WI: Jesus of Nazareth Flees

Why?

Whats to say Jesus couldn't have been more successful in terms of conversion to his apocalyptic faith if he lived longer?

Why does his death automatically equal Christianity's success?

It's arguable that Christianity as a theological faith would be inexorably changed in terms of the belief in "Christ", "Resurrection" and Divinity, but its not like Jesus of Nazareth was around during the Council of Nicaea.

Whose to say he would agree with the decisions made at that time.

Without the record/myth of an incarnate god suffering and dying for humanity the entire basis for early Christianity is gone. Assuming (which is a big assumption!) that Jesus was primarily a social revolutionary and not a millennial preacher, his survival would at most create another strain of Judaism and perhaps a powerful national liberation movement. On the other hand, martyrdom is a major element of religious-based rebellions. Frankly I suspect that this Jesus would lose moral authority as the leader of such a movement if he fled.
 
Yeah, its basically the historical Jesus, in a way, belonging in a whole 'nother box than Jesus Christ, messiah of a great religion. Though on the purely historical side, that's a common misconception about the Council of Nicea that largely dates from the Enlightenment (the desire for a strawman is as old as civilization). Both the proto-Orthodox and the Arians come into Nicea thinking Jesus was divine; they had a bitter disagreement over what kind of divine he was (Trinity vs. divine in human disguise). Whether or not it was a conscious "this suits us well, bwhahahaha!" or more just the proto-Orthodox carried the Council is a matter of debate.

But yes, that pedanticness aside, while it's not true to say that the Council of Nicea "made" Jesus divine, how it happened is entirely explicable through the history of the different bishops who attended the conference, the arguments made and politics of, without any reference to specific points of theology. Just as any claims of divinity, etc. or purely a question of the philosophical/theological Christ and not a historical question of how could the movement that followed Jesus have been different.

I agree mostly, but much of what we know as the bible today was decided at that church after much argument, and debate, with some stuff considered too herectical being burned, much of Arius' own work was burned. The Holy Trinity concept for example was decided at Nicea, after it was decided that Jesus was Son of God, but existed before man or some such, which truly makes no sense.
 
Without the record/myth of an incarnate god suffering and dying for humanity the entire basis for early Christianity is gone. Assuming (which is a big assumption!) that Jesus was primarily a social revolutionary and not a millennial preacher, his survival would at most create another strain of Judaism and perhaps a powerful national liberation movement. On the other hand, martyrdom is a major element of religious-based rebellions. Frankly I suspect that this Jesus would lose moral authority as the leader of such a movement if he fled.

Historically, your classic Jewish Messiah preacher proclaimed the coming Kingdom, which was always conceived of as one where the rewards came in this life, then tried to make it happen and got killed. Whatever sequence of events caused Jesus of Nazareth to fall out of this pattern is frustratingly unknown. Because if you read the earlier Gospels in the context of the time, its clear that his phrasings are very much in line with that kind of apocalypse - a coming savior who builds a kingdom then and there.

Whatever JoN had, whether it was an unusually charismatic presence, especially devoted followers, an atypically wide supporter demographic, whatever, you had his followers effectively retconning the standard Messiah narrative to turn into into a kingdom not of this world, that could still come regardless of that fact that Jesus failed the traditional Jewish apocalypse narrative so utterly.
 
Without the record/myth of an incarnate god suffering and dying for humanity the entire basis for early Christianity is gone. Assuming (which is a big assumption!) that Jesus was primarily a social revolutionary and not a millennial preacher, his survival would at most create another strain of Judaism and perhaps a powerful national liberation movement. On the other hand, martyrdom is a major element of religious-based rebellions. Frankly I suspect that this Jesus would lose moral authority as the leader of such a movement if he fled.

Because he's not dead? that preposterous!

Muhammed fled Mecca, under pain of Death to Medina and the survival of Islam is attributed to that.

Did he lose moral authority? Nope
 
I agree mostly, but much of what we know as the bible today was decided at that church after much argument, and debate, with some stuff considered too herectical being burned, much of Arius' own work was burned. The Holy Trinity concept for example was decided at Nicea, after it was decided that Jesus was Son of God, but existed before man or some such, which truly makes no sense.

It's called a the Mystery of the Trinity for a reason - at the end of the day it makes about as much cold hard sense as this "love" separated from reproductive urges or some intrinsic human-ness that carries your rights that we all talk about today. Nonsensical in many senses, but felt by the society that holds it as making sense in a holistic sort of way, or at least being so valuable we'll call it true anyway.

Also, aside from Arius's works, we have most of the apocrypha that didn't make the cut. While they aren't considered canonical, it's inaccurate to say that the non-cannonical, non-Arian work is considered heretical, because then and now, they were the records of the earlier church, and valued as that. Though some of it, the Revelation of Peter in particular, was pretty freaking wild.
 
It's called a the Mystery of the Trinity for a reason - at the end of the day it makes about as much cold hard sense as this "love" separated from reproductive urges or some intrinsic human-ness that carries your rights that we all talk about today. Nonsensical in many senses, but felt by the society that holds it as making sense in a holistic sort of way, or at least being so valuable we'll call it true anyway.

Also, aside from Arius's works, we have most of the apocrypha that didn't make the cut. While they aren't considered canonical, it's inaccurate to say that the non-cannonical, non-Arian work is considered heretical, because then and now, they were the records of the earlier church, and valued as that. Though some of it, the Revelation of Peter in particular, was pretty freaking wild.

Were they not excluded from the original canon as the bible now is, because they did not meet the standard required by the council? I know the gospel of Mary was definitely excluded because it did not portray Jesus in the appropriate light.
 
Were they not excluded from the original canon as the bible now is, because they did not meet the standard required by the council? I know the gospel of Mary was definitely excluded because it did not portray Jesus in the appropriate light.

So what any of the people at Nicea wanted or thought an appropriate light is a thoroughly frustrating question, because we have just enough of the record to tantalize but not enough to answer questions. Bluntly, the standard involved was complicated, and not soley due to expediency. Thus, there are are a lot of factors that went into that standard. It's a standard that let in books that most of the hierarchy of the Church probably wished were forgotten. It let in some that were very convenient. And some of the books that weren't let in were incredibly authoritarian and misogynistic too.

Item the first: For most of the century before, there seems to have been a lot of controversy in the early Christianities about which of the many epistles and Gospels were actually trustworthy, and which were frauds? These were not rubes who'd just fallen off the turnip cart, after all. The thing about the various Christian movements is that it required a fair amount literacy in the koine Greek, which was not always common.

And they wanted to know. This was their guiding philosophy. Bluntly, while I'm sure they all damn well wanted to keep being bishops and leaders, its anachronistic to see them as mustache twirlers looking to control. They wanted to be justified. They wanted to know what was the real word and what wasn't. I should probably add that conception of traditional Christians as dumbbots holding to a particularly narrow biblical literalism is ahistorical before the 1500s.

Item the second: No-one wants to disappoint Constantine. For most of the men at Nicea, they'd gone from hiding from the authorities and a lion-y death to having the Augustus put them in places of power. There's no way that doesn't effect their thinking.

Item the third: Constantine really wants to have one Christian doctrine. Why is still a big fucking mystery. There was very little percentage to his Milvian bridge conversion(1) - Christianity gets big largely after his conversion, he does not go Christian because it was previously big. He wants his religion to be the state one. He wants a doctrine. The Third Century Christianities were incredibly diverse - many would in modern terms be polythiestic. Constatine wanted one. The bishops really wanted to give him one.

Item the fourth. This somewhat relates to item one. It's the one bit of retrospect we have. We know what got decided as cannon. We largely know when the oldest greek texts date from (1st and 2nd). We also know, from archaeology and all the literary sources, what kind of society the bishops came out of.

What gets decided at Nicea is largely convenient in the fourth century milieu. Some of it though is damned odd in the context of a number established men of the fourth century. The gospel of Mary was pretty Gnostic, and thus not in good odor. But some of the Pauline episitles, especially the seven that are certainly from the Paul author, are in some ways worse. This was a patriarchal society. The pseudonymous Pauls reflects this. The early Pauls, the seven that are cannonical, have a view of the role of women that is radical in some places now. In the 4th, and for a millennia after, the hugely positive view of women had to be channelled into mysticism and nuns.

Because the Classical Mediterranean, much as I loved Cosmos, was a very hierarchical, very conservative, very patriarchal world. A lot of the stuff in the New Testament is really freaking odd from the point of view of a bunch of bishops cackling as they made an Orwellian New Testament for their own power. The earlier Gospels and Epistles often work directly counter to this. And they would from time to time continue to work counter that kind of status obsessed patriarchy, right up to the current Pope.

Others of the canonical that likely date from the 2nd, or even the 3rd, are very comfortable with that conservatism. Living in the US, you hear the nastier books about submission and domination quoted from a ton. Those books were probably convenient to put in for those bishops. They've been convenient to a long line of them. On the other hand, several books like the Revelation of Peter, in spite of being as authoritarian and misogynist as a fundamentalist's wet dream, were kept out because even then they were obviously of recent origin.

Concluding, because cripes that got long Yes, they admitted the books up to a standard. But that standard is a little less consciously manipulatively than is often portrayed. It's a deep and fascinating story, and half the books the bishops at Nicea let in would haunt the Catholic church for the next thousand years. Virtuous poor people. Good uppity woman.

But, yes, it was largely politics. Just the politics are far, far, far more complicated and involved than the mustache-twirling masters of manipulation depicted in a lot of popular culture these days. The evidence tells a story far more complicated that the "rationalism" of "they're so evil and I'm so smart."

(1) No one really knows why Constantine converted. The whole, he did for teh politics to game teh stoopid Christians doesn't really work. Because in 405 there aren't any in the armies that decide who gets to be Emperor. Going Christian when Constantine did would be a political mistep from the master of the age. We really don't know why Constantine did what he did. It is annoying.
 
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