mountainman

POST ONE: Presentation of relevant texts
TEXT 1 and TEXT 2

SUBSEQUENT POSTS: Discussion of texts.


TEXT 1

The DIGGER's OATH.
Eureka Stockade,
Australia 1854

"We swear by the Southern Cross
to stand truly by each other
and fight to defend
our rights and liberties"


TEXT 2
The NICAEAN CREED
Nicaea, 325 CE
(via Rufinus)


10.6. Creed of Nicaea

“We believe in one God, the Father almighty,
maker of all things visible and invisible,
and in one Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God born as only-begotten of the Father,
that is of the Father’s substance,
God from God,
light from light,
true God from true God,
born not made,
homoousios with the Father,
that is of the same substance as the Father,
through whom all things were made,
those in heaven and those on earth.

Who for the sake of us human beings
and our salvation came down and was incarnate,
and becoming a human being suffered
and rose on the third day,
and ascended to heaven,
from where he is to come to judge
the living and the dead.

And in the Holy Spirit.

But those who say

that there was a time when he was not,
and before he was born he was not,
and that he was made out of nothing existing
or who say that God’s Son is from another subsistence or substance
or is subject to alteration or change,
the catholic and apostolic church anathematizes.


Book 10, Part 6 - Additional 22 creeds

[NOTE: After the above (Nicean) creed are a list of 22 additional creeds, as follows ...]

I. They decree in addition that it is to be observed in the churches that no one who castrates himself because of unwillingness to endure sexual desire is to be admitted to the clergy.
II. No one recently admitted to baptism from paganism and its way of life is to be made a cleric before being carefully examined.

III. No bishop or other cleric is to live with women who are not relatives, but only with his mother, sister, aunt, or persons related in this way.

IV. A bishop is if possible to be ordained by the bishops of the whole province. If this is difficult, then certainly by not fewer than three, but in such a way that either the presence or the authority of the metropolitan bishop in particular is involved. Without him they consider the ordination invalid.

V. A bishop is not to receive anyone, whether a cleric or a layman, whom another bishop has expelled from the church. Lest however there be no remedy for something which has been unjustly done because of some quarrel or bad temper, as sometimes happens, they decree that twice each year councils are to be held in each province by all the provincial bishops and judgment passed on such matters, so that if by chance something was done unjustly by one of them, it may be put right by the others, or if rightly, it may be confirmed by all.

VI. The ancient custom in Alexandria and the city of Rome is to be maintained whereby [the bishop of the former] has charge of Egypt, while [the bishop of the latter] has charge of the suburbicarian churches.

VII. If by chance in ordaining a bishop two or three should disagree for some reason, the authority of the rest of them, and especially that of the metropolitan with the rest, is to be considered more valid.

VIII. The prerogative of honor given of old to the bishop ofJerusalem is to be preserved, the dignity of the metropolitan of that province being maintained nonetheless.

IX. As for the Cathari, whom we know as Novatianists, if they should repent and return to the church, having confessed the doctrines of the church: the clerics should be received into the clergy, but only after receiving ordination. Of course if one of their bishops comes to one of our bishops, he should sit in the place of the presbyters, but the title of bishop should remain with him alone who has ever held the Catholic faith, unless he has freely decided to honor him with that title, or if he has decided to look for a vacant bishopric for him. That is up to him.

X. There are not to be two bishops in one city.

XI. Those who are incautiously advanced to the priesthood and afterward confess some misdeed they have done, or are convicted by others, are to be deposed. Those also who are among the lapsed and who by chance have been ordained through ignorance are to be deposed when recognized.

XII. Those who although not tortured have lapsed during the persecutions and do penance sincerely are to spend five years among the catechumens and for two years after that are to be joined to the faithful in prayer alone, and in that way are afterward to be taken back.

XIII. Those who in order to confess the faith have left military service and then have once again sought to enter it are to do penance for thirteen years and afterward to be taken back, provided they do penance sincerely. It is also however in the bishop’s power to adjust the term if he sees that they are giving careful and fruitful attention to their penance.

XIV. But as for those penitents who are dying, they decree that no time must be spent [doing penance]. If someone who has received communion recovers, however, he is to complete the times set or at least do as the bishop determines.

XV. As for catechumens who have lapsed, they have decreed that for three years they are to be separated from the prayer of the catechumens, and afterward to be taken back.

XVI. No one, whether a bishop or even another cleric, is to attempt to move from a lesser city to a greater church.

XVII. No cleric who for no good reason has left his church and roams about among the other churches is to be received into communion.

XVIII. No one is to steal away someone who belongs to someone else and ordain him a cleric in his own church without the consent of the one to whom he belongs.

XIX. No cleric is to charge interest, or an augmentation on grain or wine, the original amount of which when let out customarily yields a return of half again or even twice as much; if he does so, he is to be deposed as guilty of filthy lucre.

XX. Deacons are not to be given precedence over presbyters, nor are they to sit where the presbyters do or distribute the Eucharist when they are present; they are simply to assist while the others do that. But if there is no presbyter present, then only may they distribute as well; those that do otherwise are ordered to be deposed.

XXI. The Paulianists, also called Photinians, are to be rebaptized.

XXII. Deaconesses likewise, because they do not in fact receive the imposition of hands, should also be placed among the laity.”

mountainman

We read in the Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine
– Volume 10, Number 1 16

The Hippocratic and Other Oaths:
Past and Present
Proposal for an Oath for Christians
by Kenneth A. Feucht, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S,
and Byron Calhoun, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.

What is always described as the Nicaean Creed
by the above definition ought to have been called
the Nicaean Oath (to Constantine, seeing as though
it was he who demanded signatories thereto).

Furthermore this Nicaean Oath clearly contains an
exclusion clause ... but for those who say ...


Any comments?



Pete Brown

cajela

Errr, yay the Diggers? I'm missing your point.

triffidfood

Me too. Besides, I liked the Levellers more anyway (middle class crusties maybe, but great songs anyway! Especially "What You Know" & "Blind Faith"..... :Cheeky: )

(Being serious, I think maybe MM is saying that the Nicean Creed was, in his view, originally intended primarily as some sort of statement of allegience to Constantine, rather than simply as an expression of an all encompassing set of beliefs? I could be wrong though.)

mountainman

YES. Essentially correct, but with the mention that the nature
of the text as outlined in the Nicaean CREED, by their
own definition and differentiation between creeds and oaths,
is best qualified as an OATH.

That is the Nicaean Creed is best described as an oath.

And due to the circumstances surrounding the council of
Nicaea, the oath had little to do with theology, and alot
to do with the running of the maintenance phase of the
Constantinian augustaship/dictatorship of the newly
conquered Roman lands - specifically the eastern empire,
for the next 12 year period.

This supports the notion that christianity was not a
continuous history of three hunded years, but was a
fourth century fiction composed by wicked men
which required the signatoried taking of oaths to this
new and strange fourth century universal religion of
Constantine, which was not Hellenic.


Pete Brown