I have read on the internet someone make the claim that in this writting Eusebius writes that Constantine at one of the meetings at Nicea got together with the early church leaders to come up with a new God to worship. This new god came from 5 final choices of Cesar, Krishna and others, finally picking Krishna and a British god which i can't remember the name. The two together became Jesus. Anyway has anyone read the writings of Eusebius and confirm or deny this? And does this early church leader and historian ever mention the name Jesus or is he always only referred to as Christ?
Eusebius history ecclesiastica and the god they chose?
by Crazyguy 2 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Angelclare
Hi Crazyguy. The Council of Nicea was called mainly to settle the question of the nature of the Son of God and his relationship to the Father. The following information is from this website: https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/nicea/
The argument sparked by Arius divided the church (see the module on Athanasius). The Arians said that the Son was not as eternal as the Father. Athanasius and friends insisted that the Son was as truly God as the Father. There were also many in the middle who were uncomfortable with both extremes: they wanted to hold on to the difference between the Father and Son, without making the Son a mere creature.
Emperor Constantine was deeply upset by this division, not least because it threatened the stability of the Empire. And so he summoned a conference of all the bishops of the church the first ecumenical (“worldwide”) council – though, being in Nicea in Asia Minor, few representatives from the western churches made it to the meeting. The council agreed that Jesus is truly God, and so it published a creed stating the Christian faith in a way that thoroughly condemned Arianism. This account is from a History of the Church, by Socrates Scholasticus, who wrote 100 years after Eusebius. He was not born at the time of the council, but much of his account consists of direct quotations from Eusebius’s Life of the Constantine and from a letter of the earlier historian.
I hope this information is helpful. If you want to research further I would suggest reading the book When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome by Richard E. Rubenstein which deals with the Arian conflict.
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TerryWalstrom
A pretty good rule of thumb is to regard historical writing as evidence of a kind.
Always read the source before you read other people's opinion about the source.
Eusebius' writings need to be read directly.
What some internet maven thinks Eusebius was saying is not the same thing.
It's like reading what the Watchtower says the Bible is saying.
How close is that? :)
Early Church Fathers' writings are among the most interesting writings I have read.
My eyes were really opened.
Those people were all kinds of crazy. They were highly intelligent crazy people:)
Their opinions and beliefs are often incredibly naive, imaginative and bizarre.
No wonder Christianity is a mess. Foundationally, it was a mess to begin with.
I'd stick with what people DID rather than what they thought about what things 'meant.'