>>And here's an interesting turn. Eusebius, who brought us the current
>>version of the gospels, both recanted christianity during the last
>>persecution before Constantine make it the de facto state religion and
>>did a flip flop on Arianism. Did he know something that he WASN'T
>>willing to die for?
>>
>
>(Walt Sr. 4/1)
>As a matter of fact, Constatine did not make xtianity the state =
religion, as
>many people believe. He merely allowed it to "officially" co-exist with
>Mithraism. It was not until 425 CE(I don't remember the emperor's name),
>that xtianity was was made the *only* religion sanctioned by Rome, and
>*that's* when the xtians began systematically to oppress believers in =
all
>other cults. In other words, it took nearly four centuries after the =
death
>of its founder before it was endorsed with the kind of political/state
>power to allow it to spread without opposition from other beliefs.
You are off a bit about when christianity became the only "official"
state religion. Below is a section of a file I got off the net some
time ago. In fact, without Constantines support, christianity would
have faded away long ago. Robin Lane Fox,, in _Pagans and Christians_
describes how the Con man and the Con religion used each other. It was
during this period that the Sibyls were used to sell christianity to
the pagans. The christians had such a free reign that Julian, the only
ruler after Con man to attempt to re-establish paganism, made fun of
their complaints of persecution by saying that turnabout was only fair
play for what they had already done. Will Durant describes it on page
18 of his _The Age of Faith_. Emperor Julian ordered the christians of
each community to make full reparation for past damages to pagan
temples including demolition of christian churches built upon pagan
sights. When confusion resulted, he reminded them that "their
Scriptures exhort them to support their misfortunes with patience." It
was during this time, btw, that the Trinity dogma got the lead over
the Arians. In Alexandria the pagans disliked the Arian Bishop George
who had taken Athanasius' see. When he provoked them by a=20
public procession satirizing the Mithratic rites, they offed him,
alowing Athanasius, who brought us the trinity, to regain power.
In any case, it was Eusebius that got to write christian history and
produce "official" bibles for the Con man. As I said, he recanted
christianity before that. There are no gospel accounts including JC's
miraculous birth and death dated before this time. Here we have a guy
that lied about JC's written correspondence with the king of Odessa,
wrote a chapter on how it was ok to lie for god, and had a free hand
to create religion as he and the Con man desired. I'd say that the
odds of an inerrant book getting past this point are about nil.
312: Oct 28: Constantine defeats Maxentius at Milvian Bridge, reunites
Empire
313: Edict of Milan: Constantine establishes toleration of
Christianity
314: Council of Arles: called by Constantine against Donatist
(Donatus) schism
317: Letters of Lactantius: early Christian church father
321: Constantine decrees SUNday (dies Solis) as Roman day of rest
[CJ3.12.2]
324: Constantine defeats and executes Licinius emperor of the East
325: Council of Nicaea: called by Constantine against Arianism (336),
called "1st great Christian council" by Jerome, 1st ecumenical, 318
bishops attend, adopted Origen's (253) use of "homoousios" (Jesus &
God of same substance) which gave rise to "Homoiousians" led by
Meletius of Antioch, Cyril of Jerusalem & Basil of Ancyra:
"homoiousios" =3D Jesus & God of *like* substance
337-352: Constantius II: emperor of East, Arianism official state
religion
352-360: Constantius II: emperor of united Roman Empire
355-365: antipope Felix II: Arianism (336), supported by Constantius
II
360-363: Emperor Julian the Apostate attempts to revive Paganism;
Loeb:3v (Gk)
362: Synod of Alexandria: led by Athanasius (367) decreed God is 3
hypostases
363-364: Jovian: emperor of united Roman Empire
363: Council of Laodicea: names 26NT books (excludes Revelations)
364: Council of Laodicea decrees death for Christians who keep 7th day
Sabbath
378-395: Theodosius the Great: last emperor of united Roman empire
380: Feb 27: Christianity declared official state religion by
Theodosius
381: Council of Theodosius at Const.: 2d ecumenical, Jesus had true
human soul
384: Jerome presents Pope Damasus I with new Latin Gospels, originals
lost
391: Theodosius' Edicts against Paganism
395: Theodosius prohibits practice of Pagan rituals including Olympic
Games