Did Christianity Take a Wrong Turn at Nicea?

[Okiefreak]

Hippie Chick666 made an interesting statment on another thread dealing with pedophiles. I didn't think it related there, but I thought we might explore it here. "Christians no longer follow Jesus, they follow the Niacean Counsel's mandates on what Jesus said. In other words, Christians follow what some politically motivated and fear driven folks SAID about Jesus, not Jesus himself".
Agree or disagree?

[xexon]

Nobody knows the exact words of Jesus. The best we can do is study the written works about him, which of course, are subject to opinionated editing.

One can get an idea of who and what Jesus was, but no religion can propagate something they never possessed to begin with.

True spiritual sight, and the ability to lead from that ability.

Christianity became an orphan the day Jesus left his human form. There was noone capable of carrying the message forward without corrupting it with their own inpurities.

But there are alot of seeds out there. Not all of them with Jesus' name on them. But they will bloom in the same fashion.

A spiritually mature human being.

No religion need apply.


x

[Okiefreak]

I'm no historian or Bible scholar, so all I know is what I read--especially, Bart Ehrman. On the basis of my limited knowledge, I have an impression of the development of Christianity that basically agrees with Hippie Chick's and Xexon's, although I'm not sure I'd say Christianity took a "wrong turn" at Nicea. So here's my take:The doctrines we think of as basic Christianity today took form earlier than Nicea with the supremacy of one kind of Christianity over its rivals.

As I understand it, after the death of Jesus, early Christianity divided into three main "camps": Ebionites, Marcionite/Gnostics, and Paulists. The Ebionites, led by Jesus' brother, James, were basically a "Christianized' sect of Judaism, close to the Nazarene-Essene division of Judaism which Jesus may have come from. They followed Jewish law, including dietary law and circumcision, but regarded Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. The Marcionite/Gnostics were heavily influenced by Greco-Roman and Asian thought, rejected Judaism, believed that the Jewish God Yaweh who created the world was bad, and taught that Jesus came from the real God to deliver us from the evil world by giving his followers insight into the true nature of the Divine order, through a highly complex, esoteric set of beliefs. Then there were St. Paul and his followers. Paul, well-educated in both the Judaic and Greco-Roman traditions, fashioned a highly effective synthesis of Jewish and Greco-Roman beliefs suitable for attracting Gentiles by stressing Jesus as the sacrifical lamb who died for our sins. By eliminating the Jewish dietary laws and circumcision, Paul was able to make Judaism much more palatable to non-Jews than the version the Ebionites were pushing. Emphasizing the connection to Judaism and the Bible gave Paulists an advantage over the Marcionite/Gnostics by persuading the people that Christianity was tied to an old, well-estabished religious tradition rather than the new-fangled set of esoteric beliefs the Marcionites and Gnostics were pushing. And his emphasis on the death and resurrection of a savior god played well to pagan audiences in the competition with the leading rival mystery cults of Mithra, Artemis, and Isis. Paul seemed to be curiously uninterested in the details of the actual life and teachings of Jesus, but emphasised the death and resurrection of Christ to atone for our sins as our opportunity for salvation "through faith alone." A consequence of this is the current evangelical emphasis on belief in certain doctrines and surrender to Jesus during a "born again" experience as the keys to salvation.

The Paulists triumphed in the struggle for "survival of the fittest", partly because of the superiority of their "product" in attracting a mass following, and partly because of superior organizational skills in developing the hierarchical structure that became the catholic church. The Council of Nicea in 325 ratified the ascedancy of this camp. Like his predecessor Diocletian, Roman Emperor Constantine was looking for a single religion to unify the empire. Diocletian chose the Sun God, Sol Invictus, and persecuted Christianity, ruthlessly but unsuccessfully. Constantine adopted the approach of :"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" & also began to attribute his military and political victories to support from the Christian God. So he pushed Christianity, while continuing, himself, to worship the Sun God until near the end of his life. The result was the Council of Nicea, called and hosted by Constantine, and the mutually benefical co-operation and co-optation between Roman government and Christian clergy that resulted. The purpose of the Council was to develop a common Christian creed to deal with the heresy of Arianism, which taught that Jeusus came into existence after God the Father--a very big deal back then. Dan Brown and The DaVinci Code to the contrary, the Council and Constantine did not establish the "canon" the New Testament, that process having begun earlier and finalized independently in the 4th century by a series of church councils at which the clerics decided which books would go and which ones would stay. The result was the 27 books we know as the New Testament today.

The doctrines of the Nicene Creed reflect controversial postions of the triumphant Paulist faction that had been disputed by their unsuccessful Christian rivals. The competing views, branded as heresies, were later eliminated, not so much by direct persecution, although there was eventually plenty of that, but by directing monks not to copy their books. Christianity evolved from a fringe religion of outcasts to an Establishment religion, and the transformation came at a cost. Yes, in many respects, this seems a far cry from the simple teachings and ministry of the itinerant Nazarene carpenter.

Your comments, criticisms, expletives, brickbats, etc.,are welcome--and yes, it's long-winded..

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