mountainman

In another thread (Nicaean myth)
Our hypothesis is that Eusebius did not write a history of the "Galilaeans"
but instead wrote a fabrication of the Galilaeans in the fourth century
under the supreme imperial sponsorship of Constantine, to be used to
control and tax his newly acquired empire by a wicked fictitious device.

Consequently, our view of the emergence of the Arian controversy in
the years immediately prior to the council of Nicaea, has nothing at all
to do with the divinity of the 1st century fictional jesus, but in fact the
historicity of the 4th century fictional jesus.

We see the words of Arius as being related to the historical existence
of the newly promoted god by Constantine, via propaganda being created
in the western empire, and sent into the eastern empire during the period
317-324 CE.

Imagine that "The Search for the Historical Jesus" only commenced in the
fourth century, and that there were no christians on the planet until that
time. Imagine Hierocles heard about a new god being promoted by
Constantine, and was compelled to write a comparision between the new
god and Apollonius.

Imagine Arius heard about a new god being promoted by Constantine,
and formed his dogmatically asserted response:

"There was time when he was not".

Thus we view the Arian controversy as being the controversial words
related not to the divinity, but to the historicity of a fictional jesus.

Consequently, we disagree with Doherty.




Pete Brown

mountainman

I understand (better now than a year ago) that the mainstream
focus of BC&H rests on the discernment of the "most likely" set
of possibilities arising out of the "given" backbone of a Eusebian
chronology for the period 0-300. The Arian controversy is thus
seen to be a late event in a series of stepping stones leading
back through this Eusebian chronology, and may not be seen
to be therefore, at all important in the primal historical foundations
of the religion the planet has called christianity for some time.

I have never seen two explanations of "What was the Arian
Controversy" that agreed, and find it difficult to understand
the relationship between any of these mainstream explanations
and the actual words of Arius, as they are preserved in the
disclaimer clause on the Nicaean Creed.

I also find it difficult to understand that if the Arian controversy
related to subtle nuanced interpretations of theological doctrine,
only able to be reconciled with the introduction of brand new words
into the vocabulary of the new testament, and all associated writings,
including its purported ecclesiastical history, why so many people
could have been able to understand and discuss the concept, in
markey places of Alexandria, on street corners in cities of the
eastern empire in the period (317-324 CE).

In order for an issue to be discussed at the common people level
I would have expected it to be able to be relatively simply expressed.
Therefore, really, what was the issue of the controversy, and how
does any specification of this "simple" controversy relate to the simple
dogmatic assertions of Arius?

I would appreciate any enlightenment on these issues
from anyone who can answer these questions.




Pete Brown

JoeWallack

JW:
Hi Peter. First let me say that I do have to Concede that unlike the Jesus' of the Christian Bible your theory that Eusebius was The Holy Ghostwriter for Christianity is actually Possible. That being said the Possibility reminds me too much of the OJew Sampson Defense strategy.

When trying to Defend against the Prosecution's evidence without having any real defensive evidence on, let me remember, oh yeah, every point, the Defense alternated between explaining that no defensive evidence was needed because LAPD was a disorganized group of incompetents who couldn't engineer an egg on toast and you couldn't Trust anything they did and there simply was no defensive evidence because LAPD was an organized group of competents who you could Trust to engineer a perfect frame-up. But you can't have it both ways. Which was Eusebius? You seem to think of him as an Evil Mastermind Genius yet just off the top of my head:

1) He Confesses in a private letter that "Mark" ended at 16:8 (Yikes!).

2) He gives the two Traditions regarding the date of Jesus' death, Passover and the day before and Implies that he has no idea which is correct.

3) He generally doesn't quote the three headed baptism before Nicea but after generally does.

4) In a temporary fit of honesty he confesses that he only provides what is useful to the Faith.

5) Sez 4 out of 5 Josephuses recommend brushing your religious teeth with Popesident's Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, but adds that Origen's Josephus didn't use Chrest.

So if Eusebius was this Evil Christian Genius mastermind who was Jesus' real Father why does he go to all the trouble of leaving behind all this damning and embarrassing evidence against important Christian assertion? Answering that he meant to do it reminds me too much of Fundamentalists arguing that a Pee Wee Herman Devil left 6,000 year old fossils to confuse us.



Joseph

"You've been Wikied!" - JW

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

No Robots

Er, your boy, Eusebius of Caesarea? He was excommunicated for Arianism. H'mmm. Maybe some kind of double-agent deception.

mountainman

Hey Joe,

Eusebius (insignificant extremely intelligent literacist) worked for
Constantine (megalomaniacal highly intelligent supreme imperial mafia thug).

The answer to your question ultimately depends upon the nature
of the working relationship between the two individuals Eusebius
and Constantine. It was more or less one way, with one boss.

I will leave it to your imagination who the boss was, however
my best answer to you at this time is to read Ben Perry's
Life of Secundus the Philosopher, and then discuss:

1) Hadrian was supposedly the first of 5 good emperors each of whom
personally wrote, and kept writings of extant philosophers. What were
the bad emperors like, the one's that perverted and burnt literature?

2) What was the relationship between Hadrian and his henchman?
(Not that I think Eusebius necessarily had any choice in his sponsorships)
Does this assist us in understanding the relationship between the
bad emperor COnstantine, and his literary henchman Eusebius?

I look at the answers to these two simple questions as
stepping stones towards a better understanding of this.
Thanks for your contribution.

Best wishes for now,


Pete Brown
Authors of Antiquity

Clivedurdle

Pete, get hold of Terry Jones Barbarians, who has a fascinating discussion of all of this.

The Vandals and Goths who allegedly sacked Rome were xians!

gurugeorge

Who was Arius if he was not a Christian (as he cannot have been, according to your theory)? In what sense was he a "priest" or "bishop", and of what? And if there was a "council", what was it a council of - who were the people who came from all parts of the Empire, if they were not Christians of one type or another?

I think your hypothesis is bold (and for that reason interesting), but to me it makes more sense to think of Christianity as a moderately widespread, multifaceted phenomenon before Constantine, which included the (mainly Roman) proto-orthodoxy as merely one facet. The Constantine/Eusebian thing was then a sort of "tarting up" and "sealing" of this proto-orthodoxy as the "official" form of Christianity.

IOW, I think Walter Bauer and Bart Ehrman are the right guides to follow in this. There's too much evidence of the existence of something called Christianity before Constantine. There's little evidence that this something called Christianity was totally orthodox or Catholic and a lot to suggest that it was a mixed movement with varying interpretations of an essentially symbolic/mythical "Christ".

GakuseiDon

From Arius's letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia:
http://ecole.evansville.edu/arians/arius1.htm

Some of them say that the Son is an eructation, others that He is a production, others the He is also unbegotten. These are impieties to which we cannot listen, even though heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But we say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten; and that He does not derive his subsistence from any matter; but that by His own will and counsel He has subsisted before time, and before ages, as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not. For He was not unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning.

The question of whether Jesus was begotten or not goes to his divinity. If "there was a time when he was not", then some would say that Jesus couldn't be a god, because anything that had a beginning could not be a perfect God.

mountainman

OK, do you have an old copy that you can send to rural Australia,
and I will send it back after a few weeks? Or point me at a second
hand book reference on the net. You've been mentioning this book
now for some time. Message me if you can help. I always return books
on this planet.

But I think you'll find that all Terry's references
to pre-Nicaean christianity, with barbarian tribes is related to the
following practice .....

That's right, and many of them were converted by Constantine in
direct accordance with his foreign bribery practices, as described
in an earlier post related to the nature of the man Constantine.

Here is the relevant extract:

Bribery to accept the new Roman
religious order and Roman rule.

When he came into conflict with barabarians such as the Samatians Constantine bribed them with gold to accept the new Roman religion and Roman rule. These tactics were very expensive and rarely succeeded in preventing trouble. This conversion to the new Roman religious order (ie: christianity) of the barbarians gave them automatic admission into Constantine's armies. As a result the Roman armies consisted of an increasing number of Germanic tribesmen.

Therefore, I think many of the barbarian tribesmen were "converted"
in this manner to christianity, during the life of the emperor Constantine,
through to c.337 CE.


Pete Brown

mountainman

Arius was a man clever in disputation who alone faced Constantine.
Whatever he was, he was the last resistance of the ancient world
against Constantine's implementation of christianity, IMO. Perhaps
it is easier to see him as a standard pagan philosopher, like perhaps
those of the neopythagorean tradition.

I have copied the following staged explanation out of another post.
Hopefully it will provide some sort answer to your reasonable question.


Stage 1: 312-324 CE

Constantine takes Rome and implements a mini-proto-Nicaea (see below)
He consolidates his position, constantly looking east, planning supremacy.
He promotes the new religion in the west, and send literature to the east.
Eventually this results in the Arian controversy.

(NOTE: Our hypothesis sees the Arian controversy
as the reaction of the eastern empire against the new
testament texts, and the new religion. The controversy
is stated by the dogmatic assertion of a series of phrases
by Arius, such as:

* there was time when he was not.
* he was made out of nothing existing)


Stage 2: 324-325 CE

Constantine takes the eastern empire, and has Lucinus strangled.
He calls the Council of Nicaea on account of the words of Arius.
(See the above words of Arius).
He summons attendees to the council.

There were no "christian bishops" in the eastern empire, as per your
own reasoning, the only "christian bishops" in attendance being those
whom Constantine had "cultivated in Rome". The pope didn't make it,
but sent some juniors in his stead.

Our hypothesis is that the attendees summoned to Nicaea were the
patrician level land-holders, governors, nobility and other important
key people of the eastern empire, whom Constantine had just conquered.

They were summoned to Nicaea to discuss how the new empire was
going to fuction for the maintenance phase under the taxation and
regulation and administrative and new religious regimes, which were
to be implemented by Constantine.

Stage 3: 325 CE

Nicaean Council Meeting: what happened?

Constantine ran the show.
His mercanery barbarian storm troops were milling around outside.
He entered the meeting, not with his troops, but his family.
He berated the attendees for their discord, and quoted chapter & verse.
He pointed out the need for perceived harmony.
He burnt their written petitions in their presence.
He wined and dined them for 4 months.
He gave them presents and promises of civil works (new churches).
He supported those people who supported him.
Who was with Constantine, and who was with Arius?

Constantine sold the package of christianity to the attendees.
The package was subscribed to voluntarily.
Signatures were collected to attest comitment to Constantine.
The big DISCLAIMER CLAUSE got rid of the words of Arius.


Stage 4: 326-337 CE

Constantine implements a new and strange ROMAN church.
He wanted to get rid of the Hellenic culture and religions.
He did not to pay tribute to any of the old traditional Roman religions.
These were all Hellenic is nature. (See Julian's summaries).
He wanted their treasure, lands, temples, statues, etc, for himself.
Once the one true religion was implemented, all else became taxable.

Adherance to the words of Arius ceased being controversial.
It became the Arian Heresy, and the downhill slide started.

The attendees at Nicaea became key figures in a power network
that distributed favors from Rome to the eastern empire, and taxation
revenue, lands, etc, etc back to Roman central.

The 22 sub-clauses on the Nicaean creed define the nature of this
administrative network, which was established by agreement at Nicaea,
and which through common interest perpetuated itself throughout the
next 12 years of Constantine's reign, and thereafter.

They knew they were not christian bishops when they set out from
their homes in the eastern empire after being summoned to the council.
But there were some bishops from the western empire present, and
they all acted in complete accord with the new and strange religion,
in a new and strange fashion, and the bishop Eusebius was there,
and he was certainly a christian bishop, because he had just in fact
finished writing a history of "tribe of christians", and of their texts,
and they even had a copy of Josephus, and Josephus mentions the
chritians back then, so they certainly exist somewhere.

But they became the christian bishops of Constantine by signing
the Nicaean creed, and when they returned home, they were full
of food, and had presents, and would represent Constantine to
their local communities and cities, and be a key figure standing
in the (new and strange Roman universal christian) channel of power
between the supreme imperial thug, and his remote subjects.

New church structres would be built by the new civil administration
of Constantine, and every one of those new christian bishops would
get a big cut of the action. They became important men overnight.

It was a complete cold start. When Constantine burnt
their written petitions, things warmed up considerably.
They were reminded of where they were, and who was
in their presence. Constantine was a thug, acting in
some ways benevolently, but why?

All they had to do was to agree with Constantine, and
disagree with the words of Arius, whatever these words meant.
In fact, it was clear that these words meant entirely different things
to different parties. Noone really had to worry about what these
words meant, so long as they disagreed with them. So they signed
the creed, in expectation of future glory of the new Roman church.


Thanks for your contributions. I am sure there will appear in the future
evidence forthcoming which will shed light on this subject. It may well
be that Constantine simply diverted a pre-existing creek, and turned it
into the river of christianity, but it may well be that he was its source.

Time and research may tell us the answer to this question.
Best wishes for now,


Pete