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doctor prawn
New Member
5 Posts |
 Posted - 06/29/2001 : 10:24:19 [Permalink]
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>Christ (Christos) is a loose Greek >translation of messiah. It is a title rather >than a proper name (the Christ rather than >Christ). I can suggest one possibility - >purely speculative. Since the Greeks were >Indo-Europeans (as were the Celts), it is >possible that Christ and Krishna have a >similar ancient etymological root.
Hello. First-time poster. I've been content with reading for a while, but I had to respond to this one, because it concerns a field in which I actually know something.
"Christ" and "Krishna" do not go back to the same Indo-European (IE) etymological root. They could not. The IE root for "Christ" is reconstructable (using the most commonly used reconstruction conventions) as *ghrei (with a long /e/), which is considered to mean something like "to rub". The proto-IE "voiced aspirated" series (*bh, *dh, *gh) become /ph, th, kh/ ("phi", "theta", "chi", respectively, in Greek (the /kh/ sound is usually transliterated as "ch" for Ancient Greek). The same series of sounds become /b, d, g/ respectively in the Germanic Languages, hence English cognates of "Christ" are "grisly" and "grimy." The proto-IE voiced aspirated stops remain as such in the Indic languages, however, so Sanskrit "Krishna" could not come from proto-IE *ghrei. If it did, it would be "Ghrishna." Indic /k/ comes directly from proto-IE *k. (Please be aware that there are other theories on how to reconstruct the proto-IE consonants, but they do not change the matter at discussion here).
The Greek word "Christ" could not be borrowed from Sanskrit "Krishna" either. The word "Christ" begins with the Greek letter "chi." This letter likely (near 100% certainty) represented a "voiceless aspirated velar stop" [k] sound in Classical Greek (though it has changed to a different sound in Modern Greek, but that doesn't really matter here either). This means it was a [k]-type sound with a puff of air after it. I don't have access to International Phonetic Alphabet characters here, so I'll represent this sound as [kh]. Classical Greek also has a "voiceless unaspirated" velar stop written with the letter "kappa", which can be represented as [k] and a "voiced" velar stop written with the letter "gamma", which can be represented as [g] (this has also become a different sound in Modern Greek). (Modern English actually has all these sounds but the
aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops occur in predictable distributions. For example, the /k/ in "kin" is aspirated, but the /k/ in "skin" is unaspirated).
Sanskrit (and most modern Indic languages) also had all three of these sounds [kh], [k], [g], and the aforementioned "voiced aspirated" velar stop, [gh]. The name "Krishna" began with a voiceless unaspirated stop. Were this word borrowed into Greek, there is no reason it would then become a voiceless aspirated stop (represented by "chi"), since Greek had both aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops. Sanskrit had both aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stop as well, so we know that Sanskrit /k/ was not aspirated. Sanskrit [kh] would get you Greek "chi" and Sanskrit [k] would get you Greek "kappa", but a word beginning with Sanskrit [k] would not be borrowed into Greek beginning with the letter "chi".
To sum up: Greek "Christ" and Sanskrit "Krishna" are not etymologically related nor is one a borrowing from another. Other than that, I have no comment or knowledge on the historical scenario described. This is a very interesting discussion.
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2001 : 13:22:01 [Permalink]
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I love Celtic mythology but am not as knowledgeable as I'd like to be. Can you suggest some good references?
I'd be delighted. For a fun (well, my idea of fun) summer read you might try Over Nine Waves by Marie Heaney or Legends of the Celts by Frank Delaney. If you want something a little deeper try Jean Markale's The Epics of Celtic Ireland. But what is really good-the best work out there on the Fenian Cycle- is Oxford's Tales of the Elders of Ireland (Acallam na Senórach) Translated by Ann Dooley and Harry Roe.
People would, however, volunteer their lives (noble sacrifice) to give their community prosperity for a while.
When a Celt died they went to "the other world", a place not too different from this one, to be born. When they died there they were born here--usually in their own family (I'm my own grandpa).
There are two other versions of afterlife but this was the most widely held.
What about Brian Boru?
He was Christian so would have had no effect on Druid mythology.
Personally, I believe that Cu Chulainn was based off an actual hero, and had theistic attributes associated to him.
Just so that you don't think me a dope--a few years back, at the same time Paleontologists and Egyptologists were changing the spelling of all their stuff so were the Celtic scholars. Cu Chulainn is now Cuchulainn, Boadicea became Boudicca and on and on and on. Like these people don't have enough to keep them busy.
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I don't think you're pulling this stuff out of your a** here, so until I
check out the reference, I'll take it at face-value.
I can't fault you for not having heard of him. I always assumed that he was the same guy that wrote the Argosy. I remembered that he was one of the characters that Tony Randall played in 7 Faces of Dr Lao, otherwise I never gave him a thought.
Two years ago a colleague in London clued me in about him and started my research.
No need to look for him in Campbell. Only a few notes and nothing of his bio.
If you do a web search be warned that Apollonius of Tyana is a hot button amongst the "New Age." He was also the darling of the Spiritualist movement in the 1890's. You'll find lots of specious claims that you'll need to weed through to find the historic figure. Also keep in mind that the Roman Catholic church has had some time to work on him.
Most of the references to Christian writings that "existed" prior to 325 CE are from Eusebius, a good buddy of Constantine.
Wow! That's something I missed. Do you have a reference I can look up?
I don't mean it to sound like I'm bad-mouthing any religious beliefs.
You can leave that to me, I've no compunction about bad-mouthing them at all.
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I'm of the opinion that the politics come later. I believe that religion is basically social in nature. People use it to come together and have a common social basis for interaction. When it gets big enough (relative to the population involved) it starts to develope political aspects as ambitious
individuals start to take advantage.
The horse doesn't always come before the cart.
Take the god Serapis.
When the Greeks conquered Egypt there was a lot of discontent among the Egyptians as might well be imagined. Knowing that the Egyptians were obsessed with gods the Greeks in Alexandria decided to make one that both Greeks and Egyptians could worship together. First they Hellenized Isis to make her more palatable to the Greeks. Then they combined Isis' husband, Osiris with the god Apis to make Serapis.
The Egyptians continued to paint Serapis to look like Osiris. The Greeks made statues of him as a smiling, slightly heavyset, bearded man with long hair. He always had his right hand raised in greeting (Hellllo to all my little Egyptian pals!!) with index finger extended and middle finger slightly curled. After the fall of the pagan faiths these all became statues of Jesus (in case you've wondered why JC is always making that gesture.)
Now look a Constantine's Jesus.
(1) Comes from a romantic country that hasn't existed for 250 years.
(2) Religion has same name as one popular in Rome. A religon started by someone affectionately called "Poll" by his followers.
(3) Jesus shares same attributes as Mithra (the god of most of the Legions)
Magi, Virgin birth, shepherds, Father/son/holy ghost, 12 Apostles, John, baptism, sermon on the mount, loaves and fish, crucifixion and resurrection, etc. etc. etc.
(4) Shares attributes with Dionysos, god of the Greek legions. Water into wine, calming storms, walking on water, evil spirits into pigs, etc. etc. etc.
(5) Religion contains a mother goddess called Mary who's already worshiped from Alexandria to Galatia in first century BCE
(6) Sayings of Jesus identical to Sayings of Hercules
(7) Apostles all share life stories with popular novels and plays of the period.
(8) No historic record of Jesus or apostles.
(9) Religion suddenly appears on the historic scene in the middle of a tremendous civil war as a rallying cry for Constantine who goes on to win the war.
(10) After close of war an Ecumenical Council has to be held because no one can quite agree on what the religion actually is.
I smell a rat.
Constantine pulled a Serapis on us. Jesus is nothing but a patch work quilt made of scraps from other gods.
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"Christ" and "Krishna" do not go back to the same Indo-European (IE) etymological root. They could not.
One small thing that you are over looking.
The title Krishna in Hindi means the anointed one.
The title Christos in Greek also means the anointed one.
Admittedly this is not my field, but it does seem strange that two cultures in such close geographic proximity should each have a similar sounding word that shared the same definition and they not be related. But be that as it may. I am not saying that Krishna "evolved" into Christos. I am saying that one man-Apollonius-translated it as such and started calling his "new" god by that title.
Since it is the work of a single person it doesn't matter that the Greek "Christ" and the Sanskrit "Krishna" are not etymologically related, it only matters that he drew the connection.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2001 : 13:44:36 [Permalink]
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Is it pronounced "EYE-ER-land" or "EAR-land"?
Just curious 
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Gambatte kudasai! |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2001 : 17:04:16 [Permalink]
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That would be Eiré. Called that after the people of the goddess Eirinn, decendents of the Milesians, the grand Ire. Which in Gaelic just means "people". Peopleland is what it should be called in English.
Eye-ar-land is what those nasties on that island off to the right call it.
Other names have been Hibernia (which we named ever place that we lived -in one form or another of the word. See map of 1 CE Europe) Ir, Scotia, Ossian, Ogygia, Ierna, Insula Sacra, Inisfail or as I call it...Home.
Interesting but in English the Irish word IRE means anger; wrath.
Wonder why that is?
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Greg
Skeptic Friend
USA
281 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2001 : 17:50:49 [Permalink]
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quote:
Wow! That's something I missed. Do you have a reference I can look up?
Interestingly, there were two Eusebius' involved with the reign of Constantine.
The one I spoke of in my previous post - Eusebius of Caesarea - 'The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine' Translated w/ Introduction by G. A. Williamson (originally 1965 but my copy is from a 1984 edition). The book ends with the victory of Constantine over Licinius in 324 CE. The introduction discusses the bishop's relationship with Constantine.
Another Eusebius - of Nicomedia, was also a freind of Constantine (he must have liked the name) and a contemporary of the other Eusebius.
Some information on both Eusebii;-), as well as further references can be found in the 'Encyclopedia of Early Christianity' Ed. Everett Ferguson pp 325 to 328 (ironic isn't it). My copy is from 1990.
quote:
I'm of the opinion that the politics come later. I believe that religion is basically social in nature. People use it to come together and have a common social basis for interaction. When it gets big enough (relative to the population involved) it starts to develope political aspects as ambitious individuals start to take advantage.
I disagree. Religion's purpose is to control the forces of nature (or chaos) such as disease, floods, drought, or attack by people from other settlements/city-states/empires... The fear is of change or destruction.
Regards,
Greg.
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2001 : 20:47:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
I disagree. Religion's purpose is to control the forces of nature (or chaos) such as disease, floods, drought, or attack by people from other settlements/city-states/empires... The fear is of change or destruction.
No, not control. It's purpose is to explain nature.
Actually, it's probably both. Some religions are started because of politics (e.g. Constantine?), and some are started simply on a social basis. Maybe it's not right to say either one is the basic nature of religion.
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Gambatte kudasai! |
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Greg
Skeptic Friend
USA
281 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2001 : 07:23:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
No, not control. It's purpose is to explain nature.
Mythology, the history part of religion, is designed to explain the motivations of nature (the gods). Ritual, the daily practice of religion is designed to control those forces.
Rituals are very pragmatic, they work or they don't (the Nile floods every year, the spring rains come every year, etc.). A coherent mythology takes longer to develop and has no such constraints.
Regards,
Greg.
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2001 : 12:50:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Some information on both Eusebii;-), as well as further references can be found in the 'Encyclopedia of Early Christianity' Ed. Everett Ferguson pp 325 to 328 (ironic isn't it). My copy is from 1990.
So I was hunting around in Campbell for Eusebius. I see that he attached himself to Constantine when he (Con.) was still a kid living at the court of the Emperor Diocletian. And made it his life's work to faun over him. Eusebius is the source (although he claims C told him the story directly) of the legend of the Chi-Rho appearing in the sky (Tiptup, I'll bet you always heard that it was a cross that appeared in the sky). In payment for a lifetime of brown nosing he was made bishop of Caesarea. Not too shabby.
When you look for him on the web Eusebius of Nicomedia keeps popping up.
Holy guacamole what a piece of work that guy was. He had the title of Constantine's Overseer of Church Doctrine & History. He wrote a book about his career called The Preparation of the Gospel In it he says
quote:
It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment
Yikes! He, apparently, was the one who added the mention of Christians to Josephus.
I only wish Robert Graves had chosen to write about this lot instead of Claudius & friends. Now that would have been A BOOK.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2001 : 13:50:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Mythology, the history part of religion, is designed to explain the motivations of nature (the gods). Ritual, the daily practice of religion is designed to control those forces.
I think that behind the ritual is a little more of "human failing" than face value would indicate.
Consider this story that Jane Goodall told me (I know, that was a shameless piece of name dropping … but hey! What are ya gonna do….Remind me some time to tell you about the lunch I once had with Jackie O.)
It seems that she used to lure chimps into her camp (Jane not Jackie) by putting out bunches of bananas. Before doing this too many times the "protocol" evolved of only the alpha male and two of his beta male chums taking all the bananas. The rest of the "tribe" would mill around and beg pieces of the herb.
After a few weeks a strange thing happened. Another male, under sized and so far down the pecking order as to be of no interest to the alpha, found a couple of empty 5 gal. Kerosene cans in the garbage. He discovered that by running around and dragging these cans and screaming he created such a "Sound & Fury" that the alpha and the betas dropped the bananas and fled for the trees. Because of a harmless noise this nobody pip-squeak of an ape got every last banana for himself.
Jane just saw him as being "very clever."
I think that he had discovered religion. By creating a baseless fear, in his case a noisy tin can (in Christianity's, the flaming pit of Hell) he was able to enhance his standing in the community and gain power even over the "civil authorities" (alpha bull).
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Greg
Skeptic Friend
USA
281 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2001 : 16:55:49 [Permalink]
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quote:
In payment for a lifetime of brown nosing he was made bishop of Caesarea. Not too shabby.
Apparently, he also got to sit next to the Emperor at Nicaea. He is considered the first Church historian. Most of the pre-Niceaen lists of the Bishops of various cities are from his writings. He also quotes non-extant writings of early Church Fathers.
quote:
When you look for him on the web Eusebius of Nicomedia keeps popping up.
Holy guacamole what a piece of work that guy was. He had the title of Constantine's Overseer of Church Doctrine & History.
He was actually a little more interesting. Apparently, he had the guts to stick up for Arius at Nicaea for which Constantine deposed and banished him. Two years later, all of a sudden he's Constantine's freind and chief advisor. He is credited with administering the Emperor's deathbed baptism.
Regards,
Greg
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doctor prawn
New Member
5 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2001 : 13:15:09 [Permalink]
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>>"Christ" and "Krishna" do not go back to the same Indo-European (IE) etymological root. They >>could not.
> One small thing that you are over looking.
>The title Krishna in Hindi means the anointed one. The title Christos in Greek also means the >anointed one. Admittedly this is not my field, but it does seem strange that two cultures in such >close geographic proximity should each have a similar sounding word that shared the same >definition and they not be related.
What if I told you that the chances of this happening (that the words not be related) are close to 100%? It's true. You can take any two languages at random, even from completely different parts of the globe, and find a number of words with the same meaning and similar phonetic forms, usually numbering in the double digits. The reason is that there are only a limited number of sounds that the human vocal tract can make (and some are much more common cross-linguistically than others), and a limited number of ways in which they can be combined. Any language will use the same sounds in the same sequence to express different meanings (i.e., all languages have homonyms). Different languages will use the same sequences as well. Given a large enough vocabulary, it is a near sure thing that two different languages will at some point use the same sounds to mean the same thing (and it increases if we give ourselves the usual "wiggle-room" and don't limit ourselves to identical phonetic forms, but merely similar ones).
Pseudo-scientific linguists used to try to determine if two languages (usually some language and Hebrew for religious reasons, or to show that [known isolate] Basque was related to another language) by looking at vocabulary lists of the two languages, finding numerous phonetically similar forms with the same meaning, and thus determining that the two languages must be related.
Scientific linguists noticed that these attempts never failed. That is why linguists determined more stringent criteria. It is not enough to find a bunch of words which look similar phonetically. One must find regular correspondences among the sounds. I.e., [p] in Language A must always correspond to [f] in Language B, etc. (given the same phonological environment, or place in the word, and excluding for words which show evidence or borrowing). Establishing these regular correspondences can show us what words are really related or not. For example, take the Germanic word for "have" (English "have", German "haben", etc.) and the equivalent Romance word (Latin "habere", Spanish "haber", French "avoir", etc.) Same meaning, phonetically similar, geographically contiguous; gotta be related, right? Nope. The Germanic and Romance forms are utterly unrelated. The Romance verb is actually related to the Germanic verb "give" (English "give", German "geben", etc.) And the different Romance and Germanic forms were both common before the different groups had much contact with each other, so it's not a case of influence. It's just a coincidence. But it's the type of coincidence which has a near 100% chance of happening.
(Here's a neat trick. Make two sets of basic vocabulary lists of two languages. 200 words should be enough. Do it first with a two languages you know to be related. Count all possible cognates, using as loose a definition of phonetic similarity as you please. Then do this with two unrelated languages. You will find many "cognates" in both lists. Next, in each set, move one column of words down a row. Now you have lists of words compared to words with different meanings. But count the "cognates" anyway. You will still find "cognates". But, if the two languages are truly related, the number of "cognates" in the moved-down set will be significantly less than in the matching set. If the two languages are not related, the number of "cognates" will be the same in each set, because we are just dealing with random chance here. That the words we are comparing mean the same thing doesn't matter).
A scientific approach to language can show us some religious relationships, and show us what is not related. For example, "Jove" and "Yahweh" are not related terms, or a case of borrowing (despite the fact that the Latin root for "Jove", "jovis", would sound a lot like "Yahweh" when pronounced in Classical Latin). The Latin name "Jove" (also "Jupiter") is, however, a predictable Indo-European form which is etymologically related to the Greek name "Zeus" (no surprise) and the Norse name "Tyr", another deity, suggesting maybe something about proto-Indo-European mythology (though I know of no evidence outside of the etymology).
So, to sum it up, nothing whatsoever can be read into the phonetic similarities of "Christ" and "Krishna". They are not etymologically related, one is not borrowed from the other, and the phonetic similarity is the sort of thing we _expect_ to happen by random chance (it would be very unlikely to not find such similarities).
(And "Krishna" means "black" or "dark" in Sanskrit, not "anointed", to my knowledge. But that's beside the point).
Other than that, I am not saying anything about the religious history under discussion here. But forget about the Christ/Krishna phonetic resemblance. It is not significant. It's a total red herring.
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2001 : 13:48:40 [Permalink]
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I hope you guys don't stop posting on this topic(s)--that includes you, Dr. Prawn. It's hard to remember a more informative and interesting thread.
I echo what someone else said a while back: there are those of us who are not in your league regarding this topic so we don't post much, but by golly we're having fun reading it.
And who knows. At some point, I'll probably decide to risk it and post anyway. What's the point of debating if you can't occasionally get shot down in flames?
My kids still love me. |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2001 : 14:10:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
Other than that, I am not saying anything about the religious history under discussion here. But forget about the Christ/Krishna phonetic resemblance. It is not significant. It's a total red herring.
Sigh....Let me say this again. Apollonius of Tyana went to Northern India where he studied for years with the monks of the god Krishna, the anointed one. When he came back to Greece and later to Rome he taught this religion, somewhat tempered by his Pythagoreanism roots. When in Europe he called the god Krishna--Christos, the anointed one.
He, him, Apollonius.He did that.
If you think that he was incorrect to do so it's too late to tell him, he's dead.
His followers called themselves Christians. The Romans called them Christians.
If the similarity in the pronunciation of these words of like definition is a mere coincidence caused by a limited number of sounds in the human repertoire I'm sure that this similarity still wasn't lost on them.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Greg
Skeptic Friend
USA
281 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2001 : 16:34:17 [Permalink]
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It's often stated that "Oriental mystery religions" were popular in the Empire at about the time of the beginning of Christianity. These were likely the Gnostics and the new religion of Apollonius and probably others. It is interesting that both religions eventually utilized the Hebrew Bible albeit in contrary ways. There is no evidence that Judaism was popular at all in the empire. Modern theologions and historians suggest that Christianity was a much more palatable form of Judaism for the general population.
This type of religious mix can be seen in modern times with separate "new age" beliefs being combined into new ideas of spirituality.
Slater, I can agree with the idea that Christianity evolved from the "mystery" cult of Apollonius. My difference in opinion with you is that I'm not convinced that Constantine created the religion. I have another hypothesis.
Oriental religious ideas were comming into popularity in the empire after 100 to 200 BCE. The most travelled citizens of the empire were the legions. Just as what is happening today, different religious ideas were being superimposed on each other - including some ideas of Judaism such as the whole messiah thing. Two opposed religious ideas became popular among the armies. One, the Gnostic Christians belived Yahweh to be the evil one. He created the material world and since only pure spirit is good (physical reality is corruptable) he is to be despised. The other, the non-Gnostic Christians (for lack of a better term) worships Yahweh as the one God. It is obvious that having an army composed of significant numbers of adherents to two divergent views of reality cauld be significant trouble, and probably was. Constantine had to choose one and suppress the other. And while he was at it, he made it the official religion of the empire. This was because, in a military dictatorship which Rome was, what the army says goes.
What say you?
Regards,
Greg.
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2001 : 19:55:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
And who knows. At some point, I'll probably decide to risk it and post anyway. What's the point of debating if you can't occasionally get shot down in flames?
Go for it! The worst that could happen is mild embarrassment--and since no one knows who you are that shouldn't matter.
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It's often stated that "Oriental mystery religions" were popular in the Empire at about the time of the beginning of Christianity. These were likely the Gnostics and the new religion of Apollonius and probably others. It is interesting that both religions eventually utilized the Hebrew Bible albeit in contrary ways.
The "Mystery Cults" that are generally agreed upon as being the bases of Christianity are Mithraism (which is only partly "mystery") and Dionysianism.
Apollonius' version of Christianity was neither a "mystery" religion nor did it make any reference to the Jewish bible. It was, in fact polytheistic. The Greeks felt that Krishna was a version of Heracles and Vishnu was one of Dionysus. It lent it's name and a few of the magic tricks of Apollonius to Modern Christianity but not it's theology.
My difference in opinion with you is that I'm not convinced that Constantine created the religion.
Not surprising, as of all the people who are delving into this the only one that I hear saying this is me.
My basic problem is that I am drawing inference from there being a "lack of evidence." Probably a hang over from my old days in the ONI. But in the case of "early" Christianity there seems to be no cause for the information to be missing. It was either destroyed on purpose or never existed to begin with. ( Hey, neither of us had even heard of Apollonius until recently) In either case it's been replaced with what we grudgingly call "legend."
Go back any earlier than Constantine and you enter a Fairyland.
I have another hypothesis.
Oriental religious ideas were coming into popularity in the empire after 100 to 200 BCE. The most traveled citizens of the empire were the legions. Just as what is happening today, different religious ideas were being superimposed on each other - including some ideas of Judaism such as
the whole messiah thing.
First let's keep in mind that the time we are talking about is not 30 CE but rather 300 years later. The Jews, for all intents and purposes, are gone. Israel is a fabled land of the past. It has an aura of the exotic about it to Romans.
Yes, the Jews had been (still are) expecting a Messiah. But how many times have you heard Priests and Ministers say "The Jews were expecting a type Messiah but they didn't realize how much wonderful Jesus was. He was the Messiah to the entire world!" or something along that line? The Jesus character (I call him character because I see nothing to indicate that he was even based on a historical figure) was as piss-poor a Jewish Messiah as you can get. Not only doesn't he drive the Romans ( he actully respects them and the patricians respect him) out but he gets his ass killed, and then the entire country gets nuked. Not what you would call a hero.
Messiah to the entire world? Does that sound like something appealing to the incredibly xenophobic Israelis? Not very likely.
So if he doesn't match the Jewish Messiah does he match any Messiah?
He matches the Messiah in the Zend Avesta to a T. He's the Messiah that the majority of troops in the Roman legions believe is coming. Mithra.
Two opposed religious ideas became popular among the armies. One, the Gnostic … The other, the non-Gnostic ... It is obvious that having an army composed of significant numbers of adherents to two divergent views of reality cauld be significant trouble, and probably was. Constantine had to choose one and suppress the other. And while he was at it, he made it the official religion of the empire. This was because, in a military dictatorship which Rome was, what the army says goes.
What say you?
Constantines problem wasn't divergent forms of Christianity amongst his troops. One would have to wonder what so large a number of Christians were doing in the army anyway. His problem was that Roman law had set up Three simultaneous Emperors in the West and three more in the East. Now there must have been something to the followers of Jesus before C because Diocletian said that they were enemies of the state but Galerius said that they were okay. The question is were these Paul's Christians or 'Poll's Christians? But other than that they liked them or they didn't there is no specific information about Christianity. Constantine's mom, an ex-bar girl from Bithynia and an embarrassment to C's dad, Constantius, is a (Paul) Christian.
But not him.
Suddenly at the battle against his chief rival, Maxentius, a miracle happens. And quicker than you can say Hoc vince, he becomes the sole Emperor.
I believe Greek playwrights called that a deus ex machina.
Then C changes Christianity to fit his purposes, while never becoming a Christian himself. (You don't believe that death bed thing do you?)
Look at what you get. Priests who, at the time, are government appointees, have to hear a confession from everyone. Don't tell your "sins of thought, word and deed" to the representative of the Empire and you will burn in Hell. Every last citizen of Rome. Could any dictator ask for more? Sweet!
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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