mountainman

The Sassanid Persians sought a Persian theme to rid themselves of the Greek hegemon in Persia c.222 CE, and it is likley that Constantine used a Jewish theme to rid the Roman empire of the Greek hegemon. He may be better regarded as a Germanic barbarian than a Graeco-Roman. From 312 and then 325 CE he oversighted the control and the preservation of the books of Jewish historians, such as Josephus, and it would seem that his manuscript preservation department were not averse to pious forgery, and selective book-burinings,

He had Greek personages and gods like Apollonius and Plato and Asclepius and Apollo and Zeus and Diana and Isis etc etc etc coming out of his ears, and it appears he managed to effectively prohibit all their temple practices such that the ancient Egypto-Graeco-Roman religious traditions and cults were stultified.

jgreen44

Given that the Persians used a Persian religion to unify the Persian people, why wouldn't Constantine use a Roman religion to unify the Roman people? He could have simply proclaimed Jupiter the one true God, for example. What would be efficacious about unifying a society with a religion foreign to that people?

mountainman

By Jove, that would have changed the course of history! He could have sponsored one of the Egypto-Graeco-Roman cults like the rest of the earlier Roman Emperors in their capacity of "Pontifex Maximus". He didn't though. Instead he directed a particulalry savage attack on all the pagan religious cults and pagan traditions, including philosophy, mathematics, geometry, astonomy (astrology), medicine, poetry - in short the Greek intellectual tradition which was suppressed for over 1000 years.


He would not have to share the new religious authority with incumbents.

jgreen44

Which goes back to my original question to you:

In your opinion, was anti-docetism developed/promoted originally as a means to distinguish one political faction from another?

I should have asked:

In your opinion, was docetism developed/promoted originally as a means to distinguish one political faction from another?

Because you have now answered in the affirmative.

If this is what Constantine did it reminds me of Hitler's "Night of the Long Knives" wherein he eliminated his rival, Ernst Rohm, under the pretext of purging the military of homosexuals. Homosexuality was intolerable when it was expedient for it to be intolerable.

But it was easy for Hitler to exploit long standing negative attitudes towards homosexuals in order to excuse his actions. Would 4th century Roman citizens be as open to the sudden abolition of their centuries old religions? Or is another Nazi analogy illustrative here? Were the various Roman religions so divided amongst themselves that they could not mount a unified defense against Constantine? Was the ascent of political Christianity an early version of the 1933 German presidential election?

mountainman

IMO the orthodox canon followers were the self-defined anti-docetic heresiologists.
The antichrist references in the letters of John make that abundantly clear.



To the above questions I would answer in the affirmative, by breaking up the three decades of Constantine's rule (via the history of Aurelius Victor) and describing them as The Good [ 305 - 314 CE] and The Bad [ 315 - 324 CE] and The Ugly [ 325 - 337 CE ] Things got ugly c.324/325 CE once supreme military power was won.

In another article, part (1) outlines Some Quotes of Hitler from the twentieth century that may fairly be placed directly into the mouth of Constantine in the fourth century . Part (2) of this article also attempts to describe in a diagramatic form A series of Diagrams showing how Constantine severed the Platonic Guardian Class from civilisation 325 CE

I see Constantine becoming a despotic fascist in his final decade of rule. Considering the parallel to modern history, the ascent of political Christianity being exemplified as an early version of the 1933 German presidential election, would correspond to the year 312 CE. The first few sentences of Arnaldo Momigliano's Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century makes this rather clear. Momigliano himself fled Musolini.


Hitler lost WWII, but Constantine did not lose against the commander of the Roman Army of the Eastern Empire c.324 CE. I see the situation exemplified as the conditions that would have ensued for Europe (and elsewhere in the world) had there been no "Allies" to curb and eventually stop the European theatre of engagement of Hitler's war machine.

I apologise for not delivering a nice message. I understand the message is quite black and dismal however that is what the evidence looks like from where I am standing. For that reason the Article above has a Part (3) devoted to humor, such as:


Enter the vile DOCETIC Gnostic heretics as the 4th century equivalent of the Monty Python documentary and film crew on the message for the Historical Jesus.


Summary

The Greek intellectual traditoin was suppressed for over a 1000 years, and the suppression followed on the wings of Constantine's war effort - A small number of "Christian people" and/or the war chiefs of Constantine's army got very very rich by Constantine's war effort. Smedley Butler who authored "War is a Racket" (or via: amazon.co.uk) would be capable of understanding the 4th century political and military context far better than I.

Interested readers should consider the following from Momigliano

jgreen44

No one doubts that Constantine profoundly impacted history and that, without him, Christianity would likely never have dominated Europe as it did. But, other than that point of agreement, you seem to be at odds with most mythicists. What are your major points of difference with Earl Doherty?

J-D

Why? Who are you apologising to? What makes you think any apology is owed?How so?

mountainman

The fundamental difference is the chronology of authorship of (a) the canonical books and (b) the non canonical books, and thus the corresponding political context. Where I see Christian origins as a story that can be confined to the 4th century, all others - whether HJ or MJ - are using a story set in the 1st or 2nd century.

A second difference is that I am essentially researching a revisionist political history of the 4th century that explains not only (a) but also (b). The non canonical books of the heretics should be explained with just as much attention as that allocated to the books of the canon. Few theories address the "Docetic Far Side" of the sage of christian origins, and none politically.

mountainman

If Christianity is an imperially contrived (not conspired) 4th century phenomenom (as I suspect it may be) then its suppression/destruction of all the other pagan religious cults is not a nice story. It is a story of death and destruction in a barbarous epoch in antiquity, described as "Neronian". I dont particularly like telling dismal stories. My apology relates to having to bring up issues such as military fascism etc. in a forum where not everyone wants to consider such issues relevant to history of christian origins.

J-D

That's a half-baked remark. Religious persecution is always an ugly story. Whatever the origins of the religion of the persecutors, they are irrelevant to the ugliness of the persecution. And in this particular instance the story of the persecution is nothing new--you don't have to apologise for reporting the persecution, because it's already been reported by others. What's ugly in your story is not original, and what's original is not ugly.People disagree with you. You disagree with them. That's a stupid reason for apologising. Why shouldn't people disagree?