Well, my friend, we agree about something, anyway.

 

that's like saying that finding the tomb of tutankamen was only possible because he died only weeks before. i's a fairly naieve standpoint.

neither of the scriptures i pointed out were part of the dead sea scrolls. dunno where you're going with that one.. however such works went into hiding with the emergence of the roman catholic church out of fear of them being labeled heresy and being destroyed.

the works i mentioned are part of the nag hammadi library that was uncovered in egypt in 1945.

the gospel of thomas.. thomas was one of christ's apostles.

it wasn't an attack at all.. the councils of the early church met at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon between AD 325 and AD 451 to discuss the validity of just that topic, and others. i'm just saying that an emerging church with the backing of the roman empire can make things happen.. especially making a man that lived 3-400 years prior into the son of god through omition of a few texts and burning the evidence. call me crazy.

 

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.

 

it's the same situation you suggest

i find it very convenient that the church dismisses works that, if found to be truthful would shatter it's very foundation. sounds like a simple defense mechanism to me but, who is to say truthfully either way. neither you nor i nor anyone else on this planet can give an accurate inventory of those present for the sermon on the mount simply because none of us were there. I just find it difficult to believe that over the centuries the gospels and writings that compile the bible haven't been twisted in one shape or another to further the motives of those in power. the power of the church at the time was absolute, and as we all know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.


sorry, spoke wrongly, i meant the church of christ around the time of constantine I when he converted to christianity from strict paganism to ride the coattails of that new sensation of the time.

as i said before, that is not an absolute. to put that much faith in an organization of men is simply naieve.

did they? religions for thousands of years share one common bond and that is control of the masses. the roman empire needed control of the masses at that time and what better icon to use than jesus. truly, he was a great man, but at the time of constantine I 's conversion to christianity from paganism, the storys of jesus were ever popular and growing with the masses. my theory is that constantine used this sensationalism to compose the bible in order to put a spin of a man's (who was the king of the jews) greatness into divinity in order to capitalize.

that's beacuse what was said is irrelevant. it neither supports my thesis or disproves it. the mere fact that his divinity had to be decided upon by men. all men in power have an agenda, hidden or in the open.

am i misinformed? one thing you need to remember in an argument such as this... there are three sides to every story and the victor always writes the history books. just because it's not what you were taught in sunday school doesn't make it false.

 

The ideas you promulgate were dismissed by the apostles themselves, and by the early church fathers who were taught by them. You are bringing up ideas again as if they're some new revelation.

They're not new. The ideas were defeated almost two millennia ago. Although one appreciates your wide eyed innocence, you're just not thoroughly educated on the subject. I'm sorry.

That's not just unfair, it's irreverent. Constantine I (Ever August) was the Supreme Autocrator. He held the Mandate of Heaven, and did not need to ride any coat tails.

When you are acclaimed Autocrator, you are allowed the luxury of doing what is correct. There are no politics except those the Autocrator allows.

He really wanted to know what the truth was. There was a lot of arguing in the First Council, but don't pretend the dissenting bishops were imprisoned or excommunicated. To read the accounts, some of them seem to have achieved an actual revelation during the course of the proceedings.

The Monophysite controversy continued for centuries, because the Empire could not bring itself to completely stamp out an entire ethnicity that appeared to follow this branch of Christianity which was not Orthodox.


In the 500's AD the court of Justinian (Ever August) intervened to prevent a pogrom and the descendants of the same people whom they saved later make up the Church of Armenia and the Church of Georgia, which churches, ironically, converted to Orthodoxy in the twentieth century.

So, although you're correct that the Empire needed to define what its state religion was, it did not stamp out all the alternatives. It was simply illogical to deprive the Empire of an entire ethnicity which wished to follow its own national church.

I continue to get the feeling that your impression of early Christianity and its Orthodox child is coloured by your relations and feelings about the Roman Catholic Church and other western churches that you might find offensive.

Without presuming to instruct you on the worth of those western faiths, I assure you that the early Orthodox Church that was involved in those Councils and, I think, even the current Orthodox Church really is very different from the churches with which you are familiar.

Also, for whatever it's worth, I do understand how someone could get quite "solid" behind an idea regarding Christianity.

My personal problem is that there are few things that make me angrier than TV evangelists.

I understand.

In many ways, Christianity is one leap of faith after another. For example, Constantine I (Ever August) and bishops involved in those early councils and early church writings are actually saints.

I don't mean to criticise whatever your personal faith is. I think that it's entirely possible that slight differences in faith (or entirely different religions) could be perfectly valid for you as an individual or even entire societies, and that it does not necessarily negate the validity of Christianity.

One of the slight differences we tolerate is over the issue of women priests.

In Orthodoxy, there is a very powerful class of female deaconesses who will never be priests. In the Anglican and Episcopal Churches, there are many female priests.

It doesn't necessarily matter to me that the ordination of female priests is entirely valid in the Anglican Episcopal Church but not in the Orthodox Church, and I consider myself in communion with both.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a rather intense conversation with Prince Faisal about his Wahabi sect of Islam. I definitely came away from the conversation knowing that we were still much more alike than we were different, and I would never presume to socially anathematise his religion simply because it's valid for him, and not necessarily for me.

I'm really sorry, but I don't think this is historically accurate.

There just was no "mass" of people the way people think about the "masses" of later centuries. Moreover, although the Imperial Court moved to Constantinople chiefly to be nearer the centre of power and population, one of the smaller reasons was to get away from the city of Rome, it's senate and its street mobs.

He just didn't need to worry about masses. He had firm control of his life and the Empire at that time.

A little semantic difficulty here.

The dual nature of Christ is what it is, it always was, it always will be, and nothing that Man says or does will change it.

For whatever divinely emotional reason, God cannot leave us behind and chooses to feel and bear sin on our behalf, and nothing Man says or does can change it, as much as we add to God's emotional load.

Perhaps individual bishops had agendas other than properly defining the Truth that they all knew. Perhaps.

The main thing they had to worry about was that the Emperor as Pontifex Maximus and Autocrator wanted to know the definition of Orthodoxy, and that was their main agenda.

What possible political agenda could a little bishop from a little town in Cappodocia have that would over ride his Emperor's command to define the truth?

ROFL....

Yes. I think you are, but you think I am.

And the right side is called Orthodoxy.