Code:
We were discussing the church circa 33 AD, which is documented in the writings of the apostles and their companions and contemporaries. Protestant doctrine is derived from those writings.
You make several good points here. One is that the Church founded by Christ produced documents. It sounds like, though that you are not taking into consideration the documents written by the ante-nicean fathers, who were the successors of the Apostles. Thes writings give us insight into the Church prior to Constantine, where you seem to believe a departure took place.
By the way, if that were true, then the canon would not have been able to be settled, in 382 because there would not have been sufficient unity. The Church would have already been torn apart with heresies.
You also make the good point that all Protestant Denominations “derive” their faith from the New Testament. This is a very different way of getting the faith than receiving it through the paradosis, since “derivation” or “extraction” can happen through the filters of the individual or group conducting the derivation.
Scripture, ,though it does document the faith of the Apostles and their contemporaries, was never intended to be a complete compendium of the faith.
That is when the church obtained the status of approval by Constantine, which was the beginning of it becoming a secular power.
This is not accurate, Lek. Decriminalizing the faith is a long way from gaining any secular power. I will provide a brief tutorial on the fall of Rome:
It was not Constantine’s involvment in any Church affairs that impacted Catholicsm, but his other actions. Between 324 and 330, Constantine I (r. 306–337) transferred the main capital from Rome to Byzantium, changing it’s name to Constantinople. This drew imperial power and oversight away from Rome, opening the city to the scourge of repeated invasions.
Under Theodosius I (r. 379–395), Christianity became the Empire’s official state religion and others such as Roman polytheism were made illegal. It is interesting that Constantine always gets the blame for this.
Secular power gradually declined in Rome until 546, when the Ostrogoths recaptured and sacked Rome. The city changed hands in the Gothic wars devastating Italy until 552. Ending the “Gothic Wars” which had devastated much of Italy. Rome suffered from great damage and the wetlands had encroached into the city where the drainage and embankments of the Tiber river untended. Malaria was rampant from the standing water and the population shrank from inhabitable areas and disease.
The Senate had lost authority and monetary control during the wars to the extent that the Bishop of Rome was more influential locally than any of the officials of the Empire, the seat of which had been moved to Constantinople. The Bishop of Rome was considered one of the leading religious figures in the entire Byzantine Empire. From a practical point of view, local governance in Rome was often deferred to him and eventually both much of the remaining possessions of the senatorial aristocracy and the local Byzantine administration in Rome were absorbed by the Church.
From my point of view, this overlapping or conflation of secular rule/power with the religious was what set the stage for what later erupted in the Reformation. Papal power over secular matters began to grow until it peaked, and Luther became the pebble that caused the avalanche.
Ok, that was beyond tutorial…
