Dave B
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i Roman’s short book has no index!!!!!!!!!!!Had to dig it out of my own ‘gospel 5’ ‘favourites’ links file that is filling up with 300+ so need to start a gospel 6 soon.But it is the Zeitgeist of it ?It looks like a lot of these early Christians were simple commodity producing artisans;Eg Didache considered late first early 2ndcentury and written in non rulling class common greek?The appolonius stuff about flatterers and suckers etc does look like the contra Lucian argument and the freeloader stuff in Didache.An expected problem with this kind of stuff? there is a tradition of communist shit with Artisan re the Proudhonist and the English in the early 19thcentury etc.They often called their income from sales ‘wages’ and that dates back to Cicero who first mentioned wage slavery re artisans.The radical English Artisans in the early 19thcentury called the sale of their product ‘wages’ eg Thompsons making of the English working class.There are problems with this re mutual aid type communism etc etc. Anyway; Chapter XXXIX. …..There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God. Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price. On the monthly day,58if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. [6] These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund. For they are not taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God's Church, they become the nurslings of their confession. [7] But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one59another, for themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death. [8] And they are wroth with us, too, because we call each other brethren; for no other reason, as I think, than because among themselves names of consanguinity are assumed in mere pretence of affection. But we are your brethren as well, by the law of I our common mother nature, though you are hardly men, because brothers so unkind. [9] At the same time, how much more fittingly they are called and counted brothers who have been led to the knowledge of God as their common Father, who have drunk in one spirit of holiness, who from the same womb of a common ignorance have agonized into the same light of truth! [10] But on this very account, perhaps, we are regarded as having less claim to be held true brothers, that no tragedy makes a noise about our brotherhood, or that the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. [11] One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives. [12] We give up our community where it is practised alone by others, who not only take possession of the wives of their friends, but most tolerantly also accommodate their friends with theirs, following the example, I believe, of those wise men of ancient times, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared with their friends the wives whom they had married, it seems for the sake of progeny both to themselves and to others; whether in this acting against their partners' wishes, I am not able to say. [13] Why should they have any care over their chastity, when their husbands so readily bestowed it away? O noble example of Attic wisdom, of Roman gravity-the philosopher and the censor playing pimps! …..http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-05.htm#P425_201743
i The levellers as Whinstanley noted were ‘falsely’ accused of free love etc, which they regarded as calumny. [That also popped up in Tertullian in his distancing himself from ‘orthodox’ early Christian communism from Valentian? ] The argument of the leveller detractors went. You believe in common property. Women are property. Ergo women are shared for sexual gratification. I suppose the idea of women sharing men for sexual gratification was unthinkable. These so called heretical Marcionite/Gnostic early Christians appear much more ‘feminist’ girl power than the orthodox ones and in that sense uniquely radical for the time. The Marcionite/Gnostic catergory is ‘problematic’ as they say as it covers a range of positions. Actually Paul is a much more of a shithouse misogynist when it comes to Burka them up than Mohammed in the Quran. Most of the Islam shit that we think about comes from the Hadith material, which is equivalent to the babblings of ‘our’ post 5thcentury saints; or modern Islam? Prefer the gospel material myself the Quran if boring and repetitive by comparison. Actually the leveller stuff had been a bit of a myth as well; Karl had not and did not know about the Whinstanley material. Bernstien of all people dug it out around 1890; it was probably very close to being lost as well and that was in the era of the printing press and only 300 years before it. Got more time now and have cancelled a night out too tired.
i Ahah Found it! Apollonius of Tyana the Nazarene! by Dr. R. W. Bernard (1964) When Apollonius came to Ephesus, the citizens left their work and followed him, paying homage and applause. The first discourse of Apollonius given at Ephesus was from the porch of the temple of Diana, after the manner of the Stoics, exhorting them to spend their time in study and philosophy (spirituality) and to abandon their dissipations and cruel sports. He also preached on "Community of Goods" (`communism') illustrating his discourse with the parable of the sparrows.* ….While discoursing one day in one of the covered walks of Ephesus, on mutual aid and the advantages of `communism,' it chanced that a number of sparrows were sitting on a tree nearby in perfect silence. Suddenly another sparrow flew up and began chirping, as though it wanted to tell the others something. Whereupon the little fellows all set to chirping also, and flew away from the newcomer. Apollonius's superstitious audience were greatly struck by this conduct of the sparrows, and thought it was an augury of some important matter. But the philosopher continued his sermon, pointing out that the sparrow had invited it's friends to a banquet. Thereupon a boy slipped down a lane nearby and spilt some corn he was carrying in a bowl; then he picked up most of it and went away. The little sparrow, chancing on the scattered grains, immediately flew off to invite his friends to the feast. Most of the crowd then went off at a run to see if it were true; and when they came back shouting and all excited with wonderment, Apollonius spoke as follows:"Ye see what care the sparrows take of one another, and how happy they are to share with all their goods. And yet we men do not approve; nay, if we see a man sharing his goods with other men, we call it wastefulness, extravagance and such names, and dub the men to whom he gives a share, fawners and parasites. What then is left to us except to shut us up at home like fattening birds, and gorge out bellies in the dark until we burst with fat?" ………….. http://www.mountainman.com.au/Apollonius_the_Nazarene_7.htmwill locate the tertullian thing later unless roman wants to do it; I do have it somewhere.
i I suppose it would be interesting also to see who else was a communist in the Roman empire around JC’s time? The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus, tr. F.C. Conybeare, [1912], at sacred-texts.com CHAPTER III His other discourses he delivered under the trees which grow hard by the cloisters; and in these he dealt with the question of communism, and taught that they ought to support and be supported by one another. While he was doing so on one occasion, sparrows were sitting quite silent upon the trees, but one of them suddenly set to chirping as it flew up, just as if he had some p. 352 p. 353 exhortations to give to his fellows; and the latter, on hearing it, themselves set up a chirping and rose and flew up under the guidance of the one. Now Apollonius went on with his argument, for he knew what it was that made the sparrows take wing, but he did not explain the matter to the multitude who were listening to him; but when they all looked at the birds and some of them in their silliness thought it a miraculous occurrence, Apollonius interrupted his argument and said: "A boy has slipped who was carrying some barley in a bowl, and after carelessly gathering together what was fallen, he has gone off, leaving much of if scattered about it in yonder alley, and this sparrow, witnessing the occurrence has come here to acquaint his fellows with the good luck, and to invite them to come and eat it with him." Most of his audience accordingly ran off to the spot, but Apollonius continued to those who remained with him the discourse he had proposed to himself on the topic of communism; and when they returned talking loudly and full of wonder, he continued thus: "You see how the sparrows care for one another and delight in communism, but we are far from approving of it, nay, should we happen to see anyone sharing his own in common with others, we set him down as a spendthrift and talk about his extravagance and so forth, while as for those who are supported by him, we call them parasites and flatterers. What then is left for us to do, except to shut ourselves up like birds that are being fed up and fattened, and gorge ourselves in the dark until we literally burst with fat?" http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/aot/laot/laot18.htm There is book by someone discussing this passage which also interprets it as appollonius supporting communism. It is a more interesting synopsis, I will try and find it later. There is an argument in fact that antecedent Pythagoras and Pythagorean communism etc was invented by the neo Pythagoreans who were? There are a lot of similarites between JC and early Christianity etc with Apollonius. JC did a sparrow thing that is toward the top my list of stupid things he said. You can’t help wondering if it was redacted and was originally closer to the Appollonius version. Communist sparrow stuff also appears elsewhere in the valentian communist stuff I think. There are some more explicit quotations on Christian communism in Tertullian that Roman also picked up in his book. It looks like like there was a bit of a split with early Christian communists with the free love stuff of the Valentinians. But some of the Valentinian stuff probably hostilely quoted, maybe out of context, by the ‘orthodox’ lot looks like hippy communism and might have sat well with Fred’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. And his sex love monogamy? I am out of time, might come back later?
iuI am not try to steer anyone away from the prolific Eusebuis for any devious reasons. But you are better off completely ignoring him general as he is notoriously inaccurate and a bit of a buffoon. That is not to say everything he wrote is garbage it is just it often not clear what is and what isn’t etc. As background, it is a long subject. On whether something ever happened or not and Geek myths etc you are better reading Origens Contra Celsum; as Origen deals with that kind of thing contra to Celsums pagan position eg all the nonsense in Greek biographies of the God’s etc. Of course the same problem occurs with all the gibberish in the old testament. So as Origen said basically (and I read it a couple of years ago so can’t remember all the details of the arguments correctly) when Celsum took the piss out of the old testament for its shit Origen did the pot calling the kettle black thing. It is not straightforward nailing down Celsums position as it is all over the place. He is a straightforward Hellinistic/Roman pagan one moment a materialist ‘atheist’epicurean the next, attacks the old testament and Judaism and by default Christianity by bracketing them together. Then resorts to this Jewish friend of mine says Christianity is crap because of this and that and is just a Jewish theological heresy. Doing a Judaic theological critique of Christianity; I am not talking here about JC’s fornicating mother here which would be Judiac historical critique, Celsum comes across as pretty well read up and a bit of polymath. If it is not just obvious from the text, Origen repeatedly makes not of it. You can see Origen banging his fist on the table as Celsum switches from one position to another. Celsum also makes logical arguments pointing out contradictions between the gospels as people do now. Like why did he fall for the sponge soaked in gall crucifixion trick. Origen, on the old testament rubbish fell back onto the [platonic] allegorical line. [That was one of several things that got him into trouble later and he was posthumously excommunicated as the old testament material theology moved back towards literal truth which we still have today amongst many modern Christians.] Plato himself had problems with the Greek god stuff because they obviously did shitty stuff and I suppose it had a parallel with the ‘Macionists’ objection to the old testament God. But Plato thought that stories like that were ok if the ‘allegorical message’ or content in them was true. It he originated the content and form analysis. So to put it in a more modern context the content of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal farm was true even if the form was clearly not. One being set in the future and the other having talking pigs building windmills etc. You can take that or leave it. Another example re Origen and Plato would be Plato’s myth of Err. Plato also invented the thought experiment which is a part of modern science. Which he developed as part of the paradox of theodicy ie why with a good god is there evil etc. That was quite clever as you could see how Plato was attempting to resolve it albeit not totally successfully. I don’t want to go into that too much and it does look mad on the surface of it but part of it involved a kind of Hindu like reincarnation thing, including potentially after ‘death’ choosing to try a second life as a penguin sort of thing. Dabbling with that kind of idea wasn’t part of modern Christian theology either. But I digress a bit. Whilst Celsum was questioning the historical accuracy of the old testament material and Origen was saying it was allegorical and that Hellinistic allegories were just that but shit allegories etc. They were both discussing JC as history albeit different versions of the same story. JC as the low class, less than Leonardo DiCaprio carpenter with his fornicating yarn spinning mother and JC as son of god. I mean Celsum’s position was quite understandably modern really, from just a non class position, why was JC ugly and deformed? He is not like that in the modern Robert Powell films or 5th century art etc. They went mad on a Christian forum I went onto when I raised that and threw me off. There is an interesting clip in Luke about heal thyself which is one of the several out of context stuff and what was that supposed to mean stuff in it. You might think there were loads of them. Origen rolls with that one and was quite ok with it as according to him it was as was prophesised in the old testament Issaiah I think?; dropping the allegorical stuff. The Messiah would be no oil painting, a tenuous interpretation but so what. Although Origen got a bit tetchy over the carpenter accusation for some reason; maybe because he was an intellectual. Although justyn the martry from 140AD provides details of JC making yokes and ploughs. Justyn the martry also has JC being born in a cave/stable that appears elsewhere. Actually that was normal; peasants would often have stables next to the farm carved out of the soft rock and women would birth in the stable because it was not the kind of thing you would do in the house as it might mess up the carpet and furniture. So having been born in a stable/cave is like saying you were not born in a maternity ward and looses its modern Monty python ‘Luxury’ thing. I mentioned the Apollonius because Adam talked about other similar dingbat stuff circulating around the time and both sets of material have a remarkable set of similarities. Although you have crazy stuff in the gospel material with talking clouds etc it looks positively rational compared to the Apollonius material where there are dragons and satyrs etc and it is really flaky when it comes to geography and historical anachronisms. And is totally laughable compared to the gospel material; we would have had much more fun if that one was the one that ran. I have not read that for a long time but there is easily found stuff on it. Adam mentioned historical data points, from Josephus? , being used to ‘authenticate’ a mythical gospel narrative. That is actually an excellent point, up to a point. It has been observed that the author of Acts, who is supposed to be the author of Luke, was cutting and pasting material from Josephus into Acts at least. It is a bit tenuous as I think there are three cases and it just involves short phrases but linguistic analysis of classical Geek is potentially more informative than what you might expect from clumsy English or even normal Greek. However there are historical data points and historical data points. They used historical data points to date stuff as they didn’t have a 2016 system. So you would include stuff like that instead of a calendar date and do a 12thyear of the reign of Augustus or th 22ndOlympiad or whatever. It is always a headache for the historians following it but the scientist came to the rescue as we can now track back and accurately date new moons and eclipses are always a nice one to recalibrate it. As it seems to have turned out the historians made a reasonable job of it and don’t seem to have been out by much more than +/- 2 years. I think the Augustus Census and Quirinus census in Luke is, perhaps by another, justan attempt at dating rather than giving authenticity to a fraudulent document. I used to think all that Plato shit was well shit and I still do really. But I do have this Phd online thesis that I am hacking my way through. I am into them now as I have read some science ones for my chemical analysis shit that I do and some of them are great.
i There are a lots of Jesus’s in Josephus. I noticed it when I read him and I have not read it all. I will defer to academic opinion on the subject. Thus; Winter asserts that Josephus mentions about twelve others named Jesus. Feldman puts that number at 21. See Paul Winter, “Excursus II: Josephus on Jesus and James: Ant. xviii 3, 3 (63–64) and xx 9,1 (200–203),” in Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 3 vols., rev. and ed. by Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, Matthew Black and Martin Goodman (Edinburgh: Clark, 1973–1987), vol. 1, p. 431; Louis H. Feldman, “Introduction,” in Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata, eds., Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1987), p. 56. I wasn’t aware that there was an opinion that it was generally an unusual name. James was a common name as well. I don’t want to muddy the water to much but I guess we need to ‘know’ about this bod. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana The inscription is mentioned is here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana And to confuse things even more? As Appollonius the Pythagorean ? There is such a thing as Pythagorean communism? http://listverse.com/2014/10/03/10-communist-societies-that-predated-the-ussr/ I think joining up the dots of 7 and 6 might be a thesis? We are not having a debate here about whether JC was God. I suspect that some people missed the point with my following quote because Greenwood was phrasing it in intellectual clever dick terms; Thus; …Ultimately, neither Celsus nor any of the polemicists who followed him could scientifically validate the existence of Christ, but at every turn when historical issues were raised, neither he nor they ever claimed that Christ was a myth… The point was; saying JC was a myth in 180AD, it was an open goal. As in slotting it in the back of the net as in the philosophers football match. With Leibniz in goal for the Germans, as an expert on relativity of space time and orientation out of position at the near post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2gJamguN04 Actually Greenwood was being a double clever dick. Because in contra celsum, Origen the Christian himself went into a detailed rational and materialist discussion as to how you can’t prove anything actually happened. In response to something Celsum had said; throwing in back in his face so to speak. It was an interesting argument. Without then unimaginable multiple contemporary personal accounts in printed literature and photo’s film etc etc; it was impossible. Greenwood was plagarising that argument from contra celsum. The only reason that Celsus could have for not taking the simple approach of mythism was that no-one, then, would have taken him seriously or he would have had no ‘credibility’ with anti christians had he done so. On Spartacus the multiple references are quite good and reasonably contemporary. But it was as one of them said it was the biggest event to hit the Roman empire since Hannibal. There is no archaeological evidence, nor of the crucifixions. Crucifixion wasn’t a myth though it was described by cicero and seneca. I suppose ironically the only archaeological evidence comes from the Palestine region. The unfortunate bod had a nail driven through his feet I think; they general idea is that it had bent when driving it trough a knot in the wood and they ran out of patience getting it out of his feet again. Metal was money. I think that there were probably Jesus type events happening all they time around then. One of them and its associated narratives had ‘legs’ and developed; if it wasn’t that particular one it would have just been another. I have no interest in over doing this one but actually as regards JC claiming to be the son of god etc it is not as ‘explicit’ in the gospel material as you might expect.
i Incidentally we are dualists as well; “……The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought. In general, the idea is that, for some particular domain, there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles. In theology, for example a ‘dualist’ is someone who believes that Good and Evil—or God and the Devil—are independent and more or less equal forces in the world…..” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#PreDua We have, in our class analysis, the economic ‘domain’ as comprised of the working class as well as the capitalist class in conflict. That strand of early Christian dualism merely incorporated a socio-economic class analysis into the standard and the only, ie ‘theological’ framework available. But that doesn’t stop it being a class analysis. Whether or not a class analysis leads to a communist ideology or communism ideology leads to a class analysis is another question. Albeit on the face of it not a very dialectical one?
Dualism had not been a integral part of othodox Judiaism. Thus; “…..Judaismhas two conflicting attitudes toward the existence of evil. In one interpretation, evil is not real, it is per senot part of God's creation, but comes into existence through man's bad actions. In the other interpretation, evil was created by God since God created everything and to suggest otherwise would be to engage in dualism, and is therefore antithetical to the core Jewish belief in monotheism…..” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_and_evil “…..With the schisims in Jewish society that followed the successful war of rebellion against their Syrian overlords, the party of the Maccabees showed a tendency to "satanize" their Jewish enemies, identifying them as opposed not just to the Maccabees but to God as such. The Essenes, a radical Jewish sect sometimes thought to have associations with Jesus, carried this tendency even further, identifying themselves with "the Sons of the Light" as opposed to "the Sons of the Darkness" — i.e. the Jewish majority…..” http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/essays/text/tomradcliffe/dualism.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabean_Revolt The Satanization of Jewish enemies and thus anti imperialist/oppression dualism crept even more into the Judaic debate around the time of JC. Just as the Trot left has anti imperialist ‘dualism’ albeit mixed up with their ‘dualist’ capitalist class analysis. [The theological ‘dualism’ of the communist essenes is a little bit controversial in theological studies.] However if you take an anti oppression ‘dualism’ that has evolved in a parochial anti imperialist framework and transfer and develop it into a more international framework. It is likely to develop more into a logos international world economic class analysis and away from a national class framework.i I didn’t create title of the thread exactly. But I suppose you could ask the question did early Christians adopt communism. And perhaps turn it on its head a bit and ask instead. Did communists adopt Christianity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphanes_(gnostic) http://www.gnosis.org/library/ephip.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_(Gnostic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinianism Philo of Alexandria20 BCE – c. 50 CE on Essenes And a proof of this is to be found in their life of perfect freedom; no one among them ventures at all to acquire any property whatever of his own, neither house, nor slave, nor farm, nor flocks and herds, nor any thing of any sort which can be looked upon as the fountain or provision of riches; but they bring them together into the middle as a common stock, and enjoy one common general benefit from it all. (11.5) And they all dwell in the same place, making clubs, and societies, and combinations, and unions with one another, and doing every thing throughout their whole lives with reference to the general advantage; (11.6) but the different members of this body have different employments in which they occupy themselves, and labour without hesitation and without cessation, making no mention of either cold, or heat, or any changes of weather or temperature as an excuse for desisting from their tasks. But before the sun rises they betake themselves to their daily work, and they do not quit it till some time after it has set, when they return home rejoicing no less than those who have been exercising themselves in gymnastic contests; (11.7) for they imagine that whatever they devote themselves to as a practice is a sort of gymnastic exercise of more advantage to life, and more pleasant both to soul and body, and of more enduring benefit and equability, than mere athletic labours, inasmuch as such toil does not cease to be practised with delight when the age of vigour of body is passed; (11.
for there are some of them who are devoted to the practice of agriculture, being skilful in such things as pertain to the sowing and cultivation of lands; others again are shepherds, or cowherds, and experienced in the management of every kind of animal; some are cunning in what relates to swarms of bees; (11.9) others again are artisans and handicraftsmen, in order to guard against suffering from the want of anything of which there is at times an actual need; and these men omit and delay nothing, which is requisite for the innocent supply of the necessaries of life. (11.10) Accordingly, each of these men, who differ so widely in their respective employments, when they have received their wages give them up to one person who is appointed as the universal steward and general manager; and he, when he has received the money, immediately goes and purchases what is necessary and furnishes them with food in abundance, and all other things of which the life of mankind stands in need. (11.11) And those who live together and eat at the same table are day after day contented with the same things, being lovers of frugality and moderation, and averse to all sumptuousness and extravagance as a disease of both mind and body. (11.12) And not only are their tables in common but also their dress; for in the winter there are thick cloaks found, and in the summer light cheap mantles, so that whoever wants one is at liberty without restraint to go and take whichever kind he chooses; since what belongs to one belongs to all, and on the other hand whatever belongs to the whole body belongs to each individual. (11.13) And again, if any one of them is sick he is cured from the common resources, being attended to by the general care and anxiety of the whole body. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book37.htmli We should be dealing here with early Christianity rather than just JC; the Man, Myth and ideology; and the history thereof. Personally I would rather concentrate on the historical facts of early Christianityand take the gospel material as read as at least authentically provenanced [written] poltical documents from the early part of the 2ndcentury. In theological context which nearly all things were. The accuracy of the ‘historical’ contents etc should be of little concern to materialist historians interested in the ‘spontaneous’ political ideology/theology of the working classes from say 100-300AD. Even, at this point what matters, at first, is not even the content of these documents. What should matter is that this was working class literature or literature of interest to the oppressed classes only and opposed by the ruling class. Thus it was popular because it spoke to and reflected their political concerns. And thus the Feuerbachian position of a working class ‘ projection’ of their own independent value systems and analysis. [We are supposed to be against popular materialism and the great pied piper men of history thing. But it never goes away as we even have it now with Corbyn; it is all about Corbyn and his magnetic and hypnotic powers. The 400,000 economically distressed people who have joined the labour party are all thicko’s and never had corbynite ideas in their heads until he came along and started to confuse them with his original nonsense that had never occurred to them.] And people, as has been confessed, just want to pop the modern Christianity balloon and let the air out of it by just focusing on the historical or mythical figure around which early Christianity constructed its political narrative. People who have read a lot of this stuff in depth and lean as an overwhelming majority towards the historical figure idea do have a problem. As you can’t just say you stupid arseholes and you don’t know what you are talking about; go off and read all the volumes of contemporary 2ndand 3rdcentury stuff. And there are no killer ones; although I think Contra Celsum is one. I think people should read that even if it is a bit long a 500 pages or whatever just as probably a really important, comprehensive and wide ranging document of the late 2ndearly 3rdcentury ‘ideologies’ and methods of thought etc. On the historicity of JC when you read all this stuff it just an unrelenting drip drip affect. That is not to say there isn’t loads of crap mixed in with it as well. There is some irony that all the convincing evidence of the historicity is in material that Christians don’t want to touch with a barge pole. Eg Contra Celsum dated at AD 180 where the anti Christian describes what JC looked like; a physically deformed, ugly ‘dwarf’. Which Origen in 240AD didn’t deny. Celsum also has JC as an economic migrant and wage worker in Egypt where he learned Darren Brown type magic. Including mass hypnotism. They both knew what that was and if you paid these illusionists enough they would tell you how they did it. And Celsum said JC came back and used those skills to impress the Judean Hillbillies and rednecks and convince them of his false divinity. What is the materialists balloon popping problem with that as a thesis? Should try that on Roman he doesn’t like that one little bit! It is often said that if JC was doing that kind of stuff it would be all over the place and we would have records of it. It is testimony to the level headed materialism of Origen and Celsum that neither of them thought it a good use of expensive paper and ink to spend time writing about that kind of crap then. Anymore than people would have done in the 1stcentury; or would have written about some minor con artist, there probably being hundreds of them over the empire. Any more than Chomsky would write about Uri Geller. Different somewhat when Christianity took off a hundred later. Surprisingly perhaps Origen in 240AD didn’t attach much importance to the miracles; apart from perhaps the resurrection. He justified Christianity on its spread and transformative affect on his Platonic notions of people’s personal behaviour. We would attack modern Christianity now based its transformative affect people’s personal behaviour but Origen didn’t have people like Bush and Blair in mind. Another interesting forbidden fruit black book would be the stuff written by Tertullian around 210AD against a Christian heresy whose figure head had been Marcion of circa 140AD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Marcion This stuff is very well covered with plenty of cross referenced stuff. And in fact Celsum in 170AD talks about the Marcionite heresy which Origen recognises as Marcionism. “….He makes mention also of the Marcionites, whose leader was Marcion….” Although it looks like Celsum almost conspicuously fails to mention Marcion himself.Marcionism for us should be really interesting from a historical perspective only.Almost certainly we have a Marcion around 140AD saying that there are several gospels around and people have been tampering around with them.And Marcion, to remedy this, reproduces a or the corrected version of Luke, the others being so corrupted they are beyond salvage.The contents of this 140AD ‘gospel’ , are thus as an accurately dateable document, are extensively available from hostile witnsses who didn’t like it or the ideas of Marcion or his gospel which they were happy to quote from in order critique it.Actually it isn’t very exciting and would just look like the current version to most people.But we do have at least evidence that versions of Luke was circulating widely before 140AD which might be a surprise to some people.Marcion obviously didn’t think he himself was a heretic or that he had invented Marcionism but thought he represented the original theology of Christianity. Marcionism can be considered an umbrella term for a range of theologies. Basically the idea that the God in the old testament was shit which he is and therefore couldn’t be the proper one.And that Satan ruled the world with his agents amongst the ruling class.An aspect of dualist theology.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualistic_cosmologyAnd Theodicy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy %5BThat places it in a more modern context but you can take it back to Plato.]And theological class analysis, albeit coming from a wealthy dude.And an analysis that is in the gospel stuff.It persisted for a long time in various forms right up to the first crusade and slaughter of the non co-religious ‘christian’ cathars.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_CrusadeAnti old testament theology stuff became increasingly politically hazardous as where would the ruling class and modern Christians be without it?Stuck with all that anti rich stuff in the gospels?The other piece of evidence is the famous failed prophecy; you don’t write down divine prophecies after they failed to happen or in other words after 80-100AD.I was thinking pulling out Caligula actually a few posts ago. And will provide this link just co’s it is an easy short well resourced read rather than unique or seminal. I intend to talk around it later but you don’t have to read it if you don’t want. http://historum.com/blogs/valens/30865-early-principate-reign-caligula.htmlThere is argument to be had that he was a populist who hacked off the ruling class and required a character assassination after his actual one.As with Richard III in a slightly different context but the likely myth of him being deformed turned out to be true.
iThere has been another example of oral history recently. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/the-inuit-were-right-shipwreck-find-confirms-168-year-old-oral-history/ there is a radiocarbon dated Quran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Quran_manuscript There is also a cross over with the Quran and Christianity. JC and his mother Mary are mentioned positively. There is also passages in the Quran on JC taken from the non canonical Infancy gospel of Thomas with JC doing magic tricks of turning clay into birds etc. Mohamned was supposed to have owned a Christian slave and there is a strong allusion in the Quran to him being illiterate and his babblings thus written down by others. The major theological split was over the holy trinity and the father, the son and the holy ghost etc. Which Islam saw as a creeping return to pagan polythesism. And the Christian patron ‘saint’ theology which was viewed as the same as Hellenistic and Roman multiple demi -god theology in a different framework. Alan’s thesis has been done before thus; Conclusion As has been pointed out by others, the testimony of hostile witnessesis particularly valuable. As John Meier has noted, “such positiveevidence within a hostile source is the strongest kind of evidence.” If Celsus, who would likely have wished Christ away from the Roman Empire if he could, testified to his existence, that in some ways is evenmore valuable than positive testimony from a Christian source. Ultimately,neither Celsus nor any of the polemicists who followed himcould scientifically validate the existence of Christ, but at every turnwhen historical issues were raised, neither he nor they ever claimedthat Christ was a myth. This would have been the simplest approach,surely, to insist that there was no birth of Christ, virgin or otherwise,no deeds, miraculous or otherwise, and no death, atoning or otherwise.This would have been devastatingly effective, had there beenanyone for whom such an approach seemed credible. The Alethes Logos of Celsusand the Historicity of ChristDavid Neal Greenwood
iRoman was well out of order there, people were polite to him on libcom after I asked people to give him a break. But I would suggest we turn the other cheek and suggest to the moderator we forgive him. …notjustseven times,butseventy-seven times!,… It is a bit unfortunate in that on libcom it started with a political analysis of early Christianity there and quickly degenerated to a historicity of JC thing. It is a bit daft really as it is bit like attacking and derailing a thread on News From Nowhere or Animal farm on the basis of it never happened and pigs can’t talk etc. I came from the leftist perspective that it was all made up and fabricated in the ‘conference of Nicae’ circa 320AD ‘kind of thing’. Not sure where exactly I got that from; but it is bollocks. As to written material from the first century I don’t think people understand how little there actually is. Take out Josephus and the poets and there is very little, probably less than half a book shelf. So you can get serious bods like Quirinus which we would nothing about outside Josephus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirinius And for that matter Pilate himself who must have been the most important bod in Judea at the time. The archaeological evidence for Pilate is limited to a coin or two and an inscription on stone monument or something; recent 20thdiscoveries I think. And there is no non-Christian material about where he came from or where he ended up. Another example would be a connected big global event and that was the empire wide, but excluding Judea as a client state, census of Augustus for a kind of William the conqueror Domesday Book book taxation thing around 10 BC. It seems to have taken about 10 years as you might expect. [This is relevant as regards Roman’s materialist economic input into the debate which I had been aware of but it was reassuring to here the same thing coming from an unlikely direction.] The data and references on that in non Christian material is very patchy. Although it looks as though ‘Luke’ mentions it even though the opening passages of Luke may be a prologue written by someone else. The Luke nativity narrative opens up with a Roman Empire census being carried out by Augustus. That matches totally separate non Christian material on the subject and, given the patchy nature of historical data, should be interesting. But Luke then conflates the ‘factual’ census of Quirinus in Judea only, in 6AD, with the factual Augustus Roman empire one that ended sometime before. So as just a flaky historical document without even any social economic content, as they normally are from that period, it is worth analysis. As socio economic pamphlets the gospel material is much, much more interesting. There is loads of socio-economics in it that can be analysed using albeit non vulgar Marxist theory that leaps out of the pages when you look at it like that. In fact it even has parallels with Lenin’s analysis of the emancipation of the Serfs thing in 1860 and stuff like that. So before 6AD the Jewish state had their own ways of dealing with stuff. The peasant farmers and what not, and the agricultural economic base paid taxes to the state in surplus product or stuff. That wasn’t a problem because it was just a cut of what you produced; not nice that it took 20% of your stuff but what the hell you knew where you where. The Roman empire wasn’t interested in stuff it wanted money lolly and after 6AD the Roman cash nexus hit Judea. Screw your 50 bushels of corn and olive oil taxes; we want the real stuff, sell it and give us the cash. They were annual taxes demanded on tax and harvest day or months. The stupid peasants would think everything was dandy and take their surplus products to market to sell for cash when the market price was at a low. It started of ok except that the clever peasants held out, paid their money taxes from their cash reserve, and waited for the prices to go up before they sold their surplus product at higher prices. Accumulating an even bigger cash reserve. Then as things went on over years. The stupid peasants couldn’t cover the cash tax payment from sale of their surplus product on tax and harvest low market price day. So they went to the amigo 60% PA interest payday loaners like you do when the electric bill comes in at a bad time. Then it gets worse and next thing you know you are being loan sharked for 1000% and the clever peasants foreclose on the farm. Then you are dispossessed of the means of simple commodity production and selling your linen, olive oils and bushels of wheat etc. You are left with all that remains to sell; the body and soul of labour power for wages to the clever peasants that now own your farm; in 30AD! But surely this idea of agricultural wage labour in 30AD must be Marxist bonkers [It is quite clever really and very modern. I knew someone who wrote computer programmes for a loan company. If the borrower had a nice house and they had borrowed money and was running behind on payments etc. They had a coded ‘bottom drawer’ programme with data inputs etc; where they didn’t hassle the borrower for late payments and horrid computer generated automatic letters etc. Then they would slam them and foreclose; they had a sister company of course that snapped up distressed sales of houses for rent.] These stupid peasants were probably a bit stupid before the fact but woke up later too late. But their concerns are historically reflected theologically in the economic content of the gospel material. Taxes, accumulation on capital ,wages, usury and debt forgiveness; which is all over the place. These Christians and new testament scholars can be really nasty.
i8Post 15 …..It's a pity Celsus's book didn't survive (i.e was destroyed by the christians) but, from the juicy extraxcts, it sounds a good read too. I think the Jews of the time also said Jesus was the bastard son of a Roman soldier…….. As an update really as something I said earlier about an anti Christian document by Porphyry circa 300AD being destroyed and not knowing what was in it wasn’t precisely true. There is another manuscript possibly comnected to it which contains much anti christian material. The ‘complete’ and extensively quoted anti christian material contained in it is dated as probably originating and have been written by Sossianus Hierocles around 310 AD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sossianus_Hierocles And perhaps at least plagarised from the anti Christian book by Porphyry. The anti christian material is, on its own interesting, as an extremely sophisticated textual criticism of the gospel material questioning its accuracy, logical and material impossibilities, as well as a forensic analysis of material contradictions between the gospel documents themselves. Again there is an absence of a JC historical myth analysis. The book from which it originated presents itself as dialogue or debate between an anti Christian and a Christian as with origen’s contra celsum. And as such contains a quite modern and first rational attack on the gospel material. And for that alone should be an entertaining and historical read for anti Christians. From a historical political perspective the anti Christian from circa 300AD then clearly views and objects to the gospel material and Christianity as an act of theological class warfare, attack and hostility towards and against the rich. And gospel material and Christianity was fabricated by the ‘poor’ in their own interests. The anti Christian representative of the ruling class and rich of 300AD unlike modern anti Christians clearly doesn’t interpret it as a positive thing in keeping the poor happy with their lot etc. More like a protest against the early Christian idea that the rich are shits because they are rich. Thus mirroring the analysis of ‘Marxist’ like Rosa , Kautsky and Engels from 1500 years later who also viewed it as such; from the opposite perspective? CHAPTER V. Objection based on the saying about the camel going through the eye of a needle (Matt. xix. 24, etc.).Let us examine another saying even more baffling than these, when he says, "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle,than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven."If it be indeed the case that any one who is rich is not brought into the so-called kingdom of heaven though he have kept himself from the sins of life, such as murder, theft, adultery, cheating, impious oaths, body-snatching, and the wickedness of sacrilege, of what use is just dealing to righteous men, if they happen to be rich ? And what harm is there for poor men in doing every unholy deed of baseness ?For it is not virtue that takes a man up to heaven, but lack of possessions. For if his wealth shuts out the rich man from heaven, by way of contrast his poverty brings a poor man into it. And so it becomes lawful, when a man has learnt this lesson, to pay no regard to virtue, but without let or hindrance to cling to poverty alone, and the things that are most base. This follows from poverty being able to save the poor man, while riches shut out the rich man from the undefiled abode.Wherefore it seems to me that these cannot be the words of Christ, if indeed he handed down the rule of truth, but of some poor men who wished, as a result of such vain talking, to deprive the rich of their substance. http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/macarius_apocriticus.htm#THE DATE OF THE APOCRITICUS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle
i The Marxist model was supposed to apply to basic commodities like the stuff you can buy in Wallmart and not really applicable to strange stuff like football teams, pop stars and works of art etc. However a football match as entertainment is just valid as a commodity as anything else and like opera, play or J K Rowling book. Actually as regards a commodity selling at its value etc or according to the amount of labour time embodied in etc. It depends on the full formal definition of the amount of labour time required to reproduce it. Economically reproducing good football players isn’t a straightforward process and falls outside the scope of the analysis. The possibility of spending money prospecting for them in the old talent scout system that used to exist 40 years or so ago I suppose. The other kind of creative work generally has an impact on reducing the amount of labour time required to produce a use value and that obviously has an impact on price and it is possible to take patents and liciencing on that etc to make it illegal to freely reproduce something using that technology blah blah. Eg a good computer programme and software etc. Although investment in new labour saving technology and even new patentable products is supposed to be recouped by being able to sell for a period of time the commodity above its labour time value. It is a hit and miss affair and gamble and you can get creamed as well as make a fortune; both cases appearing to go against the Marxist theory of value.
Karl covered and even predicted the CEO type scenario when he did the profit of enterprise thing, when CEO’s were in their infancy in the 19thcentury. He even did the CEO stock buy back scam thing which otherwise is a more modern phenomenon eg the Enron thing.
The scientific method of the model is supposed to create the simplest ‘ideal’ situation as regards the subject matter. To create a theory. Then apply or test the theory against more ‘real’ situations to see what happens and what can be learned from it etc. And see if it still stands up. Newtons or Galileo theory of gravity theoretically predicts that a hammer should fall to the ground at the same ‘speed’ as a hammer. Obviously it doesn’t on earth. It did on the moon however and the theory worked very well for the planets or heavenly bodies etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4_rceVPVSY The reason was that ideally it only works in an absolute vacuum. However applying the Newtonian scientific model led to and understanding of air resistance and Reynolds numbers and stuff like that that keeps planes in the air. The gas laws which became the Rosseta stone for much of pure science are the same. We have been fairly lucky on planet earth the way things are, if another set of bods were on a planet with three times the atmospheric pressure and half the gravity it could have set them back hundreds of years. I did the following quickly yesterday but couldn’t be arsed posting it. I think creative advertising and marketing etc can create added supernatural and magical use values to a product. But it does come at a labour time cost that is included in ‘price’ the product. Thus both calvin klien and nike underpants are commodities that are both produced and are sold in economic competition with each other. Thus what you are mostly paying for as a use-value and commodity is some kind of feel good escapist dream or fantasy. Which for many, obviously, is more important than the pure functionality or use value of the underwear itself. And thus you purchase one versus the other. I suppose one could be a bit high brow at criticising that kind of thing. But maybe there isn’t much difference between paying for a virtual reality computer game and wearing Nike underpants and fantasying about being Tiger Woods or whatever, I guess a lot of it involves buying fictitious social status, being concerned about what other people think about is perfectly normal for a social animal and I guess the advertising business is tapping into that. But creating psychologically dysfunctional and fictitious narcissism isn’t my idea of creativity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_van_Meegeren#The_forgeriesi The price of something can be above what it costs to produce it for a variety of reasons. I guess in your case of the plate it is because it is a branded product with a monopoly and limited production. Thus there is no competition in the production of the thing unless someone produces pirated copies of it; which would be illegal. Monopoly producers of a commodity are free to limit and restrict supply in order for it to command a ridiculously high price and profit. Debeers the diamond producing company used to it. The same applies after a fashion to things like Nike underwear which might cost $2 to produce yet sell for $50. Although in that case their can be competition with other types of branded underwear and then a significant amount of the production cost of the ‘use value’ of a item is in the cost of persuading people that it is that much more useful eg advertising. Advertising has a considerable creative artistic element to it when it comes to its productivity which might be difficult to reproduce. But throw enough money at it employing artistic and creative producers of marketing campaigns etc you could sell anything with a fictitious use value. What it is and why it is that people find some commodities useful and what is or isn’t a fictitious use value lies mostly outside the scope of the Marxist analysis. Marx actually said that somewhere early on in volume one. And I guess he deliberately introduced the bible as one his examples of a commodity as a use value. Although all his early examples eg linen, coat and bible were also commodities that in the early 19thcentury were still being produced mostly by self employed artisans and the self employed simple commodity producers.
FYI josephus qote on 'communist' essenes is at link below chapter 8 http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/war-2.htm
