THE LIFE OF BLESSED HIEROMONK SERAPHIM ROSE

Father Seraphim was born into a typical white middle class Protestant family in San Diego in 1934. While growing up, he was the proverbial dutiful child and academic achiever. After high school, however, he began to passionately seek the answer to the question "Why?"--and, not finding it in the society in which he had been raised, he began to rebel. He refused to accept the accepted answers. This was at the very beginning of the modern counterculture, the early 1950's. Father Seraphim became a student of one of the counterculture's first pioneers, Alan Watts (whom he realized later was totally pseudo) and became a Buddhist Bohemian in San Francisco. He learned ancient Chinese in order to study the Tao Teh Ching and other ancient Eastern texts in their original language, hoping thereby to tap into the heart of their wisdom. By this time he had wholly rejected the Protestant Christianity of his formative years, which he regarded as worldly, weak, and fake; he mocked its concept of God and that that it "put God in a box." He Read Nietzsche until the Prophets words began to resonate in his soul with an electric, infernal power.

All this time, he had been seeking the Truth with his mind, but the Truth had eluded him. He fell into a state of despair which he described years later as a living hell. He felt he did not fit in the modern world, even his family, who did not understand him. It was as if he had somehow been born out of place, out of time. He loved to roam under the stars, but he felt that there was nothing our there to take him in--no God, nothing. The Buddhist "nothingness" left him empty, just as it did the founder of the Beat movement, Jack Kerouac; and, like Kerouac, Father Seraphim turned to drink. He would drink wine voraciously and then would pound on the floor, screaming to God to leave him alone. Once while drunk, he raised his fist to heaven from a mountaintop and cursed God, daring Him to damn him to Hell. In his despair, it seemed worth being damned forever by God's wrath, if only he could empirically know that God exists--rather than remain in a stagnant state of indifference. If God did damn him to hell, at lest then he would, for that blissful instant, feel God's touch and know for sure He was reachable

"Atheism," Father Seraphim wrote in later years, "true 'existential' atheism, burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful God is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true God Whose ways are so inexplicable even to the most believing of men, and it has more than once been known to end in a blinding vision of Him Whom the real atheist truly seeks. It is Christ Who works in these souls. The Antichrist is not to be found in the deniers, but in the small affirmers, whose Christ is only on the lips. Nietzsche, in calling himself Antichrist, proved thereby his intense hunger for Christ..."

In searching through various ancient religions and traditions, Father Seraphim once went to visit a Russian Orthodox Church. Later he wrote of his experience.

"For years in my studies I was satisfied with being 'above all traditions' but somehow faithful to them... When I visited an Orthodox Church, it was only in order to view another 'tradition'. However, when I entered an Orthodox Church for the first time (a Russian Church in San Francisco) something happened to me that I had not experienced in any Buddhist or other Eastern temple; something in my heart said this was 'home,' that all my search was over. I didn't really know what this meant, because the service was quite strange to me and in a foreign language. I began to attend Orthodox services more frequently, gradually learning its language and customs... With my exposure to orthodoxy and Orthodox people, a new idea began to enter my awareness: that Truth was not just an abstract idea, sought and known by the mind, but was something personal--even a Person--sought and loved by the heart. And that is how I met Christ."

On becoming Orthodox Father Seraphim continued to despise modern world and hoped for nothing from it; he wanted only to escape it. He felt no less, if not more, estranged from the Christianity he had been raised in, for while that Christianity was at home in the world, his was radically otherworldly. He had finally found the designation of man's existence, and it was this: man is meant for another world.

Father Seraphim's was an ascetic Faith. He wanted a Christianity that emphasized not earthly consolation and beliefs, but rather heavenly redemption through suffering on this earth. No other kind rang true to him who had suffered much. Only a God Who allowed His children to be perfected for heaven through suffering, and Who Himself set the example by coming to a life of suffering--only such a God was capable of drawing the afflicted world to Himself and was worthy to be worshiped by the highest spiritual faculties of man.

In his journal, Father Seraphim wrote: "Let us not, who would be Christians, expect anything else from it than to be crucified. For to be a Christian is to be crucified, in this time and in any time since Christ came for the first time. His life is the example--and warning--to us all. We must be crucified personally, mystically; for through crucifixion is the only path to resurrection. If we would rise with Christ, we must first be humbled with Him--even to the ultimate humiliation, being devoured and spit forth by the uncomprehending world.

"And we must be crucified outwardly, in the eyes of the world; for Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, and the world cannot bear it, even in a single representation of it, even for a single moment. The world can only accept Antichrist, now or at anytime.

"No wonder, then, that it is so hard to be Christian--it is not hard it is impossible. No one can knowingly accept a way of life which, the more truly it is lived, leads more surely to one's own destruction. And that is way we constantly rebel, try to make life easier, try to be half-Christian, try to make the best of both worlds. We must ultimately choose--our felicity lies in one world or the other, not in both.  "God give is the strength to pursue the path of crucifixion; there is not other way to be Christian."

Before he had found the truth, Father Seraphim had suffered for the lack of it. Now, having found it, he suffered for the sake of it. He devoted the rest of his life to living that truth, and killing himself to give it to others. Together with a young Russian man, named Gleb Podmosphnesky, he formed a Brotherhood which practiced the "Do it yourself" philosophy. They opened a bookstore in San Francisco and began printing a small magazine called the Orthodox Word by hand on a small letterpress, translating Ancient Christian texts and bringing Orthodox Literature to America. Later, to avoid the emptiness of the city, they moved their printing operation to the wilderness of Northern California, where they began to live like the ancient desert dwellers, of ancient times. There was not running water on their forested mountain, no telephone, no electric lines. They built their buildings themselves out of old lumber taken from pioneer dwellings and hauled water on their backs up the mountain. They lived with deer, rabbits, bear, foxes, squirrels, bats, mountain lions, scorpions, and rattlesnakes.

In 1970 they became monks, thus dying forever to the world. In the wilderness Father Seraphim's spirit began to soar "The city," he once said, "is for those who are empty, and it pushes away those who are filled and allows them to thrive."

Working by candlelight in his tiny cabin, Father Seraphim created a great number of original writings and translations of ancient ascetic texts. In America his writings have so far reached only select circles but in countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain they have had and incalculable impact on human lives. During the communist era, Father Seraphim's writings were secretly translated into Russian and distributed in the underground press (samizdat) in the form of typewritten manuscripts. By the time the fall of Communist power in 1991, Father Seraphim was known all over Russia. Today his books are on sale everywhere in Russia, including book tables in the Metro (subway) and on the street. The reason that he has made a much greater mark on Russia that on his homeland is because in Russia people knew how to suffer. Father Seraphim's message of underground Christianity, of suffering and persecution in this world for the sake of truth, touches a responsive chord in people who have already been crucified. In America people would rather hear the "nice" messages of preachers like Rev. Robert Schuler (who, by the way, broadcasts his show in Russia, where people can hardly believe how stupid it is). I met Father Seraphim a year and a half before his death in 1982. Like him, I had been seeking reality through Eastern religions, etc., by seeking to escape pseudo-reality through a Zen-like breakdown of logical thought processes. Finally, reduced to despair, I listened to Sid Barrett's two schizophrenic-withdrawal, childhood-regression solo albums over and over, until I had memorized all his word salads. One day Father Seraphim came to the campus where I was going to school. He drove up in an old beat up pick-up truck and emerged in his worn out black robe, his long hair, and his exceedingly long grey beard which had become matted. I was the image of absolute poverty. Next thing I remember I was walking with Father Seraphim through the college. Dinner had just ended and students were milling and hanging around the outside cafeteria. Everyone was staring at Father Seraphim, but he walked through them as naturally as if he had been at home. I the middle of a progressive American college, he seemed like someone who had just stepped out of the 4th century Egyptian desert.

Father Seraphim went to a lecture room and delivered a talk called "Signs of the Coming of the End of the World." He had happened to be sick at the same time and sniffled throughout his lecture. Obviously exhausted, he yet remained clear-headed, cheerful, and ready to answer questions at length. I could see that he was at least as learned and far more wise than any of my professors, and yet he was clearly a man of the wilderness, more at home in the forest than in a classroom.

What struck me most about Father Seraphim was that here was a man who was totally sacrificing himself for God, for the truth. He was not a university Professor receiving a comfortable salary for being a disseminator of knowledge, nor was he a religious leader who hankered after power, influence, or even a bowl of fruit to be placed at his feet, as did the "spiritual masters" who had followings in that area. He was not "into religion" for what could he get out of it; he was not looking for a crutch to "enjoy spiritual life." He was just a simple monk who sought the Truth above all else. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would die for that Truth, for I could see he was dying for it already.

-Monk Damascene (Author of Father Seraphim Rose: His Life & Works)

Comments

[Margaret]

There are many ways to be useful, I think.

http://adifferentvoice.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/amazing-grace-ii/

[Sean]

Here's an MP3 link to a Fr. Seraphim Rose talk at University of California in 1981 on "Signs of the End Times"

http://www.ortodoxmedia.com/inregistrare/140/The-signs-of-the-end-of-

The TXT version of said talk

http://www.roca.org/OA/134/134b.htm (P1)
http://www.roca.org/OA/134/134c.htm (Q & A)

[Stavros]

Sean,

Thanks for the links.

Margaret,

Wilberforce and Father Seraphim both have impacted others in a positive way. They took different paths to be sure but they both epitomize two very important aspects of Christianity: faith and works. Salvation requires both. I'm working on a future post.

[Dimitrios]

There's a point in Monk Damascene's account where he seems to refer to Nietzsche as a prophet; also the Blessed Seraphim refers to his fierce hunger for Christ. This strikes me as insightful. His spiritual longing, passionate intensity and deep meditation on God and Christ is undeniable; he still acts a s a touchstone: those who study and truly digest his thought and still hold onto their faith are blessed indeed.

It is a pity he did not find that which he was seeking, that his spiritual path did not lead to Constantinople (or even Rome). What a Christian he would have made!

We may also have been spared some of the efforts of his loathsome epigones, his self-described disciples from the Nazis to Foucault and his Deconstructionists, to demolish the precious civilized life of Christendom.

O Theos na ton sinhoresi.

[Margaret]

I have found Nietzsche's writing very challenging, but found my way through it finally after several years of struggle. I don't think he ever experienced love (a selfless going out, agapi rather than eros), except perhaps when he saw the horse collapse. At the risk of repeating myself, I don't think love and power can be reconciled, so I imagine that experiencing one when you've devoted your life to the other would be enough to make you mad.

I wrote an essay about it, which I enjoyed writing and which I've posted on my blog. Rather long, I'm afraid. The essay is particularly about the difference (as I see it) between compassion and pity. The first is a relationship of love, the second a relationship of power. I don't have a degree in philosophy, so am setting myself up to be shot down, I know. And I wrote it about four years ago so I can see all sorts of faults in it now. I did read around the subject a lot, and found Martha Nussbaum's work very useful. I enjoyed writing the essay if only because it enabled me to finally get beyond Nietzsche so that his thought no longer threatens me.

[Hermes]

Margaret, judging by your comments on Nietzsche I suggest you read him a bit more closely. His love was with mankind (with the except of his brief affair with Lou Salome). His concept of power was not power of others but power over oneself to enable creativity. Something akin to the 'magnanimous man' in Aristotle's Ethics. Many people speculate one of the reasons he broke down in the square of Turin was because he was overly concerned with the plight of mankind.

In many respects Nietzsche’s thinking resembles theology rather than a philosophy and his life resembles the struggles of a monk in the Egyptian desert. Even his writings are like the exhortations of early Christians. Even the plot in his most important book resembles a religious story: Zarathustra comes down from the mountain to preach a new religion to the European man who has killed God with rationality, inquiry and curiosity. The bargain the Europeans made with Mephistopheles (the devil) best characterized by the story of Faust. However, we should not confuse one theology for another. His theology is more akin to the early Greeks rather than Christians. Heraclitus also lived alone before he came to the city to preach to its inhabitants. Pythagoras lived in a religious community separate from the city. Parmenides poem reads like a religious text. The Greeks were an intensely religious people. So Nietzsche was a religious thinker. Heidegger was also a religious thinker. But their religion just happened not to be Christianity but idiosyncratic interpretations of Hellenism.

[Margaret]

Hermes, you never disappoint. I'll ignore the first sentence which is gratuitously offensive, don't you think? He didn't love mankind - he hated most of them, the sheep, the lemmings - and I'm not sure he loved Lou Salome either though he may, briefly, have been infatuated by the idea of her. I agree that he was principally concerned with "self-actualisation", to use a horrible modern phrase, or his own will to power, but there is no room for vulnerablity built into his schema and, without that, there is, I believe, no possibility of intimacy.

I really don't understand how a horse breaking down has anything to do with the plight of mankind, though it might have had quite a lot to do with the plight of horses at that time ... but I do think it might have been one of the rare occasions when he felt another's pain ... and if that is what you are trying to say too, then perhaps we can agree somewhat on that.

I don't think the rest of your comment is addressed to me particularly, and I wouldn't disagree with you anyway.

Perhaps, however, you'd care to tell me how you can reconcile the will to power with a loving intimate relationship with another person? I'd be interested in your answer.

[Hermes]

Margaret, you seem to be overly sensitive. But maybe I am a bit gruff (or less hypocritical) for genteel Anglo-Saxon ways. Nietzsche was deeply concerned with mankind that is why he railed against Christianity. He saw this religion has being nihilistic (note these are not wholly my views). I would not interpret his use of words like “sheep, lemmings etc” negatively. He wrote in a very aphoristic, hyperbolic and metaphorical manner. This is one of the reasons he has been so misinterpreted. Yes, he believed most of humanity were no better than sheep but is that not true? But this pained him and that is why he believed in the Overman to help rid humanity of its problems. Also, remember I think the bible makes references to sheep and flocks to represent people.

The only way one can have an intimate relationship with another is when one has will to power. Power over their wasteful desires, resentments, jealousies etc. Are you not happier with your partner when you feel at your best? When your life is operating as “controlled passion”? Despite Nietzsche’s arrogance these are very old ideas found in ancient texts.

Also, there is much room for vulnerability in his thinking. All of his texts are a cry of anguish for the exalted Overman. He has deep sympathy for this man’s fight against mediocrity and nihilism. His plight against utilitarianism, socialism, industrialization and other leveling tendencies and a world lacking great Art. It is a sympathy for aristeia over the mass man. Aristocratic in its original sense.

I can detect in your interpretation of his thinking a heavy influence of neoliberalism. Try and change the blinkers. There is a world beyond The Observer.

[Margaret]

Hermes, you are patronising, and I am sensitive.

I wonder which of us knows Nietzsche best? Neither of us knows the other's history, so best not to make assumptions ...

I love this quote from him, though, and am quite sure you will approve too. In fact you could easily have written it yourself:

"To blunder over the fundamental problem of "man and woman", to deny here the most abysmal antagonism and the necessity of an eternally hostile tension, perhaps here to dream of equal rights, equal education, equal claims and duties: this is a 'typical' sign of shallow-mindedness, and a thinker who has proved himself to be shallow and an Observer reader on this dangerous point - shallow of instinct! - may be regarded as suspect in general, more, as betrayed, as found out: he will probably be too 'short' for all the fundamental questions of life, those of life in the future too, incapable of any depth. On the other hand a man who has depth, in his spirit as well as his desires, and also that depth of benevolence which is capable of hardness and severity and lack of hypocrisy and is easily confused with them, can think of woman only in an oriental way - he must conceive of woman as a possession, as property with lock and key, as something predestined for service and attaining her fulfilment in service - in this matter he must take his stand on this tremendous intelligence of Asia, on Asia's superiority of instinct, as the Greeks formerly did: they were Asia's best heirs and pupils and, as is well known, from Homer to the age of Pericles, with the increase of their culture and the amplitude of their powers, also became step by step more strict with women, in short more oriental. How necessary, how logical, how humanly desirable even, this was: let each ponder for himself!"

I think Nietzsche's will to power is essential to a healthy life and, yes, I orten feel happy when I feel most free. But in reality my life (which I am very happy with) is a series of interdependencies, of demands made on me, of needs I have to, want to, meet, from my husband, my children, my friends, and at work. It is also a life full of joys that come from those relationships.

Perhaps I could not have lived as Nietzsche lived, but neither could he have lived as a family man except with a family of other Nietzsches, each independent of the other. I do not say he is wrong, only that it doesn't work for me.

[Margaret]

Stavros, I apologise for monopolising space on your blog in a conversation that does not even involve you. I could discuss Nietzsche with Hermes for the rest of my life and we would still disagree I think. So I'll leave my comments there. Hermes can have the last word.

[Dimitrios]

The thing seems to be, that Nietzsche tried to think himself into the mindset of the archaic, Pre-Socratic Greeks...and succeeded. (He was, by all accounts, an extraordinarily insightful Hellenist and classical scholar). The problem- he inherited all the spiritual problems of that mindset as well. Some of the early Christian Fathers pointed out that Greek philosophy can be seen as a process of seeking the "unknown God". Nietzsche may have, on some level, perceived this...and that the Overman in whom he had pinned his hopes had already come, been crucified and died in the governership of Pontius Pilate.

[Stavros]

Margaret, Hermes and Dimitrios,

I have been following your comments with interest. If I have not made any comments of my own it is simply because I feel totally unqualified to add anything worthwhile to the discussion. It has caused me however, to do some research, just so I can keep up with what is being said. Please don't feel like you are monopolizing anything. In fact, it has given me a much needed respite during which I have been working on my next post.

[Margaret]

OK, Stavros, with your permission ...

To try to tie all this in with your original post ... Nietzsche was extremely cynical of all philosophers (with the exception of himself) because he thought that each philosophy they constructed was no more than "a confession on the part of its author and a kind of involontary and unconscious memoir", that each philosopher creates the world in his own image, as he sees it. The point I'm trying (badly) to make is that he saw the world as he did because of how he saw the world ... because of how he was, and he couldn't see it differently without becoming a different person. But my world is different because I am different.

Your monk Seraphim Rose could, perhaps, have not been other than a man who lived in a hut with a matted beard. He clearly did what he did very well, but could he have lived your life with all the things you have done, achieved, the people you've kept happy, the responsibilities you have shouldered, the children you've looked after? I somehow doubt that. Why was his life of contemplation any better than yours? Was not his life of contemplation a predictable outcome of his earlier traumas? If I imagine alternatives outcomes for him with his history, I can imagine an early death more easily than I can imagine a happy family life with children. I've met my own Nietzsches, and the same goes for them. Whether they are destined to live such lives from birth, or whether their early life predisposes them to lives of extreme solitude is a moot point, but one that interests me greatly.

[Stavros]

Margaret,

You never disappoint. I would like to respond to the weighty issues that you bring up in a post rather than a comment in order to do them justice. I'll do my best to have both posts completed by tonight.

[Hermes]

Dimitrios, I am interested in what these spiritual problems the early Greeks had? Before you answer can you please do me a favour and read the primary texts. Please do not read anything else - no secondary texts. Just read the primary texts and then tell me what these spiritual problems are? And then tell me if other people have had spiritual problems and tell me what they?

Margaret, people are predisposed to some pathways and others are not and both inform each other. The issue is not really whether one is better than the other but how they conduct themselves in these paths. Oswald Spengler had a good saying:

"We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honourable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man."

-Oswald Spengler

[Lutheran church]

For the first time I heard about the father Hieromonk Seraphim Rose and a brief history about him is very good and I got understand many things about him and his writings. Thanks for this information.

[Stavros]

Lutheran,

You are very welcome, if you would like to read more try this link:

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/searchresults.aspx?kw=seraphim%2

May your efforts be blessed.

[Dimitrios]

I'm not a professional scholar, Hermes; merely a dilettante. However, I'll try to explain my thinking.
My understanding of the "spiritual problems of the Early Greeks" is through the lens of Plato. The Dialogues for the most part seem to be a general critique of the received wisdom of the Greek of pre-classical times. In the persona of Socrates, Plato subjects the traditional wisdom of the Pre-Classical Greeks about justice, morals, religion etc. to rigorous dialectic analysis. The end result of most dialogues is aporia, where nothing is resolved, rather than resolution in favour of ancestral wisdom...thus leaving open ended-the question of whether ancestral wisdom was correct or not.

I draw attention to the fact that Socrates (and Plato) was considered by Nietzsche to be main causes of the decadence of post-Classical European culture, right up there with "The Crucified" himself.

As to the "original texts" of the Pre-Socratics, I'm not as well up on them as you obviously are. In mitigation I might say that there aren't any "original texts". What we have are fragments, quoted in the works of later (often hostile) commentators. Perhaps what Nietzsche "filled the gaps" in those fragments with a worldview wholly his own, that had a patina of the ancient world on it. Nevertheless, in expressing the views of interlocutors like Trasymachus and Gorgias in the Dialogues, Plato probably described actually existing precoursers to Nietzsche's ideas of "master and slave morality"

The Spengler quote is moving...the idea was expressed most pointedly in Napoleonic times: "The Guard may die, but never surrenders!" Much as I may admire futile yet glorious last stands (My Greek roots are showing) as much as the next guy, I'd like to make mention of great Odysseus, definitely a man who knew the value of a good tactical retreat. As Stavros mentioned before on his blog, we are Roumious, as well as Hellenes.

(Incidently, I apologise both to Hermes and to Stavros for this long, tiresome screed. Cicero once wrote to a friend "I have written you a long letter as I didn't have time to write you a short one")

[Hermes]

Not bad. But where is the spiritual problem? Or any worse or better spiritual problem not faced by any other people? I suspect the comments on your previous post were merely the same ones provided by Christian apologists i.e. "the Greeks, despite being so inventive, had a gaping hole and we helped to fill that hole". On the other hand, the reality is that when the Greeks (the aristocratic representatives and not the proletariat) encountered Christianity they did not express aporia but they expressed bewilderment at such a silly creed. This is from the writings of Celsus, Porphyry etc

[Dimitrios]

I see your point, Hermes, I honestly do. However, Celsus and Porphyry were Platonists themselves. Please see Neitzsche's many disdainful comments on Christianity as "Platonism for the People"...they would have been seen by him as no better. Porphyry's works were preserved laboriously by generations of medieval monkish copyists for a reason. Similar philosophic worldview, perhaps? There were quite a few Christian Platonists around too: think Clement of Alexandria, for ex.

The aristocratic representatives of Greco-Roman antiquity generally adopted Platonism and its variants wholesale, unwittingly preparing the ground for Christianity. To paraphrase Burke, a great revolution comes when the minds of men are fitted to it. That defintely includes the minds of the majority of the intellectual elites. It can't come any other way.

In the Latin West the Roman Imperial structure collapsed, bringing about the Dark Ages. This perhaps allowed Neitzsche and other idealistic Western Hellenists to indulge in the belief that the collapse of the Classical world, together with its glorious, healthy Dionysian paganism, was brought about by "Christianity and the Barbarians" (Gibbon's phrase). "Thou hast triumphed, O pale Galileean, and the world hast grown pale with thy breath!".

We as Greeks, however shouldn't really indulge in these fantasies. After all classical civilisation did NOT collapse in the Greek East. It was baptised (perhaps perhaps peremptorily) by Constantine, but had generally converted over the course of a few centuries. It recognisably remained the continuation of classical Greco-Roman civilisation, holding out against all comers, til the stab in the back by the Crusaders, and the final crushing by the Turks. Christianity was not some alien virus, infecting and killing the great body of Clasical civ; it was of the blood and bone of that world. I myself can't maintain the pleasantly subversive, elitist belief that the Classical Oecumene and Christendom were completely different opposites, like some effete sanctimonious snob out of a Cavafy poem, wearing his ostentatious paganism as a badge of contempt for the Christian mob.

[Dimitrios]

I'm sorry Hermes. In that farrago of stuff above, I lost sight of your main point.

"I suspect the comments on your previous post were merely the same ones provided by Christian apologists i.e. "the Greeks, despite being so inventive, had a gaping hole and we helped to fill that hole"."

If ancient Hellenic religion had been as complete, generally fulfilling and self-sufficient as you imply, then there wouldn't have been a niche available for the major religious change that occurred in Late Antiquity, Not to say that the change would have necessarily been to Christianity, particularly. That seems to have happened through sheer chance (or God's will, depending on your faith level). Without Christianity what would have developed in the Mediterranean and Europe would have a kind of Neoplatonic mystical monotheism, an "astral piety".

Catholic writer John Reilly actually has some interesting speculations about this Platonic religion and what its historic effects would have been without the existence of Christianity. Link: www.johnreilly.info/ijhnbb.htm

Worth looking at, actually, and relevant to this discussion.

[Stavros]

Dimitrios,

Your comments are not tiresome in the slightest, they are lucid, clear and spot on. The quality of the discussions and the input of the commenters lately have been outstanding and surpass my simple postings by far. Thanks.

[Hermes]

I’ll ignore your first post because I am not sure what relevance it has; however, there is plenty there for another discussion. As to your second post I am not exclusively referring to the ancient Hellenic religion but Hellenic spiritual culture which included religion, philosophical systems, art, poesy, music and political structures which at different times overlapped to varying degrees i.e. one could be more philosophically inclined than religiously inclined but still could be considered a Hellene in a spiritual sense. This overarching spiritual culture never purported to be completely fulfilling and self sufficient. Actually, its very own nature facilitated syncretism by absorbing influences through time and space. There was a niche available for anything if it contributed new ways of understanding and living. Let’s not forget that offshoots and the development of less than Christian niches have dogged Christianity right from the outset – so does that mean it should be superseded by some more encompassing? Perhaps something akin to Islam which is not just a religion but system governing the totality of life.

Also, I believe your statement that Christianity was brought about by sheer chance is fairly close to the mark but this position undermines much of what Christianity claims to be. Overall, you seem to have a similar position to mine. I’ll have a look at this article. If you are interested there is some very good research being conducted on Late Antiquity and “pagan” monotheism in some Academies.

[Dimitrios]

I'm very interested, Hermes; this subject is rich, and worth further investigation. When you have time, drop me a line at jimmylevendia@hotmail.com (yes, yes, I know: jimmymangas@hotmail.com and jimmypallikari@hotmail.com were already taken...)

Also, I appreciate your comments, Stavros

[Diogenes]

Reading these comments reminds me of this: http://freedomkeys.com/ar-racism.htm