<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->viz. that the Goths were Aryans, is obviously a misreading
of the well-known fact that many of them were "Arians", i.e. followers of the
Christian "heretic" Arius.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Can't imagine anyone existing (outside christianism) who would confuse Arians with "Aryans".
http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/contents.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->CRIMES
OF
CHRISTIANITY
BY
G. W. FOOTE
AND
J. M. WHEELER
Â
VOL. I
LONDON
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1887.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 14 CLERKENWELL GREEN, E.C.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->There was never a vol II.
But Chapters 1 and 2 discuss arianism:
http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c1.htm
http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c2.htm
Excerpt from 1st link:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Constantine's penal laws in favor of Christianity were still more influential. <b>He condemned those who should speak evil of Christ to lose half their estates.</b> His laws against various heresies may be seen in the Justinian code. So far did he advance in true godliness, under the inspiration of the bishops and clergy, that <b>he issued a decree for the demolition of all heretical temples in the following elegant strain:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
  "Know ye, Moravians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulinians, and Cataphrygians, that your doctrine is both vain and false. O ye enemies of truth, authors and counsellors of death, ye spread abroad lies, oppress the innocent, and hide from the faithful the light of truth ⦠That your pestilential errors may spread no further, we enact by this law that none of you dare hereafter to meet at your conventicles, nor keep any factious or superstitious meetings, either in public buildings or in private houses, or in secret places; but if any of you have a care for the true religion, let them return to the Catholic Church ⦠And that our careful providence for curing these errors may be effectual, we have commanded that all your superstitious places of meeting, your heretical temples (if I may so call them), shall be, without delay or contradiction, pulled down or confiscated to the Catholic Church." [20:9] <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Such is the language, and such are the acts, which made Constantine "a pattern to all succeeding monarchs." These oppressive acts were grateful to the Christian clergy; and Eusebius, as Lardner remarks, relates them "with manifest tokens of approbation and satisfaction." [21:1]
<b>The reign of the first Christian Emperor was distracted by the famous Arian controversy.</b> <b>Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and his presbyter Arius, had a fierce and bitter dispute about the Trinity, the former contending that the Son was equal, and the latter that he was inferior, to the Father.</b> According to Jortin:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Alexander wrote a circular letter to all bishops, in which he represented Arius and his partisans as heretics, apostates, blasphemers, enemies of God, full of impudence and impiety, forerunners of Antichrist, imitators of Judas, and men whom it was not lawful to salute or bid God speed." [21:2]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is merely the language of bigotry, for Sozomen acknowledges that these reprobates were learned, and to all appearance good men. As the quarrel grew inflamed the soldiers and inhabitants joined in it, and much blood was shed in and about the City. Constantine wrote Alexander and Arius a long letter, bidding them be more peaceable. But as the controversy spread through the empire, he at length resolved (A.D. 325) to summon a Council of the Church at Nice, in Bythinia, to determine between them. <b>After much wrangling, which Constantine peremptorily ended, the bishops and ecclesiastics discussed the subject of the Trinity. It was finally resolved by a majority that the Father and the Son were of the same substance, and not of like substance. The famous Nicene Greed was drawn up for subscription, with an addendum declaring that</b> -
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematises those who say there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of another substance or essence, and is created or changeable or alterable." [21:3] <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Council of Nice only envenomed the dispute, for, as Gibbon observes, the emperor "extinguished the hope of peace and toleration from the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the same palace." Constantine ratified the Nicene Creed, and issued the following edict against the minority:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Since Arius hath imitated wicked and ungodly men, it is just that he should undergo the same infamy with them. As, therefore, Porphyrius, an enemy of godliness, for his having composed wicked books against Christianity, hath found a fitting recompense in being infamous and having all his impious writings quite destroyed, so also it is now my pleasure that Arius and those of his sentiments shall be called Porphyrians, so that they may have the appellation of those whose manners they have imitated. Moreover, if any book composed by Arius shall be found, it shall be delivered to the fire, that not only his evil doctrine may be destroyed, but that there may not be the least remembrance of it left. This also I enjoin, that if anyone shall be found to have concealed any writing composed by Arius, and shall not immediately bring it and consume it in the fire, death shall be his punishment: for as soon as ever he is taken in this crime, he shall suffer capital punishment. God preserve you." [22:4] <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
God preserve you! is a fine piece of irony, coming after a menace of death for reading an heretical book. Let it also be noticed that the first great Council of the Christian Church resulted in the first promulgation of the death penalty against heretics. [22:5]
Ten years afterwards Constantine veered round and favored the Arians. He repeatedly commanded Athanasius, the Archbishop of Alexandria, to receive Arius into the Catholic communion, but that extraordinary man refused to comply with the emperor's will. At the Council of Tyre (A.D. 335) an Arian majority condemned Athanasius to degradation and exile for having, as they alleged, whipped or imprisoned six bishops, and murdered or mutilated a seventh; and the great Archbishop found shelter for nearly two years in the Court of Treves.
Meanwhile Arius came to an untimely end. Constantine ordered Alexander, the Athanasian bishop of the capital, to receive the heresiarch into communion on the following Sunday. On the Saturday the bishop fasted and prayed, and in his church he besought God to avert the evil, even by taking Arius away. [23:6] The next day, as Arius was on his way to the church, he entered a house to attend to a call of nature, where, according to Athanasius, his bowels burst out. He was at any rate found dead, and the Athanasians saw a divine judgment in his sudden fate. "But when Alexander's party," says Draper, "proclaimed that his prayer had been answered, they forgot what that prayer must have been, and that the difference is little between praying for the death of a man and compassing it." [23:7]
Gibbon says that "those who press the literal narrative of the death of Arius must make their option between poison and miracle." He evidently inclines to the former choice, and he is followed in this by Draper. Cardinal Newman, however, regards the death of Arius as a Church miracle. "Surely it is not impossible," says Jortin, "that amongst his numerous enemies there might be one who would not scruple to give him a dose, and to send him out of the way." [23:8] The cautious Mosheim adopts the same view. "When I consider," he says, "all the circumstances of the case, I confess that to me it appears most probable, the unhappy man lost his life by the machinations of his enemies, being destroyed by poison. An indiscreet and blind zeal in religion has, in every age, led on to many crimes worse than this." [23:9]
Constantine himself died in the following year (May 22nd, A.D. 337) at Nicomedia. His body was laid in state for several days, and finally interred with gorgeous rites. According to Jortin, he had the honor of being the first Christian who was buried in a church. The true believers paid almost divine honor to his name, his tomb, and his statue, and called him a saint equal to the apostles. And as the clergy had bestowed upon him, during his life, the most fulsome praise even when he was committing the most flagitious crimes, so now, after his death, they had the effrontery to declare that God had endued his urn and statue with miraculous powers, and that whosoever touched them were healed of all diseases and infirmities. [24:1]
Constantine did so much for Christianity that the apologists and historians of that creed have always striven to whitewash his memory. Their efforts are futile, but they had good reason for the attempt. Not only did Constantine establish Christianity as the religion of the empire, but by sanctioning and promoting its endowment he gave a permanency to its institutions. His removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople gave free play to the ambition of the Western Church, which centred in the eternal city, and was invested with the glamor of the name of Rome. Antioch is now but a name, Constantinople is a Mohammedan capital, and Alexandria is ruled by a dependent of the Sultan; while Rome is still the centre of Christendom, the home of infallibility, and the obstinate enemy of liberty and progress.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It goes on in Ch. 2 at http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c2.htm
Continued in the next post
of the well-known fact that many of them were "Arians", i.e. followers of the
Christian "heretic" Arius.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Can't imagine anyone existing (outside christianism) who would confuse Arians with "Aryans".
http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/contents.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->CRIMES
OF
CHRISTIANITY
BY
G. W. FOOTE
AND
J. M. WHEELER
Â
VOL. I
LONDON
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1887.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 14 CLERKENWELL GREEN, E.C.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->There was never a vol II.
But Chapters 1 and 2 discuss arianism:
http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c1.htm
http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c2.htm
Excerpt from 1st link:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Constantine's penal laws in favor of Christianity were still more influential. <b>He condemned those who should speak evil of Christ to lose half their estates.</b> His laws against various heresies may be seen in the Justinian code. So far did he advance in true godliness, under the inspiration of the bishops and clergy, that <b>he issued a decree for the demolition of all heretical temples in the following elegant strain:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
  "Know ye, Moravians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulinians, and Cataphrygians, that your doctrine is both vain and false. O ye enemies of truth, authors and counsellors of death, ye spread abroad lies, oppress the innocent, and hide from the faithful the light of truth ⦠That your pestilential errors may spread no further, we enact by this law that none of you dare hereafter to meet at your conventicles, nor keep any factious or superstitious meetings, either in public buildings or in private houses, or in secret places; but if any of you have a care for the true religion, let them return to the Catholic Church ⦠And that our careful providence for curing these errors may be effectual, we have commanded that all your superstitious places of meeting, your heretical temples (if I may so call them), shall be, without delay or contradiction, pulled down or confiscated to the Catholic Church." [20:9] <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Such is the language, and such are the acts, which made Constantine "a pattern to all succeeding monarchs." These oppressive acts were grateful to the Christian clergy; and Eusebius, as Lardner remarks, relates them "with manifest tokens of approbation and satisfaction." [21:1]
<b>The reign of the first Christian Emperor was distracted by the famous Arian controversy.</b> <b>Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and his presbyter Arius, had a fierce and bitter dispute about the Trinity, the former contending that the Son was equal, and the latter that he was inferior, to the Father.</b> According to Jortin:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Alexander wrote a circular letter to all bishops, in which he represented Arius and his partisans as heretics, apostates, blasphemers, enemies of God, full of impudence and impiety, forerunners of Antichrist, imitators of Judas, and men whom it was not lawful to salute or bid God speed." [21:2]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is merely the language of bigotry, for Sozomen acknowledges that these reprobates were learned, and to all appearance good men. As the quarrel grew inflamed the soldiers and inhabitants joined in it, and much blood was shed in and about the City. Constantine wrote Alexander and Arius a long letter, bidding them be more peaceable. But as the controversy spread through the empire, he at length resolved (A.D. 325) to summon a Council of the Church at Nice, in Bythinia, to determine between them. <b>After much wrangling, which Constantine peremptorily ended, the bishops and ecclesiastics discussed the subject of the Trinity. It was finally resolved by a majority that the Father and the Son were of the same substance, and not of like substance. The famous Nicene Greed was drawn up for subscription, with an addendum declaring that</b> -
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematises those who say there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of another substance or essence, and is created or changeable or alterable." [21:3] <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Council of Nice only envenomed the dispute, for, as Gibbon observes, the emperor "extinguished the hope of peace and toleration from the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the same palace." Constantine ratified the Nicene Creed, and issued the following edict against the minority:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Since Arius hath imitated wicked and ungodly men, it is just that he should undergo the same infamy with them. As, therefore, Porphyrius, an enemy of godliness, for his having composed wicked books against Christianity, hath found a fitting recompense in being infamous and having all his impious writings quite destroyed, so also it is now my pleasure that Arius and those of his sentiments shall be called Porphyrians, so that they may have the appellation of those whose manners they have imitated. Moreover, if any book composed by Arius shall be found, it shall be delivered to the fire, that not only his evil doctrine may be destroyed, but that there may not be the least remembrance of it left. This also I enjoin, that if anyone shall be found to have concealed any writing composed by Arius, and shall not immediately bring it and consume it in the fire, death shall be his punishment: for as soon as ever he is taken in this crime, he shall suffer capital punishment. God preserve you." [22:4] <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
God preserve you! is a fine piece of irony, coming after a menace of death for reading an heretical book. Let it also be noticed that the first great Council of the Christian Church resulted in the first promulgation of the death penalty against heretics. [22:5]
Ten years afterwards Constantine veered round and favored the Arians. He repeatedly commanded Athanasius, the Archbishop of Alexandria, to receive Arius into the Catholic communion, but that extraordinary man refused to comply with the emperor's will. At the Council of Tyre (A.D. 335) an Arian majority condemned Athanasius to degradation and exile for having, as they alleged, whipped or imprisoned six bishops, and murdered or mutilated a seventh; and the great Archbishop found shelter for nearly two years in the Court of Treves.
Meanwhile Arius came to an untimely end. Constantine ordered Alexander, the Athanasian bishop of the capital, to receive the heresiarch into communion on the following Sunday. On the Saturday the bishop fasted and prayed, and in his church he besought God to avert the evil, even by taking Arius away. [23:6] The next day, as Arius was on his way to the church, he entered a house to attend to a call of nature, where, according to Athanasius, his bowels burst out. He was at any rate found dead, and the Athanasians saw a divine judgment in his sudden fate. "But when Alexander's party," says Draper, "proclaimed that his prayer had been answered, they forgot what that prayer must have been, and that the difference is little between praying for the death of a man and compassing it." [23:7]
Gibbon says that "those who press the literal narrative of the death of Arius must make their option between poison and miracle." He evidently inclines to the former choice, and he is followed in this by Draper. Cardinal Newman, however, regards the death of Arius as a Church miracle. "Surely it is not impossible," says Jortin, "that amongst his numerous enemies there might be one who would not scruple to give him a dose, and to send him out of the way." [23:8] The cautious Mosheim adopts the same view. "When I consider," he says, "all the circumstances of the case, I confess that to me it appears most probable, the unhappy man lost his life by the machinations of his enemies, being destroyed by poison. An indiscreet and blind zeal in religion has, in every age, led on to many crimes worse than this." [23:9]
Constantine himself died in the following year (May 22nd, A.D. 337) at Nicomedia. His body was laid in state for several days, and finally interred with gorgeous rites. According to Jortin, he had the honor of being the first Christian who was buried in a church. The true believers paid almost divine honor to his name, his tomb, and his statue, and called him a saint equal to the apostles. And as the clergy had bestowed upon him, during his life, the most fulsome praise even when he was committing the most flagitious crimes, so now, after his death, they had the effrontery to declare that God had endued his urn and statue with miraculous powers, and that whosoever touched them were healed of all diseases and infirmities. [24:1]
Constantine did so much for Christianity that the apologists and historians of that creed have always striven to whitewash his memory. Their efforts are futile, but they had good reason for the attempt. Not only did Constantine establish Christianity as the religion of the empire, but by sanctioning and promoting its endowment he gave a permanency to its institutions. His removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople gave free play to the ambition of the Western Church, which centred in the eternal city, and was invested with the glamor of the name of Rome. Antioch is now but a name, Constantinople is a Mohammedan capital, and Alexandria is ruled by a dependent of the Sultan; while Rome is still the centre of Christendom, the home of infallibility, and the obstinate enemy of liberty and progress.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It goes on in Ch. 2 at http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c2.htm
Continued in the next post