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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | There is no Roman coin evidence or archaeological evidence for Christians in Rome before Constantine The Great. |
If this is so, a coach and horses has been driven through one of our theories. Can you check this with some keenness?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The usual source cited for early Christianity in Rome seems to be Tertullian, most of whose manuscripts are reportedly lost though the main collection (21/22 works in 27 or 28 books) was 'rediscovered' in the Renaissance.
According to some historians, including Keith Hopkins (1934-2004), Professor of Ancient History at Cambridge, there is no evidence that Christians were executed in the Colosseum.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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Gunnar Heinsohn says Constantine was a first century figure, right after Christ anyway, so the archaeological evidence of Christianity would be almost contemporary with Constantine.
His evidence is the pic below, where the small building attached at the lower end of the Maxentius Mausoleum is 1st century building (according to orthodoxy), but it's been cut into a 4th century wall. So the wall (and Maxentius himself, Constantine's rival at the bridge) had to have been there first (i.e., 1st century).
Heinsohn says the wall is only 7cm thick after the cutting-in, and that the smaller buildings were put there in order to buttress the wall.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Rome's ecclesiastical history comes from Eusebius, this is the first full-length narrative of the world history written from a Christian point of view, according to Wiki.
| The accuracy of Eusebius's account has often been called into question. In the 5th century, the Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus described Eusebius as writing for "rhetorical finish" in his Vita Constantini ("Life of Constantine") and for the "praises of the Emperor" rather than the "accurate statement of facts."[a] The methods of Eusebius were criticised by Edward Gibbon in the 18th century.[11] In the 19th century Jacob Burckhardt viewed Eusebius as a liar, the "first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity."[12] Ramsay MacMullen in the 20th century regarded Eusebius's work as representative of early Christian historical accounts in which "Hostile writings and discarded views were not recopied or passed on, or they were actively suppressed... matters discreditable to the faith were to be consigned to silence."[13] As a consequence this kind of methodology in MacMullen's view has distorted modern attempts, (e.g. Harnack, Nock, and Gustave Bardy), to describe how the Church grew in the early centuries.[14] Arnaldo Momigliano wrote that in Eusebius's mind "chronology was something between an exact science and an instrument of propaganda".[1 |
Eusebius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_History_(Eusebius)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We can wipe our bottoms on this. What I'm worrying about is the 'coins and archaeology' of a Christian Constantine. Unless you can make him tenth/eleventh century.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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| "first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity." |
Eusebius = eu + sebo
"Good worshipper"
(These names. Is it truly an ancient idea to name people after character traits, or is this evidence of the nom de fakerie? The post-Renaissance (at least) had this naming convention, and we still do. Ask Prudence Q. Public and (my favorite) Justice Learned Hand) Are the maybe-forgers of Tacitus and Eusebius tipping their hand by projecting a relatively modern naming convention back onto antiquity?)
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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And is it a double-giveaway when the name just happens to reflect the very thing they became known for?
Would AE-ists in 2400 look back on Learned Hand or even Frank Lloyd Wright and say, "suuuuure, this educated judge was really named Learned, whateveryousay" or "I hear that Frank Lloyd Wright was America's most famous builder, and some even considered him kinda blunt. Next you'll be telling me he was prematurely gray, too")?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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There is no evidence for Constantine The Great being, acting, or promoting Chritianity. He favoured Sol Invictus, whether that's a step on the way to Christianity, ie worshipping or having a rest on a Sunday, is another matter. Here's the BM skipping around it.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1863-0713-1
Constantine is shown and described as the ‘companion’ of the sun god on a coin minted nearly four years after his reported conversion to Christianity on the eve of the battle of the Milvian Bridge. The emperor copies Sol’s characteristic gesture of benediction seen on the most common coins (copper alloy nummi) of Constantine until AD 317 (and occasionally on the gold into the 320s). It is possible that the Milvian Bridge conversion was a suitably dramatic fiction given out long afterwards, but a Christian of the time would have regarded the figure as nothing more than a representation of the weekly holy day of Sunday (dies Solis). Sunday was made an official day of rest for all by Constantine in AD 321.
In any case, the Christianity of Constantine was more eclectic than those familiar with the modern religion might suppose; early ideas of Christ, or at least the visual language employed to depict him was often given solar overtones. |
Eusebius has a lot to answer for, but there again is he really any better or worse than Bede?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Is he any more real than Bede?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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They are both within the ecclesiatical history canon.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | We can wipe our bottoms on this. What I'm worrying about is the 'coins and archaeology' of a Christian Constantine. Unless you can make him tenth/eleventh century. |
You might find this interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmlR2u_fN9Y
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The change from the King's Head to Sweet Jesus in 960 AD is very exciting news. The next step is to take the totality of pre-960 Byzantine coins and decide
* which of them are genuine and which are post-960 fakes
remove the fakes
* which of the genuine ones have Christian symbols
remove the rest
* decide whether they really are Christian symbols and not royal regalia etc adopted post-960 by Christian iconographers
remove them
* ending up with zero coins in order to save the Normans-invented-Christianity theory.
I thenk yew
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Polybius wrote: | | For who is so worthless and indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government—a thing unique in history? |
Thankfully you just happened to be around to record all the important battles, taken as an "Achaean" hostage to Rome shortly after the Battle of Pydna (you spotted that the phalanx did not work), you then mentored and accompanied Scipio (perhaps Rome's greatest general) on his military campaigns, including, the destruction of Carthage, Corinth and so on.
No wonder Rome conquered the known world in 53 years. It was really down to you! Greece, Rome Carthage and back to Greece again after Corinth. Everything goes back to the beginning.... so they sing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFQ6XgvX3Qo
You helpfully recorded it all before somewhat unfortunately falling from your horse aged 82....
Well done, you.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Wow, what a shame that Polybius' writings didn't receive the consideration due to such a venerable author
The Greek writer Polybius wrote a history in 40 books which recorded events from 264 BC down to the fall of Carthage in 146 BC.1 The work must still have existed in a complete form in the Byzantine era, when extracts were made from it, but has not come down to us intact.
Long extracts of books 6-18 are preserved in a collection known as the Excerpta Antiqua. The oldest manuscript of this, F, in fact also contains excerpts of books 1-5, but later manuscripts omit these. |
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2013/06/22/the-manuscripts-of-polybius/
The majority of Polybius' manuscripts seem to be dated 15th century except for the Vatican Library copy listed as 'probably AD 947'. The Excerpta Antiqua, or A collection of original manuscripts was published in 1797.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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