Duvduv

All. I was pointing out was that demographic projections would suggest a relatively tiny population of Christians around 150 of some few tens of thousands or even less. And here comes a guy who was apparently a freelancer whose writings managed to survive in full, including an alleged letter to the emperor, and this same writer could not even identify a single member of his community or even the name of his Old Man, and everyone is supposed to accept it at face value. Baloney!
And yet supposedly after almost 200 years not a single Creed could identify Jesus as the Jewish messiah the way he did.
And a council supposedly invited 1800 bishops of which only 10% showed up in gratitude to constantine for legalizing their disparate religious sects to clarify the Trinity that they couldn't clarify in over 200 years.
The largest ecumenical council had only a few hundred in attendance at a time when the Christian population was supposedly even larger!
Well there were no 1800 bishops to invite to Nicea and there is reason to see the whole scenario is bogus.

aa5874

Well, once you do not accept or cannot logically establish any evidence as credible then you cannot make a case. You might as well stop arguing since you have NO idea what to make of any statements in any writing of antiquity.

Duvduv

Oh, sure I can and do. You can examine the contextual issues or not especially in my preceding postings. Remember the word "context."

aa5874

OK. Give me a list of the writings that you now consider credible.

Duvduv

Actually, I can't say there is credibility in the statements of the heresiologists and historians. All that can deduced is some kind of approximation of what was going on.
And it seems there was alot of creative work going on in the 4th century but no one established religion of the previous 200+ years.

GakuseiDon

Tatian and Irenaeus both refer to Justin Martyr, not so long after he died. Tatian apparently knew him personally.

Duvduv

That ain't much. The Tatian character got way out in left field, and Irenaeus couldn't even tell us why a mere 30 years earlier Justin didn't know about the canonical texts that Irenaeus himself knew all about........

aa5874

Your statement about Tatian is ambiguous. Are you implying that a writing which does NOT mention Jesus , the disciples and Paul were also manipulated in the 4th century???

In "Address to the Greeks" attributed to Tatian, the writer mentions the words GOD/gods almost a hundred times but never mentions Jesus, never the crucifixion of Jesus, never Salvation by Jesus.

Tatian appears to believe ONLY in one God.

You seem completely unaware that Tatian's "Address to the Greeks" can potentially be used as evidence that there were NO Christians in the 2nd century.

Tatian did NOT even claim he was a Christian or used the word Christian in his Address to the Greeks.

Duvduv

How do you know it was written by Tatian?
Sounds like it was written by someone.else and ascribed incorrectly to Tatian.
By the way, if Tatian knew Justin then he must explain why Justin didn't know about the gospels and epistles.

aa5874

I am NOT arguing that it must have been written by Tatian. I stated that it was attributed to Tatian.

I am arguing that it is NOT manipulated because it is NOT expected than an interpolator would write "An Address to the Greeks" and falsely attribute it to Tatian and forget to mention Jesus, the Gospels, the Pauline writings, and Christians.

It is just unreasonable that "Against Heresies" was manipulated to give the impression that Irenaeus knew the Four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline writings and Christians but that "Address to the Greeks" was manipulated to show Tatian knew NOTHING of them at about the same time as Irenaeus.

Supposedly, Tatian and Irenaeus were contemporaries.

Please explain why you think a writing with no mention of Jesus, Christians, the Apostles, Paul, the four Gospel, Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings was manipulated in the 4th century???