rlogan

That is a radically different statement than the exclusion of pre-Nicean origins, which was your previous assertion. It would be wise to be forthright about things.


At least you are finally addressing the question.

With this definition, there are no 100% pure Christians until post-canon formation - which is tautological and therefore not a theory at all.


If you wish to have an interesting and valuable theory, then it MUST address precursors. We can't really do this for you because you are the one proposing. So you have to fill in here for us.

I am inferring that under your theory, the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan regarding Christians is a set of forgeries.

mountainman

Evidence of fights among creeds and other literature of calumny
is not evidence of history. Our position is that this literature is
all sourced from the fourth century sponsorship of Constantine.

The literature certainly evidences fights among creeds of
"the tribe of christians" purposefully, in order to foster the
inference that there was in fact "a tribe of christians" on the
planet before the fourth century.

But the literature is a fabrication and a fiction of wicked men
according to Julian, and we are presently giving Julian the
benefit of the doubt, and testing the integrity of the postulate
that the literature is a fiction. A 4th century fiction, containing
more calumny than most modern novels.


I have already (perhaps elsewhere) posted that I am aware of only
two valid carbon dated results in respect of NT manuscripts:

1) Nag Hammadi - dated by the bindings to c.360 CE
(and I dont have any error bars for this one).

2) The recent GJudas - dated 280 CE (+/- 60 years)




Pete Brown

yummyfur

Actually I am not sure Nag Hammadi has been carbon dated, and if it has which codexs.

Do you know how many non Christian texts have been carbon dated, not very many, which means that since there are endless possibilities in history to speculate about possible forgery, we can make up anything we want using your criteria, as pretty much only a tiny tiny number of manuscripts have been carbon dated, and most of those are recent finds. That is my point.

mountainman

The way was sure, and Constantine was a supreme
imperial mafia thug, and very intelligent.

The surviving reports of the council of Nicaea from the available
historians clearly indicate:

1) Constantine called the council of Nicaea.
2) Constantine summoned attendees to the council in writing.
3) Constantine's grand entrance into the DAY 1 of the Council.
4) Constantine burns the written opinions of attendees in council
5) Constantine exhorts harmony and united appearance of the church.
6) Constantine quotes all sorts of inspiring wisdom.
7) Constantine apparently calls the council on account of the words of Arius.
8) Disclaimer clause on the Nicaean creed is Anti-Arius.
9) The 22 sub-creeds establish a church structure and regulation system
which all point back to the central Roman coffers, and is precisely what
one would expect to be imlemented by a new emperor to re-take the
eastern empire (after 40 years of dual augustas) for taxation and the
control and securement of revenue, etc.

The above are hurriedly listed, and should not be considered
to be an exhaustive list of evidence why I consider that Constantine
used the Council of Nicaea to implement christianity
out of the whole cloth in the fourth century.




Pete Brown

mountainman

Yes. Any and every reference to christians which is purported under
the mainstream theory to have been written prior to the fourth century.
The following list of the authors of antiquity has authors who certainly
do not reference christians, listed alongside authors who, usually via
Eusebius, are the authors you are alluding to with Pliny.

A color coded one list available sorts out the "christian authors"
from the "pythagoraean philsophers", "Roman emperors", "historians",etc:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_029.htm



Philo-Judaeus
Seneca (the Elder)
Apollonius of Tyana
Jesus of Nazareth
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter & Judas
Jude
Pontius Pilate
Barnabas
Pliny the Elder
Trajan (Emperor)
Musonius Rufus
Clement of Rome
Flavius Josephus
Plutarch, Mestrius
Ignatius of Antioch
Cornelius Tacitus
Thallus
Polycarp
Pliny the Younger
Seutonius
Papias
Hadrian (Emperor)
Quadratus
Simon Magus
Phlegon
Aristo of Pela
Agrippa Castor


Second Century


Justin Martyr
Aquila of Sinope (of Pontus)
Hermas
Valentinius
Aristides the Philosopher
Hegesippus
Marcion of Sinope
Melito of Sardis
Basilides
Theophilus
Tatian
Irenaeus of Lyons
Lucian of Samosata
Marcus Aurelius
Polycrates of Ephesus
Dionysius (of Alexandria) the Great
Dionysius of Corinth
Pinytus of Crete
Saint Apollonius
Mathetes
Rhodo
Serapion of Antioch
Athenagoras
Bardesanes
Clement of Alexandria
Julius Africanus
Tertullian
Minucius Felix
Dio Cassius
Hippolytus
Flavius Philostratus
Caius
Apollonius ??
Alexander (of Cappadocia,Jerusalem)
Origen
Apollinaris Claudius
Diognetus
Ammonius Saccas


Third Century


Cornelius (of Rome)
Novatian
Decius Trajan (Emperor 249-251)
Plotinus
Dionysius of Rome
Mani the Prophet
Cyprian of Carthage
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Cassius Dionysius Longinus
Gallenius
Malchion
Commodianus
Porphyry
Diocletian (Emperor 284-305)
Victorinus
Iamblichus of Chalcis
Hermias
Peter of Alexandria
Pamphilus
Methodius
Victorinus of Petau
Malchion (of Antioch)
Anatolius of Laodicea in Syria
Phileas of Thmuis
Galerius
Sabinus
Arnobius
Alexander of Alexandria
Eusebius Pamphili of Caesarea
Constantine I (Emperor 306-337)
Hierocles
Aphrahat/Aphraates
Lactantius
Athanasius
Alexander of Lycopolis
Author Unknown
Miltiades (Pope 311-314)
Maximin of Trier
Donatus Magnus




Thanks for being persistent.



Pete Brown

rlogan

OK. Now I understand. All forgeries prior to 4th cent.

I'm a believer in forgeries. This is a little larger scope than I've had in mind. Well, more than a little...


Well, for sure the Christian history is a complete fabrication insofar as the first century goes. As such there are of course no refernces at all other than those forged and the legends about persecutions.

One of the major problems in such an approach vs how I have come to see things is that in your scenario a complete "cold start" is fabricated, including that the "bishops" who were invited to Nicea were not actually bishops at all - since there were no Christians.

Instead they must be by inference part of the conspiracy. Because they are damned well aware they are not heads of any church because no churches exist.

So they all go back and start churches from scratch - pretending that there are centuries of prehistory to Christianity. Meanwhile, scribes are busy on eclectic revisions of texts and creation of phony controversies, etc.

You must be proposing something like this.

mountainman

Granted that C14 dating for ms in the period in question (0-300 CE)
is very small at the moment, but this will not always remain so, as I
am sure further tests will be conducted.


Pete Brown

S.C.Carlson

Just curious--has this statement been independently verified? Or do we have to ultimately trust the smuggler?

Stephen

yummyfur

I believe Herbert Krosney, in "The Lost Gospel (or via: amazon.co.uk)" has an indepth coverage of information on the where and how, where many antiquity "dealers" and locals are questioned. I'm not sure that Mrs. Tchacos, the smuggler, actually even knew the provenance when she bought it.

mountainman

Correct. Let me clarify:

Stage 1: 312-324 CE
Constantine takes Rome and implements a mini-proto-Nicaea (see below)
He consolidates his position, constantly looking east, planning supremacy.
He promotes the new religion in the west, and send literature to the east.
Eventually this results in the Arian controversy.

(NOTE: Our hypothesis sees the Arian controversy
as the reaction of the eastern empire against the new
testament texts, and the new religion. The controversy
is stated by the dogmatic assertion of a series of phrases
by Arius, such as:

* there was time when he was not.
* he was made out of nothing existing)



Stage 2: 324-325 CE
Constantine takes the eastern empire, and has Lucinus strangled.
He calls the Council of Nicaea on account of the words of Arius.
(See the above words of Arius).
He summons attendees to the council.

There were no "christian bishops" in the eastern empire, as per your
own reasoning, the only "christian bishops" in attendance being those
whom Constantine had "cultivated in Rome". The pope didn't make it,
but sent some juniors in his stead.

Our hypothesis is that the attendees summoned to Nicaea were the
patrician level land-holders, governors, nobility and other important
key people of the eastern empire, whom Constantine had just conquered.

They were summoned to Nicaea to discuss how the new empire was
going to fuction for the maintenance phase under the taxation and
regulation and administrative and new religious regimes, which were
to be implemented by Constantine.

Stage 3: 325 CE
Nicaean Council Meeting: what happened?

Constantine ran the show.
His mercanery barbarian storm troops were milling around outside.
He entered the meeting, not with his troops, but his family.
He berated the attendees for their discord, and quoted chapter & verse.
He pointed out the need for perceived harmony.
He burnt their written petitions in their presence.
He wined and dined them for 4 months.
He gave them presents and promises of civil works (new churches).
He supported those people who supported him.
Who was with Constantine, and who was with Arius?

Constantine sold the package of christianity to the attendees.
The package was subscribed to voluntarily.
Signatures were collected to attest comitment to Constantine.
The big DISCLAIMER CLAUSE got rid of the words of Arius.



Stage 4: 326-337 CE
Constantine implements a new and strange ROMAN church.
He wanted to get rid of the Hellenic culture and religions.
He did not to pay tribute to any of the old traditional Roman religions.
These were all Hellenic is nature. (See Julian's summaries).
He wanted their treasure, lands, temples, statues, etc, for himself.
Once the one true religion was implemented, all else became taxable.

Adherance to the words of Arius ceased being controversial.
It became the Arian Heresy, and the downhill slide started.

The attendees at Nicaea became key figures in a power network
that distributed favors from Rome to the eastern empire, and taxation
revenue, lands, etc, etc back to Roman central.

The 22 sub-clauses on the Nicaean creed define the nature of this
administrative network, which was established by agreement at Nicaea,
and which through common interest perpetuated itself throughout the
next 12 years of Constantine's reign, and thereafter.

They knew they were not christian bishops when they set out from
their homes in the eastern empire after being summoned to the council.
But there were some bishops from the western empire present, and
they all acted in complete accord with the new and strange religion,
in a new and strange fashion, and the bishop Eusebius was there,
and he was certainly a christian bishop, because he had just in fact
finished writing a history of "tribe of christians", and of their texts,
and they even had a copy of Josephus, and Josephus mentions the
chritians back then, so they certainly exist somewhere.

But they became the christian bishops of Constantine by signing
the Nicaean creed, and when they returned home, they were full
of food, and had presents, and would represent Constantine to
their local communities and cities, and be a key figure standing
in the (new and strange Roman universal christian) channel of power
between the supreme imperial thug, and his remote subjects.

New church structres would be built by the new civil administration
of Constantine, and every one of those new christian bishops would
get a big cut of the action. They became important men overnight.

It was a complete cold start. When Constantine burnt
their written petitions, things warmed up considerably.
They were reminded of where they were, and who was
in their presence. Constantine was a thug, acting in
some ways benevolently, but why?

All they had to do was to agree with Constantine, and
disagree with the words of Arius, whatever these words meant.
In fact, it was clear that these words meant entirely different things
to different parties. Noone really had to worry about what these
words meant, so long as they disagreed with them. So they signed
the creed, in expectation of future glory of the new Roman church.



Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au/essenes