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The History of Early Christianity
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Tuesday, 21st September 2010
This is a subject that has been of interest to me for a long time.
Just as in Roman history I am aware of bits and snippets here and there. I suspect many of us do not know the facts historically, because there is little history available. However, be that as it may, it might be worth looking at what we do have and what our less than perfect thinking is about that period.
By early Christianity, I mean the period from the Resurrection of Christ to the Council of Nicaea and the expansion of Christianity into Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England by the various Saints, Patrick, George, Andrews, etc.
However, let us proceed chronologically:
Who were the people who wrote the Gospels, Mark, Luke, Mathew and John? Why did they write the Gospels? Were they at all related to the Twelve apostles?
What happened to the 12 apostles: I believe St.Peter traveled to Rome and was eventually crucified upside down. St. Thomas may have traveled to India to carry Christ's word to that subcontinent. At least that is what the Catholics in my School in India taught me. I believe Judas killed himself. What happened to St. James and the other apostles.
And who was St. Paul and what is his position in the early Church?
In the New Testament, there is a whole section called "The Acts of the Apostles." This from my understanding from School. What are these Acts and who wrote them and how did they become a part of the new Testament. How did the epistles of St.Paul become a part of the NT? Since it is not Jesus Christ speaking, should it be regarded as a part of the bible?
Finally, there are the other gospels, that the Council of Nicaea regarded as heresy: The gospel of St. Philip, Judas, etc. Why are they not regarded a part of orthodox Christianity?
I have many questions. However, let us get started educating ourselves.
Tas -
Message 2
Posted by ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ auto-messages (U294) on Tuesday, 21st September 2010
Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'History Hub' to 'Ancient and Archaeology'.
Hi Tas,
I'm going to move this to the Ancient and Archaeology as it best suits that board.
Cheers
Andrew -
Message 3
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
This is a subject that has been of interest to me for a long time.Β
Hi Tas! As a commentator that rarely opens issues himself, Tas I have great respect for you! You open by far the most interesting issues which become "top-discussed". Hehe!
By early Christianity, I mean the period from the Resurrection of Christ to the Council of NicaeaΒ
Yes, that is indeed the period of early christianity.
Who were the people who wrote the Gospels, Mark, Luke, Mathew and John? Why did they write the Gospels? Were they at all related to the Twelve apostles?Β
Well that only them can tell us!!! There is no cross-section with other non-christian writers, the first of whom appear in the following century refering merely to "...just another obscure eastern religion". From then on, history on christianity (and from 5th AD century, all history) has been written by christians. So no possibility of cross-verification. We can imagine that all these people existed in the mid-1st A.D. century and were religious preachers of Jewish origins following the teachings of some religious teacher, Jesus, who appeared as a reformer of the Jewish faith and who just like Bhoudda, after his death rose to the position of "Son of God".
What happened to the 12 apostles:Β
What happaned? They were 5 and there were added other 7 and they became 12. Like a joke! 12 Gods. 12 months. 12 Apostles. How best to sell it?
I believe St.Peter traveled to Rome and was eventually crucified upside down. St. Thomas may have traveled to India to carry Christ's word to that subcontinent. At least that is what the Catholics in my School in India taught me.Β
And another went to Ethiopia, but most of them were circulating between Middle East, Minor Asia, Cyprus etc.
I believe Judas killed himself. What happened to St. James and the other apostles.Β
On that, even christian propaganda did not comment much. Everything is alledged of course. No tombs remain of most of them. Note that muslims did not destroy tombs of earlier christians - do not forget that for muslims they were too respected religious teachers before their prophet.
And who was St. Paul and what is his position in the early Church?Β
He was a rich hellenised Jewish who arguably an earlier enemy, finally became an adept of this jewish sect and was chief responsible for spreading it to circles outside jewish populations, especially in the helleno-roman world. Yet, you have to note that again most of his followers were not Greeks or Romans but largely hellenised jewish or hellenised phoenicians and syrians as early christianic teaching were too eastern-like to draw the attention of Greek populations.
What are these Acts and who wrote them and how did they become a part of the new Testament.Β
Who knows?
How did the epistles of St.Paul become a part of the NT? Since it is not Jesus Christ speaking, should it be regarded as a part of the bible?Β
It was decided I think in the first Synods of the 4th century, including the major one of Nicea. It is the big proof that the dogma of the christianic belief was still very fluid and people were discussing what to accept and what to let out. By that time the christianic belief had travelled a long way from a reformed-jewish sect into a globalised religious hellenised jewish by-product. Circumcision was not anymore demanded, pork-eating was permitted, icons and statues were gradually permitted, and everything had to do with 12 all while since the "specialised god protector" could not exist, it was gradually replaced by the "saint protector", a short-cut to avoid on the one thing lacking "protectors" as well to avoid having populations returning back to paganism.
Finally, there are the other gospels, that the Council of Nicaea regarded as heresy: The gospel of St. Philip, Judas, etc. Why are they not regarded a part of orthodox Christianity?Β
Because they spoiled the mayonaise. There is no why. Because! At some point they had to decide, and they decided upon two things: the logic of the times & the politics of the times.
This thingie continued of course. Why catholics adopted the "filioque" article and keep it even today when it is widely known to have been a translation error from the Greek original to the Latin copy? -
Message 4
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Mind you, we are discussing now about christians but we really "risked" discussing about Mani, his teachings and his followers, or about the religion of Mithra, or the Sun-god etc. etc. Back then, eastern religions were quite in vogue. First it was the Egyptian gods - quite popular among Greeks too (eg. Serapis etc.). The cult of Mithra and the Sun were widespread and in the 1st century AD wannabe-Emperor Vitelius lost the critical battle when his soldiers lost heart having mistaken Vespacian's soldiers' religious morning greeting to the Sun as a greeting to a friendly to them oncoming army!!! To be noted that Vitelius legions were of northernwestern origin while Vespacian's of southeastern. If we go back to the mid-3rd A.D. century the religious formation of the Empire was about a 10% christians, 10% Mithra, 10% Sun-god, 10% Manichaists, 10% little mix of all and all the rest of 60% were good old pagans. Out of all of them a 10% of each - the most educated ones - were quite positive to dialogue and formed the cloud of semi-religious semi-agnostics providing the bridges - however we have always to keep in mind that those who were christians, sun-god, manichaists and mithraists were all mainly found in the east and while in competition with each other shared 1 main thing: their relative dislike to the western pagans, especially Greeks, out of which christians had the bigger antiparathesis and perhaps that is why their religion was adopted by most anti-Romans (as Romans and Greeks were seen in the east as Greeks all-together...). That does not mean that you could not find any Greeks&Romans in their ranks, there were some attracted by these religions and form the late 3rd century a minority among the higher classes, already experimenting with the other aforementioned eastern religions discovered the particular political allure of the christian religion which federated much more its members than the other religions. When Diocletian ordered the "chase of christians" (nothing like the christians named) it was an inner political game. Roman would not care about what religion each believed but they had realised that there were by then bigger forces behind the religion, political forces this time and that it was to their interest to deroot the threat than let it become bigger.
Unfortunately they didn't do it, much to the detriment of the humanity - to my personal opinion. -
Message 5
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Hi Nik,
You are ever so methodical in answering my questions. Thank you! I guess we all have to flounder a bit because not much has been written down about early Christianity.
I imagine a lot of the Gospels were carried in the hearts of the early Christians. Many of them must have remembered a lot. Then some of the best leaders wrote the things down in the Gospels. They do seem to tell the same story although with their own interpretations.
I suspect there were few intellectuals among the early Christians; then came Paul, a very strong figure, who seemed to know what he was talking about, so his epistles were accepted into the bible.
How strong was the attributed Christianity of the Emperor Constantine? Did he convert on his death bed or earlier. I understand his mother, the Empress Helena had become a devout Christian.
In the Council of Nicaea was one of the topics of discussion Christ's divinity? or was this already settled?
Thanks Nik, I find your messages very informative indeed.
Tas -
Message 6
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Hi Tas
as requested on Jiglu here is initial response to some of your queries
"Who were the people who wrote the Gospels, Mark, Luke, Mathew and John? Why did they write the Gospels? Were they at all related to the Twelve apostles?"
Many scholars do not accept they were written by the claimed authors, although the names are not in the text they are on the earliest manuscripts, but were originally anonomous and the names were added later. However, Luke is written to a specific person, Theophilus and John claims the authority of an eyewitness. Prof R.Bauckham in 'Jesus and the Eyewitnesses' claims that both Mark and Luke point to the use of eyewitness testimony in their gospels. He also accets that John was written by an eyewitness as does the athiest historian Robin Lane Fox.
Concerning the claimed authorship
Matthew: claimed to be one of the 12 apostles who was a tax colector and therefore likely to be more educated than the other 12. Matthew makes extensive use of Mark and also an earlier lost account of Jesus' sayings referred to as the Loggia or 'Q'. Hardly amy scholars accept that matthew wrote the gospel although it is the sort of one that one expect an ex tax collector to write. Papias, an early Christain Bishop according to the Christian historian Eusebius wrote βMatthew collected the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue.β This has sometimes been identified with the Loggia.
Mark: John Mark was a young man at the time of Jesus and later accompanied Paul and Barnabus on his first missionary journey but turned back. paul refused to take him on his second missionary journey leading to a row between paul and barnibus. Judging by later letters of paul, Paul and mark were later reconciled. In tradition Mark based his gospel on the reminiscence of Peter. Mark is such a minor charector that some scholars still accept that he may have written the gospel.
Luke: A companion of Paul on some of his missionary journeys and a gentile. He was a doctor. It is agreed that the same person wrote Luke and Acts and acts have sections that were written as 'we'. Robin Lane Fox accepts that these were written by Luke. Luke states that there have been many gospels before he wrote his and uses Mark and the Loggia.
John: John was one of the most important of the 12 apostles and one of the 3 that jesus took with him out of the 12 (the others were Peter and John's brother James). John along with Peter is mentioned in Paul's letters and in tradition was the last surviving of the 12 living in Ephesus. John's gospel claims that an eyewitness, referred to as 'the beloved disciple' was behind the gospel. This has often been identified with John. Howver, there is anothefr John referred to in early Christian writings called John the elder and it has been suggested that it is this John that is behind the gospel. Papias refers to John the Elder.
"What happened to the 12 apostles:"
Based on the New Testamant documents
James brother of John was executed by the Jewish King Herod Agrippa
Judas Iscariot killed himself
John's gospel refers to Peter's death in an oblique way.
What happened to the rest is only in later tradition
I would mention one other person - James, Jesus' brother. According to the gospels he did not follow Jesus until after his death and ressurection. paul refers to meeting him and that he saw the risen Christ. James became head of the Jerusalem church and precided at the council of Jerusalem at which the church decided that gentiles did not have to become Jews to become Christians. He is referred to by the Jewish writer Josephus as having been stoned to death by Jews in 62AD.
regards
Tim -
Message 7
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Wednesday, 22nd September 2010
Hi Tim,
I thought you would approach the subject in the way it should be approached. Thanks for all that.
I read quite a bit about the Gospels in a preface of George Bernard Shaw; probably for St Joan. He opines that Mark appears to be the earliest of the Gospels. According to him, Luke was obviously some one who enjoyed writing.
At my Catholic school, in the scripture class, which I attended a few times, although not required to, they paid the greatest emphasis on Mathew for some reason. Shaw states that John is distinct from the rest.
All four of them are telling the same story so it stands to reason that they are talking about a real person, who must have been a great teacher.
How did so many of St. Paul's epistles get into the New Testament? Does the reason I have given in one of my messages above sound at all near the truth?
Do you know anything about the new gospels discovered in Egypt; of St. Philips and Judas? are there any similarities in them with the four main Gospels? Is there any connection between the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity?
Tas -
Message 8
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
As usual, some great contributions by Nik and Tim....
Did Peter really travel to Rome, or is that an apocryphal myth? I'm not convinced that he really did make it all the way to Rome, or that James made it to Spain, or that Andrew's bones made it to Scotland, or that Philip made it to Ethiopia, or that Thomas made it to India, etc....
I believe these apocryphal myths were concocted after the event to give the Christian traditions in these new Christian territories a level of legitimacy. I'm not even convinced that the 12 apostles are really who the BIble says they are. After all, the Bible was written a good 70-100 years after the death of Christ, and there is so much historical inaccuracy about the narrative concerning Christ, largely because it's a document of faith, and not meant to be a historical record.
The question is, are there any contemporary documents at the time to verify the existence of these apostles?
<quote>What happened to the 12 apostles: I believe St.Peter traveled to Rome and was eventually crucified upside down. St. Thomas may have traveled to India to carry Christ's word to that subcontinent. At least that is what the Catholics in my School in India taught me. I believe Judas killed himself. What happened to St. James and the other apostles. -
Message 9
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
...they paid the greatest emphasis on Mathew for some reason. Shaw states that John is distinct from the rest.Β
That depends on tradition of course. From there on since all of the texts seem to say the same story, people chose the text that is more of their liking. And there are differences, primarily in style and lignuistics:
All four evangelia (gospels) along with Paul's epistoles (letters) where written in Greek language. You have to note that this was not any first among Jewish sects, in fact even earlier than the times of Jesus, Jewish had already translated in Alexandria their religious texts and in the 2nd and 1st century B.C. were already writing religious texts directly in Greek as a growing number of Jewish not only those in diaspora but even those back in Palestine had adopted Greek as their maternal language while their capacity in Jewish or the previous lingua franca of Middle East, Aramaic, was reducing at the time. It was a matter of propaganda afterall otherwise they would lose a large market - not to mention that the jewish youth considered as fashionable whatever was greek and started "doing sports, bathing and... growing uncircumcised "tools"" and other such evil things, hehe!
Now out all 4 Evangelists as well as Paul were all Jewish of Jewish-aramaic maternal language, yet all of them were also Greek speakers, something very natural for the times, afterall most of them were educated people. Their style of Greek was revolving around the Greek Koini (Common Greek) of the times though there are big differences among them ranging from Kathareuousa Koini (i.e. a literary archaic Attic-like Koini) down to Demotic Koini (i.e. a written form of the common oral language of the people)
To understand what the above is all about just think it simply: Greek is a language comprising of lots of dialects out of whom the most well known groups were Dorian, Aeolian and Ionian which by hellenistic times (200-300 years before Roman Empire & birth of Jesus), when Greek had became the international language, they merged mainly on the basis of Attic (Athenian) Ionian dialect. However from 1st A.D. century onwards many writers, mainly of Greek ethnic origins complained about the evolution of the language and preferred to write in a perfect imitation of 5th-4th century B.C. Attic Greek. Some of the edyucated non-ethnic Greek writers (Romans, Egyptians, Jewish, Syrians etc.) also adopted the trend. Evidently of course, the "reproduction" was not necessarily exact as mistakes were common. If anything, this created the phenomenon of di-glossia, i.e. educated people writing and even speaking an archaic form while common people continued evolving the common demotic (demotic from demos = community, i.e. societal language) Greek and the phenomenon continued up to our days, finally solved in 1981 - arguably however society by 1950s had adopted a standardised form of the common demotic Greek.
Now, to imagine the amount of evolution, take the example of untrained modern Greeks who have never seen any text older than 30 years old... They recognise words and phrases in ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔric texts (note: already difficult to understand even for untrained 500 B.C. people!!) but it is impossible for them to translate the full meaning. They can recognise words, phrases and the general subject of discussion of historical and philosophical texts of 500-300 B.C. but it is still impossible for them to translate exactly. The first texts they may find a bit more easy to follow and even to translate roughly are the New Testament, written in Koini Greek of the time (2000 years back).
Now back to our Evangelists Tim above presented each of them:
1) Matthew as a tax collector he would be an educated man with very good oral and written knowledge of Greek. Evidently Matthew was an educated man who had passed years at school and learnt speaking and writing since a young age. He is the best writer in Greek in comparison to all others and writes in a rough Attic-like style. In comparison to the others, he is of course the one that modern Greeks find most difficult to comprehend.
=> This perhaps may answer you why your catholic teachers may have preferred him - Matthew is the most eloquent of all.
2) Lucas and Marcus had about the same education. Lucas was a doctor and certainly was taught Greek while Marcus who was born in Libya (then a largely hellinised area) was known to have a classical education like Matthew - afterall he was said to serve as translator to Peter who as a simple lake fisherman was not so good with Greek. They both wrote roughly in the same style, i.e. a language closer to the common Greek of their times, albeit they do not hide their education and their language is a midway between Matthews literate style and the oral language of their days. Evidently modern Greeks find their texts easier than Matthew's however still more difficult than John.
3) John, the youngest disciple of Jesus, had no formal classical education and the Greek he spoke was the oral Greek of the times. When he took to write his text - arguably at a late age when he was exiled on the Aegean island of Patmos (where he is said to have written the Apocalypse), he used a style which was very close to the oral Greek of the times. Modern Greeks find his text the easiest to follow - in fact if they are told a couple of helpful hints (such as that the words "gar"="because" and "ouk"=not) they can almost go on read it almost like a modern book. It all has to do also with the fact that the later evolution of the Greek language and as such, Modern Greek, was evidently influenced by the Evangelia as this was the most widespread book as well as the book read in church. Evidently, the evangelio of St John is the most popular among Greeks and St. John the most popular among evangelists!
=> Perhaps the language of John is what made your teachers saying that he is the "odd kid" out among all 4.
4) St. Paul was also an educated man of higher social and political ranking being born with the title of Roman citizen and evidently he spoke Greek perfectly. However, since his letters were addressed to the various communities in cities of Minor Asia and mainland Greece, they were written in a more simple language more close to that of John, hence for Greek readers, Paul too remaines quite popular along with John - afterall St. Paul is the main teacher for the eastern church and holds the statue that Peter has for the western church.
All four of them are telling the same story so it stands to reason that they are talking about a real person, who must have been a great teacher.Β
I think too that this is a safe guess. Unfortunately we have no contemporary non christian reference to him to cross-verify but we can imagine he more probably existed than not. There are non-christian references on him by Jewish anti-christian writers but these come 100 years after and we cannot know. One of them - do not remember name - mentions that Christ was the "unlawful son" of Maria and a Roman soldier of Greek origins called Pantheras (Tiger????) and as such Jesus (Iason?) was bound to become a heretic and to distort the jewish law and to teach to the much hated Greeks and to have relations with another Greek-loving woman Maria from Magdala (this was a hellenised jewish town where people had Greek mostly as maternal language etc. etc.), and blah blah... in reality back then there was a huge collision not so much between any Greeks and Jewish but between pro-Greek and pro-traditionalist Jewish dating since the times of the Hanucha, i.e. the rebelion of traditionalist fundamentalists against the hellenised with the hellenised asking the help of Antiochus Emperor of the Seleucian hellenistic kingdom of Syria who finally closed of the Temple which created a huge backlash and turned politically against him with Ptolemeus of Egypt exploiting the case and enterring Palestine to take control (the good old usual battle point between Egyptians-Hittites and Egyptians-Assyrians remained the same for Ptolemaian and Seleucian Greeks!!!! the geography of the land does not change!!!).
Since, then the Jewish society was quite divided with lots of extremist fractions appearing like the Essaians, the Zelots, the Pharisaians but also lots of reconciliatory movements and we may imagine that Jesus was one such leader of such a movement teaching that his teachings were for all people of all backgrounds.
Mind you, even christians no matter their preachings they were not really so "un-ethnic" and "globalists" as people think today. While they were always a mixed group, it is clear that up to the late 3rd century B.C. (i.e. up to 300 A.D.) the majority of them were either of full or partial Jewish ancestry or of other Middle Eastern origins (Phoenicians, Syrians etc.) with few really ethnic Greeks and Romans, most of whom presented the reaction that Athenians are mentioned to have presented when Paulus had spoken to them: "Alright, enough for today, nice all that, we will listen to you tomorrow" (i.e. "nice stories, we have heard them before"!). Until 300 A.D. the bulk majority of the non-Middle Eastern followers were mostly slaves and people holding a grudge against the Roman Empire politically or holding a grudge against the Romans and Greeks (and often these were seen as the same group) racially since these had the better social positions. To understand this kind of racism and complexes of inferiority, you have to had been in Egypt of the times for example to comprehend how even 1000 years after the Greek conquest, the "Romans" that Arabs found there were largely the descendants of the Greeks that conquered (and colonised) who ruled over the middle-lower classes of Egyptians: even 1 millenia had not elmininated the gap which was not just financial (as there were many more immensely rich easterners than the rich in mainland Greece or even in Italy, apart Rome) but mainly socio-cultural and educational.
Remaining to education, it is no secret that due to the constituency of first christians, the bulk of them were of simple minds and only leading figures were educated enough, still none of them could ever compare in education with non-christian people until the 5th century and the apparition of the eastern saints Basilios, Gregorios and John Chrysostome some of who were (alledgedly...) of Greek origins and as such more positively positioned to Greek studies other than plain linguistics. And it is basically them that gave a new direction to the christian religion and contributed to popularise it becoming the "good cop" next to the "bad cop" that was by then the christian Emperors (especially the despekeable barbaric Theodocius). Had they been born earlier, it is possible that texts of them could had even passed as gospel but then when christians gathered around in the 4th century A.D. to decide on "what to believe exactly", they had to search for the most standardised earlier version, evidently. -
Message 10
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
How did so many of St. Paul's epistles get into the New Testament? Does the reason I have given in one of my messages above sound at all near the truth?Β
Continuing from above, they had to search for ancient texts and select isn't it? The time distance was already 300 years or so. Many manuscripts were already being lost if not copied in multiple times. These 4 evangelia and the letters of Paul were copied multiple times and were of the most popular, hence naturally they were selected. Note that when Jesus taught he just taught, he never said "You guys, sit down and write 4 texts and 5-6 letters to that, that and that city so our future followers will have a holy book". Of course not. Simply, after his death Matthew sat down and wrote what he remembered, John did the same thing later too, others did so but their texts were lost, Lucas and Marcus heard from Peter, Matthew, and John the stories and wrote them too the same all while Paul interested mostly in the "marketing" was going around spreading the "word", organising communities and writing to them letters etc. Then 300 years later out of all those 10s of evangelia written on Jesus, they picked these 4 chosen as most consise as well as particular letters of Paul's contact with communities showing the general spirit that the young church wanted to adopt.
In reality, they could had chosen other too or have ommited some of the existing. These people might believed they spread the word of God and that their actions were "God driven" but then in reality what do you think - they certainly made very earthly and human choices!!!
Do you know anything about the new gospels discovered in Egypt; of St. Philips and Judas? are there any similarities in them with the four main Gospels? Is there any connection between the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity?Β
I know little. I have heard they do containing mostly similar stuff than the existing evangelia but these "apocryfa evangelia" (hidden gospels), no matter if written by disciples of Jesus and early adepts, do indeed contain some deviations like parallel stories and even phrases containing notions that would certainly be considered as heresy at Nicean Synod. By that time the christian dogma was clearly a choice of politics. Pro-arian or anti-arian? Monophysite? Monothelite? etc. etc. utter waste of human intellect on meaningless issues all while these were used politically. Who can forget that the rebelion of Nika at 532 which apart all other political and social reasons had also mingled in it religious (with lower social classes being mostly of monophysite belief and supporters of the green-coloured "Prasinoi" Athletic Club and higher classes of the blue-coloured "Venetoi" Athletic Club...) all while in the following century the subsequent iconoclastic movement had a clear basis on the monophysitic/monothelitic east going against the multi-physitic/multithelitic west, there with clear racial connotations: the iconoclasts swore the iconophiles as "Ethnikoi" (i.e. nationalists) and as "Hellens" (i.e. Greeks) while the iconophiles swore the iconoclasts as "Ioudaizondes" (i.e. turned-jewish). While the latter had clearly no anti-semitic connotation (as there are no known anti-Jewish feelings among Greeks of the time: note that only time they were punished was by a... "Ioudaizon", i.e. iconoclast Emperor Leon who closed the synagogues of the city for having spread the rumour that he was Jewish...), while however the "Ethnikoi" and "Hellen" had a clear racial connotation and showed that there was as live as ever a constant rivalry between the central and eastern Greek speaking christian Minor Asians of non-Greek ancesty and the western Greek speaking christian Minor Asians and mainland Greeks of Greek ancestry and this went up to the end. You have to really see a map of 20th century A.D. collapsing Ottoman Empire to see where Ottomans had success in islamisation and where the had not in Minor Asia to comprehend this better and to understand that this socio-historic process of hellenisation and christianisation of Eastern Mediterranean is not at all well studied up to today.
Anyway, I took it elsewhere, my main point was to keep in mind that the choice of text was pretty much governed by the politics of the leading christian groups of the time. Afterall why did they do Synods and did not expect like Mohamed "God's voice" (very convincing too...)? -
Message 11
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
Here's another reason why I'm not convinced that the names of the 12 apostles are not cast in stone....
The four Gospels that were accepted by the Council of Nicaea can't even agree on exactly what their names are. For example, one Gospel takes about the second Judas as the son of Alphaeus. Elsewhere, he's called Jude, in another he's called Thaddeus, and in a fourth, he's called Labbaeus. And is it Nathaniel or Bartholomew? -
Message 12
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
Shivfan
you have a double negative in your sentence but I am presuming that you are doubting the identities of all the 12. Paul in one of his letters refers to there being 12 but it is clear that there is a problem with their names. Matthew for example is often identified with Levi but in fact according to Bauckham it would be extremely unlikely for someone to have both names.
John's gospel refers to a number of disciples who are not named in the synoptics. People have often tried to tie the 2 togther but Bauckham suggest that the people were followers of Jesus but not part of the 12 but that John (in his view the Elder not the apostle) moved amongst a differnt circle of followers and that his gospel reflects that.
regards
Tim -
Message 13
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
Shivan, sorry forgot to thank you for your comment and now have to wait 2 minutes.
-
Message 14
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
Hi Tas
I have not yet replied to all your original questions but some more replies to your latest post.
The opinion of most scholars is that Mark was written at 70AD either shortly before or after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, some conservative scholars would put it earlier. Matthew and Luke are both dated between 80 and 90AD and John about 100AD. The Loggia which Matthew and Luke used as well as Mark but which is now lost is dated around 50AD. So the four gospels were written between 40 and 70 years after the death of Jesus. This compares very favourably with accounts of other historical people. For example the two accounts of Hannibal Barcaβs invasion of Italy are written about 80 and 200 years after the event. The most important history of Alexander the Great was written in the 2nd C AD.
Paulβs letters can be divided into a number of groups
Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians (they also contain parts of 2 other letters by Paul), Galatians, Philipians, 1 Thesselonians and Philemon (a personal letter) that are accepted by pretty well all scholars as being written by Paul.
2 Theseelonians used to be accepted as written by Paul but is now more often considered to be a rework of 1 Thesselonians by a follower (the 2 are very similar) but meet a later situation).
Colossians which is accepted by a minority of scholars as written by Paul while the majority do not.
Ephesians is based on Colossians and although some scholars accept it is by Paul more do not. By the way I side with the minority on these 2 letters.
The pastoral letters 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus: Only conservative scholars maintain that they were written by Paul but the author may have used parts of some personnel letters of Paul that he hadin those letters.
There were undoubtedly a group who did not consider that he was a proper apostle as he was not a follower of Jesus in his lifetime but the majority seem to have accepted him. His importance can be seen from the way that he is the main apostle in the book of Acts. Early Christain letters such as 1 Clement and from Ignatious of Antioch refer to him. It seems likely that there was a collection of paulβs letters put together by the 90s AD. Paul, with the exception of Romans, was writing to deal with specific situations, and would probably have been amazed that his letters were kept and valued but they were. Clement writes to the Corinthian church in around 95AD βread your letter from the blessed Apostle Paul again. What did he write to you in those early gospel days? How truly the things he said about himself and Cephas [Peter] and Apollos [another Christian missionary] were inspired by the Spirit!β Paulsβ letters were kept and valued by the individual churches because of the value placed on them. I think if one reads them alongside later letters that did not come to be considered scripture the difference between them is clear. They are also the earliest Christian documents we have with the earliest written references to Jesus.
The Dag Hammadi documents were discovered in 1945. They are a collection of Christian Gnostic (scholars now question whether there is a coherent unity to Christian Gnostisism at all) writings. Howver, Gnostisism has the elements that matter is evil and the spirit is good,God is entirely good and entirely spirit but could not create the world because matter is evil. He sent out a series of eminations, each one more remote from God and less good until one was sufficiently βevilβ to handle matter and create the world. Jesus was an emanation from God but being good they did not believe that he had a physical body but only appeared to have one (known as docetism). People can only be saved through acquiring a secret knowledge which only the spiritual elite were able to do so. A person called Valentinus in the 2nd C was a leader of the group holding such beliefs and some scholars now refer to valentinism rather than Gnostisim. Prior to the Dag Hammadi documents, Gnostic beliefs were only known about through the writings of their enemies, the orthodox church. Allowing for hostile bais, the Dag Hammedi documents have shown that what the orthodox wrote about them was broadly accurate.
Most of the documents are much later than the New testament documents but the Gospel of Thomas is considered to be contemporary with some of the later NT documents. There are in some of the NT statements that appear to be contradicting Gnostic beliefs. The Gospel of Thomas is not a gospel like the 4 gospels. It is just a collection of sayings by Jesus, some of which are clearly Gnostic in origin, some of which are similar to sayings of Jesus in the NT and some which could be previously unknown sayings of Jesus. One could place them in any order
Examples
Gnostic: Simon Peter said to them βLet Mary [Magdelene] leave us, because women are not worthy of life.β Jesus said, βLook, I shall guide her so that I will make her a man, in order that she may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.β
Parallel: βCome to me because my yoke is easy and my mastery is mastery is gentle...β
Compare mat 11v30 βFor my yoke is easy and my burdon is light
Regards as always Tim -
Message 15
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Thursday, 23rd September 2010
Hi Nik, Tim,
Thank you for your extremely enlightening messages.
Nik, because of your Greek background you have been brilliant in analyzing the language of each of the Gospels. That is a very key approach to understanding those times and how each came about.
Tim, once again, a lot of common sense. My understanidng of early Christianity is a lot better now.
I imagine that up to the Council of Nicaea things were still fluid and there were a number of interpretations of Christianity; however, there was some common theme among them.
At some stage I will ask questions about Iconoclasm, because that seems to have played such a prominent role in Islamic thinking.
After the council anything unorthodox came to be identified with heresy.
Shiv also has some good arguments and analysis. I am enjoying all your messages so far.
Tas -
Message 16
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Friday, 24th September 2010
Hi Tim,
I noticed the double-negative after I posted, as I have a bad habit of posting before reading over my comments. And then there is no edit function here, so I just couldn't bother to correct it!
Alternative history interpretations seem to provide an interesting side-bar to the Bible story. Here it is in a snip....
Jesus Christ was only really interested in reforming the current Jewish religion, and not really promoting a new Christian faith to embrace Gentiles. So, after his death, Jesus' family members produced the head of the church in Jerusalem, which kept a Jewish slant to this sect. At the same time, apostles who went abroad (Paul?) were trying to convert Greeks and Romans, and needed an interpretation that appealed to them. Hence, the creation of the myth of Pilate washing his hands, the invention of Barrabas, and the convenient exoneration of the Romans for the death of Jesus, giving the Jews the blame, and making this new religion more appealing to the Romans....
Now, it's a theory that there was then this split in the new church between those who followed Jesus' family and his message to reform the Jewish religion, and those who followed this new Christian faith, which targeted the conversion of the Gentiles, and demonised the Jews. The Jesus branch of the new church was apparently destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked in about 70 AD, following the Simon Bar-Kochba revolt. -
Message 17
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 24th September 2010
I imagine that up to the Council of Nicaea things were still fluid and there were a number of interpretations of Christianity; however, there was some common theme among them.Β
Certainly there was some common theme otherwise they would not recognise each other as heretics but as different religions and hence really there would be even less animosity!!!
You have to see the Church's Synods the christian equivalent of ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation). Their conduct not only did not end disputes on dogma but actually multiplied them. In fact, we know that in them participated episcopes that later were branded themselves as heretics so both orthodox (wishing to keep the right belief) and catholic (wishing to apply to everyone) equivalent churches that derived from the initial Orthodox Catholic Church (the official name of the 1st church after Nicea) are based on dogmas that have been co-signed by heretics and imposed by a line of Emperors that were dealing equally with Arian heretics!!!!!
Earlier on, one of the biggest propagandists of the christian belief and one of the first that tried to bridge the gap between christianism and hellenism was Origenes a christian theologist and a philosopher of the 3rd A.D. century who wrote mainly between 220-250 A.D. (so you see we talk about this religion finding its first real theologist about 200 years later which is normal of course, same was for Islam unless you believe that koran and the surahs were all written by Mohamed who did not know to read or write but who is mentioned inside Koran to read casual texts from times to times... well... ). Now Origenes is an interesting figure: when he rises, christianism is still an obscure teaching based on random books and letters written by Jesus' first evangelists, students, followers etc. Origenes based on both the rather anarchic christianic literature of his times as well as his sound classical education (especially his speciality on Platon and Aristoteles) took the christian religion a step further. Origenes is the first christian that speaks both religion and philosophy but as you know this combination is very often leading not to mutual comprehension but actually to dogma/heresy. With Origen and the discussions he opened we have the birth of the "official truth" and the "official heresy". I will be considered as baroque but I will say this: Origen is the father of all heretics, yet this man along with his "grandchild" major heretic Arius (Arius based his teachings on Origen) was the key figure in the expansion of the christian religion!!!! Nontheless Origenes via Arius became the common joint of a long list of future to him heresies including arians, nestorians, pavlicians, monophysites, monothelites and even iconoclasts (who largely came from monophysitic backgrounds) not to mention christian-agnostics & christian-synchretists. Yet Origenes' teachings are on the basis of the teachings of the most orthodox of all, Basilios, Gregorios and John Chrysostome who in the 5th century along with Augustine stamped both the dogma and the nature of the christian religion.
At some stage I will ask questions about Iconoclasm, because that seems to have played such a prominent role in Islamic thinking.Β
I regard Iconoclasm as one of the last phases of sects of the Arian-Monophysite-Pavlician series of heresies (with other branches further away from orthodox-catholic christianity which of course such as Bulgarian and Bosnian Bogomilsme and their descendants the Cathars in west). Quite funny that as soon as the Byzantine Empire was conquered, no more widespread heresy appeared and they started appearing then only in the west - that tells us a lot really about "dogma" and "heresy"! For orthodox particularly Iconoclasm is really an interesting phase especially for us orthodox (I am not religious myself of course) since while it did not manage to de-root our icons and our very pagan souls it managed to influence the later development of the outer-appearence of the orthodox church which produced a divergent culture from the catholic church as seen in the use more of mobile icons and less of permanent statues, in the use of section between holy part of the church and main part etc. though non of these characteristics ever became any dogma - rather we talk about prevailing traditions (i.e. orthodox church accepts statues - indeed it uses statue use of "crusified Jesus" in mobile wooden-statue form on Easter and has no dogmatic problem with the construction of sectionless churches while even the men-women division is fluid and regional with a 80% of churches having men on the right, women on the left, 15% the opposite and a 5% traditionally mixed - while today it is of course largely mixed with mainly men preferring to continue to go to the right during weddings and baptisms so as they can talk "football" without the constant strict control of their wifes... hehe... ). Mixed section churches were frequent in the middle ages too - the church was a known place for meeting among young unmarried men and women and iconoclasts evidently thought that the use of icons made matters worst hehe...
After the council anything unorthodox came to be identified with heresy.Β
Yes but so happened before. I mean, you only have to read Paulus' letters to understand that only a few years after Jesus' death and his first followers were already fighting against what they thought as divergent interpretations of Jesus' teachings. I can remember Paulus fighting against some guy, perhaps one of the first priests, called Nikolaos (greek name but apparently some eastern immigrant in Minor Asia). He had translated Jesus' message of men and women equal, love all, have no jealousy, live harmoniously so that he organised along with his wife in his christianic community a orgy custom of wife-exchange, giving himself first of all the "good example"!!! Arguably he had more sincere religious rather than really sexual motives, yet it evidently caused a near-heart-attack to poor Paulus who was fighting to instill some "discipline" out there in the communities, ehehe!!! -
Message 18
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 24th September 2010
Now that I am thinking... alongiside heretics Origenes and Arius, this wife-swapper Nikolaus should be also thanked by the search for having immensely promoted the christian religion in its first steps...
... and I am not kidding! You cannot even imagine what had been used to attract new "sheeps" around. -
Message 19
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Friday, 24th September 2010
Hi Nik,
I am amazed at your breadth of knowledge of the early Christian era.
Regarding the tale of wife swapping, I read somewhere that the Chinese Communists also prospered from tales of 'socialized wives,' spread by the Kuomintang as propaganda. A kind of unintended consequence of the propaganda!
However, your insight into that period, including about 'iconoclasm,' was very informative indeed. Thank you!
Tas -
Message 20
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Friday, 24th September 2010
Hi folks,
I would now like to get into the nitty-gritty. How did the great schism come about between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church? Did this have anything to do with the infallibility of the Pope?
When did the doctrine of Papal Infallibility come about and how?
I think we all have some understanding of the rise of Protestantism, when Martin Luther nailed his demands on the door of some church and how the Church of England came to be separated from the Roman Catholic Church. However, many of us are not aware of what caused that great schism between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches.
I know that at the Council of Nicaea the two were still together. I also know that there was a lot of bad blood between the two right up to 1453 AD, the date of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, because there was a Peace Party in besieged Constantinople, lead by the Grand Admiral of Constantinople, whose family had by tradition the task of defending the city by sea. The slogan of the Peace Party was "Better the Turkish Turban than the Papal Meter!"
Tas -
Message 21
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Saturday, 25th September 2010
I have been following the Great Schism and doing some research on the subject:
The EastβWest Schism, sometimes known as the Great Schism, formally divided medieval Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively. Relations between East and West had long been embittered by political and ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes. Prominent among these were the issues of "filioque", whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the eucharist, the Pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of Constantinople in relation to the Pentarchy.
Pope Leo IX and Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius heightened the conflict by suppressing Greek and Latin in their respective domains. In 1054, Roman legates traveled to Cerularius to deny him the title Ecumenical Patriarch and to insist that he recognize the Church of Rome's claim to be the head and mother of the churches. Cerularius refused. The leader of the Latin contingent, Cardinal Humbert, excommunicated Cerularius, while Cerularius in return excommunicated Cardinal Humbert and other legates.
The Western legates' acts may have been of doubtful validity due to Leo's death, while Cerularius's excommunication applied only to the legates personally. Still, the Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographical lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed, with each side accusing the other of having fallen into heresy and of having initiated the division. The Crusades, the Massacre of the Latins in 1182, the capture and sack of Constantinople in 1204, and the imposition of Latin Patriarchs made reconciliation more difficult. This included the taking of many precious religious artifacts and the destruction of the Library of Constantinople.
Tas -
Message 22
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
Quite right Tas. Now, we can see things in a more evolutionary way as centuries passed by.
Even since early christianity there had appeared - as already discussed - various local cultures and of course the well known heresies and all that. If we set aside the heresies (critical part of the cultures - as heresies were born in a particular socio-historic context - eg. 90% of the sects originated from the eastern frontiers, Egypt & Middle East accidental?)
Now, ever since the late 4th century (350-400 A.D.), the appearence of St. Basilius, St. Gregorius and St. John Chrysostome in the east and St. Augustine in the west in early 5th century formed two diverging religious cultures, let alone the already existing language divergence between the Greek speaking east (where the first christian texts were written) and the Latin speaking west.
The three Eastern Saints form what is known to orthodox as the three Ierarachs - a title implying they were the next most important thing after Jesus and his students. All of them came from Minor Asia (Caesaria, Kappadocea, Antioch) and belonged to Greek or rather Greek speaking local Minor Asian families all of them of particular good standing (high ranking Roman military officer for John, rich landwoners for Gregorius, rich lawyers for Basil) all while apart Basil whose family had a long tradition in christianity, Gregorius and John had father and mother respectively pagans which evidently influenced them into their approach towards pagans. All three of them received exceptional education even for their social class standards: Basil and Gregorius studied at Athens (where they met as students) studying under the best teachers of their time all sciences from philosophy to mathematics and medicine under mostly pagan teachers while John too studied in Antiochia, another cultural center (Athens, Antiochia, Alexandria were the three main cultural centers of the East), where he had as teacher one of the best teacher of his times, Libanius.
Due to their social background, their education and their overall ancestry the three Ierarchs developed a particular and quite unknown up to then style in christianity doing the impossible till then, i.e. ceasing to emphasise on things like afterlife and satan and hell and the guilt of sin and all that and concentrating on the today, on the now and on the human all while augmenting the spiritualism of the till then relatively spiritless religion which amassed followers more on the basis of their anti-Roman feelings and lowly false hopes of cheap social ascencion rather than any other thoughtful process and as such all three of them became icons of christianity and the best promoters of it being popular not only among christians but also among pagans. Certainly the only ones who were not happy were the heretics - it must be noted that all three of them fought actively against heresies, evidently on the intellectual level and not inciting violence but they really set pace the pace for the church on how to deal with the question. Most interestingly they also fought against the christian religious leaders, episcopes and patriarchs for their highly luxurious life, their contempt for common people, their large fortunes made using the religion and the related political games, which made them a kind of peoples' heros.
St. Augustine on the other side, was from Carthage, a Phoenician by ancestry as he said, he was also from a rich local family, born a pagan, received a very good education (mostly Latin based), he lived half his life as a pagan and seemed to had been quite a party-guy and at a later age, past his youth, he became christian (a religion he was in contact with, earlier on) and from there on he rose in the local christian hierarchy. Now his background story just like the 3 Hierarchs' ones influced him directly in his style and the direction he gave in the church
First of all, St. Augustine though known as "West's Hierarch" he was christianised within the school of Alexandria. Till then, the late 4th early 5th century, the main schools/cultures of christianity were those of Alexandria and Antiochia, the traditional first bastion nor really so much Rome and Constantinople. Though you could find just any sort of preachers we can say that the Alexandrian school was on the one hand more immersed in religio-spiritualism on the other it had a more direct confrontation with the pagan hellenistic thought while the Antiochian school was more revolved around the human and as such it was more prone to dialectic communication (i.e. to use dialogue) with pagans. The 3 Hierarchs of the East were of the Antiochean School, the 1 Hierarch of the West was of the Alexandrian school.
The fact that he was of the relativaly (relatively of course, do not imagine great differences) more "strict" Alexandrian school and being christianised at a later age of his life perhaps out of certain feelings of self-guilty in relation to his earlier "immmoral" life, St. Augustine adopted a more vertical position on religious and societal issues while giving emphasis more on the hope of later life rather than on what one can achieve in this life. Others might consider that he actually instigated a more "logical" approach while the 3 Hierarchs married the "logos" and the "spirit", thus often describing Austine as Aristoelian and say Basil or John Platonians but in reality this is too generic as a description, if anything in reality St. Augustine's teachings were not any Aristotelian, neither his overall approach which was more influenced by the very eastern Alexandrian school that opposed (pagan originated) logic which the eastern Hierarchs accepted very much by preaching "Read all, have a critical mind, choose the best and make use of it".
However, these were their backgrounds and the nature of their work, from there on we have to see the social backgrounds: the 3 Hierarchs are positioned in the rich and still thriving east which has back then the highest educational level in ther world (have to include india and china but certainly the Eastern Empire is on the cutting edge of civilisation). Augustine is based on North Africa and represents the western part of the Empire which anyway never reached even a part of the cultural level of the east, then being of falling financial state as well and that including Rome, by then an old decaying city not loved anymore even by Roman aristocracy. St. Augustine speaks not in the same type of audience as the 3 three Hierarchs. Apart that, we cannot miss also the most interesting detail, that St. Augustine is the first major christian hierarch to write in the Latin language and perhaps the first to have made a concise translation from Greek to Latin. Back then, even in Rome most texts were written in Greek and taught in Greek rather than Latin.
And most interestingy, whily Austustine's translation of earlier christian texts included in the Evangelion was exemplary, errors were not absent - and guess what? Among these errors one has been the by then infamous "filioque"! -
Message 23
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
Effectively, the "filioque" is traced down to that early (well not so.... we talk about 400 years after Jesus!) translation be it really that of St. Augustine or one of his students and later followers. In the Greek original and as it was described in the Nicea Synod where the dogma was stated, there is 1 God whose actions we see in the form of a trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son and the Holy Spirit "ekporeuontai kai apostellontai" (i.e. originate and take order) from the father. The "holy spirit however "aposteletai" from Father and son, i.e. can be sent at an action from the Son, Jesus. However in the Latin translation due to a lack of suitable word, only one word was used to describe both the "ekporeusis" and "apostoli" (origin and mission) which was the word "processio" and as such the ending result was to finally add in the text the "filioque" next to "processio" so that the Holy Spirit then originates also from Jesus Christ which theoretically (but also very logically) creats a dichotomy in the idea of Holy Trinity: according to "filioque" was have 2 distinct equal Gods, i.e. the Father and Son whose action appear on earth by the action of "Holy Spirit" or even worse, each has his kind of "Holy Spirit".
You might wonder now - what! the what! all that Great Schism and the wars and the hatred and the slaughters (evidetently of the western over the eastern) and all that trouble originated in the above almost incomprehensible philosophical dispute traced down to a common error in translation?
Well yes. But around it we have also to built the climate and this has not so much to do with the aforementioned in my previous message's comments on the diverging christian cultures in east and west.
Back in the 4th-5th century, we saw the rise of the fight of the orthodox-catholic 1 church against the rise of heresies. As we saw, most heresies appeared in the east. That does not mean that heresies did not appear in the west but then as few cared about the west (providing less than 30% of the Empires' commerce and earnings) most heresies grew large finding fertile ground in the East where the trade and economico-political games were of larger magnitude and affected more than 1 Empire (you have to get into the picture the Persian Empire too into that, maybe not christian but their relationship with Nestorians and monophysites as part of anti-Roman secessionary movements alongside being religious heresies is well documented...). Therefore what had happened is that the inclusion of "filioque" actually passed largely... undetected in the east and even in the west people did not exactly pass a lot of time over it. We also can imagine that western clerics of the time did not differ in their opinion over the nature of the Holy Trinity and that the text remained as such. You have to incude that the vast majority of western christians were far from any position to read the texts with the falling standards of reading and writing in the west were they ended up having about 100-200 people (all clerics) knowing to read and write by 800 A.D. in over 30 million souls that Charlemagne's Empire had. Not only the opinion of western cleris did not differ but exactly because of that lack of educated people due to the fall of the western part, many of them were actually eastern ones sent from the west and even some of the Popes and episcopes (like that one who founded Venice!) between the 5th and 8th century were actually "Greek Byzantines" thus people who would not play along the lines of filioque. However the latin translation was not seen as a problem at west or at east, remember years had passed we were not anymore in 400 A.D. but in 500 and 600 A.D. an we were selling of the overruling truth so nobody really wanted to re-write the text even to re-do a translation and that in spite of the very possible existence of latin translations without the filioque - it really had been St. Augustine's one that was most used.
However, while filioque was not an issue yet, there was another issue of divergence, perhaps the most important:
Initially the orthodox-catholic 1 church had as a church head, Jesus Christ and from there on a team of patriarchs:
1 in Constantinople, capital of the Empire - a large city too
1 in Rome, ancient capital of the Empire
1 in Antiochia, one of the most ancient christian cities in the East - a large city too
1 in Alexandria, one of the most ancient christian cities in the East - a large city too
1 in Jerusalem, smaller city but historically the place of action of Jesus Christ.
These patriarchs were supposed to be equal. However ever since the beginning, the patriarch of Rome, i.e. what we know as the Papa or Pope wanted to ask a position of "first among equals" on the basis of having the heritage of Jesus' most ancient student, Peter who died in Rome. For Eastern patriarchs there was no such issue and the position of Patriarch had mostly a connection to the importance of the city and the churches in the region of i positioning - it was more an administrative thingie rather than any other.
However, there was another difference. With the loss of Rome for quite some time from the by then Eastern Roman Empire and before regaining it, the Pope was left as virtually a state leader of the state of Rome! Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antiochia or Alexandria however did not have any direct state power and even their political influence was largely dependent on the circumstances. Indeed, the patriarch of Constantinople had an influence in politics but from the most of it he was subject to the jurisdiction of the Emperors (hence it is an enormous mistake to describe Byzantium as a theocracy - theocracy rather being the state of affairs in the Papal west where pope on the overall was most times more powerfull than the western kings and emperors as well as in the Muslim East which was ruled by the Chalifs, i.e. religio-political muslim-patriarchs). On that basis too Pope wanted to declare superiority over the eastern patriarchs.
However, papal demands were never intense nor repeated but depended on the Pope in position. Then we arrive in the 8th century, 700-800 A.D. The whole of west is run-sack by barbarians, Italy already invaded repeatedly and conquered by the Goths & Vandals was threatened by a new Germanic threat, the Lombards who are less known to us but really back then were seen as even worse than the previous ones since they were not even christians (kind of measure...!)! The Papal state was in direct threat and tried to negociate all while asking help from its protector Constantinople. Do not remember exact Emperor (it had to be Leo the Isaurian?) but he had to be quite busy with the overly dangerous Arab invasions in the east as well as the rise of iconoclasts (Isaurians themselves more pro-iconoclasts but not really any persistent on the issue...) so he did nor reply positive to Pope. Pope till then was largely pro-Byzantine and his first choice was to get help, as usual from there. However seeing the isolation from the east, Pope went to Plan B which was no other than the employment of the Lombards' enemies, the Franks. Franks were no less barbaric than Lombards (and both were much more barbaric than Goths) but Franks were at least christians. Hence he turned to them, Franks felt nice being called in by Pope and Pope named their king as Emperor of the Roman Empire (of west). The plan B worked, the Franks invaded the Lombards and cleared the threat and from there on all Popes linked their fate to the western kings forgetting about getting any help from the East too much occupied with huge wars against the muslims and the Slavs (mainly Bulgarians). Certainly Byzantines did not like this evolution and above all rejected the "Roman Emperor" title for Charlemagne, what they regarded as a random barbarian ruler of a barbaric illiterate tribe (which was not at all far from the truth by the way). In fact even Charlemagne had not asked for such a title himself, it was Pope that called him so and he inadvertedly accepted it, yet his ambassadors were ridiculed and punished at Constantinople for using the title in front of the Emperor, they had eyes blinded - old Roman punishment for treason against state - and were placed on a mule on the opposite side with a letter saying that "next time Charles calls himself so, the Emperor will come to apply the same on him in person". Of course Byzantines had no time for playing so, but then also Charlemagne did not have the power to play so, preferring the title "king" just fine (afterall the title "king" was also used in parallel by eastern Emperors too, Emperor sounded too heavy by those times).
However, with the Franks, the position of Pope suddenly rose and therefore the question of Papal supremacy started being posed directly. Western clerics took an aggressive stance against eastern clerics and started exchanging harsh language with them on the first minor incident. A great fight was there between the pope Nikolaus and patriarch Photius. The Pope had repeated the Pope's supremacy over the other patriarchs. Photius happened to be one of the most educated men of his time and one of the biggest philosophers and scientists of the middle ages - if we had any of his work perhaps he would be more known and considered alongise other figures of philosophy and science. Hence he gathered a Synod around mid-9th century (around 850 B.C.) and there he denounced Pope and his insistence on supremacy and also brought forwards the "filioque" article based on which he called the Pope a... heretic who had to denounce and "come back" if not to be excommunicated. Nikolaus on the other hand was not really so anti-Byzantine as he was anti-Photius, he asked the Emperor to take out Photius and put just any other patriarch.
Whatever happened, things had not reached the Schism yet but the gap was widening. From there on, the western Church not willing to lose ground they stopped commenting on the fillioque avoiding the issue but refusing to review their position and focused more on the "papal supremacy" as well as trivial differences like which of the leavened (east) or unleavened (west) bread should be used in the eucharist - an issue which had sounded idiotic to the eastern who were not so into such trivia but more into the philosophical side of it (not that this made any sense either). The gap was by then widening and the final Great Schism came in 1054 when the patriarch Michael Kerularius used the title "Ecumenical Patriarch", i.e. "patriarch of the world" and the Pope Ignatius fell on him to refuse him the title and to pressure him to recognise Rome as mother of all churches and sent his envoy Humbert, a quite barbaric man of little real education who famously chose the time to enter the Hagia Sofia and hand in the excommunication during Sunday litourgy enterring with shouts, noise and insult inside the holy part of the church to throw in the letters (in evidence that for the western church the eastern was no more than a heresy). Anyway, the eastern church naturally answered with an equal excummunication and called the Pope to refuse the "heresy of the filioque". Interestingly the western church did not stress so much on any "heresy of the absence of filioque" evidently because the Nicean texts back then as well as today were quit clear on who had right on the issue. Afterall the names the churches took are not accidental:
orthodox = having the correct belief
catholic = applying to all
Showing clearly what was the priority of each (please take no notice I am orthodox, I am not religious at all and take no position, here we deal with word meanings!!!).
One has to state that since the filioque had not been any major issue since 400 A.D. and up to 850 A.D. and since the fight during 850 A.D. did not provoke any break up, this Great Schism was not at all any Schism back then, it was an excommunication between 2 patriarchs, the Pope of Rome and the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. The other patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria already totally weakened by the muslim conquests (who let them be there only for reasons of tradition...) did not really take part into the fight and did not position themselves directly.
If anything, for most christians there was no fatality. It is rather what followed in the later 2 centuries that sealed the fate and made this excommunication be named as the Great Schism - and above all was the conquest of Constantinople and of many parts of the Eastern Roman Empire which Crusaders totally destroyed wrecking the place irreversibly more than what Goths or Bulgarians (and even later Ottomans) had ever caused and from there on for the orthodox the catholics and the Pope were not anymore just simply heretics of the heresy of "filioque" double-God, they were demons and Pope satan himself!!! -
Message 24
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Hi Nik,
I am writing this from New York City where I am for a couple of days. I am using the hotels bsuiness center.
I red all of your first message and most of your second. I am amazed at the breadth of your knwoledge, not only about the Roman Empire, but also about early Christianity.
One has to have a real understanding of the facts, which you obviously have. Just the matter of the "filioque" is quite complicated.
I will read both your messages again and give any comments I may have, when I arrive home. I am so glad that you have enough interest in my topics to take the time to give us all the detailed information. You have made me a lot more knowledgeable.
Tas -
Message 25
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Tas, I tend to know 1 thing or 2, mostly I concentrate on the larger picture rather than on the trivial details. From there on, I am not certainly any specialist while even if I am not really into religion having an orthodox background means that I am inherently inclined to have a somewhat more pro-orthodox stance in that dispute (and I say this in knowledge that actually it is mostly the evidence that we have that makes me think that rather the orthodox churches are a bit more right than the western church).
In the whole affair just keep the following notes:
* Early christians presented already various cultures and were often divided upon them even prior to 4th century A.D..
* In the 4th century basic line of division was along the Greek/Latin linguistic line which of course was no inner christian division but rether a regional inside the Empire.
* In 4th and 5th century Rome and Constantinople were simply the administrative centers but the real schools of christianic thought were the "christian bastions" of Antiochia and Alexandria.
* Since 5th century the Eastern church became based more on the Antiochian school (3 Ierarchs Basil, Gregory, John Chrys.), and western church more on the Alexandrian (Augustine)
* Until 5th century the church was ruled by 5 equal strength patriarchates who met at Ecumenical Synods to discuss matters of faith - however one of them, Pope from Rome demanded since early on a "first among equal" position on a historic-traditional basis.
* By 7th century, the fall of Egypt and Syria to Arabs meant that only 2 main patriarchates remained with real political power, Constantinople and Rome.
* By 8th century the two patriarchates were already radically different with Pope being also a leader of his own state and a political leader above other western regional leaders while the Patriarch remained only a religious leader under the orders of the Emperor.
* All that time, between 4th and 11th century diverging traditions always existed among christians and even minor heresies and did not cause any major problem unless there was a real political issue threatening the Empire - unsurprisingly most large heresies had appeared on the Eastern borders of the Eastern Roman Empire
* Due to their diminuishing position the western churches did not occupy as much the east and henc their diverging traditions and even the "filioque" heresy was not a problem until the times of Photius in 850 A.D. - Photius a top scholar used it as a diplomatic weapon against Pope Nikolaus who called the Emperor to fire him. The Pope, unprotected by Byzantines against Lombards and seeking a new assistance, by Franks, had earlier called Frankish king Charlemagne as "Emperor" which was vehemently rejected at Constantinople.
* Still despite the widening gap the relations between Rome and Constantinople, in the period between 850 and 1050 remained tense but still normalised.
* In 1050 there was a personal political fight between Pope Ignatius and Patriarch Michael Kerularius which led to mutual excommunication which for the moment divided Rome and Constantinople without other churches around the world taking any direct part.
* The division became permanent in the minds of eastern and western christians by 1204 when Crusaders captured and completely destroyed Constantinople as well as an important part of the Eastern Roman Empire - i.e. from a personal vendetta among top-clericals it passed down to an ethnic hatred between Greeks and Italo-frankish westerners expressed in the form of orthodox against catholics.
* This vendetta was exploited also by the Ottomans who jumped on its wagon lifting the status of the orthodox church for the first time having a true political power inside the Ottoman Empire so as to help keep down the christians and make sure no union would even happen between orthodox and catholics. Funnily orthodox would accuse catholics for having viciously attacked and destroyed the christian east and leaving easterners no option but to secede to the muslim expansion (and for some patriarchs to collaborate...) but then partly it is also true for catholics and the Pope that they either wanted orthodox under their control or them massacred or at least contained by muslims (a kind of horrible blackmail as Crusaders and Ottomans were one the worst than the other...).
* Hence, while the official Schism is the 1054 date, the real Schism is the 1204 date. From there on we talk about 800 years of completely diverging traditions.
But on their basics, the 2 churches have not many vastly different religious beliefs. 1 is fillioque which unofficially even catholics recognise it is down to a wrong translation. Another is the bread given at the end of the letourgy, leavened or unleavened... early christians were Middle Easterners and used unleavened. Greeks used levened - quite ridiculous even to discuss. Another difference rarely discussed is that in the orthodox tradition there is no concept of purgatory: there is parmenent heaven (seen as presence of God) and hell (seen as absence of God), yet strangely orthodox used much less hell as a blackmail upon people regarding their sins etc. (we also rarely have orthodox artistic depiction of hell) - this can be theoretically traced in the Antiochian-Alexandrian divergence and the St. Basil vs. St. Augustine. cultural divergence.
If anything, a union of the churches has always been on the plan and still is on the plan with the main hinderance, what else, "filioque" and Pope's position as "leader of the church" since for orthodox any union can be done with "Jesus" as head of the church and the Synod of Patriarchs (all existing patriarchs around the world). Contrary to his predecessor, current Pope is moderately pro-Union with the eastern church. Previous archibishop of Athens, Chrystodoulos no matter if having the cloth of a typical "nationalist" orthodox was actually a convinced pro-Union orthodox archibishop (Chrystodoulos had anyway studied in catholic school and had an understanding of both cultures). Patriarch of Moscow is also very open to dialogue regarding the union of the churches to as to end the futile antagonisms between the churches in the East. Current patriarch of Constantinople is however much less keen on a union as it is since his place will be evidently reduced to the traditional position that patriarchs of Antiochia and Alexandria have: effectively there are no christians in Konstantinople anymore, all slaughtered or kicked out! -
Message 26
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 27th September 2010
In other words, we discuss about a schism that unlike the case of catholic and protestant churches which came over a period of 50 years, it occured over a period of about 800 years from 400 A.D. to 1200 A.D. along the lines of a general tradition divergence, 1 translation error and from there on the politics of the time and the relationships between particular patriarchs and popes in the light of their contemporary ongoing geopolitical games. As such there was nothing permanent on it, it can even be seen as a prolonged anomaly.
-
Message 27
Posted by Wally (U14414065) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Yes it was gentle change, most evolutionary processes are. Christianity adopted to suot th environment it found itself in and due to the low levels of intermingling that happened between the areas they have become two distinct species of Christian.
-
Message 28
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Hi Nik,
Does the Orthodox Chuch have the 'confessional', like the Roman catholic church? If each Church is allowed to go its own way and just be good friends with the other. Could that be possible?
If the Catholic Church returns and restores anything that the crusaders looted or stole from constantnople in 1204, perhaps that may undo some bad feelings.
Tas -
Message 29
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Tas, hehe... Greeks (and in general orthodox) have not anymore bad feelings about the crimes of 1204 commited by states that do not exist anymore - above all the 1204 crimes are far too old and then orthodox have suffered tons of other slaughters and genocides which are far more recent and I am not talking about just the Greeks... alongside the 2,5 million genocided Greeks in 20th century in WWI and WWII, you have 1,5 million orthodox Armenians*, you have 1 million Serbians and of course the still not calculated 10s of millions of orthodox Russians genocided by Stalin). Orthodox christians are by far the most genocided chistian group ever and that is why you do not hear about them that much - it is better that way otherwise we will have new genocides again.
* note Armenians are a completely autonomous church not linked with other orthodox churches on the basis of its non-participation in the 3rd Ecumenical Synode (if I remember well... I am not sure, it should be around the 5th century A.D.). This is solely administrative though, not of religious belief - Armenian church is also an orthodox church (i.e. having the "correct" belief hehe... if that ever existed anyway...).
The 1204 cannot be undone. But currently there is some underground moves for the approach of the two churches. But it is much more complicated than filioque. The catholic church has to learn after 1000 years to live in a world were the Pope is simply 1 of the many patriarhs and that the Ecumenical Synode is the ruling body. The Patriarch at Constantinople has to leave the "Ecumenical" title and get reduced to the level of the historic but not really powerful patriarchates of Alexandria, Antiochia and Jerusalem all while the most powerful patriarch in the east will be officially the one at Moscow.
Now as soon as I mentioned Moscow... you got already a slight idea about how political this can be and who does not want this union to take place... It is a huge issue. Note however that many among the catholics and among the orthodox wish to end that 1000 years old anomaly.
What might be strange for you is that the current Pope which is not that popular among catholics is actually more popular among orthodox than the previous who was fiercely anti Russian and hence anti-orthodox. Ok, let me give you a hint here:
Remember Pope Ratzinger's recent (a couple of years back) mention of the late Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos' letter to a Persian islamic teacher commenting on islam? Manuel was an extremely educated ruler, in fact more than whatever professors circulated in the 14th century in the west or the east and it was known that all people were intrigued to discuss with him. Imagine that this dialogue was done during a war with the muslim Ottomans which is even more impressive (there was war and the man was dealing with philosophical issues!!!). The famous phrase of Manuel said: "Show me what new things did Islam offer to the world apart evil violence & slaughters and the spread of the faith by the sword?". Of course the muslims around the world were offended - they did not get into the effort to see how the Pope mentioned that part.
However for the knowledgeable, it should be clear that Pope had sent a message, he had not chosen his lecture accidentally. When you are an episcope you might do act upon the moment, but when you are a Pope everything has a basis. The reference to a late Byzantine Emperor commenting islam should be crystal clear:
"Christian faith is receding, islam has risen up again, this time it is not just orthodox but also catholics in many parts of the world that are threatened, hence time to unite forces to anticipate the future better".
Now, note that since that incident Americans (and British somehow...) have taken a very negative stance against the Pope. Don't you ever think that all that protest against Pope Benedict digging in the ancient past for (certainly absolutely horrible) crimes commited at a time when John Paul was Pope and showered upon him now, 20 and 25 years later, is all accidental. Because it is not. Nothing is accidental. -
Message 30
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
Hi Nik,
Very well explianed and informative!
Can you answer one more question: you know I went to Catholic School, and I am very familiar with the rite of Confessing your sins to a priest, who assigns you a pennance. Dying people always ask for a priest to adminster to them the last rites, so, I presume, they can die in peace.
Does the Greek Orthodox Church also have the rite of the Confessional? Or is there any variant of that rite?
Do Greek people also ask for the presence of a priest when they are on their death bed?
Tas -
Message 31
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
Hi Tas. Yes, confession and pretty much everything there is in the catholic church there in the orthodox church and the opposite, though as said, we speak mostly of divergence of tradition. I am not very informed on details but as far as I know confession in catholic churches was (or is) done traditionally in the confession boxes (I often see in movies in mafia scenes where the gangster often kills wrongly the innocent priest rather than the target which escapes from the ceiling or in love scenes where the woman confesses wrongly to the man that runs after her rather than the priest who arrives later at her surprise!).
Speaking of greek orthodox churches (but other orthodox should not differ in this), confession is not done like that but it is done face to face with the priest. The priest is most often not any priest but usually priests specialised to dealing with people's issues called "pneumatikoi" (i.e. spiritual priests). The confession is done in some casual room on the side of the church or in another church building rather than inside the church though there is no strict law on that, in rural places, they can go for a long walk out in the nature if that can guarantee isolation. It is done in the form of dialogue rather than in the form of listing one's wrongdoings and taking a list of "punishment-practices" although the latter was (and is) also common depending on the cultural background of both parties as you have already guessed! Usually in orthodox confession you do not do list 1 by 1 things but you stick to 1-2 major issues that really trouble your concioussness. For the most of it, confession (like for catholics) was seen as a form of psychotherapy serving for those people that needed really 2 ears to listen to their problem - but (like catholics) was even inadvertedly to the intentions of the priest a means of control over the thought of people keeping them dependent.
Just like for catholics, confession is strictly personal and there is absolute secrecy over it and even law cannot punish a priest for not reveailing information acquired during confession. I remember some 15 years back there was a tv-series in some channel, where viewers could chose the end of each series film. The series were like false documentaries (inspired loosely by real stories) and showed people having to make a choice at some critical point: this served of course as a funny way to make researches over the decision making of people... hehe! Well one of these series dealt with a complex parallel story of a petty-criminal who wished to settle down but under obscure circumstances was forced to kill someone in an unclear half self-defense hald-murder case and then he had to flee. Tortured by remorse, he visited the priest and confessed. The priest suggested him to prove his remorse and surrender so as to explain also the full story to law and to himself, the man said he would think over it and left. The priest next day sees that the police have arrested a man accused of the murder the confessed man had done so he knows the police accuses an innocent man. He is troubled:
1) He speaks, he breaks the absolute trust the man had showed to him as a priest. He will not be able to continue as a priest. For him confession is a holy mystery, and it is not upon to him to break it
2) He remaines silent, an innocent young man goes to jail for life!
The voting took place and it was something 55% for "speak" and 45% for "not speak" which quite shows how confession is instilled into the minds of Greeks even today when Greeks - no matter the cultural appearence - are not really so religious people you think they are. You can imagine that it was the severity of the "not speak" result, i.e. the life sentence of an innocent man that pushed for the impressive 55% (but to you may sound too poor...) result. Had it not been for the innocent man going to jail the "speak would not get more than 30%. -
Message 32
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
Regarding the deathbed, Greeks traditionally asked the presence of a priest but that was not really a necessity, it was mostly a personal issue. They mostly ask their own people, relatives and from there on the next person, yes will be the priest. You can really imagine that down to the basics, the role of the orthodox and catholic churches no matter the notable cultural differences, was pretty similar into the everyday lifes of people.
I know that for catholics and especially protestant the orthodox religion appears a bit weird, a bit like a dark medieval sect, they also hear "orthodox" and they think of "ultra-jewish orthodox", then the bad labelling of Serbians in Jugoslav wars did not aid the case ... overall they think that orthodox must be some strict form of christianity oppressing people and making them enterring heavily-decorated, drug-like smelling churches where Middle eastern-like, sect-like psalms are sung by black-dressed bearded priests who look as if they jumped out of some late medieval Crusade or the Spanish Inquisition! Hence we... easily end up with rednecks at Texas attacking the dark haired long bearded Greek priests for looking like "Middle Eastern terrorists" ... it is extremely amusing.
In reality, appearences are lying hehe! Orthodox among most religions around the world were rarely particularly violent about it. Most trouble in Middle Ages came by the Emperors' wish to fight against heresies ONLY when these resulted in opposite political and secessoin movements. You saw this in the case of "filioque" heresy as per orthodox, becoming an issue for the orthodox only when Pope's stance was no more tolerable, still no orthodox ever killed any catholic over it. Orthodox have a more Greek-like dialectic approach with religion and if they ever did something right in comparison to catholics, it was to maintain a more natural balance between religious tradition & law, spiritualism, logic and tradition without that meaning that orthodox did not have their share of book burners (quite belatedly and under particular political context: the first Ottoman Patriarch...) and "medievalists". Which contrasts to the Catholic church which to a large extend remained on the "theocratic law application" later to be replaced by the "logic of religion". Just like each one of the 3 Ierarchs of the East was much more educated than the 1 western Ierarch, the orthodox continued to be lucky to have occasionally have extremely educated patriarchs in their ranks. Like the likes of Photius (albeit the one who commenced the first step for the Scism, diging out the existence of "filioque"). It is interesting that Photius himself was first of all a scientist and a philosopher and even had as a hobby astrology which directly made him a heretic! Yet for orthodox, everything was relative.
Orthodox priests are famed for being of 3 main styles (speaking of their positive image):
1) ultra educated intellectuals (of the short that speak 7 languages and know by heart Plato and Aristoteles etc.) ready to make you 10 hours reaching on the error of "filioque" and the irrationality it causes. These are the top ranking.
2) semi-illiterate or totally illiterate highly spiritual priests (often priest-monks, or simple monks...) who are respected by all ranks and people and even low ranking priests usually respect them more than the category 1.
3) moderately educated high-opinionated of the short of monk-Tac, friend of Robin hood, they drink 2-3 glasses of wine more, they eat a bit more, they swear a lot and ask God forgiveness, and then occasionally they might sleep with your naif neighbour's naughty wife on the sides (which they justify as "marriage consultancy"), but generally they are lovable chaps that everyone likes to have in a company - they are good for marriages and baptisms as they have a sense of humour.
Their negative imagine is mainly 1:
1) The usual sight of all religions: the typical high ranking priest who takes pocession of church's money for the profit of himself and his close environment. The orthodox church is particularly corrupted and its very large fortune is often being exploited by high ranking priests.
2) A Black-robe dressed priest-mob rushing down the stairs of a church shouting curses and anathema upon the (political) enemy often clashing and using fists, in the way South Korean parliament MPs solve their political differences. Such a clash was recently seen between Greek and Armenian churches at Israel (Greeks run an ultra important temple whose co-management Armenians ask ). Armenian priest and monks enterred in mass (a mob) inside the church were an equal sized mob of Greek (it could be also other orthodox there) priests and monks waited and they started shouting then pushing each other and it ended up like two football teams while Greeks and Aremenians (two nations which are particularly friendly to each other) regarded amused in their televisions (we love that stuff!!!). And since we are talking mostly history, you have to know that Greeks love that kind of stuff since the middle Ages, you have to see how they joked about their priests and patriarchs.
The all time classic fight (though not a major one in religious matters...) is where you find out all the above positive and negative types of orthodox priests: in Agion Oros (Holy Mountain) in Chalkidiki's eastern peninsula of Athos where the monasteries are (Agio Oros is part of the Greek state but is an autonomous region - it is all about a mountain where some relatively ancient monasteries are, a couple dating down to 9th century A.D., most are built though from 13th to 16th century). There is a monastery called Moni Esfigmenou i.e. Monaster of the "tightly tied" (monk). The name came from the rope that monks use as a belt - hence one that tighly ties it means he did a lot of practice and prayers and as such he lost kilos... While the name suggests a "military-like" monastery, it was not like that, it was more like a typical monastery of the region (anyway, monastic life is like a camp there, you know, they have fresh air, a wonderful nature around them at one of the most wild and best natural places in Greece, they make excellent wine , cheese and food, they have no women to tire them and they can discuss hours and hours about... football with visitors coming there (no I am joking... usually they are intensely religious - they would remind you of Hindu monks). However, for most Greeks "Esfigmenos" is the ancient pronounciation of "Sfigmenos" which means a guy who is really pressed psychologically or financially etc. Hence in their minds the monastery had already a special aura... you knows "Ouaou! He became a monk! He went to Agion Oros... to "Esfigmenou"!!!!!
And indeed! Recently a group of renegade monks took control of the Esfmigmenous monastery (they chose it because it is on the sides, certainly not because of the... name...) and barricaded themselves inside rejecting the authority of pretty much everyone including 1) the Patriarch 2) the Greek church (it anyway does not rule over monasteries) 3) the local council of the Monastic region... I guess if you ask them about the "Greek state" or the European Union... it will be out of question!!!! We are talking already about a Greek territory where the Greek state has not direct authority (against in some very serious case like murder or an epidemic - both are certainly quite rare there as people live secluded religious lifes...) and where these priests have rejected even any other religious administrative control... having made it a de-facto state, a monastery-state (in the likes of city-state). Whoever tries to get inside is welcomed with some 40-50 monks with fists high up in the air!!!
We Greeks eviently love this stuff!!! It is really unclear what they demand - as they are not heretics (just old-calendar ultra-traditionalists) , we do not know exactly but we love it... -
Message 33
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Thanks NIk,
That was a very complete analysis, replete with many nuances. I think I am beginning to understand the whole thing a lot better. Much of it is subtle.
Regards,
Tas -
Message 34
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
I can't help feeling that the Fourth Crusade in 1204 exposed what the crusades were really about....
Looting, booty, slaughter, regardless of who the victims were. It wasn't the much-heralded ideals of defending Christianity against the infidel. -
Message 35
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Hi Shiv,
I think you are completely correct in that!
Tas -
Message 36
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
Hi Tas and Shivfan. On the Crusades you have to note that the situation was never really black and white but quite blurred. One has to take things step by step.
We saw that by 9th century and the rise of the Franks being supported by Pope, most of western Europe stepped on an ascending trajectory - it could not of course compare to anything close to Eastern Romans but they were consciously rising. In parallel Eastern Romans were also passing the initial shock of the Arabic and Bulgarian attacks and were gaining back their ground, reaching a climax in the late 10th early 11th century when Basil II (termed the "Bulgar Killer" for beating Bulgarians and ending their genocidal raids in Greece) after a long series of difficult but extremely successful campaigns had managed to subdue all enemies of the Romans all while he managed to improve the situation of the middle and lower classes as well as leave behind a full treasury, double than the one he had received - possibly the best state ruler ever??? Hehe!
How did he do it? How could he maintain a relatively large standing army (still small for international standards of the day but Byzantines never had large armies, they dependent on quality than quantity)? The Byzantine army was overly expensive. How could he go on on these campaigns while increasing the state's revenues? Only by the loot he would get from the military victories? How did he manage to defuse the gains to all levels of society all while leaving an immense treasury?
Well the answer is simple:
1) He cut all unecessary expenses and concentrated only on the value adding activities: i.e. defense and protection of the Empire's borders, thus people, thus production and traderoutes, thus enjoying increased earnings by tax revenues even if he did not maintain high taxes for middle-low class people
2) He concentrated in seeking the money right where they are! How imaginative (heheh how can we are not able to think of it today!)? He taxed bankers, investors, international traders, rich landowners and the church!!!
Now Basil dies in 1018. Unfortunately he leaves no son or any other choice of his behind (Eastern Roman Empire, like Roman Empire was not necessarily hereditatry - all peoples and of all social classes could become Emperors). What follows is quite amazing. We are talking about perhaps the hugest backlash of history with the Eastern Roman Empire going from absolute height to rock bottom (not a final one but a critical one) in some 50 years.
This backlash was no other but the response of the bankers, investors, international traders, rich landowners and the church to Basil's policy making sure that no other such Emperor would rise! And by 1018, we are talking about the complete and definitive divorce of the particular interests of the Byzantine aristocracy and the interests of the state itself, let alone the interests of the average citizen!
Now, Basil before he died, he had taken a somewhat dubious measure which back then made some sense but which started the process of the end of the Eastern Roman Empire 200 years later with the 4th Crusade! Being occupied with his campaigns against Arabs and Bulgarians he wanted to secure the passage of Otranto (between Balcan and Italian peninsulas), hence he signed an alliance with Venice (related politically but not part of the Empire which then had only South Italy, south of Rome and eastern Sicily - the rest was loosely controlled by the left-overs of the Arabic invasion) so that Venecian boats patrol the are for pirates or other enemies and in exchange he gave them some taxation incentives to establish their businesses in the Empire.
Sounded a good deal but in reality it was not that innocent. The architects behind that deal were the Byzantine bankoinvestors. What is interesting is the choice of city, Venice: why didn't Basil ask his very own territories of South Italy to provide the ships? Ok, South Italy was torn by the wars with the Arab Saracenes or the Lombard and Vicking looters but still up to then it had the most thriving cities of Italy (like Bari, Spoletto etc.) and the most important ports (like Amalfi etc.). So why Venice? For the simple reason that Venice was NOT inside the Empire! It was an independent city state. And as such, guess whar? It did not pay taxes in the Empire. And as such it became an ideal convenient place, close to the Empire, in a relatively then secure place, for Byzantine plutocrats to hide their money and protect them from Basil's taxation onslaught on their benefits!!!!!!!!! I.e. Venice and soon Genova and other Italian cities became fiscal paradises for the overly rich Byzantine plutocrats who found an amazing way to avoid tax on fortune completely while making business inside the Empire enjoying reduced business tax!!!!!!! Absolute scum. But all was not only that, there is more!!!!
Evidently, Basil's vaccum was not covered. With plutocrats fighting to pass "their" Emperor and militarists (we could say them being populists but certainly more close to the average citizen than the first group) fighting back the Empire ended having some 10-20 Emperors or something in 50 years, something similar to what happened to Rome in the mid-2nd century A.D. What is interesting is that among the fog of war of political fractions, the bankers & the investors (on which we know little nowadays... guess why...), the traders, the fat landowners, the church on one side and on the other the military people, the ship owners (hugest victims in that scum), small scale traders, industrialists and producers, smaller land owners and agriculturers we have a complete dissapearence of most well known Byzantine families that ruled Byzantine politics up to then!!! What happened we ignore, despite the trouble there was no mass killing or something. It is hypothetised that:
1) Like all families, some of them eventually produced mostly daughters who got married and changed names (Byzantine families were not static of the western feudal scale and were more fluid, hence they had a life of 2 centuries maximum indeed - though Byzantines were the first to have sirnames, these also could change in the course of time).
2) Naturally, in all that state upheaval many rich families lost their touch with the state and their businesses and their status and influence in political life was reduced.
3) However there is an interesting 3rd option: some those with transferable property means, established gradually in North Italy were they had already invested since 1 generation. There they became an integral part of the local nobility. Sirnames changed in the course of time. Anyway it is known that Italian nobility at Venice and Genova throughout the 11th and 12th century consistantly intermarried with the Byzantine one and even Germans and Franks princes that wanted to raise their status asked the hands of Byzantine princeses. In the 11th century, Byzantine aristocrats too start increasingly asking the hand of Northern Europeans, mostly Serbian & Hungurian princesses (as back then the likes of Franks and Germans would be still backwards for their tastes - who can forget the trouble that Theophano the Byzantne princess, daughter of Emperor Romanos II and some unknown of his "illegal" girlfriends had in Germany where people hated her for...being educated, for establishing a library in the palace, for using a strange small trident-like metalic tool to eat, for talking too much for a woman and for taking a bath everyday (attrocious...). I guess she must had been snob as she had taken with her a whole team of Greeks (her Italian mother in law hated so much) to keep her company (scholars, priests etc.) and it seems that one particular monk within that team kept her "company" too, but who can blame her? Anyway... you got the picture of the "opening" of Byzantine aristocracy in the 10th and 11th century.
So out of all that political upheaval and changes in the class of traditional aristocracy there are only 2 key families that managed to rise on top:
The Doukes and the Komnenoi. Both families originated from Pamplagonia at Pontus, Black Sea at Minor Asia, where they possessed huge estates and even maintain an army of guards that formed proper private armies! Initially the Doukes were the most powerful of the two but the Komnenoi also rose next to them being politically allied and eventually intermarrying some of their kids so that people in those times did not talk anymore about the Doukes or the Komnenoi but about 1 family, the Komnenodoukes.
Now the Komnenodoukes were traditional landowners, i.e. themselves knowing little about trade or banks and investments but they were allied with that lot of Byzantine aristocracy, i.e. the bankoinvestors - only that these had by then divorced their interests from the Empire. Komnenodoukes stayed as a family always around orbit of Imperial seat and in the 1040s they managed to have the first Komnenian Emperor, short lived and then they strock back in the infamous 1072 battle of Matzikert. -
Message 37
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
But prior to the infamous 1071 battle of Matzikert with the Seljuk Turks one has to make the proper countdown. With Basil dead, bankers strike back, political chaos follows with many Emperors following the one after the other, the one worse than the other all while taxation increases for middle classes, the profits fly abroad to be invested in North Italian cities which built up brand new commercial and military navies which increasingly enter and take the business of Byzantine ship owners and traders for the amazing reasont that Italians are taxed less than local Byzantines!!!!!! Just imagine this, in your country, having your business being taxed more and more while foreign businessmen install (with the aid and hidden money of your local plutocracy) and enjoy a less and less taxation! Itis not rocket science that by then tensions between Greeks and North Italians start gradually rising. It is no secret that the loss of Byzantine lands in South Italy to Normands that came in 1055 is attributed to that. It is on secret that the very Schism in 1054 between the 2 churches had that business basis behind: by 1050s the westerners (North Italians and Franks) for the first time in their history felt powerful and strong enough to look the Byzantines in the eye.
In parallel, as said, the upheaval and the divestment in Byzantine businesses and people due to the treacherous alliance of a few rich landowners and bankinvestors gambling in Italy meant that the Byzantine army which up to 1018 was arguably the best pre-gunpowder army of all times whose name alone as news "the Imperial army is comhing here" was enough to keep at distance and disperse enemies numbering in the 100,000s... was completely divested, disorganised and as a historian of the times mentioned: the once proud soldiers looked like beggars and the cataphracts wore 50 years old armours in horrible rusty state with bits and parts missing looking more like mummies than any real cavalry. In fact, taking this picture of the army is rather a miracle that Byzantines did not lose the whole Empire and lost only South Italy.
But all was not lost. There were forces too that tried (for whatever patriotic or egoistic personal reasons) to inverse the downward spiral giving rise - via marriage to the Empress Eudokia by then widow of deceased Constantine - to the throne of a well respected military general Romanos Diogenes also coming from Kappadocia (Minor Asia - where 9 out of 10 Emperors came actually). Of course the rise of Romanos Diogenes was permitted by the Komnenodoukes only if Romanos would act as regent for their offspring, among them Alexios Komnenos who were being raised as future Emperors hence Romanos was seen not as Emperor but as "the husband of the widow Empress Eudokia". Romanos however realised the bad state of affairs and being a general knew what was going on in the army so he tried to start from there - not easy when you have first to search the money to attribute there (and money was flying to Italy) and then to mobilise the disenchanted citizens who were disgusted by the closure of their businesses and the establishment of Italian businesses enjoying tax allowances in their backyard! Hence, when an army of Seljuk Turks led by their Sultan Arlp Arslan started to loot the border regions of Syria and eastern Minor Asia he gathered a large but mainly mercenary army (strange... money existed for mercenaries?) comprised of Slavs & Vlachs infantry, Varangian guards, Frankish knights and even Turkish (not Seljuk muslims, other christian Turkish tribes). Less than half his army were of Eastern Roman stock (i.e. Greeks and Greek speaking Minor Asians). Prior to meeting the Turks in the fortress of Matzikert however he had to:
1) Leave behind nearly 40,000 mercenaries out of his 90,000 troops, the Slavs and Vlachs who were unruly and prone to rebel - they also demanded pay rises and hence he left them somewhere in Middle Minor Asia (where they attributed to the destabilisation later...).
2) He had to suffer the loss of Frankish knights who wanted also pay rise and so betrayed and went on to loot some central-south Minor Asian cities.
3) He had to suffer the treachery of a part of Turkish tribes who changed camps and went with the Seljuk Turks all while the remaining faithful Turks were under constant suspicion of munity and as such more a liability than great help.
4) Prior to meeting the Turks he had less than 50,000 troops. He divided his army into two parts keeping some 30,000 for him and giving some 15,000 to general Tarhaneiotis. However Tarhaneiotis and the army disappeared and still historians are searching to find what happened - though some say they were beaten by Turks it seems this is more a wishful thinking: effectively Tarhaneiotis had betrayed too and retired his part leaving the Emperor alone to deal with the Turks.
And then he arrives at Matzikert where he gives the famous battle. Contrary to "official history" that writes it down as "Byzantine defeat", the battle was a sweeping Byzantine victory with Seljuks cleared out of the battle field quite easily they were mostly cavalry-looters mostly accustomed to loot civilians not proper soldiers accustomed to fighting proper armies, let alone Byzantine army no matter its shape being 100% accustomed to fighting nomadic cavalry-based armies. The Byzantine army continued to chase the Turks far behind so as to clear them, however the responsible for the rear, a certain count of the Doukas family provoked chaos giving the signal for immediate retreat which was followed by the middle ranks and even the front line all while the Emperor was found along with no more than a tiny part of his forces (mostly his personal guard -(do not know if they were Varangians since this was an Emperor who did not like them that much). Turkish cavalry did not understand and approached the unit with caution soon realising that "the Romans did some short of blunder and let this tiny part" so they cleared most of it arresting the last survivors, among them the Emperor. When they learnt about it Arlp Arlsan, a looter but also a quite religious man (who understood what had happened) ordered not to celebrate any victory but to pray and himself tried to exploit politically the case by trading the Emperor for land concessions in the borderline. However, at the same time the Byzantine army unware for several days of the fate of the Emperor (since the Doukes gave false justifications) continued to clear all Seljuk positions and kicking them back to Mesopotamia. At the same time in Constantinople the Komnenodoukes organise a rebellion and clash with the faithful of Emperor Romanos. Komnenodoukes prevail and declare Romanops a traitor of the Empire for having accepted to be traded as a hostage. However, it was them that paid for him!
Now this is extremely interesting. The prevailing political forces in the capital (be it Komnenodoukes, the bankoinvestors or even fellow military men) could had declared any talk with the Turkish looters as void. The Byzantine army had beaten seriously the Turks who were not any threat. If they kept the Emperor all that had to be done was to declare him "free of his duty" and chose a new Emperor. Empress Eudokia showed particular interest for Romanos' fate either. However, the bankonvestors decided to give the fatal blow:
- Had they refused to talk with Turks and elect a new Emperor, there would be a huge uproar about how disgustingly they betrayed the Emperor to the enemies and took power. So they would constantly have trouble.
- By paying for Romanos they pretended that they were not conspirators and on top, they were "dissatisfied for having to pay for the life of Romanos" and in that way Romanos brought shame to the whole of Empire. Hence in that way they would delegitimise once and for all the military fraction.
This point is the turning point. Romanos is the last of the last prominent figure of the military fraction that had given some of the best Emperors (Heraclius in 7th century, Leo the Isaurian, Basil I and II of the Macedonians etc.). Being bought by common looters delegitimised not only himself but the whole political fraction and in that way the Komnenodoukes landowners and above all their bankoinvestors allies once and for all got rid of their greatest political enemy!!!
It is interesting that Turks in the meanwhile did not dare enter. Eastern Romans actually continued to fight for some 10 years more a horrible civil war throughout Minor Asia provoked by the actions of Komnenodoukes and others where a huge clearence of all political opponents occured. And then by 1081 Alexios rises finally officially on the throne having cleared all enemies and all pretenders of the throne. And Turks finally invade deep in central Minor Asia by 1090... i.e. 20 entire years after the battle of Matzikert and 10 years after Alexios' rise to the throne.
What had happened?
Effectively it was the 2nd part of one of the hugest scums in the history of human Empires:
The very same bankoinvestors that had alread invested in North Italy and infested the Empire with Italian businesses - especially in the commercial shipping industry and imports-exports were onto yet another plan: Get rid of Eastern-central Minor Asia by any means!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it possible that this could be a plan of Byzantine aristocrats no matter their policies and businesses?
Well think about it: 700 years earlier the Eastern Roman part just let the western part collapse and did nothing about it (on the contrary it often put light in the fire...). Similarly, here we had the class of bankoinvestors that had already their businesses in North Italy and they made money out of the East-west commerce. Yet as they dragged a large part of their wealth from the state in this still state-controlled economy they were interested in cutting all expenses as well as all opportunities of the state to impose taxation. On top they wanted to cut all land-based traderoutes from Middle East into the Empire so as to remain with the maritime routes only which were already controlled by the Italians enjoying tax allowances. What served to them central Minor Asia if not trouble?
Now, guess where the 80% of the military Emperors and political fraction came from? Central Minor Asia, regions like Armenia, Kappadocia etc. So the game had the colour of a complete "good riddance" of what they viewed as wasteful presence. We often say that "but Minor Asia was the heartland of the Empire and the main provider of the army"... but these bankoinvestors had their money in North Italy!!! They were even increasingly intermarrying with Italians. Many of the linked Komnenodoukes landowners served as katepano (rulers of South Italy) and served as a medium. Their interests were in the west. 50 years then they had paid nothing for the army, they did not want locals to get in the army (contrary to common belief, till Basil II the vast majority of the Byzantine army were local citizens not mercenaries), they wanted more foreigners, in a small mercenary army - and thus after 1050 we cannot talk about any Byzantine army anymore in the proper sense.
Hence, amazingly when Alexios gets on the throne, after some time Turks enter. And they seem to enter quite selectively, they go to the center but amazingly they do not go so much to the north Black Sea coast (which was more rich!!!) - one wonders if that had anything to do with the fact that both Komnenians and Doukes" estates being there had anything to do with that fact!!! In anyway, the establishment of Turkish invaders in central Minor Asia commences in 1090 and after a first momentary expansion even up to western Minor Asia (where they were pushed back easily) they consolidate in the center and east and everyone seems happy!!!! -
Message 38
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
So enter the 12th century with Alexios Komnenos on top of the throne we have:
1) The Byzantine economy completely deconstructed
2) The Byzantine higher middle and lower middle classes completely destroyed and the massive expansion of the jobless proletariat
3) The immense expansion of private fortunes of the fraction of Italian-affiliated bankoinvestors, selected massively rich landowners and fractions within the church.
4) An immense installation of Italian populations within the Empirial main cities replacing the already dying byzantine shipping industries and trades.
5) The loss of central and eastern Minor Asia by Seljuk Turks.
Hence picture this:
Bankoinvestors got rid of the army, related expenses and political threats. They dropped taxation and even avoided it completely by means of the fiscal paradises of North Italy. And above all they reduced the number of traderoutes connecting Asia with Europe into 2-3 main maritime roads competely controlled by North Italians i.e. them. Imagine having a business that moves around luxury products like pepper, silk and by then especially the new stuff, sugar (best commerce than modern narcotics!!!!), from Asia to western Europe without paying a single taxation!!!!!!!!! We are talking about a huge huge scum!
Hence, what people completely ignore is that all while they think that Byzantium since 1071 is falling... actually at the times of Emperor Alexius and successor son John Komnenos, the Byzantine Empire reached its top financial point!!!!!!!!! Oh yes!!!! More rich than even what Basil II had left behind!!!!!
Only difference was that the riches of the Empire contrary to what had happened in the years of Basil I and Basil II, were then massively accumulated among a class of a few bankoinvestors and landowners while the profit was dragged out of deconstructing the Empire itself, calling in the eastern enemy and investing in the western enemy.
One will answer: "wait a minute, Komnenodoukes weren't bankoinvestors nor traders. They were landowners. And their estates in Minor Asia were always under threat by the expanding Turks".
Yes, they were landowners. And as such they were selected by the bankoinvestors to be easily exploited, perfect victims to their plans. The likes of Alexios Komnenos were faced with ultimatums and blackmails. Alexios was forced to completely surrender to what could be said by then Byzantine run Italian mafia giving them tax-free passage from Byzantine ports!!! He was forced to accept the establishment of Turks in eastern and central Minor Asia. He could not have done otherwise.
However that does not mean that Komnenians were largely ok with all that. They were rather guilty of all of it but also victims of their own games. Allying with the bankoinvestors in all that scum indeed risked their own properties as well as that of the rest of the Empire and it cannot be said that Komnenians openly wanted the dissolution of their own Empire. Yet they were on the overall the most vicious family clan to ever rise in the Empire having cleared all other families and ensuring that for the next 400 years no other Emperor who was not a descendant of Alexios Komnenos would ever take power (even pretenders were all related to the Komnenoi, the Angeloi also were Komnenians, even the succesor states after the fall of the Empire were ALL Komnenoi!!, even last ones Palaiologoi were all related to Komennoi...). The amount of damage had already been done by late 11th century. And the biggest damage came: the 1st Crusade, which was nothing else than the organised plan by Alexios Komnenos to employ cheap (or should I say free, on their own payroll), fanatics from the west as soldiers to attack the Arabs in the east - and not so much to retake the Empire's lands but more to go straight to Middle East and take the likes of Palestine only to establish a more firm control over the traderoutes!!!!! Reminds you of something?
Now the main Komnenian Emperor who by himself managed to give a more favourable image on the Komnenians was Alexios son, John Komnenos. John was the odd kid out of all Komnenians. He took power in the 2nd decade of 12th century and strangely he went contrary to ALL his father's policies. He tried to place aside the Komnenian and Doukes clan and instead to favour people who were capable administrators. He tried to revive the army. Using a mix of local troops, mercenaries and Crusaders he had considerable success in the east practically turning the situation with Turks being on the defensive and shrinking in eastern bastions. He - most interestingly - tried to revive the Byzantine navy albeit the Italian mafia started pirate-wars in Ionian and Aegean sea to blackmail the annulation of the project, hence he did not manage to bring the plan to full scale. One needs to say that you just do not built a naval industry in 5 years, this is process that needs anything from 20 to 50 years which John simply did not have for the simple reason that he was never let unhindered:
...there was always some problem. In the Balkans with Serbians (incited by Italians), in Hungary same (incited by Pope) and even inside Constantinople with the rise of tensions between the Venecian and Genovese clans. Interestingly the Italian mafia was so huge by mid-12th century and the installation of Italians in Constantinople so numerous that they were divided in political fractions themselves and even fighting with each other violent clashes!!! To understand this one has to take into account that by then Italians - or should we say catholics (as many of these were actually local people changing allegiance to Pope and/or intermarrying with Italians to get citizenships at Venice or Genova so as to avoid paying tax!!!) were about the 1/4th of every major Byzantine city including Konstantinople where they were about 100,000 a whole city inside the city.
Now as local orthodox went poorer and poorer with Komnenian Emperors not being able to do anything about it (even John II who sincerely tried to revert the trend) and as Italians became rich thanks to their piratic excercises blackmailing for tax-free commerce, the tensions between orthodox and catholic rose. Even worse, there were nuances there with tensions rising between Venecians and Genovese with the overulling Byzantine plutocratic class playing with the one side and the other - them they were winning anyway (themselves having mostly invested in Venice however...). It could be said that the Venecian clan was mostly allied with the Byzantine plutocracy and the Genovese clan had mostly connection with lower aristocracy. The orthodox mass (by then mostly an impoverished mob) mostly resented the Venecians (who intermarried mostly with Byzantine high classes) and allied with the Genovese (who also intermarried with higher middle classes).
In anyway, catholics on the overall proved uncontrollable. One has to take into account that Italians had become overly rich, richer than Greeks but most interestingly they had remained largely barbaric, uncultured and often completely illiterate. It is a well known fact that Italians started developing high culture in post 1350 B.C. and only after a continuous 200 years old contact with the Greeks who still even at late 1300s remained culturally ahead of Italians (a fact not known today because of the 1400s Venetian Renaissance). That excarbated even more things. The tax allowances, the catholic heretic schism, the arrogance and the barbarity stoke the most basic chords among the local impoverished orthodox who however in the cities were reduced equally into a violent mob led by pseudo-political personas, megaphones of the plutoractic overruling class, victims in their own backyard. Italians despite their thriving businesses proved to be unable to leave aside piracy, looting and had even harmed members of the Imperial family (causing John to attack Venician priviledges ending in war of attritition by Venice which simply attacked and slaughtered civilians in the Aegean islands as a revenge avoiding to meet the Byzantine army & navy causing John to end the war and make an arrangement).
In 1162 tensions among Italian fractions led to Pizans and Venetians attacking the Genovese quarter in the city causing wholescale massacre. Given that the Genovese were politically more close to local orthodox, they also caused harm to local orthodox in the process. Emperor Manuel Komnenos (successor of John) fearing reprisals of the other fraction and being fed up just kicked out both Pizans and Genovese which let Venetians reign relatively freely for the next decade but Genoves came back using their local connections. Hence in 1171 Venetians organised a huge pongrom against Genovese which naturally had a toll among orthodox too. The scale of the event is not known but a minimum of 10,000 people must had been slaughtered in Constantinople and similar massacres occured in other cities in the Empire.
Then, Manuel took the decision not just to reduce the power of Venetians but to the extend possible to clear them from the Empire kicking out their businesses and most of the Venetian populations (as said, quite often some of them being all about locals with Venetian citizenship & catholic dogma etc.). Venetians organised a campaign but as Byzantines formed their defenses Venetians thought of it a second time and started again negotiations. Hence 8 years later, by 1179 they started re-enterring Constantinople where of course Genovese and Pizans had increased their combines numbers to some 60,000 people! So imagine along with Venetians that number would pass over 100,000 people, the 1/4th of the population of the city.
By 1180 Manuel dies. Although John II was better than him and Manuel mostly surfaced on John's brilliant work, Manuel had been hailed as the best of the best by Byzantines and even westerners aditted he was a great leader. By 1180 if we exclude the impoverishment of the middle classes and the mob-ilisation of the local proletariat, things for the Empire did not look that bleak:
1) It had regained most Minor Asia.
2) It was secure in the Balkan front
3) It was rebuilding gradually army and navy
4) It was taking measures to reduce the power of Italian merchants and clans
However, with Manuel's death there is an end to the Komnenian's (John & Manuel) effort to restore real Imperial power. His widow was an Italian catholic. She took over power and invited Venitians and pretty much all Italians to "invade" with their businesses the Empire again. She was so favoritistic towards the catholics that she provoked a huge uproar among the orthodox mob that feared yet other decades of Latin dominion in the city and finally they aided Andronikos Komnenos to enter the city and claim him Emperor finally deposing the Latins. While Andronikos had not in mind any massacre of Latins, the mob took over the whole concept to a whole new different level and started wholesale massacre of just any Italian inside the city killing people with particular barbarity not really so usual among Byzantines (who down to the basics were Romans by citizenship and by proxy hence they retained old Roman barbaric habbits like blinding those they ocnsidered traitors, beheading losers that christianism had not taken away... etc.). It is said that out of the 100,000 catholics some 60,000 were slaughetered, tortured or sold as slaves.
The above massacre of the catholics had a huge impact in the western world since it was the first major massacre of catholics by orthodox (till then only catholics massacred orthodox! but westerners were like the muslims of today, hyper-sensitive to crime only when their lot was victimised not when they were the criminals...). Hence in the following years catholic groups acted with reprisals, namely the loot of Thessaloniki, second largest city and eventually finding a way to come back and take total revenge after the very invitation of the desputing Angeloi Emperors for the throne, in 1204, during the 4th Crusade.
It goes without saying that it would be never aditted by Catholics but their lot never managed to take the city by military but the city was opened from the inside by insider catholics who still habitated very much the city (as the pongrom 20 years back was wholesale but not total and many of them had survived and others returned...).
As you see the 1204 is not an one-off event. It is a highly complicated event with a past story of some 2000 years since the times Basil II signed the first tax allowances to Venetians (already finscal paradise for rich Byzantines). Note you will rarely the above events presented like this in any historic book - which mainly detail with trivial details since both orthodox and catholics have a lot to push under the carpet. Above all it is a taboo to discuss about the role of "international investors" because as you know when such things occured back then, imagine what happened in the 19th and 20th century and what happens now. Sounds like a good story about "delocalisations" of industries and about what are the results of "fiscal paradises".
Anyway, was it long? Hehe, I had time today. Read and enjoy. -
Message 39
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
Hi Nik,
I have read one of your message and enjoyed it a lot. How much was the happenings in Byzantium close to our modern world.
Since we are talking about Byzantium, can you tell us a little about Justinian and Theodora. I have a nodding acquaintance with them but your detail knowledge would be great. Was he also involved with St. Sophia the famous Cathedral. I remember when I visited that Cathedral in Istanbul, seeing a painting of Justinian there.
Tas -
Message 40
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
Nik I will read the other two messages a little later. I am enjoying them as I read them. Thanks!
Tas -
Message 41
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Friday, 1st October 2010
Hi Nik,
This morning I read the second of your messages. Very interesting indeed. You certainly have a complete grasp of Byzantine history.
Were only men allowed to be Emperors or was there any female Empress?
Tas -
Message 42
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Saturday, 2nd October 2010
Hi Nik,
I completed reading message three. It seems that as one of my strings says, 'the more things change, the more they are the same.'
Your analysis of the 11th and 12th Century Byzantine Empire is truly brilliant. It puts the 4th crusade in real perspective.
Most of the stuff you have provided about Byzantium I would never have known.
Since an earlier message, I have learnt a little more about Justinian and Theodora. I have learnt that not only had he something to do with St. Sophia; it was actually he who was responsible for constructing this great Cathedral, probably the oldest great Cathedral in all Christendom.
When you write about history, you go to the inside, unlike conventional history that is only about Kings and Queens, Emperors and Empresses and about battles. One does not get the inside story.
Thanks Nik for a great effort.
Tas -
Message 43
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 2nd October 2010
Hi Tas. I wrote quite a long for various reasons. First in the last years I acquired a renewed interest for the Byzantine period and especially the transition between Constantinople and Venice after having read in a (well-founded article on history speaking about Matzikert) that 1) Matzikert was an easy Byzantine victory and not any loss (simply the Doukes had betrayed Emperor Romanos Diogenes) and that 2) In the 12th century the somewhat weakened militarily and territorially Byzantine Empire was actually more rich in comparison to early 11th century which was its peak-power period under Basil II. Then I had some time to write and then I knew you have a global interest on such issues (as I do - but unfortunately I am no expert in the details of the extremely interesting long histories of India and China for example on whom I know mostly the basics).
However, moreover as you noted, there is an additional interest in this particular story which is all about the inner transformation of the Empire to accomodate the transition of funds from inside to outside - i.e. all about Byzantine plutocracy divesting locally and investing in Venice, Genova, Piza etc. You have the military side, the political side, the cultural clash - pretty much everything for the modern reader to read and acquire a better understanding not only for that period, but mainly for today (if we really do accept that we have enterred into a transitional period all while we have phenomena of hige divestment and investment elsewhere as well as a clash of cultures etc. etc.).
In the above messages I did not pretend to know everything and I cencetrated mostly to present more the events as I felt them through the stuff I have read so far rather than sticking to telling you dry references.
To explain better what I mean:
I remember on the particular event of the battle of Matzikert you have 3 extensive historic references (apart side ones): 2 Byzantine and 1 Seljuk one. I do not remember the exact names, I need to spend time to find them for you (but I can do it some time) - but certain I clearly remember the essense! Look now how it goes:
- The Seljuk reference which I think might be a considerable time after the battle (decades or even more than a century) speaks about a huge Seljuk victory with the help of God in which a mere 25,000 Turkish army destroyed an army 4 times more (i.e. about 100,000 men) and humiliated its Emperor by taking him hostage (note that for the nomadic horseriding Seljuk Turks, the capture of the leader of the opposite site was more important that any ground victory). However, interestingly it does not hide the interesting fact that Arlp Arlsan ordered prayers rather than celebrations. Nontheless according to the writer, Matzikert was a huge Seljuk victory.
Now out of the 2 Byzantine references the 1 is from a pro-Komnenian writer and the other from an anti-Komnenian writer. I think also the pro-Komnenian writer wrote about it a considerable time after the events (decades or even a century later...) while the anti-Komnenian reference is the one more close chronologically) to the battle (I am not sure though my memory might betray me - in anyway we will not remain there as references are simply copies of other referencies done right after the event...):
- The pro-Komnenian writer talks about the Emperor leading of an army of about 90,000 losing half of it due to mutinies and treason (the Slavs, the Vlachs, the christian Turks, the Franks), talks about the division of the remaining 50,000 army into 2 parts, mentions about general Tarhaneiotes and his part missing the meeting point and mentions that in the battle the Byzantine forces were winning until the Emperor Romanos did a blunder and wanted to chase off more the Turks without taking precautions and that in that way he let the Turks encircle the army late in the night thus winning the battle and capturing the Emperor which forced the Empire to buy him out. According to him, Romanos Diogenes was an incompetent who took the throne by marrying the widow Empress and who not only was a bad Emperor but also a bad general and he lot that easy battle in the most terrible way with his stupid blunders and hence disgraced the Empire and caused all that huge loss of land in the east. Evidently according to him Matzikert was a huge Byzantine defeat.
- The anti-Komnenian writer describes that there was since the beggining a "bad atmosphere in the camp" with the Emperor trying to assert control, with everyone accusing everyone, hence the one after the other betraying or abandoning for whatever reasons (all the aforementioned), then Tarhaneiotis missing mysteriously the meeting point and as such a mere 30-35,000 Byzantine force managed to reach the occupied by Seljuks border fortress of Matzikert where it met an equal sized force of Seljuks (Seljuks on battle were around 30,000 but them mostly cavalry, but then in neighbouring areas there had other units mostly looting or assuring the movements of the army). The battle around Matzikert was rather quick and easy for the Byzantines since since early on the took the upper hand, took the fortress (Seljuks basically being a mongol-like army, them of the typical asiatic turkomongolic stock, had no experience in defending, let alone defending fortresses). Hence Seljuks retreat but they did rather easily due to most of their army being riders. They tried to relaunch attacks but as the Byzantine army had andswer-tactics they kept retreating. As the role of the army was not just to take the fortress and a bit of their loot but also to clear the nuissance, they kept hunting them moving forward. The Emperor and his staff had taken all precautions for any counter attacks having let behind in the rear responsible a certain Doukas who led the real cavalry (which intervened when Seljuk counter-attacks came). However, at some point this guy Doukas famously launched an as-if march forward to meet an as-if Turkish counter-attack, then he stopped the army and ordered a quick retreat, actually retreat in panick (famously he killed himself his own horse!!!). This provoked a complete confusion in the army. Rear ranks were retreating in panick while the center was left wondering what to do, hence they followed the retreat while the front line was left virtually unaware of what had happened - something between 2000 and 3000 men, among them Emperor Romanos Diogenes who famously fought as foot soldier and not on horse from the opposite hill with binoculars... What happened then is that Turks saw that, and they decided to launch just a last-minute attack on that small unit, kind of revenge act for the loss of the fortress and the battle. They throwed all their army (much of it intact due to the early retreat) encircled the small Byzantine unit, killed most of it after a long evening battle which lasted up to the late night hours and captured the last remaining, then learnt that one of them was the Roman Emperor. And there they declared it victory, however Arlp Arslan ordered prayers rather than celebrations, hosted his captive so as to trade him for money and territory.
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So if you take modern books:
1) Modern Turkish books: Matziker is a huge Seljuk victory, afterall Turks always beat the unworthy Greeks (note: Byzantines are not necessarily "Greeks": Romanos Diogenes, general Tarhaneiotis, the Doukes family, the Komnenoi familoi ALL were from north, central and eastern Anatolia and of Roman consciousness, thus non of them although orthodox and Greek speaking would be directly related to what you would call Greeks-Greeks, i.e. the populations of coastal Minor Asia, Greek peninsula and still then South Italy).
2) Modern Greek books: Matzikert is a terrible terrible event, a military loss that introduced the Turks in minor Asia.
3) International books: Matzikert is a first Byzantine defeat in front of the invading Turks.
Now you understand that the above are very much true!!!! They all are based on 2 out of the 3 historic texts and even including some parts of the 3rd albeit ommiting the sirname of the guy who caused the confusion in the Byzantine army, a sirname of a family that (as Komnenodoukes) took the throne and ruled for the following 400 years.
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So what am I supposed to do? Shut my mind and play the same violin? No, I like too much history to surrender the reality so easily.
I respect the Seljuks but their writers are quite simplistic and talk too much propaganda and too little actual facts ending up in contradictions: they prayed rather than celebrated, they lost the fortress of Matzikert and they did not enter the Empire but only 15-20 years later, so what victory are we talking about?
I respect the pro-Komnenian writer but he evidently conveniently for him ommits the part of the Doukas guy in the rear ordering the confused retraction of the main army leaving the vanguard in front alone and the Emperor trapped in it. It is eye-blinding that the Komnenodoukes jump out to take the throne, do a 10 year civil war to clear all resistance and then take the throne and succeed in ruling (and ruining, apart perhaps John...) the Empire (or what they made out of it) for the following 400 years.
However the anti-Komnenian writer indeed gives us a narrative which 100% fits with all:
1) it fits with the fights inside the Byzantine army (don't you find it strange that ALL mercenaries at some point betrayed? Ok they were treacherous but how come all of them in 1 campaign? did anyone pass them the "right info" so as to make them angry and cause them betray? we can only imagine given what followed...).
2) It fits with the disappearence of general Tarhaneiotis and some 20,000 troops.
3) It fits with the fact that Matzikert was taken by the Byzantines, that Byzantines continued even after the battle (in ignorance of the fate of the Emperor) to clear out all Seljuk position 1 after the other, and that Seljuks did not manage to re-enter and install but only after 20 years and 10 years of Komnenian rule (all while prior to Alexius Komnenus getting the throne, Byzantines had been fighting a huge civil war for the 10 years following the battle of Matzikert...).
4) In general, the anti-Komnenian writer no matter if coloured politically as much as the pro-Komnenian and the Seljuk writer, indeed passes us a viewwpoint that fits with everything we saw following the battle, while the other two given an angle which simply is out of resonance with the following reality.
And that is why I keep the anti-Komnenian writer's view point as more revealing and I only use the other two for the side details (and even to show the propaganda points of the times...).
Note: I have discussed the above with a professor of Byzantine history of a major university of a major western European country (do not give the details) who accidentally is on my outer social circle and he was amazed to find someone who comprehends well that historical period - when I told him Matzikert was a Byzantine victory he told me "you know a lot", when I added that Venice was the fiscal paradise for the delocalisations of the times he started laughing (certainly he finds few even among his kind that describe it so raw). Trust me I am not playing the smart guy. I just find the period extremely interesting and extremely educative as much if not more than say the Persian wars or the Roman Punic wars. -
Message 44
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 4th October 2010
Your analysis of the 11th and 12th Century Byzantine Empire is truly brilliant. It puts the 4th crusade in real perspective. Β
Brilliant, I would not say since I write in my own unique and quite untidy way but my wish is to transfer the colours and aroma (or odours...) of that era. Above I explained how I move around to make an opinion on an event (eg. in that case, the battle of Matzikert). Remember, everything has to be placed in context.
...I have learnt a little more about Justinian and Theodora. I have learnt that not only had he something to do with St. Sophia; it was actually he who was responsible for constructing this great Cathedral, probably the oldest great Cathedral in all Christendom.Β
The Komnenians, the Seljuks, the Crusaders, everything has to be placed in context. As such Justinian & Theodora too. The views people have today about Justinian are dependent down to the point of view. You might be surprised but even us modern Greeks have been "enlightened" on the basis of the French (and in general European) enlightment and thus a large part of our history we see it through "western eyes" which was interested, slightly in archaic, hugely in classical and with a decreasing interest in hellenistic (to be passed quickly to reach the Roman Empire) and then as the western Roman part decomposes the interest falls entirely only to be momentarily revived with Justinian, termed by some as the "last recognisable Roman Emperor".
I should not tire it more, it should be evident that the importance given to events and persons varies greatly based on the background and the angle of the beholder.
So it should be easy for you to understand that Justinian was not really the important Emperor that marked so much the Empire as people (especially in the west as well as in monkey-mimicking modern Greek state) is thought to be. Naturally the interest falls on him since he was the last (Eastern) Roman Emperor to be interested in the west. Following Emperors which showed a lack of interest (because of the grave dangers faced in the east and the north as well as of not having financial interests in the west anymore) naturally did not interest the western public so much.
Hence, we have to see Justinian with a more sober eye. Yes he was one of the last more Latinised than Hellenised Roman Emperors. Yes he was interested in the west. But contrary to these perceptions he was an extremely unsuccessful Emperor only lucky to be surrounded by a couple of good generals (which was bad luck for the Empire itself - as the campaigns had better end sooner than later). He did not live in his times, he ad not grasped the tone of his era, he spent his time hunting chimeric dreams of re-establishing the ancient borders of the Roman Empire all while going on grandiose projects back at home. Naturally his people were angry at him and did good to rebel against him (though the final cause is somewhat funny... because of sports). Above all he must be remembered for being the last of the line of Emperors (of the likes of Theodocius) who did a pongrom against pagans, closing schools at Athens, Antiochia and Alexandria ending an 1000 old cultural tradition - schools that even christian a lot of patriarchs had respected and where the orthodox Ierarchs Basilius and Gregorius had studied some 150 years earlier!!!
Justinian's legacy was zero. His Empire to be saved from the total destruction his actions had condamned it, had to transform, retract and go back to its roots, that was its hellenistic past which starts officially with the reign of Emperor Heraclius, the first of one of the long line of Armenian Emperors (contrary to perceptions of the Empire being the Empire of Greeks, in fact most Byzantine Emperors were either Armenians or Kappadocians and Pamplagonians...).
We have thus to judge by his actions and their associated reactions to have an overall view over his work. As in the case of Matzikert, what we have of Justinian are references coming from the two political spectrums, the pro-Justinian and the anti-Justinian. The pro-Justinian mention he was a highly educated, highly intelligent, and extremely hard working man who was down to earth (married Theodora, a low class woman afterall...) who saved the Empire all while his enemies speak of an evil person who sought grandiose chimeric dreams and personal glory having no respect for the citizens all while he ridiculed the Empire by naming his Empress a prostitute who took... 300 men in a day.
Well the truth is somewhere in the middle. Justinian was indeed a highly educated bureaucrat, an intelligent man and a hard working one who really wanted to reform the Empire but his idea of reforming it was actually resulting in immersing in in darkness of the christian fanatism and surrounding barbarity ending in the shrinking of the Empire.
You should treat as no accident Heraclius decision to name Greek as official language some 50 years after the death of Justinian - of course it was used long before but this was a case of making it official. This was something due for some 2-3 centuries but had not been demanded by anyone though of course none did efforts to maintain a high knowledge of Latin among commoners (educated people anyway would learn Latin just like ancient Greek Attic dialect at all times). It just came as a backlash: people were fed up, they wanted a break and to concentrate on their regional problems.
On his colourful wife one has to separate facts and rumours. We can imagine that she was a low class woman from the east (Cyprus or Syria, it is not known for certain...). We can imagine that she was an actress (back then, the very low classes were only acting) and that she also worked as a prostitute. We can imagine that Justinian would be amused by her and would marry her as such and that no matter their so prominent christian fervour he and his wife would maintain liberal sex lifes (most Byzantine Emperors and aristocracy had liberal sex lifes anyway and westerners often accused them of their "lax morals") but then what the anti-Justinian people mentioned about her having "taken" the whole palace guard as part of a competition with Constantinople's most well known prostitute sounds more like a rumour-joke than a reality. Casual infidelity was always on the programme for Emperor and Empress and while it was not really a state secret, some basic discretion was always held over it but if such a publicly held competition ever took part, Justinian, already facing a lot of enemies, would had been kicked out of the palace overnight. Theodora simply suffers from "Cleopatritis"... the illness of being a woman that finds itself in or near power and as such she must be abnormal and sexually perverse...
We have really to get deeper into the texts and to use our own unsderstanding to get to a conclusion.
My conclusion is that christian Justinian is as Last Roman Emperor as much as the pagan Diocletian is First Byzantine Emperor. He can be remembered for a lot of things, the best of which are the first major codification of Roman Law (though Roman Law as we know it and use it today is a later Isaurian work) and assigning Artemios and Isidoros building the Agia Sofia which became christians' trademark but from there on he spent his years paying peoples' money organising and sending armies for meaningless campaigns as well as organising large pongroms against non-christians and especially showing particular vegence against philosophical schools. -
Message 45
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Monday, 4th October 2010
Hi Nik,
Thank you for that on Justinian and Theodora. There is always some sexual peccadillo about these Empresses. There is a similar story about Messalina, the Empress and first wife of Claudius.
There is the story about Cleopatra that between Caesar and Antony she used to literally 'use' an officer of her guard or a slave. He would have "A night to remember" but in the morning would have his head chopped off.
I do not know how far these stories are true, but some come from very reputable historians like Emil Ludwig.
I do know one thing; Theodora must have been a strong woman with a lot of influence over Justinian, because when all seemed lost during the Nica riots, it was she who told him to remain in Constantinople and control the riots; which he did else his throne would have been lost.
What actually happened during those Nica riots? I understand the supporters of the Green Chariot team got incensed with a wrong decision.
I guess that too is a lot like modern times, when people riot not because of their chariot team but rather their soccer team.
If you can explain how these riots got so completely out of hand that Justinian nearly lost his throne it would be great.
Best regards,
Tas -
Message 46
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 5th October 2010
Nica riots are an interesting event showing how social interaction may go under such circumstances. You have to remember the general context. We are around 532 A.D. quite in the middle of Justinian's campaigns in the west but also the east (in fact he was negotiating a peace with Persians). It has been quite some time that Justinian had fallen out of favour not only the people burdened with increased taxes to support the prolonged campaigns outside the borders of the Empire but also with perhaps the majority of the Senate (tbe Senate at Constantinople was the council of the aristocrats, having the same power more or less, perhaps superficially less but on the underground a bit more, than the earlier Roman Senate). Justinian had been insulted pretty much on every public appearence of his and one wonders how did he appear in the races that day 13, January of 532.
Now the hippodrome and the races were the epicenter of the city's social life. Natural as it fitted really a lot of people, more than 100,000, i.e. at least 1/4 of the men of the city and like the Rome's Colosseum it was a place of gathering of both low, middle, high class people as well as the Emperor. The main teams were the Prasinoi (the Greens), the Venetoi (the Blues), the Rousoi (the Red) and the Leukoi (the White) though the really most powerfull ones were the Prasinoi and the Venetoi. Now much like it happens in many countries in modern teams, these teams were a combination of an athletic club, a political organisation, a mafia-thuggish organisation and above all a tool for the control of the masses in a city that counted nearly a million (some say at times it surpassed it). The people chose their club of preference not just on the basis of their sportsmen and horses of preference but mainly on a political and even religious basis. For example the Greens represented the lower, less literate parts of society (Byzantines were the most literate of their times) often of monophysite (heretic according to the catholic-orthodox) dogma, one that was loosely supported by Empress Theodora. It makes us imagine that in this multinational city, the supporters of the Greens would be mostly the people coming from the eastern parts of the Empire. Blue was representing mostly the midde and higher classes, much of the aristocracy and probably more often the people coming from the central western parts of the Empire (though one must not remain in trying to find the backgrounds: as like modern teams, supporters came from all walks of life). White and Red must had represented the middle class and the neutrals etc. Most tension existed between the two big ones, the Green and the Blue ones. Note that all teams were led by major aristocrat families in the exact way that major business (and usually quite thuggish) families take up modern football clubs in countries around the world.
However, the difference there was that in Constantinople at periods - especially when the Emperor was out of the city in some campaign - the race clubs were taking control of the city. You have to imagine for example prime Minister Zapatero and king of Spain going on a military campaign and... the football fans (and hooligans) of Real taking responsibility of the security of the city of Madrit!!! Quite frightening, but you have to see the positive side of it: in fact on many occasions the race clubs worked together to maintain the city walls, roads, infrastructure, to provide services for the state, to aid in earthquake cases etc. Race clubs were indeed handy for mobilising the mass of people otherwise extremely difficult to control. You have to keep in mind that we talk about a multinational Empire and even in its later more contracted states - eg. let alone other languages and cultures, even those Greek speaking orthodox christians of inner Minor Asia (Armenia, Kappadocia, Pamphylia etc.) were evidently Greek speaking non-Greeks but clearly different from a Greek-Greek, i.e. a Greek speaking of Greek origins. Evidently there has never been made any research on the issue - and my point is not to concentrate there but I do believe we miss a lot if we do not add that parameter.
And in our case it is important. Because the Nica riot managed to unite - at least momentarily - the 2 big clubs at a time they were really confronting each other (as said at other times clubs were competitive-collaborative but during Justinian's times they were very divided). And that because everyone was mad at Justinian. Eastern Monophysites hated Justinians's insistence in the orthodox-catholic Nicean dogma viewing him as a "westerner". Citizens at west (Greeks), even those christian ones, hated him for chasing people around so much closing schools and executing teachers and professors and considered him a monster. They must had viewed his own view of christianism as too "oriental". Both of them hated him for concentrating so much money, men and effort and time in the reconquest of the west in which nobody was interested - people did not care evidently about Rome by then a decayed old city of 40,000 people let alone care about Carthage or Iberic peninsula. Now, poor people hated Justinian just like that, middle class hated him for the taxes, the majority of the aristocracy hated him both for taxes but also for eying the throne.
We are talking about a complex network of often constrasting interests of a very constrasting lot of people who on that fateful date gathered on the hippodrome. Since the morning they shouted more insults against the Emperor than they shouted for their times all while the Clubs demagogues (just like in modern stadiums) were putting oil in the fire. It is funny but there was also some event with a charioteer (I think of the greens) who was unfairly punished and people were shouting for him and against the hippdrome responsibles and the Emperor. We can imagine the chaotic situation. Everyone shouting for his lot. The club presidents (members of the most aristocratic families of the city) met and spoke and from there on they united forces (as said above, various people of contrasting interests wanted Justinian out). They spurred the public into proper riot, the city's guards vastly outnumbered could not do anything, the people started shouting the word "Nika" which was the (quite Dorian-like, do not know why...) pronunciation of Demotic Common Greek of the times back then for "Nike", i.e. victory. People shouted victory, i.e. for the event of the dethronement of the Emperor. Effectively, the mob-leaders, i.e. the leaders of the clubs had chosen an Emperor some aristocrat called Ypatios. However it seems it had been mostly the Greens that jumped on this and other clubs just followed as this riot clearly was more pushed by the Greens. At palace the situation became tense as it was clear that nothing could keep the mob away, a mob that had already start killing guards and people indiscriminately - do not forget that this was a state were hereditary passing of the throne was a fact but not at all a necessity, hence sending the army out to push down the rioters was no guarantee as soldiers, citizens also of the Empire and city-dwellers, could switch sides. Justinian hesitated while the mob had been unleashed to the streets of Constantinople and started destroying public houses, and soon whole neighbourhoods. Then Theodora stepped and told Justinian to either rule either die, Justinian gave the order to his generals Mundos, Belisarius (a hero general), and Narses (a trusted eunuch, but a very capable man)
, to gather their remaining forces and attack the mob.
But first a weird event is mentioned to have happened. Narses, a eunuch of small body, took a large sack of gold and enterred alone and without guards into the Hippodrome and approached the side of the Blue ones, the Veneti which was the team that Justinian supported. Then he started talking to the chiefs telling them that they were idiots to let down Justinian who supported them and to let the Greens give rise to Ypatios their Emperor. Who knows what else he told them, and certainly gold spoke a lot more convincingly so that the Blues changed their mind and made a surprise move to leave all together the hippodrome right at the time of the "official" announcement of the new Emperor Ypatios in the place of Justinian who would have to be arrested and judged and punished. It seems that the Blue ones chose the moment and left with an organised manner on a most critical moment showing complete lack of trust in the new Emperor, not recognising him.
This move caught the Greens by surprise. Right then (ok, I mean in some time later, 30 minutes, 1 hour...) the three generals enterred the hippodrome leading an army of well armed soldiers to attack the mass of rioters who were very lightly armed, mostly with knifes. It became a pure slaughter. The slaughter continued outside the Hippodrome with soldiers chasing rioters (or whatever they perceived as rioter, eg. everyone wearing green...) all over the streets of a largely burning city. Writers write that about 30,000 people were slain and some 1/3 or up to half of the city was burned/destroyed.
When the slaughter ended Justinian had naturally arrested all main instigators and executed them, then he purged a large mass of the aristocracy others by execution others by exile - depending on their involvement. After the Nica riot Justinian simply came out stronger and more confident so as to undertake new city projects including the building of Agia Sofia. As the old saying said, whatever did not kill him made him stronger... -
Message 47
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Wednesday, 6th October 2010
Hi Nik,
That was the most entertaining account of the Nica riots and of Justinian's near departure from Caesar-ship. Thank God he had Theodora on his side. I guess the once actress-prostitute did not want to be pounding the streets again or looking for a suitable stage for a role for a no longer young actress. She preferred the comforts of being Empress of Rome. What a great story!
Nik you are invaluable!
Tas -
Message 48
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 7th October 2010
I have also to say that above I did a terrible mistake actually: Justinianus in 532 was only 5 years in power and he was just about to make peace with the Sassanid Persians and start the large campaigns in the west - thus he had not yet angered the people for prolonged campaigns (as I earlier suggested) but he had already placed Tribonianus to deal with the code of laws and his financial advisors to increase taxes (in preparation for the campaigns in the west), hence this indeed provoked a popular anger.
If you ask me, Theodora was the best thing for Justinianus but the worst for the Empire. Justinianus was a man of the past not in resonance with his times. He believed he was a Roman ruler leading over the largest state in the world and all around it there were clueless barbarians. Well it was not like that and the Goths and Vandals and Eruli and the Lombards and all that huge number of tribes that had "infested" the west had 1 thing in mind: steal as much as possible from Romans in contrast to Iberians, Gauls and Britons of the 2nd and 1st B.C. century which were deeply divided among each other thus facilitating the job of the then legions. Justinian had maintained the largest Byzantine army ever - about 180,000 soldiers which was still somewhat short of the minimum 300,000 that Rome had in 200 B.C.!!!!!!!!! Let alone that Rome in 200 B.C. had not anymore any huge enemies while Constantinople of 530 A.D. had huge enemies, the tides had turned and the population balance was then in favour of the north, not the south (you have to do a research also on the favourable climatic conditions in northern Europe which increased the population from 400 to 800 B.C. - nothing is accidental).
Hence, if Ypatius had taken to the throne and if he had stuck to ruling the thriving east, then things would had certainly been much better for the Empire. It would deal better with the Persians, the Slavs and the Arabs. Heraclius some 50 years later was a real hero for having tried to save the Empire from its near-certain destruction and definitely the Isaurians did a hell of a job defending the Empire (no matter if almost inadvertedly enterred into the trap of the iconoclasm).
I am not sure of what I say but in later Byzantine times they remembered positively much more the likes of Heraclius or Leo the Isaurian than really Justinianus who is mainly mentioned in the west for being
1) Last Latin speaker Emperor
2) Last Emperor to care about the west
3) Last Emperor to wage campaigns of conquests and not for defense (a conqueror is much more positively viewed than mere a defender for western cultural standards even up to today)
4) Having created the basis for the Roman law as we know it. Yet people prefer to attribute it to him while the true Roman Law as we know it was mostly finalised by the Isaurians, I think in Greek (by then official language) then copied in Latin.
For orthodox, he was and still is only remembered as a "baroque" Emperor whose only important project was the reconstruction of the city after the Nika riot and for the construction of Hagia Sofia - yet the church is not called Justinian's church but Aremius and Isidorus' (the architects) church.
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