Toto

This is entirely uncalled for.

Bede

Toto,

If you will accept you were wrong about Eusebius I will unreservedly apologise.

B

Toto

You have not demonstrated that Richard Carrier was wrong about Eusebius. You have not demonstrated that anything I said was wrong.

I think that people who say that Eusebius was an admitted liar and forger are putting a negative spin on the facts, but not one that cannot be supported. Your effort to stick up for Eusebius is pure spin doctoring that takes you to an unsupportable attempt to rewrite what Eusebius actually said.

I think that Eusebius was, as I said before, more interested in saving souls than preserving a historical record. There is a reasonable case to be made for his forging the passage about Jesus in Josephus.

If you would just argue your case instead of throwing insults at those who disagree with you, this might have been a worthwhile discussion.

Bede

Toto, we have shown that to use the word 'falsehood' in the context of the bible in translating Eusebius is absurd. That is the end of it and your refusal to admit this shows my comments were justified.

B

copernicus

Actually, Bede, you have shown nothing of the sort. Standard dictionaries of Biblical Greek appear to translate the word as English 'lie, lying, falsehood' rather than the less jarring 'fiction' or 'parable'. Can you produce a dictionary source to corroborate your proposed usage?

As Toto has pointed out, it matters very little whether you translate it as "fiction" or "lie". There is really no way to read Eusebius without understanding him to approve accounts that shade the truth in order to promote the interests of the greater good. Perhaps this is what he had in mind when he cited Constantine's preposterous claim that he had seen the sign In hoc signo vinces emblazoned across the sky (Eusebius, Vita Constantinae 1.26-29). Constantine, who remained a pagan until near death, had that slogan inscribed on his soldiers' armor.

Eusebius was among that segment of the Christian community that promoted Irenaeus's "fourfold gospel" and decried all others as heresy. Constantine was able to use Irenaeus's vision of a "catholic" church to unify and energize a political base against internal enemies. Constantine and the "catholics" had much to gain from their alliance. A few falsehoods in the name of the Cross were not the least of their moral transgressions. Constantine had Jews burned alive for attempting prevent conversions from Judaism to Christianity, and he banned them from Jerusalem. The many Christians who did not side with the catholics were deprived of property, fined, and made to suffer other indignities. The non-orthodox Nag Hammadi books were apparently hidden in a buried jar to keep them away from the book-burners who were out to "correct" the historical record.

joedad

Well, you accused me of being anachronistic, and I merely demonstrated that your conclusion was erroneous.

The fact remains that any non christian amulet of this time period is "magical" by definition. There are lots of amulets out there, Bede, and they're either christian or magical. This only makes any argument you make about an amulet being "magical" quite unimportant. No offense intended or taken.

Roger Pearse

[QUOTE]Your position seems to be based on the idea that Eusebius just could not have thought of the Bible as fictional except in the most perfectly benign sense [QUOTE]

Hmm.

Isn't this a question of genre? In evangelistic literature, perhaps so. In chronology, I don't see it. In hagiography, the objective would be to edify, not convert. Horses for courses.

You wait.

I've snipped the curious statements about morality -- not sure why you brought your obsession with sex into it.

Try Joseph Wheless, who lies by selection and omission. (I don't collect examples of dishonest writers, btw -- just came across that one).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

Roger - this has wandered a bit from Dionysios, and I am not sure if we are actually arguing about the same thing at times.

I would only point out that Joseph Wheless never stated that it was okay to feed falsehoods or fiction to people for their own benefit, as far as I know. I know that you have an essay trying to debunk Wheless which was discussed here a while back, and as I recall, you could only find evidence that he was too polemical or may have been mistaken on some details, or possibly used his own translations of the classics, or put a spin on a quote that you felt was unfair. (One prior thread is here. I thought I remembered another one, but I don't seem to be able to locate it.)

The secularweb contains Wheless's works in its historical section, which has this disclaimer:

Roger Pearse

Um, *biblical Greek*? I don't think that Plato used that, nor Eusebius. Which dictionaries, btw?

Since the Loeb Greek-English edition of Plato's Laws -- the whole work, not just a quotation -- renders it as 'fiction', can it not mean just that?

Not sure what the point about dictionaries is -- don't words have the meaning they have in texts? If the professionals, with no axe to grind in that context, can so render it, then can it not have that value? The sense somewhat requires it, you see.

If that is so, can I suggest we agree to use 'fiction?' You see, I do think it makes a considerable difference, myself, since 'fiction' does not necessarily have a malign meaning -- allowing room for interpretation --, while 'lie' does have a pejorative meaning and closes off discussion.

'Lie' also makes nonsense of Eusebius' comment, unless we are prepared to believe he thinks some parts of the bible are a lie.

However I do think he considers some parts of the bible written as fiction -- indeed that is his point: and, as I have said several times, what is being discussed by Plato and Eusebius in Book 12 is educational fiction.

But as I see it, there is no way to read Eusebius in this way that does not involve attributing to him absurd statements.

I get the impression that the effort to attribute this view to him can only be malicious (I don't mean anyone here, personally). It originates with Gibbon, in a passage designed to deceive, and is retailed only by Christian-haters, with a view to getting rid of inconvenient testimony. Is this the sort of thing we want? This is why I refer to the full translation of the Laws, which was done probably without even being aware of the passage in Eusebius.

I wonder whether there is some special evidence that Constantine did not say this? If not, what is the meaning of this comment? Not having been there, I have no idea what the statements mean; but then, not having a closed mind on such things, I don't feel obliged to have views about it!

Note the use of the Vita -- another link with the anti-Hapsburg propaganda of the 1850's, which seems to be the real origin of all this.

Where did you get this bit? <curious>

Um, how do we know this?

To me, in view of his legislation, the idea seems ludicrous Measured by his acts, and his legal work (all testable), he was the first Christian emperor. He was of course a ruthless and violent man, but then so were all the late emperors -- it went with the job. His status in the eyes of God, of course, is not your concern or mine. Morally he was infinitely superior to Bill Clinton (not a hard job, admittedly), with far worse conditions to work with. There seems no reason not to suppose him sincere. He used to preach sermons to his court officials, who used to have to think of excuses to get out of it. Boring for Christ... this seems authentically Christian to me!

Christians, of course, do not much favour the impact of his 'benevolent' legislation on the church. But the evil consequences again are not our concern here.

This is terribly unhistorical, I'm afraid. Authors who invent stories because they are convenient, and rubbish the Christians, relying on the sketchy public knowledge of our day, are a real peril to the wayfaring atheist. I'd keep clear of this garbage.

I query whether the Nag Hammadi books were even in existence when Constantine came to the throne -- they are 'fourth century', and so I suppose were written most likely in his reign or later. Likewise we have no knowledge of why they came to be hidden where they were, in a jar of 4-5th century ware. They were found in a jar, and that is the extent of our knowledge. As far as I know, the rest is imagination. Some details on the Nag Hammadi finds

The remainder of the paragraph is not much better. I could write an essay on it, but I hope you won't mind if I don't! Can you tell us where you got it? (for future reference)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

copernicus

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "standard", since I am not a Greek scholar. A search of the web turned up only definitions such as this one from The New Testament Greek Lexicon. Given that Eusebius was writing at the time that the New Testament was being developed, I thought that it would be appropriate. A check of other lexicons and dictionaries proposes the same definitions, but I am not a Greek scholar. Can you cite any dictionaries or lexicons that back up your interpretation?

That's ok with me. The word "falsehood" might be another less emotively charged word than "lie".

Roger, as far as I can tell, it is your sensibilities that require it, not the sense. My sensibilities make no such demand. But, again, I have to admit that I do not read Greek. It is always possible that words are used in unusual ways in a given context.

I have already stipulated to that connotation, but it is a little odd for us to split hairs over the translation. I don't see why Eusebius could not have used the Greek word for "parable", if that is what he really meant. Pseudos seems to have been used rather commonly to refer to ordinary falsehoods.

Oh, come now. He lived in an age when half the Christian world disagreed with the orthodox "catholic" movement. They burned books that they wanted to suppress, for Christ sake. (pun intended ) They fought wars of religious suppression. Do you really think they were above telling lies for the cause?

There is every reason to believe that christian scholars had trouble with the idea of biblical inerrancy. After all, the fourfold gospel contained plenty of discrepancies from each other, let alone the gospels they suppressed.

Absurd in your mind. Perhaps he just felt that it was pragmatically necessary to shade the truth in the name of building a unified church.

Look, you drift into ad hominems a lot. They are not good reasons to believe one way or the other. It is not as if you are neutral on these issues either.

What I meant was that Eusebius had his own doubts about what he claimed Constantine said. It is quite possible that he knew it to be a false claim, but it was certainly a good way to rally the troops. Constantine had it inscribed on his soldiers' armor, after all. Onward Christian Soldiers, and all that!

I have no direct knowledge of it, of course. It is widely reported that he was not baptised until shortly before his death, e.g. see this link. He did, after all, have to rule over a pagan empire, and the empire did not technically become a christian state until 70 years after his death. He was not the first emperor to try to unify the state through religious reform.

Thanks for the advice, Roger. I based my comments on a recent reading of Elaine Pagels' Beyond Belief. I realize that I should steer clear of the garbage written by people who win the National Book Award for their scholarship on the Nag Hammadi scripts.

The books were probably buried within a few decades of his death--to preserve them from that the book-burning orgies of Athanasius, who was busy stomping out heresy in the name of the church. No doubt he did it for posterity's sake--so that they wouldn't be distracted by a "pseudos" or two.

I think that Elaine Pagels' speculation is a touch better than pure imagination. Given the date and the times, it is reasonable to suppose that proscribed manuscripts ended up buried to escape destruction. After all, how many gospels of Thomas have survived to this time? It used to be a fairly popular book in the early Roman Empire.