Constantine--s/o question re SOTW suitability for Orthodox Jews

[albeto.]

That other thread seems done.  However, I still would like to understand more about Constantine the Great's place in history and the apparent change in Christianity from a Blessed are the Peacemakers type religion and his apparent relationship with that change, as well as the issue of how antisemitism was affected .

 

Is anyone else willing to discuss this further?

 

Suggest readings etc.?

 

I have SWB's first book for adults, but it ends right at about that stage of history, does the second book go into this?

 

I am wondering how Constantine would have gone from Edict of Milan, and apparently being more fair to all religions (?), to statements from letters of his to the Bishops of Council of Nicaea I saw quoted that were what I would call antisemitic.   And how would the Bishops have gone from being heads of an apparently peacemaking and persecuted religion to apparently being fine with a symbol for Christ being on battle helmets and part of warfare and militarism, as well as declaring some of those who basically believed as they did, but a little different, to be heretics and so on.   

 

I had the sort of world  history in school where one memorized facts and dates, as for the Council of Nicaea and regurgitated on an exam.   I am trying to think about this deeply now and to better understand it.

 

TIA

 

 

Antisemitism didn't start with Constantine. 

 

Justin Martyr (138A.D. and 161 A.D.)

We too, would observe your circumcision of the flesh, your Sabbath days, and in a word, all you festivals, if we were not aware of the reason why they were imposed upon you, namely, because of your sins and the hardness of heart.

 

The custom of circumcising the flesh, handed down from Abraham, was given to you as a distinguishing mark, to set you off from other nations and from us Christians. The purpose of this was that you and only you might suffer the afflictions that are now justly yours; that only your land be desolated, and you cities ruined by fire, that the fruits of you land be eaten by strangers before your very eyes; that not one of you be permitted to enter your city of Jerusalem. Your circumcision of the flesh is the only mark by which you can certainly be distinguished from other men…as I stated before it was by reason of your sins and the sins of your fathers that, among other precepts, God imposed upon you the observence of the sabbath as a mark.

 

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.)

We may thus assert in utter confidence that the Jews will not return to their earlier situation, for they have committed the most abominable of crimes, in forming this conspiracy against the Savior of the human race…hence the city where Jesus suffered was necessarily destroyed, the Jewish nation was driven from its country, and another people was called by God to the blessed election.

 

St. Cyprian (248)

Jews have fallen under the heavy wrath of God, because they have departed from the Lord, and have followed idols

 

The Council of Elvira (306)

Decrees that Christians and Jews cannot intermarry, have sexual intercourse, or eat together

 

115–117

Kitos War (Revolt against Trajan) - a second Jewish-Roman War initiated in large Jewish communities of Cyprus, Cyrene (modern Libya), Aegipta (modern Egypt) and Mesopotamia (modern Syria and Iraq). It led to mutual killing of hundreds of thousands Jews, Greeks and Romans, ending with a total defeat of Jewish rebels and complete extermination of Jews in Cyprus and Cyrene by the newly installed Emperor Hadrian.

 

131–136

The Roman emperor Hadrian, among other provocations, renames Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina" and prohibits circumcision. Bar Kokhba (Bar Kosiba) leads a large Jewish revolt against Rome in response to Hadrian's actions. In the aftermath, most Jewish population is annihilated (about 580,000 killed) and Hadrian renames the province of Judea to Syria Palaestina, and attempts to root out Judaism.

link

 

132

The Emperor Hadrian categorically prohibited circumcision, deeming it a capital offense. This prohibition was likely the immediate cause of the Bar Kochba revolt in Palestine of 132-5. Such Hadrianic persecution cannot have failed to embitter the lives of those in Italy, for following it were attempts to suppress all the other outward manifestations and ceremonies of Judaism, such as the Sabbath and even the study of the Torah. (P.18)

 

204

In the year 204, the Emperor Septimius Severus, alarmed by the growing prevalence of succession to the monotheistic faiths, specifically forbade conversions in Italy whether to Christianity or to Judaism. 

link

 

 

I have to wonder if the institutional, state sanctioned antisemitism wasn't simply a natural combination of patriotism and political opportunity following the new privileges of the clergy. ("The whole body of the catholic clergy, more numerous, perhaps, than the legions, was exempted by the emperors from all service, private or public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions, which pressed on their fellow-citizens with intolerable weight; and the duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the republic.(96) Each bishop acquired an absolute and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he ordained; the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependent parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of Constantinople (97) and Carthage(98) maintained their peculiar establishment of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers." Gibbon)

 

Just a guess, but I suspect the idea that Christians were a passivist group before Constantine and then suddenly their whole theology changed (at least its practical application changed) is a bit too simplistic to accurately reflect the events that happened in those first few centuries of the new religion.

[Spy Car]

The entire conversation on Carroll's Catholicness here began with Bill's logical fallacy statement that as a former priest, Carroll was not anti-Catholic.

Carroll is not an anti-Catholic. The smears are reminiscent of red-baiting, McCartyyism, and calling people Communists that occured in the 1950s.

 

Have you no shame?

 

Bill

[Kathryn]

Carroll is not an anti-Catholic. The smears are reminiscent of red-baiting, McCartyyism, and calling people Communists that occured in the 1950s.

 

Have you no shame?

 

Bill

Bill, your attempts to shame and silence anyone who disagrees with you got really old a long time ago. You spout off about logical fallacies left and right while lowering yourself to appeals to emotion and ad hominems anytime someone has the audacity to express a viewpoint counter to your own.

[Spy Car]

Bill, your attempts to shame and silence anyone who disagrees with you got really old a long time ago. You spout off about logical fallacies left and right while lowering yourself to appeals to emotion and ad hominems anytime someone has the audacity to express a viewpoint counter to your own.

I'm not trying to silence you, I just find slandering people rather than dealing with their substantive criticisms is a deplorable tactic. It isn't like James Carroll's criticisms and the issues he raises are without merit. Instead of dealing with the issues he is attacked as an anti-Catholic. That is what shuts down debate.

 

Bill

[Kathryn]

I'm not trying to silence you, I just find slandering people rather than dealing with their substantive criticisms is a deplorable tactic. It isn't like James Carroll's criticisms and the issues he raises are without merit. Instead of dealing with the issues he is attacked as an anti-Catholic. That is what shuts down debate.

 

Bill

1. Perhaps you can point out exactly where I was "slandering" anyone, for which you claim that I should feel "shame."

2. You were the one who brought him being "anti-Catholic" into this thread.

3. I find your inflammatory language, accusing people of slander and smearing, and insisting that that they should be ashamed, deplorable.

[ElizaG]

 

(as an aside, My Princeton directory is not around at the moment, and perhaps too out of date in any case, but they did not, as I recall, give degrees in "Intellectual History" when I was there (History, yes, but not Intellectual History), thus it struck me a bit odd when someone wrote to you, Bill, saying that the person who runs the website with the article "Vichy Catholic" had such a degree.  Maybe I misremember  though. )  

It seemed likely to me that it was just a shorthand way of stating his area of specialization (like saying someone has a PhD in Victorian literature). 

 

But here's the listing for his dissertation, in case it helps in your quest.   :001_smile:

[mommaduck]

St. Cyprian (248)

Jews have fallen under the heavy wrath of God, because they have departed from the Lord, and have followed idols

 

 

I'm not certain I could call this anti-semitism. The Judaism also believes that Christians are idolators. Their history is also full of overcoming various peoples under God's command. I would say this is merely a matter of perspective. Have people taken this statement and made it bigger than what it is to support their anti-semitism? Yes. But the statement itself? No.

[ElizaG]

"The New Anti-Catholicism" was written by Philip Jenkins -- an Episcopalian who's a professor of history and religious studies at Baylor and Penn State -- and was published by Oxford University Press.   

 

I find the attempts to smear and slander this author, rather than dealing with his substantive criticisms, to be shamefully deplorable.  Etc., etc.   ;)

 

 

When you cut away the excess verbiage and accusations, what we have in this thread is:

 

- One poster who keeps advocating for a single source as reliable and unbiased 

 

- Several other posters who say that this is a complex topic, and recommend that the OP do her own research, using a wide variety of sources

 

- The OP, who started off asking for sources to learn more about Constantine, but would now apparently like to have a discussion of the doctrine of papal infallibility  :confused:

 

 

On that note, I need to step away from this and go do laundry.  (The floor is getting chilly these days, and we seem to have a dire shortage of socks.)   :seeya:

[Spy Car]

"The New Anti-Catholicism" was written by Philip Jenkins -- an Episcopalian who's a professor of history and religious studies at Baylor and Penn State -- and was published by Oxford University Press.

 

I find the attempts to smear and slander this author, rather than dealing with his substantive criticisms, to be shamefully deplorable. Etc., etc. ;)

 

 

When you cut away the excess verbiage and accusations, what we have in this thread is:

 

- One poster who keeps advocating for a single source as reliable and unbiased

 

- Several other posters who say that this is a complex topic, and recommend that the OP do her own research, using a wide variety of sources

 

- The OP, who started off asking for sources to learn more about Constantine, but would now apparently like to have a discussion of the doctrine of papal infallibility :confused:

 

 

On that note, I need to step away from this and go do laundry. (The floor is getting chilly these days, and we seem to have a dire shortage of socks.) :seeya:

No, what we have here is people who do not want to deal with the substantive criticisms of Constantine and/ or the Church, and who stoop to making personal attacks instead of dealing with the real issues.

 

It is an ugly tactic.

 

Bill

[ElizaG]

No, what we have here is people who do not want to deal with the substantive criticisms of Constantine and/ or the Church, and who stoop to making personal attacks instead of dealing with the real issues.

 

It is an ugly tactic.

 

Bill

 

I'm not here to use "tactics."   This is a board "[f]or general questions about classical education methods, home education issues, teaching techniques, readiness, supplemental activities, field trips, assessments, frustrations, online resources, etc."   It isn't a debate board on the topic of Catholicism, or Christianity in general, or the interpretation of history -- much as it seems some people would like to turn it into one. 

 

The OP's request stretched the limits of the above purposes, but I took it in good faith, and made a few suggestions that I believe to be helpful (both in the thread, and in PM).   So have others.

 

In the end, it's up to the OP to read deeply (following trails beyond what's been recommended here), reflect, evaluate, and consider how to "deal with" the criticisms -- whether those criticisms are of the Church, or of Carroll's ideas, or of some historical figure, or of posts on this thread.   This isn't a five minute task, or even a 500 minute task.   Nor is it something that can be done by any of us on behalf of another board member.   

 

If either you or Pen is really looking more to debate or examine personal views on historical or religious topics, then the Chat board would seem to be the appropriate place to pose the question(s).

 

I wish you both well in your search.  :001_smile:

[[email protected]]

And we're done.

 

Moderator