SYNERGY -

INDEX

Alexander the Great: 334 BC
Anti-trinitarians: 185 AD, 190,

Arabs, Mohammed: 570 AD, 622, 650, 1054Arabs, Mohammed: 570 AD, 622, 650, 1054
Aristotle: 384 BC
Arius: 250 AD - 336 AD
Art and symbols: 271 AD, 312, 381 AD
Athanasius: 293 AD - 373AD
Attila the Hun: 452 AD
Augustine: 185 AD, 352, 381
Baptism: 190 AD, 253, 312, 1215
Bible: 386 AD, 393, 431, 1397, 1408, 1456, 1525, 1534, 1537, 1546,1555, 1559, 1582, 1600, 1611
Birthdays: 324 AD
Burned at the stake: 1252 AD, 1401, 1410, 1417, 1535
Byzantine Empire: 331 AD, 500, 570, 692, 800, 876, 1054, 1453
Celibacy: 315 AD, 692, 1545
Charlemagne: 800 AD
Christmas: 373AD, 321, 324, 376, 381, 1620
Constantine: 312 AD - 337 AD
Cross: 33AD, 271, 312, 325, 381, 1215
Crusades: 1095 AD - 1272 AD
Divine Fish: 271 AD, 373 AD
Easter: 325 AD
Ecclesiastical Dress: 500 AD
Egypt: 1900 BC
Eucharist: 427 BC, 1050 AD
Gnostics: 427 BC, 250 AD
Halloween: 610 AD
Hell Fire, Purgatory: 1274 AD, 1545
Hierarchy, Popes, Bishops: 258 AD, 440, 553, 843, 1414, 1870
Holy Spirit: 370 AD, 380
Host: 381 AD
Icons: 717 AD, 754, 784, 787, 842, 843
Immaculate Conception: 1457 AD
Luther, Martin: 1513 AD, 1517, 1534
Mary Worship: 321 AD, 386, 392, 431,787, 1215
Monks, Monastic life: 258 AD, 293, 315, 364
Nero: 64 AD
New Years:373 AD
Nicene Creed: 325 AD
Origen: 185 AD, 392
Persia, Zoastra, Mithraism: 550 BC, 539, 167, 312 AD, 334, 361-63, 373, 381, 380, 1642
Plato, Platonism: 427 BC, 150 AD, 185, 250, 352, 366, 384, 469
Pontifex Maximus: 30 AD, 312, 378
Puritans: 1620 AD - 1649
Religious Art: 363 AD, 373
Rosary:1250 AD
Saint Worship: 352 AD, 754, 800
Sawtry, William: 1401 AD, 1410, 1487
Sun-Worship: 312 AD, 321, 361, 373, 381, 1642
Soul: 539 BC, 469 BC, 427 BC, 300 BC, 185 AD, 190, 250, 334, 352, 1513, 1517, 1525
Socrates: 469 BC
Stoics: 300 BC, 250 AD, 321, 352, 381
Sunday: 321 AD
Tertullian: 190 AD
Transubstantiation: 1050 AD, 1215, 1384, 1401, 1408
Trinity: 427 BC, 384BC, 29 AD, 180, 190-381 (controversy), 440, 1457, 1553
Tyndale: 1535 AD - 1537
Valentines Day: 496 AD
Waldenese: 1050 AD, 1150, 1215
War: 261 AD, 352, 1215
Wycliff: 1379 AD, 1384, 1414

This timeline is a compilation of reference material extracted for the public library. It first started as a 2-week project for the purpose of understanding the events during the first few centuries of the Christian Church. First century Christians were from a Jewish background and accepted God in the same strict monotheistic terms. This included all the apostles. Within the span of three hundred years, many Christians allow themselves to accept the theology of a triune god, a philosophy that was there to fore found only in the mythological gods of neighboring nations. In my endeavor to understand how a religious society could make such a fundamental change in such a short time, I pulled together information from secular sources and placed them in chronological order. As the project progressed, I found that this period was intertwined with other events that took place throughout recorded history. The 2-week project turned into a three year venture which starts with the earliest history of religion and ends in our modern day. Some references are still being added but a much slower pace. All reference material was extracted for the public library.

The work synergy comes from a greek word meaning 'working together.' Any set of two interacting beings can be regarded as synergy. In theology, synergy can refer to the working together or a merging of different faiths for a common purpose. Historically, we have seen synergy bring profound changes to religion and united warring empires. Much of what is considered to be Christian tradition is really synergy at work. By tracing the roots of modern Christian traditions and doctrines, we will find that ancient religions and mythologies still permeate every aspect of our modern society. The effect of synergism was gradual, though undeniable. Often the resulting philosophies conflicted with the original intent of the first Christian fathers. By progressively following historical events, we can get a feel for the changes that synergy has brought to religion. Such information can useful in clarifying contested Bible doctrines.

A thought to ponder as you peruse the following material:

Synergism has been used throughout history by emperors and kings to consolidate their empires. Almost all nations, except for the Jews, believed in polytheism (the existence on many Gods). They also believed that the gods of a neighbor existed and had power. The gods of the conquering king, however, were thought of as superior. They would often conquer a nation and identify with their Gods. That is, they found that they worshiped the same gods only under a different name. This made it east for people to accept the gods of a conquering king and allowed the people to be subjugated to the new authority. Over time, this often resulted in a merging of their beliefs. For me the term 'all roads lead to Rome' came to have new meaning.

Also note that Nimrod, although a biblical character, has some archeological evidence to his existence. The bible gives him special prominence as a man who set himself up in opposition to God. He was the first king of Babylon. At his death he, as were most kings of the day, he was deified. Now as their most prominent God, many traditions and holidays were built around him. It was interesting to find that many modern traditions appear to be traceable back to Nimrod.

My personal comments and reflections can be found in the appendix and are referred to in the chart by the idiom (NOTE#).

4026 BC Bible chronology indicates that man was created on this date.

2370 By tracing back the ages of persons in the bible we come to this date as the year in which the flood occurred. Noah and his family survive the flood.

In the Bible, Nimrod became the founder and king of Babylon, the first Empire after the flood. Many mythologies and religious beliefs are believed to stem from this era. The Assyrian records Ninus as the first king of Babylon. "Everything- a tree, a stone, a fish, a bird, a man, or even an abstract idea had a particular significance in the universe. The highest authority was a triad of gods: the sky-god Anu, the storm-god Shamash and the goddess Ishtar (sometimes replaced by the weather-god Hadad). As Babylon rose to supremacy...the local god Marduk became important; a thousand years later Ashur of Assyria took his place. Thus many deities were determined by political conquest as well as by interchange. "One of the most widespread cults was that of the mother goddess...The later forms of her cult involved the worship of a male deity, variously considered her son, lover, or both (e.g. Adonis, Attis, and Osiris) whose death and resurrection symbolized the regenerative powers of the earth (See fertility rites)...In Phrygia and Lydia she was known as Cybele; among the Babylonians and Assyrians she was identified as Ishtar: in Syria and Palestine she appeared as Astarte; among the Egyptians she was called Isis; in Greece she was variously worshiped as Gaea, Hera, Rhea, Aphrodite, and Demeter; and in Rome she was identified as Maia, Ops, Tellus and Ceres. Even this listing, however is by no means complete. Many attributes of the Virgin Mary make her the Christian equivalent of the Great Mother, particularly in her great beneficence, in her double image as mother and virgin, and in her son, who is God and who dies and is resurrected." (CE)"Priests became a separate group...some pacified the gods with hymns and liturgy; others were trained in divination and astrology...others-perhaps the most .important- were concerned with protecting men from demons." (CE)

1943 Abraham receives promise from God that one of his offspring would bless all nations. In 215 years his descendants grew to 3 million and began to be called the nation of Israel. Through Joseph, they came to live in Egypt to survive a widespread famine, and there became slaves.

1900-1513 Egypt gains world power. Egyptians had over 500 gods, symbols (crux or cross), belief in life after death, pyramids, pharaohs (whom they believed to be sons of the sun god Ra), and their triune god, Osiris (father), Isis (mother), and Horus (child).

1513 - 632 Assyria gains power over Egypt. Assyrians are known for their violence and blatant brutality, in both religion and war. Ruins of this Empire include Sennacherib and Sargons palaces. "Ashur was their chief God".(CE)

1500+ Hinduism started. First known as Brahmanism and Vedism (Vedas writings). Aryan is another name for Hindu or Indo-European. They were "originally a group of nomadic tribes. The Aryans were part of a great migratory movement that spread in successive waves from S. Russia and Turkestan. They colonized the Punjab region of NW India. The idealization of conquest pictured in the Vedic hymns was incorporated into Nazi racist literature, in which German racial descent was tracent back to Aryan forebears." (CE) Aryans, or Hindus, helped lay a 4 caste system (1.Religious leaders, 2. military & political leaders 3. Farmers, craftsman and merchants 4. slaves), now with thousands of subdivisions. Their central Triad God is Brahma-the creator, Siva-the destroyer, and Vishnu-the preserver. Krishnu is an incarnate of Vishnu.

1473 Moses leads the Israelites from Egypt after God insulted their 10 most prominent gods, with 10 plagues. After spending 40 years in the wilderness, Moses instructed Joshua to lead the people. Moses dies and this clears the way for Israel to move into the promised land of Canaan. They co-existed with the Canaanites. There was 300 years where they were organized by 12 judges. Then in 1117 Israel began to be ruled by Saul, its first human king.

1100 A group known as the Dorians arrived in Greece until 950 BC."The Dorians were backward and illiterate, and their arrival marked the complete disruption of the early Greek culture and the beginning of a period of decline. (CE)

996 - 997 At King Solomon's death, Israel split into a northern 10 tribe kingdom of Israel (capital- Samaria), and a southern 2 tribe kingdom of Judah (capital- Jerusalem). In 740 The 10 tribe kingdom of Israel was overtaken by Assyria.

632 - 539 Babylon (and Medes) takes over Assyrian capital, Nineveh. It becomes the next world power. Babylon is known for its many cities and Gods.

607 The 2 tribe kingdom of Judah is overtaken by Babylon. Israel was in Babylonian exile for 70 years, and were allowed to rebuild Jerusalem in 537.

Buddhism started. Siddhartha Guatama, who was raised around Hinduism, was enlighten under a fig tree that the Vedas were not inspired and that there is a need to suppress all cravings and be compassionate. In the 3rd century BC King Asoka spread Buddhism. It entered China, Korea and Japan in the 1st century AD, then in Asia the 6-7 Century AD. In the 6th century BC, Jainism started. As a protest to the overdeveloped ritualism of Hinduism. Mihavira preached a rigid asceticism and solicitude for all life as a means of escaping the cycle of rebirth. Yoga comes from Jainism...Another offshoot of Hinduism started in the 15th century AD, Sikhism - known for being tolerant to all.

551+ Confucius was born. The name means "Master King". He died in 479 BC. Confucianism started and became known for: Human behavioral philosophy about family and brother respect, hard work, self improvement, ancestor worship, human kindness, wanting to alleviate sufferings, and justice, the writings of WuChing called the Five Classics, entering Korea in the 4th century and Japan in the 5th, 4 books that were added in the 12th century.

550 Persians gained victory over the then more dominant Medes. They combined customs and laws and became a dual kingdom.

537 Persia becomes a world power when Cyrus the Great of Persia and Darius of the Medes overthrew Babylon and release the exiled Jews two years later in 537. The Persian religion of the time was Zoroastrianism. Mithra was it's God-mediator. Mithraism sprang from this God. Mithraism took on many similarities to the Christianity that developed in the 4th Century AD and competed with it for control of the Roman Empire. "Although a definite borrowing is still impossible to prove, the resemblances between Zoroastrianism (from which Mithraism came) and Judiasm are numerous and important and probable took shape during the Exile...(NOTE#1)..Christianity seems to owe many features to Iran (Persia), over and above those it inherited from Judaism. Among others are probably the belief in guardian angels, resurrection and in the heavenly journey of the soul." (Av29p815)

Xerxes, Persian Emperor & son of Darius, is the Bibles' Ahasuerus, who disposed Queen Vashti and married Jewish Ester. Artaxerxes let Nehemian return to rebuild Jerusalems walls.

469-399 A Greek, Socrates last days are spent in prison where his last moments were spent discussing the immortality of the soul. "He wrote no philosophical works himself, but discussions he held with young men who gathered around him affected profoundly the subsequent development of philosophy, particularly through their influence on Plato" (A v25 p165)

427-347 Plato, "The definition of the Christian faith as contained in the creeds of the early ecumenical synods of the early Church indicate that the unbiblical categories of Neoplatonic philosophy were used in the formulation of the doctrine of the trinity." (B)

"The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities..." "Neoplatonism was of very great importance...it sought...to purify the human soul...and by contemplation to attain union with God. Again and again through the centuries Christian mysticism was to be deeply indebted to it. (H. 27)"

"If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians...was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief." (History of Christianity)

"Christianity tended to fuse with Platonism and Stoicism" (H 242)

Plato quotes Socrates "The soul plainly appears to be immortal" "History was to deflect Christianity into its own courses....When Christianity entered Greece, it was compelled to confront the whole body of Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrine, and henceforward would always wear the shimmering veil woven in Greece....in the beginning there was the confrontation between the mystery of Christ and the religious mysteries of Greece, which were also concerned with resurrection and the immortality of the soul...we know that they contained a form of Eucharist which was not wholly dissimilar to the Eucharist of the early Church....the Greek passion for conceptual thinking was already imposing itself on the body of Christian doctrine. The speculative mind, feeding on legends and parables, was already demonstrating its ability to transform legends into ideas and parables into dialectic....This process was hastened remarkably by the strange system of philosophy known as Gnosticism, which derived at a great distance from Plato. The Gnostics believed that God dwelt in the Pleroma, the Fullness of Creation,...he produced intelligences called Aeons....Jesus was an Aeon...According to other Gnostics there were three separate Aeons called Jesus, Christ, and the Holy Ghost....the Gnostics who saw the godhead as lying far above the angels, principalities, and powers in a transcendence beyond all knowing...Orphic texts...were sometimes very close to the words spoken by Christ, and very appealing....Valentinus, the ablest of the Gnostics, 'From the very beginning have ye been immortal and children of life'...At a very early age Gnosticism fed into the stream of Christianity, and it still endures." (CC p59) Gnostics contended that salvation is dependent upon special mystical knowledge of things unknown to ordinary Christians & that knowledge enabled them to teach "the inner truth by Jesus".

350 Tao philosophy began, which is known for: pacifism, using up the amount of life given us at birth by breathing. Loa Tze is the originator. By the 5th century Tao became a religion.

384-322 Aristotle was a Greek philosopher. Although a student of Plato for 20 years, he differed from Plato. He profoundly affected the thinking of many for years to come, this included the bible theologians of the 3rd and 4th centuries who were schooled in his thoughts. He thought that all thing could be understood as unities and wrote "All things are three, and thrice is all: and let us use this number in the worship of the Gods; for as the Pythagoreans say, everything and all things are bound by threes, for the end, the middle, and the beginning have this number in everything and these compose the number of the trinity." (W 91) He also notes that "Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life..."

334 At 22 years old, Alexander III (Alexander the Great) lead Greece in the overthrow of Persia, in 3 years, with 35,000 men. Persian forces were 50 times greater. Aristotle tutored him which helped spread Aristotles philosophies throughout the world. He liked the poet Homer and became known as the son of Zues and Ammon. After a 12 year reign Alexandria was founded. He died while trying to re-establish Babylon. His brothers tried to replace him, but were killed. The Greek Empire was split between 4 generals, as was prophesied in the Bible book of Daniel. "The concept of immortality is a product of Greek thinking, whereas the hope of the resurrection belongs to Jewish thought....Following Alexander's conquest Judaism gradually absorbed Greek concepts." (Dictionnaire Encyclopedique de la Bible) "Only through the contact of the Jews with Persian and Greek thought did the idea of a disembodied soul, having its own individuality, take root in Judaism." (The Jewish Encyclopedia)

300 Zeno of Citium, Cyprus, after associating with the Cynics for a time, established this separate school of philosophy...His disciples got the name Stoics from the Stoa Poikile, the painted porch in Athens where he taught for some 58 years...They did not believe in the resurrection as taught by Christians. They held that matter and force (providence, reason or God) were the elemental principles in the universe. All things were material, even vice and virtue.. All things were part of an impersonal deity and the human soul emanated from such a source. The soul survived death. A truly wise man was indifferent to pain or pleasure, independent of riches or poverty and the like. Fate governed human affairs. Suicide was considered unobjectionable. The thought of all life being created by God was foolish.

260 Rome was captured by the Persians. The Empire falls into anarchy and "it was divided into four political sections...two east and two west".

250 "The first step of Mithraism as an independent religion was the carrying of the cult to Babylon, the winter capital of the empire.... In addition to this there was ingrafted the mythology of the zodiac and shreds of Babylonian astrolatry, and this all came to have a large part in the symbolism of Mithraism. Into Armenia the faith was carried, and thence into Asia Minor, where after the division of the empire of Alexander, Mithra became the favorite deity. It was probably at this period, 250-100 BC, that the Mithraic system of ritual and doctrine took the form which it afterward retained. ....In theory, ritual, and practice Mithraism parodied or duplicated, after a fashion, the central ideas of Christianity....Mithraism, like Buddhism and .Brahmanism, was syncretistic, was tolerant of the practices of other cults. Where it could not supplant, it assimilated or adopted" (R Mithra p419, 420)

175 - 164 Manalaus was made High Priest for the Jews. Through him greek influence became strong. A rebellion against him began in 167 - 165 by Jewish priest Mattathias, also known as the Macabees, and his 5 sons rebelled. They recaptured and rededicated the temple. Hanakkuh commemorates this today.

63 Rome captured Jerusalem. "as early as 70 BC Mithraism was known to the Roman world....That the doctrine always remained pure is of course unlikely. The syncretism has been sufficiently indicated, and it is not unlikely that each district had its own coloring--in Rome Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva were spoken of in the religion, while in Celtic regions Celtic deities appear in the Mithraic crypts. But while syncretism existed, Persian conceptions were the guiding principles."(R Mithra p422)

44 Julius Ceasar, who named the month of July after himself, was assassinated, leaving 13 years of unrest.

30 BC In 31 Octavian Augustus, who named the month of August after himself, established the Roman Empire. Grecian Empire and Egypt were conquered by Romans. In 27 Augustus officially became Emperor, and he combined people and religions. "In the period of the Roman Republic (509-27 BC) the Romans adopted Greek myths and identified the Greek gods with their own native gods. Jupiter (the Greek god Zeus), ...Juno (Greek, Hera),...Mars (Greek, Ares)...god of War, Neptune (Greek, Poseidon) was the god not only of the sea but of rivers. His priests were known as 'bridge builders' (in Latin, pontifex). The pontifex maximus (high priest) was an elected official, who supervised the religious calendar and sacrifices. The title has survived, and is today applied to the Pope Mercury (Greek, Hermes)...Venus (Greek, Aphrodite). (HB p46) "In the earliest period of the roman state religion Jupiter, Mars, & Quirinus were the supreme triad."..In the later part the most prominent gods were "Great Mother Cybele,Isis, & Mithra." "these religions, soon they were so intermingled that today it is exceedingly difficult for historians to determine which doctrine or practice arose in which context....many people who were initiated into various of these cults took elements from one to the other" (St p16)"In the earliest period of Roman state religion Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus were the supreme Triad." In the later part the "most prominent gods were Great Mother Cybele, Isis and Osiris, Sol and Mithra." (CE)

29 AD Jesus, at age 30, becomes the Christ. "It was Jesus fortune to appear not only at a time when the Jews were looking for a Messiah but when therest of the Mediterranean world was seeking an incarnation of a godhead and had, after some time, evolved the concept of the Logos...When Christian thinkers brought the Logos-concept to bear upon Jesus, a whole theology sprung up, almost without effort" (Man's Religions p443)...(NOTE #2, 13)

33 Tiberius was Emperor when Jesus was killed on the 'stauros' (Greek). "No definite data are found in the New Testament concerning the nature of the cross on which Jesus died. It is only Church writers after Justin Martyr who indicate the composite four-armed cross as Christ's vehicle of torture" (R Cruxifixion p313) - "CROSS: (stauros)...denotes an upright pale or stake, to which the criminals were nailed for execution...It never means two pieces of timber placed across one another at any angle" (The Companion Bible) (NOTE #3) "Literally an upright stake, pale, or pole...When Paul writes of his 'thorn in the flesh' (2 Cor. 12:7) the word for 'thorn' is almost identical with stauros in meaning; but the latter is always the NT word for the cross of Christ. As an instrument of execution, the cross was a stake sunk vertically in the ground. Often, but by no means always, a horizontal piece was attached to the vertical portion..."(Interpreter's Dict of the Bible) "The first Christians were, however, still too near the religion of Israel, which forbade the use of images, to allow very graphic illustrations. The mark of the Son of Man that Christians used was actually the Greek letter X, the first letter of the Greek word for "Christ"....Insofar as the early Christians pictured the cross of the Crucifixion, they thought in terms of the tau (T-shaped cross)." (A Cross p246) "Whether the cross of Golgotha had a crossbar or not or whether it was just a plain stake, whether it had the T-form or whether it had a crossbar placed across the upright stake is hardly possible to determine now." (The Church of the Homeland) Justus Lipsius illustrated Christ on a pole without a crossbar.

Egyptian Cross ( + ): "Cross forms were used as symbols, religious or otherwise, long before the Christian Era...Two pre-Christian cross forms have had some vogue in Christian usage. The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol of life--the ankh, a tau cross surmounted by a loop and known as crux ansata-- was adopted and extensively used on Coptic Christian monuments....The symbols became immensely popular in Christian art and funerary monuments from c 350."(B Cross) "Various figures of crosses are found everywhere on Egyptian monuments and tombs and are considered by many authorities as symbolical either of the phallus or of coition...In Egyptian tombs the crux ansata is found side by side with the phallus."(Short History of Sex Worship) It represented fertility and life.

The Tau ( T ): "Phallic symbols in Greece, Rome and Japan are sometimes in the form of the inverted tau crosses." (Standard Dictionary of Folklore) The Roman nature god, Bacchus, was represented at times with a headband containing a number of crosses. The Greeks associated the cross with Aphrodite, the goddess of sensual love. This fertility goddess was called Venus by the Romans."The shape of the (two-beamed cross) had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as a symbol of the god Tammuz...By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the Churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into Churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ" (An Expository Dict. of NT Words p256)

36 Non-Jews accepted as Christians. "The early Christians did not believe that they were following a new religion....now that the messianic age had begun, they were to be better Jews....Gentiles were invited to become children of Abraham." (Stp31)

64 Nero, who became Emperor 10 years earlier, starts his persecution of the Christians, which included the burning of Rome. It continues for more than 2 centuries. "Tacitus goes on: Before killing the Christians, Nero used them to amuse the people. Some were dressed in furs, to be killed by dogs. Others were crucified. Still others were set on fire early in the night, so that they might illumine it. Nero opened his own gardens for these shows..." (St p35)

70 "The Romans destroyed Jerusalem so thoroughly in AD 70 that today little remains visible of the city Jesus knew."(HB p54) (NOTE #4) The religious leaders, the Sadducees and the Essenes disappeared at this time, leaving the Pharisees and Rabbis to rule, and made the Mishnah, the first of the two components of the Jewish Tulmad. The Rabbinical rule which triumphed has lasted till our day.

98 John, the last Apostle of Christ, dies near this time. Without the leadership of the Apostles the congregations start to splinter. More than 35 different independent groups are accounted for by the year 300 AD.(NOTE #5)

150 Clement of Alexandria was born. "His supreme virtue was that he attempted to reconcile Platonism with Christianity,...For him Greek philosophy, the study of his youth, was the prelude to Christianity....it was necessary to understand heathens and Jews before coming to an understanding of Christ....He was continually repeating one of the major themes of the cults; that men are of heavenly birth, plants nourished on heavenly.

soil....Clement was inclined to place man higher than the angels. Man was an immortal vehicle of the Godhead" (CC p81-83)

180 "In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word 'trias' is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about 180. Shortly afterwards it appears in its latin form of 'trinitas' in Tertullian" (C)

185 Origen is born. "Origen's teachings dominated the East in the third and fourth centuries. Against the Monarchians he insisted that Father, Son, and Spirit were three eternally distinct persons. The Son owed his being eternally to the Father...and was inferior to him. As a genuine Son of the Father he was truly divine, but subordinate; The Spirit was even lower." (HB p112)" "Inevitably, like so many of the early Christian thinkers, nurtured as they were in Greek philosophy,...in his writings and in the formulation of his religious beliefs Origen bore the unmistakable impress of the Greek heritage." He said, "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." Even so, his formula helped develop the trinity. "Influential as he was...some of Origen's views proved repugnant to the Catholic Church. Among these were...that human souls had existed from eternity before they came into these present bodies..(he yielded to the philosophy of Plato)..Origen was so outstanding a mind...that for more than a century after his death he profoundly moulded the minds of Christian thinkers."(H) "The Christian concept of a spiritual soul created by God and infused into the body at conception to make man a living whole is the fruit of a long development in Christian philosophy. Only with Origen (died c.254 C.E.) in the East and St. Augustine (died 430 C.E.) in the West was the soul established as a spiritual substance and a philosophical concept formed of its nature....His (Augustine's) doctrine...owed much (including some shortcomings) to Neoplatonism" (C 1967V13 p452,453). "According to Origen, the first creation was purely spiritual. What God first created were spirits without bodies....But some of them strayed from the contemplation and fell. It was then that God made the second creation. This second creation is material, and it serves as a shelter or temporary home for fallen spirits. Those spirits who fell farthest have become demons, while the rest are human souls." (St p79).

Both Arius and Eusebius were students of his. Origen was one of who collated all existing translations in one comprehensive work.

190 Tertulian is converted to Christianity. He said "Some things are known even by nature: the immortality of the soul, for instance, is held by many...I will use, therefore, the opinion of a Plato when asserting every soul is immortal". He says "The father is different from the son, as he is greater; as he who begets is different from him who is begotten;...There was a time when the Son was not..Before all things God was alone.".

"'On Baptism' is the earliest surviving work about baptism; in it Tertullian criticized the baptism of children." (HB p112)

200 Noetus of Smyrna stated that Christ is "the GOD over all". He was censured by the Council.

250 "Until now the center of Christianity was not Rome but Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Caesarea, Jerusalem and various cities in Asia Minor.""...when the Roman presbyter Novatian wrote his book De Trinitat, the doctrine of Hippolytus, once discredited as ditheism, had already become official there. At the same time, Rome and most of the other Churches of the West still retained a certain leaning towards Modalistic Monarchianism."(B 563)

"a brief review of Christian thought is necessary. Even after the elimination of Gnosticism the Church remained without uniform Christology: the Trinitarians and the Unitarians continued to confront each other, the latter at the beginning of the 3rd century still forming the large majority. These in turn split into two principal groups--the Adoptianists and the Modalists--the former holding Christ to be the man chosen of God...and who after toil and suffering, through His oneness of will with God, became divine, the latter maintaining Christ to be a manifestation of God Himself. Both groups had their scientific theologians who sought to vindicate their characteristic doctrines. The Adoptianist divines holding by the Aristotelian philosophy, and the Modalist by the Stoics; while the Trinitarians on the other hand appealed to Plato." (B p963)

Arius is born near this date. Arius and Athanasius (see 293) would become rivals and the central figures in the Trinity controversy. He believed that "the Father alone is God. He is separated by an infinite chasm from man. God cannot communicate his essence...The Son of God is preexistent...He is a middle being between god and the world...Christ is himself a 'creature' -the first creature of God through whom the Father called other creatures into existence. He is 'made' not of 'the essence' of the Father, but 'out of nothing'...the Son does not perfectly know the Father, & therefore cannot perfectly reveal him....Arius ascribed him only a human body with an animal soul, not a rational soul."(R p281) In his views, Jesus became God's Son by 'adoption' and Christians could one day become equal with Christ. To him, the Holy Spirit was a spirit person, although not of the same substance as God. The Arian doctrines "emanating from a man of so great personal popularity and so highly regarded as a presbyter, though they contained nothing essentially new or original in thought and had been more or less prevalent in the Church for three or four generations."

253 The Council at Carthage approves infant baptism. "Faith and baptism were always connected with on another; and thus it is in the highest degree probable...that the practice of infant baptism was unknown at this period (in the first century)...That it first became recognized as a apostolic tradition in the course of the third century is evidence rather against than for the admission of its apostolic origin". (History of Planting & Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles p162)

258 Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, dies. He was instrumental in organizing the seven grade hierarchy. Bishops held the supreme position. "Sometime during the A.D. 200's, individual Christians began to live as hermits. St. Anthony of Thebes became the first hermit to organize his followers into a group with fairly definite rules. He is known as the father of Christian monasticism." "They were flogged, put in dungeons, and thrown to savage lions for sport. Many Christians ran away and became hermits in order to worship God in peace. Paul of Thebes fled to the Egyptian desert, where he lived for 90 years. About 300, St. Anthony gathered some Christian hermits together near Egypt, and they formed the first monastery." (W Hermit p197, Monasticism p586)

260 "Decius was one of the most violent persecutors of Christians:; he fell fighting the Goths, first of the Germans, who were eventually to overwhelm the empire. In 260 the emperor Valerian was captured by the Persians and the empire fell into anarchy...In 284 Diocletian was made emperor by the army. He was a reformer of government and of the social order, but only one of his efforts was successful. This was the division of the empire into four political sections, two east and two west. There were to be two Augusti and two Caesars. The division of East and West was resumed after the death (337) of Constantine I, who moved the capital to Byzantium, renamed Constantinople. (CE v17 p 5329) Dionysius of Alexandria, in controversy with the Sabellians, declared that the 'son of God is a work and a creature...For, as a creature,.he did not exist before he was produced'"

261 An edict grants equal rights to all religions...."Only 80 years after the last great wave of persecution of Christians, the Church itself was beginning to execute heretics, and its clerics were wielding power almost equivalent to that of the emperors." (Imperial Rome) "Inspite of the trend toward pacifism, in the 3rd century, the number of Christians serving in the legions seem to have increased." (H 243) "One of the issues on which the early Christians were at variance with the Graeco-Roman world was participation in war. For the first three centuries no Christian writing which has survived to our time condoned Christian participation in war. Some Christians held that for them all bloodshed, whether as soldiers or as executioners, was unlawful....Hippolytus...maintained that when he (any christian) applied for admission to the Christian fellowship a soldier must refuse to kill men even if he were commanded by his superiors to do so and must also not take an oath, and the military commanders must resign if they were to continue as catechumens. A catechumen or baptized person, so Hippolytus said, who sought to enlist as a soldier must be cut off from the Church. Tertullian argued against Christians being members of the Roman armies on the ground that this brought one under a master other than Christ, that it entailed taking the sword...So clear was the opposition of the early Christians to bearing arms that Celsus, in his famous attack on them, declared that if all were to do as did the Christians the Empire would fall victim to the wildest and most lawless barbarians. In replying, Origen did not deny that Christians were pacifists. Indeed, He said that Christians do not fight under the 261 Emperor 'although he require it.' Instead he argued that if all were to become Christians, the barbarians would also be Christian, and that even now, when Christians were in the minority, their love, labour, and prayers were doing more than Roman arms to preserve the realm....In spite of the general trend among Christians towards pacifism, in the third century the numbers of Christians serving in the legions seem to have increased. This was especially the case on the frontiers, menaced as they were by invasion, and in the West." (AH p243) "Origen answers that disinterest in the state belongs to the very nature of the religion and Christians who courted the king lost all claim to the Kingdom of Heaven" (CC p89) "The third and oldest Christian approach to war is pacifism. The Christian church of the first three centuries was pacifist....In practice the early Christians were not quite as strictly pacifist as the theologians' writing would seem to indicate. By the third century some Christians were in the legions....Some of the converts left the forces upon their conversion. Martin of Tours, following his conversion in 339, exclaimed, 'I am Christ's soldier; I am not allowed to fight.' After the triumph of Constantine in the early fourth century, this early Christian pacifism withered rapidly. In 392 the Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity to be the sole legal religion in the Empire; and in 416 all of the non-Christian troops were purged from the Roman army." (HB p25) "Christians held that for them loyalty to God must be given priority over loyalty to the state and that on occasion the one might require disobedience to the other. Striking wholesale examples of this were seen in the thousands of Christians who refused, even at the cost of their lives, to comply with the imperial decrees to sacrifice to the gods. Although there were some Christians in public posts, there was a conviction widely held among Christians that none of their numbers should hold office under the state, for to do so might entail participation in pagan ceremonies or the taking of life through the infliction of the death sentence. As late as the beginning of the third century Hippolytus said that historic Christian custom required a civic magistrate to resign his office as a condition of joining the Church. As we have seen, usually Christians regarded service in the army wrong for them. Yet where compliance with the laws to God, Christians endeavored to be model citizens. They paid their taxes and in other ways complied with the demands of the government. Moreover, as Christians multiplied, as they did in the third century, increasing numbers of them were in public posts. When, beginning with Constantine, the Emperors became professing Christians, and when, in the course of the next two centuries, the overwhelming majority of the population of the Empire were brought into the Church, the latter, as we have seen, entered into a kind of alliance with the state....Moreover, leading Christians hailed Constantine as appointed by God" (AH p253)

271 "Germanic tribes had threatened the Roman frontier for several centuries. But the tribes who finally destroyed the Western Empire were new to the Romans...Most important of these were the Goths, who began to attack the Empire about the middle of the third century. The Visigoths, the western branch of the Goths, occupied the Roman province of Dacia and forced the Emperor Aurelian to abandon it in 271...The Visigoths, therefore, became Arian Christians and eventually spread their particular kind of Christianity to most of the other German tribes on the border of the Empire." (HB p179)

In reference to Art in Christianity: "Thus the cross...was at first avoided not only for its direct association with Christs but for its shaveful association with the execution of a common criminal also...Even the solar pantheism introduced by Aurelian (270-75) was turned to account by Christian artists, for a striking mosaic in the Tomb of the Julii in the Vatican depicts Christ in the guise of Helios driving the sun chariot across the sky....

If such a cryptogram looks over-contrived, except as the rationalization of analready existing symbol, we may find an origin perhaps in the notion of a Divine Fish assimilated by early Christian converts in the Eastern Mediterranean area. It might be explained perhaps in the Semitic cult of Dagon and the goddess Atargatis, both of them represented in art as fish and whose powers might be assumed by the devotee who ate a meal of fish. If some converts, in Syria for example, transferred to Christ the reverence and worship they had given once to these fish deities, the rather sophisticated cryptogram theory may surely be accepted.

During the second century - exactly when is not known - the Church's bias against representational are broke down, and some pagan myths and symbols were adopted by the Christians; a few, like the fish and peacock, are still in use if somewhat selfconsciously....

Before the Peace of the Church, the symbol of the cross seem to gave been generall avoided....The first use of the cross as a Christian Symbol is uncertain....But even if is is unlikely that the cross was used in the first century as a Christian symbol, its open appearance as such in Asia Minor during the third century is an established fact."

293 Athanasius is born at Alexandria. He opposed Arius and supported the Nicene Creed. He "was not only the father of orthodoxy in the East, but also the first bishop to take an active part in encouraging the monastic life" His earlier works "do not use the word which became the crucial test of orthodoxy, homoousios (meaning of the same substance or being)"(R Ath.344-345) "He defended the homoousios (of the same substance) of the Nicene formulary against the various Arian parties who held that christ was not identical in

substance with the Father." (CE)

In his book 'On the Incarnation' he wrote, "The Word (Jesus) was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well. When He moved His body He did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might....He is still Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside the whole.

312 Constantine invades Italy and he sees a fiery cross ( ) and views it as an omen of victory. "If the story of the cross in the sky is true, he may have interpreted the sign as his own special deity recommending the worship of the Christian God. Constantine continued to identify the sun with the Christian God in some way--a belief made easier by the tendency of Christian writers and artists to use sun imagery in portraying Christ. For them Christ is the source of light and salvation, and a mosaic from a third-century tomb found under St. Peter's, Rome, even shows him as the sun god in his chariot." (HB p131) After this 'conversion' to Christianity, Constantine killed his son, second wife, several relatives, and some of his intimate friends. He is declared, by the Roman Senate, to be Augustus and on October 28, he became the Pontifex Maximus (the Chief Priest of all Romes pagan gods). "Almost to the end Constantine remained the eclectic philosopher, devoted to the worship of the unconquered sun, whom he identified with God the Father, the power of powers; he paid homage not to Christ, but to the all-powerful Father...Nevertheless he was not a Christian in his life, and he was wholly lacking in the Christian virtues. A man of raw energy and courage, harsh, unforgiving, terrible in his wrath...With him the 1000 year history of pagan Rome comes to end" (CC p111)

"did not even distinguish clearly between the Father of Jesus Christ and the divine Sun. Constantine retained the pagan high priest's title of Pontifex Maximus; for a decade his coins continued to feature some of the pagan gods, notably his own favorite deity, the Unconquered Sun" (HB p130)

"The Emperor believed that it was just as important to achieve and maintain a uniform tradition as it was to decide what the correct tradition was. Uniformity in the whole church could be most easily secured by controlling its leaders. Whatever the Christian leaders agreed upon in an ecumenical council was immediately pronounced as law by the Emperor. Church leaders who dissented from the beliefs and practices judged correct by the council would be labelled 'heretics' or 'schismatics', and deprived of their offices. The government would then step in and deport the deposed leader to some distant corner of the Empire, where his influence could have little effect." (HB p239) (NOTE #15)

"Almost to the end Constantine remained the eclectic philosopher, devoted to the worship of the unconquered sun, whom he identified with God the Father, h.e paid homage not to Christ, but to the all-powerful Father." (CC p111)

"Strange accidents and stranger designs went into the making of the churches. In A.D. 307 Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius, meeting in a solemn interview at Carnuntum on the Danube, dedicated a sanctuary there to Mithra, 'the protector of their Empire'. The forward march of Mithraism was leading it to a position of formidable power and influence in the Roman world...Not Mithra but Christ became the protector of the Empire only because Constantine willed it so. If it had not been for Constantine, Christianity in the West might have gone down to defeat ...Hence forth Christianity in the West was to be colored by the religious practices of pagan Rome. The robes of Christian priests, the shapes of Christian churches, the order of services, the offerings at the altars, the title of the supreme pontiff, and the very language of Christian ceremonial were derived from ancient Rome....In the mind of Constantine...the pagan past fought an unrelenting war with the Christian present....Because Christianity was triumphant, he attached himself to it,...He used the faith, as he used his armies, to ensure his own triumph....If Mithraism could have served his purpose, he would have embraced it with the same solemnity....Mithraism was a religion with a carefully worked out structure of legends and sacramental offices, with hierarchies of priests and solemn rites of initiation. It was rounded and complete, and had lost nothing of its vigor since it was first introduced into the Roman army by Cilician pirates captured by Pompey. In Constantine's eyes Mithraism and Christianity cannot have been very dissimilar. The similarities between the two religions were often so close as to cause confusion between them. Mithaism involved an atoning sacrifice, a sacramental meal of bread and wine shared by the faithful, the ascension of the god, the resurrection of the flesh, the ultimate destruction of the world in a fiery deluge. It promised the gift of immortality and the redemption of sins through baptism. In Mithraism the infant god was worshiped by shepherds. The Flood, the Ark, the Fiery Chariot, the drawing of water from the rock, all those symbols which the Christians drew from the Old Testament and adapted to specifically Christian ideas, also had their place in Mithraic legend. The ringing of bells, the lighting of candles, the sprinkling of holy water were common to both religions....They both worshiped a god whom they identified with the unconquered sun" (CC p14, 100-105)

Mithra, the God-mediator (symbolized by the sun), Ahriman, the prince of darkness, along with Ormuzd formed the Persian trinity. The immortality of the soul, that the wicked are purified in hell and the good go to paradise all are part of Mithraism. December 25 was a holy day and Sunday was their day of worship. Mithraism was spread (around 600 BC) by Cyrus the Great and Darius when the Medes and Persians became a world power. Time magazine, October 4, 1954, noted, "If the Mithras worshipers of ancient Londinium could come to life and attend a service of St. Paul's Cathedral, not far from their Temple, they would find many things, besides the arrangement of the interior, to remind them of their own faith."

313 "By the edict of Milan (313) Constantine granted universal religious tolerance, thus placing Christianity on the same footing as the other religions." (CE)

315 "The idea that the clergy should remain unmarried developed only slowly....By the third century, celibacy was beginning to be valued as a mark of holiness. Even so, extremes were frowned upon,...As martyrdom declined, asceticism began to become the measure of spirituality;...In the fourth century also some men in public life were ordained later on in life, after they had married. In some cases they continued to live with their wives but abstained from sexual intercourse. In the fourth century, moves were made to restrict marriage after ordination. The Council of Ancyra, about 315, declared that deacons had to choose between marriage and celibacy before ordination, and could not marry afterwards; The Council of Neocaesarea, about 320, ruled that presbyters who married after ordination were to be deposed....Jerome was the most enthusiastic supporter of celibacy,...In spite of protests that celibacy was Manichean, supporters of celibacy persuaded the churches that celibacy and holiness were closely connected." (HBp215)

318 Arius debates with Alexander woh will become the Bishop of Alexandria, about doctrine of Christ.

321 The Roman State declares Sunday as a day of rest, "Constantine to Eipidius: All judges, city-people and craftsmen shall rest on the venerable day of the Sun." (DC p 26) "The Christian Sunday was not made a 'day of rest' until Constantine decreed it...in 321 Constantine made the first day of the week a holiday, he called it the venerable day of the Sun (Sunday). When the pagan symbols eventually disappeared, the Unconquered Sun was the last to go....The Christian church took over many pagan ideas and images. From sun-worship, for example, came the celebration of Christ's birth on the twenty-fifth of December, the birthday of the Sun. Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival of 17-21 of December, provided the merriment, gift-giving and candles typical of later Christmas holidays. Sun-worship hung on in Roman Christianity and Pope Leo I, in the middle of the fifth century, rebuked worshippers who turned round to bow to the sun before entering St. Peter's Basilica. Some pagan customs which were later Christianized, for example the use of candles, incense and garlands, were at first avoided by the church because the symbolized paganism. The veneration of the Virgin Mary was probably stimulated by parallels in pagan religion. Some scholars believe that the worship of Artemis (Diana) was transferred to Mary. Ephesus, a City which belonged to Artemis until the end of the pagan era, was also associated with Mary from an early date. Many people connect Mary with Isis, the Egyptian goddess whose worship had spread throughout the Empire in the Christian era. Isis in her travels became identified with many other goddesses, including Artemis, and was the 'universal mother' of later pagan religion. The devotees of Isis, herself called 'the Great Virgin' and 'Mother of God', naturally tended to look to Mary for comfort when paganism was outlawed and their temples destroyed at the end of the fourth century. Some surviving images of Isis holding the child Horus are in a pose remarkably similar to that of some early Christian madonnas" (HB p122, 131, 133)

Arius is excommunicated at a Synod in Alexandria. "Eusebius, your brother,Bishop of Caesarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aetius, and all the other bishops of the East, have been condemned for saying that God existed, without beginning, before the Son;...To these impieties we cannot even listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths....We are persecuted because we say that the Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning" (The Letter of Arius to Eusebius DC p56)

"By the third century people began to speak of an all-embracing, or 'catholic,' church....The emperors had set a standard of intolerance by making it an offence to differ from the orthodox, or 'right-teaching,' church. But Christianity was much affected by other religions already existing within the Empire and by such philosophies as that of the Stoics." (NOTE #6)

324 Constantine becomes Emperor and unites the Empire.. "Long regarded as a divinity, the Emperor had now become an Oriental sun-god, and he was officially called the Invincible Sun. His 'birthday' was on the 25th of December." "The various customs with which people today celebrate their birthdays have a long history. Their origins lie in the realm of magic and religion. The customs of offering congratulations, presenting gifts and celebrating - complete with lighted candles - in ancient times were meant to protect the birthday celebrant from the demons and to ensure his security for the coming year....Down to the fourth century Christianity rejected the birthday celebration as a pagan custom" (Zeit undWelt Ap.3/4 p4)-(NOTE #7)

325 The Emperor calls the Nicene Council. Constantine presides. The Pope is not present. "Inevitably, the Emperor became more than a referee in the disputes, when he took sides, as he had to, he defined orthodoxy." "Constantine himself presided, actively guiding the discussions, and personally proposed...the crucial formula expressing the relation of Christ to God in the creed issued by the council, 'of one substance with the Father'...Overawed by the emperor, the bishops, with two exceptions only, signed the creed, many of them much against their inclination" (B) Arius and Eusibius are expelled. Arius' works are burned. Months later, Esubius is reinstated and signs the creed even though he does not support it. The Council settled on using the word 'homoousia' and establishs the 20 canons of discipline, one which prohibits the removal of priests. (NOTE #8, #9) The Nicene Creed reads " (We believe) in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God,begotten not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate, and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven; from thence he cometh to judge the quick & the dead...And those who say there was a time when he (the Son) was not; & he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or thing, or the Son of God is created, or changeable, or alterable; -they are condemned by the Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church." (R Ari. 279) "The decisions of Nicaea were really the work of a minority, and they were misunderstood and disliked by many who were not adherents of Arius. In particular the terms 'homoousios' aroused opposition, an the grounds that they were unscriptural, novel, tending to Sabellianism",(DC p58)

325 On June 19 The Council attempts to regulate the dating of Easter. The Westminister Dictionary of the Bible says of Easter was "originally the spring festival in honor of the Tuetonic Goddess of light and spring known in Anglo-Saxon as Eastre." "But the conception of the egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during the spring festival...Like the Greeks, the Romans ate bread marked with a cross...The cross bread was eaten by pagan Saxons in honour of Eostre, their goddess of light." (B)

"There is some reason for believing that, at least in some parts, the Easter cakes had originally a different form--that of the phallus...The custom of making cakes in the form of the sexual members, male and female, dates from a remote antiquity and was common among the Romans." "A great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter. The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring....The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility." (C V5p227)

326 Athanasius is made bishop of Alexandria.

327 Arius as well as the friends punished with him and the Meletians regained nearly all rights which they had lost in 325.

330 "Constantinople became the wealthiest and most populous city of the Middle Ages" (Co Constantine p236) The term Byzantine comes from Byzantium,the ancient name for a city...renamed Constantinople after Constantine made it capital of the Roman Empire in AD 330....The Christianity of the Byzantine Empire differed from that of Western Europe. Control of the Church by the Emperor brought politics into Byzantine religion." (W Bp638).

"Impressed by Arius' creed, Constantine receives him."

335 "The politico-ecclesiastical leader of the Arian party was Eusebius of Nicomedia who, probably owing to the influence of the Emperor Constantine was recalled from exile and baptized Constantine on his death-bed. Constantine was turned favorably to Arius, accepted a confession he prepared, recalled him from exile, and ordered him to be solemnly restored to the communion of the catholic church at Constantinople; he even demanded his restoration in Alexandria by Athanasius; but, on the day preceding his intended restoration, the heretic suddenly died (336). In the year following, Constantine himself died, and his son Constantine II, recalled Athanasius from his first exile. In the West the Nicene statement found universal acceptance. But in the East, where Constantius, the second son of Constantine the Great, ruled, opposition to the Nicene formula was well-nigh universal, and was maintained with fanatical zeal by the court and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was transferred to Constantinople in 338." (R Arianism p279) On refusing to receive Arius in communion, Athanasius was deposed by the synod of Tyre and exiled to Gaul.

337 Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius become co-rulers. Eusibius baptized Constantine on his deathbed. The day after Constantine dies Arius is fully restored. After the death of Constantine, Athanasius returns to his see.

339 In Rome, Pope Julius I receives Athanasius and declares him innocent. Eusibius is made bishop of Constantinople. The "Eusebian faction puts Gregory of Cappadocia in the See in Alexandria. Where upon Athanasius fled to Rome.

340 Constantine II dies and splits Empire into East and West.

341 Sardica Synod declares Athanasius and Marcellus orthodox. Julius, bishop of Rome, exonerates them. At the same time the Antioch Synod deposes Athanasius.

The Emperor abolishes pagan sacrifices but continues the pagan feasts and procession.

343 Council at Sophia and Sardica declare Athanasius and Marcellus innocent and condemn the Arian views. Athanasius returns.

Eastern Bishops do not come to council in protest of the seating of Athanasius and Marcellus.

351 After Gregory's death Athanasius returns to Alexandria in triumph to starts his "golden decade of peace". Sirium Synod protest against the reinstatement of Athanasius.

352 Augustine was born. Despite objections, he was able to popularize the doctrine of the immortal soul and predestination. "Previous to Augustine there was no serious development in Christianity of a theory of predestination"(R v9 p192)

He "is generally recognized as having been the greatest thinker of Christian antiquity,...His mind was the crucible in which the religion of the New Testament was most completely fused with the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy; and it was also the means by which the product of this fusion was transmitted to the Christendoms of medieval Roman Catholicism and Renaissance Protestantism." (B)

"Although the idea was rooted in Roman Stoic philosophy, Ambrose and Augustine formed the just war into a Christian approach to the problem of warfare in the late fourth century....Unfortunately this entailed killing. But Augustine emphasized that this does not clash with loving the enemy. What really matters are the intentions on the combatants hearts....Augustine's assumption that in any conflict justice will lie mainly on one side is clearly wrong...One British observer commented about excesses at the Battle of the Somme; "If you start a man killing you can't turn him off again like an engine'" (HB p24)

"The cult of saints and martyrs grew rapidly in the 4th century, another example of the blending of the old paganism with Christianity. Chapels and even churches began to be built over the tombs of martyrs a practice which influenced church architecture....The cult arose among the people, but was approved and encouraged by the great Christian leader of the age--Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine. Ambrose for instance, discovered the bodies of several forgotten saints. The Christian historian Theodoret boasts that in many places saints and 352 martyrs took the place of pagan gods, and their shrines the place of pagan temples....Vigilantius, an obscure priest from Aquitaine, wrote, 'We almost see the rites of the pagan introduced into the churches under the pretext of religion; ranks of candles are lit in full daylight; and everywhere people kiss and adore some bit of dust in a little pot, wrapped in precious fabric. 'Vigilantius' protest survived only because some outraged priests sent a copy to Jerome who refuted it in a scathing reply." (HB p132,133)

353 Constans dies and leaves Constantius as sole ruler.

Athanasius is condemned at a Council in Arles, Gaul & Milan.

356 Political charges are formed against Athanasius. He is expelled by Constantius. He finds asylum among monks in the Egyptian desert.

"The sons of Constantine proceeded more vigorously. A law of 341 apparently suppressed pagan cults. A stronger decree of Constantius, in 356, closed the temples and prohibited sacrifice on pain of death." (HB p137)

357 "The Council of Sirmium put forward a creed which explicitly forbade the use of 'ousia, homoiusia, or homoiousia (meaning ofthe same substance or being) on the grounds... that these were not to be found in the scriptures. Thus the distinctive phrase of the Nicene Creed was condemned."(H 160)

358 Aided by Constantius synods were held at Ancyra, Sirmium and Antioch Synod which were against the Nicene Creed.

Arians gain power and put "Felix the II" in the papal chair.

361 Constantius dies, Julian "the Apostate" rules. Favoring Mithraism, he almost eliminates Christianity. "Some of the Nicene leaders thought better of Constantius when confronted with Julian, who became emperor in 361. Julian was a nephew of Constantine who barely escaped the general massacre that had followed his death in 337. As Emperor he could at last reveal that he had been for some years a secret pagan...Julian now attempted to convert the Empire to a religion which he called 'Hellenism'....Julian made a unique attempt to combine many old elements in an organized pagan 'church'. The principal deity was Plato's 'Supreme Being', whose chief visible representative was the life-giving Sun, identified with Helios and Mithras in the mythologies of the day. Syncretism prevailed, and it was possible to regard all the old and new gods with their cults and rituals as originating from the Sun. Thus, the world of Greek culture, mythology and ritual could be retained without sacrificing the lofty monotheism of the Sun." (HBp137) (NOTE# 10) Hoping to split the Church, Julian restores freedom of worship. All bishops return to their sees. Athanasius convenes a council at Alexandria and appeals for unity.

362 Alexandrian Synod, Athanasius leaves.

"A Roman panegyric of the year 362 says that under Constantine no one dared to look at the sun...and this very vividly suggests not only active persecution of the mithraic religion....After Julian's death, the attack of Christianity was definite and furious....At times the persecution was bloody, and the remains prove that the priests were sometimes slain and their corpses were buried in the mithraeums in order to descrate the site....Cumont claims that Mithraic art influenced strongly Christian art, that Mithra shooting at the rock became Moses smiting the rock; the sun raising Mithra from the ocean became the ascension of Elijah in the chariot of fire; the tauroctonous Mithra became Samson rending the lion; while the figures of heaven, earth, ocean, sun, moon, planets, the zodiacal signs, the wind, the seasons, and the like, found on Christian sarcophagi and in mosaics and miniatures are claimed by Cumont as adaptations of Mithraic models." (R Mithrap423)

363 Julian exiles Athanasius. Julian dies, then Jovian dies after 8 months, Valen, who now becomes the Emperor, "embraces Arian Christianity. He suppressed pagan worship. He initiated war against the Visigoths; until 369. He admitted the Visigoths into the Empire. In 378 Valens was killed in the battle...against the Visigoths in which 2/3 of the roman army was destroyed" (CE)

364 "Athanasius was recalled,...but Valens ascended the throne and for the fifth time persecution was renewed. Athanasius had to take refuge in the tomb of his father, where his concealment lasted four months. His influence in Egypt was necessary to peace and he was allowed to return to his office." (Co, Athanasius, p 439)

366 Arians have internal dissention which ultimately caused their loss of power, the victory of Athanasius and the Nicene Creed

369 Roman Synod condemns Arianism.

370 Basil, although an adherent to the Nicene Creed still avoids calling the Holy Spirit "GOD". "...early Christian writings seem at times to teach the subordination of the Spirit to the Father and to the Son....The personality of the Spirit is rejected by Sabellians, Arians, Socinians, and Unitarians, the Socinians representing the Spirit as an energy or power of God" (R v5 p331-332)

"The third person of the Trinity was not discussed at all until the final period of the Arian controversy. The Trinity was always mentioned, of course, but what was meant by this was only Father and Son. Not until the end of the controversy an agreement about the relationship ofthe two to each other appear to be in sight, did the theologians discover, really to their own amazement, that the previously ignored question of the Holy Spirit's relationship to the Father and the Son still had to be answered....So we find theologians who until then were on the same side and made theological statements now suddenly split by deep differences of opinion, for not all of them would also attribute the homoiousios to the Holy Spirit. Old friendships were dissolved, those who had reservations about also saying homoiousios of the Holy Spirit were cast aside, and with the label of 'Pneumatomachi' they were, so to speak, cast onto the trash heap of the history of dogma."" (HI p196)

372 The Huns "advanced westward, pushing the Germanic Ostrogoths and Visigoths before them and thus precipitating the great waves of migrations that destroyed the Roman Empire and changed the face of Europe...The huns have been described as short and as of somewhat Mongoloid appearance. Their military superiority was due to their small, rapid horses, to which they were practically welded." (CE v10p3000)

373 Athanasius dies. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianus and Gregory of Nyssa continue his battle. The Athanasian Creed is generally agreed not to have been written by Athanasius but was probably composed in southern France during the 5th century.

"On the Roman New Year (January 1) houses were decorated with greenery and lights, gifts were given to children and the poor. To these observances were added the German and Celtic Yule rites when the Teutonic tribes penetrated into Gaul, Britian, and Central Europe." (B Christmas v3 p283)

On New Years: "In the early days of the Christian Church, the keeping of a feast at this time was expressly avoided, because of the great pagan festivals which took place, many of them accompanied by general drunkenness and licentiousness. The customs connected with these old festivals survived, however, in a modified form, and eventually it seemed wise to counteract them in some measure with a Christian celebration, and thus the Feast of the Circumcision came into being....Many ofthe rites associated with the old heathen New Year festivals have survived into modern times, some as popular and all-too-often commercialized celebrations, and some in the form of old local customs, folk songs and children's games. (SF p100-103)

"An Armenian writer of the eleventh century states that the Christmas festival, invented in Rome by a heretic, Artemon, was first celebrated in Constantinople in 373. In Egypt the Western birthday festival was opposed during the early years of the fifth century." "How much the calculation of Hippolytus had to do with the fixing of the festival on Dec. 25, and how much the date of the festival depended upon the pagan Brumalia (Dec 25), following the Saturnalia (Dec 17-24) and celebrating the shortest day in the year and the 'new sun'...cannot be accurately determined. The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence. The recognition of Sunday by the Emperor Constantine as a legal holiday, along with the influence of Manicheism, which identified the son of God with the physical sun, may have led Christians 373 of the fourth century to feel the appropriateness of making the birthday of the Son of God coincide with that of the physical sun. The pagan festival with its riot and merry-making was so popular that Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration with little change in spirit or manner. Christian preachers of the West and the Nearer East protested against the unseemly frivolity with which Christ's birthday was celebrated, while Christians of Mesopotamia accused their Western Brethren of idolatry and sun-worship for adopting as Christian this pagan festival. Yet the festival rapidly gained acceptance and became at last so firmly established that even the Protestant revolution of the sixteenth century was not able to dislodge it and Evangelical Christians even of the more radical types, who reject or ignore nearly all of the ecclesiastical festivals, have never been able wholly to ignore it." (R Christmas)

Science writer Isaac Asimov notes "with a week-long Saturnalia (for the agricultural god, Saturn) from December 17 to 24. It was a time of unrelieved merriment and joy...gifts were given all round...The worship of Mithra, a sun-god of Persia, was becoming popular, especially among the soldiers. The Mithraists celebrated the birth of Mithra at the winter solstice, a natural time, and fixed on the day December 25 so that the popular Roman Saturnalia could build up to the Mithraist 'Day of the Sun' as a climax. At that time, Christianity was locked in a great duel with the Mithraists for the hearts and minds of the people of the Roman Empire...Sometime after A.D.300, Christianity managed the final coup of absorbing the Saturnalia, and with that it scored the final victory over Mithraism. December 25 was established as the day of the birth of Jesus, and the great festival was made Christian. There is absolutely no biblical authority for December 25 as having been the day of the Nativity." (Saturday Review magazine)

"In all cases where its myths could be suitably converted to Christian use, Paganism made a direct contribution, for it was hardly to be expected that peoples long accustomed to religious art should be prepared to forego their entire heritage....Where the notion of the Divine Fish originated, however, remains unexplained. In Syria, the Goddess Atargatis was worshiped in the form of a fish...was reverence for the fish in ancient Syria and Northern Mesopotamia transferred to the worship of Christ by his early followers. If so, the invention of the Christian cryptogram to give an air of respectability to a fundamentally pagan subject is readily intelligible." (The Early Christians p89, 93)

376 In 386 "Chrysostom states that the celebration of the birth of Christ 'according to the flesh' was not inaugurated in Antioch until 10 years before that date... He intimates that this festival, approved by himself, was opposed by many."

377 Roman Synod again condemns Arianism.

378 "Gratian (Emperor of the Western Empire) at first tolerated other religions as well as orthodox Christianity. He soon changed his mind under Ambrose's influence and began to suppress pagans and heretics. He once again removed the alter of Victory...confiscated the revenues of the Vestal Virgins and other Roman priesthoods, and refused the title of Pontifex Maximus which previous Christian emperors had taken."(HB p140) "and considered it unbefitting a Christian. The Bishop of Rome, Damasus, adopts this "most noteworthy of titles" (C).

"In Gratian's reign began the strange and sad case of Priscillian. The usurper, Magnus Maximus, became the first Christian emperor to inflict the death penalty on a heretic. These events foreshadow the later medieval practice of handing over heretics condemned by the church for execution by the state" (HB p141)

379 Valens dies. Theodosius the Great rules. Theodosius let the Ostrogoths "and Visigoths to settle. Soon Gothic influence predominated in the army." (CE) "The church legislation of Theodosius was confined, of course, to the limits of the Roman Empire. Beyond it among the barbarians of the West, who had received Christianity in the form of Arianism during the reign of the Emperor Valens, it maintained itself for two centuries longer, though more as a matter of accident than choice and conviction. The Ostrogoths remained Arian still 553, the Visigoths, till the Synod of Toledo in 589; the Suevi in Spain, till 560; the Vandals, who conquered North Africa in 429, and furiously persecuted the catholics till 530...the Burgundians till 534; the Lombards in Italy, till the middle of the seventh century. Alaric, the first conqueror of Rome, Genseric, the conqueror of North Africa, Theodoric the Great, King of Italy, were Arians; and the first Teutonic translation of the Scriptures of which important fragments remain came from the Arian or semi-Arian missionary Ulfilas." (R Arianism, p281)

380 "Even among the adherents of the Nicene orthodoxy an uncertainty still for a time prevailed respecting the doctrine of the third person of the Holy Trinity. Some held the Spirit to be an impersonal power or attribute of God; others, at farthest would not go beyond the expressions of the Scriptures. Gregory Nazianzen, who for his own part believed and taught the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son, so late as 380 make the remarkable concession: 'Of the wise among us, some consider the Holy Ghost an influence, others a creature, others God himself, and again others know not which way to decide, from reverence, as they say, for the Holy Scripture, which declares nothing exact in the case. For this reason they waver between worshipping and not worshipping the Holy Ghost, and strike a middle course, which is in fact, however, a bad one.'...Hilary of Poietiers believed that the Spirit, who searches the deep things of God, must be divine, but could find no Scripture passage in which he is called God, and thought that he must be content with the existence of the Holy Ghost, which the Scripture teaches and the heart attests." (Early Christian Doctrine by J.N.D. Kelly).

"It was not until the 4th century that the distinctness of the three and their unity were brought together in a single orthodox doctrine of one essence in three persons."(NB v11 pg292)

"The formula itself does not reflect the immediate consciousness of the period of origins; it was the product of 3 centuries of doctrinal development" (NC v14 pg295)

381 "The Roman Emperor Theodosius carried his Christianity a bit further. He decreed that everyone must be a Christian. The whole Roman calendar of festivals and other religious events was to be abolished. Christian festivals were to take their place. There would be no more worship of the sun, whether he was named Helios or Apollo or Sol Invictus.

Still, many of the Christians had followed the cult of Mithra, others had worshiped Apollo. THe sun had been their god. And there is the bright sky, day after day, shone the same sun that had brought life to the world since time began. It is not surprising that the early Christians often confused the ancient god of the sun with Christ. After all, the birth of Christ was like the rising of the sun, bringing light to the world. It was hard to believe that this sun in the sky was merely a symbol of Christ, not Christ himself.

The special Christian day of the week, too, had long been called the "day of the Sun"....Later, when Christians began to read the Bible, they discovered these words of the prophet Malachi: "The sun of Righteousness shall rise, with healing in the wings." This, they thought, was surely a prediction of the coming of Christ. The sun and Christ were after all much the same. (You may remember that the winged disk was an ancient symbol of the sun-god.)...

A striking example of the identification of the sun-god with Christ was discovered in the 1950s when archaeologists, digging in Rome in search of historical relics, uncovered an early Christian mosaic. This mosaic shows Christ as the sun driving a chariot, with a cloak flying from his shoulders. About his head are rays of bright light in a circle.

Numerous pictures made at the time and later showed Christ rising into the sky after his resurrection from the dead. Often he rode in a fiery chariot, like a sun-god driving across the sky.

The picture of a German tombstone of about the sixth or seventh century A.D. also shows Christ as a sun-god. Sun rays make a halo all around his head and there are still more rays behind him. These are sun symbols, pagan and Christian at the same time.

Try as they would, the priests could not persuade the people to give up all the rituals and other customs that had been part of pagan worship for thousands of years. Little by little the church adapted these customs to Christian beliefs. Pagan festivals became part of the Christian year.

For thousands of years the winter solstice had been considered a time for rejoicing...In Rome, a gay festival called the Saturnalia was held at the time, in honor of Saturn, god of the sowing of the grain. The Saturnalia lasted seven days, ending on December 23. To the followers of the cult of Mithra, the 25th of December was even more important; it was, as we have seen, the birthday of "the unconquered sun."

Christians at first did not celebrate the birth of Christ at any set time. No one knew exactly when he was born. But soon after the time of the Emperor Constantine, December 25 was chosen as the date. Constantine had been a worshiper of Sol Invictus before he became a Christian. As with many newly converted Christians, his religion was a mixture of pagan and Christian beliefs. It is not surprising that the fest of Sol Invictus became the birthday of Christ.

Some Christians refused to celebrate Christ's birth of a day that had for so long been dedicated to the sun, but most accepted December 25 as the date. Pagan rites and Christian festivities were held side by side. Often there was little difference between them. Houses were decorated with greenery; candles were carried in procession.

'Sol novus oritur', Christians sang in Latin at their Christmas service: 'The new sun rises.'....Missionaries carried Christian beliefs to other European countries. For thousands of years, to the north of Rome, fires had been lit at the time of the winter solstice and logs kindled to help warm the sun-god so the days could grow longer and crops could grow in the earth. These customs, too, became a part of Christmas. The blazing log was later transformed into our yule log.

Other celebrations in the Christian year follow the cycle of the sun. The date of Easter depends on both the sun and the moon. For this celebration the church chose the "day of the Sun" following the first full moon after the spring equinox...For many Christians Easter was a celebration of the sun. Christ died and rose fron the dead. Just so each evening the sun seemed to die; at dawn it came to life again....It was said that the sun danced for joy at dawn on Easter. Many people rose early so they could see this happen....

Thousands of people in our country and in Europe still gather to watch the sun rise on Easter. It is a symbol of the new light that Christ brought to the world.

Fire means light, too. The Christian Church in Europe tried to stop people from burning fires in the springtime to honor the sun-god. But fires were still lit on May Day and flaming wheels were rolled downhill. In time the church adapted this custom, too, to the Christian calendar. On Easter Eve all the lights would be put out in the church. Then a new fire would be kindled outside and the priest would bless the flames. The great Easter candle of the church was lit from this fire, and all the lights in the church were rekindled.

Gradually the worship of Sol Invictus was left behind. Now and then, to be sure, Christ was still confused with the god of the sun. A pen drawing from a French manuscript of the early fourteenth century shows Christ carrying a sun globe in his hand, riding in a four-horse chariot decorated with a cross....

In spite of this, many solar images remained, accepted by most Christians as symbols of the light Christ brought into the world. The cross is one such symbol. As we have seen, both the cross and the sun wheel were symbols of the sun to early people. To Christians the sun wheel was a sign meaning the cross on which Christ died....An ancient oriental symbol for the rising sun showed the sun circle with a cross below it, representing its rays.

Another monogram of Christ was later developed from this symbol. This is a fomous variation of the cross. It is often called the Chi Rho because it is a combination of the first two letters in the Greek word for Christ....

The Gnostics, people belonging to an early Christian sect, designed their own sun symbol....This is an elaboration of the earlier sun symbol with three reys, mentioned in chapter I. Here, too, ther lined at the ends of the rays represent the sky.

The halo is another sun symbol, a sun disk painted in gold, with loving care, by Christian painters, usually behind the head of Christ, his disciples, Mary his mother, and the saints. Often, rays were painted within the disk of the halo, or a cross with equal arms might be enclosed in it. The halo symbolizes holiness.

Sun symbols are found on many church buildings....The keystone of an arch in the main porch of the cuurch in Berne, Switzerland, has a glorious sunface, carved in stone....Sun faces were often placed on the keystone of arches...

Both the sun and the moon are found carved on Christian churches in many parts of the world. Sun symbols appear in murals on the walls of some churches in New England. The one at the left combines the ancient disk of the sun with a monogram of Christ.

There is sun symbolism in the present-day ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. The round white wafer called the Host ahs an important place in Holy Communion. Priest and congregation partake of the Host, in separate wafers.

This round white wafer is supposed to represent the body of Christ. But is has also another meaning. It is an ancient symbol, a sun disk, sun-bread, made of light. Usually it is imprinted with a cross or monogram of Christ. Bread used in rituals of the Mithraic cult in Rome also was imprinted with a cross. People who take part in the Holy Communion of the Christian church may feel the light of Christ's presence within them as they eat this sun-bread. Perhaps they know nothing of the long history of this symbol. But the sun that lights the world nevertheless has its place in the Holy Communion of the church." (Signs and Symobls of the Sun by Elizabeth S. Helfmen p60-73)

Theodosius (Emperor in the East), without consulting ecclesiasticle authorities, issues an edict prescribing the Nicene binding on all subjects and ends Mithraism. At a council in Constantinople it was declared that the Holy Spirit should be worshiped and glorified just as the Father and Son were. One year later, in 382 C.E., at another synod in Constantinople, the divinity of the Holy Spirit was affirmed. "Theodosius, in 381 and 385, prohibited sacrifices for divination...ordered all the temples in Alexandria to be demolished following pagan-Christian unrest...Finally, in 391, Theodosius prohibited all sacrifices and closed all temples. The next year private pagan worship was forbidden too. Paganism had on last chance in the West during the brief reign of the usurper Eugenius. His chief supporters were zealous pagans who restored the ancient worship in Rome, but the final triumph of Theodosius in 394 put an end to that."(HB p140, 141) Removed all pro-Arians from office and condemned their 'heresy' (denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit) & held the Constantinople Council at which the Pope was not invited. Then was completed the orthodox dogma of the Holy Trinity. In July a law was enacted to bestow to the Church the property to those who do not believe in the equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

"Generations of Arianism persisted as the faith of most of the Germanic peoples who, beginning with the latter part of the 4th century, were invading the Empire."(H 164)

"Let us believe...in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgement, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation, and in the second the punishment which our authority, in accordance with the will of Heaven, shall decide to inflict." (DC p31)

"After Theodosius, Arianism ceased to exist as an organized moving force in theology and Church history; but it reappeared from time to time...Emlyn, Whiston...and many who ranked among Socinians and Unitarians held Arian sentiments; but Milton and Isaac Newton, though approaching the Arian view on the relation of the Son to the Father, differed widely from Arianism in spirit and aim." (R Ar.280) (NOTE#11)

386 Jerome leaves Rome, goes to Bethlehem and builds a monestary near there. He then writes a 'fresh translation' of the Bible, written in the modern language of the day. It later was called the Latin Vulgate.. (w) "The designation of Jesus as her 'first-born son' and the statement as to her relations with Joseph seem to point to the conclusion that the persons called in the Gospels and in Acts 1:14 the brethren of the Lord were the younger sons of Joseph and Mary. For various reasons the theory of Jerome that they were cousins, and that of Epiphanius that they were children of Joseph by a former marriage, are untenable. The unprejudiced reader of the New Testament can not avoid the view represented in antiquity by Helvidius and stamped as hersey after Jerome and Ambrose,that they were the children of Joseph and Mary,..." (R Mary)

392 "Epiphanius controverted as heretics those who said that she(Mary) had married Joseph and had children by him...Pope Siricius confirmed the sentence of the Illyrian bishops against Bonosus on the charge of sharing the heresy of Helvidius. The theory of a merely nominal marriage was generally accepted; Origen accounts for it by the necessity of concealing the mystery of the virgin birth from the princes of this world....Inspite of all this development of the glorifying tradition, there was no tendency before the end of the 4th century to promote a regular cultus of the Virgin, or even to address prayers to her. The change which took place about that time may have been partly due to the great influx of pagans into the Church....In 431, and the devotion became increasingly fervent throughout the whole Church"

393-397 The Council of Hippo and Carthage are held where catalogues of the books of the Bible were formulated. The canon, including the list of books making up the Christian Greek Scriptures, was already settled by then, not by decree of any council, but by the usage of the Christian congregations throughout the ancient world. "It goes without saying that the Church, understood as the entire body of believers, created the Canon... it was not the reverse: it was not imposed from the top, be it by bishops or synods"

401 The first hint of ultimate disaster was the battle of Adrianople in 378. The Visigoths. had obtained refuge within the Empire from the Huns, but when mistreated by the Romans, they rebelled and destroyed the Emperor Valens and his army at Adrianople. Theodosius, chosen to settle the East by the Western Emperor Gratian, managed to subdue the Visigoths; but there were allowed to remain within the Empire as Roman allies, under their own rulers...In 395 the Empire was divided between...the two young sons of Theodosius. Alaric, the new king of the Visigoths, began to exploit the differences that now developed between the East and West. Encouraged, apparently, by Constantinople, he invaded Italy in 401. On the night of 24 August 410, Alaric stormed the walls of Rome in a surprise attack and pillaged the city for three days. The event had little permanent effect on the Empire since Alaric soon abandoned the city" (HBp179)

431 The 3rd Council at Ephesus decides that Mary is indeed the Mother of God. "The use of this title by the Church was undoubtedly decisive for the growth in later centuries of Marian doctrine and devotion." (NC) "Veneration of the mother of God received its impetus when the Christian Chruch became the imperial church under Constantine and the pagan masses streamed into the church....Their piety and religious consciousness had been formed for millennia through the cult of the 'great mother' goddess and the 'divine virgin,' a development that led all the way from the old popular religions of Babylonia and Assyria." (NB) Ephesus appears to be the center from which worship of Mary started. This is reasonable since Ephesus was also the center of worship of Artemis, "their lady, the queen, the virgin, 'one who listens to and accepts prayers'." The Egyptian goddess Isis, the Queen of Heaven, was also very popular in Ephesus. "Isis attracted many devotees, who vowed their lives to her. Her images stood in the temple, crowned as the Queen of Heaven and bearing the infant Horus in her arms. The candles flared and guttered before her, and the wax ex-votos hung about the shrine." (The Outline of History) "the 5th cent. the honour paid to the Virgin Mary at Ephesus was [a renewed] form of the old pagan Anatolian worship of the Virgin Mother." (The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics) "The Catholic notions of the 'mother of God' and of the 'queen of heaven,' though later than the N[ew] T[estement], point to much earlier religio-historical roots in the East....In the later veneration of Mary there are many traces of the heathen cult of the divine mother." (The New International Dictionary of the New Testement) Of the Black Madonnas found in Catholic Churches throughout the world, Theo-Nouvelle encyclopedie catholique says, "They appear to have been a means for transferring to Mary what remained of popular devotion to Diana [Artemis]...or Cybele."

Trinitarian Latin Scribe, Viglius of Thapsus, alters 1 John 5:7,8 to fit the views of the trinitarians. The additions are technically known as 'Johannine Comma' and is not found in any Greek manuscripts until 1000 years after this time. Even so, King James includes it in his version.

440 Bishop Leo I was the first who tried to be a totalitarian pope in the modern sense. He tried to establish the "apostolic chair", as a successor to Peter, over every branch of the Catholic organization including the exclusive use of the title Papa (Pope). The general council in Ephesus threatened them with violence. It is said that Leo I originated the fasts of Lent and Pentecost.

"When we come to the reign of Pope Leo I, we reach one of the momentous turning points in the history of the papacy...He formulated the doctrine of papal primacy...According to Leo, Peter was 'The Rock' on which the Lord built his church...He was its supreme ruler, its supreme teacher, and its supreme judge."(A Concuse Histor of the Catholic Church p97)

"It was the emperors, therefore, who laid the foundations of the worldly power of the Church and strengthened it with their might. In the Theodosian Code, a collection of the laws of the Empire made under Theodosius (AD 438), we find the edicts which had been issued in regard to Christianity up to that time. It is plain from these that the government would 440 permit no other form of religion than the one it had approved. The code goes so far as to call all who do not believe in the Trinity "mad and demented" and to threaten them with the punishment of the state as well as the wrath of Almighty God. Heretics are liable to be sent into exile or put to death and their books burned. The clergy are set apart as a privileged class, freed from taxation and all public burdens, lest these interfere with the performance of their sacred duties. Subjects are encouraged to bequeath their lands and wealth to the church." (p392)

452 "In 452 Attila (the Hun) invaded Italy but was persuaded to withdraw...Meanwhile another Germanic people, the Vandals...controlled much of the coast. They mastered the sea and in 455 dared to attack Rome itself....The next two decades were filled with wars against the Vandals" (HB p182)

476 German general Odoacer deposed the Western Emperor and proclaims himself king, thus ending the Western Roman Empire.. The Church gains supreme political power for the next 1000 years. "Odoacer...was himself overthrown in 493 by Theodoric, chief of a group of Ostrogoths,...The Ostrogoths were Arian Christians, but tolerant, like the Visigoths" (HB 185)

496 "The Romans celebrated their feast of Lupercalia as a lover's festival for young people....After the spread of Christianity, churchmen tried to give Christian meaning to the pagan festival. In 496, Pope Gelasius changed the Lupercalia festival of February 15 to Saint Valentine's Day on February 14. But the sentimental meaning of the old festival has remained to the present time." "The festival honored Juno, the Roman goddess of women and marriage, and Pan, the god of nature." "Historians disagree about the identity of St. Valentine. One St. Valentine was a priest who lived in Rome during the 200's under Emperor Claudius II. The Romans jailed him for aiding persecuted Christians....About A.D. 270, the Romans beheaded him on Palatine Hill... Another St. Valentine was a bishop of Terni....He was beheaded in Rome about A.D. 273." (W p206-208)

500 King Arthur ruled Briton during this century. (NOTE #12) "One of the striking facts of the history of Christianity is that after the fifth century creative original thought became less and less The Dark Ages or Middle Ages were dark to historian writing. We can rightly apply this term to the period from 476-1453. Civilization almost completely disappeared. People accepted popular stories as true and forgot many of the arts and crafts of the ancient world. Few persons received any schooling. Poverty prevailed, particularly in Europe..."religiously, Christianity of the Middle Ages or Dark ages was united under the authority of the Catholic Church...many church man were also rich and powerful. They controlled land given or willed to the church. These lands were rich and valuable...The clergy became as much a noble class as the knights and barons...the clergy forced the lords to respect religion...The influence of the Church was so great that even powerful nobles often yielded to its dictates."(W) "frequent...except for minority groups it took as final the conclusions reached in the 'ecumenical' councils."(H. pg173)

"One of the Popes expressly forbade any special ecclesiastical dress, but the fact that he found it necessary to issue this prohibition may be evidence that such costumes were beginning to be worn..." (H. pg 211)

Western Empire was replaced by the Eastern Byzantine Empire. Meanwhile the Arabic Islamic empire continued to advance.

The "Way o Kami" became known as "Shinto" in Japan. This was to differentiate between Buddist. Shinto is known for: Shrines, Alters, Children giving protection, ancestor worship.

553 Emperor Justinian addresses Pope John II and said "we do not permit that any question be raised as to anything which concerns the state of the churches, however plain and certain it be, that be not also made known to your Holiness, who is the Head of all the holy churches..." This course developed the division of the clergy and the laity.

568 The Lombards were "an ancient Germanic people" and "In 568, under the leadership of Alboin, they invaded N. Italy and established a kingdom...."Paganism and Arianism, which were at first the prevalent faiths of the Lombards, gradually lost out to Catholicism....Lombard law combined Germanic and Roman Traditions."

570 Mohammed is born. He died in 632. "In the Darkest ages of Europe they (Arabs) produced a civilization far more richly endowed than the civilization of the West...where Byzantium stood still, Islam unswervingly maintained its onward march" (by invading the Empire)(CC p215)

Mohummad founded the Quran writing, and the Islam/Moslem religion. They are 17% of the world population today

595 Pope Gregory the Great validates the doctrine of purgatory. "By the time of Pope Gregory I (590-604) the collapse of the Westen Empire left the Roman bishop the real ruler of much of central Italy." (HB p130)

610 All Saints' Day (Feast of All Holy Martyrs) is first observed on May 13. An Irish superstition says that a man named Jack could not enter heaven or hell so "he had to walk the earth with his lantern until Judgment Day...From the Druidic beliefs comes the present-day use of witches, ghosts, and cats in Halloween festivities. The Druids had an autumn festival called Samhain or summer's end. The custom of using leaves, pumpkins, and cornstalks as Halloween decorations comes from the Druids. In the 700's the Roman Catholic Church named November 1 as All Saints' Day. The old pagan customs and the Christian feast day were combined into the Halloween festival." (W 'Halloween' p25-26)

622 Mohummad immigrated from Mecca to Medina. Moslem dates revolve around this year off light. Within one century This Arabic empire stretched from India, N.Africa, & Spain. At its peak this empire reached farther than the Roman Empire.

650 Alexandria, Damascas, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, parts of Africa and Asia Minor were over run by the Arabs. Later, the Western church was shocked to see Islam moving through Spain into France, within 100 miles of Paris. Many Catholics embraced the Muslim culture.

692 The Council of Constaninople was held. It helped separate the Eastern and Western section of the Catholic Church. In opposition to Rome it permitted deacons to marry and forbid fasting on Saturdays.

717-741 At the Council at Constantinople, "Emperor Leo III launched an attack on the use of icons...The patriarchal bishop of Rome dared to condemn iconoclasm, that is, the destruction of icons. The Emperor retaliated by removing Sicily, southern Italy and the entire western part of the Balkans and Greece from the patriarchate of Rome and into the patriarch ate of Constantinople...A synod of 338 bishops met at Constantinople in 754 and described all use of icons as idolatry. All remaining icons must be destroyed. Supporters of icons were excommunicated, mutilated and sent into exile. (HB p245-247)

754 Under Contantine V a council condemned icons. The Pope, the bishops of Antioch, Jersulem and Antioch were not represented. Severe Persecutions broke out because of it. "The Emperor also attempted to limit the cult of saint-worship, by destroying relics and condemning prayers made to saints... John Mansour...better known as John of Damascus was the greatest theologian ofthe 8th century. He is recognized today by the Orthodox churches as the last of the great teachers of the early church, the so-called 'Fathers'....Although it was wrong to worship an icon, the presence of an icon of Christ could instruct and assist the believer in the worship of the true Christ. Icons should be honoured and venerated in much the same way as the Bible, or the symbol of the cross."(HB p247-248)

784 By the energetic measures of Constantine V, an ecumenical council was formed which abolishes image worship.

787 "Emperor Leo V...decided that iconoclasm should again become the official policy of his government" (HB p248)

The Second Nicene Council--It was declared that veneration paid to Mary image passed on to her, and that he who adored the image adored the original. Although..In the Council it was determined that "As the sacred and life-giving cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints...to be revered by all who might see them...and whoever adores the image adores in it the reality of what is there represented"

800 December 25-the Pope crowned blood-stained Charles the Great (Charlemagne) emperor. He taught the doctrine of "divine right of Kings", which made his subjects believe that their religious duty was to unquestionably obey their ruler. "The Roman Empire was reborn at the precise moment when the crown touched the head of Charlemagne...In the East the Byzantine Emperors ruled and called themselves Roman; in the West Charlemagne ruled as Roman Emperor in fact and in name."(CC p229)

"By the beginning of the 7th century, many of the cities of the Empire had one (or more) local saint who was revered as intercessor and protector." (HB p244)

842 "He persuaded Emperor Theophilus (829-42)to take a more strongly iconoclastic line, with capital punishment or exile for all who spoke out against it." (HB p249) The Council of Constantinople reintroduces images.

843 The eastern church disagreed on the nature of Christ, and the role of the Pope. Icons were prohibited, then sanctioned.

867 The first split between the Western and the Eastern churches takes place.

962 Otto II was crowned by Pope XII to be the Emperor of the 'Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation'. This Empire was removed in 1806. "Otto managed to establish his supremacy even over the popes, making them swear loyalty to him, and actually deposing John XII" (Co v4 pg564) This is the start of the First German Reich.

1050 "Ratramnus in the 9th century was one of the last writers to describe the elements at the eucharist as 'symbols', but his book was condemned in 1050. He opposed Paschasius who took the 'realist' doctrine a long step further towards transubstantiation." (HB p257)

1054 The final Schism between the Roman and The Greek Orthodox churches occurred. " The Paulicians were a Christian group who appeared in the eastern parts of the Byzantine Empire after 650....The Paulicians claimed that this evil deity was the creator and god of this world. The true God of heaven, they said, was opposed to all material things. In order to save people's spirits from the evil of the physical world, the true god sent an angel who appeared to be a man, Jesus...In the 9th century, the Empress Theodora ordered the massacre of tens of thousands of Paulicians, who were most numerous in the area of Armenia...the emperors moved many Paulicians from their Armenia homeland to Balkans (Bulgaria)..The Bulgars adopted Paulician ideas into a new religious system that acquired the name 'Bogomilism'....When the Turks destroyed the Bulgarian .Empire in 1393 the sect of the Bogomils disappeared. Paulicians continued to exist in Armenia into the 19th century." (HB p245, 246)

1095-1099 Pope Urban II calls on European Catholics to take up the sword to depose Islam from the holy lands. The First Crusade is underway resulting in the capture of Jerusalem. Historian H.G. Wells quoted "The slaughter was terrible; the blood of the conquered ran down the streets until men splashed in blood as they rode". Examples are the massacres of Worms, Mainz, and Colgne. These 'Holy Wars' or Crusades lasted foremost of 2 Centuries. Men gained indulgences for their heroism.

"The wide differences in physical appearances and culture, make it impossible to speak of Turks as an ethnic or racial family although Islam is the religion of the majority of Turks." (The Turks or Ottomans, who's invasions were a major factor in bringing about the crusades) "The real unifying link of the Turks is the very close relationship of their languages." (CE)

1150+ Called heretics, the 'Waldenses' spread to France, N.Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia. It's founder was Peter Wald.

1147-1149 The loss of the County of Edessa to Syrian Muslims initiated the Second Crusade.

1189-1192 The Third Crusade, undertaken after the Muslims retook Jerusalem, had as one of its leaders Richard I, 'the Lionhearted,' of England.

1202-1204 The Fourth Crusade. was diverted for lack of funds from Egypt to Constantinople. "The (resulting) pillage of Constantinople by the Crusaders is something that the Orthodox East has never forgotten or forgiven," says The Encyclopedia of Religion.

1212 The Children's Crusade brought death to thousands of German and French children before they even reached their destination.

1215 Pope Innocent III calls a council where he determined to "exterminate the whole pestilential race". That is the anti-catholic Albigenese and Waldenses (who advocated the reading of the Bible by the laity). The Albigenses belief is based more on Persian history than the Bible. The Waldenese rejected image worship, transubstantion, infant baptism, purgatory, worship of Mary, veneration of the cross, holidays, deathbed repentance, masses for the dead, priestly pardons and use of weapons. Infused with zeal from personally reading the scriptures, they went up and down the countryside of France in pairs reading and teaching others the scriptures. This laid the basis for the horrible inquisition that followed. Transubstantiation: The 4th Lateran Council adopted the creed of transubstaniation'...Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the Sacraments of the alter under the species of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated into the body, and the wine into blood, by divine power" (R v11 p494)

1217-1221 The Fifth Crusade, the last under papal control, failed because of flawed leadership and clergy interference.

1228-1229 The Sixth Crusade was led by Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, whom Pope Gregory IX had previously excommunicated.

1248 The Seventh Crusade was starts and is led by Louis IX of France and ended in 1254.

1250 The Rosary: "a string of beads ...used in the Roman Catholic Church to aid in the reciting of a fixed number of Our Father's and Hail Mary's ... Quasi-analogues may be traced in non-Christian religions, as among the Tibetan Buddhists...Mohamedans....The custom of repeatedly reciting the Our Fathers arose in the monastic life in Egypt at an early time...The Hail Mary..on the other hand, first became a regular prayer in the second half of the 11th century, though it was not until about the 13th century that it was generally adopted." (Rv10p92) "Rosary may have originated in Hindu India and were adopted by an offshoot of Hinduism...traditionally ascribed to St. Dominic in the 13th century, the Christian rosary in fact began earlier." (A v23 p186).

1252 Pope Innocent IV issues the bull "Ad extirpande" which allowed torture. "Being burned at the stake, the usual method employed to put heretics to death...had its symbolism, implying that by administering this kind of punishment, the church was not guilty of shedding blood."

1270-1272 The Eighth Crusade, also led by Louis IX, collapsed after his death in North Africa. During the Inquisitions thousands were burned at the stake. Historian Will Durant commented, "Making every allowance required to an historian and permitted to a Christian, we must rank the Inquisition....as among the darkest blots on the record of mankind, revealing a ferocity unknown in any beast."

1274 The Council of Trent approves the Hellfire doctrine.

1378 The Great Schism, which is the"division in the Roman Catholic Church from 1378-1417, There is no question of faith or practice involved: the schism was a matter of person and politics" "The political division of East and West was paralleled by the religious schism...between the Roman and the orthodox church. Later culminating in a complete break (1054) (CE) "Nevertheless a number of events of the 14th and 15th centuries did tend to weaken the power of the Church in Germany...the unblushing attempts of several pontiffs to secure political control in Germany; and the Great Schism, 1378-1415, during which several co-popes spent their energies in excommunicating one another, all tended to decrease respect for the papacy" ()

1379 Feeling that the ordinary peasant ought to be preached to, John Wycliff set about translating the Bible from Latin into English. The Bible is viewed as property of the church and can be explained solely by the priests. His complete Bible was issued in 1384. His group, the Lollards preached publicly with literature.

1384 On December 31 Wycliff dies. He fought against the doctrine of transubstantiation.

1400+ A program was started by the Roman Catholics to convert the world of Heathens. Explorations and colonizing took place in Africa (became slaves), . in the Americas, and of the Eskimos, and Aborigines. This helping of others in most cases only mixed their former beliefs with the catholic.

1401 William Sawtry, a prominent Lollard, is burned at the stake in Smithfield Cattle Market, London for denying transubstantiation. In 1410 John Badby is burned and then in 1417 Sir John Oldcastle is burned at the stake for the same heresy as William Sawtry.

1408 The Council of Oxford decrees a condemnation of any unauthorized Bibles.

1414 At the 16th Council Pope John XXIII vehemently condemns the writings of John Wycliff and John Huss, who denied Papacy and the churches being founded on Peter. Huss is burned alive before the eyes of the assembled prelates. "The burning of Huss led to a series of bitter Hussite Wars lasting form 1420-33." () Wycliff's body was to be dug up and burned along with his books. It was carried out in 1428. The council started a wave of fanatical persecutions. A law is enacted that penalized persons who read the scriptures in English. They were to forfeit their land, cattle, goods, and life.

The Empire had 3 popes at once. The council of Constance said Popes didn't have the final say. This weakened the churches influence.

1453 "Byzantine Empire extends from 330 to 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Turks (the Arabic Moslems). They called the city Istanbul....The Byzantine religious traditions survives today in the Eastern Orthodox Churches" (W B p638) This is the Islams Inroad and marks the end of the Dark Ages.

1456 The new 'artificial writing' prints it's first Bible in Gutenburg on their press. Now Bibles can be printed faster than they were burned.

1457 The Council of Avignon approves the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.. The Pope on December 10, 1854 decreed "In honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory of the Virgin Mother of God,...We declare, pronounce, and define the doctrine which holds that the most blessed Virgin Mary was, in the first instant of her conception,...preserved free from every stain of original sin..." (R v5 p455)

1492 Columbus sets out on his first sailing journey.

1500+ The Western Church started breaking into a large number of local territorial churches.

1513 Pope Leo X pronounced the soul's immortality to be an orthodox article of Catholicism. Luther later replies to this.

1517 Martin Luther nails 95 thesis to the church door at Wittenburg, Germany. This touched off the "Protestant Reformation". Luther echoed many of Wycliff's beliefs. Luther in 'Defense', proposition 27, said: "I permit the Pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful--such as 'the soul is the substantial form of the human body,' 'that the soul is immortal,' with all those monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of decretals." It was in the 27th of his 95 thesis that Luther thus denied the immortality of the human soul, but his followers removed it together with another one, and then divided two others to keep the number of these to 95.

1525 Tyndale begins printing his English translation in Cologne. In the forward of his translation he wrote "in putting the departed souls in heaven, hell, or purgatory you destroy the arguments where with Christ and Paul prove the resurrection...If the soul be in heaven, tell me what cause is there for the resurrection?" He also noted that the doctrine originated with "The heathen philosophers" On 1 John "5:7 This verse has not been found in Greek in any manuscript in or out of the New Testament earlier than the thirteenth century. It does not appear in any Greek manuscript of 1 John before the fifteenth century, when one cursive has it; one from the sixteenth also contains the reading. These are the only Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in which it has ever been found. But it occurs in no ancient Greek manuscript or Greek Christian writer or in any of the oriental versions. Its chief support is in two Old Latin manuscripts of the sixth and eighth centuries and in some manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate, but not the oldest ones. Erasmus did not include it in his first edition of the New Testament in Greek (1516) nor in his second (1519). When criticized for the omission, he rashly said that if anyone could show him a Greek manuscript containing the passage he would insert it, and the sixteenth century Codex Montfortianus containing it was brought to his attention. He felt obligated to include the reading in his third edition (1522), and it was this edition that Tyndale used in making his translation of the Greek Testament (1525). From Tyndale the verse found its way into the King James Version. It is universally discredited by Greek scholars and editors of the Greek text of the New Testament." (The Goodspeed Parallel New Testament)

The Anabaptist broke off from Zwingli, Many died for their belief against infant baptism, and weapons.

1534 Luther's complete version of the Bible is released. England broke from the Church, later Scotland under John Knox, then France and Poland.

1535-1536 Tyndale is captured in Antwerp. Despite efforts of Thomas Cromwell to save him, he is tried for heresy, condemned, strangled, and his body is burned.

1537 One year after Tyndale's death King Henry VIII authorizes the use of Tyndales Bible.

1545 The Council of Trent approves the purgatory doctrine, forbids divorce for any grounds, and approves of celibacy.

1546 Council of Trent (13 Apocryphal books put into Bible).

1550+ Protestantism gained legal recognition. They had no central control of doctrine, tolerance and liberalism brought divisions and nationalism.. Anabaptists hold a council and declare that Christ is not God. Persecutions scattered the congregations.

1553 On October 27, John Calvin has Michael Servetus burned at the stake for denying the "Most Holy Trinity".

1555 Stephanus' Latin Bible was the first showing the present divisions of the Bible chapters and verses.

1559 Pope Paul IV prohibited the printing of the Bible without the Church granting it.

1572 Huguenots (French Protestants) were massacred of St. Bartholomews Day. Catholics killed thousands. Later they fought back.

1582 The English version ofthe Douay Bible is printed for the Catholics.

1588 England gained Naval Superiority over Spain through the Spanish Armada.

1600 Bishop Tunstall authorizes the burning of Tyndale's Bible using the decree of 1408.

This century science, intellectual/enlightenment movements were born.

1604 Faustus Socinus dies. He is an outstanding figure in the anti-trinitarian movement in Poland. They were known as Socinians and were. actively missionary until persecutions came to Poland.

1611 King James comes out with a new Bible, in English, which can be read by all. "It was, indeed, the third Authorized English Bible, having been proceeded by the Great Bible of 1539 and the Bishops' Bible of 1568, which were the first and second Authorized Bibles, that is, Bibles authorized by the church to be read in public worship. A fourth Authorized Bible was the English Revised Version of 1885, which was authorized by the Convocation of Canterbury for the southern half of the Church of England. But in 1611 the progress of the English Bible stopped....But now the wholesome practice of revision ceased and with the King James Version the English Bible became fixed...So it has come about that all the standard forms of the English Bible employ the English ofthe Elizabethan age. That was certainly a noble English in its day, but the march of the English language had only begun...Some fine old words have disappeared...and many other have taken on meaning very different from those Tyndale found in them." (PB p v))

1618 - 48 The '30 Year War' between German Protestants and Catholics, there were dozens more like it.

1620 The Puritans (pilgrims), escaping from Charles I, land at Plymouth, Mass. "The Puritan Church of England not only ignored the so-called birthday of Jesus, but prosecuted any unregenerated souls who dared to keep it in secret" (MacLeans 1/6/62)

1642-1649 'Puritan Revolution' war between King Charles and Puritans. Quakers were born.

"CHRISTMAS, the Christian festival or Mass celebrating the nativity of Christ, commonly observed annually by the Western churches on Dec. 25, and by the Eastern churches on Jan. 7. The date of the Western Christmas fell on a day which to the Romans was sacred as the natalis invicti solis of Mithraism and to the Angles of early Britain was modra niht, or mother's night, in connection with the druidism. Before the 5th century there was no common acknowledgment of Dec. 25 as the Christ mass,and there was no agreement on the date of Christ's birth. Even in the earliest mention of the day there is nothing to indicate that it was kept as a festival. In 1644 the Christmas observance was forbidden by Act of the English Parliament, but Charles II revived it at the Restoration, though the people of Scotland and some of the colonies of New England adhered to the Puritan rule not to observe the day." (Co, Christmas, p65)

1658-1659 John Casimia, a former Jesuit, reigned in Poland. Socinians were banished from Poland.

1681 Quakers received a colony called Pennsylvania, through William Penn. Protestant Pietism began missionary journeys for them.

1700 This century began the Industrial Revolution. This brought on many pseudo religions, like Social movements (Civil Religion, Social Gospel, Liberation Theology), socialism, atheism, communism, fascism, maoism (China), liberal humanism, Deism (Science & Nature - not the Bible.)

1763 Treaty of Paris called England a world power. They colonized nearly 1/4 of the earths land. America and Britian joined because they had common language, principles and policies. 1776 The Constitution of the United States is signed and opened the way for freedom of worship.

1799 Napoleon takes the Pope as prisoner. - The Rosetta stone was found which helped to understand Egyptian hieroglyphics.

1806 The Holy Roman Empire is dissolved. The ends the First German Reich. "Mormons,...a society founded by Joseph Smith (1805-44)...as the result of 'visions.' One of these enabled him to obtain 'the sacred records, an abridgment of the history kept by the ancient inhabitants of America,... engraved on plates which had the appearance of gold.' These records, constituting the Book of Mormon." ()

1832 Presbyterians began. They are highly tolerant, had 118 sects in 1970, including the Church of Christ.

1840 Ellen Gould White had a vision, founded the 7th Day Adventists. (Advent means the coming of Christ)

1859 Darwin creates the theory of evolution.

1870 The Vatical Council declares the Pope infallible. Due to evolution of the English language, the King James Bible now sounds archaic and is difficult to read. It is revised in 1870

"In 1870, (Otto Von) Bismark led Prussia against France in a war to determine the first rank in Europe; on January 18, 1871, in Versailles, he proclaimed a new German Empire - The Second Reich. The first having been the Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806" (Oregonian 3/18/90)

1878 The Salvation Army started to help save souls with social help.

1879 Mary Baker founded Christian science and promoted healing yourself with Gods power. Watchtower began to be published.

1914 World War I.

1918 - 20 League of Nations formed by U.S. President and Britians Prime Minister.

1927 The Hitler's Third Reich killed 100,000 handicapped people and 400,000 were sterilized who were mental or moral lunatics.

1931 - 39 World War II. The League of Nations is dissolved. Nationalism now has more influence than religion.

1945 United Nations formed with 50 nations as members.

1948 World Council of Churches was formed.

1965-89 Protestants five main line religions dropped 20%.

1989 The worlds religious leaders joined for the largest ecumenical prayer service, for peace.

 

NOTE #1 Pagan religions usually accepted the possibility that all gods were real although their own were the strongest. (Compare 30 BC) The overthrow of a nation generally was followed by an intermixing of the gods of those nations. Remember Daniel had a high political position and was close to the deposed king of Babylon (conquered by Persia) and Darius the Mede (Persian ally). Both Darius and Cyrus (King of Persia) would have known Biblical facts and have heard of the power of the Jewish God. Both acknowledged Jehovah as the supreme God. Although Cyrus reportedly did the same to a few other nations which came under his jurisdiction. With such strong ties with the Jews, it should be no surprise that a form of the Persian religion would take on many similarities to the Jewish religion.

NOTE #2 The Jews believed that Jehovah was the only God who is over all. The philosophy that God was a triune God (which included Jehovah, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) was a gradual evolution of thought which took about 400 years to complete, and culminated by resolving Arian controversy.

NOTE #3 At Christs death, the Christian congregation was born. Grew from 120 to 3000 at Pentecost and remained intact until 97.

NOTE #4: Jersulem was destroyed twice in Biblical history. Once for an interfaith movement which merged worship of pagan religions with true worship. The second time they had set up traditions and laws which governed every aspect of life. Jesus had noted that this action invalidate the word of God and it ultimately was instrumental in their rejection of the Christ. In the Chart note how Christianity over time has followed a parallel course. Through public pressure, political ambition, and the influence of Greek philosophy Christian doctrine gradually merged with popular beliefs and traditions. Doctrines accepted today were not such in the early Church. Debates over issues raged for hundreds of years and were often settled not by scriptural principles but by political clout.

Note #5 From his comments at 1 John 2:18-19, John evidently sees those changes already taking place. See 2 Thess. 2:3-4 Acts 20:28-30 2 Tim. 4:3,4.

NOTE #6 Paganism was becoming unfashionable. Christianity was quickly becoming a strong political movement in the Empire. As a result there was a great influx of pagans into the Church. There are varying opinions on how this influenced Christian thought. However, led by Arius and Athanasius, Christians now enter the political arena to establish their views. The nature of Christ becomes the first battle to be fought with this new found power of the Church. "the Arian controversy lay a great obstacle to the realization of Constantine's idea of a universal Empire which was to be attained by aid of uniformity of divine worship." Constantine, not the Church, will call the Nicene Council to resolve the controversy.

NOTE #7 If birthdays were important to early Christians, would Christ's birthday have been forgotten?

NOTE #8 To have a fair analysis of Arius we must realize that much of his works were burned.