Forgery

[GerardPaul]

Do Protestant and “Bible Only” groups have any case for the view that when Christianity was made legal in the Roman Empire so many pagans entered the Church that their non-christian views were made part of the Church to allow for their easier entry and the Church started to forge documents to make it look like Christians always believed these things and this turned the Catholic Church into a “False Religion” or even a “Satanic Cult”.

 

[Axion]

GerardPaul:

Do Protestant and “Bible Only” groups have any case for the view that when Christianity was made legal in the Roman Empire so many pagans entered the Church that their non-christian views were made part of the Church to allow for their easier entry and the Church started to forge documents to make it look like Christians always believed these things and this turned the Catholic Church into a “False Religion” or even a “Satanic Cult”.

No. This is a ridiculous charge - rather like that in the Da Vinci Code, that the bible was “rewritten” at this time to turn Jesus from a man into a god for the same reason! Of course the “Bible only” groups won’t accept that one! The apparently paganising Christians kept the bible intact.

The fact is that these theories are laughed at by reputable scholars. Early documents show that the Christians before Constantine believed exactly the same things before Christianity was legalised under Constantine, as after. And why would the Christians who had died under terrible torture rather than bend the slightest to paganism suddenly decide to adopt pagan practices wholesale? And this all happened with no opposition anywhere - even outside the Roman Empire where many Christians lived?

 

[Scott_Waddell]

No. Anti-Catholic polemics really look silly when history is taken into account because they invariably have to resort to positing conspiracy theories. Basically one would have to argue that the Holy Spirit fled the Church immediately, but came back several hundred years later to inspire the so-called evil pagan Catholic Church just long enough to finalize the canon of Scripture (and squeak out victories against many major heresies), and promptly skedaddle again until the Reformation.

Scott

 

[thistle]

GerardPaul:

Do Protestant and “Bible Only” groups have any case for the view that when Christianity was made legal in the Roman Empire so many pagans entered the Church that their non-christian views were made part of the Church to allow for their easier entry and the Church started to forge documents to make it look like Christians always believed these things and this turned the Catholic Church into a “False Religion” or even a “Satanic Cult”.

Sounds like Dan Brown’s next movie. He’s also good with lies about our Church.