tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/early-christianity-48732/articlesEarly Christianity – La Conversation2024-03-27T12:38:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210712024-03-27T12:38:11Z2024-03-27T12:38:11ZThe roots of the Easter story: Where did Christian beliefs about Jesus’ resurrection come from?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583768/original/file-20240322-29-86j1i0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2013%2C923&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mosaic of the Resurrection in the Basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, Lebanon.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosa%C3%AFques_de_la_basilique_Saint_Paul_(Harissa)09.jpg">FredSeiller/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Easter approaches, Christians around the world begin to focus on two of the central tenets of their faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. </p>
<p>Other charismatic Jewish teachers or <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/The_Jewish_Spiritual_Heroes%2C_Volume_I%3B_The_Creators_of_the_Mishna%2C_Rabbi_Chanina_ben_Dosa?lang=bi">miracle workers</a> were active in Judea around the same time, approximately 2,000 years ago. What set Jesus apart was his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15.12-19&version=NRSVUE">followers’ belief in his resurrection</a>. For believers, this was not only a miracle, but a sign that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah, sent to save the people of Israel from their oppressors.</p>
<p>But was the idea of a resurrection itself a unique belief in first-century Israel? </p>
<p>I am <a href="https://religiousstudies.wvu.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty/aaron-gale">a scholar of ancient Judaism</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/redefining-ancient-borders-9780567025210/">its connection to the early Christian movement</a>. The Christian concept of Jesus rising from the dead helped shape many of the faith’s key teachings and, ultimately, the new religion’s split from Judaism. Yet religious teachings about resurrection go back many centuries before Jesus walked the earth.</p>
<p>There are stories that likely predate early Jewish beliefs by many centuries, such as the Egyptian story of the god <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100255831">Osiris being resurrected by his wife, Isis</a>. Most relevant for Christianity, though, are Judaism’s own ideas about resurrection.</p>
<h2>‘Your dead shall live’</h2>
<p>One of the earliest written Jewish references to resurrection in the Bible is found in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+26&version=NRSVUE">Book of Isaiah</a>, which discusses a future era, perhaps a time of final judgment, in which the dead would rise and be subject to God’s ultimate justice. “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise,” Isaiah prophesies. “Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three rows of yellowed manuscript on a scroll, with jagged edges." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Great Isaiah Scroll: the best preserved of the biblical scrolls found at Qumran, by the Dead Sea, which was probably written around the second century B.C.E.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Isaiah_Scroll.jpg">Ardon Bar Hama/The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Later Jewish biblical texts such as the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+12.2&version=NRSVUE">Book of Daniel</a> also referenced resurrection.</p>
<p>There were several competing Jewish sects at the time of Jesus’ life. The most prominent and influential, the Pharisees, further integrated <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2023%3A8&version=NRSVUE">the concept of resurrection</a> into Jewish thought. According to <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/war-2.html">the first-century historian Josephus</a>, the Pharisees believed that the soul was immortal and could be reunited with a resurrected body – ideas that would likely have made the idea of Jesus rising from the dead more acceptable to the Jews of his time.</p>
<p>Within a few centuries, the rabbis began to fuse together the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+37.1-12&version=NRSVUE">earlier biblical references to bodily resurrection</a> with the later ideas of the Pharisees. In particular, the rabbis began to discuss the concept of <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.111a?lang=bi">bodily resurrection</a> and its connection to the messianic era.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Beige stone boxes sit on the ground in rows, with a building with a golden roof in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Jewish Cemetery on Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Graves face the Temple Mount, where some believe that the resurrection of the dead will culminate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:121224-Jerusalem-Mount-of-Olives_(27497923512).jpg">xiquinhosilva/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Jews believed that the legitimate Messiah would be <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2011&version=NRSVUE">a descendant of the biblical King David</a> who would vanquish their enemies and <a href="https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/31-pssal-nets.pdf">restore Israel to its previous glory</a>. In the centuries following Jesus’ death, the rabbis taught that the souls of the dead <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1127503/jewish/The-Resurrection-Process.htm">would be resurrected</a> after the Messiah appeared on earth.</p>
<p>By the 500s C.E. or so, the rabbis further elaborated upon the concept. The Talmud, the most important collection of authoritative writings on Jewish law apart from the Bible itself, notes that <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.10.1?lang=bi">one who does not believe in resurrection has no share in the “Olam Haba</a>,” the “World to Come.” The Olam Haba is the realm where these sages believed <a href="https://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/25/Q2/">one’s soul eventually dwells</a> after death. Interestingly, the concept of hell itself never became ingrained within mainstream Jewish thought.</p>
<p>Even now, the concept of God giving life to the dead is affirmed every day <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/146958?lang=bi">in the Amidah</a>, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mechayeh-hameitim-rethinking-the-resurrection-blessing/">a Jewish prayer recited</a> as part of the daily morning, afternoon and evening services.</p>
<h2>Old ideas, new beliefs</h2>
<p>The fact that the first followers of Jesus were Jews likely contributed to the concept of resurrection becoming ingrained into Christian thought. Yet the Christian understanding of resurrection was taken to an unprecedented degree in the decades following Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus, a Jew from Galilee, entered Jerusalem in the days before Passover. He was accused of sedition against the Roman authorities – and likely other charges, such as blasphemy – largely because he was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+21%3A12-13&version=NRSVUE">causing a disturbance</a> among the Jews getting ready to celebrate the holiday. At the time, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/passover-pesach-history/">Passover was a pilgrimage festival</a> in which tens of thousands of Jews would travel to Jerusalem.</p>
<p>After being betrayed by one of his followers, Judas, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26.47-68&version=NRSVUE">Jesus was arrested, hastily put on trial</a> and sentenced to be crucified. The Roman authorities wished to uphold the pax Romana, or Roman peace. They feared that unrest amid a major festival could lead to a rebellion, especially given the accusation that at least some of Jesus’ followers believed him to be the “<a href="https://ehrmanblog.org/why-was-jesus-crucified/">King of the Jews</a>, as was recorded later in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+2%3A2&version=NRSVUE">Matthew’s</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+15.2&version=NRSVUE">Mark’s Gospels</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A close-up photo of a pale sculpture of a bearded man's face, looking in pain or tired, with gold letters above." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583782/original/file-20240323-24-cymdt5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crucifixes often display the Latin abbreviation ‘INRI,’ short for ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ This statue in Germany’s Ellwangen Abbey shows the abbreviation in three languages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ellwangen_St_Vitus_Vorhalle_Kreuzaltar_detail2.jpg">Andreas Praefcke/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>According to the Gospels, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27.32-28.10&version=NRSVUE">Jesus was put to death</a> on what is now Good Friday, and rose again on the third day – which today is celebrated as Easter Sunday.</p>
<p>Jesus’ early followers believed not only that he had been resurrected, but that he was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/themovement.html">the long-awaited Jewish messiah</a>, who had fulfilled earlier <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea+6.1-2&version=NRSVUE">Jewish prophecies</a>. Eventually, they also embraced the idea that he was <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/300246095">the divine Son of God</a>, although scholars still debate exactly how and when this occurred.</p>
<p>In addition, the nature of Jesus’ resurrection remains <a href="https://marcusjborg.org/posts-by-marcus/the-resurrection-of-jesus/">a source of debate</a> among theologians and scholars – such as whether followers believed his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24.36-43&version=NRSVUE">resurrected body was made of flesh and blood</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Cor+3.17-18&version=NRSVUE">or pure spirit</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the grander meaning of the resurrection, which is recorded in all <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A1-10%2CMark+16%3A1-11%2CLuke+24%3A1-12%2CJohn+20&version=NRSVUE">four canonical Gospels</a>, remains clear for many of the approximately 2 billion Christians around the world: They believe that Jesus <a href="https://www.religion-online.org/article/resurrection-faith-n-t-wright-talks-about-history-and-belief/">triumphed over death</a>, which serves as a cornerstone foundation of the Christian faith.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Gale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ideas about resurrection had been developing for centuries before Jesus’ life, but his followers took them in new directions.Aaron Gale, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129622024-01-23T18:59:24Z2024-01-23T18:59:24ZHidden women of history: Olympias, who took on an emperor, dodged a second marriage and fought for her faith<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560321/original/file-20231120-25-33mqpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=398%2C802%2C3181%2C4174&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olympias the Deaconess. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Print by Boëtius Adamsz. Bolswert in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Olympias was born to a wealthy family in the fourth-century CE, probably in the capital city of the Roman empire: Constantinople (now Istanbul).</p>
<p>Not to be confused with the mother of Alexander the Great (who lived around 800 years earlier), this Olympias is remembered in various texts as a patron of the church and a champion of female ascetics, a determined advocate for her friends, and a faithful and dedicated Christian. </p>
<p>A sad fact about the early Christian period is that very few texts written by women survive. Olympias was well educated and acquainted with bishops and even the emperor. We know she wrote letters to some of these men, but only the men’s letters to her remain. </p>
<p>There are stories about her life as well, and some about her monastery and her bodily remains after her death, but most of these were also written by men. Nevertheless, these sources can give us insight into the life of a formidable woman who opposed the emperor and fought for her way of life and her faith.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-enheduanna-princess-priestess-and-the-worlds-first-known-author-109185">Hidden women of history: Enheduanna, princess, priestess and the world's first known author</a>
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<h2>A husband chosen</h2>
<p>When Olympias was born, in the second half of the fourth century, the Roman Empire was rapidly becoming more Christian. The emperor Constantine (306-337) had converted to Christianity in 312, legalising the religion a year later and promoting it through patronage of the church. His nephew, the emperor Julian (361-363), briefly tried to restore the empire to Roman religion (“paganism”) but his reign was short and his religious campaign unsuccessful.</p>
<p>Olympias was orphaned as a child. When she was between the ages of 12 and 15, her guardian chose a suitable husband for her. Nebridius was the prefect of the city of Constantinople, roughly equivalent to a city mayor. This was his second marriage. According to some sources, his son from his first marriage was older than Olympias. She is unlikely to have had much say in the match.</p>
<p>Olympias’s family was wealthy and she would have taken a substantial dowry with her on marrying. The law decreed Nebridius had to keep that fortune safe for her as a dowry for a second husband in case of his death. And indeed, Nebridius lived less than two years after their marriage. Olympias was now a widow and probably only about 17.</p>
<p>When she was widowed, according to an anonymous <a href="https://sourceschretiennes.org/collection/SC-13">Life of Olympias,</a> the emperor Theodosius tried to marry her off to a relative of his named Elpidius. Her extensive wealth - she owned property all over the empire including palaces in Constantinople – made her quite a catch. </p>
<p>But Olympias refused, apparently declaring </p>
<blockquote>
<p>if the Lord Jesus Christ had wanted me to live with a man, he would not have taken away my first husband.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A celibate life</h2>
<p>She told the emperor she wanted to live a celibate life as a monastic rather than marry again.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Olympias the deaconess.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>This, at least, is the way the Life presents it. We cannot be certain this is an accurate representation of Olympias’s interactions with the emperor. Given the life she went on to lead, it seems clear she had a particular devotion to God and a strong desire to live an ascetic, celibate life. </p>
<p>But there are other reasons in this period why a young widow might not want to marry again. Mortality rates for women in childbirth were high, as were infant mortality rates. If she married again, she might die in childbirth, or her child might die soon after. </p>
<p>There were good theological reasons to remain unmarried too. There were debates in the early church about whether a second marriage counted as adultery and many theologians encouraged women to remain a <em>univira</em> – a “one-man woman”. </p>
<p>Perhaps Olympias was also keen to maintain some financial independence. Another marriage would bring her squarely under the authority of another man. Perhaps she hoped by remaining a widow she could use her wealth as she saw fit.</p>
<p>If this was her aim, she was disappointed. When Olympias refused to marry Elpidius, the emperor Theodosius commanded the prefect of the city, Clementius, be guardian of all her possessions until Olympias turned 30. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-did-all-roads-actually-lead-there-81746">Mythbusting Ancient Rome -- did all roads actually lead there?</a>
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<h2>A determined young woman</h2>
<p>The Life gives Olympias a pithy reply in which she says she is glad to be relieved from the burden of her wealth and begs Clementius to distribute her wealth to the poor and the churches.</p>
<p>This fifth century CE text presents Olympias as a determined young woman who is not afraid to advocate for herself and fight to live her chosen way of life.</p>
<p>A few years later, Theodosius relented when he saw how dedicated Olympias was to the ascetic life, restoring her fortune. This enabled Olympias to establish a monastery or holy house for women in Constantinople. </p>
<p>She built it right next to the cathedral church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) and lived there with many other female ascetics. The proximity of the monastery to the church is likely one of the reasons that Olympias became such close friends with <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm">the bishop John Chrysostom</a>. John, who became archbishop (Patriarch) of Constantinople, was given the name “Chrysostom” (“Golden-Mouth”) because he preached fabulous sermons. Over 700 of his sermons survive.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early Byzantine mosaic from the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia depicting Saint John Chrysostom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johnchrysostom.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Olympias was ordained a deaconess by the archbishop Nectarius when only around 30. (It was unusual to be made a deaconess before the age of 60.) Such a role gave Olympias the authority to act for, and on behalf of, women in the church, as the guide and protector of the women who came to join her in her holy house. </p>
<p>She used her wealth and new status as deaconess to support the poor and the works of the church, becoming a strong advocate for Chrysostom. She became a patron and friend of other bishops too.</p>
<p>When Gregory of Nyssa, theologian and bishop in Cappadocia, wrote a commentary on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Songs">Song of Songs</a>, around the year 394, he <a href="https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/061613P.front.pdf">dedicated it to Olympias</a>. She had suggested he should write it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have enjoined upon me, both in person and by your letters, a study of the Song of Songs, and I have undertaken it because it is suited to your holy life and your pure heart.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-hagia-sophia-remains-a-potent-symbol-of-spiritual-and-political-authority-143084">Why Hagia Sophia remains a potent symbol of spiritual and political authority</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An advocate for her friend</h2>
<p>When Chrysostom was sent into exile, for reasons that remain a bit unclear, he wrote regularly to Olympias. Seventeen of his letters to her survive, more than from him to any other person. She kept advocating for him and was angry with those who had deserted him. </p>
<p>Chrysostom told her Jesus’ friends had also deserted him. He was impressed by Olympias’s perseverance even under suffering – her ill health didn’t stop her from being a “tower”, a “haven” and a “wall of defence”.</p>
<p>Perhaps he was referring to the protection Olympias gave to monks who had been banished for their support of Chrysostom. When an ally was imprisoned, Chrysostom wrote to Olympias to strategise about how to get him released.</p>
<p>These actions, protecting the supporters of the exiled bishop, were ultimately Olympias’s downfall. She was persecuted, wrongfully accused of causing a fire in the city and sent into exile to Nicomedia (modern Izmit, Turkey) where she died, probably in 409.</p>
<h2>A significant figure</h2>
<p>Although she died in exile, Olympias was a significant figure who fought against the mould women were supposed to fit into, supporting a lot of people along the way. </p>
<p>The anonymous Life describes her as practising hospitality in a similar way to the Old Testament patriarch Abraham, fighting for self-control like Joseph, suffering patiently and faithfully like Job and being martyred like <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14564a.htm">the legendary early Christian, Thecla</a>.</p>
<p>In the seventh century, a woman named Sergia became the leader of Olympias’s monastery in Constantinople. Sergia <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jerome-Chrysostom-Friends-Translations-Religion/dp/0889465428">wrote about</a> finding Olympias’s bones in the wreckage of another monastery and bringing them back to her own. </p>
<p>When a later Patriarch anointed the remains, Sergia says, they bled until his hands were full of blood. </p>
<p>This rather frightening miracle had a big impact on the assembled audience. Sergia records many people were cured of diseases by Olympias’s remains after this bloody episode. </p>
<p>Such miracle stories, which seem so strange to us, show Olympias’s continued importance in the monastery she founded and the city which was her home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212962/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Gador-Whyte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A formidable woman born in the second half of the fourth century and widowed at around 17, Olympias was not afraid to advocate for herself – or her friends.Sarah Gador-Whyte, Research Fellow in Biblical and Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127372023-09-26T12:24:22Z2023-09-26T12:24:22ZThis Christian text you’ve never heard of, The Shepherd of Hermas, barely mentions Jesus − but it was a favorite of early Christians far and wide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549156/original/file-20230919-25-wozzy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C6%2C4077%2C2998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">"Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower," by 19th century American painter Thomas Cole</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.82649.html">National Gallery of Art</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People usually think about the Bible as a book with a fixed number of texts within its pages: 24 books in the Jewish version of the Bible; 66 for Protestants; 73 for Catholics; 81 if you’re <a href="https://www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/canonical/books.html">Ethiopian Orthodox</a>.</p>
<p>Writings that didn’t make it into the Bible, on the other hand, are often called “apocrypha,” a Greek term that refers to hidden or secret things. There are <a href="https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/">hundreds of apocryphal Jewish and Christian texts</a> that, for one reason or another, were not included in different versions of the Bible. Some simply fell out of use. Some caused theological headaches for later Jews or Christians, and some were rejected because of their author – for supposedly not having really been written by an apostle, for instance. (When used with a capital “A,” Apocrypha refers to a handful of books included in the Catholic and Orthodox versions of the Old Testament, but not most Protestant ones.)</p>
<p>Just because a text was deemed apocryphal, however, does not mean that it was unpopular or lacked influence. Many texts that are treated as unimportant or unbiblical today were considered central at one time. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9b5HSS4AAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of early Christianity</a>, some of my research centers on what was once an extremely well-read text, but one that most people today have never heard of: The Shepherd of Hermas. </p>
<h2>Enslaved to God</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/shepherd-lightfoot.html">The Shepherd of Hermas</a> was written sometime between <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shepherd-of-hermas-9780567699947/">70–140 C.E.</a> and takes place on the road between Rome and Naples. Hermas, who is presented as the text’s author and narrator, has various encounters with two divine figures called the Church and the Shepherd, who give him commandments and visions that he is instructed to share with other believers. </p>
<p>The Shepherd is a sizable text – 114 chapters long – and substantial portions describe a vision of a tower under construction. The tower represents the church itself, in the sense of all Jesus’ followers, built out of stones that represent different types of believers. Some fit right in, others must be reshaped or recolored, and some are rejected altogether. For example, stones representing rich people or businessmen are urged to repent, while hospitable people are portrayed as properly shaped.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A light-colored carving of a man in a tunic holding a large sheep, with two smaller sheep at his feet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549172/original/file-20230919-23-cgnqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christian art, like this Coptic piece from the third century, has long used the metaphor of the shepherd to describe Jesus and spiritual care.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/christ-the-good-shepherd-early-coptic-art-c3rd-century-news-photo/918981986?adppopup=true">CM Dixon/Heritage Images/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=529LdLITjYs">Other parts of the text</a> are focused on how believers should manage their emotions, how to act ethically in the world and how to obey God’s will. The Shepherd urges self-control and fear of God, trying to instill obedience and avoid allowing emotions like fear or doubt to overcome believers.</p>
<p><a href="https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37375470">My own research</a> on the Shepherd focuses on how the text depicts believers as enslaved to God, as is true of some other early Christian literature as well. The writer imagines that God’s holy spirit is able to enter loyal believers’ bodies and possess them, urging them to do what God wills. </p>
<p>Notably, figures like Jesus and the apostles are virtually absent from the Shepherd. Instead, readers find a story about an otherwise unknown enslaved man named Hermas experiencing visions and talking with divine beings in the Italian countryside. Hermas is portrayed as a believer who doubts his own ability to accomplish what these two divine figures, the Church and Shepherd, expect of him, lamenting throughout how difficult it is to follow God’s commandments.</p>
<h2>‘Useful for the soul’</h2>
<p>Given that the Shepherd is a long, rambling text that doesn’t explicitly mention Jesus, you might assume that it was only read by a small number of early Christian theologians. This, however, isn’t the case. </p>
<p>The Shepherd became one of the most popular texts among Christians for the first five centuries C.E. Even today, there are <a href="https://robheaton.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/shepherd-mss-robheaton-com1.pdf">more surviving manuscripts</a> of the Shepherd from antiquity than of any New Testament text except for the Gospels of Matthew and John. </p>
<p>The visions were translated from Greek into Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic and Georgian. Eventually, the text spread as far west as Ireland and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39125540/The_Shepherd_of_Hermas_Fragment_from_Turfan_M97_and_its_Manichaean_Context_Abstract_">as far east as China</a>.</p>
<p>The Shepherd is even included in what scholars consider one of the oldest and most complete Bibles in the world. Canonical Christian Bibles today end with Revelation, a dramatic book of apocalyptic visions. The <a href="https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?__VIEWSTATEGENERATOR=01FB804F&book=61&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0">Codex Sinaiticus</a>, however, a fourth- or fifth-century manuscript now held at the British Library, ends with the Shepherd. The text’s inclusion in such an expensive, deluxe codex highlights how important the text was to many Christians, even as the contents of the New Testament were being solidified.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The screen of an open laptop, positioned in a dark church, shows a page of a very old-looking manuscript." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549160/original/file-20230919-4851-nilz1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pages of the Codex Sinaiticus, the world’s oldest surviving Christian Bible, shown on a laptop in Westminster Cathedral, London, in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pages-of-the-codex-sinaiticus-the-worlds-oldest-surviving-news-photo/88848627?adppopup=true">Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many <a href="https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/eusbius_canon_of_the_new_testament.htm">significant Christian writers</a> from the fourth and fifth centuries comment on how <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm">the Shepherd is important instruction</a> for new Christians, regardless of whether it was considered part of the formal Bible.</p>
<p>Even figures who did not include the Shepherd among <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm">New Testament texts</a> thought it was too important to be discarded. The book was too important to ignore, but too odd to be considered biblical: part of a halfway category that <a href="https://news-archive.hds.harvard.edu/news/2013/11/04/fran%C3%A7ois-bovon-1938-2013">biblical scholar François Bovon</a> called “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41474569">useful for the soul</a>.”</p>
<h2>An open Bible</h2>
<p>As the Shepherd helps demonstrate, whether a religious text is included or excluded from the Bible is not necessarily an indicator of its popularity or significance. </p>
<p>While scholars often lament that the Shepherd <a href="https://niedergall.com/book-review-the-shepherd-of-hermas-a-literary-historical-and-theological-handbook/">is boring</a>, pedantic or too long, its style likely made it ideal teaching material for early Christians. Esoteric texts that required deeper philosophical knowledge, like the <a href="http://gnosis.org/naghamm/got.html">Gospel of Truth</a> or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/04/06/5327692/the-lost-gospel-of-judas-iscariot">Gospel of Judas</a>, may have been ideal for some Christians who had access to more education. But texts that make bite-sized claims – like “don’t think about another man’s wife” (Shepherd 29:1), “rid yourself of grief” (Shepherd 40:1), or “believe that God is one” (Shepherd 26:1) – are easier for readers to carry with them and apply to everyday decisions in their lives.</p>
<p>The word “canon,” referring to texts that get a seal of approval from authorities, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Old-Testament-canon-texts-and-versions#ref597299">comes from a Greek word for a measuring stick</a>: which books “measure up”? In religious communities, the idea of “canonical texts” can be especially limiting, determining what believers can or can’t read or believe.</p>
<p>Apocryphal literature, however, allows us to see how that wasn’t always the case: Ancient Christians didn’t think they were bound to the same specific set of stories that churches focus on today. The long history of reading apocrypha shows how some Christians have always been interested in reading the “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/7564/chapter/152549953">Bible with the back cover torn off</a>” – continually exploring religious ideas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chance Bonar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ‘Shepherd of Hermas’ has been accused of being pedantic, even boring. In the first few centuries of Christianity, though, it was a hit.Chance Bonar, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1864512022-09-22T12:40:27Z2022-09-22T12:40:27ZThe ‘fathers of the church’ died around 1,500 years ago, but these ancient leaders still influence Christianity today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482613/original/file-20220904-37695-jpygje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C18%2C1558%2C1177&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 11th-century mosaic shows Epiphanius of Salamis, Clement of Rome, Gregory the Theologian, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and Archdeacon Stephen.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_Fathers_Order_(left_part)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">St. Sophia of Kyiv/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nearly 60 years ago, in October 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council. For the 21st time in the Catholic Church’s history, the pope <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-resists-change-but-vatican-ii-shows-its-possible-102543">gathered bishops from around the world</a> – several thousand of them – to address matters of church doctrine and practice.</p>
<p>Today, Vatican II is remembered as a landmark council that has <a href="https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/remembering-and-misremembering-vatican-ii/">shaped Catholic life in modern times</a>. Leaders agreed to reforms, such as greater use of local languages in the Mass, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html">to reinvigorate the church’s mission in a changing world</a>. </p>
<p>In the council’s <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm">official documents</a>, however, the bishops frequently cite spiritual guides who died more than 1,000 years before: the fathers of the church.</p>
<p>The spiritual and theological authority of the fathers is recognized not only by Catholics, but also by other Christians, including Eastern Orthodox and Protestant communities. Not all agree on the same list of church fathers, yet Christian leaders have been deeply influenced by the fathers’ teachings, from medieval theologians and Protestant reformers to Pope Francis today. </p>
<p>And while there are no women among the “fathers,” the “desert mothers” – influential religious women from the same era – have also left their mark.</p>
<h2>Spiritual fathers</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://www.smu.edu/Perkins/FacultyAcademics/FacultyListingA-Z/Lee">a scholar of early Christianity</a>, I am often asked about the origins of the concept of a church father.</p>
<p>In Christianity, the honorary title “father” <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/65407298">comes from Greco-Roman and biblical ideas</a> about the father as the head of the family. The Roman “pater familias” was responsible for the welfare, education and leadership of the family. He was also considered a priest or religious representative of the household. </p>
<p>In the Bible, the first-century Apostle Paul speaks of himself <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%204&version=NIV">as a spiritual father</a> to other Christians. The apostles and bishops of the church were treated as believers’ “fathers” insofar as they were responsible for preaching, teaching and leading worship. </p>
<h2>Evolving idea</h2>
<p>Early Christians started using the title “father” for bishops, but by the fifth century, it was also applied to some <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/65407298">priests and deacons</a>. </p>
<p>Over time, theologians began to refer to a specific group of “church fathers” to support their positions amid debate – starting in the fourth century, with the Greek bishops <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/458">Eusebius</a>, who wrote a history of the Christian church’s first three centuries, and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/67139">Basil of Caesarea</a>, who lived in what is now Turkey. St. Augustine – the Catholic bishop in Roman North Africa who became famous for his “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/796754037">Confessions</a>” – frequently cited the fathers’ teachings to support his arguments during controversies with theological opponents.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An ancient manuscript with a block of cursive script and a brightly colored design at the top." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483797/original/file-20220909-12282-pzdpe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A page from ‘Epistle of Eusebius to Carpianus’ in a 13th-century Armenian manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/st-eusebius-from-epistle-of-eusebius-to-carpianus-13th-news-photo/113437986?adppopup=true">Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The fathers’ position in the church was refined in the fifth century by a Gallic monk named <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm">Vincent of Lérins</a>. Not all ancient Christian writers had equal authority, he wrote, but the views of the true fathers could be trusted because their teachings were consistent, as if they formed a council of masters “all receiving, holding and handing on the same doctrine.”</p>
<p>By the modern era, four traits were used as criteria <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/67139">to distinguish fathers of the church</a>: 1) orthodox or right theological teachings on essential points, in accord with the church’s public doctrine; 2) the holiness of their life; 3) the church’s recognition of them and their teaching; and 4) antiquity, meaning they lived during the early Christian era that ended around the seventh or eighth century.</p>
<p>The title is distinct from the later honorific “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-some-roman-catholic-saints-called-doctors-of-the-church-175912">doctor of the church</a>,” for spiritual teachers who have made significant contributions to Christian doctrine in any period of history, although some theologians hold both titles.</p>
<p>Unlike the fathers of the church, who are all male, four women are included among the doctors: Teresa of Ávila, a mystic famous for ecstatic visions; Catherine of Siena, who persuaded Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome from Avignon; Thérèse of Lisieux, known for her “little way” of holiness by small acts of love; and <a href="https://theconversation.com/caring-for-the-environment-has-a-long-catholic-lineage-hundreds-of-years-before-pope-francis-168698">Hildegard of Bingen</a>, a medieval German nun, scientist and composer.</p>
<h2>Desert mothers</h2>
<p>Modern scholarship has also drawn attention to the important influence of women on the church during the age of the fathers.</p>
<p>For example, the fourth-century fathers Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, who were brothers, considered their older sister, Macrina the Younger, to be the greatest theologian among them. Gregory composed a treatise in her honor, “<a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/macrina.asp">The Life of Macrina</a>,” which depicts her as a true philosopher. A “consecrated virgin” who pledged her life to the church instead of marriage and family, Macrina led a women’s religious community <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/191244670">and was renowned for her holiness, teaching and miraculous healings</a>.</p>
<p>Her paternal grandmother, Macrina the Elder, was also a great teacher and leader who suffered persecution for being a Christian in the late third century. She was responsible for passing on <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/986955454">the teachings of important theologians</a>, such as Origen of Alexandria and “Gregory the Miracle-Worker.”</p>
<p>In addition, women exercised leadership in <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/17515110">the growing movement known as monasticism</a>. During the first five centuries of Christianity, many women fled from urban cities to the desert to commit themselves to lives of prayer, fasting and virtue. Known as the “desert mothers,” they were sought after for their wisdom. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A gold and green religious icon shows a man in a robe holding out Holy Communion to a woman in a ragged robe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483796/original/file-20220909-19322-b9agut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘The Holy Communion of Saint Mary of Egypt,’ from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-holy-communion-of-saint-mary-of-egypt-found-in-the-news-photo/520717525?adppopup=true">Heritage Images/Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Their words or sayings <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/12010493">were collected and preserved for centuries</a>. For example, Amma Theodora, a spiritual mother of a community of women near Alexandria in Egypt, was famous for saying that only humility, not ascetical practices such as fasting, could overcome the temptations of the devil. Likewise, “The Life of Mary of Egypt” was written about <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1260166313">a humble, penitent woman</a> who lived in the desert for 47 years. She was considered a model of humility, and her story was often told during Lent, a period when many Christians perform penitential practices.</p>
<h2>The fathers’ future</h2>
<p>Today, church leaders continue to rely upon the fathers’ teachings as authoritative sources of wisdom. Pope Francis, for instance, often refers to Vincent of Lérins to explain <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/08/pope-francis-and-st-vincent-of-lrins">how Christian doctrine develops over time</a>, like a seed taking root and growing into a tree. </p>
<p>History has shown that Christians frequently disagree on matters of doctrine, and they always will. In those moments, future leaders may look to the fathers as sure-footed spiritual guides.</p>
<p>
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<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a></p>
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</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Kang Hoon Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians recognize the authority of the ‘fathers’ to guide teaching on doctrinal issues.James Kang Hoon Lee, Associate Professor of the History of Early Christianity, Southern Methodist UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1573872021-04-14T12:37:58Z2021-04-14T12:37:58ZIs magic immoral? It played a role in the development of early Christianity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392916/original/file-20210331-15-f0ppgh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C11%2C3788%2C2109&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Magic fascinated and troubled early Christians as much as it does some people today.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dmedmedia.disney.com/disney-plus/wandavision/images">Marvel Studios</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans are <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-social-thinker/201107/the-harry-potter-effect-the-science-behind-why-we-magical-things">fascinated by magic</a>. TV shows like “WandaVision” and “The Witcher,” books like the Harry Potter series, plus comics, movies and games about people with powers that can’t be explained by God, science or technology, have all been wildly popular for years. Modern pop culture is a testament to how enchanted people are by the thought of <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/witches-pop-culture-sabrina-ahs-charmed-real-world">gaining special control over an uncertain world</a>. </p>
<p>“Magic” is often defined in the West as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405168748.ch16">evil or separate from “civilized” religions like Christianity</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-magic-9780195169416">also from the scientific observation and study of the world</a>. But the irony is that magic was integral to the development of Christianity and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/ancient-jewish-magic-history?format=HB&isbn=9780521874571">other religions</a> – and it informed the evolution of the sciences, too. </p>
<p>As an expert in <a href="https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-religion-and-culture/faculty/shaily-patel.html">ancient magic and early Christianity</a>, I study how magic helped early adherents develop a Christian identity. One part of this identity was morality: the inner sense of right and wrong that guides life decisions. Of course, the darker side of this development is the slide into supremacy: seeing one’s own tradition as <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/bucknell/abusing-religion/9781978807785">morally superior and rightfully dominant</a>.</p>
<p>My work tries to return magic to its proper place as a part of the Christian tradition. I show how false distinctions between magic and Christianity were created to elevate ancient Christianity and how they continue to advance Christian supremacy today.</p>
<h2>The origins of magic</h2>
<p>In Western culture, magic is often defined in opposition to religion and science. This is problematic because <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-magic-9780195169416">all three concepts are rooted in colonialism</a>. For centuries, many European scholars based their definitions of religion on Christianity, while at the same time describing the practices and beliefs of non-Christians as “primitive,” “superstitious” or “magical.” </p>
<p>This sense of superiority helped Europe’s Christian monarchies justify conquering and exploiting Indigenous peoples around the world in a bid to <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo17436706.html">“civilize” them</a>, often through <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/king-leopolds-ghost/9780358212508">extreme brutality</a>. Imperialist legacies still color how some people think about non-Christians as “others,” and how they label others’ rituals and religions as “magic.” </p>
<p>But this modern understanding of magic doesn’t map neatly onto the world of the first Christians. “Magic” has always had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.8278">many meanings</a>. From what scholars can gather, the word itself <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20190410?seq=1">was imported from the Persian word “maguš</a>,” which may have described a class of priests with royal connections. Sometimes, these “magi” were depicted as performing divination, ritual activities or educating young boys who would take the throne. </p>
<p>Greek texts retained this earlier meaning and also added <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20190410?seq=1">new ones</a>. The famous ancient Greek historian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodotus-Greek-historian">Herodotus</a> writes that the Persian magi interpreted dreams, read the skies and performed sacrifices. Herodotus uses the Greek word “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*ma%2Fgos">magos</a>.” <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sophocles">Sophocles</a>, a Greek playwright, uses the same term in his tragedy “Oedipus the King,” when Oedipus berates the seer Tiresias for scheming to overthrow him. </p>
<p>Although these two Greek texts both date from roughly the early 400s B.C., “magician” has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20190410?seq=1">different connotations in each</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two teenage girls walking past a Harry Potter book display at a book fair in China." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393642/original/file-20210406-13-cxk7lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The seven Harry Potter fantasies are the world’s best-selling book series, with more than 500 million novels sold since the first story was published in 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Clarke/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ca.2003.22.2.313?seq=1">Starting in the first century B.C.</a>, Latin authors also adapted the Persian term into “magus.” </p>
<p>While defending himself at <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apuleius-apologia/2017/pb_LCL534.3.xml">trial for performing “evil deeds of magic,”</a> the second-century philosopher Apuleius claimed he both was and was not a “magician.” He insisted he was like a high priest or a natural philosopher rather than someone who uses unsavory means to get what they want. What’s interesting here is that Apuleius uses one idea of high philosophical magic to combat another idea of crude, self-interested magic. </p>
<h2>Christianity and magic</h2>
<p>The first Christians inherited these varied ideas of magic alongside their Roman neighbors. In their world, people who did “magical” deeds like exorcisms and healings were common. Such people sometimes <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/at-the-temple-gates-9780190267148">explained religious or philosophical texts and ideas</a>, as well. </p>
<p>This presented a problem for early Christian authors: If wondrous deeds were fairly commonplace, how could a group looking to attract followers compete with “magicians”? After all, Jesus and the Apostles did extraordinary deeds, too. So Christian writers made distinctions in order to elevate their heroes. </p>
<p>Take the biblical story of Simon the magician. In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%208&version=NRSV">Acts 8</a>, Simon’s magical deeds entice the Samaritans and convince them to follow him until the evangelist Philip performs even more amazing miracles, converting all the Samaritans and Simon, too. But Simon relapses when he tries to buy the power of the Holy Spirit, prompting the Apostle Peter to rebuke him. This story is where we get the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/simony">sin of simony</a>: the purchase of religious office. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://keepingit101.com/e307">I’ve discussed elsewhere</a>, texts like this do not depict real events. They are teaching tools aimed at showing new adherents the differences between good Christian miracle workers and evil magicians. The earliest converts needed such stories because <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/at-the-temple-gates-9780190267148">wonder workers looked a lot alike</a>. </p>
<h2>Christianity and morality</h2>
<p>To some ancient people, stories of Jesus’ miracles probably didn’t seem far removed from the deeds magicians performed for money in the marketplace. In fact, the church fathers <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3273846">had to shield Jesus and the Apostles against accusations of practicing magic</a>. They include Origen of Alexandria, who in the middle of the third century A.D. defended Christianity <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/origen-contra-celsum/763A0C668E490E8D550F7D2A6CCCD0F7">against Celsus</a>, a pagan philosopher who <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/divine-man-or-magician-celsus-and-origen-on-jesus/oclc/7837478&referer=brief_results">charged Jesus with being a magician</a>. </p>
<p>Celsus argued that the miracles of Jesus were no different from the magic performed by marketplace sorcerers. Origen agreed the two shared superficial similarities, but claimed they were fundamentally different because magicians cavorted with demons while Jesus’ wonders led to moral reformation. Like the story of Simon the magician, Origen’s disagreement with Celsus was a means of teaching his audience how to tell the difference between morally suspect magicians who sought personal gain and miracle workers who acted for the benefit of others.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pastel 15th century painting showing Simon the magician held aloft by demons" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393628/original/file-20210406-17-8dbsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In early Christian stories, the magician Simon uses magic immorally to try and gain power and influence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436563">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a></span>
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<p>Ancient authors invented the idea that the miracles of Christians possessed inherent moral superiority over non-Christian magic because ancient audiences were as enticed by magic as modern ones. But in elevating Christianity above magic, these writers created false distinctions that linger even today. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify Jesus’s role in early Christianity.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaily Shashikant Patel receives funding from Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech is a state institution, and therefore research awards are technically "government-funded." </span></em></p>Although many modern people tend to see ‘magic’ and ‘religion’ as separate, magic was actually integral to the development of Christianity.Shaily Shashikant Patel, Assistant Professor of Early Christianity, Virginia TechLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1533392021-01-25T16:35:38Z2021-01-25T16:35:38ZTrump impeachment after leaving office is nothing – in 9th-century Rome they put a pope’s corpse on trial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380408/original/file-20210125-23-j4rsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1595%2C1063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Cadaver Synod (897): Seven months after his death, the corpse of Pope Formosus was found guilty of perjury.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jean-Paul Laurens (1870) via Britannica</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Having been impeached for the second time, former US president Donald Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/25/trump-impeachment-trial-senate-schumer-pelosi-biden-capitol-attack">will be tried by the Senate in February 2021</a>, the first time a US president has been impeached twice for “high crimes and misdemeanours”. A single article of impeachment will be passed to the Senate on January 25, accusing Trump of “inciting insurrection” before his supporters attacked the US Capitol building on January 6. Formal arguments will begin in the Senate in the second week of February.</p>
<p>But a media campaign is already well underway, as supporters of the former president – and his political enemies – take to the airwaves to put their case. Prominent among Trump’s defenders has been senior Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, who <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/lindsey-graham-frets-that-impeaching-trump-could-lead-to-george-washingtons-impeachment">told Fox News</a> host Sean Hannity that if Trump were to be convicted by the Senate after he leaves office, it would open the door for past presidents to be impeached.</p>
<p>“If you can impeach a president after they’re out of office, why don’t we impeach George Washington?” Graham told Hannity. “He owned slaves. Where does this stop?”</p>
<p>There is of course an obvious flaw in Graham’s comment: being dead, Washington cannot appear to defend himself. </p>
<p>But the history of the early medieval papacy teaches us that even death may not be a bar to prosecution for misconduct in public office. More than 1,000 years ago, the western church was in crisis. There was a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1404567">bitter dispute between Rome and Constantinople</a> over which was the head of the Christian church. Waves of immigrants had settled in Hungary and Bulgaria, which increased tensions between Constantinople and Rome as they vied for sovereignty over a changing population with shifting allegiances.</p>
<p>These conflicts raised important questions about the qualities that were required of the leaders of Christendom. During this period there was a fairly frequent use of the early medieval equivalent of impeachment. This was a <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100547669">church synod</a> held in Rome, at which the holder of the highest office in Christendom could be tried for transgressions against the traditions and customs of their office. One such synod <a href="https://wsmonroe.com/2014/06/02/137/">took place in January 897</a> and heard charges against the most recent former pontiff, Formosus (pope from 891 to 896).</p>
<p>The only problem was that Formosus had been dead for seven months by the time the trial started. But the new pope, Stephen VI, was of the firm opinion that even when a leader had left office they could still be punished for their transgressions.</p>
<p>The synod thus went ahead under somewhat ghoulish circumstances. Pope Stephen had Formosus’ corpse withdrawn from its sarcophagus and brought to the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome to be put on trial. The corpse was clad in papal vestments and seated on a throne to face charges that Formosus had broken the rules of the church. Close by stood a deacon to answer in Formosus’ name. Stephen VI charged the cadaver with having broken an oath not to return to Rome and of having illegally obtained the title of pope because he was already a bishop at the time of his election.</p>
<p>The alleged crimes took place long before the trial. In July 876, Formosus had been excommunicated for meddling in European power politics and prohibited from celebrating mass by Pope John VIII. But, after his death, the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn by John’s successor Marinus I in 878 and Formosus returned to his job as bishop of Porto. </p>
<p>Despite having blotted his copybook, Formosus was elected pope on October 1 891 and immediately involved himself in politics again. </p>
<p>In Italy, Formosus encouraged insurrection, persuading Arnulf of Carinthia <a href="https://wsmonroe.com/2014/06/02/137/">to advance to Rome</a> to drive out the reigning emperor. Arnulf seized Rome by force on February 21 896 but his success was shortlived – before he had the chance to move against the opposition’s stronghold in Spoleto, he was struck with paralysis and was unable to continue the campaign. Paralysis, incidentally, was widely regarded as a divine punishment in the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that this was an era in which the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/01-02/vatican-dead-pope-on-trial/">papacy changed hands at an alarming rate</a> – almost every year between 896 and 904 saw a new pope pope, sometimes even two. Formosus was succeeded by Pope Boniface VI, who himself died two weeks later. Stephen VI, who was next to sit on the papal throne, had been a supporter of Formosus, but had changed camps and was now aligned with the Spoleto family, at that time all-powerful in Rome. </p>
<p>Stephen VI predictably pronounced Formosus guilty on the grounds that he could not legally have received the papal title since he was the bishop of another see and he had gone back on his oath not to celebrate mass. All his measures, acts and legal decisions were annulled, and all the priestly orders conferred by him were declared invalid. His papal vestments were torn from his body. The three fingers which the dead pope had used in consecrations were cut off his right hand and the corpse was buried in a grave in the cemetery for strangers, only to be removed after a few days and thrown into the river Tiber.</p>
<p>Donald Trump, at present hunkered down at his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, will not suffer the indignities of the corpse of Pope Formosus. But, like Formosus, he will see many (if not all) of his decisions and appointments reversed in these first days of Joe Biden’s presidency. Interestingly, after the death of Stephen VI, Formosus was rehabilitated and his papacy reinstated by the church. </p>
<p>Trump, meanwhile, is rumoured to still be considering a return to US politics. Having lost access to the modern equivalent of Formosus’ three fingers – his social media platforms – he can no longer easily convey favours or inspire his followers. But, as we now know, stranger things have happened.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153339/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frederik Pedersen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The story of the ‘Cadaver Synod’ tells us that in some cases, even the departed can be held to account.Frederik Pedersen, Senior Lecturer in History, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1517192020-12-16T16:23:58Z2020-12-16T16:23:58ZBethlehem and beyond: how Christianity’s earliest sites were identified<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375125/original/file-20201215-15-1efy8me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Shrine of the Holy Nativity, Bethlehem, 1849.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Roberts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every Christmas, Bethlehem becomes a focus of global attention as the scene of the Nativity – the birth of Christ. In most years, the town’s centre is crowded with Christian pilgrims. Indeed, many people travel to the Holy Land throughout the year to visit places of religious importance – whether in Jerusalem, Nazareth or around the Sea of Galilee. </p>
<p>But when did Christians start to consider places as holy and begin travelling to them on pilgrimage? Following on from my <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Roman-Period-and-Byzantine-Nazareth-and-its-Hinterland/Dark/p/book/9780367408237">archaeological work in Nazareth</a>, I decided to investigate using both ancient written sources and archaeological evidence. </p>
<p>According to the gospels, Christ taught that there was no such thing as a “holy place”. But by the third century, prominent Christians such as Alexander, later <a href="https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2020/05/16/101397-saint-alexander-archbishop-of-jerusalem">bishop of Jerusalem</a>, and the renowned scholar <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Origen">Origen of Alexandria</a>, were seeking out locations mentioned in the Bible. Even earlier, in the mid-second century, the Christian writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Justin-Martyr">Justin Martyr</a> knew of a cave in Bethlehem said to be the location of the Nativity. </p>
<p>The Gospel of James, sometimes called the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protevangelium-of-James">Protoevangelium of James</a> – which dates from the second century – also mentions such a cave at Bethlehem. While these writers could be referring to different caves, they attest that Bethlehem had at least one Christian holy place within a generation or two of the composition of the Gospel of John, the last of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gospel-New-Testament">canonical gospels</a>. </p>
<p>Written sources show other Christian holy places at a similarly early date. A cave on the Mount of Olives, just outside ancient Jerusalem, was assigned Christian significance in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Acts-of-John#:%7E:text=Acts%20of%20John%2C%20an%20apocryphal,as%20Leucius%20Charinus%2C%20otherwise%20unknown.">Apocryphyal Acts of John</a>, probably written in the late second century. Inside Jerusalem itself, the first-century tomb later revered as the place of Christ’s burial and of the Resurrection (the Holy Sepulchre) may have already been identified as such in the second century. </p>
<p>The fourth-century <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eusebius-of-Caesarea">historian Eusebius</a> says that Hadrian built a temple over the tomb in opposition to its Christian significance and – as Hadrian built temples at, or near, both the Jewish temple at Jerusalem and the most important Samaritan shrine at <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5706/">Mount Gerizim</a> – this may be more than late Roman speculation. Eusebius’s account is also consistent with archaeological evidence for a monumental Roman building on the Holy Sepulchre site later than the first-century tomb and before the fourth-century pilgrimage church there (the Church of the Holy Sepulchre).</p>
<p>Seven other fourth-century pilgrimage churches were on sites with caves at least partly cut out of the rock rather than being wholly natural caverns. As well as the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, these included churches at: Shepherds’ Field(s), a location just outside Bethlehem where the angels were believed to have announced Christ’s birth; the “<em>Eleona</em>” (olive grove) church on the Mount of Olives, a site associated with the Ascension when Christ returned to Heaven; Gethsemane, where Jesus was betrayed by Judas; and Tabgha by the Sea of Galilee, near what was believed to be the site of the Sermon on the Mount. There were also two at Nazareth, associated with the Annunciation – the announcement to Mary by the angel – and with <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Sisters-of-Nazareth-Convent-A-Roman-period-Byzantine-and-Crusader/Dark/p/book/9780367542191">Jesus’ childhood home</a>. </p>
<p>All these fourth-century churches were either located in reference to, or were actually within, the caves. These caves were therefore probably understood as marking the locations of the events associated with their sites in the fourth century.</p>
<p>For example, at Bethlehem, the early fourth-century Church of the Nativity was specifically designed to display the cave as the primary physical focus of the church, and the altar was located in the cave itself. On archaeological grounds alone, the best interpretation of this layout is that the church and its altar were positioned because of the pre-existing religious importance of the cave. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="19-century painting of travellers on hill above ancient Bethlehem." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375129/original/file-20201215-18-1gmngr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375129/original/file-20201215-18-1gmngr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375129/original/file-20201215-18-1gmngr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375129/original/file-20201215-18-1gmngr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375129/original/file-20201215-18-1gmngr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375129/original/file-20201215-18-1gmngr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375129/original/file-20201215-18-1gmngr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bethlehem Ephrata by David Roberts (1796-1864).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This interpretation of the caves in general is supported by written evidence. Eusebius wrote in his <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eusebius-of-Caesarea">Life of Constantine</a> that three great imperial churches were built in the early fourth century at places where crucial moments in the Gospels took place: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the Church of the Nativity; and the “<em>Eleona</em>”. All of these buildings, Eusebius says in his famous <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ecclesiastical-History-by-Eusebius">Ecclesiastical History</a>, were built over pre-existing “caves” – one actually a rock-cut tomb – associated with the events commemorated by their fourth-century churches. </p>
<h2>Pilgrimage trail</h2>
<p>If at least some of the caves at these seven sites were constructed or modified to indicate places of Christian significance prior to the fourth century, they are among the earliest specifically Christian structures yet known. But nothing about them suggests there were more than a few local people involved in their construction, and the varied details of their size and plan suggest they are the products of separate initiatives.</p>
<p>The use of the caves in this way may also imply that they were visited for religious reasons earlier than their fourth-century churches – perhaps the earliest form of Christian pilgrimage. If the events commemorated by them were the same as the dedications of their later churches, then they would form a narrative sequence from the Annunciation to the Resurrection, with each cave (and the tomb at the Holy Sepulchre site) associated with only one event. It is therefore possible that, even before these sites were used for fourth-century churches, Christians travelled between them in a sequence following the order of those events in the Gospels. </p>
<p>This means written and archaeological evidence suggest that the origins of Christian topography and pilgrimage were earlier than usually supposed. If so, the fourth-century imperial church-builders inherited – rather than created – a network of holy places that had probably been emerging gradually over centuries as a consequence of small-scale local, and perhaps low-status, initiatives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Dark
I am a voluntary member of the committee of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society which publishes the journal Strata. However, I receive no financial benefit from this nor from sales of the journal. My article "Returning to the Caves of Mystery: Texts, Archaeology and the Origins of Christian Topography and Pilgrimage" is published in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 2020 Volume 38, 103-124, publishing the author’s Henry Myers Lecture for the Royal Anthropological Institute.</span></em></p>Recent archaeological studies suggest that early Christians were identifying important sites as little as a century after the last of the gospels.Ken Dark, Professor of Archaeology and History, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401252020-06-05T13:18:09Z2020-06-05T13:18:09ZDear Mr Trump: the Bible has a long history as a symbol of protest, so don’t use it as a sign of repression<p>Amid Black Lives Matter protests taking place in Washington DC and nationwide on the evening of Monday June 1, US president Donald Trump walked the short distance from the White House to St John’s Episcopal Church, where he posed outside while holding a Bible above his head. </p>
<p>The photo-op proved <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/trump-bible-st-johns.html">controversial</a> for a number of reasons: tear gas was used on peaceful protestors to clear his path and Trump’s actions seemed to be an incongruous response to the situation at hand.</p>
<p>Trump’s use of the Bible in Monday’s act of political theatre participates in a long history of using sacred texts to legitimise state power. From courtrooms to the US Capitol steps, the Bible is <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/3616">regularly used</a> as a physical symbol of political authority. Such practices in American public life continue a long history of using the Bible as a material object in order to authorise political power – a history that goes back to the late Roman empire.</p>
<p>Though Christians have been interested in the content of their scriptures from the beginning, the use of the physical presence of Christian scriptures as a symbol of power began in a period when Christians faced legislative pressure, marginalisation and violence. We believe the evidence suggests that Christian interest in and defence of their physical books was a response to the aggressive actions of Roman emperors. </p>
<p>In AD249 – in light of challenges to his legitimacy – the newly proclaimed emperor Decius issued a decree that everyone in the empire should perform a sacrifice to the genius (“divine spirit”) of the emperor. In exchange for this display of loyalty to the state, each subject would be provided with a certificate called a <em>libellus</em> (“little book”) as proof of participation and material evidence of loyalty. </p>
<p>Copies of these certificates demonstrate, as historian James Rives <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/300738?seq=1">has shown</a>, that the decree was not aimed specifically at Christians. Nonetheless, it affected Christians in unique ways, and a number were martyred.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340021/original/file-20200605-176554-172shcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saint Reparata prepares to martyr herself before the Emperor Decius.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bernardo Daddi, Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around this period, and arguably in response to Roman demands that people carry certificates of loyalty to the state, Christians began to use their scriptures as physical manifestations of divine presence and power. Just as individuals who had sacrificed to the genius of the emperor were expected to carry their <em>libelli</em>, Christians might carry Gospels – tokens of allegiance to a different divine being.</p>
<p>By the late third century, the Gospels came to represent Christian identity. According to an <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/NPNF2_01_Eusebius_Pamphilius_Church_Hist/taagmnUcsD8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Marinus+the+divine+Gospels">account</a> preserved by the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, the martyr Marinus had to choose between “the divine Gospels” and sacrifice (with the associated <em>libellus</em>), between Christ and Caesar. Marinus chose the Gospels and was accordingly martyred.</p>
<p>Many Christians thought of their sacred texts as powerful objects, manifestations of divine presence and authority. By the early fourth century, Gospel books and folded-up pieces of papyrus or parchment with scriptural passages functioned as amulets to secure healing or ward off evil, a set of practices attested by both <a href="https://www.academia.edu/36333673/_Magic_and_Communal_Boundaries_The_Problems_with_Amulets_in_Chrysostom_Adv._Iud._8_and_Augustine_In_Io._tra._7_Henoch_39_2_2017_227_46">ancient authors</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-amulets-christian-9780199687886?cc=us&lang=en&">archaeological evidence, primarily from ancient Egypt</a>. Before Christians wore crosses around their necks, they wore sacred texts.</p>
<p>In AD303, on the 20th anniversary of his reign, the emperor Diocletian issued his “First Edict” against Christians. Among other things, the edict required destruction of Christian books. Yet a number of Christians throughout the empire defied the imperial command, preferring to die rather than hand over their books.</p>
<p>According to one Latin account, a Sicilian Christian named Euplus <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Scribes_and_Their_Remains/w7KrDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=whoever+gives+up+%5Bthe+scriptures%5D+loses+eternal+life.+euplus&pg=PT63&printsec=frontcover">maintained</a> that “whoever gives up [the scriptures] loses eternal life”. Euplus was executed with his Gospel book hanging from his neck, marking his identity as a Christian.</p>
<p>As a sacred object, the Christian book became <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/714568">a symbol of resistance to imperial power</a>. In one account, a group of Christians from the small North African town of Abitina (modern-day Henchir Chouhoud el Bâtin, Tunisia) defied the imperial decree. This refusal to hand over physical books of scripture was a show of the Abitinian Christians’ loyalty to God over Rome.</p>
<p>Referring to Christian scriptural books as “the law,” the fourth-century martyrdom account <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_DdzpSgtXBYC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Acts+of+the+abitinian+martyrs+the+law&source=bl&ots=xOksV08OrA&sig=ACfU3U0jjlpkkig3J3adAN9f-pWMGm-MKQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtlfejrenpAhV0gnIEHcRKAvEQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20law&f=false">Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs</a> sets up a question of political allegiance: will one follow the law of Christ or the commands of Caesar? The contest between divine law and imperial edict centred on physical scriptures. </p>
<p>To preserve the physical books of scripture was to profess Christian identity and appeal to a higher, divine authority. By contrast, those who handed over sacred books to be destroyed by imperial functionaries renounced their allegiance to God.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340023/original/file-20200605-176575-zdlbeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walters Art Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As North African Christians grappled with the aftermath of Diocletian’s edict, figures such as the bishop Petilian of Cirta (in modern-day Algeria) argued that to hand over the sacred book was to condemn Christ himself to the pyre. In these developing theologies of the book, material scriptures manifest divine authority and even embody Christ himself. The Bible as a book was a source of authority that could challenge even the demands of the Roman empire.</p>
<p>The use of the Bible as a material symbol of divine authority began in response to political oppression and violence. In North Africa in particular, some Christians refused to hand over books for destruction or to accept those who had done so as their religious leaders. </p>
<p>While the history of the Bible as symbol expanded from this point – so that Bibles are held aloft in liturgical spaces and used to cement the authority of legal ceremonies – the symbolic power of the Bible began as a form of political resistance. There is a tragic irony to the fact that a mode of resistance developed by disenfranchised and powerless North African Christians is now weaponised against black people by the most powerful man in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The history of early Christianity shows the power of the Bible used as a sign of resistance against repression at the hands of the Romans.Jeremiah Coogan, Postdoctoral Scholar of the New Testament and Early Christianity, University of Notre DameCandida Moss, Cadbury Professor of Theology, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1052672018-10-23T11:57:07Z2018-10-23T11:57:07ZFantastic Beasts: Grindelwald, dark fantasies and secret societies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241806/original/file-20181023-169816-8ovbm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jaap Buitendijk, photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the end of the Harry Potter fantasy prequel, <a href="https://www.pottermore.com/fantastic-beasts">Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them</a>, we find out about the dark wizard Grindelwald as well as his plan to expose the magical community to the wider, non-magical world. In the next instalment, <a href="https://www.pottermore.com/features/a-closer-look-at-the-characters-of-fantastic-beasts-the-crimes-of-grindelwald">The Crimes of Grindelwald</a>, the wizard escapes from captivity and begins his campaign to take the wizards out of hiding and into the ascendancy. His actions threaten to disrupt the secrecy about magic that ensures the safety of both the magical and non-magical populations.</p>
<p>Like the evil Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the Harry Potter books and films, Grindelwald and his followers resemble a secular version of a coven with Grindelwald fulfilling the role of the devil. His followers must swear their loyalty and do his bidding. In secret meetings, they plot to overthrow society as we know it.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cfjYl_k5LaI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Perhaps because the wizarding world of JK Rowling is intended for family entertainment, few details are provided about the activities at these meetings – but it is clear that Voldemort and his Death Eaters have no qualms about tormenting muggles (non-wizards) and wizards who aren’t pure-blooded for amusement as well as to further their plans. We don’t know that much about Grindelwald yet except that he was expelled from Durmstrang – a wizarding school known for its tolerance of the “Dark Arts” – for conducting “twisted experiments”.</p>
<h2>Dark rituals</h2>
<p>Throughout late medieval and early modern Europe, it was increasingly believed that witches met in secret to engage in dark rites and to plot society’s downfall. In the early 14th century, <a href="https://www.historyireland.com/medieval-history-pre-1500/the-sorcery-trial-of-alice-kyteler-by-bernadette-williams/">Alice Kyteler</a>, a moneylender in Kilkenny, Ireland, was accused of using witchcraft to first infatuate and then murder her four husbands. She and her accomplices would supposedly meet at night to renounce their Christian faith and make potions in the skull of a decapitated robber, using ingredients such as worms, fingernails and hairs from dead bodies, as well as clothing from unbaptised children. Kyteler’s trial is notable for the way it treats witchcraft as a serious act of heresy rather than a petty secular crime. Kyteler herself managed to escape punishment by fleeing Ireland, but her servant Petronilla was tortured and later executed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241813/original/file-20181023-169810-6339ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241813/original/file-20181023-169810-6339ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241813/original/file-20181023-169810-6339ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241813/original/file-20181023-169810-6339ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241813/original/file-20181023-169810-6339ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241813/original/file-20181023-169810-6339ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241813/original/file-20181023-169810-6339ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examination of a Witch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">T. H. Matteson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A century later, <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100021613">Johannes Nider</a> described in the <a href="https://pages.uoregon.edu/dluebke/Witches442/Nider.pdf">Formicarius</a> how witches met in secret in the presence of a demon to reject Christianity. Nider described how witches’ curses caused the death of infants who were then stolen from their graves to be cooked in a cauldron and made into potions. The Formicarius in turn was an important source for the <a href="http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/">Malleus Maleficarum</a> (the Hammer of Witches), which was written in 1486 by <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/heinrich-kramer-and-jacob-sprenger">Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger</a> and first published in Germany in 1487 – just in time to take advantage of the invention of the printing press. It was reprinted multiple times.</p>
<p>As time passed, the depictions of these secret meetings – or Sabbaths – became increasingly extreme, with the witches meeting to perform unspeakable rituals and obscene sexual acts. In 1612, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/225011">Pierre de Lancre</a>, a French magistrate and witch-hunter, describes hearing confessions by accused witches of attending Sabbaths presided over by devils. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241817/original/file-20181023-169801-1lu1qmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241817/original/file-20181023-169801-1lu1qmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241817/original/file-20181023-169801-1lu1qmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241817/original/file-20181023-169801-1lu1qmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241817/original/file-20181023-169801-1lu1qmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241817/original/file-20181023-169801-1lu1qmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241817/original/file-20181023-169801-1lu1qmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Obscene Kiss, an illustration of witches kissing the Devil’s anus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Woodcut by Francesco Maria Guazzo (1608)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After kissing the master’s backside, they would dance naked and then couple with demons and with each other. Artistic depictions of these dark rites also became increasingly extravagant. Witchcraft was seen as a growing threat to Christendom, justifying countless trials and executions.</p>
<h2>Ancient prejudice</h2>
<p>It is possible to trace these claims back to accusations made against heretics throughout the Middle Ages and even against Christians in ancient Rome. A letter written by Pope Gregory in 1233, <em><a href="https://pages.uoregon.edu/dluebke/Witches442/Vox%20in%20Rama.pdf">Vox in Rama</a></em>, describes rituals in which initiates into a heretical sect kiss a monstrous toad and then the hindquarters of a large black cat, followed by an orgy with other members. </p>
<p>Before Christianity was widely accepted in the Roman Empire, there were concerns that Christians <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40929483">conducted secret orgies and cannibal feasts</a> – possibly a misunderstanding of the Christian mass, with its consumption of the body and blood of Christ and the kiss of peace. Christians, like the heretics and witches whom they would later persecute, were also once perceived as a threat to society, embodying values that were seen as abhorrent.</p>
<p>In this way, villains such as Grindelwald and Voldemort reflect contemporary concerns about social justice. They seek to produce a society that would be less tolerant and inclusive – and yet their beliefs are actually more extreme versions of prejudices held more widely in the world of wizards. Destroying the villain does not destroy that which we fear because it is so deeply embedded in society and often within ourselves.</p>
<p>There is little evidence to suggest that there is any truth to these centuries-old accusations, rather they serve as dark fantasies of human society’s deepest anxieties. Throughout history we have projected our worst fears onto our perceived enemies, imagining how they plot in secret together to overthrow everything that we hold most dear – whether it is the established social order, religious faith, or values such as mutual respect and tolerance.</p>
<p>Villains such as Grindelwald and Voldemort are so compelling because they embody these fears and anxieties. The concern that secret groups still plot in the shadows (even if they probably don’t conduct orgies or eat human flesh) is ancient and enduring. But we should be cautious about demonising those with whom we don’t agree. When we project our deepest fears onto others, we can lose sight of their humanity – and that’s when the witch-hunts start in earnest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marta Cobb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The latest film from the wizarding world JK Rowling echoes ancient themes of covens and devil worship.Marta Cobb, Teaching Fellow in Medieval Studies, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1019472018-08-27T10:47:44Z2018-08-27T10:47:44ZWhy it’s so hard to hold priests accountable for sex abuse<p>A <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report/">grand jury report</a> recently found shocking levels of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. It uncovered, in six dioceses, the sexual abuse of over 1,000 children and named 301 perpetrator priests. It also found that religious officials had turned a blind eye to the abuse. </p>
<p>In response, Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church, <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2018/documents/papa-francesco_20180820_lettera-popolo-didio.html">wrote a letter</a> addressed to “the People of God,” saying, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233513/original/file-20180824-149484-18m0uwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233513/original/file-20180824-149484-18m0uwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233513/original/file-20180824-149484-18m0uwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233513/original/file-20180824-149484-18m0uwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233513/original/file-20180824-149484-18m0uwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233513/original/file-20180824-149484-18m0uwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233513/original/file-20180824-149484-18m0uwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parishioners pray ahead of a mass at the Cathedral Church of Saint Patrick in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fact is the pope has the power to ensure that this does not happen again. As a <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/6862.html">scholar of</a> <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/generating-generosity-in-catholicism-and-islam/7886F72585EFB360422F77892679A394">the Catholic Church,</a> I believe an important but often poorly understood reason for the abandonment of abused children is the Church’s <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM">Code of Canon law</a>, which the pope alone can change. </p>
<h2>Early church laws on sex abuse</h2>
<p>Canon laws govern the church and lay out its theology. All Catholic religious officials are <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-clergy-sex-abuse-crisis-and-the-legal-responses-9780199937936?cc=us&lang=en&">bound by them</a>. </p>
<p>Canon law has a complex history. It <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-christianity/growth-of-church-law/10BBE4595485E0DC341BC9A773E6C81A">originated in early Christian communities</a>. Christians, building on the Gospels and other sacred texts, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcs/article/58/2/307/1750930?searchresult=1">developed norms and rules about acceptable practices and behavior</a>, including wrongdoing by clergy. Christian communities usually had rules against religious officials sexually abusing children. They were harsh on sodomy. Punishments could include being <a href="https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/B/Book-of-Gomorrah">smeared with spit and bound in iron chains</a>. </p>
<p>As Christian communities spread throughout the Mediterranean region in the third century A.D., regional meetings were held to discuss rules that could be applied uniformly. </p>
<p>By the fourth century A.D., Christian churches, usually through councils, started issuing authoritative rules accepted by all Christian communities. These came to be called “canons.” The most well-known were those of the Council of Nicaea, convened by Emperor Constantine in A.D. 325. </p>
<p>The enforcement of the canons <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-christianity/growth-of-church-law/10BBE4595485E0DC341BC9A773E6C81A">was put in the hands of church bishops</a>. </p>
<p>As Christianity spread east and west, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7124.html">it struggled</a> with rulers who wanted to control peoples and territories. Diverse rules and norms proliferated. At the same time, over many centuries, various religious leaders and theologians tried to create a uniform system.</p>
<p>It was not until 1917, under Pope Benedict XV, however, that the Church consolidated and revised the many different rules in Western Christendom. This was titled the Code of Canon Law, applicable to all Roman Catholic churches. Only the pope could issue or change canon law. The Orthodox, or “Eastern rite,” churches have a slightly different set of laws. </p>
<p>The Church sometimes turned <a href="https://atfpress.com/product/potiphar-s-wife-the-vatican-s-secret-and-child-sexual-abuse/">errant priests over to civil authorities</a>. </p>
<p>That changed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/6862.html">Church-state battles flared in Europe</a> as secular states rejected the church’s claims to sovereignty. The Church made the handling of clergy child sex abuse an internal matter. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/27/us/new-canon-law-code-in-effect-for-catholics.html">The 1917 code was revised in 1983</a> to take into account changes stemming from the Second Vatican Council, an assembly of Roman Catholic bishops meant to settle doctrinal issues, held between 1962 to 1965. Both versions of the code include canons about sex abuse. </p>
<h2>Under Vatican control</h2>
<p>Here is how canon law changed over the years.</p>
<p>Since 1917, the church dealt with accusations against sexual abuse of children through rules that barred priests from soliciting sex when they were in the confessional.</p>
<p>If priests, when taking a confession, solicited sex, they were viewed as having committed a particularly egregious sin. The confessional is a sacred space and confession a sacred act. </p>
<p>What is noteworthy here is that the concern was about the priest sinning, not about abuse being perpetrated on another. Also, the 1917 code did not have any canons that dealt with sex abuse outside the confessional or sex abuse of minors.</p>
<p>In 1922, the pope issued a set of guidelines, formally called an <a href="http://www.peeters-leuven.be/boekoverz_print.asp?nr=9033">instruction</a>. It tried to deal with cases in which the priest did not directly solicit sex during confession. Clerical sex abuse of minors was a crime if the act was somehow associated with the sacrament of confession. </p>
<p>The instruction was <a href="http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_crimen-sollicitationis-1962_en.html">reissued</a> by Pope John XXIII 40 years later, in 1962. <a href="http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_introd-storica_en.html">The instruction was not officially incorporated</a> into the Code of Canon Law, nor widely circulated.</p>
<p>From 1922 onward, investigations of clergy suspected of sexually abusing children <a href="https://atfpress.com/product/potiphar-s-wife-the-vatican-s-secret-and-child-sexual-abuse/">were to be cloaked in secrecy</a>. This limited bishops from reporting cases to the police, or even to parishioners.</p>
<p>But it was only in the 1983 code that child sex abuse was listed as a crime within the canon about clergy violating their obligation to not have sex. The new code gave the Vatican extensive control over the fate of accused clergy. </p>
<h2>Other forms of ‘correction’</h2>
<p>There was more. <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/IND.0643.001.0001.pdf">A canon about avoiding “scandal” compounded the secrecy issue</a>. It was a sin, and a violation of canon law, to do anything that would cause “scandal” to the faithful by leading them to sin or question their faith. </p>
<p>If a bishop, for example, were to make known that a priest had sexually abused children in his diocese, the bishop, and not just the priest, would be guilty under canon law of causing scandal – because information about the abuse might cause Catholics to question their faith – as indeed, <a href="http://archive.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/betrayal/">it often has</a>. </p>
<p>Also included was <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P50.HTM">a requirement that bishops provide priests with funds</a> when the priests were removed from ministry, but not dismissed from the clerical state (not “laicized” or “defrocked”). </p>
<p>Thus, what to Catholics and those outside the institution <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report/">looks like the morally dubious practice of paying child sex abusers</a> is to the hierarchy a fulfillment of their obligations.</p>
<p>Under the 1917 code, bishops, under certain conditions, could dismiss priests from the clerical state, and without a canonical trial. But it could be done only after it was determined that <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P50.HTM">there was no possibility of reform</a>. </p>
<p>If a priest claimed his abuse was due to pedophilia or other psychological disorders, canon law provided for a more lenient punishment. The priest could be regarded as <a href="http://www.peeters-leuven.be/boekoverz_print.asp?nr=9033">not being fully responsible for his actions</a>. </p>
<h2>Escaping accountability</h2>
<p>The 1983 revision put forward by Pope John Paul II to the entire code made it impossible for bishops to dismiss priests. Authority for doing so became centralized in the Vatican. </p>
<p>At the time, the pope appeared to be responding to a wave of priests abandoning the priesthood. However, the change ended up <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-clergy-sex-abuse-crisis-and-the-legal-responses-9780199937936?cc=us&lang=en&">constraining the bishops</a>. They had to retain the abusive priests unless the latter were found guilty at a canonical trial and the Vatican – officially, the pope – agreed to dismiss them. </p>
<p>At most, bishops could suspend priests’ clerical faculties: that is, priests’ authorization to say mass and administer other sacraments, or present themselves publicly as priests, for a short time. But they could not do so permanently.</p>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-clergy-sex-abuse-crisis-and-the-legal-responses-9780199937936?cc=us&lang=en&">The 1983 code</a> also reduced the maximum time within which proceedings could be initiated against priests having sex with a child to five years. </p>
<p>With victims often, understandably, not coming forward for years, that meant many priests escaped internal punishment by the Vatican. </p>
<p>Canonical trials also <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-clergy-sex-abuse-crisis-and-the-legal-responses-9780199937936?cc=us&lang=en&">require the cooperation of the victim as a witness</a> and are another obstacle to holding priests accountable. The code has encouraged the very inaction by bishops that <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2018/documents/papa-francesco_20180820_lettera-popolo-didio.html">the pope condemns</a>.</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol44/iss4/4/">no provisions in canon law</a> that specify what is to be done if <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674028104">a bishop has failed to act</a> on a case of suspected or actual child sex abuse.</p>
<h2>Power lies with the pope</h2>
<p>Since 2001, in a further centralizing move, the Vatican has required that bishops send all cases of substantiated allegations of child sex abuse to its <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-clergy-sex-abuse-crisis-and-the-legal-responses-9780199937936?cc=us&lang=en&">Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith</a>. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is located at the Vatican, and is usually headed by a powerful Cardinal. </p>
<p>Its job is to <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/storia/documents/rc_con_cfaith_storia_20150319_promuovere-custodire-fede_en.html">“promote and safeguard the faith</a>.”</p>
<p>The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith may tell the bishop to conduct a canonical trial, may conduct one itself, or accept or reject a request for dismissal and apply conditions. Priests can appeal the verdicts and sentences. The <a href="https://www.andersonadvocates.com/Documents/Key_Milwaukee_Documents/Final_Weakland_Deposition.pdf">Vatican sometimes</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-clergy-sex-abuse-crisis-and-the-legal-responses-9780199937936?cc=us&lang=en&">overrules bishops</a> <a href="http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/02/27/pope-reduces-sanctions-against-some-paedophile-priests/">who want to dismiss priests</a>. </p>
<p>Although it is entirely within his power to do so, Pope Francis has not altered the Code of Canon Law with regard to clergy child sex abuse and how it is handled by bishops. </p>
<p>For the church truly to hold priests and their bishops accountable for child sex abuse, this is an important step.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn M. Warner received funding from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University to support a year of research and writing, 2017-2018. </span></em></p>An expert explains how a complex set of canon laws and trials are the major obstacle to holding priests accountable. The power to take action is often vested in the Vatican.Carolyn M. Warner, Associate Director of Graduate Studies & Professor, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/976702018-07-19T10:40:57Z2018-07-19T10:40:57ZWhat is heaven?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228255/original/file-20180718-142411-frvoey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Illustration of Dante's Paradiso.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Pd10_BL_Yates_Thompson_36_f147.jpg">Giovanni di Paolo </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a family member or a friend passes away, we often find ourselves reflecting on the question “where are they now?” As mortal beings, it is a question of ultimate significance to each of us. </p>
<p>Different cultural groups, and different individuals within them, respond with numerous, often conflicting, answers to questions about life after death. For many, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heaven-hell/">these questions are rooted </a> in the idea of reward for the good (a heaven) and punishment for the wicked (a hell), where earthly injustices are finally righted.</p>
<p>However, these common roots do not guarantee contemporary agreement on the nature, or even the existence, of hell and heaven. Pope Francis himself has raised Catholic eyebrows over some of his <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-hugs-comforts-little-boy-who-asked-atheist-dad-was-heaven-891113">comments on heaven</a>, recently telling a young boy that his deceased father, an atheist, was with God in heaven because, by his careful parenting, “he had a good heart.” </p>
<p>So, what is the Christian idea of “heaven”? </p>
<h2>Beliefs about what happens at death</h2>
<p>The earliest Christians believed that Jesus Christ, risen from the dead after his crucifixion, would soon return, to complete what he had begun by his preaching: the establishment of the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1L.HTM">Kingdom of God</a>. This Second Coming of Christ would bring an end to the effort of unification of all humanity in Christ and result in a final resurrection of the dead and moral judgment of all human beings.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228257/original/file-20180718-142428-1b4d1pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christians believe, when Christ returns, the dead too will rise in renewed bodies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/waitingfortheword/5589922997">Waiting For The Word</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the middle of the first century A.D., Christians became concerned about the fate of members of their churches who had already died before this Second Coming. </p>
<p>Some of the earliest documents in the Christian New Testament, <a href="http://andrewjacobs.org/newtest/paulparts.htm">epistles</a> or letters written by the apostle Paul, offered an answer. The dead have simply fallen <a href="http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-20.htm">asleep</a>, they explained. When Christ <a href="http://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/4-16.htm">returns</a>, the dead, too, would rise in renewed bodies, and be judged by Christ himself. Afterwards, they would be united with him forever.</p>
<p>A few <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/athenagoras-resurrection.html">theologians</a> in the early centuries of Christianity agreed. But a growing consensus developed that the souls of the dead were held in a kind of <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103531.htm">waiting state</a> until the end of the world, when they would be once again reunited with their bodies, resurrected in a more perfected form.</p>
<h2>Promise of eternal life</h2>
<p>After <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Constantine_I/">Roman Emperor Constantine</a> legalized Christianity in the early fourth century, the number of Christians grew enormously. Millions converted across the Empire, and by the century’s end, the old Roman state religion was prohibited. </p>
<p>Based on the <a href="http://biblehub.com/john/3-5.htm">Gospels</a>, bishops and theologians emphasized that the promise of eternal life in heaven was open only to the baptized – that is, those who had undergone the ritual immersion in water which cleansed the soul from sin and marked one’s entrance into the church. All others were damned to eternal separation from God and punishment for sin.</p>
<p>In this new Christian empire, baptism was increasingly administered to infants. Some theologians challenged this practice, since infants could not yet commit sins. But in the Christian west, the belief in “<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15011.htm">original sin</a>” – the sin of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God’s command in the Garden of Eden (the “Fall”) – predominated.</p>
<p>Following the teachings of the fourth century saint <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/theologians/augustine-of-hippo.html">Augustine</a>, Western theologians in the fifth century A.D. believed that even infants were born with the sin of Adam and Eve marring their spirit and will. </p>
<p>But this doctrine raised a troubling question: What of those infants who died before baptism could be administered? </p>
<p>At first, theologians taught that their souls went to Hell, but suffered very little if at all. </p>
<p>The concept of <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm">Limbo</a> developed from this idea. Popes and <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/6001.htm">theologians</a> in the 13th century taught that the souls of unbaptized babies or young children enjoyed a state of natural happiness on the “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DL%3Aentry+group%3D24%3Aentry%3Dlimbus">edge</a>” of Hell, but, like those punished more severely in Hell itself, were denied the bliss of the presence of God.</p>
<h2>Time of judgment</h2>
<p>During times of war or plague in antiquity and the Middle Ages, Western Christians often interpreted the social chaos as a sign of the end of the world. However, as the centuries passed, the Second Coming of Christ generally became a more remote event for most Christians, still awaited but relegated to an indeterminate future. Instead, Christian theology focused more on the moment of individual death. </p>
<p>Judgment, the evaluation of the moral state of each human being, was no longer postponed until the end of the world. Each soul was first judged individually by Christ immediately after death (the “Particular” Judgment), as well as at the Second Coming (the Final or General Judgment). </p>
<p>Deathbed rituals or “Last Rites” developed from earlier rites for the sick and penitent, and most had the opportunity to confess their sins to a priest, be anointed, and receive a “final” communion before breathing their last.</p>
<p>Medieval Christians prayed to be protected from a sudden or unexpected death, because they feared baptism alone was not enough to enter heaven directly without these Last Rites. </p>
<p>Another doctrine had developed. Some died still guilty of lesser or <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P6C.HTM">venial sins</a>, like common gossip, petty theft, or minor lies that did not completely deplete one’s soul of God’s grace. After death, these souls would first be “purged” of any remaining sin or guilt in a spiritual state called Purgatory. After this spiritual cleansing, usually visualized as fire, they would be pure enough to enter heaven. </p>
<p>Only those who were extraordinarily virtuous, such as the saints, or those who had received the Last Rites, could enter directly into heaven and the presence of God.</p>
<h2>Images of heaven</h2>
<p>In antiquity, the first centuries of the Common Era, Christian heaven shared certain characteristics with both Judaism and Hellenistic religious thought on the afterlife of the virtuous. One was that of an almost physical rest and refreshment as after a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ltZBUW_F9ogC&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=new+testament+damned+thirst&source=bl&ots=4CRCLTnLiz&sig=X0xkGiLY935HTFsVOKOIWtA53u4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwid8bPi9JXcAhUvc98KHbwdADsQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=new%20testament%20damned%20thirst&f=false">desert</a> journey, often accompanied by descriptions of banquets, fountains or rivers. In the Bible’s <a href="http://biblehub.com/revelation/22-1.htm">Book of Revelation</a>, a symbolic description of the end of the world, the river running through God’s New Jerusalem was called the river “of the water of life.” However, in the <a href="http://biblehub.com/luke/16-24.htm">Gospel of Luke</a>, the damned were tormented by thirst. </p>
<p>Another was the image of light. Romans and Jews thought of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-94560">abode of the wicked</a> as a place of darkness and shadows, but the divine dwelling place was filled with bright light. Heaven was also charged with positive emotions: peace, joy, love, and the bliss of spiritual fulfillment that Christians came to refer to as the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=o1AnBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT467&lpg=PT467&dq=new+catholic+encyclopedia+heaven&source=bl&ots=4_H8BPDrB3&sig=R5SXCaIMWkh3WGYXMvKvj3wTaac&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjB1b-g_srbAhWi44MKHXO-ASo4ChDoAQgoMAA#v=snippet&q=medieval&f=false">Beatific Vision</a>, the presence of God. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228263/original/file-20180718-142417-1ee1rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beato_angelico,_predella_della_pala_di_fiesole_01.jpg">Fra Angelico</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visionaries and poets used a variety of additional images: flowering meadows, colors beyond description, trees filled with fruit, company and <a href="http://www.italianrenaissance.org/bellinis-san-zaccaria-altarpiece/">conversation</a> with family or <a href="http://www.italianrenaissance.org/bellinis-san-zaccaria-altarpiece/">white-robed others among the blessed</a>. Bright angels stood behind the dazzling throne of God and sang praise in exquisite melodies.</p>
<p>The Protestant Reformation, begun in 1517, would break sharply with the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe in the 16th century. While both sides would argue about the existence of Purgatory, or whether only some were predestined by God to enter heaven, the existence and general nature of heaven itself was not an issue. </p>
<h2>Heaven as the place of God</h2>
<p>Today, theologians offer a variety of opinions about the nature of heaven. The Anglican C. S. Lewis wrote that even one’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vMI2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116&dq=lewis+animals+heaven&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIu4n-65XcAhWjTd8KHYPIBjsQ6AEINTAC#v=onepage&q=lewis%20animals%20immortality&f=false">pets</a> might be admitted, united in love with their owners as the owners are united in Christ through baptism. </p>
<p>Following the nineteenth-century <a href="http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanto.htm">Pope Pius IX</a>, Jesuit Karl Rahner taught that even <a href="http://www.philosopherkings.co.uk/Rahner.html">non-Christians</a> and non-believers could still be saved through Christ if they lived according to similar values, an idea now found in the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3M.HTM">Catholic Catechism</a>. </p>
<p>The Catholic Church itself has dropped the idea of Limbo, leaving the fate of unbaptized infants to “<a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3M.HTM">the mercy of God</a>.” One theme remains constant, however: Heaven is the presence of God, in the company of others who have responded to God’s call in their own lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne M. Pierce is a Roman Catholic member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the USA, a national ecumenical dialogue group sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Episcopal Church.</span></em></p>Different cultural groups respond with numerous, often conflicting, answers to questions about life after death. An expert explains the Christian idea of heaven.Joanne M. Pierce, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875802018-01-19T11:40:59Z2018-01-19T11:40:59ZTolerating distraction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202347/original/file-20180117-53307-9wrdp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should we be more patient with those we view as distracted?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/654532294?src=goBiye55Vs3JMtGBl0UU_A-1-78&size=huge_jpg">Serhii Bobyk/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A constant complaint in our unpredictable world is that we live in an age of distraction. </p>
<p>I am quick to label students who stare at their phones in my class distracted; politicians <a href="http://time.com/4523851/donald-trump-apology-access-hollywood/">dismiss inconvenient questions</a> by calling them a distraction; and when we find distraction in ourselves, we blame it on technology. In other words, we think of attention as a rare and valuable commodity, and we assume that distraction is a problem with an identifiable cause. </p>
<p>Consider for a moment, what would a medieval monk or a 17th-century preacher make of our complaints about modern distraction? </p>
<p>I argue, they would, in all likelihood, find them strange. To be sure, they too felt distracted, all the time. But, as my research on premodern Christianity shows, they thought of distraction as the human condition itself. Above all, they maintained a remarkably patient attitude toward it.</p>
<h2>Are attention and distraction similar?</h2>
<p>I offer an account of this Christian prehistory of attention and distraction in my book, <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo24957377.html">“Death Be Not Proud: The Art of Holy Attention</a>.” Although I wrote the book as a Renaissance scholar, while working on it I was constantly reminded of the topic’s relevance in contemporary life. What has intrigued me most then and now is the cultural values we associate with distraction and attention.</p>
<p>The dichotomy between good attention and bad distraction is so fundamental that it is written into the very language we use to talk about attending. Consider the phrase “I pay attention.” It implies that attention is valuable, a type of currency we deliberately and consciously invest in. When I pay attention, I am in control of my action, and I am aware of its value. </p>
<p>Now compare this with the phrase “I am distracted.” Suddenly we are dealing with a passive and vulnerable subject who suffers an experience without doing much to contribute to it. </p>
<p>But there are reasons to question this dichotomy. Students who are “distracted” by their phones could just as well be described as paying attention to their Facebook feed; the question that the politician dismisses as a distraction probably calls attention to a matter that actually deserves it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202350/original/file-20180117-53328-129qf94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Do attention and distraction refer to the same behavior?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elderly-couple-listening-music-on-mp3-102460025?src=z1JNNA0CJwLZ72mrJB9SRw-1-17">StockLite/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, it is reasonable to ask whether attention and distraction are simply two morally and culturally charged terms referring to what in reality is the same behavior. We label this behavior distraction when we disapprove of its objects and objectives; and we call it attention when we approve of them. </p>
<p>One would expect this moralizing discourse of attention and distraction to be especially prevalent in Christianity. In popular imagination, medieval monks shut out the outside world, and Reformation preachers have issued stern warnings to their congregation to resist the distractions of life.</p>
<p>But while it is true that historical Christianity took distraction seriously, it also had a nuanced and often remarkably tolerant attitude toward it.</p>
<h2>Early views toward distraction</h2>
<p>Consider the <a href="http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/JohnDonne/id/3153/rec/6">following passage</a> from the English poet and preacher John Donne’s 17th-century sermon: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I am not all here, I am here now preaching upon this text, and I am at home in my Library considering whether S[aint] Gregory, or S[aint] Hierome, have said best of this text, before. I am here speaking to you, and yet I consider by the way, in the same instant, what it is likely you will say to one another, when I have done. You are not all here neither; you are here now, hearing me, and yet you are thinking that you have heard a better Sermon somewhere else, of this text before.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Donne was known to his contemporaries as a masterful speaker, and this passage shows why: In just a few sentences, he calls his congregation’s attention to their distractedness and admits that even he, the preacher is only partly focused on the here and the now. In other words, Donne uses the distraction he shares with his audience to forge both a community and a moment of attentiveness. </p>
<p>Its rhetorical flair aside, Donne’s sermon expresses an old and fairly orthodox Christian view about distraction’s ubiquity. The most influential early exponent of this view is St. Augustine, one of the Church Fathers of Western Christianity. In his autobiographical work, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=sDdRAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=augustine+the+confessions&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrkK33xs_YAhUCy2MKHWb2DHcQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=augustine%20the%20confessions&f=false">The Confessions</a>,” Augustine observes that every time we pay attention to one thing, we are distracted from infinitely many other things. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202349/original/file-20180117-53314-1hamt37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St. Augustine, Lightner Museum, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiffany_Window_of_St_Augustine_-_Lightner_Museum.jpg">Louis Comfort Tiffany via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This simple observation has far-reaching implications. </p>
<p>First, Augustine sees attention and distraction as merely different aspects of the same action. But instead of moralizing these aspects, he finds the inevitability of distraction to be a fundamental feature of the human condition, that is, the very thing that distinguishes us from God.</p>
<p>Augustine’s God is not only omniscient and omnipotent but also <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120111.htm">omni-attentive</a> – not a term that Augustine uses, but he describes God as being able to attend to all things in both time and space simultaneously. </p>
<p>This is a complicated claim, but for now it is enough for us to see its consequences: Human creatures may aspire to be God-like in their acts of attention, but every such act produces more evidence that they are in fact humans – which in turn will make them appreciate attention even more. </p>
<h2>What is the relevance of distraction?</h2>
<p>The modern anxiety about distraction betrays a good deal about us. Insofar as we associate attention with power and control, it reflects our fears of losing both in an increasingly unpredictable cultural and natural climate. We also find ourselves living in an economy where we pay for cultural goods with our attention, so it makes sense that we worry about running out of a precious currency.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202351/original/file-20180117-53295-1ddvtg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Distraction, a valuable experience?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/daliscar/28176621700/in/photolist-JVSxYq-s9yu9L-HUXXs-F6F7f3-i8SCMd-9vAzN2-W8gdZ4-x8T3v-dU9Epk-AedDdL-7Kf6BE-5zBZ4R-9xxf8P-4p43bQ-4gjVkU-FAk2H-qV9Yjy-pyvcJh-brXyci-V7X8SP-HHWonJ-oVQZYN-BQp7X-4vAtF6-FqhpG-qgUcbp-exocB3-QVwsDJ-asV1xj-8A2oaR-tPNPV-Uub4FL-7A7nv6-6ULtbt-9W5d5q-5oYjVk-eeqeNP-84R3R-8DMvx-9qZgdm-6ZKCPC-kUPawn-gwmAC2-bzTo93-6FKjPY-qFHjF5-MeoyfH-5VnWpq-hnnoBc-dAaBqG">daliscar1</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>It is then intriguing to see how historical Christian views about attention and distraction both foreshadow some of these anxieties and counter them. For Augustine and his followers, attention was a rare and valuable experience, perhaps even more than for us since they associated it with the divine. </p>
<p>One might expect that as a result they should have simply dismissed distraction. The fact that they didn’t is what gives their thoughts continuing relevance today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Marno received funding from the Hellman Foundation and the Andrew D. Mellon Foundation. </span></em></p>We disapprove of distraction and consider attention as being valuable. What if they were, in fact, morally charged words, referring to the same behavior? Here’s what early Christian monks thought.David Marno, Associate Professor, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.