Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:14 pm Post subject: percecution
Reportedly, the armed Islamists went door to door in the Christian neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan informing the homeowners that if they did not leave immediately they would be shot. Then pictures of their corpses would be taken and sent to al-Jazeera, along with the message that the Syrian government had killed them.
As such, the men, women and children -- denied by the Islamists from taking any of their belongings -- were forced to flee to mountain villages 30 miles outside of Homs, their homes occupied by the militants who claimed the owners' possessions as "war-booty from the Christians."
According to reports by Barnabas Aid, a relief agency assisting Syrian Christians, the forced Christian exodus from Homs has been ongoing since the beginning of February when armed Islamists murdered more than 200 Christians, "including entire families with young children."
Arius (and a HUGE faction within the church) was ruled against,
and Arius was sent away;
but Arius was later recalled,
and then expelled again
and then recalled again
and was about to be formally readmitted to the Church (which still had not resolved it's inner conflict about this issue)... when it's (credibly) alleged that the other faction (the one you prefer), in order to quell the leading voice of his faction ...
poisoned his food; and watched him die very violently on the floor, in front of other Catholics.
Anyways ...
A Catholic authority says that the Trinity "is not . . . directly and immediately [the] word of God."—New Catholic Encyclopedia.
The Catholic Encyclopedia also comments: "In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word [tri'as] (of which the Latin trinitas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A. D. 180. . . . Shortly afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian."
However, this is no proof in itself that Tertullian taught the Trinity. The Catholic work Trinitas—A Theological Encyclopedia of the Holy Trinity, for example, notes that some of Tertullian's words were later used by others to describe the Trinity. Then it cautions: "But hasty conclusions cannot be drawn from usage, for he does not apply the words to Trinitarian theology."
"Primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds."—The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.
"At first the Christian faith was not Trinitarian . . . It was not so in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in the N[ew] T[estament] and other early Christian writings."—Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.
"The formulation 'one God in three Persons' was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century. . . . Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective."—New Catholic Encyclopedia.
note: when I read that quote, in some religiously biased literature, back in the late 80s,
I found it not credible.
I went to my local library and found that volume of that book and I read what it said.
It was hard to read it. A lot of it was written in a very old style of English because it was siting very old Catholic commentary.
But not only was that quote in there, exactly as it reads there ...
but on another page, I read how they justified it.
That Catholic book, produced by the Church, admitted that they arrived at that dogma
through centuries of heated debate, and popular votes, and dreams, and visions.
They understood that a person cannot arrive at a Trinitarian conclusion based on sola scriptura (bible alone).
-and so the argument that it CAN be built with -only- that ... is actually a later (and highly delusional) idea.
To continue ...
The New Encyclopædia Britannica observes: "Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament."
Bernhard Lohse (1928-1997) was a preeminent church historian and Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at the University of Hamburg.
He was also a Protestant theologian. He believed in the Trinity... just as much as you do.
Bernhard Lohse says in A Short History of Christian Doctrine (1978): "As far as the New Testament is concerned, one does not find in it an actual doctrine of the Trinity."
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The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology similarly states: "The N[ew] T[estament] does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. 'The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence' [said Protestant theologian Karl Barth; whom also shared your affinity for the Trinity]."
(from Wiki)
Karl Barth (May 10, 1886 – December 10, 1968) (pronounced "Bart") was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom many scholars hold to be among the most important thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas.[1] Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on April 20, 1962
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I decided to NOT include the testimony of Yale University professor E. Washburn Hopkins, from his book "Origin and Evolution of Religion", because ... after reading what his credentials were ... I found this subject matter to be outside of his field. So at least understand that I am not blindly reaching for any support I can find.
Historian Arthur Weigall's notes (from "The Paganism in Our Christianity")are ALSO not included in this presentation ... for the same reasons. _________________ YHWH is my God and Jesus is my Lord
Justin Martyr, who died about 165 C.E., called the prehuman Jesus a created angel who is "other than the God who made all things." He said that Jesus was inferior to God and "never did anything except what the Creator . . . willed him to do and say."
Irenaeus, who died about 200 C.E., said that the prehuman Jesus had a separate existence from God and was inferior to him. He showed that Jesus is not equal to the "One true and only God," who is "supreme over all, and besides whom there is no other."
Clement of Alexandria, who died about 215 C.E., called Jesus in his prehuman existence "a creature" but called God "the uncreated and imperishable and only true God." He said that the Son "is next to the only omnipotent Father" but not equal to him.
Tertullian, who died about 230 C.E., taught the supremacy of God. He observed: "The Father is different from the Son (another), as he is greater; as he who begets is different from him who is begotten; he who sends, different from him who is sent." He also said: "There was a time when the Son was not. . . . Before all things, God was alone."
Origen, who died about 250 C.E., said that "the Father and Son are two substances . . . two things as to their essence," and that "compared with the Father, [the Son] is a very small light." _________________ YHWH is my God and Jesus is my Lord
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