/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Instead of concern trolling do some research. Weak thread.

He called councils and wanted consensus, he didn't have any doctrine in mind he forced on anyone. He was theologically very simple minded.

Anything coopted by a governing entity and then used aggressively to the exclusion of others is naturally going to be suspect and in this day and age but in the past it was just the usual way of doing things and wanting to have dominion over one's populace was just normal. Other churches also merely got by appealing to their respective supporting entities. That doesn't make the beliefs and practices of dissenter and post-religious freedom movements anymore authentic.

>>696048

Origen of Alexandra, I don't know if his work was burned but all of his source material exists to this day as well as critcisms of his work by other Christian bishops of the time. I don't want to go through it all here but this link is helpful in addressing your questions - there was no information being supressed, it was more like the Church leaders of his time had good reasons to think he was wrong. Heresy was a real problem at the time the church fought it much more strongly than today.

https://www.near-death.com/reincarnation/history/church-history.html#a01

Constantine certainly did not change to Christianity to gain control, because it would have been easier for him to control the empire if he stuck to the old pagan Gods and continued to persecute Christians. Also he didn't forbid paganism, as would be expected of someone using Christainity to gain control, he just forbid the building of new pagan temples. The persecution of pagans in Rome started later under later emperors.

Also Constantine left the actual management of the Church to existing bishops and church leaders, he only got involved once in the question of what happened to priests bishops who previously renounced the faith during the Christian persecutions . . . but that's another story

>>696055

Not a troll thread, I'm actually curious. /christian/ gets so many bad threads so I guess it's easy to see why this is seen as a troll thread though.

>>696065

>>696062

I get a feeling he really did believe in Christ, YHWH, but he carried his pagan beliefs in his conversion. Like an american protestant converting to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, he's going to carry some of his past with him. Plus it was a different time, information wasn't so easy to spread back then, and Christianity was still building up.

>>696048

>le religion was created to control meme

2006 called

>>696134

There were the national pagan cults and a bunch of eastern mystery cults. He probably found Christianity to be the most beneficial one.

>>696134

>>696147

http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/Constantine/Book3.html

he sounds like a Christian to me

>>696048

>I can't get my trust over figures such as Constantine

Just sell all your possessions and take up your cross.

>Dream of Christ before your most important battle

>Make a law to protect christians from persecution

>Hear christians are divided because of arianism

>call the first ecumenical council of all bishops of the empire to decide on the matter

>they condemn arianism, so let's persecute the heretics

>turn persecuted christians into persecutors of heretics

>give bishops nice churches and tax extemption

>some of them are corrupted into power hungry political figure due to the wealth

>kill your first son and wife because they were trying to take the throne, or maybe it was just paranoia idk

>don't really understand theology, I like arianism more now. let's have a new council

>get baptised on deathbed by an arian bishop

>have your bloodthirsty tyrannical kids take your throne and try to wipe out orthodox christianity

Constantine is indeed a controversial figure.

I don't think he was acting dishonestly or exclusively for his own self-interest, even if that was a factor.

I believe he genuinely believed in Christ but in a very distorted and pagan way. He tought Christ would just help him and give him everything like they expected of the pagan gods.

He wanted to help the church but corrupted them by opening political power and wealth to them.

He had the best intention to heal the controversy on arianism but he didn't understand theology and made a mess.

In particular the idea that Councils have to formulate dogma through philosophical reasoning is what caused an infinite amount of schism. Yes, the nicene fathers were correct to say Christ is of the same substance (Homoousion) of the Father, that was the biblical truth. Except they formulated that biblical truth using philosophical words and put it into a creed, future controversies led to new creeds and new schisms. Staying with the Bible would have prevented it without dogmatic formulas.

He was a great Emperor but I really don't buy the orthodox thing of calling him a Saint.

In my opinion something definitely went wrong with the church in his age, even if the whole baptist pastor jim thing is laughable.

>>696230

Anyway, the idea that he somehow wanted to use Christianity as a political tool is wrong. Christians were at best 10% of the population of the Empire at that time, it would have been much easier to force syncretism and solar religion like his predecessors.

He had the dream of Christ before the battle and genuinely believed Jesus was helping him. Unfortunately his good intention led to the mix of Christianity with power.

>>696048

Proverbs 3:5-6

>>696230

The most popular theories for why he had Crispus and Fausta killed are that a)Fausta told him that Crispus raped her, he executed Crispus, found out she lied about the rape a few months later and had her executed as a result and b)the two of them were having an affair, however Fausta was pregnant at the time of Crispus' execution, so he waited until after she gave birth to have her executed. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that even Fausta's own sons wouldn't lift the damnatio memoiae on them that Constantine enacted.

>>696048

>There's archaeological and other sources that show that this man influenced Christianity, yet was still a pagan in his beliefs. Some even say he created Christianity in order to control others.

And those people are retarded, and should visit a assyrian mass if they wanna see a church developed explicitly in contrast with Rome and Nicaea.

Surprise, it's not that different.

>>696231

> Christians were at best 10% of the population of the Empire at that time

The lower classes, too, WHICH COULDN'T INFLUENCE POLITICS.

>>696048

>>696337

Sounds like an episode from a soap opera.