“Around the start of the 4th Century AD, The Roman Empire was governed by the Emperor Constantine. The Empire at this time was not in the best of health, being a morass of different cults and belief systems. The official state religion was the worship of Sol Invictus, the Sun God, and this was Constantine’s own religion. However, the relatively new cult, as it then was, of Christianity was starting to enjoy a groundswell of support, and it did not require much thought to see that steps needed to be taken if Rome’s tenuous grip on the Empire was to be strengthened.”
“Constantine called together a meeting of religious and secular leaders at Nicea, Bythynia, Asia Minor in 325AD to resolve the situation, and it is principally as a result of this meeting that he earned the title of Constantine the Great, bestowed upon him subsequently by Church leaders. It was at this meeting that Constantine and his council resolved that if the proletariat had to have their superstitions, then better it was controlled by the state and adopted policies that the state approved of. It is this meeting that the world has come to know as the Council of Nicea, and from which the world still feels repercussions.”
“The main issue with the 325 council was the controversy over Jesus’ nature, and the relation between God and Jesus. The background was the strength of the orientation defined by Arius at the time, claiming that Jesus was a created being not a divine being, and possibly even that Jesus was of a different substance from God.
TheStateOf . . . Your Beliefs. Most people I know actually worship Jesus himself rather than God. The last church I (J) went to preached that by simply ‘believing’ that Jesus was the Son of God, you were absolved of all your sins. That never made much sense to my complicated mind, but it took me a long time to get comfortable with the fact that I believe Jesus was a human being who brought (some new, some old) extraordinary spiritual teachings. What do you really believe when you’re sitting in those pews? Somebody please throw down something I’ve never heard before.
Filed under: Religion
