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This reminds me of the saying, "you could build a cathedral with all the pieces of the 'True' Cross," which I believe originated in Medieval Christendom. Even b

This reminds me of the saying, "you could build a cathedral with all the pieces of the 'True' Cross," which I believe originated in Medieval Christendom. Even back then it was widely known that many, if not most, religious relics were probably fake.

dalbasal 3y ago
..if not all. And they certainly knew it then too. Maybe they didn't really care, and had a similar view to us about the matter. I don't think anyone believes the Vatican is sending actual true cross relics for the coronation. Still, the fact that the artefact has been a fake relic for 1000 years, has a history, is being sent by the pope... those are enough for it to function as a symbol. I think it's always ironically hard, with history, to know if the mindset was different or similar to ours. Ancient economies sometimes seem to work in ways that ours wouldn't for mindset reasons. Other times things are more similar to our times than we suppose. I think we're bad at recognising which parts of our own culture are unique and novel, and which are relatively trivial, common, or even inherent.
- dmreedy 3y ago
  Indeed. As the line goes: the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. Equally human, equally logical, but with different priors, different axioms, different base truths to reason from. > Maybe they didn't really care, and had a similar view to us about the matter. My impression is that this is probably not the case however. Another line following from the above is that ancient people believed their religions, with the same unexamined priors as we believe in our own modern Truths. But since they were human, too, there is always room for charlatanism, fraud, and delusions of grandeur. And humor as a defensive mechanism against all of that.
1123581321 3y ago
While I’m skeptical of the origins of holy relics, that’s just a saying. Most fragments are small slivers and it’s been estimated that they add up to a small fraction of the weight of a complete cross.

dalbasal 3y ago

..if not all. And they certainly knew it then too. Maybe they didn't really care, and had a similar view to us about the matter. I don't think anyone believes the Vatican is sending actual true cross relics for the coronation. Still, the fact that the artefact has been a fake relic for 1000 years, has a history, is being sent by the pope... those are enough for it to function as a symbol. I think it's always ironically hard, with history, to know if the mindset was different or similar to ours. Ancient economies sometimes seem to work in ways that ours wouldn't for mindset reasons. Other times things are more similar to our times than we suppose. I think we're bad at recognising which parts of our own culture are unique and novel, and which are relatively trivial, common, or even inherent.

dmreedy 3y ago
Indeed. As the line goes: the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. Equally human, equally logical, but with different priors, different axioms, different base truths to reason from. > Maybe they didn't really care, and had a similar view to us about the matter. My impression is that this is probably not the case however. Another line following from the above is that ancient people believed their religions, with the same unexamined priors as we believe in our own modern Truths. But since they were human, too, there is always room for charlatanism, fraud, and delusions of grandeur. And humor as a defensive mechanism against all of that.

1123581321 3y ago

While I’m skeptical of the origins of holy relics, that’s just a saying. Most fragments are small slivers and it’s been estimated that they add up to a small fraction of the weight of a complete cross.