Looks like a non sequitor to me. :shrug:

Didn't say they were! The Dead Sea Scrolls is just an example of how everybody can jump on something new as proving or disproving something, and then a few decades later as the excavations continue, you realise the writings were transcribed by criminals who had a vested interest and did not have access to the Church fathers of the era because they were criminals.

The Roman Catholic Church did ot exist in that part of the world at the time. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church has never held sway in Palestine. It is the domain of the Patriarch of Jerusalem (Orthodox) and the Patriarch of Antioch (Orthodox).

In recent decades, the western churches have a very visible, clearly defined political role; however, they simply did not exist at the time.

In fact, strictly speaking, the Roman Catholic Church did not exist as a separate entity until the Great Schism of 1054 AD, at which point the Oecumenical Patriarch and the Pope in Rome excommunicated each other. There were political motives behind the Roman move, and their insistence on creating a controversy out of the filioque clause is ridiculous, especially in view of current evidence that western monks just made it up because of their own theological inadequacies.

Even to this day, by the way, when Catholics hold a service at the Church of the Nativity, they have to rent the edifice from the Church of Jerusalem's Patriarchate.

:shrug: The works were known in older times, but debunked by the Church fathers as clear fabrications.

What's w/you and the non sequitor's today, buddy?

I can put anybody's name on a gospel of my own fabrication. That doesn't make it any more valid.

I get the impression that you mightn't know very much about Christianity at all.

:shrug:

You're stating the obvious. What you omitted is that they decided that Christ's dual nature (Man and God) had to exist in order for him to do what he did.

You left out what the Oecumenical Councils actually said, I guess because it didn't support your argument.



I have only the Greek handy at the moment, but that is a good translation.

I can't call you crazy. I can call you misinformed, and perhaps a little prejudiced because of our tendency to fight what we perceive as the establishment.

"Emerging Church." Hmmm. I would content that the Church had done with its "emerging" and was solidifying itself in the Councils through the auspices of Constantine (Ever August).

From the reign of Constantine I (Ever August) through the end of things with Constantine XIII Palaeologos (Ever August), the Emperor was an ordained priest. Unlike the barbarian west, in the east it was the Autocrator himself who retained the title Pointifex Maximus and it was often he who was obviously the head of the church.

I am not sure what you mean about the backing of the Roman Empire. You seem to hint that there was some kind of political agenda, but I don't understand what it could be.

It was important that Orthodoxy was defined; however, there was not motive other than defining the truth of Orthodoxy, that is, what is Orthodoxy.

The Empire's position and the Autocrator's position was neither increased nor diminished by what the definition became or what bishop came out on top.