Why did Constantine choose "Catholicism" from all the Christian sects as the official religion of Rome?

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Brassring said:
During the third and fourth centuries, there was one Church, and several schismatic and heretical movements.

Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea so that respected bishops and presbyters could discuss and conclude on several differing points of doctrine, practice, and belief. There were several issues, but one of the big ones was Arianism (not to be confused with Aryanism, which is a whole different level of stupidity).

It’s improper to say that Constantine “chose” Catholicism. There was literally nothing else, The other sects were just small groups that had been expelled from the Church for heresy or schismatic beliefs.

“Church History” by Eusebius of Caesarea is a good place to begin on this issue. Bishop Eusebius took part in the Council of Nicaea and also compiled documents from various sources to create a history of the Church from the time of Christ’s ascension until the Council of Nicaea.
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GiftedChildren said:
This seems very disingenuous to say that there was no debate. Of course there was, that’s what the purpose of the Council of Nicaea was for…
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No documented debate about the Real Presence (though the specific explanation that is transubstantiation came later, and the alternatives later still). It’s not saying there were no debates within Christianity ever.

As for Nicaea, it was focused primarily on the issue of the relationship between God and Jesus, as raised by Arius and his followers. (A bunch of lesser administrative issues were also ruled upon, but not the Real Presence or the Biblical canon or any of the other major things that get credited to/blamed on Nicaea nowadays).

It is interesting to note that Constantine personally favored Arianism (or, if he didn’t care much about the Christological issue, at least some of the prominent Arian leaders were friends of his). The man who ultimately baptized the Emperor on his deathbed was one of them.

It’s incorrect to say that Constantine “picked” the winner of the debate, or even that he made Christianity/Catholicism the official religion of the Empire. In 312 he made it legal to profess Christianity publicly. Thirteen years later he insisted that the bishops get together and settle the Arian controversy rather than letting it continue to be a source of strife in his empire. So he ordered the Council of Nicaea, yes, but he was still a pagan at the time and took no part in the decision-making. His Arian friends would presumably have fared better if he had, but he likely didn’t care what the bishops concluded as long as they stopped fighting about it.

(They didn’t, by the way. The party that became known as Nicene or orthodox Christianity “won,” but the Arians were still around and continued to fight back, getting some local councils to approve Arian or semi-Arian interpretations of the Creed, getting sympathetic officials to exile prominent Nicene partisans (who did the same thing back when they were the ones with the ear of the authorities), and so forth. There was a time considerably after the Council when the vast majority of the world’s bishops (who would undoubtedly have considered themselves part of the small-c catholic Church) were Arians!

Understand, Catholics don’t deny that multiple variants of Christianity existed from the beginning – they’re mentioned in the New Testament as existing in the time of the Apostles! We reject the notion that they were all equal claimants to legitimacy and that the outcomes of the early councils were accidents of history. True, the philosophical definition of the Trinity wasn’t hammered out until Nicaea and Constantinople, and the details of the Incarnation took even longer – but those are the explanations that were found to best fit all the Scriptural and Traditional data. The heretical alternatives always emphasize one true thing (the oneness of God, say, or either the divinity or humanity of Jesus, while simplifying away equally true but complicating factors. If you think about it, the version of Christianity that comes out of the early Councils is the weirdest possible one. It would be simpler to just have God the Father, with Jesus as a powerful and beloved but subordinate entity. Or Jesus as either just a divine being who appeared to be human or just a man who spoke and acted for God like so many before Him. The only reason to reconcile all the apparently contradictory elements into complicated doctrines like the Trinity and the Incarnation is if most of the bishops really thought that the partial explanations were lacking and those teachings, however bizarre, were closer to reality.

Finally, the reason why “catholicity” matters so much that all the Creeds mention it and it eventually became the proper name of the Church in the West is that it is one way of showing that they weren’t dealing with an assortment of equally legitimate “Christianities.” You had the catholic/Catholic faith, which was universal in that it had spread “everywhere,” and then you had other groups that had obviously gotten their start in a specific geographic area or among followers of a particular person. Which is more likely to be preserving the truth straight from the Founder?
 
josh987654321 said:
He was Baptized late in his life.

I seriously doubt your account here, since his battle against Licinius was very much seen in light of the old Pagan gods vs the Christian God, since they marched under the Chi Rho, and as per his previous experience, believed the monogram of Christ would bring him to victory against Licinius as it did against Maxentius at Rome.

I hope this has helped

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh
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old habits die hard, especially if the majority is still pagan
 
Maybe he took Nancy Pelosi’s advice and went alphabetically? 😃
 
GiftedChildren said:
Are you saying that early Catholics were considered “violent enemies”??

This reminds me of a link I was reading the other day that stated:

therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/a5.html

Many Catholics and non-Catholics alike think that the Roman Catholic Church invented the doctrine of transubstantiation. Transubstantiation means that the bread and wine presented on the altar at the Mass become the the Body and Blood of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit at the consecration. The consecration is the time when the priest calls upon the Holy Spirit to change the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood. However, the Body and Blood retain the appearance of bread and wine. The Roman Catholic Church, that is, the Latin Rite Catholic Church, and other Catholic Churches in communion with Rome believe that the Eucharist is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity. The Orthodox Churches and most other Churches of the East do so as well. Anglican [Episcopalian] and other Protestant denominations have interpreted Christ’s presence at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist to be either only spiritual, or symbolic, or non-existent.

Thus, I decided to research what the Early Christians believed on this issue. I searched the indices for “Eucharist” in many volume sets on Early Christian writings, and I was astonished at my discovery. The Early Christians actually took the Real Presence for granted. It doesn’t even seem as if there was much debate. I could not find anyone who denied the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament before the year 500 A.D. Following are the results of my search. Some Christians, e.g. St. Augustine, had very much to say about the Real Presence of Our Lord, so I did not include everything. Also, I want you to know that I did not include other Christians who believed in the Real Presence in this article because they later fell away from the Church for different reasons. Therefore, even though these Christians defended the Real Presence, e.g. Origen, Tertullian, Theodore of Mopsuetta, etc., I did not include their statements.

This seems very disingenuous to say that there was no debate. Of course there was, that’s what the purpose of the Council of Nicaea was for…
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I think you are confusing something.

As the link you provided says…there was no question that the Real Presence was “denied”…it was believed from the very beginning and nobody question the Real Presence till the Reformation, as far as I can tell.

Now, there indeed was debate…the debate was not whether the Real Presence was true or not…“The Early Christians actually took the Real Presence for granted” is taken from your link…but the debate was regards how it came about…and the CC response was the doctrine of Transubstation:

catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/transubstantiation-for-beginners
 
Also, Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. He simply issued the an edict of toleration (the Edict of Milan), that permitted Christianity to be practiced. But he did not make it mandatory.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan

Christianity only became mandatory under Emperor Theodosius I in 380 AD, who issued the Edict of Thessalonica. This put an end to the Arian heresy that had taken over a significant portion of the Empire.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Thessalonica

By this point the western Empire was collapsing. Just 30 years later, Rome was sacked by the Visigoths (and sacked again by the Vandals 45 years after that).
 
cloak_and_stagg said:
There are stories of him being inspired to victory by Minevra with the sign of an owl rather than the Chi-Ro in 312.
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I have never heard this before. Could you share your source for that? Whatever he saw, it certainly changed the course of history.
 
cloak_and_stagg said:
There are stories of him being inspired to victory by Minevra with the sign of an owl rather than the Chi-Ro in 312.
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That’s not right, since the insignia on his armies was that of the Chi-Rho, if it was wrong, surely he would have corrected his soldiers for putting the Chi-Rho on there, surely he would have said “wait a minute, that’s not what I saw” if that was the case.

If the Chi-Rho was what ended up being used, then that’s what he saw, it makes no sense to put something else on there before the battle (before he even knew it would be successful) then what he claimed to have seen.
cloak_and_stagg said:
old habits die hard, especially if the majority is still pagan
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Maybe.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
GiftedChildren said:
Did Constantine believe in the real presence of the Eucharist?

Did Roman leaders just want to appease the Christian sect that was most seen as “terrorists” (i.e. - martyrs)?

Or was there more to it?
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Here’s a condensed history of the first 400 years of Christianity. Notice, the Catholic Church (by name), the chair of Peter, has been there from the first century. THAT is the name of the Church of Christianity.

Constantine didn’t start any Church, he made the Catholic Church legal, and no longer was it illegal to be Catholic. Nor was it legal to martyr Catholics any longer. He converted at the end of his life

Links are all operational

The Church has been Catholic from the 1st century. The English word Catholic is a transliteration of the Greek katholikos which is a compound word from kata, which means according to, and holos, which means whole or universal. catholic.com/tracts/what-catholic-means

So one THEN can ask, where does kata holos appear in scripture and particularly kata holos ekklesia ?

Acts 9:31 the church throughout all ἐκκλησία,καθ’,ὅλης ,τῆς ,Judea and Galilee and Sama’ria…" = the Kataholos Church.

Ignatius was Martyr and Bishop of Antioch from ~69 a.d. to ~107 a.d. He was ordained by the apostles, and was a direct disciple of St John. It was in Antioch where the disciples were first called Christian Acts 11:26 . And Ignatius in his writings uses both “Christian” and “Catholic Church” in his letters.
  • St Ignatius, uses Christian in (ch 2) and Catholic Church in (ch 8) Epistle to the Smyrnæans and note: of which schismatics won’t be going to heaven Epistle to the Philadelphians (ch 3) . As an aside, where would Ignatius learn to teach that warning and corresponding consequence for one’s soul, for commiting and remaining in the sin of schism / division from the Catholic Church? Paul condemned division / dissention from the Church Romans 16:17-20 , Galatians 5:19-21 and that came from Jesus who does NOT approve of division in His Church John 17:20-23 , and since the HS only teaches what comes from Jesus John 16:12-15 no one can say the HS inspired all the division we see today in Christianity. There is no expiration date to that warning and condemnation
  • St Polycarp, Bp Smyrna, disciple of St John called the Church the “Catholic Church” The Martyrdom of Polycarp
  • Muratorian canon earlychristianwritings.co…uratoria n.html uses authority of “Catholic Church” in determining the canon
  • Irenaeus ~180 a.d. wrote “Against Heresies” called the Church the “Catholic Church” Adversus haereses [Bk 1 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103110.htm”]Chapter 10 v 3], and also Irenaeus who was taught by Polycarp, teaches all must agree with Rome [Bk 3, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm”]Chapter 3, v 2-3]
  • Cyprian~250 a.d. calls the Church the Catholic Church Epistle 54
  • The Nicene Creed, 325 a.d., it’s a matter of faith to believe in the “One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church”
  • Augustine ~395 There are many other things that most justly keep me in her * bosom. . . . The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental (ch 5 v6)
  • etc
The same Church Pope Francis is over today, 266th successor to St Peter.

Jesus started one Church. The Catholic Church. He gave all His promises to His Church. No divider can argue the HS inspired them to divide from the Catholic Church because that would contradict Jesus. Just refer to the links above

And especially when considering all the division we see that is called Protestantism. The HS isn’t the author of all that confusion.

Besides, As you can see from the links above from Paul, which ultimately came from Jesus, division is condemned as are those who do it and remain in it. For 2000 years, division from the Catholic Church has been condemned. There is no expiration date to that teaching or consequence…*
 
Constantine made Christianity legal in 312 AD by 325 AD many who were pagans; which by the way there were still plenty of, most likely were inquiring about this religion called Christianity. No doubt a great many questions arose concerning the beliefs of Christians. In explaining this Christian religion it seems that not all who were Christians understood how to teach what it was for Christians to believe. Some said one thing while others said quite another so it was getting confusing to say the least. So in a sense something needed to be done in order to bring about unity; peace within the Church as well as in the Empire.

It might have been fine before when Christians were for the most part underground and had not Churches so to speak. But when that changed and more and more people became exposed to Christianity they somehow had to try and understand it which might have not been easy since so many were steeped in their pagan beliefs. There was just one Christian Church and many churches around the empire and communication was not easy and took time. Remember while there was one central authority in the Christian Church, Bishops around the Empire had to for the most part be the authority without direction from the head of the Church generally speaking. Also Bishops in a way gained a new found power they did not have before when Christianity became the religion of the empire which they were really not willing to give up so in effect different teaching abounded which did not always agree with what Christians were to believe. Some teachings in Christianity were extremely hard to understand and or to explain in a way that could be understood.
 
Constantine “chose” Christianity because he believed that the Christian God favored him at his battle against Maxentius (which is where he saw the symbol of the cross). He wanted to stay on God’s good side, so he restored the property of the Church and helped construct new churches. After this he issued the edict of Milan. He also stopped taxing churches and clergy, as well as put an end to using crucifixion as a method of execution. Of course there were political reasons involved, though Constantine was known to pray daily. He was instructed in the faith and was baptized on his death bed.
 
JimG said:
There was only one Christian Church and it was headed by the Bishop of Rome. In other words, the Catholic Church.
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Huh…? In the 4th century? There were several catholic churches at the time each with its own duly elected bishop as her head. So the notion that the bishop of Rome was the head of the entire Christian church is not true. And that remains true today as well.
 
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