Not this again?
Ping!
Thanks
If he did that here at FR he'd find the same kind of nonsense.
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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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.)
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.)
Poor Constantine. Without him who would the practicioners of a deviant forms of Christianity have to blame for all the things that “they” say are Pagan in the church, that is, till “their” personal “prophet” got it “right”.
I have no problem with Constantine. The Eastern Empire lasted 1000 years longer than the Western Empire.
I always like to remember that it was Constantine who authorized the production of 50 huge bibles, written in Greek, for the churches, a few which are still around today.
You would almost think the Emperor Constantine a historical non-event around here. The sort of thing one might expect on a Roman Catholic website...which is apparently what FR is, just look at the threads. Pope this, and Pope that.
Truth is:
Under Constantine, Christianity was virtually made the state religion of the Roman Empire. the spirit of the Roman Empire entered Christianity: Christianity in the garb of the Roman Empire.
The church was founded, not as an institution of authority to force the name of Christ upon the world, but only as a witness-bearing institution to Christ. Constantine was the historical benchmark that changed all that.
The Church, founded in the days of the Roman Empire, gradually developed a form of government like the political world in which it existed, becoming a vast autocratic organization ruled from the top.
The Roman Catholic Church is not the church, but a political machine that took over the church.
Constantine and Licinius (the emperor of the East) met in Milan in Feb. 313 and agreed on religious toleration. Later, Licinius issued an edict of toleration (June 313) in Nicomedia.
Constantine was already not only tolerating Christianity in his half of the empire but actively favoring it. But he was also trying to compel the Donatists to submit to the Catholics in North Africa (that was a schism over who was the rightful bishop of Carthage rather than a question of heresy, at least at the outset).
I wouldn’t necessarily blame Constantine for the RCC. In fact, even by the time of Pope Gregory the first, the idea of the supremacy of Rome had yet to take hold. According to the Catechism, the Roman Bishop is:
882 ... the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.”402 “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”403
883 “The college or body of bishops has no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head.” As such, this college has “supreme and full authority over the universal Church; but this power cannot be exercised without the agreement of the Roman Pontiff.”404
It was this same idea of universal power of a ‘general Father” that Gregory condemned in the then Bishop of Constantinople, who had taken the title Universal Bishop.
“What then, dearest brother, will you say in that terrible scrutiny of the coming judgment, if you covet to be called in the world not only father, but even general father? Let, then, the bad suggestion of evil men be guarded against; let all instigation to offense be fled from. It must needs be (indeed) that offenses come; nevertheless, woe to that man by whom the offense comes Matthew 18:7. Lo, by reason of this execrable title of pride the Church is rent asunder, the hearts of all the brethren are provoked to offense. What! Has it escaped your memory how the Truth says, Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a mill stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea (Ib. 5:6)? But it is written, Charity seeks not her own 1 Corinthians 13:4. Lo, your Fraternity arrogates to itself even what is not its own. Again it is written, In honour preferring one another Romans 12:10. And you attempt to take the honour away from all which you desire unlawfully to usurp to yourself singularly. Where, dearest brother, is that which is written, Have peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord Hebrews 12:14? Where is that which is written, Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God Matthew 5:9?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360205018.htm
Some Catholics can read this letter and say that Gregory only condemned the title, but not the power they claim he still possessed. However, there are other instances where Gregory could have embraced his role as “universal” Bishop of the entire church. While at this time the idea of the “Primacy of Peter” was in vogue, yet this same primacy was not translated to a supremacy over the entire church. And, in fact, there wasn’t just one person who held the “throne” of Peter; it was held by one Apostolic see ruled by divine authority by THREE separate Bishops, which is that of Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. Here is the letter in full, but first I am going to quote the RCC abuse of it:
The link first
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360207040.htm
Now here are the Roman quotations of this letter, wherein they assert that Gregory is a champion of the Primacy of Rome. Take special note of the clever use of ellipses:
Pope Gregory I
“Your most sweet holiness, [Bishop Eulogius of Alexandria], has spoken much in your letter to me about the chair of Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, saying that he himself now sits on it in the persons of his successors. And indeed I acknowledge myself to be unworthy . . . I gladly accepted all that has been said, in that he has spoken to me about Peter’s chair, who occupies Peter’s chair. And, though special honor to myself in no wise delights me . . . who can be ignorant that holy Church has been made firm in the solidity of the prince of the apostles, who derived his name from the firmness of his mind, so as to be called Peter from petra. And to him it is said by the voice of the Truth, ‘To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven’ [Matt. 16:19]. And again it is said to him, ‘And when you are converted, strengthen your brethren’ [Luke 22:32]. And once more, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep’ [John 21:17]” (Letters 40 [A.D. 597]).
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-authority-of-the-pope-part-ii
“Who does not know that the holy Church is founded on the solidity of the Chief Apostle, whose name expressed his firmness, being called Peter from Petra (Rock)?...Though there were many Apostles, only the See of the Prince of the Apostles...received supreme authority in virtue of its very principate.” (Letter to the Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria, Ep. 7)
http://credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/gregory.htm
I provide their versions of the quotations only to highlight for you the parts they omit. And, really, there is no reason for them to omit them. The lines they remove are small sentences, and then they continue quoting right after they finish. It’s quite an embarrassing display!
In this letter, Gregory is specifically attributing to the Bishops of Alexandra and Antioch the “Chair of Peter” and its authority that they bestowed upon him. In the first quotation, the Romans omit the sentence which says: “And, though special honour to myself in no wise delights me, [they omit here] yet I greatly rejoiced because you, most holy ones, have given to yourselves what you have bestowed upon me. [They rebegin here]” After telling them about the “special honor” that is respectively given to both parties, Gregory immediately goes into a discussion on what that special honor is... which is the Primacy of Peter they all enjoy.
“Wherefore though there are many apostles, yet with regard to the principality itself the See of the Prince of the apostles alone has grown strong in authority, which in three places is the See of one. For he himself exalted the See in which he deigned even to rest and end the present life. He himself adorned the See to which he sent his disciple as evangelist. He himself established the See in which, though he was to leave it, he sat for seven years. Since then it is the See of one, and one See, over which by Divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you, this I impute to myself. If you believe anything good of me, impute this to your merits, since we are one in Him Who says, That they all may be one, as You, Father, art in me, and I in you that they also may be one in us John 17:21.”
Notice how different this reads when one does not omit what the Romans omit! Gregory declares that the See of Peter is one see... but in THREE places, over which THREE Bishops preside, which is Rome, Antioch and Alexandria, the latter of which he was now writing to.
So while the Romans insist that the Primacy of Peter refers to the Bishop of Rome, Gregory applies the Primacy of Peter to ALL the major Bishops of the See. They are, in effect, ALL the Church of Peter, and possess his chair and authority.
And Gregory, of course, isn’t alone in this. Theodoret references the same belief when he places the “throne of Peter” under the Bishop of Antioch:
“Dioscorus, however, refuses to abide by these decisions; he is turning the See of the blessed Mark upside down; and these things he does though he perfectly well knows that the Antiochene (of Antioch) metropolis possesses the throne of the great Peter, who was teacher of the blessed Mark, and first and coryphæus (head of the choir) of the chorus of the apostles.” Theodoret - Letter LXXXVI - To Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople.
So while you may have particular people saying that the Roman Bishop has authority, or has the chair of Peter, yet these same accolades are given to multiple Bishops, all said to have the “throne” or authority of “Peter.”
In this way we can truly understand Gregory’s rejection of the title of Universal, since to do so would be to steal the Throne from beneath the other Bishops he honored as equals in divine authority.
It wasn’t until after Gregory that the Roman Bishop took on the power he so enjoys today, though, of course, they’ve fallen quite far from when they used to boast about all the princes of the Earth bowing to them.
When Jesus returns, will he find us still arguing? Or will all Christians be one, as he asked us to be?
The Talmud has been “beaten to death” by Catholics.
HMMMmmm...
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Dang!
I thought this was another BITTEN to death thread!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3021882/posts
Not this again?
“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.”
As someone who frequents FR way too much, I have never seen such a reference.