Descriptions:
Video Description
Most people think the Church grew from faith; Professor Jiang argues it grew from power. He follows the story from Constantine to the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the crowning of Charlemagne — showing how an underground movement became history’s richest, most feared institution. Along the way, Islam rises as a movement of tolerance, and the reformers finally crack the monopoly open.
Full Video Transcript
okay good morning class um so we have five more classes in the semester and the four last classes
are the most important so what i will do this class is set up the background and context for
the last four classes so um what i’ll do first is review what we’ve learned so far okay so we
discussed the um roman republic the roman republic and it was essentially an oligarchy okay so
So oligarchy just means rule by the few.
So it’s very much like Sparta.
It is a war society.
And at this point in history,
the fact that the Roman Republic was an oligarchy
basically ended up with a hundred families
that commanded it, okay?
And these were called the patricians.
It was actually to the advantage of Rome
because at this time, Rome was small.
It was poor.
There’s that war, okay?
So in other words, even though there was nobility,
they were not that much better off than other people.
And everyone knew each other.
So they were very open, energetic, and cohesive society.
And so over time, they became the most dominant society in the Mediterranean.
They defeated Carthage.
They defeated the Greeks.
But now that they’re an empire,
the fact that Rome is an oligarchy is a huge problem.
because now they are corrupt, unequal, and stagnant.
And one way that we know is women just start to refuse to have children.
So they were dying as a society.
And at this point in history, what should happen is that they should build an imperial bureaucracy,
a centralized, standardized system in order to better manage the empire.
But they couldn’t really do that because of the oligarchy.
The families, which now are about 50, okay, they refused to give up power.
So rather than a centralized bureaucracy, the Roman Empire was in many ways a system
in which different families had different territories.
And what this led to was a constant civil war, okay?
Civil war.
remember it started with Sulla and then it went on to Julius Caesar and after
Julius Caesar Augustus Caesar became the first among equals but he still failed
to set up the bureaucracy okay and so it kept on leading to war eventually what
happened was that Constantine decided this system doesn’t work so what I need
to do is I need to reinvent the Roman people and you do that by moving the
capital from Rome to a new place he calls Constantinople okay which now
becomes the Byzantine Empire okay and the Byzantine Empire now it’s a new
culture it cannot become a bureaucracy in fact their official language becomes
Greek. It’s a Greek bureaucracy, okay? And this is what we call the Second Rome. At the same time,
while this is happening, you have a massive migration of the steppes people, okay? They’re
coming into Europe from many different locations. Why is this happening? Because in China, the Han
dynasty is waging a war against the steppe nomadic people, okay? The people we call the Xiongnu.
then so they are forced westwards which forces the other steps people to migrate
into Europe and into Central Asia okay so in these people are called the
gulfs and this is a huge problem for Rome because their people are not having
children they had all these massive migration coming in from the steps and
And so what the Romans decided to do is divide and rule.
And so what this means is that a lot of them absorbed into the army as mercenaries
and as soldiers in order to defend the border, in order to fight these civil wars.
Now remember in the last class we talked about the rise of the Catholic Church, okay?
And we discussed how the Catholic Church was in many ways being supported by these noble families.
Not all of them supported the Catholic Church, but some of them did.
And those that did had a huge advantage because now what they can do is
absorb these new migrants into the society,
where they’re at the top and the migrants are at the bottom, okay?
Then the question then is, why would the migrants agree to this?
The reason why is, in this society, it is very egalitarian.
And for war purposes, they would elect a war leader, okay?
But with this system, the Catholic church system,
this war leader cannot become a nobility, okay?
They can now join the 50 families to form a new nobility, okay?
Does that make sense, guys?
All right, all right.
So at this point in history,
when Constantine sets up the Bacchian Empire,
now the Roman Empire is going to divide into two,
a western part, a western part, and an eastern part.
And these two parts are going to have very different fates.
The eastern part is still part of the Middle East, okay?
The Levant, Anatolia, Egypt.
And so it is the wealthiest part of the empire.
And as such, it engages in wars with the Persian Empire.
And this will define most of its history.
Its capital, Constantinople, was designed to be invincible.
You could not lay siege to it.
You could not conquer it.
And as such, the Byzantine Empire was stable.
In fact, it lasted for about 1,000 years, which is very, very impressive.
And as I said, it’s very wealthy.
And so therefore, it’s really able to dominate the world through mainly trade and diplomacy.
So it became an imperial bureaucracy, it fought wars, but it usually used a lot of mercenaries
because it had a lot of wealth.
So that’s the Eastern Empire.
And guess what guys, this is very similar to China.
So think about China when you think about the Bajing Empire.
They’re not the same, but they’re very similar in how they organize their society.
The Western Empire is very different,
because this is the poorest part of Europe.
The other thing about this region is that
there are lots of natural barriers.
And so you have these competing societies emerging, okay?
Different cultures, different societies,
and they’re protected by mountains, by forests, by rivers.
So there’s a lot of diversity,
there’s a lot of diversity within the Western Empire.
Empire and so the power that emerges is actually the Catholic Church. Western
Europe increases in power and Eastern Europe decreases in power, the
Catholic Church will increase in power as well, okay? How the Catholic Church
come to dominate Western Europe? Because the Catholic Church believes
it is out of history okay so you kings you compete for who rules the earth but we the catholic church
we decide who goes to heaven okay so the catholic church becomes a dominant power in western europe
in fact you can say that they are the empire now but they are a spiritual empire a divine empire
that is out of history and which speaks for god and as such they become a very powerful empire
as well okay and this leads to tremendous conflicts throughout western europe okay but
there’s a problem with catholic church and we discussed this last class with the catholic
church it’s trying to control the divine spark remember jesus came to tell us that there’s a
there’s a divine spark in us and as long as we try to glow this divine spark we can be with God
and the Catholic church says no no no this divine spark it is that of the devil and we must
imprison it okay and this works most of the time but now and then you have religious leaders who
arise and said no no no the divine spark is within us and so this leads to a lot of conflict and
And ultimately the solution the Catholic Church proposes
is the idea of crusades, where warriors go
and kill those who believe in the divine spark.
And then they set up a secret police called the Inquisition
in order to search for those who oppose the Catholic Church.
Okay?
The Inquisition, the major idea is
if you believe in the divine spark,
you’re not an evil person,
You’re a stupid person, because you don’t know better.
So the idea of the Inquisition is to educate you
in the truth, which is the divine spark is that of Satan,
that of the devil.
And therefore, you must obey the Catholic Church.
But if you insist on defying the Catholic Church,
then you are a heretic.
And therefore, you must burn at the stake
before you can pollute other people, okay?
Now eventually what will happen is that as a conflict
in Western Europe gets worse and worse,
certain states will break away
from the control of the Catholic Church
and they will embrace a new religion
called Protestantism, okay?
And this is something we’ll discuss next class.
Okay, so that’s the history of Western Europe, okay?
So now I want to talk about Constantine
and the rise of the Byzantine Empire.
So Constantine is, what he does that’s very important
is that he makes Christianity the official religion of Rome.
So before Constantine, you had Christian emperors,
but they did not make Christianity the official religion.
But he made Christianity the official religion.
The problem though, we discussed this last class,
is that Christianity, it’s a franchise model.
So different churches teach different things.
And so Constantine was like,
no, we can’t have this debate.
If we make this the official religion,
what we need to do is have one orthodoxy,
a unified ideology, okay?
All right, so at this time in history,
there are two major debates,
or two major sources of confusion.
The first is what we call Christology.
What this is is the question of like,
what’s the nature of Jesus, okay?
Remember the story is that Jesus is in heaven,
then he comes to earth.
Mary gives birth to Jesus, then Jesus preaches his message, the gospel, then he is killed
and he is resurrected, and then he returns to heaven, okay?
That’s the official story of Christianity.
But there are lots of problems with this story, as you can imagine.
If Jesus is divine, how did Mary give birth to Jesus, right?
If you’re a human woman and you give birth to a God, that means that you’re God yourself, okay?
So who is Mary and what is her power?
Second question then is, is Jesus divine or is he human?
Because if he’s human and he dies, that’s a sacrifice, right?
But if you’re divine, you can’t die so his death and his resurrection doesn’t make any sense.
So this is the problem with Christology.
Is Jesus human or is he divine?
And there are different interpretations, okay?
The first interpretation is Jesus is divine in heaven, but he’s human in the world.
Okay, does that make sense?
So, yes, Mary gave birth to Jesus, but she gave birth to the human Jesus and not the divine Jesus.
Because you cannot give birth to a divine God, okay?
And that’s why his death makes sense.
Because Jesus who died was the human Jesus, but once he died and he was resurrected, then he went to heaven, okay?
That’s one explanation, that Jesus is really human.
Another explanation is, no, Jesus is divine.
So Mary, the death doesn’t really matter, okay?
He’s just divine, okay?
So both are possibilities.
What the church says officially is,
Jesus is human and divine at the same time, okay?
This is the official ideology of the church.
This makes no sense, guys, all right?
But that’s what you’re taught.
And so there are a lot, of course, people who are like, this isn’t a stupid idea, okay?
And these people are called the Nestorians.
And they were persecuted by the Catholic Church.
And so they went to Persia, okay?
They went to the Middle East.
They went to Persia.
They went to Arabia, where they spread the message of Jesus.
They taught Jesus as a human as opposed to a god.
They taught that Jesus was a messenger, okay?
Which is what I taught you, right?
That he’s really a messenger of the Monad, right?
So, does that make sense?
Okay, now the second debate is actually even more confusing than the first debate, okay?
And it has to do with the nature of the three powerful forces, right?
The three gods.
You have God, the ultimate God, and you have Jesus, and you have the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God expressed in the world, okay?
So when someone speaks to you, you think it’s God.
It’s actually not God, it’s the Holy Spirit.
All right, so another question then is,
what’s the relationship between these three,
God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit?
And again, there are different explanations.
And they kind of make sense, okay?
So the first is the idea of modalism.
Modalism is the idea that Jesus and God and Holy Spirit
are just different modes of the same thing.
They just change.
So when Jesus is in heaven, he’s God.
When Jesus comes to earth as a human, he’s just Jesus, and then when Jesus wants to communicate with us, he’s the Holy Spirit, okay?
So remember, Paul talked to Jesus, but Paul didn’t really talk to Jesus, Paul talked to the Holy Spirit.
So it’s the same force, but expressed differently.
That makes sense, right?
Second is the idea of partialism.
Partialism is just the idea that God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, all part of the same divine force.
Okay, so think of an ocean, right, the Pacific Ocean.
The Pacific Ocean is huge,
but there are different parts to it, right?
So that’s the idea of parts of it.
That makes sense too, right?
Okay, and the third idea is the idea of Arianism, Arianism.
And Arianism is just the idea that God came first,
and therefore, and then afterwards, he created Jesus.
So, in other words, Jesus is God,
but he’s second to the real God, okay?
That makes sense as well, right?
Now, there are problems with all three, okay?
The first problem in monolism is,
if you read the Bible, Jesus talks to God,
Jesus talks to the Holy Spirit,
that’s kind of confusing,
because why would Jesus talk to himself, okay?
So there’s a lot of inconsistencies in the Bible, okay?
So this doesn’t really work.
Partialism doesn’t work either,
because if you think about it,
if God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit
are part of a divine aspect,
then that divine aspect should be God, right?
Not these three, this doesn’t really make sense.
And Aaronism doesn’t really make sense
because the entire point of Christianity
is to say that Jesus is God, right?
We worship Jesus, not God.
So if you’re saying that God’s superior,
why shouldn’t we worship God instead of Jesus?
So this is problematic as well.
So what Constantine did was he organized all the bishops
of the different churches to come to Nicaea,
It’s called the Council of Nakia, okay?
In order to come up with a solution to this problem.
And this solution is actually even more problematic
than these three, okay?
And it’s called the Holy Trinity.
So let’s go over the Holy Trinity.
What the Holy Trinity says is this.
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit,
they are separate, okay?
But they are equal.
They are separate, but they’re part of the same thing, okay?
They’re both separate and they are equal to each other.
Now, if you think about it,
it makes actually no sense whatsoever.
The only solution to this problem is that
this Holy Trinity is both nothing
and everything at the same time.
It becomes reality onto itself.
And the only way to understand this
is to accept this as a reality.
So, I know there’s confusion,
but think of the idea of money, right?
So, the idea of money is both nothing and everything.
Money is nothing, but it can be everything
at the same time as wealth, because it symbolizes wealth.
Does that make sense?
So, none of this actually makes any sense,
and the only way that it makes sense
is if you force it to make sense, if you just memorize it.
So think of math class, okay?
Guys, I’m not sure if you appreciate this,
but the entire point of math class
just to make you stupid, okay?
Why, because it is impossible for you
to reason using mathematics,
because mathematics doesn’t really apply to the world.
So the only thing that you can do
is just memorize the formulas
and apply the formulas to each other, okay?
And that just requires massive memorization
and regurgitation.
That’s why, if you think about it,
the best mathematicians are always in their 20s or 30s,
Because your brain has to be really energetic
in order to process this information.
But the older you get,
the less capable you are in mathematics.
Okay, does that make sense?
This is really important, guys.
The more math you learn, the stupider you become.
But this goes against, say, philosophy or teaching, right?
The older you get, the wiser you become.
Why, because the information that you’re learning,
you can apply to reality and then figure out
what information makes sense
as you test this information against reality, okay?
All right, okay.
So then the question then is, why would they do this?
And the answer is very simple, to make you stupid, okay?
So let’s just use an analogy, let’s do a thought experiment.
The sky is blue, right?
So we know the sky is blue, and now we’re like,
okay, why is the sky blue?
And is it always blue?
And why are certain things blue, okay?
From this very principle, the sky is blue,
you can now start to ask more questions.
You can, based on this idea,
start to reason out more things, okay?
Does that make sense?
But let’s just say, I change and I say, the sky is red.
You’re like, no, the sky is blue.
I’m saying, no, no, the sky is red.
If you do not say the sky is red, you are a heretic.
I will burn you at the stake.
And you’re like, okay, all right.
So what you’re saying is this.
You’re saying that blue is red, red is blue.
And I’m like, no, no, no.
Blue is blue, red is red.
The sky is red.
And you’re like, that makes no sense.
And it’s like, okay, well then, I don’t care.
Because if you do not say the sky is red,
I will burn you to sick, okay?
I will fail you in school, okay?
You understand?
So another way of saying this is,
your brain, the way it processes information
is by using logic, right?
Okay, so think about building.
Think about building, okay?
Think about building, okay?
Well, this makes sense, right?
You’re just stacking blocks on top of each other
to build a building, right?
But let’s just say, I say, no, no,
this is what the building looks like, okay?
This is empty.
You’re like, well, that makes no sense, okay?
So what I’ve done by forcing the idea
of the Holy Trinity onto you is,
I’ve basically taken a part of your logical system
of your brain and emptied it out.
So it’s impossible for you to connect things, okay?
Because from this, what you can do is say,
oh, now I can just keep on building more things, right?
But if the principle is there’s a layer that is unseen
or unknowable, you can’t build on top of it.
So your brain ceases to be able to process and be creative.
Does that make sense, yeah?
And I saw people who learn maths well
and also they have strong ability in computer science.
They all work in Silicon Valley and they are wealthy.
But I think that also aligns our concept
that they are pursuing the materialistic
and the world is ruled by Satan.
Is that true?
Yeah, okay.
We’ll talk about this later, okay?
But yeah, if you work in Silicon Valley,
you are a materialistic person
who is incapable of thinking spiritually.
Yes, that is correct.
Also, remember that people who do computer engineering
and do mathematics,
they’re at their best in their 20s and 30s.
By the time they reach over 40, they kind of burn out.
because for your brain to process all this,
it eventually burns out, okay?
Does that make sense?
So again, I hate to say this,
but math makes you stupid, all right?
All right, is that clear, guys?
Any questions?
Okay, but as you can see,
what’s happening is that,
because people are forced to learn this,
they don’t want to learn this,
and it starts a series of wars within the Roman Empire,
because Constantine and the Byzantine Empire
It’s gonna enforce this orthodoxy
onto every Christian church.
And this starts a series of wars, okay?
At the same time, the Byzantines,
they are fighting the Sassanid Persia.
Sassanid Persia, okay?
Egypt, the Levant, and this is Arabia.
Okay, so guys, this is really important.
This is a time in history, this is about 500 to 600,
where there’s a lot of conflict going on, okay?
Remember, the first major conflict
is between Byzantine and Sassanian Persians, okay?
The second major conflict is the church orthodoxy
against the independent church franchises, okay?
So the Byzantine Empire is trying to enforce
the orthodoxy on all different churches
who refuse the Holy Trinity
because it’s such a silly idea, okay?
What this is gonna do is it’s gonna force Christians
over to the Sassanians as well as Arabia,
desert okay and these are called the Nestorians and again they believe that Jesus is a divine
messenger as opposed to God on earth okay also we have the Jews as well okay because the Jews
keep on resisting against the Romans because the the Romans forced the Jews to obey Christianity
and so the Jews escape into Arabia okay and at the same by the same time the Jews want to return
to Jerusalem, right?
Now, what’s interesting is that most people don’t know this,
but Arabia is, at this point in history,
the most energetic, open, and cohesive society
in the Middle East, okay?
So, first of all, it’s open because Arabia
has always been a point of trade between
the Levant, Egypt, and the Indo-Saharan civilization,
okay, India, okay?
So Arabia, they do a lot of trading.
But they also are great fighters
because they’re great mercenaries.
Why?
Because as the Sassanians and the Romans
fight more and more, the Arabians are recruited
in as mercenaries for their armies.
And as such, they learn the most innovative warfare.
And they’re poor as well, so they’re really good fighters.
Okay?
And now what’s happening is that the Arabians,
the Arabs are being exposed to new religions,
and that’s during Christianity as well as Judaism, okay?
And both preach the coming of the Messiah.
So, Arabia is rising in energy,
but the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Persians
are decreasing in energy, okay?
The Byzantines are fighting too many wars,
and they’re imposing too much orthodoxy,
which is turning people into slaves.
And because the Sassanids are fighting the Byzantines
in war, and as the Byzantines become more orthodox
and become more bureaucratic, the Sassanians are forced
to become much more bureaucratic as well,
much more orthodox as well, and so the Nestorians
are also being persecuted by the Sassanians.
So the Jews want Jerusalem to return,
and the Sassanians says to the Jews,
hey, if you fight for us, we’ll return Jerusalem to you.
And so the Byzantines, so the Jews win back Jerusalem,
and that pisses off the Byzantines,
so they come and they kill a lot of Jews.
Now, the thing about the Jewish tradition is
they believe that when they are most persecuted,
when all hope is lost,
the Messiah will come to save them, okay?
So the Jews are like, oh my God,
the Messiah is coming, the Messiah is coming, okay?
Historians also believe the Messiah is coming as well.
They believe that Jesus is gonna return.
And all it will take is for one charismatic leader
to emerge in the Arabian desert to say,
I’m the Messiah, follow me.
What I will promise you is this,
I promise you that you will have the right to believe in whatever religion you want
because the divine spark is in you and you know how to best celebrate God by yourself.
I promise religious tolerance for the Jews, for the Christians, for the Arabs, for everyone.
Okay?
And so what will happen is this leader will emerge and his name is Muhammad.
And Muhammad will unite Arabia and then he will unite the Nestorians, he will unite the Jews
and they will together fight to get Jerusalem back.
They will fight to get to, against Persia.
And guess what happens?
They basically win without much resistance.
Because there’s so much anger, so much opposition
towards the Sassanid Empire as well as the Basin Empire.
Plus, both empires are exhausted.
And so this gives us the Islamic Revolution, right?
Okay?
The Arabs are able to sweep through
and conquer most of the world very, very quickly.
But when they do so, what happens is that Muhammad dies.
And now what’s gonna happen is,
they have lots of different factions, right?
The Nasoreans, the Jews, the Arabs as well.
And they’re gonna fight a civil war
amongst themselves as well.
And then from the civil war will emerge a new religion
that we call Islam, okay?
But remember, this is really important.
Muhammad himself did not preach Islam.
All he preached was, I’m Messiah,
I’m the messenger of God, like Jesus,
and I will promote religious tolerance.
we’ll have a community of believers and followers in Jesus.
But it doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew,
it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian,
it doesn’t matter what type of Christian you are,
you’re free to believe whatever you want,
because that’s what God wants.
I think it work on the, although like Muhammad said
that you have the right to believe in your divine spark,
but I think they all walk on the same road as Paul,
because they all formed a religion,
because they follow Muhammad, but not follow themselves.
Okay, so this really important idea
you guys need to understand.
The messenger of God, okay, the leader, the Messiah,
he’s never like, I’m God, follow me.
He’s always like, I’m the messenger of God,
and the message of God is, you are divine children.
The divine spark is in you.
You should not be slaves.
I will free you from slavery.
I will free you from tyranny.
I will free you from poverty, okay?
That’s always the messenger, that’s always the message.
What will happen later on, after some time is,
You have a figure like Paul emerged who needs,
I can turn this into my own empire.
And then religion becomes organized, okay?
That’s always the process.
So think of Zoroastrian.
When he first came, he was preaching a message.
He was a poor prophet.
So was Jesus, so was Homer, so was Muhammad.
But later on, people will turn his words into an empire.
Okay, that’s always the process, all right?
Okay, clear?
All right, okay.
So, let’s do the PPT, so we can better understand
what happened.
Okay, so as we discussed before, at this point in history,
the Roman Empire, it’s huge, but please remember
that it’s not a bureaucracy, and therefore,
each region is controlled by a certain noble family,
okay, the patricians.
And as a result, what happened is, as,
Okay, and these are like the 50 top families in Rome,
and there aren’t that many, okay?
And what will happen is, there are certain families
that will adapt well to the change in the Roman Empire,
mainly by embracing Catholic religion, okay?
By being early investors in the Catholic Church,
and as such, they will continue on to today,
we call these people the Black nobility, okay?
So as I mentioned, there are different migrants
coming in from the steppes.
the Huns, the Germanics, the Slavs,
they’re basically all the steppe people, okay?
But they will come into different regions
and they will absorb into Europe differently, okay?
In the north, they’re much more independent,
and this is where the Vikings are, okay?
These are where the Germans are.
They’re very independent people.
But as they approach the Roman Empire,
they are assimilated and absorbed by the Roman nobility
using the Catholic religion, okay?
And so the people at the very bottom here,
they become Christians.
But they become different types of Christians
and eventually they’ll fight the Byzantines
because the Byzantines want to enforce
an Orthodox Christianity onto them.
And this is what Europe looks like
when the Western Empire falls.
As you can see, there are different societies as well.
And again, what makes this possible is the fact that
Western Europe, it has a lot of mountains,
so it’s pretty easy to defend your territory.
So this is Constantine, and he is going to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire when he becomes emperor, okay?
So again, even after Julius Caesar, the Romans cannot help but keep on fighting civil wars.
And Constantine wins one of them, becomes emperor, and he moves the capital from Rome all the way to Constantinople, okay?
This is really important because now he can establish a new culture called the Byzantine Empire, okay?
They call themselves Romans, but they’re not really Romans.
They’re more like Greeks.
Another major difference is this,
Rome is over in Western Europe,
Constantinople is off in Eastern Europe,
and so now Rome is now able to defend
its wealthy provinces of Anatolia and Egypt
much more effectively, okay?
The other thing about Constantinople
that’s really important is,
it’s pretty easy to defend, okay?
Because it’s by the sea,
and if you build high walls,
it’s almost impossible for people to invade Constantinople
This is the Hagia Sophia, which is the official church
of the new religion, okay?
Today we call it Eastern Orthodox,
but back then it was just the Catholic church, okay?
And this is the Hagia Sophia.
This is what Constantinople looks like at its peak,
and what’s really important to understand is
it’s very wealthy, but as you can see,
it’s surrounded by these sea walls,
which makes it impossible to defend,
and that’s why it was able to stand for about 1,000 years.
My custom, Nikia, is where they make the Holy Trinity the official doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Even today, guys, if you’re a Christian, you still recite it.
It’s called the Nicene Creed.
So, can you read it, Allen?
ages, light of light, true God of true God, for God not made, of one essence with the Father by
whom all things were made, whom for us men and for all salvation, come down from heaven and was
incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man. And he was crucified for us under
Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried. And the third day he rose again according to the
scriptures and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and he shall come
again with glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end, and in the Holy
Spirit. All right, so what this does is establish the idea that Jesus, God, and Holy Spirit are
separate, but they are one and the same. They are different, but they are co-equal, all right? If
actually study this next scene in creed you’ll find a lot of inconsistencies okay so jesus christ
is a son of god but um he is um one with god as well okay so if you think about it um it doesn’t
really make much sense okay but again then the scene created something that you don’t argue over
because you argue over it your heritage you’ll be part of the stake it’s something that you
you must memorize it’s like a math formula basically okay in in math class you’re not
allowed to question the formula you’re just forced to memorize the formula okay
okay so as you can see what’s happening is that the migrants are being settled throughout europe
okay but but once they’re being settled for europe the conflict between these noble families in in
in rome then become the conflicts amongst these different groups okay so after the council on
Nikia announced the Holy Trinity there’s still a lot of resistance to it in fact
you know even by the year 500 which was about 180 years after Council of Nikia
most of Europe is actually they don’t really believe in the Holy Trinity okay
so Aryan just means you don’t believe in the Holy Trinity Catholic means you do
and as you can see this part which is controlled by the Byzantine Empire it’s
it’s able to enforce the Holy Trinity,
but most other parts are not able
to enforce the Holy Trinity, okay?
This is a really important idea to understand.
The idea of the Holy Trinity only takes force
a few hundred years after it is announced.
But in the beginning, there’s a lot of resistance
to the idea of the Holy Trinity.
The Byzantine Empire must fight these wars to enforce it.
And it will, because as the Byzantine Empire
becomes stronger and stronger,
you can see these green arrows,
it’s gonna fight all these wars
in order to expand the idea of the Holy Trinity, okay?
And Constantinople can do this because it’s very wealthy
and it doesn’t really fear any enemies
because of the high walls, okay?
Okay, as you can see, it’s almost impossible
to attack Constantinople by sea.
All right, and the Byzantine Empire under Justinian
will expand and expand and enforce the Holy Trinity
on all churches, okay?
and by 565, it is at the peak of its power.
But, as we discussed, when the empire reaches its peak,
it’s probably gonna fall really quickly,
and that’s what happens.
All right, so because of resistance of the Trinity,
Christians are forced into the Persian Empire
and into the Arabian desert, okay?
At first, they’re welcomed by the Persians
because these tend to be very well-educated Christians
who contribute a lot to the empire.
Over time, the Zoroastrians see the Christians as a threat and a conflict arises between
the Christians and the Zoroastrians.
The Christians will also go into the Arabian desert as well to promote Christianity, okay?
But you can see how Christianity spreads.
Destroying Christianity also spreads to China and Japan, okay?
Alright, one thing that you need to understand is that even though we don’t really discuss
Arabia a lot. It’s a very important part of the world throughout history. This is a trade center,
okay? So if you’re in India and you want to bring goods into Egypt, the best thing to do is to
sail into Muscat and then have Arabian nomads carry the goods all the way to Mecca and then
go into Egypt, okay? So the Arabian desert, we don’t talk much about it, but it is a crossroads
of empire and it’s a crossroads of culture as well and there are jews in the arabian desert
because um as the romans persecuted the jews the jews go escape into arabia because the um romans
don’t like sad okay the romans what they’re really good at is besieging cities but they hate fighting
sad that’s why the romans cannot can never conquer persia all right so uh this is another map that
shows the extent of the trade as well um so as you can see the arabian desert it’s connecting the
world right because like you look at india and india is now able to connect the world through
the arabian desert okay it’s a black says europe the mediterranean and egypt through the arabian
desert okay so what’s going to happen is that once muhammad comes into place and he unites
the arabian desert into a new community of followers okay they’ll spread really quickly
throughout the world and as you can see there are now um over a billion
muslims in the world and you can see how many muslims there are in the world okay um so there’s
a lot of conflict between the roman empire the byzantines and assassins as well okay there are
There are lots and lots of major battles.
These wars are exhausting both empires.
And this is going to enable the Arabs to rise in power
because as these two empires fight and their energy decreases,
this energy is being transferred to the Arabs, okay?
Because a lot of wealth is being transferred to the Arabs,
but also a lot of mercenaries are learning how to fight from the Byzantines as well as the Persians, okay?
So the major event that sparks the Arab revolution is the persecution of the Jews.
Okay, so Alan, can you read, please?
The Persian army reinforced by Jewish force led by Nehama, Ben-Hashur, and Benjamin of Tiberias would capture Jerusalem without resistance.
Okay, so the Jews want to return to Jerusalem.
Remember, the Romans kicked the Jews out of Jerusalem.
So they make a deal with the Persians.
They basically say to the Persians, if you support us, we’ll support you in the fight
against the Romans, and that’s what happened.
But once that happens, there are lots of Christians within Jerusalem, and they call the Byzantines
for help.
So the Byzantines come, and they went back to the city, because the Christians helped
them, but they start massacring a lot of Jews.
The capture of Jerusalem was interpreted by Jewish writers in a messianic context.
Sacrifices may even have been renewed on the Temple Mount.
Control of the city was handed to Nehemiah ben Hazel and Benjamin of Tiberias.
Nehemiah was then appointed the ruler of Jerusalem.
She began making arrangements for the building of the Third Temple, and sorting out genealogies
of established new high priesthood.
is almost the Bible where the Jews were kicked out of Jerusalem by the
Babylonians and the temple was burned down and so what so what the Jews believe
is like now the new Messiah will return we have to rebuild the third temple
because in their religion the Messiah will return all Jews to Jerusalem and
build the third temple okay keep on going after only a few months a
a Christian revolt occurred. Nehemiah ben Heshul and his council of sixteen righteous
were killed along with many other Jews, some throwing themselves off the city walls. Following
the outburst of violence in Jerusalem, the surviving Jews fled to Shambara’s encampment
at Caesarea. Christians were able to briefly retake the city before the walls were breached
by Zechariah’s forces who laid siege to the city.
Sources vary on how long the siege lasted.
Depending on the source, it lasted 19, 20, or 21 days.
Okay, right, so the Jews take over Jerusalem
and they want to rebuild their temple.
And the Christians are angry
because they think this is my city.
The Christians rebel and the Protestants help them
and the Jews are massacred and a lot escape.
Where do they go?
They go to the Arabian Desert.
Why do they go to the Arabian Desert?
Because they believe the Messiah is gonna come,
and so they preach that, hey, the Messiah is coming, okay?
And in the Arabian Desert,
there’s a man who believes he’s the Messiah,
and his name is Muhammad, okay?
All right, can you keep on reading?
Jews were expelled from Jerusalem
and were not allowed to settle within the three-mile radius.
A general massacre of the Jewish population ensued.
The massacre devastated the Jewish communities of Galilee and Jerusalem.
Only those Jews who could flee to the mountains of Egypt are said to have been spared.
Okay, so this is from Wikipedia, okay?
Alright, so the first thing that Muhammad’s gonna do is announce the constitution of Medina,
which is to say that I’m a prophet, I am the Messiah,
but what I promise you is religious openness and tolerance.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew,
it doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian,
it doesn’t matter if you’re Arab.
You can practice whatever religion you want.
And it’s called the Constitution of Medina, okay?
That’s a promise that Muhammad makes to all his followers.
Okay, and we know this from the Quran.
So we’re gonna read the Quran together,
which is the holy book of the Muslims.
And what we’ll see is that Muhammad is clearly promising tolerance for all religious factions.
It doesn’t matter what religion you are, you’re allowed to practice whatever you want, okay?
So, Alec, can you read, please?
Oh, people of the book, why do you argue about Abraham when the Torah and the Gospel were not revealed until after him?
Why are you not reason?
Listen, here you are, you argue about things you know.
But why do you argue about things you do not know?
Aha knows, Allah knows, and you do not know.
Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was a monotheist, a Muslim, and he
was not of the polytheists.
The people most deserving of Abraham are those who follow him, and these prophets and those
who believe, Allah is the guardian of the believers.
Okay, so the legend is that Muhammad, when he was 40, he went into the desert, and in
the desert he was meditating and had a revelation.
An angel, Gabriel, visited him and spoke the truth of the universe.
The Quran is just a writing down of all these revelations, okay?
And one major revelation is Gabriel tells Muhammad, you’re all children of God, you’re
all descendants of Abraham.
Therefore, why are you guys fighting?
You guys should be working together, okay?
All these differences don’t matter.
What’s important is for you all to remember
that you all believe in the one true God.
That’s what matters.
And these differences don’t really matter, okay?
Okay, keep on reading.
They disbelieve with those who say,
Allah is Messiah, the son of Mary.
the messiah himself said oh children of israel worship allah my lord and your lord whoever has
as so sides others with allah allah has forbidden him paradise and his dwelling is the fire
the rondors have no saviors okay so this is really important what the quran is saying is this
jesus is not god god is god god is allah jesus is a messenger okay and the messenger himself
jesus himself said worship god don’t worship me okay so this is a historian position right
okay jesus is human in heaven he’s divine but on earth he’s human okay keep on going they
disbelieve those who say allah is a third of three but there is no giant except the one god
if they do not refrain from what they say a painful torment will befall those among them
who disbelieve okay so it’s just saying that the holy trinity it’s sacrilege it’s blessing it makes
no sense man god is god god isn’t one of three okay goddess is god keep on going while they not
repent to allah as ask his forgiveness allah is forgiving and merciful the messiah’s son of mary
was only a messenger before whom other messengers had passed away and his mother was a woman of
truth. They both used to eat food. Note how we make clear the revelation to
them, then note how deluded they are.” To say that Mary is divine, to say that Jesus is
divine, it’s all superstitious. They’re all just messengers of the one true God,
like Moses and like Moses before him, and now like Mohammed today.
Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed are all messengers of God. Jesus was the penultimate and
and Muhammad is the last, okay, the final messenger of God.
All right, keep on, keep on.
With him are the keys of the unseen.
None knows them except he.
And he knows everything on land and in the sea.
Not that he falls, but he knows it.
And there is not a single grain in the darkness of earth,
nor is there anything wet or dry, but is in a clear record.
It is he who takes you by night, and he knows what you earn by day,
that he raises you up in it until a fixed term is fulfilled. Then to him is your return,
that he will inform you of what you used to do. He is a conqueror over his servant,
and he sends guardians over you. Until, when death overtakes one of you, our envoys take him away,
and they never fail. Then they are brought back to Allah, the true master. Unquestionably,
He is the judgment, and he is the swiftest of reckoners.
This is establishing the Monad, right, as God.
The Monad is the universe, the Monad is everything,
it’s divine, okay?
Stop saying Jesus is God, that makes no sense.
Okay, so as we discussed, now the Aryan desert,
it’s energized, people are energetic
because people thirst for religious liberation, okay?
The Christians, the Jews, all unite behind Muhammad.
And very quickly, once he’s able to unite the Arabs,
they’re now really quickly able to expand outwards.
They retake Jerusalem and they conquer the Persian Empire
very, very quickly because both of these empires,
the Byzantines and the Sassanids, are exhausted.
The main advantage of the Byzantines is
they still have Constantinople,
which is impossible to conquer.
So Constantinople is safe,
but everybody else falls to the Arabs, okay?
And as you can see, how fast their conquest is.
And this is only about 100 years, okay?
They’re able to basically conquer most of the Roman Empire.
They take Spain, they take Northern Africa,
they conquer Persia, okay?
So really rapid conquest,
because at this point in history,
people are just sick of empires,
and they’re looking for religious liberation, okay?
And over time, but over time, as Muhammad dies,
the Muslims will fight amongst themselves
and they will establish different empires called caliphates
and they will break up as well, okay?
And this will give time for the Byzantines
to reestablish themselves and then Western Europe
will become more and more powerful.
Now, the Arabs will establish something called,
they’ll have a golden age.
And this marks a time of tremendous peace
and prosperity for the world
Because the Muslims are able to establish trade networks
throughout the world, okay?
Why?
Well, because when you do trade,
the biggest problem is one of trust, right?
How can I trust you to take my money to somewhere else?
But if you’re a Muslim, you must swear to Allah, okay?
So religion requires you to be trustworthy,
and that allows Muslims to work together
and to establish trade routes throughout the world.
But you can’t really trust someone who’s not Muslim,
but you can trust someone who is Muslim, okay?
So these Muslims go all around the world,
and including into China.
And as such, the Islamic empire is able to establish
trade throughout the world, which brings tremendous
prosperity to most of the world, okay?
And as you can, I’m not sure you understand Islam,
but Islam is a beautiful, simple religion
that builds trust and community.
This is Mecca, and this is the Hajj, where Muslims come from all over the world, and they circle around the kebab, the cube, okay?
So, Islam considers itself as the ultimate religion, because it improves on both Judaism and Christianity, okay?
Christians believe they are improving on Judaism, Muslims believe they are improving on Christians and Jews as well.
Okay, now let’s talk about the Western Empire, okay?
Because that’s where our focus will be for the next semester.
476, the Gauls destroy Rome.
Why?
Because the power now is being shifted from the empire to Catholic church, okay?
So the empire doesn’t really have that much power.
So what happens is that it recruits mercenaries to fight for them,
but it can’t really pay the mercenaries.
So the mercenaries, in response, go and sack Rome, okay?
But this time in history, Rome is no longer a power.
It doesn’t really matter anymore.
Augustine, who is the main architect of the Catholic Church, okay,
he takes Paul’s ideas and systemizes it.
He teaches us in the city of God that the Catholic Church is out of history.
It is beyond history.
It is divine, okay?
So the kings can fight over the land,
but it’s the church who will decide who goes to heaven and who burns in hell.
and that’s the power of the church one thing to remember about um europe is that there are lots
of geographic barriers which allows for diversity within europe okay that’s why europe has so many
countries because historically it’s been very hard to unify europe because of the geography
and this allows for tremendous diversity and it creates a lot of conflict as well which drives
innovation, okay? So this is when the Roman Empire falls in the West, there are lots of different
groups fighting for the remains. Now, what’s really important to understand about history is
when we say the Roman Empire rises and it falls, this is our understanding of them, okay? But from
their perspective, the empire never fell because these warlords think that I’m the empire now,
And so what’s going to happen is that they’re going to compete for the legacy of Rome.
And eventually, this leads to the rise of a new power, the Franks.
So the Franks are expanding throughout Europe.
And they see themselves as the heir to the Roman Empire.
But how do you prove that you are the heir to the Roman Empire?
How do you legitimize yourself?
Well, you need to get the Catholic Church on your side, right?
So, in about 800, Charlemagne, who is the king of the Franks, he is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope.
And from now on, it is the Catholic Church, the Pope, who decides who will be the Holy Roman Emperor.
There’s a lot of negotiating going on, but in public, for the public, the Holy Roman Empire is always anointed by God.
This is Charlemagne, and today he is buried in the Aachen Cathedral, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.
His body is still there, the Aachen Cathedral.
And this is what it looks like inside.
Okay, now the Catholic Church, because of this power, is now able to anoint the Holy Roman Empire.
It becomes wealthy, okay?
So can you read this, Alan, from the Bible?
So as I keep on telling you, Jesus himself was very anti-rich, okay?
He believed that the rich people, because they were too focused on material acquisitions,
could never go into heaven, okay?
But the paradox is that the Catholic Church becomes extremely wealthy, okay?
If you go to the Vatican, you can still go to the Vatican, you visit St. Peter’s Basilica,
it is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.
It’s extremely wealthy.
Inside, guys, it’s all gold, okay?
So the Vatican has been historically the wealthiest organization in the world.
And it was able to do this because Western Europe started to become very wealthy over time, okay?
So from about 1,000 to about 1,300, the population of Europe doubles because of technological innovation,
because the climate is warming, allowing for agriculture, because of the rise of cities,
and because Europe is trading with everyone, okay?
So at this time, Europe is becoming more and more wealthy, which makes the Catholic Church really, really wealthy, okay?
These are different urban centers of Europe at this time, and they engage mainly in trade.
Okay, so the church becomes a much more powerful idea than the empire, okay?
Why?
Well, with an empire, it’s the emperor who’s in charge, right?
but the Emperor is still a human being and therefore he can change his mind and he
doesn’t really know what he’s doing but in the church the person in charge is
God who is perfect immutable and eternal okay so this is the ultimate authority
the church second is what is demanded well an empire demands that you work
hard your labor but the church demands your soul your obedience okay therefore
but the church is able to extract more wealth from you.
The last thing is, okay,
let’s say you don’t obey the empire.
What’s the worst thing that can happen to you?
Well, the empire puts you to death, okay?
Not a big deal.
But the church, what it can do is
send you to hell for all eternity, okay?
That’s why the Catholic church becomes
the most powerful organization ever in human history.
It’s still true today.
So what makes the Catholic church so powerful?
what becomes a divine bureaucracy, okay?
And what it does is establish a very strict hierarchy.
So the idea of the church is that God is distant
and God demands your obedience, right?
So remember Augustine, City of God, remember Paul, right?
So one thing is that when you go to church,
the priest doesn’t speak in your language, the vernacular.
It speaks in Latin.
and we don’t really understand the language, okay?
You’re not allowed to read the Bible
because at this time, most people are illiterate.
The Holy Trinity makes no sense.
But again, you’re not asked to debate it.
You’re not asked to question it.
You just have to memorize it.
There are lots of rituals to the Catholic Church.
Some of these rituals are just really weird.
So for example of the Eucharist
where you believe that you’re actually eating
the body and blood of Jesus
through the idea of transubstantiation, okay?
The church is powerful because it can determine
who goes to heaven and hell and for how long.
And ultimately, if you are a king and you don’t obey the church,
the pope can excommunicate you,
which would say, I remove you from the Christian community.
And therefore, any other king can come and kill you.
And it would be good in the eyes of God.
Okay, does that make sense?
So this is why the church is so powerful,
but also it helps us understand why the church is so corrupt as well.
They have too much power.
And ultimately, they will use this power in order to enrich themselves, okay?
Remember, the Catholic Church, the people who control the Catholic Church
are descendants of the Roman nobility, okay?
And they will use the Catholic Church to enrich themselves.
They set up something called indulgences.
And the idea is, let’s say you’re a rich person and you did a lot of bad things,
and now you’re afraid you’ll burn in hell, right?
Well, Jesus will say, too bad.
But the Catholic Church says, give us a lot of money,
and we’ll give you an indulgence, okay?
Basically, you know, a ticket to purgatory, all right?
And so, as you can see, there’s a lot of corruption going on.
There’s something called simony,
where you can buy and sell positions in the Catholic Church.
Very similar to the imperial bureaucracy of China, right?
They’re selling holy relics.
Priests are not really divine.
they get married, they sell their positions to nobles, and the kings are the ones who can appoint
leaders of the church as well, okay? So there’s this negotiation going on between the Catholic
church and the kings as well. The parishioners, no matter how poor they are, they’re forced to
pay a tax. They pay a tax to the Catholic church and not to the king, okay? As you can imagine,
the king is not really happy about this because a third of his land, most of his tax revenue,
It’s being taken over by the Catholic Church, so that’s why a lot of kings will eventually start to rebel against the Catholic Church
Okay
The church controls one-third of all land in Europe tax-free. Okay, and this leads to feudalism
Alright, so at the same time though, even though the Catholic Church is so powerful in
Europe it serves as a legitimacy problem. Okay, meaning like how does it prove that it is truly
truly divine? Well, you have some certain problems. The first problem is the Muslims occupy the
Holy Land. If you truly represent God, why should you lose some in the hands of the Muslims?
Also, Spain is part of Europe, but Muslim Spain is actually much more wealthy and innovative
than the rest of Europe. 1054, the Eastern Orthodox Church, led by the Byzantines, break
with the Catholic Church, okay?
Because both want to be the ultimate center of the world,
but the bipartisan says that we’re the center,
and the Romans say, no, we’re the center, okay?
And there’s corruption going on, okay?
Everyone sees the corruption,
but there’s also lots of religious leaders
who are rebelling against Catholic Church
because they want to unleash the divine spark, okay?
So there’s all this legitimacy problems going on.
And so there are different solutions, okay?
And one solution the Catholic Church does is that it persecutes Jews.
So the Catholic Church allows Jews to exist just so that the Catholic Church can scapegoat
the Jews.
And throughout this time, as you can see, Jews are being persecuted mainly by being
forced out of their homes where they lived for hundreds of years.
And a lot of them are forced to go east into the Muslim Empire and to go to Spain.
And over time, they’re being expelled from these regions.
This is another map that shows the persecution of the Jews.
As you can see, they’re forced to go east.
And often, there are lots of massacres as well.
So the black spots, the skull spots, are areas in which they were massacred.
They were blamed for certain crimes.
So this is a map that shows the pilgrimages of Christians into the Holy Land.
And again, it’s a source of embarrassment for the Christians that their Holy Land is
occupied by Muslims, and they have to pay a tax to the Muslims, and they go into the
Holy Land.
Right now, the Holy Land, Jerusalem, is being controlled by the Celtic Turks, the Ottoman
Empire.
Alright, and that’s why Pope Urban II would eventually call for the Crusades to liberate
holy land from the muslims okay so can you read please all who die by the way whether by land or
by sea or in battle against the penguins shall have immediate remission of sins or what a disgrace
of such a despise and base raised which worship demons should conquer a people which has the face
of only potent god and is made glorious with the name of christ okay let those who have been
a custom unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels
and end with victory this war, which should have been begun long ago.
Let those who for a long time have been robbers now become knights.
Let those who have been fighting against the brothers and relatives now fight in a proper
way against the barbarians.
those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the
internal reward. Okay, so this is Pope Urban II saying the
Crusades, it’s to go and fight the demons. If you fight the demon, it doesn’t matter who
you are, you could be poor, you could be rich, you could be a simple person, you could be a
nobody, but now is your opportunity to go to heaven, okay? Like when you go to
fight the demons, you will all be guaranteed access to heaven, no matter
who you are and what you did and so a lot of people go and join the Crusades
for lots of different reasons especially those who’ve committed crimes before
okay so guess what a lot of people join the Crusades are criminals because
here’s your opportunity to get good with the church okay that’s why we see a lot
of abuse during the Crusades okay so as you can see lots of people are now join
crusades in order to liberate the holy land and eventually they succeed okay even though
a lot of criminals um they’re still very good fighters because they have religious devotion
okay they’re very energetic and unfortunately um they’re too energetic so they have tendency to
massacre people when they succeed because they literally see the muslims and the jews as demons
that’s what the pope taught them um one organization that developed during the
crusades is called the knights templars okay this is very important we’ll be discussing
nice templars later on okay but the nice templars it’s really the first multinational bank because
these pilgrims are going to holy land and they need to bring money with them to fund the journey
but if they take a lot of money with them then they’ll get robbed right so what they’ll do is
they’ll give the money to nice templars and then when they get to jerusalem the nice templars will
will give the money back to them, okay?
So they’re a bank, basically.
And then they can use this money
to start investing for out of Europe.
And so they become a very wealthy organization.
The problem is that because they’re in Jerusalem
and they’re away from the authority of the Catholic Church,
they start to embrace new ideas.
They start to discover the true nature of Jesus
from the Muslims and from other Christians in that area.
And so the church thinks that
they become more corrupt over time.
And that’s why their leader, Jacques de Molay, he is burned at the stake.
And in 1307, the organization is banned by the Catholic Church.
But a lot of survivors, they will go over to other places,
and they will form the basis of a secret society we call the Freemasons, okay?
So we’ll discuss the Freemasons later on.
Okay, there’s also something called the Aborigines and Crusades.
so there are still individuals who believe in the divine spark okay and these people are called
cathars and the church sees them as a threat and that’s why they launched a crusade against these
cathars okay so can you can you read alan seaman and many of his soldiers made determined effort
to convert the cathar perfect but failed okay so again the catholic church is if you disagree with
It doesn’t mean you’re a heretic.
It just means you’re stupid.
So we first want to educate you in what is right, okay?
The Cathars believe that, no, no, the divine spark is in me.
I know the truth for myself.
You can never convince me, okay?
Keep on going.
Ultimately, only three women recanted.
The 140 who refused were burned at the stake.
Some entered the flames voluntarily, not awaiting their executioners.
so if you believe in the divine spark okay you believe you’ve discovered truth you’re not afraid
of death so you’re so the catholics are saying like if you don’t your cat will burn you at the
stake the catholic is like good keep on going in august the crusade proceeded to besiege the
stronghold of thermos despite salis salis from period roger the decap decaparate the siege was
solid. The occupants of Termils suffered from a shortage of water, and Roman raimon de Termes
agreed to a temporary truce. The Cathars were briefly relieved by an intense rainstorm,
and so Reman refused to surrender. Ultimately, the defenders were not able to break the siege,
and on 22 November, the Cathars managed to abandon the city and escape.
By the time operations resumed in 1211, the actions of Honored Armory and Seaman D. Mountfort
had alienated several important lords, including Raymond D. Tullos, who has been excommunicated again.
Okay, so as you can see, what’s really important to understand is that the Crusade against Cathars
is not just a religious crusade.
It’s also one of geopolitics
where the local lords resent the power of the Catholic Church
and so they support the Cathars, okay?
All right, so, and this is going to happen throughout Europe.
So, the response of the church
is to establish a new society
led by Francis of Assisi called the Dominicans, okay?
The Dominicans, which goes and basically
tries to figure out who the Cathars are, okay?
By interrogating everyone, all right?
And this leads to, of course, the Inquisition.
And so the idea is that if you disagree with church orthodoxy, they will figure it out.
And if you refuse to recant, if you refuse to obey, they will burn you at the stake.
So at this time in history, because of the Inquisition, because of the Catholic Church,
Western Europe is one of the least innovative places in the world.
okay all right and at first this is fine but eventually um bad things start to happen in
europe okay so the little the little ice age begins and you have the great famine and you
have more wars then you have benedict okay and then of course you have the black death
so if the catholic church represents the will of god and all this is happening then it’s got
really happy with the catholic church right so this is a black death which kills about a third
of the European population.
And people, because they’re religious,
they think that this is the will of God.
It’s because the Catholic Church,
it’s corrupt, it’s evil, it’s stagnant.
That’s why God is punishing us.
Okay?
And this will lead to conflict within Europe
where the Catholic Church is actually broken
into different parts as well.
Okay?
So there are some who believe that
Rome is the true center of the Catholic Church,
but there are other people who believe that
Ammonon, okay, is the true center of the Catholic Church.
And this creates even more
legitimacy problems with the Catholic Church.
All right, and then you have individuals
who emerge to challenge the orthodoxy
of the Catholic Church, okay?
So this is Frey Dossina, we won’t read.
John Wycliffe is a British person
who was, he was not punished
when he was alive,
But afterwards, after he died, they decided he was a heretic.
So what they did was they dug up his body and then burned him with a stake
to make sure he would burn in hell, okay?
Jan Hus will lead a revolution, okay?
And this is called the Husic Wars.
And none of them succeed, but then another man will emerge called Martin Luther
who will eventually lead a successful revolution against Catholic Church.
And this is called Protestantism, okay?
Okay?
And we’ll discuss Martin Luther next class.
Next class we’ll discuss the rise of capitalism, all right?
Any questions guys?
Yes?
Like, there’s a case of my mother friend telling me
that her husband has a severe cancer
and they try to pray to the Catholic church
and later the cancer just disappears
and they said it is miracle by the Catholic Church
and they all believe in the Catholic Church,
can it explain the miracle?
Like, is there really miracle there?
Okay, yeah, okay, back to your question, okay.
So, this is what we call the placebo effect, okay?
The placebo effect is basically, you feel really sick
and you’re like, doctor, doctor, I’m really sick,
I’m gonna die, is there any medicine that can save me?
And I’m a doctor and I don’t wanna say
is no medicine uh so i say okay well here here’s some here’s here’s a medicine okay it might help
you but this but this medicine does nothing you take this medicine and then you feel better you
you get better and this happens a lot okay it’s called the placebo effect so why does this happen
it happens because if you like if you understand that mind leads to matter then your reality
is shaped by your perception your belief okay so if you believe that this medicine can improve your
body then it will have effects okay the question though is how much do you really believe in this
medicine okay so you can argue that cancer it’s really a question of loss of faith what is cancer
cancer is a splitting of cells right so why is your body literally falling apart it’s because
you’ve stopped believing in yourself. You’ve stopped believing in the purpose of life.
You’ve stopped believing that you have relevance in the world, okay? So when you say, I want to
cure my cancer, I want to cure my cancer, what you’re really saying is, I want to find a new
faith. I want to believe in myself again. I want to reestablish my relevance in the world, okay?
Does that make sense? So you have that desire. When you have that desire, then the cure makes
sense okay so so so another thing this is okay let’s just say that you don’t feel well right
well if your parents make you go see a psychiatrist you probably won’t feel better but if you yourself
want to get better you go see a psychiatrist you’ll probably get better okay so why this person
why he or she improved his or her cancer
is because of faith, okay?
She won’t get better.
So if you’re able to orientate your mind in a certain way,
you’re capable of tremendous miracles.
Another idea is the idea of meditation, right?
If you’re able to control your thoughts,
if you’re able to calm yourself down,
your body will heal a lot faster, okay?
Does that make sense?
All right, great.
Any more questions?
Okay, great.
Okay, so next class, we’ll discuss capitalism.
Source: Predictive History