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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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It goes back to Celsus:

They say to each of their hearers:—Believe, first of all, that he whom I introduce to thee is the son of God, although he was shamefully bound, and disgracefully punished, and very recently was most contumeliously treated before the eyes of all men. Believe it even the more, on that account. If these bring forward this person, and others, again, a different individual, while the common and ready cry of all parties is, ‘Believe, if thou wilt be saved, or else begone,’ what shall those do who are in earnest about their salvation? Shall they cast the dice, in order to divine whither they may betake themselves, and whom they shall join?

They declare the wisdom that is among men to be foolishness with God. The reason of this has been stated long ago: their desire to win over by means of this saying the most ignorant, servile, or uninstructed of mankind. These sorcerers flee away with headlong speed from the more polished class of persons, because they are not suitable subjects for their impositions, while they seek to decoy those who are more rustic.

And it won, because there are always going to be more of the ignorant, servile, and downtrodden. See the French Revolution. Guys who are "we want to go back to the days when the likes of us were rightfully the nobles and rulers" should remember the rattle of the tumbrils taking the lords and nobles to execution before the jeering crowds as entertainment.

It is impossible for Christianity to have “won” by only being attractive to the poor and the servants. For one, they have no rights or military training, so it would be impossible for them to ever exert influence on the middle or upper classes, who controlled everything and made up the military leadership. But it’s also impossible given the wealth of early Christian writings we have — it’s expensive to have dedicated theologians who copy and write thousands of pages. There’s also no reason that a pagan mystery cult couldn’t have defeated Christianity, if the only thing of importance was the promise of an afterlife (there were lots, including Mithras for the soldiers!). And if the poorest members were being converted on the promise of an afterlife, they would pose zero political threat and the powerful Pagans would be happy about this as it would reduce the problem of slave rebellions. (Is Christianity the opium of the people, or is Christianity its own “slave revolt” against the powerful? It cannot be both, so please make up your mind, 19th century.) Lastly, we know as early as the Apostles that they had issues with how to treat wealthy Christians, and they were writing rules on how to subsidize poor widows — things that wouldn’t be worth writing about if it was just a religion of the poor.

Julian wanted to bring back the gracious days of yore before the Christians turned it all to shit, and was frustrated that those shitty Christians managed to appeal to the people who should be following the lead of their betters:

  1. To Arsacius, High-priest of Galatia [362, on his way to Antioch in June?]

The Hellenic religion does not yet prosper as I desire, and it is the fault of those who profess it; for the worship of the gods is on a splendid and magnificent scale, surpassing every prayer and every hope. May Adrasteia pardon my words, for indeed no one, a little while ago, would have ventured even to pray for a change of such a sort or so complete within so short a time. Why, then, do we think that this is enough, why do we not observe that it is their benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase atheism? I believe that we ought really and truly to practise every one of these virtues. And it is not enough for you alone to practise them, but so must all the priests in Galatia, without exception. Either shame or persuade them into righteousness or else remove them from their priestly office, if they do not, together with their wives, children and servants, attend the worship of the gods but allow their servants or sons or wives to show impiety towards the gods and honour atheism more than piety. In the second place, admonish them that no priest may enter a theatre or drink in a tavern or control any craft or trade that is base and not respectable. Honour those who obey you, but those who disobey, expel from office. In every city establish frequent hostels in order that strangers may profit by our benevolence; I do not mean for our own people only, but for others also who are in need of money. I have but now made a plan by which you may be well provided for this; for I have given directions that 30,000 modii of corn shall be assigned every year for the whole of Galatia, and 60,000 pints of wine. I order that one-fifth of this be used for the poor who serve the priests, and the remainder be distributed by us to strangers and beggars. For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us. Teach those of the Hellenic faith to contribute to public service of this sort, and the Hellenic villages to offer their first fruits to the gods; and accustom those who love the Hellenic religion to these good works by teaching them that this was our practice of old. At any rate Homer makes Eumaeus say: "Stranger, it is not lawful for me, not even though a baser man than you should come, to dishonour a stranger. For from Zeus come all strangers and beggars. And a gift, though small, is precious." Then let us not, by allowing others to outdo us in good works, disgrace by such remissness, or rather, utterly abandon, the reverence due to the gods. If I hear that you are carrying out these orders I shall be filled with joy.

Monotheism, certainly Abrahamic religion, seems uniquely good at supplanting paganism. Christian missionaries in West Africa and Southeast Asia - even under full colonial rule - often barely even attempted to convert Muslims whom the Arabs had already converted, for example, because they always rejected Christianity and it caused social tensions and civil conflict when they killed or expelled the white missionaries. Pagans almost always embraced it. Muhammad very quickly replaced polytheism in Arabia. Even where it took longer there were major inroads in the Indian subcontinent, in East Asia and so on. In the Americas it happened quite quickly.

It took just a few centuries for the Egyptians to abandon paganism (there were a couple of remote sanctuaries that made it to 500, but most Egyptians had converted within 150 years of Christianity being introduced). By contrast, it took 800-1000 years for the Arabs to convert the majority of Egyptians from Christianity to Islam, often using much harsher methods. To some extent it's almost a historical quirk that some of the Asian civilizations retained aspects of their earlier religious traditions; without the Portuguese and British an Islamic conquest of the Hindus was probably inevitable, and in the case of the Chinese the Taiping rebellion which involved a twisted form of quasi-Christian belief was only defeated with the help of the British and French. By the time Christians conquered Japan in 1945 they didn't really care to convert defeated populations anymore.

Pagans can arguably be easily converted because the Abrahamic God can initially live 'alongside' their other gods, and then supplant them/become dominant, and then the others can be abandoned or forgotten. This is, of course, what happened to the Jews themselves in their ancient history.

The inciting incident was supposedly a Spanish captain boasting that Christian missionaries were but a prelude to Iberian conquest.

Well, there was also the Shimabara rebellion, which seriously cranked up enforcement of the ban, and of sakoku more generally.

monotheism

This is begging the question a bit. There is no reason that Mithraism or Sol Invictus or some other monolatric religion couldn’t have transitioned into monotheistic. Even the transition from a Pagan pantheon to a monarch presiding over angels could have easily taken place (as it did in early Judaism), with Zeus presiding as sovereign. This also doesn’t explain why trinitarian Christianity defeated Arianism, as the latter is more “clearly” or primitively monotheistic. Monotheism was also tried once in ancient Egypt with a “son of God” figure too, but it never took off there (Atenism).

Maybe monotheism plays a part, but it’s more likely that Christianity and Islam have unique characteristics that cause their popularity. Islam, after all, was influenced by Nestorian Christianity. So it makes just as much sense that the actual beliefs, rituals, etc lead to popularity, rather than that they have only one god.

Everyone remembers that, but forgets the centuries where the lords and nobles had peasants executed for any offense or no offense. It's bad to be on top come the revolution, but good every other time.