mountainman

Constantine's explicit admission
of "post-christian forgeries" (325 CE)

Constantine's Orations to the Saints
Robert Lane-Fox spends a great deal
of time on this specific document.

At p.646/7 Fox suggests that Constantine's Oration to the Saints
was authored and orated by Constantine "at Antioch, Good Friday, 325".

Most ancient historians are today convinced that Constantine
both authored and read aloud this "document" in 324/325 CE.

It contains a number of novel social and political insights,
and a whole string of fraudulent misprepresentations:


(1) Berates the philosophers

Constantine berates the philosophers:
"Socrates critical questioning ... menace to the state".
"Pythagoras had stolen his teaching from Egypt, Plato believed there were many gods."
"Plato strived for the unknowable ... wrote about a first and second God."

[Editor: When critical questioning is a menace to the state there's a problem.
When military supremacists edict for the destruction of the writings
of leading present and past academics (eg: Porphyry, Arius, Apollonius of Tyana)
by book burning, it is a clear and unambiguous signal (from modern history)
that we are dealing with a malevolent dictator, a megalomaniac with a big army.]


(2) Berates the poets as worse than the philosophers

Constantine berates the poets as worse than the philosophers;
because "poets wrote falsely about the gods".
FOX: "In a few broad sweeps, Constantine had damned
the free use of reason and banished poetic imagination."

[Editor: Our thesis is that Constantine invented and sponsored christianity.
He would not lightly tolerate any opposition to his new invention.]

(3) Constantine's and Mary's Dove ...

"A dove, said Constantine, had alighted on the virgin mary,
like the dove which had flown from Noah's ark.

[Editor: A fact never before mentioned by casts of thousands.
Constantine probably enjoyed his own stories the most.
Nero wanted to be on stage and be a divine actor,
Constantine wanted the spotlights, and to be a divine author.]

(4)Prophecy of Jesus by the Erythraen Sibyl


Constantine refers to an ancient Sibyl, a priestess from Erythrae
who had served Apollo at the 'serpents Tripod' at Delphi.
Constantine then quotes (in the Greek) thirty-four hexameters,
from the inspired truth of the Sibyl.

Most notably, the acrostic formed by the first Greek letter
of each line spelt "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, Cross."

[Editor: the best is yet to arrive ...]


Fox continues ....
But Constantine was alive to the arguments of skeptics ...

Quoting Constantine,
the supreme imperial mafia thug:


"They suspect that "someone of our religion,
not without the gifts of the prophetic muse,
had inserted false lines and forged the Sibyl's moral tone.

These skeptics were already known to Origen ...
(Constantine continues)

"Our people have compared the chronologies
with great accuracy", and the "age" of the
Sibyl's verses excludes the view that they
are a post-christian fake."

[Editor: Here "The Boss" essentially shoots himself in the foot.
He explicity defines the recently appeared genre:
"We may be suspected of clever forgery"
said the Boss to his new troops, civilians and saints,
but our best intelligence people assure us
that these things definitely aren't fake."

Does this sort of propaganda sound familiar?
Where is Smedley Butler when you need him?
What is the modus operandi of malevolent despotism?]

(5) Constantine uses Cicero as "proof" of Jesus!

But wait, Robin Lane Fox has more to say:

His proof of this comparison was unexpected: Cicero (106-43 BCE)

Cicero chanced upon this poem and translated it to Latin.
The Sibyl, Constantine said, had prophecised christ
in an acrostic, known to Cicero.

Robin Lane Fox comments ...

"the proof was a fraud twice over."


[Editor: Fraud is demonstrated in the microcosm of the Oration.
Fraud is also demonstrated in the macrocosm of political reality.
Our thesis is that Constantine invented a fabrication and fiction.
Ancient history informs us that c.331 CE, he lavishly published.]


(6) Advent of Christ predicted by Virgil

(6) Moving on through the Oration, Constantine informs us that
the advent of Christ had been predicted by Virgil (70-19 BCE)
in a Latin poem, written 40 BCE, to the poet's patron Pollio.
Fox says: "Constantine cites Latin's loveliest Eclogue
to a christian audience [ED: this is DISPUTED]
for a meaning which it never had."

Constantine began with the seventh line, in a free Greek
translation which changed its meaning"

p.651: Fox writes:


"Has there ever been such a sequence of misplaced discoveries in a christian sermon,
let alone in a speech at the end of a Christian [ED: DISPUTED] synod?

[Editor: The Boss is on record, in his Oration to the Saints,
for outright fraudulent misrepresentation of the literature.]


(7) Was Constantine an Arian?

Fox comments a number of times, that "One sentence of the
Oration trod unwarily on Arius' ground. Many have noted
this specific sentence.

[Editor: The Arian controversy arose in opposition
to the fraudulent historical claims of christianity.
The words of Arius may be interpretted as historical commentary
raised in opposition to Constantine's new god.]



The Summary by Fox:

Conclusion: "Men have witnessed battles and watched war in which
God's Providence granted victory to this host." God, in short, had willed
Constantine's victory in response to his piety and prayers,
the themes of which ran through history and his entire Oration ...
Philosophy and paganism were as dead as the old Assyrian cities:
Constantine had freed the East by his prayers and piety,
and before them both lay the promised future of God."

It is notable, that Fox mentions this, regarding Ossius, the
chief agent sent in advance of COnstantine, and who presided
over the preliminary "councils" in the eastern "take-over" by
Constantine, after he had Lucinius executed by strangulation.

Say Fox, re the Council of Antioch, preceding Nicaea:

Ossius, Constantine's agent presiding, interrogated
each one of its paricipants privately.

[Editor: Clearly note that before the meeting at Antioch Ossius personally
interrogated each of the attendees, in a screening process to gauge support
for the implementation of the brand new (and strange) religion of Constantine.
Standard modus operandi of despots in the establishment of power.
Names and address are taken, rank and serial number if military.
City, civil position and direct supervisor if civilian, and
in either case, the gods to whom the attendee devoted their thought.

Constantine's scribes are taking it all down for future reference.
How to win friends influence people, and to levy the maximum tax.
Such pre-meeting informalities were big business, for all parties.

"War is a racket" --- Smedley Butler]


I submit that the above analysis of Constantine's Oriation
to the Saints at Antioch supports the view that Constantine
invented christianity by a wilful perversion of patristic
literature, as is mockingly taunted in our faces by the
boss and inventor of the fabrication of the Galilaeans,
Constantine.

According to my thesis, the Assembly of the Saints
was an assembly of "Eastern pagan saints", the soon
to be last in the lineage of the Hellenic philosophers,
and priests that Constantine was to execute and destroy.

The Boss shoots himself in the foot.
He is a fraud as his new and strange religion.

There has been alot of scholarly interest in the processes
of textual criticism in this forum. Perhaps some textual
critic, acting for "The Boss" might try and dislodge the
silver bullet firmly implanted in Constantine's right foot.

Best wishes one and all.


P.R.F. Brown
Constantine Invented Christianity

mountainman

I can understand why no textual critic would
accept this case, which is clear cut fraudulent
misrepresentation of ancient history by a despot.

The case is clear cut.

What needs to be understood is that this is simply
the microcosm instance of the macrocosm of the
religious phenomenom known as "christianity".

It is based on fraud which was perpetrated by Constantine
after much preparation, at his "Council" of Nicaea 325 CE.
The fraud was identified at the earliest possible moment
by an independent non-christian voice -- Julian c.362
And then censored by the tax-exempt Bishop and
hit-man Cyril c.420

"If there's a plot its a plot of the Greeks"

Toto

Robin Lane-Fox, Pagans and Christians (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Still waiting for some positive evidence for this thesis

You do realize that Christians represented the Holy Spirit as a dove? This is just a little poetic license.

Yes, history tends to repeat itself.


This just does not follow. Constantine, like every other promoter of a new idea, denigrates what went before. Does that require that he invented the new idea?

Suggestions of Date in Constantine's Oration to the Saints "In twenty-six chapters of what is best describes as a fourth century version of "pop philosophy," Constantine offers a defense of Christianity and an exhortation to the pious life..."

The entire text is here.

mountainman

Novelty is established by acheological citations with respect
to the new idea of christianity, which are exceedingly rare
before Constantine. Think about it.


The term and assessment of "POP philosophy" denigrates the
political reality of the despotic persecution inflicted by Constantine
during and after this Council of Antioch where the oration is thought
to have been given.

Did Cicero predict christ?
Did Virgil predict christ?
Did the Sibyl predict christ?

I dont think so.

It is simply a FRAUD.
A fiction of men composed by wickedness.



Best wishes,



Pete

Johnny Skeptic

Pete (mountainman), I do not have any idea why you get so much opposition regarding your comments about Constantine and Eusebius in this thread, and in some other threads. I hope that my new thread that it titled "Evidence against Eusebius and literalism" is helpful to you. I am not aware of any good reasons for anyone to assume that the tyrannical Constantine and his chief henchman Eusebius were not the ancient equivalent of the Gestapo. I mean really, will literalists actually have people believe that the formation of the New Testament Canon was a friendly little tea party with few dissenters?

mountainman

There are no good reasons except those promised
by the rhetoric of his fictions and fabrications which
each of the attendees summoned to Nicaea were
coerced to support by signature against the words
of Arius (after the persecution and executions of
non-christians at Antioch a few months beforehand).

Eusebius describes the entrance to the "Council" of
Nicaea in the following terminology ....

"units of the bodyguard and other troops surrounded the palace with drawn swords, and through them the men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost rooms of the Emperor, in which some were companions at table, while others reclined on couches either side." It was "like a dream", Eusebius said, an anticipatory picture of the kingdom of Christ.

Christianity was first thrust upon the empire via a very
old military tradition known as the wall of swords.
Constantine was a malevolent despot with a cunning and
devious military mind that academics have yet to actually
understand. Nicaea was a military supremacy council the
likes of which has yet to be understood in any simple and
straightforward political sense.

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

No one really disagrees with this. People only disagree with the idea that Eusebius, at Constantine's command, invented an entirely new religion and cleverly forged 3 centuries of Christian literature, including the heresies, in several different languages.

mountainman

Hi Toto,

What is so disagreeable with this option as the history
of the invention of christianity in the fourth century?
Have you read anything of the work of Smedley Butler,
such as "War is a Racket"?

The military mind is cunning. Constantine burnt the
writings of the popular and leading academics.
Hello? Doesn't this mean anything whatsoever?
Are academics immune to the pattern of similar
facts and modus operandi of malevolent despots
and military supremacists?

Constantine waged war on the eastern empire and was
supreme. He corrupted the academic integrity of literature.
and his Oration to the (IMO non-christian) Saints at Antioch
clearly demonstrates fraud and forgery. He thought he
was a clever and powerful despot. What's the problem
with this straightforward and simple political assessment?

Best wishes,


Pete