mountainman

Dear Spin and Clivedurdle,

Constantine's agent Ossius presided over every council he attended, commencing with the council of Antioch. In his recent book "Pagans and Christians", Robin Lane-Fox describes the activities of Ossius at Antioch in the following terms:
Do you have any understand of war where we have a chief agent of the military commander who interrogated each one of its participants privately? We are not dealing with a Sunday afternoon tea party here gentlemen (and ladies?) of BC&H. We are dealing with (another) theatre of war. Please close your hymnals and pay struct attention! In regard to Ossius at the Council of Nicaea we have Fox writing that Osius first announced the creed and signed it.

There is no question of course for the authodoxy in regard to the theological status of Constantine's chief military agent Ossius, however for a student in the field of ancient history, examining this ground afresh, this person Ossius was no theologian since there is sufficient reason to believe the chief matters of these councils were not theological, but political and military.


This is putting the cart before the horse since there was no trinity ever mentioned at the Council of Nicaea. Clearly, it was added by the authodox subscribers to Constantine's official monotheistic state Roman religion after the event, during the councils after Nicaea, by which time the highways were covered with galloping bishops.

The victorius imperal regime was the authodoxy by decree. They doctored the evidence to suit themselves. We need to understand that there will necessarily exist a pagan side to the coin of fourth century christianity which has not been clearly perceived, since only the authodox view has been expressed and preserved ad nauseaum since that epoch.


It is about the substance of the Logos which now found itself up in direct competition against a brand new and unknown state religion from Rome. The eastern Roman empire c.324 CE was Hellenic. The temple networks leading out from the pagan library of Alexandria abounded in their reverence for the Logos ---- but clearly Constantine destroyed the Logos and subtituted a fictional "christ". The words of Arius are not inconsistent with this view. Additionally, we need to be reminded that one of the reporters of Arius in Athanasius has been soundly questioned by Sir Isaac Newton, who questions the morals of Athanasius and his followers. Analysis was one of Newton's strong points and I urge my detractors to firstly attempt to refute Newton on Athanasius.


Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear J-D,

Of course I was referring to the attempt at avoiding any preconceived notions from one's head. These things are dangerous. You need to empty oneself of preconceived notions in order to keep an open mind on the evidence. Everyone is well aware that there is no evidence to support that the mainstream preconceptions that Eusebius is corroborated by archaeology, except of course, for the house-church formerly at Dura, now at Yale. My thesis is supported by the C14. The C14 citations are very late for the mainstream preconceived notions. We have the situation where people have nothing to do in the fourth century but to copy literature written by people from centuries beforehand. We have the preconception that the people of the fourth century are not speaking for themselves because "Eusebius told us to look for our origins a little earlier".

I have prepared the entertainment of Arius of Alexandria against the christians by explicating the Nag Hammadi tractate 6.1 'The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles as a Non-Christian Ascetic Allegory and Hellenic Parody which appears to cite the Bhagvad Gita:

Reverence for oriental philosophy was quite prevalent it would appear in the christian????? tractate of the famous apostle Peter in the land of the city of nine gates. But who is this figure of Lithargoel which all modern scholars and academic commentators have preconceived to be Jesus?

Lithargoel in TAOPATTA redresses the prostrating apostles. Dance apostles, dance to the rich people. Lithargoel basically says to the christian apostles in "TAOPATTA" ...

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

No, 'everybody' is not well aware of this, otherwise people would not be arguing against you the way they are.What C14? How does 'the C14' support your thesis?

mountainman

Dear J-D,

The C14 suggests the earliest new testament literature could be from the fourth century. Those who argue that the C14 date is from a scribe copying literature already centuries old face Occam.

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

Supposing for the sake of argument (as I haven't checked) that the oldest surviving New Testament manuscripts date to the fourth century. This would be compatible equally with the truth of your thesis or with the falsity of your thesis. Hence it does not count as evidence for your thesis.

Independently of this, scribal copying is a phenomenon attested by evidence and which Occam's razor does not give grounds for dismissing.

mountainman

Dear J-D,

All theses seek optimum consistency with the available evidence. The default mainstream thesis has little or no consistency for the epoch prior to Constantine. My thesis explains this no consistency as a natural consequence of the fact that Constantine and Eusebius created a new Roman state monotheism in exactly the same way that Ardashir and Tansar created a new Persian state monotheism one hundred years earlier.

In both creations of an official state monotheistic religion the "canonisation" of the (technology of --- in those days literature was a form of technology, as it is today but moreso because of its novelty then) literature was a key feature, as were the centralised political administration of the state, as was the construction of distinctive architecture --- the fire-temples of the Zoroastrian/Mazdean official state monotheistic religion, and the basilicas of the christian offical state monotheistic religion of Constantine.

In both cases the writings of an earlier religion were re-edited and collected and brought into a new conformity. With the new Persian religion Ardashir caused the cleric Tansar to collect the extant "Avesta". Constantine collected the LXX, but added a new testament in addition to the LXX. It is the new testament canonical literature which needs to be questioned. Did it exist at all before the fourth century? The C14 citations are two. What do they say?

And independent of this again is the notion of a trinity of considerations in respect of this same literature; namely its creation, preservation and destruction. Occam weighs in on all these things. He does not simply just work for copyists. One might think the ancients never wrote anything novel, and this position cannot be supported. Thirdly we need to understand how it is that some of the political parties who make their appearance in the pageant of the fourth century official state religion of christainity are dominant in the role of the destruction of the literature.

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

If you could show an actual inconsistency it might possibly be evidence for your thesis. So far you have not done so.That was not clearly expressed, but I think I have a hazy idea of your meaning.

Confronted with a given phsyical document, from first principles we can say that there are two possibilities: it is an original, or it is a copy (of greater or less accuracy) of an earlier document. I am certainly not saying that we can tell with certainty from first principles that the oldest surviving documents are always copies. I am only saying that this is one of the two possibilities, and that Occam does not give us an automatic guide to choosing between them. Hence, as I said before, even if the C14 data is as you say, it is compatible equally with the truth of your thesis and with the falsity of your thesis. It would be compatible with your thesis, but it is not evidence in favour of it.

mountainman

Dear researchers in the field of ancient history,

Some further resources on the chronology (presumed or otherwise) of Acts of Pilate. If I am not mistaken this tractate (and many other non canonical tractates of NT literature) were written by one person Arius of Alexandria (between 325 and 336 CE) -- as a satirical thorn in the side of the authodox state religious canon put forward by Constantine (and Eusebius) 325 CE. Eusebius 325 CE is trying to retroject the heretical work(s) into the prenicene epoch via his profiles of Justin et al.

Is there any way anyone can see to "logic trap" Eusebius with the chronology of the Leucian Acts and/or any NT apochryphal tractate? Where do we place the fulcrum on Eusebius?

spin

More on the heretic, Eusebius of Caesarea...

Early in the same year as the Nicene council (325), there was a synod held in Antioch which was comprised of "orthodox" religious leaders under Ossius (the religious adviser to Constantine). They stated a creed that specifically eliminated the Arian notion of like-substance: the christ is the same substance as god. After the creed the synod specifically referred to Eusebius of Caesarea (with two others, Theodotus of the Laodicean church, Narcissus of the church in Neronia), writing:

we all fellow-ministers in the synod have ruled not to practice fellowship with these men, not to consider them worthy of fellowship, since their faith is something other than that of the catholic church

that is to say, they were excommunicated. Eusebius of Caesarea was excommunicated in 325 not long before the Nicene council in that year. This supposedly is the guy who started christianity.

(How long will it take for this document to be labeled a forgery? )


spin

Huon

Dear mountainman,
All the researchers in the field of ancient history will thank you heartily for your astonishing discovery : Arius (THE celebrated Arius of Alexandria) wrote the Acts of Pilate, and Eusebius (THE celebrated Eusebius of Caesarea, later a Semi-Arian, homoiousios) is trying to retroject this heretical work(s) into the prenicene epoch.

We (who are not researchers in the field of ancient history) are eagerly waiting for a proof of this new australo-petrine theory.