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Dear so called "materialist" "historians"
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this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2023
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I know you're joking, but that's a great question that I wonder if Marxist historians have tackled. What were the material conditions for the rise of Christianity? The fall of Rome? Disruption of the slave economy? The plague and famines of the 3rd century?
Christianity didn't come from nowhere, it became popular in an era where many "mystery cults" plagued the Roman empire. The Cult of Isis was the other major popular one, but there were dozens. Clearly the mystery cult era was a response to material conditions, and Christianity happened to be the one that took off. It became the social component of the superstructure.
Definitely worth looking into.
Well, it comes from a political divide within the elites, with Christians being blamed and killed for the material degradation of the empire, which was caused by material and bureaucratic failures of the 3rd century (classic othering) and then that cult was subsequently uplifted by other elites in opposition because it had become a populist response to the bungling elite class, thus taking the religion of widows, slaves, and freedmen and making it the religion of kings. It is likely a part of a Striestand effect, if another cult had been as persecuted, they might have been the saviors of the empire. Hell, if Judaism hadn't been so well incorporated into the empire at that point, it could have been Judaism.
Mind the biggest problem that Constantine had with the Christians is that they still hadn't stopped having their own bloody internecine conflicts, hence the need to create the Nician Creed.
Perhaps that's part of the materialist answer right there. It was the religion of the poor and destitute and slaves, so the some elites coopeted it to maintain/increase their political hegemony. If Christianity was a social movement, then the Roman elites taking over and neutering it's revolutionary character makes a lot of sense.
I'm thinking back to a great book I read, not Marxist as far I know, called "The Germanization of Christianity." The first third of the book is about the Romanization of Christianity, turning a religion of desert monks and beggars into a bureaucracy.
To be sure, it became more of a political movement after it was targeted by Emperors such as Domitian. Not immediately afterwards, but it became a place where, if you were on the outs with the Emperor, you could still seek some level of political power. By the time it was coopted by Constantine, it's social revolutionary characteristics were already well and gone, and it was suffering its own political schisms. Still an incredibly potent political force within the empire, but not one of social revolution, imo.
A professor at Uni once said that in the first century of Christianity, deathbed conversions were very popular among the wealthy elite because a conversion cleansed you of past sins. I thought it was a fun fact at the time, but it's such an elitist mindset to think you can cheat your taxes to get into heaven.
I also had a professor mention that, but he couched it as, it was very popular among early Christians to claim that 'so-and-so' converted on their death bed, but we don't find evidence of conversion (i.e. christian ornaments in graves) among the elites until much later.
It's very much a history as opposed to archaeology matter.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Luckily archaeology is becoming more and more necessary for modern historians to acknowledge.
They try their hardest not to. That being said, it is likely that Constantine was baptized on his deathbed, but we also don't know for sure, but it is clear from what writings we have that he had that elite understanding of sin that you were talking about, so it could have been popularized by that point.
Hard to say.
marxist analysis of historical periods is a bit of niche topic (sure marx wrote about that but who reads marx anyway amirite), the most i can recall is G.E.M. de Ste. Croix's titanic work "Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World" which despite being marxist analysis, it's so good "non-partisan" historians will cite it (with the pre-requisite disclaimer of "this is a marxist book, i am not a marxist")
Also perry anderson transition to feudalism and some links therein
I have Ellen Meiksins Wood's "The Origins of Capital" open on my browser. https://cominsitu.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/ellen-meiksins-wood-the-origin-of-capital-a-longer-view.pdf
a lot of the old pagan system didn't work for a lot of people. The Roman gods were gods of hierarchy and the spiritual justification for the empire. the new religion was the religion of slaves
Bureaucracy spread?
The present time period is full of modern mystery cults, and a lot of them claim to be secular too. Just about every "lifestyle coach" crank and self described "guru" is roughly that, and some take it even further into culty grounds, such as "NXIVM" and "LessWrong."
Basically, imagine if Andrew Tate was crucified but the then some tax accountant on his way to, idk, Rotterdam, had a vision and started preaching his word, setting up Tatist communities across Europe.
except Tate is much more comparable to Jupiter or Mars in his messaging
Honestly, Tates messaging isn't even as comprehensible as that. At least Mars and Jupiter had the whole empire building thing going. His was literally just toxic masc libertarian nonsense without even the fetterings of intellectualism that most libertarian nonsense has. Basically a non-ethos.
I actually don't know what he says beyond the fact he seems to be a violent pimp
Oh materialy speaking, that's what he does, but what he says and streams are just incoherent nonsense.
:wholesome: