stephan huller

AA,

Nonsense. You are impose your bizarre categories onto Arius. Arius certainly believed that Jesus appeared in history in the form of a man. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise. There are no references I have ever come across which suggest anything close to what you are suggesting.

You people who promote the idea that Arius and the Arians promoted a 'fictitious' (mountainman) or 'myth(ical)' Jesus (AA) aren't reading the material correctly. You are being guided by your own imaginations rather than textual evidence.

The point is that if Arius's authority at the Martyrium of St. Mark can be construed to mean that he was a guardian of the tradition of the Evangelist he would certainly have held a one year ministry for Jesus which culminated with a resurrection on Sunday, March 25th. The Alexandrians certainly knew how to calculate the Pascha from Jewish lunar calculations. They certainly knew that the same pattern of dates for Passover repeated according to the Metonic cycle. Thus there certainly was a date for Passover which recurred ever 19 years and could be used to determine the actual year of the Passion (which I have actually carried out and it is 37 CE).

I can provide the evidence for the existence of this knowledge within the Alexandrian tradition in the third century but there are sporadic references. It is a little misleading to define Arius in terms of a belief in a mythical Jesus vs. historical Jesus. It is better to think in terms of whether he believed that the Passion was a historical event which Arius certainly did.

mountainman

My Original Post about the subject in alt.surfing

Roger Pearce subsequently objected to this post, but has never cited this original post. He has consistently claimed that I invented my thoughts about Constantine and Eusebius "out of malice" ......

And now you are presenting Roger's assertions as though they were evidence of my motivation for examining the field of ancient history. Anyone interested in the sequentlial posts in the original thread in alt.surfing 5 years ago will clearly see that Roger responded to the above post with his usual impeccable sense of Christian ethics and intellectual snobbery, and got flamed.

The real story is that I already had my idea (as stated clearly above) about Constantine and Eusebius, and Roger's involvement merely encouraged me to properly research my idle speculations. Roger does have a very comprehensive website on old documents after all. And there was www.earlychristinwritings.com and other sites then emerging. So the idea was actually first ennunciated in the surfing newsgroup, but followed up in other discussion groups after that date.

I still dont think its a completely outlandish idea. Constantine used a very strong force and exploited the codex technology to create a lavish powerful book about a "Monotheistic God of the Jews" for the Greeks, in order to rob the Greeks of their religions and gold and custom. That's another reason the Jewish angle was used - everyone knew they were monotheistic. Constantine wanted a monotheism just like Ardashir created a monotheistic state religion in Persia one hundred years before Nicaea.

mountainman

Athanasius actually quotes Arius on the Passion.
Arius's writing does not appear to support your assertion.

Arius writes that the sun, with impatience and horror,
turned away from the passion of Jesus and
recalling his rays, made that day sunless ....


Athanasius is completely shocked by these words of Arius, which are taken from the letter of Marcus describing the passion of Julious Caesar preserved in Josephus.

Arius appears to have been satirizing Jesus. It is the sun himself who has the passion on that day. The sun is impatient and horriefied. Athanasius appears to confirm this on the one hand because of his totally knee jerk "Hear no Evil, speak no evil, see no evil" reaction to this "Passion Account of the Sun", and on the other hand because he compares Arius three times to the Greek satirist Sotades,

mountainman

As intellectual property it is a Greek translation of a Hebrew text, therefore it is a Greek document, written by someone literature in the Greek language for a Greek speaking audience, such as those which abounded in the Roman Empire in the centuries 1, 2, 3 and 4.


The Greek LXX was populated with "nomina sacra" to make it a highly and distinctively "Christian" Greek work of art. When was this done, and what was the role of "Origen" (there are two "origens" in the 3rd century)? So by that stage the LXX was certainly not Hebrew, but a highly technical and codifed Greek document -- which has been asserted to be "Christian", neither Jewish nor Greek not Gentile.


The monotheism of the Jews was bound in the Hebrew Bible.
Constantine wanted his own monotheism. The state ran better.
The vigorous Persian monotheistic state religion of Ardashir had done well.
The army marched better to the "One True Song".
The Codex technology was cornered and exploited.
The One True Book had just become a reality for the Roman EMpire.
What was a poor gentile to do?

Chili

Christianity is an English word for which there is no translation in Netherlands (commonly known as Dutch but not Deutsch), for example, so I really do not know who is being assaulted here.

I think that Rome is Catholic and most heresies were Christian based and I think that Rome wanted the flock to be 'cold' and remain cold, and so it was and always should be that anything that was just even a little bit 'lukewarm' was labelled a heresy and kept away away from the flock . . . and kept far away from the flock lest they spiritually fornicate a Catholic, which was, still is and always will be a prize catch in Evangelistic rallies.

The flock here 'as Catholic' is not Christian by any sense of the word Christian and he or she cannot have any relation with Christ (or the word Christian even) because the Annunciation, as one of the most spectacular events in Christendom, must happen to him in person when called by name. Please read Mary's canticle to see how she was 'imprisoned in the mind of Joseph' who was a simple Jew as each one of us could have been . . . and will have to be before we can become a Christian as well, except that here now we can be a Catholic or a Jew and that is the kind of Catholicism that the Early Church fathers had in mind for they knew what it takes to be a Christian and have the mythology prosper and bloom in and from their abundance.

stephan huller

Really? I argued that it was misleading of AA to suggest that Arius thought Jesus was a myth because he emphasized his divine nature. I said that regardless of how we define Arius's stand on the question of the divine nature of Jesus, there can be no doubt that Arius believed that the Passion was a historical event. Then you come along citing this passage which doesn't in any way prove your point:

The heaven,' as the Prophet says, `was astonished, and the earth shuddered [Jer 2.13 ] 'at the transgression of the Law. But the sun, with greater horror, impatient of the bodily contumelies, which the common Lord of all voluntarily endured for us, turned away, and recalling his rays made that day sunless.

I have absolutely no idea why you think that this somehow proves that Arius believed that Jesus was fictitious. Do you even believe this line of reasoning or do you just print garbage to fill up these boxes?

The first thing you don't seem to recognize is that Arius was the presbyter of the Martyrium of St. Mark in Alexandria. I think this means that he held the status of Patriarch to those who followed him. He probably still sat on the same throne of St. Mark mentioned in the Passio Petri Sancti (or one like it). To argue that Arius 'knew' that all of this was some kind of sick joke is utterly implausible. Arius was part of a tradition which dated back to pre-Constantine Christianity. Meletius of Lycopolis, Peter of Alexandria, Achillas of Alexandria were all players in a conflict which antedated the coming of Constantine in the East.

So your overarching theory is sunk with one torpedo.

Now let's actually cite the context of what Athanasius was really saying and what really scandalized him. Arius wrote a poem called the Thalia which summed up his views. Arius is elsewhere said to have composed songs "for sailors and millers and wayfarers."

So it is that Athanasius introduces what you cite by referencing 'the tune of the Thalia':

Who is there that hears all this, nay, the tune of the Thalia, but must hate, and justly hate, this Arius jesting on such matters as on a stage who but must regard him, when he pretends to name God and speak of God, but as the serpent counselling the woman? who, on reading what follows in his work, but must discern in his irreligious doctrine that error, into which by his sophistries the serpent in the sequel seduced the woman? who at such blasphemies is not transported? The heaven,' as the Prophet says, `was astonished, and the earth shuddered [Jer 2.13] 'at the transgression of the Law. But the sun, with greater horror, impatient of the bodily contumelies, which the common Lord of all voluntarily endured for us, turned away, and recalling his rays made that day sunless. And shall not all human kind at Arius’s blasphemies be struck speechless, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, to escape hearing them or seeing their author? Rather, will not the Lord Himself have reason to denounce men so irreligious, nay, so unthankful, in the words which He has already uttered by the prophet Hosea, ‘Woe unto them, for they have fled from Me; destruction upon them, for they have transgressed against Me; though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against Me [Hos. vii. 13].’ And soon after, ‘They imagine mischief against Me; they turn away to nothing [Ib. 15. lxx].’ For to turn away from the Word of God, which is, and to fashion to themselves one that is not, is to fall to what is nothing. For this was why the Ecumenical Council, when Arius thus spoke, cast him from the Church, and anathematized him, as impatient of such irreligion. And ever since has Arius’s error been reckoned for a heresy more than ordinary, being known as Christ’s foe, and harbinger of Antichrist.

You foolish man. You aren't citing Arius's own words. You are actually making reference to Athanasius's attack against him. Yet you somehow think that:

Arius writes that the sun, with impatience and horror, turned away from the passion of Jesus and recalling his rays, made that day sunless ....

You have imagination that's for sure. You are actually quoting Athanasius poetically arguing that the Sun - i.e. the Logos - turned from Arius's doctrine.

Wake up. Your theory is laughable.

Toto

It is a human trait to try to understand others and find some rational motive for their actions. You have clung to this theory in the face of evidence and logic. Why? You don't know me, so I hope it is not just to annoy me and make the moderator's life more difficult.

Moderately outlandish? 90% outlandish?

:facepalm:

The Romans did not need a book to rob the Greeks of their gold. And the pagan religion was tending towards monotheism in any case. Constantine could have picked Sol Invictus, or Mithras, or could have invented some more rational religion, or some rational version of Judaism if he wanted.

aa5874

Do you even understand what a GOD/MAN is believed to be?

A GOD/MAN is believed to be a GOD IN FORM OF A MAN.

ARE YOU FOR REAL?

Why don't you read what I post before you make comical statements?

Do you even understand that Gods are MYTHS?

Whether you BELIEVE Gods exist is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT.

GODS ARE considered MYTHS.

REAL HUMANS are considered people of HISTORY.

Arianism is about a SON OF GOD, THE SON OF A MYTH.

stephan huller

Not always. Moses is thought to have been divine by a number of sects. So too Jesus and so too Mohammed, his cousin Ali, various teachers before and after them.

Arius would not have described his Alexandrian tradition belief in the story of Jesus as a fiction or a myth. That's the bottom line. You are projecting your beliefs onto Arius.

aa5874

What complete nonsense.

Just look up Arianism. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism

Arianism is about MYTHOLOGY.

Are you for real?