What did Constantine actually do?

We know from the decrees of Popes and councils that the RCC viewed itself as having authority over the state.

The Fourth Lateran Council, for example, the ecumenical council that dogmatized transubstantiation, declared (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html):

Other councils, such as Vienna, issued anti-Semitic decrees that ordered the persecution of Jews. The persecution of other groups, such as the Waldensians, was also ordered by the RCC.
For example, Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull in 1487 ordering that people "rise up in arms against" and "tread under foot" the Waldensians.
Roman Catholic and former Jesuit Peter de Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ (Crown Publishers, 1988),

 

The Catholic historian von Dollinger writes in The Pope and the Council,

 

Vatican Hosts Inquisition Symposium

By CANDICE HUGHES[/b]

.c The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Vatican assembled a blue-ribbon panel of scholars Thursday to examine the Inquisition and declared its readiness to submit the church's darkest institution to the judgment of history.

The three-day symposium is part of the Roman Catholic Church's countdown to 2000. Pope John Paul II wants the church to begin the new millennium with a clear conscience, which means facing up to past sins.

For many people, the Inquisition is one of the church's worst transgressions. For centuries, ecclesiastical ``thought police'' tried, tortured and burned people at the stake for heresy and other crimes.

``The church cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without pressing its children to purify themselves in repentance for their errors, infidelity, incoherence,'' Cardinal Roger Etchegaray said, opening the conference.

The inquisitors went after Protestants, Jews, Muslims and presumed heretics. They persecuted scientists like Galileo. They banned the Bible in anything but Latin, which few ordinary people could read.

The Inquisition began in the 13th century and lasted into the 19th. An index of banned books endured even longer, until 1966. And it was 1992 before the church rehabilitated Galileo, condemned for saying the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

The symposium, which gathers experts from inside and outside the church, is the Vatican's first critical look at the church's record of repression.

Among other things, it will give scholars a chance to compare notes on what they've found in the secret Vatican archives on the Inquisition, which the Holy See only recently opened.

``The church is not afraid to submit its past to the judgment of history,'' said Etchegaray, a Frenchman who leads the Vatican's Commission on the Grand Jubilee.

Closed to the public and press, the symposium is not expected to produce any definitive statement from the Vatican on the Inquisition. That is expected in 2000 as part of the grand ``mea culpa'' at the start of Christianity's third millennium.

The great question is whether the pontiff will ask forgiveness for the sins of the church's members, as it did with the Holocaust, or for the sins of the church itself. Unlike the Holocaust, the Inquisition was a church initiative authorized by the popes themselves.

Etchegaray on Thursday swept aside the idea that it can be seen a series of local campaigns whose excesses might be blamed on secular authorities. There was only one Inquisition, he said, and it was undeniably an ecclesiastical institution.

The pontiff may give a hint as to his thinking on Saturday, when he meets with participants in the conference.

About 50 scholars from Europe, the United States and Latin America are taking part.

AP-NY-10-29-98 1403EST
[/quote]


============================================================

 

And now of course we have literally decades of time where the Catholic Church routinely moved practicing child molesters from parish to parish to molest more children for no other reason than to protect(hush hush) the reputation of "Holy Mother Church".

The "Holy Apostolic Catholic Church".

Supposedly, Gods one true church through the centuries.

Sadly,

Mike

 

Matt Black: "All the other groups who had been connected with Christianity but were then excluded and condemned as heretics were genuinely heretical: ... "

Unfortunately it is the survivors who write the
history. I'm finding out now some clues that
the Nestorians as the RCC damns them had more members
and more bishops abouyt 700AD than did the RCC.
I'm sure some of them even believed the Nestorian
heresy that (Christ has two personalities). The
Nestorian churches were crushed into nonexistance by
the Mongol Horde to their north and the rise of Islam
in their southwest.

Matt Black: "So, I ask again - where is the primary evidence for the existence of this 'Alternative Church', this company of 'true believers'?"

In heaven. Wait.

 

Source documents:

Mt. 16:18; Mt. 28:18-20; John 14:16-19; Eph. 3:21, there are many more which plainly teach that Jesus will never forsake His Bride.

Someone already made this observation: "history is written by the victors." Satan has won some battles--he has lost the war. Secular history will not point to Calvary nor to the Bride of Christ. One must flee to the only Truth: the revealed Word of God--"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us".

"It is finished."

Which side are we on?

Selah,

Bro. James

P.S. How many agree that the documents exist which put Constantine the Great, Czar of Rome,as the one who called together the "Council of Nicea"?

 

The Bible claims it in Rev 12 where for 1260 years in the dark ages the pure Christian church is being persecuted.

The RC documents given above SHOW that they ADMIT to this "Extermination and persecution".

In fact - EWTN even admits that were Billy Graham to have lived in the dark ages HE TOO would have been burned at the stake by the RCC!!

And the question you seem to be asking is "YES but would Graham's family have had ENDURING RECORDS that survived that persecution -- OR would the RCC not have described all such victims in GLOWING TERMS so that we could see in THEIR records the glorious faith of Graham".

Frankly - I am not sure why you are crawling out on that limb!

In Christ,

Bob

 

Here is something from DHK -

Baptist Churches In All Ages
DHK </font>[/QUOTE]

 

I think "some" might try to make the Jews the great "monster" of the book of Revelation - but that approach is very difficult to support while paying attention to the "details".

In Rev 12 it is pretty hard to ignore the birth of Christ and his resurrection and the persecution that follows.

It is also pretty hard to ignore the many centuries where this took place in ACTUAL history and not notice that Rev 12 is predicting that very thing - 1260 years of persecution --.

But if one were dedicated enough - the could turn a blind eye to all of that - I suppose.

IN Christ,

Bob

 

Nicea I--the point: there was a State Religion in the 4th century--Christianized/Paganism?

Another point: the true churches were not involved with state religion.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Who: The church is all born again people.

Where: Everywhere

Mike

 

I checked the link that DHK post - some good information there - but not a single quote there of DHK.

Did you read it??

 

The "details" already posted here by CATHOLIC sources show that Constantine NOT ONLY legalized "tolerated" his new religion HE put restrictions on pagan practices and HE gave HIS own palace in Rome as the residence for the papacy.

In fact - when he left Rome -- he turned it over to the Bishop of Rome.

And of course - "dunked" his army pronouncing them all "Christians".

A more "state-like" religion one could not HOPE to find.

Imagine if the US turned the whitehouse over to the Catholic Bishop in Baltimore!!!

Imagine if the "Commander in Chief" pronounced all who serve in the Army - "Catholics"???

A more "state-like" religion you could not imagine (outside of Islam)

In Christ,

Bob

 

THE VOICE OF THE
CHURCH by D.T. Taylor


THE WALDENSES, A. D. 314, TILL NOW
THE WALDENSES, VALDENSES, VAUDOIS or “People of the Valleys.” “Who has not heard,” says Elliott, “of the Waldenses?” “this most ancient stock of religion,” to use the words of the great Milton. In the language of Dr. Cheever, “They are an unconquered community of Protestant Christians, who have always existed directly at the doors of the Romish court, and beneath the reverberating thunders of the Vatican.” Romish and Protestant writers of the best authority have demonstrated their existence since the time of Pope Sylvester, and perhaps even from the days of the Apostles, and it is well known that they acknowledge no founder. But we need not stop to eulogize them, for their praise is in every mouth. We come to notice their faith, and on this we remark that, “They have always regarded the Papal Church as the Antichrist: the Babylon of the Apocalypse.” ( page 108 )


CHRIST AND ANTICHRIST
by Samuel J. Cassels

The holy wars against the Waldenses will next claim our attention. Some writers suppose that the Waldenses took their name and origin from Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons. Others, however, place their origin in a much more remote antiquity. The opinion of Beza was, that Peter of Lyons derived his name Waldo, or Valdo, from the Waldenses. “According to other writers,” says Hallam, “the original Waldenses were a race of uncorrupted shepherds, who, in the valleys of the Alps, had shaken off, or perhaps never learned, the system of superstition on which the Catholic church depended for its ascendency.”13 Shoberl traces their origin to Claude, Bishop of Turin, who, when image-worship was introduced, in the beginning of the eighth century, made a bold stand against both this and several other corruptions of the Romish church. Here, amid the valleys of Piedmont, had these truly primitive and Christian people lived for centuries, separated by their locality from the rest of the world, and unobserved by even the eye of popish jealousy. ( pages 199&200 )


HISTORY OF THE
ANCIENT CHRISTIANS
by Jean Paul Perrin

Among these Witnesses, the first that we distinctly read of were the Pauliclans. They rose about A.D. 660. A very interesting account of these pious people is given in Milner’s Ecclesiastical History of the seventh century; and a still more extended and distinct account, in the Revelation Adam Blair’s History of the Waldenses, Book I. chapter I.

While the Paulicians were still maintaining their faithful testimony, the Waldenses arose; or, rather more probably, these two denominations had a common origin, and a common faith. The name Waldenses, the most common and popular one of these humble and devoted people, was evidently derived - not from Peter Waldo, but from the place of their abode. The following statement of the learned and ingenious Robert Robinson, a divine of Cambridge, in England, who died more than half a century ago, places the origin of this name in what I suppose to be the true light.

“From the Latin, Vallis, came the English, valley; the French and Spanish, valle; the Italian, valdesi; the Low Dutch, valleye; the Provencal, vaux, vaudais; the ecclesiastical Vallenses, Valdenses, Ualdenses, and Waldenses. The words simply signify vallies, - the inhabitants of vallies, and no more. It happened that the inhabitants of the Pyrenees did not profess the Catholic faith. It fell out also that the inhabitants of the rallies about the Alps did not embrace that faith. It happened, moreover, in the ninth century, that one Valdo, a friend and counselor of Berengarius, and a man of eminence, who had many followers, did not approve of the Papal discipline and doctrine. And it came to pass, about an hundred and thirty years after, that a rich merchant of Lyons, who was called Valdus, because he received his religious opinions from the inhabitants of the vallies, openly disavowed the Roman religion, supported many to teach the doctrines believed in the vallies, and became the instrument of the conversion of great numbers. All these people were called WALDENSES."


The same people, that is, a people who substantially agreed in faith and practice, were called by different names derived from their places of residence; from the names of distinguished leaders; and from a variety of minor peculiarities: - as Albigenses, from their principal seat being in the neighborhood of Alby, in Francs; Bohemian Brethren, from their being found in large numbers, in Bohemia; Catbari, or Puritans, from their opposition to the corruptions of the Papacy; Leonisis, or Poor men of Lyons, from their chief residence in the city of Lyons; Petrobrussians, Arnoldists, and Henricians, from the names of distinguished ministers and leaders; and a variety of other appellations, familiar to the students of ecclesiastical history. These names, however, will be found so fully enumerated and explained in the History itself, which I here recommend, that further remark upon them here is altogether unnecessary. ( pages 5&6 )

They renounced the Church of Rome as mystical Babylon, abhorred the Pope as the “Man of Sin,” and rejected all the traditions of the Papacy as of no authority among Christians. They held that there were only two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; that the other five, so named by the Romanists, have no just title to be called sacraments; and that of the five, three, viz. confirmation, penance, and extreme unction, have no foundation whatever in the word of God. ( page 7 )


MILLER’S CHURCH HISTORY
by Andrew Miller


VAUDOIS, ALBIGENSES, WALDENSES
The origin of the Western sectaries, so-called, under the common name of Waldenses, has been the subject of much controversy. One class of writers, favorable to Romanism, with the view of involving them in the common charge of Manicheism, have endeavored to prove that their opinions were of Eastern, or Paulician origin; while the opposite party affirm that they were free from the Manicheart error, and that they have been the inheritors and maintainers, from father to son, of a pure and scriptural Christianity, from the time of Constantine, if not from the days of the apostles. But as it is not so much our object at present to trace the history of these ancient, simple, and devoted christian people, as to bring out another feature of the papacy under Innocent, in its most fully expressed blasphemy and cruelty; we will merely satisfy the reader as to who these people were, and as to the scene of their slaughter. “The terms,” says Dr. Gilly, “Vaudois in French, Vallenses in Latin, Valdisi in Italian, and Waldenses in English ecclesiastical history, signifying nothing more or less than ‘men of the valleys;’ and as the valleys of Piedmont have had the honor of producing a race of people who have remained true to the faith introduced by the first missionaries who preached Christianity in those regions, the synonyms have been adopted as the distinguishing names of a religious community, faithful to the primitive creed, and free from the corruptions of the church of Rome.”
The Albigenses, though essentially one with the Waldenses in matters of faith, were so called because the greater part of Narbonnese-Gaul which they inhabited was called Albigesium, or from Albi, a town in Languedoc. The Alps separated the two communities. God found an asylum for the Waldenses in the valleys on the eastern side, and for the Albigenses in the valleys on the western side, of that great mountain range, where they were preserved and fortified for many centuries.
PETER WALDO From a similarity of names, Peter Valdo, or Waldo, the reformer of Lyons, has frequently been spoken of as the first founder of the Waldensian sect. This we think a mistake, but one easily made, and one which the Romanists eagerly improved as an argument against their antiquity, and one which has been adopted by most of the general histories. But Mr. Elliot, in his “Horae Apocalypticae,” and those mentioned in the note above, have examined the question with great patience and research, and, we believe, clearly established the conclusion of the orthodoxy and the antiquity of the “men of the valleys.”3 ( Chap. 25 page 607 )


A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE
BAPTIST DENOMINATION
VOLUME 1 by David Benedict


Sylvester was bishop of Rome in the reign of Constantine, and Catholics pretend that he was the thirty-fourth in succession. In the days of Sylvester, it is believed, that the people, who were afterwards called Waldenses, began to separate from the church, which had become a tool of state, and was fast plunging into error and superstition. (chap.1 page 17)

The Euchites among the Greeks were similar to the Waldenses or Waldensians among the Romans. The terms, Waldenses, Valenses or Vadois (all of the same import) signify the people of the valleys, and were applied in early times to those, who, tired of tyranny, pomp, and oppression, retired to obscure retreats where they might enjoy gospel purity and religious freedom. And in the end, all of their sentiments, and many who were not, were called Waldenses, whether they dwelt in rallies or on mountains, in cities or in caves: Just as a sect of christians are called Moravians, whether they dwell in Moravia, in England, in Greenland, or the West-India Islands. And the terms Euchites and Waldenses answered to that of Non-conformist in England, which every reader will understand. Among the English non-conformists, are comprehended Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and so on. And so among the Greek Euchites and the Roman Waldenses, were a great variety of sects, who maintained a great diversity of opinions and practices, and among them were many who would be called Baptists, as we shall attempt to show in the next chapter but one. (page 33)


THE HISTORY OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
VOL. 1 by William Jones


Eminent among these witnesses for the truth in times of general apostacy, stand the Waldenses. They first appear prominent in history in the twelfth century. Long before that, no doubt, in the valleys of the Alps, they had maintained the true religion, having retreated from the corruptions and persecutions of the Romish church. They had remained there in comparative quietude, perhaps esteemed too insignificant for molestation, until in the century named the papal hierarchy was startled at the wide prevalence and popularity of their doctrine, and hence felt it necessary to employ all the infernal machinery of persecution for their destruction. Their missionaries had gone into all the world, and then, in almost all the countries of Europe, as if by one consent, there started up simultaneously, great numbers of individuals who denounced the supremacy of the Pope, condemned the corruptions and venality of the priesthood, and boldly proclaimed that the church of Rome was the “whore of Babylon” predicted in the Apocalypse-they declared that Christ was the only head of the church, and that the Bible was the only infallible rule of faith and practice. These confessors obtained different names-from their localities, from their principal men, from some circumstances in their manner or some peculiarity in their doctrine, and from the wit and malice of their enemies. The most common names, however, by which they were called, were those of Waldenses and Albigenses-the former derived from the valleys of the Alps, and the other from the town of Albi, two places where for a long time their doctrine most flourished.

But these names are used with great latitude by historians. The papal writers from the twelfth to the sixteenth century - to the Reformation- often include under these names, and sometimes under one of them, all the dissenters from the church of Rome, however different and distinct in sentiment and practice; as they now call all denominations Protestants who do not admit the infallibility of their church. This fact must be kept prominently in view by all who would draw the proper distinctions among those who, in that age, in divers countries and for different causes, were marshaled in battle array against the papal dominion. Some were opposed merely to the supremacy of the Pope, others sought simply to reform the manners of the clergy. Here was a party that rejected the mummeries of the mass, or laughed at the folly of transubstantiation; and there was a party that abhorred the adoration of images, repudiated the intercession of saints and angels, refused homage to dead men’s bones, contemned penances and pilgrimages, and despised and ridiculed all the absurd superstitions and absurd practices under which the duped and deluded millions were crushed by a designing priesthood. Such persons were Reformers. They esteemed the church of Rome to be the church of Christ in a state of apostacy. They wished to purge her of pollution, and restore her to primitive purity and excellence. But Popery will not be reformed. The constituents of its being are impurity and sin. Hence its Reformers were denounced as heretics, fit only for chains and death; and hence, to call down upon them general odium, and to excuse and justify their persecution, they were denominated Waldenses and Albigenses-a peple who, it was notorious, declared the Pope to be the “son of perdition,” and his church “the whore of Babylon.” The true Waldenses and Albigenses were no Reformers of the Papism. They disclaimed all connection and kindredship with the church of Rome-denounced her ministers and ordinances as those of darkness; and roundly asserted that the church of Christ was never included within her precincts or befouled with her abominations. ( pages 3,4&5 )


TRUTH TRIUMPHANT
by Benjamin George Wilkinson
CHAPTER 6

VIGILANTIUS, LEADER OF THE WALDENSES
The paganism which so soon began to avenge itself by creeping into the doctrines and practices of the early church has never been altogether eradicated, and has always been ready to become the nucleus of heresy or corruption when faith declined or ardor cooled.1 THE earliest leader of prominence among the noble Waldenses in northern Italy and southern France is Vigilantius (A.D. 364-408). By some he has been accounted the first supreme director of the church of the Waldenses.In his time the protests against the introduction of pagan practices into
primitive Christianity swelled into a revolution. Then it was that the throngs who desired to maintain the faith once delivered to the saints in northern Italy and southwestern France were welded into an organized system. Desiring truth based on the Bible only, those who refused to follow the superstitious novelties being brought into the church were greatly influenced by the clear-cut scriptural teachings of Vigilantius. Undoubtedly Patrick of Ireland, who was at that same time enlarging the Irish Church, was stirred by the reforms taking place in south central Europe.


CHAPTER 15
EARLY WALDENSIAN HEROES
Whenever, therefore, in the following sketches, the terms Berengarians, Petrobrusians, Henricians, Arnoldists, Waldenses, Albigenses, Leonists, or the poor men of Lyons, Lollards, Cathari, etc, occur, it must be understood that they intend a people, who agreed in certain leading principles, however they might differ in some smaller matters, and that all of them were by the Catholics comprehended under the general name of Waldenses.1 Of them Sir James Mackintosh writes:
With the dawn of history, we discover some simple Christians in the valleys of the Alps, where they still exist under the ancient name of Vaudois, who by the light of the New Testament saw the extraordinary contrast between the purity of primitive times and the vices of the gorgeous and imperial hierarchy which surrounded them.” page 2


After Emperor Constantine had declared (A.D. 325) which of the Christian churches he recognized, and had decreed that the Roman world must conform to his decision, there came a straggle between the Christians who refused to compromise the teachings of the New Testament and those who were ready to accept the traditions of men. Mosheim declares: The ancient Britons and Scots could not be moved, for a long time, either by the threats or the promises of the papal legates, to subject themselves to the Roman decrees and laws; as is abundantly testified by Beda. The Gauls and the Spaniards, as no one can deny, attributed only so much authority to the pontiff, as they supposed would be for their own advantage. Nor in Italy itself, could he make the bishop of Ravenna and others bow obsequiously to his will. And of private individuals, there were many who expressed openly their detestation of his vices and his greediness of power. Nor are those destitute of arguments who assert, that the Waldenses, even in this age [seventh century], had fixed their residence in the valleys of Piedmont, and inveighed freely against Roman domination.” 4 ( pages 7&8 )

WALDENSES DATE BACK TO THE APOSTLES
The connection between the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and other believers in the New Testament and the primitive Christians of Western Europe is explained by Voltaire thus:
Auricular confession was not received so late as the eighth and ninth centuries in the countries beyond the Loire, in Languedoc and the Alps - Alcuin complains of this in his letters. The inhabitants of those countries appear to have always had an inclination to abide by the customs of the primitive church, and to reject the tenets and customs which the church in its more flourishing state judged convenient to adopt. Those who were called Manichaeans, and those who were afterward named Albigenses, Vaudois, Lollards, and who appeared so often under different names, were remnants of the first Gaulish Christians, who were attached to several ancient customs, which the Church of Rome thought proper to alter afterward.”6 For nearly two hundred years following the death of the apostles, the process of separation went on between these two classes of church members until the open rupture came. In the year 325 the first world council of the church was held at Nicaea, and at that time Sylvester was given great recognition as bishop of Rome. It is from the time of this Roman bishop that the Waldenses date their exclusion of the papal party from their communion. As the church historian Neander says: But it was not without some foundation of truth that the Waldenses of this period asserted the high antiquity of their sect, and maintained that from the time of the secularization of the church - that is, as they believed, from the time of Constantine’s gift to the Roman bishop Silvester [A.D. 314 - 336] - such an opposition as finally broke forth in them, had been existing all along.”7

These Christians of the Alps and Pyrenees have been called Waldenses from the Italian word for “valleys,” and where they spread over into France, they have been called Vaudois, a French word meaning “inhabitants of the valleys” in a certain province. Many writers constantly call them Vaudois. The enemies of this branch of the Church in the Wilderness have endeavored to confuse their history by tracing to a wrong source the origin of the name, Waldenses. They seek to connect its beginnings with Peter Waldo, an opulent merchant of Lyons, France, who came into notice about 1175. The story of this remarkable man commands a worthy niche in the temple of events. However, there is nothing in the original or the earliest documents of the Waldenses - their histories, poems, and confessions of faith - which can be traced to him or which make any mention of him.


Turning back the pages of history six hundred years before Peter Waldo, there is even a more famous name connected with the Waldenses. This leader was Vigilantius (or, Vigilantius Leo). He could be looked upon as a Spaniard, since the people of his regions were one in practically all points with those of northern Spain. Vigilantius took his stand against the new relapses into paganism. From these apostatizing tendencies the Christians of northern Italy, northern Spain, and southern France held aloof. The story of Vigilantius and how he came to identify himself with this region is told in another chapter.9 From connections with him, this people were for centuries called Leonists, as well as Waldenses and Vaudois. Reinerius Saccho, an officer of the Inquisition (c. A.D. 1250), wrote a treatise against the Waldenses which explains their early origin. ( page 8 )

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith