For what it's worth,
Project Gutenberg has a copy of "History of the Catholic Church" which would be an excellent source for building this article. While it was written by a Catholic, and has some biases to be watched out for, it is not very biased, a failing of some church histories. By church I mean any church, I'm not singling out Catholicism here. --
Dmerrill
- nice pointer. I'll go look. --MichaelTinkler
Be warned: The PG index cites it as volume I but there is in fact only one volume. This may be corrected by now. --Dmerrill
Interesting, but it is in fact just "...from the Renaicance to the the French Revolution"... not the whole thing. Still looks usefull for that period - more interested in the early church myself - AW
- Me, too, Asa. For browsing use, let me suggest [The Catholic Encyclopedia] online. It's of debateable availability ( I wouldn't just cut and paste from there), but it's incredibly useful. It's greatest drawback is that it was written before the great age of archaeology (i.e., the 20th century), so it represents a great use of the textual tradition. --MichaelTinkler
Seems that some of the "competitors of early christianity" are *forms* of early christianity, just forms that did not survive. It is certainly not npov to state those forms don't count as christianity. --Dmerrill
- Hmmm. Re-read the 'gnosticism' article. "Form of Christianity" would be going *very* far, and there is plenty of mainstream scholarly opinion in opposition to that stance. If you want to include Manichaeism under that heading, we ought to include Islam and Bahai, too - because, after all, they claim to be completing the message of Christ (in very different ways, but it IS what they say). --MichaelTinkler
- Orthodoxy is often offended when those they claim to be heretics use a term that orthodoxy has claimed for itself. But to allow the winners in a conflict to define the meaning of a label is to rewrite history as the winners would wish it. Before those theological debates were settled, there were many beliefs that fell under the category of "Christianity". I would strongly object to restricting the use of the term "Christian" to an after-the-fact definition of what became considered orthodox Christianity.
- History shows that there were times when different people had very different ideas of what Christianity was. In the first millenium, what usually happened is that synods and councils were held, particularly the Ecumenical councils, at which the attending bishops defined what was Christian and what wasn't, and also defined doctrines, labels, and so forth. From an historical perspective, the decisions of those councils have for the most part prevailed. Where they haven't, it's because of schisms, particularly with the Oriental Orthodox, and later with the Roman Catholic church and of course the thousands of protestant denominations.
How should this page work along side Christianity? Which subjects exaclty belong on which page? Just throwing the question out there... also: i would consider calling Gnosticism a "form" of Christianity to be rediculous -- AW
- There were Gnostic groups that may or may not have considered themselves Christian and which some modern scholars consider varieties of Christianity (and others do not). Then there were groups like the Mandaeans?, who were (and still are) Gnostics who are explicitly un-Christian, saying that Jesus hijacked the message of John the Baptist. Gnosticism, given it's fragmentary presentation, is hard to define. Some of 'em count, some of 'em don't. To include them all here is to condescend to their sense of difference. To exclude them is to be accused of being in denial. So, present 'em and exactly how out of the mainstream they were, which isn't hard. The Mandaeans are easily defined as opponents. The Manichaeans are a little harder - they used the language of church/bishop/priest. Their treatment of Judaism and the Old Testament (specifically anti-Yahwist and probably anti-semitic) is important. --MichaelTinkler
Absolutely, Michael. Discussion here should be limited to Gnostic Christianity, not Gnosticism as a whole. The Nag Hammadi documents for instance, are evidence of overlap between Gnosticism and Christianity ([Gospel of Thomas]?). --Dmerrill
This is coming along well, eh? :) Can't believe I forgot to put crusades under my "Rise of Islam" bit - doh.
aw
Do we have an article on witch burning? If so, where does it belong on the main article? --
AxelBoldt
- I would recommend a new section on Christianity in the US (maybe between "The Restoration" and "19th Century"). In that you can link to Salem etc. Whether such articles allready exist, I dont know. It stikes me that witch burning was probably not confinfed to the US, but i can't think of a more appropiate place for it. Maybe a new section on violence by supposed christians. You could also put crusades, inquistion etc.... hm..... dunno, ATM the article is cronylogical, but maybe it should be by topic? --aw
- It was much more prevalent in Europe, I think mainly in Germany. There was a whole industry arround it, with handbooks about how to properly interrogate and torture witches etc. The Salem cases are peanuts. --AxelBoldt
- We have an article on Witchhunts. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 20
- The witchhunts are a renaissance pheonomenon, more or less. The Inquisition is earlier. --MichaelTinkler
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