mountainman

Dear Huon,

I might make the same response to your position. Your position appears to assume the authority of the perspective of certain authors within the victorious christian regimes of the late fourth and fifthy centuries whose accounts are used as "histories". The histories which were then written by the victors in a huge social turbulence which saw the destruction of the Hellenic temples and the construction of the christian basilicas, which saw the burning of the Hellenic literature (library of Alexandria) and the authodox preservation of the Constantine new testament.

Eusebius and his continuators alone make the claim that Arius was some form of christian. In his "Dear Arius where are you dear Arius Letter" Constantine starts off with the following:

Yes, Arius sounds just like a good exemplary christian.

Definitely christian again?


And Constantine on a number of occassions indicates that Arius has the support of the masses? The christians are known to have been in the minority during the rule of Constantine, and the masses were thus predominantly quite pagan. Constantine is the new warlord from Rome who has arrived in the east and starting destroying everything - the architecture, the traditions, the temples services, the public hospital system, the Hellenic literature, the priests of other religions. Arius was the focus of the resistance, and he had the support of the pagan people of the east (ie: the Hellenic civilisation) not because he was one of Constantine's new state Roman "chrestians" but because (IMO) Arius of Alexandria was a pythagorean priest, an ascetic academic and logician -- a pagan.

What else does this letter of Constantine's reveal?

One christian talking to another christian?
Sure thing.


Arius Undermines Constantine's truth?


What did Arius write prolifically which Constantine appears so enraged over?
In my opinion it could have started with "The Acts of Thomas".
Constantine (a mocker himself according to Victor) was being mocked by Arius.
The Acts of Thomas was not an authorised publication!
The Acts of Thomas was not in Constantine's canon!
WTF was this guy Arius of Alexandria writing?


Arius was no christian. He opposed the Constantinian invention.
Constantine had just made the entire Greek priesthood redundant.
Their major and highly revered temples had been raized to their foundations.
In some cases the head priest (some were physicians/doctors) were executed.
The use of the temples was prohibited. They were shut.

We have an entire class of highly trained academics with nowhere to go.
Pachomius left Alexandria and paved the way for desert hermitages and refuges.
(Think of the Tibetans fleeing to India when China invaded Tibet)
Arius IMO was one of this class of greek (non-christian) academics.
He was the focus of the resistance against Constantine's cult.



Best wishes,



Pete

J-D

What's happening is that you are failing to understand what I am saying. I am not arguing against myself. There is no contradiction.

There is evidence that Arius was a Christian. The fact that Arius was denounced as a heretic is not part of that evidence.

J-D

False. The Arians of the fifth and sixth centuries, who were not continuators of Eusebius, claimed that Arius was a Christian.It depends how you define 'good exemplary Christian'. If you define 'good exemplary Christian' as 'somebody who agrees faithfully with the religious policy of Constantine', then Arius does not fit that definition. But that definition is entirely bogus.Similar to the mutual denunciations pronounced throughout the history of Christianity by divergent Christian sects: for example, the way the Orthodox and the Catholics scarified each other during their schism, or the way Protestants and Catholics carried on during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

Huon

Dear mountainman, could you quote the source(s) of the texts of your post #41, apart your own site, of course ?

mountainman

Dear J-D,

What evidence?

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Huon,

My page lists its source at the beginning of the page:
Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear J-D,

How many of the original three hundred and eighteen "fathers of the christian church" were Arians? What was the Arian controversy really about? Was the controversy over some little insignificant nuance in the folds of theology, or was it associated to some form of resistance by the people in the eastern empire to the arrival and the political initiative of Constantine (which inlcuded the shutting of the temples, the execution of priests, the destruction of the ancient and revered architecture and the burning of the writings of his opponents?

Oh sorry, I forget, Constantine was a christian. Or was he?

Best wishes,


Pete

spin

For a source for the few examples of texts by Arius that have survived, try here.

And a sample (quoted by Athanasius and found here):

For when giving to him [the Son] the inheritance of all things, the Father did not deprive himself of what he has without beginning in himself; for he is the source of all things. Thus there are three subsisting realities. And God, being the cause of all that happens, is absolutely alone without beginning; but the Son, begotten apart from time by the Father, and created and founded before the ages, was not in existence before his generation, but was begotten apart from time before all things, and he alone came into existence from the Father. For he is neither eternal nor co-eternal nor co-unbegotten with the Father, nor does he have his being together with the Father, as some speak of relations, introducing two unbegotten beginnings. But God is before all things as monad and beginning of all. Therefore he is also before the Son, as we have learned also from your public preaching in the church.

Or this creedal piece (from here):

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, and in the Lord Jesus Christ his Son, who was begotten of him before all ages, God the Word through whom all things were made, both things in heaven and on earth; who descended, and became human, and suffered, and rose again, ascended into heaven, and will again come to judge the living and the dead.


spin

mountainman

Dear J-D,

The thesis examines the possibility that Constantine started the entire practice of speaking in such christianly terms. They are horrible terms and they should not be condoned. Constantine appears as a supreme imperial mafia thug gangster who burns literature, who executed priests and familiy members and who destroys the civilisation. All these things are characteristic of christianity's appeal?

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

Among other things, the existence of the Arian Christian churches of the fifth and sixth centuries.Whatever the answers to these questions may be, they do not change the falsehood of your assertion that only Eusebius and his continuators claim that Arius was a Christian.

And don't play
Socrates.I don't condone the use of such language. I am not making any sort of normative evaluation. It is a fact, whatever normative evaluation anybody makes, that denunciations of this kind occur in controversies where both sides are Christians. Hence it is a fact that Constantine's denunciations of Arius have no value as evidence that Arius was not a Christian.