7 posts tagged “history”

This is a book by a noted Spanish historian who has been able to extensively research the original documentation. While persecutions for Christian orthodoxy are common throughout European history the Spanish Inquisition is the first example of state mandated persecution in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire outside of the Papal States.

Between 1478 and 1502 Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon created the Inquisition with the permission of the Pope, the expelled the Jews, and they forced the Muslims of Castile to convert of Catholicism. Previous to this both the Christian and Muslim states tolerated their non-majority religions but did not give those following the minority religions equal rights with the degree of tolerance depending on the whim of the rulers at the time.

The intolerance of the second wave of Muslim invasion of Spain (the Almoravids, and the Almohads) which occurred around 1100 A.D. drove most of the Jews into Christian Spain who were welcomed by the rulers since they brought learning and commerce. The decline of Muslim civilization in Spain began at this time.

Jewish persecution in Spain and the rest of Europe did not begin until the 1300's when the stresses of overpopulation and plagues (like the Black Death) left society looking for explanations. At the time most people believed that they were being punished by God and one of their sins was the tolerance of non-believers in their midst. The first large wave of Jewish persecution (the Pastoureaux crusade) began in France and spread to Spain in 1321 (page 6). In 1328 a sermon by a Franciscan monk led to a riot in the town of Estella where the houses of Jews were sacked and the owners killed. Competition for power also fed these flames of persecution as when the nobles of Castile accused King Peter of being too friendly to the Jews. These nobles instigated the Jewish massacre in the city of Toledo in 1355.

A nearly Spanish wide Jewish pogrom began in 1382 (page 8) when a power vacuum upon the death of the King of Castile allowed an Archdeacon to organize the destruction of Synagogues and kill any Jews who resisted. Those Jews who could fled abroad to North Africa, the the still tolerant Spanish province of Navarre, France or Portugal. Those who could not flee tended to convert to Christianity (about half). Between 1419 and 1422 the Kings of Castile and Aragon brought this persecution to an end by once again allowing the remaining Jews to openly practice their faith. By this time only about 100,000 Jews remained in Spain (page 12).

Freed from discrimination the converted Jewish families (the Conversos) did well economically yet the general public never forgot that they were "different" so when the next round of economic hardship occurred they once again became the targets of destruction and death. In 1449 a demagogue used this scape-goat strategy to overthrow royal authority in the town of Toledo for several months. He burned the houses of his opponents and decreed that all political offices could only be held by "Old Christians". This discrimination was roundly condemned by the Pope Nicolas V yet in 1467 the same thing happened again in Toledo with the houses of Conversos burned and the occupants killed. In 1473 the same thing happened in Cordova but with the great lords themselves defending the conversos in the street battles.

When Ferdinand and Isabella came to power they felt a need to restore order. First in 1480 they segregated the Jews into their own separate living quarters with guarantees of safety if they only left them during the day. Yet this did not address the problem of the Conversos. Several scandals had been reported that cast doubt on the authenticity of some conversions (page 17). The most notable example involved the powerful Cabellera family in which the head of the family who died in 1461 never stopped reciting Jewish prayers and always observed the Jewish sabbath on Saturday. In 1475 the leader of the Dominican Friars in Seville gave a report to Isabella with evidence that the conversos there were not "true Christians". In 1477-1478 the Catholic sovereigns visited Seville themselves to investigate the situation. Isabella was not convinced the problem warranted state intervention yet Ferdinand became convinced this was a real threat to state stability.

Related to this is the Catholic cannon law that is still in effect today which states that once one receives baptism one is a Christian forever. This idea is still in the Catholic Catechism and is the reason why the sacrament of baptism cannot be repeated. Thus those who are baptized yet do not follow orthodox Christian practices are guilty of heresy (page 17).

The Catholic sovereigns got permission from Pope Sixtus IV in a bull dated November 1, 1478 allowing them to appoint inquisitors. Yet the sovereigns delayed two years before actually initiating this project in the hope that intensive teaching and evangelism would avoid this step. This effort did not produce the desired results so on September 27, 1480 they appointed the first inquisitors. This state office was not abolished until 1834.

When this happened about 3,000 conversos fled the country, another 8,000 fled out of the cities to the lands of the great lords for protection. In Seville between 1481 and 1488, the Inquisition killed 700 with numerous others sentenced to imprisonment. The cruelty and travesty of justice at the Inquisitorial trial horrified Pope Sixtus IV who in a letter dated January 29, 1482 stated that his authorization did not cover what was actually happening. Yet on February 11, 1482 he allowed the inquisition to go forward on the following conditions: that the office could no longer keep the names of the accused secret, that the accused could appeal the sentence to Rome, and that the inquisitors were to send regular reports to the Bishops. King Ferdinand would not agree to these conditions and the Pope eventually backed down and allowed the Inquisition to go on.

The book then continues with the grisly history of the Inquisition until it was finally dissolved.
 

Date
The date in which the Bhagavad Gita was first written can be determined accurately based upon language analysis. I quote below from the scholarly translation by Winthrop Sargent (published by State University of New York Press in 1994) who in his book provides a literal translation of the Sanskrit in one column, in another column he provides a dictionary of alternate meanings to the various Sanskrit words, and who at the bottom of the page gives his own preferred translation into English.

"The Bhagavad Gita, in its written form at any rate, is generally thought to date from the second or third centuries A.D., being considered a later interpolation in the long epic, the Mahabharata, most of which describes and India of an earlier period, possibly 800 B.C." (page 4)

The reason for this conclusion is the grammer of the Sanskrit used. The long compound words of Classical Sanskrit (400 to 1500 A.D.) have not year appeared although a rarely a Classical Sanskrit grammar form will appear which in only to be expected from written transmission. This earlier Sanskrit called Epic-Puranic Sanskrit probably originated around 500 B.C but was only started to be written down after 300 B.C. Before that was the Vedic Sanskrit (1400 to 300 BC).

Purpose

The purpose of the Bhagavad Gita is to show there are many way to spiritual liberation (inner peace).

Book One introduces the moral dilemma of life in which one is often forced to choose the lessor of two evils. In this case the warrior Arjuna must chose between fighting and not fighting.

Book Two is the Yoga (teaching) of knowledge in which inner peace comes from understanding everything earthly is transient and thus not worthy of attachment.

Book Three is the Yoga of action in which inner peace comes by the control of unrestrained passions by mastering the Self.

Book Four is the Yoga of the renunciation of action in knowledge in which inner peace is obtained from certain knowledge (faith) no longer having doubts.

Book Five is the Yoga of Renunciation in which inner peace is obtained by no longer experiencing negative emotions such as desire, fear, and anger.

Book Six is the Yoga of Meditation in which inner peace is obtained by merging one's inner self into the Divine.

These next yogas have more in common with western religious tradition in the form of early Christianity than with the early eastern religious traditions.

Book Seven is the Yoga of Knowledge and Discrimination in which inner peace is obtained by worshiping and knowing Krishna (God).

Book Eight is the Yoga of Imperishable Brahman in which inner peace is obtained from serving Krishna (God) via study of the Vedas (scriptures), sacrifices, austerities, and gifts. From that one will gain eternal life by merging with the All (Brahmin).

Book Nine is the Yoga of Royal Knowledge and Royal Mystery in which inner peace is obtained by being devoted to Krishna with the knowledge that such devotion will bring one to Krishna.

Book Ten is the Yoga of Manifestation in which inner peace is obtained by realizing everything comes from Krishna.

Book Eleven is the Yoga of the Vision of Universal Form in which inner peace is obtained by receiving grace from a Lordly Krishna in his human form.

Book Twelve is the Yoga of Devotion in which inner peace is obtained by combining all the characteristic described in the previous books.

Now the books begin discussing metaphysics mixing eastern and western concepts.

Book Thirteen is the Yoga of Distinction Between the Field-Knower and the Field in which the Self is distinguished from material nature.

Book Fourteen is the Yoga of Distinction Between the Three Gunas (types of personality). The three Gunas are: Rajas - passionate, emotional: Sattva - truthful, pure, realistic; and Tamas: darkness, slothful.

Book Fifteen is the Yoga of Supreme Spirit identifying all powers with Krisha.

Book Sixteen is the Yoga of Distinction Between the Divine and Demonic Destinies.Those devoted to desire, anger and greed will go to Hell.

Book Seventeen is the Yoga of Distinction of Three Kinds of Faith. Actions not backed up by proper motivations lead to Darkness.

Book Eighteen is the Yoga of Renunciation. Those who teach these secrets will come to Krishna, the Lord of all beings.

 

This series of posts was inspired by by Draconem's post here.

Three lines of evidence point to the existence of Jesus as a real historical person: Novel Ideology in the sense that some new ideology was created that did not exist anywhere before, Early Non-Christian Sources primarily being Josephus and Tacitus, and Early Christian Sources  primarily from the letters of Paul and the early oral tradition found in the gospels. This post discusses the Novel Ideology line of evidence.

Edit: For the other two lines of evidence see the tag Historical Jesus.

Two separate Roman era traditions claim a person named Jesus as their source, Orthodox Christianity and Gnostic Christianity. Their common element is their concern about a coming Kingdom of God. They differ on how it comes about. Orthodox Christianity holds the Kingdom of God will come about in a final apocalyptic Day of Judgment with Jesus as the messiah in conformance with the whole Jewish apocalyptic movement that seems to have originated with the book of Daniel (which in turn was based upon ideas expressed by earlier prophets about the restoration of Israel and Judah after their destruction by Assyrian and Babylon). Gnostic Christianity holds that the Kingdom of God is already here only that people do not see it because they do not have the required knowledge or gnosis. Because of this Gnostic Christianity drifted towards the mystic traditions.

So we have two widely divergent traditions that did not exist before mid Roman times both claiming this person Jesus as their source. This means Jesus does not fit into any developing myth relating to either the apocalyptic tradition or the mystic tradition but instead indicates that some real person created some new ideology that both traditions jumped on.

This new ideology was a slowly developing earthly Kingdom or God or Kingdom of Heaven which is in complete contrast to the Jewish "sudden arrival" apocalyptic ideology prevalent at the time. This also seems to be the only ideology that could lead to both Orthodox Christianity and Gnostic Christianity.  For Orthodox Christianity it would take the form that while the Kingdom of Heaven can be spread on earth by the followers of Jesus its real fulfillment will only come when God imposes His rule on earth in a final apocalyptic Day of Judgment. For Gnostic Christianity it would take the form that the Kingdom of God can only be spread if the followers of Jesus gain the proper knowledge about it. This view that the way in which the Kingdom of God arrives was central the Jesus' teaching is supported by analysis of the text sources as evidenced by the Jesus 5-Source Sayings and the Jesus 4-Source Sayings. That two separate lines or reasoning support this argument give it a high probability of being true.

One can trace the reasoning behind this core teaching of Jesus. The book of Daniel predicted that the Kingdom of God would arrive after the fall of the last Hellenistic (Greek) kingdom which was Cleopatra's Egypt. If this is true then where was the Kingdom. The clue that the Kingdom was in one's heart was provided in Jeremiah chapter 31.

From Jeremiah 31:33

33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
       after that time," declares the LORD.
       "I will put my law in their minds
       and write it on their hearts.
       I will be their God,
       and they will be my people.

 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
       or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
       because they will all know me,
       from the least of them to the greatest,"
       declares the LORD.
       "For I will forgive their wickedness
       and will remember their sins no more."

Deuteronomy 6:4-6
5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

Which Jesus repeated

Mark 12:30:31 and Matthew 22:37 and Luke 10:27

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. 'There is no commandment greater than these."

That this concept was in the early Christian community is shown by Paul's letters.

Romans 2:14-2:16

14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

Romans 2:28-29
28 A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.

2 Corinthians 3:1-3:3
1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3Y ou show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

This new concept had to have been created by someone and that some one was a real person named Jesus. From this derives his concern about one's inner being as being more important than externally conforming to a set of laws.

I never realized that King James I of England had a fascination with witchcraft until I read chapter 11 of Will in the World entitled "Bewitching the King." Shakespeare wrote his play Macbeth to cater to this fascination. This is the same King James who authorized the King James version of the Bible. For my other reviews of this book see here.

James became king of Scotland in 1567 and King of England when Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. He died in 1625.

The fear of witchcraft seems to have been growing throughout the 1500's leading to England's Witchcraft Act of 1541. Occasional small scale witchcraft investigations were triggered by local jealousies as evidenced by the 1582 investigation of the St. Osyth Witches by Brian Darcy.

Yet large scale witch persecutions only occurred after King James became convinced that witchcraft caused the storm that prevented his future queen, Anne of Denmark, from coming to England in 1589. He became convinced of this after attending the North Berwick Witch Trial.

This trial lead to the first of many large scale witch scares in England and Scotland which occurred in 1590-1591, 1597, 1628-30, 1649 and 1661-1662. While James was King of Scotland  3,837 people were accused of witchcraft. This large number of accusations and trials has produced the first statistical database on these early witches which can be found at the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft. This is an excellent resource and its home page can be found here.

The 1597 witch scare seems to have been caused by the publication of King James' book entitled Daemonologie in which he argued that some witches were real, that their power came from Satan,  therefore they were evil and had to be killed since Satan was seeking to destroy kingdoms and bring disorder into the world. This is a world view in which all powers either derived from God and were thus good or from Satan and were thus evil. This world view would in time be at least partly replaced by the Newtonian (Enlightenment) world view in which the universe was seen as a neutral mechanism with neutral powers and this in turn ended the witch persecutions.

The great thing about this book is how it puts Shakespeare's life and works in the context of the times, an important time that defined an English culture that was soon to burst forth onto the world stage. My first review is here.

William's father, John Shakespeare, was quite an aspiring merchant in Stratford that seems to have operated on the edge of the national law yet was well respected locally. John  married Mary Arden in the late 1550's who was the daughter of the man from whom John's father rented land. Mary's father at his death in 1556 owned no table utensils as their use was only common among the higher classes (page 58). He left Mary and John his farm and a good sum of money which seems to have started John's merchant career.

By this time John was in Stratford working as a glover (making fancy gloves). In 1556 John was elected the ale taster, one who inspected bread and ale for quality. In 1558-59 he was a constable (responsible for keeping the peace), later affeeror (responsible for assessing fines not set by statute), chamberlain from 1561-65 (responsible for maintaining the property of Stratford which included collecting and paying out money), alderman, bailiff (like a mayor but one who also had control of strangers passing through town), in  1568-69, and chief alderman in 1571 (page 59). All these show the democracy at the local level was already well developed in England.

During the late 1570's John's economic life began to deteriorate after the central government laid the blame for wool shortages on the wool traders which John most certainly was. In 1556 they suspended wool trading and in 1557 they made all wool traders post a 100 pound bond to make sure they did not engage in the trade again. This was a huge amount of money considering that the farm from Mary's father was only sold for 4 pounds. By 1577 he ceased attending town meetings and from 1577 on he was excused from paying money to support various town functions.  In 1578 John began to sell and mortgage the property he owned and inherited. Finally in 1586 he was taken off the public office rolls.

Because of these difficulties William was never sent to Oxford to complete his education.

Neither could William just head off to London to make his fortune. At the time any landless vagrant was looked upon with extreme suspicion. The Vagrant Act of 1604 codified these traditions and it defined vagrants to include fencers, minstrels, begging scholars and sailors, palmists, fortune tellers, and others (page 88). If one did not own land or show they were in the service of some land owner then they would be arrested and whipped at a public post.

This was also a time of cultural conflict between the new Protestantism and Catholicism. In England Henry VIII seems to have adopted Protestantism in 1533 more out of greed (to get at the church wealth) and desire (another wife to produce a male heir) than any spiritual or intellectual conviction. Yet Henry the VIII continued to support the traditional Catholic way of doing religion based upon ceremony and a simple coherent tradition as opposed to the messiness of Protestant Bible interpretation. Because of this the Catholic church did not allow Bibles to exist a anyone's native language. William Tyndale was the first to translate the Bible into English in 1526 with the New Testament being  published in what in now the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1830 he opposed the remarriage of Henry VIII. With such powerful opponents he was captured, strangled, and burned at the stake by the Catholic Church in 1536.

During the reign of Henry VIII's successor Edward the Protestant ideology took hold among most of the upper classes and much of the English population under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Canmer. When Edward died young his Catholic sister, Mary, (known to history as Bloody Mary) came to power and burnt perhaps 283  leading Protestants at the stake including Thomas Canmer. Mary died  perhaps of cancer in 1558 bringing her 25 year old half-sister Elizabeth I to the throne. At first she was quite tolerant although she reinstated the public forms of protestant worship and aimed for stability (conformity and obedience).

This tolerance changed in May 1570 when William Shakespeare was 6 years old. On that date England received word that Pope Pius V had excommunicated Elizabeth and added that all Catholics were not to obey her lest they too be excommunicated. Now all those who might secretly be Catholics became suspected of treason. And so the intrigues and spying began. Some evidence exists which suggests the William Shakespeare's parents were secret Catholics and that because of this connection William spent some time in Lancashire county as a tutor to the Catholic sympathizing yet noble Alexander Hoghton family. When Alexander died in 1581 William may have found service with his neighbor, Henry Stanley, the Earl of Darby or his son Fernando known as Lord Strange who supported an acting troupe called Lord Strange's men. What is known for certain is that William Shakespeare was associated with Lord Strange's men later in London. Perhaps this time in Lancashire county gave Shakespeare the connections and acting training he needed to join a traveling acting troupe later.

An 18 year old William Shakespeare was forced to marry a 26 year old Ann Hathaway on November 28, 1582 after getting her pregnant. Their first child, Susana was christened six months later on May 28, 1583.  A few years after this William goes off to London, probably as part of a traveling acting troupe, leaving his family behind in Stratford. He provides for them but he never lives with them again. And as they say the rest is history.

I first learned about this book about Shakespeare when it was discussed on the public radio station here in town and I remember thinking then that I should get it but I didn't. Then RobbieDobbieDay starts this book club called It was a Dark and Stormy Night for discussing it so I get it (Thanks Robbie!)

This is going to be a great book and one I wish had existed earlier since it is going to give an insight into Shakespeare's mind and motivations that will help any one appreciate his plays that much more.

Surprising to me was the free classical education that a boy from a middle class English family in the Midlands born in April, 1564 was able to get. His father was, at various times, a bailiff (mayor) and alderman in the town of Stratford - on - Avon (population 5,000). This was a mostly secular education in which he learned Latin and, most importantly, acted in the various Latin plays.

Another major influence on his later works from his childhood were the morality plays that traveling troupes of actors, under the protection of various nobility, put on in various town. The first chapter goes on to describe these in great detail.

In contrast to these plays were the various local festivals which had not yet been suppressed by the Protestant reformers. These included the lusty May Day in which the legend of Robin Hood was also celebrated with a drunken Friar Tuck and a lascivious Maid Marion (sometimes a Robin Hood day seems to have been a separate day), and Topsy-Turvy Day in which all social conventions were reversed (the women chased the men). At Christmas time there was a mummers play which features a madman with his five sons: Pickled Herring, Blue Breeches, Pepper Breeches, Ginger Breeches and Mr. Allspice.

Another very likely influence is that Shakespeare saw the festivities in 1575 put on by Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester (he must have been such a dud ;) ), hosted a young Queen Elizabeth at his estate only 11 miles from Stratford.

This creativity and diversity of this early almost secular time is what makes the Elizabethan age so compelling for renaissance faires. This time was a product of a shifting Protestant - Catholic alignments among the rulers in both England and France allowing secularism to gain a foothold as that was the safest place for a person to be. Eventually England came down Protestant in a puritan sense and France came down Catholic in an orthodox sense ending this golden age. Yet the seeds it planted in both countries that would lead to the enlightenment.

A report from National Geographic news here reports an amazing confirmation of the idea that Polynesian sailors made it to Chile by the early 1400's. The evidence was the DNA found in some early chicken bones.

So for the answers to life's big questions just look towards the Chicken ;).