Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 03-14-2008, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

But has anyone looked carefully at the catacombs and asked are they representing Apollo or Jesus?

Yes, Pope Damasus (c.365-400 CE) who took Jerome under
his wing saw to the "restoration" of the catacombs.

Quote:

Is it not an assumption that the good shepherd is Jesus when Apollo is a pre existing good shepherd? Are not the catacombs representing the true gods?

It is one assumption after another.
The pre-existent "Healing God" was Ascelpius.
Archaeologically well represented 500 BCE to 500 CE.
"Thousands flocked to be healed" by Asclepius.
The last words of Plato, referred to Asclepius.
Who executed the physicians of Asclepius?
Who published the new FAITH HEALER BULLSHIT?

Was Lithargoel really Jesus in NHC 6.1?
Or was Lithargoel an ascetic pagan priest
and physician of Asclepius?

spamandham · 03-14-2008, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Is Jesus Apollo?

...not exactly. Jesus seems to be a composite character.

Lamb symbolism was rampant toward the end of the age of Aries (a lamb rather than a ram in those days), predictably, just as fish symbolism ran amok after that at the dawn of Pisces. Even today we are fascinated by these symbols, with 'the man' (Aquarius) replacing the fish.

mountainman · 03-15-2008, 02:38 AM

Jesus, who is presented by the gospel authors as gnawing on the bones of sheep cannot be presented therefore as "the good shepherd" depicted in the murals and art. Nobody in the first century mentions Jesus. There are no witnesses to the historicity of Jesus in the first century.

Perhaps in this case, the artists recorded someone else. The "Good Shepherd" may well have been Apollonius of Tyana, who was a neopythagorean priest and as such championed the virtue of vegetarianism. Perhaps the art depicts a class of people rather than an historica figure? In any event, associated with this was the statement of no requirement to make a sacrifice to the gods. Eusebius, [Præparat. Evangel., iv 12-13] actually cites Apollonius as an authority in this matter .......

Quote:

Originally Posted by EUSEBIUS on APOLLONIUS

“ ‘Tis best to make no sacrifice to God at all,
no lighting of a fire,
no calling Him by any name
that men employ for things to sense.

For God is over all, the first;
and only after Him do come the other Gods.
For He doth stand in need of naught
e’en from the Gods,
much less from us small men -
naught that the earth brings forth,
nor any life she nurseth,
or even any thing the stainless air contains.

The only fitting sacrifice to God
is man’s best reason,
and not the word
that comes from out his mouth.

“We men should ask the best of beings
through the best thing in us,
for what is good -
mean by means of mind,
for mind needs no material things
to make its prayer.
So then, to God, the mighty One,
who’s over all,
no sacrifice should ever be lit up.”

===================

Noack [Psyche, I ii.5.] tells us that scholarship
is convinced of the genuineness of this fragment.
This book, as we have seen, was widely circulated
and held in the highest respect, and it said that
its rules were engraved on brazen pillars
at Byzantium.

Quote:

One of the few Christian symbols dating from the first century is that of the Good Shepherd carrying on His shoulders a lamb or a sheep, with two other sheep at his side.

Apollonius of Tyana.

Clivedurdle · 03-15-2008, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Is Jesus Apollo?

...not exactly. Jesus seems to be a composite character.

.

Therefore it should be possible to track the evolution of Jesus.

mountainman · 03-15-2008, 03:35 AM

Big Bang.
Nicaea.
325 CE

Public Opinion Poll (c.351 CE)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hilary of Poitiers

Hilary of Poitiers De Synodis
Public Opinions Prevalent at that time

01: The Son is sprung from things non-existent,
or from another substance and not from God,
and that there was a time or age
when He was not.

02: The Father and the Son are two Gods.

03: God is one, but Christ, God the Son of God,
ministered not to the Father in the creation of all things

04: The Unborn God, or a part of Him, was born of Mary.

05: The Son born of Mary was, before born of Mary,
Son only according to foreknowledge or predestination,
and denies that He was born of the Father
before the ages and was with God,
and that all things were made through Him.

06: The substance of God is expanded and contracted

07: The expanded substance of God makes the Son;
or names Son His supposed expanded substance.

08: The Son of God is the internal or uttered Word of God.

09: The man alone born of Mary is the Son.

10: Though saying that God and Man was born of Mary,
understands thereby the Unborn God.

11: Men hearing The Word was made Flesh
think that the Word was transformed into Flesh,
or say that He suffered change in taking Flesh.

12: Men hearing that the only Son of God was crucified,
say that His divinity suffered corruption,
or pain, or change, or diminution, or destruction.

13: Saying "Let us make man" was not spoken by
the Father to the Son, but by God to Himself.

14: Saying that the Son did not appear to Abraham,
but the Unborn God, or a part of Him.

15: Saying that the Son did not wrestle with Jacob as a man,
but the Unborn God, or a part of Him.

16: Men who do not understand that The Lord rained from the Lord
to be spoken of the Father and the Son, but that the Father
rained from Himself.

17: Saying that the Lord and the Lord,
the Father and the Son are two Gods,
because of the aforesaid words.

18: Saying that the Father and the Son
and the Holy Ghost are one Person.

19: When speaking of the Holy Ghost the Paraclete
says that He is the Unborn God.

20: Denying that, as the Lord has taught us,
the Paraclete is different from the Son.

21: Saying that the Holy Spirit is a part of
the Father or of the Son.

22: Saying that the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit are three Gods.

23: Men after the example of the Jews understand
as said for the destruction of the Eternal Only-begotten God
the words, I am the first God, and I am the last God,
and beside Me there is no God,
which were spoken for the destruction of idols
and them that are no gods.

24: Saying that the Son was made by the will of God,
like any object in creation.

25: Saying that the Son was born against the will of the Father.

26: Saying that the Son is incapable of birth and without beginning,
saying as though there were two incapable of birth and unborn
and without beginning, and makes two Gods.

27: Denying that Christ who is God and Son of God,
personally existed before time began
and aided the Father in the perfecting of all things;
but saying that only from the time that He was born of Mary
did He gain the name of Christ and Son
and a beginning of His deity.

Conspicuous in the primary positions are the words of Arius. A political observer in this epoch might form the opinion that many people thought Jesus Christ was fiction, and sprung from things non-existent.

Clivedurdle · 03-15-2008, 04:19 AM

Does the New advent Encyclopaedia have any pictures? It describes significant changes - like less use of master and slave and more use of foster child, it describes these good shepherd pictures but does not show them.

It does seem to be writing back catholic dogma onto earlier periods.

Toto · 03-15-2008, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Jesus, who is presented by the gospel authors as gnawing on the bones of sheep cannot be presented therefore as "the good shepherd" depicted in the murals and art. <snip broken record>

Perhaps in this case, the artists recorded someone else. The "Good Shepherd" may well have been Apollonius of Tyana, who was a neopythagorean priest and as such championed the virtue of vegetarianism. ...

This makes no sense. Shepherds were not vegetarians. The only reason to herd sheep and lovingly care for them is to produce animal protein for human consumption, whether as part of a holy sacrifice or just a mundane meal.

Clivedurdle · 03-16-2008, 04:40 AM

Quote:

mundane meal.

Is this not a modern phenomenon? What is the ritual of grace about? Eating together and giving thanks to the gods is arguably hard wired into us.

Methinks we are looking at in xianity the conjoined Covent Garden and Smithsfield schools of mythology!

(My great uncle ran a butcher's shop at Smithsfield Market!)

spamandham · 03-16-2008, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Therefore it should be possible to track the evolution of Jesus.

I'd say that's true to a degree. I don't know that we'll ever discover the root though.

mountainman · 03-16-2008, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Jesus, who is presented by the gospel authors as gnawing on the bones of sheep cannot be presented therefore as "the good shepherd" depicted in the murals and art. <snip broken record>

Perhaps in this case, the artists recorded someone else. The "Good Shepherd" may well have been Apollonius of Tyana, who was a neopythagorean priest and as such championed the virtue of vegetarianism. ...

This makes no sense. Shepherds were not vegetarians.

The Good Shepherd depicts the shepherd of men, in the same manner as the ascetic physicians of Asclepius were considered to be physicians of the body and the mind and the soul. The lineage of Asclepius is traditionally from Apollo, via Pythagoras, Plato, Hippocrates and others, especially Galen in the rule of Marcus Aurelius. Porphyry at the end of the third century writes on "vegetarianism" and relates it to the notion of justice.

Quote:

The only reason to herd sheep and lovingly care for them is to produce animal protein for human consumption, whether as part of a holy sacrifice or just a mundane meal.

This may be the corporate snapshot on behalf of the person who identifies as the owner of the sheep. But the owner of the sheep independently contracts with another, called the shepherd, who preserves the sheep for whatever purposes the owner of the sheep may have. The task of the shepherd is to preserve and protect. Hence the the Good Shepherd is more akin (IMO) to the preserver and protector of the flocks and tribes of men.

Your statement shepherds were not vegetarians can hardly be regarded as always true, since even in the time of Pachomius (4th CE) ascetic priests worked as shepherds for common monastic funds, a practice which may have been ancient, since the phenomenom known as vegetarianism (a form of ascetic practice) is ancient, and was reverred as an authority by those who reverred the Pythagorean life.

If we were able to estimate the the number of people who followed "the life of Pythagoras" in their own lives during the period of the first few centuries, when the art of this good shepherd has its earliest citations, and then compared this to the estimate of the number of people who followed "the life of Jesus the Galilaean", the pagans would win hands down. So then, our artwork is far more likely to have been pagan.

Best wishes,

Pete Brown

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03-15-2008, 04:19 AM	#16
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Does the New advent Encyclopaedia have any pictures? It describes significant changes - like less use of master and slave and more use of foster child, it describes these good shepherd pictures but does not show them. It does seem to be writing back catholic dogma onto earlier periods.

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