Rome in transition

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by Thomas

You might think so ... I think she's wrong.

If Weil is right, then she can have no idea of what was originally taught, as it's been lost. Therefore she has no basis on which to make a statement other than guesswork and sentimentality.

I rather view it as significant, if not actually a miracle, that Christianity survived the process ...

Thomas

Christianty has survived the process and continues to survive since it is underground so to speak. Exoteric Christendom supported by Roman influence has not IMO. The Catholic church though based on sound truths has as a whole simply lost its way. This is why Simone in good conscience could not become a part of it and remains the "Patron Saint of Outsiders."

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

Simone was right when she sited Rome's adoption of Christianity as its religion as one of the chief reasons for the perversion of Christianity into its opposite and a form of Christendom. I read these things and wonder what most of it has to do with Christianity.

You are not the first to Quote Ms. Weil here, but frankly you are the only I have seen quote her exclusively without appeal to any other, let alone introduce unique thoughts. I am left to wonder if your understanding is limited to that of Ms. Weil? I can appreciate if she made a profound influence, but to the exclusion of all others? Just wondering...

The Roman adoption of Christianity was most likely because it was politically expedient, Christianity did enjoy ebbs and flows of popularity in between the lion-eating purges and persecutions. And Christians weren't the only groups selectively persecuted over the course of the 300 odd years leading into the formal recognition of Christianity. The deciding factor was the military aid by British Christians in bringing Constantine to power. Political expediency...Christianity was officially recognized on behalf of those who brought Constantine into the throne of Rome. If you will, it was a political "thank you for services rendered."

Any alterations, adulterations or modifications came after the fact. Rome did not adopt Christianity with the goal of subverting it. What modifications came, came about because of internal infighting and wrestling for attention and legitimacy among the competing factions. These factions existed because Christianity was outlawed and off-again on-again persecuted, which forced Christianity to secretiveness (is that a word?). Competing paradigms sought the Emperor's favor, and to stop the infighting and settle on a single paradigm Constantine ordered the Bishops to convene and settle the matter, once and for all. They did, but they didn't, and the once and for all bit was the first part to get dismissed. Constantine himself was baptised in the chief rival paradigm to that that was officially sanctioned at Nicea, which leads me to believe that even at the end Constantine was playing the ends towards the middle. Constantine was no active Christian, receiving baptism on his deathbed, a genuine deathbed conversion.

Julian Apostate was the next Roman Emperor, no Christian at all, and it is probably only due to his reign being so short that Christianity still enjoyed a high degree of favor. Successive Emperors wrestled with more pressing matters of state, and while some conducted their affairs as Christians, there was no real political threat to removing the favored status Chrisitianity now enjoyed, primarily because the empire was crumbling around them. Civil war and incursions by various barbarian tribes on the frontiers, the loss of Britain, and the rise in power of the Eastern half of the empire, along with economic catastrophies, all took their toll.

That Roman paganism made an indelible mark on Catholic Christianity I have no doubt. That political hay was made by pitting factions of Christianity against one another I have no doubt. How deliberate all of this was I hesitate to say, I sincerely do not think any one person or group of people sat down in collusion and conspired to pollute and subvert Christianity...I think it was a perfect storm of human accidents and human foibles. That does not lessen the fact that Christianity quickly became something far different than it started out to be, but it does take the edge off of the idea that it was all deliberate and intentional with foresight.

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Secular historians are beginning to realise that there is a wealth of ancilliary detail in Luke's Acts of the Apostles that offers 'on the ground' insights to the commentaries of more favourable secular historians.

In short, wherever Luke can be compared to contemporary sources, he is reliable.

I think this would make a welcome addition to this thread, particularly in light of comments to the contrary from our Pauline Conspiracy detractors. Any references?

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Thomas

I rather view it as significant, if not actually a miracle, that Christianity survived the process ...

Strange as it may seem as often as we disagree, I agree with you here. I do believe it *is* a miracle Christianity has survived. Of course, I am inclined to believe it is a miracle in spite of what we puny humans have done in developing the process to put Christianity through...

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

You are not the first to Quote Ms. Weil here, but frankly you are the only I have seen quote her exclusively without appeal to any other, let alone introduce unique thoughts. I am left to wonder if your understanding is limited to that of Ms. Weil? I can appreciate if she made a profound influence, but to the exclusion of all others? Just wondering...

The Roman adoption of Christianity was most likely because it was politically expedient, Christianity did enjoy ebbs and flows of popularity in between the lion-eating purges and persecutions. And Christians weren't the only groups selectively persecuted over the course of the 300 odd years leading into the formal recognition of Christianity. The deciding factor was the military aid by British Christians in bringing Constantine to power. Political expediency...Christianity was officially recognized on behalf of those who brought Constantine into the throne of Rome. If you will, it was a political "thank you for services rendered."

Any alterations, adulterations or modifications came after the fact. Rome did not adopt Christianity with the goal of subverting it. What modifications came, came about because of internal infighting and wrestling for attention and legitimacy among the competing factions. These factions existed because Christianity was outlawed and off-again on-again persecuted, which forced Christianity to secretiveness (is that a word?). Competing paradigms sought the Emperor's favor, and to stop the infighting and settle on a single paradigm Constantine ordered the Bishops to convene and settle the matter, once and for all. They did, but they didn't, and the once and for all bit was the first part to get dismissed. Constantine himself was baptised in the chief rival paradigm to that that was officially sanctioned at Nicea, which leads me to believe that even at the end Constantine was playing the ends towards the middle. Constantine was no active Christian, receiving baptism on his deathbed, a genuine deathbed conversion.

Julian Apostate was the next Roman Emperor, no Christian at all, and it is probably only due to his reign being so short that Christianity still enjoyed a high degree of favor. Successive Emperors wrestled with more pressing matters of state, and while some conducted their affairs as Christians, there was no real political threat to removing the favored status Chrisitianity now enjoyed, primarily because the empire was crumbling around them. Civil war and incursions by various barbarian tribes on the frontiers, the loss of Britain, and the rise in power of the Eastern half of the empire, along with economic catastrophies, all took their toll.

That Roman paganism made an indelible mark on Catholic Christianity I have no doubt. That political hay was made by pitting factions of Christianity against one another I have no doubt. How deliberate all of this was I hesitate to say, I sincerely do not think any one person or group of people sat down in collusion and conspired to pollute and subvert Christianity...I think it was a perfect storm of human accidents and human foibles. That does not lessen the fact that Christianity quickly became something far different than it started out to be, but it does take the edge off of the idea that it was all deliberate and intentional with foresight.

I've also quoted Meister Eckhart, Plato, and Prof Needleman for example.I quote Simone because she is Christian and not a member of a group. If I quoted some others people would argue over groups rather then to recognize Christianity. We differ since you study Christendom. There is nothing wrong with that but my interest is Christianity

[Nick_A]

Juantoo

The distinction between Christianity and Christendom is essential for esoteric Christianity. The fact that secularism cannot appreciate it doesn't alter its value. Simone and others IMO appreciate the Roman and Jewish degenerating influence on Christianity for what it is.

Esoteric Christianity

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

Simone and others IMO appreciate the Roman and Jewish degenerating influence on Christianity for what it is.

Considering Simone passed away in 1943, she didn't have the benefit of more recent archeological and historic finds such as Qumran and Nag Hamadi. I'm afraid the opinion of *Jewish* degeneration of Christianity seems to me at best misplaced. Jesus was a Jew; not only a Jew, but a Jewish Rabbi. Christianity is nothing if it is not Jewish. Take the Jewishness out of Christianity and one is left with a hollow Pagan shell.

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

Considering Simone passed away in 1943, she didn't have the benefit of more recent archeological and historic finds such as Qumran and Nag Hamadi. I'm afraid the opinion of *Jewish* degeneration of Christianity seems to me at best misplaced. Jesus was a Jew; not only a Jew, but a Jewish Rabbi. Christianity is nothing if it is not Jewish. Take the Jewishness out of Christianity and one is left with a hollow Pagan shell.

Do you actually think that the Gospel of Thomas is secular Jewish? Do you really belive that any in this "Jesus Seminar" could possibly understand Jesus as did Simone Weil? Christianity was around long before what you are calling Judaism. Everyone seems to know this accept these modern "experts" in facets of Christendom. If Christianity is true, it had to exist from the beginning. This is just common sense. Christendom is the modern invention.

To conclude, the great Christian theologian, Saint Augustine in his Retractiones, wrote “The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting from the inception of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion, which was already in existence, began to be called Christian.”

Certain things are obvious to those who appreciate the psychology of Christianity as the study of the relativity of "being" itself as it concerns Man in the timeless "now."

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

I quote Simone because she is Christian and not a member of a group.

I presume you are aware she was a disaffected Jew who converted late in life (such as it was, she died quite young), conveniently at the height of the second world war. This according to the Wiki biography. I do not fault her for converting, but I do question what she may have had to say in the matter as something along the lines of a confession under duress. People tend to promote many things they would not otherwise agree with when the alternative is death in a concentration camp.

Originally Posted by Nick_A

We differ since you study Christendom. There is nothing wrong with that but my interest is Christianity

You seem to believe you know what it is I study and hold interest in. Yet, I don't really think you understand as much as you've convinced yourself you believe. BTW, that manner of presumptive belief is precisely the mechanism for prejudice and discrimination...but I suspect you already knew that. You have managed to redirect that manner of looking at the world, but the root cause remains. I do not consider that enlightened thinking at all...quite the opposite.

I don't presume to know what it is you believe, study or understand...not because I do not know how, but because I understand the mechanism at work in doing so...that, and I have been incorrect often enough, just as you are incorrect here. You may believe you understand, but you don't understand quite as much as you think you do. Just a friendly little FYI, nothing PC about it other than civility.

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

I presume you are aware she was a disaffected Jew who converted late in life (such as it was, she died quite young), conveniently at the height of the second world war. This according to the Wiki biography. I do not fault her for converting, but I do question what she may have had to say in the matter as something along the lines of a confession under duress. People tend to promote many things they would not otherwise agree with when the alternative is death in a concentration camp.



You seem to believe you know what it is I study and hold interest in. Yet, I don't really think you understand as much as you've convinced yourself you believe. BTW, that manner of presumptive belief is precisely the mechanism for prejudice and discrimination...but I suspect you already knew that. You have managed to redirect that manner of looking at the world, but the root cause remains. I do not consider that enlightened thinking at all...quite the opposite.

I don't presume to know what it is you believe, study or understand...not because I do not know how, but because I understand the mechanism at work in doing so...that, and I have been incorrect often enough, just as you are incorrect here. You may believe you understand, but you don't understand quite as much as you think you do. Just a friendly little FYI, nothing PC about it other than civility.

You cannot admit that you are making these presumptions. You are speaking about Simone as though you understood her "being." What you are saying about conversion is simply not true. Read her account and you will see how wrong you are:

Simone Weil - Christian anarchist,, 2 of 5

Meister Eckhart describes those like Simone because he was one himself. Secularism simply cannot understand these people and does its best to prevent others from doing so..

"Pity them my children, they are far from home and no one knows them. Let those in quest of God be careful lest appearances deceive them in these people who are peculiar and hard to place; no one rightly knows them but those in whom the same light shines" Meister Eckhart

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

1) Do you actually think that the Gospel of Thomas is secular Jewish? 2) Do you really belive that any in this "Jesus Seminar" could possibly understand Jesus as did Simone Weil? 3) Christianity was around long before what you are calling Judaism. Everyone seems to know this accept these modern "experts" in facets of Christendom. 4) If Christianity is true, it had to exist from the beginning. This is just common sense. 5) Christendom is the modern invention.

1) The Gospel of Thomas is irrelevent. It adds nothing of significance to the Textus Receptus. It provides the Gnostics with an alternative text they can lay claim to as their own, but it is essentially a crib sheet for the other gospels.

2) I have only cursory familiarity with the Jesus Seminar bunch, and for the sake of my scholarship prefer it that way. From my perspective, I see a host of interpretations and opinions, the JS bunch representing only one perspective, Weil-Needleman-Eckhart merely represent another POV.*

3) This is historically inaccurate and misleading at best. What *precisely* am I calling "Judaism?" I refer to those who refer to themselves as Jews and Judaism. Has that changed over the centuries...sure, so has Christianity and every other major world faith, so what's the point? Modern "experts'" (among whom I count those you reference, BTW) opinions are largely irrelevent. I look at the evidences myself. Had you read the thread you would have noticed I have not limited myself to any *one* specific source for opinion and interpretation, instead I have chosen from a variety of sources and did what I could to get as close to source material as my language limitations allow.

4) Why is it common sense? It only makes common sense if one allows self-referential validation. If age is the determiner (which is a logical fallacy, BTW), then animism is *the* religion that *has* existed from the beginning of religious endeavor among conscious thinking humans. I have written some extensive threads to that end as well, care for references?

5) I'm not sure how you can say this? Is it because it has changed over the centuries? So what? *All* of the major world faiths have. If that is cause for disqualification, then all world faiths are disqualified in your view. That's just common sense.

Originally Posted by Nick_A

Certain things are obvious to those who appreciate the psychology of Christianity as the study of the relativity of "being" itself as it concerns Man in the timeless "now."

That is one POV, and I will not say it is an incorrect POV. It is not one I share primarily because I am absorbed with the POV of finding the factual, *real,* "on the ground" Jesus of history. From my perspective, it doesn't get any more truthful than that. Everything else, IMHO, is just fluff added on top, just another interpretation of the mythos, of creating a G-d in our own image.

*I am not settled comfortably into *any* POV, even my own POV is subject to amendment...but after all the effort I have put into it, it would require a considerable weight of evidence to shift. It is apparent to me that you haven't taken the time to read this thread, and that's OK, it is not required in order to respond. Perhaps if you had though, you might come away with a little different opinion of what it is I have laid out here. You might realize that this is a lifelong struggle to understand the *reality* rather than the myth. Your comments lead me to believe you are still caught up in myth...your preferred myth, but myth just the same.

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

What you are saying about conversion is simply not true.

Weil was born in Paris in 1909 in an agnostic household of Jewish ancestry.

Most of the writing for which she is known was published posthumously.

In 1919, at 10 years of age, she declared herself a Bolshevik.

In 1936, despite her pacifism, she fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. She identified herself as an anarchist[7] and joined the Sébastien Faure Century, the French-speaking section of the anarchist militia. However, her clumsiness repeatedly put her comrades at risk. After burning herself over a cooking fire, she left Spain to recuperate in Assisi. She continued to write essays on labor and management issues, as well as war and peace.

While in Assisi in the spring of 1937, she experienced a religious ecstasy in the same church in which Saint Francis of Assisi had prayed, which led her to pray for the first time in her life. She had another, more powerful, revelation a year later and, from 1938 on, her writings became more mystical and spiritual, while retaining their focus on social and political issues. She was attracted to Roman Catholicism, but declined to be baptized; she explained this refusal in letters published in Waiting for God. During World War II, she lived for a time in Marseille, receiving spiritual direction from a Dominican friar. Around this time she met the French Catholic author Gustave Thibon, who later edited some of her work.

Weil did not limit her curiosity to Christianity. She was keenly interested in other religious traditions — especially the Greek and Egyptian mysteries, Hinduism (especially the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita), and Mahayana Buddhism. She believed that all these and others were valid paths to God.[citation needed] She was, nevertheless, opposed to religious syncretism, claiming that it effaced the particularity of the individual traditions:

In 1942, she traveled first to the USA, then to London, where she joined the French Resistance. The punishing work regime she assumed soon took a heavy toll; in 1943 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and instructed to rest and eat well. However, she refused special treatment because of her long-standing political idealism and activism and her detachment from material things. Instead, she limited her food intake to what she believed residents of the parts of France occupied by the Germans ate. She most likely ate even less, as she refused food on most occasions.[citation needed] Her condition quickly deteriorated, and she was moved to a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent, England.

After a lifetime of battling illness and frailty, Weil died in August 1943 from cardiac failure at the age of 34. The coroner's report said that "the deceased did kill and slay herself by refusing to eat whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed."[8]

-emphasis mine, jt3


Simone Weil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born an agnostic Jew in 1909, experienced a religious ecstasy in 1937-38, and died in 1943 (height of WWII serving in the French Resistance).

It looks pretty cut and dried to me...

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

-emphasis mine, jt3


Simone Weil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born an agnostic Jew in 1909, experienced a religious ecstasy in 1937-38, and died in 1943 (height of WWII serving in the French Resistance).

It looks pretty cut and dried to me...

A living conscious teaching cannot have a point of view. By definition it is pure affirmation which is not a point of view. Points of view are the lawful mechanical results of the degeneration of conscious teachings. The many facets of Christendom are points of view. Christianity is pure conscious affirmation. As fallen creatures we lack conscious affirmation and the purpose of Christianity unlike Christendom is to allow a person consciously to become capable of experiencing it.

From Simone's letter to Father Perrin linked to in my previous post:

The idea of purity, with all that this word can imply for a Christian, took possession of me at the age of sixteen, after a period of several months during which I had been going through the emotional unrest natural in adolescence. This idea came to me when I was contemplating mountain landscape and little by little it was imposed upon me in an irresistible manner.

Of course I knew quite well that my conception of life was Christian. That is why it never occurred to me that I could enter the Christian community. I had the idea that I was born inside. But to add dogma to this conception of life, without being forced to do so by indisputable evidence, would have seemed to me like a lack of honesty. I should even have thought I was lacking in honesty had I considered the question of the truth of dogma as a problem for myself or even had I simply desired to reach a conclusion on this subject. I have an extremely severe standard for intellectual honesty, so severe that I never met anyone who did not seem to fall short of it in more than one respect; and I am always afraid of failing in it myself.

Simone even at sixteen felt the purity of Christianity but was repulsed by corrupt Christendom. It was later in her short life as described in this letter that she had her mystical experiences.

As a secularist you don't accept the division between Christianity and Christendom or Judaism and secular Judaism. Simone Weil was repulsed by the results of a lot of secular Judaism around her. However if she had read something like the following from Rabbi Cooper she would have agreed. The "great beast" for Plato and for Simone is secularism and Simone fought the Great Beast. Rabbi Cooper isn't referring to secularism.

Parabola Magazine - Featured Selection

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Nick_A

A living conscious teaching cannot have a point of view. ...Simone even at sixteen felt the purity of Christianity but was repulsed by corrupt Christendom.

That's all well and good, but I think I'll hold out for a response to post 146 if you don't mind, rather than allow to sidetrack into an irrelevent discussion.

[Nick_A]

re #146

1) The Gospel of Thomas is irrelevent. It adds nothing of significance to the Textus Receptus. It provides the Gnostics with an alternative text they can lay claim to as their own, but it is essentially a crib sheet for the other gospels.

) I know that the GoT is meaningful since it reflects a transcendent perspective normal for Christianity.

2) You are lucky to have avoided the Jesus Seminar

3) Christianity cannot change. All that changes are secular expressions.

4) Christianity is self referral validation. A Christian validates the corrupted human condition within himself and carries his cross for the sake of his "being" potential.

5) The exoteric levels of these traditions always change. But their transcendent origin is the same. Hopefully this diagram will make this more clear

On The Transcendent Unity of Religions

That is one POV, and I will not say it is an incorrect POV. It is not one I share primarily because I am absorbed with the POV of finding the factual, *real,* "on the ground" Jesus of history. From my perspective, it doesn't get any more truthful than that. Everything else, IMHO, is just fluff added on top, just another interpretation of the mythos, of creating a G-d in our own image.

A point of view is just a subjective appreciation initiating from the fallen human condition within ourselves. The task of the Christian is to experience direct affirmation of reality so that they can begin to serve the conscious purpose intended for Man.and is our potential