On 04-12-98 Frank Masingill wrote to Day Brown... 
 FM>    None of this is disputed in general, Day, however, I must say that 
 FM> I think 
 FM> you may give more emphasis to the writings attributed to Paul in 
 FM> fixing the 
 FM> status of the Church than history strictly allows.  After all, the 
 FM> basis of 
 FM> the Petrine Theory is associated with Peter, not Paul, and as far as I 
 FM> can see 
 FM> (and I don't claim to be a historical scholar of Church history) the 
 FM> Church 
 FM> though its structure right up to the Roman Pontiff seems to be a 
 FM> derivative of 
 FM> the Emperial rites reflecting the work of Constantine and Theodorus in 
 FM> reversing the Diocletian laws and setting Christianity as the sole 
 FM> legal religion of the empire. 
I spoze I gotta cop to using the tools that I have stumbled over, 
Frank.  Still, Philemon and Romans 13, both I think accurrately 
attributed to Paul, one: recognized slavery, and two: the divine 
right of tryanny- neither of which was condoned by philosophers, 
most particularly the Stoics, who were trying to construct a 
more rational cosmology than traditional paganism. 
 
There is also his visit to the Stoic's alter in Athens to 'the 
Unknown God', where he has the chutzpah to try to tell them what 
he saw as the truth- without any substantiation- those familiar 
tenets of his faith.  Among the Semites, truth was whatever some 
authority figure said it was. Compare that with Thucydides in his 
quotations of various Greek leaders, where the latter begins with 
those facts his audience is aware of, and tries to *reason* with 
them to reach a conclusion based on the *evidence*. 
 
In Herodutus, Xerxes is quoted as just not understanding how any 
group of men could organize an army to oppose him without a rule 
by a king.  He just did not get it.  Neither did his sucessor, 
Artaxerxes, understand how a Greek army could *elect* leaders to 
replace those Artaxeres had butchered. 
 
The complexity of republican society is disconcerting to smaller 
minds, and Christianity provided a simple explanation, much of 
which, I see Paul as the author of, and it is his advice that I 
see as pandering to the tyranny of the Emperors.   
 
 FM>    I would also credit Augustine with furnishing a lot of the cement 
 FM> that held 
 FM> this mix together so strongly with his fusion of philosophy and 
 FM> Christianity 
 FM> in a world view for the west. 
 FM>  
 FM> Sincerely,  
 FM>                                      Frank 
 FM>  
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 FM>               
 FM>  
 FM>  
 FM> --- PPoint 2.05 
 
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