899 - History's Fog Lamp
Friends: Perhaps historians have that “Dark Ages” thing backwards; the light of Christ was and is always there. See the column below. Blessings, Bob
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Spirituality Column #899
February
6, 2024
Common
Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
History’s
Fog Lamp
By
Bob Walters
“I
am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but
will have the light of life.” – Jesus, John 8:12
“But
men loved darkness instead of light ...” – Jesus to Nicodemus, John 3:19
History’s
“Dark Ages” may not have been all that dark; it’s just that “darkness,” rather
than light, grabbed the dominant publicity in Europe after the Middle Ages.
And
believe it or not, it was the Apostle Paul who was, and to some extent still
is, frequently blamed for the “darkness.”
How? Let’s just say, the fog was not Paul’s fault.
There
are different ways to express it, but here is a good one: Paul, in the first
century, did such a thorough job of explaining Christ and nascent Christianity
that the dominant paganism and contemporary philosophies of both the Greek and
Roman eras stumbled in the face of the newly-found and growing Christian church. Faith in Christ and the power of the Church, in
those middle centuries, superseded man’s own understanding of humanity.
Jesus,
after all, brought the good news of restored relationship with God through
personal faith in Jesus as God’s Son. The Holy Spirit, at Jesus’s ascension,
arrived among humanity for our spiritual strength and faithful understanding.
Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection – and His eternal message – compose the
most important, paradigm shifting, and philosophically delineating point in
human history.
The
Greek academy and civilization following Alexander the Great (approximately 400-200
B.C. to the time of Christ … the “Intertestamental Period” for us Bible folks)
set a centuries-long course for the Hellenization – Greek intellectual and
cultural dominance – in all quarters of the Mediterranean basin: Italy, Greece,
Asia Minor, Arabia, Egypt, Carthage, and the northern rim of Africa. This foggy philosophical “light” of man was merely
the human-focused wisdom of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian thinkers and writers. The
One God, for many, was unwelcome
The
Jews were not the only ones to take exception to the teachings of Jesus: He who
redefined the true light of life from God’s Law and man’s own ideas to the
truth of a one-for-all God. In the Old
Testament we see God calling the Jews as His own; in the New Testament, Paul explains
the truth that Jesus – by His own words – was now the ascendant light and truth
of all that was knowable. The Greeks taught “proof,” Jesus the Son of God
taught love and faith.
So
how did this “Dark Ages” identity happen to the “Medieval” / “Middle Ages” era (roughly 600-1400 A.D.)? The Italian poet, scholar, and early humanist Petrarch (article
link), in the mid-1300s, took vigorous exception with the cultural and
intellectual dominance of Christianity in general, and the Roman Church in
particular. He interpreted the Christian faith as merely an unprovable
mysticism that had interrupted the progress of his favored human-centric Greek
and Roman philosophies of antiquity. Evidently
hating the light – or at least loving man’s knowledge – Petrarch pronounced centuries
of Christian faith to be “The Dark Ages.” It stuck.
G.K.
Chesterton noted in his 1908 classic Orthodoxy, that it was the Church
that brought the true light of Christ through those ages, and guarded
Greek literature as well. Darkness? No.
Admittedly,
Rome of Petrarch’s era was a corrupt, theological mess which led to Martin
Luther’s 16th century Protestant Reformation. The concurrent “Renaissance” age of art
(Michaelangelo, Da Vinci), literature (Shakespeare), technologies (the printing
press), and thinking (Descartes) renewed focus on man’s capacities. The secular
Renaissance competed with the Bible-based Reformation. The world’s tendency and preference for powers
of theological darkness – i.e., humanism – clashed with Christ’s divine,
eternal guiding light.
It
is an enduring clash, casting a fog over humanity hiding divine light that truly
exists.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com)
considers the Enlightenment to be mainly more fog.