J-D

Actually I have, but you dismissed it.

mountainman

Actually, you completely failed to make any reference whatsoever to the evidence under discussion, namely the preserved writings of Athanasius, but waved your hand wildly about pointing at 5th and 6th century Arian history. If you wish to address the 4th century evidence of Athanasius cited above - items 1, 2, 3 or 4 - please continue. Your responses such as those below are somewhat disconcerting.

Evidence is evidence and Facts are facts Toto.
I have cited the factual statements of Athanasius, "Father of Orthodoxy".
Your statement that the idea is "counter factual" flies in the face of this evidence.
Although this does not meet your preconceived notions, it is quite obvious that Athanasius has assessed Arius as a satirist of the highest order.

Huon

It is clear that Athanasius says always the truth, all the truth, and only the truth. And whe do have (certainly) the answer of Arius, in his own terms, where he explains that he is an anti-christian satirist. And we know for sure that all the Arian bishops who existed after Arius were not Christians. That is why they disputed their seats against the catholic bishops.

That is also why the Wisigoth king Alaric II tried in 506 at Agde to reconcile the arians and the catholics of his kingdom. Of course, he failed, and was killed by Clovis (a good recent catho) in 507, at Vouillé, near Poitiers. This defeat proves also that Arianism was not supported by God.

Toto

It has yet to be demonstrated that Arius OR the gnostics thought of themselves as writing satire.

See Catherine Osborn "Literal or Metaphorical? Some Issues of Language in the Arian Controversy" in Christian faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity: Essays in Tribute to George Christopher Stead (or via: amazon.co.uk) previewed on google books p. 148-9

So we only have a few scraps of Thalia, but it appears that Athanasius compared it to Sotades because of its form and meter, not its content.

Please read more there. I had to find an academic to state what seems to me to be obvious: Athanasius is engaged in rhetorical excess, not a straightforward description of Arius. Athanasius and Arius dispute the proper meaning of Christian scriptures - both claim to be Christians. In fact, many modern Christians may be closer to Arius than to Athanasius in their view of a historical Jesus who was born and walked on earth..

J-D

Actually, you are flat wrong about that, as an easy search will demonstrate. Rather than point you at my previous posts on this point, however, I shall expand on the argument.

It is common to find disagreement between different Christian groups (or, if you prefer, different groups calling themselves 'Christian') about points of doctrine. It is still common, although not as common, to find some groups denouncing others as heretical and therefore accusing them of not being Christians (the expression 'not true Christians', or something similar, may be used). Catholics, for example, consider themselves to be Christians, but some extreme Protestant groups insist that Catholicism is not a form of Christianity and Catholics are not Christians. Mormons, too, consider themselves to be Christians, but many non-Mormon Christians dispute this claim and consider Mormonism to be a non-Christian religion.

To me, as somebody who is not and never has been a Christian and does not come from a Christian family, looking at this kind of argument from the outside, I conclude that different people use the word 'Christian' in different ways, but that that is no good reason why a scientifically-minded student of the subject should agree with accusations that people are not Christians just because some Christians say they aren't 'really' Christians. I note and understand the view of some Christians that Catholicism and Mormonism (for example) are not forms of Christianity, but that is no reason why I should consider that Catholics and Mormons are not Christians.

The evidence (if we accept it as genuine and not some kind of forgery or fabrication) suggests a serious disagreement about religion between Athanasius and Arius. That evidence, taken in isolation, is consistent with the hypothesis that Arius was a non-Christian who criticised Christianity, but it is equally consistent with the alternative hypothesis (which fits better with other evidence) that Arius adhered to a version of Christian doctrine different from that of Athanasius, a version which Athanasius viewed and denounced as heretical, his denunciation being (as such denunciations often are) rhetorically exaggerated and not a good guide in detail to sober truth.I did not wave my hand wildly or at all. I simply pointed to some additional evidence. Because your theory cannot cope with this evidence and collapses in face of it, you resort to inflammatory rhetoric as an excuse for evading it.Those responses disconcert you because they illustrate by analogy the inappropriateness of your methodology. They disconcert you because you can't answer them without abandoning your preferred approach in favour of a better one, and you can't do that because if you adopted an appropriate methodology you could no longer support your chosen theory.

mountainman

With the exception of the first page I do not have access to Satire and Gnosticism by Keith Fort © 1988. Can anyone with access to JSTOR comment upon how this author treats this subject?

April DeConick suggest that the Gnostics used satire frequently:

notes on Karen L King's "What is Gnosticism"


National Geographic on gJudas

This article presents the two sides of the one argument being discussed in this thread. DeConick claims that she believes that the gJudas should be seen as a parody, while two other academics Gathercole (Cambridge) and Meyer do not see see the parody/satire.

mountainman

The identification of religious/political satire requires the audience to have an appreciation of the religious/political actions against which the satire is directed within the actual cultural context at that actual epoch.

The epoch was following the Council of Nicaea 324 CE.

The actual cultural context was Greek. The very small minority of the educated class of people in the empire spoke and wrote in Greek. The religious background of those people was Graeco-Roman. The figure of Sol Invictus and the naturalistic central place of the sun in the ecosystems of the planet, its role in the seasons, etc were well known. The Pythagoreans and others may have understood the concept of helio-centricity. In any event, The Sovereign Sun was and had always been the subject of divine rites, concepts, prayers, devotion and literature.

Constantine was promoting his new God Jesus.
But he was not doing this with LOVING KINDNESS but with the sword.
Constantine was tearing down and prohibiting the Greek religions!
We know this to be case quite implicitly.
We must expect to see resistance by the Greeks.
They had no other recourse but to use the pen.
And the pen, in the words of Constantine, "was dripping poison".

The reactionary writings simply attacked Constantine's Jesus.
So what did Arius write about Jesus and his pivotal passion (above quote out of Athanasius)?

Arius made the whole literary affair of Jesus' passion the subject of the sun!
The sun was horrified and impatient!
The sun turned away from the passion of (Constantine's) Jesus.
The sun recalled His rays, and made that day sunless.
Where was the God? In the sun ---- "Sol Invictus"

The sun and not Jesus was made the subject of Arius' writing here.
This is precisely the reason that I am claiming Arius was regarded as a "heretic".
Arius was a heretic because he was a Greek who refused to acknowledge Jesus as any form of divinity.

Constantine discloses this about Arius in the following extracts from the c.333 CE "Letter to Arius" ....

Constantine writes about Arius that ....

He brought state orthodoxy into the light;
He hurled his wretched self into darkness.
He ended his labors with this

He wrote that he did not wish God to appear to be the subject of suffering of outrage
He wrote that (on the above account) he suggested and fabricated wondrous things indeed in respect to faith.

He wrote books that collected and gathered terrible and lawless impieties
He wrote books that agitated tongues [Editor: Very popular books]
He wrote books which deceived and destroyed

He introduced a belief of unbelief.
He introduced a belief of unbelief that is completely new.

He accepted Jesus as a figment
He called Jesus foreign
He did not adapt, he did not adapt (it was said twice) to God [Editor: the "new" orthodox God]
He was twice wretched

He reproached the church
He grieved the church
He wounded he church
He pained the church

He demoted Jesus
He dared to circumscribe Jesus
He undermined the (orthodox) truth
He undermined the (othodox) truth by various discourses
He detracted from Jesus who is indetractable
He questioned the presence of Jesus
He questioned the activity of Jesus
He questioned the all-pervading law of Jesus
He thought that there was a place outside of Jesus
He thought that there something else outside of Jesus
He denied the infiniteness of Jesus
He did not conclude that God is present in Christ
He had no faith in Christ
He did not follow the law that God's law is Christ
He had little piety toward Christ
He detracted from the uncorrupted intelligence of Jesus
He detracted from the belief in immortality of Jesus

He detracted from the uncorrupted intelligence of the Church
He was barred publicly from God’s church

The simplified summary of all the above is that the evidence suggests that Arius was a Greek author who used satire to demote the authority of Constantine's Jesus by writing books and literature to mimic events and people in the new testament canon. Because of this Constantine put a price on his head and issued unambiguous instructions and communiques for the searching out and destruction by fire of the books of Arius -- the "Porphyrian" Arius - and by use of "damnatio memoriae".

Constantine the King to the Bishops and nations everywhere.

Inasmuch as Arius imitates the evil and the wicked,
it is right that, like them, he should be rebuked and rejected.

As therefore Porphyry,
who was an enemy of the fear of God,
and wrote wicked and unlawful writings
against the religion of Christians,
found the reward which befitted him,
that he might be a reproach to all generations after,
because he fully and insatiably used base fame; [ed: satire]
so that on this account his writings
were righteously destroyed;

thus also now it seems good that Arius
and the holders of his opinion
should all be called Porphyrians,
that he may be named by the name
of those whose evil ways he imitates:

And not only this, but also
that all the writings of Arius,
wherever they be found,
shall be delivered to be burned with fire,
in order that not only
his wicked and evil doctrine may be destroyed,
but also that the memory of himself
and of his doctrine may be blotted out,
that there may not by any means
remain to him remembrance in the world.

Now this also I ordain,
that if any one shall be found secreting
any writing composed by Arius <<<<=========== ,
and shall not forthwith deliver up
and burn it with fire,
his punishment shall be death;
for as soon as he is caught in this
he shall suffer capital punishment
by beheading without delay.


(Preserved in Socrates Scholasticus’ Ecclesiastical History 1:9.
A translation of a Syriac translation of this, written in 501,
is in B. H. Cowper’s, Syriac Miscellanies,
Extracts From The Syriac Ms. No. 14528
In The British Museum, Lond. 1861, p. 6–7)

Huon

Luther was excommunicated by Leo X on 3 January 1521, in the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem. Luther is not a christian. Nor the Protestants.

Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the excommunication of the four bishops from the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) ordained by Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, Most Reverend Bernard Fellay, Most Reverend Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Most Reverend Richard Williamson and Most Reverend Alfonso del Gallareta.
These four Most Reverends were not christians between 1988 and 2009, and are now very good christians.

mountainman

Athanasius is considered to be the "Father of the Orthodoxy" after Nicaea for the period until the rise of Pope Pontifex Maximus Damasius in Rome, after a major "win" in the streets with his henchmen over competing christian mafia thugs. The victors established their dogma via the literary voice of Athanasius, whom Arnaldo Momigliano, foremost ancient historian of the 20th century, considered to be the "inventor" of "christian hagiography", or "Lives of the Saints, etc" following his monumental fiction on the "Life of Anthony"

In 341 CE the orthodox bishops of the Dedication Council at Antioch declared:

"We are not followers of Arius; for how could we,
who are bishops, be disciples of a priest?"

Modern academics see in Arius the (neo-) Platonist. The five sophisms of Arius which were appended to the earliest Nicaean Creeds, and which appear raised in protest down the long centuries of the Arian controversy make perfect sense if Arius was simply a Greek priest and/or academic.

The Graeco-Roman priesthood is arguably sponsored by all the ROman emperors since Julius Caesar bribed his way into the very prestigous role of
"Pontifex Maximus". Even Diocletian sponsored the Graeco-Roman temples. It was only with Constantine that the ancient tradions got turned on their heads.

The orthodox God of the orthodox Christians was protected by the laws of the Roman empire. The record of the draconic legislations of the lineage of Christian Roman Emperors who followed Constantine is contained in two works - the Codex Justinianus and The Codex Theodosianus.

Imperial forgery is generally recognised to have occurred in the documentation and compilation of the Justinian Codes. We should not expect the Theodosian Codes to be any better. Known forgery of laws by the imperial christian regime of the later 4th century and the following centuries may be expected to have been extended to forgery concerning the history of the successful conversion of the empire to Christianity.

Censorship commenced with Eusebius' list of forbidden books. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum --- it might be successfully argued --- commenced with Eusebius in the epoch of Constantine. We know Arius wrote books, and we know they were prohibited by Constantine. Eusebius (or what is preserved of the account called "Eusebius") does not mention any names at all for the heretics of his time, except for Arius - in VC.

Why were the books of Arius of Alexandria prohibited and forbidden?
Perhaps because they were popular academic satire directed against the subject matter published by the warlord Constantine, who had trashed the eastern empire for his greed.

We need to be objective enough to consider the perspective of the non christian Graeco_roman culture and populace when Constantine appeared and converted them to the new state Christian religion by the sword.

We have zero NICE GUYS running the Roman State Church. They were personally appointed by Constantine during the epoch 324 to 337 CE and then fought it out between themeselves for the "BUSINESS" afterwards.

We might expect satire raised against such a corrupt authoriatarian and military based regime. Massive censorship of the Graeco-Roman resistance.

If there were men who recommended
tolerance and peaceful coexistence
of Christians and pagans,
they were rapidly crowded out.

The Christians were ready
to take over the Roman empire,
as Eusebius made clear
in the introduction of the Preparatio evangelica
where he emphasises the correlation
between pax romana and the Christian message:
the thought indeed was not even new.


Arnaldo Momigliano

mountainman

Those in power can call themselves orthodox members of the political and/or religious regime while at the same time thay can call their opponents heretical elements of the regime, and move to have these people marginalised.

There is no doubt Arius of Alexandria was marginalised by the orthodox.
Thanks for these references Huon.

The evidence by which the argument that Arius may be viewed as an indigenous member of the Graeco-Roman priesthood and/or academia is consistent of the following, detailed in the above posts:

(1) An example of Arius' literary satire against the passion of Jesus.
(2) Athanasius' three time reference to Arius as another "Sotades" (Greek satirist).
(3) Eusebius's reference to the "ridicule of the canon in the theatres of the unbelievers".
(4) Constantine's letter of 325 CE: Arius the "Porphyrian" and memoriae damnatio.
(5) Constantine's letter of 333 CE: Arius as an anti-Jesus author.
(6) Modern academic assessment of Arius as a neo-Platonist "of some form". (His claims his father as "Ammonias" [Saccas] of whom Plotinus was a disciple, and then Porphryr and perhaps Iamblichus).

Fourth century history and the Arian controversy can be easily explicated by viewing the controversy as being caused by the reaction of the academic and upper class "Graeco-Romans" (with Arius as a focus for the resistance 325 to 336 CE) against the implementation of the "plain and simple religion of the christians" [Ammianus] by Constantine using force with effect from 324 CE -- when he obtained absolute military power.