The Constintinian Concesus a Positive or Negative Thing?

[E.C.]

Oh, just about the untold thousands of innocents who were victimized by civil authority because they belonged to the "wrong" church. Augustine said coercion by civil authorities on behalf of the church and in the name of Christ was okay becasue the parable says, "compel them to come in". The rest is a history of smoke, blood, misery and the tears of those who did not subscribe to the "right way".

Is it any wonder that a mere 200 years after Augie Daddy penned those words and legitimized the use of force in the name of Christ, that a sword was fashioned against Christain lands the likes of which the world had never seen nor has seen since.

Jesus obliquely prophesied this when He said, "those who live by the sword will die by it". The church chose to live by it and look what it got us; the Hagia Sophia is a museum and I'm outraged!

...

Again, what are you talking about? You seem to be rambling about something that could have happened anywhere at anytime.

 

[prodromos]

Do you have anything more substantial than your hearsay for us to go by?

 

[SummaScriptura]

Do you have anything more substantial than your hearsay for us to go by?

Maybe not hearsay, but how about a little heresy? Here's a quote from everyone's hero, and underappreciated heretic, St Augustine, when he developed his doctrine of killing "heretics" for Jesus, in a letter to Donatus, "I hear that you have remarked and often quote the fact recorded in the gospels, that the seventy disciples went back from the Lord, and that they had been left to their own choice in this wicked and impious desertion, and that to the twelve who alone remained the Lord said, "Will ye also go away?" John 6:67 But you have neglected to remark, that at that time the Church was only beginning to burst into life from the recently planted seed, and that there was not yet fulfilled in her the prophecy: "All kings shall fall down before Him; yea, all nations shall serve Him;" and it is in proportion to the more enlarged accomplishment of this prophecy that the Church wields greater power, so that she may not only invite, but even compel men to embrace what is good. This our Lord intended then to illustrate, for although He had great power, He chose rather to manifest His humility. This also He taught, with sufficient plainness, in the parable of the Feast, in which the master of the house, after He had sent a message to the invited guests, and they had refused to come, said to his servants: "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as you have commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." Luke 14:21-23 Mark, now, how it was said in regard to those who came first, "bring them in;" it was not said, "compel them to come in,"—by which was signified the incipient condition of the Church, when it was only growing towards the position in which it would have strength to compel men to come in. Accordingly, because it was right that when the Church had been strengthened, both in power and in extent, men should be compelled to come in to the feast of everlasting salvation, it was afterwards added in the parable, "The servant said, Lord, it is done as you have commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servants, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in." Wherefore, if you were walking peaceably, absent from this feast of everlasting salvation and of the holy unity of the Church, we should find you, as it were, in the "highways;" but since, by multiplied injuries and cruelties, which you perpetrate on our people, you are, as it were, full of thorns and roughness, we find you as it were in the "hedges," and we compel you to come in. The sheep which is compelled is driven whither it would not wish to go, but after it has entered, it feeds of its own accord in the pastures to which it was brought. Wherefore restrain your perverse and rebellious spirit, that in the true Church of Christ you may find the feast of salvation."

Gotta love his logic.

Is it any wonder that the Lord of glory prophesied that teachings such as St. Augustine's would signal disaster for the church when he said, "who lives by the sword dies by it"? Within a short time, a Bedouin with a grudge would borrow from Augie's ideology and take the sword back to the church. Why cannot I travel to the Hagia Sophia and worship? Answer: because of St Augustine's doctrine which has ravaged the heritage of the Lord!

 

[SummaScriptura]

"Augustine was a great man of God and a great thinker" was the reply.

 

[TheLordReigns]

Tertullian wrote, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" to show persecution caused the truth to spread.

About 100 years later this guy comes along neamed Constantine. In broad outlines Constatine goes from pagan to Christian, from tolerating Christianity to recommending it.

Then Constatine gets all the church leaders together and says in effect, "disunity is bad for the empire and you should all get together, decide what's true and enforce that in all your churches".

The way this effected the church is now a matter of record.

What say you? Was this a good thing or a bad thing for the sake of the truth of the gospel?

I have mixed feelings about the whole Constantine thing. On the one hand, I do not believe the state should have any say in the things of the Church. I do not believe that emperors should be forming church policy. I believe in the independence of the Church from the state, and that bishops should be chosen by the consent of the church and consecrated by other bishops, and not by an emperor (or prime-minister). At the same time, I believe that God honours nations that honour him. Take Britain from say the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the middle of the Victorian years - the nation honoured God, and God honoured the nation. We are still reaping the effects of the philanthropy of that era, and still walking in the light of the various revivals of godliness - Livingstone, Wesley, Whitefield, Booth etc. It was an age of discovery and medical breakthrough. One could not be a member of parliament unless one had a Christian faith (at least by confession), and I believe God blessed the country because it put him first. I still believe that there is a value in having a 'cultural Christianity'. Sure, it is no substitute for being born again, but I would prefer to live under that system then an Islamic, secularist or pagan one.

 

[kepha31]

I cant post anything

 

[davidoffinland]

I have mixed feelings about the whole Constantine thing. On the one hand, I do not believe the state should have any say in the things of the Church. I do not believe that emperors should be forming church policy....

From Finland.

Times have changed....Way back in those days...there was alliegience to the Emperor. In Jesus´ time, you had to sacrifice to emperor of Rome who was lord...this is why early christians could not do it because their alliegience was to Jesus as Lord.

Study and look at the history of the times of Constantine...all he wanted was peace for the empire, but it was the bishops of the church, in the Eastern empire, who were fighting among theirselves about Jesus´ divinity and humanity. Many of the Arian bishops wanted the emperor to decide these issues. So he decided! It was a back and forth issue for centuries.

Soo....a thousand years later, the times and issues were different as the Reformation was a struggle within Western Christianity.

For now.

In Him, david.

 

[kepha31]

St. Augustine, Letter 173

I cant post the link because I am too new, but anyone can read the whole letter and see for themselves that Gojira69 is taking Augustine out of context. I challenge Gojira69 to produce one shred of reliable historical evidence to support his hateful revisionist claims.

It looks like the paranoid ramblings of hate cultists such as Pickering or Hyslop or Hunt or from a legion of other such liars.

The Edict of Milan can also be found on line, in English, which by reading it for yourself would debunk a lot of myths being propagated here.

Constantine had no eccesiastical jurisdiction, was ever a bishop, was never ordained, was not even named in the Council of Nicae, and contributed nothing council proceedings. All he did was set up a place for the council to take place, and exactly how he collaborated with the pope is irrelevant to the Council itself.

 

[prodromos]

Maybe not hearsay, but how about a little heresy? Here's a quote from everyone's hero, and underappreciated heretic, Augie Daddy, when he developed his doctrine of killing "heretics" for Jesus, in a letter to Donatus, "I hear that you have remarked and often quote the fact recorded in the gospels, that the seventy disciples went back from the Lord, and that they had been left to their own choice in this wicked and impious desertion, and that to the twelve who alone remained the Lord said, "Will ye also go away?" John 6:67 But you have neglected to remark, that at that time the Church was only beginning to burst into life from the recently planted seed, and that there was not yet fulfilled in her the prophecy: "All kings shall fall down before Him; yea, all nations shall serve Him;" and it is in proportion to the more enlarged accomplishment of this prophecy that the Church wields greater power, so that she may not only invite, but even compel men to embrace what is good. This our Lord intended then to illustrate, for although He had great power, He chose rather to manifest His humility. This also He taught, with sufficient plainness, in the parable of the Feast, in which the master of the house, after He had sent a message to the invited guests, and they had refused to come, said to his servants: "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as you have commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." Luke 14:21-23 Mark, now, how it was said in regard to those who came first, "bring them in;" it was not said, "compel them to come in,"—by which was signified the incipient condition of the Church, when it was only growing towards the position in which it would have strength to compel men to come in. Accordingly, because it was right that when the Church had been strengthened, both in power and in extent, men should be compelled to come in to the feast of everlasting salvation, it was afterwards added in the parable, "The servant said, Lord, it is done as you have commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servants, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in." Wherefore, if you were walking peaceably, absent from this feast of everlasting salvation and of the holy unity of the Church, we should find you, as it were, in the "highways;" but since, by multiplied injuries and cruelties, which you perpetrate on our people, you are, as it were, full of thorns and roughness, we find you as it were in the "hedges," and we compel you to come in. The sheep which is compelled is driven whither it would not wish to go, but after it has entered, it feeds of its own accord in the pastures to which it was brought. Wherefore restrain your perverse and rebellious spirit, that in the true Church of Christ you may find the feast of salvation."

This says nothing about killing.

Gotta love his logic, unless you're a mother watching her little kid being skewered on a pike, that is.

So have you stopped beating your wife?

 

[E.C.]

From Finland.

Times have changed....Way back in those days...there was alliegience to the Emperor. In Jesus´ time, you had to sacrifice to emperor of Rome who was lord...this is why early christians could not do it because their alliegience was to Jesus as Lord.

Study and look at the history of the times of Constantine...all he wanted was peace for the empire, but it was the bishops of the church, in the Eastern empire, who were fighting among theirselves about Jesus´ divinity and humanity. Many of the Arian bishops wanted the emperor to decide these issues. So he decided! It was a back and forth issue for centuries.

Soo....a thousand years later, the times and issues were different as the Reformation was a struggle within Western Christianity.

For now.

In Him, david.

It wasn't so much that St. Constantine said "Christ's humanity and divinity are as thus..." it was more that he said "let's sit down and talk".

 

[Rick Otto]

Were they spiritual?
I doubt it.

Interesting view of "Augie". He was certainly human, eh?