The book The Egyptians by Isaac Asimov changed my theology.
It is about the modern territory of Egypt, from the Predynastic Period to 1967, which is when the book was written, by the titan of science fiction.
Turned out that 1967 was a pretty crucial year in Egyptian history!
I just finished Roman Republic and am halfway through the Dark Ages, also by Asimov.
I skipped, but also have the Roman Empire.
Next is Asimov’s Birth of the United States.
Godforsaken Radical Heresiarch
As history punk, I am drawn to heretics.
People who zigged when history zagged.
I learned that the marauding Goths who sacked Rome, and ended the Western Roman Empire, were Germanic tribes and also Arian Christians.
There were many Arians. By that time Roman army was staffed by German mercenaries.
When Odoacer took control, nobody at the time thought the Empire had fallen.
There was some sense of continuity.
The continuity of Arianism lasted for a couple hundred years.
There Was a Time When He Was Not
Various heads of the Roman State were not necessarily skilled theologians, philosophers, or even particularly deep thinkers.
Street violence diminished their power, sense of authority, and, more importantly, the mechanics of effective taxation in colonies of the state.
Religious mobs aren’t exactly standing in line to pay fees to the government.
Constantine viewed Arius as a schismatic, the emperor penned a letter to Arius “and his supporters which is extraordinary in its venom and abusiveness, dubbing Arius an ‘Ares,’ a god of war, who seeks to create strife and violence.”
But, in the fourth century, to many people, the:
“Nicene Creed seemed confusing, nonbiblical, and provocative”
The Nicene Creed was a disguised form of Sabellianism (also called Modalism).
In the twenty-first century, maybe it’s easier to see why.
Dark Ages
Theoderic would later execute Boethius, who wrote On the Consolation of Philosophy, while in jail.
Boethius “believed in the correspondence between faith and reason” and that the “truths found in Christianity would be no different from the truths found in philosophy.”
Per Henry Chadwick:
“If the Consolation contains nothing distinctively Christian, it is also relevant that it contains nothing specifically pagan either...[it] is a work written by a Platonist who is also a Christian."
#MAGA
Arianism would become cornered in Europe when Clovis and the Franks inherited the legacy of the Roman Catholic Church.
Arianism became a victim of intrigues between the state and organized religious power.
C.S. Lewis wrote that Arianism was one of those “synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended today.”
Transcendental Reasoning
Constantine ordered
“that Arius’s works be treated like those of Porphyry: they are to be burnt, and anyone who does not surrender copies in his possession is to be executed.”
Porphyry, a Neoplatonist, was known for his critical stance towards Christianity and wrote a work called "Against the Christians."