mountainman

Written after celebrating at Nicaea his supremacy and long service party
we have the letter of King Con mentioning Porphyry ...

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;
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)


QUESTION:

Constantine tells us that

"[Porphyry] found the reward which befitted him".

and this information is snuggled in between some pretty
heavy duty threats by the highly intelligent supreme
imperial mafia thug dictator. What are we to presume?

Nothing? I know nothing! (Sgt. Schultzz)

Is this a reference just to his writings, or does Constantine
know something about the death of Porphyry (ie: means, date,
location, etc) that no other ancient historian seems to
mention? As far as I have been able to determine, the
author Porphyry effectively "disappeared without a trace"
and the date of his death, or anything about him in his
final years (circa 300 - 305 ?????) is not known.

Does anyone have any hidden data on the fate of Porphyry?
Is Constantine, circa 325 CE, the last to mention his "reward"?

mountainman

Is there noone in this forum who finds it somewhat disturbing
that the same historical person responsible for the binding of
the holy Roman bible, edicts for destruction by fire, the books
of (Porphyry) a philosopher, mathematician, logician, and by
all accounts a very learned and academic person.

One needs only to glance at the subject matter of extant
works of Porphyry (or in most cases, fragments) to perceive
that it was nothing in the scientific or philosophical field that
appears to have aggravated Constantine. It was simply that
Porphyry (appears to have forcefully) spoken out against
"christianity". But what did he say?

" ... the evangelists were inventors – not historians ..."

S.C.Carlson

Porphyry died before your supposed conspiracy.

Toto

Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains (or via: amazon.co.uk).The work was not burned by the church until 448.

Pete - how do you explain Porphyry writing against the Christians before Constantine invented the religion?

mountainman

Unless Porphyry actually lived and wrote after 312 CE,
(unlikely seeing that most sources point to c.305)
then the fragments that remain, are the forgeries of
Eusebius after the death of Porphyry, in precisely the
same manner as (IMO) Eusebius forged Celsus, in the
little entirety that is purported to have remained.

This was done so that the writings of Porphyry could
be "justifiably targetted" by the new regime. The link
between Porphyry, and Apollonius of Tyana, is the
Hellenic philosophy generally summarisable as neo-
pythagoreanism.

Roger Pearse

Not even then. Constantine ordered it destroyed in 325; Theodosius II in 448 (which tells you just how effective the earlier order was); and we learn from the Theodosian legal code that emperors had the greatest difficulty getting anything done and that most edicts were ignored.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

JoeWallack

JW:
Louisiana ruled it a suicide.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

gurugeorge

This is actually quite a stunning paragraph. Arius "imitated" Porphyry?

What can that possibly mean? Was he a neo-Platonist or a neo-Pythagorean? Or is C saying that Arius' arguments are philosophical arguments?

And is C saying that Arius and his followers are already called Porphyrians, or is he recommending that they be called Porphyrians?

Hmm, this is actually a fascinating bit of writing you've dredged up here.

Do we have any of Arius' writings at all?

mountainman

My take is that Arius was the equivalent of a neoplatonic
or neopythagorean "priest", renown for his command of logic,
considered wise in disputation.


Either way, it is an indictment for destruction. Particularly considering
the scholarship that Porphyry is today recognised as possessing.

The only form of the writings of Arius that IMO we "can be sure of"
are the series of disclaimer phrases at the end of the Nicaean "oath".
Other writings that I have seen, which mention for example,
Sabelianism, are at least interpolated by the "ruling regime".

Removing such interpolations, the writings are commensurate
with a neoplatonic/neopythagorean source.

mountainman

Irrespective of my position, it seems clear that Constantine
is implicated in the worst level of thuggery and political
power manipulation, in the edict made after Nicaea.

I am interested to learn in what manner the mainstream
doctrine interprets, or most likely ignores since the global
experiences of WWII, the warning signs that we are dealing
with a malevolent dictator.

Surely, is such a personality capable of being viewed as a
historical channel for any form of religious activity?