Roger Pearse

Later councils do include lists of canonical books. But again they did not decide what was canonical for the church as a whole. It's actually pretty difficult to find any one point at which someone did something, so I rather suspect that it just grew into unanimity in the late 4th century.

Eusebius, Vita Constantini (=Life of Constantine), book 4, ch. 36, contains the rescript of Constantine to Eusebius ordering 50 copies of the scriptures for his new city of Constantinople (so after the council had finished). Eusebius, bless him, prefers to quote rather than waffle which is what makes all his works so valuable.

I believe so too. Earlier pagans jeer about Christians worshipping the cross, or worshipping a deified crucified criminal (e.g. Minucius Felix, Tertullian Apologeticum). Crucifixion was a shameful death, reserved for slaves, you see.

There is the graffito from the slave barracks on the Palatine hill in Rome, showing a worshipper before a crucified man with a donkey's head with the legend "Alaxamenos worships his god".

The bit of stone on which this is drawn is apparently in the Palatine museum, but not well signposted, so I missed it when I visited.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Chris Weimer

Another conspiracy theory. *sigh* Did you even read what I linked you to? Read the primary sources, people.

mountainman

The carbon dating of the GJudas text is clearly within the bounds the
fourth century fiction. I do not have to explain your inference that it
is dated to the third.

Now, for what other objective reasons or facts do you consider
the possibility that christianity is a fourth century phenomena is
implausible?


Constantine wanted the literary equivalent of four independent eye
witness accounts which could be held up in a Roman council, such
as Nicaea. They could not be the same, or there would be suspicion.
They had to be purposefully in disagreement so that they would then
appear to be randomly independent.

Analysis of the Eusebian canon tables will show an approximate match
of around 80%, which is in agreement to substantially the same, but
with the commonly perceived number of exceptions due to different
people remembering different things.

The gospels were generated by scribes with the brief to work from a
list of specific phrases, which were coordinated by Eusebius. Some of
these phrases went into 4, others 3, others 2 and others into only one
gospel. At the end of the process, the Eusebian canon tables were a
by-product of the creation exercise, as a neat concordance.

So Eusebius packages this with the flagship launch of the package
at Nicaea, along with the first appearance together of the NEW and
the OLD testament bound together "for his THRICE-BLESSED emperor".
(This BTW is a reference to Hermes whom Eusebius calumnifies)

The emperor did such a good job with the Council of Nicaea, another 50
copies were ordered for the entire package. Business was looking up.


Why does Asimov write about the "Third Law of Robotics"?
Why does Blake write about a "Tiger Tiger burning bright?"
Why does Dan Brown write about Mary?
Why does Aesop write about the hare and the tortoise?
Why does Eusebius write about "the tribe of christians"?

I remain totally unconcerned at the subject matter, internal arrangement,
structural integrity, or indeed, with any aspect of the fiction. A fiction is
a fiction.

Because there was no other choice in preceeding centuries, in that
people could not suspend disbelief of the notion that Eusebius wrote
not history but fiction, scholarship had no other alternative but to
countenance the work as a history, which perforce must necessarily
have all the things which you list above, and more.

My question to those who consider themselves scholars in the literature
and history of christianity, is to explain very clearly why the very very
learned emperor Julian wrote at the opening of his address "Against the
Galilaeans". Julian calls the work a fiction.

Julian was alot closer to the action (at Nicaea) and should be respected.
Why do you think Julian took the time to call it a fiction?
Why you think Julian's opinion implausible?



Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

mountainman

Why would Eusebius interpolate "the tribe of christians" into Josephus?
My answer is that he was writing a fiction and needed a priority date.

As far as your evidence is concerned, you need only examine the generally
scientifically accepted claims as to the earliest "christian" artefacts,
churches, carbon dating of manuscripts, and other historical "facts"
to form the conclusion that christianity is a fourth century phenomenom.

It is inference alone, swelled by a Eusebian will to believe, which
tries to credit evidence any earlier than Constantine. Where is the
evidence for this inference?


Pete Brown

mountainman

Three sets of interpolations into the patristic literature
available under Constantine to Eusebius in the fourth
century, or under subsequent christian throttledom in
subsequent millennia (in the case of Tacitus).

Heresay, the lot of it. Argue with Julian who summarises the case
for the opposition circa 362 CE:

"The fabrication of the Galilaeans
is a fiction of men
composed by wickedness"




Pete Brown

mountainman

The problem is that he is quoting his own material in other writers.
A rather shameful case of an excessive compulsive interpolator.

Jay Raskin in his book "The Evolution of Christs and Christianities"
makes a point in his Chapter One: Eusebius the Master Forger
of identifying a specific Eusebian "tell", or literary nuance or quirk
of the writer, in the phrase "even to this present day".

This phrase, or equivalents, Jay Raskin points out are used rather
excessively throughout "Ecclesiastical History" and "In Preparation
of the Gospel". This is fine.

The problem is the "Eusebian tell" has been interpolated also into
his quotations of (presumably) other writers.

No wonder Julian calls Eusebius "wretched".



Pete Brown

Chris Weimer

mountainman - you still have zero evidence that the passages are interpolated. ZERO.

pharoah

I've got more to say on this, but first, are you claiming that Eusebius also wrote the gnostic texts?

The problem with this explanation is that there are more than 4 gospels. How do you account for the non-canonical orthodox writings such as the Shephard Of Hermes, EBarnabas, GPeter, I Clement and The Didache?

If any of them preceded Eusebius, then that blows your theory out of the water.

If Eusebius wrote them, then you need to explain why he went to so much trouble to do so, only to exclude them from the canon at Nicea.

If you claim that they were all written later than Eusebius, then you need to substantiate this claim.

What's your evidence for this?

Out of curiosity, why was Judaism chosen to be the template for a new religion? Why not use one of the pagan religions that already had mass appeal?


This is a red herring. These are all fiction writers writing fiction to sell books. You are claiming that Eusebius wrote a fiction but tried to present it as history. There's a big difference. Furthermore, one thing that almost all fiction writers strive for is consistency in their fictional universe. If Eusebius wrote the NT, then he was one of the sloppiest fiction writers that ever lived.

That's sad to hear, because these are all key issues that need to be addressed. I see three broad theories of how the canon came about (I'm sure that there are more):

The Fundamentalist Theory

God inspired a collective group of humans to ceate a harmonious, error-free text.

The Mainstream Theory

The canon is a product of different humans writing at different times with differing theologies.

The Roman Conspiracy Theory

A Roman Emperor (Julias Caesar, Titus, or Constantine) ordered the production of the NT canon for political reasons.

All of those textual problems that I mentioned are easily explained with the Mainstream Theory. On the other hand, the Fundamentalist Theory and the various Roman Conspiracy Theories all have to ignore the textual problems, pretend that they don't exist and/or posit implausible, convoluted explanations for them.

Which is what you just did.

Why did Eusebius feel that it was necessary to deliberately produce a text riddled with errors? This just makes no sense whether he was intending to write fiction or invent history.

The Julian quote doesn't work for you the way that you think it does. Note that he called it The fabrication of the Galilaeans. In other words, he laid the responsibility for the creation of the text on the Galilaeans, not on Constantine or Eusebius. Do you have any evidence that he considered the writings a 4th century production?

andrewcriddle

The simple answer is that there is a reasonable amount of surviving material which the great majority of experts regard as a/ referring to Christianity and b/ 3rd century or earlier.

Eg various NT papyri (P45 P46 P66 P75 etc) various apocryphal works (eg the earliest Greek papyri fragments of the Gospel of Thomas) the church at Dura-Europos (c 250 CE) the earliest Christian catacombs in Rome the 'Christians for Christians' inscriptions in Turkey etc.

A few members of this forum would argue (IMO wrongly) that none of this material is both a/ certainly referring to Christianity and b/ certainly before 300 CE.

Andrew Criddle

post tenebras lux

No Chris, just an honest question. The links were only to the texts, I could see no sign of them indicating how old the oldest copies were.

What do archeologists say about any fires in Rome under the reign of Nero? Do their findings back up your three tests?