Posted: Jan 31, 2012 3:00 am
dogsgod wrote:proudfootz wrote:dogsgod wrote:Are you forgetting that Eusebius promoted the legend that Philo met Peter in Rome? Jerome (345-420 C.E.) even lists him as a church Father. http://www.iep.utm.edu/philo/
It kind of makes one wonder how all these church fathers became church fathers. Do you think Philo knew he was a church father?
This is just another line of evidence that what we know as 'christianity' is a gathering together of a lot of disparate hellenic/judaic mixing that had been going all over the eastern part of the Mediterranean region on for a couple of centuries.
If an anonymous street preacher got swept up with everything else,there's no need to postulate such a person started the process that had been going on for generations before the time of the Roman takeover of Judea.
On a somewhat similar note, the church can be traced back to the fourth century, prior to that the history of the church appears to be folklore in that bishops can be linked all the way back to the original apostles, the apostolic succession as it were, in response to gnosticism, as if there is such a link. I wonder how many got swept up and were posthumously appointed as bishops by Eusebeus.
This probably explains why certain authors like Paul (arguably gnostic) and Theophilus (apparently ignorant of any Jesus) could become included in the 'orthodox' column in the 4th century.
While it may be no one person 'invented' christianity, certainly one man did much to define it as we know it today - Eusebius, suspected author of the Testimonium Flavianum.