Clivedurdle

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/

Fascinating programme!

Arguably what xianity did was a history of the gods - no wonder there is confusion about is Jesus historical or myth!

bacht

Well, if the gospels are closer to Homer than Herodotus they're not really history are they?

mountainman

Herodotus and Eusebius wrote under the inspiration of a newly established freedom ......

Clivedurdle

Anyone listened to the prog?

mountainman

Yes, I took some notes at high speed.

Contributors

Paul Cartledge, AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge

John Burrow, Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford

Miri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London

Clivedurdle

An oriental cult picks up some centralising tendencies (from the Persians) and is then picked up by someone very powerful who definitely has centralising tendencies, including employing someone to rewrite history.

DCHindley

If this is what you think, then you really should read Mike Conley's point of view:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/c...03/002851.html

Specifically, if you can, get hold of a copy of "St. Ignatius, the Insidious Pragmatism of the Episkopoi of Rome and the Rise of Christianity," by Michael Conley, published in The Journal of Higher Criticism, Drew University, Madison New Jersey, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall 2000), p. 242-285.
http://www.atheistalliance.org/jhc/BAKindex.htm (this is a link to a back index only)

It does not appear to be available online, but I do have a (very) rough draft of the English translation from Mike himself which I could pass on, I suppose. What he does is compare the early organization of Christian churches (I mean 2nd century through the time just before Constantine) to that of communist cells etc in various countries.

What attracted my interest to this fellow initially was the fact that he used to work (well, claims to have worked) for a governmental agency in the U.S.A. and in Germany (he told me it was the US Dept of Defence) and published "Communist Insurgent Infrastructure in South Vietnam; A Study of Organization and Strategy" (Washington D.C. CRESS, Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 550-106, March 1967). This is a very real publication, per:
http://olc1.ohiolink.edu/search~S0?/...arles&1%2C3%2C

Michael Charles Conley received a PhD in history from Ohio State University (around 1960) and his MA & PhD dissertations are catalogued at the University library, per:
http://olc1.ohiolink.edu/search~S0?/...+1926&1%2C2%2C

While I do not necessarily endorse the man's agenda, he had indicated he had developed this idea in a 42 page article, "Scenario: Nascent Christianity Emerges," which it appears was never published. He had indicated in the first link above that he would e-mail a copy to anyone interested, although it may be in German. Mike Conley's last known e-mail address was Mike.Conley@t-online.de per this link:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Itha...7/powerpla.htm

PS: Well I'll be damned (several here have likely already said this)! I just found out he published the thing as a 2 volume novel in 2005! It may flesh out his view a bit, sort of like Gerd Theissen's The Shadow of the Galilean (1987). Unfortunately I never liked historical novels that much.

http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bo...p?bookid=27732 (vol 1)
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bo...p?bookid=28459 (vol 2)

DCH

mountainman

Dear Clivedurdle,

Centralising tendencies would have been "picked up" with effect from the period 220 to 270 CE during the rigorous expansion of the Sassanid Persians however they were heavily anti-Roman. During this period the pathos may have been associated with the large numbers of Roman legioneers (and at least one Roman Emperor) who had been taken captive by the Sassanid Persians and forced to construct large and impressive monuments inside the Persian state will still remain extant today.

However, if we are patient to wait until the period 272-302 CE then not only would we have the centralising tendencies, and the manuscripts of Mani and the Manichaeans and their followers, but we would also very much have the narrative of religious heretics in the public mind of the Roman empire, following the death of Shapur, the execution of Mani, and the execution and persecution of the religious followers of Mani, both in Persia and in the Roman empire at large under Diocletian.

When the fourth century dawned, it dawned with Manichaen heretics being persecuted for their religious beliefs by all and sundry -- the Persians and the Romans. Christians continued to burn Manichaean writings well in to the fifth century against the doors of basilicas.

In the fourth century the little known sect of the christians was lovingly embraced by a supreme imperial mafia thug and malevolent despot, who jet-propelled it to exclusive prominence overnight at Nicaea. The history of the "nation of christians" --- which we all know was actually penned and prepared and more or less written during the period 312 to 324 CE --- is of course replete with a mass of heretics, who were promoting tractates not considered "canonical" by the apostolic lineage of the christians. Political heretics commence in the saga c.272 CE with the execution of Mani. Eusebius did not have to explain heresey -- it was a political reality. People (Manichaens) were being dragged from their dwellings and burnt along with their books inside the Romian empire.

Eusebius did not have to invent heretics. All he had to do was to wretchedly conflate the real and historical political persecutions of the Manichaeans with his new history of the christians, which were of course also a persecuted group, just like the Manichaeans. How about that! Everyone knew about religious heretics at the beginning of the fourth century. Eusebius added christians to history by playing his fiction close to the historical truth, and changing the pathos. Sympathy for the persecuted Manichaeans heretics was channelled into sympathy for the christians by the writing of "The Matrys of Palestine", etc. Did any of these christians "persecutees" actually exist? The documentation for their existence verges on the attrocious acceptance of rhetoric charged documents written by Eusebius during the political ascendancy of you-know-who. Authenticity of the entire shakey christian narrative is severely threatened by Constantine himself when he gets up on the stand at the Council of Antioch. His oration was a joke and clearly reveals his fraudulent intentions. The greek academics of the eastern empire understood all this, but what power could they use against the implementation of christianity at that time? They were prohibited from their standard religious practices with effect from 324 CE -- the temples were closed -- by order.


Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

The Journal of Higher Criticism has been given its own thread here

mountainman

Dear Clivedurdle,

Writing history for an autocrat can be a perilous business.
For example, Constantine conspired to fabricate his ancestry.

"Religion is regarded by
the common people as true,
by the wise as false,
and by the ruler as useful"

---- Seneca the Younger

Best wishes,


Pete