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The birth of the state religion of the Ecumenical Councils
Writer: Evangelos D. Kepenes (01/24/2018)
Biblical references from: ESV2011, AKJV and LXXE
“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John, 8:31-32)
The formed byzantine “patristic” Christianity differs in its structure from the early Christianity which was established by Jesus and the apostles, and which is the completion of Biblical Judaism.
Hellenized christianity and christianized hellenism were attained by the involvement of Plato's thinking fundamentally and the monotheistic Jewish christianity, with the hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo as a pioneer, and later with the philosophical apologists. Gradually, this blending formed a new philosophical current, which was a meta-evolution of Plotinus Neo-Platonism, which is characterized as a patristic philosophy, the Byzantine thinking. According to this new “patristic” philosophy, the heavenly man, Jesus Christ, has two natures, he is a perfect man and a perfect god, and so the Jewish deniers who led Jesus to the cross with deceit were half-justified.
“The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone you not; but for blasphemy; and because that you, being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:33)
The “fathers” of the new religion, who were also excited by Philo's love for the contradictory Greek philosophy, forgot the Scriptures, which say that:
“For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” (I Cor. 1:21)
“However, we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nothing: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world to our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (I Cor. 2:6-8)
Early Christianity is the manifestation of God's love and “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” and is in contradistinction to human philosophy. (II Cor. 4:6)
“And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.” (I Cor. 2:13)
“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but to us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ” (I Cor. 1:18-20)
The apologetic philosophers equated this contradistinction by, on the one hand, downgrading the “gospel of God” to the level of human philosophy and, on the other hand, by upgrading the human contradictory philosophy to a divine level. (Rom. 15:16)
“For Plato, with the air of one that has descended from above, and has accurately ascertained and seen all that is in heaven, says that the most high God exists in a fiery substance. But Aristotle, in a book addressed to Alexander of Macedon, giving a compendious explanation of his own philosophy, clearly and manifestly overthrows the opinion of Plato, saying that God does not exist in a fiery substance: but inventing, as a fifth substance, some kind of aetherial and unchangeable body, says that God exists in it.” (Justin’s hortatory address to the Greeks, chap. 5)
With this contradictory philosophy, a large portion of “Christians” walked from the 2nd century AD onwards, enticed by the apologists, who mistakenly taught that philosophy is a tutor that brings people to Christianity and a fellow-helper in the understanding of truth.
This teaching was in stark contrast to the teaching of the apostles who said:
“But, before the faith came, we were kept guarded under law, being shut up to the faith about to be revealed. So that the law has become our tutor [to lead us] to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But the faith having come, we are no longer under a tutor;” (Gal. 3:23-25, Worrell)
The very few references to Greek literature in the New Testament have simple human meaning and do not prove the parallel dissemination of philosophical currents by the apostles. This is mistakenly claimed by the adherents of the meta-evolved and processed “patristic” Christianity, which, as it was mentioned above, is the result of a multi-year process of mixing philosophy with the revelation of the truth by the Holy Spirit, which was sent from heaven. (I Peter to Hebrews, 1:2)
Biblical testimony
“And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” (I Cor. 2:4-5)
By accepting this proper strategy of the apostle Paul, the Jews of Veria were “nobler” than the Jews of Thessaloniki, and when Paul visited them at their synagogue, they accepted the word with all willingness. In order to ascertain the truth of Jesus, they “examined the Scriptures every day” without consulting the Greek philosophy, which grabbed Christ as a loot from the believers.
“Beware that no one rob you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Col. 2:8, VW)
The new religion
The new, Platonized, “patristic” thinking, covered behind the Hebrew Bible and the personality of Jesus Christ and having hellenism as a background, eventually formed a new polytheistic religion supported by the Roman politics of the New Rome. Dressed in the cremated forms of Judaism “and the elements shall melt with fervent heat (II Pet. 3:10),” such as earthly temples with symbolic arrangement and operation which intensely reminds of the burnt temple of the Jews, upgraded the “other god word” of Philo and the apologist Justin and other philosophers, from “second” and “inferior” god to “co-eternal” and “co-equal” to the Father, making an ontological equation of God the Father and God the Son.
The misguided effort of the apologists to mix Greek thinking, which believed in complex deities with a hierarchical union of member gods, (henotheism), with biblical monotheism, gave birth to long theological philosophical battles. Finally, with the help of the philosophers, “fathers of the church” and the holding of many councils which in practice fueled new controversies and consecutive depositions and exiles of bishops of all individual factions, a god of three hypostases was created, a three-sunned godhead, thus justifying both the human philosophy and the ever-existing national polytheism. The “Triune unit” which was incomprehensible to people became fully comprehensible at the end of the 4th century AD only by the philosophers, “fathers of the church” who finalized the triadic doctrine, which was proclaimed correct by an imperial order, replacing “Christ’s” teaching. (Colossians, 2:8)
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – Excerpt from an edict in the Byzantine-Roman Law
On the orthodox faith of Christians
and that no one should dare
to dispute about it publicly.
1) Read βι. α’ τι α chap. α και δ, which say that a Christian is someone who believes that there is one deity of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, with equal power. Anyone who believes the opposite of what has been said is a heretic.
2) No clergyman or monk or soldier or anyone else by gathering a crowd in public should talk about faith, because it will be seen as an insult to the Council of Chalcedon which adequately defined everything, which also allows all heretics to know our point of view. Therefore, if a clergyman does so, he will be expelled from the clergy association. If someone is a soldier, he will be expelled from the army. Let the rest be punished according to their social class.
The Roman emperors Constantine and Theodosius
The sun-worshiper, polytheist, mithraist, bloody emperor of the Romans, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, for political reasons, sought the religious assimilation of his ethnicities, believing that he would also secure the favor of the God of “Christians” in his martial affairs, but also the willingness of themselves to pour their blood for the empire. Being an idolater, whatever knowledge he had about the Son of God was obtained from controversial prophecies by a Sibyl (= oracle, priestess of the god Apollo) whom he extolled as blessed.
“It is evident that the virgin uttered these verses under the influence of Divine inspiration. And I cannot but esteem her blessed, whom the Saviour (sobriquet of god Apollo) thus selected to unfold his gracious purpose towards us.” (The oration of the emperor Constantine, which he addressed “to the assembly of the saints” chap. 18)
Most of Eusebius' contemporaries believed that the sibylline oracles about Jesus were forgeries as Eusebius himself testifies:
“Many, however, who admit that the Erythræan Sibyl was really a prophetess, yet refuse to credit this prediction, and imagine that some one professing our faith, and not unacquainted with the poetic art, was the composer of these verses. They hold, in short, that they are a forgery, and alleged to be the prophecies of the Sibyl on the ground of their containing useful moral sentiments, tending to restrain licentiousness, and to lead man to a life of sobriety and decorum.” (The oration of the emperor Constantine, which he addressed “to the assembly of the saints” chap. 19)
The emperor Constantine came from the army's ranks and had received his rank for wartime gallantry. His main concern was the proper administration, the increase and the preservation of his territorial sovereignty. Without having any knowledge of the Greek and Jewish literature and being unqualified for Judeo-Christian biblical issues, he summoned the First Ecumenical Council, which is characterized as a political act, aiming at the cohesion of the Roman state through common faith. By signing the decisions of the Council into state law with the death penalty for doubters, he set himself as the protector of the already Hellenized and schismatic Christianity, granting special privileges to the clergy as well. Influenced by his Arian bishops friends and his sister, Constantia, he leaned to Arianism. A few years later, following the condemnation by the Council of Arianism and the exile of Arius, he recalls the latter from exile and punishes in the same way the great adversary of Arius at the Council, the “father” Athanasius of Alexandria.
However, the greatest distortion of the promises of God and the teaching of the genuine Christianity, which has no flag or color, was achieved by the emperor Theodosius, who, in 380 AD, made the processed Christianity the official religion of his empire, thus attributing an ethno-religious identity to his earthly citizens as opposed to the spiritual and not-of-this-world identity recognized by the one God on the “partakers of the heavenly calling.” (Hebrews, 3:1)
“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female – for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:26:29)
The new state religion of the philosophers, “fathers of the church,” supported by the anti- pagan legislation of its sole dominant protectors who outlawed all the ancient religions by imposing the punishment of beheading and other means of punishment on the dissidents, achieved its violent dominance, yielding continuous spiritual darkness in the East and the West. The excerpt from the Acts of the Apostles that is quoted depicts the complete contrast between God's good intentions towards man and the purposes and the state-served interests of the new religion, the ally of the Byzantium, and the policy of violent cleansing of those of a different faith.
“Delivering you (Grk txt: εκλέγων σε = choosing you) from the people, and from the Gentiles, to whom now I send you, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” (Acts 26:17-18, AKJV)
The side effects of the nationalization of the new religion
The anti-Christian impacts of Theodosius' decision to nationalize God's work for the salvation of people are perpetuated and imprinted primarily by the results of the anti-pagan policy followed by him and other Roman emperors, which resembles that of the Persian king Artaxerxes.
“And whoever will not do the law of your God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily on him, whether it be to death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.” (Ez. 7:26)
And secondly, they are perpetuated and imprinted by the distinct Christian perception acquired by the Byzantine “Christian” citizens, as it appears in the following excerpt from an article by theologian Manolis Tzirakis:
“However, besides the emperor, the citizen of the Byzantine state is also a genuine and faithful Christian. He believes that the state he belongs to is protected by God and enjoys His favor. This belief is expressed by Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th century when he states that: "The State of Romans will not be torn down; it will remain unharmed forever, being the first to believe in the Lord Christ." (att. Ahrweiler, 2009). The members of Byzantine society are law-abiding citizens of the emperor and Christians committed to their faith, they are guided by monks and clergymen, they indiscriminately go by the name of Roman or Christian (identical terms in Byzantium), whom its emperor Leo VI characteristically calls the Nation of Christians, while the Byzantine people was named the Chosen People or New Israel (Ahrweiler, 2009).”
Epilogue
The formed religious and subsequent political dominance of the new secular Byzantine religion points to the military, imperialistic triumphs of Rome rather than to the pure, through the Holy Spirit, heavenly destination, which was carved by the early Christianity with the persuasion of the god-inspired written word and not with the persuasion of the contradictory evolved patristic philosophy and the armed coercion that harmed and adulterated the basic truths that God is love and is One.
“And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.” (Acts, 28:23)
“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in your sight. All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” (Mat. 11:25-27)
Jesus reigns!
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