Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Chocky · 04-30-2012, 02:46 AM

If there's nothing solid backing up the "1800" bishops, the fact it's found its way onto Wikipedia and is repeated on various websites and in books (without any discussion of where it came from) strikes me as an example of communal reinforcement.

mountainman · 04-30-2012, 03:04 AM

A figure of 2048 bishops is to be found in the source known as Marutha of Maiperqat . This source states that the creed was read in the presence of 2048 Bishops, but only 318 of these assented to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Council of Nicaea - Marutha of Maiperqat

When the Bishops had assembled according to the royal command, the king read the declaration of faith, which Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem had written and forwarded by the hand of Priest Makaris.

It was read in the presence of 2048 Bishops,
but only 318 of these assented to it.

The king then took his ring, sceptre and sword and gave them into their hands, saying, Here is given to you authority over the whole church, over ecclesiastical and civil affairs, and over all the orders in church and state. [16] Do whatever you please, and God will require at your hands an account of the sons of the church. The General Council having thus received authority from the king, the fathers directed that there should be gradations in the assembly and that each Bishop should sit in his place according to his rank. Chairs were there made for all and the king entered and sat with them. He kissed the spots which were the marks of Christ in their bodies. Of the 318 fathers, only 11 were free from such marks,.................

This account should be compared to the recent account translated by Roger via Philip of Side. The Philip of Side fragment indictes that the council was one where the "Bishops of the Church" were being lectured to by philosophers who were in the employ of Arius of Alexandria. These philosophers were making great headway. But then along came Jones, in the form of an old man, who spoke plainly to the nasty Platonic philosophers, and caused them to be converted to the church. This old man of god appears in the fragment of the history of the council of Nicaea by Philip of Side.

mountainman · 04-30-2012, 03:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huon

Quote:

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Osius of Cordoba (Spain) was the only bishop of Spain, and he is said to have been the representative of the bishop of Rome, too old, and who certainly could not find an Italian bishop for that

.

Osius of Cordoba was one of Constantine's trusted barbarian chieftains, who surrounded him on all occassions, much like the Praetorian guard used to do. These chieftains had served Constantius Chlorus. Constantine inherited these alliancesand strengthened them for the assault on the Roman Empire.

Osius presided over many if not all chuch councils while he lived, the first major one being Antioch 324/325 CE. He is supposed to have personally "screened" all attendees, whatever this word "screened" means. I see it as some form of interrogation. As the convenor of this council of Antioch, Ossius would have been responsible for discharging Constantine's order written after the council for the torture of various leading magistrates and citizens and philosophers of Antioch, on account of the error of their ways. Ossius was probably appointed Bishop by Constantine, to the dioceses of his choosing once the "war was over". Ditto for the rest of his barbarian chieftains, and other trusted agents in the army.

Iskander · 04-30-2012, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

The usual explanation is that Constantine legalized the previously illegal "Christian" movement, even if the story of his own conversion is totally a legend. However, what "Christianity" was legalized if a fight immediately ensured with the successor movement to someone named Paul of Samosata in 325?

If the councils were being held on and off throughout the 4th century, it means that Constantine and his sons didn't even try to "eliminate" the "non-Orthodox" and that they were all legal - Trinitarian, Arian, Monarchianist, Adoptionist, etc.

It sort of sounds as if the entire struggle over the meaning of the Trinity was a BRAND NEW subject, and the orthodox trinitarians were NOT the victors that one thinks they are because Constantine's own sons sympathized with the Arians, who were thus NOT the "heretics" at all, but painted that way, not by a Eusebius who was writing in the same period, but by the later "winners" AFTER the Arians disappeared.

Not only that, but the so-called Nicene conference was supposed to be attended by 1,800 bishops invited by Constantine, of whom less than 200 showed up!! HOW MANY people thus were represented by 200 bishops in an empire which SUPPOSEDLY had several MILLION Christians?? Where were all the other bishops, what did they believe, and who says they accepted what the Nicene Creed stipulated?!

And who can really know what they believed or what those who attended believed as described by Anathasius. In addition to the fact that the first Nicene Creed didn't mention the virgin birth, Pilate, Mary or the crucifixion, and it took another 60 years for those elements to be included, none of the 4th creeds, some of which pro-Arian, even identified Jesus as the promised messiah of the Hebrew scriptures.

IF one single bishop could represent only a few thousand people, then all those in attendance may have only represented 10% of all Christians in the Empire! Many of the subsequent "councils" had far fewer than this number of participants in tmes when the Christian population was ostensibly increasing....

And how would this whole issue even emerge in the 4th century if the Church had existed for over 200 years with its APOSTOLIC traditons? Surely it would not take a century to work out christological issues that had to have been addressed for over 200 years previously.
UNLESS the whole notion of the TRINITY never existed much before the 4th century at all, in which case the precise doctrinal nature of the Christ would not have been an issue.

It sure wasn't an issue in the gospels, and not even in the epistles.

The so-called Toledo Council of 400 only had 19 bishops in attendance, and the fact that it included all those anathemas shows that there must have been plenty of "Christians" who did not accept the teachings of the canonical NT texts at all or even the Judaic/Hebrew orientation of the imperial Church. Look at this list of anathemas as late as 400. Something is wrong about the traditional views of the 4th century.

1. Therefore if anyone should say or believe that this world was not made by the omnipotent God and his instruments, let him be anathema.

2. If anyone should say or believe that God the Father is himself the Son or the Paraclete, let him be anathema.

3. If anyone should say or believe that God the Son is himself the Father or Paraclete, let him be anathema.

4. If anyone should say or believe that the Paraclete, the Spirit, is either the Father or the Son, let him be anathema.

5. If anyone should say or believe that the human Jesus Christ was not assumed by the Son of God, let him be anathema.

6. If anyone should say or believe that the Son of God as God suffered, let him be anathema.

7. If anyone should say or believe that the human Jesus Christ, as a human, was incapable of suffering, let him be anathema.

8. If anyone should say or believe that there is one God of the Old Testament and another of the Gospel, let him be anathema.

9. If anyone should say or believe that the world was made by another God that by the one of whom it is written, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” let him be anathema.

10. If anyone should say or believe that the human body will not rise after death, let him be anathema.

11. If anyone should say or believe that the human soul is a part or substance of God, let him be anathema.

12. If anyone should say or believe that there is another Scripture than that which the Catholic Church accepts or believes to be held as authoritative or has venerated, let him be anathema.

Quote:

The usual explanation is that Constantine legalized the previously illegal "Christian" movement, even if the story of his own conversion is totally a legend. However, what "Christianity" was legalized if a fight immediately ensured with the successor movement to someone named Paul of Samosata in 325?

What are you trying to say?

Duvduv · 04-30-2012, 05:57 AM

So we can dismiss the 1800 figure. Even if the attendees were 25% or 50% of all bishops, the other issues still stand as questions. How could this growing illegal religion of supposedly hundreds of thousands been a coherent religion for so long and never work out one fundamental pillar of the nature of their Christ, and have an emperor be involved in resolving it when supposedly they had a apostolic tradition to go along with their canon for almost 200 years and then produce creeds that ignore other essential fundamentals?
And in an environment of the 4th century of a supposed regime adhering to Christianity?
And with later councils of relatively few attendees still worried about existing groups with different ideas that even contradict the canon texts that were recognized well before the 4th century?

In any case, so much is unknown and disputed about Nicea that nothing can be determined about it outside of the writings of official propagandists who are the source of claims of a supposed tradition more than 200 years old.

Iskander · 04-30-2012, 06:04 AM

See #24

What are you trying to say?

Duvduv · 04-30-2012, 06:36 AM

What sort of Christianity was "legalized " by Constantine before Nicea if there were so many different beliefs?
And the very idea of bishops and deacons assumes some kind of uniform hierarchy which does not seem credible at all ..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

See #24

What are you trying to say?

mountainman · 04-30-2012, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

What sort of Christianity was "legalized " by Constantine before Nicea if there were so many different beliefs?

An inaugural sort. It was according to Eusebius both "new and strange".

Quote:

And the very idea of bishops and deacons assumes some kind of uniform hierarchy which does not seem credible at all ..

The vicarii and the dioceses were already established as military divisions of the Roman Empire under Diocletian. The problem was that there were 1001 sorts of Egypto-Graeco-Roman-Persian-Druidic-Celtic-Indic religious cults in 24x7 operation, and Constantine addressed that problem with (military) force. The priesthoods of these pagan cults, and even the sacred assembly of pagan priests which for centuries consultatively advised the Pontifex Maximus, were made redundant OVERNIGHT.

It was lights out for the Greek intellectual tradition that had previously flourished at the heart of the Roman Empire. This light was extinguished for over 1000 years by the oppression and inquisition of the heresiologists. The Christian religion is a religion based upon heresiology. The first Christians were fundamentally heresiologists. What does this say about the ethics of the christian message? Believe the "good news" or you're dead.

The 4th century: boom century for practicing heresiologists

What is a heresiologist? One who studies, manages, writes upon, catalogues and controls heretical belief, espoused by heretics. EG: Arius.

The 4th century is riddled with Christian sources, all of which without exception, are intimately involved with the management of the heretics and their heresies. The Council of Nicaea spawned heretics and heresies. It spawned a massive controversy.

Was the controversy over the price of grain?
No it went to the heart of the recognition of "divine essence".
Was the new god of similar essence to the old gods or of the same essence?
Most definitely said Constantine, he was the same, not similar.

Did Jesus suddenly appear inside Constantine's "Good Book"?
Or did Constantine rescue the Jesus story the library of (which?) Origen?
Were the first Christian churches the basilicas of Constantine the Great?
What does the monumental and archaeological evidence actually say?
They fabricated a fake cross for Jesus in the 4th century.
But most importantly, being His servants, knowing His Kingdom was immanent, they fought for Jesus.
Just as he had predicted to Pontius Pilate.
Jesus knew about Nicaea in advance.

Iskander · 04-30-2012, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

What sort of Christianity was "legalized " by Constantine before Nicea if there were so many different beliefs?
And the very idea of bishops and deacons assumes some kind of uniform hierarchy which does not seem credible at all ..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

See #24

What are you trying to say?

In 311 the pagan emperor Galerious and Cesar Licinius proclaimed the Edict of Toleration in the East, also named the Palinode of Galerius.

In the winter of 311-312 the emperor Maximian tried unsuccessfully to force the Armenians to renounce Christianity. His failure convinced him of the impossibility of destroying the faith and in 312 he too joins the toleration of Christians.

In 313 the pagan emperors Constantine in the West and emperor Licinius in the East met in Milan and ratified the edit of toleration of Licinius of 311 published at Sardica (Sofia). The Edict of Milan treats all religions of the empire as equals and hence tolerated..

What sort of Christianity was tolerated by the edicts of 311,312,313? That is for the Christian historians to answer, it has nothing to do with the pagan emperors, Licinius, Maximian and Constantine.

mountainman · 04-30-2012, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James The Least

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

2. If anyone should say or believe that God the Father is himself the Son or the Paraclete, let him be anathema.

I wonder if this had anything to do with Mani, who had claimed to be the Paraclete?

There are two anachronism about this claim, relating to the following statements in the sources, both heresiologists:

Ephrem Syrus, Against Mani:

"MANI, WHO THEY SAY IS THE PARACLETE THAT COMES AFTER 300 YEARS."

Hegemonius:

And by this assertion, in his ignorance perchance, he will make out Jesus Himself to be a liar; for thus He who once said that He would send the Paraclete no long time after, will be proved only to have sent this person, if we accept the testimony which he bears to himself, after an interval of three hundred years and more.

Like all other pagan religions, the Manichaeans were effectively "outlawed" at Nicaea. The heretic card was handed to their chief priests. Business was not looking good for the heretics. They seemed to retain a collegiate responsibility in the preservation of gnosic gospels, as chocky already mentioned.

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04-30-2012, 02:46 AM	#21
Chocky Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: UK Posts: 40	If there's nothing solid backing up the "1800" bishops, the fact it's found its way onto Wikipedia and is repeated on various websites and in books (without any discussion of where it came from) strikes me as an example of communal reinforcement.

04-30-2012, 05:57 AM	#25
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	So we can dismiss the 1800 figure. Even if the attendees were 25% or 50% of all bishops, the other issues still stand as questions. How could this growing illegal religion of supposedly hundreds of thousands been a coherent religion for so long and never work out one fundamental pillar of the nature of their Christ, and have an emperor be involved in resolving it when supposedly they had a apostolic tradition to go along with their canon for almost 200 years and then produce creeds that ignore other essential fundamentals? And in an environment of the 4th century of a supposed regime adhering to Christianity? And with later councils of relatively few attendees still worried about existing groups with different ideas that even contradict the canon texts that were recognized well before the 4th century? In any case, so much is unknown and disputed about Nicea that nothing can be determined about it outside of the writings of official propagandists who are the source of claims of a supposed tradition more than 200 years old.

04-30-2012, 06:04 AM	#26
Iskander Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 3,619	See #24 What are you trying to say?

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