mountainman

The theory requires that the Arian controversy needs to be seen
in a thoroughly non-mainstream light: nothing to do with theology,
but the reaction of the pre-existent philosophy and sentiment (perhaps
much of this was simply Hellenic, Pythagoraean, Platonistic ...) of the
empire to Constantine's instroduction of christianity.

Arius says a few things. Perhaps he suspected it was a fiction.
Perhaps he suspected it was a fiction but could not prove it.
His words were dogmatically asserted.

The Arians were known after one man Arius, and his words.
He was the strawman who was set up to oppose Constantine.
Constantine it is recorded to have summoned people to the
council of Nicaea on account of his words.

In opposing the new religion of Constantine, Arianism need not
have had the knowledge that the new religion was a fabrication,
only that it was not the same as the usual pythagoraean philosophy,
etc. In any event, we are told that Arius was banished from Nicaea.

Consequently, the reason that christianity took hold was because
it was the pet project of the supreme emperor Constantine, an
instrument created out of the whole cloth, by whiche he would
administer, regulate and tax his newly acquired realms.

It took hold at Nicaea because of the single-handed performance
of Constantine, who brough "harmony and concord to the assembly".



Pete Brown

Rick Sumner

Ummm. . .wow. I'm speechless. I can't even come up with a punchline to do this justice.

spin

Sorry, no.

It was not just Arius. Arius learnt a lot of his ideas from those who came before him, especially Lucian of Antioch. At the time of Lucian, Paul of Samosata was arguing that father son and holy ghost were only aspects or modes within the divine and Arius and Lucian were staunch defenders against such a merging of the trinity (a term coined by Tertullian). At the time of the Nicean Council the lines were strictly drawn with strong support on both sides of the contention. There had been numerous battles in the fifteen years before that, when the bishop of Alexandria first denounced Arius. Plainly this had been going on well before Constantine found it political to get involved.


spin

spin

What about the bullet to end the misery?


spin

yummyfur

Wow paragraphs of non-answers, Constantius II was an Arian before his daddy's death, how did Constantine let his son be an Arian, and let him inherit a portion of the empire, and why did Constantius II who became sole ruler after 350, keep this stupid farce, which he would supposedly oppose by your theory.

How can Arius not know the religion is fake? has he been lobotimized, have all his memories of the past been erased by the super powers of Constantine.

Ted Hoffman

Ok, Mountainman, I think you either have to drop this whole theory altogether or rethink and reframe it. The documentary record is just too wide and variegated for you to spread Eusebius to accross all of them.

If you insist, make it historical fiction. Have a protagonist and an antagonist and make the plot thick and easily adaptable to a screenplay. Compete with the likes of Dan Brown.
Or simply write an insane potboiler like Archaya. This thing cant fly. It can be shot to pieces.
I wanted to write about how Eusebius comes late after Origen, Theophilus, Justin Martyr, Marcion, Tacitus, Clement, Papias...and the different Christologies that run accross the texts and the competing traditions like Adoptionism and docetism but I dont even see the point.

Just let it go. Please. There is still a lot that you can do with whatever you have read, It is not all lost.

yummyfur

Let's not say, as Constantine was in constant contention and wars with his rivals until 324. As far as library's he would only have been able to possibly control state Roman libraries and then only possibly after 324. There were many private libraries, which were often more frequented than the public.

No offense, but if no one else knew it would be unlikely that Constantine could have altered the contents of Libraries, you actually have to have people in the libraries working for you and your goal, for this to happen. Librarians would wonder why they have never seen any of this crap before, no one would read the stuff.

Also it's highly unbelieveable that Constantine would not inform his sons, or give them any direction on this matter. What would be the point of all this grandiose scheming if they didn't know? One would assume that the point for making such a religion had some political purpose, but then Constantine decides to let his sons be utter pawns to this creation.

So if no one knew it was a fake religion, except Eusebius, who is a just a "bishop" for a non-existant following, and it wasn't mandated as necessary by Constantine, why would anyone belong to it and why did it survive his death?

Also any contemporary would know the religion was fake(unless you are positing that Constantine lobotimized the whole Roman world), because they can't remember Christians before say 306, yet they are claimed to be numerous, they can't remember there being any persecutions under Diocletian of Chirstians, yet it is claimed there were massive and horrific persecutions. They can't remember any of the bishops, saints or martyrs that were supposed to live in the towns and cities they live in.

mountainman

And we infer this is an accurate assessment
because Eusebius admits this?

Perhaps he was able to write in Latin. Perhaps Constantine
gave him a half a dozen Latin scribes to dictate to in Syriac.

Evolution was built in to the fiction. The literature generated
is nothing but one calumny after another. The "tribe of christians"
survived the process of calumny by the quill of Eusebius. It was
their golden age. As the dawn of Nicaea breaks in the final words
of the Eusebian history, everything looked rosey, except that little
raincloud on the horizon marked "arian controversy".

Mass produced for a Constantinian fourth century purpose.

Do you know any good fiction writers who can pump out reasonable
literature for good money? Do you think George Bush can hire people
like this? And if Bush can do it, Constantine could easily have done so.

Here is a diagramatic presentation of the Eusebian Fiction postulate.
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_010.htm

Just imagine for the moment that the only two human beings that
knew the NT was a fabrication were Constantine and Eusebius.
When it was implemented the Arian controversy arose.
How is the Arian controversy to be viewed?

From the perspective of the empire it is an opposition to christianity
as an historically existent religion amidst the pantheon of the ancient
religions, it was a great breaking of traditions by the use of power.

Yet Constantine effected the establishment of his new religion and
it self-perpetuated itself. It did not see itself as a fiction, but as an
imperially established extention of the Hebrew sages, with a licence
to burn any and all competing ideas and opinions (the precedent for
this being set by Constantine himself in the council of Nicaea).

There's 2 issues here:
1) The philosophical beliefs of Arius
2) The words of Arius in regard to the controversy that bears his name.
These are two separate issues.

According to a consistent application of the Eusebian fiction postulate
Arius could not have been a christian. His philosophy was simply Hellenic,
probably mixed abundantly with the Alexandrian Egyptian hues.

Eusebius may provide any fictitious descent of Arius' philosophy he please.
Moreover he can fabricate, and did fabricate many herecies in the period
of centuries prior to Nicaea. Our claim is that the Arian controversy is the
herecy that appeared as a result of the appearance of christianity under
Constantine. Eusebius first three centuries of ecclesiatical history closes
with Arius. Christian history volume one closes with Arius.

Christian history volume two was commenced by no less that seven
ecclesiastical historians, who all attempted to take up where Eusebius
put down his pen. The accounts that survive all attempt to start with
the appearance of the Arian controversy.

He job was to harmonise many sponsored writers.
He need not have done all the hack work.
He was Constantine's pet, and Constantine
was a supreme imperial mafia thug with plenty
of money.

So do we.

http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk/ca...p?id=THEM00010


Total lurid rubbish writes Lucian. What need have I to evaluate
the essence of a trash-heap of literature called Lucian, who is
just another calumnifying fourth century profile.

He murdered his son and his wife just after Nicaea.
So he had some sort of problem.



http://www.mountainman.com.au/surfi_03.htm



That there was a "tribe of christians" in the literature, and
on the planet, before Eusebius took up his pen and from
scanty records of the past, circa 312-324CE, fabricated
what is now held to be the mainstream theory of history,
with respect to this "tribe of christians" for the preceeding
three centuries, is an inference of your scholarship.

I imagine you'll go on believing in this inference, but really,
what evidence do you have that the inference has integrity?
Would you buy a used chariot off Constantine and/or Eusebius?


Your appeal is not to evidence but rather to mainstream
authority, which you accept to be true, because that's
what you (and I and everyone else) were taught.

All scholarship is conjecture, and if you are fool enough
to think otherwise, you are no scholar!!!!




Pete Brown

spin

I have cited nothing but evidence to you. We are not taught about Tertullian, Justin, Marcion, Valentinus, Cerdon, Irenaeus, Melito, Cyprian, Lucian of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tatian, or any of the other early church fathers. We have to read about them ourselves.

The appeal to palaeography is a fair one in the context of Greek texts coming from Oxyrhinchus and Nebtunis. There is a vast amount of dated texts to supply exemplars for the dating of other texts via palaeography. Numerous christian religious texts were found at Oxyrhinchus which date palaeographically before Eusebius, so it is hard to argue against such data given the profuseness of dated exemplars for scribal forms. You simply ignore the data.

I haven't seen any evidence that you can discern what a scholar is.

Come in Ockham wherever you are!


spin

mountainman

If the (fiction) hypothesis is true, Constantine knows that this
Arian controversy is just a natural reaction of the empire to anything
new. Everyone turns out to be Arian in the end. "The world groaned
to find itself Arian". So what? Times change.

In any event, why would we posit that Constantine "cared"
for any one of his sons, after he had one murdered?



Arius is sitting in the council of Nicaea before he was banished.
He has been presented with the manuscripts of the new testament
and the old testament, bound together for the first time by Eusebius
for the council. He has copies of Ecclesiastical history, In Preparation
of the Gospels, all the patristic literature, and the Josephus TF.

The Coptic script is present in some manuscripts.
In others the Hadrian script is clearly evidenced.

I ask you. How can Arius know the religion is fake?



Pete Brown