mountainman

Greek civilisation and culture. We should avoid the term "paganism"
prior to the fourth century CE at which epoch it first appears in the
available evidence.

The Romans emperors before Constantine had all supported, sponsored, maintained and actively supported the Greek culture and civilisation since the time they rose to power with Julius Caesar. They had supported the temples and the shrines.The Romans adopted the Greek language and they adopted many of the customs. The Graeco-Roman civilisation was essentially Greek --- until Constantine appeared.

Constantine was the first emperor who commences a systematic destruction of the Greek cultural architecture - the temples and the shrines.

The coinage of all the emperors before Constantine sponsors either Ascelpius or a relative of Asclepius. Constantine discontinued this long standing practice, and went out of his way to utterly destroy to the foundations the ancient and highly revered temples to Asclepius - the Graeco-Roman Healing god of the empire, who essentially is understood to have had a substantial network of temples throughout the empire which acted like the public hospital system. For a background to Asclepius, see this chronological index.


I have used Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XII, The Imperial Crisis and Recovery (193 to 324 CE)--- Chapter 5: SASSANID PERSIA, The Sassanian Empire: Political History, and have made some notes. Have a look at this summary page. Note that the Cambridge Ancient History specifically uses the term "creates" with respect to Ardashir and the state religion ....

Ardashir creates Zoroastrianism (c.224 CE)

In the third century the Persian "King of Kings"
Ardashir created a new State monotheistic religion
which he actively promoted, organized, supported and
protected, by legislation. He guaranteed its orthodoxy
by the sword. It was characterised by a strong
centralised power structure, centered on the King and
his appointed Magi (ie: academic temple priests, and
their chiefs)

A gifted researcher and high cleric of this religion
in the tradition named Tansar was ordered to gather
the scattered "Avesta" of the Mazdeans from ancient
sources, and to edit these in order to reproduce an
authorised and canonical version of the "Avesta",
the holy writ of Zoroastrianism. Finally the Sassanid
state monotheistic church was characterised by widespread
architectural replication of square fire-temples for
the official religion throughout the major cities and
provinces of the Sassanid Persian empire. This was a
novel step.

Epigraphic and monumental evidence suggests the pre-
existence of the earlier religion of the Mazdeans in
the epoch of the Parthian civilisation.

Military victories over the Romans under Shapur, the son of Ardashir. One Roman Emperor was captured and skinned alive. A number of Roman legions were captured and put to work behind the Persian lines constructing aquaducts for the Persians. The Sassanid Persian army marched to the ONE TRUE SONG of ZOROASTER, and the centralised state made the empire very cohesive.

It was a good formula. The ruler controlled the religious clergy. No longer was their any independent authority in the priesthood which followed the Greek customs. The essential ingredient was a non Greek "Holy Writ". A bit of literature - writing -which could be held up as officially endorsed by the hand of god and ruler, without any arguments. After Ardashir (c.222 CE) and Constantine (c.324/325 CE) did this, Mohammad (in c. 625 CE) did exactly the same thing.




Have a read of what Robin Lane-Fox has to say about Constantine, and particularly Constantine's Oration at Antioch c.324 CE. Again, if you are interested, I have made some notes on Lane-Fox's book Pagans and Christians

Here is one reference ....

LANE-FOX on Constantine's Oration

At p.646/7 Fox suggests that Constantine's Oration to the Saints
was authored and orated by Constantine "at Antioch, Good Friday, 325".
Most ancient historians are today convinced that Constantine
both authored and read aloud this "document" in 324/325 CE.
It contains a number of novel social and political insights,
and a whole string of fraudulent misprepresentations:


(1) Berates the philosophers: "Socrates critical questioning ... menace to the state".

"Pythagoras had stolen his teaching from Egypt, Plato believed there were many gods."
"Plato strived for the unknowable ... wrote about a first and second God."

(2) Berates the poets as worse than the philosophers;
because "poets wrote falsely about the gods".

FOX: "In a few broad sweeps, Constantine had damned
the free use of reason and banished poetic imagination."

mountainman

You will notice that my analysis of this letter has been grouped into a number of separate categories. These can be summarised:

(1) What Constantine tells us about what Arius thinks about Jesus and the Church
(2) Arius in terms of the Political Support of the Hellenistic Masses
(3) Arius and his Modus Operandi of the Authorship of BOOKS
(4) Constantine's unwitting positive descriptions of Arius' character and nature
(5) Constantine's purposeful derogatory descriptions of Arius' character and nature



(1) What Constantine tells us about what Arius thinks about Jesus and the Church

From this we can see that Arius wrote contraversial books.
More importantly Constantine tells us WHY Arius wrote:

Constantine says that Arius wrote that he did not wish God
to appear to be the subject of suffering of outrage
Constantine says that Arius wrote wrote that (on the above account)
he suggested and fabricated wondrous things indeed in respect to faith.

The New testament canon is all about God being
the subject of suffering of outrage.
Arius, says Constantine, did not like this.
So Arius fabricated other stories.

2) Arius in terms of the Political Support of the Hellenistic Masses

This section tells us that Arius had support.
And how Constantine handled the situation.


(3) Arius and his Modus Operandi of the Authorship of BOOKS

This is an important section.
It describes the modus operandi of Arius' authorship.

He wrote with a pen distilling poison

This is repeated everywhere.
This suggests Arius was a satirist.

He went further and opened the whole treasury of madness
He added things further to orthodox doctrines
He added certain things somehow swaggeringly
He added certain things quite accurately elaborated
He paved the way for the marks of addition
He was an artificer.

These descriptions of "Adding things to orthodox doctrines"
describes the academic assessment of the NT apocrypha
down to the ground. Here are the relevant assessments:

"insipid and puerile amplifications" [Ernest Renan]

"excluded by their later and radical light" [John Dominic Crossan]

"severely conditoned responses to Jesus ... usually these authors deny his humanity" [Robert M. Grant]

"they exclude themselves" [M.R. James]

"The practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history" [Bart Ehrman]

"The Leucian Acts are Hellenistic romances, which were written to appeal to the masses" [Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard]

"The key point ... [NT Apocrypha] have all been long ago considered and rejected by the Church.

"The names of apostles ... were used by obscure writers to palm off their productions; partly to embellish and add to ... partly to invent ... partly to support false doctrines; decidedly pernicious, ... nevertheless contain much that is interesting and curious ... they were given a place which they did not deserve." [Tischendorf]

"Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently ... making fun of traditional biblical beliefs"[April Deconick]

"heretics ... who were chiefly Gnostics ... imitated the books of the New Testament" [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

"enterprising spirits ... pretended Gospels full of romantic fables and fantastic and striking details, their fabrications were eagerly read and largely accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity." "the heretical apocryphists, composed spurious Gospels in order to trace backward their beliefs and peculiarities to Christ Himself." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

"the fabrication of spurious Acts of the Apostles was, in general, to give Apostolic support to heretical systems, especially those of the many sects which are comprised under the term Gnosticism. The Gnostic Acts of Peter, Andrew, John, Thomas, and perhaps Matthew, abound in extravagant and highly coloured marvels, and were interspersed by long pretended discourses of the Apostles which served as vehicles for the Gnostic predications. The originally Gnostic apocryphal Acts were gathered into collections which bore the name of the periodoi (Circuits) or praxeis (Acts) of the Apostles, and to which was attached the name of a Leucius Charinus, who may have formed the compilation." [Catholic Encyclopaedia]

Who are some other candidates? Dont forget that the current theory has it that the NT apocryoha were being authored for hundreds of years and thus implicity requires a further series of people who acted as preservers of the authored texts.

premjan

Ardashir promoted Zurvanite Zoroastrianism. The Achaemenids also used Zoroastrianism.

mountainman

Cambridge Ancient History uses the term created.
The creation of centralised state political monotheistic religions
seems to have been the rage between 222 and 625 CE.

Elijah

I agree paganism isn’t the best choice of words but using Hellenized that includes paganism is going to be incorrect and confusing to people. Putting the Greek philosophy and their superstition into one category and saying this is what is influencing Judaism needs support because right now it’s believed the Greek philosophy was influencing other cultures philosophies, not the superstition based around the poets poems.
Not sure the reason for the index. I was asking why you think Constantine was attacking Greek culture as you suggest like the Persians had. If the Persians were reforming to a more centralized/uniformed religious practice then I can see Rome following suit if it was benefiting the Persian Empire. But if the Persian were just removing all foreign Greek/roman influence then I don’t see Rome responding by doing the opposite and removing all their native culture to be replaced with a foreign religion. It’s a completely illogical response for Rome to go yea the Persians are right we need to get rid of our own culture and replace it with something else.
I was looking for something that illustrated the ideological push to see if it was a philosophical push or just the reorganization of previously existing superstitious beliefs. Time being the primary principle is probably an indication that it had some base in reason and wasn’t purely superstitious nonsense.
Good reason to organize your religion if the opposing empires are beating you with having their religion support the empire but still need the reasoning behind a Roman emperor choosing Christianity.
From this?

Lastly, Plato himself, the gentlest and most refined of all, who first essayed to draw men's thoughts from sensible to intellectual and eternal objects, and taught them to aspire to sublimer speculations, in the first place declared, with truth, a God exalted above every essence, but to him he added also a second, distinguishing them numerically as two, though both possessing one perfection, and the being of the second Deity proceeding from the first. For he is the creator and controller of the universe, and evidently supreme: while the second, as the obedient agent of his commands, refers the origin of all creation to him as the cause. In accordance, therefore, with the soundest reason, we may say that there is one Being whose care and providence are over all things, even God the Word, who has ordered all things; but the Word being God himself is also the Son of God. For by what name can we designate him except by this title of the Son, without falling into the most grievous error? For the Father of all things is properly considered the Father of his own Word. Thus far, then, Plato's sentiments were sound; but in what follows he appears to have wandered from the truth, in that he introduces a plurality of gods, to each of whom he assigns specific forms. And this has given occasion to still greater error among the unthinking portion of mankind, who pay no regard to the providence of the Supreme God, but worship images of their own devising, made in the likeness of men or other living beings.

This looks like a supporter/believer of Plato with a minor philosophical difference/misunderstanding, not someone out to get the philosophers in his movement which was against the idolatry and sacrifice of the “unthinking portion of mankind” who couldn’t understand Plato properly with reason.

He may have had a problem with the arguing that philosophical debate brought about but the ideas they produced he didn’t have a problem with, it was the superstitions which included idolatry and sacrifice that he seemed to be after, judging from the list you provided.

Clivedurdle

This is Danbrownism.

And can we get some things straight about Gnosticism? Darius was definitely gnostic - and Zarathustran. I take any belief in true and secondary gods with an idea of the cave, glass darkly, secrets, mysteries as gnostic.

A very common idea all across Rome, Greece, Egypt, ANE and India that probably relates to how we think and was definitely spread by the various armies and traders - like the images of Buddha being Greek in form and Venetian glass being found in North America by Captain Cook.

There was a sect of gnosticism that used xian ideas that may have been the root of modern xianity - the gnostic Paul as the true founder, and the ideas later being taken over by realos.

The Albigensians are very important.

mountainman

The index provides citations to the pre-existence of the Asclepius cult in the empire between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The destruction of the ancient and highly revered temples to Asclepius by Constantine c.324 CE was a political move to get rid of the extant religious authorities in preparation for Nicaea and the "Christian Vote".

Where do you get "Rome" from? It was not "Rome" doing the damage, it was a recently self-appointed dictator of Rome Constantine, and his army, who were doing the damage to the Greek culture. Constantine was the grandson of a Danube goatherder. All other ROman emperors appear to have sponsored the Greek culture in many ways, including the motifs on their coinage, the patronage and sponsorship of temples, etc, etc.

Constantine ceased the sponsorship of ...[the Gnostic] ... Greek culture with two things:

1) the destruction of the Greek traditions associated with the temples, and
2) the publication of the Greek new testament.

This looks like the standard 20th centuryt Catholic Encyclopaedea complaining that Plato should not be viewed as a monotheist and as such should not be relied upon for any really-and-truly-foundational-proinciples.

Are you aware of the term Henotheism:

.

mountainman

IMO Gnosticism was Greek (with Egyptian and Indian roots).

Paul and Plato do not mix. The "Gnostic Paul" is a literary assertion. The historical reality of the first century reveals a "Gnostic Apollonius" and no christians. The idea of a "gnostic Paul" -- wandering man of letters, philosopher, author, sage, whose letters were collected after his death is firmly based on the historical Apollonius. The parallels have been examined many times before.

And as for the notion that "the ideas later being taken over by realos" we do not have to look very far to find political calumny of Apollonius and his followers which appeared at the same time as the physical destruction of the greek cultural architecture associated with Apollonius, and the Asclepius cult which he apparently was personally associated with.

Elijah

But what does this cult have to do with the Gnostics or Platonic thought? What need of a temple to worship at does a Gnostic have when salvation comes via knowledge?
That’s Rome. The citizens of Rome, from emperor down to slave/soldier are all parts of Rome. Constantine could do nothing himself without the consent and help of his fellow Roman citizens who considered him the leader of Rome. If you are trying to paint a one man conspiracy theory where a non roman tricks Rome then good luck with that.
What does the pagan temples have to do with the Gnostics? Or are you still using these words interchangeably?

And the question again is why does Constantine choose a Jewish sect as the state religion and not a Greek one???????
Nope, and I don’t know what the point is again. Are you saying that Plato or Constantine were Henotheists and why? How are you interpreting the intermediaries between god and man? As natural forces within the universe or as supernatural people living in a magical realm?

Where we are at in this conversation is you being able to distinguish between the influence of the Greek natural philosophers and the superstition the poets brought about by people taking the stories literally.

Understanding Plato as influencing the Gnostics is correct but thinking Plato and the pagans who make sacrifices to characters in poems are synonymous is completely incorrect. Which means trying to throw the Gnostics and the superstitious pagans in the same box is also completely incorrect as well. Now I’m sure there were instances where some type of hybrid was created but those are going to be the exception to the rule.

And why a Jewish cult still needs to be addressed. Why not the imperial cult as the state religion being pushed which would have exalted the emperor instead of a dead Jew?

mountainman

Medical knowledge was preserved at the these temples.
Have a look at Galen - a therapeutae of Asclepius under Marcus Aurelius.
The temples - especially the larger ones - were often associated with libraries.
The Asclepius temple at Aegae was associated with the preservation of the
books of Apollonius of Tyana. It seems to have been a "mixing pot" of various cults, some of which preserved knowledge.

The temples preserved much literature and cultural relics.
They were sponsored by the Roman emperors as part of Greek culture.


Constantine was a fourth century military fascist.
He turned his back on Rome.
He built his own city - the City of Constantine.
He recycled the City of Alexander to the City of Constantine.
If you are playing the "Conspiracy Card" you dont understand the
politics of military fascists. He used brute force to win friends
and influence people. How many executions did he order?

On the assumption that Eusebius' report is reliable and accurate, it may be argued that in 324 Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, and that he carried through a systematic and coherent reformation, at least in the eastern provinces which he conquered in 324 as a professed Christian in a Christian crusade against the last of the persecutor.

Constantine's Prohibition of Pagan Sacrifice
T. D. Barnes, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 69-72

Have you read the Nag Hammadi tractate NHC 6.8: Hermes to Asclepius : Hermes - to the father of modern medicine, Asclepius? Are you aware of any of the archaeological data associated with the Asclepian temples?



I suggest that the Jewish cult was used for a number of reasons.
Firstly because it was NON HELLENIC.
Secondly because the new testament "authors" borrowed heavily from the Greek LXX.

I also suggest that the new testament was a purposefully contrived
and fabricated anti-gentile (anti-Hellenistic) political manifesto.

Constantine was very lucky to find it.

Written in Greek for Greek gentiles, the Greeks were to forced
to (1) cease the practice of their old cultural religions and
philosophies, and (2) conform and convert - by the sword -
to christianity.

The burning of the library of Alexandria -- Greek knowledge --
and the destruction of the last of the Greek temples, was
conducted with the New Testament as the rule of thumb.

As a political manifesto against the Greeks ("Gnostics"),
Constantine's Bible was extremely effective.