What should Constantine or the Church have done?

[timothyu]

No, that is not a fact.

Even if I had said replaced you would no doubt have disagreed. Removal of one and the insertion of a new one was common. Even atheists would complain today if they didn't get the Christmas stat holiday off.

 

[prodromos]

Even if I had said replaced you would no doubt have disagreed

No doubt. I always find falsehood disagreeable.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think there were two ways in which things should have been different:

1) Our unity is in Christ, not theological opinion. They should have assured Constantine that both Arians and non-Arians share in this, and that because Christians love and forgive each other, there would be no animosity to threaten the unity of the State. Of course to say this to Constantine it would have to be true. It wasn’t.

That’s what Eusebius of Caesarea said at Nicea; there is an elephant in the room however, that being that Arianism by denying the true divinity of Christ and making Him a creature suffers the same problem as Gnosticism, which is also not Christian because it denies His humanity. So Eusebius of Caesarea was mistaken.

Another unrelated Eusebius, that being Eusebius of Nicomedia did also conspire to sell the Arian religion to Constantine, whom he he baptized, and his heir Constantius, who did begin a bloody persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire that was still happening in isolated places such as Milan in the 380s.

Arianism, not Christianity, was the state religion of the Eastern Roman Empire and at times the West during the fourth century.

2) It was fine to get together to talk about the issue, and to come up with a confession that represents a consensus. But the goal should not be to condemn others.

Arius preached a false Gospel, and the Church did exactly what the Apostle Paul said to do. Anathemas are often thought of as curses, but if we look at the Aramaic meaning of Anathema Maranatha, it means “lifted up to God,” and the term historically was applied to objects consecrated for service in the Jewish Temple.

In other words, if someone is so wrong as to be anathema, the church isn’t saying “we condemn you to perdition”; it is not what the Excommunication scene from Becket, brilliantly acted by Richard Burton, implies, even if the Roman Catholics later adapted a liturgy that looked something like that. (the only part of the scene I know is factual was tossing candles on the floor while chanting “fiat!” three times, but this was the medieval Roman church, which did have some problems it was working through).

Rather, the correct interpretation of Paul, I think, is that the Church is delivering the person from the care of the Church to the care and the judgement of God directly, outside of the mystical body of the church and her sacramental graces, pending their repentance from an error which is deemed intolerable.

Far too many Christian writings show an attitude that suggests using theological differences as a tool in struggles for control within the Church.

If we were talking about Chalcedon and even Nestorius, who was in error I believe, I would agree with you, but in the context of the fourth century Church there was no such abuse. It wasn’t until the fifth century that we see the intermingling of political and ecclesiastical intrigue. Or at least that’s what I think, based on my knowledge of the early church in the fourth and fifth centuries, which is perhaps completely wrong because I was not there. Ah but to have been in Constantinople to hear the preaching of John Chrysostom!

But next on my reading list is a book on Ecumenical Relations and Church Politics by Pope Benedict XVI, who I do admire despite not being Roman Catholic. So it will be interesting to see if he has anything to say on the matter.

While I have no problem with the Nicene Creed itself, I object to the whole context in which is was developed and implemented. For that reason I would not want to consider it to have any authority. (Calvin seems to have agreed with this, by the way, though his reasons might have been slightly different.)

What is your source regarding Calvin just out of curiosity, if you can remember? If you can’t, no worries, because I can’t remember where all I have read half of what I just wrote, only that I took the precaution of putting it in my library. But my library is turning into a monster like that from Borges! It is only a matter of time before books with random characters start popping up on my sagging shelves.

 

[The Liturgist]

The church should not have been made the Supreme law of the land giving it's leaders diplomatic immunity because that is where the abuse begins. No one anywhere should be given diplomatic immunity to be held above the law if they are a human being. The laws are of God, all start with God, and since there is no one above Him, no one should be immune to the laws. Now we have all this sexual abuse of children in the Vatican. Can no one be held accountable? What should have been done is what was done in America. Freedom of religion. No one has the right to tell another person who they have to worship. For example, I am completely against satanism. I loathe the idea of it however I would stand neck and neck with satanists for them to have the right to worship who they want because that is their right. Do I agree with it? No! Absolutely not but I stand for the RIGHT to worship who we want individually because once that is taken, we are no longer a free society. Does that make sense? I hope no one gets the wrong idea the way I worded that.

So interestingly Constantine had the almost the same idea as you. He simply made Christianity legal and adopted it as his own faith. It was actually Emperor Theodosius I who made Christianity the state religion, made Paganism illegal, destroyed the Altar of Victory in the hall of the Roman Senate (an ancient altar to the goddess Victory), and also began oppressing polytheists in Egypt and elsewhere, and that was fifty years or so after Constantine died.

 

[hedrick]

That’s what Eusebius of Caesarea said at Nicea; there is an elephant in the room however, that being that Arianism by denying the true divinity of Christ and making Him a creature suffers the same problem as Gnosticism, which is also not Christian because it denies His humanity. So Eusebius of Caesarea was mistaken.

Another unrelated Eusebius, that being Eusebius of Nicomedia did also conspire to sell the Arian religion to Constantine, whom he he baptized, and his heir Constantius, who did begin a bloody persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire that was still happening in isolated places such as Milan in the 380s.

Arianism, not Christianity, was the state religion of the Eastern Roman Empire and at times the West during the fourth century.



Arius preached a false Gospel, and the Church did exactly what the Apostle Paul said to do. Anathemas are often thought of as curses, but if we look at the Aramaic meaning of Anathema Maranatha, it means “lifted up to God,” and the term historically was applied to objects consecrated for service in the Jewish Temple.

In other words, if someone is so wrong as to be anathema, the church isn’t saying “we condemn you to perdition”; it is not what the Excommunication scene from Becket, brilliantly acted by Richard Burton, implies, even if the Roman Catholics later adapted a liturgy that looked something like that. (the only part of the scene I know is factual was tossing candles on the floor while chanting “fiat!” three times, but this was the medieval Roman church, which did have some problems it was working through).

Rather, the correct interpretation of Paul, I think, is that the Church is delivering the person from the care of the Church to the care and the judgement of God directly, outside of the mystical body of the church and her sacramental graces, pending their repentance from an error which is deemed intolerable.



If we were talking about Chalcedon and even Nestorius, who was in error I believe, I would agree with you, but in the context of the fourth century Church there was no such abuse. It wasn’t until the fifth century that we see the intermingling of political and ecclesiastical intrigue. Or at least that’s what I think, based on my knowledge of the early church in the fourth and fifth centuries, which is perhaps completely wrong because I was not there. Ah but to have been in Constantinople to hear the preaching of John Chrysostom!

But next on my reading list is a book on Ecumenical Relations and Church Politics by Pope Benedict XVI, who I do admire despite not being Roman Catholic. So it will be interesting to see if he has anything to say on the matter.



What is your source regarding Calvin just out of curiosity, if you can remember? If you can’t, no worries, because I can’t remember where all I have read half of what I just wrote, only that I took the precaution of putting it in my library. But my library is turning into a monster like that from Borges! It is only a matter of time before books with random characters start popping up on my sagging shelves.

See the quote from Warfield near the end. Questions on Creeds
This isn’t my original source , but it’s the most authoritative I could come up with quickly. His refusal to subscribe is fairly well known. As far as I know, he didn't disagree with anything in the Nicene Creed, though that is debated. He did object to being forced to agree to specific non-Scriptural ways of expressing the faith.

He would surely reject churches that demand subscription to Westminster. Note that there are continuing arguments over just how far Calvin went in his rejection. The quote from Warfield that I point to minimizes his disagreement with Nicea.

 

[Thomas White]

But Paganism is alive in that its traditions can be found in most all of our major holidays, and Baal basically became Allah, so his worship lives on in Islam.

Allah is another name for Jehovah.

 

[Neogaia777]

Allah is another name for Jehovah.

Not exactly, Jehovah, or YHWH, is the specific name of God, or that specific class of beings when not standing alone all by itself, etc, and the other just means the generic term "God" in that language, etc...

Allah is not God's name, but only means just simply "God" in their language, etc, and because Muslims do not believe in a Trinity, they believe themselves to be referring to what they think is the "only true God", or God in and of the OT, etc, but that God has a specific name, etc, and that name is the four consonants YHWH/YHVH in our English language, etc, (they are still not sure which of those two it actually is due to how it (that name) is "sounded out" or pronounced, etc), but the word "Allah" has absolutely no resemblance of those four consonants sounds, etc, so is not God's name, etc, but is just simply "God", in their language, etc...

And like I said, they do not in any way believe in any kind of "Trinity", etc, so they think they are referring to the true God, or the number one always and forever highest God, etc, and think they are referring to God in and of the OT, etc, but I do not think they truly are, etc......

They follow Muhammad's teachings more than they do anything else, even the Bible, etc, and believe Muhammad's God/god to be the true God/god in reality, etc, and not really God in and of the OT, not really anyway...

And this is just my own personal opinion, but Muhammad had some strange ways and teachings, and many of them were very very "dark", etc, and I just don't believe his heart was pure enough to even know of the real true God truly or really, etc...

He was supposedly going off what he knew of the God in the first five books of the Bible, or the first five books of Moses, etc, but I really don't think he (Muhammad) truly knew Him/Them, etc...

Muhammad's life also I don't think reflects any of either the God/god, or gods, or True God very well either, etc...

He had "other ambitions" and "reasons" for creating the writings and books and philosophies that he did, during the day and time that he did, and for the situation he was in, etc, and in my opinion, hardly any of them were really very "pure" hardly at all either, in my opinion, etc...

I don't think Muhammad knew Him (God), or Them (any of the Three) in any way shape or form whatsoever, etc, and was "not even close to it", etc, or was very, very off, and very, very far away, from truly knowing not only the True God, but "any of them" really, any God/gods at all really, etc...

I think he created a god of his own making, etc, one very, very much just like himself, etc, and I think it's very very sad that he got all these people following him as if he were a God/god himself also, etc...

Cause I am fully convinced that he didn't know the True God, let alone any of the Three, etc, or even any of the Angels really at all either even, as I don't think he really knew "any of any of them", etc, or truly anything at all about that "class of beings" and their lives/existence, etc, and like I said, I think it's very, very sad, that his books, ways, philosophies, etc, all got turned into a "religion", etc, and that there are so very very many that follow him, and it is "him", etc, so very very blindly, etc...

Anyway...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

Allah is another name for Jehovah.

Not exactly, Jehovah, or YHWH, is the specific name of God, or that specific class of beings when not standing alone all by itself, etc, and the other just means the generic term "God" in that language, etc...

Allah is not God's name, but only means just simply "God" in their language, etc, and because Muslims do not believe in a Trinity, they believe themselves to be referring to what they think is the "only true God", or God in and of the OT, etc, but that God has a specific name, etc, and that name is the four consonants YHWH/YHVH in our English language, etc, (they are still not sure which of those two it actually is due to how it (that name) is "sounded out" or pronounced, etc), but the word "Allah" has absolutely no resemblance of those four consonants sounds, etc, so is not God's name, etc, but is just simply "God", in their language, etc...

And like I said, they do not in any way believe in any kind of "Trinity", etc, so they think they are referring to the true God, or the number one always and forever highest God, etc, and think they are referring to God in and of the OT, etc, but I do not think they truly are, etc......

They follow Muhammad's teachings more than they do anything else, even the Bible, etc, and believe Muhammad's God/god to be the true God/god in reality, etc, and not really God in and of the OT, not really anyway...

And this is just my own personal opinion, but Muhammad had some strange ways and teachings, and many of them were very very "dark", etc, and I just don't believe his heart was pure enough to even know of the real true God truly or really, etc...

He was supposedly going off what he knew of the God in the first five books of the Bible, or the first five books of Moses, etc, but I really don't think he (Muhammad) truly knew Him/Them, etc...

Muhammad's life also I don't think reflects any of either the God/god, or gods, or True God very well either, etc...

He had "other ambitions" and "reasons" for creating the writings and books and philosophies that he did, during the day and time that he did, and for the situation he was in, etc, and in my opinion, hardly any of them were really very "pure" hardly at all either, in my opinion, etc...

I don't think Muhammad knew Him (God), or Them (any of the Three) in any way shape or form whatsoever, etc, and was "not even close to it", etc, or was very, very off, and very, very far away, from truly knowing not only the True God, but "any of them" really, any God/gods at all really, etc...

I think he created a god of his own making, etc, one very, very much just like himself, etc, and I think it's very very sad that he got all these people following him as if he were a God/god himself also, etc...

Cause I am fully convinced that he didn't know the True God, let alone any of the Three, etc, or even any of the Angels really at all either even, as I don't think he really knew "any of any of them", etc, or truly anything at all about that "class of beings" and their lives/existence, etc, and like I said, I think it's very, very sad, that his books, ways, philosophies, etc, all got turned into a "religion", etc, and that there are so very very many that follow him, and it is "him", etc, so very very blindly, etc...

Anyway...

God Bless!

Your trying to reproduce the "sound" when you are trying to call of the specific name of God, etc, and for this reason the word "Jehovah" is not even entirely accurate either, but it is a lot closer than "Allah", etc, which as I already said just means "God", etc...

Eli, or El, or Elohim, in Hebrew means the word "God", in their language, etc, Elohim is mainly used all of the time, in the Bible, etc, because it was plural, etc, which leads further credence to the theory/fact that there was either a multiplicity of them, or at the very least, a Trinity of them, etc...

YHWH or YHVH is the most accurate in our language when trying to reproduce the sound of God's specific name, etc, but even to this day, there is still a lot of debate on the actual pronunciation, etc, cause in Hebrew there were no vowels, etc...

It is still fine to just say the word "God" when calling on God, etc, as long as you actually know just who it is exactly you are calling on, etc, and it's not some false god, or any of kind of god of any kind of man's own making, etc, which is where I think Muslims are erring with Muhammad, etc...

There are also many other mysteries to God's actual personal name though, like how those four letters, in Hebrew, were also the four different cardinal directions, etc, left, right, up, or down, or north, south, east, and west, etc...

And you'd probably have to actually talk to an actual Hebrew scholar about the rest, as I'm certainly not one, etc, but have just done a little bit of English layman's research into the divine name, etc...

God Bless!

 

[The Liturgist]

Your trying to reproduce the "sound" when you are trying to call of the specific name of God, etc, and for this reason the word "Jehovah" is not even entirely accurate either, but it is a lot closer than "Allah", etc, which as I already said just means "God", etc...

Eli, or El, or Elohim, in Hebrew means the word "God", in their language, etc, Elohim is mainly used all of the time, in the Bible, etc, because it was plural, etc, which leads further credence to the theory/fact that there was either a multiplicity of them, or at the very least, a Trinity of them, etc...

YHWH or YHVH is the most accurate in our language when trying to reproduce the sound of God's specific name, etc, but even to this day, there is still a lot of debate on the actual pronunciation, etc, cause in Hebrew there were no vowels, etc...

It is still fine to just say the word "God" when calling on God, etc, as long as you actually know just who it is exactly you are calling on, etc, and it's not some false god, or any of kind of god of any kind of man's own making, etc, which is where I think Muslims are erring with Muhammad, etc...

There are also many other mysteries to God's actual personal name though, like how those four letters, in Hebrew, were also the four different cardinal directions, etc, left, right, up, or down, or north, south, east, and west, etc...

And you'd probably have to actually talk to an actual Hebrew scholar about the rest, as I'm certainly not one, etc, but have just done a little bit of English layman's research into the divine name, etc...

God Bless!

El and Allah are basically the same Semitic triconsonantal stem. Compare the Syriac or Aramaic Alaha.

 

[Neogaia777]

El and Allah are basically the same Semitic triconsonantal stem. Compare the Syriac or Aramaic Alaha.

El just means God in the singular, but is not God's specific name, etc, which is more of what I was trying to get at with him, etc, cause he was saying that Jehovah and Allah were the same, etc, and they just are not, etc, one is (an attempt at pronouncing/sounding out) God's name, and the other is only His title, etc, one is generic, while the other is very specific, etc...

God Bless!

 

[The Liturgist]

El just means God in the singular, but is not God's specific name, etc, which is more of what I was trying to get at with him, etc, cause he was saying that Jehovah and Allah were the same, etc, and they just are not, etc, one is (an attempt at pronouncing/sounding out) God's name, and the other is only His title, etc, one is generic, while the other is very specific, etc...

God Bless!

Indeed you were correct. Allah is derived from the same Semitic three consonant stem, via Aramaic, so you get the vowel shift from E to A that occurs when going from Hebrew to Aramaic (compare Ben and Bar, both mean “son”, the former is Hebrew, the latter is Aramaic).

 

[Neogaia777]

El just means God in the singular, but is not God's specific name, etc, which is more of what I was trying to get at with him, etc, cause he was saying that Jehovah and Allah were the same, etc, and they just are not, etc, one is (an attempt at pronouncing/sounding out) God's name, and the other is only His title, etc, one is generic, while the other is very specific, etc...

God Bless!

But "God" is whomever one thinks He is in his own mind most of the time, etc, and Muslims mainly follow Muhammad's idea of who God was/is basically, etc, and I just don't think it's anything close to who the True God really is, etc, for very, very many reasons surrounding the person of Muhammad, etc...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

Now I'm not saying Muslims are "bad" or anything like that, as I'm not that type, etc, just that they are just maybe just a little bit deceived maybe, etc...

But then again, how is that much any different from a lot of other people, or most anybody else, etc, no matter where they are from, or their nationality, or religion, or whatever else, etc, etc, etc...?

This is why I just made the comment about "most peoples "God/god" is whomever one thinks He is in his own mind most of the time", etc...

None of us, no matter what our "whatever" is, etc, should get our primary ideas about God primarily from man, or a just a specific one man only, or just only man only, etc...

And most definitely not make the mistake of deifying that man (if it's a specific man) like a god/God, etc...

Anyway,

God Bless!

 

[Jaxxi]

Allah is another name for Jehovah.

No it is not. "Allah" is no where in the Bible as a name of God.
Allah Is None Other Than Baal of the Old Testament!

 

[Jaxxi]

Indeed you were correct. Allah is derived from the same Semitic three consonant stem, via Aramaic, so you get the vowel shift from E to A that occurs when going from Hebrew to Aramaic (compare Ben and Bar, both mean “son”, the former is Hebrew, the latter is Aramaic).

What do you think of this?
Allah Is None Other Than Baal of the Old Testament!

 

[Thomas White]

No it is not. "Allah" is no where in the Bible as a name of God.
Allah Is None Other Than Baal of the Old Testament!

Neither is Dieu, Geova, Yesu, Alaha, Elaha, nor Vater; yet, I doubt you would say people should not use these words to refer to God. Why, then, should Allah not be used?

 

[Taodeching]

No it is not. "Allah" is no where in the Bible as a name of God.
Allah Is None Other Than Baal of the Old Testament!

The Bible is not just written in American English

 

[timothyu]

The Bible is not just written in American English

WHAT !?

 

[Jaxxi]

Neither is Dieu, Geova, Yesu, Alaha, Elaha, nor Vater; yet, I doubt you would say people should not use these words to refer to God. Why, then, should Allah not be used?

Why wouldn't I say that? Those are not names for God ,well none that I have heard.
I don't personally think any of us are worthy of uttering the actual name of God. I mean we say Jesus Christ, and He is our Lord, but Jesus spoke of being sent by The Father, and I do not feel that the Father's name should be spoken by humans. It is totally disrespectful. By never saying it, we keep the commandment of never using it in vain.
And did you say Vater?

 

[Philip_B]

What do you think of this?
Allah Is None Other Than Baal of the Old Testament!

I don't want to derail you, however 'el' and 'Allah' do have strong linguistic connections. The Islamic understanding of Allah, to which I think you refer, has its origins in the early 7th century of the Common Era. Allah is in fact realistically simply the Arabic word for God. As Constantine was a good 300 years before Mohammad, I am not sure why this on target for this thread.

No it is not. "Allah" is no where in the Bible as a name of God.
Allah Is None Other Than Baal of the Old Testament!

If you were to look at an Arabic translation of the Biblical Canon, I imagine you would be surprised how many time Allah appears in the text.