Paganism and RCC and EO

[arapahoepark]

I am wondering if there are any books or articles on how the RCC and Eo adopted pagan practices like praying to saints, etc.

 

[RamistThomist]

Peter Brown has written extensively on this.
Myth of the Holy City.
The World of Late Antiquity.
The Cult of the Saints.
Iconoclastic Controversy.

 

[jandrusk]

Peter Brown has written extensively on this.
Myth of the Holy City.
The World of Late Antiquity.
The Cult of the Saints.
Iconoclastic Controversy.

Excellent resources. Thanks for sharing.

 

[RamistThomist]

See if you can find Tertullian's treatises on Virginity and Monogamy. I think they are on pp. 42-56 in Volume 4 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers They are probably the worst documents written in church history. He openly urges his wife to imitate Satan-worshipers on chastity. He makes the argument that the pagans in Rome got their idea of perpetual celibacy from the Devil and urges his wife to imitate them when he dies.

 

[yeutter]

The whole issue of how images are to be venerated, and what images are to be tolerated in the Church, was dealt with as part of the iconoclast controversy dealt with by the 7th Oecumenical Council, the second Council of Nicaea. A previous council, the Council of Hieria had sanctioned the destruction of icons. A study of the decrees of these respective councils would be instructive.

 

[arapahoepark]

I found this on Yahoo Answers ironically. Is it true (the last part of neoplatonism and maginanism, which is apparently Zoroastrianism)?

The New Catholic Encyclopedia indirectly admits that intercession by “saints” does not have a Biblical foundation. It states: “In regard to the intercession of the dead for the living about which no mention is made in the most ancient books of the O[ld] T[estament], . . . one has the familiar text of 2 Mc 15.11-16. If in the N[ew] T[estament] writings . . . nothing on the subject is explicitly mentioned, one still has in the practice of the early Church an abundant harvest of evidence that demonstrates faith and conviction in the intercessory power of those who had ‘died in Christ.’ Such evidence . . . is seen in the many epitaphs, anaphorae, litanies, liturgical documents, acts of the martyrs, and in the frequent allusions encountered in Oriental, Greek, and Latin patristic literature.”
The highly respected Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by M’Clintock and Strong, points out that the invocation of “saints” lacks Scriptural support, was unknown to the early Church and was “expressly condemned by the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 481) and by the early fathers.” Though advocates cite certain “Church fathers” and ancient liturgies, this cyclopædia observes: “It must be remembered that they are only unscriptural additions, and that they originated after the infusion into the Church system of Alexandrian Neoplatonism and Oriental Magianism, which left its traces even in the most orthodox form of Christian worship, and creed also, up to the 4th and 5th centuries, a period in the history of the Christian Church when heresies were, to use a common phrase, almost the order of the day.”

 

[RamistThomist]

I found this on Yahoo Answers ironically. Is it true (the last part of neoplatonism and maginanism, which is apparently Zoroastrianism)?

The New Catholic Encyclopedia indirectly admits that intercession by “saints” does not have a Biblical foundation. It states: “In regard to the intercession of the dead for the living about which no mention is made in the most ancient books of the O[ld] T[estament], . . . one has the familiar text of 2 Mc 15.11-16. If in the N[ew] T[estament] writings . . . nothing on the subject is explicitly mentioned, one still has in the practice of the early Church an abundant harvest of evidence that demonstrates faith and conviction in the intercessory power of those who had ‘died in Christ.’ Such evidence . . . is seen in the many epitaphs, anaphorae, litanies, liturgical documents, acts of the martyrs, and in the frequent allusions encountered in Oriental, Greek, and Latin patristic literature.”
The highly respected Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by M’Clintock and Strong, points out that the invocation of “saints” lacks Scriptural support, was unknown to the early Church and was “expressly condemned by the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 481) and by the early fathers.” Though advocates cite certain “Church fathers” and ancient liturgies, this cyclopædia observes: “It must be remembered that they are only unscriptural additions, and that they originated after the infusion into the Church system of Alexandrian Neoplatonism and Oriental Magianism, which left its traces even in the most orthodox form of Christian worship, and creed also, up to the 4th and 5th centuries, a period in the history of the Christian Church when heresies were, to use a common phrase, almost the order of the day.”

Neo-Platonism is the most powerful tool in understanding that time period, both Christian and secular

 

[JM]

If you can get through it...

The Two Babylons--Alexander Hislop