mountainman

Dear Huon (and anyone else for that matter),

Are such people reported by the early christian writers?

It was asserted (in the literature of Esuebius) that docetic heretics were christian heretics but my question is how do we know they were christian? If you had a bunch of pagans saying docetic things, could not that also imply that these pagans thought any historical jesus was fictional?

Well we all know would would have happened if people came out of the closet and said as much prior to this time -- they would have been publically hung. This in no way reflects on whether the idea that Jesus was a fiction character was around earlier -- and possibly from the very beginning -- since it is reasonable to assume this would have been viewed as the greatest heresy. Wasn't this called the "Anti-christ" belief?

The notion of fiction is stated by the Emperor Julian in the fourth century, and the entire Arian controversy itself is consistent with the implementation of an imperial fiction to a greek speaking audience. In the fifth century we have the ex archbishop Nestorius writing:

The answer to the question how does one differentiate between a (so-called christian) Docetic heretic and a pagan heretic who believed that this Jesus was a fiction character. is not trivial.

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

We have no evidence of a bunch of pagans saying docetic things. If somebody said 'Jesus had no physical body, he was an incorporeal spirit who only seemed to have a physical body', there is no way that implies that that person thought there never was any such person as Jesus.Wrong. If there was anybody who believed that Jesus was a fictional character, all they had to do to proclaim that belief safely was to travel out of reach of the Church, just like anybody else who feared condemnation for heresy. We have records of pagan Greek philosophers migrating to Persia for this reason. We have records of Nestorian Christianity spreading through non-Christian Asia as far as India and China, where it could not be condemened as a heresy. But we have no records of people turning up in non-Christian lands and announcing that the whole story of Christianity was a Constantinian fabrication.No.It is true that what people say they believe is not necessarily what they really believe. If there ever were people who believed in your theory, it is conceivable that they might for reasons of prudence pass themselves off as believing something else. But we have no evidence of anybody believing in your theory (except you).

mountainman

Dear J-D,

We have the author of the Acts of John saying docetic things, but the authodox state that the heretic who wrote the Acts of John is to be considered as the disciple of the devil. Is he therefore to be considered a christian or a pagan?

Utter nonsense. My thesis refuses to "confess that Jesus came in the flesh." To make the confession (O my god!) that Jesus did not come in the flesh is tantamout to saying he never lived, he never ate bread, he never breathed air, he never drank water, he never left a footprint, he never had a thought of his own, and he never died. While this very real ancient historical possibility might be deemed by some to appear very anti-christian, it still remains a very real possibility unless you can come up with some solid evidence.


If you wish to postulate an historical living and breathing jesus, then you are the one who has to provide the substantive evidence that such was the ancient historical case. I will confess there may have been an historical jesus IF you can show to be any unambiguous evidence of Jesus, the new testament canon or "canonical christianity" prior to the fourth century. I think this is a fair position to take with the evidence at hand, setting aside all arguments from (ultimately Constantinian) authority.


From WIKI:

These via the research of Eusebius.

In the fourth century we are advised not to ask any questions but is this still the case?



Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

The fact that a person was denounced as a heretic is not evidence that that person was a pagan.But it is not tantamount to saying he never existed. (And it is not tantamount to saying that he never had a thought of his own.)But it isn't.

Huon

In other words, this is the description of a phantom. Even an "ordinary" non-docetic Christian could say that you are not describing a being who is both a man and a god. You are simply describing a phantom. A god can take the aspect of a man, a god can eat, breathe, drink, think, speak, and, true, he never dies, or if his manly appearance dies, he can appear some time later to his disciples.

Another remark : your new word "authodox" should not contain the letter h. The greek "auto-" is written with a tau, not a theta.

mountainman

Dear J-D,

Do you hold the converse also to be true, namely that the fact that a person was denounced as a heretic is not evidence that that person was a christian.

Best wishes,



Pete

Toto

By the technical definition, you cannot be a heretic unless you claim to be a Christian.

wiktionary This was a significant issue in the Inquisition. Jews could not be heretics, because they were not Christian to start off with. But a Jew who claimed to convert came under the "jurisdiction" of the Inquisition, and could be questioned as to the theological correctness of their beliefs.

A pagan could not be a heretic - they were just an unbeliever.

It is hard to wrap one's mind around this, because it is not how we think of thinks in modern times, and because the whole idea of heresy is somewhat ridiculous. But it was a serious matter back then.

mountainman

Dear Huon,

The question is whether or not the Phantom lived and breathed.




My thesis is in the field of ancient history which will not admit phantoms unless they can be carbon dated. If the phantom visited the planet in the first century or if there were followers of the Phantom living and breathing amidst the ROman empire during the epoch covering the centuries one, two and three of our common era, then the archaeologists would have something far more concrete and far more unambiguous that the evidence we have in our possession.

Ancient history and theology need to be separated. Otherwise the one confuses the other. And with respect to the field of ancient history if jesus did not live or breathe or leave a footprint then he may well be fictional. Similarly if his followers - the underground nation of christians - cannot be located by our best archaeologists in the prenicene epoch, then they too may well be fictional.

The evidence tells us that Christians became solidus with Constantine.


Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Toto,

Do we have any evidence by which we may be certain that Arius of Alexandria (for example) claimed -- himself -- to be a christian? I am not disputing the fact that the christian ecclesiaticial historians claimed Arius to be a christian.

Eusebius (and his ecclesiatical historian continuators) claim Arius of Alexandria to be of the prenicene christian religion. I cannot find any evidence to suggest that Arius of Alexandria himself makes the claim he is christian. The political and social turbulence known as the Arian controversy has hitherto only been expored in terms of the claims of the christians of Constantine that Arius was a christian. However if he was not a christian, how much more would this explicate the Arian controversy?


Not much pagan history survives, and what little that does, aside from Ammianus and Libanius and a few others, is often charged with invectives. We believe in the history written by the political victors of the struggle between christianity and paganism in the fourth century. Those christian victors made many assertions concerning the heretics, but we have little primary information from the heretics themselves in order to completely sure that your statement above reflects the ancient historical truth. The controversies over the "christian status" of the Nag Hammadi codices is a good example of this connundrum. They cannot be said to be wholly "christian" or "pagan".

The historical authority figures had (relatively) bigger sticks back then. My thesis questions the historical authority of Constantine and Eusebius and suggests that they fabricated the new testament canon and the prenicene christian history. It is hard to wrap one's mind around this because we have accepted the premise that the Eusebian testiment (and the NT) is a true and correct account of ancient history of the preceeding three centuries written from the fourth.

We have accepted this premise on good authority, as did our fathers and theirs before them -- all the way back to the historical three hundred and eighteen fathers who signed an oath to Constantine and against Arius of Alexandria. My research suggests that the prenice "history" needs to be finally questioned in a critical and skeptical manner appropriate for this age.

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

Yes. The fact that a person was denounced as a heretic is not evidence that that person was a Christian.

If people are denounced as heretics it is evidence that the denouncers regarded them as Christians (although heretical ones).