Rejection Without Full Knowledge

Beyond The Ink

My greatest gift has been refusal to follow the crowd, by rebellious streak, which meant I never fell into whatever the kids at school did, the drugs etc..., but it also turns out to often be my greatest flaw, as it turns into stubbornness and quick to reject without through investigation when it comes to certain things.  

I grew up Catholic and yet I never really delved into the Catechism and went through a maze of spiritual searching for theological truth in the New Age,  in the Protestant Sola Scritura path, not really understanding what Sola Fide, Sola Sciptura meant, other than Bible and Bible alone. Of course I failed to take into account that the early Church had no Bible or Canon, only the Torah, and mainly Oral tradition, even the Apostles, as the Bible makes clear since they couldn't write it all down and it also makes clear to honor what was taught verbally and handed down that way, and what is revealed through the Holy Spirit as Paul received, which was in line with the Old Testament and with what Jesus taught, which never negated the Old Testament, the Pentateuch.   Oral tradition is extremely important and was to the early Church, the works of the Church fathers, the insight of the women of the early Church, the saints, what they came to understand about the relationship between the Trinity, mankind and the Church.  I never really bothered to delve into those teachings, writings, the Catechism of the faith of my childhood, the Roman Catholic faith, to even try and understand any of it.  I then was told that the Roman Catholic Church, which means Universal was started by Constantine and I automatically accepted that as historical fact.  As I wanted to stick to the Bible as closely as I could, really be with the right Church, the one that was started by Christ, in continuity through the ages I got even more entrenched in the Protestant faith and as I prayed in tongues, and was along the Conservative lines politically and such, so i was  drawn to the Conservative Pentecostal denomination.  God kept putting Catholic invitations in front of me for Bible Study, through my dreams, in every possible way and I keep being drawn to watch Catholic programming on theological discussions.   Since there was no Church in the early Church as church was held in the homes and there were no Christians as all were Jews,  and Paul would never accept denominations and divisions I had to rethink my move into Protestantism and why God keeps pulling trying to pull me back to the faith of my childhood.  I decided to do some research on one or two things to start, like the whole Constantine founded the Catholic Church thing.  There's a few other things, but today I will start with the Constantine thing.

The notion that Constantine founded the Catholic Church was first originated by anti-Christian writers, such as Franz Cumont who introduced his theory from an anti-Christian perspective. He wrote that Christianity took from its opponents their own weapons, and used them; the better elements of paganism were transferred to the new religion. The primary sources that refute this would be Eusebius, Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. Irenaeus, Firmicus, St. Justin Martyr, and St. Augustine.  One of the most frequent accusations is that Constantine created, or in the very least assisted in the establishment of an official church of the empire, and then started to slaughter Bible-believing Christians who wouldn't conform, and they had to create “underground” church.  The five sects Constantine rejected and condemned can't be classified as original Christians, as they all  broke away from the Catholic Church many years before Constantine was even emperor, and weren't even in existence prior to Constantine, or the Catholic Church.  They were even condemned by the likes of St. John, St. Polycarp, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine,and even by any Evangelical and Protestant.  They broke the precept taught by St. Paul in 1Corinthians 12:25.

Most people in that age would not have been able to afford purchasing a Bible, and Constantine was charitable enough to give Bibles to churches so that the Scriptures could be read to the congregants.

A frequent accusation is that Constantine outlawed the Bible from being read privately. The truth is that he respected the Bible to the point that he ordered fifty Bibles to be copied for the churches. This was a very laborious project, because in those days there was no printing machines or internet, books had to be copied down by hand, it was costly and time consuming. 

Constantine issued this order to the bishop Eusebius for this to be done, writing:

Do you, therefore, receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred scriptures (the provisions and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church) to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a commodious and portable form, by transcribers thoroughly practiced in their art.[24]

Because of Constantine, the great persecutors of the church, such as Maxentius, Gallerius, and Licinius were vanquished; Christianity was allowed to thrive. Because of Constantine’s liberation of the Church, Christianity spread as it did, and became the dominant Faith in the world, but of course this is not the case today.

Shalom and Amen.