mountainman

Certainly not the books the Christian regime burnt.



Well I can only try and assure you that the average college graduate in the early 4th century could begin to tell you the difference between a Stoic and an Epicurean, or between either of them and a Pythagorean, a Platonist, a Manichaean, and many other so-called "sects".

The question is rather could the average college graduate in the early 4th century begin to tell you anything about the christian sect, and my answer to this question is they could not, because of its relative obscurity.


Who defended the god of Plotinus at Nicaea?


Nobody?


They all got converted to the belief in the historical jesus "overnight"?


This hypothesis is not believable.


IMHO it is more reasonable to hypothecize that many were unbelievers of the historical jesus at Nicaea, but the record of that unbelief has been purged and physically scraped from the historical record with sharp oystershells.

mountainman

"almost" but not quite.



I have never claimed that the evidence I presented here and elsewhere is unambiguous. The same cannot be said for the claims of many mainstream scholars, even though it is qualified by "almost certainly" etc etc etc.


Beneath the surface of this ambiguity rests the entire centuries long Arian controversy, and the despotic inquisitions of the powerful and literate heresiologists over the populace of the Roman Empire during the 4th and 5th centuries. The history of that epoch was written by the incumbents of a criminal organisation. The history of Nicaea, and the authority by which the 318 Fathers of the Nicaean Church agreement was cited by all the heresiologists up until the time of the despotic Cyril of Alexandria, is "ALMOST" one sided. Belief was guaranteed to be harmonious and complete, even regionally.

See for example Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (or via: amazon.co.uk) By Susanna Elm

Doug Shaver

The argument is: If Jesus actually existed, then it is improbable that anyone in antiquity would have thought otherwise. It is a strong argument, regardless of how credible you think the antecedent is.

The modernity of a belief has nothing to do with the validity of any argument for that belief.

You say so.

mountainman

It is a conditional argument based on the IF that Jesus actually existed.

If Jesus actually did not exist, then it is also improbable that anyone in antiquity would have thought otherwise. IOW we would expect there to be some evidence of this unbelief. I have cited such evidence.




Estimation of validity is based on evidence.





The sources cited demonstrate that both Eusebius and COnstantine have accused Arius of Alexandria of unbelief. Other sources cited demonstrate that the 4th century christian regime organised despotic religious inquisitions, legislated that possession of prohibited books incurred the death penalty, and openly burnt books. The evidence itself says so Doug.


This evidence suggests that this unbelief of which Arius and centuries of Arian followers were openly accused, may have been an unbelief in the historical existence of Jesus.

Sheshbazzar

The argument is vacuous. First of all it is recognized even by the most ardent of HJ supporters that none of the NT texts were written until many years after there was no living HJ on earth (if there ever was in the first place).

Did he fly off into the sky, with 500+ people observing the event?

Who would have been able, or even have thought of, in the 60s CE to attempt to verify the existence of someone that they were told had flown up into heaven 30 years before?
There would have been no point for anyone to go looking for this non-famous unknown 'Obscure Preacher', when the first thing you hear about 'him' is that 'he' is no longer on earth, but now sitting on Gawd's hand up in heaven.
Whom in Antioch, or Rome, or Alexandria, all hundreds of miles away, would have known anything at all with any certainty about this flown away Obscure Jewish Preacher?
They may well have gotten caught up in a case of the latest religious frenzy, but that is no evidence that any of this imaginative stuff ever happened. Or that there ever was anything more than plain old religious horse-shit behind it.

If I tell you that 32 years ago, in Savannah Georgia, some OBSCURE preacher named 'Johnny' grew pair of angels wings on his back and flew off into heaven, where he now sits on Gawds left hand. (Gawd, that must be damned uncomfortable)
Are you going to think and insist that there must be some real 'Johnny the Obscure Preacher of Savannah' behind the story?
Because the idea for this story could never have been came up with unless there was a real 'Johnny the Obscure Preacher of Savannah' to have inspired it?

Secondly, the assertion that 'it is improbable that anyone in antiquity would have thought otherwise'. There were plenty of ancient scholars and educated people who were skeptical of the claims of various religions and religious cults. Certainly the ancient Skeptics would have been skeptical of such stories.
And evidence of the existence of contemporary religious skepticism is found right in the NT itself;
"there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducee's: and the multitude was divided. For the Sadducee's say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: (Acts 23:7-8)
There is no way in hell these skeptical Sadducee's would have bought 'Paul's' bogus resurrection tale.
And remember, the modern premise (apologetic) here is that OBSCURE Jeebus was so unknown during his life-time that no one would have thought to write anything about him while he lived.
Thus it unlikely that any of these Sadducee's had ever even heard of, or even had any idea of who this OBSCURE preacher was among all of the other obscure Jeebus's of their country. Even if they had searched, they couldn't have found this OBSCURE Jeebus that wasn't there, and most likely never been there.

Even 'Thomas' the Apostle is reported to refused to believe the horse-shit story. "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." which is a credible statement for any skeptical person to have made. And still is.

But the question then is, DID the living/dead Zombie, OBSCURE Jeebus actually materialize in that room, and prove that he was truly a magical bloodless Zombie able to appear and disappear at will?
Because unless he was, skepticism as expressed by 'Thomas' still stands valid. The skepticism is plausible. The rest is not.

'If Jesus actually existed, then it is improbable that anyone in antiquity would have thought otherwise'. Is an extremely weak -apologetic-, argument.


Agreed. Thus the former notion is every bit as valid as these two latter notions.

So the actual written records of early Christianity report.

Doug Shaver

No, it's not. You need to retake Logic 101, assuming you ever took anything like it.

Doug Shaver

As an argument for Jesus' historicity, it would be worthless, if it were ever offered as such. I have never seen it so offered.

Doug Shaver

You may interpret them that way. I don't.

tanya

??

Lugubert

Returning to mountainman's OP,

By 1795, it seems that there had been some serious thinking on those lines, so at least no later than 18th C seems possible.
An An astronomer and professor of rhetoric then published a book Origine de tous les Cultes, ou la Réligion Universelle, where he argued that the cult of Christ is merely a cult of the Sun.

Mainly for any Swedish readers:

A satirical refutation of Dupuis' work maintaining, in parallel to his thesis that Napoleon never existed, but was only a sun myth, was published in 1837 in a Swedish translation as Albert Bonnier's first title.

(Bonniers is a privately held Swedish media group of 175 companies operating in 17 countries.)