aa5874

'Against Praxeas' was NOT even mentioned up to the end of the 4th century to be composed by Tertullian.

When Jerome mentioned Tertullian he claimed that Tertullian wrote several books AGAINST the Church and listed his works.

Jerome's De Viris IllustribusJerome's De Viris IllustribusAmazingly, Jerome does NOT corroborate Eusebius' claims about Tertullian in The Apology.

Effectively, writings attributed to Tertullian are extremely questionable and were unknown for hundreds of years.

Duvduv

I think a better express of this would be that "Official Church history states that Constantine legalized Christianity and that Theodosius I made it the official religion 50 years later" (although who knows what Christianity or "official religion" actually meant since for years the believers were arguing over points of doctrine).
But since the Church is not an independent source of information, the question arises as to WHAT exactly Constantine did, IF he did it (unless the attributions to him were later backdated to enhance the claim of a prior existence of the official Christian religion indicated per the very first Nicaean creed of the Chi Rho religion).

mountainman

The other problem with the Tertullian priority is that it is Latin and from Carthage when the real discussions and formulation of the trinity were in Greek from the Eastern Empire, and only appear in the record after Nicaea.

The Greek conceptual framework of the Christian trinity evolved from the Platonic trinity as expressed by Plotinus in the "Enneads". This did not happen until well after the Nicaean "boundary event".

mountainman

Constantine and the CHI RHO



Constantine may have established the centralised monotheistic state CHRESTIAN religion since the name of god and lord and jesus and (chrest or Christ) were all hidden in coded forms.

Roger Pearse

I'm not sure about any of this. To what do you refer? If you mean the Council of Nicaea, it was already assembling at Ancyra, quite independently, when Hosius of Cordova persuaded Constantine to pay the bills so that western bishops could attend. The venue was switched to Nicaea to allow the emperor to be present. Christians usually resolved such issues by synods.

Shall we see what he says?

Tertullian says different. I don't think any ancient writer takes the view that you express here. The NT tells us that (a) there is only one God, the Father (b) that Jesus is God (worshipped, prayed to) and (c) that Jesus is not the Father. From that some formula like the Trinity was inevitable, I would have thought.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

aa5874

We know there was NO orthodoxy and NO universal Creed among Christians based on the very writings of Jesus cult writers.

We have "Against Heresies", "Refutation Against All Heresies", "The Prescription Against Heresies", "Against Marcion", Dialogue with Trypho, "De Principiis" and many more which exposed Multiple teachings of numerous cults of Christians.

Origen completely destroys any claim of orthodoxy or universal creed in the Jesus cult up to at least the 3rd century.

The Preface to De Principiis

Sheshbazzar

'I don't think any ancient writer takes the view that you express here...'
But then the Orthodox victors were careful that no actual writings of those that held different views, or wrote things opposed and embarrassing to them would survive.

'The NT tells us that (a) there is only one God, the Father (b) that Jesus is God (worshipped, prayed to) and (c) that Jesus is not the Father.'

The writings of the Church Fathers make it clear that many Christian 'heretics' did not accept much of the content or claims of these "NT" documents.
These Christians believed in and taught of another God and another Son, not the 'recieved' "NT" doctrine or writings of the orthodox.
The very writings of the orthodox Church Fathers testify against themselves.

SLD

You make it sound like the bishops all decided to have these synods just to sit around and amicably debate the issue and resolve the differences with reason logic and paryer. But that wasn't the case at all these were often carefullly manged stage plays, with bribes, intimidation, and outright violence to get their way enforced as imperial decree. Once you had that you could take over a
Bishopric and enrich yourself. You could still marry at this point.

These synods were not the debating society you think they were. They were highly political.

SLD

mountainman

The "councils" of Antioch and Nicaea were also arguably related to the conclusion of Constantine's war. We must not loose sight of the fact that Constantine, as the Commander of the Western Roman army, had been engaged in a civil war against Licinius, the Commander of the Eastern Roman army.

It is to be expected that a newly supreme warlord would want to call a meeting of all the key, high-level people in his newly acquired empire in order to set in place the "new arrangements" and "new contracts" that would soon be set in place under the "new administration" .....

Council of war

Such councils may also be held in the aftermath of war, such as the Potsdam Conference after WWII:

Roger Pearse

This seems like a very broadbrush attack on the councils of the early church. They had different characters, you know? I presume you are repeating someone's (who's?) opinion. Any idea which specific synod they had in mind? None of this can be documented for 1 Nicaea, anyway.

All the best,

Roger Pearse