This is a summary from a part of the book Krigarnas och helgonens tid: Västeuropas historia 400–800 e.Kr (The Era of Warriors and Saints: Western European History 400-800 A.D) written by the Swedish historian Dick Harrison. It's a very interesting book and I might write about more stuff from it.
The archbishop of Constantinople Nestorius (dead about the year 451 CE) thought a lot about the virgin Mary, and was upset that people called her "mother of God". He reasoned that she wasn't, since God the father had existed since long before Mary and Jesus had both a human and a divine nature. Thus anyone who called her the mother of God was compromising the human nature of Jesus and equalled him completely with God, a severe sin. Nestorius and his supporters thus refused to call the virgin Mary "mother of God" and preferred instead to call her "mother of Christ". In this period of the history of the Byzantine Empire, such disputes were more than enough to get you killed.
The then theologically victorious priests in Alexandria emphasized the purely divine part of the nature of Jesus than did Nestorius, and thus it was perfectly fine to honor Mary by calling her "mother of God". In 431 at the church meeting of Ephesus Nestorius was declared a heretic and lost his status as archbishop of Constantinople.
Shortly thereafter the supporters of Nestorius, the Nestorians, suffered severely from persecution and were forced to abandon their faith or go into exile. Many of the Nestorians went into exile in the east. The Sassanid rulers of Persia who had adopted Zoroastrianism as their state religion were not interested in theological disputes within Christianity and accepted the Nestorians. The Nestorians established an important center for learning in Nisibis and missionaries would under during the following centuries spread the religious teachings of Nestorius far and wide. In China Nestorians existed from the 7th century to the 10th century, and as lately as the 13th and 14th centuries Nestorianism was a popular religion in Central Asia. Even today there are still Nestorian minorities in the Middle East, primarily in Syria, Iran and Iraq. Among immigrants to Sweden (and almost certainly other Western countries too) they are known as Assyrians.
That was my summary of Harrison's writing on the subject. Now I'd like to ask the faith apologists about this. Wasn't it an utterly silly thing to kill people over? Even if you accept the universe as imagined by Christianity, isn't it clear that this is something you can't possibly know? Wasn't it utterly forlorn of Nestorius and his theological rivals to use brain power on this matter? Wouldn't it be better if people at this time instead of wasting ink, time, brain-power and blood on arcane theological issues instead spent time on truly worthwhile things, like science (which unlike religion and theology actually helps you to really understand the world), art, literature, improving the lives of poor people etc?
I also take issue with the claim that you need a detailed understanding of theology in order to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. If you are studying Byzantine history then you do need to understand these theological disputes because theological disputes were political disputes, church and state were deeply intertwined. However, you don't need to understand these theological disputes in order to reject Christianity. Akin to how you don't need to understand the evolution of Norse/Germanic mythology (for example, Tyr (derived from the same Proto-Indo-European god as the Greek Zeus) was originally the highest of the gods, it was only later than Odin rose and replaced him as the highest god) in order to not believe in its gods. Theology, as Thomas Paine wrote, is the study of nothing.
The archbishop of Constantinople Nestorius (dead about the year 451 CE) thought a lot about the virgin Mary, and was upset that people called her "mother of God". He reasoned that she wasn't, since God the father had existed since long before Mary and Jesus had both a human and a divine nature. Thus anyone who called her the mother of God was compromising the human nature of Jesus and equalled him completely with God, a severe sin. Nestorius and his supporters thus refused to call the virgin Mary "mother of God" and preferred instead to call her "mother of Christ". In this period of the history of the Byzantine Empire, such disputes were more than enough to get you killed.
The then theologically victorious priests in Alexandria emphasized the purely divine part of the nature of Jesus than did Nestorius, and thus it was perfectly fine to honor Mary by calling her "mother of God". In 431 at the church meeting of Ephesus Nestorius was declared a heretic and lost his status as archbishop of Constantinople.
Shortly thereafter the supporters of Nestorius, the Nestorians, suffered severely from persecution and were forced to abandon their faith or go into exile. Many of the Nestorians went into exile in the east. The Sassanid rulers of Persia who had adopted Zoroastrianism as their state religion were not interested in theological disputes within Christianity and accepted the Nestorians. The Nestorians established an important center for learning in Nisibis and missionaries would under during the following centuries spread the religious teachings of Nestorius far and wide. In China Nestorians existed from the 7th century to the 10th century, and as lately as the 13th and 14th centuries Nestorianism was a popular religion in Central Asia. Even today there are still Nestorian minorities in the Middle East, primarily in Syria, Iran and Iraq. Among immigrants to Sweden (and almost certainly other Western countries too) they are known as Assyrians.
That was my summary of Harrison's writing on the subject. Now I'd like to ask the faith apologists about this. Wasn't it an utterly silly thing to kill people over? Even if you accept the universe as imagined by Christianity, isn't it clear that this is something you can't possibly know? Wasn't it utterly forlorn of Nestorius and his theological rivals to use brain power on this matter? Wouldn't it be better if people at this time instead of wasting ink, time, brain-power and blood on arcane theological issues instead spent time on truly worthwhile things, like science (which unlike religion and theology actually helps you to really understand the world), art, literature, improving the lives of poor people etc?
I also take issue with the claim that you need a detailed understanding of theology in order to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. If you are studying Byzantine history then you do need to understand these theological disputes because theological disputes were political disputes, church and state were deeply intertwined. However, you don't need to understand these theological disputes in order to reject Christianity. Akin to how you don't need to understand the evolution of Norse/Germanic mythology (for example, Tyr (derived from the same Proto-Indo-European god as the Greek Zeus) was originally the highest of the gods, it was only later than Odin rose and replaced him as the highest god) in order to not believe in its gods. Theology, as Thomas Paine wrote, is the study of nothing.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=262902&goto=newpost
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire