avi

Hmm. When in doubt, let us return to history.
Here, from post #62, a few days ago,....

Jeffrey Gibson

Where does this source say that a cathedral, let alone a Christian one, existed in York in the early fourth century?


Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Here's the Greek text of the Creed.
I'd be grateful if you could show me where it says anything line "Arius or "the Boss""

Jeffrey

Toto

The tourist board of York says that there was a Cathedral in York in the 4th century? Maybe Joseph of Arimathea built it on his trip there?

:constern01:

Jeffrey Gibson

Actually what is says is that there was a fortress, not a cathedral, there and that it was in this fortres that Constantine was crowned, and that the Cathedral that came to be built on this site was built late than the 300s.

T

Jeffrey

gentleexit

As Jeffrey says, there's no "Arius the boss", in a creed or anywhere else for that matter. Arius was boss of nothing more than Alexandria's port church. But I assume Pete et al bandy around Boss Arius, Constantine is gang leader etc because they see the whole Nicean struggle as political and it was. But Constantine wasn't the gang leader and Arius, he was only a catalyst. The fire needed more than either of them.

For some time, Alexandria was the Church's center of influence. That city had her biggest numbers, scholars. The monks were spawning around there. The east however had growing numbers of Christians and had the court and courtly bishops, particularly Eusebius of Nicomedia.

When Arius got in trouble in Alexandria, where did he turn? To Rome? No, there was little weight there. He appealed to Eusebius as a "fellow Lucian". This probably didn't mean "we were both taught by Lucian". It meant we share that teacher's approach to scripture - read literally and extensively and don't add.

Eusebius was an operator. He was bishop to Licinius, the eastern emperor, Constantine's last rival. Constantine takes the east and Eusebius survives. Quite an operator. Earlier, he had leaped up to imperial Nicomedia, from being bishop of middling Beirut, quite a jump. Eusebius grabbed opportunity. Arius gave him one. He took his chance to clip Alexandria's wings.

He wrote to other bishops in support of Arius' right to preach (not necessarily for his position), undercutting Alexandria's bishop's authority. Alexandria struck back, now focusing their bile on Eusebius. Their rivals now were "Eusebians", "Lucians". To paraphrase (I think) Herodotus, "there began the Nicean war". Yes without Arius, there would have been no "incident" but without Eusebius, no problem in cleaning it up.

These machinations reveal something else. The shape of the Church at the time. I think we have only two other "extensively" documented points before this: the (parochial) description of Diocletian's persecution by Eusebius and then way back to the book of Acts. (I know this opens up, isn't the gap interesting ... but I'm focused on the boss).

Jeffrey Gibson

Actually, what I said was that I don't see anything about a pressed choice between Arius on the one hand and Constantine (whom Pete insists on calling in a persistent affectation, "the Boss") on the other. And I'm waiting for Pete to show me where explicitly it appears in the Greek text of the Creed, as he implied it does.

But one thing is clear. Pete knows nothing of Arius, and his claims about what Arius taught are informed by nothing more than his apriori assumptions and his eisegesis of Arius' ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν

As he himself has admitted, he's read nothing of the scholarly literature on Arius , let alone the primary literature on him from both his opponents and his supporters. In fact he seems to be wholly unaware of much of it.

And he has yet to produce any actual evidence from the primary sources in which the expression ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦ is discussed, explained, or vilified, to show that his claim that the "he" implied in ἦν dooes indeed refer to the historical Jesus or Christianity, rather than the Logos/Son spoken of in Jn 1:1-18 which Arius, his supporters, and his enemies all agreed on the basis of Jn. 1:14, became enfleshed in the historical Jesus.

Jeffrey

Didymus

So, at the point of a sword, all but a few suicidal diehards acknowledged this "new and strange" religion as ancient? All those unread, unheard-of writings and "ahistorical" writers as authentic?

And those 318 timid souls were somehow compelled to go forth and preach that fiction long after the Council had adjourned?

Hard to buy, Pete. That presupposes a totalitarian state - and some very neurotic bishops! Constantine may have "had the military," but, "mafia thug" or not, he did not have the technology to create a 1984 state in the fourth century. There was still plenty of heretical activity, and paganism was not snuffed out, as shown by Julian's failed attempt to re-outlaw Christianity.

"About to have an official state religion..."?

What? Constantine may have legalized and supported Christianity, but Theodosius didn't make it the official state religion until 380.

Evidence, please. Do you have unambiguous Arian CV ca 325 that claims the NT and the early Christian writings - Ignatius, Papias, Irenaeus, et al - are all forgeries? Or similarly specific Athanasian CV which counters such a claim?

What in that Arian "creed" is irreconcilable with the NT? If the Arians weren't Christians, and they were trying to prove a monumental hoax, why the debate over the nature of Jesus and the relationship between the Father and the Son? Why bother with such theological nuance, when the real issue was the forgery of a huge body of literature?

Again, CV please.

And hid it in Egypt?

Most of the NT apocrypha is gnostic. Arianism = gnosticism? Naw, the issues are completely different.

Ddms

Toto

Arianism is NOT gnosticism. This is something that Pete made up to try to fit the facts into his theory, rather than make his theory fit the facts.

Pete has had his 15 minutes of internet fame and more, and he's got nothing. It's time to move on to more interesting questions.

You can help by not asking him any more questions.

avi

Isn't Glastonbury, (where he supposedly did build a church,) southwest of Bath, Bristol, and Stonehenge, while York is North of Leeds and Manchester?
I think, perhaps wildly in error, of Hadrian's wall, being not too distant from York, but very far from Southwest England. Maybe in those days, the distances were not considered that great? I am trying to imagine this guy, a foreigner, speaking Aramaic, trying to build a church in Glastonbury, and also traveling up to York, to build another church/cathedral....? Wasn't the entire 9th army of Rome located near York? Wasn't it somewhat foolhardy to construct a religious temple, opposing the Roman gods, in the city where all those troops were housed? I can picture someone with authority, like Constantine, ordering construction of a temple, but not a refugee, like Joseph.