Posted on 05/25/2013 4:22:36 AM PDT by NYer
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “beating a dead horse.” It refers to something that has been said or done so many times that it has outlived its usefulness. This is especially true of arguments that are not only old but also untrue.
Like the proverbial horse, the Roman emperor Constantine has been beaten to death by anti-Catholics.
I make it a point to check all of the comments posted on our YouTube and Facebook pages at least twice a day. As sure as fish live in water, I have come to expect at least one message a day from a Christian Fundamentalist about how the Catholic Church was founded by Emperor Constantine sometime in the fourth century.
It’s almost unfathomable to me that in this day and age Fundamentalists still have not learned to verify the validity of their anti-Catholic arguments. But then again, with so many websites making claims like “Constantine founded the Catholic Church” living on in cyberspace, it’s no wonder some folks still cling to what blogger Mark Shea refers to as “pseudo knowledge.”
It would be nice if this falsity were confined to Fundamentalist circles, but sadly it is not. As atheist podcast host and blogger David Smalley explains on his website:
The Bible was 'canonized' around 325 C.E. (about 275+ years after Jesus' death) with Constantine in charge. . . . At the time Constantine was overseeing the canonization or 'building' of the Bible, if he didn't agree with the text, it was thrown out. There are tons of 'scriptures' that did not make it in. A quick research on the Council of Nicaea will prove this.
There’s no doubt that Constantine was favorable to Christianity. Still, many people mistakenly believe that he not only favored it but that he made it the state religion. He did not. He signed the Edict of Milan, which made it legal to practice Christianity and ordered that the Christians’ confiscated property be returned to them.
Another mistaken notion is that Constantine exercised complete control over the First Council of Nicaea in 325. The primary reason for the council was due to the growing Arian heresy. Jimmy Akin summarizes Arianism this way:
[Arianism was] founded by Arius, a priest of Alexandria, Egypt, in the early 300s. Arius held that originally the Son of God did not exist. There was a time in which there was a single divine Person who became the Father when he created the Son out of nothing. The Son was the first of all created beings and thus separate from the Father in beginning. The heresy was condemned at the first ecumenical council—Nicaea I in 325—but the controversy intensified and lasted much longer (The Fathers Know Best, p. 85).
Constantine did not fully understand why Arianism was so controversial, and he even endorsed many of Arius’s ideas. Historian Dr. James Hitchcock explains:
[W]hen Constantine also endorsed Arius’s ideas, there was an uproar that led the emperor in 325 to call the Council of Nicaea (Asia Minor) to settle the issue. After an intense struggle, the Council condemned Arius, declaring the Son to be “consubstantial” with the Father, that is, sharing the same substance (History of the Catholic Church, p. 83).
If Constantine held as much sway over the Council as many claim, then it is a peculiar thing that the Christology he favored was the big loser.
The next anti-Catholic claim is summarized in Mr. Smalley’s quote above: It is the idea that Constantine decided which books belonged in the Bible and that the ones he did not favor were left out.
The Council Fathers discussed many things besides Arianism, including the proper dating of Easter, the validity of baptisms administered by heretics, and more. One issue they did not discuss, however, is which books belonged in the Bible. They drafted a list of canons (ecclesiastical laws) that you can read for yourself here.
Mr. Smalley’s assertion that “quick research on the Council of Nicaea” will prove his claim in fact proves otherwise; unless, of course, you are getting your information from anti-Catholic websites that don’t provide any primary sources to back them up.
Finally, there is the claim that Constantine introduced pagan elements into what was “pure” Christianity up to that point. Many Fundamentalists will claim that doctrines like transubstantiation, the communion of saints, or the sacrifice of the Mass were pagan ideas. But all of these teachings and more can be traced back to the time of the Apostles through the writings of the early Christians.
To counter this claim, I highly recommend Jimmy Akin’s book, The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Christians, available from Catholic Answers. I also recommend getting a copy of the May-June 2013 issue of Catholic Answers Magazine, in which I tackle several of the supposed pagan parallels to Catholic practices.
Ping!
Thanks
If he did that here at FR he'd find the same kind of nonsense.
Yes, it’s a stark contrast with all the informed, charitable FR Catholic commentary regarding Protestant belief, isn’t it, lol?
Great Post. Thanks.
What went on in those early "services?" What was the "ritual?" In Rome? In Jerusalem, or Ephesus? What did the learned, official leaders of the Jews of the time think ... or write ... about Jesus? (although some of these commentaries definitely exist, they don't seem to be much studied. Top Secret?)
In regard to Constantine, he appeared as baffled by these questions as I am. However, once the Council made up its mind, he followed their direction. IMNVHO, it is also a bit naïve to ignore that Constantine's conversion and influence had a lot to do with eventually making Christianity as practiced and defined in Rome and Constantinople the "state religion."
The point being that no one is damned for not knowing the answers to these questions .... or asking them. The Bible is, IMO, of little specific help in answering them ... so tradition must count, too.
How? How much? Whose?
It's curious, but the truth is exactly opposite: Constantine is a whip used to beat the Catholic church.
As Roman Emperors go, Constantine was well above average in every category, and nobody much objects to him as an Emperor (well, yes, there is that matter of some family murders, but then what emperor didn't kill off some of those closest to him? </sarc>).
But Constantine did something no other Emperor did: he not only legalized Christianity, but he outlawed Christian heresies (through the Nicene Council), and he began to overturn the old Roman pagan religions.
Constantine called the Nicene Council, paid the bishops' travel & lodging expenses, provided them his great hall, spoke at the council and "exhorted the Bishops to unanimity and concord".
Constantine then enforced the Council's decisions.
In short, Constantine took the first giant steps toward making Christianity the Empire's state religion, and toward making Christian heresies illegal.
And that is the tradition carried forward over a thousand years which confronted Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers.
In Constantine, the Church had made a pact with the devil, and in doing so became something of a devil itself.
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I’ve been told that I’d answer to the Pope for my sins at the Pearly Gates.
I’ve also been told numerous times that the Apostle Paul was a nut.
Which is the more serious error, dismissing the Apostle to the gentiles and believing someone other than God would judge me for my sins, or going overboard in dismissing a religious holiday that we as Christians are not commanded to observe?
I do observe Easter, by the way, just to nip that in the bud before any quaint cartoons get lobbed my way.
“I’ve been told that I’d answer to the Pope for my sins at the Pearly Gates.”
Right. Where was that?
Here. If you’d care to dredge back through several years worth of my replies to get to it you’re welcome to do so. It’s an accurate statement.
There were some amazingly ignorant statements made by rad-trads early on in the invasion of the FR Religion forum. Still are, just not quite so blunt and not quite so obviously, hilariously wrong.
I think Pope Francis’s comments on the recent daily Gospels: ... “What is that to you? You, follow Me.” ... are relevant here.
Constantine was not beaten to death by anti-Catholics. He died of an illness by all reputable references. This is just another spurious charge laid to the anti-Catholics.
The sort of folks who get exercised about Constantine’s role in the Council of Nicaea are remarkably impervious to rational argument, but when confronted by them, you Latins might want to ask them sweetly, why if he founded your church, only the Orthodox venerate Constantine as a saint. (We even give him and his mother St. Helena the title Isapostoloi, Englished as Equals-to-the-Apostles. Someone gave our little mission a huge icon of Sts. Constantine and Helen, which is now in our office because it wouldn’t work anywhere in our chapel, being slightly bigger than the icons on our iconostasis.)
The reality is that CA and Catholic Answers Forums has a persecution complex, seeing all "anti-Catholics" in every closet, that being one of its most frequent charges, while its forum is extremely touchy and regularly censures or banns people for slight offenses. I think they miss the powers of the inquisition and this is as close as they can get.
In short, Constantine took the first giant steps toward making Christianity the Empire's state religion, and toward making Christian heresies illegal.
Under Constantine, The so-called "Edict" of Milan of February 313 expressly granted religious liberty to Christians, who had been the object of special persecution, but also grants liberty to all religions:
When you see that this has been granted to [Christians] by us, your Worship will know that we have also conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases; this regulation is made that we may not seem to detract from any dignity of any religion." —"Edict of Milan", Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors (De Mortibus Persecutorum), ch. 48. opera, ed. 0. F. Fritzsche, II, p 288 sq. (Bibl Patr. Ecc. Lat. XI).[8]
But while Constantine tolerated paganism and other religions, he actively promoted Christianity. He called the Council of Nicaea in an attempt to establish an empire-wide orthodoxy and end the controversy with Arianism.
This referenced WP article states,
Constantine took over the role of the patron for the Christian faith. He supported the Church financially, had an extraordinary number of basilicas built, granted privileges (e.g. exemption from certain taxes) to clergy, promoted Christians to high-ranking offices, returned property confiscated during the Great Persecution of Diocletian,[15] and endowed the church with land and other wealth.[16] Between 324 and 330, Constantine built a new imperial capital at Byzantium on the Bosphorus, which would be named Constantinople for him. Unlike "old" Rome, the city employed overtly Christian architecture and contained churches within the city walls and had no pre-existing temples from other religions.[17]
In doing this, however, Constantine required those who had not converted to Christianity pay for the new city.[16] Christian chroniclers tell that it appeared necessary to Constantine "to teach his subjects to give up their rites (...) and to accustom them to despise their temples and the images contained therein,"[18] This led to the closure of temples because of a lack of support, their wealth flowing to the imperial treasure;[19] Constantine did not need to use force to implement this.[16] Only the chronicler Theophanes has added that temples "were annihilated", but this was considered "not true" by contemporary historians.[20]
It was the The Edict of Thessalonica jointly issued by Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II on 27 February 380 that made the catholic church the state church.
After the edict, Theodosius spent a great deal of energy suppressing all non-Nicene forms of Christianity, especially Arianism, and in establishing Nicene orthodoxy throughout his realm.[4].
In 383, the Emperor ordered the various non-Nicene sects (Arians, Anomoeans, Macedonians, and Novatians) to submit written creeds to him, which he prayerfully reviewed and then burned, save for that of the Novatians. The other sects lost the right to meet, ordain priests, or spread their beliefs.[6] Theodosius prohibited the residence of heretics within Constantinople, and in 392 and 394 confiscated their places of worship.[7]
Today we have the IRS in a much smaller degree being ideologically oppressive.
Like the proverbial horse, the Roman emperor Constantine has been beaten to death by anti-Catholics.
I have noticed that an obsession with Constantine (and the Nicene Council) serves as a red flag to look for other oddities. If they spontaneously launch into a tirade about either, definately.
There are many outside the tender clutches of Rome who aren't obsessed with Constantine.
Good article about the true foundations of the church. (And all the falsehoods that are spit out all the time here on FR about Constantine.)
In 50 AD or thereabouts, the Romans believed that Christianity was a sect of Judaism. In fact, for a long while official Rome tended to hold the Jews responsible for any “problems” perceived to be caused by Christians!
The early Christians were called Jews.
With out going into detail it is pretty obvious that the gentiles thought that since they were adopted children they would be expected to keep the same law as the Jews.
That is why Paul had some problem making them understand that they were not saved by the law.
At any rate it is a fact that Christianity was brought to us by Jesus who was a Jew and by the apostles who were also Jews and all of the teachings were also based on the laws of God which were handed down through the Jews.
So how the Jews got put out i have no idea.
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