John the Scot

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter VIII John the Scot

John the Scot or Johannes Scotus or Johannes Scotus Erigena was an Irishman, a Neoplatonist, a Greek scholar, a Pelagian and a pantheist. He is out of place in the 9th century and would have fit better in the 5th or 15th century.

"He set reason above faith, and cared nothing for the authority of ecclesiastics; yet his arbitrament was invoked to settle their controversies" (Russell, 400).

The Irish seem to have carried some Latin classics, knowledge of Greek and other knowledge throughout the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries when it was disappearing from the Continent.

Irish learning being monastic and not ecclesiastical shaped the Irish thought. There was less effort in administration and high theology than on the Continent.

Being isolated from the Pope both by distance and by not recognizing the pope's growing power, things lingered on in Ireland that disappeared elsewhere. The continuing presence of Pelagianism is borne out in some of John the Scot's ideas.

John went to France on the invitation by Charles the Bald around 843.

He kicked off a firestorm by placing the authority of philosophy on equal terms (or even higher than) with revelation. "He contended that reason and revelation are both sources of truth, and therefore cannot conflict; but if they ever seem to conflict, reason is to be preferred. True religion, he said, is true philosophy; but, conversely, true philosophy is true religion" (Russell, 403).

John the Scot also translated the PseudoDionysius, a work that reconciled Christianity with Neoplatonism. While Pope Nicholas was not pleased that John had undertaken the work without his permission and blessing, he could not fault the translation from Greek to Latin.

John divides nature into four classes:
1) what creates and is not created
2) what creates and is created
3) what is created but does not create
4) what neither creates nor is created

For John the first was God, the second were the Platonic forms, the third was things in space and time. "The fourth, surprisingly, is again God, not as Creator, but as the End and Purpose of all things. Everything that emanates from God strives to return to Him; thus the end of all such things is the same as their beginning." (Russell, 404).

Sin was for John, the loss of the divine pattern.

The total of the Platonic Ideas is the Logos.

When God created things out of nothing, that nothing is understood by John to be himself. (Pantheism)

Creation is an eternal process in John. Created things are not distinct from God in John. "The creature subsists in God, and God manifests Himself in the creature in an ineffable manner" (Russell, 405).

"Sin has its source in freedom: it arose because man turned towards himself instead of towards
God. Evil does not have its ground in God, for in God there is no idea of evil. Evil is not-being
and has no ground, for if it had a ground it would be necessary. Evil is a privation of good." (Russell, 405).

"His independence of mind is shown by these heresies, and is astonishing in the ninth century. His Neoplatonic outlook may perhaps have been common in Ireland, as it was among the Greek Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It may be that, if we knew more about Irish Christianity from the fifth to the ninth century, we should find him less surprising. On the other hand, it may be that most of what is heretical in him is to be attributed to the influence of the pseudo-Dionysius, who, because of his supposed connection with Saint Paul, was mistakenly believed to be orthodox." (Russell, 406).

Sin was a consequence of a misdirected will, falsely assuming something is good that is not. It is punished, but like Origen, John holds a universal salvation platform.

Sin was problematic for John because of his pantheism. He also had some strange heretical views on women and viewed creation and the Fall as allegory and not literal.

John had a major impact on Medieval thought by translating the Pseudo-Dionysius but his great work, On the Division of Nature was constantly being condemned as heretical. In 1225 Pope Honorius III ordered all copies to be burnt, but many survived.

Christianity During the First Four Centuries

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Ch. II Christianity During the First Four Centuries

Christianity began as a reforming movement in Judaism and would have stayed such contentedly had it not been for St. Paul. St. Paul was able to keep what was good about the certainty of Judaism in an uncertain age without forcing the gentiles to take on the two most restrictive elements, dietary laws and circumcision.

Early Gnosticism taught that the Jews were bad and identified Yahweh with the god, Ialdabaoth. Ialdabaoth was a rebellious son of God and responsible for the evil, physical world. God then sent his spirit temporarily into Jesus to free the world from the false teachings of Moses. It was a fusion of Jewish theology and Platonic philosophy.

Manichean theology combined Christian and Zoroastrian elements and was what initially brought Augustine to the Catholic faith.

Early heresies like the Gnostics and Manicheans existed until Christianity took over the government. But some of their beliefs survived. Islam was founded with a Docetic (gnostic) belief that Jesus was a prophet who had the spirit of God in him until the spirit left him at the crucifixion.

As Christianity became Hellenized, it became theological. Even by the appearance of the Gospel of John, with Christ being identified with Logos, the Hellenization had begun.

Judaism did not have deep metaphysical mysteries. Christianity developed them in a Jewish context.

Origen, a contemporary of Plotinus, incorporated a lot of Neo-Platonism into his doctrine. In spite of being considered one of the Fathers of Christianity he was condemned for having believed four heresies:

1. The pre-existence of souls as Plato taught
2. Believed that the human nature of Christ existed before the Incarnation
3. At the resurrection our bodies will be transformed into completely ethereal bodies
4. That all men, even devils, shall be saved at least

Origen is the first to have the one-two punch for belief that is characteristic of Christian philosophy. First, pure reason, when exercised properly is sufficient to establish the basics of the Christian faith. Second, the Scriptures prove more and are proved by the fact that the prophets foretold of the Coming of the Messiah and that once believed the Christian life has tangible beneficent effects.

The Christians prior to Constantine had a high moral character. This high moral character is one of the reasons for the spread of Christianity.

The zeal which the Christians inherited from Judaism was vital to its spread. But, when the Christians acquired secular power they turned that zeal on one another to persecute heretics out of existence.

Two heresies, the Arian and the Sabellian forced the narrow line of the belief that the Father and the Son were one substance and distinct persons. Too much separation and you were advocating Arianism. Too much oneness and you were advocating Sabellianism.

The Arians were favored throughout much of the 4th century until Theodosius in 379 gave his full backing to the Catholic Christians with a cementing effect throughout the Empire. The Arians made a comeback in the West when the Vandals and the Goths, Arian Christians both of them, conquered much of the Western Empire. It took another century for the orthodoxy to prevail.

Notes on Confessions Book III

Confessions
St. Augustine

Book III

Ch. 1

In loving for the sake of loving, some pleasure is to be found because love was created by God. But love, not rooted in God, is unsatisfying.

Love, when abstracted for its own sake, opens man to the scourging of jealousy, fear, anger and strife.

Augustine polluted the spring of friendship with lust. (The notion here of polluting at the spring of friendship is interesting. It denotes that all the water coming forth from the spring is polluted. Later in the chapter he uses another water analogy, the rivers are flowing but he questions where they wind up).

Ch. 2

What kind of compassion is it that arises from viewing fictitious and unreal sufferings? Without considering God in this compassion we pervert it, turn it into pity and seek to achieve some sort of feeling from the sorrows of others. It is not compassion at all, but selfish.

Augustine sought out the sorrowful plays because the sorrow captured his imagination. Apart from God, being in his own sorrowful place because of it, it was obvious why Augustine sought it out. In seeking out the imagined sorrows of the stage, he didn't have to dig deeper into his own sorrow, which stemmed from his ignoring of God.

Ch. 3

Even in this state God's mercy hovered over Augustine from afar.

The wreckers (a group of intellectuals who mocked others with their eloquence) became wreckers because they were wrecked themselves. It's a "hurt people hurt people" kind of thing.

Ch. 4

Augustine was struck by Cicero's Hortensius. It was through this lost book that a sudden realization came over Augustine. He was struck by the substance and not the style of Cicero. Now, Augustine would seek wisdom for its own sake and not for the glory that studying would bring him.

Ch. 5

After Cicero, Augustine read the Scriptures and was nonplussed. He regarded them as beneath him and stylistically inferior to the Roman writers.

Ch. 6

He tried the Manicheans but the dishes they served him did not satisfy his hunger.

The spirit is before the material: "For thy spiritual works came before these material creations, celestial and shining though they are".

God had mercy on Augustine before he confessed his sins.

Ch. 7

Evil is nothing but a privation of good. Evil has no being.

To judge the patriarchs for their "sins" or "follies" is to judge men whom God called righteous as unrighteous. They apply a human standard to something that is divine. That they judge this way is not surprising because they do not know God; they do not know the divine. "It is as if a man in an armory, not knowing what piece goes on what part of the body, should put a greave on his head and a helmet on his shin and then complain because they did not fit."

Augustine then makes some interesting points on men being upset with the Scriptures because men whom God had called righteous were allowed to do something that they are now no longer permitted to do. "Or as if, on some holiday when afternoon business was forbidden, one were to grumble at not being allowed to go on selling as it had been lawful for him to do in the forenoon." Some of Augustine's arguments could be used to favor a very stratified society and likely has been some of the foundation stones for aristocratic thinking. But, his point in showing it is that God is just in all his actions towards man. He also takes on the idea that this makes justice a relative concept. He answers this by saying that, no, justice is not variable but the times over which she presides are.

Ch. 8

"The fellowship that should be between God and us is violated whenever that nature is polluted by perverted lust".

God is the greatest authority of all and to be obeyed over all.

When men sin against God they also sin against their own souls.

This is arrogance or a false sense of freedom: to love our own good more than God, the common good of all.

Ch. 9

There are also sins committed by men who are making progress towards God. These men are to be censored for their sins but not condemned, because, "they show the hope of bearing fruit, like the green shoot of the growing corn"

Ch. 10

Augustine condemns Manichean teaching as it focuses on the created things rather than who the things were created for and for whom the things were created by.

Ch. 11

Augustine's mother saw by the light of faith that Augustine was dead.

Ch. 12

Augustine admits that deep in his Manichean thought he was unteachable and taken in by the novelty of heresy. She even implored a bishop to talk with him but the bishop refused. When Monica persisted and wept the bishop exclaimed that, a man who is surrounded by so many tears can not perish. Monica took these exclamations as a word from God

Augustine - Sermo LI (D)

In continuing this particular sermon I found a lot to be desired. Much of this section has to do with sex being a necessary evil, even in the constraints of marriage. I don't think this is necessarily the case, but there were some good nuggets of thought provocation in it.

First, it talks about food and drink, which is particularly applicable at the moment. Food and drink are necessary to human life. Without eating or drinking, death is surely around the corner. But, he points that we are to eat and drink to live and not live to eat and drink. He doesn't condemn alcohol or food, just gluttony and drunkenness. I need to get to the point where I eat and drink to live, not the other way round. He even states that this can be an enjoyable experience, but that it shouldn't be an end to itself. This is my prayer Lord, to come to this point where neither food nor drink are driving forces in my life.

The other point that I found fascinating is his ongoing battle with the theoretical heretics. He points out that Christians can rejoice in the good news of the Gospel and of Scriptures as a whole. Christians can take the Bible at face value and leave it at that with joy. But, when the heretics (or skeptics in our time) pick holes in the Scriptures or our theology he notes, "the more you force us to dig, the greater treasure we'll find" (Griffin, 21). That's even more exciting than merely taking the Scriptures at a surface level. The deeper we delve into the Scriptures, the more Wisdom and Truth we will find. While, it may never convince the heretics or the skeptics, it will enrich our Christian life in God.

Augustine of Hippo - Sermo LI (C)

In reading another section of this sermon I've come across some interesting notes about the usefulness of Heretics and a little bit on the Problem of Evil. First, onto the Heretics. Augustine writes "Odd thing, though. If we live piously, if we believe Christ, if we don't flop from the nest before we've learned to fly, then the Hecklers'll lead us - albeit unwittingly - to precisely where they don't want to go. That's to say, to the very mysteries they're trying to destroy" (Griffin, 19-20).

Now, Augustine was living in a very Christianized world. Of course Paganism hadn't been completely rooted out, but there were incredible amounts of heretical sects of Christianity around at the time that seemed only to want to argue with others about some of the mysterious natures of what it means to be a Christian. What Augustine is saying is that those heretics, whom he calls hecklers, are unwittingly leading the faithful (so long as they remain faithful) to a deeper understanding of Christ and God the Father. The Hecklers' arguments in effect force the faithful to retreat deeper into the mysteries of God to understand the points that the Hecklers are trying to jab them with. Of course some of these hecklers may be swayed by arguments by the faithful but others may not. These people aren't necessarily looking for answers, but are simply sitting in the seat of mockers - that is to say, they enjoy making others miserable to make themselves feel better. But, what Augustine is saying is that by jabbing at the faithful, God is using this evil to sharpen and draw the faithful closer to Him. (In essence He could also use the faithful to break the chains of bondage on the Hecklers, but sometimes people prefer their prison cells).

Today is a less Christianized world. The Hecklers might be heretical and lapsed Christians, combining the philosophies of the day with elements of the Christian faith or they might simply be avowed and evangelical atheists looking to destroy the mysteries of Christ. But, their purpose (and ours as the faithful) are thwarted and refurbished by God. While they seek to destroy, the faithful (as long as they remain faithful to Christ) will see the hecklers attacks turn into moments of deeper understanding of Christ and God the Father as they retreat into the Word to find the answers to these attacks. The skepticism of the world is not a sound argument against the faith, but serves as a prod to the faithful to understand the deeper mysteries of the faith. As was the case in the time of Augustine, God can use the faithful then as a means of breaking the bondage of the lapsed Christians or atheists and bring them into the fold of the faithful. But, also as was the case in the time of Augustine, the attacks of the hecklers will invariably lead the faithful into a deeper relationship with Christ.

This repurposing of the hecklers (be they atheist, heretic or something in between the two) by God to lead the faithful into a deeper relationship with Him is an interesting case study in the Problem of Evil. The attacks of the Hecklers are by definition, evil, in that they are aimed at separating man from God, which is the only Evil that exists. In essence, Evil is the separation of man and God though evil manifests itself in many ways. But though evil was the origin and the intent the outcome is turned into Good, that is to say, into a coming together of man and God among the faithful. This repurposing of Evil for Good is echoed throughout history and the Scriptures. In this particular sermon Augustine references Judas. Judas sold Jesus out and through the evil that Judas perpetuated the World was offered salvation through Christ.

Augustine resolves the problem of Evil in the case of Judas thusly, "God, therefore liberates the nations with His Suffering Son, and at the same time punishes Judas for his shameful crime" (Griffin, 20). He concedes that there are of course mysteries in this, but that "no one who has the least whiff of faith would get into an argument about them" (Griffin, 20).

So here then is the problem of Evil. If Evil exists then how can an all-Good, all-Powerful God also exist? Evil exists, therefore God cannot exist. Some have taken that evil is illusionary and resolved the problem of Evil. But, Evil is not illusionary as most human beings can easily attest to having been touched by Evil in various ways. The partial resolution of this paradox comes from the very fact that God repurposes Evil for good (proving both His goodness and His power). While this doesn't quite fully explain the existence of Evil it also shows that the paradox isn't quite as causally related, meaning that the existence of Evil doesn't negate the existence of an all-Good, all-Powerful God. It merely shows another mystery that the faithful would be wise to not argue about amongst themselves.

While it would certainly be better if Evil did not exist, the fact is that it does. Being all-powerful God can therefore repurpose the intent of the Evil done by the Evildoer. Being all-good, God therefore repurposes the Evil to achieve the ultimate Good, harmony and union with God.

Augustine Of Hippo - Sermo LI (B)

In continuation of Sermo LI, the Advent sermon I've come to a couple of other passages that are worth noting. Augustine is leading his congregation in somewhat of a dialectic against heretics who were denying that Jesus was born of a woman. It seems to me that he is preaching against Valentinianism, but that is an untrained eye doing quick research. It could also have been docetism but, as Augustine says in this sermon on numerous occasions, I digress...

Three more things came out to me in the next few pages. The first is "Badness came when perverted pleasure turned the Creature's face away from the Creator" (Griffin, 9).  Now, I have read some more scholarly translations of Augustine and happen to like what Griffin describes as his paraphrasal translation approach because it makes it more approachable to readers like me. And his penchant for making Augustine colloquial is quite nice; but, on occasion we get words like "Badness" that make me feel like I'm reading the child's version of Augustine, but I digress... This strikes me in a number of ways though - Evil, sin or badness entered the world when perverted pleasure turned man's face away from God. Note that pleasure was not the thing that turned man's face from God, but perverted pleasure. I do have a bit of struggle between the two concepts. When I struggle with my sins I often act out in the way a pendulum does and try and swing it too far the other way. I mistake pleasure, a naturally and created thing for us for perverted pleasure and push both away. In essence I throw away God's gift to save me from my sin. I attempt salvation on my own. This never goes well and I set myself up to fail. It's all about that discipline. Not that I agree with the notion of everything in moderation because some things are inherently sinful no matter how moderately you partake of them, but I need not try and force myself into a hair shirt either.

Secondly, Augustine begins to theorize how Christ would respond to the fall of man in a down to earth tone. "Now I'm not in the habit of condemning a creature I've just made...No I don't condemn the creatures; it's there sins I condemn. Why? Because I didn't make the sins; they did" (Griffin, 9-10). There is a whole bunch of theology packed into this statement for me so, bear with me as I unfurl it. First, Augustine is combating another heresy, particularly Arianism because it is calling Christ the creator. Second, it resolves a problem of evil. In this short sentence Augustine is denying that Christ (or God) the creator of all things is therefore the creator of evil. Lastly, while still theological in nature, but with the added benefit of comfort and grace Christ states that by not condemning the man he is affording the man an opportunity of salvation through condemning the man-made sins.

Lastly, Augustine shamed my laziness and reminded me that my curiosity when applied properly will invariably lead me back to God. However, my curiosity when left alone will invariably wither and decline or sink into depths of depravity. "'In Him are hidden all the treasuries of wisdom and knowledge'. He hides them, yes, but not because he's embarrassed by them; rather He wants to increase our desire to discover what's in these treasuries. A secret, yes, but isn't it tantalizing? So, Augustine quotes Colossians 2:3 to remind me that there are mysteries of God that I must explore and in exploring I will find all the treasuries of wisdom and knowledge. I am tantalized.

In Chapter 2 of Colossians Paul is writing to those he knows and has not yet met personally to know that he is praying for them. He wants to encourage them to unite in love so that they can have the full riches of God. In this unity of love and encouragement of heart continue to seek the mystery of God, Christ "In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). Buy why is Paul encouraging this? Because there is safety in Christ. There is safety in His wisdom and knowledge. This safety protects from fine sounding arguments that might deceive and pull one away from God.

I'm starting to see the road to seeking the Kingdom of God, rooted in Scripture reading and this blog. But, I fear that the daily minutia of life will pull me from being rooted deeper and deeper. Lord I pray for the discipline I need to continue to seek first the Kingdom.

Notes on Polycarp

(Originally Written June 2, 2008 in the Journal)

Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna, appointed there by the apostle, St. John.

Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians

He warns the Philippians against the vapid discourses of the vulgar (heresies and the philosophies of the pagans).

A man's mind should always be bent on faith, hope and love of God and Christ, and love of neighbor.

He warns that troubles stem from the love of money. He warns against loose living.

"If we pray to the Lord to forgive us, we ourselves must be forgiving" (Early Christian Writings, 121).

We must not associate with hypocritical Christians.

We must imitate the patience of Christ and if we must suffer than we ought to give glory to God for it.

Keep yourself from even the slightest taint of wrong.

What am I to say Lord? I have been made a fool, a disgrace, There is no love or respect. I am chastised for every action, for every word. The Lord has called me to love a woman who despises me. Turn your eyes upon me in mercy. Lord, my heart is failing. I have no joy in me. Why do you so easily take what I hold most dear? Lord I give it to you willingly, though I choke back these tears. My soul is in utter anguish and my heart aches with such tenacity I know not how to describe it. I see the world mocking me and jeering. There is no comfort, no solace. Even bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh is of no comfort. She causes me such strife and pain.

Where are you Lord? I call out in utter despair and do not hear your voice. I do not feel your warm embrace. My eyes well with tears and stream down my face. I am no man, I am but a lost child. When will you raise me up? How long oh Lord must I suffer? Will you allow the enemy to tear me apart? If so then give me the strength to endure in your Holy name. Make my misery and down fall so public that the whole world will know it that I may be a testimony to you. Lord how do I thank you for this? How do I praise your name when you bring ruin upon me? I offer not lip service, but genuine faith. Praise be to the Lord for He is good. Though we may be afflicted and suffer cruel injustice, we are redeemed by the blood of Christ. None of us Lord is perfect, all deserve a sinner's death. Yet, you in Christ Jesus our Lord and savior made us blameless in your sight. The Lord is truly faithful. Though all mankind forsake me, I will rejoice gladly for the Lord shall never leave me.

She is leaving today Lord. Watch over her and draw her back to you. Do not let her fall into temptations. Do not afflict me any more. Love her as you do and show her mercy and kindness. Circumcise her heart and mind and ears. May she come to see you as I do and better, for I am but beginning to see you. Bless her in all she does and if it is your will restore her to me, for I love her dearly.

The Martyrdom of Polycarp

A young man named Germanicus was martyred at the hands of beasts. He was offered out of this death on account of his youth, but dragged the beast nearer to him to speed to God.

Quintus of Phrygia went voluntarily to the slaughter, but lost heart at the sight of the animals. He recanted and offered incense to the false gods of the Romans. For this reason, and for the fact that it is contrary to the gospel, men ought not offer themselves up spontaneously.

When the men caught Polycarp they were surprised that the death of such an old man was such urgent business. The governor asked Polycarp to renounce Christ, or even just utter "down with the infidels" to be free of punishment. But, Polycarp swept his hand at the heathen crowd and uttered "down with the infidels". The governor then threatened Polycarp with beasts and Polycarp called them up. He threatened Polycarp with fire and still Polycarp showed no fear. He was 86 years old at this time. Polycarp then prayed to God as he was attached to the pyre. The fire was lit, but would not burn high enough to kill Polycarp. Polycarp was then stabbed to death. The blood of Polycarp poured out of his body and put the flames out and the crowd was amazed.

Brief Notes on Ignatius of Antioch (B)

(Originally Written June 2, 2008 in the Journal)

Lord forgive me of my sins. Do not hold them against me, but forgive me and show mercy on your servant. Today she moved out. Lord be with her and keep her from sin and draw her close to you. Do not destroy us utterly for you have united us. Is the righteous God, the Lord of lords, who is blameless and pure going to rip apart what He has united? Would He that does that which is perfect undo what He has done? Surely not. The Lord is everlasting and unchanging. Yahweh was, is and will be perfect and is the perfecter of all things. May you guard our hearts all evil and wickedness and restore joy and love to this relationship. I will follow you Lord all the days of my life. Deliver my bride to me once again Lord, I beg of you.

Notes on Early Christian Writings

Ignatius' Epistle to The Magnesians

We can only come to the presence of God in Jesus Christ by enduring in Christ all the indignities of this world while yet eluding their clutches.

You ought to obey the bishop, despite his lack of years because he is appointed by God. Do not obey him with mere lip service, but serve him as you serve the Father.

We obey bishops not because they are bishops and seen, but because of the unseen, the Holy Father, whom which knows all our secrets.

"We ought not just to have the name of Christians, but to be so in reality" (Early Christian Writings, 71).

There are two types of coins in circulation. One leads to life, the other leads to death. We must spend what we earn. If you earn the coins of God you will spend them on life; but, if you earn the coins of the world you wills surely spend them on death.

"Unless we are ready and willing to die in conformity with His passion, His life is not in us" (Early Christian Writings, 72).

(Warning against the Judaizing Heresy) The old practice of Judaism show a lack of faith in Jesus Christ. Their prophets were under grace because they were in tune with Christ.

Change from the old, which has grown stale and sour to the new, which is Christ.

Christianity ought not look to Judaism, but Judaism to Christianity.

Be submissive to one another.

Ignatius' Epistle to the Trallians

Ignatius yearns for martyrdom though he is doubtful of his worthiness. He prays for humility.

He warns them to guard against heresy, especially Docetism.

Ignatius' Epistle to the Romans

He encourages the Romans not to interfere with his sentence. "Suffer me to be a libation poured out to God, while there is still an altar ready for me" (Early Christian Writings, 85-86).

Good does not lie in what our eyes can see but in Christ Jesus.

"Christianity lies in achieving greatness in the face of a world's hatred" (Early Christian Writings, 86).

Do not have Christ upon your lips with the world in your heart.

Christ is the faithful mouthpiece by which the Father's words of truth find utterance.

Ignatius' Epistle to the Philadelphians

He encourages the Philadelphians to follow their bishop like sheep to guard against heresy.

"Those who wander in outlandish byways of doctrine must forfeit all part in the Lord's passion" (Early Christian Writings, 94). Ignatius places heavy emphasis on doctrine, but also on practicing what that doctrine is. To him, empty words or lip-service is as deadly as the heresy itself.

God does not dwell where there is disunity or bad blood.

Christ is the doorstep to the Father.

Ignatius' Epistle to the Smyraneans

He calls the Church of Smyrna to be unified in Christ: Jews and Gentiles alike.

He warns against Docetic beliefs. He implores them to acknowledge the flesh and blood birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. He claims that if what Christ did was merely an illusion than his own claims must be illusionary as well.

Christ gives us strength.

He urges them to pray for those who have fallen prey to Doceticism so that they can have a better frame of mind to accept Christ Jesus.

Faith and love are everything; they must come before all.

Endure all things for Christ's sake and you will attain to Him in the end.

Ignatius' Epistle to Polycarp

There is no more important task to the bishops than unity.

Spend time in constant prayer, begging for wisdom.

"The heavier the labor, the richer the reward" (Early Christian Writings, 109).

The mark of a champion is to be able to stand in the face of punishment and still come off victorious. It is our duty to accept trails of all kinds if we are to be accepted by the Lord.

The honor God should be the aim in everything you do.

"A Christian, after all is not his own master; he puts his time at God's disposal" (Early Christian Writings, 111).

Brief Notes on Ignatius of Antioch (A)

(Originally Written June 1, 2008 in the Journal)

Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius was the third bishop of Antioch. He wrote seven letters on the way to his martyrdom in Rome. Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, preserved the letters of Ignatius and spread them through the Church. Ignatius' letter to the Romans was the most widely known letter of his to the early church. The other six were to fight against Jewish heresy and the heresy of Docetism, which denies the trueness of Christ's humanity. Ignatius focuses heavily on martyrdom, drawing from the book of the Maccabees, which was included in the Septuagint. Ignatius has Gnostic tones, but heavily denies the Docetism that is used in Gnostic teaching. Ignatius attacks the Judaizing of Christianity.

Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians

Ignatius looks forward to his martyrdom in Rome for "the name and the Hope we all share". He states, "trusting through your prayers to be granted an encounter with the wild beasts at Rome - a boon that will enable me to become a true disciple" (Early Christian Writings, 61).

He tells the Ephesians that because Jesus Christ has granted such glory to them they must in turn give glory to Christ.

He tells them to be sanctified by submitting to their bishop and clergy. He tells them that this submission is not an order because he does not have the authority. He claims his lack of authority is on account of him being a beginner in being a disciple.

We can have no life apart from Christ.

Christ represents the mind of the Father. The bishops represent the mind of Christ. The bishops are sent by God. Our actions to them are actions to God himself.

He warns them to guard against heresy.

Carnal men are incapable of acting spiritually. Likewise, spiritual men are incapable of acting carnally.

We must pray for mankind unceasingly so that repentance can lead them to God.

We can show the unbelieving crowd their error by repaying malice with kindness. They will know our brotherhood by our forbearance.

Corporate faith causes Satan's interference to crumble.

Life begins with faith and ends in love.

We must practice what we profess if we are to instruct others.

The cross offends the unbelievers, but is salvation and eternal life to us.

Forming a Christian Philosophy

(Originally written August 2, 2007 in Notebook 17)

Christian Philosophy vs. Pseudo Christianity

Any Christian philosophy or Christian intellectual theory must adhere to three rules which will ensure that they remain Christian and do not fall into the Pseudo-Christianity realm. What is non-Christian in an explicit sense is easy to point out. But what is non-Christian in an implicit sense or Pseudo-Christianity is difficult to see and whatever is Pseudo-Christian is not Christian at all, but heresy.

So, back to these "rules". The first and most important rule to formulating a Christian philosophy is that it must have its primary source or foundation in special revelation. This is all rational arguments must proceed from the text of the Bible. General revelation, reason and true mystic experiences must supplement the foundational textual argument. In thinking this I did not include, originally, mystical experiences or prompts from the Holy Spirit; but, then I realized that the Holy Spirit would never prompt that is counter-scriptural.

The second rule in formulating a Christian Philosophy is that whatever is incorporated into the scriptural foundation must be wholly consistent with that f;foundation. Any rational argument added to the base of Scripture is forming a theory must not contradict that part of the Scriptures. That is to say that we cannot use a single passage as a foundation then argue from that passage that contradicts another passage.

The third (and humbling) rule is that whatever philosophy we come to from the foundation of Scriptures is theoretical. We can be absolutely sure that the Bible is infallible and Truth. We cannot be absolutely sure that our inferences from it are absolutely true, despite how rationally inescapable they are. To believe that our individual philosophies are as sure as the Bible is to demand a canonical status for them that cannot be demanded.

Since our Christian philosophy is not absolutely true we must remember that it cannot be the source of our faith. Our faith in God and Jesus Christ must originate in the Scriptures and any rational argument we or anyone else formulates on this basis must assist our faith and supplement it. Our theories, no matter how probable, sound or rational are still humble opinions by very inadequate creatures and inferior intellects. We must not assume that we have the assurance of intellect as we may assume the assurance of faith.

The Future in Eastern Religions vs. Christianity

(Originally written April 29, 2007 in Book 15)

The Future in Eastern Religions

Hinduism

Hinduism conceives time as cyclical. Currently we are living in the last age of the last era, the Kali Yuga.

At the close of this era Kalki will appear. Kali is the 10th and final incarnation of Vishnu. Kali will convert the whole world to the dharma and destroy Yama, the god of death.

Kalki and other Indic messiahs do not bring about the end of time. They only initiate the end of an age.

Eliade points out salvation is constituted by an escape from time, not a culmination of time.

Buddhism

The Bodhisattva (Buddha-in-waiting) Maitreya vowed to return as the Buddha of the next age.

Maitreya will bring about a time of universal enlightenment.

After the time of Maitreya a new era will follow and the cycle will restart.

Jainism

The final age will be the dusama dusama, a period of abject misery, no Tirthankaras, no religion and universal suffering.

Time then will begin ascending upwards again.

There will be 25 new Tirthankaras (counterparts to the other 25).

Salvation in Jainism is found in the escape from time.

The Future in Christianity

Christianity was born of fulfilled messianic expectations.

Christians used other Old Testament Messianic prophesies to corroborate the idea that Christ will come again.

Christianity possesses a powerful notion of now and not-yet.

Jesus Christ is central to Christianity in both the historical and spiritual dimensions.

Christ has four roles:
1) Teacher
2) Redeemer
3) Mystical Reality
4) Future King

The incarnation of God in Christ is different than any incarnation of a god in any other religion.

Other religions have incarnations, i.e. the avatars of Vishnu. But these are docetism incarnations.

Docetism was an early Christian heresy which claimed Christ only appeared to be human.

Christianity holds that "Jesus is fully God, but also fully human, and he has not abdicated either nature" (Corduan, 192).

Authentication: The Crucial Issue

20th century Apologetics devised the Legend-Lunatic-Liar-Lord argument about Jesus and who he said he was.

The Jews of the 1st century had no problem in accepting Jesus as supernatural but saw him as evil. The Jews put Jesus to death because they saw him as demonic.

Medieval Notes, Including John Scotus

(Originally written December 7, 2006 in Book 11)

The History of Philosophy vol. 2

Chapter 5 - The Medieval Interval

Plato and Aristotle dominated the Classical period. Augustine and Aquinas dominated the Medieval period; but, lived 8 centuries apart. Augustine and Aquinas dealt with different problems, whereas Plato and Aristotle dealt with the same problems.

The Dark Ages

The barbarian conquering of Rome caused enormous stress. The barbarians were incapable of sustaining such a complex culture like Rome's.

The collapse of a uniform society caused man to primarily focus on staying alive.

The Classical philosophy was lost to Europe in the Dark Ages.

Literacy declined to the point that Charlemagne complained that the clergy did not know enough Latin to interpret the Scriptures.

The Church

Anything surviving from the Roman World in the Dark Ages was due to the Church.

Christianity made converts out of the pagan and Arian barbarians.

"By the end of the Dark Ages, Christianity was more widely spread and Orthodoxy more firmly entrenched than before the barbarian invasions began" (Jones, 142).

The Rise of the Papacy

The early Church was ruled by bishops, not by the Pope.

The doctrine of Papal primacy made the Pope the head of the Church and gave it temporal authority.

A Christian king was subject to the Pope.

Pope Gregory VII in the 11th century pulled papal primacy to its extreme. The power of the Popes stopped Europe from instituting a unified government until the rise of nationalism in the early Modern period.

Monasticism

While the Papacy drove the Church to become a secular power, the spiritual nature was preserved by two things:
1) Monasticism
2) The Friars

Monasticism began in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D.

Monasticism got its credibility from St. Benedict.

Humility was the top virtue in monastic life.

The monastic movement constantly reformed to maintain a spiritual primacy over a temporal primacy. Though it wasn't perfect it worked well enough.

The Friars of St. Francis

Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

Francis of Assisi was a mystic reformer and founded the Order of the Friars Minor.

He was dedicated to poverty, simplicity and good works.

He achieved a large measure of success in inflaming the hearts of the average man with the love of God.

The main difference between now and the Dark Ages is that men in the Dark Ages were ready at any moment to be touched by the otherworldly.

Feudalism

Particularism began to grow in the fragmented ruins of the old Empire.

Men with property gained power as central governments were too weak to perform duties.

"Immunity" was granted to land owners by the central government which gave them the power of controlling their lands with no government interference.

Small peasant farmers would "commend" their lands to these large land owners. "Commendation" was the act of giving up one's land for protection and security. The ones who commended their lands would live on them and work them still, but they would no longer own the land.

Charlemagne (742-814) organized a strong central government and was crowned Emperor by the Pope. But his kingdom collapsed shortly after his death.

Feudalism was born out of the rapid commending process that followed the collapse of Charlemagne.

Authority and power and administration became inextricable from land ownership.

Medieval society was dominated by the concept of status, not the concept of citizenship.

The Middle Ages had a very fragmented society.

Chivalry

Chivalry was an ideal that emphasized private honor and public service.

Along with the Church and feudalism Chivalry marked the culture of the Middle Ages.

St. Louis, King of France

Louis IX was born in 1214 and set out to recapture Jerusalem in 1248. It failed, but he tried again in 1270.

Louis IX described chivalry as "upright" and "worthy".

Uprightness involved courage, modesty, charitableness, sobriety, faithfulness and justice.

Louis IX saw sin as a disease, much like Augustine.

Louis IX did not extend his notions of charity and humility to the Jews.

Louis IX distrusted education. As St. Francis, Louis IX was satisfied with simple faith.

Louis IX saw outward dignity as vital in society. His count was elaborate and attendants were lavishly dressed to show their rank.

Feudalism was so deeply entrenched in Louis IX's society that his closest friend and biographer, Sire de Joinville would not swear an oath of allegiance to Louis' family in the event he died in Crusade because Joinville was not his liegeman.

Art and Letters

Architecture

The 12th and 13th centuries were a period of great artistic blossoming.

Vaulted circling and stained glass windows marked the new Gothic style. The abbey church of St. Denis, the Cathedral of Noyon, Enlis, Paris, Rheims and the Sainte Chapelle are perfect examples of the Gothic style. The architecture reflected Christian piety.

Painting and Poetry

Painting and poetry moved from static, unmoving depictions to depictions of living, breathing men in nature.

It focused on the world, but their was still an otherworldly element: case in point - Dante.

The chasm between the otherworld and this world was removed. The two worlds were no longer bitter hostiles at war with each other.

Science

Bartholomew the Englishmen

Bartholomew was one of the most popular science writers of the Middle Ages.

He used Aristotle only in a way to describe it in a very confusing manner.

Science was mixed with heresy and old wives tales.

Aristotle and Medieval Science

It took time to assimilate Aristotle to science.

Men in the Middle Ages were more concerned with salvation, not with accumulating the facts.

Vincent Beauvais

Bartholomew and Vincent Beauvais were very unscientific.

The Universities

Some monastic and cathedral schools popped up after Charlemagne's renaissance.

The Universities slowly arose over Europe to satisfy the new hunger for knowledge slowly awakened over the 8th-11th centuries.

Philosophy during the Medieval Interval

The cultural problem for the 13th century philosopher was to find a place for these this-worldly ends in a scheme of life that still had a basically otherworldly orientation. The success of Aquinas lies in solving this central problem.

There was virtually no philosophical development in the 8 centuries between Augustine and Aquinas, save for Boethius, Isidore of Seville and John Scotus Erigena.

John Scotus Erigena

John Scotus Erigena (ca. 810-877) was born in Ireland. He studied Greek in an Irish monastery at a time when Greek was nearly lost in all the west.

He travels to France in 847 and taught at Paris in the palace school that Charlemagne founded.

He was involved in deep theological topics like Free Will and the Eucharist. He avoided the extreme forms of predestination, but went too far and was condemned as a Pealagian. His views were condemned in 855. Then his views on the Eucharist were condemned (he denied the Doctrine of Transubstantiation)

He decided to take a safer task of translating Greek into Latin.

John Scotus Erigena was deeply concerned with synthesis. As a Christian, Erigena must have a synthesis, an overarching philosophy that fit with the Catholic dogma.

Nature

John began with the nature of reality.

He believed that things fall into two classes:
1) Things that are
2) Things that are not

Things that are not have different modes, they are modes of non-being
1) Sinful man
2) Changing particulars
3) Potential being
4) Things that are "beyond our intellect"

Things that are are those things that we can comprehend.

John Scotus Erigena's divisions are influence by Plato (most of the texts he translated were neoplatonic ones)

Like Plato and the Neoplatonists, John identified the form of the Good with God.

God

According to John, God is "beyond being" and thus, not to be. John had a problem in attempting to reconcile Neoplatonic metaphysics and Christian dogma.

John held that there were two ways for finite minds to approach God:
1) An affirmative way
2) A negative way

The affirmative way consists of stating things like God is being, God is good, etc. These assertions are neither wholly true nor wholly false.

Every positive or affirmative statement about God must be supplemented by a negative statement.

Instead of stating the negative and positive about God as "God is being and not-being" he stated then like "God is super being"

John Scotus Erigena believed that God was truly Good, but to say that God was good was misleading because it wasn't the whole truth.

Creation

John Scotus Erigena started with a paradox in dealing with creation. If God made the world He must move, but how can He who is immutable move?

John asserted that the concepts of making and creation (like the concepts of being and goodness) applied to God in only a metaphorical sense.

He also asserted that the transcendence of the the Creator and the dependence of the creature (Two vitally important Church doctrines) were contradictory.

Theophanies

John held the world to be a "theophany" of God (an appearance of God). It is not an illusion, but the chosen method of God to reveal Himself to man. Human minds are a part of this theophany and thus their understanding is a part of God's theophany.

Knowledge is Illumination

"Everything that exists is an aspect of the divine nature reflected from some perspective or other" (Jones, 179).

Knowledge is fundamentally an act of grace by God in which He illumines our mind.

Four-Fold Division of Nature

While nature is truly one and beyond being, the human mind divides and classifies as was God's intention. There are four divisions of nature:
1) God - the nature that creates and is uncreated
2) The Platonic archetypes - the nature that creates and is created
3) The Physical World - the nature that does not create and is created
4) God - The nature that does not create and is not created

"God issues into the world and returns from it to Himself" (Jones, 180).

God is not conscious until he creates His mind. The archetypes are the divine images of God. They do not exist independently. They are the divine mind.

The archetypes (primordial causes) are the sources of the essences of the particulars in the physical world.

The primordial causes are: goodness, being, life, wisdom, truth, intelligence, reason, virtue, justice, health, greatness, omnipotence, eternity and peace. While we view them as a plurality, they are really a unity.

Anything that exists in the physical world that is describable as one of these primordial causes is so because it takes part (a finite part) in them.

The physical world has being by participating in the various primordial substances.

Is John's view Christian?

There are some Neoplatonic interpretations of nature that readily fit within the framework of Catholic Christianity.

John's metaphysics is a rational system, but is in danger of collapsing into subjectivism and mysticism.

The mystic elements were too strong for a Christian standard at his time. A private mystical basis was not the solution the Church as an institution was looking for.

John's fourth level (not-created and non-creating) seems to destroy individuality. Man's eternal salvation is done through a return to God by all souls. It is not exactly Kosher with the Church. It is blasphemy and heresy.

John's neoplatonism also renders sin and evil as unreal.

John also had to interpret the Scriptures rather loosely.

He also used the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite as an almost canonical authority. Unfortunately, St. Dionysius the Areopagite was later shown to be a fake.

The Neoplatonic Problem

Neoplatonic metaphysics and Christian Dogma are antagonistic. The problem was to include some deeply entrenched Neoplatonic ideals of the Middle Ages into Christianity.

The Controversy over Universals

The thinkers of the 11th century were logicians, not metaphysicians. They focused their energy on two very technical problems:
1) The status of universals
2) the relation between the spheres of faith and reason

It was desirable, if only for pragmatic reasons, to prove the Christian truths.

Reason was an indispensable weapon agains infidels and heretics.

Men of the Middle Ages basically agreed there were three modes of cognition
1) Revelation
2) Reason
3) Perception

The problem of universals and the scope of faith and reason was (and is) an interrelated problem.

More book notes on Augustine

(Originally written November 17, 2006 in Book 11)

Augustine's ethics

Augustine's ethics have a negative tone.

Augustine saw the good life being attainable only as a gift from God.

He believed it was much easier to do wrong rather than right.

Augustine's asceticism was moderate compared to his contemporaries, but severe by modern standards.

Augustine agreed with the Platonic notion that the wise man is cultivated in a society.

He had little to say about social ethics other than we ought to help one another as much as we can.

Augustine advocated for a strong law and strong ruler because it is better than the alternative: civil war.

Revolting against a leader is revolting against God.

Slavery was viewed as an evil, but agitating for its abolition was wrong because it was instituted by God as a punishment for sins.

To improve or altar existing social arrangements is to imply we are not content with God's program for us.

The evils we suffer are either goods in disguise or well-deserved punishments.

The delights and pains of the flesh are inconsequential as compared to the delights and pains of the soul.

Ethical value lay in motive rather than accomplishment for Augustine.

Augustine and Aristotle treated incontinence in similar manners, but for different reasons.
1) Where Aristotle disliked incontinence because it demeaned man, Augustine disliked it because it was disobedience to God.
2) Aristotle relieved men of responsibility when temptation became too great to overcome. Augustine held men accountable for their actions regardless of their temptation.
3) Augustine would have regarded many thing Aristotle held to be continent as incontinent

Augustine saw men as being incontinent frequently and paradoxically blamable

Everything except love for God was a snare and a delusion.

Augustine believed that living morally will not significantly help us, but living immorally will damn man.

The good for Augustine was a reunion with God. A separation occurred between man and God as a result of Adam's sin.

The way back to God was through faith in Jesus, "Through religion, that is not through ethics, which is first and foremost concerned with behavior in this world" (Jones, 119).

The Drama of Salvation

Each man is an actor who plays a small role in the big production of God's drama.

Sinful desires are incredibly difficult to eradicate, especially pride. Even when men overcome pride and are humble they take pride in their humility.

No one is certain of salvation. Even those who have been saved by divine intervention came are not freed from the temptations of the flesh.

Relapse for the saved is possible at all times. Therefore, complacency is an acute danger.

Life is desperately hazardous. The past is due to anyone's future.

The Mechanics of Salvation

To whom was Christ praying when he died for man's sins?

If it was God the Father, then God has a divided will, which is absurd. It can't be Satan because God doesn't owe him anything.

Augustine began with traditional Biblical language but began reinterpret it.

The Son became man to prove that flesh is not evil.

The Son died to show that death, though a punishment for sin, is not itself a sin.

Christ's death shows us how we ought to die - in piety, humility and peace.

God sending His Son shows us His great love for us better than anything else could.

The Play within a play

The passion is a play-within-a-play designed to invoke emotions in the other players of the large play. Man's egoism has often prevented Him from seeing just how much love God has shown us.

God cod could have redeemed man via divine fiat (as He created the world) but for mysterious reasons chose this way instead.

Augustine's notion of redemption is much more enlightened than the primitive notion of bloody sacrifice.

Augustine faces problems like if God is all then man is nothing. "No man is rightly saved by the assistance of divine aid" is an inadequate formula.

An arguing against the Manichaeism and Pelagians he used Pelagian arguments to refute Manichaeism. He used the arguments of Manichaeism to refute Plagiarism. The Pelagians were acute enough to point this out.

Linehan: Jones' characterization of Augustine is pretty awful. Even Russell give him more of a fair treatment. Jones is atrociously guilty of the fallacy of equivocation, especially in regards to the Doctrine of redemption.

The world is actually a puppet theater. God writes the parts and pulls the strings. Why would God write and perform a play for himself? Why go to the trouble of the play if God knows who will be saved and who will be damned?

Another problem for Augustine is that God arbitrarily chooses who will be saved.

Augustine's conception of justice was much different than modern men's conception of justice. Modern man sees it as unjust that we should inherit Adam's sin. "It seems unfair that Adam, who might just as well have been created with fewer deficiencies should be blamed for what, given his nature, was bound to happen. It seems unfair... that some few of us should be arbitrarily pulled out of the common cesspool of iniquity" (Jones, 124).

Augustine's doctrine of predestination is immoral and impracticable.

Augustine could not live up to the doctrine of predestination because otherwise he would not have advocated for us to pray, to do good, to fast, to struggle against temptation, or to do anything because whether or not we do anything is irrelevant to whether or not we are to be saved.

Augustine's life leading up to his conversion was irrelevant because his conversion was directly induced by God. At the moment of conversion he stood in an immediate relation to the Deity.

Augustine's interpretation of salvation is unacceptable in ecclesiastical terms because the Church in the exclusive agency through which souls are saved. The Church is the mediator between God and Man.

Augustine had a problem because he saw salvation in both mystical and ecclesiastical terms.

The Donatism Heresy

Augustine faced this problem when he went to Hippo in 391.

Donatism was a vigorous rival to the Church at this time.

Donatism was a peculiar heresy because it did not differ from the Church in doctrine.

Donatists believed that the sacraments were ineffective if performed by unworthy priests.

While this may seem plausible and harmless the Church saw it as a danger to their institution.

The Church had to maintain that the worth of the sacraments came from God and the Church, not from the administering priests.

Augustine first tried to reason with the Donatists. He believed the truth would prevail over heresy. When this failed Augustine elicited help from imperial authorities. This was easy because in addition to being heretics, the Donatists were social radicals.

Through persecution the Donatists lost their grip on N. Africa and Catholic Christianity held it for one more century (only to lose it to Islam).

While this may seem inhumane, Augustine advocated it because it turned many back to the Catholic faith. This ideal paved the way for the Inquisition.

Augustine did not recognize the primacy of the Pope because he held no man to be infallible.

Augustine saw the final authority of Christ as a general council.

Augustine held that we ought to use reason to discover truth as best we can, remembering that God would not have given us reason if we weren't to use it, but to remember that if we believe reason to be the ultimate source of truth we will be damned by our pride.

Augustine held a belief that man, in a general use of the word could slowly but steadily increase his grasp of truth through corrections of councils and doctrine. But no council or doctrine could ever arrive at the ultimate truth.

Augustine's view of the sacraments:

The earthly city had a dual meaning:
1) hell
2) the pilgrimage of this life

The City of God had a duel meaning:
1) Heaven
2) The Church

The visible Church is the embodiment the invisible church.

The Church and its members are the body of Christ. It owes its allegiance and life to Jesus.

The City of God was a very complex structure.

The synthesis of Augustine's two conceptions of man's relationship to God (ecclesiastical through the Church and its rites and the mystical conversion) is difficult and problematic. In the mysticism and predestinarianism synthesis God and man are privately united and the City of God is a mere aggregate of private relations. In the ecclesiastical version the Church and its sacraments were the key to salvation and private salvation was danger to the authority of the Church.

Nature and Natural Science

The physical world was the stage on which the drama of salvation unfold.

Augustine's Disinterest in science

Augustine was basically disinterested in science and the physical world.

He lacked the curiosity of the Greeks and the moderns. Curiosity was replaced by the fear of intellectual pride.

He did not have the incentive of happiness in this world that Greek and the moderns have.

His otherworldliness made him indifferent to ethics, politics and physical interests.

Nature was dominated by a naive teleology in Augustine.

Man, thought nothing in respect to God, was the center of the physical universe. Man is the end or purpose for which the universe was created.

"Augustine's teleology was so naively anthropocentric that it ws impossible for him to reach an unbiased conclusion" (Jones, 130).

Uncritical of the marvelous

Augustine's disposition made him very open to miracles.

Modern man looks at miracles and see them not as miracles, but as challenges.

Other reasons for Augustine's unscientific approach

Augustine's ingenuity achieved an incredibly synthesis between the Scriptures and his personal beliefs. It was a correspondence between two conceptual systems, not a conceptual system and reality.

Augustine held that whatever was to be known about the physical world was easily discovered and what was not easily discovered was purposely hidden by God.

Belief in the regularity of nature

Since everything is caused by God, everything is, in sense, a miracle.

Unusual things only appear more miraculous.

Augustine believed in a uniformity or regularity in nature and that unusual things were only unusual in our minds. This line of thinking paved the way for science to have a good argument for the regularity of nature.

History

The history of humanity was to serve as instruction for future acts of man.

Prior to Jesus' life, God gave signs to man to point them to Him. The history of the Jews was a sign.

Teleological Bias

Augustine's account of history was dominated by a teleology that was anthropocentric.

Augustine and the Greek Historians

Herodotus and Thucydides (the greatest Greek Historians) were far more scientific than Augustine. But, in some respects were much more narrow than Augustine.

The Greeks were dominated by current events. Their historians also attributed a lot to chance and accident. Augustine held that nothing happened by chance. His historical conversion "may be worthless" but his notion of unity and purpose in everything is key to historians today.

Augustine held that Jesus' life was the turning point of history. Everything leading up to it was actually leading up to it and everything after it was designed to supplement it.

While most people do not see divine providence in action, the teleological approach is necessary in historian work today.

Augustine's focus on universal history vs. the provincial focus of the Greek was a vast improvement over the Greeks.

Conclusion

Augustine does not evoke a neutral response.

Most people see Augustine as hopelessly unbalanced - "a neurotic exaggeration of guilt and sin and an unhealthy otherworldliness that results in almost total neglect of the really serious social and political problems that it is the business of the philosopher to discuss" (Jones, 136).

Augustine's mystical experience is viewed as a sign of psychic instability.

Others will see modern times as going too far in the other direction. Even those who do not accept Augustine's Christianity see his picture of human nature as better and more accurate than the 18th and 19th century philosophers.

Linehan - It is a bit sickening to read a trashing misrepresentative account of Augustine. And though Jones pays some respect to him in a few final paragraphs it was atrocious to read.

Book notes on Augustine

(Originally written November 14, 2006 in Book 11)

Notes on Augustine cont'd

The Inner Struggle

Acute sense of sin

Augustine has an acute or abnormal sense of sin.

The modern mind sees Augustine's youth as normal; whereas he sees it as evidence of a diseased soul.

Augustine claims to enjoy sin for the sake of sinning.

Attitude toward sex

Sex was evidence of corruption in Augustine's reflection.

Today's culture finds it hard to understand Augustine's sense of guilt. Despite being unmarried he remained faithful to one woman and compared to his contemporaries was a model of sexual morality.

Like Paul, and many other early Christians, Augustine had a particular horror of the sexual aspect of life possibly because he had a strong sexual drive.

He held that sexual activities should be rigidly limited to the purpose of procreation.

Intellectual Pride

Augustine felt he had committed the sin of "intellectual arrogance". He felt he could reason the mysteries of the universe and discover independently the nature of reality.

Augustine became skeptical of orthodoxy with the problem of evil and was troubled by the naive anthropomorphism of his mother's sect.

He saw that the Christian Scriptures were riddled with contradictions if taken literally.

Augustine's Manichaeism

The problem of evil caused Augustine to gravitate towards Manichaeism. He was a follower of Manichaeism for nine years.

The appeal of Manichaeism was its use of reason over faith contra to Catholic Christianity.

Augustine sought certitude above all else. Augustine developed a belief that if one died in error he/she was to stiffen eternal damnation.

Augustine's drive for intellectual certainty was not intellectual curiosity or the Greek search for happiness; it was a desperate need for salvation.

Years of intellectual effort left Augustine to conclude that truth could not be reached via reason.

Because of this revelation he regarded his time under the influence of Manichaeism as a sinful period of intellectual sin.

Augustine's Neoplatonism

In Milan, Augustine made the acquaintance of Ambrose. From Ambrose he learned that interpreting the Bible allegorically one could make the naïveté and its inconsistencies vanish.

By using Neoplatonic metaphysics he could further dispel these inconsistencies more.

Neoplatonism notion of a deity as a creative force or energy, rather than as a crudely anthropomorphic architect thing fit well into Augustine's scheme.

Neoplatonism also seemed to provide a solution to the problem of evil.

Augustine concluded that the physical world was a product of God's creative force and thus not at all evil. Evil is simply an incompleteness and a finitude resulting from the creature's inevitable separation from its maker.

If evil was a positive thing then the problem of evil would be impossible to overcome; but, if it were a negative thing as Neoplatonism held, Augustine concluded that there was no problem of evil.

Augustine had convinced himself of the truthfulness of Orthodoxy, but did not feel an inner sense of peace. Sin still plagued him.

He felt his will was divided. He was helpless.

Augustine's conversion

Augustine's conversion is a fascinating and revealing psychological account

Augustine's mission

From 386 AD on he was steadfastly a Christian. He knew he was still going to be tempted, but the inner peace he found in Christianity saved him. He sought to give others that inner peace if he could.

He was convinced that his conversion would be a lesson to others.

His fight against heresy was manifested especially strong in his fight against Manichaeism.

He sought to create a rational synthesis of Christianity, but he knew he would need God's help.

Doctrine of Catholic faith was fairly well set by Augustine's time; but, it was not neatly or tightly bound in formal doctrine.

Augustine sought to create a synthesis of loose Christian Doctrine, canonical works, Augustine's own sense of sin and worthlessness and his dualistic views into a Catholic doctrine.

Augustine divided his doctrine into two parts:
1) Concerning God
2) Concerning God's creations

Augustine's Concept of God

As a mystic and a devout Christian Augustine wrote with a fervent piety.

As a philosopher, God was the focal point of Augustine. He had strong metaphysical interest.

His interest in the nature of reality was primarily concerned with the supernatural. He sought to find a satisfactory object of religious faith.

As a Christian, Augustine used religious terms.

Plato and Augustine shared similar metaphysical outlooks.

God - Reality is immutable

Augustine (and Plato) held that ultimate reality must be immutable and impervious to change and decay.

Both concluded that because the sensible would change and it cannot be wholly real.

If God is perfect then He will not change because change will result in a loss of perfection.

The problem, the problem of change was a difficulty for Augustine. But, Augustine could not rely on old Greek strategies for dealing with change because God created the world, thus the world must be something. It can't be mere appearance.

Augustine arrived at a divided reality.

God-Reality is creative

Augustine did not solve Plato's problem, he substituted another more difficult one for it.

The problem of relationship between God and man substituted for the problem of appearance and reality. This new problem was further complicated by the Dogmatic law that God created the world ex nihilo.

The creation act was for Augustine a divine fiat.

God's creative ability and man's are different in kind, not in desire. Thus, is God's creative power intelligible?

Augustine as a philosopher wanted to give a rational account of creation, but religious sentiments kept him from abandoning faith altogether.

Augustine (like Plato) held that there must be a certainty in the world of flux. For Plato, mathematics was this certainty. For Augustine it was a self. If one doubts his own existence on proves he exists because no thing that does not exist cannot doubt.

Augustine was relatively unconcerned with the problem of knowledge. Reasons for this disinterest include:
1) a complete interest in peace or security
2) reason was inadequate for reaching truth.

Knowledge was validated by God's goodness, not logic for Augustine.

While Augustine was deeply religious, he was a phenomenal philosopher. His argument for the existence of self was the starting point of modern philosophy via Descartes.

God-Reality is Eternal

God is eternal. Plato held this, but Augustine's religious mind made the eternality of God more vital to his metaphysics.

God made Time and is thus not limited by it,

The past and future is divisible into the minutest of instances, but the present is only the exact moment we experience.

There are neither past things nor future things. There are:
1) Present of things past (memory)
2) Present of things present
3) Present of things future (expectation)

The past is measured as it passes. It is measurable because it has space. But there is no space for the present to be measured.

Time is not the motion of a body.

"We, therefore, measure neither future times, nor past, nor present, nor those passing by's and yet we do measure times" (Jones, 90).

Time is measured in one's mind.

God knows all things, past, present and future because he can measure all time in His mind.

Augustine's style is characteristically ambivalent to reason. He implores God's help along the way.

Augustine's conception of time:
1) Time flows
2) Time is a continuum
3) Past, present and future are somehow coexistent in individual minds.
4) There are three aspects of time:
a) present past (memory)
b) present present (experience)
c) present future (expectation)

The relation of time as man's conception to God's conception is this: man can hold in his mind the conception of time in the three aspects. He holds a finite amount of present past, present present, and present future. God holds in his mind all present pasts, present presents, and present futures. His infinite knowledge of time (and the events occurring in them) makes time irrelevant to God. Everything is now for God.

Augustine disliked the notion of infinity and thus developed his fine scheme. The inability to rationally fathom infinitude drew Augustine to believe God's mysterious nature is infinite.

Augustine's philosophy still suffers from its basis of mysticism. Mystic philosophy relies on the source of a few exclusive experiences. When philosophy rests on private knowledge like this it abandons its claim to rational inquiry.

God-Reality is All-God

God's all-good. This is another Platonic ideal that Augustine interpreted through Christianity.

To exist is good, and that the most real thing will be most good seemed to be a maxim or self-evident truth to Augustine.

Augustine was not content to say reality is good for man; he added that reality is good to man.

Providence, Evil and Free Will

Providence played a key role in Augustine. His emphasis on providence reflects the sense of uncertainty and insecurity men felt in his age.

Providence gave Augustine the security he sought.

God was identified with ultimate reality. Ultimate reality was identified with ultimate goodness. Evil was therefore a privation of ultimate goodness. It was a deficiency.

Evil, while starting from the Neoplatonist point of view, became a result from a deficiency in us.

The account of evil Augustine gives is advantageous, but it is philosophically unsatisfactory because:
1) It rests on an appeal to ignorance: "If we but knew enough, we would see that everything is really all right" (Jones, 97)
2) The Good is immutable. Evil is therefore mutability. But this makes change evil and how can change (like Augustine's conversion) be evil?

Augustine created a problem between foreknowledge and free will. If God has foreknowledge than man has no free will.

Augustine can be criticized for his account of providence on two reasons:
1) "The fact that God knows everything that is going to happen means that man is not free to choose what he does" (Jones, 99). Augustine's response was that God knows not everything that will happen, but he knows everything that is happening because He is an atemporal being. He sees past, present and future at the present.
2) "The fact that God does everything means that man does nothing" (Jones, 99). Augustine argued that God chooses to work through human wills.

Augustine's account of providence creates a problem of man's responsibility. If God does everything, man does nothing and thus cannot be held responsible.

The Basic Conflict in Augustine's Account of God

Augustine fought against the anthropomorphism of naive Christianity, but in doing so he lost much of the Christian concept of God.

His attempt to reconcile the personal God of primitive Christianity with the ultimate reality of Greek metaphysics failed.

While Augustine failed, he was on a good track. "Aquinas, for instance, showed far greater skill than Augustine in giving rational interpretation to the basic religious insights he and Augustine shared" (Jones, 101).

Orthodoxy and Heresy

(Originally written November 12, 2006 in Book 11)

Heresy and Orthodoxy

Gradual Emergence of Orthodoxy

The Jesus Movement became a world religion through the ideas of orthodoxy, holiness, apostolic ideal and catholic universalism.

The orthodoxy of the early church developed by attacking individual doctrines deemed heretical. The forensic ability and dialectical skill of the Fathers had more to do with the formation of orthodoxy more than the merit of doctrines.

By the fourth century the outlines of orthodoxy had been drawn, but the orthodoxy was not yet in full effect.

The Gnostic Heresy

Gnosticism states that salvation is acquired through knowledge, not faith.

Gnosticism believed that there was one Supreme Being and This Being created larger supernatural beings. (One of these was YHWH).

These lesser beings are in rebellion against the Absolute god and hold man hostage. Christ descended to save man. Salvation comes to those who have a divine spark that enables the to understand the knowledge given to them.

The Knowledge which led to salvation was a secret knowledge. Plato used the term, but meant a public objective knowledge, whereas Gnostics meant a suprarational knowledge.

Gnosticism attempted to synthesize all the Neoplatonist and mystery cults into one unified entity. This obviously offended the catholic church.

The Gnostics interpreted every scripture as allegory, which also offended Christian sentimentalities.

Syncretism was a major component of Gnosticism. Christianity's method of rejecting all other views, rather then synthesizing then proved to be a lasting one.

The Arian Heresy

Arianism focused on the problem of a Triune Godhead. How could a monotheistic religion have three Gods?

Aries, the founder claimed that Jesus was the logos of God, but was not equal with God the Father. Jesus was a created entity.

Christ was the first creation who later became Incarnated.

Athanasius, the preeminent anti-Arian claimed that God and Christ are of the same substance. But to avoid another heresy (Patripassianism, which claimed God the Father was crucified) he held that the Father and the Son, through the same substance, were distinct persons. Catholicism concluded that God is three in one and how that is is simply a mystery that must be accepted.

Aries was a bit of a rationalist attempting to resolve the issue of three as one in the Godhead.

Tertullian, contra to Arius was completely against any rational attempt to understand the divinity.
He held that any attempt to understand was a mark of weak faith.

The Arian Heresy marks the Church's subversion of reason. The Church would face no controversy so long as man deprecated their ability.

The Pelagian Heresy

The Pelagian Heresy came from the Judaic conception of omnipotence and omniscience.

Both Arius and Pelagius believed they were teaching Christian Orthodoxy and both had some evidence on their side.

Pelagius preached free will in man and stated Paul's mysticism led men to be slothful in Christian living and making excuses for the vices Paul preached against.

If God is all powerful and all knowing man has no fee will. If man has no free will God is unjust for blaming us for sin. Pelagius believed free will was necessary for responsibility.

Pelagius was deemed a heretic, but the Pelagian heresy has reemerged numerous times in the history of the Church.

The Manichean Heresy

Mani tried to resolve the problem of evil. It was regarded as heretical because they employed reason and not the authorities to come to their conclusions.

Manicheanism was dualistic. God was all-good, but not all powerful. Satan created the physical world.

Mani and Christ were prophets went from God to free men from the evil of the body. Manicheanism was thus, very, very ascetic.

The Albigensian heresy in the late Middle Ages was a rearticulation of the Manichaen heresy.

Relation of faith to Reason

Athanasius called the Trinity a mystery that must be accepted as faith, but to appeal to the pagan masses and to confound heretics, Christianity needed a systematic theology. The relationship between faith and reason was critical in forming this theology.

Greek and Christian views contrasted

God is the primary, almost exclusive object of concern in Christianity. In Greek philosophy the concern was to give an account of man's relation to nature.

The shift in emphasis changed all of philosophical thought.

Christianity aimed at perfection, thus were constantly subject to failure.

Christianity is too pessimistic to the modern mind, but Greek philosophy is too naive and optimistic. The major goal of philosophy since the Renaissance is to find a mean between the two.

The methodology of Christian philosophy had to be radically different from the Greek. Exegesis became a large part of philosophy.

The 13th Century

(Originally written July 29, 2006 in Book 5)

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter XII - The 13th Century

The great men of the 13th century were:
1) Innocent III
2) St. Francis
3) Frederick II
4) Thomas Aquinas

Pope Innocent III reigned from 1198-1216. Innocent III was a shrewd politician and assured Papal supremacy in Sicily, Portugal and Aragon. After resistance, King John conceded England under Papal supremacy.

He destroyed the Albigenses, a heretical group in southern France. He "rooted out heresy, happiness, and culture from southern France" (Russell, 442).

He had Emperor Otto deposed by the German people.

"Innocent III was the first great pope in whom there was no element of sanctity" (Russell, 443).

He codified Canon Law, increasing the power of the Curia.

Frederick II became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire through Innocent's endorsement. Innocent III would die before Frederick II assumed the position of a formidable antagonist to the Church.

Frederick II was the son of Henry IV and Constance (heir to the Sicilian throne). His childhood was marred with Sicilian wars with Muslims, Germans, Pisans, and Genoese.

The culture of Sicily was a combination of Arabic, Italian, Greek, Byzantine and German cultures.

Frederick II spoke six languages fluently and wittily. He was familiar with Arabic philosophy. He was a Hohenstaufen and could thus be considered German. He was culturally akin to Italians however.

Frederick II's problems with the papacy came when he refused to go on crusade. He was excommunicated later by Pope Gregory IX for not going on crusades and waging war in Lombardy.

He married the daughter of the King of Jerusalem and after the king's death calls himself the king of Jerusalem, infuriating the Pope. He integrated Muslims back into Jerusalem, thus further infuriating the Pope.

Eventually peace was restored between Emperor and Pope in 1230.

He systematized the laws of Sicily (where he was also king).

He founded an important university at Naples.

He freed up trade.

He was once again excommunicated in 1237 for waging war against the Lombards.

His successors after his death in 1250 were not as powerful and the Papacy absorbed power and Italy was left divided.

The heresies of the 13th century are important to study:

The Carthi or Albigenses were the largest sect of heresy at the time. They existed primarily in Northern Italy and Southern France. The Carthi were dualists. They regarded the Old Testament God as wicked. They regarded matter as evil. They believed that virtuous men had no resurrection of the body. They believed that the wicked would suffer transmigration into the bodies of animals. For this they were vegetarians, even abstaining from eggs, cheese, and milk. They ate fish because they did not think that fish reproduced sexually. They despised sex, even inside of marriage. They did not object to suicide. They interpreted the New Testament entirely literally. One who was persecuted offered his defense by claiming that he ate meat, lied and swore like any other good Catholic.

The genealogy of the Carthi is interesting. Carthi (from) Bogomiles (in Bulgaria) - a fusion of Manichaeans and Paulicians. The Manichaeans were founded by Mani and once had Augustine as a proponent.

The Paulicians were followers of Marcion. They were an Armenian sect. They rejected:
1) Infant baptism
2) Purgatory
3) The invocation of the saints
4) The Trinity
5) The Jewish elements of Christianity

The other important heresy of the 13th century were the Waldenses. They were followers of Peter Waldo.

Peter Waldo founded the "Poor Men of Lyons". They were originally papally sanctioned, but were condemned for condemning immorality in the clergy too vocally. They then split from the church.

They existed in Lombardy and Bohemia, eventually paving the way for Jan Hus. They still exist today in the Alpines and in the US.

Heresy was combatted by the Pope in founding the Inquisition in 1233 by Pope Gregory IX.

The Inquisition was mainly performed by the Dominican and Franciscans.

The Church was in danger of a revolt in the 13th century, but was saved by mendicant orders.

St. Francis of Assisi was born around 1181 and died in 1226. He was well-to-do, but later devoted himself to poverty, despite furious family members. Pope Innocent III recognized St. Francis' followers as an order around 1210. St. Francis was one of the most lovable men in History and a saint among saints. But after his death the Franciscans fell into a trap.

"If Satan existed, the future of the order founded by Saint Francis would afford him the most exquisite gratification" (Russell, 450). Linehan - this is an off-hand remark that is completely unnecessary to the conversation. It is another cheap shot by Russell.

The Franciscans became another wealthy order in the Church hierarchy after Francis' death. They took an active role in the Inquisition and suppression of free thought.

Saint Dominic (1170 - 1221) devoted himself to combatting heresy. He founded his order in 1215.

The Dominicans were even more active in the Inquisition. They were devoted to learning. Dominicans provided two great philosophers intent on reconciling Aristotle to Christ:
1) Albertus Magnus
2) Thomas Aquinas

The Franciscans produced three great philosophers:
1) Roger Bacon
2) Duns Scotus
3) William of Occam

The 12th Century (C)

(Originally written July 29, 2006 in Book 5)

Roscelin recanted the heresy at Rheims then fled to England. While in England he attacked Anselm, then fled to Rome.

Roscelin's writings are all lost except for a letter to Abelard on the Trinity. Roscelin mocks Abelard in the letter.

Ueberweg describes Roscelin as not a very nice man.

Roscelin's teachings are known through the writings of Abelard and Anselm.

Anselm states that Roscelin believed universals are "breath of voice" or that they physically occur when we speak them. Russell contends that Roscelin would not have believed something so foolish. Anselm states that Roscelin also believed man is not a unity, but a collection under a common name. Anselm stated that Roscelin believed reality is what is sensible. Roscelin believed (according to Anselm) that a whole is merely a word, but reality rests in the parts of a whole. He was led by this view to extreme atomism and troubles in dealing with the Trinity.

He held that the Godhead was three distinct substances and thus there are three Gods. He stated this because if they are one substance then all three had been incarnate in Jesus Christ. He couldn't accept that. But this is what he recanted in Rheims.

Abelard was Roselyn's pupil. He was born near Nantes in 1079. He first studied under the realist William of Champeaux in Paris. He taught at the Paris cathedral school where he argued against William's realism and compelled his former teacher to change his views. He left Paris to study theology under Anselm of Leon then returned to Paris in 1113. Upon returning he became widely popular as a teacher and became the lover of Heloïse, niece of Canon Fulbert. Canon Fulbert castrated him and he joined the monastery at St. Denis.

Abelard was vain, disputatious and tempts. After being castrated he was angry and humiliated. (Linehan - what a shock!)

He was condemned for an unorthodox book on the Trinity in 1121.

He then became the abbot of Saint Gildas in Brittany for four years. He hated it because he saw the monks as uncivilized.

In 1141 he was again condemned at the insistence of St. Bernard. He retired to Cluny and died in 1142.

Abelard's most famous book is "Yes and No". It is a dialectical argument for and against many theses. It did not however produce any conclusions.

Abelard held that, apart from Scriptures, dialectic is the sole road to truth.

He considered logic to be the chief science.

He is best known for logic and theory of knowledge.

Universals - "what can be predicated of many different things" (Russell, 430).

Abelard held that we do not predicate a thing, but only a word. He was a nomalist in this sense.

He fought realism.

He regards Platonic Ideas as the pattern of creation in the mind of God.

St. Bernard charged him without fully understanding Abelard's teachings. The heresies Bernard charged him with are:
1) Treating the Trinity like an Arian
2) Treating grace like a Pelagian
3) Treating the Person of Christ like a Nestorian
4) Being a heathen by making Plato to be a Christian
5) Destroying Christianity by maintaining that God can be understood through reason alone.

In all reality it was his hostile disposition towards clergy that caused his heretical label and not his teachings.

Abelard was more dialectical than any others at his time.

1) The school of Chartres was a humanistic movement
2) Abelard of Bath translated Euclid due to a renaissance of mathematical learning
3) There was a strong mystical movement headed by St. Bernard.

St. Bernard was not an intellectualist, but was extremely influential.

1) His father was a knight in the first Crusade
2) He was a Cistercian monk
3) He was the abbot at Clairvaux
4) He was influential in ecclesiastical politics
5) He fought antipopes
6) he combatted heresy in Northern Italy and Southern France
7) He brought philosophers down with the weight of orthodoxy
8) He set into motion the second Crusade

"Although a politician and a bigot, he was a man of genuinely religious temperament" (Russel, 439).

Bernard's reverence of the Papacy increased the power of the Pope.

The 12th Century (B)

(Originally written July 27, 2006 in Book 5)

What a shitty day and week this has been.

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter XI - The 12th Century

The crusades shifted culture beyond religion in Europe. The trade in the East, which had been a Jewish monopoly shifted to Christian merchants. The Crusades also facilitated learning of Constantinople to be translated from the Greek into Latin and thus transferred to the West.

Scholasticism began in the 12th century. Scholasticism has a number of distant characteristics:
1) It is confined by the limits of orthodoxy
2) Aristotelian doctrines within the limits of orthodoxy are supreme
3) Dialect and syllogistic reasoning
4) Universals become important

The dialectic approach of scholasticism hampered it by:
1) making it indifferent to science and facts
2) belief in reasoning over observation
3) too much emphasis on verbal distinctions and subtleties

The first strictly scholastic philosopher was Roscelin. Roscelin was born at Compiegne about 1050. He taught at Loches in Brittany, where he taught Abelard. He was accused of heresy at the council of Rheims in 1092.

The 5th and 6th Centuries

(Originally written July 22, 2006 in Book 5)

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter V - The 5th and 6th Centuries

After Augustine died in 430 there was little philosophy.

The most important invaders of the Empire in the 5th century were the Goths. The Goths attacked the west. The huns attacked the East. The Ostrogoths ended the Western Empire in 476. The Vandals conquered Africa and Spain. The Visigoths conquered southern France and the Franks conquered the Northern part.

The Church was plagued by two central heresies, promulgated by Cyril and Nestorius. St. Cyril was patriarch of Alexandria from 412-444. Nestorius was patriarch of Constantinople. The heresies death with Christ's divinity and humanity.

Nestorius held that Christ was two natures: one human and one divine.

St. Cyril inhumanely burned a female philosopher and Alexandria was not troubled with philosophy anymore. Cyril held that Christ had only one nature.

The Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 favored Cyril's view, partially because Cyril presided and the adherents of his view voted on the matter before Nestorius and his followers showed up. Nestorius was condemned as a heretic but did not recant and founded a Nestorian sect that became popular in Syria and the East. Nestorian beliefs were so popular in China that it almost became the established religion.

Monophysitism grew out of the orthodox view (that of Cyril's) which overemphasized the divine nature of Christ. It was condemned by Pope Leo at the Council of Chalcedon.

The Council of Ephesus declared that Christ was only one Person. The Council of Chalcedon declared Christ was one Person with two natures. But Monophysites still existed in Egypt after the council.

The heresies in Egypt and Syria led to their easier conquest by the Arabs as they were heavily persecuted by the Catholic Church.

There were four men of great importance in the 6th century:
1) Boethius
2) Justinian
3) Benedict
4) Gregory the Great

The Goths incorporated the Roman culture and preserved the Roman way of Life.

Boethius wrote The Consolations of Philosophy which was purely Platonic.

Boethius held that:
1) Happiness was blessedness and this was the good, not pleasure
2) Friendship was a most sacred thing
3) Platonic metaphysics
4) Stoic morality
5) The privative theory of Evil

Boethius was not superstitious or morbid like most men of his age and was not as obsessed with sin.

Justinian was the Eastern Emperor of Rom. He closed the schools of philosophy in Athens due to the Athenian paganism.

Justinian was very pious.

Justinian reconquered Italy and Africa but at the cost of both areas.