mountainman

I do not wish to be remembered for being a haverer.

A number of "ecclesiastical" historians state that Constantine
called the council of Nicaea "on account of the words of Arius".
eg: Soziman:

CHAP. XVII. -- OF THE COUNCIL CONVENED AT NICAEA ON ACCOUNT OF ARIUS.

The sheer volume of contemporary writings about the man Arius
of the fourth century is sufficient IMO to provide a great measure
of "historicity" for Arius. By "implicit in Nicaea" that Arius was
a key player in what happened.

See above. Arius is talked about by friend and foe.


Constantine shut down the hellenistic/pagan temples to clear
a path for his coming new religion. Are you aware of the events
after Constantine?


Read the books. If you want a place to start have a look
at Roger's pages, or my copy of it - thanks Roger! - at this
location.


Constantine brands Arius as a "Porphyrian" whatever that means.
If this is libel, using your words, is Constantine attacking Arius?


My position is that Arius wished to both 1) survive, and 2) provide
an opposition to the new and strange agenda of Constantine.

All of the above questions were not immediately answered because
you volunteered to summarise my position, which you did well.

If you have any other questions, fire away.

Clivedurdle

Back to the OP, I wonder if actually Julian caused the xians to get their act together. If Against the Galileans was censored that sounds like he landed some pretty heavy blows, and survival would dictate tightening up the rules, for example about begotten.

I see Constantine as Vidal puts it as a successful military leader, not that interested in religion except as a spectator sport. He probably did not recognise it as a threat - what does his Baptism on his death bed show? He was only concerned he had picked the correct god!

Julian comes along and hits hard at the slowly growing xian power - the xians react in two ways - assassination, and with leaders like Ambrose, imposing a three line whip.

mountainman

For a bunch a renegade university students and others
there are some genuinely interesting questions being
generated that demand that people start
getting very serious about "Momigliano's Miracle",
twice mentioned in his 1960's article:

Pagan and Christian Historiography
in the Fourth Century A.D.

* This essay first appeared in A. Momigliano, ed.,
The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century,
The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, pp. 79—99 (1)


Consider Julian's action as the first possible physical moment
in history when the regime established by Constantine at the
supremacy party in Nicaea, perpetuated 325-Julian(359?) -
over a generation of despotic supression, could be responded
to. Prior that moment, it was firmly in control full stop.

You only have to read the comparitive assessment of Ammianus
Marcellinus (here - the obituaries of Julian and Constantius) to
perceive the turbulent chaos of the times.

Citations provide evidence to the persecution of non-christians at the
time when the highways were covered with galloping bishops.
(eg: See Vlassis Rassias).

We know that in the decade 350 land tax has tripled in living memory.
Hello? How would you be? Suppressed enough? What wroughts are
described by Ammianus? Not very nice ones!

Julian represented a brief reprieve in the self-perpetuation of
the Oath of Nicaea, whatever that may have been. O to be a
fly on the wall at the Council of Nicaea ...

Dont forget that it was burnt after it was censored.

However I am an eternal optimist and expect that the
work of Julian (in his original 3 books) was spirited away
additionally into safe-keeping, much like the work of
Philostratus (biography of Apollonius) was somehow
miraculously spared ultimate destruction, and came
back to light.

For that matter, IMO the first 13 books of Ammianus
were similarly destroyed because (it is possible) that
this same regime did not want a history unfavourable
to the Eusebian pseudo-history of the prenicene epoch,
and the real facts about the rule of Constantine.

I wonder how Constantine's obituary, written by Ammianus
would have read in the lost books?

He had published the Constantine Bibles.
What a contribution to the arts was that!
Magnificient work of unprecedented scope.
The substance of Momigliano's miracles.

mountainman

Please excuse any perceived havering.
To be honest, J-D's paraphrasing made
me skip a few posts. This is a catch-up.

We are asking the question as to the possibility that this, and
all other strict biblical references were first authored,
collated, bound, published and successfully "marketed" during
not the first but the fourth century.

Yes it would. How long do you intend to wait for such an event?

J-D

Well, in your words, that's your problem, not mine.

I note that you still haven't denied Roger Pearse's allegation. It still seems to me that if it's true, then further discussion is otiose.

Roger Pearse

Let me just quote the post:

--start--
From: "mountain man" <hobbit@southern_seaweed.com>
Newsgroups: soc.history.ancient
Subject: Re: Do we have non Eusebian evidence that there were Christian
Churches prior to 312?
Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 05:08:39 GMT

Next time you'll leave me alone in alt.surfing and
cease and desist with your evangelical

"Roger Pearse" <roger_pea...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1131133978.910974.278680@z14g2000cwz.googlegr oups.com...
> It seems that you haven't tried to find out whether any of this is
> true: instead you claim that the rest of us must prove you wrong,
> whatever you choose to assert.

If you had not descended on the alt.surfing newsgroup
where I was obliviously minding my own business, and
made some scathing evangelical diatribe, I would not
indeed have followed all this though to the above conclusion.
--end--

Form your own conclusion.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman

RE:
Here is the original conclusion appropriately trimmed
out by Roger:

But now, that is in the past, and unless someone can prove
otherwise (and not via Eusebius of Caesara) then I am happy
to hold the belief concerning christianity, that it started out as
a supreme imperial religion for the benefit of Constantine's
administation of his empire; and it started in 312 with his
arrival in Rome.


This history makes alot more sense. There were no
christian persecutions prior to Constantine; there were
no christians prior to Constantine. It was the christians
who in fact did much persecution in the era starting 325.


This history is derived from considerable research and
is capable of being refuted, but I do not expect it to be.
I am reasonably confident that history happened according
to my analysis above, and for quite a number of reasons.


Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

Since that date, Sat, 05 Nov 2005 05:08:39 GMT I have
been religiously seeking, like a responsible student of
ancient history, for any citation to prove me false.

I have always maintained that the theory is capable of
being refuted either in whole or in part by means of the
provision of the appropriate archeological and/or
scientific data.

However, despite a great deal of research in the field of
ancient history, I do not feel that such a citation has
been produced, although I am constantly researching.

Neil Godfrey's suggestion to digest Elsa Gibson's "The
Christians for Christians Inscriptions of Phygia"
has been taken on board.

There are protocols in the BC&H discussion board, and
their are protocols in the alt.surfing discussion board.
I am a reasonable person, and have put up with this
attack from Roger Pearce ever since I was minding my
own business in the surfing newsgroup, keeping out
of the way, in a peaceful fashion.

I am a student of the discipline of ancient history, and
as such observe the right to discuss, and question, and
to form my own conclusions without Roger's incessant
mantras about the alt.surfing incident.

Roger Pearse

People will make their own decisions as to whether they want to know just why this person is filling up this forum with absurd statements calculated to discredit atheism in the eyes of any educated person. Note that as far as I can remember, this is only the second time that I have posted that material. In view of the references to it in the thread, it seems odd to complain.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman

What?

Toto

I don't know if mountainman is an atheist, and his statements have nothing to do with atheism. He is asking a valid historical question when he asks what evidence there is for Christianity before the 4th century. But for some reason he does not accept any answers, even from atheists and skeptics, and keeps repeating his mantra of supreme mafia thug etc. etc. Nevertheless, there may still be some value in his further investigations, although I suspect a lot of readers have tuned out.

I would ask all parties to try to avoid repetitious arguments and avoid personal challenges.