Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Duvduv · 03-14-2013, 06:28 PM

http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.p...on-ad-311-364/

Isn't it rather *interesting* that virtually all the laws identifying "Christians" in the third century are presented by none other than Eusebius, with some labeled under the Theodosian Codex of Theodosius II which happened to have been codified in the 5th century?!

Ahem......it *compiled* earlier laws (as opposed to inventing them for early in the 4th century creating the impression that there were already numbers of Christians to warrant mention in the law). And of course you can see how various laws either do not make sense or contradict each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Theodosianus
The Codex Theodosianus was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Theodosius II in 429[1] and the compilation was published in the eastern half of the Roman Empire in 438.[2] One year later, it was also introduced in the West by the emperor Valentinian III.

Duvduv · 03-15-2013, 08:44 AM

The emergence of the religion can simply not be detached from the overall context of the empire and society.

The new Empire was falling apart with wars and conflicts throughout the 4th century. The predominance of "Christianity" was slow and did not make itself felt strongly until the days of Theodosius I with his so-called Theodosian Creeds in 390 against pagans, and who just happened to have been the Emperor at the time of the second "Nicaean Council" in 381.

If they ever needed a method to attempt to create a semblance of uniformity to the disintegrating empire, the new religion was the way to go EVEN IF IT REQUIRED FORGERY, LIES AND INVENTIONS to do it, even if the empire was administratively divided between his two sons and others thereafter. It certainly was helped by the so-called collection of codes and laws alleged to have started from the time of Constantine when the codes were apparently used to promote the idea of the widespread existence of Christians at the dawn of the 4th century.

mountainman · 03-15-2013, 08:19 PM

Heya Duvduv you may be interested in having a look at this Vridar article on Ancient forgeries — by lawful decree

Quote:

Emperor Justinian needed historical precedents for his new codification of law to command the respect of both his citizenry at large and the legal profession in particular.

Sometimes controversy rages over the question of whether biblical works have been rewritten, interpolated, redacted, forged . . . In this context it is interesting to observe what happened — and why — in a well known case “by law”. Understanding the culture of ancient minds can often add enlightenment in many directions.

The punchline in the article comes when extracts are cited from Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe (or via: amazon.co.uk) by William Rosen

Quote:

“But, in dozens if not hundreds of cases, what Tribonian and his colleagues incorporated is not what Gaius wrote, but what they wanted him to have written, in order to be consistent with Ulpian, or Julian. Had the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court followed the style of Tribonian, Brown vs Board of Education would not merely have overruled the “separate-but-equal” endorsement given by its predecessors forty-eight years before in Plessy vs. Ferguson, but altered the words offered in Plessy itself.

“The commission was trapped between the rock of precedent and the hard place of consistency. The application of precedent — a fundamental value to anyone who respects the law — meant they had to incorporate existing statutes and prior decisions; but the contradictions within and between those statutes and decisions still needed to be eliminated. The modern solution is to add the original decisions to legal registers with the words “as amended” . . . .

“The commissioners were forced to either cite anonymous precedents, or to put words in the mouths of predecessors that were not previously there. Thus, perversely, the respect that the commission gave to historical precedent trumped their respect — if, indeed, they had such — for scholarly honesty. . . .

“. . . . the Digest needed not to compile, but to legitimate, the laws. When they did not agree, they were made to agree.” (p.128)

We might therefore ask the question if the history of the Roman Law Codes was made to agree to the current policy, was the history of the Roman Christian Church immune from such blatant forgery.

Obviously the answer is no.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv · 03-16-2013, 07:40 PM

....In which case we can expect that the Theodosian Codex backdated laws pertaining to Christians for political purposes of the codes to the early 4th century to create a history of widespread groups of Christians that did not exist.

Duvduv · 03-17-2013, 11:54 AM

It occurred to me that orthodox Christianity could be called Athanasianism. But an alternative would simply be Theodosianism, because it is really with Theodosius II that the official religion became solidified.

In any case, with war between Byzantium under Theodosius II and Sassanid Persia under Yazdgirid II in the 5th century you had the Theodosian regime going after heretics, and in Persia after certain types of Christians, i.e. the Athanasians, while consolidating Zurvanite Zoroastrianism against its competitors. The conflict among different sects of Zoroastrianism (Mazdean versus Zurvanite) reminds one of the controversies in the Christian empire.

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religi.../zurvanism.htm

The description of the presence of Christians in the Sassanid empire in the 5th century has more substance to it as compared with very vague legendary stories about Christians of the mid-4th century under Yazdgerid I or Shapur II.

mountainman · 03-18-2013, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

....In which case we can expect that the Theodosian Codex backdated laws pertaining to Christians for political purposes of the codes to the early 4th century to create a history of widespread groups of Christians that did not exist.

This is indeed what we might expect.

I have called it retrojection, but there may be a more appropriate term.

The thesis of Charles freeman expressed in his book AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State is along similar lines:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freeman

p.204

Concluding statement ....

"What is certain is that, in the west,
the historical reality, that the Nicene Trinity
was imposed from above on the church,
by an emperor, disappeared from the record.

A harmonised version of what happened at the Council of Constantinople,
highlighting a consensus for which there is little historical evidence,
concealed the enforcement of the Nicene Trinity through the medium of
imperial legislation.

The aim of this book has been to reveal what has been concealed.

Arguably the year AD 381 deserves to be seen as one of the most
important moments in the history of European thought."

Out of interest, Freeman uses the following quote from Pascal in his concluding chapter.

Quote:

p.196

CONCLUSION

"We must not see the fact of usurpation;
law was once introduced without reason,
and has become reasonable. We must make
it regarded as authoritative, eternal, and
conceal its origin, if we do not wish that
it should soon come to an end."

~ Blaise Pascal, Pensees

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv · 03-19-2013, 04:48 AM

Once there is retrojection, then there is the distinct possibility that the actual claim of a COUNCIL in 325 of bishops of Christianity assuming widespread communities and hierarchy reaching into the past was itself retrojection from later years. Certainly it could not be any less a possibility than the claim of existing Christian communities in the codes themselves of a few decades after 381.

03-14-2013, 06:28 PM	#1
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	Theodosian Codex http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.p...on-ad-311-364/ Isn't it rather interesting that virtually all the laws identifying "Christians" in the third century are presented by none other than Eusebius, with some labeled under the Theodosian Codex of Theodosius II which happened to have been codified in the 5th century?! Ahem......it compiled earlier laws (as opposed to inventing them for early in the 4th century creating the impression that there were already numbers of Christians to warrant mention in the law). And of course you can see how various laws either do not make sense or contradict each other. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Theodosianus The Codex Theodosianus was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Theodosius II in 429[1] and the compilation was published in the eastern half of the Roman Empire in 438.[2] One year later, it was also introduced in the West by the emperor Valentinian III.

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03-15-2013, 08:44 AM	#2
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	The emergence of the religion can simply not be detached from the overall context of the empire and society. The new Empire was falling apart with wars and conflicts throughout the 4th century. The predominance of "Christianity" was slow and did not make itself felt strongly until the days of Theodosius I with his so-called Theodosian Creeds in 390 against pagans, and who just happened to have been the Emperor at the time of the second "Nicaean Council" in 381. If they ever needed a method to attempt to create a semblance of uniformity to the disintegrating empire, the new religion was the way to go EVEN IF IT REQUIRED FORGERY, LIES AND INVENTIONS to do it, even if the empire was administratively divided between his two sons and others thereafter. It certainly was helped by the so-called collection of codes and laws alleged to have started from the time of Constantine when the codes were apparently used to promote the idea of the widespread existence of Christians at the dawn of the 4th century.

03-16-2013, 07:40 PM	#4
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	....In which case we can expect that the Theodosian Codex backdated laws pertaining to Christians for political purposes of the codes to the early 4th century to create a history of widespread groups of Christians that did not exist.

03-17-2013, 11:54 AM	#5
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	It occurred to me that orthodox Christianity could be called Athanasianism. But an alternative would simply be Theodosianism, because it is really with Theodosius II that the official religion became solidified. In any case, with war between Byzantium under Theodosius II and Sassanid Persia under Yazdgirid II in the 5th century you had the Theodosian regime going after heretics, and in Persia after certain types of Christians, i.e. the Athanasians, while consolidating Zurvanite Zoroastrianism against its competitors. The conflict among different sects of Zoroastrianism (Mazdean versus Zurvanite) reminds one of the controversies in the Christian empire. http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religi.../zurvanism.htm The description of the presence of Christians in the Sassanid empire in the 5th century has more substance to it as compared with very vague legendary stories about Christians of the mid-4th century under Yazdgerid I or Shapur II.

03-19-2013, 04:48 AM	#7
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	Once there is retrojection, then there is the distinct possibility that the actual claim of a COUNCIL in 325 of bishops of Christianity assuming widespread communities and hierarchy reaching into the past was itself retrojection from later years. Certainly it could not be any less a possibility than the claim of existing Christian communities in the codes themselves of a few decades after 381.

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