Toto

Constantinople is a city (to which you cannot go back).

Ideology has almost nothing to do with the spread of a religion. People join religions for social or psychological reasons, and then learn about the theology of their new religion and all of the reasons to believe it.

Duvduv

So you would hold that according to generally accepted views of history, the Nicene Christian ideology was not pivotal to their acquisition of power in the Empire and it was simply by virtue of the fact that Constantine and his regime gave up Arianism. Meaning that the Empire could have just as easily taken on Arianism or even Nestorianism as the Christian religion of the empire.

Toto

Precisely. But you can eliminate the phrase "and it was simply by virtue of the fact that Constantine and his regime gave up Arianism" since I don't know that they "gave up" Arianism.

No Robots

Yeah. Constantine was baptised on his deathbed by an Arian bishop.

Duvduv

It is said that Constantine exiled those who rejected the Nicean Creed even after he was friendly with Eusebius the Arian and on his sister's deathbed was influenced by his sister to side with the Arians.
"In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offence, he shall be submitted for capital punishment....."
— Edict by Emperor Constantine against the Arians

Duvduv

Then when western-born Theodosius came along it is argued that he switched his regime's favor to that of the Niceans from the Arians.

EMPERORS GRATIAN, VALENTINIAN AND THEODOSIUS AUGUSTI. EDICT TO THE PEOPLE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict.
GIVEN IN THESSALONICA ON THE THIRD DAY FROM THE CALENDS OF MARCH, DURING THE FIFTH CONSULATE OF GRATIAN AUGUSTUS AND FIRST OF THEODOSIUS AUGUSTUS

Horatio Parker

The difference between the father and the son from a Platonic view is not one of superior to inferior, but one of intelligibility to transcendence. God in his totality is beyond our comprehension save for brief revelatory flashes or glimpses and that is the Father, but to the extent that God can be described and understood in words is the Son.

That there is an appearance of hierarchy is a result of our limited ability to comprehend and sustain a vision of God; God and the Son are indeed the same; it's our view that changes.

IIRC Arius emphasized such a hierarchy. I don't know if his justification was Platonic or not; but if so I would guess he had less than a perfect grasp of Plato.

mountainman

Rowan Williams's research appears to support the 20th century portrait of Arius drawn by the scholar Charles Kannengeisser in regard to the analysis and understanding of the historical Arius. Williams spends a great deal of time searching for any earlier precedents in the beliefs expressed by Arius, but without any success.

It therefore seems reasonable to suspect his justification was Platonic.



Not necessarily, because we have less that a perfect grasp of Arius, as a result of the political destruction of his books and historical memory.

Horatio Parker

OK. If all we know if his views is what his enemies said about him, then it's anybody's guess. I don't see any difficulty accomodating the F&S in Platonic doctrine; IMO it makes more sense that way.

mountainman

My claim is not that all the non canonical literature is parody (or satire), only some of it - specifically most of the Gnostic Acts and (many of the narrative) Gospels. April Deconnick makes this comment:

"Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently ...
making fun of traditional biblical beliefs"

Obviously "The Gospel of Thomas", which is a sayings list, is not either parody or satire, but a list of sayings which were deemed to be "wisdom sayings" of the Gnostics.

The claim which has not been explored (after presenting a set of comprehensive evidence) or criticially examined and/or questions, is that there is reason to believe that the Gnostic literature was a post-Nicaean reaction to the appearance of the Constantine Bible. The claim is that the earlier mentions by the heresiologists are either ambiguous or simply fabricated by the post Nicaean orthodoxy to retroject and dissemble the massive conflict (that as a result remains unreported in the history of the early 4th century).

Post # 234 lists the evidence underpinning the generally accepted mainstream view that some of the gnostic material was authored before Nicaea.

It must be understood that this claim has absolutely NOTHING to do with the appearance and chronology of the canonical books. As far as the claim is concerned, the canonical books may have been authored in the 1st or 2nd centuries. Under this allowance, although there may have been knowledge of the canonical books before the 4th century, it was really only following Constantine's raising these books out of relative OBSCURITY, and raising their status to the MOST IMPORTANT GREEK LITERATURE in the entire Roman Empire, the reaction appeared.