What should Constantine or the Church have done?

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 27, 2021

Michael Collum said:
I think the route where the church didn't follow the same story route as the nation of Israel would have at least been entertaining. I mean, they were not born again, and we were - so you'd expect more, isn't that reasonable?

Everything's kind of locked in if you choose to participate, and nothing good is waiting down this story line, it's already in the bible.

I guess if you're a Protestant of the radical reformation I can understand how you could come to that perspective. Thinking that the Church went hte same way as Israel. I just think that introduces more problems than it solves. Why was God so absent from the world until your particular brand of Protestantism appeared?

I don't see how the Church at that period of time went the same path of Israel. Maybe the Church today has gone the path of the bad Kings of Israel who tolerated idolatry and evil in their presence. I mean, that was a reason why God Punished Israel after the conquest was not completed right?

timothyu said:
Too bad they missed the Kingdom into the world of man.

The Nicene Christians missed the Kingdom in not accepting Arianism?

timothyu said:
Depends on whether in doing so they follow the two commandments of Jesus or prefer to follow the self serving traditions of man.

Self-serving traditions of man such as what exactly?

timothyu said:
Then why paint crosses on the shields?

Have you never read Eusebius' account of the vision that Constantine had? God appeared to Constantine in a dream and said "in this sign conquer." That's why.

timothyu said:
Yet is was the only one Jesus taught and is mentioned in about 70 verses and in reference to Paul three times , the Gospel of the Kingdom.

This is worse than not replying at all. My Church has had those texts and interpreted them longer than your small existence has. You gotta remember, while you might be the only true Christian in two thousand years, the one person who has truly understood Christ, there have been many more before you have read those exact verses. So appealing to them, in of themselves, is hardly convincing. So once again, tell me how your Gospel that only you have received is different from the Gospel the rest of the world has received.

Otherwise just keep repeating; THE KINGDOM OF GOD, NOT THE KINGDOM OF MAN, or; WORKS OF MAN AND NOT OF GOD.

I'm curious, do you have a job? Perhaps want to or are married? Why have such worldly ambitions? Shouldn't you give up all you have sell it to the poor or are you too attached to your computer or phone to respond to people like me?

timothyu said:
You skip over the fact they were two opposing systems and kingdoms. Jesus had to tell Pilate His Kingdom was not of this world. The threat was in the future and not imminent. Yet you fail to see the separation.

I acknowledge the separation but I don't consider the state as necessarily always opposing the truth or always being opposite of God. To view entities like states as all the same is bizarre and utterly contrary to any notion of objective reasoning. Comparing Rome under Augustus to Rome under Justinian is just flawed thinking.

Philip_B · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
Constantine's priorities seem pragmatic as they were often mistaken. Constantine did care enough about theology to exile Arius but softened towards the heretic at the end when he allowed him to return from exile.

But I don't condemn Constantine for not being theologically pure. What I consider important his taking the first steps in Christianization. Favouring the Church and laying a foundation on which later Christian Emperors would build on in transforming the Empire from a Pagan entity to a Christian one.

In fairness, Arius was exiled at the Council of Nicaea 325, and Constantine allowed that to happen, if as many suggest was was inclined to side with Arius. Not long before the death of Arius Constantine had made representations to the Patriarch of Alexandria to restore Arius. It is not clear that Arius had moved his position at that stage, however it is clear that Arius friend Eusebius had returned to a more orthodox position on these matters.

Constantine, who was noted for great forgiveness earlier in his life, (just ask Maxentius, Licinius or Fausta) seems to have found something of this noted virtue in his later years post conversion. Constantine did care about theology, as was shown by his involvement in calling and interest in the proceedings of the 1st Council of Nicaea. Whilst he may not have been overly invested in the outcome, he was invested in the idea of Christian Unity.

Constantine's warming approach and ultimate conversion to Christianity is not simple and a number of factors may be considered:

Conviction - Constantine certainly gave the credit for the victory at Milvian Bridge to the Christian God, and the Chi Rho was certainly an emblem that he embraced.
Politics - Christianity had an appeal across the empire, and was far more fitting an empire than the assortment pf geographically restricted practices and 'place gods'.
Domestic Peace - Helena, Constantine's Mother was certainly a Christian, and there is suggestion that his 2nd wife Fausta was also.
Pragmatism - It seemingly help provide a wide support base across the empire, at the time of his capturing Rome, possibly 8% of the Empire was Christian
Intellectually - Constantine was not in the business of discrediting other religious practices som much as seeing Christianity as preferable and better.
Nova Romanum - the new Capital on the old site of Byzantium was dedicated to the Christian God under the patronage of the Virgin Mother of God. (not very Arian!)

Gregory Thompson · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
I guess if you're a Protestant of the radical reformation I can understand how you could come to that perspective. Thinking that the Church went hte same way as Israel. I just think that introduces more problems than it solves. Why was God so absent from the world until your particular brand of Protestantism appeared?

I tend to see it as faith diminishing gradually as each generation passes until the question is answered "Will the son of man, when he comes, find faith on earth?"

There were glory days much like at the beginning. Mirrors to each era and key person. Now comes the captivity. It's kind of pointless to discuss what we should have done, since it is already done, and the church is on course to be the main course.

That's all, I don't see it like one group is more right than the other. We royally messed up somewhere, and only group realization and group repentance will change it. However, the way things are is like God has hardened people's hearts so things will play out a certain way.

So I just watch, wait, and pray.

However, the question was what should have been done? I gave my answer, which is probably why I wasn't born back then.

timothyu · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
Self-serving traditions of man such as what exactly?

Such as being self serving, pursuing self interest, self justification, self determination which of course leads to redefining good and evil at will to suit circumstances. You know.. the thing that got us kicked out of the garden

timothyu · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
God appeared to Constantine in a dream and said "in this sign conquer." That's why.

And how did that happen? Did God step in or did Christians refuse to fight Christians?

timothyu · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
This is worse than not replying at all. My Church has had those texts and interpreted them longer than your small existence has.

Does yours teach the gospel of the Kingdom? And I am not the only one in these threads focused on the Kingdom.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 27, 2021

timothyu said:
Such as being self serving, pursuing self interest, self justification, self determination which of course leads to redefining good and evil at will to suit circumstances. You know.. the thing that got us kicked out of the garden

These are all too vague as to be a criticism of anything. It's self-serving to have a job, therefore should Christians not have jobs? It's self-serving to seek a partner, should Christians not get married? Self-determination for a people, as opposed to what? Domination by a foreign power? I guess the Spanish were wrong to fight against their Islamic overlords in your view.

But this is criticism which could be leveled against the Apostolic Church or any Christian at any time. What specific sin was Christian Rome guilty of?

timothyu said:
And how did that happen? Did God step in or did Christians refuse to fight Christians?

Prove that there was a significant Christian presence in the Roman army. Back up your claim with some historical evidence. I'll repeat myself but you'll just ignore it. As far as I'm aware it was the practice of the Church to not encourage Christian men to join the military, insofar as fighting for Rome was to be fighting for a Pagan empire and to put yourself in a situation where attachment to the imperial cult and the cult of mars was almost essential.

timothyu said:
Does yours teach the gospel of the Kingdom? And I am not the only one in these threads focused on the Kingdom.

I don't even know what you mean by Gospel of Kingdom. It's so vague and generic as to mean nothing. It's a catchphrase with nothing of substance attached to it.

timothyu · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
These are all too vague as to be a criticism of anything.

I am surprised you don't seem to understand what sin is, especially the original sin of self over the will of God.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
As far as I'm aware it was the practice of the Church to not encourage Christian men to join the military

Still underground, remember? Jesus did not deny a Roman soldier who was good to the Jews so why would there not be gentiles in the Roman army later on who believed in the Christian church?

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
I don't even know what you mean by Gospel of Kingdom.

Exactly. Jesus' scriptures will tell you if your church won't.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 27, 2021

timothyu said:
I am surprised you don't seem to understand what sin is, especially the original sin of self over the will of God.

The Church never abandoned the idea of sin, nor have you explained why all self-interest is wrong. I presume you have a device to make this comment on. Are you not guilty of promoting your own self-interest by having such a device? Why not sell it and give the proceeds to the poor?

timothyu said:
Still underground, remember?

Still underground, you mean Christians? Then how did they serve openly in the army for Constantine to know of it and make that a political consideration? Do you just like making things up? But like I said, you just ended up ignoring what I said. No doubt if our conversation continues you'll repeat your point without any evidence to back it up.

timothyu said:
Exactly. Jesus' scriptures will tell you if your church won't.

I know what they tell me, the problem is that they don't appear to tell you anything, given how you can't even define what your beliefs are. Some amalgamation of esoteric Gnosticism and ego.

timothyu · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
given how you can't even define what your beliefs are

Will of God before the will of man. His kingdom over the governance of man. His ways, not ours. His leads to love in a perfect world, ours leads to continual destruction, aggression, and gain at the expense of others with no solution to any.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 27, 2021

timothyu said:
Will of God before the will of man. His kingdom over the governance of man. His ways, not ours. His leads to love in a perfect world, ours leads to continual destruction, aggression, and gain at the expense of others with no solution to any.

This is just pointless sloganeering that offers nothing of practical advice or historical relevance. When asked what Constantine and the Church done you can only say "Put the will of God before the will of man." Yet that that doesn't mean anything and you aren't saying what the will of God was in the situation the thread is talking about. Every time you reply with vague notions of holiness and morality but nothing concrete.

What would have been your solution to the problem Islam posed Christendom? Let me guess, "put the will of God before the will of man." Does that mean we can fight them in defense? Who knows, apparently you, but you won't say what.

These robotic responses are annoying. No doubt you'll just say in response to this; They forgot about the Gospel and when asked how they forgot about the Gospel specifically we'll repeat this entire thing with you saying they neglected the Kingdom of God in favour of the Kingdom of man. Yet you won't say what any of this means or looks like in reality.

Timothy, go be your own Prophet. Go preach your strange esoteric and meaningless religion. But don't pretend it has anything of substance to it.

Pavel Mosko · Feb 27, 2021

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
What should the Church have done instead?

The anti-Constantine stuff I have heard also over the years is absurd.

1) It is perfectly normal for people to want to live in peace. Judaism / Israel had that worked out with Rome prior to the Jewish wars, where Rome allowed their monotheism with the agreement that they were loyal and would pray to their God on behalf of the Emperor. It would be natural for Christians to want something like that, especially when they were using the Old Testament as their Bible which showed not only the theocracy and monarchy of Israel, but also Jews having the support of various foreign leaders at different times.

2) The above is especially true given that Lockean notions of "separation of Church and state" had not been invented yet. There are a number of Bible passages, especially from Jesus that give rise to that notion, but the notion that government should be purely secular and neutral when it comes to religion is just not on the horizon. And when people go all anti-Constantine they very frequently critique things from that kind of perspective, which in a lot of ways is not that different than when modernist atheists sneer at some of the archaic things in the Bible.

prodromos · Feb 27, 2021

timothyu said:
Seriously? There were Christians all over the Empire, fighting in armies of the Empire. When civil war broke out there certainly wasn't Christians only on one side. Why would Constantine command his soldiers to paint crosses on their shields otherwise? They weren't God's army but influencing Christians in the other army to either not fight their own kind but even change sides. Military strategy.

Christians made up a tiny minority of the population and would not have made up more than a tiny proportion of the armies on either side. You are simply making stuff up.

prodromos · Feb 28, 2021

timothyu said:
And how did that happen? Did God step in or did Christians refuse to fight Christians?

The Chi-Rho that Constantine had put on his standards wasn't a recognised Christian symbol at the time, so even if what you claimed was true, Christian soldiers in the opposing forces would have seen no reason not to fight. You are full of falsehood.

timothyu · Feb 28, 2021

prodromos said:
The Chi-Rho that Constantine had put on his standards wasn't a recognised Christian symbol at the time, so even if what you claimed was true, Christian soldiers in the opposing forces would have seen no reason not to fight.

Then is would have served no purpose and need not have been done. These wasn't team branding.

Philip_B · Feb 28, 2021

timothyu said:
These wasn't team branding.

Constantine's Standards were exactly Team Branding. It was the absolute branding for Team Constantine. It was the Elephant and the Donkey of the day.

timothyu · Feb 28, 2021

Philip_B said:
Constantine's Standards were exactly Team Branding.

For what purpose?

Philip_B · Feb 28, 2021

timothyu said:
For what purpose?

To promote Constantine, and the will of the Republic, to encourage loyalty, and to let people know Constantine was in total control. The use of Standards was well established, and Alexander the Great and most of the Roam Emperors had used them. Most contemporary team branding we see today is simply a rehash of this idea. The red cap with the MAGA flash is just a simple derivation of the same.

timothyu · Feb 28, 2021

Philip_B said:
To promote Constantine, and the will of the Republic, to encourage loyalty, and to let people know Constantine was in total control.

So why Christian symbolism (seemingly more representative of a sword) if most here say there was no purpose for it, in disagreement with me

prodromos · Feb 28, 2021

timothyu said:
For what purpose?

Obedience.

What should Constantine or the Church have done?

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