RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

4.  Claim:   Anyone who chose the forbidden gospels over Constantine's version was deemed a heretic, so these people were the worlds first heretics.

So why did Constantine allow some of the gnostic gospels to be included in the Marcion and Origen versions of the bible?

Justin Martyr 150AD - "being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God; both God and Lord of hosts."
Irenaeus (about 185) - "our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King."
Clement of Alexandria (about 200) "truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the universe; because he was His Son."

Sadly, this is not evidence due the huge gap in time span. I could say to you that Charles Dickens was the same would you believe me?

Of course not.

Divine Love

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

6.  Claim:  AT the council of Nicaea in 325 leaders voted to make Jesus divine.  Up until that moment, he was viewed as a mortal prophet.

Truth:  This council had nothing to do with deciding Christ's divinity.  The most pressing issue was a man named Arius who was teaching that Jesus was a created being.  By the end of Jesus earthly ministry, his divinity was already being acknowledged by Thomas (John 20:28).  Other passages that speak of His divinity include John 1:1, Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8-10, and 2 Peter 1:1.  By the end of the 2nd century, this belief was firmly held by Christians.  Consider these descriptions...

Justin Martyr 150AD - "being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God; both God and Lord of hosts."

Irenaeus (about 185) - "our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King."

Clement of Alexandria (about 200) "truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the universe; because he was His Son."

Dear Mc,

Well, all I can say is that as with the treatment of women in the church, I'd rather take Jesus' own words and actions as my guide.

To me, Christ Jesus was the Son of God, (though he himself said he was the son of man) the highest ideal of the perfect man, the image and likeness of God. I believe that he was utterly unique, due to being the fulfilment of prophecy and his virgin birth. The Christ was his divine nature and Jesus was inseparable from the Christ. He was one with God (as we all are), just like a ray of sun is one with the sun, but is not the sun itself, or a drop of water is one with the ocean, but is not the ocean itself. Jesus to me, was the coincidence between the human and the divine and was the way-shower.

As to worshipping the man Jesus as God, well:

He said:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (Matt 5:17)

The law (meaning the 10 Commandments) could be summed up thus:

"And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:21-31)

"And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." (Matt 19:16,17, also in Mark and Luke)

"I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." (John 5:30)

For an alternative view of the Council see

One sad fact that came out of the Council was that making Jesus 'God' in AD325 marked the point at which Christian healing started to disappear. Up to then, healings, even raising from the dead was a normal part of Christian worship. There have of course always, all through history, been individuals who have walked in the light, but if you look at Christian history, there was very little healing going on in the Church until after Mary Baker Eddy had published Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures in 1875, after her rediscovery of how Jesus had healed. Now, I am thrilled that most Christian churches are taking this part of Christian practice seriously again.

Love and peace,

Judy

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Why did Constantine allow the gnostic Gospels to be included, using Origen's version of the Bible? Fair question. Remember, Constantine was a new Christian, but besides that, he had political reasons for wanting to bring Christianity and paganism together. Origen, by the way, was a guy who mutilated himself due to a misunderstanding of Scripture and openly admitted that he wasn't even trying to translate Scripture literally. Constantine wanted to unite Christianity with pagan Rome, and simply put, this Bible fit his political-economic purposes. While in Rome this type of Bible was popular, it wasn't in the east. This gnostic Bible would simply be less offensive to Romans.

As for Judy's claim about Constantine deciding that Jesus was God, again, I would say that is untrue. Before AD300, we have 22 papyri which preserve the following chapters of each gospel.
Matthew 1-3, 5, 11-12, 20-21, 23-26
Mark 4-12
Luke 1-10, 11-16, 17-18, 22, 23-24
John 1-5, 6, 7-13, 14-21

Comparing the above texts with post-Constantine texts, the papyri show no evidence of tampering. The claim that Constantine upgraded Jesus to God is unwarranted.

There are 8 Christian leaders between 95 and 130 AD who wrote letters and other writing that survived. 3 of these letters explicitly quote New Testament passages as "Scripture" and on one of the passages is from Matthew. All four make allusions to New Testament passages, including all four gospels and no others.

The first heretic was probably Marcion in 140, who removed all references to God of the Old Testament by Jesus and Paul.

Basilides (120-140), a Gnostic writer quotes from I Corinthians, alludes to Matthew, Luke, and John as authoritative

Valentius (140), another gnostic writer, cites Ephesians as Scripture and alludes to Matthew, Luke, and John.

Justin Martyr (130-160) speaks from all four Gospels and no others

Iraneaus (180) quotes from all New Testament books except for a few shorter letters. He studied under two students of the apostle John.

The Muratorian Canon, in 180, rejects the writings of the gnostics and montanists. This was written by a Christian leader in Italy.

Clement of Alexandria uses non canon Gospels but distinguishes them from those that have been handed down.

Basically, for 150 years orthodox Christians had recognized four gospels before Constantine. Also, if we look at Early Syrian Christianity, early Greek Christianity, Waldeness in North Italy, early Christians in France, and early Christians in Great Britian, all of these used the Bible without the gnostic Gospels, the Bible that was more popular in the east outside of Rome.

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

ORIGINAL: Divine Love

4. Claim: Anyone who chose the forbidden gospels over Constantine's version was deemed a heretic, so these people were the worlds first heretics.

So why did Constantine allow some of the gnostic gospels to be included in the Marcion and Origen versions of the bible?

Justin Martyr 150AD - "being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God; both God and Lord of hosts."
Irenaeus (about 185) - "our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King."
Clement of Alexandria (about 200) "truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the universe; because he was His Son."

Sadly, this is not evidence due the huge gap in time span. I could say to you that Charles Dickens was the same would you believe me?

Of course not.

Divine Love

on the second part, the point was, that you cannot say that Constantine invented the idea that Jesus was God, and that He was simply a mortal prophet before. Obviously these early church fathers believed that Jesus was God well, well before Constantine.

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

As for Judy's claim about Constantine deciding that Jesus was God, again, I would say that is untrue.  Before AD300, we have 22 papyri which preserve the following chapters of each gospel.
Matthew 1-3, 5, 11-12, 20-21, 23-26
Mark 4-12
Luke 1-10, 11-16, 17-18, 22, 23-24
John 1-5, 6, 7-13, 14-21

Comparing the above texts with post-Constantine texts, the papyri show no evidence of tampering.  The claim that Constantine upgraded Jesus to God is unwarranted.

Dear Mc,

I haven't a clue what you (or the web-site you copy from) is on about. What on earth have the gospels to do with the Nicene Creed?

I did a Google search on the Nicene Creed and came up with these that I feel are worth reading.

The Nicene Creed - an introduction

The Nicene Creed and Truth about the Trinity I had to laugh - this sounds just as dogmatic as the website you've copied all that above from!

Love and peace,

Judy

PS I can't but help remembering that when Jesus was asked by John's disciples whether he was the promised Messiah - he didn't need creeds to "prove" anything. His reply was:
".. Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. " (Luke 7:22,23)

His works were his proof, not his words.

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

[link= http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-history-constantine.htm ]http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-history-constantine.htm[/link]

[link= http://www.equip.org/free/DG040-2.htm ]http://www.equip.org/free/DG040-2.htm[/link]

Judy, the things that I posted were not from a website, but so what if they were?Does that automatically make themwrong? I posted a website above that I think is helpful. The second website really questions the truth of the Gnostic Gospels.

What do the Gospels have to do with the Nicene Creed? Simple. The belief is by many that Constantine decided Jesus would be God, and also that he decided which books would be in the Bible. Many say up to that time Christwas a mortal prophet or something but not God. Neither is true, and showing that the four Gospels were seen as authoritative by early church Fathers way prior to Constantineshows that Constantine didn't suddenly make this decision, or form the Nicene Creed himself. It's not like the Canon was decided right then and there.

Back to the Gnostic gospels for a second. Doesn't it bother anyone that there are no authors or even proposed authors to any of these gospels? The names like Thomas, Mary, Philip, Peter, were attached to try to givethe works credibility, but that's all they are...names. Some of the gnostics even start off by saying "this is a book unlike those in the New Testament." And there is no historical information with which to back these up...just a bunch of ramblings...

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Hi Steve,

This will appear as a rather poor reply as I haven't time to dip deeply into the thread at this time. Apologies. But one thing that flashed out at me, quoting your first post, is:

"As for Constantine collating the Bible. The Old Testament was compiled even before Jesus time."

I don't know what you can possibly mean by that. Ah - correction - I do! You mean the individual books were all written before Jesus' life. Yes, obviously! I kinda think that's why we have an OT and a NT, right? ;)But they were part of a far, far larger number of books. The OT was only put together as the "right" books to read, and the others omitted as heretical, around the time of Constantine (and I admit I don't know exactly when or the history of it). There certainly wasn't an Old Testament per sein Jesus' time, no way.

An interesting fact about the books existing - as separate books, not as the "OT" - in Jesus' day, is that if you know or have a copy of one of them, "The Book of Enoch", this is quoted from and referred to by Jesus and by the NT authors much more often than any other book around in His day or in the first century. A list of quotes or paraphrases from the Book of Enoch, found in the NT, runs to over one hundred - far more than any other book from OT times. So if it was so important to Jesus and his followers, how come it was not included in the OT?

Give it a read, and you'll see that it tells of the nature of those who come to power in world religions - so those with the ability to ban it did so. It was about them! Thankfully a few good copies survived. Haven't looked, but I guess these days it must in fact be online too.

Actually there's no need for me to be mysterious - I may as well spell out the main theme of The Book of Enoch. It tells the story of how angels, being 'fallen', became corporeal and were (and are - or were in Jesus' day) born in the bodies of men. It's these to whom Jesus, Paul, etc., are referring when they quote or paraphrase Enoch and call people all those various terms ... "the wicked", "children of the devil" and so on and so on. That's why Jesus, clearly such a loving being, nevertheless was able to use over and over again such hard words to attack the scribes and others in positions of power ... he knew (from the Book of Enoch) that they were literally a different spiritual species of being to men/women.

Clement, Origen especially, and others, later take up this theme, quote Enoch, and say in plain language that fallen angels incarnated as men. One can suppose those very 'men' wouldn't therefore want the book included in the OT, right? And it wasn't.

My point isn't about Enoch however, but is just to give one example of the fact that the OT as such didn't exist in Jesus' day or later. It was put together by men, whilst many books were left out. Same with the NT of course, since the very same author of Mark's gospel, according to Clement, wrote another gospel which didn't get into the Bible. (But then, it was 'Secret' Mark, hence not intended for the mass public anyway.)

Venetian

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Another quickie - sorry not to be more systematic.

You wrote, Steve: "6. Claim: AT the council of Nicaea in 325 leaders voted to make Jesus divine. Up until that moment, he was viewed as a mortal prophet. "

Wasn't it with you, I think, that we've gone over this ground. The council went on for many weeks because of the degree of contention, and those present feared perhaps even to the degree of fearing for their lives when it came to being open.

From memory, and the name not to hand though I could pretty easily find it, only when they felt safe and were home, hundreds of miles sawy, did some present dare to write to Constantine: "We subscribed to a heresy, O Prince, for fear of thee." So they were calling present Christology a heresy, foisted upon us by fear-tactics at Nicea.

Doesn't sound like it was a very open decision-making process. And the heresy was that Jesus = fully and the all of God, which scholars are clear on regarding that letter and it's meaning. Not all agreed at all on the whole-Divinity subject (even if afraid to speak up at the time).

It looks to me that the common conception of Constantine's role is a bit of this and a bit of that i.e. that modern detractors are right in some things, and you can demonstrate wrong or partially so in others. So maybe it's an exercise in humility needed all round? - that neither 'side' are actually wholly correct and would do well to look at contrary evidence to their fondest beliefs? To use that oft-stated phrase (oft-stated on Christianity threads here recently!), open-mindedness is required ... all round.

V

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

ORIGINAL: mcnabbmcnow

1. Claim: Christians and pagans warred so fiercely that the conflict threatened to divide Rome in two. Constantine decided to unify Rome under a single religion.

The truth: Constantine did NOT make Christianity the state religion in 325, he simply granted Christians freedom of worship with the Edict of Milan in 313. It was not until Theodosius reign that Christianity became the state religion in 381.

He certainly wanted to, unity was his aim... otherwisewhy did the Emp call himself what he did at that meeting?...Could this be the answer: -

Every emperor was considered by the Roman Senate to be the head priest of the state's religion

Truth: Constantine was not a lifelong pagan. He converted to Christianity, a conclusion accepted by many non-Christian historians and many openly critical of Christianity.

After his conversion, Constantine remained a tolerant emperor, having seen the persecution of Christians. Persecution was something he very much disagreed with. So he allowed both Christianity and paganism to flourish under his edict of Milan.

I’m surprised that you ignore some obvious stuff… we know (as ‘V’ pointed out) that the meeting went on for some time (there are reports that it became quite heated and even came to blows) – but lets chuck that aside as hearsay, lets also ignore just how much power Constantine had and lets ignore too what Constantine’s overall goal was (this was no Christian, just research whom in his own family he had had murdered and for what reasons) – but lets consider instead these indisputable facts, those that didn’t ‘agree’ on the main stayed away, apart from those that really felt passionately about their particular (but contrary) brand of ‘Christianity’ and felt they had a strong enough following to command not only some respect but also be afforded safety when attending.
It seems only one such man at that meeting was brave enough to stick to his belief, he was not only overruled, but also banished as a heretic.
Later, when invited back into the fold by Constantine, he strangely died a quite gruesome death (I believe it was the day before being re-ordained) …an event ‘passed off’ as divine retribution - but a death that oddly mimicked exactly the effects of a particular poison that the Romans had perfected & were fond of using at the time!

BTW Constantine was not baptized until he was days away from his death… by a man that he kept close to him… a man who came from the same Heretical school and was a pupil of the man that had been ‘thrown out’ of this ‘new’ definition of Christianity & Creed.
I do think you should also look up the Summarian creation myths and legends… you’ll be surprised to see how many parallels you’ll find to the Bible
It’s also worth considering their similarity to the Book of Enoch (Also as mentioned by ‘V’).

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

The Book of Enoch, I see, is now all over the place in the online world (I last read it before the net took off). Normally we simply post links here, but mayI post a fair portion of text from:

[link= http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/e/enoch_book_of_history.html ]http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/e/enoch_book_of_history.html[/link]

... as I sometimes get the feeling here that links aren't followed up? To confirm my earlier point as to the importance of the book, and that human beings in power left it out of the Bible though it was the most important piece of scripture to Jesus and at least some dissciples, going on the number of times Jesus quotes from it. (What Christians take to be Jesus' original words, and those of Paul and others, are often quotes by them or paraphrasesfrom Enoch in fact, but Christians don't realise this as they don't know the book...)

-------------------------------------------

The [link= http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/e/enoch_book_of.html ]Book of Enoch[/link], also known as Ethiopic Enoch, I Enoch, and The Book of Henoch" was revered by the Jews and Christians alike but fell into disfavor among powerful theologians because of its controversial descriptions of the nature and deeds of the fallen angels. The Enochian writings like others such as The Books of Tobias, Esdras, and others, were omitted (or lost) from the Bible. Once it was considered to be among the biblical apocryphal writings by the early church fathers.

To better understand the possible reason for the omission of the Book of Enoch from the Bible, the term "apocryphal" must be considered. Apocryphal is derived from the Greek and means "hidden" or "secret." Originally it was a complimentary term, and when applied to sacred books it meant that their contents was considered too exalted to be made available to the general public. Gradually the idea was accepted that such books were only to be read by the wise. Therefore, the term "apocrypha" began taking on a negative meaning because the orthodoxy felt as if they were being kept in the dark by not being told the teachings of these books. The apocryphal books were just read among esoteric circles of the devout believers. The clergy that was not admitted into such circles because they were thought not to be enlightened soon banned apocryphal material heretical, which were forbidden for all to read.

The Book of Enoch was banned as heretical by later Church fathers mainly because of its theme concerning the nature and actions of the fallen angels. In fact, the material infuriated some Church fathers. And, some rabbi even would not give credence to it. Probably it was considered such a sacrilege that it was denounced, cursed, banned, and no doubt burned and shredded. [Venetian: Because, by implication, THEY were/are the fallen angels.] As a result the book was conveniently lost for a thousand years. But, with ironical persistence the Book of Enoch eventually reappeared.

Although the Book of Enoch was banned, the reasons for doing so became more illusive after it was discovered once again. Rumors of a surviving copy of the book in 1773 sent the Scottish explorer James Bruce to distant Ethiopia in search of it. There he found the Ethiopic church has saved the book and kept it alongside of the other books of the Bible.

Bruce was able to secure not one, but three copies of the Ethiopic book that he brought back to Europe and England. In 1821, Dr. Richard Laurence, an Oxford Hebrew professor, produced the first translation that gave the world its first glimpse of the forbidden Enochian mysteries.

Speculation of most scholars place the original writing of the Book of Enoch during the second century B. C. with its popularity lasting at least five hundred years. The earliest Ethiopic text was apparently made from a Greek manuscript of the book, which itself was a copy of an earlier text. The origina

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

ORIGINAL: venetian

Hi Steve,

This will appear as a rather poor reply as I haven't time to dip deeply into the thread at this time. Apologies. But one thing that flashed out at me, quoting your first post, is:

"As for Constantine collating the Bible. The Old Testament was compiled even before Jesus time."

I don't know what you can possibly mean by that. Ah - correction - I do! You mean the individual books were all written before Jesus' life. Yes, obviously! I kinda think that's why we have an OT and a NT, right? ;)But they were part of a far, far larger number of books. The OT was only put together as the "right" books to read, and the others omitted as heretical, around the time of Constantine (and I admit I don't know exactly when or the history of it). There certainly wasn't an Old Testament per sein Jesus' time, no way.

An interesting fact about the books existing - as separate books, not as the "OT" - in Jesus' day, is that if you know or have a copy of one of them, "The Book of Enoch", this is quoted from and referred to by Jesus and by the NT authors much more often than any other book around in His day or in the first century. A list of quotes or paraphrases from the Book of Enoch, found in the NT, runs to over one hundred - far more than any other book from OT times. So if it was so important to Jesus and his followers, how come it was not included in the OT?

Give it a read, and you'll see that it tells of the nature of those who come to power in world religions - so those with the ability to ban it did so. It was about them! Thankfully a few good copies survived. Haven't looked, but I guess these days it must in fact be online too.

Actually there's no need for me to be mysterious - I may as well spell out the main theme of The Book of Enoch. It tells the story of how angels, being 'fallen', became corporeal and were (and are - or were in Jesus' day) born in the bodies of men. It's these to whom Jesus, Paul, etc., are referring when they quote or paraphrase Enoch and call people all those various terms ... "the wicked", "children of the devil" and so on and so on. That's why Jesus, clearly such a loving being, nevertheless was able to use over and over again such hard words to attack the scribes and others in positions of power ... he knew (from the Book of Enoch) that they were literally a different spiritual species of being to men/women.

Clement, Origen especially, and others, later take up this theme, quote Enoch, and say in plain language that fallen angels incarnated as men. One can suppose those very 'men' wouldn't therefore want the book included in the OT, right? And it wasn't.

My point isn't about Enoch however, but is just to give one example of the fact that the OT as such didn't exist in Jesus' day or later. It was put together by men, whilst many books were left out. Same with the NT of course, since the very same author of Mark's gospel, according to Clement, wrote another gospel which didn't get into the Bible. (But then, it was 'Secret' Mark, hence not intended for the mass public anyway.)

Venetian

The idea that the book of Enoch is quoted in Jude doesn't really mean it is authoritative or the word of God. It is quoted as a book of that time to make a point...not to say it isinspired Scripture. Judewas making a point about the coming judgement of wicked men. It would be like me quoting "Great Expectations" or "Hamlet" to make a point. There are three other times in Scripture a non-biblical work is quoted to make a point or tell a story.

Paul quotes Aratus (Acts 17:28)
Paul quotes Menander (I Cor 15:33)
Paul quotes Epimenides (Titus 1:12)

None of these are quoted authoritatively or referred to as the word of God, and neither is the book of Enoch. Enoch has some truth in it, no doubt, but some falsehood, such as angels marrying humans.

As for Christ being "directly connected" to the book of Enoch as you claim...I'

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

ORIGINAL: mcnabbmcnow

The idea that the book of Enoch is quoted in Jude doesn't really mean it is authoritative or the word of God. It is quoted as a book of that time to make a point...not to say it isinspired Scripture. Judewas making a point about the coming judgement of wicked men. It would be like me quoting "Great Expectations" or "Hamlet" to make a point. There are three other times in Scripture a non-biblical work is quoted to make a point or tell a story.

Paul quotes Aratus (Acts 17:28)
Paul quotes Menander (I Cor 15:33)
Paul quotes Epimenides (Titus 1:12)

None of these are quoted authoritatively or referred to as the word of God, and neither is the book of Enoch. Enoch has some truth in it, no doubt, but some falsehood, such as angels marrying humans.

Boy, Steve, this is heavy going! :DLet's smile at it and see where we go from here. Will you actually, please, read the below? Thanks!

I wrote at length on Enoch in the end as it's such an important case. I see it could have it's own thread rather than be connected to Constantine - ah well. It's disconcerting in trying to have useful dialogue - and Conspiritualist (Roger) has said this about three times now - when detailed and factual things are pointed out yet you just skip over them as if they hadn't been posted at all. On Enoch just some points I find myself having to go over are:

1. "None of these are quoted authoritatively or as the word of God." I thought to orthodox / fundamentalist / BC Christians, all in the Bible is the word of God, right? Or inspired by Him, so Enoch is hardly in there over a hundred times as a kind of thoughtless mistake??? I'd like you to tell me if any other book - even including those which are in the OT, are quoted or paraphrased by Jesus and others over 100 times? This has to be a point of great significance. Your statement flies in the face of scholarly knowledge posted by me above: Despite its unknown origins, Christians once accepted the words of this Book of Enoch as authentic scripture, especially the part about the fallen angels.

2. "Jude was making a point about the coming judgement of wicked men".Not exactly true, since Jude was quoting The Book of Enoch, which book has it that it's above allthe fallen angels "disguised as men" who'll be judged. As for the judgement of humanity, I guess that's another thread. This may be contrary to your doctrine, but it evidently was what Jude quoted or referred to. You are disagreeing here with Jude and the NT itself as its meaning is implied - Enoch is mainly about the judgement of those called "the Watchers". Scholars go so far as to say that Jude's entire epistle is a retelling of the Enochian account, written with a mind to say that Christ came to fulfill the Enochian prophecies. So I'm afraid you are mistaken here.

3. You give other examples of books being cited. Well - yes - of course they were. Once or twice, or a few times such as Isaiah. What is the point here? If Enoch was quoted far more times than any other book, how come it isn't regarded as a part of the OT or vitally importantfor Christians to know? (Why was it destroyed, indeed, which has led to the present situation ofChristians being largely unaware of its existence andcontent?) Of course other books were quoted - the four gospels themselves consist quite largely of quotes from Q, as well as other earlier memoirs. (Scholars trace, for example, how Matthew and Luke also quote or near-quote from Mark as well. Mark's gospel was a source for them along with Q.)

4. "Enoch has some truth in it, no doubt, but some falsehood such as angels marrying humans."

That's right there in Genesis, that it happened. And since 'Giants' were born to them, the marriages were physical. There's Jewish Scripture all about such marriage contracts. And the actual translation of who maried the human women - the original is "N

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Venetian,

I didn't have the book of Enoch in front of me, so forgive me if it is hard to respond to your quotes about it. For the moment, I'm taking your word that Jesus quoted from it 100 times or at least referred to it. Could it be that portions of the book may have been correct but others were not? After all, I have heard it was a collaboration of different writers.

One early Christian writer, Tertullian, who believed it to be inspired Scripture, acknowledged this problem around 198 A.D. "I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, which has assigned this order of action to angels, is not received by some. For it is not admitted into the Jewish canon, either. I suppose they did not think that, having been written before the deluge, it could have safely survived that worldwide calamity, the destroyer of all things. If that is the reason for rejecting it, let them remember that Noah, who survived the deluge, was the great-grandson of Enoch himself ... There is still this consideration to warrant our assertion of the genuineness of this Scripture: [Noah] could equally have rewritten it, under the Spirit's inspiration, if it had been destroyed by the violence of the deluge."

Note that Tertullian admits that the Jews never accepted the Book of Enoch as authentic and that Christians of his time period also rejected it. You will find people stating that the Book of Enoch was well known by early Christian writers. Such is true. But they skip over the fact that most rejected the Book of Enoch as inspired writings. For example, Athanasius, Origen, and Jerome argued that the Book of Enoch, while interesting, was not from God. In fact, it appears that Tertullian and Augustine are about the only early writers who thought the work inspired and Augustine waffled on the point at times.

This would once again rule out your view that Constantine decided things at the Council of Nicaea (regarding what was in the canon)and shows that the majority did not accept the book of Enoch as authoritative Scripture, thought it may have still had some value and may have been worth quoting. I'm still looking into this book however and will try to give you a more complete answer in a couple days, as this is all unfamiliar to me and very interesting...

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Hi Mc,

I certainly wouldn't claim that the whole of Enoch is definitely true - because my perspective on the books of that time including the Bible differs from yours, and I'd expect error in most of them. I honestly don't know about a Constantine-Enoch relationship specifically; just that the book's copies were destroyed in the 4th century. I originally discussed Enoch as an off-shoot to your mentioning that there existed an accepted canon very early on. It seems not to be the case.

A rejection of Enoch back then because it couldn't possibly have been written by Enoch is rather naive by any who thought that: it was common to use a famed name as pseudonym, and there's no serious suggestion that Enoch wrote the book. It's nowadays thought to stem from about 200 BC, based on earlier writings perhaps.

In Origen's writings he definitely accepts that angels 'fell' and became physical; and he quote Enoch several times. Moreover much of his writing was destroyed, so we can't know all he thought. But yes, he did write that by his day some Christians, and the Jews, didn't accept the book, I see. Mind you, he was a student of Clement who certainly accepted Enoch. (As an aside, in Isaiah, even Satan is called "a man". Hmm ...)

To quote one book I have here, "Everybody loved and respected The Book of Enoch. At least for a time." Then in the 4th century it became possibly the hottest religious item of debate: DID angels become physical and give birth to 'bastards' (as the NT calls them here and there). Opinions change at that time, and the book vanishes. My main point would be, here, that I'd tend to trust Jesus' judgment, and that of St. Paul, Jude, and others, rather than later Church fathers who were just 'men' and working with their intellects to figure out a system of belief whether correct or incorrect.

In an earlier post you say Jesus might have quoted the book just as one might refer to - I think your example was 'Wuthering Heights'. Let's be serious. If 'Wuthering Heights' had existed inJesus' time, he'd hardly have referred to it far more often than to any OT Scripture, and to make such incredibly strong points (leading to attempts to kill him)?

Venetian

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Dear Mc

There is a lot of inaccuacy of what you are saying about Gnostics and my friend you will only truly know the REAL truth for yourself, if you begin to truly study that which you are totally innocent of. You do not appear to be listening, you are reading other peoples views/perceptions on texts instead of reading the texts for yourself.

This is a fascinating link of the roots of the hebrew word of 'wicked' basically it is those that are against righteousness and what screamed out at me was its energetic correspondence and how it relates to the balance of nature and the planet.

So in other words those that are wicked are those that do not honour mother earth.

Very powerful stuff indeed and the implications are beyond measure. This has been a fantastic find great confirmation!

As far as Enoch is concerned like all books the teachings were handed down orally from father to son and so on. So without doubt there is some chinese whispers. Gnostic christianity certainly was accepted by the church in the East, including karma and reincarnation that was included in the first two versions of the bible compilations. I recommend once again that you read the Jesus Sutra's because they are closer to the original christianity because they are pre St Augustine's tampering.....One of the sutra's Jesus speaks about returning to our original nature of goodness in fact the sutra is called just that. Even St Augustine admitted to St Jerome that 'evil' really means 'less good'.

I think Enoch is mentioned in the Torah and also the Dead Sea Scrolls and one must remember that the Dead Sea Scrolls were not written by the Essenes although Enoch is mentioed in the Essene Gospels. I should add that the few mentions of Enoch in this gospel is almost a complete copy from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

As far as who wrote any of the gospels there is no proven evidence that anyone wrote the gospel of their name.

Divine Love

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

"Enoch has some truth in it, no doubt, but some falsehood such as angels marrying humans."

Depends on intepretation, if one accepts that every human has an angel within then angels e.g. those that are spiritually evolved certainly do marry those that are very much in their human self rather than their divine self.

Mc here is a link on the Book of Enoch

Fragments of the Book of Enoch found at Qumrun are dated as 200 BCE. Different versions of the Book of Enoch also differ in the information that they provide. Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Geza Vermes states there is an absence of a unified version of this book. The first mention of Enoch is in Genesis, Melchizedek is also mentioned in the OT and the Dead Sea Scrolls fragment is called 'The Coming of Melchizedek'. It talks about God's remission and the last days......The scriptures interpretation is that he will instruct the divine beings about all the periods of history for eternity of the truth. "Zion" is the congregation of all the sons of righteousness, the Sons of light and the people who are predestined to Melchizedek; who uphold the convenant and turn from walking in the way of the people. "Your divine being is Melchizedek, he who deliver them from the power of Belial. Concerning what scripture says. "Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; in the seventh month " (Lev.25.9) and the bible states that Jesus was from the Order of Melchizedek. Now Mc what does your church teach you about Melchizedek and this divine order?

There is also a fragment called the 'Words of Archangel Michael' and this talks of angels with a different context and more in line with the root word of wicked.

Divine Love

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

The Council of Nicea

Alexandrian Theology
"Many scholars see the core of Alexandrian theology as Deification or the grace of renewal. By deification the Alexandrians mean the renewal of human nature as a whole, to attain sharing in the characteristics of our Lord Jesus Christ in place of the corrupt human nature, or as the apostles state that the believer may enjoy "the partaking in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), or the new man in the image of His Creator (Col. 3:10). This theological mind draws the heart of the Alexandrians away from the arguments about the definitions of the theological terms to concentrate on attaining the divine grace as being an enjoyment of the unity with the Father, in His only-begotten Son, Jesus, by the work of His Holy Spirit, or attaining Christ Himself who renews our nature in Him."
     - The Characteristics of Alexandrian Theology

"For this He came down,
for this He assumed human nature,
for this He willingly endured the sufferings of man,
that by being reduced to the measure of our weakness
He might raise us to the measure of His power.
The Word of God, became man just that you may learn from a Man
how it may be that man should become god."
     - Clement of Alexandria

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Dear Mc

Here is some further feedback from a friend who studies the facts and literals.

Here are some key points and references.

A fast reference to the canonization of the NT:

Note the canon in 200 by Clement:
"he also acknowledged as authentic the Gospel of the Egyptians (not the same as the one recovered from Nag Hammadi, but still likely a Gnostic text; M 171), the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the Traditions of Matthias (M 132), as well as Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter (M 134), and the Didakhe (M 187). "

The Pastorals by Paul (Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy) are accepted as pseudepigraphical -- forgeries.

Mc is somewhat correct in the deification of the Christ at the Council because that was not the purpose. The heresy of Arianism was the primary focus of that council.

On pagan destruction after the council:

Paul makes references to "another Gospel" and divisions among his flock in Galatians 1 and 1Cor 11.

(Was this the Gospel of Thomas mentioned by Paul?)

Divine Love

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Enoch 92:17 "The former heaven shall depart and pass away; a new heaven shall appear..."
Rev. 21:1 "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away..."

This is the type of thing you have to be careful of with these quotes from the book of Enoch. This appears to be a closer quote of Isaiah 65:17, not Revelation 21:1, so it's possible the book of Enoch quoted Isaiah, which came BEFORE the book of Enoch. I'll still have to look into all these other quotes, because I have a feeling there are a lot of problems with them.

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Hi MC long time no see....welcome well my friend it certainly is in Revelations also Jesus the same in one of the gospels too.

Rev:21

The New Jerusalem

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and there was no longer any sea. (e.g. sea represents emotion)

This means our perception of heaven and earth is changing hence what religion has presented as duality and separation will be swept away.

I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

Jerusalem = Vision of Peace

There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the OLD order of things has passed away

He who was seated on the throne said, 'I AM making everything new!'

(we are birthing a new root race)

Divine Love

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

ORIGINAL: mcnabbmcnow

Truth: Constantine was not a lifelong pagan.  He converted to Christianity, a conclusion accepted by many non-Christian historians and many openly critical of Christianity.

Constantine's conversion experience came in 312 when supposedly had a dream and a vision that, in essence, meant that God wanted him to be a Christian and in the name of Christ, put down his enemies, who were really his political opponents. However, after his conversion experience, Constantine led a immoral and evil existence, murdering family, friends, advisors and political opponents. He was, in a way, a serial killer by proxy.

Truth: There is no historical evidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John were embellished by Constantine, Eusebius, or any scribes.

I'm not aware of any evidence that Constantine embellished or changed the gospels but the Gospels were without a doubt changed and embellished by many scribes, both deliberately and through error. In fact, the number of textual variant among just New Testament manuscripts would astound most people.

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Your first post, Snowstorm. Welcome to HP.

It's a bit of an old thread so without reminding myself what has already been said, Yes. Constantine was never what we would today call a 'Christian'. He nominally converted very late in his life for political purposes, but seemingly his lifestyle didn't change at all. Being 'Christian' was for him a nominal, or superficial, affair, as a means to unite the crumbling empire. Therefore anything he did in the name of Christianity is highly suspect, to say the least.

You are also correct that the four gospels have been tampered with, mistranslated, bits left out and bits added, all through the years but mainly in the early centuries, so that they are certainly not to be considered pure or the absolute purity of what their original authors wrote. Therefore they are not word-for-word the Word of God, as theyhave beentampered with and altered by man -though no doubt they certainly do hold most of the essence by far of the originals.

Venetian

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Hi venetian,

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, I see that the thread is a bit old but I stubbled across it while doing a bit of google research on Nicaea in addition to the books I'm reading on the topic. I found the original post mostly accurate with a few inaccuracies, some of which I posted above.

One thing about what you said - undoubtedly Constantine had political motivation in mind in his support of Christianity and certainly his life and character cannot be seen as anything approaching "Christian" but he was also sincerely, I think, in his belief, such as it was or such as he understood it, about Christianity. For whatever evil he committed, his pursuit of Christianity wasn't with false intent.

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Hi Snowstorm,

It's hard to know a person't inner intent - especially 1600 years on. So perhaps you are right. I've never done a scholarly or in-depth study of Constantine or Nicea which might reveal all. I'm certainly put off by the letter bishops felt afraid to write until they were out of Constantine's grasp! - "We committed a grievous act, O Prince [at Nicea] for fear of you."

Venetian

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

Yes David, composers of The Bible left out more than The Book of Enoch. The 'lost' gospel of Mark, the gospels of Mary and Thomas, and the gospel of Judas were also omitted.

It does seem from what you, and others say, that the choice of what books to include in the canon, was very selective indeed. I have heard that in truth Mary Magdalene was not a 'fallen woman' as some gospels would have it, but this was attributed to her by the mysogenistic Bishop Cyril in the 4th century AD, who wanted to excise all reference to women having a heirarchy in Jesus' following. This was not the case in reality, for Jesus welcomed both men and women followers.

Like The Gospel of Enoch, which was important to Jesus and his contemporaries, more of what was important to him was thrown out centuries after his death. BTW, Jesus is described as throwing around the 'fallen angels' bit to those he despised: hesounds more human than divine, to me. A holy man throwing out insults? Tut tut!

Love,
Patsy.
xxxxxx

RE: The truth on Constantine/Council of Nicaea

I bought the full BBC 1970s version of "Jesus of Nazareth" recently, and again Magdalene there is a prostitute to begin with. It's a misreading of the Bible as that isn't in there about her at all.

On the lost Mark gospel - just that one - Constantine and others didn't deliberately leave that one out, as they never had it. It was for private initiates only and really was intended to be esoteric or 'secret'. So it is: we have almost none of it today.

Yes, Jesus, this bringer of Love and Peace, had nothing but despisement and insults for the 'Watchers'. It's often overlooked that apart from the lovey-dovey aspects, the canonical gospels also tell the story virtually of a running battle between Jesus and those The Book of Enoch called fallen angels incarnated as men. Jesus hurled abuse at them to expose them, and they were trying to kill him all the way through the Jesus story. Same in the Himis Jesus-in-India gospel.

V

Not to get back to the Lost Gospels, but the Secret Gospel of Mark has tons of evidence that it was a fraud/forgery. It's not even really debatable hardly. And all of these lost Gospels, unlike the four gospels in the Bible, were not written during the time period of anyone who would have lived in Jesus time period. No eyewitnesses They were written between 150-200AD, when everyone who would have been around at the resurrection was already dead. And it can be proven that these lost Gospels were aware of and used the other Gospels, so they obviously came later...and are much less reliable. Not only that, the ideas in these lost Gospels contradict the Bible as a whole. There weren't 10 different types of Christianity where people just chose one at some council, but people like to move the evidence to support their facts, rather than finding facts to create evidence...I am going to present some of this evidence soon.