The great falling away part 3- What caused the church to go off the rails.

Long away and far ago a certain sunworshiping Roman emperor need to win a great battle.
He claimed that he had a vision of a cross the night before the battle he instructed his men to paint crosses on their shields.
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He told his men that under this symbol the battle would be won. Of course he did win the battle.

One has to wonder why the symbol of the cross one of the worst forms of Roman rule would make a difference in Roman legions shield’s. Could it be that this symbol was a message to the opposing generals however subtle that if you loose this is what awaits you.

Also can’t help wondering if this was Heaven why didn’t the great  emperor not have a vision of Jesus Christ after all He is the author and finisher of our faith?

It is safe to say that due to this great victory for the first army that fought under the Christian Symbol and winning caused Christianity to become a respected religion of the Roman empire.

Now as a strategy for empire wide domination the idea of taking a minor sect / Hersey group who has formally been persecuted both by local and later by the emperor’s from from mad Nero onwards. Who’s founder was a low born Jewish carpenter who claimed his kingdom was not of this world, but a kingdom was in the sweet by and by whose current leaders lived for the most part in the shadows mild men who would rather die than take up arms in their own defence.

Now Constantine could work with this consept because it deprived the citizens of Rome of power over the Emperors household and any Nobel Roman house that wanted to advance under Constantine would also automatically follow the emperors example.

Another reason for this would be to deprive the priests of the great Parthenon of Roman gods no longer able to make demands on the empire coffers through the Emperor was from his point of view a very good thing. But reason demands that even the emperor must be reasonable thus certain Christian celebrations would now be diluted so that the empires citizens could be invited into the church but at the same time not feel totally out of place thus Easter would cover for a pagan festival so would Christmas.

In 325AD a great council the first international church conference was held to define for those who did not already know the substance of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.
This was called the council of Nicea.

What arose from this council was a version of the formally persecuted church reworked and restructured to suite the empires needs and in particular Constantine got what he wanted. An areian church without the power of God to back it but now it had the emperors backing.

,To be continued
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