eccles

It was Pagan Emperor Constantine I at the First Council of Nicea, to make Christianity of official religion of the Roman Empire for political purposes.

The First Council of Nicaea is believed to have been the first Ecumenical council of the Christian Church. Most significantly, it resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Creed of Nicaea. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent general (ecumenical) councils of Bishops (Synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy— the intent being to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom. The council did not invent the doctrine of the deity of Christ. Instead, the council affirmed and defined what it had found to be the teachings of the Apostles regarding who Christ is; that Christ is indeed the one true God in Deity and Trinity with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Contrary to the view popularised by Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code there is no evidence to suggest that the Biblical canon was even discussed at the Council of Nicaea, let alone established or edited.

Derived from Greek oikoumenikos, "ecumenical" literally means "worldwide" but generally is assumed to be limited to the Roman Empire, as in Augustus' claim to be ruler of the oikoumene/world; the earliest extant uses of the term for a council are Eusebius' Life of Constantine 3.6[2] around 338 "σύνοδον οἰκουμενικὴν συνεκρότει" (he convoked an Ecumenical council), Athanasius' Ad Afros Epistola Synodica in 369,[3] and the Letter in 382 to Pope Damasus I and the Latin bishops from the First Council of Constantinople.[4]

The purpose of the council was to resolve disagreements arising from within the Church of Alexandria over the nature of Jesus in relationship to the Father; in particular, whether Jesus was the literal son of God or was he a figurative son, like the other "sons of God" in the Bible. St. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the first position; the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arian controversy comes, took the second. The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated 250–318 attendees, all but two voted against Arius[5]).

Another result of the council was an agreement on when to celebrate the Resurrection, the most important feast of the ecclesiastical calendar. The council decided in favour of celebrating the resurrection on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, independently of the Hebrew Calendar (see also Quartodecimanism and Easter controversy). It authorized the Bishop of Alexandria (presumably using the Alexandrian calendar) to announce annually the exact date to his fellow bishops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

Peter was not the first Pope. It was St. Sylvester I appointed by Constantine on Janary 31st 314 CE. He did not even attend the Council of Nicea to vote on the Constitution of the new Church.

The transition from Early Christianity to the Roman Catholic Church proper occurred during the reign of Pope Sylvester I. On 14 October 314, Emperor Constantine I signed a decree (which is not to be confused with the 312 decree in which he legalized Christianity) requiring all the local churches, which until then had been independent organizations, to consolidate into a single state-run church of the Roman Empire. The order also transferred the title of Pontifex Maximus from the Emperorship to the Archbishopric of Rome, and reserved the title of Pappas (informal Latin word for "Daddy," previously used by various bishops, later corrupted into English as "Pope") for the Archbishop of Rome. The Archbishop of Rome was to become the supreme archbishop partly because Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire and partly because the church at Rome had been founded by Saint Peter. (that is not certain {Robert})

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Sylvester_I


em hotep

Robert

IBelieveInHymn

Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity after the death of Jesus.

ApostateAbe

eccles, I congratulate you on your escape from the catholic church and your liberation of thought. I am a refugee of fundamentalist Protestant Christianity, and they accepted questioning as inevitable but still a problem to be cured. Now that you are out of the church, you should discriminate in your beliefs. The evidence is what really counts, not faith, not wishful thinking, not emotion. We have debated the existence of Jesus endlessly in this forum, and, I have heard in passing the theory that Constantine founded Christianity, but none of us believe it. There are far too many early Christian authors that seemingly preceded Constantine (list), their writings have lasted, and they can be accurately dated by the language and the contents. Not every New Testament scholar is a Christian or in league with Christians. Far from it. Biblical academia is filled with secular scholars who don't hesitate to propose theories that contradict Christian dogma. They generally believe that Jesus existed as a cult leader, based on the earliest Christian writings. However, you will soon find out from this forum that anti-religious atheists tend to believe that Jesus never existed. The theories are various, but few would go as far as to say that it was invented in the fourth century. It is far easier for an emperor to control the people with a religion that is already somewhat popular.

eccles

ApostateAbe
I have been involved in heated discussions about the early Christian Writers on the Randi Education Foundation Forum and those who have not had their brains affected by Christianity agree that the Writers you refer to are just Christian Apologists.

I agree with you about controlling people with religion.

Did Jesus esixt. I don't say he did not, but the evidence is almost nil. None of the writers of the Gospels actually saw him. Paul did not. The reference to Jesus by Josephus in Book VIII of "Antiquities" is a later Christian fraudulent addition.


em hotep

Rev. Robert (First Church of Atheism)

Thank "God" I am Atheist.

ApostateAbe

OK, I think I get what you are saying. I thought you were saying that Constantine invented Christianity. But maybe he was the one who established the myth as a religion or whatever. The evidence that the mainline secular scholars use to establish that Jesus existed is the earliest Christian writings--the seven authentic Pauline epistles and the synoptic gospels. That doesn't mean that they believe them in whole. It isn't a choice between believe the Christians and don't believe the Christians, as so many who argue this stuff seem to believe. The point is to construct the most likely hypotheses from known evidence. My theory, and the theory commonly accepted among critical scholars of the New Testament, is that Jesus was a traveling apocalyptic cult leader who preached that the end of the world would happen within his own generation. This version of Jesus is preserved with corroboration in the synoptic gospels, and the later Christian writers make defenses and excuses for it. Paul reports in the authentic epistles that he met Peter in religious opposition. And he met James, the "brother of the Lord." James is the name of one of the brothers of Jesus in two of the synoptic gospels. See Galatians 2.

spin

Actually Paul talks of conflict with Cephas. You merely take the strange material in Gal 2:7-8, which has been argued as not authentic Paul, and assume that Paul meant Peter regarding the conflict.

You assume that this refers to the brother of Jesus, but cannot explain why Paul would use such an unclear means of expression, for Paul has no problem talking about Jesus. Why would you assume he meant "brother of Jesus", when he expressly doesn't say that?

You have missed out on the whole post-modernist complaint regarding writing the past based upon your own presuppositions.

See Gal 1:19.

Insufficient evidence means it's wiser not to commit.


spin

mountainman

Prepostrous idea! Do you have any evidence for it?


The title of Pontifex Maximus was held by the emperors until the
time of Pope Damasius c.367 CE. There is a story about the
emperor refusing it.

ApostateAbe

spin, trivially, there is room for ad hoc explanations for almost any weird proposition in Biblical scholarship, and that is why we should be evaluating the evidence in terms of what is most probable, not in terms of what is possible, or not in terms finding ways for keeping a particular theory seem true. Cephas is the Aramaic translation of the Greek name Peter, and that translation is drawn from John 1:42. So maybe that isn't good enough for you, and you can propose that John 1:42 was maybe interpolated to make like it look like the Cephas in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians is actually Peter. And that would be putting an ad hoc on top of an ad hoc. The consilience of the evidence seems to be that Paul really did meet the apostle Peter. The same principle applies to Paul meeting James.

spin

There are post hoc reworking of literary works. Yours is meerely a very late one.

As you want to fight the issue, you should also be aware that
1. The Epistle of the Apostles presesnts both Cephas and Peter as two separate entities in a list.
2. Origen knows of two separate entities and builds an argument on the difference.
3. The Greek khfas would also render the name Caiaphas directly from the Hebrew KYP).
4. Paul is happy to use "Cephas" in 1 Cor and in most of Gal., but suddenly in Gal 2:7-8 providing the Petrine commission we find Peter, two verses which contradict the following commission given to the pillars.

Maybe it's good enough for you to forget about the maxim that "who controls the present controls the past". It's not difficult for ascendent groups to repackage the past in their own desired image. It is damnable to any analysis which forgets this.

You simply write the story the way you perceive it should be rather than working from the earliest indications. As I said, post-modernism repudiates this simplistic approach, saying that one's hindsight doesn't help one understand the past: one is too busy making one's own narrative.


spin

aa5874

The earliest Christian writings are not at all from the time Jesus supposedly existed. You know that already.

And there is no evidence or corroborative source external of the Church to establish who wrote the Epistles to the Churches. It has already been deduced that more than one person wrote Epistles to the Churches using the name Paul.

Even the Church writers gave erroneous information about authorship, and dating of the Epistles with the name Paul.


The claims from the Church writers and the authors of the NT cannot be consider evidence or coroborration of the existence of Jesus when their claims are under investigation and their veracity are questioned.

The NT and Church writers made claims that have been deduced to be total fiction.

The veracity of PAUL'S claim are under investigation. Paul made claims about Jesus that appear to be false or implausible.

A plausible claim by Paul is not evidence of the truth at all.

The Gospel writers claimed Jesus had no earthly father but was the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God. James is irrelevant, Jesus had already had a virgin as a mother.