You might be missing something from the early Christian Church (after Nicea). The Church design is hierarchical, with one presiding Bishop with legal jurisdiction over all the activity in their bishopric; hence, fighting over authority.
The tedious philosophical differences are the vestige now because the books and writing remain while the people are long gone. At the time, there was much more at stake. Secondly, Church creed was carefully and thoroughly unified at Nicea in a formal process. Heresy was well-identified and definitely resolved, but sometimes through in-fights or at worst excommunications.
But apparently these disputes were often with bishops of other cities, so I don't really see what it had to do with power?
Authority as a general thing? lots of reasons to fight about authority -- this might need some specific examples to get more context.
I wonder if an emperor ever tried to get them to stop doing that, leaving it between each person and God?
In some times in India, it was actually a problem for tribes that young and old men would go find some secluded place to find themselves and god. Actual tasks of daily life, medicine and comfort were neglected for the other eighty percent of the population that were not young or old men.
In some sense it is selfish to insist on seclusion by individuals. The lesson is not at all obvious to the person who is thinking that way.
From the outside it can seem tedious. Certainly some of them are tedious. However, some of these controversies were important philosophically. For example, the fights over whether religious (flat painted) icons were idolatry or not changed the development of European art.
The development and arguments over "correct" Christian theology also had enormous impacts on European thought and philosophy. Personally, I believe the Christian belief of Jesus being "theanthropos" (fully God and man) helped lead to the modern European ideals of human rights and eventual elimination of slavery.
> Yes, I have the impression that it was really more about politics than theology and they would be quick to disagree about anything. Often, misconstruing the opinions of others. (Sound familiar?)
Definitely many of these arguments were political, and probably not much different than the modern culture "wars" in the USA. Many of them were probably petty, but some were profound.
Similarly one could also argue that this focus on human led to climate-change.
But seriously, this focus is older than Christianity. It is already in Genesis - where there are two versions of creation story. First where everything leads to man - here other animals are created first. Second where everything is created for man - here other animals are created after.
How do you reconcile the millennium between that schism and the development of the modern European ideals of human rights or the eventual elimination of slavery? Jesus was theologically theanthropos for the entirety of the colonization era and the triangular trade period.
>You turn this around like it is the fault of the nice people that it didn't happen faster.
No, I don't think Christianity is to thank for the abolition movement, I think other aspects of politics and culture led to it.
I always feel like this argument is almost closeted Islamaphobia, kinda reinforcing my viewpoint there.
It’s not about being “nice”. Neither is it not ridiculous if you consider the actual realities and complexities at the time. Almost every culture in the world has allowed slavery to some extent. The Roman Empire was built on slavery, and it took centuries for Christian thought to limit and then to begin to dismantle the institutions of slavery.
Here’s a great quote from a Reddit post on the topic:
> This is not a simple question, nor one that can be easily described across the entire empire. Christianity was a very diverse religious tradition even from the beginning of the religion's predominance in the Mediterranean. Early Church figures such as St. Gregory of Nazianzus, from the Roman east, launched attacks on slavery as an amoral affront to reason and rationality (Harper notes that this is the first extant attack on slavery in the Latin West, but I am not sure if that is true or not). Within the western parts of the Empire too there was pressure on the practice from Christian authorities. St. Augustine of Hippo, arguably the foremost figure of the 5th century for the Latin West, too pressured changes to the Roman attitude and approach towards slavery, he too condemned the practice as Gregory did and pushed for new attitudes towards enslaved people that emphasized the unnatural state of slavery on rational creatures. Slavery, in particular sexual slavery was the target of early Christian thinkers. They argued that it was a particular violation given the dimensions that were added on with the layer of ownership and slavery to the sexual exploitation of slaves. Harper argues that the Christian response to this was an extreme restructuring of Roman attitudes towards sex, in which the widespread availability of enslaved people was harshly curtailed, as attitudes towards the sexual exploitation of slaves were brought into the realm of official and cultural condemnation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17zxoj9/what...
"Centuries of Christian thought" happened before the two events I mentioned, things you ignored to quote someone saying a couple Roman Christians were against slavery.
During this era no other major polities that banned slavery that I'm aware of.
The traingular trade began in the 1440's and some Pope's even supported it at first. It took longer for earlier Christian thoughts against slavery began to be applied to non-Christians and among European colonies but they were eventually. Pope's began condemning enslaving Christians in the new colonies, and later ones condemned the Portuguese slave trade (part of the triangular trade). Many leading abolitionists in the British empire such as John Newton or William Wilberforce were directly motivated by their Christian faith and were very influential in outlawing slavery in the British Empire. It was similar in the US as well.
Which reinforces my notion that it was other political and cultural shifts that led to abolition, not religion. The dominant religions have not drastically changed since that time, yet slavery eventually became intolerable.
>The traingular trade began in the 1440's and some Pope's even supported it at first. It took longer for earlier Christian thoughts against slavery began to be applied to non-Christians and among European colonies but they were eventually.
1440 (really the 1490's at the earliest, 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but fairly minor) is already over a millennium since theanthropos became the standard belief. In that time, no real ideal of human rights had developed, and even the modicum of respect paid towards other Christians would soon vanish as the Reformation kicks off.
Further, one of the major turning points for human rights in Europe, The Deceleration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, is about as unchristian as anything in Europe is capable of being.
You're right that many early abolitionists were Christian, after several hundred more years of practicing slavery. Many of the predominant supporters of slavery were also Christian. When both sides are Christian, it's hard to think religion is truly the impetus.
Rather important example: Paul of Tarsus.
This practice predated the Empire by decades. In the Roman Republic following the Social War various peoples on the Italian peninsula, many of whom might never step foot in Rome, were granted citizenship [1]. Caesar himself gave Roman citizenship--all the way up to Senate membership--to Gallic aristocrats.
If we compare with the Roman Republic, not being centered on Rome is a big change. However, many emperors spent little time in Rome, and when there was a civil war it was apparently common to declare some other city a “New Rome,” so that idea was going around. Roman citizenship was considerably more flexible than other ancient empires, including people of many ethnicities, and was eventually extended to every free inhabitant in the empire. They didn’t just call themselves Roman, they legally were citizens.
We could instead focus on the similarities, like not having a monarchy. Anyone could be chosen emperor if they were in the right place at the right time. (Originally by being a popular and effective general, but later acclaimed by the crowds in Constantinople after political maneuvering.)
So I agree that there’s a “Ship of Theseus” aspect to it, but it seems like a consequence of Roman flexibility, allowing the empire to evolve into something rather different over the centuries.
(Apparently Christianity resulted in far more religious strife, though, compared to polytheism. As a state religion, it seems like it was a turn for the worse, and the history of the many schisms over nonsense is rather tedious.)