In my mind, the first 300 years of Christianity (30 AD through 330 AD), the Christian Church was pristine.

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Telestia said:
In my mind, the first 300 years of Christianity (30 AD through 330 AD), the Christian Church was pristine.

Why was it so pristine during that period?

Because there was no Worldly Reason to be a Christian!!! To be a Christian before Constantine, meant suffering persecutions, loss of properties and possessions, loss of loved ones, and no upward mobility in society. The only reason to be a Christian was that you truly had faith in Jesus and His Gospel.
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We aren’t being persecuted today? Have you been watching the news? Christians in the Middle East are being slaughtered. Oh, and try praying in front of your City Hall and see where that gets you.
Telestia said:
Upon Emperor Constantine making Christianity the official religion of all of the Roman Empire, And his seizing of all the Pagan Temples and turning them over to the Christians to be transformed into Christian Churches, and promoted Christians Bishops to be Judges in disputes among the peoples. This all seemed to be good until the Pagans, for the wrong reasons, became Christians en mass because that was now where the money and power is. And many brought their pagan practices with them in disguise. Many of the New Christians were not very Christian.
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Constantine actually didn’t stop pagan worship. He was the first to promote Freedom of Religion.
 
Pristine… probably not. Read the letters to the Corninthians, they were always doing something kooky.
 
FabiusMaximus said:
  1. Constantine was a faithful Christian on his deathbed. He was baptized. He certainly didn’t need Christianity as a universal faith for the Empire. He could have picked any other religion, many of which were far more widespread and popular than Christianity. He was interested in the councils There is no evidence he “tampered” with them, otherwise he would have imposed his own reforms, and of this there is no evidence, just assumption by various anti-Catholics/Orthodox.
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It’s this Constitine thing that keeps popping up over and over with evangelicals. When one reads the actual history of time, by both Christian and non-Christian sources, the revisionist, re-imagining “history” they put forth falls apart.
That’s why I asked for proof. It’s an opinion. Like ah…aliens built the pyramids or something. “Well…you can’t prove it didn’t happen!!” :rolleyes:
 
Mickey said:
Correct. It is Pagels who delves more into the realm of gnosticism. Ehrman focuses more on theories claiming that the majority of the New Testament is forged… and the Bible is not reliable.

Hogwash!
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I think that every Catholic and non-catholic alike should read Elaine Pagels “The Gnostic Gospels” Inadvertently, it will show that without an Ecclesial guide declaring what is Orthodox vs Heterodox, then their would be no established Canon of Scripture. It will show that if you reject the Ecclesial guide from the time of Christ, then anything goes. It shows that there were many different Gnostic sects, and they all used different books to back up their claims, like the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Phillip, The dialogue of the Savior and so on…

Inadvertently, the Gnostic Gospels also will show the Primacy of Peter and the establishing of the Apostles handing down what they had received from Christ (Apostolic Sucession) was politically driven. Not only that, but much of the writings in the New Testament were written in by men just to establish an Ecclesial hierarchy, and did in fact NOT come from God, but by men!

When you read this book as a Catholic, you can see that if you remove an Ecclesial Authority to declare what is Orthodox, and what is Heterodox, you end up with a " this is from God because it speaks to my heart type of picking and choosing of what books YOU determine to be “divinely insipred.” If thats the case then, it shows that without an Ecclesial Authority you are now subjecting scripture to your own private interpretation. It points to if there be no Ecclesial Authority determining what books are divinely inspired, then you can use books from other religions too, like Zoroastrianism, Buddism or Manichean writings.

St. Augustine of Hippo said of such: “Your design clearly is to deprive Scripture of all authority and to make every man’s mind the authority of what he is to approve or disapprove of. This is not to be subject to Scripture, but to make Scripture subject to you. If you discard authority, to what, I beseech you, will you take yourself?” (Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, 32:19 [A.D. 400])
 
DJK100 said:
Pristine… probably not. Read the letters to the Corninthians, they were always doing something kooky.
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👍

Judas betrayed Jesus.
Ananias (was that his name?) tried to withhold money from the church and was struck dead for lying about doing so.
His wife did the same.
The only reason the New Testament (beyond the gospels) exists is because those ‘pristine’ new Christians were being stupid and had to be corrected.
At one point Paul himself calls the subject of his letters ‘foolish’.
These new Christian (from the New Testament) were eating food offered to pagan idols so Paul had to sort out whether or not this was okay.
These pristine new Christians were bickering amongst themselves over who was greater based on who had baptized them.
These pristine new Christians brought their religion with them into Christianity (IE: Judaism).

I don’t know… I have a hard time believing that God preserved these ‘pristine’ Christians for 300 years and then said, ah… I’ll hand you over to Rome and let Rome corrupt you now. You’ve had enough of my guidance, now you’re on your own. Good luck!
 
JustaServant said:
It’s this Constitine thing that keeps popping up over and over with evangelicals. When one reads the actual history of time, by both Christian and non-Christian sources, the revisionist, re-imagining “history” they put forth falls apart.
That’s why I asked for proof. It’s an opinion. Like ah…aliens built the pyramids or something. “Well…you can’t prove it didn’t happen!!” :rolleyes:
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You know how it is. When a lie is diffused sufficiently, it becomes accepted as the truth. How many people still believe that the Church caused the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages? Document after document consistently confirms the opposite - that the Church was a bastion of light that restored Europe - but people are rehashed the same old lie so much that when they are confronted by the truth, they refuse to believe it. It doesn’t really matter that it’s entirely bogus, just that enough people repeat the lie over and over again.

How often do we here that the Christian Church (and the Catholic Church in particular) is “anti-woman”? Isn’t that interesting considering that during the early period of the Church, Christianity was considered a “woman’s religion” and was mocked endlessly for its positive attitude toward women.

If anyone reads the history of the Christian Church, it is actually rather impressive how diligent the Church was in trying to preserve sound doctrine. But most people don’t know that. Dan Brown caused quite a stir with his The Da Vinci Code, as if something extraordinary were discovered. Little do people know that the “Gospel of Mary” or whatever it’s called was known from the beginning of the Church, and rejected because it was obviously spurious.

You know that, I know that, centuries of Christians have known that. The Church hasn’t survived for 2,000 years because it “hides” things - but because it refutes them. In many ways I can see why the Orthodox call the 7th Ecumenical Council the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” - today all the heresies and accuses toward the Church are simply rehashes of the controversies from those first 7 councils. And as the Church successfully refuted these heresies and grew immensely for 2,000 years, so it will survive long after the current controversies are dead and buried.
 
FabiusMaximus said:
You know how it is. When a lie is diffused sufficiently, it becomes accepted as the truth. How many people still believe that the Church caused the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages? Document after document consistently confirms the opposite - that the Church was a bastion of light that restored Europe - but people are rehashed the same old lie so much that when they are confronted by the truth, they refuse to believe it. It doesn’t really matter that it’s entirely bogus, just that enough people repeat the lie over and over again.

How often do we here that the Christian Church (and the Catholic Church in particular) is “anti-woman”? Isn’t that interesting considering that during the early period of the Church, Christianity was considered a “woman’s religion” and was mocked endlessly for its positive attitude toward women.

If anyone reads the history of the Christian Church, it is actually rather impressive how diligent the Church was in trying to preserve sound doctrine. But most people don’t know that. Dan Brown caused quite a stir with his The Da Vinci Code, as if something extraordinary were discovered. Little do people know that the “Gospel of Mary” or whatever it’s called was known from the beginning of the Church, and rejected because it was obviously spurious.

You know that, I know that, centuries of Christians have known that. The Church hasn’t survived for 2,000 years because it “hides” things - but because it refutes them. In many ways I can see why the Orthodox call the 7th Ecumenical Council the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” - today all the heresies and accuses toward the Church are simply rehashes of the controversies from those first 7 councils. And as the Church successfully refuted these heresies and grew immensely for 2,000 years, so it will survive long after the current controversies are dead and buried.
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Funny how things get twisted, some would lead us to believe the Church went into apostasy during Constantines period and the Dark Ages were the proof. IMHO the only thing that pulled man out of the Dark Ages was the Church.

Whats ironic is I listened to, I believe it was Scott Hahn a week or so ago, and the comment come up that the last century alone produced more martyrs than the first 300-years together.

For a Church no-one would believe is true or relevant, many sure are trying hard to destroy it in this present time.
 
nickybr38 said:
👍

Judas betrayed Jesus.
Ananias (was that his name?) tried to withhold money from the church and was struck dead for lying about doing so.
His wife did the same.
The only reason the New Testament (beyond the gospels) exists is because those ‘pristine’ new Christians were being stupid and had to be corrected.
At one point Paul himself calls the subject of his letters ‘foolish’.
These new Christian (from the New Testament) were eating food offered to pagan idols so Paul had to sort out whether or not this was okay.
These pristine new Christians were bickering amongst themselves over who was greater based on who had baptized them.
These pristine new Christians brought their religion with them into Christianity (IE: Judaism).

I don’t know… I have a hard time believing that God preserved these ‘pristine’ Christians for 300 years and then said, ah… I’ll hand you over to Rome and let Rome corrupt you now. You’ve had enough of my guidance, now you’re on your own. Good luck!
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This is pretty much what I thought. Pristine? Most of the heresies came about during this period and were then repeated throughout the centuries. As long as human beings are involved, nothing is pristine. This speaks of the divine nature of the Church. It would have failed long ago if left simply to humans. I guess many non-Catholics really do depend upon Constantine being the culprit that ran the Church off the rails. History does not bear that out.
 
Telestia said:
In my mind, the first 300 years of Christianity (30 AD through 330 AD), the Christian Church was pristine.

Why was it so pristine during that period?

Because there was no Worldly Reason to be a Christian!!! To be a Christian before Constantine, meant suffering persecutions, loss of properties and possessions, loss of loved ones, and no upward mobility in society. The only reason to be a Christian was that you truly had faith in Jesus and His Gospel.

Upon Emperor Constantine making Christianity the official religion of all of the Roman Empire, And his seizing of all the Pagan Temples and turning them over to the Christians to be transformed into Christian Churches, and promoted Christians Bishops to be Judges in disputes among the peoples. This all seemed to be good until the Pagans, for the wrong reasons, became Christians en mass because that was now where the money and power is. And many brought their pagan practices with them in disguise. Many of the New Christians were not very Christian.
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Hhmmm? Does that mean we are using a corrupted and pagan Bible compiled by a pagan church?
 
GaryTaylor said:
Funny how things get twisted, some would lead us to believe the Church went into apostasy during Constantines period and the Dark Ages were the proof. IMHO the only thing that pulled man out of the Dark Ages was the Church.

Whats ironic is I listened to, I believe it was Scott Hahn a week or so ago, and the comment come up that the last century alone produced more martyrs than the first 300-years together.

For a Church no-one would believe is true or relevant, many sure are trying hard to destroy it in this present time.
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The interesting thing is that the term “Dark Ages” was probably more pronounced by Christians who lamented the fall of the Roman Empire than it is today by self-proclaimed historians who have little-to-no knowledge of the period in question.

Just one of the many things the Church did in the chaos that surrounded Rome’s collapse is enough to praise her. Just the fact that literacy was preserved was a tremendous achievement. When the Dorians invaded Mycenaean Greece, the country when through a literal Dark Age of several hundred years, because people forgot how to read and write.

Potentially, that kind of catastrophic decline could have happened in post-Roman Europe, but it didn’t - thanks to the Church which preserved not only literacy, but proved to be the only enduring institution when Rome fell.

Additionally, it’s funny how no one mentions the great Christian philosophers of the age. How people forget of great philosophers like Boethius, or great people like Peter of Pisa among others is beyond me.

But of course, everything is the Church’s fault. It makes me laugh when I hear hostile atheists on Christmas talking about celebrating a new “season of reason.” Little do they know that the concept of using reason and logic was something that came out of the Church, with particular regard to the scholastic tradition.

But this is the fate of the Bride of Christ. That’s why we must endure until the end.
 
Telestia said:
In my mind, the first 300 years of Christianity (30 AD through 330 AD), the Christian Church was pristine.

Why was it so pristine during that period?

Because there was no Worldly Reason to be a Christian!!! To be a Christian before Constantine, meant suffering persecutions, loss of properties and possessions, loss of loved ones, and no upward mobility in society. The only reason to be a Christian was that you truly had faith in Jesus and His Gospel.

Upon Emperor Constantine making Christianity the official religion of all of the Roman Empire, And his seizing of all the Pagan Temples and turning them over to the Christians to be transformed into Christian Churches, and promoted Christians Bishops to be Judges in disputes among the peoples. This all seemed to be good until the Pagans, for the wrong reasons, became Christians en mass because that was now where the money and power is. And many brought their pagan practices with them in disguise. Many of the New Christians were not very Christian.
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Haven’t been to China lately, have you? Or one of those extreme Muslim Countries? Or some of the places in Africa?
 
Fabius…good points…later on the Christians were known for truly laying down their lives for the Lord…in times of plagues…they took care of the dead who were put out on the streets to die by the pagans…they were exhorted by their bishops to make no distinctions and to serve everyone as Christ, even to the point they exposed themselves to having the plague…which many died from

But I also think this purity of faith…laying one’s life down for one’s neighbor…irregardless of who they are…is something we need to renew…we need to pray to the Lord and communion of saints to give us grace of this same heroic faith.
 
Telestia said:
In my mind, the first 300 years of Christianity (30 AD through 330 AD), the Christian Church was pristine.

.
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The letters of St Paul rebuking abuses and errors in the early Church communities would appear to argue that human weakness, self-interest, politics, and selfishness were always factors needing correction in the early Christian Church.
Acts of the Apostles also has witness to human lack of perfection and of disagreements.

As Jesus found with the Apostles, the first Christians, there have always been faults and weaknesses amongst Christians! All we need to do is to read the gospels to discover that!

It is a nice idea to regard the early Church as ‘pristine’, but the Bible tells otherwise…that from the beginning there were imperfections and disagreements, amongst Christians. There was much that was good, as is true today, amongst Christians…but ‘pristine’ never.

Jesus knew that He knew, and suffered from, the issues with which the apostles suffered, tow hoping for a higher place than the other ten, Peter needing a rebuke, one of the twelve selling him to his enemies, and of the remaining 11, only one stood by Jesus in the most difficult time of His life. They let Him down, and Peter lied about knowing Him. In the Acts, Peter and Paul had some disagreements. And in the epistles/letters, we learned more of the truth through Paul’s’ reprimands of various individuals and communities for not conforming to the gospel!

And after that, it didn’t suddenly happen that Christians were all we should be, humans are humans, and in all ages, must seek humbly and trustfully to try to live the Gospel, and sometimes we don’t do so well, at other times we do better. We repent and try again, with hope and trust in God. It was always thus.

The various heresies that followed at different times…no, a nice idea but not borne out in fact.
 
fbl9 said:
There still is no wordly reason to be a christian.
Bishops as judges seems biblical to me.
The fact that there are many that are in it for the money hasn’t changed in your circle.
Isn’t the origin of the prosperity gospel evangalical?
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No

How would you like it if I asked: Isn’t the origin of pederasty Catholic?
 
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