mountainman

What type of evidence are you happy to put forward in support of your surety in the thesis that these powers had anything to do with christianity other than the evidence which has been assembled by Eusebius in the fourth century? Here is a list of second and third century "christian" archaeological citations. Do you draw any support for your surety from any of these openly published and discussed citations? Otherwise, why should I believe your surety?

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Arianism is at the heart and soul of christendom, but what in fact was it? Not to be facetious Philosopher Jay, but IMO if you were to politely line up one million academic treatments of the Arian controversy then you would have in front of you one million distinct and separate treatments. Noone agrees in the details. Who was Arius of Alexandria. What did he write that was so injurious to the emperor Constantine that the Boss felt compelled to write to Arius in hiding? At the heart and the soul of Arianism stands the author Arius of Alexandria but the world perhaps is not yet ready to receive his true and historical testimony in regard to the meaning of the words of Arius there was a time when He (Jesus) was not.

PS: We should also be seeking explanations for the other controversies and heresies such as that of Origen, and that of Nestorius, and that surrounding the entire millieu of the non canonical literature as part of some "history".




Best wishes,


Pete

Huon

1 - So far, I have no evidence to put forward in support of my thesis.

2 - Archaeological citations cannot bring any direct support to or against the idea that the power of the patriarchs of the most important towns of the empire grew progressively during the second and third century. This increase of power is connected with the increase of the Christian population, and also with the multiplication of Christian sects, which is another aspect of the question.

3 - Irenaeus ("Adv. Haereses", IV, xxx, 1) points out that Christians were employed at this period [pope Victor I (189-199)] as officials of the imperial Court. Among these officials was the imperial freedman Prosenes, whose gravestone and epitaph have been preserved (De Rossi, "Inscriptiones christ. urbis Romae", I, 9, no. 5). You have mentioned this inscription.

4 - "Otherwise, why should I believe your surety?"
You believe what you want, and put aside what you don't want to believe. I am not a Patriarch !

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

You are certainly correct that the details of the Arian controversy are hard to understand, highly disputed and controversial, but so is much in the field of Early Christian history, so we have to muddle through as best we can.

Thank you for the letter. I found it quite interesting. I have not studied the matter, but it seems to me to be that it is a rhetorical exercise rather than a genuine letter by Constantine. First, there is no salutation. Constantine would hardly have missed the chance to express his titles and remind Arius of his high position. Second, Constantine offers no threat of physical punishment or deadline for compliance with his wishes against someone he clearly considers his enemy. Either he was the most mild-tempered Emperor since Marcus Aurelius, or the letter is not by him. Third, at the end of the letter, we get the dating as "when Paterius was prefect of Egypt" Since we do could not know during the prefecture of Paterius how long Paterius would be Prefect of Egypt, one would hardly date a letter that way. It might be referring to a one year period or a thirty year period. It would be similar to dating this writing from me in Florida, by saying it was done in the time that Bill Nelson was Senator from Florida. Nelson was elected in 2000 and reelected in 2006 until 2012. He may very well end up being Senator till 2018 or even 2024. No one would date a letter so imprecisely, certainly not an Emperor in his official correspondence.

Still, even if not by Constantine, the value of the letter is, as you ascertain, that it tells us some things about Arius and his doctrines, style, and popularity.

Warmly,

Jay

Clivedurdle

Davies - a History of Europe discusses the various churches around the med in the first centuries. He doesn't say it explicitly but there is no reason to assume Rome was the principle Church.

It may actually answer loads of questions if we move our focus to Alexandria...

For example what if those comments about Serapsis and xians are correct? That they were interchangeable.

Why is there not a letter of Paul to Alexandria?

Jeffrey Gibson

Why -- especially given Paul's stated reluctance to write to "churches" he himself had not founded -- would we expect there to be one?

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle

Red herring - now what were we discussing? Oh yes, how come everyone thinks Rome is the key centre of early xianity when it is highly probable it wasn't and Alexandria was.

Didn't someone comment "oriental cult"?

Are we able to tell from the extant Greek documents where in the Greek speaking world they originated? As there are differences between Ameirican and British English, are their differences between Alexandrian and Ephesian Greek for example?

Clivedurdle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek

mountainman

Hi Philosopher Jay,

I am inclined to think that the letter may be a genuine and innocuously transmitted by the post-Constantinian ecclesiatical historians from at least that time. (See T.D.Barnes et al on Constantine's Prohibition of Pagan Sacrifice)


Constantine Augustus
to Arius
and to Arians.


I think he does this above.


The sources were stated as:

LETTER: Emperor Constantine to Arius
Type: Early Arian Document (Urkunde) 34 (=AW III2 no. 27; CPG 2042)
Date: 333 CE
Source: Athanasius, Defense of the Nicene Definition 40 (TLG)
Also found in Socrates, Church History 1.9.30
and Gelasius, Church History 3.19.1



Constantine would not write a letter to a dead man. Arius of Alexandria was finally somehow coerced from his hiding or refuge in Syria or wherever and probably poisoned c.336 CE, a fact which in no uncertain terms Sir Isaac Newton pointedly described Athanasius of "revealing from an underhanded position". (See Newton on Athanasius) The letter appears to be thus written before this date of c.336, the date the Boss got rid of the focal point of the resistance --- the ascetic (probably a priest of Ascelpius) Arius of Alexandria.


If the unwitting christian ecclesiastical historians who transmitted this letter from the fourth century can be believed, the letter may also tell us something of the political turbulence Constantine was having with the implementation of the Nicaean agreement - whatever that may have been.

Arius is disclosed as an ascetic who had kept his peace and quiet at Nicaea and who had probably only spoken a few terse words ... the very words recorded on the Nicaean creed/Oath as being "But for those who say ..." (and therefollows the words of Arius .... There was time when he was not, etc). He was banished from Nicaea, but his words remained.

And his words remained the focal point of Arian resistance for the next 100 years. We see them as the headlines to all the church anathemas of the fourth century synods -- preserved as memoirs to the public opinion of the times.

In this letter IMO (I might be wrong here) Constantine makes it clear he would like to hang Arius. Arius has authored clever and stinging anti-Constantinian stories. They are verses expressing Arius' "belief in unbelief". Constantine is very vexed at Arius' songs of unbelief. Arius is a wanted man.


Was one of these stories copied into the first text of the sixth Nag Hammadi codex? I readily admit this may be an extremely against the odds hypothesis, but if the words of Arius inflamed the "Arian controversy" for over three or four generations (100 years) then how much more would have the written words of Arius?

What survives from Arius? (that has not been treated by the christian ecclesiatical historians of later centuries, and the Librorum Prohibitorum after the invention of the printing press).


Best wishes,



Pete

Huon

Eusebius Church History Book VI Chapter 32.

1. About this time Origen prepared his Commentaries on Isaiah and on Ezekiel. Of the former there have come down to us thirty books, as far as the third part of Isaiah, to the vision of the beasts in the desert; on Ezekiel twenty-five books, which are all that he wrote on the whole prophet.

2. Being at that time in Athens, he finished his work on Ezekiel and commenced his Commentaries on the Song of Songs, which he carried forward to the fifth book. After his return to Cæsarea (in Palestine), he completed these also, ten books in number.

3. But why should we give in this history an accurate catalogue of the man's works, which would require a separate treatise? we have furnished this also in our narrative of the life of Pamphilus, a holy martyr of our own time. After showing how great the diligence of Pamphilus was in divine things, we give in that a catalogue of the library which he collected of the works of Origen and of other ecclesiastical writers. Whoever desires may learn readily from this which of Origen's works have reached us. But we must proceed now with our history.