flew through the air, and the like, were pagan superstitions unworthy of belief by Christians; after, in the West, if one didn’t believe nonsense about witches, which largely paralleled Muslim ideas, one was condemned as heretical.”
Emmet Scott spells his first name with one ‘t’ not two. Also, his theory is poppycock. He doesn’t realize it but he is subscribing to the “Islam is the creator and Christians are mere inheritors” nonsense which was always so common about modern secular research about medieval Spain. Only this time, instead of something good like Aristotle’s philosophy (which actually came through translations made in the Latin Empire of Greece and not Muslim Spain) it’s something bad like killing heretics. What he does is STILL negate the sources, resources and creativity of the Christian West. Scott’s pseudo research on this point would especially delight any moron influenced by the sciolist John S. Romanides who held bizarre and completely unsupported views of the Carolingians as a way to lend credence to his own anti-papal Orthodox sentiments.
Someone like Scott also makes the mistake of ignoring medieval sources in which “witches” themselves made claims about night flights. Call them crazy. Fine. They were crazy. But why would the average clergyman doubt these things when people claimed they did them at the very time such an admission imperiled their freedom and possibly their lives? The famous case of the ‘Hound of Heaven’, Thiess of Kaltenbrun, and those of the Friulian Benandanti, makes me think Scott simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. (Yeah, I actually misspent much of my youth studying Livonian Lycanthropy. I even was invited to study the subject for my PhD at university in Germany - the eastern half of Germany unfortunately. Sometime I wish I had done it just to be able to travel all over Eastern Europe just after the fall of the Berlin Wall). Then again, if I had stayed on that track, I would have to deal with this stuff for a living rather than for occasional fun: http://depot.knaw.nl/6117/1/Werewolf,_Witch_%26_Warlock.pdf
In short you have no examples until the 11th century, which is precisely the period when Scott argues the Islamic views of the appropriateness of treating heresy as a capital offense and Islamic superstitions about witchcraft infiltrated Western Europe.
You wrote:
“In short you have no examples until the 11th century, which is precisely the period when Scott argues the Islamic views of the appropriateness of treating heresy as a capital offense and Islamic superstitions about witchcraft infiltrated Western Europe.”
Did you miss what I actually wrote or did you not read closely enough? Here, let me help you. I’m used to helping K-State faculty anyway. I wrote:
“There were some 11th-12th century cases, the earliest cases of secretive heresy, the first major cases of group heresy in centuries...”
Get that? THERE WERE NO HERETICAL GROUPS FROM LATE ANTIQUITY UNTIL THE 11TH-12TH CENTURIES. In other words, Scott makes the mistake of assuming that heretics were treated in a certain way after Christian society encountered Islam when in reality what happened is that there simply were no notable heretical groups until the 11th-12th centuries. None. After the collapse of the Arian Church among the Visigoth and Ostrogoths and the collapse of Pelagianism there simply were no heretical groups in Western Europe that anybody knew of. None at all show up in the sources. None.
Western Europeans, however, had had intense contact with Muslims in Spain since 711. The idea that they would only develop a way of treating heretics from the Muslims in the 11th century makes no sense. Also, there were notable examples of heretics being put to death in Late Antiquity - and medieval Christians were not unaware of those cases. Apparently Scott doesn’t take that into account either.
Can you find any well-attested instances of Christian heretics being executed solely on a charge of heresy, without another capital charge as the basis for the execution, prior to the rise of Islam, and with the approval of the Church?
You've asserted they exist. Cite one. In fact, you've asserted multiple such examples exist. Cite two. But executions of heretics for plots to assassinate the Emperor or a king or for murder or for anything else which was a capital offense under the prevailing laws of the time, unless it was a law prescribing a death penalty for heresy, don't count, only execution for heresy per se, which is what donmeaker and I and Scott suggest was copied from the Muslims.
You wrote:
“I asked for examples of executions of heretics on the charge of heresy, rather than on the basis of a capital offense other than heresy, prior to Islamic influence, and you cited the 11th century.”
Because that’s what we’re talking about.
“Now you assert, without providing one, that “there were notable examples of heretics being put to death in Late Antiquity - and medieval Christians were not unaware of those cases”. Rather than giving me bluster and irrelevant examples from the 11th century, why did you not cite an actual “notable example” from Late Antiquity to begin with?”
Seriously, you honestly don’t know about any of this do you? You’ve never heard of Priscillian, for instance?
“How about actually rising to the challenge and answering the question I originally posed:”
How about actually providing proof for your own claims? Name the Islamic source which Christians cited as an authority to influence their own persecution of heretics. Can you? No, because there never were any.
“Can you find any well-attested instances of Christian heretics being executed solely on a charge of heresy, without another capital charge as the basis for the execution, prior to the rise of Islam, and with the approval of the Church?”
Magic is a form of heretical depravity and that was the official charge for which Priscillian was executed, for instance. The point is, strictly speaking, no one was ever executed SOLELY for heresy because that could and would not be known. Heretical ACTS were an entirely different matter.
“You’ve asserted they exist. Cite one.”
Already did. See above.
“In fact, you’ve asserted multiple such examples exist. Cite two.”
I’ll provide another one when you cite a single Muslim source quoted by a pope, council, leading canonist or theologian as a rationale for Christians executing heretics in the 12th and 13th centuries. If you can’t do that, then your poppycock theory will be shown to be exactly that.
“But executions of heretics for plots to assassinate the Emperor or a king or for murder or for anything else which was a capital offense under the prevailing laws of the time, unless it was a law prescribing a death penalty for heresy, don’t count, only execution for heresy per se, which is what donmeaker and I and Scott suggest was copied from the Muslims.”
And you’re all still wrong. Even if Christians did not execute men for solely heresy in Late Antiquity, it still in no way implies that any such notion was borrowed from Muslims. Such an idea is silly on the face of it and there are exactly zero sources to back it up.
You’re making several notable errors:
1) You’re assuming there was an Islamic influence on this subject based upon exactly nothing.
2) You are completely negating the massive European development of its own resources and sources which was COMPLETELY unconnected to anything remotely Islamic (e.g. the rediscovery of Roman Law in the 12th century; the desire of French monarchs to stymie outbreaks of popular violence and assert central control, etc.).
3) You are de facto denying the actual nature and understanding of medieval heresy on the part of medieval Christians. Those executed, for instance, were always viewed as dangers to society even if the charge was only heresy.
4) You are denying what medieval heretics themselves claimed (e.g. Hound of Heaven, Friulian witches, etc.).
5) You present not a single source - NOT ONE - which actually substantiates a single thing you claim. ZERO.
Now, unless you can present ONE MUSLIM SOURCE which was quoted by a pope, council, leading canonist or theologian as a foundational rationale for Christians executing heretics in the 12th and 13th centuries then this is a pointless exercise. Time to post some proof for what you claim. Got any? Any at all? I’m betting this will be a classic K-State choke.
What precisely is your problem? Can you not carry on a civil written discussion of social, political and ecclesiastical history without engaging in invective and abuse?
Indeed we are discussing changes in the behavior of Western Christians in the 11th and 12th centuries, which you and old-school Latin ecclesiastical historians attribute to the unprecedented rise of “secret heresies”, but which Scott and I attribute to Islamic influence. My question, however, had been about purely Christian precedents for the execution of heretics prior to the rise of Islam, and your pointing to events in the 11th and 12th centuries was quite unresponsive.
Thank you for pointing out Priscillian, now finally you answered the question (and also the subsequently given challenge of giving multiple instances since reviewing that sorry bit of history, I see that the Empire executed six of Priscillian’s followers). Yes, my knowledge of ecclesiastical history is much deeper and broader in the history of the Eastern Patriarchates than in the history of the Patriarchate of Rome.
Even in this instance the capital charge was the practice of magic, which you want to conflate with heresy. So you are engaging in a bit of definition-stretching here to support your claim. But perhaps this is just one of those East-West differences: you say magic constitute heresy, we tend to say it’s humbug. Though regarding it as humbug is not to say that someone deluded into believing they can practice magic is not imperiling his or her soul, only that he or she is imperiled by delusion.
Now, you demand documentary evidence of Christians explicitly citing Muslim sources for “authority”, knowing perfectly well that no Christian would cite a Muslim source for authority. This is an absurd demand. (Oh, but because it’s absurd, you get to sneer at me, my employer and colleagues, and claim that my not being able to cite such a document will be a ‘typical K-State choke.’ How marvelous for you! It must make you feel like such a big man!) (And with brief counter-sneer, I will attempt to return to civility.)
Do any historians, social, political or ecclesiastical doubt that the aniconism of Islam was an influence upon iconoclasm? None certainly that I have read — and I have read extensively on the history of both the Church and the Empire in the relevant period. But can you point to any iconoclast writings citing Islamic sources of authority for the destruction of icons? To have done so would have laid bare the heretical nature of iconoclasm, so, of course, non-Christian sources were not cited for authority.
Did Emperor Frederick II leave documentary evidence citing Islamic authority for his adoption of the Muslim custom of keeping a harem? Did the Crusaders leave documentary evidence citing Muslim authority for adopting practice previously unknown among Christians of waging religious wars? How about those Crusaders who appealed (blessedly in vain) to have death in battle in a Crusade regarded as Christian martyrdom — did they leave documents citing Islamic authority for their view? But, do you really think that Frederick’s polygamy or the notion of Christian holy war or the desire of some Crusaders to establish a Christian analogue of the Muslim conception of martyrdom were not influenced by Islam simply because no documents citing an Islamic source of authority exist?
For that matter do you really think that my not citing vladimir998 as authority for writing bits of invective in posts to fellow FReepers means that your sneering posts did not influence my engaging in the bit of sneering above?
We have enough instances in our own time of social and cultural influences spreading without documentary chains of “authority” — for example, various European parliaments create “gay marriage”, leftish politicians and celebrities throughout the Anglosphere embrace the idea, but American courts cite American jurisprudence to conjure a right to “gay marriage” out of thin air. Do you really want to argue that since the American courts cited the 14th Amendment, or some provision of their state constitution, that the European legislation and “elite” opinion was not merely an influence on, but actually the real basis for, the courts’ actions? Latin Church sets up inquisitions — investigative tribunals unprecedented in Christian history, but entirely analogous to Muslim tribunals in neighboring Almohad Spain — and because they don’t cite Islamic “authority”, you want to argue that the bad example set by the Muslims in Spain was not an influence?
I am also underwhelmed by your assertion that “heresy could not and would not be known” so that only “heretical acts” could be the basis for a capital charge of heresy. The Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils were able to know that some persons (e.g. Arius) were heretics with sufficient certainty to promulgate solemn anathemas against not only their teachings, but their persons, when they refused to recant and accept the council’s statement of the Faith. I, evidently unlike you, trust that the Church can discern heresy in her children or erstwhile children (erstwhile since *unrepentant* heretics separate themselves from the Church), not just “heretical acts”.
In truth the notion of “heretical acts” sounds odd to my Orthodox ears — I have never seen the phrase used by Orthodox writers other than Russians from after the “Latin captivity” of Russian theological education in the 19th century, and that rarely, and only then in connection with actions to establish dioceses on the basis of the heresy of ethnophyletism.
You wrote:
“What precisely is your problem? Can you not carry on a civil written discussion of social, political and ecclesiastical history without engaging in invective and abuse?”
Yes, I’m doing it right now – and have been.
“Indeed we are discussing changes in the behavior of Western Christians in the 11th and 12th centuries, which you and old-school Latin ecclesiastical historians attribute to the unprecedented rise of “secret heresies”, but which Scott and I attribute to Islamic influence.”
Which neither one of you can document in the least. Also, you’ll still have to prove there was a change at all.
You’re assuming that based on a better known example rather than taking into account that there was a wider spectrum of behavior.
“My question, however, had been about purely Christian precedents for the execution of heretics prior to the rise of Islam, and your pointing to events in the 11th and 12th centuries was quite unresponsive.”
No, I don’t think you have that right. You are falsely framing the issue based upon a strange and ridiculous idea which you are proving is based on NOTHING.
“Thank you for pointing out Priscillian, now finally you answered the question (and also the subsequently given challenge of giving multiple instances since reviewing that sorry bit of history, I see that the Empire executed six of Priscillian’s followers). Yes, my knowledge of ecclesiastical history is much deeper and broader in the history of the Eastern Patriarchates than in the history of the Patriarchate of Rome.”
And yet you produce not a single shred of evidence for your claims. Not a single shred. Not one.
“Even in this instance the capital charge was the practice of magic, which you want to conflate with heresy. So you are engaging in a bit of definition-stretching here to support your claim.”
False. I am merely dealing with things as they actually were. All of these things were more nuanced than you give them credit.
“But perhaps this is just one of those East-West differences: you say magic constitute heresy, we tend to say it’s humbug.”
Really? So why then did Elder Cleopa of Romania wrote:
“The man who resorts to black magic and necromancy is an enemy of God, disobedient to His commandments, not content with the salvatory lessons God teaches him through the Scriptures, but rather, prompted by the demons in this illegitimate work, he seeks to investigate things rationally. And so, believing in these fantasies, he withdraws from God and the teaching of our Church.”
Withdraws from God and the teaching of the Church. Sure sounds like heresy to me.
“Though regarding it as humbug is not to say that someone deluded into believing they can practice magic is not imperiling his or her soul, only that he or she is imperiled by delusion.”
A delusion fostered by Satan. The real danger is not the delusion alone, but the fact that it opens a door for Satan to come through.
“Now, you demand documentary evidence of Christians explicitly citing Muslim sources for “authority”, knowing perfectly well that no Christian would cite a Muslim source for authority. This is an absurd demand.”
Not at all. It strikes right at the core of your claim. That’s the whole point. You’re claiming something which you yourself have just admitted – de facto – you have not a single shred of evidence for. In fact, all the evidence goes against it.
“(Oh, but because it’s absurd, you get to sneer at me, my employer and colleagues, and claim that my not being able to cite such a document will be a ‘typical K-State choke.’”
The point is that I knew from the beginning that you would fail. Sorry, but it’s true. The theory you are supporting has never had any evidence for it nor could it. It is an absurd theory that makes no sense in any way. It denies all that we know about history and the Church.
“How marvelous for you! It must make you feel like such a big man!) (And with brief counter-sneer, I will attempt to return to civility.)”
Counter-sneer? Oy vey. Work on that Dave. Really, try.
“Do any historians, social, political or ecclesiastical doubt that the aniconism of Islam was an influence upon iconoclasm? None certainly that I have read — and I have read extensively on the history of both the Church and the Empire in the relevant period.”
It is a modern as well as almost contemporary fashion among historians to claim that Islam influenced iconoclasm among Christians. I think the intellectually lazy take that in without any critical thought whatsoever. You might want to read this: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/617544?uid=3739256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101530069541
“But can you point to any iconoclast writings citing Islamic sources of authority for the destruction of icons?”
Yes – if you simply track down the bibliography of the article I just linked to you’ll see that the Christians themselves blamed Muslim influence for the outbreak of iconoclasm on the part of Christians. See footnotes 3 and 4. The problem is that there is no real proof that such an influence existed nor did any of the original sources offer any. My gosh, that was easy. Now, you try.
“To have done so would have laid bare the heretical nature of iconoclasm, so, of course, non-Christian sources were not cited for authority.”
Again, the influence was claimed by the orthodox to have existed. The issue there would not be the claim, but its validity. You’re really not making a good case here. Your analogy has failed and I have found essentially what you demanded just not in a way you probably expected.
“Did Emperor Frederick II leave documentary evidence citing Islamic authority for his adoption of the Muslim custom of keeping a harem?”
Pope Gregory IV or Pope Innocent IV did document hat in regard to Frederick II saying he followed Saracen ways and had a harem guarded by eunuchs. Here’s just one mentioning of that but there are many: http://books.google.com/books?id=GlIDGodwC30C&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=innocent+IV+provided+with+a+harem+guarded+by+eunuchs&source=bl&ots=kFVVEzWTpu&sig=qrcsebqoyQSm9ZM_uMsLUcqzowQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0bHkUOmDHqWO2QXEvYHYCg&sqi=2&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=innocent%20IV%20provided%20with%20a%20harem%20guarded%20by%20eunuchs&f=false
“Did the Crusaders leave documentary evidence citing Muslim authority for adopting practice previously unknown among Christians of waging religious wars?”
Uh, you’ve never read Erdmann have you? The Byzantines were fighting religious wars for many, many years before the crusaders. Perhaps you didn’t know that. So, your premise there is seriously flawed to say the least.
“How about those Crusaders who appealed (blessedly in vain) to have death in battle in a Crusade regarded as Christian martyrdom — did they leave documents citing Islamic authority for their view?”
“But, do you really think that Frederick’s polygamy or the notion of Christian holy war or the desire of some Crusaders to establish a Christian analogue of the Muslim conception of martyrdom were not influenced by Islam simply because no documents citing an Islamic source of authority exist?”
No, your premise is wrong, your apparent knowledge is faulty. You can’t even frame things as they actually existed. Again, read Erdmann and your entire view of things will change. Hence, you’ll probably never read it. http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Idea-Crusade-Carl-Erdmann/dp/1597407984 And you never read this book either: http://www.amazon.com/First-Crusader-Byzantiums-Holy-Wars/dp/1403961514
“For that matter do you really think that my not citing vladimir998 as authority for writing bits of invective in posts to fellow FReepers means that your sneering posts did not influence my engaging in the bit of sneering above?”
Your sneering – if there be any – is all your own. And honestly, what you call sneering in your post, I can’t take seriously as sneering any way.
“We have enough instances in our own time of social and cultural influences spreading without documentary chains of “authority” — for example, various European parliaments create “gay marriage”, leftish politicians and celebrities throughout the Anglosphere embrace the idea, but American courts cite American jurisprudence to conjure a right to “gay marriage” out of thin air. Do you really want to argue that since the American courts cited the 14th Amendment, or some provision of their state constitution, that the European legislation and “elite” opinion was not merely an influence on, but actually the real basis for, the courts’ actions?”
Again, your analogy makes no sense.
“Latin Church sets up inquisitions — investigative tribunals unprecedented in Christian history,”
False. Inquisitions were no different in their basic formulation than ecclesiastical courts before them. They were also not set up as investigative bodies. They essentially became so.
“but entirely analogous to Muslim tribunals in neighboring Almohad Spain — and because they don’t cite Islamic “authority”, you want to argue that the bad example set by the Muslims in Spain was not an influence?”
It was no influence at all. There is no relationship at all, no comparison, no evidence and it isn’t even a reasonable comparison.
“I am also underwhelmed by your assertion that “heresy could not and would not be known” so that only “heretical acts” could be the basis for a capital charge of heresy.”
Underwhelmed or not, it’s true. Your lack of understanding of historical events or understandings on the part of medieval men changes nothing.
“The Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils were able to know that some persons (e.g. Arius) were heretics with sufficient certainty to promulgate solemn anathemas against not only their teachings, but their persons,”
Because Arius had openly proclaimed his heresy and had repeatedly refused to recant when patiently asked to do so by his saintly bishop. If Arius had never proclaimed his heresy, no one would ever have known it. Instead he literally sang songs about his heresy – and proclaimed it in front of the council. THEN the council declared him a heretic.
“when they refused to recant and accept the council’s statement of the Faith. I, evidently unlike you, trust that the Church can discern heresy in her children or erstwhile children (erstwhile since *unrepentant* heretics separate themselves from the Church), not just “heretical acts”.”
No one can be known as a heretic without giving a sign of it – and that means an action. Seriously, use common sense. No Orthodox theologian would ever say that the Church knows who heretics are before they give some sign of their adherence to heresy. That’s exactly why Arius was allowed to verbally hang himself with rope given to him by the council fathers. His open proclamation of his heresy was proof enough. Didn’t that ever occur to you?
“In truth the notion of “heretical acts” sounds odd to my Orthodox ears — I have never seen the phrase used by Orthodox writers”
Irrelevant. I have never seen any but the most recent of orthodox theologians use the expression “Final Theosis” outside of Greek yet Eastern Orthodox have used it for centuries. Does that make “Final Theosis” an invalid term? No. Actions are different than thoughts. A heretical thought, a heretical belief, can be held by someone and yet never betrayed by a known action and thus kept secret to mortal men. A seditious thought in someone’s head can’t be known by the U.S. government. Write an email about it and you have an entirely different situation. See the difference? It’s common sense. Don’t forget the very word heresy implies a choice has been made.
“other than Russians from after the “Latin captivity” of Russian theological education in the 19th century, and that rarely, and only then in connection with actions to establish dioceses on the basis of the heresy of ethnophyletism.”
Christian philosophy of personhood is far more developed in the West than in the East. I am not surprised that we take into account thoughts AND actions and also distinguish between the two.
Also, when you can actually get Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox to actually agree on whether or not Catholic sacraments are valid let me know. Until then that must mean that one Church or the other embraces a heresy. Either the Russians do – which means that the largest Orthodox church in the world easily fell into heresy and can’t seem to get out of it - or the Greek Orthodox – who so often appear to think of themselves as the purest of the Orthodox - are actually just heretics. Which is it?
But I suppose you could be right. There is an alternative hypothesis to cultural transmission across a hostile frontier that accounts for the outbreak of anti-Jewish riots in Latin Christian Europe shortly after the same phenomenon in Muslim Spain, for the establishment of special tribunals for rooting out heresy in Latin Europe just a few decades after the same happened in Muslim Spain, for the notion of holy war being embraced by the Latins when it was unknown among Christian prior, for the adoption of the notorious kill-them-all attitude when reducing towns held by religious opponents by the Latins when prior precedent had existed only among the Muslims: the same demons were afflicting all the religious leaders in Western Europe who lacked of the light of the Holy Orthodox Faith, both Muslim and Latin alike. (You are doubtless already aware that your assertion that there were no heresies in Western Europe from the Lombard repudiation of Arianism until the 11th century is risible among us Orthodox, and that however much you may discount the late Fr. John Romanides' scholarship and views, the Frankish court were the champions of the erroneous doctrine of the dual procession of the Holy Spirit through centuries when the Popes of Rome continued in the Orthodox Faith -- I simply had had the civility not to point it out in a thread labeled "Ecumenical".)
(And no, the "religous wars" of the Christian Romans were not holy wars in the same sense as jihad or the Crusades.)
I am pleased to see that you can post civilly. Still, you prior behavior -- going to the trouble of following the breadcrumbs I've left in cyberspace to find the real identity of The_Reader_David so as to include ad hominem attacks in your prior posts, and your posting style -- great long swaths of text that your correspondents must wade through to reply -- makes me wonder about your motivation.
It cannot be to persuade me: the ad hominem attacks on K-State, picking on a misremembered spelling, and "moron influenced by the sciolist Fr. John Romanides'" were highly counter-productive.
It cannot be apologetics on behalf of Latin Christianity. Again ad hominem attacks make you seem uncharitable and your substantive argument seem weak and thus would fail in that purpose. Worse, your overall approach, not merely to deny cultural transmission across the Muslim-Christan frontier in Spain, but to attempt to justify as properly Christian the execution of heretics (albeit with qualifiers like "secret" or "violent") when this behavior by your spiritual forebearers has become an impediment to modern folk embracing any variant of Christianity, is counter-productive as apologetics.
I can only conclude that your regard FR discussion threads as a verbal blood-sport akin to high school national topic policy debates, and when either your ad hominem attacks or your posting great swaths of text to which others haven't the patience to reply drives your "opponents" from the field, you take satisfaction from flow-charting the "debate" and scoring it on points. Well, be happy: Since my refutation of your "no heresies" claim came only in my final rebuttal, you can ignore it and "pull that through your flow" as the Georgetown jargon put it, since new arguments can't be made in rebuttals. Congratulations. You won the thread.
I commend to your attention a piece that appeared in The New Yorker' "Shouts and Murmers" feature last year, which avered that "every conversation has a winner and a loser" and gave strategies for winning conversations, which if used "will have you winning conversations so consistently no one will ever dare to challenge you to one again." You can doubtless adapt them for use here at FR.
***was reportedly the response that the learned monk gave. Kill them all, G-d knows his own.”***
****That leads me to believe it is made up, phony quote made up by people sitting online with a Cassel’s dictionary***
I remember reading that quote many year before there was an internet.
You wrote:
“I remember reading that quote many year before there was an internet.”
The actual Latin quote is different. So, you can claim to have read that Latin quote, but it is not the one found in Caesarius of Heisterbach (as I showed) - and it is THAT SOURCE that is the first source that claims the quote was actually said - years after the event at which it was supposedly said.
Have you ever thought about writing a book for popular reading that sets the ALL THE recordS straight?
Maybe you could give it a snazzy title like ...1001 THINGS YOU WERE TAUGHT WRONG ABOUT RELIGIOUS HISTORY.
Don’t laugh! I had to get some real old books to find out some things about American history that is not taught today.
You wrote:
“Have you ever thought about writing a book for popular reading that sets the ALL THE recordS straight?”
I was right about the Copts.
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