second restoration

[RevTestament]

12 hours ago, Spammer said:

 My point in mentioning the Nicene orthodoxy of the Persian church was solely to point out that said theology is older than the council and churches that supported it were scattered throughout the universal church, before and after the council. The theology of the Creed can hardly have been an invention of the Council of Nicea or Constantine (as is frequently surmised by some non-Catholics). 

Again, history doesn't really reveal who was responsible for the Nicene formula. The theology of the creed was definitely an invention of someone, since there is no scripture telling us that Yeshua was begotten before all aeon/ages/worlds. The scripture indicates instead that Yeshua was begotten when the Father told Him "this day I have begotten thee." The difference seems pretty plain on the face of it. One indicates no new covenant was entered into, while Hebrews also indicates was a covenant was in fact entereed into by the Father with His Son: 

Heb 1:5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

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Whether the majority of bishops in the Roman Empire who did not attend the council supported Arius or Athanasius is unknown. What is known is that a majority of bishops at the council voted in support of Athanasius (Constantine didn't have a vote) and Nicene orthodoxy was established in the Roman Empire (until Constantine changed his mind), just as it was established officially in the Sassinid Empire in Persia in 410 through a meeting of bishops. 

Of course, Constantine later switched his support to Arius; received Arian baptism on his deathbed; and emperors Constantius and Valens continued Constantine's policy of persecuting and exiling Nicene orthodox bishops). Apostate or not, what's interesting is that, despite the decades-long post-Nicea opposition of the Roman state and the decisions of rival Arian councils with imperial patronage, Nicene orthodoxy still won the day inside the Roman Empire, as well as outside. 

I am not Arian, however, I feel he was probably closer to the truth than Athanasius. Unfortunately, all we basically have is the orthodox claim of what Arius taught, since his writings were destroyed eventually. I am not really taking sides in that particular battle. I am just pointing out how the creeds came into being, and how they differ from scripture, but were made mandatory in the empire. I will obviously let the reader decide if they are the truth or not. There was nothing like them even 40 years earlier as you seem to imply. I believe it was a council of Ephesus iirc just 50 years earlier that excommunicated a bishop for using the word homoousios in describing the nature of God, and just 50 years later we find the opposite in the Nicene council. So now the Catholic Church strains to split this hair. Basically, the earliest Church taught us to be like Christ, and the Roman state church began to teach just to worship Him. The Church stopped being called The Way, and insisted on being Catholic instead. Christ was no longer envisioned as one of us who showed us the way to the holiest of all, but part of an immutable God in which He would be called the Son forevermore - also contrary to scripture which says He is our "fellow" and shall be called the Father instead. Anyway, that's enough. Suffice it to say I do not agree with the creeds. They depart from scripture, and have errors. If Christ had taught these things of Himself, there would have been no debate on the subject and no "need" for the Nicene Creed.

[Spammer]

8 hours ago, RevTestament said:

Again, history doesn't really reveal who was responsible for the Nicene formula. The theology of the creed was definitely an invention of someone, since there is no scripture telling us that Yeshua was begotten before all aeon/ages/worlds. The scripture indicates instead that Yeshua was begotten when the Father told Him "this day I have begotten thee." The difference seems pretty plain on the face of it. One indicates no new covenant was entered into, while Hebrews also indicates was a covenant was in fact entereed into by the Father with His Son: 

Heb 1:5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

I am not Arian, however, I feel he was probably closer to the truth than Athanasius. Unfortunately, all we basically have is the orthodox claim of what Arius taught, since his writings were destroyed eventually. I am not really taking sides in that particular battle. I am just pointing out how the creeds came into being, and how they differ from scripture, but were made mandatory in the empire. I will obviously let the reader decide if they are the truth or not. There was nothing like them even 40 years earlier as you seem to imply. I believe it was a council of Ephesus iirc just 50 years earlier that excommunicated a bishop for using the word homoousios in describing the nature of God, and just 50 years later we find the opposite in the Nicene council. So now the Catholic Church strains to split this hair. Basically, the earliest Church taught us to be like Christ, and the Roman state church began to teach just to worship Him. The Church stopped being called The Way, and insisted on being Catholic instead. Christ was no longer envisioned as one of us who showed us the way to the holiest of all, but part of an immutable God in which He would be called the Son forevermore - also contrary to scripture which says He is our "fellow" and shall be called the Father instead. Anyway, that's enough. Suffice it to say I do not agree with the creeds. They depart from scripture, and have errors. If Christ had taught these things of Himself, there would have been no debate on the subject and no "need" for the Nicene Creed.

Invented or not, my point is only that the theology of the creed is older than the Council and was also victorious outside the Empire, where the Roman state and its church had no power to anathematize bishops or order the burning of heretical texts.  It's curious that Nicene orthodoxy also emerged supreme in the Church of the East, outside the Empire and beyond the reach of the Roman-Byzantine emperors and church councils, among Christians who claimed apostolic roots, had no good reason to publicly affiliate with the Roman-Byzantine empire and who were also Aramaic-speaking Semites. Even after the Roman state church declared the Assyrian Christians in the East to be heretics, they stuck with Nicene orthodoxy and are orthodox to this day.

Edited August 8, 2017 by Spammer