Theodosius: Ironically, it was the religious influence of what would later be known as the Greek Orthodox Church (which Theodosius was a member of) who converted the Germanic tribes to convert to Arian Christianity in the first place.

Elijah: When you look at II Chr. 21:12-15 and II Kgs. 2:1-12, you will notice the two texts are written by two different authors (primarily given away by the way each text tells the story). Many scholars think II Kings is much older than II Chronicles, so the writer of Chronicles could have gotten things wrong; or he could have known of a story about Elijah and Jehoram that the author of Kings didn't know about; or the story about Elijah in II Kings was made up. Whatever the point, we don't really know which is true (though most Jews and Christians have thought the II Chr. Story happened first and the II Kgs story is the end of Elijah's ministry/existence on earth). When you look at the stories side-by-side, there are many major differences in each story, most notably the chronology. II Kings has Ahaziah being king of Judah, then his brother Jehoram; but II Chronicles has Jehoram becoming king of Judah, then killing his brothers, one of which is Ahaziah. Now, who was king first? Was Ahaziah actually a king, ever? So your story about Elijah is as good as anyone elses'.

About what Jesus said about no one ever going up to see God, like a lot of what the Old and New Testaments say, we don't exactly know what Jesus is getting at. I mean, we get His point (He is the only one who can truly reveal what God is like because He's the only one who has seen Him), but Jesus could have been exaggerating for the sake of emphasis (Moses saw God's back WHILE being alive on earth, and seeing God's back still counts as seeing God). Basically, when it comes to the "facts" of who's seen God, we don't really know what Jesus was talking about.

Jesus: There's a difference between Jesus praying to God on a regular basis and Jesus praying to God before He did miracles in order to do them. We find Jesus praying to God before doing a miracle only once--the raising of Lazarus that you pointed out. But He didn't ask for power; like I said previously, Jesus thanked God for always listening to Him and He pointed out in His prayer He was only praying right then for the sake of those listening to the prayer, not for His own sake. As for Jesus praying to God all the time, it's really no different than Caesar (who claimed to be god on earth) praying to the god Jupiter, or, when there was a king, the king of Israel praying to God, even though one of his titles was "son of God" (this at first doesn't seem like people saw the king as divine, and they didn't, but they viewed the king as being on intimate grounds with God all the time because of his position, as if the king of Israel and God played poker every night and sat up watching T.V. kind of thing).

The issue that puzzles you: Why do you think so? This is something of a fallacy. It is basically implied then that humanity is not allowed to mature, progress, or broaden their thinking; they either need to know everything now (or be able to grasp it all at once) or not know anything at all. (I realize you did not say that, nor do you probably think that, but that is the logical progression of your argument.)

So let me ask you a question? Lets suppose for the moment that you believe in the Trinity (I don't know if you do): do you think you have a handle on It? Do you think you totally and completely understand the idea of the Trinity in all its multifacted concepts and components? Because I don't, and most Christians are still wrestling with this theological idea even to this day. I think God reveals things at the pace humans in general can take them (and I think their environment has something to do with it, too); otherwise, we wouldn't accept them because they didn't make sense to us and looked kind of stupid. So maybe the Trinity idea is what could be called "progressive revelation"--still real for all time, but only recently revealed because it was the right time to introduce it or (doubtful) we were ready for it:)

Hope this helped ya':D

Obviously we have to different views about the Bible.
So all we will do based on those two different assumptions is disagree.
So I'll spare you and myself the exercise in futility and end the discussion.
But thanks for your responses.

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil; for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38)

BTW
I am not a Trinitarian

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Originally Posted by Starman

Others were ressurected before Jesus. Moses, and other prophets also performed miracles, one even ressurected the dead as did the Apostle Paul. The prophets also had foreknowledge. So why isn't this divinity criterion applicable to them as well?

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It is necessary to make the distinction between those raised from the dead, such as the widow's son, Lazarus, etc. and those who are resurrected.

Those raised from the dead continued to live out their lives until they died. That is, after they had been 'raised,' they were still mortal and subject to death, whereas those who are resurrected are raised to a new life, eternal life, everlasting life, and are immortal, which means that death has no more claim on them.

Prophets and other divinely appointed servants of God, such as apostles, performed miracles because the authority and power of God was given to them by divine commission, but Almighty God performs miracle by his own power, and the Son of God Jesus Christ acts for the Father - his God, and our God, and his Farher and our Father - by divine investiture of authority because Jesus the Son of God serves the Father. Jesus is Lord because God has made him Lord, and God is Lord because he is Lord.

'Lord' does not mean 'God' but is a title showing the Lordshiop of God and at other times the Lordship of Jesus.





M:)



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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Starman

Obviously we have to different views about the Bible.
So all we will do based on those two different assumptions is disagree.
So I'll spare you and myself the exercise in futility and end the discussion.
But thanx for your responses.

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil; for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38)

BTW
I am not a Trinitarian

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The Trinitarian position is inconsistent with biblical teaching. There is no passage in the Bible that declares or expresses Trinitarian teachings apart from the Johannine Comma, which is a forged interpolation.




M:)

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Originally Posted by Starman

But there is still one point which is baffling.
God worked his miracles through the prophets and they were never considered God, why would Jesus miracles alone be seen as a justification to view him as God? Jesus healed and ressurected, the prophet Elijah did so as well. Jesus prophesied. So did the prophets. Jesus claimed to represent God. So did the prophets. Jesus spoke in God's name. So did the prophets. Jesus ascended and so did Elijah.

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Jesus ascended into heaven after his resurrection, and Elijah ascended before his death. The process of assumption into heaven before death is addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51- 52:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Paul infers without elaboration that Christian disciples will be blessed not to "taste of death" but to undergo the necessary change from miortality to immortality as in the "twinkling of an eye."

This change from mortality to immortality, though almost instantaneous, is both a death and a resurrection. Thus, translated beings, as we might dascribe them, do not suffer death as we normally define it, meaning the separation of body and spirit; nor do they receive a resurrection as we ordinarily describe it, meaning that the body rises from the dust and the spirit enters again into its fleshly home. But they do pass through death and are changed from mortality to immortality, in the eternal sense, and they thus both die and are resurrected in the eternal sense.

This is why Paul wrote: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed"

Between life and death there is only the twinkling of an eye, only a breath of air in the lungs of a man, only an eternal spirit in its temple of earth's clay. The spirit steps out of the body to live in another realm, and we call it death. Jesus died of his own will and choice; his spirit laid down its temporal body of flesh and blood and chose to live in an unembodied state in the realm of the departed.

Jesus gave up the spirit or ghost and entered the paradise of God. He was as other men in that his spirit went to live in a spirit world to await the day of his resurrection, the day when the eternal spirit would be reunited with its body, thereafter to live eternally in immortal glory, having a body of flesh and bones.

When Jesus died his mortal ministry ended and his ministry among the spirits in prison began and according to the Messianic word he "proclaim[ed] liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" (Isa. 61:1).

It was then that his work commenced "to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house" (Isa. 42:7), and it was then that he who had suffered for our sins, the Just for the unjust, having been put to death in the flesh continued to live in the spirit, "went preached unto the spirits in prison" (1 Pet. 3:18-20).


M:)

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Originally Posted by Credo

I don't know if we can actually say that the rabbis and scribes attempted to expunge any anthropomorphic or polytheistic references from Scripture.

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The Pharisaic theocracy of Judea attached more importance to the ceremonial precepts of its schools than to the sacred text on which they were based. Wherever Scripture and Tradition seemed opposed, Tradition was treated as the higher authority. Pharisaism openly proclaimed this, and set itself, as the Gospel expresses it, in the chair of Moses, displacing the great lawgiver.

`It is a greater offence,' says the Mishnah, `to teach anything contrary to the voice of the Rabbis, than to contradict Scripture itself. He who speaks contrary to Scripture, "Is not lawful to wear the Tephillin" is not to be punished as a troubler. But he who says there should be five divisions in the Totaphoth' and thus teaches differently from the Rabbis, is guilty.' `He who expounds the Scriptures in opposition to the Tradition,' says R. Eleazar, `has no share in the world to come.' The mass of Rabbinical prescriptions—not the Scripture—was regarded as the basis of religion, for the Covenant of God was declared to have been made with Israel on account of the oral Law, as it is written, "After the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel." [Ex. 34:27.] The Rabbinic view is that God knew that, in after ages, Israel would be carried away among strange people, who would copy the written Law, and therefore, he gave them the oral Law, that his will might be kept secret among themselves. Those who gave themselves to the knowledge of the Traditions `saw a great light,' for God enlightened their eyes, and showed them how they ought to act in relation to lawful and unlawful things, clean and unclean, which are not told thus fully and clearly in Scripture.

It was, the Rabbis insist, good to give one's self to the reading of the Scripture, but he who reads diligently the Traditions receives a reward from God, and he who gives himself to the Commentaries on these traditions has the greatest reward of all. `The Bible was like water, the Traditions like wine, the Commentaries on them like spiced wine.' `My son,' says the Talmud, `give more heed to the words of the Rabbis than to the words of the Law.'

The foregoing show Jewish attitudes to the documents of the Hebrew Bible that is clearly inconsistent with the view that Hebrews considered them inerrant and/or infallible, but made room for their own explanation or dismissal of them if the texts and their variants disagreed or appeared to disagree with the Traditions handed down by Rabbinical scholars. This clearly sets out Rabbis as arbiters of what was correct and what was incorrect in the corpus of sacred writings, and at least tacitly provides licence for them to change whatever they believed disagreed with current theologies.

It was, in fact, a Rabbi who first criticised the books of the Bible for their inconsistencies. That others have made changes for theological purposes is evident. That soferim made singular and common errors in textual copying is plainly evident to all but the casual reader.

No less an authority than Metzger identifies the role of rabbinical hands in altering sacred documents, all of which point out that the Hebrews did not hold the opinion that the Bible was untouchable. That should make us pause and contemplate how it came to be thought of as untouchable by Christians, and whether such a view is justified on any grounds other than those that are strictly emotional.

This view is strongly opposed by such as Professor Carl L Blomberg, an evangelical Protestant, who states: “No ecclesiastical body or individual Christian can make proclamations that are on a par with the authority of scripture […] no church, pope, or anyone else has the right to add to, supersede, or contradict the written Word of God as contained in the [Old and New] testaments.”

Yet, Blomberg's attitude perfectly resembles that of the Pharisees and others living in Palestine in the early first century. They rejected Christ and his apostles on precisely the same ground, and the Samaritans rejected Isaiah employing the same argument, because for them the scriptural canon closed with the prophet Moses. How can anyone accept the addition of scripture after Moses, but reject the writings of Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul, etc? It is richly ironic that the church and its hierarchy, including the pope, whose authority in these and other matters Blomberg rejects, who established the very canon that Blomberg now finds uniquely authoritative. While Blomberg is correct in saying that no ecclesiastical body or individual can add, supersede, or contradict what is written, he should not imply that God cannot do so.

I will add a further voice to this discussion, that of Professor Emanuel Tov, a noted authority on the text of the Hebrew Scriptures (Tov 'Textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible,' Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992):

~ All of the textual witnesses of the OT differ from each other to a greater or lesser extent.
~ There does not exist any one edition of the OT that agrees in all its details with another.
~ Most of the texts – ancient and modern – which have been transmitted from one generation to the next have been corrupted in one way or another.
~ A second phenomenon pertains to corrections and changes inserted in the biblical text … Such tampering with the text is evidenced in all textual witnesses.
~ therefore, paradoxically, the soferim (scribes) and Masoretes carefully preserved a text that was already corrupted.
~ One of the postulates of biblical research is that the text preserved in the various representatives (manuscripts, editions) of what is commonly called the Masoretic Text, does not reflect the 'original text' of the biblical books in many details.
~ These [parallel sources [from Kings, Isaiah, Psalms, Samuel, etc.] are based on ancient texts which already differed from each other before they were incorporated into the biblical books, and which underwent changes after they were transmitted from one generation to the next as part of the biblical books.
~ Septuagint is a Jewish translation which was made mainly in Alexandria. Its Hebrew sources different greatly from the other textual witnesses (Masoretic, Targums, Samaritan, Vulgate, and many of the Qumran texts) … Moreover, LXX (Septuagint) is important as a source for early exegesis, and this translation also forms the basis for many elements in the NT.
~ The importance of LXX is that it reflects a greater variety of important variants than all the other translations put together.
~ Textual recensions bear recognizable textual characteristics such as an expansionistic, abbreviating, harmonizing, Judaizing, or Christianizing tendency.
~ The theory of the division of the biblical witnesses into three recensions [Masoretic, LXX, and Samaritan] cannot be maintained …to such an extent that one can almost speak of an unlimited number of texts.
~ The question of the original text of the biblical books cannot be resolved unequivocally, since there is no solid evidence to help us decide in either direction.
~ We still have no knowledge of copies of biblical books that were written in the first stage of their textual transmissions, nor even of texts which are close to that time. … Since the centuries preceding the extant evidence presumably were marked by great textual fluidity, everything that is said about the pristine state of the biblical text must necessarily remain hypothetical.
~ Masoretic is but one witness of the biblical texts, and its original form was far from identical with the original text of the Bible as a whole.
~ As a rule [concepts of the nature of the original biblical text] are formulated as 'beliefs,' that is, a scholar [or Rabbi], as it were, believes, or does not believe, in a single original text, and such views are almost always dogmatic.
~ During textual transmission many complicated changes occurred making it now almost impossible for us to reconstruct the original form of the text.
~ Many of the pervasive changes in the biblical text, pertaining to whole sentences, sections, and books, should not be ascribed to copyists [scribes], but to earlier generations of editors who allowed themselves such massive changes in the formative stage of the biblical literature.

For example:

1. The LXX and Q versions of Jeremiah are one sixth shorter than the Masoretic, and the order of the verses has been changed which can change the whole meaning.
2. The LXX version of Joshua is between 4 and 5% shorter than the Masoretic text.
3. The story of David and Goliath is 44% shorter in the LXX.
4. The chronological information in genesis 5, 5, and 11 is quite different between the Samaritan Pentateuch, the LXX, and the Masoretic traditions.
5. The eleventh chapter of 1 Samuel is much longer in the Qumran version than in the Masoretic.

It is not that the Masoretic text triumphed over the other texts, but rather that those who fostered it probably survived the destruction of the Second Temple, which were the Rabbinic schools that were derived from Pharisees. Thus, while we can agree that we have a fairly well preserved textual tradition of the Masoretes, their tradition preserved only ONE version of the OT, which is the one accepted and edited by Rabbis following the second century of the Common Era, AFTER the completion of the NT.

Concluded in the next posting due to length - please look, upwards it is above this part. ^

M:)

To Credo - continuation of the firs part posted under+:~


Given all the textual differences manifest in the S, LXX, Q, and other pre-second century CE textual traditions, it seems impossible to claim that the Masoretic version represents the original text of the Hebrew Bible dating six or seven centuries earlier. This supports the position that the biblical texts have been significantly changed, both inadvertently and intentionally.

Bruce M Metzger ('A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament' – Stuttgart, United Bible Societies, 1975) says that the “Western text of Acts is nearly 10% longer than the form which is commonly regarded to be the original text of the book.” He also notes, “ … of the approximately five thousand Greek manuscripts of all or part of the New testament that are known today, no two agree exactly in all particulars.”

Vaganay and Ampoux's “An Introduction to New Testament Criticism” (2nd Edn. Cambridge University Press, 1991) says, “In AD 179 the secular writer Celsus stated in polemic against the Christians: 'Some believers.. . Have changed the original text of the Gospels three or four times, Or even more, with the intention of thus being able to destroy the arguments of their critics (Cited in Origen, Contra Celsium, SC, 132, 2. Significantly, Origen does not deny the existence of those changes.

In fact, Origen wrote: “It is an obvious fact today [third Century CE] that there is much diversity among the manuscripts, due either to carelessness of the scribes, or to the perverse audacity of some people in correcting the text, or again to the fact that there are those who add or delete as they please, setting themselves up as correctors.”

In his 'Matthaeum,' Origen declared: “It is therefore not possible to reconstitute with certainty the earliest text, even though there is no doubt about its having existed in written form from an early date, without a preparatory oral stage.”

He goes further in the same work: “In the period following AD 135, the recensions proliferated with a resultant textual diversity which reached a peak before 200. […] Thus between the years 150 and 250, the text of the first recensions acquired a host of new readings. They were a mixture of accidental carelessness, deliberate scribal corrections, involuntary mistakes, a translator's conscious departure from literalness, a reviser's more systematic alteration, and, not least, contamination caused by harmonising to an extent which varied in strength from place to place. All these things contributed to diversification of the text, to giving it, if one may out it, a little of the local colour of each country.”

The text of the New Testament that can be reconstructed by textual criticism, in common with the Masoretic Old Testament, is only one of many versions which existed in the third Christian cwentury. Except for a few fragments we do not know and cannot reconstruct the text of the first century.

Bart D Ehrman (The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Oxford University, 1993) says: “My thesis can be stated simply: scribes occasionally altered the words of their sacred text to make them more patently orthodox and to prevent their misuse by Christians who espoused aberrant views.

A case in point where a Christian scribe interfered with the sacred and supposedly untoucahble text is the verse at 1 John 5:7, which is the only mention in the Bible of anything remotely approaching a Trinitarian view of the Godhead.

A stunning example of deliberate textual alteration effected to move away from an anthropomorphic view of God to a non-anthropomorphic view driven by theological necessity is the tiqqúuné sóperim of the Masoretic Deuteronomy 32:8, that says that God divided the earth in some fashion according to the “sons of Israel.” But 4Q Deuteronomy and LXX 848, 10c, have “sons of God.” This variant Tov and others feel is “probably its original wording.”

Talk of a canon is still premature, because 'canon' means a standard, a rule, but there is no universally accepted canon among Christians.

Protestant, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox have more or less the same canon of scripture, with the notable exception of the Apocrypha, that the Catholics hold to , but which the Protestants abandoned after holding onto it for a long time. It could be that this is only because the imperial church of the fourth century expelled by government edict force of arms those who wanted to include other books or exclude some already chosen for inclusion. However, the similarities in the NT canon represent three branches of a single tradition of canonicity rather than three separate denominations of Christianity.

The real issue concerns some of the eastern branches of Christianity:

[ ] The Syriac Pesh-itta lacks 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse of John.
[ ] Armenians include 3 Corinthians and did not include the Apocalypse until the end of the twelfth century..
[ ] The Coptic church includes two epistles of Clement.
[ ] The Ethiopian church diverges most widely, adding the Sinodos, Clement, the Book of the Covenant, and the Didascalia.

Of phrases borrowed for use in NT monographs, Nestlé Aland's editors provide hundreds of allusions and quotations in an appendix, including references to 3 Esdras, 4 Esdras, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, Tobias, Judith, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Baruch, The Epistle of Jeremiah, Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon from the deuterocanonical or apocryphal works of Baruch, the Assumption of Moses, and six of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, all of which are found among the Old Testament pseudepigrapha. Perhaps it is most important to point out that Jude 1:14-15 is a quotation of 1 Enoch 1:9.

While it is arguable that the citation of these Jewish works could indicate that the borrowers considered them to be canonical, there was no evidence of any idea of a canon among the NT writers, and they freely cite several pagan sources. Perhaps in light of these revelations the rigid canon should be abandoned.

I hope you find this of interest.

M:)



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I understand some points such as who the spirits in prison were, and what Jesus said to them differently. We also see things differently on how long the heavenly resurrection has been available, and what is meant by bondage and liberation. We also diverge on what a soul is.


I look forward to the time when no such disagreements will exist as promised by the scriptures.


Isaiah 11:9
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk 2:14
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

NIV

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Originally Posted by Starman

Well I guess understand on some points such as who the spirits in prison were, and what Jesus said to them differently. For example we also disagree about how long the heavenly ressurection has been available, and what is meant by bondage and liberation from it. We also diverge on what a soul is. I look forward to the time when no such disagreements will exist as promised by the scriptures.

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For example..



M:)

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Originally Posted by Morganite

For example ...... ?



M:)

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Thanks for pointing out the error.
I originally said: "for example" and provided no example.
I corrected the grammar.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Credo

[...]In the end, the Nicene Creed resulted in something unsatisfactory for both sides. The adoptionist Christians felt like they had gotten swindled, and Athanasius and his supporters (which seemed to only be half of the bishops of Alexandria, one or two from Palestine and the Middle East, and the Bishop of Rome) felt like the Creed had not gone far enough to directly state "Jesus is God." But the Creed ended up the way it did for two reasons: 1)Athanasius was loud and obnoxious (as were his followers), and they kept putting their view before the assembly; 2)Constantine called for a quick decision, and then proceeded to say he liked Athanasius' point of view (Constantine liked the idea of a God coming down to earth as a man to save humans). So, the matter was temporarily settled. But that's why Christianity kept having so many meetings over the next 150-200 years about the divinity of Jesus.
[...]
Now we fast forward to the second reason. After the Nicene Creed, things changed. Before, the party of Athanasius and the party of Arius were trying to prove that they were right under the guise that they were doing the Church a favor. No one had ever thought about these issues as deeply or as long as either of these two men did, so many initially just watched and weighed the both men's arguments.
[...]
Basically, the Early Church Fathers wanted to make sure their salvation was secure. The question of Christology was asked because the overwhelming impression was that only God could save all humanity to this magnitude; no one, not even a divinized human, could accomplish this. Therefore, Jesus must be God. Those after the Nicene Creed took this thought up, embraced it, and simply ran with it to its obvious theological end (since it was now firmly in place rather than accepted by only some, however large that some was).

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The Church was divided after Nicaea into three divisions--sees corresponding to political divisions, with headquarters at capitals--Rome, Alexandria, Antioch. The whole Church covering the entire Christian world was called "the Catholic Church," and the declarations of the creed were termed orthodox. Later, after the division of the Western and Eastern Churches, the former, the Western Church, appropriated the word "Catholic," and the latter, the Eastern Church, the word "Orthodox?

The philosophy of Arianism is pagan. "Arius tried to interpret the Christian revelation in such a way as to render it acceptable to men whose whole conception of God and of life was heathen." Arianism had its birth in the fear of Sabellianism, the doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but one person.

But the Arian heresy did not die with the decree of excommunication and banishment of Arius and his friends. Constantine himself, after the Council had finished its work, was swayed from one side to the other of the controversy.

After Constantine's death, council after council was called to try to bring harmony into the Church. But Arianism persisted through the middle ages; it revived in England in the eighteenth century, to the great disturbance of the English Church. The basic element of the heresy is found today in the doctrine that portrays Christ as a great philosopher, as the founder of a profound code of ethics, as the supremely righteous man, but denies to him divine parentage, the Sonship of God. This doctrine now finds principal support among the liberal scholars of the Protestant Churches. It drags Christianity down to the level of paganism.

The fourth century was one of those times in Roman history when the tension of divided loyalties had become so intolerable that the world was ready for any settlement that would guarantee a measure of peace, unity, and security. The exhausted age accepted the same emergency solution that had given Rome the kingship, the consuls, and the principate. The aureum aevum of Constantine that put an end to the long reign of civil discord, as that of Augustus had done three centuries before, was formally launched with all the solemn rites and theatrical properties familiar to the Romans since the days of the fabled kings. The purpose of the gorgeous displays of Diocletian and Constantine, pagan and Christian, as of all royal ritual, was to produce in the beholders a religious experience which would command loyalty--of that the poets and orators give us clear assurance.

The great scaffoldings, acres of painted canvas, firmaments of tapers and torches, fabulous displays of jewels and lavish applications of gilt paint left no one in doubt that the glory of the Lord was round about. Heaven in Our Time was not something to be worked for but something to be accepted; not a hope, but a fulfillment, a stupendous miracle.

The Christian Emperor was hailed at his coronation as "dominus noster.. . Praesens et corporalis deus" (Our Lord . . . God in the flesh among us), and Christian and pagan orators vied in proclaiming the long-awaited blessed age of the prophets and the Sibyl. Like a man distracted by the claims of a hundred creditors, who turns all his bills over to a lending agency in exchange for one simple, ruinous obligation, so the men of the fourth century lumped all their conflicting loyalties together in one single, unlimited obligation to the emperor and Romanitas.

All good things became one vague and luminous whole; whatever could command loyalty was "in the composition of a specious argument.. . Artfully confounded in one splendid and brittle mass."

Caecilius in the Octavius had charged the Christians, not with contempt of any particular doctrine or practice of the ancients, but with failing to be duly impressed by the whole magnificent agglomeration of antique civilization as a fit object of veneration and awe. To this noble composite the church in the fourth century, as if to atone for her long hesitation and former aspersions, declared passionate allegiance, sustaining the traditional heathen dogma, that Roma aeterna was immortal and impregnable, long after the canny pagans themselves had given it up! Henceforward to be a Christian and to be a Roman were one and the same thing: "ubique patria, ubique lex et religio mea," cries Orosius, ".. . Quia ad Christianos et Romanos, Romanus et Christianus accedo" (my country is everywhere, everywhere my law and religion . . . because I associate with Christians and Romans as a Roman and a Christian).

When Christian writers can tell us that the distance between Roman and barbarian is as great as that between quadrupeds and bipeds, or that the laws of barbarian nations "bear the same relation to genuine law--Roman law--as a parrot's squawk to human speech," we have come a long way from the charity of the early Christian writers, who loved, like certain earlier Greek philosophers, to mock the vain and artificial distinction between "Jew and Greek, bond and free" (Galatians 3:28).

But now the church was wholly committed--dangerously committed--to the program of the Empire: Prudentius boldly throws the challenge to the pagan world, that victory of Christian Rome over the barbarians will be sure proof of the truth of the Christian religion--one can imagine the reaction in both camps when Rome was thoroughly beaten!


M:)

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Originally Posted by Credo

But how did Christians come to believe Jesus was God Himself? Well, the wording of the Nicene Creed is actually very vague when it comes to the nature of how much Jesus is God. It points out that Jesus was "begotten before all worlds" (an indication of when Jesus became God to the 4th century Christians), purposefully worded this way so that those who believed Jesus was created THEN designated as Son of God and those who believed Jesus was with God before time began could agree on the same Creed. Another phrase about Jesus' divinity is "being of one substance with the Father", which at first appears to us as a matter of fact statement that Jesus is the same being as the Father. But that's not how they saw it.

Athanasius and his supporters wanted to use the phrase "being of the SAME substance with the Father." The adoptionist bishops, who were sympathetic to Arius and his Christology didn't like using the term "same substance", so they made a compromise and said "one substance." Thus, the adoptionist Christians could interpret that to mean "being of a similar kind of substance, thus being God, but not the same substance as the Father, thus not being the exact same as the Father"; likewise, Athanasius' side could interpret it to mean "being of the exact same substance as the Father, even though He is the Son, thus being equal to the Father in every respect but not being the Father." Are you confused yet, because it took me a few months in class until I finally started to understand each side's line of thinking.

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The complete identity of the interests of the church with those of the Empire in the fourth century was a revolutionary transfer of loyalty. "The imperial cult remains," writes Alföldi, "only such forms as offend Christian sentiments are a little veiled." The Church Fathers, diligently reconstructing history in retrospect, made it appear that the church and Rome had always been one. Eusebius, taking the lead, announces that Christianity and the Pax Romana "burst upon the world together as if germinated from a single seed: the twin blessing of the universe. . . . In the same moment all error and superstition were overcome and an end put to all war and hostility among the members of the human race. One Empire was set up over all the earth and all men became brothers, having one Father--God, and one Mother--true piety."

In defense of this new one-package loyalty, philosophy and theology, riding high on the fashionable tide of Neoplatonism, were Aaron and Hur upholding the emperor's hands: "God is One," says Lactantius, "therefore there cannot be more than one ruler in this world: there are not many masters in one house, not many pilots in one ship, not many leaders in one flock or herd, not many kings in one hive, nor either can there be many suns in the sky, nor many souls in one body." These are the very terms in which the Khans of Asia have been won't to teach mankind the divinity of their single rule--the West of the fourth century and after speaks with a strong Asiatic accent.

Just as all obedient subjects are embraced in a single shining community, so all outsiders are necessarily members of a single conspiracy of evil, a pestilential congregation of vapors of such uniform defilement that none can be ever so slightly tinged with its complexion without being wholly involved in its corruption. A favorite passage with the churchmen of the period was that which declared that to err in the slightest point of the law is to break the whole law. To accept the homoiousios (of similar substance) in place of the homoousios (consubstantial) is for the enlightened Hilary not just a mistake; it is the commission of every possible crime, the consummation of all that is depraved; it hands the whole world over to the Devil. By attending a discussion of the homoiousios the emperor has anathematized the holy men of Nicaea; thereby he has cursed all who have ever approved of those men; thereby he has damned his own father and set himself up as the foe of divine religion, the enemy of the saints, and a rebel against all sacred filial obligation. Nay, he is worse than a Decius or a Nero, for they fought only Christ the Son, while he fights both the Father and the Son!

Again, the emperor who tolerates heretical groups is not just a dupe and a fool, he is a monster of iniquity, guilty of adultery, theft, and murder--and that not in a mere, crass physical sense, mind you, but in a spiritual sense, which is infinitely worse. If the emperor in question refuses to make a martyr of the churchman who flings the coarsest insults in his face, that does not soften his guilt but only deepens it--he is only being kind to be cruel, because he knows that such kindness will put his priestly assailants at a disadvantage. Yet from the festering depths of unspeakable depravity there is one thing that can save the debauched and unnatural animal--by a single act, in fact, he can redeem himself and become the holiest thing on earth, an emperor under God.

And what is the miraculous prescription? It is very simple: "Fac transitum ad nos" (Come over to us)! All virtue is comprised in the fact of membership in Our Group; all vice consists in not belonging. It can be shown by a most convenient syllogism that since God is on our side we cannot show any degree of toleration for any opposition without incurring infinite guilt. In the fourth century everybody was officiously rushing to the defense of God; but John Chrysostom's pious declaration that we must avenge insults to God while patiently bearing insults to ourselves is put in its proper rhetorical light by the assumption of Bishop Hilary that an insult to himself is an insult to God. Therein lies the great usefulness of the doctrine of guilt and innocence by association that became so popular in the fourth century: one does not need to quibble; there is no such thing as being partly wrong or merely mistaken; the painful virtue of forbearance and the labor of investigation no longer embarrass the champions of one-package loyalty.

No matter how nobly and austerely heretics may live, for Augustine they are still Antichrist--all of them, equally and indiscriminately; their virtues are really vices, their virginity carnality, their reason unreason, their patience in persecution mere insolence; any cruelty shown them is not really cruelty but kindness.

John Chrysostom goes even further: the most grossly immoral atheist is actually better off than an upright believer who slips up on one point, since though both go to hell, the atheist has at least the satisfaction of having gratified his lust on earth. Why not? Is not heresy in any degree a crime against God? And is not any crime against God an infinite sin?

The insidious thing about such immoral conclusions is that they are quite logical. The cruelty of the times, says Alföldi, "cannot fully be explained by the corruption of the age; . . . the spirit of the fourth century has its part to play. The victory of abstract ways of thinking, the universal triumph of theory, knows no half-measures; punishment, like everything else, must be a hundred per cent, but even this seems inadequate."


M:)

Hello Credo,

I enjoyed reading your comments and I thought about what you wrote but still another question comes to my mind.

If we are to pray to Jesus, why did Jesus pray to his Father? If Jesus is Almighty God. In fact Jesus himself taught his disciples how to pray at Matthew 6: 9-10, Take note:
Matthew 6:9-10 (New King James Version)
9 In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
My question is that if we should pray to Jesus, why did Jesus teach his disciples to pray to the Father heaven? If We are to pray to Jesus , Jesus was not in heaven but Jesus stated we are to pray “In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven, “ How could we pray to Jesus who was on earth at that time? Also would Jesus pray to himself at other times shown to us in the scriptures.

Please take note that I am quoting from the New King James Version of the Bible:

Also before Jesus was killed notice some of the events on that last night of his earthly life.
John 17-18:1 (New King James Version)
Notice how Jesus Prays for Himself'
1 Jesus spoke these words, lifted His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should[a] give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

Here is this scripture we are told that late in the evening, perhaps past midnight, Jesus says a memorable prayer, after which they sing songs of praise to his Father. . Then, by the light of a full moon, they make their way out of the city and across the Kidron Valley.John 17:1–18:1.

Now again “Why would Jesus pray to himself if we are to pray to him?” Also if Jesus is God Almighty as some claim, why would he pray to himself? Confusing isn't it?

Then notice when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane:
A short while later, Jesus and the apostles arrive at the garden of Gethsemane. Leaving eight of the apostles at the entrance of the garden, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John farther in among the olive trees. “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death,” he tells the three. “Stay here and keep on the watch.”—Mark 14:33, 34.
The three apostles wait while Jesus goes deeper into the garden to pray. With strong outcries and tears, he pleads: “Father, if you wish, remove this cup from me.” Immense responsibility rests on Jesus' shoulders. How distressing it is for him to think of what his Father's enemies will say when His only-begotten Son is impaled as though he were a criminal! Even more agonizing to Jesus is the thought of the reproach that would be heaped on his dear heavenly Father if he failed this excruciating test. Jesus prays so earnestly and gets into such an agony that his sweat becomes as drops of blood falling to the ground.
Notice how the scriptures word this:
Luke 22:42-44 (New King James Version)
42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” 43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.[

By now it is midmorning, possibly approaching noon. Jesus is taken outside Jerusalem to a place called Golgotha. Large nails are hammered through Jesus' hands and feet. Words cannot describe the agony as the weight of his body tears at the nail wounds he is lifted. A crowd gathers to observe Jesus and two criminals being impaled. Many speak abusively of Jesus. “Others he saved,” the chief priests and others mock, “himself he cannot save!” Even the soldiers and the two impaled criminals ridicule Jesus. Matthew 27:41-44.
Suddenly at midday, after Jesus has been dying, an eerie darkness of divine origin settles over the land for three hours. Perhaps it is this that moves the one evildoer to rebuke the other. Then, turning to Jesus, he begs: “Remember me when you get into your kingdom.” What amazing faith in the face of imminent death! “Truly I tell you today,” Jesus responds, “You will be with me in Paradise.”—Luke 23:39-43.
At about three o'clock in the afternoon, Jesus feels that his end is near. “I am thirsty,” he says. Then with a loud voice, he cries out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus can sense that his Father has, as it were, withdrawn protection from him to allow his integrity to be tested to the limit, and he quotes David's words. Someone puts a sponge soaked in sour wine to Jesus' lips. Having had some of the wine, Jesus gasps: “It has been accomplished!” Then he cries out, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit,” bows his head, and expires.
John 19:28-30 (New King James Version)
28 After this, Jesus, knowing[a] that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” 29 Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

Matthew 27:46 (New King James Version)
46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”[a]

Luke 23:46 (New King James Version)
46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, 'into Your hands I commit My spirit.'”[a] Having said this, He breathed His last.

Credo, I am asking this in sincerity because It does not make sense to me that we should pray to Jesus when Jesus himself prayed to His father in Heaven. Also for those who believe that Jesus is God Almighty, why would Jesus need to pray to someone else if he was God Almighty? Why would he pray to himself anyway? Was he talking to himself?

My understanding is that yes Jesus is given authority, but by God his father, who has delegated authority to his Son, just as a president would delegate authority to the vice president. But it is beyond my comprehension that Jesus the Son of God would pray to himself. We are to follow Jesus example and throughout the scriptures Jesus always prayed to his Father in Heaven, to his God and our God.
“We are to believe all the scriptures, how can one explain these scripture and still feel it is proper to pray to Jesus and not through Jesus?
Take care,
Hope12

I'm sorry I've been away for so long; studies, you know. Well Hope 12, I'm glad you've enjoyed what I've had to say (that's always nice to hear); thank you:) It's been fun reading your stuff too:D

To clear up anything I may have mis-said, I do not personally pray to Jesus as God. It is true that I am a Nicean Christian (a.k.a. Trinitarian), but I pray to the Father. The reason for this is because Jesus told us to pray to the Father in His name. While I believe Jesus is God, I also recognize that there is no direct reference in the New Testament to the divinity of Jesus (though there are many inferences in the NT, some of which make Arian Christians very uncomfortable because they can't get around the exegetical implications of those texts; the reality is that Trinitarians and Arians both have substantial amounts of evidence on their side, which is why we still have this, in my opinion, very good debate; we keep each other balanced). As well, your point is well taken: it doesn't make sense for Jesus to either be praying to Himself as God on earth or in heaven after His crucifixion/resurrection. So basically, I agree with you 100%; Trinitarian Christians, especially Evangelicals, often forget that though they feel it is appropriate to pray to Jesus because they see Him as God, there is no Scriptural command for it, and the only command conducive to this is Jesus' command to pray to the Father (with the implication being only the Father).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Morganite

It is necessary to make the distinction between those raised from the dead, such as the widow's son, Lazarus, etc., and those who are resurrected..

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My point was that those raised by Jesus from the dead continued to live out their lives until they died in the same way that the ones raised from the dead by the prophets did. So qualitatively these resurrections are no different from those performed by the prophets and can't be used as examples of unique miracles requiring Godship.