From The New Advent under the heading of "Historical Appreciation".
Constantine can rightfully claim the title of Great, for he turned the history of the world into a new course and made Christianity, which until then had suffered bloody persecution, the Religion of The State.
Yup....there it is from your own Catholic Encyclopedia. Prior to Constantine there was no state religion. He founded it and it is basically the same thing today. A super powerful State/Religious system that is not scriptural in the slightest!
Diego, thank you so much for proving you have no evidence whatsoever for your claim. Let’s look at what you posted:
“Constantine can rightfully claim the title of Great, for he turned the history of the world into a new course and made Christianity, which until then had suffered bloody persecution, the Religion of The State.”
And, of course, that is untrue. Even the editors of Catholic Encyclopedia made mistakes and this is one of them. They later corrected the mistake when they wrote: “A great part of the emperor’s activity was now spent in establishing the Catholic faith and repressing Arianism. In February, 380, he and Gratian published the famous edict that all their subjects should profess the faith of the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria (Cod. Theod., XVI, I, 2; Sozomen, VII, 4)” -— only they weren’t talking about Constantine. They were talking about the man who really did make Christianity the official religion of the empire - Theodosius the Great.
Also, you might have noticed that I asked you to prove this claim: “Nope....your friend Constantine did that....and the Church he founded...” (post 59)
Instead of providing any evidence of that at all, you posted a factually incorrect statement that Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire. I didn’t ask you to prove that. I asked you to prove he founded a church - any church at all. You utterly failed, of course, because he did no such thing.
“Yup....there it is from your own Catholic Encyclopedia. Prior to Constantine there was no state religion.”
What? Ever here of the official Roman religion? Jupiter was their greatest god. Ring a bell? It was the official religion of the Roman state government. You really have no idea of what you’re talking about.
“He founded it and it is basically the same thing today. A super powerful State/Religious system that is not scriptural in the slightest!”
Hilarious. You present no proof whatsoever. You think a mistake is the truth. You can’t even be clear that founding a church is not the same thing as a head of state declaring an official state religion. And now you think you have a clue?
Thanks so much for showing us the intellectual inability of anti-Catholicism.
ROFL!!!!
You expect us to take that howler seriously?????
Well, I'm sorry about this, but the Catholic Encyclopedia is just plain wrong in saying that. In fact, that's a really impressive blooper.
In fact, Catholic Christianity was made the state religion of Rome under Theodosius the Great, almost 50 years after Constantine's death. Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia says about that episode:
In February, 380, [Emperor Theodosius] and Gratian published the famous edict that all their subjects should profess the faith of the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria (Cod. Theod., XVI, I, 2; Sozomen, VII, 4).
That was the event that made Catholicism the state religion of Rome.
Constantine was de jure a pagan (albeit a Christian sympathizer) until he was baptized on his deathbed, so not only did he not make Christianity the state religion, he didn't even officially profess that "state religion".
Prior to Constantine there was no state religion.
You're kidding, right? I mean, you don't actually believe that ... do you? Why do you think the Christians were executed under Domitian and others? What did they refuse to do?
I'll give you the answer: they refused to renounce Christ, and they refused to honor the Emperor as a god in pagan ceremonies by burning incense to him.
The state religion of Rome under Constantine, and before him, and for a short time afterwards, was Roman paganism. In Imperial Rome, that typically included the worship of the Emperor. Not everyone was required to profess it in practice, but if the state chose to demand it, they could and did impose the death penalty for refusing to do so.
You really need to learn some actual, factual, real history of those years, from real historians and historical sources, not sectarian ministers who invent history out of whole cloth to support their theological prejudices.