Jeffrey Gibson

Anyone who has been here for even a little while knows that Pete has a mission to convince us of certain truths that he maintains about Constantine. One of these "truths" is that Constantine was not only hostile to "pagan religions", but that it was his intent during his reign to wipe them out and that he took active steps to do so.

In evaluating these claims, one of the things we have to ask is whether Pete is sufficiently grounded in, and master of, the sources about Constantine and his policies to be able to make any informed claims about Constantine and his policies.

Has he ignored, or is he unaware of , any evidence to the contrary of his claims? Has the evidence he's presented been good evidence? Has it been presented without bias? Has he dealt adequately, if at all, with recent scholarship on Constantine that indicates, if we accept it, that Pete's claims are under informed, if not contrary to fact?

You be the judge.

Here is an excerpt from an essay by A.D. Lee, published relatively recently in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (or via: amazon.co.uk), on how Constantine dealt with "Traditional Religions" (an essay that, to my knowledge, Pete is unaware of and certainly has not read -- he certainly has never mentioned it or taken into account, even if only to dispute, the data there) which, in my eyes, brings the validity and sustainability (and certainly the "well informed" nature) of Pete's claims about Constantine's attitudes and actions towards "pagan religions" into serious question.


I believe that after reading this, you'll think so too.

I'll deliver it in three parts.

And if anyone wants to know why I am doing this, it's because I, along with many others here, have grown sick & tired of seeing not only how Pete ride his hobby horse almost any chance he gets, but how continuously and willfully he displays historical and linguistic ignorance, and how he rapes evidence to suit pre determined and woefully prejudiced conclusions.

Doubtless he'll say he is only following "the evidence" where it leads in an unbiased fashion. But he is selective in the evidence he follows, is unable to recognize good evidence from bad evidence, and more often than not he distorts what he deals with. It's time to show this crap for what it is.

Toto

Jeffrey - information wants to be free, but we still need to live by the copyright laws.

It think it would be fair use for you to email your material directly to Pete instead of making it available here, if you think that would do any good.

Or there is an extensive preview on google books, or a Kindle edition for less than $20.

Jeffrey Gibson

FWIW, what I posted was not the entire article.

Jeffrey

Toto

We operate on the assumption that 20% of an article, or 3 paragraphs - whichever is less - constitutes "fair use."

You could probably add a few more paragraphs and summarize the point Lee makes.

mountainman

I have PM'd Jeffrey with my email address and am happy to summarise Lee's main points for discussion, given sufficient time.

Jeffrey Gibson

But the question would be, if I sent it to you, whether you'd summarize it accurately and not ignore, misread, and misrepresent any evidence there that contradicts your claims about Constantine and his policies.

Given the way that you have previously you've dealt with and misrepresented Robin Lane Fox's discussion of the council of Nicea and the claims of Arnalodo Momigliano (who, contrary to your assertions that he supports your 4th century thesis when he speaks of the "miracle" of Christianity, recognized Christianity to have been in existence since the first century [see his discussion of the Neronian persecutions in The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. X), and how you've not understood the point or essence of what you've quoted from Rowan Williams book on Arius, and how you've misread the TDNT article on daimon, I have liitle hope that you would.

So it is probably pointless to send it to you.



Jeffrey

mountainman

FWIW I am not claiming that Momigliano himself ever directly mooted any support for such a thesis or even hypothesis.

My claim relates to his heavy use of irony which, with my weird sense of humor, may indirectly provide support for such an hypothesis.

I am inclined to think that he, like Gibbon, sneered at the church.

Do you happen to have the relevant paragraph or two in which Momigliano discusses the Neronian persecutions from this source?





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Jeffrey Gibson

Short memory. See here: http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....26#post7044626

I fail to see how.

He never did so in any of the lectures I heard him give on Christianity and Roman history at Oxford.

Good gawd, man. I am not your research assistant. Moreover, what this request shows is that your inclination to view Momigliano in certain ways is hardly well grounded in a sound knowledge of, and first hand acquaintance with, his writings about the church or in an anything but a misreading (and, it appears, a biased and filtered reading ala your reading of Lane-Fox on Nicea) of those works of his that you selectively quote.

Jeffrey

mountainman

Here's what I said ...........

I trust I do not need to cite Momigliano in The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, pp. 79—99 (1)



Do you for a start agree that Momigliano used irony quite heavily?




Like Gibbon IMO he used irony to sneer - it was not overt.
At least that's how I read him. But I could be wrong.
Perhaps an example might be appropriate iff you agree he used irony.




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

thief of fire

I'm going to imagine that we really had to read the rest of the quote.
Doctor, can you summarise the rest?