SC - Holy Feast and Holy Fast

[Siegfried Heydrich]

    You have to bear in mind that for most of history, religion and politics
were inextricably linked. Christians were not persecuted just for being
Christians by the Romans; they were persecuted because they refused to pay
the proper respect to the Roman State gods. All ANY martyr had to do to
avoid execution was to make a token sacrifice in the temple. The Romans
actually bent over backwards trying to accommodate these strange people,
even to the point of allowing them to pay someone else to go and make a
sacrifice in their name. Submission by proxy. Their obstinate refusal to
submit to the authority of Rome was a direct challenge to the state, and was
finally dealt with accordingly.
    When Constantine created Christianity as the State Religion, the very
first thing he did was codify all the church teachings, and repressed (often
brutally) any church or sect which didn't hew the party line (i.e., showed
any signs of independence). Orthodoxy was both religiously and politically
enforced. The Church, knowing a good trick when they saw one, simply went
along and adopted this practice, as they had adopted so many others. Just
good marketing practice.
    Religion, in any land, has always been a useful method of maintaining
heterodoxy. WE all believe the same way, anyone who isn't one of US is one
of THEM, and is therefore beyond the pale; and you may do as you like to
them. You're seeing this in action all over the mideast and northern africa
even now. The genius of our founding fathers is that they recognized the
coercive nature of a state religion, and thus banned it in the Constitution.
This notion rippled over into europe, which has not seen a religious war in
a couple of hundred years. Now, they fight over ethnic purity. Funny how
things never really change.
    In any agrarian society that has a dominant caste, religion is used as a
way to ensure submission and promote productivity. The Kings rule by the
will of God, the priests said so, and god also says to be humble and
fruitful. Feast days, festivals, holy days, prescribed fasts, dietary
restrictions all reinforce the notion of communal belief and joint
submission. If you think Christians had a lot of feast days, you should see
the Hindi!
    It was in the best interests of the Nobles to maintain good relations
with the church; if the 'people' start questioning the authority of the
church (who depended on the military protection of the Nobles), soon they'll
questioning the authority of the Nobles! Which is exactly what happened, of
course. Every revolutionary movement (and there were LOTS of them) went
after both the church and Nobles alike. With extreme ultra-violence.
    BTW, I did some study on the Inquisition, and found that a very great
deal of the 'common knowledge' concerning it was largely derived from the
propaganda of the 16th and 17th centuries (and you thought Dr. Goebbels
invented the idea, right?) While if you were on the receiving end, it was no
fun at all, the actual numbers have been vastly inflated. Once again, it was
more of a political tool for suppressing dissent and rooting out heretics
(that is, people who disagreed with the ruling authorities) than really
enforcing religious beliefs. Nowadays, we just call it the Justice Dept.
    And before we start getting all smug and superior, here, remember that
every season demands a witch to burn. This week, it's smokers and meat
eaters. Before, it was communists. Before that, it was anarchists, and so
on, and so on. We're just more refined in our persecutions and pogroms, now,
but the need to persecute the Transgressor of the Week will never die!

    Sieggy
>
> << However, I do question your statements that Christianity did not
pervade
> the
>  whole population of the various European countries.  >>
>
> Many folks do question me. Other than in rare cases, I usually just let
folks
> believe whatever they will because they will anyway. 6 million tortured
and
> murdered under the Inquisition and another 12 million burned later causes
me
> to pause. Certainly those that were left alive may have been 'good' church
> members Here I have no disagreement but it is easy to get everyone on your
> band wagon if you destroy all those who oppose you.
>
> There were areas of Europe that did not labor under the yoke of the
Church.
> IIRC, the first Christian priests did not enter the Isle of Man until 1650
> CE, well outside of SCA period. In early church contact with the Celtic
> tribes (especially Ireland) Druid and Priest stood side by side at the
altar
> for many years. Some northern areas retained their original religions
until
> well into the 1700s. And vestiges of pagan practices among the common
folks
> remained deeply entrenched until early in the 20th century CE. Such a
carry
> over does not indicate to me that Christianity was as 'pervasive' as is
> commonly thought or as widespread as the Church would have us believe. It
is
> a fact that we have much art, books, architecture, etc., that shows an
> apparent large scale influence of the church in all areas of life but
those
> works were created by the very class that was most influenced. Just
because
> there is evidence of a fox in a hen house does mean that the chickens were
> friends with the fox. :-)
>
> Be that as it may, I have no argument that the Church's stranglehold on
the
> nobility and the wealthy class was very pervasive and complete at the very
> least with only a few notable exceptions.
>
> I still have seen no evidence that the preparation of specific feast foods
or
> the abstention from certain foods was in anyway based on original thought.
> There are many instances where the exact opposite is true. Easter eggs
> (universal), coins hidden in cakes (Greek), the Yule log (Celtic), the
boar's
> head (Celtic), decorating the hall with evergreens/wheat/fruit laden
branches
> (universal), abstention from eggs and dairy on certain days (Roman),
morality
> plays within the feast (Roman) , etc., are all plagiarized activities of
the
> Church.
>
> I am not closed to the idea that there could be examples that fall outside
my
> perimeters. I just haven't found any yet. :-)
>
> Ras
>
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