Materialism and Idealism

 One thing that unintentionally poisons the well of Internet Leftist Discourse is that both of those words (as well as their -ist forms) have more than one meaning, and yet many either only know one meaning, ignorantly conflate the meanings, or are willingly ignorant that others don’t know the other meanings.

Idealism as in the Metaphysics of Platonism and Immanuel Kant has nothing to do with what it means when someone is called an Idealist in contrast to being a Pragmatist or Cynical.  In the latter case Ideal is being used as a synonym for Value or Moral rather then a Platonic Ideal Form.

Likewise Materialist Metaphysics (or lack of metaphysics) has little to do with the “Historical Materialism” of philosophies like Marxism and nothing to do with the Madonna song Material Girl.

You can be Idealistic while still rejecting Philosophical Idealism, and you can be a Historical Materialist while while holding to Idealist Metaphysics.

Materialist Metaphysics is a key pillar of Stoicism, and the main reason I call myself somewhat of a Stoic rather than most anything popularly associated with Stoicism.  While the rejection of anything metaphysical existing is Epicureanism. 

I agree with Historical Materialism but not the more specific Dialectical Materialism which I view as a symptom of Pythagorean Dualism.  And that’s why my status as a Marxist is questionable.

So I’m definitely not a Philosophical Idealist.  How much the other Idealism applies to me is purely subjective. 

Logos Theology is Semitic in Origin

Neither Heraclitus, Plato or Aristotle uses the word Logos for any aspect of the Divine.  

Stoicism was the first school of Greek Philosophy to use the word Logos for an aspect of the Divine. 

The Stoic School was founded by Zeno of Citium who was a Phoenician, Chrysippus was also a Phoenician and some other notable early Stoics may have been as well. Phoenician was a term the Greeks used for all the native residents of the Mediterranean coastal regions of Lebanon and north western Israel, both Canaanites and Israelites with the Tribes of Asher and Dan both having particular ties to that region.

The first Platonist to use the word Logos in a Similar way was Philo of Alexandria who was Jewish. Aristobulus was an earlier Hellenistic Era Greek Speaking Jewish Philosopher but we don’t have his writings so can’t know if he used the word Logos or not.

The Biblical Hebrew Basis for Logos Theology arguably begins with God Creating the World by Speaking in Genesis 1.  But mostly I think Greek speaking Jews like Philo and the Early Christians (who I believe were originally more Stoic then Platonist) mainly used Logos as a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Dabar, Strong’s Number 1697-1698.  Dabar first appears in Genesis 15 where the Dabar of God seems to be a very tangible manifestation of God.  We likewise see throughout The Prophets “The Word of YHWH came unto" a Prophet speaking a Prophecy that the Prophet then writes down.  Psalm 33 is also believed to be an important influence on the Fourth Gospel’s use of the word.

In Rabbinic Literature the Aramaic word Memra becomes a synonym for this same concept.

So no The Logos is not an example of Greek Philosophy or Mythology influencing the Judeo-Christian Tradition, it’s the other way around.

Gnosticism and Marcionism are Chaotically used terms

Marcion is one of many Christian Heretics who's name has become shorthand for just one particular idea he taught and thus Marcionism as a label will be applied to people or belief systems that are maybe even the opposite of Marcion on everything else.  In Marcion's case that is teaching that the God of the Hebrew Bible, YHWH, is not the same entity as The New Testament God who is The Father of Jesus.

I have recently learned that Marcion didn't even believe YHWH was Evil per se but more like Lawful Neutral to use some Gamer lingo. 

Others who separated the OT God from the NT God were even less hostile to the OT God.  Cerinthus separated them while still being a Legalist who said Christian should still keep The Torah.

Using Gnostic as a catch all term for everyone who believed anything even kind of like this or other related ideas was not being done at the time.  Irenaeus in Against Heresies used the word Gnostic only of the Valentinians and even that was not as a term to describe anything about their Theology or metaphysical world view but simply as his way of calling them pretentious.  Gnosis was a Greek word for knowledge, so you could translate calling someone a Gnostic as "know it all".

My past desire to define Gnosticism as simply the most extreme end result of 2nd Century Christians being too influenced by Middle Platonism and Neopythagoreanism is hindered by Wikipedia giving that label to Epiphanes who was clearly the opposite of that being more like a Zenonian Stoic.

The first theological system that tends to enter my mind when I think "Gnosticism" is primarily that of the Sethians.  So for example on my other blog in Gnosticism in Anime and Video Games the Sethian system is mainly what I had in mind when I suggested that SSSS.Gridman, Serial Experiment Lain and Revolutionary Girl Utena could perhaps be considered Reverse Gnosticism, using a Gnostic Mythological Framework but to actually convey the exact opposite attitude towards the material world.  

There are few topics where I am more susceptible to Godwin's Law then the subject of nominally Christian theologies that reject YHWH.  Thomas Carlyle had expressed a similar sentiment though he didn't go in-depth on it mostly not seeing himself as Christian at all anymore.  Volkish Antisemitism began doing this with Paul de Lagarde in the late 1870s.  Houston Stewart Chamberlain gave it a more refined expression in Foundations of the Nineteenth Century in 1899 followed by Rudolf Jung in 1919 and from there it was incorporated into the writings of NSDAP Propagandists like Alfred Rosenberg, Ludwig Muller and Ernst Bergman in forming their "Positive Christianity".  And in post-War Neonazism we see it even in how George Lincoln Rockwell describes the Old Testament in his Autobiography, but for him it lead to rejecting Christianity entirely.

However I have grown uncomfortable with calling this tendency "Nazi-Marcionism" as I have in the past, partly because of the above but also because I know plenty of others do not connect their rejection of the Jewish God to any hostility to Jews themselves.  There is definitely a type of Antisemitism in viewing The Jews as the ultimate victims of a cruel evil god who Jesus came to save them from rather then for.  But that would be distinct from Nazi Antisemitism.

If I were to compare any ancient Anti-Yhwists to those Nazis it would be the Cainites.  They were the ones who were explicit that the followers of the Evil God were also Evil.  And they also loved identifying themselves with those YHWH was seemingly hostile to in The Hebrew Bible.  

Houston Stewart Chamberlain argued Jesus was an Aryan by arguing he was a Canaanite, this and a few other ideas of his imply he felt the Aryans were Biblically Hamites, an idea that wouldn't hold up to historical scrutiny but I know a few still try to argue it in the obscure corners the Internet to this day.

Meanwhile Cain and his descendants are presented as the first violent warmongers in my reading of Genesis 4 making them natural people for Fascists to identify with.  Cain is the perfect Biblical Symbol for the Nietzschean conception of Master Morality.

And then there is the bizarre Islamophilia of the Nazis which would lend itself to identifying with the Arabian antagonists of Israel, Ishmaelites, Midianites and Edomites/Amalekites.  Meanwhile modern Palestinian nationalists often falsely claim descent from the Philistines and Canaanites. 

Now a lot of people online talking about the Nazis and Gnosticism tie into it some Conspiratorial belief in an unbroken continuity between Ancient Gnostics and groups active today.  That is obviously not the case, the Cainites died out during Late Antiquity. The Manicheans survived into the "Middle Ages" in the East but even they eventually died out.  Only the Mandeans survived to today but as isolated communities in the Middle East with no connection to any "Secret Societies" in The West.

Ignatius of Antioch was not an Apostolic Father

A tradition developed that Ignatius was another student of John alongside Polycarp and Papias.  But Papias doesn't mention Ignatius, Polycarp does mention someone by that name but not as a fellow student of the same teacher.  Nor does Ignatius in his seven authentic letters ever claim to be a student of John or to have a shared mentor with Polycarp.  Polycrates's letter defending Quartodecimanism doesn't mention Ignatius either.

The oldest surviving sources on Polycarp being a student of John are Irenaeus of Lyon (who is considered a student of Polycarp) and Tertullian of Carthage.  Neither of them says anything about Ignatius being a student of John or even mention him by that name at all.  Irenaeus does seem to quote an Ignatian letter once without naming who he's quoting.  (I now believe the John who Polycarp and Papias knew was not the son of Zebedee, but that's another topic.)

The teachings of these letters seem to me to be a clear product of the increasing Platonist influence on the early Church that in my view largely started following the death of Plutarch but even more so during the reign of Hadrian.

I have also come to agree with the theory that Ignatius of Antioch was the same person as Peregrinus Proteus.  Now this idea is usually promoted online by Atheists or others who believe a lot of other things about Early Christian History I don't agree with, but that's fine.  This website is one example.

https://vridar.org/other-authors/roger-parvus-letters-supposedly-written-by-ignatius/

Now I don't agree with everything about their particular way of arguing this theory.  I'm a lot less interested in arguing the Ignatian letters have been changed from their original form.  I believe the letter to the Romans is even in the text as we have it not actually claiming Ignatius is being taken to Rome, that's a misunderstanding of what it says.  I also disagree with their conclusion that Ignatius is an Apellean.  The aspects of the letters that lend themselves to seeing similarities to Marcion, Apelles or others called Gnostics are a product of Middle Platonist and/or Neopythagorean influence that started to increase in the Early Church in the mid 2nd Century.

I do agree on the mid 140s probably being when the letters were written and with the Philo mentioned in the letters possibly being Theophilus of Antioch who is often considered the first to explicitly teach Creation ex Nihilo.

Tatian and Athenagoras each referred to Peregrinus very negatively and Tertullian is a bit more sympathetic but still acknowledging he was an Apostate.  None of these three ever quote the Ignatian letters.  

Here is a list of similarities I'm going to copy/paste from one of virdar's articles.

• Both are prominent Christian leaders in the same part of the world and were active at about the same time, the second quarter of the second century.

• Both are reputed to be prophets. Peregrinus “had become their prophet, cult-leader, head of synagogue, and what not, all by himself.” The author of the letters claims to have spoken “with the voice of God” (IgnPhil. 3:1) and to receive revelations from the Lord (IgnEph. 20:2).
  • It is sometimes thought that Lucian made a mistake in saying that Peregrinus was head of a ‘synagogue.’ But that word means ‘assembly’ and the author of the letter uses it too to tell his readers to assemble more frequently: “Let synagogues be held more often” (IgnPoly. 6:2.)

• Both figures are associated with a convocation of Christians that drew participants “even from the cities in Asia.”

• Both wrote treatises and last-will type letters of advice and rulings. Peregrinus “sent letters to just about all the important towns, a sort of last will and testament, with advice and rulings… ” This description is an equally apt way to describe the letter collection.

• Both figures conferred titles on their messengers. Peregrinus called them “Death’s Messengers” and “Couriers of the Grave.” The author of the letters called his “God’s Ambassadors” and “Couriers of God.”

• Both figures display an unusual interest in taking on additional names. Peregrinus liked to call himself ‘Proteus’ (TDOP 1) and, later, Phoenix (TDOP 27), while the author of the letters is careful in all seven of them to refer to himself as “Ignatius who is also Theophorus.”

• Both figures have a remarkably similar death wish and loudly profess their desire for martyrdom. Peregrinus, while he was a Christian, wanted to “gladly die in order that he might leave behind him a reputation for it.” Later, after he became a Cynic, he longed “to die like Heracles, and dissolve into thin air.” Compare this to the author of the letters’ longing “to be an imitator of the passion of my God” (IgnRom. 6:3) and “to be visible to the world no more” (IgnRom. 3:2). Notice how in both cases the desire to imitate God is expressed. And in one instance we have total consumption by wild beasts, and in the other total consumption by fire. Do we not seem to be dealing with the same person whose mindset, despite a change of religious affiliation, remained basically the same? Earlier in life he wanted to die suffering like Christ; later, after a transfer of allegiance, he wanted to die like Heracles?

• Access to both prisoners by their religious supporters seems unusually easy. Peregrinus’ supporters “even slept inside with him after bribing the guards. Then elaborate meals were brought in, and sacred books of theirs were read aloud.” (TDOP 12, Harmon). Similarly, the author of the letters has no problem meeting with the Christian delegations that come to see him. He even asks the Ephesians to let one of their number – a deacon named Burrhus – stay on with him to keep him company (IgnEph. 2;1). When he writes to the Philadelphians he has with him a deacon named Philo “ministering to him in the word of God.” (IgnPhil. 11:1). And when he says his guards “are treated well” (IgnRom. 5:1) the reference is apparently to bribes.

• And both figures have a friend with a similar name. Peregrinus, while still a Christian, began to dress like a Cynic, and when he finally was expelled by the Christians he took up Cynicism under the guidance of someone named Agathobulus. The author of the letter collection too knows someone with a name like that: Agathop(o)us. And his description of him as a man “who has renounced this life” (IgnPhil. 11:1) has a Cynic-like ring to it. If Ignatius is Peregrinus, it may be that his Cynic friend too abandoned Christianity when Peregrinus was shown the door.

I find it odd that they mention Peregrinus liking to use multiple names but are still inclined to assume the name Ignatius came later.  I suspect the names he used in these letters were names mainly other Christians knew him by and that the names Lucian primarily used came from his later time as a Cynic.

I also find it interesting that they fail to notice Ignatius's role in popularizing Episcopal Polity as itself another reason to identify him with Peregrinus.  Because Lucian's account does stress that Peregrinus became a leader of the Christians claiming more authority for his office then any prior leader since Jesus Himself.

11.    "It was then that he learned the wondrous lore of the Christians, by associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine.   And—how else could it be?—in a trice he made them all look like children, for he was prophet, cult-leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He inter preted and explained some of their books and even composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be sure, whom¹¹ they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.

So that should show how sus Episcopal Polity always was.  (Also note that Lucian doesn't question the existence of Jesus.)  

Kenneth A Strand wrote some articles theorizing about the origins of Episcopal Polity that I find useful but I disagree with some of his conclusions.  Even if the Angels of the Churches in Revelation are human members of those Churches that doesn't mean they had Episcopal Polity already just that they served the role of Messager.  

And his argument that the Churches Ignatius is stressing Episcopal Polity to in his letters to them were the ones that already had it I think is a mistake, in my view it's if anything the opposite, I think Ignatius was arguing for it to the Communities most strongly resisting it.  For example we know from Polycarp's own surviving Epistle that he was merely one among a group of Bishops/Elders at Smyrna.  Also later Church Historians like Eusebius couldn't even construct an imagined pre-Nicene line of Bishops for Philadelphia so I feel Philadelphia never became Episcopal till the Fourth Century.  Clement of Rome's authentic episode is evidence that Rome had Episcopal pretty early, as do traditions surrounding Hyginus.

Ignatius's Episcopal Polity is probably itself another Platonist influence, Plato argues for Monarchy being the ideal form of Government in both The Statesman and The Republic.  Plutarch was also strongly Anti-Democratic and he was a big influence on Second Century Platonism.

Ignatius, Justin Martyr and Tatian were the three earliest Christian to stress Free Will in a way that implies humans become Sinners of their own Free Will, planting the seeds of Pelagianism.  This was another influence from Plutarch who expressed the same Free Will sentiments in his criticism of the Stoics.  For Justin Martyr it also comes up in the context of criticizing the Stoics (these critics of Stoicism overstated how deterministic Stoicism was).  Tatian claimed to be an opponent of all Greek Philosophy including Plato, yet the Theology he developed is virtually indistinguishable from contemporary Middle Platonism.  That's because the Platonist influence on him was indirect with one key middle man being his old mentor Justin.

Peregrinus was excommunicated from the very Syrian Church he had lead, he should not be considered a reliable authority on anything.

Update August 13th 2025: Polycarp's letter mentions the name of Ignatius 4 times. The first of them in 9:1 is among a list of martyrs already passed but the other three in 13:1-2 seem to be to a still living contemporary.  They are I think separate individuals and the latter ones are to the authors of the Ignatian Epistles.  It's possible both were Antiochians, I now believe Peter was burned alive in Antioch in AD 67 so Ignatius could be a name multiple Antiochene Christians took as a reference to that.  The first could be the one who's time as a leading Christian at Antioch was 68-107 or 83-115, but the author of the letters who I view as Peregrinus Proteus was active in the 140s.

Monotheism is another Platonist concept Christians should become less attached to.

To avoid any confusion I want to clarify upfront that I am a Trinitarian.  I believe The Trinity is Three Co-Eternal Persons with one Divine Essence.  I agree with every detail of the original Nicene Creed (including Homoousias which I view as Biblically Supported by Colossian 2:9 which also refutes Partialism).  I have a few issues with the Nicene-Constantinople Creed but none of them are based on it's Trinitarianism, I agree with all of it's elaboration on The Holy Spirit. 

I agree with the Eastern Orthodox over Latin Denominations on the Filioque question and The Monarchy of The Father.

This is also not a reversal of what I argued in Against Monolatery, I still stand by all of that.

I've looked at every New Testament verse that says "One God" or that "God is One", or "One Lord" or "Lord is One", and none of them use Mono but instead Heis.  Some material from my Trinity in the Hebrew Bible and the YT videos I linked to in it are worth remembering here.  It's the same with the "are one" references in John 10:30 and 1 John 5:7-8.  And in case you're curious the same is true for the use of "one God" in the opening line of the Nicene Creed.

When Mono is used in the New Testament, in the KJV it partly because of context tends to get translated "Alone" or "Only" instead of simply One.  While it may be used close to Theos in the text sometimes it's never directly used of how many Theos exist or that we worship.

According to the Strongs Concordance, Mia is the "irregular feminine" form of Heis. Mia/Heis more specifically means United or Unified not an absolute singular.  

The "One Flesh" verses in The New Testament use Mia as does the "One Wife" references in the Pastoral Epistles.  Eustathius of Antioch used Mia Theos rather then Mono Theos (that some people think that justifies accusing him of Modalism shows how they don't understands the difference between Mia and Mono).

The Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Church is Miaphysite, that is how they self describe themselves firmly rejecting the label of Monophysite.  And Chalcedonians consider Cyril's original use of Mia Physis compatible with Chalcedonian Christology.

Modern Trinitarians feeling attached to a desire to claim they are Monotheists is based on Extrabiblical importance Monotheism had obtained in western Philosophy already before Christianity was born.  If the Theology I expressed at the top of this post is still Monotheistic from a certain point of view then that's cool, my point is I'm not attached to an ultimately unbiblical term and am not going to let it influence how I interpret Biblical Theology.

It is wrong when people try to claim The Trinity just emerged out of nowhere in the Fourth Century.  But it is also wrong for us Nicenes to claim Arianism came out of nowhere in the same century.  Justin Martyr and Tatian both had a Logos Doctrine that was fairly Proto-Arian already in the Second Century because of the influence of Middle Platonism.  Tatian explicitly says God was Alone before the emanation of the Logos, that to me is a a rejection of Nicene Theology.  

Strict Monotheism comes from the Monad Theology of Pythagoreanism.

"But wasn't Stoicism just as Monotheistic as Platonism and you are kind of fan of Stoicism?"  You may ask.

1. I find Stoic ideas useful but will always side with The Bible and Trinitarianism if I ever see a conflict.

2. Stoicism looks Monotheistic but in a different way, I myself am far from fully educated on everything there is to know about Ancient Stoic Theology.  But it sounds to me like they too may have preferred Mia Theos to Mono Theos.

3. From what I can tell some modern Stoics are flat out Atheists so the number of gods one believes doesn't seem to be the point of anything.  They value I see in Stoicism is mostly in helping understand the context of what "Pneuma" (Spirit) meant in the First Century.

The point of this post is that if I have to choose between Monotheism or The Trinity I will choose The Trinity.  

Resistibility of Grace

There is a tension in the sentiments I express on this blog, between being sympathetic to Arminianism and wanting to explain why Universal Salvation does not contradict God giving Free Will to Humanity on the one hand, in contrast to my rejection of Existentialist Free Will ideology as a Left Wing Materialist on the other.

The key to resolving this seeming contradiction is how we think about Resistible Grace.  I agree with Arminians, Lutherans and Molinists that many humans who God is actively calling are resisting Him. Bible passages that support that include Luke 13:34, Acts 7:51 and 2 Timothy 3:8.

The verses Calvinists cite to support Irresistible Grace all in my view as a Universal Salvationist refer to how God will ultimately get His way, they do not contradict some people having resisted for their entire mortal lives.

But the difference between me and most who would oppose Calvinism on this point is that I don't think humans resist because of our Free Will, we resist God because of the Sin nature, because of Total Depravity, it effects each of us in different ways so some will be able to overcome it more then others.

There is no Biblical Support for the notion of Free Will as in Man Freely Choosing to be Evil, to me that is an oxymoron, man's nature is to be Good, Sin is a disease interfering with that natural tendency according to Matthew 9:9-12

This bad Free Will ideology did infect the Church early on, being in Justin Martyr, Ignatius and Tatian, it is another influence of the rise of Plutarchian Middle Platonism during the Second Century.

The Vexations of an Anti-Origen Universalist

I don't have any personal problem with Origen, I'm sure he was a nice guy and a Faithful follower of Jesus.  But as far as internal disagreements between Christians go Universal Salvation is about the only thing I agree with him on.  

He played an important role in the development of so many Middle Platonist/Neopythagorean tendencies that I consider at the root of everything wrong with Mainstream Christianity.  From his weird views on The Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul to Divine Transcendence and Immutability and Impassability to Asceticism and Puritanical Sexual Morality and Infant Baptism and Free Will and his hyper allegorical approach to Scripture not to mention the Proto-Arianism in his Logos Doctrine founded on the bad Septuagint translation of Proverbs 8:22-25.

I recently purchased A Larger Hope?, Volume 1 by Ilaria L. E. Ramelli off Amazon and found it very frustrating.  I feel it's counterproductive for Universalists to play along with the idea that Origen is the main character in the history of Universalism.  Because if everyone after Origen is getting it directly or indirectly from Origen then that weakens the doctrine, if it all goes back to one guy who was controversial even while he was alive being exiled from Alexandria by it's actual Bishop, that's not a good look.  Not to even mention how that narrative reinforces the Great Man Theory of History.

Even when talking about people before Origen she says it's not "fully developed" yet.  To me the Doctrine of Universal Salvation is fully developed by Scripture itself, it's departing from it that required post Biblical Theological innovations, and the main Pre-Nicene culprits I blame for laying the groundwork are Tatian (who said he was Anti-Plato even though his theology was identical to contemporary Middle Platonism and was Proto-Arian in the same way Origen was) then Tertullian perhaps unintentionally in how he translated some Greek words into Latin and Cyprian of Carthage.  But the different forms of Infernalism are fully developed during the Theodosian era by Augustine of Hippo, Pelagius of Britannia, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria.

What we need to stress is not just that the earliest critics of Origen didn't include his Universalism in their critiques of him but that Methodius of Olympus is even teaching Universal Salvation in the exact same text he wrote to refute Origen On The Resurrection.  If Origen taught Universal Salvation more clearly and explicitly then anyone prior to him, it may be in response to Cyprian being the first to teach that there is no Salvation outside The Church.

Because the thing is those first Theodosian enemies of Universal Salvation were weaponizing the association with Origen from the start, Pelegius explicitly said when defending himself that anyone who accepts a face value reading of Romans 5 is an Origenist and that is why that council exonerated him.  Ironically I feel Arminians should stop embracing Pelegius for the same reasons, the association of Pelegius with Arminianism began as a Calvinist attack on Arminainism.

When Ramelli gets to discussing the Antiochene School even then she still wants to define their Universal Salvation as being argued with arguments similar to Origen's.  But it was that school that was founded on opposition to Origen's influence being the opposite of him in their approach to Scripture, on that issue being even more Anti-Origenist then I am.  That they taught Universal Salvation even more clearly and unambiguously should be the death nail to labeling it as inherently Origenist.

She also began her discussion of Antioch with Diodorus of Tarsus.  Theophilus of Antioch taught Universal Salvation in the 2nd Century and died around the same time Origen was born.  And then there is the representative of Antioch at the Council of Nicaea, Eustathius of Antioch.

Eustathius is one of the least talked about major theologians of who were at Nicaea, and thus his absence from Ramelli's book was one of my major disappointments with it.  The most in-depth discussion of Eustathius I've found was an article titled The Theological Anthropology of Eustathius of Antioch by Sophie Hampshire Cartwright.  Thing is I can't find that PDF simply googling it anymore which is why I'm glad I'd downloaded it.  

This article talks about how firmly Anti-Origen Eustathius was, however my main criticism of it is when it talks about Universal Salvation starting on page 370.  It acknowledges the Universalist implications of a lot of what Eustathius taught, yet insists he ultimately didn't believe in Universal Salvation because he referred to "Aionios Punishments" and "unquenchable fire" even though both those Biblical concept are acknowledged by all Biblical Universalists.  Aionios means "The Age" not Eternal and refers to when the Punishments happen not for how long, the Fire is described as Unquenchable to tell us about the Fire itself not how long anyone will be in it, the Fire is the very presence of God, it is the Baptism of The Holy Spirit.

It also talks about Eustathius as a bit of a Proto-Nestorian showing that his connection to the later Antiochene School isn't just a coincidence of location.

Athanasius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea were both fans of Origen to some extent.  And even Gregory of Nyssa had also probably read Origen but still was not following some of his more out there ideas.  In fact the Alexandrians were probably the first in the East to depart from Universal Salvation as we see with Cyril of Alexandria who had at one point thought even Augustine was too merciful.  

And the relationship between Origenism and Caesarea has a nuance I feel many overlook.  Theophilus of Caesarea was the teacher of Clement same as Clement was the teacher of Origen, so they could have got it from Caesarea rather then the other way around, then awkwardly mixed it with their Platonism which was very native to Alexandria.

It is I suppose also important to me to stress that Origen's belief in Universal Restoration was in-spite of his interest in Platonism not because of it.  The traditional view of Hell is another mainstream Christian Doctrine that comes from Platonism not Scripture being taught in Gorgias.  Plato may not have meant it to be taken literally, but Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism were all about taking Plato literally and nothing else.

But the final act of my rant here shall be about what Salvation even is to Origen.  

Origen's Salvation involves everything becoming one with God in a way that implies a loss of individuality.  It likely has it's Biblical roots in Ecclesiastes 12:7, but that verse is about what happens at physical death, Christians who have a proper Understanding of The Resurrection believe that is undone at The Resurrection, to Origen however it seems that Resurrection is only a step in making that happen.  The only time Origen's ideas resemble Stoicism is the one aspect of Stoic Metaphysics I consider incompatible with The Bible.

What Origen believed about the ultimate destiny of every Human Soul doesn't sound like Salvation to me at all, it sounds like the Human Instrumentality Project.... and that's the real reason I hate Origenism so much, talking about it causes me to make a Neon Genesis Evangelion reference.

The Gospel is the Bodily Resurrection, that we all live Forever with God in a perfectly restored but still Material and Physical Universe.

Plato and Fascism

A lot of people have talked about how Plato can be considered a Proto-Fascist, and I somewhat agree but there is nuance to this that I feel needs to be acknowledged.

Plato’s discussion of the “Five Regimes” in Republic Books VIII-IX uses most Greek Political terms with different meanings then Aristotle used them, (with Aristotle’s meanings usually being the default meanings used by modern scholars and Wikipedia).  Plato’s Five Regimes were Aristocracy which was how things should be in his view, Timocracy which was a corruption but still preferable to any state Athens was in during Classical Antiquity, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny.

While you can define Plato’s Aristocracy as Fascist based on which traits of the Philosophy of Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile one prioritizes in deciding what the defining traits of Fascism are, in practice Mussolini’s regime was more Timocracy and Nazism was definitely more Timocracy.  But again I’m not referring to Aristotle’s definition of Timocracy (land ownership as basis of citizenship) which the Wikipedia page for Timocracy cites as the default.  I’m gonna quote a sentence from Wikipedia’s page for Plato’s Republic. “In a timocracy, governors will apply great effort in gymnastics and the arts of war, as well as the virtue that pertains to them, that of courage.” This definition for Timocracy is also essentially a part of what I meant by Heroarchy in a recent post I made on my main blog.

While on this subject I’d like to point out that some YouTube criticism of the Philosopher King concept is kind of missing the point.  Plato was not arguing that the kinds of people doing Philosophy as their profession in then contemporary Athens are inherently the kinds of people best fit to rule. He’s going back to the core Etymology of Philosopher to say that an ideal ruler should be bred, raised and trained their whole life from birth to be a Wise King. Think about the A Song of Fire and Ice Books and why Varys believes Young Griff will be an ideal King, that’s what Plato means by a Philosopher King.  I’m not pointing this out to defend the idea, I think it is misguided especially when combined with the other aspects of how Plato’s Aristocracy is supposed to work, but I do feel it’s important to know what he meant.

Another thing people are often confused by is how Plato speaks about the Five Regimes as a sequence as if that’s what history especially in Athens has demonstrated when it doesn’t fit our understanding of the history of Athenian Democracy. But the key is that Plato and most Athenians in his time believed certain things about the history of Athens modern Historians know are probably mostly not entirely true.  

Part of the whole premise of Timaeus-Critias is that it’s claiming Athens was this Ideal Aristocracy in the very distant past, that’s the Athens that defeated Atlantis and is probably meant to correlate to the Golden-Silver ages of Greek Mythology.  And then I would guess that the Timocracy period of Athens was supposed to be the Athens of the Heroic Age, the Athens of Theseus, then the Oligarchy was the Athens of Draco, and then the tension between between Democracy and Tyranny was how Plato saw the Classical history of Athens he was living in.

But in the long term Platonism isn’t just defined by Plato himself.  One theory I’ve entertained on this blog already is that The Laws was maybe not an authentic writing of Plato but a Pythagorean Pseudepigrapha.  The Laws does seem to have a similar yet different underlying Political ideology to it from The Republic, so can the hypothetical State described in The Laws be considered more of a Timocracy?  The Gymnasium having an important status in the center of The City alongside The Temple of Zeus is one clue that it could be thought of that way.

When people seek to trace the roots of Fascism back to Ancient Greece Plato isn’t the only source, they also look to Sparta, but more specifically Sparta as it was imagined by Athenian Laconophiles.  Plato and Aristotle are often placed among those but they both did have criticisms of Sparta, even in The Laws where the unnamed Athenian blames Sparta for all the Gay stuff he hates.  But I do think what both Plato and Aristotle’s conception of Timocracy have in common is that they were in part thinking of Sparta.  The principal true unqualified Athenian Laconophile was Xenophon.  Xenophon also wrote the Anabasis which very much fits into the kind of Militaristic Hero Myths I talked about in the Heroarchy post, and perhaps his Cyropaedia laid the seed for the Great Man Theory of History since it would be the first Greek History text to be written as a Biography.

Middle Platonism is in my view the actually most influential period of Platonism.  It was during this period that the Greek Church Fathers started allowing Platonist ideas to influence them and lead them away from the generally more Stoic perspective of The New Testament.   And then there’s Plutarch, again since I see a symbiotic relationship between the Great Many Theory and Fascism it’s notable that Plutarch was perhaps unintentionally a key influence on that theory, his most well known work is The Parallel Lives, and many don’t know this but before him writing history in the form of Biographies was not the standard.  In particular his Biography of Alexander can at points seem like Thomas Carlyle’s Heroarchy thesis almost fully formed.  I don’t know if any smoking gun proof Carlyle was a fan of Plutarch exists, but I would be surprised if he was not.  Plutarch also had a lot of interest in Sparta.

I feel like Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Christianity is the closest thing we’ve had to a real life attempt to implement Plato’s Aristocracy, with The Emperor as the Philosopher King and The Monastic Church itself as the Guardians.  But perhaps a more Secular Version of it would be the “Socialism” of H.G. Wells in his non Fiction writings.

Plato’s definition of Oligarchy applies pretty well to Conservative Capitalism while his definition of Democracy applies to both Liberal Capitalism in its various forms and many forms of Socialism.  While Tyranny is probably how Plato would view Marxist-Leninist Regimes.

Free Will and Personal Moral Responsibility.

On the issue of Free Will vs Determinism I am a type of Compatibilist, I reject hopeless Fatalism but also believe there are enough mitigating factors in the world to render no one truly ultimately fully responsible for their own actions.

My perspective on this has changed some but this is no complete reversal of any prior post I've made on the subject.  This is somewhat true of me in the past but it's especially true going forward that when I seem to speaking as a pro Free Will person I'm speaking agaisnt Calvinist Total Depravity and Irresistible Grace or Augustinian Original Sin or the Reprobate Doctrine as it is taught by some Arminians.  And I've also argued against Free Will being inherently incompatible with Universal Salvation.

However when I seem to be anti Free Will I am advocating a form of Determinism not Calvinist Predestination.  Determinism is what any Atheist who says they reject Free Will is talking about, but it's not only Atheists, if you're any type of Materialist then you're also some type of Determinist.

Determinism has unfortunately become a contentious topic among many people it shouldn't be.  Much of what I'm arguing in this post is controversial not just among my fellow Christians regardless of their politics but also among fellow Leftist regardless of their religious affiliation.

For example some Leftists think because we reject Scientific Racism and Eugenics then we should also reject any conception of "Biological Determinism" or inheritable traits.  The specific claims of those pseudo sciences are both factually wrong and morally repugnant.  But it's still true that we are the way we are in part because of how are brains are wired.  And acknowledgment of those factors should be a cause for sympathy and understanding not a justification for hate and discrimination.

Here's one good YouTube video on Determinism, but it is by someone not as Left Wing as I am and probably not as Compatibilist either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0GN4urbA_c

And all of that is just one aspect of Determinism, we Leftists also care about Historical Materialism, Material Conditions and Systemic Oppression and so on.  

As a Christian Compatibilist it is my position that when people do good they are by the Grace of God acting in their own Free Will.  But when they do Evil it is them falling victim to their conditions in some way.  That is equally as true of both the morally best people who've ever lived as it is of the morally worst.

To many in the Ancient World including Socrates and I firmly believe every author of the New Testament, it was oxymoronic to even consider debating if a evil act someone committed was or wasn't committed by their own free will because they believed Humans are innately Good and so any Evil deed one commits is by definition a deviation of their true nature and not something they could have possibly done of their own free will.  

To Socrates it seems it is chiefly Ignorance that is to Blame, and that can be supported by what Jesus said on The Cross "Father forgive them for they know not what they do".  But also when Jesus called Matthew and some objected He said that Sinners are sick people who need a doctor not criminals who need punishment, so that implies other factors as well.  

Mark 7:11 and John 8:31-36 talk about Jesus making us Free, as does Romans 8 verses 2 and 32 and Galatians 5.  Grace is spoken of as a Free Gift by Paul because we don't have to pay anything for it, it is given to everyone, permission is not asked.  The only NT verses that seem to truly speak of metaphysical Free Will are in Revelation 21-22 in the New Heaven and New Earth.

In Ancient Greek Gentile schools of Philosophy it is surprisingly only Atheist Determinism I can't find.  The Epicureans were Atheist Existentialists and Objectivists, the Stoics were Compatibilists but often seen by their Platonist rivals as more Determinist, the only hard Determinist was Aristotle who basically invented Deism.  And the Theistic Existentialists were the Middle Platonists like Plutarch who wrote against the Determinism of the Stoics.

In Josephus's descriptions of The Sects of First Century Judaism, the Essenes seem like Middle Platonists or Neopythagoreans on everything but their position on Fate vs Free Will, while the Sadducees seem like Aristotleans on everything but Fate vs Free Will.  It looks like Greco-Roman era Jews for some reason swapped that one part of those two ways of thinking.  However the Pharisees out of whom came the Zealots and Early Christians seemed to agree with the Stoics on both Fate vs Free Will and other metaphysical issues, the Stoics merely lacked knowledge of The Resurrection.

Pelagianism is a trend in Christianity that already existed before the person for whom it is named (in Early Arianism it's shown how the Arians were proto Pelagians).  That trend is the bizarre notion that it's because Humans are innately Good being made in the Image of God and given Life by the Breath of God that we are supposed to believe in Absolute Free Will and that each human is personally responsible for their moral failings.  It's actually absurd to believe those two things at the same time, but because Augustine normalized The Latin Church taking the exact opposite position on both those things Christians were conditioned to think they go together.

However I feel a lot of modern Internet SJWs are basically Secular Pelagians.  They claim to believe in the innate goodness of Humanity at least when they're refuting the Authoritarian Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.  But then turn around and are very against allowing "excuses" for the people they consider evil.

Like for example the notion that suggesting someone's Mental Illness or Trauma was even partly to blame for their wrongdoings is offensive to the people with the same issues who didn't do anything like similar.  And I wish they could see how that same Logic is applied to Economics by the Right.  Conservatives who keep thinking they can refute everything about how inherently unfair our current system is by pointing to "Rags to riches" stories of people who succeeded in-spite of their disadvantages.  And we correctly explain how that probably had as much or more to do with Luck then it does Merit.

Instead of jumping to call it Ableist to suggest that Crimes are a result of Mental Illness we should start considering that there is no such thing as a person not Mentally Ill, we just haven't diagnosed all the illnesses we have yet.

But another factor is how many of them have the same Vengeful Emotional Desire for Retributive Justice that leads to Conservatives attacking Democrats for being Soft on Crime have, simply directed agaisnt "The Nazis".  And make no mistake it is better to direct your desire for Righteous Vengeance agaisnt those with real Power, but at the end of the day it's still an unhealthy mindset.

We should be seeking to dismantle our current Criminal Justice System entirely, not redirect it.

Too many of the people who've figured out how Evil Capitalism is, are still buying into parts of it's justifying ideology.  Meritocracy, Individualism and Personal Accountability are all vital fundamentally linked to each other pillars of neoliberal ideology, believing in one of them will always eventually lead to the others.

In Platonist Philosophy 80- BC to AD 250 by George Boys-Stones chapter 12 talks about how the Middle Platonists and Stoics disagreed on Free Will, it's not prefect as the author seems to be on the Platonist side in this chapter.  He notes how the Platonists didn't even believe God is All Knowing, so even Bible Verses on God knowing the End from the Beginning (like Isaiah 46:9-11) make it more compatible with Stoicism then Platonism.

He says one of the problems with Stoicism is that it "removed moral responsibility" and doesn't explain why that's a problem, that conclusion is as an argument itself.   It reminds me of In Praise of Shadow's YT video on Lovecraft, after an hour of basically utterly debunking the notion that Lovecraft had Free Will he suddenly asserts that "he chose" to be a Racist.  Personal Moral Responsibility is such a given in our Capitalist Society that even many who say they oppose Capitalism refuse to question it.

Update April 2023: I've since learned that most Epicureans were not strictly Atheists but just as Deist as Aristotle.  So the Sadducees can then be viewed as Jewish Epicureans.  

The Essenes I think were ultimately more Pythagorean then Platonist and so that could explain why they had such a different position on Free Will from Middle Platonists.  

The Reformation and the Resurgence of Democracy

It is pretty well known that what we commonly call THE French Revolution was not the last French Revolution.  But what if I told you that, from a certain point of view, it wasn’t the first either?  It can be argued that the French Wars of Religion of the 16th century were a French Revolution that was Protestant rather than Secular in nature. But tragically like many of the later Secular French Revolutions it was betrayed by the very person who won it, Henry Bourbon converting to Catholicism was the Clerical Equivalent of Napoleon being Crowned Emperor. 

This post is a sequel of sorts to Capitalism is Atheistic in Nature, I’m not titling it as a direct parallel because I can't claim Democracy wouldn't exist without Christianity, Ancient Greece definitely had it, and I believe so did Sumerian Kish before Etana.  I mentioned how Capitalism loving New Atheists and YouTube Skeptics love to credit the rise of Capitalism to the Secularism of the Enlightenment, but they also claim credit for Democracy and like the Christian Capitalists of the Eisenhower era try to paint Capitalism and Democracy as inseparable.  But the truth is Capitalism and Democracy are actually incompatible, the only truly Democratic socio-economic system would be Anarcho-Communism, and the only acceptable Representative Democracies are Socialist Republics like Cuba and Vietnam.

That post also acknowledged that some people blame/credit the Protestant Reformation for Capitalism.  The Renaissance and the Enlightenment had both Protestant and Secular sides to them (also a Catholic side but the Catholic Renaissance and Enlightenment was like the New Deal and Huey Long, attempting to appease the people to keep them from running into the arms of the revolutionaries).  And those two sides were not always mutually exclusive, you had Christians who were largely Secular in their mindset or methodology, and non Christians unafraid to draw on Scripture to support their ideas like Thomas Paine in Common Sense.  My thesis in that prior post was that Capitalism is chiefly the product of the Secular side, while here I shall argue that the Return of The Demos was mostly the product of the Reformation.

Part 1: Ecclesiastical Polity

Church Governance was not the initial main point of dispute upon which the Reformation started, but it very quickly became an important topic of debate.  There are primarily three different positions on Church Governance, others do exist like the weird system Methodism has, but they were devised much later and can be argued to be simply fiddling around with these three.

Episcopal Polity: The form used by The Church of The East, The Oriental Orthodox, The Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans (Episcopalian as a name for a denomination usually means Anglicans in the United States), and some Lutheran Churches.

Presbyterian Polity: The form used by the Reformed Churches of the Continent in Switzerland, The Netherlands and parts of Germany as well as the Huguenots and Protestant minorities in France.  But Presbyterian as the name of a denomination refers to the denomination founded by John Knox which became most popular in Scotland, they are today also the largest Christian Church in South Korea.

Congregational Polity:  As the name of a specific denomination refers to a subgroup of the Puritans that included the founders of Boston MA and Oliver Cromwell., but it was also the Polity used by most of the most well known Puritans including the Plymouth Pilgrims, the Baptists and the Quakers.  It also seems to apply to Anabaptist sects like the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish.  It can be hard to determine with Proto-Protestant groups that no longer exist, but it looks to me like the Waldenses and Taborite were probably Congregational.

Episcopal Polity is basically Clerical Monarchy, Presbyterian Polity is Clerical Oligarchy or Parliamentarianism, and Congregational Polity is Clerical Democracy.  There are of course differences within each form as well, for example what Separates Catholicism from other Episcopalians is viewing The Bishop of Rome as beyond just a Duke(Bishop) Archduke(Archbishop), Prince(Cardinal) or King(Patriarch) but as essentially the Emperor of The Church.

I like to describe my own personal position on Ecclesiastical Polity as Congregationalism with Presbyterian Characteristics.  The reason being that the most well known Congregationalists, those who bear the name and Baptists, seem to be classified this way chiefly for their localism over regionalism but sure seem to have Episcopal Characteristics in how the Local Pastor is viewed.  But even in Presbyterian Denominations it still seems like the weekly Church service is usually one person giving a speech everyone else listens to, which I view as a monarchial tending problem itself. And that criticism itself parallels criticisms of modern Secular Democracies. In many ways I think the Quakers are doing most things better then anyone else.

All three words used to define these forms of Church Government are Biblical, so the first step to seeing who is Biblically Correct is looking into how these words are used in The Bible.

Episcopas is a Greek word that is most literally translated Overseer, but in translations like the KJV more often becomes Bishop, and KJV only Independent Baptists usually use Bishop as the chief Biblical synonym for what they mean by Pastor.  Interestingly the Spartan title of Ephor is derived from the same Greek Root but in a different dialect making it equivalent in it's essential meaning.

Presbyter is a Greek word that is usually translated Elder but I actually feel like Senior conveys the intended meaning better at least in how The New Testament uses it.  Better yet, if I were based on my perspective as a Christian who watches a lot of Anime asked to consult on a Japanese translation of The Bible, I would advise them to translate Presbyter as Senpai and Newtron as Kohai at least in 1 Peter and the Pastoral Epistles.

Neither of these words was meant to refer to an office in any kind of hierarchy, the word “office” is used, but it means a job or function not a position of authority.  I’m a supporter of the House Church Movement, which means I’ve observed how there were no Church buildings till the 3rd Century, the Early Church met in each other’s homes.  Any context where Episcopas seems to be in use in a very singular sense, as in this Church at this time seemingly only has one, it’s probably the owner of the house they’re currently meeting in, the host of the meeting is naturally also responsible for organizing and overseeing it.  But in other contexts like Acts 20 and 1st Peter even many who defend the Episcopalian developments of the 2nd through 4th Centuries admit that all the Presbyters are Overseers in those passages.  However I feel the word Deacon is also used interchangeably with Episcopas, Deacon means a servant.

When 1st Peter is talking about elder and younger believers, I don’t think he means by how long it’s been since they came out of their mother’s womb, but by how long they’ve been a Christian.  Anarchist Philosophers have argued it does not conflict with Anarchism to defer to the authority of someone more experienced than you on a certain subject, and for Christian Anarchists that is how Divine Authority is reconciled, God is older and more experienced than all of us but Scripture actually does depict Him as okay with His decisions being questioned.  This is a form of that, Peter is saying that newer believers should seek guidance from those with more experience, but also stresses how those elders need to take seriously the responsibility that comes with that.

William Tyndale chose not to use the word Church in his English Translation of The New Testament, during this early period some Protestants were concerned the word Church itself was perhaps too inherently owned by the Catholic Church, and it was in fact never a good direct translation of The Greek.  So the Greek word Ekklesia he translated as Congregation, and even in the KJV (which is largely just a revision of Tyndale) and more modern Bibles "Congregation" instead of Church is still used a few times.  Because it is a pretty good literal translation of what Ekklesia means, but not the only way to translate it. 

You see the word Ekklesia was previously a big part of Greek politics and discussions of politics where in those contexts it is often translated Assembly.  The Ekklesia was in Athens and other Greek Democracies the word for the gathering together of the citizenry to discuss an issue and then vote on it, but they did exist in less strictly Democratic states as well since even the most monarchial monarchies often felt the need to consult the people.

The New Testament usage is not unrelated to the Civil Government usage, The Church is the Kingdom of Heaven, and Christ is King but even in The Davidic Monarchy the King still had to involve The People, indeed Ekklesia is also used in the Septuagint to translate equivalent Hebrew Words, as well as in Stephen’s Description of the Mosaic gathering of the people in Acts 7.  And there are hints in the New Testament of the local Ekklesia making decisions democratically.

So the first argument for Congregationalism is that only Congregationalists don't need to massively add to the meaning of the Biblical word they're named for. The word itself was inherently an expression of Democracy in Ancient Greek. Meanwhile Episcopas was not a word Monarchists would use for a Monarch and the closest similar word used in a political context was an example of representative democracy.

Most ancient Oligarchical forms of Government originated as Councils of Elders including pre Solon Athens and Sparta, either the heads of all of the Tribes families, or the heads of the aristocratic ruling families like Parliament's House of Lords.  A Council of Elders is what the Latin in origin word Senate actually means etymologically, and it’s also what the Sanhedrin is in Numbers 11 (Josephus called it the Senate of the Jews).  A council of Elders can play a role in how a Democracy functions, but it shouldn’t be the final and certainly not the only authority.

The Episcopalians’ main argument is that they have a lot of precedent on their side, the Church had been pretty Episcopal for well over a thousand years, you can’t even conceivably blame Constantine for this one. Indeed I don’t think one single big bad is to blame, though Ignatius of Antioch is the earliest Church writer we have who explicitly argued for Episcopalianism.  Ignatius gets referred to as a student of the same “John” who Polycarp was a student of, but the oldest sources on Polycarp being a student of a “John”, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Papias, mention only him and not Ignatius, and Ignatius in the letter he supposedly wrote to Polycarp makes no mention of them having a shared mentor, and neither refers to a “John” as their mentor in any of their own authentic writings.  Papias the oldest source on Polycarp and this John clearly distinguishes him from John The Apostle calling him John the Presbyter. 

Some supporters of Episcopalianism will admit that originally Churches founded by Peter and Paul were Presbyterian (I don’t even think they were that) but claim that "Johannian" Churches in Asia were Episcopalian, basing that largely on Ignatius and Polycarp.  However Polycarp in his one letter refers to himself as one Episcopas among a group. But either way something starting in Asia isn't a good sign since Paul referred to Asia departing from him, and in Revelation 2-7 most of the Churches in this region have some doctrinal problems. I'm not the only person to argue that Episcopal Polity is the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans.

The second century seems to be the key transitional century for the rise of Episcopalianism, some have argued it was a “necessary” development for dealing with the Heretics, needing an authoritative leader to refute and oppose them.  These Heretical sects were often founded by individual Heretics with a bit of a cult of personality around them like Cerinthus, Maricon and Valentinius.  So the "Proto Orthodox" responded to the Heretics by imitating their tactics.

But the second century was also the century over the course of which Platonism supplanted Stoicism as the leading Metaphysical Philosophy of the Greco-Roman World, including the beginning of its influence on Christianity. 

In Stoicism and Early Christianty I argue that the Early Christians were somewhat Stoic, but Stoics who were socially and morally more like the original Stoicism of Zeno rather than later Roman Stoicism.  Zeno was born a Phoenician on Cyprus but he founded his School in Athens.  The original Stoics were people who’s criticism of Athenian Democracy was that it wasn’t Democratic enough, they wanted full Gender Equality and the abolition of Slavery, as well as a Socio-Economic system we would today call Communist. This lines up well with Paul in Galatians 3 who says that in Christ's Ekklesia there is no distinction between Male/Female or Free/Slave or Jew/Gentile (Native/Immigrant).

However Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle were Athenians who HATED Democracy, they idolized many aspects of Sparta (though in The Laws attributed to Plato the Athenian blames Sparta for the spread of the Homosexuality he wanted to stamp out).  Aristotle of course broke with his former teacher on many things, and his books on Politics criticized both of Plato’s constitutions, he praised Sparta but ultimately gave higher praise to Carthage and Solon’s Constitution. It was actually Xenophon who was the most unconditionally in-love with Sparta.

Plato’s Republic gets misconstrued as Communist because it technically has no Private Property, but it is still very much a class based society, there was no discussion of liberating the Slaves.  In The Republic the Monarchy of a "Philosopher King" is Plato's ideal but an Oligarchy of "Guardians" is the acceptable alternative in the absence of a perfect ruler, and so I suspect Platonized Christianity gave rise to both Presbyterianism and Episcopalianism. The Republic's Communalism was only for the elite class of Guardians not the common people which I think may play a role in where Monasticism came from. Plato's Statesman also argued for Monarchy being the ideal.

But a degree of congregationalism might have survived longer then we generally assume. Just look at the history between the first two Ecumenical Councils when the Empire actually had two Arian Emperors. People will often take the the technical fact that both Arian Emperors at least started as Eastern Emperors to imply Arianism was actually popular in the East during this time, but this ignores the history of the Bishoprics of Antioch and Alexandria, where Arian Emperors kept trying to remove the Nicene Bishops like Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch and Cyril of Jerusalem and replace them with personally appointed Arians yet the people of those Congregations refused to accept them. Same with the Arab Rebellion lead by Queen Mavia agaisnt the Arian Emperor Valens. It even happened in Constantinople itself, the Nicene Paul I of Constantinople always had the popular support of the people, Cosntantius II used violent force to defy them.

Or even later when we look at Bede's account of Augustine of Canterbury's disagreements with the Briton/Welsh clergy at meetings like the Synod of Chester, the Bishops themselves left the meeting open to at least some of Augustine's proposed changes but said they'd have to check with the People first, at it's core that's Congregationalism.

Now remember what I said about Capitalism and Democracy being incompatible?  Part of that is how Socialists believe Democracy should be expanded to the workplace.  Most Corporations are either Monarchies with one absolute CEO or Oligarchies ruled by a Board of Directors representing the wealthy shareholders. Worker owned Co-Opts would be Democracy but they are rare, the current status quo actively opposes allowing such experiments to succeed.

I've talked about the doctrine of the Priesthood of all Believers before, but those passages often come hand in hand with the Kingship of all Believers. Christ and God are both King, but they intend to share their Scepter with Us.

Paul Cartledge has a lecture you can watch on YouTube called Ten Things You Really Should Know about Ancient Greek Democracy. One of the points of the lecture is that it seems like in ancient times the word Democracy may have been inherently derogatory and thus rarely if ever used by people who actually supported it, most of the ancient Greek works that have survived are not very pro Democracy, even the writings of the early Stoics are mostly lost. So in that context the word Democracy not being used in The New Testament may itself be evidence that it's one of the few pro Democracy Ancient Greek Texts to survive. And maybe the word Ekklesia could have been the key word in whatever now lost label the ancient Democrats called themselves.

Here are some articles on Congregational Polity, one of them ties in their Dispensationalism which I disagree with.

https://pastorchrisbass.wordpress.com/2017/08/29/congregational-church-polity-a-biblical-defense/

https://www.proclaimanddefend.org/2016/03/11/a-theological-basis-for-congregational-government/

https://www.9marks.org/article/journalall-churches-saints-why-new-testament-polity-prescriptive/

https://founders.org/2011/04/11/church-polity-a-biblical-approach/

https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/jbtm/03-1_038.pdf

https://www.rindgechurch.org/wbw--13-early-church-polity-1.html

https://trisagionseraph.tripod.com/government.html

https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bitstream/123456789/32178/1/Democratic_elements_in_the_early_Church.pdf

That last one contains more documentation on what I said above, popular election was playing a role in how Bishop were chosen all through the 4th Century.

Part 2: Applying Ecclesiastical Governance to Civil Governance.

Protestants applying their views of Church Government to Civil Government started before the Reformation proper actually, when we look at the history of Proto-Protestantism, John Ball and his Peasant Revolt was contemporary with John Wycliffe and the Hussite Reformation was soon followed by the Taborite Rebellion.

Then not long after Martin Luther’s message had developed a big following Thomas Munster led an Anarcho-Communist revolt in Germany, then Luther being the evil scumbag he was ordered the Aristocratic Feudal Lords he had converted to his new doctrine to put them down, and there were other Anabaptist revolts as well, but by the end of the 16th century most Anabaptists were absolute Pacifists.

It was Rebels seeking to empower Presbyterianism who were the first to gain success with Zwingli making his preference for Aristocracy clear followed by the Dutch Revolt that started in the 1560s.  And then the English Revolutions of the 16th Century only empowered Parliament (the Presbytery they’d had since long before the Reformation) not the People.  Though more genuinely Congregational rebel groups were involved like Gerrard Winstanley’s Diggers.

Jennifer Tolbert Roberts in Athens On Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought observes in the chapter on the English Revolution how it was the philosophers of Absolute Monarchy like Thomas Hobbes and Robert Filmer who had studied the Classical Pagan Texts of Greece and Rome and felt they supported their conclusions since it was mostly critics of Athens who's works have survived not Athens' defenders. While it was the most radical of Democrats like the Diggers and Levelers who showed no interest in any secular Classics but based their conclusions on how they interpreted The Bible.

And to verify my point about Democracy and Capitalism not going together originally, the earliest Enclosures of the Commons done in the 17th Century were by the Jacobite Monarchs, James I and Charles I, they were among the grievances that the Presbyterian and Congregational rebels held against them, and then after that Revolution they were put on hold till deep into the Hanover period. England's first even kind of Democratic Revolution was in part a resistance to primitive Capitalism. Robert Filmer not John Locke was the real English Language innovator of the modern Capitalist understanding of Private Property, and he was staunchly anti-Democracy.

Over in the Colonies New England was founded by Congregational Puritans, and Pennsylvania by the even more Congregational Quakers.  But Maryland was founded by Catholics and the South by Royalist Anglican Cavilers loyal to the Jacobite Monarchs.  In a way the American Civil War was a long delayed Sequel to the English Civil War.  Atun Shei Films has a video on Puritanism that acknowledges both their good and bad points.   It was also under the influence of Puritans like Richard Bernard that England under Cromwell ended it's ban on Jews that had stood since the 13th Century.

In the 17th Century English Revolution different people's positions on Ecclesiastical Polity lined up pretty consistently with their positions on Civil Governance, the Catholics and Anglicans were the Monarchists, the Presbyterians were the Parliamentarians and the Puritans and Quakers were the Democrats.

Later on plenty of Protestants would become openly explicit in not wanting the same kind of Governance for The State they do for The Church.  Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party was religiously speaking dominated by the New England Congregationalists, a denomination founded on Clerical Localism, so why were they so opposite politically?  Well they still had the Puritan Attitude that the State should regulate Morality, so they wanted a strong Federal Government regulating public morality, and that's what Hamilton and Adams promised them.

But it's also noticeable that in-spite of their voting base being Congregationalist the leadership of the party was largely Episcopalians, Hamilton, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris, Rufus King, Charles Cotesworth Pickeny, John Rutledge, Edward Rutledge, George Walton and William Samuel Johnson. And then there's Patrick Henry who was a rare Federalist who had been an opponent of ratifying the Constitution. These are largely the same people Eric Nelson talks about in Royalist Revolution who wanted the office of President to be King in all but name. There were Congregationalists who ultimately sided with the Democratic-Republicans like Samuel Adams, Josiah Bartlett and both representatives of New Hampshire at the Constitutional Convention. John Hancock never joined either Party but his concerns about the Constitution clearly showed Democratic-Republican leanings.

Modern Evangelical Dominionists will talk about how the phrase “Separation of Church and State” comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Pastor, and say it explains how it's there to protect the Church from the State not the other way around.  The historical context they are leaving out is that this was a Baptist Pastor, and back then Baptists were very much still a minority religion even in the State they had founded.  And the Boston Congregationalists especially hated the Baptists remembering Roger Williams as an Apostate from their Church.  Jefferson was promising a minority religion protection from the majority religion in bed with the then ruling Party.

I don’t feel like retreading all the Roger Williams territory here, I recommend John M. Barry’s book Roger Williams and The Creation of The American Mind.

Roger Williams and John Clarke weren't the only association the Baptists had with the fight for Freedom of Religion, it goes back to the founders of the General Baptists John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, and after them Richard Overton of the Levellers during the English Revolution and John Leland contemporary with the American Revolution.  Nor are they the only association the Baptists have with the Abolitionist movement, Elhanan Winchester was a prominent early American Abolitionist as was Morgan John Rhys, Slavery in the British Empire was finally outlawed as the result of a Slave Rebellion in Jamaica lead by Baptists called the Baptist War, and Charles Spurgeon also strongly opposed Slavery, and George Washington Williams is also worth mentioning as are Amos Tuck and Edwin Hurlbut. The Randalite Free Will Baptists were also known for their opposition to Slavery Then in more modern times the PNBC was important to the Civil Rights Movement.  The Southern Baptists were originally very much the atypical Baptists, breaking off from the the oldest American Baptist Church (the one founded by Williams and Clarke) because it opposed Slavery, it was a long complicated history that made them the largest Protestant Church in the U.S.  And even today while Southern Baptists are America's largest single Baptist Denomination they are still less then 50% of the total.

However the Quakers became even more virulent abolitionists.

But let’s go back to the discussion of France.  John Calvin himself made a Christian argument for Regicide during the French Wars of Religion.  During the French Enlightenment, of the key Philosophs who died before The Revolution broke out, the only one who was a Christian was Rousseau who was raised Calvinist went Catholic for a while but then returned to Calvinism. He was also the only one who was a Communist rather than a Liberal.  He is a key transitional figure in the Secularization of Communism as unlike prior Christian Communists his argument for it was Secular.  Montesquieu was however not as hostile to religion as Voltaire and did use The Bible in his writings, though exactly how has been misrepresented by certain Evangelicals.

The French Revolution was the beginning of the Secularization of both Democracy and Communism, and at the same time the final stage of them being seemingly separated from each other.

France was the first place where certain ideas that began as inherently Protestant were slowly able to be considered by Catholics, and eventually non Christians. Partly this is because of the French perspective that people like Calvin provided to the Reformed Tradition from the beginning. Partly it's because Rousseau was good at making his ideas sound appealing to those who don't share his Faith. And partly it's because a lot of the Philosophs and early French Revolutionary leaders were kind of Anglophiles.

Contrary to popular stereotypes about the French Revolution, it was initially lead more by Christians (mostly Catholics but some Protestants) some were even clergy, the Atheists and Deists were present from the start but it took them years to take over. These Christians include Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes who authored the Revolution's original Declaration of Independence, so too probably were his allies Baily and Lafayette. Jacques Necker and other Calvinists from Geneva. Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Etienne who authored France's first Edict of Toleration. Claude Fauchet who originally lead the Cercel Social where he first argued for a Rousseau inspired Democratic reorganization of the Gallican Church. Henri Gregoire, Antoine-Adrien Lamourette, Pierre Claude Froncois Dauno and Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Dobel who were important supporters of the Civil Constitution of The Clergy. And Jacques Roux who was the leader of the actual Communists of the Revolution (the Jacobins were all Classical Liberals) the Enrages.

Same was true for the English Sympathizers of The Revolution which include Richard Price, the Christian Communist Thomas Spence and the founders of modern Unitarianism Gilbert Wakefield and Joseph Priestley.

There is a neat video on YouTube about how Rousseau's radical Democracy came from the local largely informalized Democratic values of his hometown of Geneva.

The Roots of Modern Democracy

Well the Geneva that Rousseau grew up in was a product of Calvin. The Regional Synods of we usually associate with Presbyterianism came from others not Calvin himself, Calvin organized a local Church Government for the city of Geneva, in the grand scheme of things he may well have been more Congregationalist then people assume.