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So today we're going to finish the Apostolic Quadrilateral. We'll do the second two points, and then, um, then we're going to try to get into our first reading, reading Saint Vincent, taking some text and just discussing it. And that's what the most of the class is going to be, is because I, is the idea is to dig into the actual text themself and, and read them, um, in the ancient, um, all the ancient church there. So let's get to our lesson. We're going to go over here. We're going to go over there.
And can anybody from reading your, if anybody happened to have read, I get it, it's the intensive week. Do you know what this is going to represent when we get to that, Vincent? So he's saying that we should have a faith that is everywhere at all times and, um, and, and, and with everybody. So the idea of a true, what means to be Catholic, and we'll get to that definition later. But let's get diving into the Apostolic Quadrilateral part two. Um, where's my little, here it is, like this. All right.
And remember, your paper is going to be incorporating these four points. So let's say you take a theological subject of, um, I don't know, but you got to wear the plain coat. All right. So, and you're going to then, you would have to defend your topic with the Apostolic Quadrilateral. All right. So that would be your thing. So I want you to think this way, um, and using this historical theology later on in your paper. So whatever the topic is, um, I just threw that one out. So let's see.
So let's get into it and, and, and see what we have so far. Okay. So the, the scar represents what was it again? Scripture, Christocentric Antiquity. Yeah. And, ah, very good, guys. Scripture, Christocentric Antiquity and Real. Yesterday we went through Scripture and Christocentric. And today we're kind of going to Antiquity and Real. Um, and the priority of this, of how concrete and easy it is, remember, goes from the top to the bottom. So as we get to being real, it's going to see, it gets kind of fluffy.
I mean, we're talking about being in the church and embracing what it means to be a, just a Christian, a Catholic with a small c. And that gets fluffy. It gets harder to just be dogmatic and that type of thing. And even Antiquity, you're going to see as I go through, uh, what is weird, how do we, how do we put our, how do we sink our teeth into this? So the, the, uh, I always say that the acronym goes down in this way.
So Scripture is the Bible is received as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. You'll see next semester that the, the Orthodox Church in the 700s at the end of the, uh, council period made it where if you don't venerate images, you're not a Christian. Okay. So I don't see that in the Word of God. And so you're going to see that, that where these things start to go, we have to have the Scriptures as the infallible source of, of authority in Christian faith and practice.
And so the Roman Catholic Church made it where it's a dogmatic statement that Mary was sinless and that she actually floated to heaven. And so all those things are dogmatic statements, actually, um, not just opinions of the fathers or something, but literally dogmatic statements. And we'll get to that next semester. Right now we're digging into the, um, original ones. Christocentric. Scripture is interpreted through the person and teaching of Jesus Christ. And we really hammered that yesterday.
So today, doctrine and practice should be supported whenever possible by the testimony of the early church. And then real we'll get to is doctrine and practice should endeavor to be rooted not only in theory, but in the living witness of faithful communities across time, worked out in reality is what we'll get to. I'll show you that. So Antiquity again, doctrine and practice should be supported whenever possible by the testimony of the early church, um, is what we're, we're going to argue for today.
I love this quote. Uh, it's one of my, uh, actually one of my favorite historical theologians has a whole series of books that I would recommend. Oops. And it's this quote. Sorry, this was falling. Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Isn't that good?
And it really tries to distinguish between someone who's just kind of stuck in the mud and, you know, and they don't have a real faith, a lively faith, but yet something that's apostolic, that's handed to us, that we can, that we can stand on, uh, and as we were commanded to hold fast to is living. But traditionalism is not what we're talking about. We're not just talking about being old-fashioned or something. As a matter of fact, I have this really strange allergy.
It's gotten better since I've been older, but particularly, um, back when I used to, uh, Tonya and I used to be editors of The Remnant, I used to, I'd order all these books from, from our, uh, auctions and something, and I'd try to find some great articles, you know, uh, to, to put in The Remnant magazine and everything. And I'd buy these ones, you know, and they'd be from the 1800s and stuff. And I'd be reading it and all of a sudden I get these weird itches.
And next thing you know, it like, I'd get these welts on my hands and my, my, my face. And I, and I'd say, wait a minute, I'm like allergic to old books. I mean, seriously. So I'd like bring surgical gloves home from work, you know, and try, I try freezing them. I, I didn't know if it was like the mites in it. So I tried different things and I realized that actually I've got this allergy to old books. And so I said, why God, why do I have an allergy to old books?
And I think I, the way I've looked at it is it's kind of like the Lord saying, you know, I like this. Uh, he, I feel like the Lord's saying to me, he appreciates this, the study of the ancients and that type of a thing. But if I become stuck in it and it's not alive, if it doesn't come alive, um, you can just kind of get down that way. And so it's sort of like a protection for me to keep it living, that, that there's this allergy for me. If I go to, too much, it has to be alive. And so I love this quote.
Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. So let's get into it. Again, the scriptures tell us, beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation. Sorry, the glare is a little better over here. Um, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints.
And then this one, therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle. And so the idea of appreciating that there's this deposit that the apostles gave to us, gave us the canon of scripture, gave us the church, gave us these, this, this faith, um, is something that, that, um, we're commanded to do. So again, when I look at this though, and this is going to come out a lot today, what it means is I'm looking for a deposit from Christ to the apostles.
That's what I'm interested in. So as the river gets flowing today, and you're going to see it flowing, you're going to get kind of in some of this. And at one point, you have to remember why you started doing this. I didn't do it to hear what Justin Martyr said, or Irenaeus says, or Tertullian. I'm trying to see what ancient Christianity was like to get to the source, not them themselves.
It gets to the point where then you just start geeking out on Justin and Origen and all the other things, and, and you've forgotten why you started doing it in the first place. So Antiquity is to try to drive into, uh, the source, and that's the whole point. Um, I like this quote here, uh, by the historian Alister McGrath. He says this, "Tradition is like a filter, which allows us to identify suspect teachings immediately, to protest, we have never believed this before.
It's not necessarily to deny the correctness of the teaching in question, but it is to raise a fundamental question. Why have Christians not believed this before?" And on further investigation, it usually turns out that there are often very good reasons for not accepting that belief. The past here acts as both a resource and a safeguard, checking helpful and unorthodox doctrinal developments by demanding that their supporters explain their historical and theological credentials.
Through the ages, my ages, the, uh, I've had many people who you, who have all these kind of ideas and what I tend to call our coffee table revivals, all the answers, and it's like, has anybody ever practiced that before? Can you find anybody in church history? And I've had some people just boldly say, no, no, I think it's me. You know, I've got it now. I've got it figured out somehow. And it's like, I don't know.
Um, and I've seen many people along the journey, particularly who are very serious about the faith, get thrown into some new tangent and end up shipwrecked at the end of their life. And it's, this gives us a, a historic foundation that we can stand on. And I think it's, it's important. So let's just get into the practical thing. Who are the early Christians? And let's talk about it. What, what does that, what does that mean? So this is a nice chart by ancient history. This is a, they have some nice maps.
This, this was, um, website here. It's like an encyclopedia. And what you're going to see is in, uh, about 230 is the dark purple. So when you can kind of see the birth of Christianity, this is really, even though we don't have a lot of writings on the, the miss the missiology of the early church, this gives us the idea of just how it spread.
And that within 200 years, you're in all of these major areas, um, and it's spreading, and it's spreading in an amazing way without, you know, any of the modern conveniences we have, without the, the backing of the state or any of those kinds of things. And then by the end of 325, um, which we end our, our whole period, our Nicene period is all the, the greater purple there. And so it's, it's remarkable to see the spread of Christianity.
Um, if you were to look at the modern Western world, which was Rome, and keep in mind the ocean is part of that map to them, this, this was their highway. So to them, when you looked at the Roman world, they saw it as a, a circle world, you know, not that it went around here. You didn't drive from here around to there. You took a ship from here to here. So the, the ocean was part of their world.
But the, the, uh, Roman world that our, the apostles would have inherited that, um, um, you know, would have had been divided roughly into two main sections, a Latin speaking and a Greek speaking world. And this is the way it divided. And you'll see this play out well up to today. It still plays out in a Western way of thinking and an Eastern way of thinking. Westerns tend to be more logical. Easterns tend to be more philosophical, um, and a little more fluffy with their, with their, um, theology and things.
And to this day, this stands, um, and it affects us. It affects every one of us who we are and our, the way our country is made. And my on Friday, I'm going to go into a little primer on just how the Roman Empire started. Um, but that still is something to think about when you're reading writings. I, when you're starting to say, okay, Tertullian, did he write in Latin or did he write in Greek? He wrote in Latin. Helps you just kind of understand him. Okay. Irenaeus, did he write in Latin or Greek?
He wrote in Greek. Um, so it helps you to kind of think of, of how it lines up when you start to understand the early church. So why, here's where it matters. Again, what I'm trying to do is get to the source, Jesus Christ and the apostles and how they handed them down. So I like this little chart. There's several of these on the internet. I found this one. Um, these are some of the writers that you're going to be reading in this first semester, the apostolic fathers.
And so why we're interested in them is because they're so close to the apostles. Um, they're mentioned by the apostles, like Clement of Rome was mentioned by the apostles. He was also, um, a disciple of Peter, it says, and at least in church history. Peter was, uh, Ignatius. We'll read the letters of Ignatius, and he was one direct line to Peter, who was also connected with John. Uh, John had a disciple in Polycarp. We'll read the epistles of Polycarp.
Polycarp was a, and Irenaeus was at least an acquaintance and seemingly disciple of Polycarp. And then Irenaeus, which spent some time going back into Rome to the different schools, knew Justin Martyr, Justin Martyr, Novatian, and then down to Clement of Alexandria. We won't get down this far this semester. And then Hippolytus coming out of there.
So it's, it's interesting, and particularly as we see the challenges of, um, the heresies, the different things that come in your apologetics class, you know, we're talking about how do you know? I mean, you know, that you have the Gnostic gospels, you have all these different challenges that people bring out and everything. We have a historic faith. We have a faith that we can defend. And this kind of, um, uh, a line, uh, is important to us.
And unbeknownst to us, this kind of the great church is what determined what's in your scriptures. It was these that decided the canon that we call our canon. And the canon decided them. And, and it was they that decided that church. It was a, it was a faith that was received from the apostles, which affect all of just orthodox Christianity today. And so it's important for us to understand that and why it's in and why they chose some of those things. And that's going to be the, a lot of this, this course.
So again, this one kind of brings up some how they overlap. These are going to be writers that you're going to know by the end of the semester. Clement is, we're going to read actually, um, on Thursday. Um, and then you have Ignatius' letters. We'll read early on. You'll read Justin Martyr's letters, early philosopher turn. And you can see how close they are to the apostles and Irenaeus and, and, um, and Polycarp and to Jesus. So again, this is from a website somebody's, uh, made here, but I appreciate it.
But the point of Antiquity, you get it, is, is to get to the source, not for them of themselves. Yes, they are some brilliant teachers. We're going to get to Irenaeus's. Uh, we're going to get to Justin. They have some incredible writings and, and, uh, on their own and their own thinking there as, as theologians and such. But their main point is we're trying to get and understand the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. All right.
So that whole group goes, and this is volume one, which is basically what you're going to read through this year. I mean, this semester, you're going to, this is the text of this semester, which is that volume one. All right, bam. So when you go from, we're going to go in and detail this. And as we go through the semester, we're going to then start, you know, not, we can't go that much detail for every, for every book. It'd be great, but no, maybe it wouldn't.
But anyway, um, so we're going to go through that, but we're going to really know the, the first century well so that we can, you know, say something about it and put our, uh, our, you know, have more confidence in that. And then as we go, we're going to see this, but it goes all the way up. And does anybody know what the term Ante-Nicene actually means? So the, uh, these are called, you'll see it abbreviated ANF or Ante-Nicene. Would that mean like before the Nicene councils? Bingo. Before the Nicene council.
Sometimes you hear it said, it sounds like people are saying anti, you know, uh, but it's, it's, it's not. It's ante, just like an anteroom of a, of a room, your anteroom or something, you know, it's, it's Ante-Nicene before the Nicaea. So these writings have been established by historians and Bible guys and all that. And you'll hear this the rest of your life, the Ante-Nicene fathers, ANF. You'll see ANF abbreviated. And that means these are the writings.
This is for the most part, there's now a few more things, but for the most part, these are all the writings from the day of the apostles, uh, death up into Constantine. Here they are, the Ante-Nicene fathers. And so what we're doing this semester is volume one, which I would argue is the most important. So any questions about that? Ante-Nicene fathers. Okay. So it's a, so now as we go into the early church, um, and as we go further and further into it, they have to deal with, um, the problems that face them.
So you get all the different heresies that come through. And that's what's going to sharpen your understanding of theology. Because we're going to embrace the, the discussions as they happen. So as they dealt with things, um, they had some heresies that hit them early on. Um, one of the earlier ones was the Ebionites. And they said that these are kind of the Judaizers, the, the ones that would have said that Jesus was a prophet, but he was not really God.
They were usually very ascetic and, and, uh, and they dealt with this very early on. Um, the others was the Gnostics. And we see this even in, in the scriptures when it says, you know, he who doesn't say that Jesus came in the flesh is, you know, is a cursed. You know, he's not a Christian who doesn't say that. John's referring directly to the Gnostics who were saying that Jesus was just a, a spirit that flesh can't be redeemed. And it's just the spirit because we're getting, we're, we're, uh, we'll get into that.
And so the Gnostics were heavy. And so you're going to get a lot of anti-Gnostic stuff because the first century, uh, by the time of the end of the semester, you're going to read so much from Irenaeus where he is nailing every single weird detail of the different Gnostic groups. You'll be a little sick of it, but you'll understand the fight against Gnosticism. And they dominate.
I mean, they won the argument and where, um, it, it, they were able to eradicate it out of, um, uh, Christianity because it was involved in Christianity and they had to fight it out. Marcion. I mean, but remember Marcion from yesterday? What did he do? What was his heresy? Basically believe that we have two different gods. Yeah, exactly. And he made a strong argument like, that's not the God in the Old Testament that I'm reading, the God in the New Testament. And you get this kind of today, you know, passively.
Uh, when I was becoming a conscious objector, one of the, the biggest things that I had to struggle with was the Old Testament wars. A lot of pacifists, when you start reading liberal literature and pacifist literature, they just kind of explain away all the different, you know, wars and the judgments and all that kind of thing. And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I believe the whole word of God. And so I'm going to have to receive the God of the Old Testament.
Yahweh is a warrior, you know, and that he has now given us new weapons and that weapon is the cross. But God does not change. And so having to understand that was something they had to fight through and decide that our canon, no, we have one God. And that is through the Old Testament and New Testament was fought out. Sabellius, uh, we won't quite get to that's into, uh, next semester we'll get to that. Um, but he was, uh, the first one kind of trying to explain the Trinity.
And you end up with a modalism where Jesus is God. And then so like, no. And this is where we get this one of our first theological words, the Trinity, trying to understand the, the mystery, the, the of that Christ is God with us and explaining that against Sabellius. All right. So, so the term that we typically use for the, the first generation is the apostolic fathers. It's a term you'll see over and over again. And it was, it's the name of actually that textbook I have in here.
Um, yeah, this is, and this is a good one. I like this version, um, the apostolic fathers. And so again, these would be the ones that were either friends of the apostles, knew the apostles, had some argument of being connected to the apostles. And so I would certainly myself put these on a different tier when I'm talking about, again, this is a whole title of Antiquity. These matter more to me.
Uh, and so, um, so the apostolic fathers are early Christian writers from the late first to second century, seen as a bridge between the New Testament and later Christian thought theology. They were typically disciples of the apostles or closely connected to the apostolic era, era. And their writings reflect early Christian teaching practices and church organization. These works were often pastoral, addressing practical issues in the early church communities and were considered authoritative, but not canonical.
So important apostolic fathers and pretty much, I think maybe entirely what you're reading through this semester is the apostolic fathers. When you're done with this semester, you've read them all. And so it'll give you a confidence not only of, of what they said, but one of the biggest things I want you to get is what they didn't say. And one of the things that people are now imposing onto, um, Christianity saying, oh, you have to believe this doctrine. I don't know.
I, you'll see that even, well, certainly see it tomorrow. Um, so a list of those writers, um, the Didache, um, is one of the, is the earliest Christian document found, Clement of Rome, which we'll go through on Thursday, the Epistle of Barnabas, um, not the Gospel of Barnabas. That's a Gnostic Gospel, but the Epistle of Barnabas, the letters of Ignatius, Papias, which is some fragments, the letters of Polycarp and his martyrdom. And then second Clement, they thought this used to be Clement.
It's not, but it's still very ancient. And then the very bizarre Shepherd of Hermas, which we're going to read is sort of like a, uh, Pilgrim's Progress to the early church. Very weird allegorical stuff. We're going to start with that for our first regular week outside of intensive. Um, so the question then I guess comes up, um, where, where does Antiquity end? So then, you know, and it's fuzzy. It's kind of like a beard. You know, is that a beard or is that not? Does Dean doesn't really have a beard?
Well, you know, that kind of thing. Where does Antiquity end? And it's, it's rough, but I remember the priority, uh, in this hermeneutic at least, uh, I'm trying to ring out the ancient to get to the source. It's not so much what Justin himself said. I want to know that Justin hung with guys that hung with the apostles. You know, I want to know that Clement of Rome is like probably the guy mentioned in Paul who says his name is in the book of life.
You know, so those guys mean Matt more to me, uh, than even their own words. And so, and you have to keep in mind, even by the end of, uh, the book of, uh, even Revelation and in the epistles, I mean, you know, I mean, would you go to church at Corinth? I mean, you know, it's, there's a lot going on there. They're not perfect.
So all of it has to be put at a level under the scriptures, uh, when we keep in mind, but that's still, it's just a wealth of, of, of, um, foundational, um, strength for you to stand on an apostolic faith that was handed to us against all the, the era, the things. So I've taken a date roughly around 250 to start to see a lot of changes that happen both in the church and the empire. And I'll show you why.
And again, on Friday, I'm going to give you the beginning of the Roman Empire kind of to the, to the end of the start of the end of the beginning. Um, but today I'm going to take you to kind of the end of it. So Friday, I'll kick back and go to the beginning. But right now I'm going to start right in. So the, the empire is starting and they, they thought in their mythic, uh, uh, their myths and everything of April 21st, 753 BC. I'll go on that on Friday.
And they had a thousand year, um, birthday party in the year two, actually celebrated in 248. And that 247 was when they finally came to their thousand years. And at this time, empire is about to fall apart. As a matter of fact, from this party, um, there seems to have been a major plague, which only Cyprian, by the way, the early Christian, even the secular historians call it the Cyprian plague.
He mentions it, but this party that he had everybody come, um, ended up, uh, bringing great, um, more a new plague to them. So it was, uh, in, you know, people started dying. Uh, but worse than this is that by the year 250, they're spreading out the Roman Empire is growing, but you got to keep fighting all this. And both to the west and to the east, the pressure of the, of the, the different armies and things were starting to attack Rome and it was beginning more and more difficult.
And so you ended up, um, historians have that the big cracks in the empire, uh, start around a little bit before the 250, but 235, when this guy, Emperor Severus Alexander, was assassinated by his own Praetorian Guard, his own troops. And at the same time, we've got barbarian invasions starting to come in. We have civil wars happening. We have peasant rebellions. And we have the debasement of the currency. And this is, this is interesting and a little scary about our, our modern day empire.
We have the plague of Cyprian, the barbarian mercenaries. And all along, you've got that church that if your member is now growing, being affected by this was their neighborhood. This is what's going on. So this was an interesting slide I found. This guy had a website on, on his coins. And if you just take the weight of the, of the silver and the coins alone, you see the debasement of the currency, um, as it went down. And you, and you start to see the empire, uh, getting weaker and weaker.
So right after this, then you end up with this, uh, term called the Barracks Emperor. When I was looking for pictures for Barracks Emperor, there's actually a game called the Barracks Emperor where you have these cards and you know, you're doing all kinds of Roman Empire stuff, you know. But this was a rough time to be a Roman Emperor. It made me think of the Shakespeare quote that says, uh, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown from Henry IV. Um, but here, look at this, this graph here.
Here's another one who did a graph with the currency. And this one's loaded, but check this out. So, so at 250 around there, as an emperor, you had an 84% chance of being killed. So if you look at the dots here, the black dots are emperors that died a natural death. The first, the, the red dots are the ones that were killed somehow. Uh, and, and you can see you get into the 250s, it's rough to be a Roman, you know, in the 250s. So a lot of historians believe the Roman Empire almost failed.
This was almost the end of the Roman Empire. This is affecting the Christians. You start to see at this point a lot more, um, bigger conferences being formed instead of the congregationalism that you see early on. You start to see infant baptism being spoken of, Cyprian speaking. You start to see people, uh, if you remember, you've got plagues going on, you've got people dying. People are thinking, oh, uh, and we'll talk about that as we, as we drive through. But this was a rough time.
And I see a lot was happening both to the church and to the empire during this time. Um, so in particular, um, you then started having real world, uh, Western worldwide persecution. Before this, it was kind of in spots. You know, Nero certainly persecuted the, uh, the Christians and, and all this. But now we're going to say this guy, uh, Decius is one of the, the Barracks, uh, emperors, and he's going to save the country. He, and he does. And he's, uh, he's a, he's a, you know, strong leader.
He's bringing things back, um, you know, make Rome great again, you know, that kind of thing. And, and yet he's, he's going to say, you know what, this Christian stuff's getting out of hand, got to kill it. And so he begins the first nation, uh, uh, in his, in their world, worldwide persecution. And in particular, he starts this where you have to sacrifice to the emperor or to the gods and then have a certificate for it. And this is what's cool. Um, we actually have, um, records of this.
So looking at Christianity around 250, this is what it kind of, these were the big pockets around Rome and Carthage and Alexandria. And there were schools we'll see here. So Clement of Alexandria was here. You have Antioch, where Ignatius and came from and other ones that were here. Ephesus, uh, Polycarp was over here. Of course, all the guys that were in Rome and Carthage was Tertullian and Cyprian, Irenaeus over here. And so it's a, um, it's, this is Christianity, but now they're getting serious.
And we've actually found these. Um, these are certificates of, um, sacrifice that we actually have found. And, and, and they're translated. And here's, here's one that's that one that's translated. It says this, this is again 251, to the sacrifice commission from Diogenes, age 72 years old, with a scar over my right eyebrow. I've always sacrificed to the gods. Now, in obedience to the emperor, I've sacrificed again, poured out a drink offering and eaten meat offered to the gods.
And that's interesting, all those different things you pick up in the scriptures. Please certify this below. I, Cirrus, saw Diogenes and his son sacrificing, paraphrased from the Harvard Theological Society. So that's what this says here. I mean, that's fascinating that we have that. This was from a, I think a Mary Beard documentary on the Roman Empire. I saw this picture and I grabbed it, but, um, fascinating that this is then now going everywhere. And so this is causing people to, um, apostatize from the faith.
You know, it's, it's challenging them and it's, and it's also, um, uh, stirring things up a lot. So during this time now, also all the heresies have all been growing and they all have schools of thought. Um, uh, this one's a little later, Pasculianism, but, um, Arianism is growing, Gnosticism, Ebionites, the Montanism, Manicheism, all these Donatism is, is just getting started. But all these things are also growing and the pressure of this becomes what the church is dealing with.
So unfortunately, a lot of times now what we get to in the, in the, in the early church is, is the later is you start to see this is there becomes their emphasis. We've got to fight against this. Uh, and it'll be fascinating for us then to see the theological points that come out of it. But also, this is what happens to us. You tend to change your north star of what you're about. You know, like, um, you maybe, I know I've, I've done this so many times.
You, uh, you fight something and fight something and you become so focused on this that the guys who are right are the guys who believe with me on this subject. Perfect example is we'll get to it at the end of this, of this lecture. Um, Arianism, anybody know what Arianism, what their big heresy was? What was that? It was something to do with the Trinity, right? Yeah. The way God and the sun relate. Exactly. So he believed Jesus was created like the Jehovah's Witness do today. And so, um, this became really big.
And one thing also, they were really great with, um, mixing this with kind of like a cool, um, music jingles. It's like it was the first, like they traveled like, like, and they literally had songs that they would go around singing as part of their evangelism and be like, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then people were going into Arianism because they were like getting into the music, um, in some of the cases.
So it ends up that you're a Christian if, uh, you can agree that Jesus is of the same substance of the Father. And I want you to use this word, homoousios. Uh, and so if you can say that you're a Christian, and that's what messes things up. Um, it's important. I think the fight is an important fight. And I agree with the Orthodox on, uh, against Arian, but it still altered the, the, um, the whole thing. Your generation, have you? Yes. Yes.
Wasn't that then when they finally came and decided that it was the first council of Constantine? Exactly. To be fair to Constantine, he was like, drop it. No one gets this. Drop it. And the Christians were like, no, we want you to use your power to, to decide on this. And so he decided on it. And that's what these are called, everything before that council. Ante-Nicene. Um, so your generation, have y'all ever heard the sermon, 10 shekels in a shirt? Okay. Okay. Good. Good. You haven't heard it.
Ohio doesn't know it. We got it and we got to get it into Ohio. Uh, remember his point there that in his circles of fundamentalists, he said, you know, people would shake your hand. You would say, uh huh, to a few of their doctrinal statements of fundamentalism. The fundamentalists have their certain points. And if you would say, uh huh, to those certain points, somebody would, uh, slap you on the back, shake your hand and say, brother, you're saved. This became, and it happens to all of us.
It happens certainly to Anabaptists. It certains to all of us that your theological arguments become your definition of Christianity, not a life filled with Christ. And this happens over and over and over and over again. And it happens to me. It happens. It happens this. We have to constantly keep Jesus and the, and the indwelling Jesus Christ within us as our, as our reality. But this certainly happens to them.
And particularly as they, as you'll see even today, I'll show you in the lecture how it gets to in, in, um, in there. All right. So things are going. So even though they had all these things, now you had guys like Novatian who had an Orthodox faith, he even had apostolic succession. He had, um, being called, you're not part of us though. And, and people were calling people sectarian and that kind of a thing.
So finally we get to this guy, a really strong emperor who secular historians looking at the, in Rome kind of saved Rome. He was strong and powerful and he divided Rome into, um, certain areas where he had the, the, you just to be able to fight these battles. He said, okay, we're going to have four emperors, two main ones and two juniors. We'll call them Augustuses and Caesars. And we're going to divide the empire up and we're going to fight all those battles. And he was really good.
But the one thing he did not have any toleration for were Christians. And so he got in, um, some interesting stories how even a soothsayer, um, that he was asking about, um, they're saying, and she was saying, it's the Christians. It's actually, it's in the Roman writings. Remind me, I'll, I'll get it for you. And so he and empire knocking down churches, following them out, set them up in what they call the tetrarchy, these two groups of two, um, and did that over the whole empire.
And he was very successful, but terribly persecuted the church. And for the first time, people gave up the word of God. And so you had bishops who were saying, all right, here's the scrolls and gave it to them. And you had people saying, all right, I'll, I'll, I'll throw the incense in, leave me alone. And so by the time with that, after that, people were like, that's the bishop that gave up the scriptures.
That's the guy who in, who gave, and you're going to see that come into a controversy that people didn't think that those bishops had a right standing. You can understand the dynamics. But in that whole tempestuous mess, and particularly with one of the worst persecutions ever came to the church, came one of these guys from Britain, Constantine, and said, you know, I think I could do a better job. I, I think I need to get down there and I can make Rome great again and I can do this.
So he then gathers an army, comes from England all through Gaul and makes his way over to, to Rome where he's going to, you know, clean house. But on the way, whether it's fake or not, one of the most significant historic events that whether you're a secular Jehovah's Witness, Catholic, secular, atheist, or whatever, an event happened that changed the world.
Somewhere along the line, he wakes up one day and he says he sees above the sun, interesting, he was a sun worshiper and a priest, a high priest of the sun god, uh, the, uh, Pontifex Maximus of the sun god. Um, he said he sees this image of the cross. And in this cross, it said, in this name, conquer. Now, other, uh, the one, uh, version of it said he saw his Chi-Rho, which is the X with the P, which is the Greek words for the beginning of Christ. Others say cross.
There's different versions of this, but some version he saw this. And so he said, okay. So he took his 98,000 soldiers and went over the Alps and came over and marched on Rome with this confidence. But then even went so far as to take this symbol for Christ, Chi, X, Rho for the beginning of Christ. Uh, and this is the beginning of Christos in, uh, Greek. And he made this. The next day it was reported that Constantine awoke in a terror.
It seemed very demonic to me when an angel exclaimed to him, Hoc vince, which means by this sign, conquer. Um, Eusebius claimed that the angel was Christ himself. Eusebius really drinks the Kool-Aid. You're going to see later on, uh, and with, with him. So they take this and put this symbol on the, um, and this is the, my, my favorite. There's a lot of versions of the Milvian Bridge attack. And usually they're very grand, but it was actually a, a group of boats that they put and then went over.
This is a very good historic picture and painted over their shields, the Chi-Rho, uh, symbol of Christ going in. And so then he goes over, defeats the emperor that's in there and wins. And then he claims, I have liberated you from your tyrants and I'm going to legalize Christianity. Didn't get converted himself, but he's going to legalize Christianity. So Eusebius records that after Constantine took the city, he ordered that a statue be erected of himself.
And the statue displayed the, the Chi-Rho symbol on his right and the right hand with the inscription by this saving sign, the true token of bravery. I have delivered your city from the yoke of the tyrant. And this becomes, uh, so today, uh, just last year, um, Rome has finally rebuilt this statue. I took a little video of it. I was just there. It was just in pieces until last year. And that's the life size. That's the size that he puts of himself in liberating Christianity in Rome. They redid it.
I'll take you guys there before you, uh, make it to Rome. Here was me. So yeah, I, I mean, it's amazing, but here's what's it. I, I look at him like a George Washington. He is a brilliant man, brilliant leader, brilliant general, brilliant emperor. It's not his fault. The church, so intoxicated by the ability of, uh, of possibly, um, now all this persecution could end, this guy's saying it's okay now. And you get Eusebius talking about, it used to be that we were persecuted.
Now we're led into the chambers and he's giving us gold robes and we're sitting around the table eating with the emperor himself. This truly must be the new millennium. And it was, and it, and it, and it swept them. So Constantine's in now. He's a good Christian. He even did the Council of Nicaea in 325, 326. Getting a little nervous. You know, remember, it's not good to have children sometimes when you're an emperor, when they're, especially if they're ambitious.
So he has his son, Crispus, and his wife killed a year after the Council of Nicaea, when he was called the Bishop of Bishops. Council of Nicaea was 325. Um, he then decides he gets a little nervous about Rome and he says, you know what, I'm going to move the whole empire to Istanbul today, Constantinople. So he gets in and there was other already, he's not the first one. There were other emperors that did some things. The trade was better over there.
And this place actually ends up being an incredibly military, good place. It lasts till 1453. Uh, he moves the Roman Empire to Constantinople and to Istanbul and names it after himself. I mean, hello, of course, Constantinople. It's funny. I, I should have done a picture of this. Um, in Greece today, I was traveling to Istanbul and I was on the airplane and, and I was looking and I'm at the, uh, the Aegean Airlines. I'll remember, I'll try to bring you this picture. And it had in English, Istanbul.
And then over on the, in the Greek version, you know, so the Greeks would read it, you could tell it was saying in Greek, Constantinople. So I went way changed in the name. So anyway, it was changed, of course, with the Muslim, uh, invasion of it in 1453.
But so he's there, he starts his Roman Empire there, brings a bunch of Roman pagan obelisk there, you know, builds a giant naked statue of himself with a sun god hat on and begins to then build towards the end of his life, the, the Church of the Holy Apostles, um, which is a mosque area now. Um, and then thought, you know, his mom was really big into trying to find the true cross and all the apostles. He said, I'm going to bring all the apostles and bring in tombs in here.
And if you're in, this is a picture I took at the museum in Istanbul and these giant, they're called porphyry marble, which was one of the most precious stone things you could possibly have. They're right outside the, the museum area. Um, I'm going to get those for the apostles. And you know what? I think it really would be cool if I kind of like put myself right in the middle, you know, as the 13th apostle. And so really saw himself. And this is, this is documented in the historical events.
This is not just weird, you know, conspiracy stuff. It says, uh, Eusebius says, and he raised the sinner of a lofty tomb, a, uh, monument of costly workmanship, that porphyry, which he intended for his own body while round about it were placed 12 other tombs, which were to receive the remains of the apostles. And so, okay. So I don't get how to this day, the Orthodox Church prays to this guy.
And I've known in our circles several people who have converted to Orthodoxy and swallowed all this stuff and now pray to this person on these days. Okay. Uh, and so one of the main passions of this historical theology is how does that happen? Uh, the, I've known leaders of, of Mennonite churches who have children, who, who have gone down a line of false history, uh, and, and bought a lie. And I think it's just, it's just terrible. And so anyway, this is the, um, this is where it gets, uh, the end of antiquity.
It's my, it's not formally, but in my opinion, this quote from Leo Tolstoy really says it, really says it. Looking at this period, looking at the Council of Nicaea, looking at how Constantine came into the church and how the church kind of created Constantine. Um, he says this, no one said to him, to Constantine, the kings exercise authority among the nations, but among you, it shall not be so. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not lay up riches, judge not, condemn not, resist not him that is evil.
But they said to him, he wished it to be called a Christian and to continue to be the chieftain of the robbers, to kill, burn, fight, lust, execute, and live in luxury. That can all be arranged. And they arranged a Christianity for him and arranged it very smoothly, better even than could have been expected. They foresaw that reading the Gospels, it might occur to him that all this, you know, Christian life is demanded and not the building of temples or worshiping in them.
This they foresaw and they carefully devised a Christianity for him as would let him continue to live his old heathen life unembarrassed. On the one hand, Christ, God's son, only came to bring salvation to him and to everybody. But Christ having died, Constantine can live as he likes. Leo Tolstoy, the author of, uh, War and Peace. So I, I think that why I bring this up is to understand what I mean when, and what we're talking about in antiquity.
So it's interesting how, was, was there anything left of, of ancient Christianity? Absolutely. The church continued. It's harder to find. It's, but the faithful has always taken the words of Jesus. And you see it all through ages. And suddenly you have people that take the word of Jesus and say, you know what, let's do it. Let's do it. You see that pop up generation after generation. The church is promised by us to not, to not be, um, uh, to not fail. Interesting.
Even in the Council of Nicaea, the canons, which are like the laws of the Council of Nicaea, um, the, uh, this canon was still there in the early church thinking, even at 325. Um, and it says this, um, canon 12, the Nicaean canon state, as many as were called by grace and displayed the first zeal, having cast aside their military girdles, but afterwards returned like dogs to their own vomit, so that some spent money and by means of gifts regained their military stations.
Let these, after they have passed the space of three years as hearers, they are excommunicated, um, but for 10 years be prostrate. So said even in Nicaea, if you were a, a military guy who once were converted and you gave that up, but now you returned to the army, we're going to, you're not even going to be able to walk into church for three years. And then for 10 years, you're going to be prostrate. I mean, you're going to come there and be like on the floor asking for, for mercy.
This was actually, this canon really helped us. I don't know if any of y'all have seen the debate David Bercot and I did in Boston against the, uh, theologians. And they couldn't believe that it was an echo. Even Peter Kreeft, um, was like, was that an ecumenical council? Yes, it's Nicaea, David said. Uh, it's, it's just shocking to see it didn't all just collapse overnight is I guess what I'm trying to show with that.
Um, and finally we get through like four or five emperors and you get to this guy named Julian the Apostate. And I'll finish with this and then we'll, we'll take a break. Um, Julian the Apostate, um, is considered, he's called that by history and the evil name and all that kind of thing because he finally said, you know, I'm reading Julius Caesar and Augustus and I'm liking what they did than what I'm seeing here. And he, he tried to bring the emperor back into paganism.
It was only him and after him, it was Christian after him for, uh, for all until forever. Um, but look at his life after Constantine, what this brought in called Christianity. Um, just looking at Julian's life, um, Constantine first killed him, his son, his own son and his wife. Um, there was also those tetrarchies. One of the leaders was his, um, brother-in-law, who he made a solemn oath, I won't kill him. Uh, but then we'll have him strangled.
Um, after his death, um, Constantine, uh, Constantus, all his children had Constantine names, of course, you know, and then, uh, professing he, um, he also did a massacre of the, of, of Julius's family. Uh, Julian's father, Constantius, was murdered. Julian's elder brother and numerous cousins were murdered. And only Julian and his half-brother, uh, Gallus, were spared because they were tiny little children.
And he grew up in a, uh, a library monastery where he was kept from all the massacres of families of killing each other and all this kind of thing called Christianity. And he said, you know what, I'm going to be pagan. And he tried to, to, to, uh, uh, win the empire, um, for that. So I call him Julian the Who Can Blame Him. So instead of Julian the Apostate, it was, he was, uh, it's, it's, it's terrible.
I look at this like, you know, um, you know, the, uh, Michael Sattler quote when they ask him so about the Turks that came, he said, what do you say? Um, you, they are true Turks, but you are Turks in the heart. And he said, so I would rather fight on the side of the Turks than fight with you, you, uh, fake Christians. That's kind of got him, you know, his tongue ripped out and killed and everything. But still, it made it, it made his stand. And he has a point that this is bad stuff. So let's take a break.
I'm going to try to have to go a little further. We're going to get in some, um, so let's take a, a quick break and then we're going to finish antiquity. So antiquity doctrine and practice should be supported whenever possible by the testimony of the early church. And then let's finish, let's finish it with real and take a quick break and we'll come back. We are excited to partner with you on your journey of learning, faith, and service. Join us at Zolikan Institute, where faith and learning walk hand in hand.