mountainman

That was for Eusebius to answer, and he produced a literary testimony to these edicts. The source for this is Big E. Wasn't he wonderful with words? Doesn't he make the Christians come alive? Masterful use of pathos, especially in the saga of the martyrs.






Big E. was a consumate liar.

Duvduv

Let's not forget his successors such as Socrates, Theodoret and Sozomen as well. It stretches credulity to believe a uniform religion existed even for 200 years which waited 20) years to address a fundamental pillar of the faith with all their alleged predecessors and canonical texts and writers.

Chocky

I'll throw in tuppence...

Because the NT as a series of occasional writings isn't much good for extracting systematic theology? Also, if it was growing and illegal, and spread across a large area, it's not too surprising different groups held different beliefs.

The practice of calling minor local and major church-wide councils to discuss and anathematize whatever "heresies" were doing the rounds went on for centuries. Nicaea rejected Arius' and Paul of Samosata's interpretation of "homoousios" and decided a better term was "homoousious" (of one substance), but then, people started arguing about that, and whatever solution was proposed was never watertight enough to stop people bickering about that, repeat ad nauseam. IIRC, Nicaea barely mentioned the Spirit, and the actual issue of the Trinity came up in later councils.

Well, Roger Pearse has a good page on the various primary sources. You could describe Eusebius as an "official propagandist", but all the others too?

As for Constantine-era writers being the "source" of the whole Christian tradition... well... mountainman's conspiracy, which pointedly interprets all the available evidence in a way that suits the theory, has been covered many times before on this board. I'll say no more.

stephan huller

These people who develop the fourth century conspiracy are not surprising the least informed participants in the forum. If they had any knowledge of other monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Samaritanism) they would be aware that there is official favor shown on various sects within broader traditions. 'Official propagandists' exist in all traditions at all time.

Duvduv

I don't think this involves a conspiracy at all. It simply involved putting together a system for the regime. Was establishing the American Republic at the Continental Congress a conspiracy? The fact that ideas were culled from various sources and put together in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution does not require the nefarious idea of a conspiracy. Neither would the efforts at putting together the religion of the new regime.

However, I simply brought up some contextual issues that seem to be problematic given the framework created in the writings of the official propagandists.

Duvduv

As I have suggested, the writers of the 4th century did not just wave their wand and invent everything out of thin air. There were definite ideas and beliefs that must have been floating around orally and on paper. The work of the official system as time went on was to create or attempt to create coherence out of the whole thing.

However, the issues concerning Nicaea and thereafter still deserve attention within a context especially since the picture painted both by the propagandists and even by modern scholars looks too neat but is as full of holes as Swiss cheese.

Duvduv

Interesting indeed how none of these canons has anything to say with anything related to the scriptures and dogmas of a 200 year-old religion, and sound as if they appeal to some kind of very uniform population subject to their authority and heirarchy. Not unlike the Creed itself, which has nothing to say about basic fundamentals expressed in the NT texts. Even later creeds included anathemas suggesting they were still struggling with ideas that did not correspond to the NT texts at all, as I posted.

Iskander

What are you trying to say?

Duvduv

I think I have satisfactorily answered that question, but you have not discussed the substance of my postings.

mountainman

According to my research (which may not be perfect, but which has attempted to cover the 4th century in depth), The Three Hundred and Eighteen Nicaean Fathers are appealed to as the authority during the entire 4th century. Nobody seems to appeal to the authority of the history of the "Earlier Christians" mentioned in Eusebius, until the masterfully brutish heresiologist Bishop Cyril of Alexandria commences this practice in the 5th century. But between Nicaea (325) and Cyril (444) the hegemon for Christian authority appears to favor, in examining the evidence, the appeal to the 318 Nicaean Fathers. At some stage, according to the dating of the entry in the Decretum Gelasianum, the history of Eusebius was considered an anathema, being classified amidst the other gnostic [banned and prohibited] apocryphal literature.