Lynch mobs were early Christians' greatest challenge

[Viggen]

The greatest challenge for early Christians was not the power of the Roman Empire but rather the threat of lynch mobs who did not understand Christianity as a religion. In his anthology The Bible in Context, researcher Paul Mirecki, an associate professor of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Kansas, drew from 142 important political and religious writings from the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, as well as translations and original writings to give readers an understanding of what early Christians were faced with. He asserted that most of the violence suffered by Christians was not a result of the Empire, as many believed, but rather of mobs.

 

"Most of the violence was not done legally from the top-down. The Romans were not interested in converting people to Roman religion. That's Hollywood. The Romans were not interested in persecuting people and putting them to the sword. It was unlawful local lynch mobs that were doing that, and some governors looked the other way," he explained.

Mirecki said that Romans were unsure of how to deal with Christianity as a religion because of its unique customs...

 

very interesting read at Christian Today

[caldrail]

Makes sense, but I do note a lack of commentary in the sources concerning such civil disorder or any hardships encountered by chritstians beyond rumour. In fact the sources tend to ignore christianity as just another minor cult (but then the Roman historians weren't likely to be at the head of lynch mob either).

[Onasander]

There was an actual law against Lynch Mobs in the Roman Empire?

Edited April 14, 2015 by Onasander

[caldrail]

No, there wasn't, although such behaviour risked official censure by armed force.

[GhostOfClayton]

Lynch mobs of one belief system against another?  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

[Maty]

We do have one very clear account of someone being killed by a lynch mob, though as with all 'religious' struggles, cultural and social differences were sumsumed under the name of religion.

 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/womens-history/hypatia-ancient-alexandrias-great-female-scholar-10942888/?no-ist

 

Though here of course, there's one difference. The victim was pagan. However, the title of the original post still works. Just remove the last two words and make it 'lynch-mobs-were-early-christians'

[Onasander]

I guess the more or less sanctioned violence against Isis in Rome, though behaviorally the same as a lynchmob, wouldn't be considered one as it was more or less encouraged?

 

I really doubt we can point to any single religion as the originator of this practice. People in Egypt used to get killed of they were thought to of killed a cat by a mob, and of course, cults built around scapegoats, sacrificing them are little more than the ritualization and orderly control of the mob mentality to kill, and did so in a rather intellectually complex fashion. Just pick one guy, and give him the receiving burden of every psychological impulse the community has negatively.

 

I don't care to make a exhaustive list of the phenomena, listing its traits relative and differing in a family tree of sorts. Just best not to do any sort of it, we've been progressively moving away from such mentalities, and got rid of some of the worst and most twisted traditions.

 

In a sense, the Christian religion was built around a lynch mob, condoned and directed, and implemented by the state. It wasn't a execution stemming from rational laws of universal customs and ethics, but stemmed from and played upon the passions of the locals, and the Romans willingness to harness and be seen by the common man as being the champion of such backwards biases, in a manner that would hopefully bind the esprite of the romans and Jews together. It was an organized lynch mob, even Pilot stood back and laid the irrationality and necessity fully on meeting the passions of the local population whim that day in court.

 

Its why in the US we used to have a constitutional clause that stated we were a nation of laws, and not men. Its little more than a vestigial remain of a earlier era of thought, but it had a hugh cultural importance. It forced the KKK and Black Panthers into the underground and periphery of life, and gave great stability to our constitution, and effected our outlook on military and paramilitary ethics.

[Maty]

just a quick nitpick here ...

 

It's Pilate, Pontius Pilate. Licensed to crucify.

[Onasander]

You are correct, I misspell everything, just like Plotinus and Wittgenstein (good company).

 

Intact, if anyone is ever so lame someday as to need to authenticate a notebook of mine, its the very neat printing and horrible spelling that would signify it's authentic.

 

Pogrom is a pogrom in terms of underlining psychology, sanctioned by a authority or not. I severely doubt in the "violence node" of the mind that we will ever find a path for government approved violence versus non-government. Its using parallel hardware almost the same way. Romans merely exploited this phenomena, whereas we try to suppress it today, save 9-11, or the recent French Attacks, then we rehabilitate it a while.

 

I'm guessing when fear (dopamine) rises, Noradrenaline (Anger) and Serotonin (Self Worth) plummets. We find ways in this social activity to raise the other two. Lonely guys just seeth in rage, but groups communicate it to one another, then get inventive as to what the solution should be, and such thinking is almost universally assed up and disturbing. There is a reason corporate charters for corporate 500 companies don't adopt this model of internal governance, it is just really bad, and gives HR a serious headache afterwards in sorting the mess out after.

 

I'd like to say acetylcholine plays a part, but I didn't see it in the faces of the people in Iraq. They were partially reasoning, a storyline was going. I don't think it was "faith" persay, but another function of the mind that referenced to faith but wasn't present at the same time.

 

It be hard to claim faith hates if you have solitary monks seeking solitary living and enlightenment soaked in it. Different phenomena, not sure you can do both at the same time, but maybe someone can convince me otherwise. I don't have a absolute stance here, and am open to ideas.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Onasander

[C. Fabius Lupus]

This is a very simplified description of how neurotransmitters and hormones work.

 

Pogroms can either be caused by outbreaks of violent group dynamics or be ordered cold-blooded from behind a desk or both (The guy behind the desk taking advantage of violent predispositions and ressentiments in the population.)

Probably it was both in the cases of Nero, Decius or Diocletian.

 

Faith can only be used to exploit emotional predispositions, if the partcular faith is based on sufficient fanaticism. The Abrahamic superstitions are in this regard much better suited for such a purpose than the traditional religions. The lynch mobs allegedly involved in the persecution of Christians were rather motivated by the perceived threat against the state and the Roman society than by faith.

Edited April 21, 2015 by C. Fabius Lupus

[Maty]

A religious organization once asked me to speak to an audience of priests about the persecution of the early church.  I began by saying 'If we were in ancient Rome, the authorities would throw the lot of you to the lions - and the authorities would be right.'

 

Classical religion was a civic affair. That's why priests were politicians. Basically, the city - or state - adopted a particular god as a protector and sacrificed and performed ritual celebrating that god in return for blessings and protection. This was an explicit pact summarized by the expression 'Do ut des' (I give in order that you give).

 

This had nothing to do with belief, and absolutely nothing to do with private beliefs. People in an ancient city no more had to believe in their god than I have to believe in Revenue Canada. However, if either of these two entities do not get what they consider as their dues, they tend to get dangerously irritated. However, while the wrath of the taxman falls on my head alone, the wrath of the god fell on an entire community.

 

So, from an ancient point of view, what Christians got up to at home or among friends was their business. However, refusing to attend sacrifices and rituals, and even standing on the temple steps preaching against the god was the social equivalent of lighting cigarettes in a firework factory and insisting it is your right to smoke. In short, you have become a public menace.

 

Once Christians had reached a certain percentage of the population it seemed to the Romans that the gods did indeed withdraw their protection in response to Christian disrespect. That was the cue for barbarian invasions, earthquakes and plague. As we know, correlation is not causation, but someone who has just buried his family in the smoldering remains of his home might not have regarded matters so dispassionately.

[Onasander]

Please, they thought merely transporting an atheist by ship caused storms at sea. Both you and Caldrail manage to miss one another. In Caldrail's place, he believes there was NO civic cults. This is of course wrong, they used active temples as government buildings, imported gods, and trained military commanders as priests. They had several "orders" of priesthood.

 

But they never had aonopoly, and as I've pointed out with the Balbus fragment, the imperial cults built around the emperor never quite gained total acceptance, we go from that era into the Christian fathers era with similar ideological strands of dissent.

 

And no, of course the Roman "authorities" were not right to enforce the imperial cults of sacrifice. That in itself is idiotic and backwards by Roman and Greek political philosophy, as the subject was still quite up to debate as to what constituted a real God, if the Gods were even real, and the nature of cults and mysteries. Take Aristotle's statecraft.... did you know his school was ordered around religious principles? I myself didn't grasp this until I read The Fragments of Theophrastus. The Platonic Academy was built around a Greek hero shrine in Plato's Garden. The Stoa worshipped Love, an impersonal diety of sorts. The early Romans lacked a founding cult- alters and holy spots existed in Rome prior to the Romans, and if I recall, they like the Japanese maintained the thatch house of Romulas for centuries (Japanese did so of the founding dynasty' house (a female shaman) for a long time. But they didn't worship him till late.

 

To what degree were legal aliens and slaves required to worship in state cults during the republic? Its a very valid question. Were the cults similar to caste religion in India, where the lower castes were kept outside of the temple and services?

 

If they were originally senatorial and plebians only, or only expected that they would CE, or join when office was acquired (or joined when office was desired like in the cult of Mithras), then the later pogroms against the Christians (and other groups too, we didn't have a monopoly on this) was built on I'll advised logic, and poor rationality. Some classical theories did promote the idea of a state theologically centered around kinds of belief (I just did a book review on a Neo-Platonist view from Justinian's era), or a continuation of traditions, but others sought a radical departure from this.

 

Take the killing of Socrates. It was the Cynics who first sought out vengeance against the Athenians for the killing. Their academy was kept OUTSIDE of the city walls (by choice or forced upon them is up to debate, we obviously didn't continue the tradition of educating in dedicated structures). The Cynics developed a political theory during Plato's lifetime. It effected later schools. The debate was already there, were the temples even necessary? Arius Didymus and Seneca were both Stoics, Augustus dynasty took a Hugh dose of this outlook early on. The judge of Justin Martyr was a Stoic, yet he accepted the imperial cult of the emperor. Was he right by Stoic standards? No. Lots of precedent exists in Zeno of Citrum's standards and that of Chrissypus that the Christians lacked vice and embraced classical stoic virtues, and thus were healthy to a state, and not a liability. The ultimate reason whybhe was executed was a claim of atheism on his part for refusing the sacrifice. The emperors never were able to prove their cults were legitimate (due to Cicero and his popularity, we intact know the completely made up Genesis of that idea was made up by him). It wasn't necessary to worship godmen during the republic. Would the Romans be right to execute a resurrected Cincinnatus or Scipio because they would reflexively balk at the idea? What justification could the empire offer to earlier Romans this was universally necessary? None. They would naturally know otherwise, as they had lived otherwise.

 

Certain things conferred roman citizenship. I recall a group of twelve slaves on their own volition once rescued idols from a burning temple in Rome, and we given manumission and citizenship for this. Holding Gods in esteem therefore seemed to of been a sign of romaness in earlier eras. How well did this carry on when Rome became a swelling cosmopolitan capital is questionable, especially with foreign cults popping up left and right. Those foreigners got rights and in time citizenship.

 

Its really hard to take your position Maty when we know the classical sources would dispute it. It wasn't automatically right. The rightness of the act had to be demonstrated, and obviously failed to do so, as it eventually succumbed to the counter arguments. It did though, enjoy a frictioned yet largely free reign for a few centuries. Obviously the ideology wasn't working as well as the best persecuting emperors themselves had hoped, as they apparently built their statecraft around this. It was always a stupid idea, there is in political philosophy more to suggest the legitimacy or resisting a autocrat, even upon the pain of torture and death, than accepting the tyrant wholesale. This predates Christianity by centuries, and the Romans had access to such ideas, even embraced them in a earlier era. Why do you think Caesar was stabbed?

 

Rethink your position. Caldrail, you got another wiki battle on your hands, feel free to convince everyone else on the biography your right and they are all wrong in regards to Mark Anthony, I will follow that battle of wits with great interest.

[Maty]

Okay. I'd strongly suggest that you refrain from calling other people's opinions 'idiotic', as this is neither polite nor helpful.

 

While some parts of your lengthly post seem a bit tangential, I'll address what appears to be the point. If people accepted that the 'gods' and particularly the tutelary god of a particular city gave protection in return for public worship, then yes, it was right of the authorities to demand that worship. Belief was not neccessary or demanded. In an ancient city the people did accept that public worship was neccessary for divine protection. Please do give me any references you have to the contrary.

 

Certainly there was debate as to the nature of the gods. As I have said, no-one enforced belief. However, apart from Christians I know of no-one who did not participate in the rituals which were so much a part of public life. Cicero might have disputed that the gods existed, but you can bet that as consul he performed the rites to perfection.

 

Socrates was executed for teaching people to disavow the gods and for corrupting youth. Though this is a Greek example and less relevant, it shows the same point of view. That, incidentally is also the point of the story of transporting atheists by sea. If this does cause storms and leads the ship to the bottom of the ocean, do you really want atheists aboard?

 

Finally, the idea of 'resisting the tyrant' does not enter into the discussion. In this case ruler and people were in agreement, which is where the 'lynch mobs' in the original posting come in.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Maty

[Onasander]

The people and the rulers were clearly NOT in agreement, hence the necessity of the pogrom. Its your classic "big brother" strategem, well diagnosed in modern philosophy.

 

Cursing does have a legitimate Ontological root that effects Epistemeology, theories of mind in debate. I use it a lot, learned the value from the Cynics in discourse when appropriately timed. You should ask yourself why it bothers you, actually bothers you.

 

I don't know much in all honesty about the rites Cicero carried out (not from lack of investigation).

 

Yes, rebelling against a tyrant matters here. See Seneca Pumkinfication for a simple Roman era specific reference for this dynasty in particular. I was thinking of a much earlier event, but won't go into it right now, as it leaves a bloody taste in the mouth. Only philosophy I can point to where you have even a chance of being right that was popular amongst the Romans Cicero on till Christianity would be the Stoa, and they went out of their way to ignore and disregard tyrants, and what harm they could bring. If I recall, there is a French Canadien up in Montreal on ITunes years back who made a series of podcasts on this, but I use Android right now.

 

Specific cases where the founder was disregarded in particular? Rome. Remus wasn't worshipped. Romulas wasn't worshipped till much later on when this philosophy under discussion here became vogue. I never found evidence of a temple to Dido in Carthage, best I could find to adherence to anything she supposedly did is not expand beyond the city line she laid down with the hide.

 

Now that I come to think of it, most countries rather rejected their founding deities, at least those they recorded. Was was just looking at the history of Delphi the other day, it flipped gods several times. The gods were presented in a lineage from founders to successors, and it was almost always violent or treacherous. I'm lucky I just read Numenius, or else I wouldn't have the Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic perspectives fresh in my mind. They were disgusted at the myths, and riduled the myths as being lies, as the gods couldn't possibly be that fucked up (a far worst exemplative should be used here, but choose to leave it at the F word as a mere marker).

 

Further, lots of people ENFORCED belief. Hence the Christian persecutions. I'll reiterate the use of the word idiotic here, Christians aren't going to suddenly forget the pogroms and persecutions for refusal to sacrifice, and I already mentioned Justin Martyr's trial with the Stoic and Cynic. What kind of scam are you pulling here? Are you going to convince me that the historical sources are wrong, and that you are right, because you read the truth on a Mormon tablet only you can read? I'm talking about Roman history, what civilization are you referencing too? Does it exustvin a parallel universe?

 

Last time I have seen an argument like this, was by Sauwelios (Google him, a Dutch Neo-Nazis posing as a Hindu spiritualist preaching Nietzsche, he is very easy to track on the net) who used the writings of Savitri Devi to argue similar points.

 

No, I'm going to say this once.... a "mob" isn't perfectly in the right to whip, beat, mutilate, coherse, or punish others because its on a momentary high. This isn't evidence of will to power, or of a healthy community. Its evidence of a Libertine mentality that's inherently Sadist. I already noted the early Stoa model based off of "Live" leads to absolute hate, rape and pedophilia. The Spartans used this very system, the philosophers from Socrates on took them as an example. The Nazis (some at least) were trying to resurrect a modified Spartan model of society.

 

I don't know if you intentionally set out to parallel his positions (Sauwelios and Savitri Devi). I'm sure he us bound to Google his name and show up eventually. Not all Pagans are Nazis, but there is a very nasty, Psuedo-Nationalistic pocket of them active on the net pushing this agenda. You might of just echoed it unintentionally by mixing Nietzsche with your knowledge of Rome.

 

So no, I completely and one hundred percent denounce your position, as I've already been exposed to it, and know what it leads directly to.

 

The case of the Atheist being thrown overboard comes from Diagoras of Melos, a Theodorian (school is extinct, but is very closely related to the Cynic and Hendonist schools).

 

From his wiki page:

 

"And Cicero goes on to give another example, where Diagoras was on a ship in hard weather, and the crew thought that they had brought it on themselves by taking this ungodly man on board. He then wondered if the other boats out in the same storm also had a Diagoras on board."

 

How can you explain the sailors being right in this situation? Its absolutely absurd. Its nonsense to say the sailors were right to want to do this. Its not an action that can possibly benefit them, leaves them trapped in a superstition instead of rationalizing their situation and seeking to make adjustments to positively effect their outcome in terms of surviving. Throwing a atheist overboard to appease the gods isn't effective seamanship in the face of a storm.... pulling in the rigging and oars, facing the onsetting waves, accounting for leaks and bailing water, and setting wirkcrews to specific ad hoc tasks are. Do you think they should sacrifice a goat and row harder instead?

 

Socrates.... Killed. Aristotle, nearly killed for the same ignorance. Diadorus sent into exile. Theodorus. Seneca exiled. Its not healthy for a state to solve its "problems" ISIS style, by killing, exiling, launching pogroms, or conducting genocide on its most productive elements, or against harmless groups with new methods of worship. Its very poor and backwards thinking, and its much better to intergrate all elements into society without pushing them to ideological breaking points that forces them to resist and rebel. Even the Iranians grasp this.

 

The best state is a pluralistic state, as it allows freedom of conscious, allows for innovation, and encourages productive growth with the investigation of new ideas. The might makes right of mob politics doesn't lead to more tolerance or enlightened thinking. During the 20th century, we found out the hard way when the world fought the Axis powers.

 

I'm getting tired of all these Nietzscheans trying to rewrite history. I said it on this site a while back, I miss the days when you could just argue against Marxists, the climate of pop philosophy has been turning increasingly back to the Neo-Naxi pole. I don't know why they do this to themselves.

 

Usually at this point, the Nietzscheans start quoting Aristotle and his Ethics. Feel free, I've had thus debate a few times in the past already. Your nothing new. The administrator of this site speaks German, he can find undoubtedly better sources on this annoying subject than me. There is definitely a subculture on the net that argues as you do, but I do hope its just a short sighted acceptance of Nietzsche and not full fledged Neo-Nazis spiritualism. I really don't care to see another image of Devi's Urn in Wisconsin (or Minnesota, one of the cold boring states at New Been). And I really don't want to be told about Arminius again if you got that up your sleeve. I've heard it all before. Its very bad history. I don't get the motivation for people to engadge in thus foul history making.

 

Anyway, I'm well seasoned in refuting this stuff, so if you insist.... just its lame and tiring in the Groundhog Day sense of a never ending continuum. You win a string of debates, they slouch off offering some excuse, and a new one pops up in their place. Its never original.

[Onasander]

Honestly, if anyone is aware why fringe historians are switching from the old Marxist arguments back to the Nietzschean-NeoNazis end of the spectrum, please tell me. I've seen much worst than Maty. Its not the universities, as most who argued ten years back for Marxist or Anarchist positions on history or philosophy were not university trained, and this modern breed of Neo-Nazis almost never is university trained. They start our small, then snag a few members on a forum on some absurd idea taken from the 1930s, talk about pagan gods, then art, then whipping women, German history, but get very upset and defensive if someone calls them a Nazi or mentions Storm front. None of their historical takes pan out, its based off 19th century theories of sociology. Like Arminius.

 

I'm honestly at a loss. I don't know how the Neo-Nazis came back into influence. I don't even know if Maty is aware of his positions paralleling theirs. People become influenced without being told where the ideas come from. They always gotta be so damn secretive.

 

Its a massive intellectual swing. So many are doing it. Its really starting to get to me. It was what, 70 some years ago World War II was fought to end this, and here it is again, trying to go mainstream. I don't understand the underlining mechanism of why people embrace this during THIS decade but the latter in the former. I'm seeing far too much of this. I understand the attraction to violent ideologies, and denouncing a status quo religion. But this pendulum shift back and forth between the MarxistMarxist/Anarchist being in Vogue vs the Nietzschean/Nazis isn't making much sense. I gotta be missing something.

 

Does it start off as a Meme?

 

Maty, when did this idea first enter your head? Your not original, so no, you didn't invent it. It came from somewhere. How aware were you of its overall scope (being Neo-Nazis) when you first started this debate. You said you used this when giving speeches to groups. You got it from a source. What was that source, and what made it stick in your mind?

 

Did you have reservations when promoting these ideas when it first occurred to you you were arguing for the use of force on minorities, or denying genocides and persecutions? Roughly in your opinion, who far along are you in terms of acceptance and non acceptance of Roman Persecutions, or in modern times the holocaust? Do you symphasize with the positions of holocaust deniers, or reject them still but accept other forms if violence just below genocide as just or necessary?

 

What us your view on Categorical Imperatives (Kantian). Did you just read they were wrong, or do you have early memories from your childhood long before you started reading and developed your udeas that suggested this point if view?

 

From now on I'm doing questionnaires. I want to know why so many turn to the far left and bounce between Marxism then Nazism every few years. It has to be a pact mentality of some sorts organizing this. Why this in particular?

 

Maty, were the Khmer Rouge right for killing people for lacking "right belief"? They fall perfectly center between the communist and Nietzschean sphere.... what's your take on them?