Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Roger Pearse · 08-19-2011, 12:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Why would Constantine have warned that Socrates critical questioning was a menace to the state if the state had nothing to hide from that critical questioning? Robin Lane Fox describes Constantine as presenting a number of fraudulent claims at this oration, all related to Christian origins.

I wonder what, if anything, Robin Lane Fox actually said?

I don't find any such statement in the remains of Constantine.

avi · 08-19-2011, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I don't find any such statement in the remains of Constantine.(emphasis, avi)

Thank you Roger.

Doug properly complained about Pete's insertion of a non-existent hyphen. We know therefore, that this is a forum of exceptional attention to detail, (as it properly, should be. )

Good. I hope then, that here-after, such words as

"retrojection", (i.e. projection)

and

"falsify", (i.e. "repudiate", or "refute")

will disappear from future submissions, as discordant with the lofty aims of the forum.

Since Doug has properly, clarified the serious, scholarly aspect of sub-missions hereto, may I impose upon you, Roger, to offer some link to these "remains" of Constantine? Umm, I wonder, as a side-bar, are there any "remains" of Irenaeus?

Thank-you,

avi

Toto · 08-19-2011, 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Why would Constantine have warned that Socrates critical questioning was a menace to the state if the state had nothing to hide from that critical questioning? Robin Lane Fox describes Constantine as presenting a number of fraudulent claims at this oration, all related to Christian origins.

I wonder what, if anything, Robin Lane Fox actually said?

I don't find any such statement in the remains of Constantine.

Pete's reference for this claim is Constantine's Oration to the Saints. This is the only mention of Socrates:

Quote:

WE ought, therefore, to aim at objects which are within our power, and exceed not the capacities of our nature. For the persuasive influence of argument has a tendency to draw most of us away from the truth of things, which has happened to many philosophers, who have employed themselves in reasoning, and the study of natural science, and who, as often as the magnitude of the subject surpasses their powers of investigation, adopt various devices for obscuring the truth. Hence their diversities of judgment, and contentious opposition to each others' doctrines, and this notwithstanding their pretensions to wisdom. Hence, too, popular commotions have arisen, and severe sentences, passed by those in power, apprehensive of the overthrow of hereditary institutions, have proved destructive to many of the disputants themselves. Socrates, for example, elated by his skill in argumentation, indulging his power of making the worse appear the better reason, and playing continually with the subtleties of controversy, fell a victim to the slander of his own countrymen and fellow-citizens. ....

Iskander · 08-19-2011, 02:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

It is customary to spell authors' names as the authors themselves spell them. Robin Lane Fox does not hyphenate his surname.

True. Thanks for the correction.

Why would Constantine have warned that Socrates critical questioning was a menace to the state if the state had nothing to hide from that critical questioning? Robin Lane Fox describes Constantine as presenting a number of fraudulent claims at this oration, all related to Christian origins.

Robin Lane Fox : Pagans and Christians
Pagans and Christians: In the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine [Paperback
Penguin; New Ed edition (6 July 2006)

Page 643 says:

Quote:

” The Oration concluded Antioch’s proceedings: we must follow carefully what the emperor said”[19]
Constantine’s speech has been criticized for incoherence and an inability to follow an argument through...
The “assembly of saints “was a church congregation of Christians, but included bishops and theologians who had gathered for the council. Such an audience was daunting. If Constantine was to hold their attention, he needed to combine the skills of a sermon and a scholarly communication. He could reassure the audience by repeating refutations of old long-abandoned views; these conventional statements proved that he was one of their own Christian group and reinforced their sense that they were so much the wiser than the world. He also needed some new evidence, things which he had seen or read and which his hearers, with their different backgrounds, would like to ponder and debate among themselves. Then he could...

Fox is describing the efforts of a ruler to control an existing religion.

Roger Pearse · 08-19-2011, 06:15 AM

I thought it must be this oration - thank you. But of course the criticism of philosophers for being tricky rather than honest is ancient. More interesting is the positive attitude to Plato.

PS: Did Lane Fox say anything like what MM quoted him as saying?

mountainman · 08-19-2011, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Why would Constantine have warned that Socrates critical questioning was a menace to the state if the state had nothing to hide from that critical questioning? Robin Lane Fox describes Constantine as presenting a number of fraudulent claims at this oration, all related to Christian origins.

I wonder what, if anything, Robin Lane Fox actually said?

I don't find any such statement in the remains of Constantine.

Lane Fox on Constantine's Oration at Antioch

Taken from my notes here

Quote:

At p.646/7 Fox suggests that Constantine's Oration to the Saints
was authored and orated by Constantine "at Antioch, Good Friday, 325".
Most ancient historians are today convinced that Constantine
both authored and read aloud this "document" in 324/325 CE.
It contains a number of novel social and political insights,
and a whole string of fraudulent misprepresentations:

(1) Berates the philosophers:

"Socrates critical questioning ... menace to the state".

"Pythagoras had stolen his teaching from Egypt,
Plato believed there were many gods."

"Plato strived for the unknowable ...
wrote about a first and second God."

(2) Berates the poets as worse than the philosophers;
because "poets wrote falsely about the gods".
FOX: "In a few broad sweeps, Constantine had damned
the free use of reason and banished poetic imagination."

(3) "A dove, said Constantine, had alighted on the virgin mary,
like the dove which had flown from Noah's ark.

[A fact never before mentioned by casts of thousands.]

(4) Constantine refers to an ancient Sibyl, a priestess from Erythrae
who had served Apollo at the 'serpents Tripod' at Delphi.
Constantine then quotes (in the Greek) thirty-four hexameters,
from the inspired truth of the Sibyl.

Most notably, the acrostic formed by the first Greek letter
of each line spelt "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, Cross."

But Constantine was alive to the arguments of skeptics ...

"They suspect that "someone of our religion,
not without the gifts of the prophetic muse,
had inserted false lines and forged the Sibyl's moral tone.
These skeptics were already known to Origen ...

(Constantine continues)

"Our people have compared the chronologies with great accuracy",
and the "age" of the Sibyl's verses excludes the view
that they are a post-christian fake."

(5) But wait, Robin Lane Fox has more to say:
His proof of this comparison was unexpected: Cicero (106-43 BCE)
Cicero chanced upon this poem and translated it to Latin.
The Sibyl, Constantine said, had prophecised christ
in an acrostic, known to Cicero.

Robin Lane Fox comments ... "the proof was a fraud twice over."

(6) Moving on through the Oration, Constantine informs us that
the advent of Christ had been predicted by Virgil (70-19 BCE)
in a Latin poem, written 40 BCE, to the poet's patron Pollio.
Fox says: "Constantine cites Latin's loveliest Eclogue
to a christian audience [ED: this is DISPUTED]
for a meaning which it never had."

Constantine began with the seventh line, in a free Greek translation which changed its meaning"

p.651: Fox writes:

"Has there ever been such a sequence of misplaced discoveries in a christian sermon,
let alone in a speech at the end of a Christian [ED: DISPUTED] synod?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Fox is describing the efforts of a ruler to control an existing religion.

I am disputing Lane Fox (and popular opinion) that Antioch represented a "Christian" audience and synod.

mountainman · 08-19-2011, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

More interesting is the positive attitude to Plato.

Constantine ordered Sopater, the Head of the Academy of Plato, to be publically executed c.336 CE. I would not call that a positive attitude to Plato. This fact is in keeping with the claim that Constantine burnt Plato and Euclid in Porphyry after Nicaea.

Roger Pearse · 08-19-2011, 08:30 AM

As I said, it would be interesting to know what, if anything, Robin Lane Fox actually said?

mountainman · 08-19-2011, 09:09 AM

Pagans and Christians (or via: amazon.co.uk) [Paperback] - Robin Lane Fox; 9 new from $33.74 36 used from $0.54.

Quote:

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Fox, a lecturer in Ancient History at Oxford, presents a detailed and scholarly account of Christianity and paganism prior to Constantine. He decribes pagan oracles, festivals, and cultic practices as they related to civic and community life in third-century Roman Empire; then, comparing these with Christian practices, he discusses the possible reasons for Christianity's ultimate triumph. Along the way, certain misconceptions are dispelled: Roman paganism was not dying out, as is sometimes supposed, nor was early Christianity primarily a religion of slaves. In fact, the Church had elements that made it unexpectedly attractive to all classes. The chapter on Constantine gives new insight into the reasons for his conversion. An excellent and readable account of a fascinating subject. Highly recommended. C. Robert Nixon, MLS, West Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

Re-creates the world from the second to the fourth century AD, when the Graeco-Roman gods lost their dominion and Christianity, with the conversion of Constantine, triumphed in the Mediterranean world.

Roger once asked me how does it help any cause to base itself on faked facts?
I gave the example of organized crime.
How certain can we really be that Constantine's 4th century centralised state monotheist religious organisation
was not just an organised crime - the after-effects of which, we as humans on Planet Earth, have still to come to terms with?

Toto · 08-19-2011, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

As I said, it would be interesting to know what, if anything, Robin Lane Fox actually said?

I have a copy in storage. There is a google books page with no preview, but you can see snippets. I can find no reference to Socrates or Plato being a "menace to the state" - I suspect that is in Pete's notes. Some of the other quotes appear to be accurate, including "In a few broad sweeps, Constantine had damned the free use of reason and banished poetic imagination."

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08-19-2011, 06:15 AM	#25
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	I thought it must be this oration - thank you. But of course the criticism of philosophers for being tricky rather than honest is ancient. More interesting is the positive attitude to Plato. PS: Did Lane Fox say anything like what MM quoted him as saying?

08-19-2011, 08:30 AM	#28
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	As I said, it would be interesting to know what, if anything, Robin Lane Fox actually said?

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