mountainman

FWIW, the emperor arranged the "debate" on his vicenalia as part of his victory celebrations. He sent out letters to the attendees. Part of the moderation practice was to call for, and burn the written petitions of the attendees, in their presence.

Duvduv

Apparently it was after Constantinople that the clergy accepted Athanasius' canon by the end of the 4th century under Jerome.
If Athanasius had a canon by 367, then where was mention from Scripture in 325?

sotto voce

For that reason? Well, well. If only.

In a half decent world, there are at least the same rules for everyone. How about this one? In this world, individuals of no fixed religion, who download photos of child abuse, are imprisoned (surely, rightly). Yet, in this world, actual child abusers are not reported to the police, and are re-deployed, for Chrissakes. Those familiar with medieval history will recall from this anomaly the special courts and leniency that certain scandalising agents then enjoyed. "Whose agents?" I hear the cry, in disbelief if not dismay. The Vatican's agents, that's who. Plus ça change...

When the 'net was young, it was surely audible in outer space for the loud complaints against the historic crimes of the RCC, crimes in every age, not just that of Constantine, from forced baptisms to modern institutional abuses to book burnings to murderous rooting out of dissent. There was no doubt then that the RCC could never have existed without what today are universally deemed deeply criminal acts. These events were reckoned as justification without a shadow of doubt to refuse the legitimacy of Christianity. And rightly so, had the RCC been Christian. It would indeed be far more sensible and honourable to be Hindu, Flat-Earthist or atheist than to accept the deity of the RCC. Of course, sense prevailed, and the existence of those calling themselves Christians who also condemned the RCC was recognised.

So why is it that today, only a decade or so further on, skeptics make excuses for the RCC? Why is attention given to creeds that were rattled off mindlessly (if modern practice is anything to go by) by people whose infamies once made them unspeakably awful persons?

As mentioned a few days ago, creeds are screeds, by people who follow New Testament practices, who baptise only tested believers, who exclude from membership any who bring their faith into disrepute, or who give credence to the RCC.

Duvduv

Just as the Council of Nicaea was under the shadow of Constantine, the Council of Constantinople in 381 was under the shadow of Theodosius who became emperor only 2 years earlier. He insisted on the acceptance of "the faith of bishops of Rome and Alexandria" which I presume included Athanasius.
Now how did this "faith" grow, and how did Christianity take on tenets that its adherents new did not emerge from either the gospels or the epistles of "Paul"???

Theodosius established his view and intent in the "Edict of Thessalonika" declaring that only the "Faith of Peter" was essentially true Christianity. Where did this undocumented "faith of Peter" come from? Not from the texts of the gospels, not from the epistles and not even from most of Acts. The so-called apostolic tradition appears to have become the monopoly under the Bishop of Rome, Damas and by Peter II, the bishop of Alexandria. The two main seats of authority were apparently Rome and Alexandria, the hometown of Origen, which must be rather significant, going then back to Athansius in 325 in Alexandria, though the Bishop of Rome, Sylvester, did not attend Nicaea.

sotto voce

It didn't. The faith system of Theodosius et al. contradicted Paul in a systematic way, in alignment instead with the very old religious principles that went back to the establishment of the kingdom of Rome.

Duvduv

Could you expand on the environment of Theodosius in relation to the "faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria" as compared to Constantine in 325? And isn't it ironic then that Theodosius merged "Christianity" with old Roman ideas at the very same time as the gospels and epistles now became to important especially since Theodosius was a brand new emperor and hardly had his feet wet??!

Traditional historiography always seems to describe the bishops of Rome as Roman Catholic popes, when there was no Roman Catholic breakaway faction until the 11th century.

sotto voce

One must look at the whole history. At first, Rome suspected nothing about Christianity, mistaking it for a mere sect of the compromised Judaism it had negotiated with and had grown used to. But after a few decades, it realised that here was a completely new phenomenon, 'atheism' that would not recognise its own imperial deities, particularly the new ones, the emperors themselves. It also was morally incorruptible, which in an economic system that relied on corruption and wholesale, grand exploitation, was an embarrassment. So Christianity became illegal, sporadically persecuted, and also infiltrated, if Roman political techniques did not fail.

So we see the extraordinary historic witness of a religion that was so popular that it became a state religion, yet have virtually no extant witnesses alive at any one time (and none at all who were orthodox). The handful of witnesses that we have were almost only of a species that did not exist in the church of the NT— monarchical bishops— who were also in every case heretical. So we may suppose quite legitimately, in this combination of circumstances, that those individuals were to a degree favoured by Rome, and had no genuine relation to the church, even though some of them suffered physically at the hands of the Empire. And there is the point, that, as Tertullian warned, the true church could not be suppressed. It had to be supplanted, not persecuted openly.

This process of replacing the true church with a body that merely took the name 'Christian' took some time. Constantine marked the beginning; Theodosius we may take as the completion, because he proscribed the old paganisms in favour of the new one. He must by then have felt confident that there were no more Christians within the Empire to challenge the imperial 'church'.

mountainman

Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books") seems to have been continuously in use from the time of Nicaea in the 4th century, and according to the Vatican's publicity was supposed to be disbanded in 1966 but we find Ratzinger has "continued" the RCC censorship of authorial works now on the 'net. This represents 1686 continuous years of RCC censorship, book-burning, death penalties, anathemas, etc, etc, etc.

Sooner or later their past history is going to catch up with them.

mountainman

That's correct. And Damasius battled other prospective bishops in the streets of Rome for the right to become bishop. Damasius established the "PETER WAS HERE IN ROME" tourism industry, and renovated he catacombs for this purpose. It was a business racket (the product of Constantine's war) - very very profitable, and tax exempt.

Duvduv

Are you saying that the new Emperor Theodosius rwanted to sideline old Christianity with the "heretical" form of Eusebius, Tatian, Tertullian, etc. as an alternative to Roman pagan religion by the year 381 at Constantinople? In other words emerging official Christianity's persecution of the old type as "heretics" was part of an imperial plan or conspiracy?
But why? Why did he think that either the elites or the masses would go for it??