Egyptian Christianity: Origins and Destruction

Osiris-Dionysus- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term Osiris-Dionysus is used by some historians of religion[1] to refer to a group of deities worshipped around the Mediterranean in the centuries prior to the emergence of Jesus. It has been argued that these deities were closely related and shared many characteristics, most notably being male, partly-human, born of virgins, life-death-rebirth deities and other similar characteristics.

The Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek god Dionysus had been equated as long ago as the 5th century BC by the historian Herodotus (see interpretatio graeca). By Late Antiquity, some Gnostic and Neoplatonist thinkers had expanded this syncretic equation to include Aion, Adonis, Attis, Mithras and other gods of the mystery religions. The composite term Osiris-Dionysus is found around the start of the first century BC, for example in Aegyptiaca by Hecateus of Abdera, and in works by Leon of Pella.

The JesusMysteries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Freke and Gandy base the Jesus Mysteries thesis partly on a series of parallels between their suggested biography of Osiris-Dionysus and the biography of Jesus drawn from the four canonical gospels. Their suggested reconstruction of the myth of Osiris-Dionysus, compiled from the myths of ancient dying and resurrected “godmen,” bears a striking resemblance to the gospel accounts. The authors give a short list of parallels at the beginning of the book:

Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the savior and “Son of God.”
His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin, 7 month pregnancy.
He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds.
He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.
He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.
He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.
His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.
His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood.[1]

Later chapters add further parallels, including Mary’s 7 month pregnancy.

Serapis- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Serapis (Latin spelling, or Sarapis in Greek) was a syncretic Hellenistic-Egyptian god in Antiquity. His most renowned temple was at Alexandria,[1]. Under Ptolemy Soter, efforts were made to integrate Egyptian religion with that of their Hellenic rulers. Ptolemy’s policy was to find a deity that should win the reverence alike of both groups, despite the curses of the Egyptian priests against the gods of the previous foreign rulers (i.e Set who was lauded by the Hyksos). Alexander the Great had attempted to use Amun for this purpose, but he was more prominent in Upper Egypt, and not as popular with those in Lower Egypt, where the Greeks had stronger influence. The Greeks had little respect for animal-headed figures, and so a Greek-style anthromorphic statue was chosen as the idol, and proclaimed as the equivalent of the highly popular Apis.[2]It was named Aser-hapi (i.e. Osiris-Apis), which became Serapis, and was said to be Osiris in full, rather than just his Ka (life force).

Water into Wine, Tom Harpur

p 242: When it comes to the widespread first-century cult of Serapis, Barb explains: “Serapis is fundamentally Osiris/Horus… and he serves as the expression of monotheistic tendencies: [there is] one god, Serapis,” it says on numerous monuments.

Christ in Egypt, D.M. Murdock

pp 31-32: As in Christianity, within the Egyptian solar religion the sun god’s power is illustrated by the divine qualities of omnipresence, omnipotence and oniscience, typically defining the god of the cosmos within monotheism. For example, demonstrating his omnipresence, the God Sun is contained in everything, as in the Great Hymn,” which addresses the sun as “you create millions of incarnations from yourself, the One.”6 In a section about the god “Re-Horakhty,” Dr. Assman entitles a selection of hymns, “oOmnipresence of the Light: God-Filled World.’ This material reflecting omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience includes scriptures such as: “Every way is full of your light”; “Are you not the leader on all ways?”; and “There are no limits to the field of his vision and no place hidden to his ka.”1 The ka is defined by James Allen as the “force of conscious omniscience in its worshippers - called in the texts the “sun-folks”3 - as highlighted in this line from a sun hymn: “The morning sun which enables one to know all things.”4

This concept of the “omniscience of light” is part of the “new solar theology” in which “the unattainably distant sun comes palpably near to earth creatures,” providing ” the idea of the simultaneous remoteness and proximity of god…”5 The German scholar next says:
The idea of proximity of god arises not from the sensual experience of light, but from the transcendental idea of a divine omniscience and omnipresence, in which god is right next to the heart “that turns to him.”6

As we can see, the Egyptian concept of God here is highly reminiscent of that found in Judeo-Christianity. The Egyptian God Sun is also depicted as hearing “the prayers of all who call him.”7

pp 53-54: Regarding the Egyptian and Christian trinities and scriptural parallels, Morenz is prompted to conclude, “The multifarious links between Egypt and Judeo-Christian scriptures and trinitariantheology can already be traced with some degree of plausibility.”5 In his discussion of “Egyptian trinities,” as he terms them, Morenz includes a section addressing the idea of “unity in plurality.”6 The German scholar also points out that a “trinity” can likewise be created out of the “primordial One” and “the first pair of gods to be begotten”7 Regarding the motif of the trinity, Morenz further states:

…thus three gods are combined and treated as a single being, adressed in the singular. In this way the spiritual force of Egyptian religion shows a direct link with Christian theology.

Deconstructing Jesus, Robert M. Price

p 26: Egypt presents us with the same picture yet again. The first attested workers for Christ there were the Gnostics Valentinus, Basilides, Apelles, Carpocrates, and his son Isidore. Phlegon preserves a letter attributed to Hadrian noting that all Christian priests in Egypt worshipped Serapis, too! The leading gospels in Egypt, the Gospels according to the Hebrews and according to the Egyptians, as far as we can tell from their extant fragments, were Gnostic or heretical in color. Bauer could detect no trace of Demetrius. But does not tradition make the gospel-writer Mark the first bishop of Egypt? Indeed it does, but like the letters of Jesus and Abgarus, this legend seems to be but another spurious “orthodox” origin for Egyptian Christianity (assuming Mark and his gospel could themselves be judged orthodox!).

pp 26-27: About the Nag Hammadi library - “What makes this discovery all the more astonishing is that associated documents show the collection of leather-bound volumes to have been from the monastic library of the Brotherhood of Saint Pachomius, the first known Christian monastery. Apparently when the monks received the Easter Letter from Athanasius in 367 C.E., which contains the first known listing of the canonical twenty-seven New Testament books, warning the faithful to read no others, the brethren must have decided to hide their cherished “heretical gospels, lest they fall into the hands of the ecclesiastical book burners. We may perhaps take that monastery as a cameo, a microcosm of Egyptian Christianity in the fourthcentury, diverse in doctrine, though soon to suffocate beneath the smothering veil of catholic orthodoxy.

Christ in Egypt, D.M. Murdock

pp 23-24: [Dr. Richard A. Gabriel in Jesus the Egyptian] tersely recounts this disturbing history:

In 356 C.E. ConstantiusII ordered the Egyptian temples of Isis-Osiris closed and forbade the use of Egyptian hieroglyphics as a religious language. In 380 C.E. Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity to be the official Roman state religion and all pagan cults were thereafter forbidden. These edicts were devastating to the Egyptian culture and religion, both of which had been preserved over millennia through the Egyptian language and the writing systems of Egyptian priests. In 391 C.E., the patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilus, summoned the monks to arms and turned them against the city of Memphis and the great shrine of Serapis, the Serapeum, the main temple of the Osiran-Isis religion. The attack was akin to ordering the destruction of the Vatican. Egyptian priests were massacred in their shrines and in the streets. The ferocity of the violence consumed priests, followers, and the Egyptian intellectual elite of Alexandria, Memphis and the other cities of Egypt who were murdered and their temples and libraries destroyed. The institutional structure of Egyptian religion, then more than four millennium old, was demolished in less than two decades.”

The Love of Truth vs. the Sophistry of Apologetics

A major reason I blog now is because apologists annoy me. I used to post on discussion boards, but the discussions tend to get dragged down to the lowest common denominator.

Apologists are annoying in that they can often be anti-intellectual, but not always. Sometimes they’re quite intellectually capable even when their focus is very narrow. It can even take a while to realize you’re dealing with an apologist because many believers prefer to not express their beliefs openly. That is even more annoying because I can sense that the person is filtering everything they think, but it takes effort to realize they’re not actually open to new viewpoints. The most intelligent apologists have a knack for creating convoluted arguments and false herrrings.

What is even worse is when they demand you defend your argument when they can’t defend their own. I’ve spent years studying religion, and it’s a complex field. Why would I want to deal with people who’ve only read very narrowly? Why would want to try to spoonfeed information to those who have no respect for knowledge? And apologists can be persistent, going around and around with the same tired ploys.

Beyond all of that, what really annoys me is that apologists are very talented at perverting the truth. To me, truth is my faith. When someone uses rational logic falsely or deceptively, then it pisses me off. I just don’t understand how someone can act rationally while at the same time having little respect for rationality.

I’m not criticizing faith. I’m all for faith, but faith and rationality are not the same thing. Rationality limited by unquestioned beliefs is not rational at all. Certainly, it’s acceptable for one’s faith to inform one’s rationality, but one is no longer in the realm of rationality when one’s rationality is limited to one’s faith. As such, rationality should also inform one’s faith. No belief should be held back from the gaze of curiosity, questioning, doubt and general intellectual inquiry. Also, I’d even go so far to say that faith without doubt is no faith at all.
Apologetics has been a major component of our society for centuries that so much of our culture has been limited to the context of Christian assumptions. It’s so subtle that we usually don’t even notice it.

A simple example is a reference work such as a dictionary. I have a Sharp electronic dictionary that uses the New Oxford American Dictionary. It doesn’t have entries for Basilides, Valentinius, or Marcion. These three were the earliest Christians to write commentaries on New Testament scriptures. All of them had all or most of their works destroyed by later Christians, and the latter two were labelled heretics some decades after they left the Catholic Church. On the other hand, there are entries for all of the later apologists and heresiologists. Irenaeus has an entry and he was the very one who called Marcion and Valentinius heretics.

So, why is a mainstream scholarly dictionary limiting the information shown to the public according to the decrees of Catholic orthodoxy? How did the Catholic Church gain such influence over secular scholarship? Why would a scholar choose to follow Church orthodoxy? Was there a Christian majority in the committee that decided what made it into the dictionary?

This is the same with all other references. When you do an internet search about Christianity, some of the best sources of info get buried beneath the numerous apologetic sites. When you go to Wikipedia, many of the articles have very clear religious biases.

Here are some discussions with and articles about apologists:

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_paradigm_shift.htm

http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/ctvadvert.htm

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2255

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2349

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2366

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2434

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2063

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=1502

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=1158

Christ in Egypt, by D.M. Murdock

Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
By D.M. Murdock (AKA Acharya S)


I've only so far read parts of Christ in Egypt. It's large and I'll mostly use it as a reference. This book follows the same theme as her earlier books, but it's different in that the author is focusing on just one mythological parallel to Christianity. Egyptian religion is very fascinating and Murdock provides tons of information. I've never studied Egyptian religion too deeply, but this makes me even more curious.

If you're not familiar with the authors work, she mostly writes about comparative mythology in terms of Christianity. In particular, she emphasizes astrotheology which is a field that is growing in popularity within a certain sector of scholars. If you'd like to learn more before deciding whether you want to buy this book, I'd recommend checking out her website or blog (Truth Be Known). She has some good introductory articles that explain what astrotheology is.
You might be familiar with astrotheology from the first part of the movie Zeitgeist. If you'd like to explore similar authors, then check out Robert M. Price, Earl Doherty, Tom Harpur and Freke and Gandy. All of those authors have written about the Egyptian religion. There are many others as well. One nice thing about Murdock's books is that the bibliographies give you many directions in which to study further.

Anyways, I highly recommend this book. But it probably wouldn't be a good introduction for most people. She is meticulous in her scholarship which means that you have to be seriously interested in the subject to want to read a book like this. The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light by Tom Harpur would be a better first book to read. He covers similar territory, but in a more concise way.

I personally like the author's large books filled with tons of information. And, with a subject that attracts many critics, the more details and examples provided the better the argument is supported.

Even though there are many books out there that discuss Christianity and Egyptian religion, Murdock's Christ in Egypt is unique. She realized how much info was out there, and no one had yet collected it all in one place before. Her enormous goal was to find every scholarly reference to the Egyptian correlations to Christianity. In doing this, she researched materials that had never been published before and materials that had never appeared in English before. At this time, there is no better resource available.

If you want to see more info about this subject, the author has a forum about it at her discussion board: Truth Be Known Nation: Christ in Egypt. And here is the Table of Contents from the Stellar House Publishing website.

Jesus Christ the Sun

“Christ, Constantine, Sol Invictus: the Unconquerable Sun” by Ralph Monday:

Ironically, Constantine being a pragmatic Roman, interpreted Christ as a war god, not the “prince of peace,” and he apparently never truly understood the mysteries of Christianity, retaining his right to worship the pagan gods, especially the sun. He never took baptism until shortly before his death.

Charles Freeman questions whether or not Constantine’s famous adoption of Christianity was a spiritual conversion or simply a matter of political expediency, because the suggesting evidence is that Constantine viewed the God of Christianity as being very similar to the old pagan gods, like Apollo, and this latter god was one that Constantine paid particular homage to. Indeed, the triumphal arch of Constantine, built in 315 by the senate of Rome after his “conversion,” contains reliefs of Jupiter, Mars and Hercules, and Constantine apparently associated his victory at the Milvian Bridge with the power of the sun, but no Christian symbol can be found on the structure and there is no reference to Christ; however, there are images and homage paid to Mithras, another sun god whose birthday is December 25th (Emperor’s State of Grace).

Another example of the influence of this official sun worship on Christianity is:

Constantine’s law of…321 [C.E] uniting Christians and pagans in the observance
of the “venerable day of the sun” It is to be noted that this official solar
worship, the final form of paganism in the empire…, was not the traditional
Roman-Greek religion of Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and the other Olympian deities.
It was a product of the mingling Hellenistic-Oriental elements, exemplified in
Aurelian’s establishment of Eastern Sun worship at Rome as the official religion
of the empire, and in his new temple enshrining Syrian statutes statues of Bel
and the sun…. Thus at last Bel, the god of Babylon, came into the official
imperial temple of Rome, the center of the imperial religion. It was this late
Roman-Oriental worship of one supreme god, symbolized by the sun and absorbing
lesser divinities as subordinates or manifestations of the universal deity, that
competed with young Christianity. This was the Roman religion that went down in
defeat but infiltrated and colored the victorious church with its own elements,
some of which can be seen to this day. (Cramer 4)

All the evidence suggests that Constantine viewed Christ as one of many gods in a crowded pantheon, a war god at that, who had provided him with his victory over Maxentius, and that this new Christian god could be used as a political tool to solidify his power and prestige in the empire, as well as bringing about a total homogeneity of culture to ancient Rome as witnessed by his calling of the council of Nicea in 325 C.E. to settle the Arian controversy, and also by the later solidification of the dates of Easter and Christmas, for he well knew that power and control in a complex organization depended upon common agreement in regard to the symbols that held it together. For example, in May 330 at the dedication of the new Roman capital Constantinople Constantine was “[d]ressed in magnificent robes and wearing a diadem encrusted with jewels (another spiritual allegiance of Constantine’s, to the sun, a symbol of Apollo, first known from 310 was expressed through rays coming from the diadem”) (Freeman). The ancient connection to the sun as a god clearly exemplifies Constantine’s adoration and admiration for such a “heavenly” deity.

The Pagan Christ, by Tom Harpur, p 83:

Few Christians today realize that in the fifth century, Pope Leo the Great had to tell Church members to stop worshipping the sun. The first ostensibly Christian emperor, Constantine, who converted to the new faith at the beginning of the fourth century, was still worshipping the sun god Helios many years later, as coins and other evidence reveal

Christ in Egypt, D.M. Murdock, pp 112-113:

Concerning this solar celebration and the obvious correlation to Jesus Christ, Kellner states:

…The comparison of Christ with the sun, and His work with the victory of light
over darkness, frequently appears in the writings of the Fathers. St.
Cyprian spoke of Christ as the true sun(sol verus). St. Ambrose says
precisely, ” He is our new sun (Hic sol novus noster).” Similar figures
are employed by Gregory of Nazianzus, Zeon of Verona, Leo the Great, Gregory
the Great, etc.1

As we have seen from Luke 1:24-27 and John 3:30, it would appear that the “holy Scriptures” in fact may have suggested this idea!

In reality, so common was the contention of Christians worshipping the sun that Church fathers such as Tertullian (c. 155-230 AD/CE) and Augustine (354-430 AD/CE) were compelled to compose refutations of the claim. In Ad Nationes (1.13), Tertullian writes:

The Charge of Worshipping the Sun Met by a Retort.

…Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed,
suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known
fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of
festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you with
an affectation of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your
lips in the direction of the sunrise?

Once more, in his Apology (6), Tertullian addresses what appears to be a widespread insight that he surprisingly asserts comes from those with “more information” and “greater verisimilitude,” or truth:

…Others, again, certainly with more information and greater verisimilitude,
believe that the sun is our god. We shall be counted Persians perhaps,
though we do not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen cloth,
having himself everywhere in his own disk. The idea no doubt has
originated from our being known to turn to the east in prayer. But you,
many of you, also under pretence sometimes of worshipping the heavenly bodies,
move our lips in the direction of the sunrise.

In addition to turning to the east for prayer, early Christians oriented their churches to the sun, a practice that continued into more modern times in some places…

Who Was Jesus?, D.M. Murdock, pp 244-45:

Hence, an early Christian apologist not only felt compelled to address what appears to be a frequent contention that the Christians were sun-worshippers and that Christ was the sun, but he also seems to be asserting that such a contention is more accurate than other observations about his religion!

These contentions of sun worship persisted for centuries and remained prevalent enough by the time of St. Augustine (354- 430 AD/CE) that he too was forced to protest then min his Tractates on the Gospel of John (XXXIV):

I Think that the Lord says, “I am the light of the world,” is clear to those
that have eyes, by which they are made partakers of this light: but they who
have not eyes except in the flesh alone wonder at what is said by the Lord Jesus
Christ, “I am the light of the world.” And perhaps there may not be
wanting some one too who says with himself: Whether perhaps the Lord Christ is
that sun which by its rising and setting causes the day? For there have
not been wanting heretics who thought this. The manichaeans have supposed
that the Lord Christ is that sun which is visible to carnal eyes, exposed and
public to be seen, not only by men, but by the beasts. But the right faith
of the Catholic Church rejects such a fiction, and perceives it to be a devilish
doctrine; not only by believing acknowledges it to be such, but in the case of
who it can, proves it even by reasoning. Let us therefore reject this kind
of error, which the Holy Church has anathematized from the beginning. Let
us not suppose that the Lord Jesus Christ is this sun which we see rising from
the east, setting in the west, to whose course succeeds night, whose rays are
obscured by a cloud, which removes from place to place by a set motion: the Lord
Christ is not such a thing as this. The Lord Christ is not the sun that
was made, but He by whom the sun was made. For all things were made by
Him, and without him was nothing made.

Thus, we have clear evidence that for centuries Christianity was perceived as sun worship and Christ as sun. This fact represents a major clue as to who Jesus was, demonstrating the environment into which the gospel tale was introduced and the prevailing religious concepts against which his priesthood was competing.

Christ in Egypt, D.M. Murdock, p 115:

Although Augustine doth evidently protest too much in attempting to delineate Christ from the physical sun, the fact remains that this distinction is precisely the same as was said of Amen, Re, Osiris and other sun gods or epithets of the sun and/or creators of the solar disc, which was distinguished by the epithet “Aten.”

p114:

Interestingly, in the Coffin Texts (CT Sp. 196, 207) appear references to the “festival of the seventh day,”3 instantly reminding one of the Jewish sabbath and the Christian Sunday. Not only is the Sun’s day also the Lord’s day, but from early times Christ himself was depicted with his face “shining as the sun” (Mt 17:2), as “the light of the world” (Jn 8:12) and “a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun” (Acts 26:13). Lord Jesus was also called by a number of solar epithets, such as “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal 4:2), “the true sun,” “our sun” and the “sun of Resurrection.”4 This latter epithet, which sounds very Egyptian, especially as concerns Osiris, was given to Christ by Clement of Alexandria, for one. 5 Furthermore, in the late second century Theophilus of Antioch (”Autolychus,” 2.15) specifically stated that the sun is a “type of God,” thereby imbuing it with divine qualities and essentially identifying it with Christ, who is likewise a “type of God.”

The World of Augustine

I was just thinking I should do a post about the context of Augustine’s life. It was an interesting moment in history.

Constantine died less than two decades before Augustine was born. The first Council of Nicea had profound impact, but the Empire was still largely Pagan. Constantine himself mixed Christianity and Paganism. Constantine probably didn’t even really distinguish between the different varieties of sun worship. He probably understood Jesus in the terms of his own understanding of Pagan sun gods who also were saviors. In fact, Constantine carried on the Roman tradition of Sol Invictus. He wasn’t even baptized until on his death bed. Certainly, he was far from being an exemplary Christian Emperor. He was ruthless and it’s likely he chose Christianity in order to try to prop up the Empire that was already starting to show hints of weakening. The major contribution he made was that in legalizing Christianity he encouraged a legalistic approach to defining Christianity. Orthodoxy is rooted in this legalistic tradition.

Eusebius became the Emperors official propagandist and is now known as the first major Church historicist. However, modern academics have shown that he was very loose with the truth. It was a common practice amongst the Church Fathers to lie and deceive partly because people in general at the time were less idealistic about objective truth. Also, the common style of debate was aggressively polemical. I’ve read that the first few centuries of Christianity created more scriptural forgeries and alterations than almost any other period of Western history. The early Christians were quite industrious in manufacturing their religion.

It should be noted that by the fourth century, Christianity had changed quite a bit. The earliest Christian commentators were considered heretical by the end of the second century, and the Christian commentators of the third century were also starting to seem suspect by the fourth century heresiologists. Christianity was evolving very quickly. By the time Christianity was legalized, Christians were beginning to forget their own origins. The sects that were based on the earliest commentaries were now heretical. Heresiology was the foundation of orthodoxy. As an example, Basilides wrote the earliest commentaries of any Christian. He was alive in the first century and would’ve known the very first Christians. Guess who destroyed his work? Later Christians. If there ever was a single original Christianity, the fighting between Christians very well may have entirely annihalated it by the third century. And by the fourth and fifth centuries, the Church Fathers were creating creeds that probably had only a vague connection to the beliefs of first century Christians.

Anyways, the Nicene Creed set forth the doctrine of the Trinity… which by the way has no scriptural foundation as the Trinity was Pagan in origin. Augustine’s understanding of the Trinity came from Neo-Platonism. But not all Christians believed in a Trinity. Arianism was the major opposing opinion and is named after one of the dissenting voices at the Council of Nicea. Some of the Emperors of the fourth century were Arian Christians. Arianism had become quite popular and was probably the single biggest issue of the fourth century and would survive for several more centuries.

In the middle of the fourth century, Julian the Apostate temporarily revived Paganism as the official state religion when Augustine was a child. Besides the still strong traditions of Paganism, there were many traditions of Christianity. Possibly the largest (psuedo-) Christian tradition in the world at that time was Manichaeism. I say ‘pseudo’ because Mani included many influences, but still it was Christian. The Manichaean Christ was worshipped as a solar deity and this was a major component of Augustine’s early education in Christianity.

Astrology and astro-theology in general was a major force in the ancient world. Many early Christians referred to Jesus as Sol, and it was a practice within the early Catholic church to pray towards the rising sun. The early Christian allegorists were aware of the astrotheological symbolism within Christianity. Augustine certainly would’ve been aware of this as well. It was through the allegorical interpretations of Ambrose that Judeo-Christian scripture began to seem respectable to Augustine. Ambrose had connected Jesus to the sun, but Augustine denied this connection. So, sun worship was still a major issue within the Church even as Catholicism was coming into power.

The distinction between Christianity and Paganism wasn’t absolutely clear at that time because Christianity and the Roman Empire grew up together. The two were inseparable. Augustine admitted that Christianity began before Jesus in earlier religions. This was a Neo-Platonic view of Christianity that Augustine was less accepting of later in life. Even Eusebius the greatest Christian propagandist who ever lived admitted to the similarities between Christianity and Paganism. These similarities were so obvious that it was pointless in trying to deny them. Unlike modern Christians, many of the early Church Fathers had educations in Paganism. Anyways, in the ancient world it gave a religion respectability to show that it has its roots in older traditions. There was no more embarassment in admitting Christianity had Pagan roots than in admitting it had Jewish roots. However, in the fourth century, it was starting to become more important to explain it away. Christianity needed to justify its growing dominance, and so it became necessary to increasingly distinguish itself from Paganism. It would take until the sixth century for Catholicism to destroy all of the institutions of Classical Paganism.

Along with this, it became necessary for Catholic orthodoxy to distinguish itself from the diverse traditions of Christianity. Catholicism was only barely becoming the dominant form of Christianity in the fourth century. Basically, all of the heresies named in the second and third centuries were still around. The Marcionites and the Valentinians were the most influnential sects of early Christianity and they were still living traditions. Gnosticism was everywhere and it was rather difficult to distinguish it from orthodoxy as there was much cross-pollination. Augustine himself was a good example of cross-polination as he first seriously studied Christianity as a Manichaean Gnostic. That might be why he was critical of the Old Testament before meeting Ambrose. The New Testament was originally canonized by the Gnostic Marcion in order to create a Christian canon separate from and opposed to the Jewish scripture.

Along with the early heresies, new ones were also popping up. Two traditions that Augustine fought to make heretical were Donatism and Pelagianism. The Donatists were a schism from Augustine’s homeland of North Africa. The Donatists believed that once someone had denied Catholicism they shouldn’t be allowed back into the Church. This relates to Pelagianism as well. Pelagius was the same age as Augustine and he also preached the necessity of believers being held responsible for their actions. Augustine opposed these two groups because he held the fatalistic belief that everyone was born a sinner. As such, believers and clergy shouldn’t be expected to be morally better than anyone else. Augustine’s created the Christian foundations for the theory of just war in his criticisms of the Donatists. His oratorical and legal arguments led to the declaration of heresy against the Donatists and their harsh persecution which he only partly protested against. These heresies, however, would continue to attract adherents for centuries to come.

In 379, Theodosius I became Roman Emperor. He united the Eastern and Western Empire and was the last Emperor to rule both. Also, he made the Nicene Creed the official state religion. Augustine was still a Manichaean at this time and this must’ve influenced his later decision in 386 to convert to Catholicism. In 381, Theodosius I began to inhibit Paganism. In 388, he began the persecution and destruction of Paganism. This was the Catholicism that Augustine converted to and which he helped to support.

After Theodosius reign, the beginning of the fifth century was more of the same. The last remnants of Egyptian religion was destroyed. Also, Hypatia (the last great Pagan teacher, philosopher, and mathematician) was killed by a Christian mob. I don’t know what Augustine’s opinion was about this destruction of Pagan culture all around him, but he certainly took notice of the sacking of Rome. Rome was attacked by the Visigoths who were Arian Christians. Augustine wrote The City of God in response to the fall of Rome because Pagans were blaming Christians for this event. At the end of his life, the Arian Vandals were ravaging Roman Africa. Augustine was on his deathbed in Hippo when it was overrun by Vandals.

Augustine’s Guilty Conscience

I have some more thoughts about Augustine.

Cicero's Hortensius was supposedly influential on Augustine. I get the sense that it was one of his earliest experiences of the power of rational argument. Like Cicero, Augustine was trained in Greek philosophy and oratory. I was reading that Hortensius somehow led to Augustine's eventual dissatisfaction with Manichaeism. Hortensius is now a lost text and so I don't understand the impact it had, but apparently it caused Augustine to doubt the worthiness of Manichaean dualism. Some people criticize Gnostic dualism because it presents too harsh of a view of reality. However, for Augustine, I guess it seemed too lenient and accepting. It didn't make sin personal enough for his taste. Augustine felt unable to separate his sense of identity from his sense of guilt. The Manichaeans believed there was purely good divine spark that was the true Self.

There is one aspect of Manichaeism that I didn't come across in my researching about Augustine. The Manichaean religion divided believers into two categories. There were the general adherents of the faith and there were the ascetic monastic class. The latter was the more desirable way of life, but Manichaeanism allowed that not everyone was capable of asceticism. The average believer lessened the sin by supporting the monks. This sounds like the Eastern tradition of monasticism which is quite probable as Mani had included Buddhism as an aspect of his religion. That is another element I haven't seen mentioned by any commentaries about Augustine. As a devout Manichaean for 9 years, Augustine would've become familiar with Buddhist ideas. That is interesting to consider how Buddhism combined with Gnosticism would've created the framework for Augustine's understanding of his strong mistrust of fleshly desires.

What is truly interesting is that I get a sense of an inner division within Augustine when he criticizes Manichaeism. I suspect he is actually criticizing his younger self and attempting to distance himself from the faith of his earliest spiritual longings. Nine years in a religion is no small potatoes, and this especially true considering that it was a religion falling out of favor. I read that it was even somewhat dangerous to be Manichaean at that time. It's possible fear for his life played a part in his conversion to the much safer faith of Catholicism. Let me get back to my point about his motivation to criticize his younger self. Even though he was a member for many years, he never became a monk. This must've been part of what made him feel guilty. He was a young guy with normal sexual desires and yet Manichaeism idealized abstinence. He felt unable to control his sexual desire and ended up blaming Manichaeism. Strangely, he criticized Manichaeism by projecting his own sense of weakness onto it.

"I still thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it... I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unkown thing which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner." - Confessions, Book V, Section 10.

I want to point out how Augustine's criticism of Manichaeism summarizes Pelagius' criticism of determinism. Pelagius actually used Augustine's writings to defend his position. However, Augustine later came to embrace determinism and claimed that Pelagius was misinterpreting his earlier writings. I personally suspect that this was the apologist in Augustine backtracking in order to defend orthodoxy. As he had to earlier distance himself from Manichaeism, he now had to distance himself from his own criticisms of Manichaeism.

He ended up creating a convoluted theology to make sense of all of this. Basically, freewill existed prior to the fall. And, as we all have our natures grounded in the soul of Adam, we to are guilty for Adam's fall. So, we are guilty the moment we're born because we somehow mystically partook of Adam's sin before we were born, but magically because of this sin once we're born we no longer have freewill. It's the logic of an apologist using sophistry to create a political justification for the persecution of their opponent. You have to give Augustine credit for his ability to pull the most absurd arguments out of his ass and present it in such a way that it almost sounds like it makes sense.

The other method that Augustine (and many heresiologists) used was to misrepresent his opponents. Pelagianism became exaggerated as meaning a denial of God's grace, but Pelagius never denied this. Pelagius merely said we're responsible for our actions which seems rather commonsense, but commonsense was an affront to orthodoxy and the latter won the battle. In the long run, though, the Catholic church agreed that Augustine went too far in his fatalism. It's significant to point out that fatalism was sometimes an accusation against Gnosticism and this attitude of Augustine may be a carryover from his own Gnostic background.

Let me return to Augustine's personal sense of guilt. He felt lustful even though he had a 16 year monogamous heterosexual relationsip. The guilt was because it wasn't respectabel as she was his mistress, but today we'd simply call their relationship a common law marriage. They even had a child together. The child died and as far as I know the child was unbaptised which puts an intriguing twist on Augustine's theology as he beleived unbaptised children were damned. I can't find much about this child, but it very well might've contributed to his dissatisfaction with Manichaeism and his life with his "mistress". Just imagine how different Christianity could've been if Augustine had lived a happy life as a father and husband.

Augustine's understanding of morality was a bit demented. In order to become Christian, he left his 16 year long monogamous relationship. He saw it as a sin to stay in a monogamous relationship. This is obviously his Manichaeism sense of guilt rearing its ugly head. Augustine apparently lived a rather tame existence and yet felt guilty. He wasn't a hedonist; he didn't eat gluttonously he wasn't a drunkard; and he wasn't promiscuous. I wonder if he felt that he somehow inherited the guilt of his promiscuous father. This would also explain his two-faced relationship to the intellectual ability he also inherited from his father. In today's world, Augustine probably would be put on anxiety medication. The guy had a near paranoid sense of guilty conscience.

Unfortunately, he never felt guilty about his later support of oppression and persecution. He obviously was very talented at projecting his immense guilty conscience onto his opponents and then made sure they were punished accordingly. It was war, and the guilty must convert, must submit... or die!

I'll now try to explain Augustine's theological understanding about Original Sin.
There is the intelligable and the sensible. The world of the senses is private and isolated. Hence, the individual is inevitably sinful and the divine wisdom can only be attained through the institutionally-substantiated public rituals. Our being trapped in the physical world isn't directly inevitable as in Manichaeism, but is indirectly inevitable because of Original Sin. Original Sin is the collective evil that can only be countered by the collective good (i.e., the Roman Catholic Church). The individual is merely a passive battlefield.

The practical implications ultimately don't appear all that different than Manichaeism except in the utter denunciation of freewill (after birth that is). Unlike Manichaeism, the individual soul is only tenuously connected to the divine and the only hope is the Church's demand of complete submission. In some ways, the Christian soul is even more trapped in the body than is the Manichaean soul. A difference is that Original Sin isn't a permanent evil. Someday, evil will be completely annihalated as evil is fundamentally nothing more than a denial of good and thus without substantiality (but I don't know how this fits into Augustine's belief that only an elect will be saved). Neither Mankind nor God is responsible for evil, and yet (in The City of God) Augustine defends against criticism that God does interfere in history in order to teach. God has absolute freewill and is absolutely innocent. There is an element of Neo-Platonism mixed in here that is reminiscent of some Gnostics.

Augustine's concept of soul is neither of the substance of the body nor of God. Manichaeism claimed the soul was a trapped divine spark, but Augustine believed the soul in some sense Neo-Platonically chooses its descent (freewill leading to Original Sin). The human soul alone is responsible for moral evil in the world because human will can lead only to sin. On the other hand, only God through His Grace is responsible for lifting the soul out of sin. It's the mutable nature of the soul that allows this transformation. The sould is mutable because it is a created temporal entiry.

Augustine's theology is mostly rhetorical in trying to persuade people towards orthodoxy. He leaves many aspects unresolved and doesn't create a coherent philosophy. Despite his idealizing of the rational mind over the passions, he doesn't believe that intellect can resolve theological issues. For the most part, the individual can't prove most things and so must trust the proper authorities. He affirms a vague Neo-Platonic intuition, but blind faith is more primary. God has foreknowledge and so our choices are predetermined from God's view, but we're still responsible for our moral choices even though our severely limited individual will inevitably leads to sin. Essentially, everyone is guilty and if you don't feel guilty then you're guilty of not feeling guilty. Humanity is collectively responsible for Adam's Fall. The significance of holding onto this tenuous concept of freewill is in order to keep God unsullied, but freewill as such serves no practical purpose. Freewill is just an abstract concept that exists in the past.

Augustine became grimly pessimistic in his latter life. He saw humanity as comprised of Massa Damnata where only a few elect were predestined to be saved. He comes to a view that is more confusing and unappealing than the Manichaeism he turned away from. Augustine the young Christian convert and Augustine the old bitter heresiologist quite likely wouldn't have agreed on a whole lot. This evolution from hope to pessimism reflected the times. Christianity had likewise evolved in Augustine's life from the optimism of being newly legalized to the Fall of Catholic-ruled Rome.

The bitterness of the aging Augustine would create the groundwork for Catholicism during the coming centuries of the Dark Ages. The Grace of God is inscrutable and unmerited, and this offered a rationalization to the unquestioned authority of the Catholic Church. The Church saw itself as a light in a dark world. Like Augustine, the Church doesn't passively accept its role. In opposition to the passive relation of Mankind to God, the Church politicians take a very aggressive relation to the general population. If most of the population is damned by God with no hope of being saved, then it doesn't lead to an attitude of respect and compassion.

Greek tradition emphasizes the circular and universal. Patterns repeat and patterns reflect the universal. Aristotle thought poetry was more philosophical than history because it is concerned with universals. Quite differently, the Judeo-Christian tradition emphasizes the linear and unique. Jesus is unique and singular, and thus this demonstrates a more limited view of salvation. The Jews hoped for a messiah that would save them alone, and Augustine believed only an elect would be saved. As such, there is no universal salvation, no repeating pattern of salvation playing out throughout all of history.

Augustine's development was largely from the Greek tradition to the Judeo-Christian. He read widely in Pagan literature, and after his conversion it took him many years to catch up in his reading of Judeo-Christian scriptures. The Neo-Platonic optimism faded and the only other main tradition within Christianity was Gnosticism. In Augustine's case, this meant he increasingly turned back to Manichaean ideas.

The not-so-saintly Augustine

Augustine was so strongly influenced by Pagan thought that he was practically incapable of writing about Christianity without referring to it. His thinking was shaped by several Pagan traditions and he ended up fitting Christianity into the mould of these concepts. He wasn't unusual in this. In the fourth century, many of the classically trained Pagans converted to Catholicism. Essentially, the educated elite went where ever the power was. The beginning of the fourth century saw the legalization of Christianity and the end of the fourth century saw Catholicism made the state religion. It makes me wonder to what extent these conversions were motivated by a desire for political positioning. In particular, I wonder this about Augustine.
Something about Augustine's conversion feels disingenuous. I've been studying his writings a bit. There is one thing that isn't clear. Did his ideas develop or did he merely change his argument as the ideological debate shifted? When you take into account the entirety of his thinking, it fundamentally isn't really that different from his Pagan education. He just couched it in Christian terminology. So, what was the point of his conversion?

As Augustine used Neo-Platonism against Manichaeism, so he uses Stoicism against Academic skepticism and Epicureanism. However, his use of pagan thought was only situational and opportunist. He used whatever argument that was convenient to his apologetics, his heresiological polemics. He conveniently ignored, for instance, that Neo-Platonism had been previously used against Christianity. Once a particular Pagan argument was no longer useful for his vision of orthodoxy, he drops it claiming that Christianity doesn't need any Pagan philosophy to justify it. But if that was true, then he wouldn't use Pagan philosophy at all.

He got mired in this conundrum because he was trained in Pagan philosophy first. Paganism was the hermeneutic lense by which he came to appreciate Christianity, and it took him many years to notice the deep conflicts. But it was too late. His thinking had already become too enmeshed with Paganism... and, for that matter, all of Christianity had become too enmenshed in Paganism. If you were to take the Paganism out of Christianity, there wouldn't be much left.
The question is to what extent that Augustine even cared. He was trained in rhetorical and legal studies. Maybe he saw the entire situation with the eye of a politician. Maybe Christianity was just convenient. The writing was on the wall in that it was obvious that Paganism was in dire straits. Augustine very conveniently converted right before Theodosius I started his persecution of the Pagans. It was the perfect time to politcally position oneself within the new Catholic regime. The Church was looking for classically trained philosophers to create propaganda.

He made two statements that undermine the validity of his theological claims. He said he wouldn't believe in the Christian theology if the Church didn't demand it of him. It was his understanding that faith was simply dogmat enforced with political power, and God's grace was when the Church didn't see you as heretic. The other thing he said was that it was acceptable to lie and deceive for the greater purposes of the Church, and this view was actually common amongst the Church Fathers. This fit into his own theology. He used philosophy for apologetic ends, but he didn't trust rationality. He didn't believe people were fundamentally rational as people didn't have the freewill to make rational choices. People needed to be brought into the fold by any means necessary. This also included oppression and persecution which he supported. Augustine even went over the head of a Pope to the Emperor in order to make sure one of his opponents wasn't accepted back into the Church, and this led to that person being the first Christian officially killed by the Catholic Church. Augustine was a shrewd politician no doubt.

Was Augustine always this cynical? Obviously, he had a cynical streak as he was attracted to the Gnostic dualism of Manichaeism. He turned away from N. African Catholicism to Manichaeism partly because of his desire for rational answers. However, supposedly he turned away from Manichaeism to Neo-Platonism because of a desire for rational answers beyond scriptual limitations. The Manichaeans used rationality to study scripture and probably for apologetics as well. Maybe this, along with rhetoric education, was where he got his taste for apologetics. But was there a struggle in him at this time? Did he see rationality as potentially being used for the purpose of discovering truth? It would seem so as Neo-Platonism satisfied his intellect, but I suspect that his mother's simplistic faith nagged at his intellectual side (especially as it was his promiscuous Pagan father who had encouraged his intellectual studies).

Whether or not there were political ambitions, maybe his conversion was genuine. Maybe at first he thought he could bridge these divisions within himself. Maybe Christianity suggested a unifying answer could be attained. He could embrace his mother's simplistic faith; he could keep the dualism, determinism, and apologeticism of Manichaeism; and he could satisfy his intellect with Neo-Platonism. The famous bishop Ambrose emodied much of this for him, the prototypical zealous Christian trained in Classical thought.

However, there was the added bonus of being offered political position within the growing Church. His time as a teacher may have given him a taste of being in a role of respect where he could influence others. More than a theologian or even an apologist, maybe he was most fit for the role of politician. With his education, he had great command of language both written and spoken. I get the sense that he didn't just want something to believe in. Moreso, he wanted something to fight for. And, in the Christianized Empire, theological debates were fights with big risks and big rewards. Ambrose probably fed Augustine's political ambitions as Ambrose was in the middle of many political conflicts about orthodoxy.

It's very interesting that Augustine felt he had so little control over his own behavior, but acted in such a forceful manner that he was able to influence the behavior of others. It must have bolstered his self-confidence (and ego) that he had the ear of popes and emperors. Being involved in political intrigue led to real world results of people being oppressed, persecuted, and killed. This must've contributed to his grim view of human nature and of the Church's political role.

Despite his intellectual acumen, Augustine had become somewhat of an anti-intellectual in the latter part of his life. He was ultimately a rhetoritician rather than a philosopher per se. Maybe it's his rhetoric training that is the commonality between his tendencies towards rationality and apologetics. The purpose of rhetoric is to convince. A true philosopher such as Socrates disliked sophistry but Augustine seems to have embraced it.

Still, I wonder whether there was a time during his Neo-Platonic phase when he genuinely felt a love for truth above mere debate. Was there a time in his life where he actually thought he could know God? I get the sense that the Manichaeans may have believed this, and the fact that he was a Manicahean for almost a decade would suggest he at least hoped to know God in a way that his mind and heart could be unified. But he seemed to have lost this hope somewhere along the way. He came to believe that his mind had to be sacrificed in order to know God.

I have a theory that maybe his sacrifice of his mind was self-defense. He found himself in a religion that didn't truly respect the intellect, and he was trapped. The problem was that at that point he had become fully committed to Christianity and his whole sense of identity was at stake. In fact, to turn away from the faith would be to turn away from the fond memories of his own mother. It was with her that he had the spiritual experience that led him to conversion in the first place. And where else was there to turn? Unlike when he was a Pagan before, it was now dangerous to be anything other than Catholic. To leave the Church would've meant giving up his prestige and wealth, his power and influence. Plus, on a psychological level, he had spent so many years rationalizing it to himself. How could he give it up now? It was easier to betray his own intellectual honesty. Besides, this latter betrayal came slowly in small increments. He probably hardly noticed that he had lost his love of truth.

I'm not sure whether to feel pity for him or judgment. His use of his great mind for the purposes of oppression and persecution is utterly horrifying. He was capable of such deep insight that it's just sad that he wasted it on political propgandizing. And to think how many people were tortured and killed according to the justification of his beautiful writing.