Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 09-05-2013, 08:01 PM

The monastery at Mount Athos is not shut off from the rest of the world.

On Mount Athos and Its Monasteries; With Notes on the Route from Constantinople to Saloniki, in June, 1836 by Webber Smith

The author left Constantinople on May 17th 1836 and arrived at the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos on May 31st of the same year, a journey of two weeks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

The monastery at Mount Athos is shut off from the rest of the world. It stands in an isolated part of a massive isolated peninsula. The roads suck. I know people that have gone to these places. You have to take a donkey and it is a long arduous trek.

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Mount Athos is situated in the entire third, eastern and most beautiful peninsula of Halkidiki, called the peninsula of Athos. It is the only place in Greece that is completely dedicated to prayer and worship of God. For this reason, it is called the Holy Mount. The Holy Mount is about 50 Km in length, 8 to 12 Km in width and it covers an area of about 350 square kilometres. The borders of the monasterial city are defined on the ground by an imaginary line that starts from the location "FRAGOKASTRO" in the West coast and reaches the cape "ARAPIS" in the opposite end. The natural beauty of the peninsula is extraordinary. The highest point of Mount Athos is like a huge cone, reaching 2033 metres in height. It’s a naked, treeless crest that seems to lance the sky and its slopes are fully covered by ancient evergreens. All these help to create an area of incomparable natural beauty

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Agion Oros (Holy Mount) is an "Autonomous Monastic State" inside Greece, (unique in the world), located at peninsula of Athos of Chalkidiki, that is considered to be the centre Orthodoxe monasticism. It is considered to be one of the most important departments not only of Balkan, but of Europe and of Eastern Church because of its huge national, historical, religious, secretarial and artistic value as well as a centre of maintenance and conservation of rich material. The architectural heritage of Agion Oros, which is a result and residue of many years’ activity and development of many monastic institutions, can in one degree be considered as it summarises the medieval and newer architecture of orthodox Balkan space.

It is indeed a shelter and a museum of unique treasure of Greek art and letters. However the most important in the Agion Oros is the fact, that this expresses at the evener way the Orthodoxe monasticism. It is a thousand years solitary state that lives until today. A world simple and difficult, where it rests the spirit, fills the soul and it experiences the substance of Orthodoxy. A world that lives God oriented and during its thousand years historical route has as its main characteristic the high spirituality. The entire the life of nuns and all of their work are products of this spirituality. Each heirloom is a gate of sky, a gate in paradise.

stephan huller · 09-05-2013, 08:08 PM

Quote:

The author left Constantinople on May 17th 1836 and arrived at the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos on May 31st of the same year, a journey of two weeks

Under the Ottoman Empire.

mountainman · 09-05-2013, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

From an article on another Cassius Dio manuscript at Mount Athos:

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But, principally because the. Mount Athos collections are not easily accessible, this Epitome of Dio's. History has been neglected

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230...21102583826701

An excellent article on the subject.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1087381
The Mount Athos Epitome of Cassius Dio's Roman History
B. C. Barmann
Phoenix > Vol. 25, No. 1, Spring, 1971

p.61

Quote:

The minuscule hand in which A was copied dates from about the middle of the fourteenth century.

mountainman · 09-05-2013, 08:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Quote:

The author left Constantinople on May 17th 1836 and arrived at the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos on May 31st of the same year, a journey of two weeks

Under the Ottoman Empire.

It looks to be a quicker and shorter journey between the two locations by sea.

http://www.ouranoupoli.com/athos/athos.html

Quote:

History

According to the legend Panagia, the Virgin Mary and Mother of God, was sailing accompanied by St John the Evangelist on her way from Joppa to Cyprus to visit Lazarus. When the ship was blown out of course to then pagan Athos it was forced to drop anchor near the port of Klement, close to the present monastery of Iviron. The Virgin walked ashore and, overwhelmed by the wonderful and wild natural beauty of the mountain she blessed it and asked her Son for it to be her garden. A voice was heard; "let this place be your inheritance and your garden, a paradise and a haven of salvation for those seeking to be saved".

////

By the eleventh century the number of monasteries increased greatly, some say to 180. However, from the end of that century frequent pirate raids took their toll and drastically reduced their numbers. During the thirteenth century the Latins occupied Mount Athos and the monks were subjected not only to frequent raids but also to great pressure to accept the unification of the two churches. It was one of the darkest periods of Mount Athos and many monks were tortured and executed ....

////

The fifteenth century was by far the most peaceful period for the Mountain. This peace was broken by the fall of Constantinople in 1453 which brought Mount Athos under Turkish occupation that lasted for the next 400 years. However, Sultans Murat the IInd and Mohammed the IInd, issued firmans (Turkish Edicts) recognising the rights of the monasteries and Mount Athos as "the country in which day and night the name of God is revered .... a refuge for the needy and for travellers". During this period - 17th and 18th centuries - Mount Athos became a centre for the development and preservation of Greek culture and heritage.

stephan huller · 09-05-2013, 11:09 PM

But what is the point of all this. It is well established that the manuscript of the Philosophumena was buried somewhere in an already a remote and difficult to access monastery. All evidence points to the author of the epitome of Dio Cassius (a) never having read the Philosophumena (b) never having set foot in Mount Athos and (c) much of the other material related to Dio Cassius especially the later books is also an epitome. So where is the 'there there'? There is no reason to think that the epitome was influenced by the Philosophumena. The stories are completely different. You aren't just accusing the epitome of 'copying' the Philosophumena because it clearly isn't a copy of the information. You have to be suggesting that the person writing the epitome:

1. came to Mount Athos
2. found this obscure manuscript that no one had ever heard of
3. read the story about Marcia (which is buried in a later chapter which is particularly difficult for Christians to swallow, not only because they are identifying a harlot as a Christian but insulting a third century bishop of Rome)
4. after reading the story of Marcia being a Christian he went back to Constantinople and made up stuff wholly from his own imagination reinforcing the claim that Marcia was a Christian.

But why? How does any of this seem remotely plausible or better yet a better explanation of the phenomenon than these are two separate testimonies to the same thing - i.e. Marcia being a Christian.

Also even with all this bullshit you still have the Philosophumena's original testimony (i.e. Marcia is still said to be a Christian in the Philosophumena) , Eusebius's statement that the rule of Commodus was a golden age for Christians and Irenaeus's statement that Christians were popular at the Imperial court of Commodus.

I don't see how you keep at this nonsense. Your explanation is hilariously dishonest .

mountainman · 09-06-2013, 04:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

But what is the point of all this. It is well established that the manuscript of the Philosophumena was buried somewhere in an already a remote and difficult to access monastery. All evidence points to the author of the epitome of Dio Cassius (a) never having read the Philosophumena (b) never having set foot in Mount Athos and (c) much of the other material related to Dio Cassius especially the later books is also an epitome. So where is the 'there there'? There is no reason to think that the epitome was influenced by the Philosophumena. The stories are completely different.

A superior copy of the epitome of John Xiphilinus
was also found at a Mount Athos monastery.
See post #163

Quote:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1087381
The Mount Athos Epitome of Cassius Dio's Roman History
B. C. Barmann
Phoenix > Vol. 25, No. 1, Spring, 1971

And BTW .....

Quote:

.... the story about Marcia ( ... a harlot ...insulting a third century bishop of Rome)

Marcia is identified in the epitome of Cassius Dio as a concubine,

An invite from the de-facto wife of the emperor Commodus to a bishop (or a anyone else) would have been prestigious.

Quote:

Concubinage is an interpersonal relationship in which a person engages in an ongoing relationship (usually matrimonially and sexually oriented) with another person to whom they are not or cannot be married. The inability to marry may be due to differences in social rank (including slave status), or because the man is already married. Historically, the relationship involved a man in a higher social status, who usually has a legally sanctioned wife and maintains a second household with the lesser "wife". The woman in such a relationship is referred to as a concubine.

Historically, concubinage was frequently voluntary (by the woman and/or her family's arrangement), as it provided a measure of economic security for the woman involved.

Under Roman law, Roman culture under the empire came to tolerate concubinage as long as the relationship was durable and exclusive; for Roman jurists, concubinage was an honorable de facto situation.[1]

Quote:

Your explanation is hilariously dishonest

Much like your explanation of "common knowledge"?

The text of the epitome of Book 73 on the net cited by Toto seems to be the translation of Cary, derived from .....

Quote:

V Rome: Vatican Codex Vaticanus Graecus 145 15
C Paris: Biblioth?que Nationale. Codex Parisinus Coislinianus 320 15

"The epitome is found in at least sixteen Mss.; but all the rest are derived from one or the other of two fifteenth century Mss., Vaticanus 145 and Coislinianus 320. Besides these two (abbreviated V and C), we have readings from an unknown Xiphilinus Ms. entered in A of Dio to fill various gaps ; but the scribe of A dealt very freely with such passages."

(Cary)

stephan huller · 09-06-2013, 06:48 AM

You have not produced a reasonable argument to reject the testimony of two ancient texts that Marcia was a Christian or friendly towards Christianity. You still have produced nothing whatsoever to contract the assumption that develops from the EXPLICIT testimony of these two ancient documents (and IMPLICITLY in several others) that Christians was an active influential religion as early as 180 CE. As such your theory is that kaput. Bye bye

stephan huller · 09-06-2013, 09:27 AM

'contract' above should read 'contradict'

aa5874 · 09-06-2013, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

You have not produced a reasonable argument to reject the testimony of two ancient texts that Marcia was a Christian or friendly towards Christianity. You still have produced nothing whatsoever to contract the assumption that develops from the EXPLICIT testimony of these two ancient documents (and IMPLICITLY in several others) that Christians was an active influential religion as early as 180 CE. As such your theory is that kaput. Bye bye

Cassius Dio's "Roman History" does not at all show that there was a Jesus cult called Christians.

The term 'Christian' is ambiguous and was applied to many persons, cults and even Jews who rejected the story and blasphemed the name of Jesus.

It was the epitomizer who deliberately added claims about "Christians" not found in the original "Roman History" .

The single mention of the word "Christians" in Roman History tells us nothing about Jesus cult Christians unless you are putting forward the absurd notion that all 'Christians' at the time of Commodus were of the Jesus cult.

mountainman · 09-06-2013, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

A superior copy of the epitome of John Xiphilinus
was also found at a Mount Athos monastery.
See post #163

Quote:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1087381
The Mount Athos Epitome of Cassius Dio's Roman History
B. C. Barmann
Phoenix > Vol. 25, No. 1, Spring, 1971

Here is a diagram of the manuscripts of the epitome of John Xiphilinus.

On the LHS manuscript A represents the manuscript of the epitome of John Xiphilinus found in the Mount Athos monastery c.1900, fifty years after the manuscript (14th century) of the Philosophumena was also found in a Mount Athos monastery.

The text of Book 73 under discussion (translated by Carey for Loeb) is sourced from V and C.
It would be interesting to see what the text of A reads at the same place.

According to the article cited above, the rule of Commodus is presented in this manuscript A at folios 277v-285v.

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09-05-2013, 11:09 PM	#165
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	But what is the point of all this. It is well established that the manuscript of the Philosophumena was buried somewhere in an already a remote and difficult to access monastery. All evidence points to the author of the epitome of Dio Cassius (a) never having read the Philosophumena (b) never having set foot in Mount Athos and (c) much of the other material related to Dio Cassius especially the later books is also an epitome. So where is the 'there there'? There is no reason to think that the epitome was influenced by the Philosophumena. The stories are completely different. You aren't just accusing the epitome of 'copying' the Philosophumena because it clearly isn't a copy of the information. You have to be suggesting that the person writing the epitome: 1. came to Mount Athos 2. found this obscure manuscript that no one had ever heard of 3. read the story about Marcia (which is buried in a later chapter which is particularly difficult for Christians to swallow, not only because they are identifying a harlot as a Christian but insulting a third century bishop of Rome) 4. after reading the story of Marcia being a Christian he went back to Constantinople and made up stuff wholly from his own imagination reinforcing the claim that Marcia was a Christian. But why? How does any of this seem remotely plausible or better yet a better explanation of the phenomenon than these are two separate testimonies to the same thing - i.e. Marcia being a Christian. Also even with all this bullshit you still have the Philosophumena's original testimony (i.e. Marcia is still said to be a Christian in the Philosophumena) , Eusebius's statement that the rule of Commodus was a golden age for Christians and Irenaeus's statement that Christians were popular at the Imperial court of Commodus. I don't see how you keep at this nonsense. Your explanation is hilariously dishonest .

09-06-2013, 06:48 AM	#167
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	You have not produced a reasonable argument to reject the testimony of two ancient texts that Marcia was a Christian or friendly towards Christianity. You still have produced nothing whatsoever to contract the assumption that develops from the EXPLICIT testimony of these two ancient documents (and IMPLICITLY in several others) that Christians was an active influential religion as early as 180 CE. As such your theory is that kaput. Bye bye

09-06-2013, 09:27 AM	#168
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	'contract' above should read 'contradict'

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