Jeffrey Gibson

This is not something Pete suggests was the case. It is something he asserts as historical fact.

Yes, this -- along with the corollary that the Christian religion as expressed theologically in the Nicene Creed and cultically in the Mass, the sacraments, the Christian liturgical calendar, etc., as well as all of the Christian literature, including the NT, the apostolic fathers, and the "heretical works", ordinarily thought to have been composed between the first and the fourth centuries CE, was something ordered into existence wholesale by Constantine, -- is exactly what Pete believes that Arius was proclaiming when Arius said and taught in his Thaleia and elsewhere that "there was a once when the Logos was not".

FYI, Pete does not read Greek or any other ancient language. He is limited in his grasp of modern languages to English. And he rarely if ever reads anything about Arius (or any other matter he pontificates about) that is not online.

He has done little to no study of the documents of the Arian controversy. And he is wholly unacquainted with the best scholarly literature that deals with it and with the theology of Arius.

He may be able to produce some titles of books and articles about Arius, but he won't be able to tell you what these books actually say. (Ask him to quote something from Gwatkin or Grillmyer or Williams or K. Newman or Wiles, etc. that's not on Google books or mentioned in a URL to a JSTOR article!).

He also is demonstrably incapable of judging whether the online "sources" he "researches" are of any worth. His criterion for saying that they are is that they say -- or can be misread to say -- what he already believes.

Jeffrey

mountainman

Hi Steve,

Yes, that is correct. I am suggesting that that the words of Arius, which themselves may be perceived to be at the basis of the Arian controversy, be interprestted as literal and historical commentary concerning Arius of Alexandria's opinion of Jesus c.325 CE, as is recorded on a number of the Nicaean "oaths" to Constantine. Yes, I am arguing that these words of Arius add support to the thesis that sponsored the fabrication of the new testament canonical literature --- and that Arius was arguing about history when he said:


Arius was saying Jesus was Constantine's fiction.
The emperor Julian added further arguments c.362 CE.
My thesis and notes are available here


Best wishes,



Pete

mountainman

It is a thesis in the field of ancient history that I am asserting on the basis of the evidence in our possession. Notably this evidence is inclusive of the following two C14 citations:

1) gJudas 290 CE (Plus or minus 60 years)
2) gThomas (NHC) 348 CE (Plus or minus 60 years)

I dont appear to have seen any comments about the C14.
Does anyone have a problem with these C14 citations?



Dear Jeffrey Gibson,

You are not paying attention. The canon was sponsored and fabricated by Constantine during the years 312 to 324 CE and lavishly published far and wide by this same imperial sponsorship during the period when the grand City of Constantine (ie: the New Rome) was being inaugurated.

We have been through this. The so-called "heretical works" --- the non canonical new testament literature aka the new testament apochryphal literature was not authored and published by Constantine, but by the Greek academic priesthood which Constantine outlawed in his prohibitions concerning temples services c.324 CE (Please refer to Constantine and the Problem of Anti-Pagan Legislation in the Fourth Century, Scott Bradbury, Classical Philology, Vol. 89, No. 2 (Apr., 1994), pp. 120-139; and Constantine's Prohibition of Pagan Sacrifice, T. D. Barnes, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 69-72 )

My thesis discusses the new testament apochypha as polemical satire of the canon characters. Jesus is a slave master. Philip cannot read or write Greek or Latin. Peter cannot count to 12 and has severe comprehension problems in the NHC 6.1 "The Acts of Peter and the 12 Apostles". April Deconnich suggests that the gJudas is a parody.

Has the penny dropped yet?
I will simplify the main claim:

The canonic NT is Constantinian fraud.
The non canonic NT is pagan polemic against this fraud.

The mainstream chronology is based upon the assertions of Eusebius.
I dont believe for one minute that this material has any integrity.
Jeffrey, please address the C14 citations and christian chronology.
That christians existed before 312 CE is a Eusebian conjecture.
We have no evidence for this belief. Correct me if I am wrong.

A diagram depicting the chronology of the NT canon and the NT apochryphal writings is below. The entire corpus of the NT apochryphal literature (ie: it was all heretical!!! Why?) is easily perceived to be a massive literary and polemical and satirical and parodic attack on the characters of the canon by the greek academic who were refugees from the Boss.




It is imperative that readers understand that the thesis provides a political explication for both the can and the all the non canonical literature which was entirely seditious against Constantine's initiative of christianity. Imagine we are reading buried time capsules from the people who witnessed the destruction under Hitler, or under Stalin, in a world where either of these two malevolent despots had not been brought to bear by the forces of "good". Imagine if the allies had not won WWII, and that we were reading the literature of the resistance, perhaps a century after the events, from within the worst effected regions. The greek academics had their literature burnt by Constantine. He pulled down their temples of ancient reverence. He publically executed opposition priests. He implement POLL TAX, and he built the basilicas (the most expensive building project in precious stone ever undertaken by any one single person in the antiquity of the planet).


Ladies and gentlemen, is'nt it time we took a long hard look at the fourth century?
We have been following Eusebius down his long and winding road for almost 1700 years.
Nobody has had the opportunity to ask the important question.
We are dealing with literature published by a military supremacist.
The christian literature was first published by a malevolent despot.
There is something very wrong about this picture.
It is the chronology of christian origins.
Stay with the carbon dating.




Hilary of Poitiers' De Synodis: Promoted to Bishop in 350 CE, Hilary of Poitiers preserves a list of twenty-seven anathemas agreed upon by the Council of Sirmium c.351 CE. This list of twenty seven issues represented the troublesome public opinion faced by the authority of the authodoxy in the Eastern empire, and as such, highlights the public opinion at this time in the fourth century. Conspicuous by its presence at the primary position in the list, are the words of Arius, present in the first two opinions:

01: The Son is sprung from things non-existent,
or from another substance and not from God,
and that there was a time or age when He was not.

02: The Father and the Son are two Gods.

To an independent political observer, public opinion about Jesus is not at all positive and authodox, and reflects a position that he certainly is not to be regarded as coming from God, but rather has sprung from nothing existing. A new God has been invented. The literature of the new God (of Constantine) is fiction.

The words of Arius were bounced around the empire for well over 100 years and today they are still unexplained except by christian apologists who insist that these words need to be interpretted in an ecclesiastical sense. That's bullshit. There is a simple political explanation for the entire Arian controversy. The new testament was known to be fiction.


Jeffrey has serious doubts about the capacity of other Greek translators to do a proper job. He has called into question the translational capabilities of a number of people, including Coneybeare, who translated much of the Loeb library material from the greek to the english.



Theology is a subject I leave for others to discuss. The thesis is confined to the field of ancient history and presents a simple political explanation for what has previously only been interpretted in some form of theological meaning. Arius of Alexandria was the focus of the resistance against Constantine when he first appeared with nhis army on the doorstep of the eastern empire c.324 CE, and started trashing the architecture.

Also highly relevant is an analysis of Constantine's "Dear Arius" Letter (of 333 CE).

Best wishes,



Pete

sschlichter

Pete,

That is a bizarre notion for a Christian Priest.

Are you quite sure that Arius did not simply beleive Jesus was not God and instead was a created being (the time when he was not was before he was created). I expect, based on Jeffrey's comments that you have been asked this question before.

The argument of substance was whether Jesus was of the same substance (homoousius) or similar substance (homoiousius) as God. I really do not see how the argument could be over his existence. It is over his pre-existence.

Did Lucian, then also beleive Jesus never existed? or did Lucian never exist either?

Toto

People have a problem with the claim that the date of a copy of the document is proof of the date of its writing.

These sources say that Constantine prohibited pagan sacrifice (the source of this claim is Eusebius, and there are modern scholars who actually think Eusebius was not being accurate here, but anyway. . .) They do not support your claim that the pagan priests wrote the apocrypha as satire.

mountainman

Thank you for pointing that out. We need to understand that these other people have a problem. An additional conjecture needed to explain the evidence is certainly not conducive to Occam.


The sources were provided to substantiate the claim that there were massive social changes implemented when Constantine became military ruler of the Roman empire, and that these massive changes were hostile to the ancient patterns of stability. The sources were provides so that my claim that Constantine needs to be understood as a malevolent despot might be evaluated by the evidence.


I acknowledge that this is so.

April Deconnick thinks gJudas is a pagan parody.
However she uses the traditional conjectural Eusebian chronology
and puts gJudas (despite C14 = 290 +/- 60 years) backwards a
century or more.

I dont need to backdate anything. I think gJudas was written between 324 and 400 CE along with the rest of the new testament non canonical literature, and all the heretical writings summarised in Decretum Gelasianum - which presents an Index of Apocrypha c.491 CE.

Best wishes,


Pete

Jeffrey Gibson

Where in what you quote above does Hilary speak of Jesus or indicate that Arians were speaking of the historical Jesus when they proclaimed that the LOGOS/Son was not consubtantial with the father?


Is it actually the case that only "Christian apologists" have claimed that the words of Arius did indeed bear an "ecclesiastical sense" and that they are misunderstood if they are taken out of this context? Doesn't Robin Lane Foxc -- no Christian he, let alone a Christian apologist -- do this? Doesn't Momigliano, a Jew, do so as well?

Would you care to give the names both of the "apologists" who have done this and the works of theirs in which such "insistence" is to be found? Even better, let's see (a) some examples of them actually doing what you claim they have been doing (i.e., "insisting" because they are Christian apologists that Arius' words need to be interpreted in an "ecclesiastical sense") and (b) your evidence that Arius' words do not bear an "ecclesiastical sense" (what ever that means) and should not have been interpreted in that manner.

Assertions that the NT is fiction are not evidence.

Hilary wrote in Latin. And if I have any doubts about anything, it's your ability to know what's behind the English texts of the Greek and Latin you quote and whether they really do say what you claim they do. Cf. your woeful exegesis of Ammias and your claim that he spoke of, and used the Latin word for, ghosts in his description of the death of Constantius.

Jeffrey

show_no_mercy

I have a question.

Why - if the entire NT is a fabrication of Constantine and Eusebius - would they purposefully write four different gospels that contain contradictions about the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Is it being suggested that they put in things like the "Easter Challenge" there on purpose? Why would they do that? What's the motive?

Why have a Jesus in Mark not wanting anyone to know that he can do miracles (essentially the "Clark Kent" Jesus) and then have a Jesus in John that's all flaunting his superpowers?

Just curious about the explanation.

sschlichter

Pete,

How do you deal with the continuing (and politically prominent, at times) presence of Arianism after the Nicene council?

Wasn't Ulfilas an Arian missionary? in an ecclesiastic sense vs. a historical sense?

I may be wrong but wouldn't he have been outside of Constantine's sphere of influence?

~Steve

mountainman

Hey, supposing you had to design a number of shall we say independent purportedly some sort of eye witness accounts of a life lived a cupla hundred years in the past tense, and then write it in bad greek, for someone who had alot of money and a big army. The first thing we could not do, obviously, is to produce 4 identical texts. What would the use be of that?

Pick up any fiction book containing an inclusion of multiple perspectives on any one series of events. We need an 80% spread of variation to make it realistic. There is nothing mystical about that. And Constantine, whatever you may think of him, was not stupid.

The closest technical explanation that I can put together is that the project may have started with a list of over 600 sayings, events and data, which wass then shared, in varying distributions, between four separate texts. I am thinking that there may have been such a list of over 600 sayings, since Eusebius is compelled to mention the canon tables of Ammonias, now attributed by the bulk of the academic consensus, to Eusebius himself.

The canon tables of Eusebius, when examined at the atomic level, reveal about 618 separate units. The fabrication may have used multi-column spreadsheets to track the legions of fictions assembled to defend the fraud against the challenges of the greek academics of the year 324 CE and following.

Notably Cyril refers to the conspiracy of the greeks while refuting the terrible lies of the emperor Julian a century later.

Best wishes,


Pete