VoxRat

I just caught up with this, having been on vacation when you wrote.

I read Gore Vidal's Julian just after my son, Julian, was born. I enjoyed it, but of course I take any claim to historicity (about which I don't think Vidal is overly pretentious) with a grain of salt.

Whether Constantine "invented" christianity seems to me a matter of semantics. I believe he styled himself as "equal of the apostles". In that, I think he was being modest.

I don't doubt there was a movement, religion, cult... whatever you want to call it, called "christianity" before Constantine. But the institutionalized, state-friendly, emperor-friendly entity that came to prop up, then dominate, parasitize and corrupt the Roman Empire and its successor states - to this day - I believe Connie is largely to be thanked for that.

mountainman

Vidal writes as an historical novelist. He has used ancient
historical sources, and he keeps very close to these. While
his novel may not be described as a thesis in ancient history,
the data behind it is quite accurate.

Did the apostles order the execution of their son?
Did the apostles order the execution of their wife?
Did the apostles order the execution of a number of non-christian priests?
Did the apostles order the destruction of "indigenous temples"?


Well I do doubt --- very very seriously --- that there was
an extant cult called "Christianity" before the rise of this despot.
Moreover, the basis of my doubt is evidential.
There is no evidence for Pre-Nicene "christianity".

It [PRE-NICENE CHRISTIANITY] has been an unexamined postulate
since the Council of Nicaea. When it is examined (as I have done)
it is found to be very wanting for evidence.

Many people refuse to even contemplate the issue.
The traditional belief system runs deep in the psyche.

Best wishes,


Pete

VoxRat

Oh, I agree. Everything I was able to [easily] check out is consistent with the record. I'm just thinking of the necessarily novelistic aspects - and, of course, the demise of Julian.I meant that somewhat sardonically; (I'm lazy about using the appropriate emoticons.)
When I said Connie was being modest, I meant numerically, with respect to the promulgation of the religion.
...
What do you make of the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan?
(Again, I just jumped in here; forgive me if this was all covered long ago.)

Sheshbazzar

It has long been the consistent theme of Pete (mountainman) to focus upon the 4th century machinations of Constantine and Eusebius as the sole sources of the creation, or in his words the "fabrication", of the beliefe system that came to be commonly identified by the term "Christianity".

The New Testament tells us that those formerly known as The Disciples, The Believers, The Way, and The Sect of the Nazarenes, "Were first called Christians at Antioch". There seems no legitimate reason to dispute this claim, obviously the term had to have some place and time of origin. (recognizing that by mountainman's theory, Constantine and Eusebius were the originators and fabricators of the word "Christian", and indeed, within a short 12 year time period, everything within The NT, and also all of the writings of "Christian" authors for the previous three centuries! in addition to intrapolating every single reference to "Christianity" recorded by the non-Christians writers!)

Lacking from this hypothesis is consideration for what did actually transpire within the Holy Land, and within the various sects of Judaism, far before the meddling of Constantine and Eusebius.

The Dead Sea Scrolls evidence many parallels between the sayings, ideas, beliefs, structure, and practices of early messianic Judaism, and that type of religious practice that is revealed within The New Testament writings.

It makes little difference whether the actual term "Christian" originated in Antioch, as the text records, or was actually fabricated by, and inserted into a text by Constantine.
The evidence indicates that there were messianic believers practicing confession, baptism and communion long before Constantine, and that they did not at all, call themselves, or refer to themselves by the term "Christian".
Constantine may have picked up on a Messianic movement that had its origins in Judea, and effectively interpolated, modified and adapted it to his own desires and ends, but would be an unlikely source for the origin of the entire Jewish Messianic expectation and movement.

Or do we just assign all of that paralleling messianic/apocalyptic Dead Sea Scroll material to being also being just another of the fabrications by Constantine, and Eusebius, cleverly contrived and hidden away within the Qumran caves?
Just where do the evil conspiricy theories end?

mountainman

A simple interpolation and/or forgery.
See Fabrication of the Galilaeans Sub-Module 4(d):
Prenicene Author identifies as non christian.

Best wishes,



Pete

mountainman

The emperor Julian actually first uses the word fabrication
in his opening address of three books.


Nothing of note. It had been heavily subjugated in the 1st century.
In the second century Trajan was still crucifying thousands of Jews
at a time. The "Holy Land" got its name only after Constantine's
massive building program had erected the Basicilas in Jerusalem and
other locations, in the fourth century. The first christian pilgrim
we are told who returned to the "Holy Land" was Constantine's
mother-in-law Eutropia, and then his mother Helena.

This is an interesting point, the origination at Antioch,
and the so-called "Council" of Antioch which preluded
the "Council" of Nicaea, of the emergence of the term.

The Boss was newly arrived in the eastern empire.
A new religion had been prepared in advance of his supremacy.
And the word was:

There was time when He was not.

Before He was born He was not.

He was made out of nothing existing.

He is/was from another subsistence/substance.

He is subject to alteration or change.

One very recent religious cult which had drawn attention
to itself in the ROman empire at that time was Manichaeism.
Mani had been executed and his followers persecuted, apparently
also by Diocletian.

In all likelihood, the writings of Mani may have had copies in Rome
which were all by default Constantine's, after he took the ancient
capital of the western empire in 312 CE.


The dating of this material is obviously critical.

Nag Hammadi was active 348 CE and shows the active
signs of a process of "christianisation of literature".
It also reveals the spiritual master "Thrice-great Hermes"
as being the source of much literature.

The Hebrew Bible (Greek via Origen) was used in the fabrication,
but that is the extent of Jewish association in the phenomenom
of christianity. The Hebrew Bible was an innocent bystander
that got hijacked by Constantine when he fabricated the mass
of literature associated with the new testament.

Eusebius tendered a pseudo-history, but Constantine
did not to conspire with anyone, since he was the boss.
Absolute power does not need conspiration.


Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

As somebody who's just caught up with this, what do you think of Pete's historical methodology?

spin

Two points:
This claim is patently disputable. The term xristianoi is a combination of Greek and Latin. The root of the term being xristos, a derivative of a verb meaning "to smear or anoint (with oil)". (To Greek speakers such as the population of Antioch, xristos did not mean "(the one) anointed", but that which is smeared, ie "ointment".) Added to this root is a Latin suffix, "-ian", making a new word "(someone) of christ".

Antioch had a Greek speaking population, being founded by Greeks and populated by Greeks. The Roman occupation of Syria involved three legions (Gallica, Ferrata & Fulminata) being stationed in various parts of the region, legions formed from the Roman provinces, not from Rome. Beside some administrators there few Romans in the province. There was no strong Latin language presence in Antioch to suggest the formation of the hybrid that Acts claims was formed there. Historical linguistic analyses tend to support the notion that when new words are formed due to foreign influence, it is the root term which is borrowed and local suffixes are added, the contrary to what we have with xristianoi. The term is linguistically more likely to have been formed in a Latin context, not a Greek one.

Contrary to Sheshbazzar, I see no legitimate reason to accept this claim. It is highly suspect.

I must agree with this.

While a messianic context well suits the period up to the death of the great messianic figure Simon bar-Kochba (circa 135 CE), it makes no sense to attempt to inject it into a time where it was not in itself appropriate.


spin

Sheshbazzar

[QUOTE=mountainman;4769962]I am aware of that. however, you have on this board employed the term hundreds of times, and in contexts and furthering arguments beyond anything atribuatable to Julian.
Thus it is only fitting that I here describe it as being your word.
Note that I restored the final paragraph above to its original context, thus the subsequent events that transpired under Trajan, or Consantines latter meddeling are of no consequence to those things which history shows to have been written and have taken place beforehand.
The scholarly concensus places the authorship and deposition of The Dead Sea Scrolls within the Qumran caves in advance of the "heavy subjugation"
And the actual and original context in which this "word" is originally found, was not intended, nor directed at proving that its Subject was a "fabrication", but rather a statement of a theological position as to the origin and nature of The Son.
But again what Constantine did or promogulated 300+years latter is not germaine to what had already transpired in Judea, and to the writings and teachings of the Qumran community 300+ years earlier.
entirely irrlevant to the point I was making.

Exactly

Nag Hammadi repository was (is) not under consideration here.

That IS the problem with your theory and hypothsis, in that the pre-christian "Jewish" documents found within The DSS show a very strong parallels within their sayings, and teachings to that which is contained within The NT, some of which is almost verbatim in agreement, and some of which the NT was obviously composed in a direct opposition to.
I know of no reputable scholar that would assign The Dead Sea Scrolls to a time latter than the first century AD, or attempt to claim that their contents are the result of "Christian" tampering, not by Constantine, nor any other identifiable "Christian".

mountainman

Despite the theory of José O'Callaghan the 900
documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls are entirely
attributable to the Hebrew Bible, and naught
to anything of "the new testament".

The Essenic roots of the sayings employed in
the new testament are not disputed.

The fabricators of the NT plaguerised
their fiction from such sources.

What is disputed by my thesis is postulate
that the "christian" roots of literature has a
chronology older than Constantine. There
is no "NT christian literature" amidst th DSS.

Does that explain my position?

Best wishes,


Pete