Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Iskander · 08-19-2011, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I thought it must be this oration - thank you. But of course the criticism of philosophers for being tricky rather than honest is ancient. More interesting is the positive attitude to Plato.

PS: Did Lane Fox say anything like what MM quoted him as saying?

What does Fox say about Socrates and Plato?
Page 645

Quote:

It was time to beret the philosophers. The mysteries of Providence proved the narrow limits of reason. Socrates’s critical questioning had merely enraged his fellow citizens and showed itself to be a menace to the state. Pythagoras had stolen his teachings from Egypt, and Plato had believed that there were many gods. Plato, however, had groped towards the truth in his Timaeus when he wrote about the first and the second God. He had hinted that the soul was born from the breath of God, and he had written some excellent passages on future punishment in hell. Essentially, these pagan philosophers had strived to know the unknowable; Constantine’s criticism attached to a long tradition of pagan polemic against philosophy, some of which the Christians had already borrowed. Yet, though philosophers were bad, they were not as bad as poets...

Roger Pearse · 08-19-2011, 10:54 AM

Thank you. It sounds as if MM did represent some aspects of what RLF said correctly. I did look at the Google books preview, but in vain. I think we'd need more context to decide whether RLF is representing the text of the speech fairly.

Iskander · 08-19-2011, 11:44 AM

Page 653

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The Oration was exceptionally optimistic...Constantine had freed the East by his prayers and piety, and before them both lay the promised future of God.
The world being as it is, these hopes were not to be realized. At the council of Antioch, three of the bishops that supported Arius refused to join the consensus. They were excommunicated, but they were allowed time for second thoughts before the imminent synod of Ancyra. One of the three was Eusebius himself. The council of Antioch had presumably ended before the Good Friday on which the Emperor preached his sermon: by then, he can have had no illusions about the power of Arius's doctrine. His own speech came dangerously close at one point to language which Arius would have permitted; we can only relish the irony and reflect that these words are one more proof that the speech was not thoroughly revised in later years. [34] The extreme subtleties of the argument had escaped the emperor’s grasp of Greek theology; he was aware, however, of its general significance.
We know that Constantine sent a letter by the hand of Ossius to Arius and his opposing bishop in Alexandria, and we can best date its dispatch to the moment after the council had risen. In its appeal to their good sense, the letter tried to play down the points at issue [35]

andrewcriddle · 08-20-2011, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

More interesting is the positive attitude to Plato.

Constantine ordered Sopater, the Head of the Academy of Plato, to be publically executed c.336 CE. I would not call that a positive attitude to Plato. This fact is in keeping with the claim that Constantine burnt Plato and Euclid in Porphyry after Nicaea.

There is an account of the career and death of Sopater by the pagan writer eunapius The execution seems to have been more about court politics than about hostility to Plato.

Andrew Criddle

Doug Shaver · 08-20-2011, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Why would Constantine have warned that Socrates critical questioning was a menace to the state if the state had nothing to hide from that critical questioning?

I don't know. As of this moment [i.e. before reading any further in this thread], I have not the slightest reason to suspect that Constantine ever said anything like that.

Doug Shaver · 08-20-2011, 05:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

How certain can we really be that Constantine's 4th century centralised state monotheist religious organisation was not just an organised crime

Very certain, I think. Crime is defined by the government. Whether a given activity (or organization) is criminal is determined by the government with relevant jurisdiction over the place where the activity occurs or the organization exists.

mountainman · 08-20-2011, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

How certain can we really be that Constantine's 4th century centralised state monotheist religious organisation was not just an organised crime

Very certain, I think. Crime is defined by the government.

What if the government is corrupt?

Quote:

Whether a given activity (or organization) is criminal is determined by the government with relevant jurisdiction over the place where the activity occurs or the organization exists.

Doug Shaver · 08-21-2011, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Very certain, I think. Crime is defined by the government.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

What if the government is corrupt?

A corrupt government will probably do some things that, in my opinion, a government ought not to do. That will possibly include the failure to enact laws against activities that, in my opinion, ought to be classified as crimes. Alternatively, it may enact the appropriate laws but fail to enforce them, which I would also disapprove of. In the latter case, you have a government that tolerates criminal activity. In the former case, there is no criminal activity, notwithstanding my opinion (or yours) that the activity in question ought to be classified as criminal.

There is no necessary connection between what is and what should be. If it's not against the law, then it's not a crime, and the only relevant law is that of whoever has actual political power.

mountainman · 08-21-2011, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

More interesting is the positive attitude to Plato.

Constantine ordered Sopater, the Head of the Academy of Plato, to be publically executed c.336 CE. I would not call that a positive attitude to Plato. This fact is in keeping with the claim that Constantine burnt Plato and Euclid in Porphyry after Nicaea.

There is an account of the career and death of Sopater by the pagan writer eunapius The execution seems to have been more about court politics than about hostility to Plato.

Constantine ordered the execution.
He also ordered the book burning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eunapius

At that time, then, there happened what often used to happen according to the nature of the seasons; and the citizens were assembled in the theatre, worn out by hunger. The applause from the drunken populace was scanty, and the Emperor was greatly discouraged. Then those who had long been envious thought that they had found an excellent occasion, and said: "It is Sopater, he whom you honour, who has fettered the winds by that excessive cleverness which you yourself praise, and through which he even sits on the Imperial throne." When Constantine heard this he was won over, and ordered Sopater's head to be cut off; and those envious persons took care that this was no sooner said than done.

mountainman · 08-21-2011, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Very certain, I think. Crime is defined by the government.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

What if the government is corrupt?

A corrupt government will probably do some things that, in my opinion, a government ought not to do.

Precisely. Therefore how certain can we really be that Constantine's 4th century centralised state monotheist religious organisation was not just corrupt? We have evidence of book burning, of executions, of pious forgeries being enacted by Eusebius, and fraudulent misrepresentation by Constantine in his oration (according to Lane Fox).

We too often forget that during this period Constantine was at war, and that war breeds its own corruption and despotism. "War is a Racket".

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08-19-2011, 10:54 AM	#32
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	Thank you. It sounds as if MM did represent some aspects of what RLF said correctly. I did look at the Google books preview, but in vain. I think we'd need more context to decide whether RLF is representing the text of the speech fairly.

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