mountainman

Julian's satire The Caesars, otherwise entitled in the MSS.
Symposium or Kronia (Latin Saturnalia) was written
at Constantinople in 361 and was probably addressed
to Sallust.

It contains explicit reference to Constantine, to the
relationship between Constantine and Jesus, and to
Julian's assessment of the christian doctrine.

Here is the relevant section ...

As for Constantine, he could not discover among the gods
the model of his own career, but when he caught sight of
Pleasure, who was not far off, he ran to her. She received
him tenderly and embraced him, then after dressing him in
raiment of many colours and otherwise making him beautiful,
she led him away to Incontinence.

There too he found Jesus, who had taken up his abode with
her and cried aloud to all comers:

"He that is a seducer, he that is a murderer,
he that is sacrilegious and infamous,
let him approach without fear!
For with this water will I wash him
and will straightway make him clean.

And though he should be guilty
of those same sins a second time,
let him but smite his breast and beat his head
and I will make him clean again."

To him Constantine came gladly, when he had conducted his
sons forth from the assembly of the gods. But the avenging
deities none the less punished both him and them for their
impiety, and extracted the penalty for the shedding of the
blood of their kindred, until Zeus granted them a respite
for the sake of Claudius and Constantius. [97]

The complete work is available at this address.
Footnotes have been renumbered to the end.
Comments, typo identification, etc welcome.




Pete Brown
Did Constantine Invent Christianity?

Roger Pearse

Good to have this online.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

gstafleu

So does this advance MM theory in any way?

Gerard Stafleu

mountainman

Hi Gerard,

Thanks for asking.

This work provides a background to how Julian rationalised the justice
of the implementation of christianity by Constantine (irrespective as to
whether he invented the Roman religion, or "discovered it and Eusebius"
by luck, whilst strolling along the Tiber with his barbarian security
consultants).

It provides a background to "pagan thinking" which IMO was the way the
people of the first, second and third centuries looked at the world.

The MM hypothesis was originally just this:
"What are the implications if Eusebius was dishonest?"

The implications are these:

1) There was another "real history of antiquity"
2) The real history must "conjoin" this pseudo-history.
3) The "confluence" must have been during the life of the author
of the pseudo-history.
4) There would have arisen a major empire-wide controversy.
5) The controversy could only have been assuaged at the imperial level.

It all pointed at the Council of Nicaea.
That's when I came across Julian's "Against the Galilaeans".

It is interesting that noone on this forum has made comments
about these 5 logical implications of Eusebian forgery

Best wishes,



Pete