Jeffrey Gibson

It does? Where?

And is this reputed assertion the same thing as the one Arius was condemned for asserting?

Jeffrey

Amaleq13

That was not clear to me and what you deny here is exactly what I thought you were arguing. Thanks for the clarification.

mountainman

To this extent: I have gathered up the following ....

1) Fragments of the Heresey of Marcellus of Ancyra
2) Anathemas of Church Councils as representative of public opinion
3) Anathemas in Hilary of Poitiers' De Synodis

As we are all very much aware, the general form of the anathema was something like this:

General Format of Anathema

And those who say ....

(HERESY)

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.


or ....

etc.

(ANATHEMA)
Then the anathema phrase.

As you can see, this resolves to a stack of "He" references which obviously all point back to the subject of the controversy, none other than the historicity of your man Jesus.

Reconstructing this, it appear to me to be reasonable to believe that there were people out and about who were saying there was a time when Jesus was not and also people saying there was an age when Jesus was not. Does anyone have a problem with this representation?

The meaning of "age" depends on your postulates. Traditional mainstream postulates continue to hold to the HJ postulate, and support the claim made by the christian ecclesiastical historians that Arius was some sort of "christian" who was therefore referring to the "age before the physical birth of your man Jesus".

The postulate I am momentarily here considering is that we do not have an HJ available to the history known to an ascetic pagan Arius of Alexandria, perhaps a priest of Asclepius or Apollo, forced to flee the destruction of temples. In this political context, I am free to consider that when Arius, and an entire century of popular belief, is being quoted as saying there was an age when Jesus was not he was --- to Constantine's face --- obliquely referring to the "Age before the rise of Constantine". It was the edge of a knife of rhetoric and hidden meanings, yet all of his five recorded dogmatic assertions have the same similar overtone.

What does a pagan say to an inquisitive Christian Emperor at Nicaea about his disbelief in the new and strange testament of a new Son and god, without saying "This is bullshit" and thereby attracting the wrath of the presiding christian emperor -- and probable death.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

Thanks Andrew, this is a more definitive statement of the mainstream view.
What this represents is the theological statement of the position from the perspective of the authodox (history). We must understand that the words of Arius are cited on the Nicaean Creed along with the signatures of those attendees whom Constantine summoned who were not expelled with Arius.

What I am attempting to understand is the historical statement of the position (without involving any theology whatsoever) from a strictly political perspective. In this sense, I am treating the words of Arius, and the words of the Arians, in a political and historical sense. They become far more literal in meaning, when the theology is momentarily suspended.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

Here's another path of discussion:

Do we ever hear of an account in the period of early christianity where an entire group of people resist the impulse to become christians, or refuse to be baptised or be converted, on account of their disbelief? How is such a reaction classified by the ecclesiatical heresiologists? Does such an example get recorded anywhere by anyone? Maybe an entire town, or city.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Toto

"Authodox" is a word that you invented. It is meaningless to the rest of the world. Please stop using it.

The idea that this statement can mean that Arius thought that Jesus was invented by Constantine does not come out of any literal interpretation. It has no support anywhere. You can't even support it.

Toto

The only group so recorded are the Jews. You can read what is said about them in Acts and the gospels. What is the relevance of this?

spamandham

Yes. ...this isn't the least bit complicated. The Docetist claims Jesus was a historical 'ghost' who looked and acted like a regular human, in the first century.

I'm not of the opinion that such claims aid an HJ case in the slightest, but they certainly DON'T aid the FJ case either, which is how this subdiscussion began. The Docetist would fully expect Jesus to be perceived by non-initiates as human, and recorded by them as an ordinary human being.

aa5874

Ok, I think I am following you now, but here is where we differ completely. I do not expect a Docetist to say he believes in a myth or fiction, so if he expects an entity that is without birth, and came directly from heaven, to be a figure of history, then he has mistaken fiction for fact.

And it is not what the Docetist perceives the entity to be that makes it of historical value, it is what the entity actually is. The Docetist's Jesus simply did not exist, it was actually nothing but fiction.

Amaleq13

No, I don't think you truly grasp the nuance involved.

The docetists apparently did not believe that God (or his Son) would actually sink so low as to literally become flesh but they were willing to believe that the appearance of flesh would ultimately serve the same purpose. Both "sides" believed Jesus had walked on earth and interacted with historical figures but docetics couldn't accept the notion that such a divine figure would sully itself by taking on icky flesh. As a result, they reconciled seemingly incompatible beliefs with this compromise.

To my knowledge, there is nothing suggesting this belief was a prior expectation. Do you know of any? IIUC, most scholars consider it a reaction to existing beliefs about Jesus but it seems possible to me that such beliefs could be derived directly and independently from Mark since his Jesus essentially appears out of nowhere (cue Wallack reference to Eastwood's Man With No Name: "If you are going to hang a man, you better damn well make sure he is dead.")

That isn't the point Pete is making. IIUC, he is suggesting that early mythicists might have been categorized as or mistaken for docetics becuase, apparently like you, they didn't grasp the nuance involved.