mountainman

REPOSTED BELOW

"Simple and majestic Eusebius of Caesarea claims for himself the merit of
having invented ecclesiastical history. This merit cannot be disputed.


--- Arnaldo Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography
--- Sather Classical Lectures (1961-62), Volume Fifty-Four, UCP 1990 (p.138)

fatpie42

Interestingly, when I checked this out on google the second link was to your own website, but the first link was this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1035298/Ch...ng-Constantine

It claims (amongst other things) that there is no evidence for Pre-Nicene Christianity. What do you think? Sounds a little odd to me, but then again I am finding that more and more with this subject. I feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.

mountainman

REPOST

"Simple and majestic Eusebius of Caesarea claims for himself the merit of
having invented ecclesiastical history. This merit cannot be disputed.


--- Arnaldo Momigliano, The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography
--- Sather Classical Lectures (1961-62), Volume Fifty-Four, UCP 1990 (p.138)

Constantine was the grandson of a goatherder from the Danube lands.
He knew about flocks.
He had no respect for the Hellenistic civilisation whatsoever.
He instigated and commanded the Aryan conquest and invasion
of the very rich very wealthy and highly revered Hellenistic civilisation.
First Rome c.312 CE then then Alexandria c.324 CE.
He dabbled lavishly in the technology of the literature.
He is the first person on planet Earth known to have physically
bound together the NT and the OT into one codex, then to
magnificently published it and distributed it to his "flocks".
Constantine the military commander was the first christian evangelist.

He was an extortionist and implement Poll Tax to the cities and provinces.
He made laws such as:

"At death, people shall have the right to leave property to the Church."

and

"Religious privileges are reserved for Christians"

Plato's critical questioning was a menance to Constantine's state.
Constantine knew how to separate the flocks by the sword.
Surrounding the council of Nicaea was a wall of drawn swords.
Under duress at Antioch and Nicaea to whom did the three hundred
and eighteen fathers (of what?) swear their allegiance?

mountainman

The article is a thesis I wrote in 2007 which appears to have been archived at that site. The paper gathers together a great deal of archaeological evidence which various authors have cited as being unambiguous references to the existence of canonical christianity in the epoch prior to the arrival of Constantine (ie: the fourth century). This evidence is discussed and it is argued that there are in fact no unambiguous citations in the entire set of evidence.

The history of the new testament canon is furnished by Eusebius.
Its all we have. There appears to be zero corroborating archaeology
for the period of new testament "history" in the first three centuries.
It could be right.
It could be wrong.

spin

Such a caricature as the one you are responding to is puerile and displays what seems to be an utter ignorance both of the times and the person caricatured. Your OP was the little bottle saying "drink me" to the crud it has unleashed.

The struggle between Arians and trinitarians reflects a long evolution which brought two groups sharing an original religion, vague as to the nature of Jesus, into social conflict over the development of disparate positions as to that nature. The notion of salvation at the center of christianity has nothing to do with the status of Jesus decided by a majority of bishops. Reality has never been decided by democratic means.

Ultimately it is irrelevant to christianity whether Jesus is or is not god. The salvific act remains the same. Jesus' teaching remains the same. The believer's relationship to god and his ritualistic requirements remain the same.

(And the theory that Constantine and Eusebius were responsible for the birth of the christian religion has been reduced to mere frippery by the evidence that christianity existed before them.)


spin

mountainman

What evidence? Do you mean evidence such as the Dura Europos "House Church" identified as unambiguously "christian" by an artistic evaluation of its murals and its immediate relocation to Hanger 45 at Yale Divinity College in the early 20th century?

The Jesse James Ossuary?

The Holy Grail?

The Fish?

The Cross of Helena?

The oath of Eusebius?

The Prosenes inscription?

Handwriting analyses of papyrii fragments?

C14 dating?

Toto

You have not been able to impeach that evidence.

After all this tme, you have not convinced anyone of your hypothesis that Constantine invented Christianity, and you have hijacked this thread to raise the issue again.