mountainman

Athanasius of Alexandria



It appears clear to me that Athanasius is being written from within the envelope of the later 4th to mid 5th century. The modus operandi of the incumbent canonists was to supply bible codices to the emperor. Eusebius works for Constantine and Athanasius, who is the first person in the history of planet Earth to identify the ONE TRUE CANON, works for Constantius, Bullneck's son. These editors were involved with propaganda and excelled in heresiology. Death and destruction were to be expected by anyone foolish enough to go against the majesty of the emperor's religious persuasion - the very "plain and simple religion of the Chrestians or Christians"

Church dogma is not history, it is pseudo-historical dogma.

Not too many people are investigating the 4th century.
It appears sv wants to start with the Renaissance.

sotto voce

Yeah! A really late inclusion, for this place, and the bugger's been dead well over a thousand years! Catch up, mountainman!

Pseud, eh. What readers here with even a rudimentary knowledge of European history must ask themselves is whether there is a deliberate campaign by the timorous to represent what they fear as what they accept, i.e. those who massacred the church as the church. There may seem to them to be abject terror at the idea that Christians are justified by faith, not works. There may seem to be abject terror at the idea that Christians do not have a 'church year'. There may seem to be abject terror at the idea that Christians decide their own canon, now as ever. That's what lurkers must surely ask themselves, readers whose opinions count for something.

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

Excepting threads on biblical subjects and current 'scholars', when was there last one here that concerned even the second millennium CE? Do some research on that, mountainman. When was there a post-biblical thread that dealt with an era in which free thought and rationalism were even permitted? It's absurdity.

So almost every poster here most earnestly expresses faith in Jesus as rightful, if not actual personal saviour and lord!

:huh: Suit yourselves.

Duvduv

All I am doing is pointing out that sources do describe organized efforts at creating new rules and regulations. Thus it is not inconceivable that this was done equally with religion itself. Perhaps you did not understand the implication of my posting. I presume one could detect contradictions and distinctions in the law code itself that was developed by some individuals. So why not in the invented religion and its canon and apologetica as well?!!

sotto voce

Please! Everyone knows that 'organised religion' is and always has been the attempt of the indolent, the greedy, the sexually depraved to protect themselves against honest, decent and natural people; the infamous people who ran the Roman Empire actually being egregious example. It would be only expected of such persons that they would make every attempt to create the illusion that it was they who determined the standards of honest, decent folk, that it was they who 'decided on a NT Christian Canon'. They would have to change their underwear every time the truth about that seemed to make itself felt, would they not. The frequency and timing of such reaction might even provide a useful metric for assessing spiritual truth, might it not.

Duvduv

Without being able to empirically prove that the claims regarding the development of law codes was as described, at the very least it provides a scenario whereby officialdom who had the MEANS, MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY could have also created the Christian religion.

sotto voce

Everyone knows that 'organised religion' is and always has been the attempt of the indolent, the greedy, the sexually depraved to protect themselves against honest, decent and natural people; the infamous people who ran the Roman Empire actually being egregious example.

They were well-known abusers. They had 'the MEANS, MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY' to repeatedly claim that they had chosen the New Testament.

Just as we know abusers do today.

mountainman

Constantine destroyed major pagan temples, executed a few head priests and effectively shut down, by prohibition, the pagan religions. He legislated that "Religious privileges are reserved for Canon-Following Christians". He sent the army on search and destroy missions for the gnostic heretics and their uncanonical books.


He paraded Maxentius' head on a pike around the streets of Rome and then sent it to Africa as a stern warning that a new boss had arrived.

Lest we forget the times were barbarous.

He had pagans tortured following the Council of Antioch prior to Nicaea.

He dominated the harmonious solutions at Nicaea.

Bullneck published the Chrestos News.

Nero used the stage, Bullneck the codex.

mountainman

I think that Bilbo Jesus Baggins was firstly a fictional character in an imperially sponsored Good News Story Book lavishly published in the 4th century. His code name (think 007) "JS" was cloned from the Joshua nomina sacra "JS" in the LXX.

sotto voce

Who believes that?

Duvduv

If gnostics were an actual movement then it means that they were taking the imperial sponsored teachings rather seriously which would suggest that the officialdom originally propagated gnostic Christianity as opposed to gnosticism being a parody rather than an actual religion.