mountainman

Dear aa5874,

After the year 325 CE when the canon was thrust upon the empire, the mpire hit back by writing things like "The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles", and other apochryphal writings. What were Constantine and Eusebius to do? This action was clearly sedition against Constantine's authority? Eusebius and Constantine commence to list various works as heretical, and knowing in advance the huge controversy the impementation of such fiction would bring, they embedded stories of heretics throughout their fabulous history. But they still went about searching out and destroying all these heretical (non-Constantinian, non canonical) writings, and burning them. This practice was continuous between the epoch of Constantine and almost 200 years later, when the Decretum Gelasianum was articulated in its final form. However many commentators point out that the bulk of the list of heretical writings may have been derived from the mid-fourth century, and the Pope Damasius (the first christian pontifex maximus).


Best wishes,


Pete

aa5874

This is all problematic to me. On one hand you are claiming that Eusebius fabricated all of Christianity while at the same time making a list of the very same writings from himself as heretical, and then possibly burn his own writings.

Why did not Eusebius burn the second epistle of Peter? He claimed only the first epistle was genuine and the second did not belong to the canon.

1 Peter 1.1 2 Peter 1.1 Now, if Peter was the 1st bishop or Pope of Rome why did not Eusebius remove an admitted forged or inauthentic letter of the 1st Pope from the canon?

The second epistle of Peter does NOT appear to be satire, so based on your theory, it was probably written by Eusebius.

Look at the so-called Pauline epistles, Eusebius claimed all fourteen letters are genuine, but it is noted that Paul's name is not affixed to Hebrews.

Hebrews does NOT appear to be satire, so based on your theory, it was probably written by Eusebius.

Well if Eusebius wrote the epistles why did he affix Paul's name to only thirteen epistles, when he could have just added Paul's name to Hebrews?

It seems to me that Hebrews predated Eusebius, since I cannot find any reason why Eusebius would have omitted Paul's name from Hebrews if he did write the fourteen letters under the pretense they were from Paul.

And, as I have pointed out before, it is not logical to me that Eusebius would write four gospel stories with obvious and blatent discrepancies which Eusebius acknowledged and then canonised these gospels and then write Church History and try to harmonise all the discrepancies.

A hostile take-over seems a more reasonable theory.

mountainman

Dear aa5874,

Eusebius forged the Pauline letters IMHO between the years 312 and 324 CE. Most of them are today recognised as forgeries, but the name of the forger is rarely sought by academics.


You appear to be examining the second purported letter of Peter (and Hebrews) as though these texts represented the entire contingent of the new testament apochryphal literature, which is nowhere near being sensible man. The non canonical literature is a rather large corpus of literature, which I have variously presented selected texts. Are you aware of the non canonical NT texts such as these:

* Syriac Acts of Philip
* The Acts of Peter and the (11, 12 or was it 13?) Apostles
* The Acts of Andrew and Matthew
* The Acts of Peter and Andrew
* The Acts of Thomas:
* The Act of Peter
* The Gospel of Judas

and of course, The "Leucian Acts" are as follows:

* The Acts of John
* The Acts of Peter
* The Acts of Paul
* The Acts of Andrew
* The Acts of Thomas

A number of these texts were the subject of Eusebian disdain which was magnified under subsequent christian rulers through to Damasius who gained the position of the pontifex maximus, and who perhaps was the continuator o0f the list (or chart) of these forbidden books, texts, and tractates, which were deemed heretical and which were sought out for burning. Please see the above reference to the fifth century Decretum Gelasianum - which lists the actual texts I am here discussing - termed the NT non canonical texts.

Best wishes,



Pete

mountainman

Hi Huon,

Further to the issue of the author known as Julius Africanus, the following from the article cited, is the footnote:

I am doubtful that anyone on this discussion board may have read this (in German) -- I can state that I have not done so, to save Jeffrey making an issue out of this. The question of course, is that nature of the opinion on the literature of Julius Africanus (and Hippolytus) as expressed in this citation. If we knew what Momigliano was actually trying to say here, it might be useful. What is Gelzer saying? What is Hamel saying?

Does anyone know of a Momigliano discussion group?
Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

The index of the extendible chart of frauds associated with the historicity of the christian religion necessarily commences with the fourth century chronicles of Hans Eusebius Anderson, who without blushing once in his party-line rhetoric tenders an official document written by Clerk Jesus Kent and transported by a fast courier to the King of Edessa. Of course, our man on th ground, dear Eusebius, is an excellent scholar, and multi-lingual translator, and immediately makes, on the fly in the spirit of true scholarship, a translation of Jesus from the Syriac to the Greek.

Every century had its mountain ranges of frauds. Much already has been buried and/or eroded. In examining the items upon the table reserved for the exposition and display of "christian evidence of history" I am unable to reach any other conclusion other than to say, despite perhaps literally hundreds, or thousands of instances of known fraud, I am at a loss to classify any one single item of available evidence as authentic.

Does anyone have knowledge of any single citation by which they may assure readers that here, with this archaeological or literature citation, we might have any hope whatsoever of perceiving some authentic pre-Constantinian evidence of either Jesus, the 12 Bodhhisatvas or the Constantinian canonical New Regiment literature?

Best wishes,


Pete

Huon

I think (simply my pov...) that Momigliano gives references to works about Julius Africanus which are not too old. Gelzer is still mentioned in relatively recent papers about Julius Africanus.

I found two different opinions about this Julius Africanus, one from the Jewish Encyclopedia, and one from a catholic site.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/
http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?ti...lius_Africanus
So, either Julius Africanus is a sound Bible critic, or Julius Africanus does not deserve his reputation as a critic. Jewish heads or catholic tails.

aa5874

I am examining the letters and the gospels that you seem to think Eusebius may have written and have found information that may negate your theory.

It would appear to me that the genealogies of Joseph as written in Matthew and Luke predated Eusebius, the omission of the name of the author of Hebrews and the admission by Eusebius that 2nd Peter was not genuine are indications that those letters predated Eusebius.

I do not have to know or read every single non-canonical text, I just have to find information that may negate your theory and support a hostile take-over.

mountainman

Dear aa5874,

I find it extremely difficult to understand how an admission by Eusebius can be considered as any form of positive information, let alone evidence of anything.

The available evidence tells us loud and clear that Constantine represented a hostile takeover of the greek speaking eastern empire c.324 CE. His minister of propaganda, Eusebius, has the followingt written opinions on the Non Canonical Literature .....


Eusebius asserts heretics before Constantine, however we have no evidence about anything whatseoever christian prior to Constantine. We certainly know that both Arius of Alexandria and Porphyry of Tyre were considered heretics in the time of Eusebius. What we dont know, is that anyone who called Constantine's new testament a fiction was regarded as a heretic.

So who wrote the texts mentioned by Eusebius, and when were they written? Eusebius would have us believe they were written during the period prior to Constantine, but IMO all the new testament apochryphal literature was written by greek academics who had been prohibiited use and service of the vast and extant temple services, which Constantine had prohibited c.324 CE by edict which was enforced. We have thus a large population of ascetic greek speaking academic priests, ascetics, with no homes. They struck back with the pen. Satire against Constantine's canon.


Best wishes,


Pete

aa5874

Now, if you claim Eusebius invented the Jesus stories and the epistles, then it is obvious that Eusebius is a person of interest, all his wtitten statements are absolutely significant.

Eusebius wrote the history of the Church, the very history you think he invented.

The admissions of Eusebius are crucial in any analysis of the true history of Jesus believers.

mountainman

Dear aa5874,

It is a reasonably well established historical fact that Eusebius prepared the history of the christian churches (other than Dura-Europa) between the years 312 and 325 CE. The admissions of Eusebius, apologetic as they might appear, do not constitute evidence of any authenticity. Buyer beware.

Best wishes,


Pete