sotto voce

Clearly, a real person who could be touched, as previously; but now, post-resurrection, appearing and disappearing supernaturally. Though this had occurred at least once before, on the Sea of Galilee. It was said to have occurred in OT times, and apparently Philip after these events experienced supernatural translocation to Azotus. The obvious conclusion to the disciples was that the spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, was to remain with them, even though the physical body was removed from them. This is entirely in accord with OT prophecy and the teaching of Jesus.

JonA

I'm not sure what that has to do with what I've posted regarding the beliefs of the gospel writers. I'm also not sure what event specifically you are referring to on the Sea of Galilee that paints the pre-crucified Jesus as
incorporeal.

Jon

sotto voce

Paints?

JonA

Yes. What about the events on the Sea of Galilee portray Jesus as incorporeal?

Jon

Toto

If a surrealistic off topic post is disrupting the thread, please use the report post button, and it will be split off.

Sometimes I automatically do this, if I have a lot of time.

Duvduv

One thing I have never understood is why the empire hierarchy in the 4th or 5th centuries were so obsessed about the beliefs of Christians concerning the "substance" of their Christ for the brief period he was believed to have lived in this world. What practical and substantive difference could it have made to the average person or even clergyman whether or not someone else believed that Jesus had two or one personality combined or separate or whatever, homoousios or homousios or whatever?
Or whether the Christ was created or begotten?
Did this have any significance on beliefs and observances or anything else?

Tom Sawyer

It was a political power play. There were different groups within the early Church who had differing views on this and they wanted their group to have all the good jobs, influence, power and money. When advancement in Roman society became as dependent on church heirarchies and patronage as it did, the primacy of the group you belonged to translated into secular power.

Political power plays amongst the elite never make any kind of difference to the average person and they were, as they always are, simply cannon fodder so that rich and powerful people could become marginally richer and more powerful.

Duvduv

Tom, so you mean that they chose to handle this through an extremely obscure issue of disagreement such that in terms of patronage and loyalty one had to declare that he believed in "homoosious" (even if he didn't) rather than something more tangible and practical?
And what pursuaded the Roman officials to adopt this belief over an alternative one such as homoios ("of one substance" versus "like")??
Was it because people were starting to have doubts about the very idea of the Trinity?

Tom Sawyer

I'm saying that those particular details don't matter. The leaders of one group happened to believe in transsubstantiation or something and another one didn't and that happened to become a bone of contention between some of the leadership of those groups. The hows and whys behind that are about as relevant as the hows and whys behind how Republicans and Democrats got super-passionate about the various methods of counting hanging chads on a voting form. It benefits your group to be on a particular side of an issue and the specific details of the issue are tertiary at best.

Somebody important happened to like homoosious and somebody else important didn't, so getting it as a more core component of doctrine helped the former's group in a power struggle against the latter's. The details of what homoosious may or may not be aren't much of a concern and it's just a tool to be used.

Duvduv

It's interesting even because the original Nicene Creed doesn't actual resolve the issue of the Trinity at all.