mountainman

Pachomius received refugees from Constantine.
The refugees were the living ex-priests.
The Boss had closed pagan services.
The temple culture was fucked.

Where did the Tibetans go when Mao moved in?
Indian refugee settlements.

Pachomius foresaw the need for desert communities 324 CE.
Nice year that year. The eastern empire had a new Boss.
Exodus commenced.
Do you get the drift?

The desert communities consisted of political refugees.
Many of these refugees were (fleeing for their lives) pagan priests.

Arius? Where are you Arius?
The deserts of Syria and Egypt were refuge from the tyrant.
St. Anthony was a literary stooge "ascetic hermit" created by Athanasius.
Who are the Tall Brothers?
Who was Lithagoel?
Think Pagan.
What was the Origenist controversy all about?


Additionally, Pachomius is conjectured by many scholars to be associated with the production and preservation of the Nag Hammadi Codices. These books are nowhere near either wholly christian or wholly pagan, but a stange and intriguing mixture of the two, along with further suprises.




If Jesus was a lawful sinless Jewish boy he would have participated in the feast of the Jewish Passover. The gospels present him as having participated at a number of passover feasts, including the last supper, and the quote I have provided. He orders the disciples to get cooking.

Where does it say he only pretended to "gnaw on the bones of a dead sheep"? Please note, I am taking the neopythagorean position in this argument, by which Pythagoras (via Iamblichus) would have been horrifed of the thought of eating meat. The gospels are a badly written fictitious tragedy with enough of a scattering of ancient pagan wisdom sayings to salvage a bit of respectability.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

mountainman

Not in front of Pythagoras anyway! The old Hellene (whose P-Theorem still figures in the theories of relativity) would kick his sorry arse over the issue of justice, as explicated by Porphyry.

Jeffrey Gibson

Again, this is late second century AND it does not use the Greek word for "priests", let alone describe the devotees of Asclepius refereed to here as "priests"

Do you even know what the Greek word for "priest" is?

That's not the issue, is it. The issue is whether your claim that Asclepius had priests -- and had them long before the first century CE --has any validity. So far you've not produced a scrap of evidence to show that it does.


There is no year 000. And what yuur purported "insistence of usage (which I cannot find attested anywhere) has to do with your false claim about Sophocles, let alone my call to you (that you've ignored) to date the "life of Sophocles and to produce primary evidence that he was a priest of Asclepius, is beyond me

And yet you claimed previously that he did.

There is no relationship -- no more than there is between the θερᾰπευταὶ of Ares (ὅσοι δὲ ̓́Αρεώς τε θεραπευταὶ) described in Plato, Phdr.252c, of Sarapis or Isis (UPZ8.19 (ii B.C.), those of Moses (Ph.177 -- where θερᾰπευτής means "followers") or those of Xenophon's "great man (οἱ ἀμφὶ τὸν πάππον θερᾰπευταi) in Cyr.1.3.7.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Thank you for proving my claim.


If Jesus was a lawful sinless Jewish boy he would have participated in the feast of the Jewish Passover. The gospels present him as having participated at a number of passover feasts, including the last supper, and the quote I have provided. He orders the disciples to get cooking.

He does? Where?

In any case, only the Gospel of John presents Jesus as going to a number of Passovers. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have go only once. And the "last supper" in John is not a passover meal since as John explicitly notes, Jesus was executed on the day that the lambs to be eaten at passover were to be slaughtered. Nor is there any description of a sheep as the fare of that meal.

So I ask again: where can we we can find in GLuke (and in GMatthew, GMark, and GJohn) the explicit description or report that you have claimed is there ( cf. your Jesus "is presented by the gospel authors as gnawing on the bones of sheep") of Jesus gnawing on the bones of sheep?

You say you admit it when your wrong. The evidence shows otherwise.

Jeffrey

mountainman

At these temples there were attendants, whom I take by the 2nd century were referred to as therapeutae, and the physicians themselves. I can see no reason why these head physicians, in a custodial role of specific temples (especially the major asclepia), would not have been regarded as some form of priests. Some form of authoritative administrative structure must have obviously have existed in order that these healing temples offered the people various medical (body and mind and soul) services. Please address this issue.

Constantine often referred to himself as "Bishop of bishops", the reference having twofold significance in that the Greek "episkopos" (bishop) also means "spy". So the Greek word for "priest" is probably not "episkopos". I am ready to be enlightened. What is it?


In fact, it is the critical issue here.

The pagan priesthood was alive and well continuously through until Nicaea, since the many and varied temples and libraries were all generally operative until Constantine's prohibition. (See Barnes et al) You keep trying to sidestep this inevitable question as to the organic nature and structure and historicity of the pagan priesthood which appears to be waving little neopythagorean flags to and fro from a great distance.

But of course, I have the geography of ancient history all wrong. The river of the christians joined the river of the gnostic neopythagoreans upstream in the Eusebian la-la-land of the second and third centuries, and flowed majestically out of Eusebius' pen in the fourth century, as the mighty river now named after the nation of the (enduring) christians.

The River of Christianity was now about to run pure, silt-free and totally, absolutely, authodox. The big plunge straight over the falls of Nicaea. The pagan gnostic priesthood of the 2nd and 3rd centuries had silently studied and meditated on the words of Papias and Hegesipus, and had been compelled to secretely convert to christianity in anticipation.

If there is no relationship in this greek word for therapeutae
used on the one hand by Philo and on the other by Galen
and Aristides in the next century, what are they separately saying?

Is the common meaning simply "followers"?




Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Jeffrey Gibson

You take it? Don't you know?

And please show me evidence from primary sources that the physicians at the Asclepiae were not designated by the term therapeutae and or that therapeutae did not include physician with its semantic range..

So your "evidence" is nothing more than a supposition that is based upon an appeal to personal incredulity that itself is grounded in an unsupported and unexamined premise that Asclepian physicians were not called, and were distinct from, Asclepian therapeutae?:huh:

Sorry, Pete. Not only does this stink the big one; it shows that you have zero primary evidence for your claim -- which BTW was that there were priests of Asclepius long before the second century CE.

Please show me the primary evidence that shows that "priests" were part of this structure.

It does? Can you support this claim by providing actual instances from pre 4tc century CE Greek literature where ἐπίσκοπος bears this meaning?

Let me get this straight. You've been making the claim that ancient evidence attests to the fact that there were "priests" of Asclepius, but you are now saying that you yourself wouldn't be able to determine whether or not this is so when you looked at that evidence?

And we're supposed to trust your claims about what the evidence of Arius and Julian shows???

Great Gaaawwwddd almighty!

:rolling::rolling::rolling:

Jeffrey

mountainman

On the basis that Cyril was politically corrupt in a powerful and corrupt and intolerant early christian regime, and yet you trust Cyril!.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Sheshbazzar

Arius, oh Arius where are you? Come to me Arius. Arius, let me correct you Arius. Trust me, I've got plans for you Arius, oh yes I do! Arius? Arius?
Damn you Arius! turn your sorry ass over to me RIGHT NOW!

If Constantine was still around and able to get his hands on these modern-day "Christian" apologists, he would certainly see to it that they were likewise fully interrogated and would examine their hearts.
They claim the religion of Constantine, but I can't help but wonder, how many would desire to put their own life into the hands of such a devout, kind, and reasonable ruler?
Methinks that most of them would also be found to be fleeing as far away as they could from the violence that was going on under Constantine's "christian" housecleaning.

Jeffrey Gibson

So do you, when you claim that what he reproduces of the beginning of Against the Galileans is an accurate representation of what Julian wrote.

Cake and having it.

Jeffrey

youngalexander

No, the question is whether the numerous Good Shepherds which are depicted represent Jesus? The consensus amongst art historians is that they do not, especially as such figures predate Christianity by several centuries.

The question then becomes - what do they represent? On this there is little consensus & only vague notions.

The earliest artwork 200CE onwards is exclusively OT. Only from mid 3rdC do NT themes begin to appear.

The catacombs which are claimed to be christians are clearly so as the continuity of artworks & symbols indicate. Also their origin & history is sufficiently well known to establish this.
However, representations of jesus do not appear until mid 3rdC and even then are rather sparse until 4thC, especially post Nicene. Typically he is represented as a beardless youth with a wand - a wonderworker, rather than the bearded dominant Lord of later 4thC.