Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 03-19-2011, 08:30 PM

If we are to view Arius through this text attributed to Philip of Side, Arius looks like he is associated with an academy philosophers, not the "church". Arius had a blasphemous heart, and was a fighter against God. Constantine had already informed us of his opinion (in the "Oration at Antioch") that "Plato's critical questioning was a menace to the state". The text asserts the presence at Nicaea of a large number of philosophers.

Quote:

Fr. 5.6
[Supporters of Arius at the Council of Nicaea]
Anonymous Ecclesiastical History 2.12.8-10 [p. 47, lines 5-19 Hansen][160]

(8) When these things were expressed by them
or rather, through them, by the Holy Spirit
those who endorsed Arius' impiety
were wearing themselves out with murmuring

(these were the circles of Eusebius of Nicomedia
and Theognis of Nicaea, whom I have already pointed out earlier),

and yet they were looking with favor on the "hirelings" of Arius,
certain philosophers who were indeed very good with words;
Arius had hired them as supporters of his own wickedness,
and arrived with them at that holy and ecumenical council.

(9) For there were present very many philosophers;
and having put their hopes in them, as I have said just now,
the enemies of the truth were reasonably caught,
along with the one who actually taught them their blasphemy.

The Holy Scripture was fulfilled in him and in them, which says,
"Cursed is everyone who has his hope in a mortal man,
and whose heart has departed from the Lord."[161]

(10) For truly, the blasphemous heart of the fighter against God, Arius,
and of those who shared in his impiety, departed from the Lord
they dared to say that the Son of God, the creator of the universe
and the craftsman of both visible and invisible created natures,
is something created and something made.

The text asserts the presence at Nicaea of a large number of philosophers. Are we about to presume these philosophers were "Christian"? The following text Fr. 5.7 [The Arian Philosopher and the Simple Old Man] provides graphic examples of how such philosophers were miraculously converted to the christian faith, at Nicaea. Therefore, these philosophers present at Nicaea in large numbers were certainly not christians.

The PR Statement issued by Constantine at the conclusion of Nicaea sought the burning of the books of the highest profile NeoPlatonic philosophers in the empire at that time - the treatises of Plotinus as recorded by Porphyry. The writings of Arius were also subject to the imperial edict of destruction. The philosophers were indeed lost at Nicaea. Constantine's "Universal Church" and the Holy Spirit were surely the victors.

mountainman · 03-21-2011, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Arius was quite obvious the legitimate Patriarch of Alexandria, one of long line of Origenists even if he wouldn't say so publicly.

The Origen disambiguation page at WIKI lists two 3rd century "Origens":

* Origen the Christian, a a third-century Christian theologian.
* Origen the Pagan, a third-century Platonist philosopher

Did both these "Origen's" have legitimate lineages? Why do you prefer that Arius belongs to one and not the other?

According to the text in front of us here, Arius is not presented as being surrounded by Christian theologians, but rather Philip of Side presents Arius as surrounded by large numbes of philosophers who are clearly not christian. The group of Arian minded philosophers are portrayed by Philip of Side to be directly confronting the Nicaean theologians over arguments and matters of rhetoric.

Quote:

Arius probably preferred to think of himself representating the tradition that dated back to St. Mark ...

Was Mark a philosopher or a theologian?

Quote:

which was probably more accurate (there was no such thing as 'Arianism' really).

More than one of the most ancient sources declare that the Council of Nicaea was summoned by Constantine "on account of the words of Arius". The words of Arius, as preserved to us, are five sophisms devoted to deep and meaningful contemplation on the nature of Jesus. These five sophisms, and their permutations and combinations, and the occassional novelty, were taken up as a heretical chant against the imperially supported centralised Roman state christian church, by people who prefered to back these words of Arius over the words of the THEN Nicaean Christian church. For generations after Nicaea - centuries after Nicaea - a huge turbulent controversy errupted - called the Arian controversy - over these five sophisms --- over the words of Arius.

Fr. 5.7

[The Arian Philosopher and the Simple Old Man]

Anonymous Ecclesiastical History 2.13 [p. 47, line 20 - p. 50, line 5 Hansen][162]

Readers might read through Fr. 5.7.
Do you have any questions?
It may as well be paraphrased .....

How the Arian Philosophers rejoiced to become "illuminated"
and to be gladly "converted to the church"
and to immediate go to church to be "baptised"
and how the council rejoiced over these mighty acts of God.

It looks pretty straightforward to me.
Philip of Side is intoxicated (with his new found Christian power).

Quote:

Fr. 5.7
[The Arian Philosopher and the Simple Old Man]
Anonymous Ecclesiastical History 2.13 [p. 47, line 20 - p. 50, line 5 Hansen][162]

2.13

(1) A certain one of the hirelings of Arius, a philosopher, who was marveled at much more than all the others,
contended much, indeed very much, on Arius' behalf with our bishops for very many days, with the result
that there was a great lecture every day arising from their verbal encounters: the crowd of those who
were gathering would rush together, and the philosopher would put forward the impious blasphemies of Arius
against what was said by the holy council, saying about the Son that

"there was a time when he was not," and that
"he is a created being, made from nothing,
and from a different substance[163] and existence[164] [than the Father]."

(2) On behalf of these abominable doctrines of Arius, he had a great struggle,
and [sent forth] his "showers" of arguments, as he raved against the Son of God
and attacked the chorus of those holy priests[165]--the enemy of human salvation
was speaking in him and through him.

(3) But the defenders of the truth, our bishops, calmly brought to bear against him the necessary and appropriate counter-arguments,
on behalf of the Apostolic doctrines, imitating the great prophet and king, David, who said,
"I was made ready, and I was not disturbed."[166]
For they burned through the philosopher's convoluted propositions by means of the divine word,
as though with fire through hempen fibers.

(4) But even so, the philosopher continued to be confident in his diabolical facility with arguments,
and began to shoot his arrows against the truth proclaimed by the bishops, applying good and glib responses
to all the considerations advanced against him—so he thought—and, slippery as an eel, he struggled to solve the issues raised.
For in the midst of what he thought he was contriving for his own benefit,
slipping out of the logical arguments that were being brought quite powerfully against him,
he was caught, on the basis of is own words, and collapsed along with them.

(5) But even so, in an arrogant frenzy, he moved against the most peaceful council,
hoping to defeat the invincible power of the unconquerable Spirit of Christ that was in them.

(6) But God, "who catches the wise in their cunning,"[167] in order to demonstrate
that his kingdom does not stand "on talk but on power,"[168] not only powerfully silenced
the wicked demon that was speaking in the philosopher, but even cast it out,
through one of his servants who was there.

(7) For a certain man, one of the holy confessors who was present at the council,
with as simple a nature as any other of the saints [has had],
and one who knew nothing "except Jesus Christ, and him crucified"[169] in the flesh according to the Scriptures,
was with the bishops and saw the philosopher swooping down to attack our holy bishops,
and arrogantly engaged in his malicious disputation; he asked the bishops, the priests of God,
to give him an opportunity for discussion with the philosopher.

(8) Then, the holy bishops on our side, perceiving the man's simplicity
and his lack of experience with letters, tried to persuade him not to put himself into the fray,
for fear that it would provoke laughter among the malicious enemies of the truth.

(9) But he, not content with this, approached the philosopher and said to him,
"In the name of Jesus Christ, the Word of God who is always with the Father,
listen to the doctrines of truth, O philosopher." And the other said to him,
"Go ahead and speak." And the saint said to him, "There is one God,
who created the heavens and the earth and the sea, and all things that are in them,
who also formed man from the earth and subjected everything to his Logos
and to the Holy Spirit.[170]

(10) This Logos, O philosopher, we know and worship
as the Son of God, believing that for the sake of our redemption he was made flesh
and was born and became a man, and that through the suffering of his flesh on the cross
and his death he freed us from eternal condemnation,
and that through his resurrection he procured eternal life for us;
and we have hope that as he went up into the heavens
he will come back and will judge us concerning all that we have accomplished.
Do you believe in these things, O philosopher?"

(11) And the philosopher, as though he had never had experience of words spoken in opposition to him,
was dumbfounded and fell silent just like that, as though he were mute and speechless,
after saying to him, in a most pitiable voice, only the following:
"I too think this is so, and I think no differently that as you have just said."

(12) And the old man said to him, "If you believe that this is so, O philosopher,
stand up and follow me, and let us hurry to the church,
in which you will receive the sign of this faith."

(13) And the philosopher, transforming his whole self
toward the true reverence for the God of the universe,
stood up and followed the old man and, turning around,
said to his disciples and to all those who had gathered to hear [the discussion],
"Listen, men. As long as I was enthusiastic for arguments,
I would place words in opposition to words and would overturn the matters
presented to me by my skill in speaking;

(14) but now that instead of words, some divine power has come forth
from the mouth of my interlocutor, my words no longer
had the strength to resist this power.
For neither is a human being able to stand in opposition to God.
Therefore, if any of you is able to understand, as I have now come to think,
he shall believe in Christ—and let him follow this old man, in whom God spoke.

(15) In this way, the philosopher recovered and, being illuminated and becoming a Christian,
rejoiced to have been beaten by the old man.

And when this philosopher had been baptized and was joined to the Church of God
and found relief and exulted, the council rejoiced over the mighty acts of God.

SUMMARY

According to Philip of Side one old holy confessor gloriously and harmoniously silenced the Arian controversy in the Council of Nicaea. It's things like this that assist historians in putting Philip of Side on the map of 4th century politics. My only question at this stage would be to ask whether the old holy confessor may have been one of Constantine's old "prefects". Robin Lane-Fox has already written ("Pagans and Christians") that the attendees at the Council of Nicaea appear to have been under military duress.

Thankyou Roger for making this material available to the public.

Littlejohn · 03-23-2011, 01:22 AM

@ Roger Pearse:

According to that stated by Don Silvio Barbaglia in his libel against Cascioli, "The fable of Cascioli", there would be well 9 ancient manuscripts in which, in the lists of Jesus' brothers, instead of the name Joseph there would be the name John . Do you know something about this? ..

Greetings

Littlejohn

.

Roger Pearse · 03-23-2011, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

@ Roger Pearse:

According to that stated by Don Silvio Barbaglia in his libel against Cascioli, "The fable of Cascioli", there would be well 9 ancient manuscripts in which, in the lists of Jesus' brothers, instead of the name Joseph there would be the name John . Do you know something about this? ..

I'm sure that most of us are just as ignorant as I am about these people. Time to Google...

I find that "Cascioli" is Italian atheist Luigi Cascioli, d. 2010. He wrote a book La favola di Cristo (=The Fable of Christ): Inconfutabile dimonstrazione della non esistenza di Gesu, Viterbo 2001. The Wikipedia article (sorry - unreliable I know) suggests that he was one of those unfortunate people, known to us from history, who have been driven almost demented with hatred of the Catholic church.

Likewise it seems that Don Silvio Barbaglia is a professor of biblical studies at the episcopal seminary of Novara. He wrote a book in reply, La favola di Cascioli (The fable of Cascioli) which seems to be online here.

Unfortunately I cannot find the claim on which I am being asked to comment! Perhaps LittleJohn could point us to it?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Littlejohn · 03-23-2011, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

@ Roger Pearse:

According to that stated by Don Silvio Barbaglia in his libel against Cascioli, "The fable of Cascioli", there would be well 9 ancient manuscripts in which, in the lists of Jesus' brothers, instead of the name Joseph there would be the name John . Do you know something about this? ..
.

I'm sure that most of us are just as ignorant as I am about these people. Time to Google...

I find that "Cascioli" is Italian atheist Luigi Cascioli, d. 2010. He wrote a book La favola di Cristo (=The Fable of Christ): Inconfutabile dimonstrazione della non esistenza di Gesu, Viterbo 2001. The Wikipedia article (sorry - unreliable I know) suggests that he was one of those unfortunate people, known to us from history, who have been driven almost demented with hatred of the Catholic church.

Likewise it seems that Don Silvio Barbaglia is a professor of biblical studies at the episcopal seminary of Novara. He wrote a book in reply, La favola di Cascioli (The fable of Cascioli) which seems to be online here.

Unfortunately I cannot find the claim on which I am being asked to comment! Perhaps LittleJohn could point us to it?

All the best,

Roger Pearse
.

The quotation is found on page 36. Below the translation of the party interested in:

Quote:

From the Donnini we find a way to discover the genesis of a completely hypothetical, "John" so-called "Christ" in this story. Since Donnini, before Cascioli, carry out the operation to flatten the story of Jesus' group on that of Judas the "Galileo", after identifying the class of so-called "brothers of Jesus", he sees from a textual variant of the Mt 13.55 the replacement of the figure of "Joseph" between the four brothers of Jesus (James, Joses, Simon, Judas) with that of 'John' .139 Hence Donnini not know whether the brothers set out in Mt 13.55 are four or five with the addition of John. Obviously favors the latter solution: so the Christ / Messiah was not called Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, but John son of Judas the "Galileo".

From a textual variation arises the identification! The variant, which is not present in parallel to Mark 6:3, has been documented in only nine manuscripts. The explanation of the reason is simply to scribal error in the position of "Joseph" in the wake of "James. " Because of the frequent use of the pair of brothers and sons of Zebedee "James and John, " some of the scribes have confused the sequence of names of brothers Gesù.140

Because has been decreed that there was not a Jesus called "Christ ", but a eldest son of Judas the Galilean with messianic pretensions, "Essene-zealots ", who could never be that "Jesus" if not that the other brother (the fifth of the four brothers of Jesus!) which is evidenced by mistake, only nine on thousands of ancient manuscripts, and is called "John"? It is 'obvious! What evidence more secure of this, based on nothing, on a scribal error and denial of evidence from kilometric witnesses? We are the paradox of paradoxes, but when the imagination is left to itself produces tales of romance or thriller pseudohistorical!
.

Don Silvio Barbaglia interacted for a time in my forum, however, proving to be irremediably attached to its dogma of faith: hence its security in attacking Cascioli, which, although has come to wrong conclusions, however, was quite right to support that the fathers of the early centuries, those who gave life to the catho-christian cult, operated a change of person, since the character crucified at the time of Pilate was John of Gamal and not Jesus of Nazareth. (who was executed by stoning around the year 72).

By virtue of my researches, conducted at 'maniacal' rhythm for about 14 years now, I can assure you that indeed Jesus did not have brothers named Joseph and that John (*) was the real name of that brother. This personage is indicated several times in the Gospel context, but in an ambiguous way, because he is sometimes referred to as John and others with a particular attribute ...

Obviously this helps to make the story even more impenetrable to the study of evangelical exegetes: exactly as they expected the fathers who created the colossal deception!

For the record, Joseph, nicknamed 'Barnabas', was the eldest son and NOT the brother of Jesus. Also, John Mark was the younger brother of Joseph Barnabas (ie 'son of the prophet, ' as Jesus in Palestine was originally definied) and therefore the second borne of Jesus and Mary Salome, one of two Maddalene. For purposes mystifying, in the Acts of the Apostles John and Joseph were made to become 'cousins'

Greetings

________________________________

Note:

(*) - In practice, this John was none other that John the 'presbyter' quoted by Papias of Gerapolis. He was an uncle of John the Evangelist (or the 'theologian'), since it was a half brother of Jesus

Littlejohn

.

Roger Pearse · 03-23-2011, 02:00 PM

Let me summarise, if I may? We are discussing Matthew 13:55, which reads (NIV):

Quote:

55. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?

The claim is that there is a variant here, and that nine of the manuscripts read "James, John, Simon and Judas". The details are apparently given by D. DONNINI, Cristo. Una vicenda storica da riscoprire (Roma 1994), p.195, who seems to be a precursor of Cascioli? As I understand it, Cascioli is making some kind of argument based on this variant.

Don Silvio Barbaglia points out that this is merely a mechanical copyist error, where scribes accustomed to writing "James and John" over and over again do just that, without realising that in this case it should be "James and Joseph". He gives a reference for the statement, and a link to Wieland Wilker's pages:

Quote:

140. Cfr. B. M. METZGER, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York - London - Edinburgh - Amsterdam - Stuttgart 1971), p. 34; vedi anche la monumentale opera di Wieland Willker in Internet alla pagina
dedicata a Matteo: http://www1.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-Matthew.pdf

Unfortunately the url does not work for me. But this one is better:

http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/index.html

In TC-Matthew, PDF page 287 (TVU 181) is the material on this passage. The reading "John" is given for mss: "01*, D, M, U, X, G, 2, 28, 579, 1424, Maj-part, vgmss" and on the next page he adds: "I)wa/nnhj and I)a/kwboj often appear together as brothers in the Gospels. But they are not the brothers of Jesus. It is only natural that some scribes automatically wrote I)wa/nnhj after reading I)a/kwboj."

Wieland's site will allow you to identify the mss. further.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Littlejohn · 03-23-2011, 07:53 PM

Sorry.. I reported the answer to your message in the thread "News from the origins", so that it is more highlighted for the people interested in the subject.

Greetings

Littlejohn

.

mountainman · 05-23-2011, 02:23 AM

Has anyone taken the time to read the fragments 5.6 and 5.7?
Can anyone explain what they might mean?

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03-23-2011, 01:22 AM	#13
Littlejohn Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Italy Posts: 708	@ Roger Pearse: According to that stated by Don Silvio Barbaglia in his libel against Cascioli, "The fable of Cascioli", there would be well 9 ancient manuscripts in which, in the lists of Jesus' brothers, instead of the name Joseph there would be the name John . Do you know something about this? .. Greetings Littlejohn .

03-23-2011, 07:53 PM	#17
Littlejohn Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Italy Posts: 708	Sorry.. I reported the answer to your message in the thread "News from the origins", so that it is more highlighted for the people interested in the subject. Greetings Littlejohn .

05-23-2011, 02:23 AM	#18
mountainman Contributor Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Falls Creek, Oz. Posts: 11,192	Has anyone taken the time to read the fragments 5.6 and 5.7? Can anyone explain what they might mean?

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