The root of Christianity

[DrZoidberg]

The siege of Nicea

In spring of 1097 The crusader armies were ferried over to Anatolia and started besieging Nicea (very close to Constantinople on the Anatolian side). They are miffed that the Byzantinian emperor aren’t joining them. They’re going on a huge crusade to retake lands for his benefit and he can’t be bothered to join in. But from his perspective it makes perfect sense. The Crusader army is bigger than whatever ramshackle troops he can scrape together. Nothing would stop them from slitting his throat at any opportunity. If the Crusader would be successful, and he would be in their army they would be able to twist his arm to get any concession. He didn’t want that. He wanted all the lands they took to become Byzantinian possessions again.

At Nicea the crusaders were really looking forward to a good sacking, to make up for their long trek. But imperial agents snuck in the back door, make a deal with the Turks, the imperial standards are raised above the city, and the Turks exit carrying huge bags of gold and are under the protection of the Byzantinian emperor. The Crusaders are prohibited from entering the, now Byzantinian, city. Tensions between Crusaders and Byzantinians are rising. Why did the emperor do this? Because if the Crusaders could enter and would sack the city they would wreck the city. He desperately needed the city to be healthy for future tax revenue and for new recruits for his utterly trashed army. If the city would have been sacked it would take decades before it would generate any surplus wealth.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Battle of Dorylaeum

After the fall of Nicea the Crusaders march on. At this point it would be good to mention that there’s very little that hold the Turkish step nomads together. So there’s no concerted defence of their lands. The cities are weakly garrisoned. They were just recently handed over to the Turks, who had no interest in ruling settlers. They hadn’t yet transitioned to an agrarian style kingdom. At this point they were a large group of step nomads who had come into the possession of a bunch of cities and land and their only thought was, “awesome pasture land”.

After the fall of Nicea the cities in the path of the Crusader armies give up without a fight and the Byzantinians fly the flags above the cities, making the Crusaders more and more annoyed. So far they had gotten nothing from their huge investment for coming here. This is also making the Turks realise that unless they push back they will lose all the lands they now have in their possession. The local Sultan, Kilij Arslan I rides off to talk the other sultans to help him out, and they set aside their differences to counter the Crusaders.

At this point it should be explained how big the Crusader army was. A 100 000 strong army is massive. But not only was this a big army, it was heavily armoured. This was the best of the best. Nothing like this had been assembled before in human history. Wagons had to constantly bring in sacks of water from other parts of Anatolia because this army would drain every well in their path. Their heavy armour meant they had to drink a lot more water than a regular army. Nothing existed to stop an army like this.

The entire Turkish force was 7000 horse archers. If they managed to split up the Crusaders, they stood a chance. Once the Crusaders are out of the mountains and onto the flat plains of the Anatolian interior. That’s where the Turks met them in battle.

But the Turks had no idea what they were up against. The Turks cleverly outmanoeuvred the Crusaders. But even then the Crusaders could crush them like a bug. And did. The sultan Kiliji Arsalan I managed to escape with his life, but they captured his entire treasury. Which the now much happier Crusaders split between them. The Crusaders were still pretty far from making up what it had cost them to come on the Crusade. But this huge bag of gold made a big difference. This wasn’t small change.

Now things changed quickly. The Turks didn’t like being in the mountains because they were at a tactical disadvantage. Horse archers are worthless in the mountains. The only thing that kept the Armenians submitting to Turkish rule was the fact that the surrounding lands were Turkish, and they needed friendly relations for trade. But they were, pretty much, running their own show. So at the first opportunity they kicked off the feather light yoke of the Turks and submitted to the Byzantinian emperor. Now the Byzantinian emperor was in effective control over all the cities of Anatolia. The Crusaders still hadn’t gotten to sack a single city.

But the plains, ie all the space between the cities, were still in Turkish control. The emperor was still quite far from being able to call this expedition a success. His end goal was to raise a Byzantine army (under his control) that could push back the Turks.

Kilij Arslan I - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dorylaeum_(1097)

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Crusaders pressed on to Antioch, which is a huge and arduous trek.

The siege of Antioch took place between October 1097 and June 1098. For an army this size, that’s movement at a blinding speed.


The Siege of Antioch

This is one of the most dramatic sieges ever to take place and it’s amazing this hasn’t been used as a setting in more movies. As far as drama, the real story is on par with the LOTR siege of Minas Tirith. It’s a nail biting roller coaster.

When the siege looks like it could fail, the Byzantinian forces fuck off back to the Anatolian plain. From the Byzantinian perspective, this was the smart move. The Anatolian plain was still far from under Byzantine control. What the horse archers were superb at was killing off foraging parties and harassment. To maintain control horse archers needed to be outnumbered 10 - 1 by the non-nomadic agrarian population’s troops. This was still not the case. The moment the Turks stopped being distracted by the Crusaderes at Antioch, those same Turks would come slamming into Antioch, taking back everything they’d just lost. From the Crusader perspective this was seen as a betrayal, and seen as the Byzantinians forfeiting any future claim to it.

An absolutely massive Turkish force is assembled to relieve the city. Just before they get there the Crusaders manage to scale the walls on leather rope ladders, enter the city and slaughter most inhabitants. Just the kind of sacking the Crusaders had signed up for.

Now the plains outside the city is under Turkish control. The inner citadel of the city is also under Turkish control. The Crusaders are trapped in a donut of control around the citadel. Not only that, but there’s a back door to the citadel allowing Turks to enter from the outside. Which they do.

At this point the Crusaders have been whittled down to about 20 000. The relieving Turks number 40 000. The badly outnumbered Crusaders gambled it all and burst out and to face the Turks outside the city walls. A daring and desperate last stand.

This is where quality of soldier becomes a factor. The Crusaders started out with 10 000 heavily armoured knights, in the most high tech tip top equipment of it’s day, and 90 000 of their retainers. Squires and such. A lot of those knights had been lost. But when one Crusader knight falls, someone else is just going to pick up the gear and keep going. The Crusaders still had 10 000 heavily armoured knights. Most of them were on a religiously motivated Crusade. They were fearless. They were highly motivated, well disciplined professional already veteran soldiers before going on the Crusade. They were still the deadliest fighting force ever assembled.

In contrast, the Turks were an army of horse archers. They were very lightly armoured. If at all. The infantry they had managed to scrape together were press-ganged conscript peasants. The Turks were not great at leading infantry. They also didn’t trust each other. There was very little keeping the Turks together. They were into this battle to get rich. At the first sign they might lose, the Turkish lines would just fall apart.

It’s easy in hindsight to say that obviously the knights were going to cut through the Turks like butter, even with the 2:1 ratio to the Turkish advantage. The Turks didn’t really stand a chance. The relieving Turks were a different set of Turks who had fought the Crusaders earlier. They just had no idea what they were up against. They were quickly smashed to pieces. But to the Crusaders at the time the victory was seen as a miracle. They felt that they had won against all odds and that God had intervened to grant them this victory. That was certainly how history was written.

After it was clear that the city was secure in Crusader hands, emperor Alexios wanted it back. The Norman Bohemond, who was only in it for the money, talked the other Crusaders into giving him the city to rule. They were all about taking Jerusalem. And they needed a secure friendly port from which to get supplies and reinforcements. So they all thought it was an excellent idea that Bohemond rule it. He told Alexios to go and get stuffed. He had no troops on the ground, so there was not much he could do about it.

This is the point where the Crusaders go from being an army sent to help the Byzantines, to an army set to create Catholic crusader states. From this point the Byzantines and the Crusaders become enemies. Not officially. But in practice. While Bohemond and his successor officially bow to the Byzantine emperor they will take every opportunity to disappoint any Byzantine request.

Siege of Antioch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Siege of Jerusalem

The Crusaders kept getting fresh reinforcements from Europe. Various Crusading knights who had been delayed were now showing up, eager for the main event, taking Jerusalem.

12 000 heavily armed knights showed at Jerusalem. But Jerusalem weren’t ruled by the disorganised Turks. Jerusalem was the Eastern Edge of the Fatimid Caliphate. A surviving remnant of the initial Muslim conquest of Byzantine lands. It had now been Muslim for half a millenia. This was an organised empire .

The Crusaders stormed the walls and won. Showing what kind of damage a well equipped, highly motivated army, who don’t care if they die, can do. They slaughtered most people inside and Godfrey of Bouillon became it’s new ruler. The first guy who had refused to promise not to seize Muslim lands for himself, but to hand it over to the Byzantine emperor. Clearly, this was his plan all along. He was also the richest noble on the Crusade, with the most troops. A west Roman bishop was shipped in and he crowned Godfrey as the king of the Crusader states.

The Fatimids weren’t prepared for a fanatical force that couldn’t be bought or negotiated with. What mattered to the Fatimids was primarily defending Egypt. Their most valuable possession. That’s where they focused their defences. But the Crusaders didn’t go to Egypt. The Fatimids played the long game, and would a hundred years later manage to kick the Crusaders out.

Fatimid Caliphate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Siege of Jerusalem (1099) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Jerusalem

 

[steve_bank]

There are no pure roots to Christianity. People would naturally combine aspects of their customs with Christianity. Modern Christmass is a mix of Pagan and Christian ritual. A modern Christmas tree topped with a Christian angel.

It is interestin that Paul caused a riot in a city by silversmiths who made money making idols.

Christianity and paganism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religions such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic religions practiced both inside and outside the Empire. During the Middle Ages, the term was also adapted to refer to religions practiced outside the former Roman Empire, such as Germanic paganism, Egyptian paganism and Baltic paganism.

From the point of view of the early Christians these religions all qualified as ethnic (or gentile, ethnikos, gentilis, the term translating goyim, later rendered as paganus) in contrast with Second Temple Judaism. By the early Middle Ages (800 - 1000), faiths referred to as pagan had mostly disappeared in the West through a mixture of peaceful conversion, natural religious change, persecution, and the military conquest of pagan peoples; the Christianization of Lithuania in the 1400s is typically considered to mark the end of this process.

The early Christians adapted many elements of paganism.[104]: 27  Ancient pagan funeral rituals often remained within Christian culture as aspects of custom and community with very little alteration.[105]: 78  A type of song sung at death, the ritual lament, is one of the oldest of all art forms.[106] As soon as death was imminent, the ritual began, then came the "struggle of the soul" and prayer for the dying. John Chrysostum gives a vivid account of the dying soul seeing angels and demons - "account books in hand" - struggling against each other in a contest for possession of the dying person's soul.[106] Macarius of Egypt (fourth century) writes of such a contest which is only resolved by the intervention of the person's guardian angel - which is roughly parallel to Plato's daimon.[107]

Spontaneous lamentation would break out among those present once the struggle of the soul was over. All evidence suggests this was a violent display of grief - the laceration of the cheeks, tearing one's hair, and the rending of garments along with the wailing of the lament song. The church saw this immoderate behavior as improper for people who believed death was not the end, so they attempted to moderate it by singing Psalms, with two groups of singers on opposite sides chanting an antiphonal lament, with rhythm, harmony and order instead. However, this too is similar to the pagan lament sung for Achilles and one suggested by Plato for his Examiners in the Laws.[108]

Pagans and Jews decorated their burial chambers, so Christians did as well, thereby creating the first Christian art in the catacombs beneath Rome.[109] This art is symbolic, rising out of a reinterpretation of Jewish and pagan symbolism.[110] Christian piety infused the symbols with its own fresh interpretation.[110] Christian art had something fundamentally new to say as it gave visual expression to the conviction that the human soul can be delivered from death to an everlasting life.[110][109] Neither Judaism nor any pagan religion had previously made such a claim.[111] "The Jewish faith puts little emphasis on immortality, and pagan beliefs about the afterlife were vague, uncertain, and sometimes dismal".[111]

 

[DrZoidberg]

There are no pure roots to Christianity. People would naturally combine aspects of their customs with Christianity. Modern Christmass is a mix of Pagan and Christian ritual. A modern Christmas tree topped with a Christian angel.

If you take a peak through this thread. It's a collection of posts I have made, based on listening to relevant history podcasts, which presents new aspects of Christianity that can all be seen as the one root of Christianity. It's a question of perspective and how you define Christianity.

Saying that Christianity evolved from paganism, I think it's wrong, because paganism is fundamentally a different way of thinking. Christianity has been such a radical departure from everything before it. True that the people who first converted to Christianity were pagan (yes, even Jews. Pre-Christian Judaism is best defined as a type of paganism IMHO) so their formulation of God and their rituals will be heavily influenced by paganism. But it still isn't paganism.

Also, the first worshippers of a Christian type religion, didn't see themselves as Christian, or even doing anything new. The worshippers of Elohim worshipped an abstract God. Who knows where that came from? It was later merged with (very pagan) Jehova and became the Abrahamite God. The Cult of Isis was Christianity in practice. The only difference (apart from the symbols) was that it wasn't proselytizing. At some point the Cult of Isis bled into Jewish culture, replacing Isis with Jehova. The rituals were largely replaced by Orphic (Dionysian) rituals where Jesus replaced Dionysus.

The biggest departure from paganism (or any religion before it) is the proselytizing bit. Up to that point religious cults had been all about keeping out the riff-raff. Christianity flipped that on its head and not only welcomed the poor and destitute, but made a point of aggressively pulling them in, as well as making a point of not shaming them for their poverty. A true novelty in religion. This is something which seems to be traced back to the historical Jesus (or a leading person whose words later were placed in the Jesus character). What's interesting is that this aspect of Christianity is detached from anything else in Christianity. Any religion could have innovated this. Paul opened it up to gentiles. But the big change was this one innovation Jesus'. Which put it in an excellent position to outcompete all other religion.

It's all down to what you use as a baseline for defining what Christianity introduced.

 

[steve_bank]

I did not say Christianity evolved from Paganism. I said Christians would naturally adapt and add in their own rituals and , accommodations, and beliefs.

The common thread among all Christians is the resurrection and the afterlife. The root if there is one is Judaism. Paul changed it from Jewish to gentile, that is the major adaptation that gave us Christianity as we have today.

The halo that became associated with Jesus was not Jewish. Christians probably got from the Greeks.

The symbol that spread around the world

After appearing in the religious art of ancient Iran, the disc halo migrated across cultures at an astonishing pace. Matt Wilson explores how it connects Jesus, Buddha and Apollo.

www.bbc.com

After first appearing in the religious art of ancient Iran, the disc halo migrated across cultures at an astonishing pace, aided by trade on the Silk Roads. Matt Wilson explores how a simple symbol connects Jesus, Buddha and Apollo.

Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Greek mythology are usually regarded as utterly distinct religions, largely defined by their differences. But if you just look at them, you will see a symbol that connects them all – the halo.

This aura around a holy figure's head expresses their glory or divinity and can be seen in art across the world. There are many variants, including rayed haloes (like that on the Statue of Liberty) and flaming haloes (which feature in some Islamic Ottoman, Mughal and Persian art), but the most distinctive and ubiquitous is the circular disc halo.

Why was this symbol invented? It has been conjectured that it could have originally been a type of crown motif. Alternatively, it may have been a symbol of a divine aura emanating from the mind of a deity. Perhaps it was a simple decorative embellishment. One amusing proposal was that it derived from protective plates fixed to statues of gods to protect their heads from bird droppings.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Ancient Judaism did not believe in an afterlife. They believed the same things as pagans. Sheol is the equivalent to Hades. After the Babylonians captured Jerusalem 500 BC other concepts were introduced (Kingdom of Heaven, for example). This was the same time the Torah started to be written down. But these new ways concepts didn't lead to a new way of thinking for Jews. They still had the same ideas about the afterlife. It wasn't until the time around Christianity emerging mainstream Jewish belief finally started shifting.

I think it's more likely that the Christian concept of Heaven comes from Egyptian religion. 330 BC Jerusalem became Greek. In the Seleucid empire the governors were pretty heavy handed. They forced the Jews to become cosmopolitan, and connected it to the rest of the Hellenistic world. And meddled plenty in Jewish religion. The Selucids were primarily Orphic. The worship of Dionysus had a pretty heavy influence on Christianity.

Up to this point Egyptian religion had undergone millennia of democratization. Short story. Everybody who dies goes to the Duat (Hades, Sheol, etc). But it is possible to travel through the Duat and enter into the Land of the West. To get there you needed to survive a treacherous journey. You needed spells, money and stuff to make it there. Back in the day of Sneferu and king Tut, only the pharao would have the wealth and power to make it through the Duat. But over time the requirements for making it to the west got lower and lower, until around 500 BC everybody and anybody could make it as long as they were partially mummified.

In the Cult of Isis, the resurrection was a one way journey to Heaven and is identical to that which later became Christianity. The Cult of Isis was huge in Canaan around 50 BC among the wealthy and connected, and was a great influence on Judaism from that time and onward.

While symbols matter. Symbols get switched around with little friction. The ideas are much more important.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here's an excellent new podcast I found: The Gnostic Informant.

It's a scholarly podcast about spreading information about what is hidden in theology. So stuff most people don't know. These are scholars talking, so there's very little grand claims. But what it does have, that I love, is context. They explain stuff ancients would know. That we don't. Things like, snakes were a symbol for good. That puts a different spin on the Adam and Eve story. Or that Satyricon and the Golden Asse are both works that make fun of Christianity. We don't understand that, because we live in a world where Christianity is a dominant faith, and not some weirdo upstarts.

Gnostic Informant

Stoned Ape Theorist. Spiritual Junkie. Enthusiast of History, Religion Mythology, & Psychedelics... PATREON.com/GnosticInformant

pca.st

I recommend it. It's all good. Click on whatever sparks your interest