26 - the construction of christianism

that little character bald and bearded and with a fat belly ok that doesn't makes him a hysteric by default allright but he explains himself how he had a peculiar body, let's see how that he builds this christian ideology from there.

as said in the other thread, Onfray say the 4 gospels aren't anti hedonism: jesus did not existed but the paroles put in his virtual mouth aren't anti hedonist. jesus is not a character that hates flesh, but Paul of Tarsus frankly is an anti hedonist, and this starts from a body that makes possible this anti hedonism. that kind of hate got no reason other than bodily reason.
reading what he wrote about himself with a manual of psychiatry gets one to diagnose him of hysteria: it's not an insult it's a clinical diagnostic. He was a extremely pious jewish guy, that contributed largely to punitive expeditions to kill early christians, got converted on the road to damas, on foot, fell from his own height, in front of people (hyserical scene never happens alone, at home in front of a mirror: it must be in front of people, right?), was blinded for some days (transitory neurosis), heard the voice of "jesus" (aural hallucination) and that coming from someone who fought christians would tend to be understood as mythomaniac tendency: if god speaks to you darn you must be one important fella huh! then passed 3 days without eating or drinking, then get his sight back, someone "impose hands", recovers conscience, eats then says he goes on for 30 years of preaching on the road (moral exhibitionism).

What the *fuck* is up with that "thorn in the flesh" thing huh?

is it like that morrissey song, a "deviant" sexual object impossible to satisfy due to social pressures or something? "A murderous desire for love"?

no seriously, that signifies what trouble? what malady?
doctors have been wondering about that for a while, here's a little list of their speculations: arthritis, tendinitis, drip, engine, irritation, scale, hemoroid, leper, zona, pest, rage, diarrea, autitis, worms, taigne, gangraine, absces, chronic hickup, convulsions, epilepsy.

so, doctors wrote about that thorn in the flesh, I kind of sold the punch by mentionning morrissey upthread but anyway, in the diagnostic everything goes, from head to toe except something that wasn't easy to talk about in the past, an affliction never eaven talked about : sexual impotence. History shows it to be the hardest to confess (like since there are ain't any).

That's Onfray,s hypothesis; Paul of Tarsus had a sexual problem: libidinal desorganization of the body that brings a desorganization of his view of the world, of his universe.

A taste for pulsion of death, a detestation of pulsion of life.
Hysteria suppose, using freudian thought, a null libidinal potential, trouble of sexuality and seing sex everywhere (holla @ veiled womens).
fight against angst of sexual origine, repressed: the object might not be socially acceptable, like a desire for his mother or father or as I said an other deviant sexual object (freud means by that anything else that is not genital I think). Impossible to make psychanalysis now but still, he is saying he talks about himself to say he hates his body that is making an energy that decieves him, making him ill, sad, making angst , producing pain and suffering; his hysteria is partially realized under the form of his conversion: he makes it socially acceptable and easyer to live with.

So Paul of Tarsus invents christianism as an exit for his libidinal problems. Explication: a fable of aesop revisited by lafontaine is the fox and the raisins: the fox gets closer to the raisins, the raisins are too high in the tree... instead of saying "I can't get to them!" he said "these raisins are too green, fuk em!" : this is , what could be said, the complex of the fox and the raisins!
Paul of Tarsus gives the impression of wanting what he wants, instead of acknowledging he ain't got the choice, pretends choosing his sexuality: an impotent individual, he transforms that into something positive: it's him that wants the impotence. Negation of desires, pleasures, negation of flesh, signifies by this logic that it makes him want a world that hates the world of desires , because of the hate of his own body.

His way to live with a neurosis: "neurosizes" the world.

Nature gave him a body easy for him to hate: in first Corinthian he explains his hate of the self, saying himself he is an avorton (don't have the exact translation; a little rut or something like that)
He hates his flesh/the flesh.

extrapolates in second corinthian: (paraphrasing for now) "I hurt my body and drag it into slavery"

To make a portrait of Paul of Tarsus = making a portrait of our civilization.
A fanatic changed of object; once dedicated to killing christians, he absolutely became christian himself but kept the same hysteria, the same rigor. Into misogyny and masochism, was into the logic of the hate of the self for 30 years, a death drive transformed into truth, for a civilization of death: Paul of Tarsus thinks "I am impotent so I want an impotent civilization, an impotent culture, I want the entire world to be impotent" that's the hysterical logic of Paul of Tarsus .
2e corinthian "I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong" . This is a hate of the self transformed into a hate of the world, it got to be the most repugnant thing I ever read.
Onfray counts acts of masochism in the writing of a Paul of Tarsus that is taking jouissance through pain: 5 flagellation, 39 times each, 3 étriage au verge (whatever that is), got lapidated where he was left for dead, 3 shipwrecks once where he spent a nite and a day in water that is something for a weakling like him, 2 years of prison, 30 years of troubles during travels making his body suffer and taking pleasure from it, imprisoned in Rome and finally get his head cut off: a masochist delight to finish it all off. All proud he says "here's all what I did for god, isn't that extraordinary?"
The hate of his body, of one's body, let's pass it as an issue of individual cognitive liberty, but an invitation to hate every bodies now that gets problematic...

transfiguration the hate of the self into transfiguration of other stuff like hate of womens. This mysoginy is not coming from the mouth of jesus; marie madeleine is rather sympatico, even if she's about the only women with a sex.

Paul of tarse hates womens, transforms that hate that is also in ancient testament into a theory of original sin supposing that the women is guilty and making everyone suffer since. The women choose knowledge instead of obeissance. that would make philosophy feminine.
So, that's cute, right, but womens are still paying for that even today: think of retrograde views the church have about womens and the problems it causes them.

Paul says they are the weaker sex.
Temptatrice (yes, so? where's the harm in that?)

They must obey in silence and submission(his words)

fear their husband, not teach and make the law, to lead, think: only to be submitted.

Their only salute is by and for maternity. Women still pay the price of this mysoginy .

So the christian thought was built so that the feminine is reduced to being a wifey and a mother.

Paul hates freedom, goes against women's libido etc
his hate of freedom goes hand in hand with his eulogy to slavery: jouissance to be submissive, passively obey, beings slave to the powerful ones. The ideological background on that one: people in power get their power from god so if you disobey the power it's like you disobey god.

Paul is for submission of domestics; obeissance and docility.

He flatters the romans; saying things that is pleasing to those in power, that seduces emperors that are on the terrain.
It flatters romans to hear everyone must obey magistrats, fonctionnaires and emperors, give them their due, impot and taxes to the perceptor. fear the army and the police.
honor ministers and princes.

This is what to be found in the txt of paul of tarce.

This obeyissance is proceding from heavens where god is and his jesus: so it befriends hate of self, hate of womens, hate of liberties, hate of intelligence. His lecture of genesis makes him do an eulogy of obeissance not an eulogy of philosophy, knowing is not necesarry to him,if eve would not have wanted to know... thus it's ok to hate culture!

Paul is a jewish guy, knows the ancient testament and oral tradition, did not studied very long: his job is to make toiles for tents and sell them; he would have dictated his thoughts while working on tents. It's not very sure, but on his rapport to culture: starting from his problems @ sexuality he wants the inculture of the world;
; not necesarry to know, think, make philosophy.

in corinthian: the country of diogenes, when he goes to athenes and people, stoicians, laughed at him, that rightfully laughed their heads off because "resurection of the flesh" is such backhanded and unintuitive to their conception of the world.
That gave him pleasure, to be despised on the agora...

in corinthian thimotea: despise philosophers, philosophy, don't search to know, instead search to obey and search submission to the divine. easy for him to say : jesus talks to him and since most of the time he is silent for most of people, we will see how the emperor and the clergy are people who get to work very well together.

So the letters of paul of tarsus are made for a modest and uncultured public, teinturiers, carpenters etc, telling wonderful stories to seduce them. Demagogy is enough in that case, hate of intelligence and hate of culture.

That might all have sum up to jack; one hysteria does not make civilization, either a lone conceptual character but a conceptual character sublimated by a hysteric and taken in charge by an emperor, who converts himself and convert the empire too, now that's something different.

Let's see how Onfray explains how a sectarian ideology held by tens of persons could become a state religion.
that started from the fabrication of the conceptual character of "jesus" by marc in the 70's, then in the 2nd century after jc Paul of Tharsus toured the mediteranean bassin, told and built stories, fabricated transformed hysteria and neurosis in a hysteria suceptible to be exported, then Emperor Constentine from the 3e and 4e s after jc converted himself, the empire then the europe (and the world) where we are living today. This is the heritage of the conversion of constentine.

Who is constentine?
a military, son of emperor, a roman obsessed by public order.
Cicero explains roman like state, order, public representation, worship senate and senators, the individual doesn't matter because it is the empire that matters

simone weil wrote "several long essays on the Roman Empire which draw an extensive parallel between imperial Rome and Hitler's Germany, and various reflections on the Second World War, the colonial problem, and the post-war future." like rome almost announces hitlerism..

Constentin restore an order in an empire that was on shaky ground and the christian empire then liked that big machine.

Constentine is christian but kills his wife, his son and a nefiew: he got remaried with fausta, who told him his son hit on her so he got em killed, without really checking, then discovered she had lied so he killed her too.

in 309 apolon appears to him and announces him a reign of 30 years: isn't he a special mang, chum with apolon in the pagan world then with jesus in the christian world. A singular psychology that's for sure...

His pagan thing was "solin victius"(sp?) where sacrifices were made to the invincible sun. He was an excited of solstices.hahahaha.
(everyone knows this solstice celebration have been recycled by christianism, they call it christmas)

So, the empire was disintegrating and Constentine knew it, knew more problems would come if things would continue in that direction, so he wanted an unity, that brought the conversion of him self and the empire. It's difficult to know what moves constentine, was he really interested, was he being sarcastic pig, anyhoo paganism worshipping the sun and primitive christianism might not have been that easyly distinguishable.

Onwards.

312 he is progressing towards rome, ezeb de cesasre a christian makes him see a sign in the sky assuring him victory only if he claims himself from that sign. That sign wasn't a personal neurosis, it's also been seen by the troops: collective hallucination?
ezeb de cesasre maker of the christianism corpus, council of the prince, got the ear of constentin, tells him christianism can be useful for him to recrate the crumbling empire, he should hang on to that sect and have political tolerence for it: after all in gaule his father constence claure had the support of christians and they were useful enough for him to win some battles, he should think of building with the christians, it's not that bad.

Oh yes, that sign in the sky on top of the sun: ezeb de cesasre showed him : it was a trophy made of a cross of light on top of the sun.
It's possible to make a lecture of this hysteria as based on a scientific phenomenon: astronomy says 10 oct 312 configurations of planets were peculiar: mars jupiter venus were on top of the sun making the sign of a cross. It'S a frequent seen sign in antiquity. The thing is, they were earger to have an astrological reading of it instead of an astronomic reading , to see it as a revealed truth...in the sky.

was it opportunism and well lead sarcasm, to make the unity of an empire? can the prince of machiavelli might be able to give a perspective on the this: he says everything must be done in the perspective of the unity of the kingdom: that's the global vision. The empire unified was the desire of constentine and ezeb cesare gave him good ideas... Lo! teh jesus appeared to Constentine the next night!

So, it was a good thing that he claimed himself from that christian sign in the sky, right, because he won his battle: maxence was beaten (felt and drowned), became master of italy and got in rome.

under petrorian guard he offers a part of the power to the church.
the divided empire, was a tetrarchy, gets unified ; the occasion of a conversion becomes the occasion of a coup d'état; slowly but surely christianism becomes the official religion.
Paul of tarsus preaching submission to authority, that isn't to be displeasing to an emperor. Saying one must accept misery and pauvrety,; if one is miserous and poor it's because god meant it to be and the ways of god are unpenetrable! Experiment faith now = giving pain, accept one's faith. Obeissance to burocrats and magistrates was a good thing for Constentine: the empire was considerably large: 3000 km east-west 2000 km north south, it was difficult to manifest the power of rome to the back end of the empire so if one thinks they must obey the first burocrat in sight as they must obey god, because the burocrat is holding his authority from god itself, it assures an extraordinary marriage of church and state on the political ground

Obey clergy, magistrates, police, army.

Maintain of slavery, christians made it softer, like "be gentle with your slaves"... but did not abolish it btw.

A coup d'état: recuperating the christian taste for the pulsion of death and making a civilization built on the recusation of libidinal pulsions, that are denied; and make a culture out of it...
A celebration of the pulsion of death...

Constentine buy christians: the little sect to whom gets offered full power finds it difficult to resist.
libertarian and Nietzschean lawyers might find interesting the making of christian laws, how the code of law closes it's claws on the totality of individuals.
The way he does it, he pleasures christians already in the logic of the hate of the body: legiferate on questions of habits: divorce becomes very difficult to do(before it was easy), forbids concubinat, prostitution usual job at the time but different than today gets banned, forbids every forms of libertinage .
He passes law on heirdom: the empire can become our civilization, now that single guys can have heritage : single priests can have inheritance, complice of people in power can make the richissim becoming of the church possible...

He forbids magic, altho he used it himself.
forbids to read guts of birds and readings signs (everyone believed in that at the time, nobody challenged that) forbids gladiator games : these 2 things would be like forbidding loto and football today.

Builds a secondary basilique st-pierre

as I said doesn't forbids slavery.
The creation of christian laws gets the clergy and political power closer together.

As mentionned earlier, he sent his mother as a scout, helen, that made a lot for naissant christiansim: so he killed his little son etc that doesn't smell like saintety you know what I'm saying, so she will buy all this back, when she goes in palestine, and what a fine nose! she founds the 3 crosses and the titulus! omg wtf what luck!
(ps she found the right titulus, right, among the 3 different ones...)
It turns out the calvaire of the 3 larrons happened exactly where a temple of aphrodite was built ... so they had to destroy the temple of aphrodite of course; destroying pagan sanctuaries to build churches became common because they want to dominate.

Constentine spent crazy money: for the 3 crosses the built 3 (churches sépulcre, jardin des oliviers, église de la nativité) built at that time and destroyed as many pagan temple.
relics were installed at that time too: they liked to get excited on bones, death, cadaves and give cult to pulsion of death.
nice continuation for their liking of crucifixion.

Constentine gives em more gifts, when helen came back with all those joyful things to christians , they forgave him his murders.

Gave em suspicious gifts, exempt them from paying taxes, no taxes on propriety, generous subventions, generous creation of churches: st-laurent and st-paul, showered christians to buy them completely. the historical coup is dated of 325 at the council of nice, the becoming christian of the empire, where the clergy gave full power to constentine and made him the 13th appostle!
So the deal was scealed between the spiritual and the temporal.
Christianism became the state religion.
Constentine the armed hand of Paul de Tarse.
christianism as official religion had full juristic power, fiscal, the intellectual police, judicial, armed, and worked on a different register than the little sect of the end of the first century.

at pentcost 337 Constentine dies, on his death bead he gets baptized.(!? it wasn't done yet? but he was the 13th appostle ok whatever). There was a political trickery to patch things between two fraction of the church by this baptization, church was already crumbling whatever.

So he dies, without heir. People mad with power don't imagine that after them, things can go on so it's ok to prepare one's succession.
He's part of the people who thinks the world will end with them so to speak; between 22 may and 9 sept, under scorching sun, his cadaver was exposed, and every day his ministers of the cult, civile and military came to him to tell him what they were up to. Great example we are into a cult of the carrion.
weeks goes by, finally they put him in earth, and with his physical disparition comes the ideological triumph of Paul of Tarsus.

starting from a conceptual character, a probable figure, a carpenter, quasi not existing, a quasi incertitude, going to hysteria of paul of tarsus; a desire to hysterize the world , going to an individual who saw an opportunity and understood all the interest he had to use that ideology to make an empire become totalitarian. Henri rené marout, christian historian, says that christian empire was the first totalitarian state.

The character of jesus less and less conceptutal but becomes increasingly a legitimation of a power, that claiming itself from jesus but explicitly does the contrary of what he invited to do: niceness, forgive faults, practice love of the others, turn other cheek: exactly the inverse when the church claims itself from jesus christ, not much to do with it at all.

That christianism last for some timess, there was people resisting, but vendalism and destruction was things the church was into during many centuries.libraries were destroyed, buildings, works of art, good things from antique and pagan culture.

Maybe I'll report about other people that came next, rebels, philosophers, libertarians, hedonists etc etc There are lot of inspiration in the past to make a lively satisfying thought that works for our times.