Nazaroo

Don't bother joining those losers MountainMan. <edit>

J-D

If somebody is on trial for a particular crime, it is insufficient for the prosecution to prove that the defendant is of a generally bad character. Somebody can be morally corrupt enough to commit that general kind of crime, or even ten times so, but still not have committed that particular offence. If a historian concludes that Jack the Ripper did not commit a particular murder, it's not the same thing as giving him a good character reference. I can accept your personal estimate of Constantine and still doubt that he was responsible for the particular fabrications you are attributing to him.

mountainman

The question is whether you can accept an historian's objective
estimate of Constantine as being a malevolent despot with absolute
power and absolute military supremacy.

The question is whether your historical and political knowledge
is sufficient to discern "patterns of similar fact" from the regimes of
despots on this planet (China, Asia, Europe, Americas, Africa, etc)
where they have forged, lied and created falsities which stay close
to the truth, but are totally fabricated.

"And remember,
where you have a concentration of power in a few hands,
all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control.

History has proven that.
All power corrupts;
absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Constantine was worse than a gangster.
He is described as a brigand and a ward
irresponsible for his own actions.- and this
description being specifically reserved for
the time period 316-337CE. (Two decades)

In the year 350 CE land tax had tripled in living memory.
Forget Jack in the comparison.

jgibson000

And you accept this description unreservedly as an objective report? Why?

JG

jgibson000

Actually, the question is: even if Constantine we accept as true the charge that Constantine was a "malevolent despot", does it necessarily follow, as you seem to think it does, that his despotism would, or even had to, let alone did, express itself in the creation of the NT?

In any case, which historian's estimate is the one you are appealing to, and why should we accept your clam that it is "objective"?

JG

J-D

No. It isn't. You are wrong. That is not the question. You are trying to obfuscate the issue with bait-and-switch tactics.

mountainman

Firstly we have the precedent of ARDASHIR (SHAPUR’S FATHER) who
in 224CE ordered the complete destruction of all record of the Parthian
civilisation, and formed a new empire he called “Iran”: New state was
created as a ‘centralized Theocrasy.

The deathbed advice of Ardashir to his son Shapur I was:

“Consider the Fire Altar and the Throne as inseparable
as to sustain each other.”

The “Logic” was that religion provided justice, the basis of an
ordered society that could sustain military expenditure” The
author Terry Jones in Barbarian's puts it this way:

The MANTRA was that …….

‘There can be no power without an Army’
‘There can be no Army without Money’
‘There can be no Money without Agriculture’
‘There can be no Agriculture without Justice’

The basis for Ardashir's new religion, ZOROASTRIANISM, were
a series of old hymns called “The Avesta” (17 Hymns), which
he also used as a basis for his legal code.

Secondly, it is evident from "patterns of similar factual evidence"
taken from the regimes of despots on this planet (China, Asia,
Europe, Americas, Africa, etc), that those in a position of absolute
power will forge, and lie and create falsities which stay close
to the truth, but are totally fabricated. The historian Acton
describes such people as "gangsters" -- see the quote.

On 28 October 312 the Christians suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves victorious (2). The victory was a miracle — though opinions differed as to the nature of the sign vouchsafed to Constantine. The winners became conscious of their victory in a mood of resentment and vengeance. A voice shrill with implacable hatred announced to the world the victory of the Milvian Bridge: Lactantius’ De mortibus persecutorum (3). In this horrible pamphlet by the author of de ira dei there is something of the violence of the prophets without the redeeming sense of tragedy that inspires Nahum’s song for the fall of Nineveh. ‘His fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken asunder by him. The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble’: this at least has an elementary simplicity which is very remote from the complacent and sophisticated prose of the fourth-century rhetorician. Lactantius was not alone. More soberly, but no less ruthlessly, Eusebius recounted the divine vengeance against those who had persecuted the Church.

....[trimmed]...

If there were men who recommended tolerance and peaceful coexistence of Christians and pagans, they were rapidly crowded out. The Christians were ready to take over the Roman empire, as Eusebius made clear in the introduction of the Praeparatio evangelica where he emphasizes the correlation between pax romana and the Christian message: the thought indeed was not even new. The Christians were also determined to make impossible a return to conditions of inferiority and persecution for the Church. The problems and the conflicts inside the Church which all this implied may be left aside for the moment. The revolution of the fourth century, carrying with it a new historiography, will not be understood if we underrate the determination, almost the fierceness, with which the Christians appreciated and exploited the miracle that had transformed Constantine into a supporter, a protector and later a legislator of the Christian Church.

One fact is eloquent enough. All the pioneer works in the field of Christian historiography are earlier than what we may call their opposite numbers in pagan historiography.


-- Arnaldo Momigliano,
The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century,
The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, pp. 79—99 (1)

mountainman

Put it this way, I would tend to give more credibility
to the report of Sextus Aurelius Victor about Constantine,
that Eusebius' 'Life of (Thrice-Blessed) Constantine'.

J-D

You didn't answer the question 'Why?'

J-D

You are still answering the wrong question.