Sheshbazzar

"It is the glory of Elohim to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings."

The best way to conceal a matter is to leave it right out in plain sight,
men will walk around it, and yet never see it for what it is,
unless they open their eyes, something that precious few are willing to do.


edited to add
An apology, I had composed a longer reply, but cyberspace ate it, its now after 4:00 AM, and I'm getting crosseyed, so this will have to suffice for now.

thedistillers

I'm not sure why some people want to find flaws in his theory. If you try hard enough (with selective use of data), you can come up with any fantasist theory you can think of (maybe the world was created 100 years ago, and any evidence showing otherwise was planted or manipulated by aliens?). Surely we need not to consider any fringe theory amateurs can think of?

But what rational people are interested to is what probably happened. Not a fantasy they want to be true.

Lógos Sokratikós

That is irrelevant. We are talking about the history of official Roman Christianity. Nicæa defines Mediterranean Basin Christianity from thereon by prestige, Imperial arms and Imperial law.

Huon

Let us come back to the original OP :
Flaw in Mountainman's theory

In his reply #21, mountainman writes this :
It seems to me that mountaiman writes about
The Creation of Monotheistic State Religions

One small nitpick about the existence of another Monotheistic State Religion, which he has forgotten : The Jewish Monotheistic State Religion, "created" some centuries before CE.

When mountainman describes Zoroastrianism, he mentions the pre-existence of this religion, which was not a State religion during many centuries.
In a next step, no doubt that mountainman will acknowledge the existence of christianity, with many variants (christianities ?), long before its installation as a State Religion by Constantine...

Sheshbazzar

Pete already has at times in various threads acknowledged the existence of pre-Nicean writings and ideas that got taken up adapted and incorporated into Constantine's new dictated form of the State Religion.
What came out of the other end of 312-325AD, was a new Christianity, one that was far altered from its roots, the multitude of "chrestos" cults that had flourished for the previous six hundred years. These had been evolving and adding accreditations for centuries before Constantine stepped in and chopped off every branch and idea that he didn't like, and then covered up his hatchet work with a lot of newly fashioned baubles.
The Christian "scriptures" were, after Constantine's "reforms", rewritings and revisions, and additions, no longer the writings of the old karast/chrestos cults that he had pilfered them from. The highly evolved theology of "Paul" did not come into being through any miraculous vision, but was the product of hundreds of years of development.
Constantine instituted and fomented an Imperial propaganda campaign that lavishly rewarded its supporters, while oppressing, penalizing, persecuting and disenfranchising any person or group that attempted resistance to its Imperial religious decrees. This evolved into the strict either -conform or die- religion of the fourth century on.

gstafleu

Quite so. What Constantine did, and presumably Ardashir as well, is take an existing folk religion ("folk" in the sense of non-elite, or better non-ruling-class, as membership was not confined to the lower classes) and turn that into a state religion, i.e. one sponsored by the power elites. Such a move changes the fundamental nature of the religion (it now serves the interests of the power elites, not of the "believers"), and in that sense one can say that Constantine and his literary hit-man Eusebius did indeed create Christianity (at least the Christianity until the Reformation). But they did not start from a blank slate, as you indicate. Figuring out how much "editing" C&E did with respect to the surviving texts is thus a quite legitimate undertaking. Claiming a priori that they faked it all, however, is counterproductive.

Gerard Stafleu

Transient

I agree and also with Sheshbazzar.
It would seem more likely that there was some grain of truth or at least a few things that must have been true before Constantine.
He totally trashed our ability to get to the truth by destroying any opposing evidence - thereby destroying any confidence that a thinking man could have in the rcc and their ability to disseminate any truths.
The rpoblem is that what existed before or near the beginnings of the whole thing could well have been a more spiritual type of "Jesus" except for the choosing of a crucifiction which then leads to the more likely scenario that there was a messiah type guy who was crucified but most likely stayed in his grave.

gentleexit

A key problem with the theory is that it attributes far too much calculation, consistency and power to Constantine. It falls in the typical trap of "historical narratives" - looking at a moment based on what happened after it, making that moment a stepping stone and not an end in itself. In reality, all look back, draw on what they know and their actions need to be judged in those terms. (Look at us now. All you hear about is the 1930s.)

Consider Constantine in terms of his predecessors (Diocletian and then back to Aurelian etc, right back to Augustus) and there is nothing earth-shattering in his behavior. But the consequences of his elevation of the Church proved to be earth-shattering. In a matter of decades, this somewhat cohesive and very self-absorbed non-state actor came to dominate society.

He didn't see that. Read his justifications - he quotes the sibyl, Virgil, not Christian texts. Read his "sermons", invoking the highest god, not Jesus etc. and you see someone with a tenuous hold on "his" adopted religion. He is ushering in a new golden age, just as Augustus had, as Diocletian thought he had, as various barrack emperors tried to before him. He is increasing the centralization deemed essential by Diocletian.

The later dominance of Christianity is "genie out of the bottle" stuff, not the result of cohesive planning or even intent. What happened to the state would have been unimaginable to Constantine.

Sheshbazzar

I also agree with this assessment gentleexit, yet the man was no paragon of virtue, not even by the standards of his own age.
He ordered mass persecutions and murders without qualm, abused the power of his political office to plunder the temples, and arranged the destruction of any opposition, furthered the corruption of government, and for gain, wilfully distorted and corrupted both history and religion.

gentleexit

Sheshbazzar, I think you're being a tad brutal here. He was no more brutal than his predecessors. I think many focus on his "brutality" because the (Greek) Church named him a saint.

Take his killing of his defeated rival Licinius and that man's child. Licinius himself did the same and worse. It never paid to be the heir of a defeated man. This goes back to Homer. Look at Hector's child! Mass persecutions? An unprecedented program to despoil temples?

I don't think Constantine merits elevation - either to saint or great or extraordinary tyrant. He was significant in history for what he elevated - the Church. If he hadn't, then he would just be known, if at all, as one of Diocletian's successors.