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kellychaos · #1

I read an interesting article on the emperor Constantine and his mission to convert pagans to Christianity. According to the article, he backed Christianity because he saw that it was "the winning horse" in the battle between paganism and itself. It is said that he fused the two religions in an effort to sell Christianity by making such concessions as moving the Sabbath, which used to be Saturday, to Sunday, "Day Of The Sun", to appease old pagan customs. Further, it is he that was the main force at the "Council Of Nicea" that gave the push to proclaim Jesus a divinity without heir. (There intence speculation that Mary Magadalan (sp ?) was not only his not only his wife but the mother to a surving royal bloodline of the two). No surviving bloodline gave the church more expansive power because then they would be the only route to Divinity. The article also stated that the Bible was a result of a commision paid by Constantine to fit the Bible to his political needs and that the testimonies of the Bible that showed the more human traits (such as the "Dead Sea Scrolls" ) were left out in a deliberate attempt to make Jesus more deified. Well, anyway I'm ramblimg because this is new to me. Does anyone have more info on this. I'm intrigued.

Sethomas · #2

The idea that Jesus had children was only popular among the Gnostic Christians, so it's highly unlikely that anyone such as Constantine would have to excert any effort into debunking it. It's asinine to say that the Dead Sea Scrolls were deliberately left out because they weren't even discovered until the 20th century. The Old Testament adopted by the early Christians was simply the Jewish texts used until the Jewish Synod of Jerusalem around the year 70 AD, hence it includes books of the Septuagint that were dropped out of Torah and abandoned by Protestant reformers. If memory serves, Constantine wasn't even present at the Council of Nicea.

ItalianStereotype · #3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sethomas

If memory serves, Constantine wasn't even present at the Council of Nicea.

he was there. hell, he was the one that called the council. he presided over the events himself because of the schism of the Donatists and the Meletians, if he had not been there it would have been just another synod of the bishoprics.

Sethomas · #4

Yeah, I know he called for the council, but I was thinking that either the emperor or the Pope was absent and that really stuck out.

Protoclown · #5

Kelly, where did you read this article? If it was online, can you post a link?

kellychaos · #6

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sethomas

The idea that Jesus had children was only popular among the Gnostic Christians, so it's highly unlikely that anyone such as Constantine would have to excert any effort into debunking it.

Wouldn't it have served his purposes to squelch the idea that there was any other road to divinity other than the Roman Church. Consider also the fact of the Bible's denegration of Mary Magdalan (and most women in the Bible, really) as a prostitute when recorded history shows that not only was she NOT a prostitute but she was of royal blood (House of Benjamin).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sethomas

It's asinine to say that the Dead Sea Scrolls were deliberately left out because they weren't even discovered until the 20th century. The Old Testament adopted by the early Christians was simply the Jewish texts used until the Jewish Synod of Jerusalem around the year 70 AD, hence it includes books of the Septuagint that were dropped out of Torah and abandoned by Protestant reformers.

Actually, I meant the Gnostic scrolls. Sorry, I was going from memory. Anyway, in regards to the "Dead Sea Scrolls" you act as is the western worlds "discovery" of something is the only one that counts ... as in Columbus "discovered" America like their weren't natives there and for which evidence has been found that he wasn't the first european in North America anyway. My point is that how do you know that Constantine (or his men) did NOT find, gather and burn those testimonies/gospels of the Bible that didn't fit his political agenda. I mean, what would he care? It's not as if he was a devout Catholic or anything. He received his baptism on his death bed for crying out loud.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sethomas

If memory serves, Constantine wasn't even present at the Council of Nicea.

He called for, assembled and presided over the council. I remember that much from my "Western History" and "Comparative Religion" courses.

ItalianStereotype · #7

Quote:

Originally Posted by kellychaos

I mean, what would he care? It's not as if he was a devout Catholic or anything. He received his baptism on his death bed for crying out loud.

that was not necessarily politically motivated. Gibbons wrote that "the sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of external salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity, there were many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutory rite, which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege, which could never be recovered." this is the most likely explanation, at least.

Sethomas · #8

My point is that how do you know that Constantine (or his men) did NOT find, gather and burn those testimonies/gospels of the Bible that didn't fit his political agenda.

I've noticed a growth among Protestants in the sophomoric presumption that anything written immediately after the time of Christ should be treated as Scripture. It's absurd how many books are out there about New Testament apocrypha. Maybe it's regression for the fact that the New Testament is an anthology inarguably compiled by the Roman Catholic Church, and they're striving for a more indidividualistic intellectual foundation.

Back to your statement, the it's extremely improbable that Constantine sought the destruction of dissident Christian literature because so much of it remains intact. I mean, if a Roman emperor really did order its destruction, his cranks did a really shitty job of carrying it out. Every once in a while we find something like the Nag Hammadi codices that really stick out among original sources, but that's simply explained by their very unpopularity in their own time.

El Blanco · #9

Quote:

when recorded history shows that not only was she NOT a prostitute but she was of royal blood (House of Benjamin).

Since when is "woman" not synonimous with "whore"?

Quote:

My point is that how do you know that Constantine (or his men) did NOT find, gather and burn those testimonies/gospels of the Bible that didn't fit his political agenda.

Do you have any proof whatsoever he did?

Sethomas · #10

For that matter, so what if he did? It's not like God would inspire canon only to see it destroyed before it has the chance to flourish.

FS · #11

The videogame (and novel) Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned tells an interesting fictional theory about the descendants of Jesus, drawing in the Freemasons, the French village Rennes-le-Chateau and to a much lesser extent, alchemist vampires (thrown in mostly as horror flavor). It's still fiction of course, but largely derived from historic facts.

kellychaos · #12

FS,

You should read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. It's along the lines of what you mentioned and is what inspired me to further look into the relevant info on the internet. The only problem is that neither the internet nor a work of fiction can truly be called a valid source of information. I'm going to have to continue my reading off-line in the non-fiction area. Any ideas?

Proto,

I didn't save the link where I found the info. I retried it on Google and couldn't remember the keywords I used to bring it up. You're welcome to try with keywords like: Magdalan, Constantine, Nicea, Holy Grail, Masons, ect.

mburbank · #13

i thought you meant, like, John Constantine, the guy from swampthing who got his own book, and i was all going to go 'hey, wipe, wrong forum'.

now what do i do?

Cosmo Electrolux · #14

Adrienne Barbeau had really great titties.....

mburbank · #15

I'll say! They were great in "John Carpenter's 'The Fog' " too!

Cosmo Electrolux · #16

I wanted that woman so bad......damn.

mburbank · #17

And then there's Maude.

Cosmo Electrolux · #18

I watched that show religiously....I think I was actually imprinted by Adrienne....damned imprint vunerability....

edit: damned public schools.....

mburbank · #19

Wow. We're old.

Did you know Conrad Baine has an identical twin brother? And the he once guest hosted an episode of SCTV? And that they mostly refer to him not by his name, which I can't recall, but as 'Conrad Baine's Twin Brother'? And that the other guest host is Deforest Kelly, but it's really Dave Thomas playing Deforest Kelly? And that I don't mean the Dave Thomas who founded Wendy and liked Orphans?

FartinMowler · #20

Quote:

And the he once guest hosted an episode of SCTV?

I remembered that episode

It's funny when I was reading in the TV section Jixby was mentioning SCTV I remarked that I was surprised that he had seen this show and I was happy that it was a fond memory as it was for me. It would be fun to try and get some thing going where mockery members would try and come up with episode type writing and make characters akin to SCTV. Banter is fun for a while but substance has a better outcome.

kellychaos · #21

Quote:

Originally Posted by mburbank

And then there's Maude.

Then new theory is that Stonehenge is actually a symbolic representation of a huge couple-thousand-year-old vagina (if you look at it from a "bird's eye view"). Coincidence?!