Ancient writings saved by early Christians?

[This Guy]

At first glance, the manuscript appears to be a medieval Christian prayer book.

But on the same pages as the prayers, experts using a high-tech imaging system have discovered commentary likely written in the third century A.D. on a work written around 350 B.C. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070426-aristotle-book.html

I wonder if we would have these ancient writings if the Christian prayer book had not been written over them?

I'm gonna guess no. Just because I figure MANY similar books that were not written over have vanished.

Interesting that we have the tech know how to recover those writings!

[triadboy]

I wonder if we would have these ancient writings if the Christian prayer book had not been written over them?


We would have even more ancient writings if fanatical xians hadn't destroyed every "pagan" text they could find.

[This Guy]

We would have even more ancient writings if fanatical xians hadn't destroyed every "pagan" text they could find.

I think that goes without saying. (but glad you said it ;))

We know early Christians took over many worship places of "pagan" sects, and put their artifacts on top of, or in place of the earlier ones. And destroyed writings and what have you from other religions.

But, do you think, in this case, the Christians did us a favor by overwriting the ancient text? I'm thinking yes.

Now, I don't mean to imply they intended to do us a favor! Just that it worked out that way despite them :)

[geni]

We would have even more ancient writings if fanatical xians hadn't destroyed every "pagan" text they could find.

Doubtful. "Pagan" texts were not a significant ammount of those lost. Most of the suff that was lost was due to highly secular forces. if the general population can't read they are not going to look after any books. The church had a fair number of people who could read and while their preservation efforts were patchy they did a better job than anyone else in europe.

[Beerina]

I think that goes without saying. (but glad you said it ;))

We know early Christians took over many worship places of "pagan" sects, and put their artifacts on top of, or in place of the earlier ones. And destroyed writings and what have you from other religions.

And the worst of all was the guy who destroyed the Great Library at Alexandria, with god knows how many tens of thousands of ancient scrolls, was later made a saint by the Pope.

As far as preserving ancient cultures goes, it makes what the Taliban in Afghanistan did to those old statues pale to vanishing insignificance.

I'm sure a detailed description of proto Christianity and proto Judaism existed in there, giving a complete taxonomy of the evolution of it all as it evolved from various other relgions in the region. But even if that wasn't there, it would still be invaluable for many other reasons, most of which we'll never know.

But, do you think, in this case, the Christians did us a favor by overwriting the ancient text? I'm thinking yes.

Sad, but true. Thankfully paper was so hard to get, they frequently erased old stuff to re-use it. And now we can extract it all! :)

Erasing vs. destruction, I'll take erasing. Modern tech waves away the erasing with no problem.

[ceo_esq]

The church had a fair number of people who could read and while their preservation efforts were patchy they did a better job than anyone else in europe.

I'd have to agree generally here. As far as the preservation of ancient writings, Christianity seems to have had a net favorable impact. Without the monastic scriptoria, the universities and so forth, only a fraction of the known texts would likely have survived at all. In most cases, the earliest extant classical MSS are medieval copies. And some ancient works are known only from quotation in early Christian commentaries. Even for texts obviously inconsistent with - or even antipathetic toward - Christian belief (Celsus is a good example), the overall Christian tendency seems to have run more to preservation and analysis than to destruction.

[ceo_esq]

And the worst of all was the guy who destroyed the Great Library at Alexandria, with god knows how many tens of thousands of ancient scrolls, was later made a saint by the Pope.

No one knows (pace Edward Gibbons) how or by whom the Great Library was destroyed. I pointed this out to you the last time (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1486820#post1486820) you blamed Christianity for it.

[triadboy]

But, do you think, in this case, the Christians did us a favor by overwriting the ancient text? I'm thinking yes.


Because of a lack of paper - an inadvertent "favor" was done.

[triadboy]

"Pagan" texts were not a significant ammount of those lost.

By "Pagan", I mean non-Christian.

[ceo_esq]

Because of a lack of paper - an inadvertent "favor" was done.

Let's not forget that while the works on the recycled pages were by pagan authors, what was being recycled was older copies of those pagan texts made by Byzantine Christian scribes, probably not unlike the fellow who ended up recycling them a couple of centuries later. The real favor the Christians did us in this instance - and it was hardly inadvertent - was copying the pagan works down in the first place. If they hadn't made the copies, the works would have been lost for good long before the palimpsest had a chance to be made in the 13th century - so let's give credit where credit is due.

[triadboy]

Let's not forget that while the works on the recycled pages were by pagan authors, what was being recycled was older copies of those pagan texts made by Byzantine Christian scribes,...

I don't know that this is true. Why would a Byzantine Christian scribes copy Archemedes works (or whomever)?

[This Guy]

Let's not forget that while the works on the recycled pages were by pagan authors, what was being recycled was older copies of those pagan texts made by Byzantine Christian scribes, probably not unlike the fellow who ended up recycling them a couple of centuries later. The real favor the Christians did us in this instance - and it was hardly inadvertent - was copying the pagan works down in the first place. If they hadn't made the copies, the works would have been lost for good long before the palimpsest had a chance to be made in the 13th century - so let's give credit where credit is due.

I suspect most of this is true, but I can't say that with authority.

We are however pretty sure that not everything passed down from the Christian Scribes was passed down with complete accuracy.

Most scholars agree that what we have now for Josephus' Antiquities have at least some Christian modifications in the area of the The Testimonium Flavianum (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html) for an example.

[ceo_esq]

I don't know that this is true. Why would a Byzantine Christian scribes copy Archemedes works (or whomever)?

Speaking broadly, I daresay the answer is that they did it for the same basic reasons medieval monks and lay Christian scholars copied the available ancient Latin and Greek texts (literary, scientific, philosophical, theological, etc.) all over Europe. These were people who cherished knowledge and learning, and who couldn't just pop round to W.H. Smith's to buy a replacement when the library's edition of Archimedes started to get a bit dog-eared. More specifically, the Archimedes Palimpsest Project website (http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/palimpsest_history1.html) indicates that the scavenged Archimedes manuscript (as opposed to the prayer book written on top of it) dates from the 10th century and was almost certainly written at Constantinople, which at the time was the pre-eminent center of Archimedes scholarship:

Specifically, the study of Archimedes texts can be associated with the work of Leo the Geometer. Leo the Geometer was the cousin of John VII Morocharzianus, who was Patriarch in Constantinople between 837 and 843. ... [H]e took up the charge of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus (829-842) to educate the public in the church of the Forty Martyrs in Constantinople. ... In the late 850's the assistant Emperor, Bardas, founded a school in the Imperial Palace, under Leo's direction. ... We know few of the details of Leo's school, but we can assume that it was a center of learning. Two surviving manuscripts containing texts by Archimedes contain inscriptions praising Leo the Geometer. It seems highly likely that it was as a result of his work that manuscripts of Archimedes were copied in this period.


You didn't think that the parchments themselves had been made and written on by ancient pagans, did you? Of course they were medieval copies of ancient works. The oldest existing versions of most ancient works are medieval, in fact.

[triadboy]

Speaking broadly, I daresay the answer is that they did it for the same basic reasons medieval monks and lay Christian scholars copied the available ancient Latin and Greek texts (literary, scientific, philosophical, theological, etc.) all over Europe. These were people who cherished knowledge and learning, ...


The Church burned enormous amounts of literature. In 391, Christians burned down one of the world's greatest libraries in Alexandria, said to have housed 700,000 rolls. All the books of the Gnostic Basilides, Porphyry's 36 volumes, papyrus rolss gathered by Ptolemy Philadelphus were burned. Ancient academies of learning were closed. Education for anyone outside of the Church came to an end.

[Gregory the Great]...had the library of the Palatine Apollo burned "lest its secular literature distract the faithful from the contemplation of heaven."

The Fourth Council of Carthage in 398 forbade bishops to even read the books of gentiles. Jerome, a Church Father and early monastic in the fourth century, rejoiced that the classical authors were being forgotten. And his younger monastic contemporaries were known to boast of their ignorance of everything except Christian literature.

The Dark Side of Christian History Helen Ellerbe

They cherished knowledge and learning?! I don't believe it.

[Jorghnassen]

In 391, Christians burned down one of the world's greatest libraries in Alexandria...

Funny... Didn't Hypatia die in 415? That's a long, slow burn...

[blutoski]

Funny... Didn't Hypatia die in 415? That's a long, slow burn...

The Library had been destroyed many times by Hypatia's era. By then, it was a shadow of its original glory.

Recall that Julius Caesar is also accused of setting fire the library in an attempt to get out of a sige by the Egyptian monarchy. I believe that would have been around 48BCE. 47?

That was one of the big discoveries by Gibbon that interplayed with the Enlightenment: the Romans were not the epitome of civilization. And not everything bad that had happened in the late classical era since Caesar was the fault of the Roman monarchy, barbarians, or Christian theocracy. Ordinary Romans had destroyed and disassembled Rome, its buildings, books, and other treasures, fighting in 1,000 years of petty theft and clan warfare.

[Jorghnassen]

The Library had been destroyed many times by Hypatia's era. By then, it was a shadow of its original glory.

[...snipped...]


That is somewhat the point I was trying to make (given that Hypatia's murder is often associated with the destruction of the Library), by sort of echoing ceo_esq's post #7 in the thread.

[triadboy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_of_Alexandria

In 391, Theophilus (according to Rufinus and Sozomen) discovered a hidden pagan temple. He and his followers displayed the pagan artifacts to the public which offended the pagans enough to provoke an attack on the Christians. The Christian faction counter-attacked, forcing the pagans to retreat to the Serapeum. A letter was sent by the emperor that Theophilus should grant the offending pagans pardon, but destroy the temple.

The destruction of the Serapeum was seen by many ancient and modern authors as representative of the triumph of Christianity over other religions; when Christians lynched Hypatia, they acclaimed Theophilus's successor Cyril as "the new Theophilus, for he had destroyed the last remains of idolatry in the city" (Chronicle of John of Nikiu).

[geni]

They cherished knowledge and learning?! I don't believe it.

Why not? to an extent they needed it. The bible meant they needed to know how to read and the management of a large relgious establishment would ensure practical aplication of such.

But Archimedes was an important part of the philospophy of the time and the science. When the Venerable Bede wrote that the like a playground ball that wasn't from careful measurements of the sun but from Archimedes.

For theology you need philosophy. For building on a reasonable scale geometry comes in handy.

Then you have the more dirrectly practical aplications such as an Archimedian screw.

Aditionaly everyone else was worse. At least the monks would know that a book could be something other than fuel for a fire and would be able to read them. The same could not be said of wider society.

[Beerina]

No one knows (pace Edward Gibbons) how or by whom the Great Library was destroyed. I pointed this out to you the last time (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1486820#post1486820) you blamed Christianity for it.

Well, Carl Sagan said it in Cosmos. You'll pardon me if I trust the source. :)

[cj.23]

Yes Sagan was completely wrong in that clip from Cosmos, I saw it too, and recently spent some time explaining why it was cobblers over on Dawkins.net. History was not Sagan's strong suit, and his researchers clearly did not check! Whenever it is watched by friends I also have to explain what Neo-Platonism was, and why most atheists today would be less than enthusiastic about Hypatia's beliefs, and the point that her death was universally mourned in all the sources we have about it - all Christian chronicles. She was killed by a mob, to the great distress of all the Church chroniclers, who praise her intelligence, virtue and dignity. She was also incidentally very elderly, which makes her cruel death all the more horrific I think.

I see the multiple burning of the Library is already clarified - yes, and I'm getting really bored with correcting this. Can't someone edit re-runs of Cosmos to get rid of it, or issue a correction at the end?

Incidentally I would not trust The Dark Side of Christian History on anything. Review to follow, and maybe Skepticwiki article on what is wrong with this book in terms of factual content. :)

cj x

[triadboy]

Incidentally I would not trust The Dark Side of Christian History on anything. Review to follow, and maybe Skepticwiki article on what is wrong with this book in terms of factual content. :)

My nipples are exploding in anticipation.

[blutoski]

Why not? to an extent they needed it. The bible meant they needed to know how to read and the management of a large relgious establishment would ensure practical aplication of such.

But Archimedes was an important part of the philospophy of the time and the science. When the Venerable Bede wrote that the like a playground ball that wasn't from careful measurements of the sun but from Archimedes.

For theology you need philosophy. For building on a reasonable scale geometry comes in handy.

Then you have the more dirrectly practical aplications such as an Archimedian screw.

Aditionaly everyone else was worse. At least the monks would know that a book could be something other than fuel for a fire and would be able to read them. The same could not be said of wider society.

Yes, by every measure, the late antiquity period - basically up to 480ish - could be described as Christianity-based-on-Roman/Greek philosophy. Every educated Roman would have had to learn his Plato and Pliny, and needed to explain virtue ethics backwards and forwads. After the collapse of Western Roman governance, this ended quite abruptly, and the Church was all that remained of civilization in Europe, preserving these ideals as best they could. The Eastern Roman tradition could arguably have been preserving these up to the 11th century. People quibble about this.

The fundamental conflict that skeptics refer to between church and science didn't materialize until the period of the Reformation. The ramifications of the Thirty Years War included a retrenchment of religious dogmatism, and the regard for religious dispute as political/military threat. This was not just a Catholic thing.

Even among scientists, the first challenge was to explain why you're rejecting Ptolemy, rather than why you're defying the Church. Arguably, the Church's obsession with preserving these old texts was itself a roadblock for scientific progress.

Most of the destruction was conducted by the pagan conquerors of Rome, which would include pretty much everybody but the Goths, who were Christianized and seemed to be what I refer to as "soft sackers" of Roman cities, basically stealing gold and jewels, rather than destroying things. The other major players were Visigoths and Vandals in Gaul, Hispania, Africa, and Italia in particular, who more or less raped, killed, and burned anything that was Rome, replacing it with despotic regimes that had no time for book learnin'.

Surprisingly, another force for preserving these texts was the Moslem Arabic (Moorish) conquerors who swept through North Africa, right up to Spain. When the Christian forces liberated Toledo from Moorish control in around 1085, they found a huge collection of Roman and Greek works, which is why the Spanish Alfonso dynasty is often considered the crucible of modern astronomy.

[ceo_esq]

History was not Sagan's strong suit ...

I have to agree with you here.