Tuesday, December 19, 2006
ROSICRUCIANISM
In a post below Zukkie linked a website that explains the birth of Rosicrucianism. The folllowing quote appears at the link:
Ellerbe demonstrates the Roman Catholic Church was the main force that kept the human mind chained in darkness over the centuries, consistently and systematically opposing all stirrings of enlightenment, and advancement of learning. One aspect of this tyranny over the human mind manifested itself in the policy of the Church of refusing to allow the Bible to be translated into the language of the people, ensuring that control remained in the hands of their priesthood. They wanted the people kept in ignorance and darkness so they could more easily be controlled.
Interesting piece of historical revisionism. I really must object. Actually it was the Roman Catholic Church that preserved European learning through the Dark Ages and the Barbarian invasions. The only center of learning in Europe was the Church. See Edward J. Eberle's paper "Religion and State in the Classroom: Germany and the United States", Roger Williams University School of Law Faculty Papers. From the website:
Most notable is the long-standing influence of the Catholic church. The Catholic church preserved learning during the early Middle Ages before the rediscovery of Roman law. Reading, writing, mathematics, accounting, and the study of science and philosophy were some of the bodies of knowledge that found refuge and nurture within the Church. The deep association of the Catholic church with learning is a major factor in the cooperative relationship that has developed between church and state over education. Europeans became accustomed to looking to the Church for support and contribution to society.
Latin was the language of the people. Wikipedia explains:
The expansion of the Roman Empire spread Latin throughout Europe, and, eventually, Vulgar Latin began to dialectize, based on the location of its various speakers. Vulgar Latin gradually evolved into a number of distinct Romance languages; a process well underway by the 9th century. These were for many centuries only oral languages, Latin still being used for writing. For example, Latin was still the official language of Portugal in 1296, after which time it was replaced by Portuguese. Many of these "daughter" languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian, flourished, the differences between them growing greater and more formal over time.
Scripture was written in Latin not because the Church was trying to keep the peasantry in ignorance. It was written in Latin because that was the written language of Europe. The peasantry spoke in dialects but were illiterate, and thus had no real use for the written texts. When the various languages developed, Latin was preserved for Scripture in order to preserve a body of doctrine without compromises. It still serves this purpose today. All one has to do is look at the translation squabbles within Roman Catholicism to know that this was a wise decision.
Prior to Gutenberg (movable type invented 1450), copies of Scripture were generated by hand, taking many long hours in the scriptorium. These copies were priceless and prized. Peasants could not afford to own them. There were so few that a church was fortunate to own a copy, and that copy was carefully guarded.
While reading Scripture was not an option for the populace in general, the Church developed a rich symbolism that conveyed in pictures and images what the peasantry could not read. Reading did not make life in a feudal society either better or worse. It was not until the rise of the middle class, based on commerce, that literacy became a useful avenue to advancement and thus a desirable skill.
Given this obvious historical distortion, I question the accuracy of the rest of Walker's presentation.
