bacht

Would you agree that pre-70 the temple establishment in Jerusalem at least posed as being the final authority on matters of Jewish tradition?

We know that the Pharisees challenged the Sadducees in terms of the Oral Law and a looser interpretation of scripture, and there were only synagogues in the diaspora (except the small temple in Egypt). As you say there probably never was one definitive Judaism practiced uniformly from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. The Septuagint might have been the closest thing to a unifying reference, at least in the west.

aa5874

So, Marcion appears to be independent of Eusebius.

Once Marcion did exist and preached another Jesus Christ and another God, vastly unlike the one of Eusebius, we have an alternate source for the history of Christianity.

Many of the church writers mentioned Marcion, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen. I find it incredible that the church would invent Marcion and then invent another version of Jesus to counter their own invention.

Clivedurdle

Agreed - because of the victory of the Maccabees in the Jewish civil wars.

mountainman

Our knowledge of Marcion is directly dependent upon Eusebius,
or upon other authors who themselves are directly dependent
upon Eusebius. Eusebius and Eusebius alone tenders the mass
of writings from earlier centuries in the fourth century.

The assertion that Marcion or any of the "early church fathers"
are independent of Eusebius is conjectural and is based upon
the premise that Eusebius is an accurate historian and not an
imperially sponsored polemicist.


You have just another twist in the "lonely and untrodden path"
which was revealed to us in the literature of Eusebius.

Edwin Johnson did not find this "incredible".
Quite conversely, Johnson states the issue as follows:

"[the fourth century was] the great age of literary forgery,
the extent of which has yet to be exposed"
...[and]...

"not until the mass of inventions
labelled 'Eusebius' shall be exposed,
can the pretended references to Christians
in Pagan writers of the first three centuries
be recognized for the forgeries they are."


--- Edwin Johnson, "Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins"

Having stated the above, I wish to reiterate that I do not think
that the way forward in understanding the "History of xianity"
is by means of an examination of the canon and its transmission.

The reason is Eusebius and "the mass of inventions" which will be
one day associated with his name in the field of ancient history
because Eusebius is the one and only source for anything and
everything on this planet which was "christian" before Nicaea.

His "histories" were prepared to preface the Council of Nicaea.
We know that he prepared them and revised them many times
in order to take into account the council of Nicaea. Nobody likes
the idea that Eusebius was nothing but a paid and mercenary
literary polemicist sponsored by Constantine, for reasons that
should be obvious to one and all.

Everyone seeks a weak point in Eusebius in order to get a handle
on the history of christianity, and this is not going to happen.
Eusebius is not going to admit that he fabricated the whole thing.
If the invention of the history of christianity was Eusebian then
we should understand by now in 2009 that he is unlikely to make
such explicit admissions.

The weak point in the history of Christianity is not the history of
the canon, which Eusebius presents on his pat malone. The weak
point in the history of christianity is the issue over which Eusebius
had little or no control ... the issue of the "heretical apocrypha":
the "hidden" anti-christian literature which was not canonical.


The History of the Apocrypha

I once asked the rhetorical question "Where can we put the fulcrum
in order to move the wretched Eusebius out into the light". After
contemplating this question for some time it has occurred to me that
the placement of the fulcrum on Eusebius needs to be on the ground
in which Eusebius is not the "source". We may assume Eusebius to be
the source of all our knowledge of the canon pre-Nicaea. We may not
make the same assumption with respect to the non canonical literature.

Eusebius had no control over the appearance of the non canonical
literature. In his mass of writings he does of course tender some
source references to the non canonical corpus of literature, but the
scale of the references is quite small when compared to the number
of references in his "histories" to the canonical corpus.

For this reason here, and elsewhere, I have suggested that a special
study and examination of the history of the apocrypha will yield fruit
and will shed light upon the quest for the history of (canonical) christianity.

Christianity was delivered to the word with two faces.
One of them is old and one of them is young.



The canon is the older of the pair.
The apocrypha are younger than the canon.
They were authored last.
When were the apocrypha authored?
When were the anti-christian heretical books authored?

If we answer this question then the canon will be exposed by itself.
The canon and the non canonical do not belong together.
They are the antithesis of each other: they are conflated at present.
We cannot separate these corpi of literature.
But we can separate them and examine them separately.
The canon has been separately examined for centuries.
Nothing is going to budge with the canon.

Two hundred years ago the non canonical corpus of literature
was represented by "Pistis Sophia" on its pat malone. Since then
literary hundreds of other separate gnostic new testament apocryphal
tractates have been discovered, and C14 dating has appeared.

The C14 citations are for the new testament apocrypha.
The C14 citations x 2 are not in respect of the canon.
We have no C14 dating on the canon.
Therefore we should examine the history and the chronology
of the "other books" which did not make it into the bible.

Everyone simply assumes that these other books were around
at the time that Constantine bound the LXX to the canon of the NT,
and that they were no selected for inclusion. This is what Eusebius
asserts. But why for one second do we believe Eusebius about the
history of the literature which he asserts to be heretical, blasphemous,
and "not to be preserved"? Surely with respect to the Apocrypha,
Eusebius is a hostile witness. His number one job was the canon.
Do we expect that a very very hostile witness is to be relied upon
when providing evidence about the opposition (the non-canon)?

Totally independent of the history of the new testament canon, it
is my opinion that the argument that the new testament apocrypha
first appeared on the planet Earth after Nicaea is sound.
Not only that, but by dealing first with the NT apocrypha, and
by demonstrating that the evidence leads us to believe that the
apocryphal corpus is a later addition to the canonical corpus,
we have taken a small step forward in terms of ancient history
and our examination of the history of christianity.

I hope this makes some sense to some people.
Or am I simply just wasting my time on this issue?

aa5874

But, is it your view that Marcion did exist before Eusebius and was a christian who preached about Jesus Christ?

It should be noted that even if Eusebius was not an accurate historian that he did write about many things that appear to be true.

If you think that Eusebius invented everything about christianity and corrupted every single writing about christianity, then your search will be stymied.

It is my view that Eusebius did not invent everything or corrupted every writing about christianity.

It appears to me that Eusebius did not invent Marcion or Justin Martyr.

One big problem with non-canonised writings is that they are almost always un-authored filled with the same incredible information about Jesus, rendering them virtually useless for historical purposes.

Church History by Eusebius, I find, has many of the clues to decypher the history of the Roman Church.

And, by the way, I don't think Eusebius acted alone. It seems as though he and others were given the authority to fabricate the new history of the Roman Church.

After three years of research, I think the history of the Roman Church is getting clearer.

mountainman

No, IMO Marcion is simply a fabricated fictitious
Eusebian literary "profile" aka "pseudonym".


Of course as we all know good liars stay close to the truth.


(IMO) After Eusebius was dead and buried, his orthodox continuators
in Athansius, Damasius, Jerome, Augustine, Rufinus, and Cyril, to name
a few, also contributed "christian inventions" over and above Eusebius.
Every man and his dog were inventing christian saints in the 5th century.

True. I think he had no control over the non orthodox non canonical gospels
and acts of the apostles which appeared after the canon for example.
Neither is he responsible for the inventions after his death, and there
are a formidable mountain of such inventions.



Appearances can sometimes be deceptive.
I think he invented both these "profiles".
Nobody else refers to these people outside
the "lonely and untrodden path" of Eusebius.

When Julian later refers to the "fabrication of the christians"
I think he is referring to the mass of writings from Eusebius,
whom Julian refers to as the wretched Eusebius.




Of course, of course and of course. I wholly agree aa5874.
But just look at what we think we know about these two sets.
(1) The canon was authored by unknown people in an unknown century.
(2) The apocrypha were also authored by unknown people in an unknown century.

Yes, they do look the same on the surface.
However I believe an argument can be made that in fact
the apocryphal corpus was actually authored after Nicaea.

Tertullian as the authority and source for dating the apocryphal corpus

When one goes digging into Eusebius for the details of the apocrypha
there is surprisingly very very little data, and Eusebius himself is the
source of the bulk of the data. Some of the key and critical data is
entirely questionable, such as the Tertullian reference to "The Acts of Paul".

And yes, I do not think Tertillian lived and breathed or was a "person".
Tertullian like the rest of the Eusebian profiles are simply mouthpieces
for dogma, tradition and fictive polemic. In his Review of T.D.Barnes' Tertullian
Arnaldo Momigliano ironically writes in the opening sentence that according to Barnes ...

And to highlight this utter dismay of Momigliano for Tertullian (and Barnes' concept
of Tertullian) Momigliano concluded his review of Barnes by citing another:
This Tertullian polemic tells us that the author of the Acts of Paul wrote
the thing out of a "love for Paul", but he was discovered in the
act of writing this tractate, and was dismissed from the orthodox
payroll. Every man and his dog on the planet to date appear to
be following this utter hogwash of Tertullian in order to actually
calibrate the chronology of the entire NT apocryphal corpus to the time
in which Tertullian supposedly, according to Eusebius' reports' wrote.


Carbon dating as the authority and source for dating the apocryphal corpus.

The carbon dating is shouting that the apocrypha were 4th century.
Who is listening to and/or addressing this scientific evidence?
Certainly not the christians! They still think that the apocrypha
were written by christians. Have they got something to learn!

We have accepted Tertullian's dating for centuries.
It is time to examine what the carbon dating actually says.

The appearance of the NT apocrypha can be explained by political history alone
as the expected Hellenistic reaction to the bullshit of the canon. The apocryphal
authors mimiced the canon and exaggerated everything. They created totally
wild and monstrous narratives which nobody in their right mind would actually
mistake for reality. They Homerised the NT canon. They took a leaf out
of Constantine's book. They mocked the canon by making further popular
stories which features the canonical characters.


The Roman church has an archaeological context in the fourth century.
We need to look at the history of the Hellenistic churches which
the Roman church destroyed and over which foundations it was erected.
The NT apocrypha are associated with the Hellenistic gnostics.
These people lost their Hellenistic temples and shrines and livelihood.
Constantine prohibited them from their traditional use of the ancient temples.

The analogy today would be for a military strike force to enter a large country, to destroy the larger and more revered government buildings, to execute some of the leading government officials, and then to prohibit anyone entering or using the government buildings thenceforth under penalty of death. The entire infrastructure was thus controlled by despotism. Christianity was implemented by building new architecture called "basilicas" (over the foundations of the Hellenistic temples and shrines) and then staffing the new centralised network of "christian churches" personally under Constantine's control, with "christian bishops".

Would we expect resistance to such a modern act?
Of course we would. The new testament apocrypha
was authored I believe at such a time by such people,
dispossessed of their heritage and customs. It mimics
the canon, and thus was treated as heretical by the
orthodox, for whom the canon was "exclusive truth".

aa5874

Well, Marcion can be used as a figure of history and still get "Paul" possibly as late as the 4th century.

I think "Paul" with Acts of the Apostles were fabricated by the Roman Church for the sole purpose of contradicting Marcion and backdated to create a false history.

Chrysostom blew the lid on Acts of the Apostles in his homilies on Acts.

And Chrysostom wrote well after Eusebius.

Homilies on Acts
It is bizarre to me that Chrysostom could make such a statement when Eusebius claimed Luke a disciple of Paul wrote Acts of the Apostles and Irenaeus claimed Luke and Paul were inseparable.

Acts of the Apostles appears to be late.


Actually I think there were more than one writer using the name Tertullian. One writer may have been the Roman Church.

I find it difficult to believe the same person who wrote "Ad Nationes" wrote "Against Marcion"

In Ad Nationes, the writer called Tertullian mentioned the word Christians over 50 times and never once ever mentioned Jesus or Christ.

Tertullan in "Ad Nationes"
But in Against Marcion, this writer called Tertullian mentioned the words Christian and Christ hundreds of times


Tertullian in "Against Marcion The Tertullian of "Ad Nationes" may be the real Tertullian.

The one who wrote "Against Marcion" may be a Roman Church writer, perhaps your friend Eusebius.

mountainman

Eusebius was Constantine's Minister for State Monotheistic Religious Dogma.
He was paid to do a number on Apollonius of Tyana.
While the Boss took care of the architecture and the temples,
Eusebius task was to calumnify the memory of the popular
and historical first century Hellenistic Pythagorean sage.

Toto

Pete: you quote from M.J. Hollerich Religion and Politics in the Writings of Eusebius just before the author writes: Have you actually read the article?

bacht

Interesting. So after the appearance of the LXX in the 3rd C we have the usurpation of Onias as high priest followed by the sacrilege of Antiochus IV. You're saying that this era was when Jews absorbed Greek philosophical/metaphysical ideas leading eventually to the Christ concept.

Would you agree with Freke & Gandy that Jews used the messiah figure to get around their traditional monotheism and create a new god?