Astral Codex Ten

Orthodoxy

5 min read

Orthodoxy

Article

Orthodoxy is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 10, 2022 and October 04, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Catholicism/Orthodoxy and most Protestantism”; “their best bet would be to support and promote Orthodoxy”; “Orthodoxy gave way to modernism in Greece, Eastern Europe, and Russia”. It most often appears alongside America, Catholicism, Christianity.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 10, 2022
  • Last seen: October 04, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Highlights From The Comments On Columbus Day
October 10, 2022 · Original source
The implications of Arianism for Mariology, which provides a sharp distinction between Catholicism/Orthodoxy and most Protestantism, are huge. If you're debating Mary's role in salvation, which we Catholics/Orthodox think is major and most Protestants don't (and which we fight about on the internet the way you fight about buying mosquito nets) you eventually run into the Christological answer given by Arius. If Jesus isn't fully God, then Mary can't be the mother of God, which we think is an important title, with a corresponding entitlement to special reverence.
The whole great history of the Arian heresy might have been invented to explode this idea. It is a very interesting history often repeated in this connection; and the upshot of it is in that in so far as there ever was a merely official religion, it actually died because it was merely an official religion; and what destroyed it was the real religion. Arius advanced a version of Christianity which moved, more or less vaguely, in the direction of what we should call Unitarianism; though it was not the same, for it gave to Christ a curious intermediary position between the divine and human. The point is that it seemed to many more reasonable and less fanatical; and among these were many of the educated class in a sort of reaction against the first romance of conversion. Arians were a sort of moderates and a sort of modernists. And it was felt that after the first squabbles this was the final form of rationalised religion into which civilisation might well settle down. It was accepted by Divus Caesar himself and became the official orthodoxy; the generals and military princes drawn from the new barbarian powers of the north, full of the future, supported it strongly. But the sequel is still more important. Exactly as a modern man might pass through Unitarianism to complete agnosticism, so the greatest of the Arian emperors ultimately shed the last and thinnest pretense of Christianity; he abandoned even Arius and returned to Apollo. He was a Caesar of the Caesars; a soldier, a scholar, a man of large ambitions and ideals; another of the philosopher kings. It seemed to him as if at his signal the sun rose again. The oracles began to speak like birds beginning to sing at dawn; paganism was itself again; the gods returned. It seemed the end of that strange interlude of an alien superstition. And indeed it was the end of it, so far as there was a mere interlude of mere superstition. It was the end of it, in so far as it was the fad of an emperor or the fashion of a generation. If there really was something that began with Constantine, then it ended with Julian.
Against The Cultural Christianity Argument
October 04, 2024 · Original source
There's one other reason I'm vulnerable: I accept the existence of something like this process of degeneration. At least this is how it’s worked for Jews: the first generation (after immigration) are Orthodox, the second generation Conservative, the third generation Reform, and the fourth generation completely lose interest. If someone wanted to perpetuate Conservative Judaism forever, their best bet would be to support and promote Orthodoxy. All of this checks out.
But the Christian cultural package also fell apart and became the current post-Christian world. This wasn't just a one-time coincidence either. Protestantism gave way to modernism in Scandinavia, Germany, and the US. Catholicism gave way to modernism in Spain, Italy, and Latin America. Orthodoxy gave way to modernism in Greece, Eastern Europe, and Russia (with a slight Putinist resurrection-in-name-only which hardly seems to have produced a flourishing liberal society). Meanwhile in China, the local mix of Buddhism/Confucianism/Taoism gave way to modernism. In South East Asia, Buddhism gave way to modernism. Only 10% of Israeli Jews are ultra-Orthodox, and it would be lower if they didn't breed so fast. India is moderately Hindu but still noticeably modern. Even the Middle East is gradually becoming less Muslim.