Special to the Mirror by Chas Cornweller
I am thinking it may be the signposts that have been cropping up lately. Or maybe it’s a sign of the times. But three names have presented themselves to me recently, within an unusual light. They have been rolling around within my consciousness, this past week, rubbing on my heart like a troublesome stone in a walking shoe. Finally, observing that stone, I was surprised to have discovered a diamond. And those names associated with this diamond? They would be Saint Francis of Assisi, Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen, and The White Rose.
These are strange days indeed. Within a book I was reading, I found out something I’d never known about Francis of Assisi. It was written that he viewed all of nature as a mirror of God. He believed and saw consciousness in all things within this nature. To this day, this belief is still considered a dangerous precept within Christianity, as it veers closely to the paganist belief in spirit in nature. But, pragmatically, it makes a heck of a lot of sense. How many can see consciousness in your family pet? How many people have said that their cat or their dog or even their horse has a personality? What about a tree? Science (that antithesis of faith) has proven that trees not only communicate with one another chemically, but, through numerous repeated experiments, have proven they can anticipate and react to various stimuli. That, my friends, is the definition of consciousness. We are discovering to the depths and heights of knowledge at an alarming rate. But, some discoveries point back to an ancient knowledge that has been with us all along. Saint Francis had the knowledge of the Christ to guide him. Who knows what was revealed to him? It is interesting to note that during World Environment Day 1982, John Paul II said that St. Francis’ love and care for creation was a challenge for contemporary Catholics and a reminder “not to behave like dissident predators where nature is concerned, but to assume responsibility for it, taking all care so that everything stays healthy and integrated, so as to offer a welcoming and friendly environment even to those who succeed us.” The same Pope wrote on the occasion of the World Day of Peace, January 1, 1990, the saint of Assisi “offers Christians an example of genuine and deep respect for the integrity of creation …” He went on to make the point that: “As a friend of the poor who was loved by God’s creatures, Saint Francis invited all of creation – animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon – to give honor and praise to the Lord. The poor man of Assisi gives us striking witness that when we are at peace with God we are better able to devote ourselves to building up that peace with all creation which is inseparable from peace among all peoples [1] (Pope John Paul II (December 8, 1990).
“World Day of Peace 1990”) Here, in the seventeenth year of the twenty first century, we still struggle with material over environment. It is known fact that the Native American had no concept of property. It was more related to territory for hunting and subsistence than actual buying or trading of land. When the time came to move, they simply pulled up stakes (dismantled their homes) and moved to a more productive area. The only challenges came if or when they trespassed into someone else’s hunting area or strangers imposed upon theirs. There simply was no concept of property exchange through economics or any other means. The trade with Europeans for land (think Manhattan Transfer for roughly twenty dollars of trinkets) was to satisfy both European concepts for land exchange for material goods and the Native American tradition of allowing hunting/living on previously undeniably understood hunting grounds by the tribe doing the trading. To that tribe a fair and equitable exchange of understanding, not property, was exchanged. The Europeans saw it in a completely different light. Once the land was theirs, it not only would never again be exchanged, it would never revert back into the hands of the Native American. The banks eventually took control and material exchange became part of the bargain. Lines were drawn up by surveyors (another concept the Native American could not easily grasp) as boundaries. Property became divided more and more and conscripted not by exchanges of trinkets, treaties and understandings, but by paper. Money and plats became the order of the day. The land itself became an economic viability. For whatever reason the Native American, could never see this as even a remote possibility. The European could see it no other way. What was lost in the exchange, we will never know. But, today, we are crowded into cities, rivers run polluted to the point you cannot drink out of them, fish and wildlife are sick and dying in certain places, and beneath our feet, men create fissures and split the rocks with high pressure chemically treated water to force impossibly difficult resources to the surface. An acre of land, in some regions, can be so expensive only the very wealthy can afford to live there. Certainly, someone of Saint Francis’ fiscal stature would not be welcome. A certain building today, found in Manhattan (traded for approximately twenty dollars) is expected to sell for 2.5 billion (that’s with a B!) dollars, making it most expensive individual office building in the United States. A quick check of some third world nations national GDP would quickly show you just how out of proportion this is. I would be very curious to hear Saint Francis of Assisi’s thoughts on this. Especially, since his life was dedicated to an order based on the following of the teachings of Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps. This included, of course, a vow of poverty. Sometimes, in days like these, I wonder who is moving the correct direction?
The second name to enter my frame of reference this past week is a one Clemens August Graf von Galen of Germany. Not a name many people will recognize or have even heard of. He is noted in history as being that unquiet voice preaching from the pulpit during the regime of the Third Reich. His importance in the Catholic Church was of such a standing, he was considered a political risk to the young Nazi Party should something happen to him. Known throughout Germany as a staunch conservative and an early supporter of German Nationalism, he slowly and emphatically began to denounce several of the Nazi doctrine that were being instituted during the early thirties. In 1934 Galen, now consecrated as Bishop of Munster’s Cathedral, attacked the racial ideologies of the Nazi regime, declaring it unacceptable to argue that Jewish authorship of the Old Testament diminished its authority or that morality and virtue were in any way derived from the perceived usefulness of a particular race. He equated unquestioning loyalty to the Reich with “slavery”. Bishop Galen also derided the neo-pagan theories of Rosenberg in The Myth of the Twentieth Century as perhaps no more than “an occasion for laughter in the educated world”, but warned that Rosenberg’s “immense importance lies in the acceptance of his basic notions as the authentic philosophy of National Socialism and in his almost unlimited power in the field of German education. Herr Rosenberg must be taken seriously if the German situation is to be understood.”[2] (Richard Bonney; Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity: The Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936-1939; International Academic Publishers; Bern; 2009 ISBN 978-3-03911-904-2; p. 128) Standing up to Hitler and his henchmen was a very dangerous thing to do. It didn’t get easier as the nineteen thirties ended and Germany went to war. Several generals and political leaders wanted Bishop Galen assassinated, but fearing a tremendous backlash from the majority Catholics in Germany and from world opinion, Joseph Goebbels and Hitler himself demurred, preferring to deal with the issue at wars end.
Three powerful sermons during the summer of 1941 had a striking and long lasting impression on any dissidence inside Nazi Germany. They earned Bishop Galen the nickname of the “Lion of Munster”. His sermon of July 13 attacked the regime for its tactics of terror and disappearances without trial, closure of Catholic institutions without any stated justifications and the resultant fear inflicted on all Germans. The Gestapo, he argued, reduced even the most decent and loyal citizens to fear of ending up in a cellar prison or a concentration camp. As the country was at war, Galen rejected the notion that his speech undermined German solidarity or unity. Quoting Pope Pius XII’s Opus Justitiae Pax and Justitia fundamentum Regnorum, Galen noted that “Peace is the work of Justice and Justice, the basis for dominion,” then attacked the Third Reich for undermining justice, the belief in justice and for reducing the German people to a state of permanent fear, even cowardice. He concluded: “As a German, as a decent citizen, I demand Justice”[3] (Peter Löffler (Hrsg.): Bischof Clemens August Graf von Galen – Akten, Briefe und Predigten 1933–1946. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn/Munich/Vienna/Zurich, 2nd edition 1996, p. 843 ff. ISBN 3-506-79840-5) His second sermon the following week, stated that all written protests against Nazi hostilities had proven useless. The confiscation of religious institutions continued unabated. Members of religious orders were still being deported or jailed. He asked his listeners to be patient and to endure, and said that the German people were being destroyed not by the Allied bombing from the outside, but from negative forces within. While strong statements to speak in public, still he persevered. The third sermon dealt further with desecrations of Catholic churches, the closing of convents and monasteries, and the deportation of mentally ill people to undisclosed locations. A notice was then sent to family members stating that the person in question had died. He declared this form of euthanasia, murder. “This is murder unlawful by divine and German law, a rejection of the laws of God.” He went on to say that he had forwarded his evidence to the State Attorney. “These are people, our brothers and sisters; maybe their life is unproductive, but productivity is not a justification for killing. If that were indeed a justification for execution, everybody would have to be afraid to even go to a doctor for fear of what might be discovered. The social fabric would be affected. Galen then remarked that a regime which can do away with the Fifth Commandment (thou shalt not kill) can destroy the other commandments as well” [4] (Peter Löffler (Hrsg.): Bischof Clemens August Graf von Galen – Akten, Briefe und Predigten 1933–1946. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn/Munich/Vienna/Zurich, 2nd edition 1996, p. 874 ff. ISBN 3-506-79840-5).
Galen went on to raise the question of whether permanently injured German soldiers would fall under the program as well. Thousands of copies of his sermons were circulated throughout Germany. The results were exposing the secrecy of the euthanasia program known as Aktion T4 to the general public and consequently, the rest of the world. The sermon was so powerful; copies were even dropped on German soldiers by RAF fliers. The condemnation of this one policy was used to draw wider conclusions about the nature of this regime. And it fomented the establishment of one of Germany’s most famously known resistant groups, The White Rose.
The White Rose, the last facet on this diamond that I’d discovered, I already had known about. I had first heard of this dissident group years ago, but was once again reminded of their existence just this following week. And though ideology is not a new concept to both the young and to colleges, this group resonates with an ideological truth so strong, pure and dedicated, just reading their story will certainly break your heart. It is a righteous human condition coupled with faith resisting against an evil so large and strong; personified. Begun the summer following Bishop Galen’s brazen sermons, the rise of this intellectual, non-violent resistance group was an inevitable step in the efforts to stymie and reverse the ever destructive policies of Adolf Hitler and his government. Hundreds of thousands of young men were dying or being captured on the battlefields to East. Tens of thousands of German citizens had been or were being rounded up and deported to re-education camps, as they were then known as to the German public. The cities were virtual police states where sons were reporting fathers, neighbors condemning neighbors and the very churches and synagogues, good German citizens had frequented for generations, were boarded up and closed. What you read, what you said, what you did; could endanger you to deportation, or re-education in a camp. Or far worst. From this fear, a small group of young like-minded college people rose up to say, enough is enough. They lasted nearly eight months. From July, 1942 until February, 1943, culminating with the arrests of the core group. The University of Munich housed a medical school in which several of the core members were medical students. Studies were regularly interrupted by terms of compulsory service as student soldiers in the Wehrmacht medical corps at the Eastern front. Their experiences there had a major impact on their thinking and served to only motivate their resistance. One of the students, having been raised by Russian nurses, spoke fluent Russian, allowing him direct communication with the Russian population. This communicated insight provided valuable intel, while, proving to these young students that the rumors of atrocities and the morale decline of the German army to be true. When these students returned, their convictions were strengthened by the knowledge that what they were fighting against was, truly, a great evil. They wrote pamphlets and spread them throughout the greater Munich area. They tried and were successful in recruiting others with sympathetic leanings. As time progressed these pamphlets began to find their way further and further afield into other townships and cities. In total, White Rose authored six leaflets, which were multiplied and spread for a total of nearly fifteen thousand copies. These pamphlets branded the Nazi regime’s crimes and oppression, and called for resistance. They openly denounced the persecution and murder of the Jews and other political groups opposing Hitler and the war effort. As stated by Hans Scholl during his interrogation, he said “I knew what I took upon myself and I was prepared to lose my life by doing so.” Even as the arrest were being made, The White Rose was in communication with other resistance groups throughout Germany. None of the other groups were ever uncovered by any member of the White Rose resistance group. Over twenty students and several professors were arrested and tried for crimes of treason against the Nazi regime. Eight were executed and the rest imprisoned. All were tortured and only a very few survived the war.
The hopes of the White Rose members that the defeats at Stalingrad and Moscow would incite German opposition against the Nazi regime and its crimes against humanity did not come to be. On the contrary, Nazi propaganda used those same defeats to call on the German people to embrace “Total War”. Coincidentally, on 18 February 1943, the same day that saw the arrests of Sophie and Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivered his Sportpalast or Total War speech (English Translation), and was enthusiastically applauded by his audience, the German public. On 22 February 1943, the students of the University of Munich were assembled, and “officially protested” against the “traitors” who came from within their ranks. Gestapo and Nazi jurisdiction documented in their files their view of the White Rose members as “traitors and defeatists”. On 23 February, the official newspaper of the Nazi party, “Völkischer Beobachter” and local newspapers in Munich briefly reported about the capture and execution of some “degenerate rogues”. Such is the power of propaganda. However, the network of friends and supporters proved to be too large, so that the rumors about the White Rose could not be suppressed any more by Nazi German officials. Until the end of World War II, further prosecutions took place, and German newspapers continued to report, mostly in brief notes, that further people had been arrested and punished. On 15 March 1943, a report by the Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS stated that rumors about the leaflets spread “considerable unrest” amongst the German population. The report expressed particular concern about the fact that leaflets were not handed in to the Nazi authorities by their finders as promptly as they used to be in the past. On 18 April 1943, the New York Times mentioned the student opposition in Munich. The paper also published articles on the first White Rose trials on 29 March 1943 and 25 April 1943. Though they did not correctly record all of the information about the resistance, the trials, and the execution, they were the first acknowledgement of the White Rose in the United States. On 27 June 1943, the German author and Nobel prize winner Thomas Mann, in his monthly anti-Nazi broadcasts by the BBC called “Deutsche Hörer!” (“German Audience!”) highly praised the White Rose members’ courage. The Soviet Army propaganda issued a leaflet, wrongly attributed by later researchers to the National Committee for a Free Germany, in honor of the White Rose’s fight for freedom. The text of the sixth leaflet of the White Rose was smuggled out of Germany through Scandinavia to the United Kingdom by the German lawyer and member of the Kreisau Circle, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke. In July 1943, copies were dropped over Germany by Allied planes, retitled “The Manifesto of the Students of Munich”. Thus, the activities of the White Rose became widely known in World War II Germany, but, like other attempts at resistance, did not provoke any active opposition against the totalitarian regime within the German population. But, the actions resonated within the hearts of Germans. As time has given distance to the fears and softened to the heartache that once was Germany, many people have come to embrace these young people’s actions and subsequent martyrdom as a higher calling. Memorials commemorate them throughout Munich. On February 5, 2012, Alexander Schmorell, was canonized by his Orthodox Church as a New Martyr.
How and why these three names were presented to me this week, I’ll never know. Well, I do know how, and I can tell you. One, Saint Francis was found in a passage of a book I am now reading. The second, The White Rose was found in a post found on Facebook. During my lunch break, I researched a little more deeply on them and found Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen’s connection to this young group of humanities’ patriots. Each, very unique in their own ways, representing from same source. One, upon renouncing his life of privileged ease, by taking a vow of poverty and renouncing the world proved his intentions to follow Christ. Thus opening his mind and heart as to one who saw the God in all things. Allowing his deed to grow an order sanctioned by the Established Church, known as the Order of Friars Minor. How many countless souls touched by this order, will never be known. Another, being a staunch conservative and raised in privilege within a militaristic nation, becomes a priest. Later, endowed with a strong sense of justice and an even stronger belief in his God and its affiliated religious order, feels the need to speak out against his nation’s governance of corruption and injustices. In doing so he becomes that voice all good souls within that system so desperately need to hear. The third, a group of well meaning, intelligent, young intellectuals with a sense of justice so strong, not even death can stay their words; seize upon those speeches as release to reason to do a greater good. I can only imagine what Saint Francis would have thought of this powerful connection in time. Of how Bishop Galen felt when he saw parts of his sermons reprinted by a young group of dissidents, tying his words to an even higher calling. But, for me, having looked further and deeper here within the confines of history, I can say they are now a part of me. A deeper curiosity took me there. Where it leads me…that, I truly cannot say. But I can write what I feel. And I feel these are strange days, indeed.
About the Author
Wonderful to read on such a beautiful and sun filled Sunday morning !
Robert, thank you for your kind words. Sometimes, it is refreshing to find ideas that enlighten instead of provoke. I hope, to that end, I succeeded.
Thought provoking by a talented writer. Like Robert, I felt this was wonderful to read.
Dale, thank you, as well. If you would like to see more of my work in the future, please let Wayne or me know. I still have a few words up my sleeve. Thank you again, for the compliment.
An interesting juxtaposition of thought, indeed, Chas Cornweller, which goes to the evolution of thought itself with respect to Francis of Assisi and his view of all of nature as a mirror of God, a view I share without reservation, despite my own science background, and your statement that he believed and saw consciousness in all things within this nature, again as I do, which, as you say, is to this day a belief that is still considered a dangerous precept within Christianity.
With regard to the evolution of thought from his time to our time, Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, who history tells us lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi, lived between 1181 and 3 October 1226.
With respect to a scientific view overriding his views, we are very much today the victims, if you will, of the Newtonian Clockwork Model of the universe, which came later during the Enlightenment, which was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy.
The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, which took the spirit of life out of nature and instead rendered it part of a machine set in motion by the “clockmaker” back in God alone knows when.
As Wikipedia tells us, in the history of science, the clockwork universe compares the universe to a mechanical clock.
It continues ticking along, as a perfect machine, with its gears governed by the laws of physics, making every aspect of the machine predictable.
Thus, if a bird sings, the clockwork was responsible for that song at that time, and if a dog barks, it has the same underlying causes.
The Clockwork idea was very popular among deists during the Enlightenment, when Isaac Newton derived his laws of motion, and showed that alongside the law of universal gravitation, they could explain the behaviour of both terrestrial objects and the solar system.
A similar concept goes back, to John of Sacrobosco’s early 13th-century introduction to astronomy: “On the Sphere of the World.”
In this widely popular medieval text, Sacrobosco spoke of the universe as the machina mundi, the machine of the world, suggesting that the reported eclipse of the Sun at the crucifixion of Jesus was a disturbance of the order of that machine.
As someone who grew up out in the countryside surrounded by nature in all of its glory, I have never had any doubts that indeed, animals have personalities and can and do continually make decisions, and yes, they communicate and meditate, as well.
If they didn’t communicate, then how could we have horse whisperers, for example?
I remember in fourth grade the teacher, who came from the city, trying to force the Clockwork model of the universe down our throats, telling us that all of what a bird did in building its nest was according to a pattern set in motion a long time age by the clockmaker.
What I observed, however, is that birds have a varied amount of skill at making nests, and some are a failure at the job, which always called into question the Clockwork model to me, that coupled with the fact that the animals told me not to believe that crap about a clockwork, since one does not exist.
And in all that time, I haven’t.
What was interesting was how many children in that room readily bought into the concept of the Clockwork making a bird sing and build its nest, etc,, with no knowledge itself of what it was doing, since it was essentially and automation, a part of a bigger machine, because the teacher said they had to believe that way.
She said her purpose was to get rid of mysticism in how we viewed the world outside the schoolroom window.
She failed with me, and my world has been so much richer as a result.
With respect to your statement above, Chas Cornweller, “How and why these three names were presented to me this week, I’ll never know,” if in fact the animals are wrong (hey, they might not be infallible, afterall), and there really is a Clockwork running here, then it was a series of little gears turning since the beginning of eternity that caused that to happen, and there was nothing you could do to avoid the collision, so to speak.
It was determined for you, long ago.
But it could just as well be related to a phenomenon in a comment made in the Guardian newspaper about Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, telling MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show “It is as if history is being collapsed into a black hole and everything is happening faster than the speed of light.”
Think about that for a moment, Chas Cornweller, all of the possible Time’s Arrows extant out there, all suddenly turned on their axes so their heads now all point towards the same spot in space time – a singularity.
History being collapsed into a black hole.
The past is rushing in from all directions at once.
In that model, we are in this country now simultaneously at the time of the Tower Of Babylon, and Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, and Aelia Galla Placidia and Stilicho and Alaric and Flavius Honorius Augustus and the Alans, Sueves, and Vandals under the command of Radagaisus pouring across the borders of the empire.
So no wonder you feel these are strange days, indeed.
For, Chas Cornweller, they indeed are!
Well, Paul…you are a man of surprises! The last thing I expected from you was a mystical experience take on this world. Makes me think you may have come in contact with more than just rain, mud, heat and mosquitoes in Viet Nam. But, that is none of my business. For the record, I am a huge believer in personal consciousness expansion. But, to achieve that, one must first realize they are conscious. It’s surprising how many are not in this world. There’s a real danger there…yet, I digress.
I prefer to call what you call the clockwork and time determination, simply signposts along the way. To me, they are pretty obvious. I’ve missed a few, but I always get a chance to circle back and pick up on what I missed the first time. Those really obvious ones, I like to call (you’ll love this!) “Metaphysical Pie in the Face”. One, because sometimes the joke is on me, two; it’s clear to me God has a sense of humor. The really troubling thing is, however; is this all predetermined or was just a loose groundwork laid out a long time ago? By whom? And why? What becomes of free will and pre-destination? Who and where is God in all of this? I am pretty sure I have the answers I have…so far. And they are my answers, not really for anyone else. Not trying to be selfish, it just fits…like a good pair of hiking boots for the long haul.
Finally, as far as history being linear, you and I know that is hog wash. A book I read about five years ago “The Peloponnesian War” by Donald Kagan indicated precisely the fact that history is circular. The exact same thing happened during those thirty or so years, twenty-five hundred years ago, that happened during our Cold War period (1950-1986). Except things went horribly wrong for the democratic society and they lost the war. Sorry, spoiler alert! They had riots. A major battle happened during a holiday. Students protested the war. The Spartan enemy and her allies were underestimated. Politicians were too influential with the military…etc. So, you see, that saying truly is true; “If you don’t know your history, you are doomed to repeat it!”
One last thing…I would suggest (for a change of pace) the book, “The Dead Saints Chronicles: A Zen Journey Through the Christian Afterlife” by David Solomon. Why this book? I don’t know, maybe I’m a clown and I’m throwing metaphysical pie in your face. But, I believe it may be something you will want to read. Trust me, this clown wears a smile on his face. Have a great week, my friend.
Sometimes the lights all shining on me, Other times I can barely see, Lately it occurs to me, What a long strange trip it’s been!
Truckin’ like the doodah man, Chas Cornweller, if you have been there, it makes sense, if not, perhaps it never will.
And “Metaphysical Pie in the Face” is a very apt description for what life can bring us, and often does.
Many times, as with you, the joke is on me, and while it is not argued that God has a sense of humor, I would say the dude can also get quite righteously pissed off, such as the night in Viet Nam when I raised my fist to his face, and said, “real nice job, God, what a ******* mess it is you have made down here with this war, and I wanted you to know how much it pisses me off to have to be part of it,” and pretty much immediately, God came back with, “Don’t lay that **** at my feet, sonny boy!”
“I’m not the one responsible for that war, you people are!”
“I gave you free will, and look what you have done with it!”
“So don’t be poking your fist in my face, and if you kill any more of my people, I am going to squash you like a bug!”
And I took the dude to be quite serious, Chas Cornweller, by the tone of his voice, and so with that stimulus, I changed my ways to practice war no more.
As I read your piece, I had to wonder if Francis of Assisi went through a similar experience, or maybe he just got tired of being dissolute and dissipated.
So, to your question, then, Chas Cornweller, about the really troubling thing being, is this all predetermined or was just a loose groundwork laid out a long time ago?
From my own experiences, and Chas Cornweller, the movie “Apocalypse Now” is probably one of the best portrayals of the technicolor insanity that was Viet Nam, extreme violence is a land of amazing beauty, yin and yang in a violent collision, while events may be predetermined, and if you believe in cause and effect, it would follow somehow that they were, by virtue of what came before dictating what must come after, how we as individuals perceive those events and act or react is not predetermined.
If there is a Clockwork, and I don’t deny its existence, nor do I promote its existence, the spinning of those gears does not have a direct affect of how I will act or react.
There, I most certainly do have free will, and knowing that, I continuously exercise it.
As to who and where God is in all of this, if there is a Clockwork, and God is in all things, which is what I adhere to, and have since I was young (being surrounded by nature, how could you not?), then God IS the machine.
Can it be otherwise, Chas Cornweller?
Not “Deus ex machine,” Chas Cornweller, the “god from the machine,” that plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object, which allows a story to continue when the writer has “painted himself into a corner” and sees no other means to progress the plot, or to surprise the audience, ot to bring the tale to a happy ending, or as a comedic device.
God is the machine, in toto.
Works for me, anyway!
Chas Cornweller, as we continue to ponder the juxtaposition of thought that you have presented us with in here, and Time’s Arrows being arcs, not straight lines, and seemingly in line with your theme, which revolves around violence in the world, as these cosmic confluences go, anyway, whether caused by a clockwork, or not, given that some swear, and these are Cardinals of the Church of Science, that we all are nothing but some bits of char hurtling out into space after something that was big for some as of yet reason exploded, have you read the “City of God” and considered the circumstances going on in the world around St. Augustine when he wrote those words?
Are you aware of when, where and how he died?
For those unfamiliar with that history, which actually happened, although long ago, Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy who was the bishop of Hippo Regius within modern-day Annaba, Algeria, located in Numidia in the Roman province of Africa.
Shortly before Augustine’s death the Vandals, a Germanic tribe that had converted to Arianism, invaded Roman Africa.
Now, you have to consider that the Vandals were not Algerians, or even North Africans, nor were they an ignorant people, despite being called barbarians, and acting like them, at times.
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe, or group of tribes, who were first heard of in southern Poland, but later moved around Europe establishing kingdoms in Spain and later North Africa in the 5th century.
The Vandals are believed to have migrated from southern Scandinavia to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula rivers during the 2nd century BC and to have settled in Silesia from around 120 BC.
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So, how did they get all the way to North Africa then?
And why?
How did they even know it was there, given they had to cross the Mediterranean to get there?
And yes, people, there have been people on earth for a long, long time now, far longer than there has been a United States of America, exceptional in so many ways as we are.
Getting back to the death of St Augustine, the Vandals besieged Hippo in the spring of 430, when Augustine entered his final illness and according to Possidius, one of the few miracles attributed to Augustine, the healing of an ill man, took place during the siege.
According to Possidius, as well, Augustine spent his final days in prayer and repentance, requesting that the penitential Psalms of David be hung on his walls so that he could read them.
He also directed that the library of the church in Hippo and all the books therein should be carefully preserved.
He died on 28 August 430.
Shortly after his death, the Vandals lifted the siege of Hippo, but they returned not long thereafter and burned the city, destroying all of it but Augustine’s cathedral and library, which they left untouched.
The Clockwork, Chas Cornweller, or divine intervention?
Getting back to thought, and the Vandals, about 330 A.D., they migrated to Pannonia, where they lived for the next sixty years after Constantine the Great granted them lands on the right bank of the Danube, and of interest to this discussion, around this time, the Hasdingi, a branch of the Vandals, had already been Christianized during the reign of Emperor Valens between 364–78, when the Vandals, much like the Goths earlier, accepted Arianism, a belief that was in opposition to that of Nicene orthodoxy of the Roman Empire.
For those unfamiliar with it, Arianism, in Christianity, was a Christological concept which asserted that Jesus Christ as the Son of God who was begotten by God the Father at a point in time, is distinct from the Father and is therefore subordinate to the Father.
The main rival doctrine of Nicene Christianity, Arian Christianity ceased to exist during the 7th century AD with the conversion of the Gothic kingdoms to Nicene Christianity.
Nicene Christianity considers Christ to be divine and co-eternal with God the Father.
Arian teachings were first attributed to Arius (c. AD 250–336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt.
The teachings of Arius and his supporters were opposed to the theological views held by Homoousian Christians, regarding the nature of the Trinity and the nature of Christ.
The Arian concept of Christ is that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten by God the Father.
There was a dispute between two interpretations (Arianism and Homoousianism) based upon the theological orthodoxy of the time, both of them attempted to solve its theological dilemmas.
So, according to Wikipedia, there were, initially, two equally orthodox interpretations which initiated a conflict in order to attract adepts and define the new orthodoxy.
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They initiated a conflict that was to result in a lot of warfare and bloodshed, such are religious controversies the stuff of, right up into our times today.
All mainstream branches of Christianity now consider Arianism to be heterodox and heretical, just as Sunni Mulims view the Shiites as heretics, after the Ecumenical First Council of Nicaea of 325 deemed it to be a heresy.
At the regional First Synod of Tyre in 335, Arius was exonerated, and Constantine the Great was baptized by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, but after the deaths of both Arius and Constantine, Arius was again anathemised and pronounced a heretic again at the Ecumenical First Council of Constantinople of 381.
The Roman Emperors Constantius II (337–361) and Valens (364–378) were Arians or Semi-Arians, as was the first King of Italy, Odoacer (433?–493), and the Lombards till the 7th century.
Arius had been a pupil of Lucian of Antioch at Lucian’s private academy in Antioch and inherited from him a modified form of the teachings of Paul of Samosata.
He taught that God the Father and the Son of God did not always exist together eternally.
Arians taught that the Logos was a divine being begotten by God the Father before the creation of the world, made him a medium through whom everything else was created, and that the Son of God is subordinate to God the Father.
Controversy over Arianism arose in the late 3rd century and persisted throughout most of the 4th century.
It involved most church members—from simple believers, priests, and monks to bishops, emperors, and members of Rome’s imperial family.
Two Roman emperors, Constantius II and Valens, became Arians or Semi-Arians, as did prominent Gothic, Vandal, and Lombard warlords both before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
With respect to this discussion, such a deep controversy within the Church during this period of its development could not have materialized without significant historical influences providing a basis for the Arian doctrines.
As to how seriously these matters were taken back then, Emperor Constantine ordered a penalty of death for those who refused to surrender the Arian writings:
“In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him.”
“And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death.”
“As soon as he is discovered in this offence, he shall be submitted for capital punishment. … ”
— Edict by Emperor Constantine against the Arians
As to “The City of God Against the Pagans,” often called “The City of God,” it is a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century AD.
The book was in response to allegations that Christianity brought about the decline of Rome and is considered one of Augustine’s most important works.
With respect to us today, and perhaps how our thoughts on life and religion and conflict have been influenced over time, as a work of one of the most influential Church Fathers, “The City of God” is a cornerstone of Western thought, even if we as individuals are unaware of it, expounding as it does on many profound questions of theology, such as the suffering of the righteous, the existence of evil, the conflict between free will and divine omniscience, and the doctrine of original sin.
The existence of evil, Chas Cornweller, is it in our heads?
Or is it in the world around us?
As to history, Truckin’ like the doodah man, Chas Cornweller, and “Metaphysical Pie in the Face,” which is as real as a real pie in the face, and the phenomenon related in a comment made in the Guardian newspaper about Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, telling MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show “It is as if history is being collapsed into a black hole and everything is happening faster than the speed of light,” which it certainly does seem to be doing these days as we fast-forward backwards in time, the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 left Romans in a deep state of shock, and many Romans saw it as punishment for abandoning traditional Roman religion for Christianity.
In response to these accusations, and in order to console Christians, Augustine wrote “The City of God,” arguing for the truth of Christianity over competing religions and philosophies and that Christianity was not responsible for the Sack of Rome, but instead was responsible for its success.
He attempted to console Christians, writing that even if the earthly rule of the Empire was imperiled, it was the City of God that would ultimately triumph.
Augustine’s eyes were fixed on Heaven, a theme of many Christian works of Late Antiquity, and despite Christianity’s designation as the official religion of the Empire, Augustine declared its message to be spiritual rather than political.
Christianity, he argued, should be concerned with the mystical, heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, rather than with earthly politics.
The book presents human history as a conflict between what Augustine calls the Earthly City (often colloquially referred to as the City of Man) and the City of God, a conflict that is destined to end in victory for the latter.
The City of God is marked by people who forgot earthly pleasure to dedicate themselves to the eternal truths of God, now revealed fully in the Christian faith.
The Earthly City, on the other hand, consists of people who have immersed themselves in the cares and pleasures of the present, passing world.
Augustine’s thesis depicts the history of the world as universal warfare between God and the Devil.
This metaphysical war is not limited by time but only by geography on Earth.
In this war, God moves (by divine intervention/ Providence) those governments, political /ideological movements and military forces aligned (or aligned the most) with the Catholic Church (the City of God) in order to oppose by all means—including military—those governments, political/ideological movements and military forces aligned (or aligned the most) with the Devil (the City of Devil).
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Is that so, do you think, Chas Cornweller?
And if so, what might that say about where we are today in these strange times we find ourselves in?
Now, Paul, you are taking me on a tangent I cannot fully comprehend. I am not a scholar of the teachings of Augustine. I know a thimbleful of history of the Council of Nicene and hardly more than that about Constantine and the beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire. A book I once read by Karen Armstrong, “The Battle for God – The Rise of Fundamentalist Movements in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” is about as deep as I portend to go. It has been over ten years since I first read that book and it took me six months to finish! I attempted again about six years ago, but only read portions that interested me. Besides, I am more of a Gnostic (not to be confused with agnostic) than an Orthodox when it comes to my Christian beliefs. I tend to view the Council of Nicene, Constantine, Saint Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas with a jaundice eye. Perhaps, I should pick up a few books and re-read about these times and their personalities and see if that re-adjusts my world view of them. But, for now, I truly believe they (through their writings and decrees) have devalued the mission of Jesus Christ and added such hokum to their own doctrines as to make God not only inaccessible, but the Divine nature of man unrecognizable and invisible to the common man. By the very nature of our existence, (duality) we are either, Demon or Christ. We cannot be both at the same time. To lead us to believe otherwise, for whatever reason, diverts us from our true paths and does a great disservice to our ultimate reunion with the Godhead or Source or whatever you want to call from whence we came.
The leaders of the day (Saint Augustine, Constantine and many others present at the Council of Nicene) wanted to portray Christ Jesus (Son of Man/God the Father) as sitting in the holy of holies within a shining city, which comprised all of heaven. Jesus had clearly said, nearly four hundred years earlier, that the kingdom of heaven lies within. (Luke 17:20-21) Saint Francis went on to later reiterate that with not only within, but also surrounds us. The world we live in is a garden. A garden created for us and all God’s creatures. We are to be its stewards. But, teachings (and mythologies) have told us that we have failed God and have been banished from the garden. God is a harsh taskmaster and gives no quarter. Because of our sin (both original and ongoing) we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over until we accept his son (which he conveniently had crucified) as our savior. In other words, we are in hell (here on earth) because of a transgression against the very Creator. That is the message (simplified). Looking at the world today, it’s easy to believe. The children of Aleppo have certainly been in a kind of special hell for the past five years! But, because of sin? No, because of man. Man, and his transgressions against other men. What is sin? What is virtue? They are exactly polar opposites. Sin is the transgression against the Divine. Virtue is high moral standards, righteousness. What if Man were divine? Some religions hold this as a truism. What if it were a universal truth, known throughout all cultures? Who is to say man is not divine? What if (as per Saint Francis) divinity were found in ALL creation? Who is to say it is not? Who says Divinity is NOT in all things?
(Paul-I had to walk away from what I just last wrote-my heart was racing and my mind raged. I realized I had stumbled upon something bigger than me and it burrowed deep into the very essence of my core being – I will not write anymore today. I will finish with this…if the world wants to believe that they are separate from God and can only be saved by whatever method their leaders tell them will get them to heaven, so be it. If people want to believe this is hell and Satan’s footstool…etc. So be it. If those who want to be led to discriminate, subjugate, fight and hate and kill and be killed for their belief in systems that teaches their god is a greater god than any other belief system, so be it. If they are too lazy or timid or frightened to seek and discover their own Divine nature and recognize and acknowledge that very nature in everyone they encounter…so be it.
The big wheel keeps on turning…I cannot change that. I have my own path to walk. I am doing the best I can without letting this world break me. Sometimes you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right. Have a blessed day, sir.
You have unleashed a stream of consciousness in here, Chas Cornweller, and once unleashed, who knows in what directions it might go.
And it is better to look at St Augustine, or rather Augustine of Hippo9, through a long lens, as opposed to the microscope, whi8ch is why I talked about circumstances as opposed to the man himself.
St. Augustine came long after Augustine of Hippo, who wrote “The City of God.”
Think irony here, Chas Cornweller.
The so-called barbarians who sacked Rome were Arian Christians.
During the siege of Hippo Regius, which lasted some fourteen months, it is reported that Saint Augustine and his priests prayed for relief from the Arian Christian invaders, knowing full well that the fall of the city would spell conversion or death for many Roman Christians.
Think of that in modern terms, Chas Cornweller, and substitute Sunni and Shiite, and what does it sound like?
Modern times, isn’t it?
Can we ever escape them?
Now, Chas Cornweller, if in fact we live inside a mechanistic, deterministic universe, where everything was set in motion by a clockmaker some time ago, then this stream of consciousness in here, including your heart racing and mind raging as a result of a realization that you had stumbled upon something bigger than yourself, so that it burrowed deep into the very essence of your core being, is as a result of a bunch of gears of different sizes whirring away throughout eternity, triggering a bunch of Geneva Stop mechanisms which in turn bring thought clusters onto some conveyor belts to deliver them to your consciousness right now to raise it, as a part of some pre-determined plan, including the creation of the Cape Charles Mirror beforehand so you would have a place to record your thoughts for the rest of us to read, and that is that.
But not being fettered by having to wait for my thoughts to be brought to me by some machine, be it a clock or otherwise, I would say the stream of consciousness really began on March 13, 2017 at 2:12 pm with these words you posted in my thread on “Immigration as a Political Football,” which it most definitely is today, to wit:
The type of governance we are receiving from our present and from our past administrations has been one of a co-opted and dismantled Democratic Republic so far removed from that chamber in Philadelphia and those brilliant ideas of men, that it could only be compared to, as what was once an elegant Arabian horse, is now a sodden, muddy hog.
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What vivid imagery, Chas Cornweller.
It reminds me very much of a political cartoon entitled “The Modern Gilpins” shown in the WIKIPEDIA article “Barnburners and Hunkers,” where some Hunker Democrats are shown riding a mean sow pig off to war.
For those unfamiliar with Hunker Democrats, the Barnburners and Hunkers were the names of two opposing factions of the New York state Democratic Party in the mid-19th century, with the main issue dividing the two factions being that of slavery, with the Barnburners being the anti-slavery faction, and while this division occurred within the context of New York politics, it reflected the national divisions in the United States in the years preceding the American Civil War.
Getting back to the stream of consciousness initiated by Chas Cornweller in that post, he continued as follows:
We are no longer in Mr. Jefferson’s world.
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To which I would have to respond, “I don’t think we ever were, and Tommy Jefferson wasn’t there, either, except for on paper.”
Chas Cornweller then continued as follows:
We are no longer thinking of human rights, such as John Adams envisioned.
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Chas Cornweller, I don’t recall John Adams ever thinking about human rights, to be truthful.
In fact, some people, including his own cabinet members, thought the dude was actually insane.
Getting back to Chas Cornweller:
Mr. Washington, Dr. Franklin and James Monroe are dead and gone, gone to dust…never to return.
Their ideas and dreams, just as vanquished.
America is no longer the land of the free, home of the brave.
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Chas Cornweller, their ideas and dreams were just that – ideas and dreams, just as are ours today.
But moving right along to what really started this stream of consciousness that is playing itself out in here now, Chas Cornweller said this:
We are Rome.
We are as despotic as the Roman Senate complete with standing army and its mercenaries, games with bread and wine and a moral fiber to match.
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There it is, people – yes, we are Rome, but which Rome is the thought that came in my head when I read that.
Are we the Eastern Empire?
Are we the Western Empire?
Are we the empire before it split, say, in the time of “Little Boots” Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August AD 12 – 24 January AD 41) who was Roman emperor from AD 37–41?
Is that where we are?
Or are we in the Republic, say circa 49 BC, with Gaius Julius Caesar just now crossing the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, leaving his province and illegally entering Roman Italy under arms resulting in Civil war?
Or how about the Roman monarchy?
As I thought about it, I picked the Western Empire circa 410 A.D., or C.E. as it is called today, and it is that thought of mine in response to the previous post of Chas Cornweller that has brought in the Vandals and St. Augustine and the Arian Christians and the siege of Hippo Regius in what is now Algeria in North Africa, far from where the Vandals began their migration.
And it is those migrations and the resultant evolution of thought that has held my attention for many years now.
Where do ideas come from?
And why?
More specifically, in the context of this thread, why did Francis of Assisi suddenly give up his dissolute and dissipated ways to become a man of God?
Was that a thing of you can’t know up until you have seen all the way down?
And how about Arius, who was a Christian presbyter and ascetic of Berber origin, and priest in Baucalis in Alexandria, Egypt whose teachings about the nature of the Godhead in Christianity, which emphasized the Father’s divinity over the Son, and his opposition to what would become the dominant Christology, Homoousian Christology, made him a primary topic of the First Council of Nicaea, which was convened by Emperor Constantine the Great in 325?
Where did he get his ideas about God and Jesus from, and why was he made a primary topic of the First Council of Nicaea?
For those not familiar with the First Council of Nicaea, it was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now Iznik, Bursa province, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.
So, Roman politics and religion intermingle, but with the Romans, that was not at all something new with them.
Somewhere around 85 BC, long before the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, Julius Caesar was nominated to be the new high priest of Jupiter, and it was the loss of his priesthood which then allowed him to pursue a military career, as the high priest of Jupiter was not permitted to touch a horse, sleep three nights outside his own bed or one night outside Rome, or look upon an army.
Funny how it all works out, isn’t it!
Getting back to the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, Constantine I organized the Council along the lines of the Roman Senate and presided over it, but did not cast any official vote, which is like George Washington at our Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.
Getting back to politics and religion and the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, it was an ecumenical council that was the first effort to attain consensus in the Church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.
Democracy, people, even in religion!
Who do you want Jesus to be?
Majority wins – that is who Jesus will be, so long as the emperor agrees as well!
As to the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of the God the Son and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.
Think on that for a moment, Chas Cornweller, in the light of all that was to come after, right on up to our times today – the settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of the God the Son and his relationship to God the Father was made by a mere handful of people in the Bithynian city of Nicaea, now Iznik, Bursa province, Turkey, in AD 325, and that for political reasons, i.e. gaining power over the minds of people so as to be able to keep them under political control.
Jesus started out as a rebel in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, adopted son of Augustus Caesar, who was killed, murdered, actually, by the Romans for political reasons expressed by Pontius Pilate in a letter he is said to have sent to Tiberius, and for political reasons some 325 years, he was elevated by the Romans to be the son of God.
In his report, Pontius Pilate is said to have told Tiberius Caesar that Jesus performed many miracles; that Jews delivered up Jesus to be tried and killed; that he crucified Jesus to prevent an insurrection by the Jews; that a worldwide supernatural darkness occurred when Jesus was crucified; and that the Old Testament elect were resurrected in their bodies on Sunday night at 9:00 pm (the third hour of the night according to the Roman day), which was accompanied by a supernatural light from the sun, angels appearing in the heavens, mountains and hills shaking, a great chasm revealing hell and Abraham’s Bosom, Christ-denying Jews falling into the hell of the damned, and the destruction of all the synagogues in Jerusalem that opposed Jesus excepting the one that did not.
In “The Report of Pilate the Procurator concerning our Lord Jesus Christ sent to Tiberius Caesar in Rome,” Second Greek Form, Pilate related as follows:
“To the most mighty, venerable, awful, most divine, the august,—Pilatus Pontius, the governor of the East: I have to report to thy reverence, through this writing of mine, being seized with great trembling and fear, O most mighty emperor, the conjuncture of the present times, as the end of these things has shown.”
“For while I, my lord, according to the commandment of thy clemency, was discharging the duties of my government, which is one of the cities of the East, Jerusalem by name, in which is built the temple of the Jewish nation, all the multitude of the Jews came together, and delivered to me a certain man named Jesus, bringing against him many and groundless charges; and they were not able to convict him in anything.”
“And that man wrought many cures, in addition to good works.”
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According to the heretic Tertullian in “The Apology,” Chapter 5, in the early 2nd century, when he heard of Jesus from Pontius Pilate, Tiberius wanted to make a Roman god of Jesus long before the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, but the Roman senate was not having it:
“To say a word about the origin of laws of the kind to which we now refer, there was an old decree that no god should be consecrated by the emperor till first approved by the senate.”
“Marcus Aemilius had experience of this in reference to his god Alburnus.”
“And this, too, makes for our case, that among you divinity is allotted at the judgment of human beings.”
“Unless gods give satisfaction to men, there will be no deification for them: the god will have to propitiate the man.”
“Tiberius accordingly, in whose days the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received intelligence [Pilate’s report to Tiberius] from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ’s divinity, brought the matter before the senate, with his own decision in favour of Christ.”
“The senate, because it had not given the approval itself, rejected his proposal.”
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Getting back to Pontius Pilate and “The Report of Pilate the Procurator concerning our Lord Jesus Christ sent to Tiberius Caesar in Rome,” Second Greek Form, after recounting to Tiberius the miracles attributed to Jesus, Pilate then continued as to why it was that Jesus was now dead, and by the order if not the hand of Pilate:
“And these things indeed were so.”
“And the Jews gave information that Jesus did these things on the Sabbath.”
“And I also ascertained that the miracles done by him were greater than any which the gods whom we worship could do.”
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Now, that is an interesting and quite revealing statement about the gods of the Romans.
Getting back to Pilate:
Him then Herod and Archelaus and Philip, and Annas and Caiaphas, with all the people, delivered to me to try him.
And as many were exciting an insurrection against me, I ordered him to be crucified.
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“Sorry, Jesus, dude, but hey, you know how it is, if you don’t die, then I might have to, so let’s have it be you, instead,” said Pilate to Jesus, as Jesus was hauled away.
Politics, people, can we ever escape it?
And getting back to Arius, Roman politics and the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 to finish up in here we have:
After Emperors Licinius and Constantine legalized and formalized the Christianity of the time in the Roman Empire, Constantine sought to unify and remove theological division within the newly recognized Church.
The Christian Church was divided over disagreements on Christology, or, the nature of the relationship between Jesus and God.
Homoousian Christians, including Athanasius of Alexandria, used Arius and Arianism as epithets to describe those who disagreed with their doctrine of coequal Trinitarianism, a Homoousian Christology representing God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son as “of one essence” (“consubstantial”) and coeternal.
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Arianism as an epithet!
“Dude, you stink and so do your ideas about Jesus!”
But obviously, the Arian Christian Vandals laying siege to Hippo Regius in the early 5th century AD in the time of St. Augustine did not think so, and people, that is just the way it goes.
That belief in Arianism was going to result in the downfall of the Vandals, but that is another story.
Getting back to Arius, who was made into an epithet, we have:
Negative writings describe Arius’ theology as one in which there was a time before the Son of God, when only God the Father existed.
Despite concerted opposition, ‘Arian’ Christian churches persisted throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and also in various Germanic kingdoms, until suppressed by military conquest or voluntary royal conversion between the fifth and seventh centuries.
Even though “Arianism” might suggest that Arius was the originator of the teaching that bears his name, the debate over the Son’s precise relationship to the Father did not begin with him.
This subject had been discussed for decades before his advent; Arius merely intensified the controversy and carried it to a Church-wide audience, where other “Arians” such as Eusebius of Nicomedia (not to be confused with his contemporary, Eusebius of Caesarea) proved much more influential in the long run.
In fact, some later “Arians” disavowed the name, claiming not to have been familiar with the man or his specific teachings.
However, because the conflict between Arius and his foes brought the issue to the theological forefront, the doctrine he proclaimed—though not originated—is generally labeled as “his”.
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WOW, Chas Cornweller, see what happens when you mention the word Rome?