mountainman

I think aa5874 summarises the Marcia affair very well.


The Marcia reference is completely irrelevant once we admit to the possibility that the 11th century Christian scribe had both the books of the "Roman History" of Cassius Dio, and the books of the (variously attributed) "Philosophumena" before him while he was writing his epotime. John Xiphilinus certainly had Eusebius before him at that time, and is known to have inserted mention of other "Christian legends" into other books in his epitome of Cassius Dio.

The Philosophumena manuscript (14th century) and a Xiphilinus Epitome of Cassius Dio (14th century) were both found on Mount Athos.

stephan huller

So you are back to this bullshit about the copy of the epitome of Dio and the Philosophumena being found together at Mount Athos (the original epitome was brought there and was not 'from there') instead of finding any examples of philotheos among the pagans. That speaks volumes. I don't understand how you can be happy developing half truths for this stupid theory. Either your theory is true or it is not. Either you have proven that Christianity is a fourth century conspiracy or you have not. The fact that two independent sources testify to the same reality - i.e. Marcia's association with the Christians proves you are wrong as does a host of other evidence.

But there is no evidence to suggest that John Xiphilinus ever saw this text or came to Athos. As such your explanation is stuck in neutral and will be so until you find evidence to the contrary. Just putting up a maybe isn't a defense. I actually believe that the 'maybe' that you might a Christian trying to give mythicists a bad name by developed the worst sort of arguments for mythicism is a more likely 'maybe' than any of the garbage you have been coming up with.

mountainman

But this is trivial. It's a compound Greek word "lover of god" and you would have to be some sort of maniac to suggest that the word was reserved for the Christians' god alone and exclusively and not (by default) applicable to the Greek conception(s) of god(s).

For a pagan example look at Aristotle, rhet. 2, 17, 6.


Philo IMO uses the term in a Platonic sense rather than a Jewish sense,
but this is straying away from what needs to be resolved here.



The first step in my theory is not about the Canonical Books of the NT and accepts that they may have been authored anywhere between the 1st and 3rd centuries of the common era. The first step in my theory is to demonstrate that the hypothesis that all the Gnostic Gospels and Acts etc (i.e. non canonical NT literature) were written as a reaction to the appearance of the Constantine Bible after c.325 CE and not before that date. The Nag Hammadi Codices and gJudas are key witnesses.

My thoughts are not with the canon atm, but you keep bringing up the subject time and time again.




You appear to be dealing with facts and proofs and right and wrong when you should be dealing with hypotheses, it makes me wonder if you know the difference.


Who said Xiphilinus had to travel to Athos for the "Philosophumena"? We know for certain that a copy of the epitome of Xiphilinus certainly travelled from Constantinople where he wrote in the 11th century to Athos. Therefore it cannot be impossible that a copy of the "Philosophumena" also made its way from Constantinople to Athos.

Your argument that a copy of the "Philosophumena" could not have been in the city of Constantinople in the 11th century is absurd. The Byzantines kept a lot of records - it was the city of the Christian Emperor FFS since Constantine. I honestly don't understand how you can argue that the copy (made in the 14th century) of the "Philosophumena" found at Athos was the only copy, since whoever scrawled the crabby greek of its text in the 14th century (somewhere on planet Earth but not necessarily Athos) must have had an earlier copy to work from.

Your scenario, that Athos alone hosted the preservation of the "Philosophumena" between the 3rd century and the 19th century has got to be some form of misconception, but I don't know how to start explaining it. For all we know the Vatican could have planted the "Philosophumena" on Athos as late as the mid 19th century. I am not suggesting this to be the case, but we need to be realistic in testing all available hypotheses that can explain the evidence before us.



I see it as entirely reasonable that Xiphilinus had access to the imperial library resources of the Byzantine Emperor who had commissioned the epitome. Xiphilinus therefore had whatever books of Cassius Dio that survived, he had the Church History of Eusebius available to him (because he admits this and uses the "Thundering Legion Bullshit Legend") and -- I find it reasonable to suggest - he also had a copy of the "Philosophumena".

Now don't get me wrong - I am not claiming this as a fact like you do. I am claiming it as a possible hypothesis by which an explanation may be provided for the appearance of Marcia, the concubine who loved the God Hercules, in the Xiphilinus's epitome of Cassius Dio, Book 73 and thereby explain this textual dependence between the two texts.

watersbeak

We, living today, have trouble understanding life in ancient times, before cell phones and airplanes.

Mount Athos is NOT some kind of incredibly remote location, akin to traveling to Mars.

It had been a location relatively tranquil and free from fighting, hence useful as a retreat. That may explain why there would be, today, TWENTY monasteries there. Does Stephan Huller imagine that those were constructed without human labor? How did the workers get there? How did they obtain nourishment?

Mount Athos was already famous in ancient Greece.

Texts: It is remarkable, to read from folks on this forum, about the locations of various ancient texts. Why is it so difficult to imagine, that there were well educated, intelligent people, not only READING and WRITING, but also TRAVELING, a couple thousand years ago?

Consider a place, I think is remote: Ethiopia. Yet, they had lots of ancient texts there. How did those ancient texts arrive in Ethiopia? Compared to Mount Athos, Ethiopia truly is at the other end of the world.

Cassius Dio's history may, or may not have been found in one of the many monasteries at Mount Athos. To me, it appears silly to assume that Xiphilinus neither traveled to Mount Athos, nor encountered in other venues, the texts in question. As for the absurd notion that Xiphilinus had no agenda, in writing his abridged version of Cassio Dio's history, it is sufficient to understand what happened to folks of that era who contradicted the Vatican. Long before the infamous Inquisition of the 16th century, the Rome directed fourth crusaders sacked Constantinople, (a hundred years after Xiphilinus' text, rewriting Cassius Dio), where Xiphilinus had lived.

I don't understand Stephen Huller's objection to mountainman's query about the possibility that Xiphilinus may have had access to several documents. I would have supposed that, as a senior church official, Xiphilinus would have had access to ANY document in the possession of any of the monasteries at Mount Athos, or Ethiopia, or anywhere else, apart from Rome!

Sam

stephan huller

I don't find any of this nonsense useful in determining whether John Xiphilinus read the Philosophumena while writing the Epitome of Dio Cassius. We know he had the writings of Dio Cassius in front of him and where we possess the original material from Dio Cassius the epitome is 'almost verbatim' (see comment above). Why then should we accept the idea that in this one section of text which contradicts mountainman's thesis that John Xiphilinus broke convention and added an idea from a document no one - including himself - ever saw, ever used, ever quoted, ever cited? Why is the argument that 'he's Greek' or 'both him and the document were somewhere in the Byzantine Empire a plausible coincidence? Let me guess, you don't want there to be evidence that Christians existed before Constantine.

watersbeak

Apologies for having misspelled your name, previously.

I have no idea whether or not Christians existed prior to Constantine's declaration that Christianity would become the Roman Empire state religion.

I believe, because I am prejudiced, that Christianity commenced in the latter half of the second century. I don't find any evidence supporting the religion before that date.

I think it is quite possible that the whole apparatus began with Origen/Pamphilus/Eusebius, and certainly, no later than Jerome. Alternatively, maybe there was someone named Justin Martyr, living in the mid second century. It is difficult to have a strong conviction about Martyr, absent a second manuscript.

Sam

Littlejohn

.
I agree too. It's a very serious exegetical mistake to believe that Christianity was born and developed under Constantine I: a figure of great importance within the Mithraic cult (perhaps the Pa.Pa. Maximum, whose religious headquarters was in mitreum of the Vatican hill , where later was built the St. Peter's Basilica)

.

stephan huller

The bottom line is that we go back to the evidence that the Philosophumena and the Epitome of Cassius Dio represent two different witnesses to Marcia being closely associated with the Christians at Rome. This helps explain Irenaeus's statement that many of 'faith' were at the Imperial court writing as he was in the very same period (c. 185 - 190 CE).

Littlejohn

.
Christianity was founded to 'tavolino' (italian slang for 'on project') between 140-150 years: practically with the arrival of Marcion in Rome.

.

stephan huller

'tavolino' - from tavola? little table?