Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being here. We're going to begin on page 270, the year 313 A.D. with the Addict of Milan, where Constantine is going to make Christianity legal and as far as making a tolerance of all religions. We'll try to get to the year 400 A.D. We'll see how far we get. There is a class next week here, but then the following two weeks, which would be, well, There's no class. Is it the 26th? And then it'd be the... Yeah, the 2nd of January. Oh, here, we got a calendar right here. Yeah, so if you need a calendar, we got class next week, then the last two weeks of... Last, we get December, and first, we get January. There's no class, so thank you very much. But anyway, here we go. We're going to be on page 270. And we ended last week just kind of discussing all the different heresies that had popped up in the first few hundred years of church history. Of course, there's a lot of things to iron out and establish, including the deity of Jesus Christ, what is scripture, what, as far as how you're going to explain the Trinity, just a wide variety of things that are complicated things to discuss, especially when you enter that area of being a mystery not fully revealed, not scientifically discovered, something you've got to actually theologically iron out. But in 313, we're going to begin there, the Edict of Milan, this is going to open up a whole other chapter in church history. Some people would consider it this way as far as the first few hundred years uh... saint would be trying to you know crush the church with persecution and rejection being underground well it didn't work as tertullian wrote the the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church the church flourished so much so that when constantine becomes emperor it's even suggested that he not really became a christian as much as he saw the rising trend of christianity that was going to be the future of the empire that he had to embrace it because he couldn't fight it I don't know if I agree with that completely. I think Constantine was a Christian. I think he was a believer. I think he was very, like I said last week, very shallow in his faith, very immature, more pagan than he was Christian. Of course, who's to say how we'd be or I would be if I was at that age trying to embrace christianity and figure it out. But the big deal about Constantine then was he made it legal and christianity was welcomed into the empire, given special privileges, and everybody followed. And that was almost more of a blow to christianity than the persecution because now it became so spread out, it became so widely accepted, everyone was part of it, it in a sense got watered down. And again, that would be another consideration of what's taking place. But here, as far as tonight, in 313, the Edict of Milan, Conzi had granted tolerance of Christianity and a restitution of property taken from Christians in the lands of Gaul, Spain, and Britain in 306. In 306, he says, we're going to restore these lands. In 313, he's going to make Christianity legal. By 310, Maxentius had done the same in Italy and Africa. In 311, Galerius and Licinius, they ruled on the eastern half of the empire, or Licinius did, decreed tolerance of Christianity in the Balkans and began to restitution. They're actually giving stuff back to the Christians that had been taken from them. And the Edict of Milan came in 313 when Empress Constantine and Licinius proclaim religious tolerance throughout the Roman Empire to include newly acquired land taken from Maxinnius. The Edict of Milan came in the form of a letter from Licinius to the governor of Bithynia in June of 313. It was sent on behalf of the emperor Licinius in the east and the emperor Constantine in the west. And on page 271, you got a copy of the letter, the actual text. And I've got some things underlined there. I'll just read the parts that's underlined. You may want to read the whole thing, kind of get a feel for what is being said, the terminology. It says, Therefore, your worship should know that it has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever which were in the rescripts formerly given to you officially concerning the Christians. And now any one of these who wishes to observe Christian religion may do so freely and openly without molestation. The next part says, Moreover, in the case of the Christians especially, we esteem it best to order that if it happens anyone hitherto has bought from our treasury, from anyone whatsoever, those places where they were previously accustomed to assemble concerning which a certain decree had been made and a letter sent to you officially, the same shall be restored to the Christians without payment or any claim of read recumbent recompense and without any kind of fraud or deception and remember they're coming off time of ten different persecutions and of the deal collision and these his persecution had been the most severe and these people are coming off the time where they were their scriptures were burned and fled and now everything's being restored to them if you go on to the bottom of page two seventy one we have the bishop of rome melkite is or no status uh... he'd suffered uh... under the emperor diocletian and the other persecutions he became emperor or excuse me the bishop of rome which would be the leader of the church in rome which is going to become the pope he's not the pope yet that's not a recognized position but he is the head leader or the bishop of rome which is the capital of the roman empire which then of course has influence over all the other churches just naturally because of their place but here's a classic example when constantine came to power uh... the bishop of rome saw the end of persecution was in the beginning of a new age of christendom he was given the letter in the palace by constantine that's the roman palace with him roman emperors had had in the possessions were in there uh... plunder from other countries different nations was was held there this is all given and is still held by the catholic church the parent palace was the ancient palace of the roman empire it became the residence of the polls for the next one thousand years is from the center It is from this center that the Western Church would direct its affairs today. It holds the Pontifical, you can't say it, Museum of Christian Antiquities, which would be, I have never been there, but I think it'd be fun to see all of the things that have been collected. And now you get into all the legends and the conspiracy theories. How much is there that is not seen? Some even suggest, and I don't know how far I'd go with this, But some of the treasures from the temple in Jerusalem from 70 AD could still be there. And that would make sense, because they do have on the Arch of Titus, the victory arch, they do have those things, the table of showbread and some of the trumpets and things, the golden menorah being carried into the city, carved right in on that arch, which we see in pictures. I've got it in the Jerusalem book. So there may still be some of those things there plus Who knows what else has been there because it's been in place for four centuries And so that's was given that's just an example of how the church was treated from being left obscure and persecuted They're now brought in and given Possessions of the Roman Empire and they've occupied them up until today on page 313 uh... one of the things is going to take place is well we'd talk about the persecution and they had the three different groups those who fled the persecution those who faced the persecution and those who went uh... ahead and and renounce christ and burn incense the emperor so three different groups after the persecution ended all three of these groups are going to come back together the people who fled including some of the bishops came back those who'd faced the persecution maybe prison or torture came back into the church, and those who had renounced Christ and sided with the pagans now return to the church, and they're all trying to have a potluck together. And here's the Dantists in 313. Six months into his reign, the Dantists ask Constantine to intervene in the church affairs over a decision concerning who should be bishop. When the Dantists refused the consul's verdict, Constantine threatened to go to Africa and settle things himself. They were the ones who did not want to have anyone who had fled or renounced Christ to be able to be a bishop, and they were the ones, if someone were to be baptized, it wouldn't be an official baptism. In other words, if the church didn't recognize them, or if the church did recognize, for example, the Roman church is going to recognize the people that had fled. For example, Cyprian was going to be recognized. The Dantists would say, they're not worthy, they don't have the authority to baptize or offer certain sacraments. And now, a big mistake being made right here, right away, 313, and you decide as you go through church history, the church goes where for their authority. They go to the emperor. They go to the pagan government, per se, the secular government, and say, make a decision on our behalf. Well, when Constantine makes a decision, it doesn't please them. They wanted a different decision. They now say that they're not going to accept it. And Constantine, because he was asked as the emperor to make a decision, made it government business, now feels it's his obligation to enforce his decision on the church. And so again, this is something our country was founded on as far as separating the separation of church and state on that idea. And we argue about today, or people have different ways of looking at it, but I think at the end of the day, you want separation of church and state. Again, we want the manger scene in the public arena. We want prayer in the Senate. We want our president to be a Christian. All of that. But at the same time, how far do you want the government in your church, in your personal faith, helping you establish doctrine, saying which translation of the Bible, you know, the NIV is not accurate enough, the government only recognizes, you know, the King James, and all other Bibles, or whatever the issue is going to be. Of course, you know, I'm just making something up. but here's what's a constant in them threat because they refuse to accept his decision costly then says i'm going to make playing to them what kind of worship is to be offered to god what higher duty have i as emperor the destroy air and repress rash indiscreet indiscretion indiscretions and so cause all to offer to almighty god true religion honest concord and true worship and do worship That sounds lofty and that's a great statement, but when you got into the actual doctrinal understanding of Constantine, he's not in a position to make that kind of statement and put that on other people. But yet, this is what's going to take place. goes on, he says, Constantine ordered the Donanus churches to be confiscated and their leaders banished. Now here's your, look at, look what year it is, it's 313. We started with accepting Christianity as a legal religion in 313, ending persecution, and within the year, within the next few months, the very people that say, Christianity is free. They now start enforcing rules on what is right and what is wrong and actually banishing certain churches. You're saying, not just saying you can't be a church leader, but exiling them. So you may have come off of your island of persecution back to the church saying, we have freedom of worship, only to find you've got the wrong doctrinal stance, only to be banished to another island. You were persecuted by the pagans, welcomed into the church, who is now, they're free to worship in the Roman Empire, But now sent off by the church's power because you've got the wrong position and that's what's gonna take place It's not gonna take very much time before the Christians are killing other Christians or exiling them because of well, here we go This is what's gonna come up when we mentioned last week two guys you see their names right there athanasius and areas now i always come down on the side of athanasius i like athanasius i mean if i actually knew him i'm not sure what i would think of him areas i don't like him he's evil but again the fact you know i'm not sure what i would think of him athanasius was the bishop of alexandria egypt uh... areas was the bishop of alexandria receiving the bishop alexandria put areas in charge of one of the big churches in the city of but that that sells now if you notice right here we are once again in north africa talking about the center of christianity not just rome but in north africa all across the coast of north africa is going to be christian it's got is where augustine's gonna come from uh... these two guys at the nation's areas is going to the big church doctor issues are going to come out of north africa which has been completely overrun by islam by, you know, in the seven, eight hundreds. But just keep that in mind. What was Christianity? You're going across northern Africa, you're going up into Syria, into Asia or Turkey, all the way into Italy, going into Spain, moving up into Europe, Christianity is spreading. Not so much by the sword, but supposedly by just proclaiming the truth. It's going to be wiped out by the sword in most of these cases because of Islam. That's coming. But Athanasius, uh... the visual exam egypt and a friend of the famous hermit anthony this is who have the nation's was never and they talk about him last week he was a fan of the christian faith who opposed arian and arianism before during and after the council of nicaea now the issue of jesus christ and who he is as far as the the deity of jesus is going to be going to two different places one is he is eternal Eternal God who took on the form of man or became man, again, you can't even hardly say it without treading on some doctrinal air. And Arianism, which is going to say that He was the greatest and the first created being. and again he's honored because he got his place in a high position or he is god himself now again what sunday school kid is going to come up and and be able to come to a conclusion on this unless you're actually going to tell him the answer ahead of time if you had to go through the scriptures yourself and figure out where's jesus originate from we would know i mean i know where he comes from but again i've been schooled in what i would say is the correct doctor but if i just had to pick up a bible start reading about jesus figure out who he is where he came from and see him as you know the eternal god in the old testament the word that became flesh which is you know the the word of life and put all that together I don't know if I've got the mental capacity to come up with this conclusion. Again, a lot of these things have been handed down to us, but this is going to be the issue that's going to come up right here. Athanasius is going to come down on the side right here that he is eternal God before, after, and during the Nicene Council, which is a council that's going to be ordered by Constantine to resolve this and other issues. Athanasius was restored from banishment by Emperor Julius I, but was forced into exile four more times between 335 and 366. So Athanasius, who came on this side, is going to go into exile multiple times because this side over here, the Arians, and or areas they're the ones who say jesus created are going to gain control and again it's it's exciting to see constantine and constantine's trying to be orthodox but the people who follow constantine are gonna waiver between one side or the other and this side of the emperors on this side he's going to oppress these heretics which would be made But if these guys are in power, they're going to return the favor and banish and persecute these Christians. And that's going to go on for many, many years. and in three twelve begins uh... areas the bishop of alexandria put areas in charge of one of the big churches in the city named basilis as a pastor he found success and gained a large following with his teaching and ascetic life asceticism is popular at this time because anthony's made it popular it's been you know having some kind of fleshly suffering and holding your your desires back and not living out in in the worldly ways Arius published Thalia, where he established the unity and simplicity of the eternal God. Again, notice this. Unity and simplicity of the eternal God. There's one God. It's very simple. Not in the sense of being simple, but in the sense of being... How do I want to say it? It's not multifaceted. It's the one God. Like Israel would say, the Lord our God is one. uh... and so he established that doctrine of the eternal god and the superiority of the sun over other created beings so you've got the one god and his prime created being the sun who's over all of creation as if god is is the the father he is the the one god and his great creator creation jesus is the one who's gonna be in a sense the priest over all of his created man or the king All of this is true. Jesus is the priest, represents us before God. Jesus is the master or the king of the created world. But the issue is going to be, is he himself created? Arius is explaining this to the church, and the church is eating it up. It's like, great, we've got it figured out who Jesus is. And he's teaching, he's making TV programs, he's taking tours to Israel and promoting his doctrine. No, he's not doing that. But anyway, the son being created by God before time began. Jesus is so great that he was in existence before time even began, because that's when he was created. So some would call this splitting hairs, because that's almost eternal. If you were in existence before time began, that almost makes you eternal, except there was a time in eternity past that you didn't exist, which means you're not God. Yeah, but you're awful close. Why argue about it? You're awful close. The new Bishop of Alexandria... Alexander had begun to teach what Arius thought was blasphemy. Alexander taught, as God is eternal, so is the Son. When the Father, the Son, excuse me, when the Father, the Son, the Son is present in God without birth, ever begotten and unbegotten begotten. Now again, hear those words. Those are going to come up in statements of faith, creeds if you would, statements of faith. so now you've got alexander preaching a different view of jesus then areas is and areas is in charge of this this area one large churches use it because there's two use it because as you see this stuff by comedo and use it as a sessoria one use it as a sessory is the one is going to be writing the history of the church for constantine he defended areas bishop alexander excommunicated him Emperor Constantine arrived in the east in 324 and attempted himself to settle this, are you ready? The emperor, think Obama or think Trump, coming in to resolve a church issue over a very elaborate doctrine. And this was, quote, what Constantine described this issue. And again, you can see it's a very, very minute thing. But he calls it, quote, this trifling and foolish verbal difference, the meaning of which would be grasped by only a few. And indeed, you're talking here eternal God, Jesus Christ, who was always God, with God, in eternal state. Or you've got, before time began, God created Jesus, His first being, which was in existence before time began, which we can't even measure that. So basically, it's virtually the same thing, except this is created and this is eternal existence. And who cares? I mean, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, who cares? Go off and do your good works, and we'll all find out in the end. And maybe that's a fair position. Except for the fact that when you start pushing this doctrine, you're going to end up with all kinds of problems in Christianity. And over here, you're going to establish a trinity, which is God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, all eternal, all unique, but all still in the same Godhead. This is going to become Jehovah Witness doctrine material. This is going to become what we say is orthodox in all churches, although very few can actually even discuss it. so here it is right here in percocet is going to order uh... order this issue and three twenty five the in percocet or the church council at nicaea this is up in asian in turkey uh... a northern turkey the city still there it was the second church council nicaea is modern is nick turkey a little town near the bosphorus straits which flows between the black sea the mediterranean sea it began on july fourth three twenty five it was it with about three hundred bishops and deacons from every region of the empire except britain in attendance so you know britain i guess would be too far away but otherwise from all around the mediterranean world anywhere there's a church there was representation there and constantine ordered this he's ordering he's not getting freedom of religion he's now sitting in the sea ordering this calmly held because he's seen If his intention was to use Christianity to unite his empire, it's backfiring on him because Christianity, they all got together and the first thing they did when they got their religious freedom is, guess what? Start fighting. And start dividing apart from each other, banishing each other. And he sees his empire is going to end up being religious wars over religious ideologies, which is not at all what a good Roman emperor wants. They want peace, they want harmony, they want people working together. So he says, we'll solve this, we'll have a church council, and we'll discuss this, and we'll get it ironed out. If we just get everybody together, I'm sure we can come to some logical conclusion. There's 300 visitors constantly arrived in his imperial clothing overlaid with jewels But without his customary train of soldiers one thing he left behind now again the the thing that is important here is understand the difference between the first 300 years of Christianity where they're underground they're persecuted their second rate and They've got to make a decision. Are you going to go the way of the world, or are you going to go the way with Christianity? Where Constantine now comes in with all the gold, all the glitter, all the power, and sits in the seat overseeing these bishops as they're discussing it. In other words, they have everything. They have all the worldly possessions right here. He leaves behind his military. Constantine spoke only briefly saying that division in the church is worse than war. And we're going to see, for example, during the Reformation, because division in the church leads to war. At stake was the most profound church question yet, who is Jesus Christ? it was a new day for the church many of the bishops and deacons had scars from previous persecutions from emperors persecutions the pastor from egypt was missing an eye one was crippled in both hands as a result of red hot irons most of the bishops were impressed with constantine and are willing to compromise i mean his he pulls the same thing that herod pulled back when he was king of galilee before you know this you know we get in the bible accounts he comes in and he was or because he'd if you remember the story of herod He was having trouble in Galilee. There's bandits, there's crime, raiders coming through, and there's chaos in the land. And so Herod comes in and is given jurisdiction in Galilee and simply decides, I'll just kill the bandits. And they're hiding in the caves of Arbela. Remember, we were up on Arbela. It's on the northwest shore of Galilee. and they're hiding in caves. And no one could get to them. They could raid and then run up there and hide in these caves. And people just kind of had to live with this plague on the land. Herod invented, for example, these cages that could go off. be let down with cables and then would blast fire into the caves and just burn crispy cream or crispy critters, not crispy cream, crispy critter crunchy the bandits and solve the problem. And it was a wow, wow, way to go. Well, some of those guys were Jews. Well, now the Sanhedrin, who are religious, are upset that a pagan named Herod who you know he's he's killing the Jews so they order him tries I'm going way back in history they're ordering him to appear before the Sanhedrin for trial and their intention is to accuse him of murder of violence and get rid of him of course he's backed by the Romans but Herod pulls the same thing Constantine does it here is when a chariot arrives he says sure I'll show up and the Sanhedrin they're all there glory and all their splendor, they're in their positions, and Herod is ordered to come in, and Herod just overwhelms them. He is dressed, they said, just with all the gold, all the robes, all the things he could, with an escort of people escorting him in. It's the entourage effect, you know, the superstar. He comes in and is escorted in, and the Sanhedrin have to look at him And he just simply overwhelms them with his presence of his gold, his riches, his military, his power, and they just kind of basically just dismiss the case because it's like, who wants to mess with this guy? And Herod played that very well. You can see it in politics even today sometimes. Well, this is what Constantine has done right here, is he comes in, and all the bishops are there to make a decision, and he's not going to interfere, but he's going to sit lifted up overseeing it in some kind of a throne overseeing their discussion with them knowing good and well he's here to observe and participate and approve our decision and again he's doing it for the well-being of the church well-being of the empire uh... but he's definitely not just gonna be a uh... you know a pawn in the game It says right here in the next bullet point, well it says most bishops were impressed with Constantine and were willing to compromise. With him sitting in that position, he's not necessarily going to say this is right or this is right, but he's looking for this right here. He's looking for some kind of a compromise that everyone can agree. And sometimes there's a time to compromise, and sometimes there's a time to say, that's heresy, and reject it and hold your ground. And that's going to cause a problem, because Arius is going to stay over here, Athanasius is going to stay over here, and Athanasius is not going to compromise the eternal deity of Jesus Christ, and he's got a group that is supporting him. You can just imagine all the backroom deals that are going on, who's going to support who, who's going to vote for what, how they're going to word the final statement. Constantine is aiming for this, and kind of hoping everybody just compromise and gets along it's not it's a trifling issue we just gotta get some wording to make everybody happy but there's gonna be some that are gonna be standing over here that are not willing to go to this compromise so he's trying to overwhelm everyone cooperate and many of the bishops are whatever it takes we've got the emperor on our side if we'll just cooperate we can water this down and everybody can be happy also present was the uh... Well, I'm going to read this again. A young deacon from Alexandria, Athanasius, I've already mentioned him, was not willing to compromise. Athanasius insisted that Arius' doctrine left Christianity without a divine Savior. And if you do go over here at all, your Savior, Jesus Christ, however glorious you want to make Him, He is not divine. He is nothing more than a created being who was sacrificed for your sins. Now again, it still sounds good, way to go Jesus, you died for the sins of the world, great offer, great sacrifice, what a great commitment, what a great guy. but you've still got a created being paying for the sins of the world, which we start doing the math, is that even possible to have one sacrifice for everybody? Where if you have a divine, again, now we're getting into some mathematical equations in divine theology, but if you've got the eternal God becoming man with us, you've got Yahweh himself becoming a man and joining with the human race to pay for the sins, to bring them back. You've got the greatest demonstration of love. You've got the fulfillment of the seed of the woman crushing the serpent's head. You've got the resurrection. You've got the eternal God becoming a man, being resurrected, going into eternity, ruling and reigning over the creation that He made, and having demonstrated his character through the cross. It's a whole other story. You've got two different stories. Fortunately, Athanasius, I think, understood it correctly and was not willing to compromise. Many people who were trying to wrap their minds around it or had their own opinions were willing to kind of meet here in the middle because the church is all about cooperation. We're willing to meet over here and break some of this heresy into church doctrine at the nation wasn't wasn't so you can see Constantine is not going to get along with Athanasius. There's gonna be you know hard hard feelings there Also present was the church historian and we all admire this guy friend of the Emperor and a half-hearted supporter of Arius He's kind of on this side you said yes and again we we we know a lot a lot of this because of what you said yes row but remember i always remember this is if you want to say this way this is cnn for hillary i mean it's like you know i'm saying this is the you said yes is constantine's friends or whatever is going to put out is gonna be like now that's not a political statement just maybe disagree apologize but it's like he is doing the media for constant And not just current media. Two thousand years later, people are still reading Eusebius, getting their opinion on Constantine from what Eusebius said. And he's leaning on this side. So Eusebius, the church historian, is not going to necessarily agree with Athanasius. You can just see the politics coming, the media coming here. uh... eusebius put forward his own creed for the council to approve which means there's different people writing statements what about this state like little blog post do you agree how many people agree with this blog post i'm angry at this try to find a way to word and work through all of this and once you study some of these things like the doctrine of trinity and read different statements of the trinity and see as people try to navigate their way through their statement without saying something heretical uh... you can really admire what they're putting together here because if you ask yourself right your state of faith explain the trinity many times you can do without and same thing with this case right here eusebius presents his own creed athanasius had his creed what he wanted to be accepted the council wanted something more specific and added true god of true god begotten not made of one substance with the father Now you can hear it right there. True God of true God. Jesus is true God of true God. So Jesus is God and He is of God. What do you mean of God? He's begotten, not made. Now what does begotten mean? It means He's not created. He's begotten. He comes from God. Again, the Muslims get confused on this. The Jews get confused on the Trinity. But the Muslims get confused because they can't understand the concept. Because they think of Allah. Allah is simple. He's not multifaceted. He is Allah. And for there to be another Trinity-like doctrine, they've got to have some form of You know, God has to have a son. There's got to be sex involved. There's got to be something. And far be it, they say, even on the Dome of the Rock, far be it for God to have a son. I mean, that's ludicrous that God would produce a son. He's alone. Allah is alone. So there's no room in there. A lot of times, even when we studied, went through Islam, they don't understand the Trinity. They call the Trinity the Father, the Son, and then they throw Mary in there. They don't even understand Father, Son, and Spirit. I mean, I think the theologians will when they argue with Christianity. But their concept, because of the early Byzantine church, and Islam overran the Byzantine church, what they saw as they entered the churches was not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They saw the Father, the Son, and then this worship of Mary that was highly developed already. And so they consider, sometimes even when you read their writings, they think Mary is part of the Trinity also. but no less than that they they can understand this and here's what they're saying here true god of true god begotten not made now what's that mean and right here one substance with the father and that that means this is someone's word essence might be better for substance sounds very physical but they're using the word substance well here it is ready to be the nipple point the expression one substance was homo ocean Yeah, I know this is gonna get me we're gonna this goes deep into language Latin and Greek After long debate only two bishops did not agree with in one Lord Jesus Christ true God of true God Constantine was pleased thinking the issue was settled For the next 100 years, the two views of Christ, the Nicene view, which was Athanasius' view, that's the one I would agree with, and the Arian view, Arius, battle for supremacy. And their first target was always the emperor and the throne. If they could get them to be an Arian, they had support and they could persecute Athanasius or the Nicene Creed. So when you talk about the Nicene Creed, the Nicene Creed that comes out of this was actually Athanasius' views. uh... and you can read volumes on this the church people were bad okay uh... church people were banished exiled and killed as power shifted with change of emperor and church leadership the council of nicaea laid the cornerstone for orthodox understanding of jesus christ the next consulate calcedon would develop it further other issues the senate and i see where this the celebration of passover now called easter was to be observed on the first sunday after the first full moon on or after march twenty first remember that issue that was that was way back in a late first century early second century issue was the celebration of easter are you going to celebrate it on like this the pagan side we're gonna celebrate with passover remember rome won that battle as the as even polycarp went over to argue with the bishop of rome on on on easter and who won the day well that's this is your easter right here and it was decided It was enforced by Rome up until this time on the churches by the Council of Nicaea, your Easter date was established. In fact, the date you celebrate Easter in 2017 was marked out, they knew what it was. One of the chairs that they found, one of the Pope's chairs, not even the Pope's chairs, one of the Bishop's chairs of Rome, you go back into the second century, had written the sides all around the throne the dates of Easter for something like the next 300 years I mean it was a big stinking deal on when the date was and if they would have been able to and they could have if they would have cared to do the math to find out when you're gonna celebrate Easter in 2017 They could have done it because it's going to be this right here. It's going to be observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21st, and that's your Easter. How do we know? Niceeah decided that. Constantine was there overseeing it. when they decided when your Easter was. Polycarp and the Asian Christians that were taught Passover by John argued with that to their death into the first and second century. But by this time, Rome was taken over, Jerusalem's destroyed, they're losing their Jewish connection, and that's your Easter. Again, I'm not, it doesn't matter to me, but it's not, it's not celebrated on Passover. Well, some accidentally maybe, if it works out, uh... the validity of baptism by heretics and lapsed christians these things were all decided being the baptism of heretics was that valid they made that decision and lapsed christians what do we do with christians that had lapsed me they they fled or they let scripture be burned what are we going to do with these were issues that were burning on that day what we're going to do with these things here's a nice increase from three twenty five i will read it to you if i can without faltering here's what they wrote down We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, very God of very God. begotten, not made, being of one substance, homoousius, with the Father." Again, that substance can almost also mean one essence, meaning they are the same nature. See all those words I already used? Substance, essence, nature. You're dancing around trying to find a word to describe that. By whom all things were made, both which is in heaven and in earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnated and was made man." Didn't imitate a man, didn't present himself as a man, but actually was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again. Again, that's important. That's that physical resurrection coming against Gnosticism and Greek philosophy. Ascended into heaven and he shall come again to judge both the living and the dead and we believe and you can't get away from that He will come again that same physical man who ascended will come again even at Nicaea Creed here And we believe in the Holy Ghost and whoever shall say that there was a time when they get that's it that's as far as i'm gonna go with the holy ghost and we believe in the holy ghost now meanwhile back to jesus and whoever shall say that there was a time when the son of god was not or that before he was the god he was not or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence from the Father, or that he is a creature or subject to change or conversion, all that so say the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them. Now, when it says Catholic Church, that doesn't mean Roman Catholic Latin Church. That means the universal church that was represented at Nicene Creed, which represents all of Christendom, except the Britain bishops that couldn't make it. So again, remember, Catholic Church at this time is not the Roman Catholic Church. It more is universal church. And here's a list of the church councils. I'm going to just blow through them very quickly. and those they go up to consulate of the vatican uh... in vatican two in nineteen sixty two to nineteen sixty five uh... and here we go the castle jerusalem forty nine a d circumcision jewish law and the gentiles we say that in the book of acts what we do with the gentiles does a huge console The Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism. That doesn't mean it's going to go away. It means it's been condemned at Nicaea. Constantinople settled Apollinarianism. Council of Ephesus, Nestorian controversy. Nestorius was deposed. Council of Chalcedon, Euthychanian controversy. And all these controversies, I referred to them last week. They're on the page before. You can read about what they were discussing. Number seven, Council of Constantinople of the Third, the doctrine of the two wills of Christ. You can resolve Christ by saying He's got a human will and a God will. And that He can be divine or He can be God. And these two wills are dwelling in one. So you really have a split personality. But you don't really have a split personality. That means one's a human personality, one's a divine personality. You have one, well, one being, one personality. See, I don't even want to talk about it because I'm going to stumble all over myself trying to explain it. Anyway, the Doctrine and Two Wills. Next was the sanctioned image worship. The Council of Nicaea II, not quite as glamorous and as glorious as the first Nicaean Council. They sanctioned image worship. And this is why you see, not just in the Catholic Church, but you get into the Greek Orthodox Church, you see images, pictures, portraits that are holy. Because they wanted some kind of representation, and they used scripture to representation. For example, the tabernacle that Moses built was a representation of heaven. And so that was as close as you can come. So as close as you can come to some things is an image of it, and that's your point of contact. Now for the Protestant, it's like, that's ridiculous. But for this people and the churches that follow that, that's how they're trained, that certain images, certain objects, there's not idolatry. And that's going to be a big thing that's going to come up, the iconoclast controversy. There's going to be Christians destroying icons, images, because some Christians are worshiping them, thinking that's correct. Others are going to be destroying them. And then you get that whole loss of art. Some of it was artwork that's going to be destroyed by Christians who are actually destroying artwork that we wish we could have kept because people are using it for image worship. Well, that's coming up in the second I see in Council. Next one. The final schism between the East and the West is where the East Church split from the Western Church. Number 11, when he talks about the Lateran 1, 2, 3, and 4, those are the consuls in Rome. Beside bishops are appointed by popes. effort to heal the East and West schism, to enforce ecclesiastical discipline, bidding of Innocent III. The next one settled the quarrel with the Pope and the Emperor, an attempt to unite East and the West. In 311, suppressed the Templars, the Knights Templar. You heard of them. They were there to put an end to that mess, they thought. he'll papal schism and burn john host man what an honor we got a whole entire church came together was part of your was your execution that that's they came back to burn john host he was simply teaching scripture without the authority to the common people without the timing i would love to have an entire church council dedicated to burning all the the videos and MP3s and books of Galen Weemers and Generation Word. They wouldn't even blink at it. But anyway, reformed the church in 1431. for now you know this before the reformation of martin luther and and and the reformers is a roman catholic still the roman catholic church they realize we're in trouble they're trying to reform themselves in fourteen thirty one then again in fifteen twelve we need to fix the church or collapsing and then finally uh... martin luther's reformation breaks out and the church's splits they just they just break away and have to start the protestant reformation and so that the council of trend which is huge they the catholic church has a consul to start a counter-reformation they try to change they could be tried to change a good by the protestants is breakaway and so they're over here having a reformation the church the roman church has will have our own reformation and they have their own counter-reformation and in that which is awesome you can see right here you this a question many people are gas you The Latin Vulgate was the sole translation. Now the Latin Vulgate is going to be made by Jerome in Bethlehem when he translates the Greek and the Hebrew at the request of the Pope. The Pope that Jerome lost to while he was in Rome and Jerome just tucked his tail between his legs and went to a monastery in Bethlehem and studied himself and had a little school there. Well, the Pope that beat him says, while you're there, could you improve our Latin translation? Because by then the Latin translation was completely faulty and had all kinds of corruptions. So, Jerome spent time in the church of the Nativity where he had a study, which was a monastery, you can still see it today, translating the Latin Vulgate, which is the Bible into Latin taken out of the Hebrew Scriptures into Latin. Jerome did it. The Hebrew Scripture was taken out of Greek and Aramaic, whatever it was, into the Latin, and that became the official Bible of the Church, of the Roman Church. But at the Council of Trent, because of all these translations that are breaking out, English translation, the Dutch translation, everybody's own language, the church says, no, there's only one translation, and that's Jerome's translation that he did in Bethlehem in 400 A.D. or whenever it was. but they also to prove to the protestants we've got one up on you the apocrypha was canonized and that's why in a catholic bible you've got extra books of the bible they were not recognized ever by the jews never by the early church of the Apostles never by anyone in the church up until Constantine time never by constant you never find him in an ancient manuscript not the apocryphal is not in any translations through the the Crusaders the Muslims are over any land there's no apocryphal it wasn't until the consulate trend in fifteen forty five that the apollo catholic research and we're going to canonize the apocrypha their deal with that protestants well the process never went with the apocrypha and the catholics had gone with it for fifteen hundred years but it for fifteen fifteen forty five the apocrypha pops up into their latin vulgate now today the catholic bible is is an English translation that is only translated from Jerome's Latin Vulgate. So the Catholic Bible, if you have an official Catholic Bible, it's not NIV or American Standard or whatever, an official Catholic Bible is a translation of Jerome's Latin Vulgate, which was his translation of the Hebrew and the greek to put together the bible the catholic bible is a translation of latin which was a translation of the original language is a translation of a translation and then they put in there the apocrypha in fifteen forty five in their attempt to have a counter-reformation to help squelch the protestant reformation didn't work out and they reaffirmed purgatory yes there is purgatory because martin luther was coming against it they reaffirmed the importance of relics If you touched relics or visited relics or paid tribute to see relics, like John the Baptist's little finger. They had thousands of them. They said there's more wood. We'll talk about this when we get there. There's so much wood being passed around the church that belonged to the original cross that there's like a thousand crosses, pieces being passed around. But nonetheless, some of them were authentic, I suppose, but a lot of them were just obviously fabricated. But they can reaffirm because the prophets are coming against purgatory. They're coming against a rally, of course. They're coming against all these things. The Catholic Church affirms those. This is official doctrine. And that's the Council of Trent, a very important council. Council of Vatican No. 1 declared the Pope infallible. I do notice how long the Council of Trent took from 1545 to 1563. I've sat through long teachers' meetings, but we're talking, what, 13 years? 45, 55? Oh, no. That's an 18-year... Is that 18 years? Holy smokes. Yeah, okay. And then another year long. And then, of course, the Vatican II. Many of us, remember, are familiar with Vatican II because it happened during our lifetime. uh... the effort to bring christendom into one church this is where the catholic church begin this rap rap ruffled some feathers in catholicism because the catholic church is that we need to modernize and kind of meet are are protestant brothers halfway and then we got to bring everybody back together the unity of the church and so some of these processes he brought it we can't be quite as dogmatic and kind of you know let let a little bit of bible teaching slip out another great it happened that he can to was Galileo. Remember Galileo? When he said that the earth revolved around the sun and that the earth wasn't the center of the universe, the church had a fit. I mean, they excommunicated him, condemned him to hell and everything. I mean, he was frying in hell from the time he died up until Vatican II, or at least was in purgatory. But at Vatican II, they reinstituted him back into the church. Why? A lot of it had to do with the Apollo space program. Because it's like, oh, Galea, we're really sorry about that. You can come out now. And so it's really funny because they excommunicated him and they re-brought him back. One of the things they brought him back into the church was he was a great scientist and helped build the space program and all of the modern science. and they condemned him back in their day, in his lifetime, because he came against their doctrine. And now all science is proving their doctrine faulty. And so they brought him back out. So anyway, those are church councils. One of the greatest ones was this one right here, the Nicene Council. And again, a classic issue. I mean, Jesus. Who is Jesus? And we would all say we know Jesus, but at the same time, you need to have some discussion you can't just he's not just uh... gene is just not just some kind of a name it's around he has he is dvd is god and again you got a scriptural support for you with those of the church councils there's a list of the early church fathers i'm not gonna go through all of them you can see some of the river we've mentioned already some of them are going to mention continues on page two seventy five let's go to page uh... three are two seventy six to the year uh... three fifty three and in the year, I've got this written in my notes, in the year 330, this is the Edict of Milan, we had the, was it 325, the Church Council of Nicaea, then in 330, the year is 330, this is important because this is when Constantinople, Constantinople, was in a sense open and this is the new roman empire it was consecrated on may eleventh three thirty it took six years to build it it was built over the existing city of bizantium constant constant opal fell in fifth fourteen will talk about just moment but this is this was constantine moving the roman head the roman empire or the the capital of of the roman empire from rome moving it east to Constantinople or Byzantium. And this is where now, when you talk about the Roman Empire, this is where the emperor is going to be seated. What happens to Rome? Rome is abandoned by the Roman government, but it is left, the Roman church stays here. And so, this is important in church history. In Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire, the the government moves east to constantinople to get away from one of the keys is here there's there's a barbarians moving in uh... column refugees whatever people that are moving in on the borders and moving into rome the vandals the the visit visigoths the uh... what they call barbarian there be it's it's going to get pressure in the military can hold off sold constant constantine takes Byzantium, renames it, and builds it and dedicates the new Roman Empire. So the Roman government moves to Constantinople. The Church of Rome, to their credit, doesn't move. They hold their ground, leaving the Bishop of Rome, in a sense, as the highest government official in the area. And people are being taken captive by the barbarians, and they're pleading for the church to help. And this is going to lead to Gregory the Great, others that we'll talk about. But basically, because the government is left, the church is left in charge. And so any kind of military effort, any kind of negotiation with the barbarians, it comes through the bishop, who's now becoming more of a governor, more of a king, more of an emperor himself in the West. And this is eventually going to fall. But the Roman Empire has moved to Constantinople. The barbarians come in here. eventually, and Constantinople, I haven't got it in your notes there, but in 1453, Constantinople will ultimately fall, and this is when some people say the Roman Empire fell, because Rome moved over here, it fell in the 400s, Rome fell, but actually the Roman Empire had moved over here into the east, very obviously. But in 1453, it fell to the Muslims. And that leads to, I mean, I'm rambling on now, but all the writings, all the artwork, all the manuscripts, the Greek manuscripts that came from Rome and came over into the East, people that were fleeing from the Muslim invasions ran up into Europe with the artwork, with the literature, with all the writings, the manuscripts, ran up into Europe with it, and all of a sudden Europe is seeing for the first time many of the ancient writings, many of the ancient cultures firsthand, the text, And that is going to help set the stage for the Renaissance, which is then going to spur on the Reformation as all this stuff starts moving back into the West. So the Muslims are going to take Constantinople, and it finally falls in 1453. And the Eastern Empire becomes the Ottoman Empire, which is very interesting because that falls in World War I. and is now in the process of trying to resurface. And you may be dealing with some eschatological images here that are being portrayed in Daniel and Revelation, different things like that, which we're not going to get into now. But again, that was the Roman Empire, and it held its ground as the Byzantine Empire. So whenever You study or you go over to Jerusalem, you'll have Christian foundations or Jewish foundations or remains. You'll also have Byzantine, a Byzantine church. And a Byzantine church is nothing more than a Roman church from this age. from moving over in 330 up until the time it was overrun by Islam. And Islam is going to, of course, we'll study that here in a little bit. But the Byzantines, when it says Byzantine Empire, that is, in a sense, is the Roman Empire as a Christian Empire. It is under the influence of Christianity. So Byzantine Empire basically means Christian Empire. And the Muslims are going to be fighting against the Byzantines. And in their minds, they're fighting against the Christians. Okay, Emperor Constantius. Now, I'm going to try and get through this little section right here and just at least introduce it because you've got to see this. 353, Constantine is dead. Constantine's three sons, Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius. Again, that's interesting. That'd be like, I've got six sons, just think of their names. galeen galeen galeenian whatever uh... they killed hundreds of their father's offspring except the latest and julian who were sick and a youth when their father died in three thirty seven so these three boys constantine constance and constanious the first thing to do when their father died remember he dies on his deathbed he's baptized because he doesn't want to sin after baptism so constance right before he dies is baptized is the three sons now raised by the christian father in the christian empire the first thing to do is kill anybody who's an offspring or cousin or anybody so there's no one challenging the three of them that's really good for them i'm sure uh... except a guy named elias who was sick a youth who was named julian you do not want to get julian because julian is going to be known as well the bottom of the page julian the apostate because he's going to end up taking the throne they should've killed him too. Okay, once all their father's offspring or anybody that's a relative that can threaten the throne is dead, Constans then kills Constantine II, who then was killed by a barbarian in battle, which means Constantius became the sole emperor in 353. So, Constantine has this great family, all these relatives, and he's the emperor. He's got three sons, they kill everybody, and then one of them kills another one, and that second one is killed in battle against the barbarians who are invading Rome, leaving Constantius the only one standing. So he becomes the emperor after his father. Constantius began a violent suppression of heathen religion. You know, I mean, violent. He began, well, it says right here, one, pillage and destroy the temples. Because up until this time, Christianity was legal, Christianity was favored, but heathenism was still doing their thing in the background. They still had their temples, they still had their sacrifices, they still had their holy days, they're still floating around. Constantius, being a good Christian, having, you know, a Christian father, having the seat of the leadership of the Christian Empire, having killed all that could offend him or take his place, he then begins to pillage and destroy heathen temples. So now, remember, in 313, Christianity became illegal. By 353, we're talking 40 years later, Christianity has done a 180 and is burning and attacking heathens. I mean, that's interesting. They're persecuted up until 313. Then between 313 and 153, they persecute each other. And once Constantine is dead, the sole survivor begins to destroy the heathens, the unbelievers. He gave the booty to the church. He pillaged the temple and gave it to the church. Again, We've got to use the word church and Christianity very lightly. He prohibited all sacrifices and worship of images in Rome, Alexander and Athens. Obviously, many people became Christians at this time. Are you a Christian? Well, yes, yes, everybody's a Christian now. This is a great church outreach. The whole city's a Christian. Revival is breaking out in the Roman Empire. And, of course, it's not. It's only lip service. Constantius was Arian. Athanasius, the Dicean creed, he's been waiting for his chance to get on the throne so he could in force his view of jesus christ which is he was the first and greatest creation costly was arian and punish those who held tonight cn orthodoxy so not only was everyone also the christian also everyone who want to live i'm an arian i believe jesus was created the whole cause of that he's eternal got never did make sense to me and so they're all switching over here affirmation said at this time now affirmations is still alive the poor guy And he's going to go to exile, what did he say, five times. He's going to be banished and brought back. No, power change, you're back on an island. John was banished and then brought back. Athanasius is going to go back and forth several times. He said at this time, and I'll quit with this, this is Athanasius' quote about this time in history, about Constantine's son, his plundering of the heathen and enforcing Arianism belief on the Christians. Athanasius says, Satan, because there is no truth in him, breaks in with axe and sword. But the Savior is gentle and forces no one to whom he comes, but knocks and speaks to the soul. If we open to him, he enters. But if we will not, he departs. For the truth is not preached by sword and dungeon, by might of an army, but by persuasion and exhortation. How can there be persuasion where fear of the emperor is uppermost? How extortion, where the contradictor has to expect banishment and death? In other words, how can you exhort anybody or correct anybody If you have to understand, if you contradict someone, you're going to be banished. I mean, it's political correctness gone crazy right here. And that is what he's saying. And that's a very good, perfect image to end on, is in Ephesians, Paul talks about the sword of the word. And the sword of the word, or the sword of truth, is simply this. The truth has power. Jesus, the word, became flesh. The word of life. You present it and the soul has to deal with it. If the soul wants to suppress it, as in Romans chapter 1, so be it. Go your way. But you had to oppress the truth. The truth is there to set you free. But if you want to take the truth and suppress it, That's how he says the Savior allows that. That's God's plan. Because that's the only way the truth can be presented. You can't present the truth with a sword. You can't present the truth by forcing and persecuting people to accept it. There's no persuasion. It's simply fear. And that's why, like in R. Kennedy, we talk about freedom of religion. There has to be freedom of religion. Now, if you have the concept that there's a religion out there trying to burn your country down, that's old. Now you're into a military setting. But as far as presenting truth, let the atheist preach. Let the skeptic preach. But let me preach. Let the gospel be presented. Let the truth be argued. And at the end of the day, the truth will win. The truth, if allowed to be presented. and that that's what athanasia says but right now here is a lost the debate and their only way to regain it was to kill everyone who oppose it and banish those who came against it and this is going to go back and forth again you can you make many examples of that uh... quickly legacy going on and on about that but it's interesting i'd love that quote of athanasius really captures the heart of christian there has to be freedom there has to be freedom of rejecting the truth now that isn't that that is not That is not the way military should be dealt with. That's not necessarily a parenting skill. It's not necessarily the way you run the classroom. Do you understand what I'm saying? This is about presenting the truth and persuading people. If I'm a father and I've got six little boys, like I told them, I'm God in your life. If God is going to talk to you, He's going to talk to you through me. Sit down and eat your supper. There's not freedom of discussion. You're here to eat. You're here in my house. Now, as they grow older, now they're all adults, those days are gone. I'm no longer, in a sense, their father, in that sense. I'm, you know, in a different position. And a moral on these lines. Well, the truth. We talk, we share the truth. Same thing in the classroom. Your classroom can't be managed this way where everyone has freedom of expression. No, you don't. The bell rings, sit down, I'm on a clock here, I'm on a schedule. Same thing, police or government, military. There has to be order. But we're talking about truth being presented and people being persuaded. You can't persuade someone with the sword, if that makes sense. So that's not just a uh... you know a liberal progressive free-for-all which is wander around and do they want to there has to be social or nasty family or government or military order but when you're presenting truth there has to be the freedom to say i think jesus was created i think jesus is the man i don't think jesus existed i think jesus eternal god and let the arguments begin with the debates begin present your truth and see what can stand jesus is the truth will set you free And so anyway, I end with that. That's Athanasius. Again, a great time in history. What's going through these pages of church history, it continues. The issues they're facing are similar to ours, maybe on a different level, but yet it just repeats itself over and over again. Thank you for being here. I'll pray and you're free to go. Father, we do thank you for the chance to look into church history. We thank you for the things that have been preserved, the people that have gone before us. We ask that we would learn from these examples, that we would, again, embrace your truth, embrace your ways, see your handiwork in creation, but also your handiwork in history of leading us to this place. Again, we thank you for this chance to be here today, and ask that we would apply the wisdom that you've given to us and are continuing to show us in our own lives, in our own country, in our own culture. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you very much for being here.