Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

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yakovzutolmai
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Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

Post by yakovzutolmai »

I normally don't follow later Christian history, but I've been studying late Rome in the West lately and the question of Arianism has come up. There are two political questions which raise questions to me.
  • The confusing relationship between barbarians and imperial authority. Particularly with Odoacer and Ricimer. Odoacer is supporting Ricimer against Frankia/Roman Gaul, and then later Odoacer becomes leader of the Herulii etc. alliance which supposedly was in the East, but I think they were already West or in Italy when Odoacer was their leader. We also wonder why Ricimer was so awful, leading to the impression that he was trying to sabotage the empire.
  • Justianian and Belisarius definitively killing the Western Empire in essence, in that while Odoacer killed its substance, Western Rome thrived under the Franks and Ostrogoths and the city of Rome still stood in much of its former glory.
Here's a question for you: Were Odoacer and Ricimer resisting Chalcedonian authority while Justinian wanted to squash barbarian Arianism?

I am already aware that there is no such indication in the view of historians. However, if we were to say that a theological concern is the explanatory variable, then we would also assume that the Eastern Empire would have desperately censored and redacted this factor.

We know the Byzantines used theological uniformity and religion to rule their society like an early police state. We know they controlled literature and ideas. In this light, the prospect of theological weakness would be more threatening than even military, political or moral weakness. Concerning the criteria of embarrassment, theological embarrassment would have been more important to Byzantine redactors, so they would not necessarily censor history especially if the redacted history's embarrassments give no sign of what would be theologically embarrassing.

In the East, there's a view that Byzantine theocratic tyranny is a major cause of the rise of Islam among pseudo-Jewish, pseudo-Christian Arabs. So there's a common theme between East and West.

Coming back to Nicaea, there are unanswered questions:
  • Why was Arianism rejected when most bishops believed it, including Eusebius?
  • Why did Constantine later reinstate Arius and censure Athanasius?
  • Why was Constantine baptized Arian?
  • Why did Theodosius support Niceanism when Constantinople and most everyone was Arian, while the Niceans were themselves infighting?
What if Nicaea in fact affirmed Arianism, part of why it was so widespread?

Then, only minority factions continue to oppose it, idiosyncratically the church in Alexandria.

Then what happens is Theodosius is confronting the Arian Goths, and perceives that Nicene doctrine will create a theological wedge between Rome and the barbarians. This is perceiving the changes which will lead to the collapse of the Western Empire. It must also be noted that there are still many pagans in the Empire, particularly in the West. What Theodosius is doing is using theological orthodox to define what is civilization and what is barbarism, securing Byzantium's status as the appropriate source of political and religious authority. This also avoids having to deal with the zealous and important church in Egypt. It would secure Egypt's loyalty to Byzantium during a time of upheaval.

After the Council of Constantinople, then Arianism is rejected. Arian literature is burned, people are prosecuted, and the history of Nicaea is redacted (which would have been very inconvenient to Theodosius's project). This persecution of Arians is partially back cast into Nicean times.

One consequence of this use of theology to consolidate Byzantine supremacy is both the essential death of Western Rome, but also a legacy which provokes Arab Christians to help create Islam.

During Nicaea, church doctrine was a matter of concern for believers. After Constantinople, orthodoxy became a concern for citizens hoping to avoid political persecution.

Could this be true?

I looked up the documentary sources for Nicaea. There are no originals before 400 AD. The history could very well have been redacted.

Now, is there ancillary evidence, perhaps inconsequential documentation between the times of Nicaea and Constantinople which affirm the conventional view that Nicaea rejected Arianism? I don't know. But the direct documentary evidence proceeding from Nicaea does not pre date Theodosius.

If Nicaea actually affirmed Arianism, then we could interpret both Ricimer and Odoacer as part of an Arian attempt to prevent the infiltration of anti-Arianism into the West. Not prevent belief in homoousios, but rather prevent the enforcement of Imperial policy which made Arianism a heresy.

If one interprets Ricimer and Odoacer by attributing to them this theological priority, then their actions with regards to the health of the Western Empire make more sense. It also makes sense why Odoacer was killed (his stance was found out). And why the Ostrogoths had to be defeated at the expense of Rome itself. I have to investigate Ricimer's actions a little more closely to see if there's a pattern which supports this hypothesis. I could be wildly wrong.

Just a thought. Feel free to contribute any opinions on the paradoxes surrounding Nicaea.

And, there is a good connection to Christian origins, in that the proto-Theodosian environment was more permissive, and we see the the structure of catholicism before orthodoxy but after the defeat of gnosticism and other speculative branches. That is, even with Arius and Athanasius we see battle scars of the church which contain echoes of what preceded catholicism. The system of bishops and patriarchs, the disorganization and differences of opinion, the different centers and tentpoles of influence. We might plausibly say that Athanasius was the genuinely first true apostle of orthodoxy, and the regimented church government orthodoxy claims goes back to Peter et al.
yakovzutolmai
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

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Just realized this recontextualizes Pelagius vs Augustine.

If anti-Arianism is late, then what if Pelagianism was Arianism?

The homoousian wedge against the Germanics was a package deal that told Roman Christians to obey their superiors, permitted priests to sin, and ended Constantinian toleration in favor of theocracy.

If this is true, then Odoacer/Eadwacer would have been fighting for free will, self-autonomy and religious toleration. The Theodosians would be fighting for feudalism and theocracy.

If this is true, some of this would have to show up in the dynamic with the Ostrogoths and Lombards, so I'll look to see evidence of that. Obviously the lot of this would be redacted from Catholic histories.
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

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Philostorgius who was a committed Arian appears to accept broadly the same facts about the history of the controversy as do the orthodox, (although his evaluation is obviously different).

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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

yakovzutolmai wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:00 pmDuring Nicaea, church doctrine was a matter of concern for believers. After Constantinople, orthodoxy became a concern for citizens hoping to avoid political persecution.

Could this be true?
I'd suggest that church doctrine was a very worrying concern for the pagan citizens (at least 95% demographic) for the entire period and the concerns increased as the imperial Christian revolution of the 4th century (325-381 CE) progressed.

Ecclesiastical History (Sozomen) > Book III. Chapter 1
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/26023.htm
  • We have now seen what events transpired in the churches during the reign of Constantine. On his death the doctrine which had been set forth at Nicæa, was subjected to renewed examination. Although this doctrine was not universally approved, no one, during the life of Constantine, had dared to reject it openly. At his death, however, many renounced this opinion, especially those who had previously been suspected of treachery.
IMO Constantine may be viewed as a malevolent (military) dictator.
I looked up the documentary sources for Nicaea. There are no originals before 400 AD. The history could very well have been redacted.
I agree. It is highly likely that the post Theodosian (revised) Nicene orthodox "victors" wrote the history of their ascendency. It is highly likely that the history was redacted and "cleaned up" by the early 5th century "Ecclesiastical Histories" of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret. These sources are considered to be the "continuators" of Eusebius. Their histories start from c.312 CE.
Now, is there ancillary evidence, perhaps inconsequential documentation between the times of Nicaea and Constantinople which affirm the conventional view that Nicaea rejected Arianism? I don't know. But the direct documentary evidence proceeding from Nicaea does not pre date Theodosius.
The Arian controversy resolves directly to Arius and the five sophisms attributed to Arius, which echoed in various combinations and permutations over many centuries of the Arian controversy. These five sophisms are preserved in the Nicene Creed of 325 CE, as the anathema or disclaimer clause regarding the doctrines which Constantine would not accept. This disclaimer clause was removed from the revised Nicene Creed of 381 CE. Reference to Pontius Pilate was added.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Cr ... eed_of_381
[But those who say:

'There was a time when he was not;' and
'He was not before he was made;' and
'He was made out of nothing,' or
'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or
'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'—

they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]
Just a thought. Feel free to contribute any opinions on the paradoxes surrounding Nicaea.
Arius Satirized Constantine’s Jesus:
The Hidden History of the New Testament Apocryphal Literature
https://www.academia.edu/37961293/Arius ... Literature

And, there is a good connection to Christian origins, in that the proto-Theodosian environment was more permissive, and we see the the structure of catholicism before orthodoxy but after the defeat of gnosticism and other speculative branches. That is, even with Arius and Athanasius we see battle scars of the church which contain echoes of what preceded catholicism. The system of bishops and patriarchs, the disorganization and differences of opinion, the different centers and tentpoles of influence. We might plausibly say that Athanasius was the genuinely first true apostle of orthodoxy, and the regimented church government orthodoxy claims goes back to Peter et al.
I could agree with much of this. The Quest for the Historical "Antichrist" leads to Arius of Alexandria
http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/Quest ... christ.htm
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

yakovzutolmai wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:00 pm Why did Theodosius support Niceanism when Constantinople and most everyone was Arian, while the Niceans were themselves infighting?
Have you read -

2008:
AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State - Charles Freeman

Description:

'We authorise followers of this law to assume the title of orthodox Christians; but as for the others since, in our judgement, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious names of heretics.' - Emperor Theodosius.

In AD 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate about the nature of the Godhead; all other interpretations were now declared heretical.

Moreover, for the first time in a thousand years of Greco-Roman civilization free thought was unambiguously suppressed. Not since the attempt of the pharaoh Akhenaten to impose his god Aten on his Egyptian subjects in the fourteenth century BC had there been such a widesweeping programme of religious coercion.

Yet surprisingly this political revolution, intended to bring inner cohesion to an empire under threat from the outside, has been airbrushed from the historical record. Instead, it has been claimed that the Christian Church had reached a consensus on the Trinity which was promulgated at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381.

In this groundbreaking new book, acclaimed historian Charles Freeman shows that the council was in fact a shambolic affair, which only took place after Theodosius' decree had become law. In short, the Church was acquiescing in the overwhelming power of the emperor.

Freeman argues that Theodosius' edict and the subsequent suppression of paganism not only brought an end to the diversity of religious and philosophical beliefs throughout the empire but created numerous theological problems for the Church, which have remained unsolved. The year AD 381, Freeman concludes, marked 'a turning point which time forgot'.

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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

Post by yakovzutolmai »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:40 pm
yakovzutolmai wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:00 pm Why did Theodosius support Niceanism when Constantinople and most everyone was Arian, while the Niceans were themselves infighting?
Have you read -
Interesting, not yet.

This is what I noticed, specifically. Theodosius revoking the Edict of Toleration and transforming Christianity into a system of thought absolutism that the imperial authority controls.

If that was the project, I have speculated that the politics of it relate to the importance of Egyptian grain to the imperial system, and the need to prevent the absorption of Gothic culture into Rome, to maintain the primacy of the recently established New Rome at Constantinople. Theodosius also tried to upend the previously established patriarchal system by making Constantinople the new seat of authority.
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

Post by yakovzutolmai »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:36 pm
Arius Satirized Constantine’s Jesus:
The Hidden History of the New Testament Apocryphal Literature
https://www.academia.edu/37961293/Arius ... Literature
This, at least, appears to be sheer propaganda. Where Arius is an Asclepian Gnostic. And the Nicaean Jesus belongs to Constantine (who seems to have been baptized according to Arius's doctrine).

I want to note, in parenthesis, that this attitude of the fourth century seems to validate some of what I said about the Asclepian influence on Jesus. The Jews of Cyrene were prominently loyal to Jerusalem during 1st century turmoil, and they were particularly linked to the Silphium trade. This not only links them to the Asclepian cult but the Silphium trade network is closely associated with the Greek diaspora.

In any event, I have also linked (fanciful notions about Odoacer aside) Arian beliefs among Gothic and Brythonic/Saxon peoples to Pelagianism. There are two dimensions to this. First, was the favorable reception of Pelagius in the East related to the East's loyalty to Arianist beliefs? Second, was Gothic Arianism itself, along with Pelagianism, examples of a more permissive Christianity. In other words, Arian Goths more easily tolerated the orthodox among them, rather than the other way around.

This is very interesting commentary about the catholicizing process, which filtered some beliefs, but may have been much more permissive. Yes, it's quite interesting.

It would seem that Athanasius would indeed be the true apostle of Orthodoxy. As far as I can tell, his trinity was more Egyptian than Judeo-Christian. And his motives were more personal and local than Arius's.

I would also like to associate Augustine, by way of synchronistic coincidence, to Orthodoxy. Augustine's perspective was suitable to the Orthodox paradigm in a few ways.
  • He was a rhetorician, so his beliefs were supported with Pathos not just logic. It was a subversion of the catholicizers' process of argumentation.
  • Original sin stands in stark contrast to the Christian free will arguments central to the faith of Pelagius and Origen.
  • Augustine lays down the architecture for Orthodoxy as a supra-imperial political paradigm, a system of absolutism which transcends the power of a single polity.
In any event, I still wonder if the history of Nicaea was redacted in some way.
yakovzutolmai
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

Post by yakovzutolmai »

andrewcriddle wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:24 am Philostorgius who was a committed Arian appears to accept broadly the same facts about the history of the controversy as do the orthodox, (although his evaluation is obviously different).

Andrew Criddle
Curious.

Philostorgius is active rather late, after Theodosius. His source material may have already been redacted, regardless of his upbringing. And our epitome of his comes very very late in the 9th century.

Anyway, I was in an argument with a Romanian Orthodox priest once (he looked like Rasputin and marked the dates of the ecumenical councils on his wall's plaster using a fingernail), and he claimed that in Nicaea, everyone was Arian until one poor, humble peasant took a brick and held it aloft. He said he had been taught the apostolic truth of the Trinity, and in clasping the brick in his hand it burst into flame. with water dripping from his fist. When he opened his hand it was full of dry clay. Thus, by God's assistance, he argued that all things come in three, including the Godhead. His argument moved the Arian bishops, and as a result Nicaea ruled against Arianism.

So, if that's where Orthodoxy has arrived, you wonder about the strength of the original argument.

I've heard Constantine was simply a dunce and was convinced by strong Trinitarian rhetoric, and bishops were afraid of being executed so once Constantine spoke words in favor of Trinitarianism they abandoned it. Although Constantine was later corrected. Implying Nicaea was rather abortive and inconsequential and a mere flattery of Constantine. Perhaps this story is as true as the brick. It makes some sense, in context.

However, there's more than enough room for history to have been redacted.
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

yakovzutolmai wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:00 pm Coming back to Nicaea, there are unanswered questions:

Why was Arianism rejected when most bishops believed it, including Eusebius?
IMO Arianism was a (pagan) reaction to Constantine's imperial agenda to implement, from the eastern empire over which he was (after a civil war) the supreme victorious military commander, a centralised monotheistic Christian state based upon the Greek NT codex as a political instrument akin to a "Holy Writ". As such Constantine had a blueprint to work from. One century earlier Ardashir (after a civil war). the supreme victorious military commander and "King of Kings" implemented a centralised monotheistic Persian State Religion (Zorastianism) which was based on a "Holy Writ" - the Avesta - which was canonised.

See: http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_009.htm

I think that Constantine really wanted the NT to be canonised at the Nicene Council but it was not and many attendees simply paid him lip service.

Arianism, as a (pagan) reaction to the emperor's agenda, had to be rejected by Constantine's "coalition of the willing" as part of the lip service to the most powerful man in the empire who was also, incidentally, the Pontifex Maximus. As such the emperor had every right to nominate his preferred deity. Jesus Christ was a very strange deity that was not only to be found inside a Greek codex, but the name of the deity was encrypted in an abbreviated form.

Finally I do not believe Arius was a Christian but was rather a pagan - possibly trained in Platonist philosophy. The Christian victors redacted the history of the Arian controversy and painted Arius as a Christian presbyter. The world suddenly became Christian and any evidence of any pagan resistance to the inevitable Christian victory was swept under the carpet.

Jerome did not write: "The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Christian." Rather Jerome wrote: "The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian."

As Palladas wrote the Hellenic world was "turned on its head".
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Re: Could Nicaea's Outcome Have Been The Reverse?

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yakovzutolmai wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:18 pm I would also like to associate Augustine, by way of synchronistic coincidence, to Orthodoxy. Augustine's perspective was suitable to the Orthodox paradigm in a few ways.
  • He was a rhetorician, so his beliefs were supported with Pathos not just logic. It was a subversion of the catholicizers' process of argumentation.
  • Original sin stands in stark contrast to the Christian free will arguments central to the faith of Pelagius and Origen.
  • Augustine lays down the architecture for Orthodoxy as a supra-imperial political paradigm, a system of absolutism which transcends the power of a single polity.
Yes Augustine, both a Saint and a "Doctor", wrote from the ivory towers of post Theodosian orthodoxy. As cited by "The Legacy of Greece" - Oxford University Press (1921) finds that "only a few words and phrases" need to be changed to bring Platonism into complete accord with Christianity.
http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/Legacy_of_Greece.htm

I suspect Augustine was not all that he made himself out to be. Specifically as a heresiologist he was supposed to be an ex-Manichaean and an expert at that. However I have my doubts. It is just as likely he indulged in waving pseudo-historical false flags like the rest of the heresiologists (with few exceptions all Christians were heresiologists).

p.102
Addendum

Brief consideration of the "Fundamental Epistle".


This text, as quoted and contraverted by Augustine [30] [Epist, Fund]
was one of the primary sources for the knowledge of Mani's teaching
prior to modern discoveries. Augustine clearly chooses this
document as a principle focus for his attack because i is a text
he himself knows well and read when he was an auditor, because
he believes it to have unimpeachable authority for the Manichaeans,
and because it is a succinct and clear summary of Mani's teachings.
Modern scholarship has generally not questioned its authenticity.

However a question arises over the text's exact status for the
Manichaean community ..... The question of status relates to the
text's position with reference to the canon and the collection
of Epistles. None of the various canonical lists from other sources
refer to a "Fundamental Epistle", nor does the title occur in an-Nadim. [31]

p.104

In sum, the status of the "Fundamental Epistle" remains uncertain;
i.e., whether it should be attributable to the Epistles as regards
the canon. I am inclined, until further evidence comes to light,
to treat it separately.


The light and the darkness: studies in Manichaeism and its world
By Paul Allan Mirecki, Jason BeDuhn
Page 93.
The Reconstruction of Mani's Epistles from three Coptic Codices
(Ismant El-Kharab and Medinet Madi)

--- by Iain Gardner


Being an Australian my favorite quote from our dissembling Doctor Augustus is when he lays down the architecture for Orthodoxy and the limits of the world-wide conquest of the nations.

"As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets on us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, there is no reason for believing it. Those who affirm it do not claim to possess any actual information; they merely conjecture that, since the earth is suspended within the concavity of the heavens, and there is as much room on the one side of it as on the other, therefore the part which is beneath cannot be void of human inhabitants. They fail to notice that, even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round or spherical in form, it does not follow that the part of the earth opposite to us is not completely covered with water, or that any conjectured dry land there should be inhabited by men.

For Scripture, which confirms the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, teaches not falsehood; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have set sail from this side and, traversing the immense expanse of ocean, have propagated there a race of human beings descended from that one first man."

Doctor Augustine on the Antipodes
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01581a.htm

The Dreamtime Stories of the first nations in Australia are just as, if not more relevant, than Augustine's scripture and opinion on the Antipodes.

In any event, I still wonder if the history of Nicaea was redacted in some way.
The Nicene Council functioned in a number of ways:

(1) MILITARY SUPREMACY: Victory Celebrations

Constantine has only just been victorious in his military conquest of the Eastern Roman empire. He had been consolidating his rule of the western empire for 20 years, and now he had acquired the entire empire. The Eastern empire was particularly rich, and prosperous, and all its citizens would now pay tax and tribute directly to him. Once Constantine had possession of the imperial gold reserves of the east, he had Licinius strangled.


(2) 20 YEARS - LONG SERVICE PARTY:
Twenty years at the top of the heap. It had been a hard road, but Constantine had miraculously never lost a single battle. The lavish Vicennalia party was tacked on to the end of the Nicaean Council, for those "whom he had reconciled" (most likely via signatories against Arius), and went for months. Lavish gifts were exchanged. Constantine burnt a few written petitions in the presence of the petitioners. How would you feel?

(3) EASTER
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