mountainman

Someone wrote "In Praise of the Thrice Blessed Constantine" containing letters from Constantine to Arius before later sources incorporated bits and pieces of it into their histories (from the 5th century or later).

Besides, many other independent people write about this massive controversy "over the words of Arius" which appear on the earliest versions of the Nicaean Creed (legally an OATH to Constantine). Athanasius, the father of orthodoxy is one who writes about Arius and the Arian Lunatics. Athanasius naturally enough calls Arius the Antichrist and compares him thrice to Sotades, a very uncouth ancient Greek satirist. This does not appear to be a Clever Disguise for Saint Mark.

Church Councils of the 4th and 5th century refer to the opinions of the Arians or Arius as anathema. These are independent attestations.

You are doing well playing the devil's advocate here Stephan, but in this case IMO there appears to be sufficient evidence outside of Eusebius to justify the historical existence of someone called Arius who was responsible for framing the famous 5 sophisms which ignited and fuelled a well attested "Arian controversy" for many centuries after the Boss and Big E went to the underworld.



εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman

With great excitement Eusebius discovered that lots of important stuff lurked in his Syriac archive.







εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

stephan huller

And what is the contemporary evidence for the importance of Arius? Please explain how someone who wasn't a bishop had such a massive influence over the heads of entire Christian communities. Why isn't Arius mentioned at Nicaea? Why is it that Arius only takes on central significance AFTER his death? A man so influential that even the Emperor and his associates were afraid to anathematize him. As I said, he wasn't even a bishop.

mountainman

If you were to take Eusebius out of the equation it would appear that we have a massive black hole of primary evidence for the period between 325 and 352 CE (when the surviving history of Ammianus cuts in). The second most important event in Christian history happens and we have a black hole of primary evidence for a generation. How peculiar is that? Many histories were written for this epoch but for some reason they were not preserved until the 5th century. How peculiar is that?




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman

All histiories of Nicaea are from the 5th century.

Here is one explicitly mentioning Arius.


Philip of Side, 5th century


Fr. 5.6
[Supporters of Arius at the Council of Nicaea]
Anonymous Ecclesiastical History 2.12.8-10 [p. 47, lines 5-19 Hansen][160]




Notice how the Holy Spirit uses people as instruments in this account.

The "guardian spirits" of many people were justifiably tame in the presence of Constantine.

Except of course for that Ares warrior Arius.


εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman

My explanation is that Arius became the focus and figurehead of the arguments AGAINST Constantine. The 90-95% dominant pagan hegemon also had arguments against Constantine at Nicaea, but we don't hear about these. We don't hear about anything until the 5th century.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

stephan huller

But Eusebius of Nicomedia was classified as an Arian (= follower of Arius) and he was part of the royal household. Constantine's mother and son were 'Arianists.' It doesn't make sense. The only way the evidence can be reconciled is if Constantine was developing an ecumenical compromise from a position of weakness.

mountainman

The first step is to acknowledge that we are dealing with a "black hole" of primary historical evidence for the epoch 325-352CE. The second step is to acknowledge that secondary evidence from the 5th century is being used to reconstruct history for the epoch.

It doesn't make much sense, but this is the reality. The victors of the 5th century wrote their own history and they have fabricated stuff. It's a difficult investigation. The church has concealed the facts and substituted its own evidence and facts. It did have other histories for the epoch available to it in the 5th century which were written in the 4th century, but for some reason these accounts did not serve the church and were not preserved.

Arius was the most thoroughly demonised heretic in all of Christian history. There must be a good reason for this. He must have been a very naughty boy.



εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Chili

No, he was a 'look-alike' like Moses, and when they clean the house, they mean clean the house. And is there something wrong with that?

Or do you may think that Moses was a good guy too?

Oh, and Mark's Jesus went to hell, in case you wonder. That is, back to Galilee for another 40 years and die there nonetheless equals hell on earth.

mountainman

Of course it is. They wrote what we read as history.




I see a "black hole" of primary evidence about EVERYONE between 325-352 CE.

The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary
and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia