sotto voce

Quite so. But was this such a significant difference in practice?

Duvduv

It never had anything to do with practice, did it? Just ideas and writings. How different were the Arians from the Niceans in practice?

sotto voce

It never had anything to do with practice among the groups who recognised the authority of the empire, no, but Arianism was obviously heretical, and could have been stage-managed, initially, to give Rome kudos; whereas the Miaphysitic Copts could easily claim to have a belief superior to 'orthodoxy' (and probably a genuine belief, too). Rome had no advantage in opposing them, and risked possible loss of kudos.

mountainman

Hey Huon,

Thanks for the Emperor list for this thread. It is imperative to keep in mind that the heretics were battled by the emperors downwards. That is, each of the Christian Emperors actively prosecuted, killed, murdered, tortured, executed heretics, and burnt, destroyed and/or censored any non canonical books (and/or anti-Christian books and propaganda). The army was used by these Christian emperors of the 4th century to conduct search and destroy missions for "Prohibited Books". The Papal "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" has operated continuously from Nicaea to the present day.

The Christian Emperors battled the heretics, following Constantine's lead, because they all understood that Jesus kingdom was now not hence, but very immanent, and that they were in His service to fight. The Christian Emperors also actively legislated for the death penalty for heretics during the 4th century. See the Codex Theodosianus.




Best wishes



Pete

mountainman

The absence of a military-united empire. The empire was united under Constantine, if only at least for the period 324-337 CE. You have read the decrees published by Constantine against Arius immediately after the Council of Nicaea. Such decrees were enforced by the empire-wide military machine that Constantine personally headed as the general.

The nature of the Arian controversy is openly acknowledged to be associated with the historical figure of Arius of Alexandria, and his confrontation with Constantine c.324/325 at the zenith of Constantine's power.


How does one escape a supreme military commander in say for example Alexandria c.324/325?




Ex-Arch-Bishop of the City of Constantine, Nestorius

OTOH, the Nestorian heresy and controversy was related to Cyril's anathema against Nestorius in that Nestorius was freely describing the ubiquitous nature, and detailed beliefs of the heretics, when it was the thug Cyril's intention to erase the heretics from the historical record. The Good Doctor Cyril received the title "The Seal of the Fathers" for a very appropriate reason. He was the one who poured the final heresiological cement slab over the period between Nicaea and the mid 5th century, censoring and burning the emperor Julian, censoring, burning and anathemetizing Nestorius, murdering Hypatia. Carl Sagan postulates Cyril was the pyromaniac resonsible for torching the library of Alexandria. The followers of Nestorius escaped the empire, perhaps along with the followers of Mani. It was time to leave the empire. The Greek intellectual tradition was being suppressed bigtime.

mountainman

Although I reluctantly agree with this response, one must be extremely careful in the chronology for this preservation, since the orthodox church only made some effort to preserve the many writings concerning heretics, in the historiological sense, over a century after the explosive Nicaean heresy.




The elimination of much information was done with over a century's hindsight, in imperially sponsored scriptoria. We are dealing with harmonized accounts and writings about the heretics.

But what is even more disconcerting is the known fact that in many cases the heresiological victors wrote pseudo-historical polemic against the heretics. Relatively recent manuscript discoveries tend to establish that the history of the heretics is only able to be reconstructed by access to the writings of the heretics themselves, and NOT the heresiologists, who effectively just wrote bullshit about their vanquished enemies.

Duvduv

Except that the Nestorians did survive, and so did the Copts, whose differences with "orthodoxy" were fewer.
Of course even the Arians managed to survive in other regions. So I suppose the further away a "heresy" was from Rome and Constantinople, the longer it was able to survive.

mountainman

325-490 CE: Anathematising Public Opinion about Jesus Christ

mountainman

And a century removed from Nicaea.


Wake up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Duvduv

Of course who knows if this is all true from "Eusebius." It can also be magnified to enlarge the "greatness" and power of the regime. However I am getting the distinct feeling that all these councils for a very long time were just a bunch of blah-blah as far as the peoples were concerned, much like resolutions of the UN that no one pays attention to today.

On the other hand, there is the element of similarity perhaps under Mao or Stalin whereby the regime was trying to correct "errors" of belief and thought. I can just see Eusebius's guys going around calling Arians "Capitalist Roaders" and "reactionaries" and "Arian running dogs". ;-)