sotto voce

:constern02: You follow more complex ideas than that.

That was guessable.

So there is no certainty in the Bible; except for a polytheist trinity, that is rock solid certainty. Even though it is an unsupportable, dumbass notion, that you can't find the evidence for.

If you're happy with that. :constern01:

mountainman

The pagan heretics were offered life. Life was good. Many chose to live. Cant blame them. The Christian heresiologists offered them the choice of assimilation or death.




Plato's trinity was nondual.

sotto voce

Plato, potato.

Duvduv

Mountainman, if that was so, then why were the orthodox still constantly struggling against their enemies into the period of Justinian? Why weren't everyone wiped out right away?

mountainman

In terms of demographics the cities fell first, the townships fell second, and only then were the rustics in the country villages converted in name by the centralised board of heresiology.

It was impossible to right away wipe out those who fled to remote wildernesses for example like Nag Hammadi. Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamum, Rome, Athens - these places were "secured" as a priority.

Duvduv

But Mountainman, all this apparently took much longer than one would be led to believe if the Orthodox and their councils were still issuing edicts against heretics into the 5th century.

mountainman

The mopping up of heretics was still taking place a thousand years after Nicaea, and the inquisitions extended to the 18th century. At the beginning was the controversy over the words of Arius at Nicaea. That the controversy was still very much alive in the 5th and subsequent centuries indicates that something greater than a minor theological dispute was at the basis of the words of Arius. The worst case scenario is that the words of Arius relate to the historicity of Jesus, and that he thought Jesus was a fable.

Duvduv

But very specifically in this case we are talking about the coercive power of the hierarchical Church authority as it was emerging in the 4th and 5th centuries, and during which time we are told how they were persecuting their enemies. The very fact that they have to keep issuing canons and creeds opposing them over and over again means that there really wasn't the coercive power to eliminate these enemies.

Proof of this is that the sons of Constantine were said to sympathize with the "heretics" all the while there were several councils held of "Christians" who where KNOWN to have opposing ideas, each ostensibly the heresy of the other.

Plus, if the Constantinian regime had *legalized* these previously underground sects, how could they be "legalized" if they were so different from one another and considered each other heretics?!
How can you legalize a movement that is NOT monolithic and that is divided into competing factions who consider each other to be heretics?!

Duvduv

Mountainman, I look forward to your comments to my reply to you.

mountainman

My explanation for the year 325 CE and the so-called "Council of Nicaea" follows and extrapolates the thesis of Charles Freeman concerning the year 381 CE and the so-called "Council of Constantinople". Freeman's thesis is summarised in his book as follows:


The issue of canons and creeds by so-called "church councils" of the 4th century were invented and non historical details designed to cover over and conceal the issue of imperial decrees (that were enacted via the imperial army).

This process of "legalisation" at the "so-called church council level" during the 4th century are nothing but retrospective inventions of the incumbent victors designed to conceal the imperial decrees.

I believe we are dealing with a top-down "new and strange" centralised monotheistic state religious cult that was formed by the Constantinians on the wings of their war against the Eastern Roman Empire as a method by which to control (and eventually eliminate) the traditional milieu of grass-roots Egypto-Graeco-Roman (i.e. "pagan") religious cults and bring the empire into a religious accord by decree.

Obviously the RESISTANCE to these decrees and the existence of these decrees have been concealed by the victors. The greatest resistance to these is to be seen in examining the Arian controversy from the perspective of the grass-roots resistance by the Alexandrian Greeks (and specifically the schools of Platonist philosophers et al) against this imperially directed pogram against the traditional religious cults of all kinds.

Retrospectively the heresiologists describe scores of various "heretical cults". See Epiphanius's list of 80 heresies for example. Here the heresiologists were dividing and conquering opinion against the imperial centralised monotheistic christian cult. It was all a retrospective invention to make the 5th century heresiologists look like the church had established itself by agreement. Nothing could be further from the ancient historical truth. The church was established via the sharp imperial sword of inquisitional means.


You asked "How can you legalize a movement that is NOT monolithic and that is divided into competing factions who consider each other to be heretics?!". My answer is that the legalisation was retrospective, and covered over the reality of a fascist takeover that took many generations to complete.


Thanks for your questions Duvduv.

And best wishes.