Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Chili · 06-10-2013, 07:09 PM

del. thank you.

Duvduv · 06-11-2013, 07:00 AM

MM's views should be making everyone wonder what evidence there is for a Christian Arius beyond the claims of the church mouthpieces. There isn't any.
Of course there is no external evidence for the actual existence of any Arius either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Why do we have to go through the whole debate over whether Arius was a Christian when this is explicitly referenced as such in Philostorgius

Sorry, but you misunderstand what this debate is about. Here the issue is whether even if Arius was not a Christian, Arius did what Pete says he did with respect to the story of Jesus' crucifixion.

Jeffrey

mountainman · 06-18-2013, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

We’ve seen here that Pete has claimed that within his letter to Arius preserved in Decretis 40, Constantine’s “Away! I do not wish God to appear to be subject to suffering of outrages ..."is to be taken not only as an indirect reference to the Canonical Story of the crucifixion of Jesus" but as something that shows that “Arius does not like this story” and denied its validity if not its historicity.

Now Pete at least notes that nothing in language and grammar (or even the context) of this text supports this claim. But he still maintains it nevertheless because, as he notes, "the entire occasion of Nicaea was to introduce the imperial support to the NT Bible (physically at that time the Constantine Bible) as the holy writ at the focus of a centralised monotheistic state religion."

According to Pete

Quote:

All the citizens in the (pagan) Roman Empire at that time would have been aware of the proclamation of the new kingdom of the new god and were essentially being FORCED into it. I see this as the novel political reality in the Roman Empire c.325 CE.

Accordingly

Quote:

The pagans were taken by surprise with this new god in the form of a dead Jew on a stick. Any reasonable analyst of such a situation IMO must expect a reaction from the pagans. WHERE IS THIS REACTION to the bible?

So from this Pete concludes that

Quote:

Arius's statement [w]as a reaction to the new God STORY where the GOOD GOD was subject to suffering of outrages.

Leaving aside the question begging nature of his premises, let’s note that if Arius denied the crucifixion story or in any way underplayed the Gospel accounts of the sufferings of Jesus and was known to have done so, it would be reasonable to expect that he would have been excoriated for this by his enemies who at Nicea proclaimed that Jesus "suffered" for "us".

But to my knowledge, he is not. So far as I know, there is not a single text in the whole of our extant Anti Arian writings that either says that Arius does this or that excoriates him for doing so.

This is a good summary by Jeffrey however he also introduces the weakness in the mainstream hypothesis namely that the specific reason that Arius was excoriated (which he surely was) is known when it is not.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman · 06-18-2013, 08:25 AM

There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that indicates there was a massive controversy that erupted at the same time that Constantine saw to the implementation of a centralised monotheistic state cult, and that this controversy was somehow related to the disputational words (i.e. the five sophisms) of Arius. We can be more sure that Arius existed than Jesus.

Jerome quips that "the world groaned to find itself Arian".

We may presume that the world did not groan to find itself Christian.

This suggests that Jerome thought that the world was in disputation with Christianity.

The political history of the epoch suggests that this may have been the case: heretics abounded.

For your info Duvduv, I suspect that the pseudonymous author "Leucius Charinus" is actually a pseudonym for Arius of Alexandria. The very mention of the name of Arius was prohibited by imperial "memoriae damnatio".

I cannot prove this hypothesis. But on the one hand we know that Arius authored a number of books which pained and grieved and wounded the church, yet none of his books have been found. On the other hand we have found a number of the books attributed to Leucius Charinus (a clearly pseudonymous identity) such as "The Acts of John" and the "Gospel of Peter" with its walking talking passion story cross.

The identification of Arius of Alexandria as the "father of the non canonical books" seems to be within the tolerance of all the known evidence. It provides a very elegant solution to the political history of all - the entirety - of Christian non canonical literature.

The political (not theological) claim may be summarised by saying that the victorius canonical regime censored the name of Arius as the author of the non canonical books but because the books could not be eradicated (some have survived, and Photius witnesses a cache of these books in Bagdad) a name needed to be provided as an author. The name of Leucius Charinus, clearly adapted from the "Acts of Pilate" (the appearance of which is graphically described by Eusebius), only starts to appear in the later 4th and 5th centuries.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

MM's views should be making everyone wonder what evidence there is for a Christian Arius beyond the claims of the church mouthpieces. There isn't any.
Of course there is no external evidence for the actual existence of any Arius either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Why do we have to go through the whole debate over whether Arius was a Christian when this is explicitly referenced as such in Philostorgius

Sorry, but you misunderstand what this debate is about. Here the issue is whether even if Arius was not a Christian, Arius did what Pete says he did with respect to the story of Jesus' crucifixion.

Jeffrey

Duvduv · 06-18-2013, 01:29 PM

But if Arius was not really a "Christian," then what was his religion and that of any followers about whom not evidence exists for their communities, teachings, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that indicates there was a massive controversy that erupted at the same time that Constantine saw to the implementation of a centralised monotheistic state cult, and that this controversy was somehow related to the disputational words (i.e. the five sophisms) of Arius. We can be more sure that Arius existed than Jesus.

Jerome quips that "the world groaned to find itself Arian".

We may presume that the world did not groan to find itself Christian.

This suggests that Jerome thought that the world was in disputation with Christianity.

The political history of the epoch suggests that this may have been the case: heretics abounded.

For your info Duvduv, I suspect that the pseudonymous author "Leucius Charinus" is actually a pseudonym for Arius of Alexandria. The very mention of the name of Arius was prohibited by imperial "memoriae damnatio".

I cannot prove this hypothesis. But on the one hand we know that Arius authored a number of books which pained and grieved and wounded the church, yet none of his books have been found. On the other hand we have found a number of the books attributed to Leucius Charinus (a clearly pseudonymous identity) such as "The Acts of John" and the "Gospel of Peter" with its walking talking passion story cross.

The identification of Arius of Alexandria as the "father of the non canonical books" seems to be within the tolerance of all the known evidence. It provides a very elegant solution to the political history of all - the entirety - of Christian non canonical literature.

The political (not theological) claim may be summarised by saying that the victorius canonical regime censored the name of Arius as the author of the non canonical books but because the books could not be eradicated (some have survived, and Photius witnesses a cache of these books in Bagdad) a name needed to be provided as an author. The name of Leucius Charinus, clearly adapted from the "Acts of Pilate" (the appearance of which is graphically described by Eusebius), only starts to appear in the later 4th and 5th centuries.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

MM's views should be making everyone wonder what evidence there is for a Christian Arius beyond the claims of the church mouthpieces. There isn't any.
Of course there is no external evidence for the actual existence of any Arius either.

Toto · 06-18-2013, 02:00 PM

I do not think that this thread meets the new standards. There is in fact no evidence that Arius was anything other than a Christian. Further discussion will waste time and resources at best, and at worst lead to the sort of bickering and insults that dragged the old forum down.

I will lock this pending mod team review.

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06-10-2013, 07:09 PM	#11
Chili Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Alberta Posts: 11,885	del. thank you.

06-18-2013, 02:00 PM	#16
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	I do not think that this thread meets the new standards. There is in fact no evidence that Arius was anything other than a Christian. Further discussion will waste time and resources at best, and at worst lead to the sort of bickering and insults that dragged the old forum down. I will lock this pending mod team review.

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