Doug Shaver

Some of us actually try to do that.

mountainman

Well keep up the good work and try not to allow "Christian parsimoniousness" effect the balance of the scales in weighing the evidence, since the roots of Christian parsimony, persecution and intolerance are evidenced to have appeared after Constantine trotted out his codex in the 4th century, and no earlier.

Doug Shaver

Since there is no such thing, I would not expect that to be a problem.

Clivedurdle

Reading the account about Diocletian, I would propose Eusebius was not closer to the truth, but for a different reason.

This non sacrificing cult of atheists - they did not believe in the true gods - were understood as being anti social and causing real problems in the body politic. The entrails and muses can be understood as expressions of this real disquiet about people not sacrificing.

As a social order issue it is therefore then logical to do something - expulsion from your job - well they are corrupting the empire aren't they - or major surgery against this cancer.

Eusebius's problem is that he is taking his propaganda as true - he is on a mission to impose his new god, and therefore interprets a logical reaction by a threatened empire as persecution when it is a control move.

Which raises an interesting question - maybe xianity saved the religious mind set - the pagans were slowly becoming secular and sacrificing was dying out as old fashioned. Rationality was growing.

We moved from the superstitio of many gods to the more dangerous superstitio of one god with a clear hierarchy and empire behind it.

mountainman

But this non sacrificing cult was Greek and very much Pythagorean (perhaps Buddhist) since Apollonius of Tyana wrote authoritatively upon this very subject in books authored in the 1st century as cited by Eusebius himself. We do not need a christian non sacrificing cult since the cult following Apollonius and the lineage of the Pythagoreans and Platonic sages / philosophers clearly were regarded as an authority in this area. Apollonius of Tyana is cited by Eusebius as an authority on the abstinence from sacrifice.

The Greek priesthood and the august consular advice of the "College of the Greek pontifices [priests]" was made redundant at Nicaea --- almost overnight --- after being in service to all the Roman emperors between Julius Caesar (55 BCE) and Diocletian (305 CE). Why?

Eusebius was ordered to present Constantine's propaganda in the highest technology of the age - the second sophistic and the codex. The key text in this is the Eusebian authored and Constantine sponsored polemic "AGAINST THE LIFE OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA". For what reason did Constantine utterly destroy the temples (of Asclepius - the Greek god of Healing) which Apollonius had sponsored?

"Christian Glasses"? The rationality which is now recognised to have been cultured in the Greek civilisation by its collegiate priesthoods and academies was being surplanted by the "Plain and Simple Religion of Constantine's Christians". There is no rationality in apologetics whatsoever. Thank Christ that people had the sense to take the literature of the Greek civilisation away from the totally irrational christian pyromaniacs and hand it over to the Arabs for its preservation.

The 21st century ON/OFF LOGIC GATE of monotheism is a fairy story.
We need to examine the trinity of Plotinus as it was espoused by the Greek civilisation in the 4th century:
The CHRESTOS (the all) and the SPIRIT and the SOUL.
In order to understand this we need to understand the notion of Nondualism


The literature of Porphyry, one of the twelve disciples of Plotinus, and who preserved Plotinus and Euclid, was BURNT!
The literature of Arius was BURNT!
The literature of Emperor Julian was BURNT!
The literature of "christian dissent" was BURNT!
The literature of Alexandria was BURNT!
It was very dangerous to oppose the bright and burning christian majesty of the emperor!

There were heretics who asserted shortly after the council of Nicaea that the father and the son and the holy ghost were three separate gods. Not only that but between Nicaea and the end of the 5th century these was an explosion of (quite obviously fraudulent) "Christian Hagiography" and highly revered Christian Saints and Martrys crawled out of every pile of bones in the empire. These new many many many Saints attracted basilicas.