Julian

Another pertinent question would be, if Eusebius manufactured all these texts (an event I consider completely implausible) why did he do such poor job of it?

Not just by manufacturing heretical materials, and their rebuttals, but not providing any documentation from eyewitnesses to Jesus. He only produced Papias whom he subsequently calls a fool. Tsk, tsk...

I am reading From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Peter Lampe right now. He lists lots of achaeological evidence pre-dating Eusebius. It could, of course, have been planted by Eusebius' henchmen in the fourth century.

Julian

yummyfur

Libraries, especially private libraries, don't send their books out across the empire, the library if asked, would make a copy of their book, and send the copy if requested. NO library is going to send all their copies of a text, unless given a good reason, and they would assume that the reason was censureship, which would cause a stir. He would have zero control of private libraries, and I doubt he would want to alienate so many people while his position was often in conflict, great way to stir up powerfull people to aid your rivals., this is true even after 324, it's not like their weren't any powerfull people left, or mercenaries to be bought.


yes. Libraries don't send their original and all copies of a text anywhere unless given a real good reason, and usually that reason would be censorship, which would have probably created a stir. Also there's is no way he could have done this for private libraries, which were numerous and popular in the ancient world

Then why not just continue to do what Diocletian did, with his required Roman worship, if their really were no Christians, this would have been no problem, as the Jews were exempted, and it didn't get in the way of anyone else's religious sensibilites(I don't buy your Apollonias theory). This would also be a religion that's easier to control and he wouldn't have to worry about it creating a possible seperate power from the Emperor.

It's hard to imagine ( baring a slow progression of Christianity) that anyone would think that Greeks would decide that a Jewish based religion would be a cool thing to take up just for kicks.

I guess I don't get what your saying here, I'm talking about not informing his succesors, who he knew were his succesors and who he wrote out a will for. If this was a grand tax plan, he would probably want to inform his sons of this so that the religion didn't take on a life of it's own, and thwart his goals.

His eldest son Flavius Julius Crispus by first wife or concubine, and the wife he executed was his second wife Fausta(who he married for poltical reasons), mother to his sons who would be heirs. The best scenerio for why, is that Fausta had, to secure her sons to the throne, made accusations that Cripus was in love with her and tried to rape her. Constantine has him executed, but then finds out that there is no truth to it and it was all a plot by Fausta, and then has her executed.

Even if they signed under force, which I see no evidence of, why would they take up the religion as there was no requirement to.

How if there were no commited followers? So they are pressured to sign a Creed, but 12 years later the bastard is dead, and no one had to join the religion. that's a quick death to any religion. What about all your previous crap about Constantine keeping an arms length away, thus the need for heresies. It seems like pressure to sign is not an arm's length.


wild speculation, but it still has the same problem, as this group of pythagoreans in your theory is fairly large and would remeber their own persecution just years before. Those outside the group would remeber what group was persecuted and why, and who the prominent persons were and maybe even have some of their writings, there really is no way out of believing that the entire population is lobotimized.

I'm not sure there was a requirement of animal sacrifice, I think any sacrifice would do. Also as far as sacrifice is concerned, Apollonias is just saying gods don't need sacrifice, not that offering a sacrifice is horribly horribly wrong, especially if it can't be helped, if your dead you can't offer the gods Reason. Nothing like what Christians say will happen if you sacrifice. Besides which, the qoute you have is from Eusebius, so why would this one be accurate but most everything else a sham.

Chris Weimer

Sed hic non est; nullum veri loquitur.

mountainman

vincit qui se vincit

mountainman

Do you agree that "Eusebius wrote history"
is an inference drawn from various sources?

...[trimmed]...
So throw the archeological citation at me spin.
What are the space time coordinates? Teach
me some non-inferential history.



Pete Brown

mountainman

And exactly where was the Arian controversy the loudest and most
vociferous? Who would be (capable of) reading this stuff in advance
of Nicaea? Who would be trying to counter calumnify these historical
errors? Who would be saying that the new religion is a bag of bullshit?

And what they said in the marketplaces of Alexandria, would they
also say these same words to the face of the THRICE-BLESSED
Constantine in the council of Nicaea? Did Arius? And was he then
very clever in disputation in what he actually said? What did he
actually dogmatically assert? And what happened?

According to the winning party (ie: the new religion) it was those
totally misunderstood party of people who associated themselves
somehow with the words of Arius as they appeared appended to the
Nicaean Creed as its dislaimer clause.


He uses a Phileas as a witness, someone regarded highly in
Alexandria for his secular knowledge, and his high rank, and
uses Phileas in the same manner he selected Josephus as the
peak of his illustrious list of witnesses, someone highly regarded
in the empire for his knowledge of the history of the Jews,
and his high rank.

Such is the hypothetical wickedness of Eusebius.



Arius had the balls to stand up to Constantine, and/or was extremely
clever in disputation. I keep this text "The Life of Secundus" and his
interview with the emperor Hadrian as a reminder of the dealings of
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene...hilosopher.htm
Roman emperors in antiquity. Arius may also have been a straw man
of the winning party's literature.

Either way, our thesis is that it is via this historical confrontation
(ie: between Constantine and the Arian controversy) that, if Julian's
conviction that the NT is a fabrication of men composed by wickedness
is correct, then this fiction was implemented upon the empire by
Constantine at Nicaea.



Pete

mountainman

Eusebius necessarily attempted as editor-in-chief to harmonise
all the Constantine sponsored literature, and keep concordance,
but did not have a database. All he had were multi-column
table technology, and no machines, only humans with varying skills
or lack thereof.

Our thesis is that Eusebius also oversighted the physical preparation
of the gospels in the fourth century, out of the same whole cloth.
He makes a special note about that letter to Agbarus, etc.

Constantine, as the financial sponsor of the entire fabrication,
may also have wanted his own personal intellectual input to the
entire process. For example, Matthew 22:21 was WIN-WIN.




Well what geological citation is at the top of the list of this
achaeological evidence pre-dating Eusebius? If you would,
please throw one or more of the chief citations my direction.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

spin

[QUOTE=mountainman]Your job in proposing the hypothesis that Eusebius was part of a conspiracy to create christianity in the fourth century, is to provide substantive evidence that supports your hypothesis. So far you ain't got any. You just run off topic with generalizations about what people are taught when asked to look at the historical implications of your vast conspiracy theory. A hypothesis is useless unless it allows for evidential support or refutation.


spin

mountainman

After 324 the plot intensifies. Constantine does what he likes.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely". Movement of books prior
to Nicaea is not critical to the hypothesis, but I thank you for
your comments.

The burning of opinions by Constantine in the council of Nicaea
and the burning of books, and libraries after Nicaea is an important
indicator of a desire to suppress and/or destroy ideas. Perhaps it
was then that the problem of Josephus arose in other extant copies,
etc

Agreed, wrt the period leading up to 324 CE.
After this things go chaotic with the implementation of a fiction.
Evidence against the fiction is eventually sought out and destroyed.
Libraries are destroyed by successors of the winning party.


The worship was essentially not Roman but Hellenic.
Read carefully the statements of Julian. The essence of the
religion is given in Julian as related to the "divine Iamblichus".
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene..._aphorisms.htm

Such is distinctive in its Pythagorean nature.,
Thus does Apollonius appear by default in the theory.


Julian tells us that the Romans identified themselves with the Greek
traditions and gods. Perhaps Constantine wanted a Roman religion?
The Hellenic traditions were overthrown by Constantine to be
replaced by Constantine (and subsequent generations) by the
new and strange traditions established at Nicaea.


The fatherly advice of a supreme imperial mafia thug to his sons?
Probably most of it related to the running of the army.
When and how to kill people. How to maximise tax, minimise
expenses, and the routine stuff about weapons of war, etc


And the sequel to this story is the one about the finding
of the one and true wooden cross, the bleeding choice and the
use of nails in bits between the mouth of Constantine's horse.



Our thesis is that Nicaea, despite the witness of Eusebius et al, was
not stacked to the roof with christian bishops, hobbling half lamely,
blind after martrydom, yet still pulling off miracles in the court room.

In fact, Nicaea was packed with the patrician level landholders and
existent rulers of the recently conqured Eastern Empire, all
those who were anyone had been personally summoned by the new
boss Constantine.

Constantine brought with him those christians who had been
personally cultivated as such in the last 12 years in the western
empire. He also had his victorious barbarian mercanery storm troops
pitched around and about Nicaea. He meant to try and sit down and
talk turkey about this new and strange religion.

The package of the religion and the creed of Nicaea and its dislaimer
and its 22 catches sub-clauses in the fine print was bundled up with
civil works improvements, the building of new churches, the allocation
of power networks from the new boss and to the new boss.

Who wanted to part of the future regulation mechanisms?
Who wanted to sign up to be protected by the Roman Army?
The attendees at Nicaea answered with one voice.
Or did they?

The control mechanisms so described above, once set up and
established for the newly acquired administration of the eastern
(to become Byzantine) Empire of Constantine self-perpetuated
in the 12 years separating Nicaea and deadybones time.

Those attendees became the Official Network (ON) switch.
Noone has since found the OFF switch.



People were killed, but what were the reasons?
Were they killed because they were christian?
Or were they really killed because they refused to obey a Roman law
out of contientous objection to the killing of animals, for example,
or just to be contrary, as another example.

Remember, our claim here is that all of this happened suddenly
and all at once in history, not over hundreds of years.
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_010.htm

The result was chaos.

Because in the world at the time of Eusebius writing in the fourth century
there was a large amount of extant literature written by Apollonius of Tyana,
literature in the form of biographies (such as Philostratus') about him, and
other letters and engravings at public places. Eusebius quotes huge slabs
of Philostratus, for example.

http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene...of%20Tyana.htm

Eusebius calumnifies Apollonius through Philostratus to the extent of
him being related to the true divinity as has recently appeared among
men with the appearance of jesus (noted in the fouth century). Yet
Eusebius acclaims him as a wise man and a philosopher. So Eusebius
quotes Apollonius faithfully on this occassion.



Pete Brown

Chris Weimer

So let me guess - by proposing utterly nonsensical, even fantastic alternative timelines, existing without any evidence in reality, and not even fully complete in your own mind, you hope to conquer Christianity, right? Bardus canit.