mountainman

Hey Ipetrich,

Say I set up the top 100 regulars in this forum with ink wells and a stylus and their own desks with an abundance of blank papryi or indeed vellum, in a big simulated fourth century cube farm scriptorium and after covering transport costs, paid each person $1000 an hour in gold bullion to write out, night and day - so long as their output remains as legible - for example something else, the Upanishadic lierature of India, just how much do you think I would have to fork out in gold bullion? Do you get the drift of the logistics? This rate is not negotiable, and I wont make things complicated and introduce the army outside, I simply would like an answer from one of the pythagorean mathematicians. How many hours with 100 scribes?

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

How does the mainstream explain the Origenist controversies of the fourth and fifth century. When the appearance of a book of Origen at the Monastery gate is treated with all forms of paranoia?

My explanation is simple. Origen was an extant author of the Hebrew Bible and wrote much commentary. The Hebrew literature was available in the greek from BCE and was obviously read and preserved by Origen. However my explanation is that Eusebius forged all NT related writings in the name of Origen, because EUsebius had Origen's source documents at hand, or most of them, but nowhere near all -- and especially the east.

At the end of the fourth century we have Rufinus tranlating Origen into Latin and developing enormous problems with this, and with the attempts that Jerome had made in the same area. See my page on Origen.

What was happening was that the original works of Origen which had been preserved in the east, for example by such as the Tall Brothers, were turning up in circulation, containing no inferences therein to "christianity" as such. These books or Origen were thus an embarrasement for the christian regime, and that regime dealt with this seditious stack of books as another heresy against the orthodox. Origen was thus condemned as a heretic.

Arius was the first heretic. Julian was a very big heretic. etc



He admired the army stories of the resistance at Masada.




Do you call organised plunder a religion? Constantine was a brigand like the rest of them. They were all supreme (or semi-supreme) imperial mafia thugs with their own armies and political objectives who shared the fate of the majority of these Roman emperors of being overcome by the nature of the absolute power they held at that time in history.

What's changed?



Best wishes


Pete Brown

mountainman

As I see the consultation process happening, very briefly, something like this.

0) 312-324 Pontifex Maximus thinking of being supreme.
1) 324 CE - Constantine becomes supreme being
1.5) 324 CE - Pachomius decides to leave civilisation as he knew it.
(tens of thousands were to follow "Father Pachomius" within a generation)
2) Council of Antioch - destruction of temples
3) Summoning letter of COnstantine to attendees.
(nb: they were all pagans - none were christian)
4) Nicaea - "Wall of Swords" = Military supremacy summit.
5) Constantine requests then burns written opinions in front of attendees.
6) Seeks signatures AGAINST the words of ARIUS (military duress).
7) Quiet Arius is luckily expelled by pretending to be dogmatically inept.
8) 218 "NICENE FATHERS" walk away with some sort of "understanding".
9) Constantine's Nicaean letter to BURN the writings of the Porphyrian Arius.
10) 325-336 Arius (and others) pump out apocyphal NT writings - NONCANONIX - TAOPATTA, etc
(notably preserved in Coptic and Syriac - Arius in Syria)
11) Nasty 333 CE "Dear Arius. Where Are you Arius Letter" of Constantine.
12) 336 CE Arius poisoned.
13) 337 CE Thirteenth Apostle, Bishop of Bishops goes to the underworld.
14) Who is in control of all this tax-exempt emperor cult business?
(nb: need I state the number of christian assets lying around the empire?
The basilica building exercise was the most lavish in antiquity in precious stone)
15) PS: Asclepius was tax-exempt on the island of Cos.

For details see this page.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

MarkA

Hi Pete,

I am not convinced of your thesis because I am not yet swayed by the evidence. However, I do think you raise some very important questions most notably the absence of archaeological evidence from before the fourth century.

But thanks for reiterating your point about the events that occured during the Council.

lpetrich

mountainman, in case you don't get it, my point is that pre-Gutenberg book duplication is a whole lot of work, and that one needs to copy A WHOLE BOOK in order to insert stuff in it.

For the simple reason that he advocated some heresies, like universal salvation. And theologians back then would get into bitter arguments over minute details of the Trinity, so that's not unusual. No elaborate contrived conspiracy theories are necessary.

(Why a Jewish-derived religion?)
Where did he express such admiration?

And if he wanted Judaism as his model, he would have had to work from Rabbinical Judaism, and Xianity is very heterodox relative to that.

But he's a ROMAN emperor, and where would such an emperor get his legitimacy from? Rome's previous rulers. So he'd claim legitimacy by appealing to Rome's early centuries and professing to restore the religion back then.

What he might do would be like the Protestant Reformation, where Protestant monarchs would help themselves to church estates, while claiming that they were restoring True Xianity and sweeping aside all those medieval corruptions.

mountainman

From his army in realtime.



He described Trajan as a "wall plant".



He invented his lineage, since he was illegitimate.


Yes, except in this instance, we are testing the possibility that he started the emperor cult himself, which helps to explain why it was so successful all of a sudden, since it had a place in the court of the emperor from the rule of Constantine and for the period from 312 to 337 CE. His victorious army was quite sufficient for his simple needs of absolute power and robbing the empire dry -- he did not need the old religious authorities so long as he commanded the army. The army did the bidding of the boss. We know he used the army to destroy the temple of Asclepius at Aegae for example.


So he invented a Jewish antiquity to surplant the Egypto-Greek antiquity, and set Eusebius to work on an appropriate pseudo-history that included a cast of many many false authors, mainly christians.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

youngalexander

As Winnie might have sed,
"Some bear, some bait!"

angelo

''The very thing which is now called the christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting from the inception of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion which was already in existence began to be called Christian.'' ~St. Augustine, '' Retractions.''

angelo

:wave: Bravo. I could not put it any better. :notworthy:

mountainman

Vivekananda dream


While travelling from England to India in January 1897, on board the ship Prinz-Regent Luitpold, the venerable sage Vivekananda told Nivedita about his dream of an old bearded man named Therapeutae, (Theraputra - son [putra] of an old monk [thera]) who had asked:

"Do ye come to effect our restoration?
I am one of the ancient order of Therapeutae
The truths preached by us have been given out
by Christians as taught by Jesus; but for the matter of that,
there was no personality by the name of Jesus ever born".

- Extracted from Vivekananda's autobiography.
Cited by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy;
and Narasingha Prosad Sil