Converting to Judaism in ancient times

[Sheilbh]

Most major protestant churches only trace their history as organized faiths to the 16th or 17th centuries. Presbyterian - John Calvin, around 1537; Baptist - 1609; Lutheran - somewhere between the Diet of Worms and 1628 (solid date for the first American Lutheran church, no solid date for first official Lutheran church, but I'm sure it wasn't organized by Luther himself).

They almost all identify with the Church Fathers, however.  Calvinism is effectively Augustine minus Bishops.  The Church fathers are seen as part of the 'pure' Christianity for most Protestant churches, that is they're true Christians before later Catholic heresies and the Protestant churches saw themselves as picking up on that

I'm staying out of the Mormon piece, but this is not a tenable statement with respect to the Arians.  Some of the most important early Church fathers had what we now call Arian beliefs.  It is just as accurate -- probably moreso -- to call Athanasius and his followers "a sect like the Gnostics".  Just because the victors rewrite the histories doesn't mean we have to accept their word for it.

I mean some of the earlier Church fathers seem to have been non-trinitarian, but they luckily died before the heresy.  So in a similar way to Augustine as a proto-Protestant in belief they could have been earlier suggestions of Arianism but we don't know if they would have been heretic or not.  Would the authority of the Church and Church Councils have overwhelmed those views?

We are talking about antiquity. I was responding to the contention that the roman church were the original christians.

Okay but if your problem is that Christianity became a state Church with Constantine then there can't be any Christian Church whatsoever.

[Maximus]

Okay but if your problem is that Christianity became a state Church with Constantine then there can't be any Christian Church whatsoever.

No, christianity didn't become a state church. Roman Catholicism became a state church. There may not be a roman church, but any of the various underground churches that existed during the period could still have existed, perhaps even thrived depending on the tolerances of the government. Many more could have sprung into being. Some might have become state churches, others would not because that was antithetical to their beliefs.

[Valmy]

No, christianity didn't become a state church. Roman Catholicism became a state church.

Have you informed the Orthodox Churches of this historical fact?  They sure seem convinced it was they who became the state church.

Also churches who reject the foundation of the orthodoxy hammered out by Constantine and co are pretty rare, even today.

[Maximus]

No, christianity didn't become a state church. Roman Catholicism became a state church.

Have you informed the Orthodox Churches of this historical fact?  They sure seem convinced it was they who became the state church.

Well, ok there were others. My point is it wasn't christianity as a whole.

[Valmy]

Well, ok there were others. My point is it wasn't christianity as a whole.

How many mainstream churches seriously reject the Nicene Creed?  Or embrace those ideas Constantine and co declared heretical?  None that I know of.

[Maximus]

How many mainstream churches seriously reject the Nicene Creed?  Or embrace those ideas Constantine and co declared heretical?  None that I know of.

Does it necessarily follow from that that without nicea there would be no christian church?

Yes there were other churches. No they did not become large. The atmosphere of the time was not conducive to that sort of thing. See: Albigensians.

[The Minsky Moment]

I mean some of the earlier Church fathers seem to have been non-trinitarian, but they luckily died before the heresy.  So in a similar way to Augustine as a proto-Protestant in belief they could have been earlier suggestions of Arianism but we don't know if they would have been heretic or not.  Would the authority of the Church and Church Councils have overwhelmed those views?

it's hard to read how serious you are being here . . . We are talking about a rule of recognition - ie what distinguishes "christian" from "non-christian".  Of course any such rule is arbitrary, but still it seems to me a definition that excludes a broad swath of the earliest known Christians (but then excepts them through a chronological technicality) doesn't work.  The logic of your position if not its statement excludes all non-Catholics - the Protties come in only because they hark to the Church Fathers, but you concede that the Fathers were not uniformly Nicene (or its proto-equivalent to the extent that something like that can even be logically posited) or even that the majority were. 

Maximus may be overly blunt but his point is well taken - Nicaea (and chalcedon, etc) are inherently political events where a secular power is coming in centuries after the fact an imposing a credal statement by force.  I can't see any rational or principled reason for saying that the good faith dissenters from the statement lose their claim to be part of the faith.

[Valmy]

Does it necessarily follow from that that without nicea there would be no christian church?

That is an impossibly question to answer.  It is almost like asking would there be a Republic of Italy if Rome had been destroyed by Carthage.

Yes there were other churches. No they did not become large. The atmosphere of the time was not conducive to that sort of thing. See: Albigensians.

Yet even after two hundred years without said atmosphere almost everybody still agrees the Nicene orthodoxy is correct.  Virtually none of the Protties have broken with it.

[Sheilbh]

Yes there were other churches. No they did not become large. The atmosphere of the time was not conducive to that sort of thing. See: Albigensians.

The Albigensians are around 6-700 years later and were the largest outbreak of heresy since the Council of Nicea.  It's worth saying that in terms of state-church union the (Roman) Catholic Church very often argued against the state, unlike the Eastern Churches.

The rise of Arianism, which was condemned by the Council of Nicea, first brought the Western Church to prominence because the Western Church stayed far more Orthodox than the Eastern Church.  Arian was from Alexandria and his theology was popular in North Africa and around the Levant, in the Western Church it never achieved a similar success.

Similarly in later Christological crises, such as the Monophysite and Monothelite heresies, they proved most popular in the Levant and the, by then, Byzantine Emperors regularly pushed for councils to try and sort out some sort of compromise.  Having your Empire divided by obscure, but strongly felt theological arguments wasn't useful.  Those compromises were more than once supported by the Patriarch.  It was Rome which was able to stand firm for Orthodoxy even if it was an extreme position, because Rome was distant from the state's power and its Church, the Western Church, wasn't wracked by internal theological dispute.

Arguably the Roman Catholic Church arose out of an argument with state power, and was always defined by the compromises and challenges of state power: it could oppose Imperial heresies because the Empire couldn't strike; it couldn't oppose a French King (any French King) with a penchant for crossing the Alps.  In antiquity Rome was more able to avoid the pressure of an Imperial power it recognised (though in avoiding that pressure it was declaring its own state-like powers); in the Medieval period it was able to theoretically declare independence from Imperial power (at Canossa); in the Renaissance the Catholic Reformation declared Rome's global non-statist ambitions.

As I say the Roman Catholic Church has always had to deal with state power, but then it's been around in some form or other for more than 1500 years, at least.

Does it necessarily follow from that that without nicea there would be no christian church?

I think a Christian Church that didn't recognise the divinity of Christ and the Trinity would be almost unrecognisable.

[The Minsky Moment]

Sheilbh the problem is that "the Levant" was the heart of early Christianity and most of the early important figures in Christianity came from there.  Including Jesus and all his disciples of course - but more than that Christianity as a religion is really the mixing together of a Jewish heresy with Greek ideas.

Your argument about the (Western) Roman Church being the bulwark of orthodoxy is a bit of ahistorical malarkey: Nicaea was not a conflict between an orthodox "West" and an "East" mired an heresy - rather it was a conflict between eastern prelates (and the theological "schools" of Alexandria and Antioch).  All of the key players on the Nicene side were "Eastern" including of course Athanasius himself.  The relevance of the Western Church to the council can probably best be signified by the fact that the Pope did not attend, and his legates played no significant role. 

[Maximus]

That is an impossibly question to answer.  It is almost like asking would there be a Republic of Italy if Rome had been destroyed by Carthage.

I'm not asking whether the answer is yes or no. I'm asking whether the answer is necessarily no.

Sheilbh was saying that without Nicaea there would be no church. My argument is that there still could have been churches, they just would have taken a different form and would probably have been less catholic and less powerful. Churches existed before Nicaea, I see no reason why they would not continue.

[Sheilbh]

Sheilbh the problem is that "the Levant" was the heart of early Christianity and most of the early important figures in Christianity came from there.  Including Jesus and all his disciples of course - but more than that Christianity as a religion is really the mixing together of a Jewish heresy with Greek ideas.

I'd agree with that. 

Your argument about the (Western) Roman Church being the bulwark of orthodoxy is a bit of ahistorical malarkey: Nicaea was not a conflict between an orthodox "West" and an "East" mired an heresy - rather it was a conflict between eastern prelates (and the theological "schools" of Alexandria and Antioch).  All of the key players on the Nicene side were "Eastern" including of course Athanasius himself.  The relevance of the Western Church to the council can probably best be signified by the fact that the Pope did not attend, and his legates played no significant role.

Sorry I got my time mixed up.  After the Council of Nicaea it is the Western Church, led by St. Ambrose, that defends Nicene orthodoxy against a resurgent Arianism with the state support of a number of Emperors, both Eastern and Western.  It's from Ambrose, not Nicaea, that the Western Church comes to some importance as a relative bulwark of orthodoxy.  That's a process that continues as imperial power in the West collapses and Emperors are less able to threaten and dominate the Western Church.

I can't see any rational or principled reason for saying that the good faith dissenters from the statement lose their claim to be part of the faith.

I think it's the necessary conclusion to any Christian belief system.  If faith is a core element of salvation, then surely error in faith leads to damnation?  I don't think you could logically be a Catholic without adhering to the entire doctrine of the Catholic Church, or that you could be a Calvinist without believing that faith alone is the basis of salvation.  I think Christianity is, and always has been, a rather exclusive religion.

[Sheilbh]

Sheilbh was saying that without Nicaea there would be no church. My argument is that there still could have been churches, they just would have taken a different form and would probably have been less catholic and less powerful. Churches existed before Nicaea, I see no reason why they would not continue.

I said there wouldn't be any Christian Churches.  I don't think there would be because the sects that would arise wouldn't be what we consider to be Christian.  They wouldn't believe Christ was God.

[Maximus]

The Albigensians are around 6-700 years later and were the largest outbreak of heresy since the Council of Nicea.  It's worth saying that in terms of state-church union the (Roman) Catholic Church very often argued against the state, unlike the Eastern Churches.

Yet even after two hundred years without said atmosphere almost everybody still agrees the Nicene orthodoxy is correct.  Virtually none of the Protties have broken with it.

I think there is a misunderstanding, probably due to the fact that I started out with incorrect terminology. To me a state church is any church that strives for secular power, but I can see how that may be incorrect. The roman church has nearly always tried to influence various governments, and for a time was a secular power in its own right.

So while a church may indeed accept the Nicene Creed, they may reject the secular authority of the council.

I will admit to a certain amount of personal interest in the matter although I do not share the beliefs of any of the involved parties. My family, for as many generations back as I can track them(7 or 8 generations dating back to 18th century Prussia), have belonged to such a church.

[Maximus]

I said there wouldn't be any Christian Churches.  I don't think there would be because the sects that would arise wouldn't be what we consider to be Christian.  They wouldn't believe Christ was God.

Why not? There were churches that believed in the divinity of christ before the council. Why would they suddenly change?