From: SL500000@brownvm.brown.edu (Robert Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan,talk.religion.misc
Subject: The Christian Bible(s) -- Part I
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 11:34:41 EST
Organization: Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island  USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: brownvm.brown.edu
News-Software: BNN via BNN_POST v1.0 beta

This will take several postings, Drake, probably over a week or so as I can
make the time.  I *am* interested to see what you make of this material;
most Christians with whom I talk about it at length end up by retreating to
their own confessional position within one or the other of the branches,
and concluding that the others are only defectively Christian, hence largely
irrelevant to their own spiritual path.  This happens no matter which of the
five branches the Christian in question happens to belong to.

First, as to the five still existing branches of Christianity.  Protestant
and Catholic Christianity, of course, are old acquaintances, and the split
between them as formal traditions begins in the early 16th century (1520 is
a traditional date).  Since this split is so very recent, the two still very
much resemble one another, and look rather like "fraternal twins" to Chris-
tians in the other three branches.

Moving backward in time, the next split happened some 500 years earlier
(a traditional date is 1054), with a division between Catholic and
Orthodox traditions of Christianity.  The split can be represented by a
line on a map of Europe, which runs roughly between Poland and Czecho-
slovakia on one side, Russia on the other; this line can be traced to
the south, through the middle of Yugoslavia, with the Croats on the same
side as the Poles and the Czech and the Serbs on the same side as the
Russians, and ends at the Mediterranean.  In ecclesiastical terms, how-
ever, it has originally more to do with lines of jurisdictions between
the five Patriarchates (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and
Jerusalem), and originally followed the boundary between Rome and the other
four.

In view of the present world situation, it may be interesting to note
that this line split at Bosnia, and went around it to the East and the
West before rejoining and continuing its way to the south.  That is, at
this time Bosnia belonged neither to Rome nor to Constantinople, but had
gone its own way, and was regarded as heretical by both of the great
ecclesiastical powers.  Its faith was dualist, and heretical from the
Christian point of view (whether Catholic or Orthodox); it was roughly
the same as that of the Bogomils and Paulicians who were still found
then in small numbers in Bulgaria, Greec and Armenia, and as that of the
Cathars in Western Europe.  With the eventual coming of Islam to the
Balkans, most of the Bogomils found it necessary to covert, and it was
to Islam rather than to Christianity that they chose to convert: hence
the Muslim character of present-day Bosnia, where both Catholicism and
Orthodoxy represent later missionary intrusions.

At the time of the split in 1054, only some of the Eastern Christians
were Orthodox, had been in communion with Rome up to that time, and were
thus affected by the split between Rome and the other four Patriarchates.
These were (1) the Greeks in Greece and Asia Minor, (2) various kinds of
Slavs (i.e. Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Bulgarians, Macedonians
and Serbs), and (3) the Georgians, in the Caucauses.  All of these remained
in communion with one another, but not any longer with Rome.  The other
Christian peoples in the East generally adhered to one or the other of the
two branches of Christianity which we still have to cover, and were not in
communion either with Rome or with the above-listed Orthodox churches.
(Individual personal or family exceptions are always possible.)

With the passage of time, the Patriarch at Rome, i.e. the Pope,
established Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and
Jerusalem of his own making, so that there are parallel holders of some
of these titles even today, Catholic vs. Orthodox (and in some cases
parallels in the remaining branches as well).

Moving still further backwards in time, the previous major split
happened in connection with the Council at Chalcedon in 451.  As a
result of the actions of this council, a schism developed.  On one side
were all of the above mentioned kinds of Christians (insofar as they had
become Christain by that time), i.e. the ones who would later become
distinguished from one another as Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant.  On
the other side were the ancient Christian populations of Egypt,
Ethiopia, Armenia and much of the non-Greek Near East: these are the
Coptic Church (in Egypt), the now-extinct Nubian Church (in Nubia), the
Ethiopic Church (in Ethiopia, need I say?), the Armenian Church and the
most of the Syrian Church (all through the Near East and even in India).
These are often called 'Monophysite" by Western scholars, but they
mostly hate the term, as misrepresenting their true theology, and prefer
"non-Chalcedonian" or something similar.  These Churches, too, have
their Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch at least, and maybe Jerusalem
as well (I'm not quite sure of the last).

Some 20 years before this, however, in connection with another
Oecumenical Council in 431, an earlier schism had developed, which
largely affected Syriac-using Christians.  The half that did not remain
in communion with all the previously mentioned branches of Christianity
still survives in small numbers, and refers to itself as the Church of
the East.  Western scholars usually term them "Nestorians," but they
prefer the other term, for reasons similar to those which lead the
non-Chalcedonian churches to reject the label "monophysite."

So this is background only.  Let's see if we can put it into a flow
chart. (I'm not at all sure I can make my editor do this.)

          |--------------------------------->  Church of the East
  ------->|431
          |     |--------------------------->  Non-Chalcedonian Churches
          |---->|451
                |     |--------------------->  Orthodox Churches
                |---->|1054
                      |     |--------------->  Catholic Church
                      |---->|1520
                            |--------------->  Protestant Churches

Now each of these branches, and sometimes each of the Churches within each
branch, has its own answers to the questions which I stated in my
previous posting on the subject, i.e., has its own idea of what belongs
in its Bible.  Thus, the Orthodox Churches do not have the same Canon of
Scripture as the Catholic Church, and the non-Chalcedonian churches add
still more variety to the picture.  But I have run out of time, and will
get down to the details in a day or so.  Meanwhile, I hope this is not
too boring for too many on the list.  Stay tuned for follow-ups!  --
-- Robert

(Robert Mathiesen, Brown University, SL500000@BROWNVM)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan