Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 06-16-2007, 06:34 PM

The Council of Nicaea by some is called "an eddy".
However I prefer to understand this "council" rather
in terms of a military supremacy party at which time
Constantine summoned important attendees from
the newly conquered eastern empire to witness
the fear of God. (See his letters)

Rather than an eddy, the Council of Nicaea IMO\
was a momentous boundary event in the history
of the times, and the literature and the propaganda
which are today formally associated with the reign
of Constantine (eg: Constantine Bible) needs to
be reassessed for its historical integrity.

It is not impossible that Constantine invented his
new and strange Roman religion in the fourth century.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

What we have to do first, in my amateur opinion, is to let the data speak. Assemble all the relevant data that is transmitted from the past. See what it says, on the basis that all of it is true. Then, and only then, we will be able to see inconsistencies; and then, and only then, we might formulate theories as to how these eddies in the data stream come about.

For instance if we do this exercise on the Council of Nicaea, we come across such an 'eddy'. Most of the writers tell us that the council was about the homoousion, and also harmonised the date of Easter. But Eusebius of Caesarea (who is writing at the time) says that it was about Easter, and incidentally about the homoousion. Which is right? Is someone lying? Or did the perception of events change over the succeeding century? (I'm not going to offer opinions on this -- my point is to illustrate what NOT to do). The inconsistencies are probably often caused by the shadow on events of bits of data that did not reach us, and which we do not know about. Thus we can learn more where events do not tell a neatly arranged story than sometimes when they do.

mountainman · 06-16-2007, 08:31 PM

AM on AM

All went according to plan, except that the pagan historians of the fourth century were not really going to die. They were only going to sleep for some centuries. They belonged to that classical tradition in historiography for which ecclesiastical history, whatever its merits, was no substitute. Though we may have learnt to check our references from Eusebius — and this was no small gain — we are still the disciples of Herodotus and Thucydides: we still learn our history of the late empire from Ammianus Marcellinus.

--- Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century A.D.
This essay first appeared in A. Momigliano, ed., The Conflict Between
Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century,
The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, pp. 79—99

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06-16-2007, 08:31 PM	#2
mountainman Contributor Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Falls Creek, Oz. Posts: 11,192	AM on AM All went according to plan, except that the pagan historians of the fourth century were not really going to die. They were only going to sleep for some centuries. They belonged to that classical tradition in historiography for which ecclesiastical history, whatever its merits, was no substitute. Though we may have learnt to check our references from Eusebius — and this was no small gain — we are still the disciples of Herodotus and Thucydides: we still learn our history of the late empire from Ammianus Marcellinus. --- Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century A.D. This essay first appeared in A. Momigliano, ed., The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, pp. 79—99

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