Clivedurdle

From

http://www.egodeath.com/BollandPhilosophyOfReligion.htm

Is that correct?

Toto

You are quoting part of this:

from A more precise quote: Which is Catholic doctrine - Christ was preexistent, all other religions are pale and somewhat degraded reflections of the truth of Christianity.

GakuseiDon

The link says: "According to St. Augustine, Christianity existed prior to Jesus, and the fleshy presence of Jesus merely gave Christianity its name."

I don't know about Augustine, but some 2nd C apologists wrote that Jesus was the Logos, a pre-existent spirit who talked to Adam and inspired the ancient Hebrew prophets. They also stressed Christianity's "antiquity" by claiming that it had its roots in ancient Judaism. Perhaps that is what the author means?

mountainman

Probably refers to this quote:

"For what is now called the Christian religion existed even among the ancients and was not lacking from the beginning of the human race until 'Christ came in the flesh'. From that time, true religion, which already existed, began to be called christian. ... For this reason, I said: 'In our times, this is the Christian religion,' not because it did not exist in Former times, but because it had received this name in later times"

gstafleu

Augustine is not trying to say that something actually called "Christianity" existed before Jesus, or that Christianity imported elements from pre-existent religions. He is just engaged in a rather transparent attempt to back-project Christianity onto the past in order to show its validity for all times. Not surprising, given that Christianity contains the idea of an ever-existing God, Christ and Logos.

Gerard Stafleu

mountainman

That's an interesting observation upon Augustine's polemic:

A transparent attempt to back-project Christianity
onto the past in order to show its validity.

How then would you comment upon a similarly "unusual"
saying of that contemporary Saint and Doctor of the
new and strange Roman religious order, Jerome:

"The world groaned to find itself Arian"

What do you think Jerome was saying?

Why did Constantine banish Arius and recall him?
Why did Constantine order the burning of Arius' works?
Why did the world appear to follow the words of Arius?
What really was the nature of the Arian controversy?
One day the world found itself Arian.
What does this tell us about Arius?
What was the message of Arius?
Did this message resonate in the world?
Who subscribed to Arius' message?
Who appeared ambivalent?
Who was hostile, and why?

Rufinus tells us the Arian controversy appeared one nice
and sunny afternoon in a scripture lesson while the bishop
Alexander was attempting to expound upon the mysteries
of the Holy Trinity when, like a host of genies and spirits
escaping from a jar, the entire eastern empire errupted
over the words of Arius. How mysterious.

How astute were these ancient commentators.
But what about the modern commentators?
Which modern commentary upon the Arian controversy
is not some pile of mumbo-jumbo, without basis?
Sir Isaac Newton points out, from the 17th century,
that the trinity was not mentioned in any text until
well after the Council of Nicaea.

Both this saying of Jerome, and Augustine's are
back-projections for the sake of credibility.

Clivedurdle

Why is that not apologist speak?

There was a real distinction between superstitios and religios so there was a good reason to make your new improved mumbo jumbo look ancient.

Might Augustine actually be saying there were "messianists" who thought of themselves as xians before this god became a human and dwelt amongst us?

I would double check the archaeology and the records - might the concept of the second coming - what did Paul write about the groaning of the world in anticipation of the coming of the Lord, actually be evidence of pre Jesus xianity?

At a later date this character was made real to explain the discrepancies about no one shall sleep - well of course, he did come, a couple of thousand miles away and at some uncertain time.

We are working on a catholic view of history and we have lots of statements that clearly contradict that particular pattern formation and putting together of the jigsaw. Let's look carefully at everything that was written and what the evidence is actually saying - a principle of science - observe, collect evidence, before positing theories - especially ones that look like descendants of the classic godman hypothesis but stripped of the supernatural for our modern sensibilities.

Myth does look a far better fit to the evidence.

gstafleu

Clive,

it depends how far back you are looking. I was assuming that Augustine was looking many centuries back, for example to the times of Moses. He was then claiming that in spirit Moses was a crypto-christian, even though he didn't know it.

If you are looking back a shorter distance, I would agree that the concept of Christ was around both before the alleged birth date of Jesus and (obviously) before the rather common mistake of thinking of mythological concepts as historical events was canonized into a world religion. Augustine could have been referring to this, but my impression (and not more than that) was that he was taking a longer view.

Gerard Stafleu

Clivedurdle

Another thread is looking for slam dunks against Jesus. Evidence that people called themselves xians and worshipped Jesus Christ before 30 CE would be interesting.

What if Christology existed before Jesus is alleged to have lived?

We might have something that has been misinterpreted. Ellegard may have some clues of where to look.

Malachi151

All that St. A is doing here is trying to reconcile the concept that God is eternal and unchanging. I wouldn't read more into it than that.