The First Council of Nicaea by V.Surikov 1876
The Great False Church LIE
Herbert Armstrong inherited an anti-Catholic narrative from an extreme 19th Century Protestant (Alexander Hislop) and embellished it with some of the false history created by Sabbatarian Protestants written in the same era. According to this narrative, a great false church had arisen centered on Rome and founded on the ancient pagan traditions which preceded it. Indeed, for Herbie and his followers, the Roman Catholic Church was the Great Whore of Babylon mentioned in the book of Revelation! Indeed, central to Herbie's narrative was a grand satanic conspiracy to change the day of Christian worship from the Saturday Sabbath to the Pagan Day of the Sun which took place at the behest of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century. The only problem with this narrative is that it is NOT supported by Scripture or the historical sources available to us!
Unfortunately, this false history of Christianity continues to be trotted out to the members of the Armstrong Churches of God to this day! Perhaps, the most conspicuous of these is Bob Thiel of the so-called Continuing Church of God, but most of the other descendants of the Worldwide Church of God also continue to offer this false history to their members and the world. Indeed, even the so-called "liberal" ACOGs, like the Church of God International continue to promulgate Herbie's lie!
Notice this recent statement from CGI Medina's Jeff Flanick which is excerpted from a post he wrote about the new pope: The Council of Nicaea paved the way to officially “change” the Sabbath to Sunday, initiated the introduction of the doctrine of the Trinity, and fully replaced God’s Passover with a solar calculated “Easter” (in a convoluted and twisted formula) to “justly” separate themselves from Jewish worshippers of the “Way” concerning Pascha {Passover}). The Council, in conjunction with Emperor Constantine, paved the way to institutional ‘religion’ and the marriage of church and state. (Please take note, I’ve provided some links for your consideration about the First Council of Nicaea at the end of this article. I’m sure you will find them very interesting and quite educational!)
Which Lion Should We Follow? by Jeff Flanick of the Medina CGI.
From the very first source which Jeff cited (an article for The Sabbath Sentinel entitled
The Council of Nicaea and the Sabbath, we read: Hosius of Cordova was a religious advisor to Constantine and presided over the council until the emperor arrived. Hosius was likely the one to convene the meeting and invited the emperor to participate and make final decisions – in a manner like Arles. The emperor arrived about a month into the proceedings of Nicaea. At the council, decisions were made concerning Arius and the Meletians. Twenty canons, or church principles, were also passed. None of them mention the seventh-day Sabbath. At the end of the meeting, there was a letter composed by Constantine which mandated that all churches follow the Roman rite as it comes to the observance of Pascha. This composition is the basis for some who claim that Constantine changed the Sabbath. Likewise, in the conclusion to this same article, we read: The rulings at Nicaea did not stop people from keeping Pascha in a manner like the Jewish people. References to Christians keeping Passover like the Jewish people are found decades later in writers such as John Chrysostom (Eight Homilies Against the Jews) and Epiphanius (Panarion, sections 50 and 70) as well as church councils such as the Councils of Antioch (341) and Laodicea (364). Many people are not aware the Nicaea addressed many of the same issues as the Council of Arles eleven years earlier. This knowledge and the proper context of Constantine’s letter help us to understand that Nicaea had zero impact on the Sabbath.
Jeff's second source, an article penned for the United Methodist Insight titled
The Sin of Nicaea, informs us that: In 325 C.E., just 12 years after the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be a legal and acceptable religion, he convened the Christian bishops from across the Roman Empire at the Council of Nicaea to come to agreement about the official doctrines of the church. He was particularly concerned about the divisions in the church in relation to a way of thinking called Arianism, which held a view of Jesus as not being co-eternal with the Father and thus being distinct from and subordinate to the Father. A little later, in the same article, we read: There is nothing wrong or inappropriate about church leaders coming together to seek common understanding and agreement about their views concerning the divinity of Jesus. That is not the problem with the Council of Nicaea. The sin of Nicaea is not the seeking of common understanding, rather it was what was done to those who dissented from the majority view. Once again, there is NO mention of the Sabbath!
Likewise, Jeff's third source, an article from Stand to Reason titled
The Doctrine of the Trinity at Nicaea and Chalcedon included Nicaea as an important step in the formulation of Trinitarian theology. Moreover, the author made clear that the story of the development of this doctrine is one of a careful and faithful process. Indeed, in the opening to the article, we read: The formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is a history of the refinement of terms and philosophical categories. Proper terminology was a primary issue of the ecumenical councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, and so was precision of thought and the philosophical categories used to characterize the Trinitarian and Christological doctrines. The Council of Nicaea resolved the question of Jesus’ deity, but led to further dissent about Jesus’ human and divine natures. These issues culminated in the expression of the doctrine at Chalcedon. Continuing, we read: The impressive thought and debate that went into the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon produced biblically sound, but also intellectually virtuous doctrines. F.F. Bruce expresses the importance of accurate language in the creeds: “Inasmuch as the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity are embedded in the New Testament, although not explicitly formulated there, we must make the effort of wrestling with difficult terminology if we are not to fall an easy prey to misunderstanding or to actual heresy.” Doctrinal development requires rigorous intellectual skills and sound philosophic categories to accurately apply God’s revelation.
Do we discern a pattern beginning to emerge with Jeff's sources? NONE of them support his and Herbie's narrative about the Roman Catholic Church or traditional Christianity! The same is also true of the other two sources jeff provided.
What is the real history of the Church and its relation to the Sabbath, doctrine of the Trinity, and the observance of Pascha/Easter? The real story is that the relationship of Christians to the commandments of Torah was clearly spelled out in the canonical books of Acts and Galatians (Acts 15:1-30 and Galatians 2:1-16). Yes, Jesus and his original twelve apostles observed the commandments of Torah, because they were JEWS! Gentiles didn't have any tradition of a weekly Holy Day, like the Sabbath!
The truth is that after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem (and the Temple) in 70 C.E., Sabbath and festival observance ceased among Jews and Jewish Christians! Indeed, by the end of the First Century, the observance of the Lord's Day (commemorating the resurrection of Christ) was almost universal. Likewise, the Trinity is implicit in the writings of the New Testament (see John 1:1-34, 10:30, 14:16-17, Matthew 3:16-17, 28: 19, Luke 1:35, I Corinthians 8:6, 12:13, II Corinthians 13:14, Colossians 2:9, etc.). As for Pascha/Easter, the sources already cited suggest that the Council of Nicaea's purpose was to standardize its observance to one day each year on the Roman calendar (which most of the known world was using).
In other posts on this blog, we have also quoted from the writings of early Christians - proving that things like Christians using Sunday to worship originated in the First Century (see The Didache, the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, and the writings of Justin Martyr) and was already common practice by the time of Constantine and the Council of Nicaea.
Finally, we have the
Church History composed by Eusebius in the Fourth Century. In that history, we see a frank account of the unsettled nature of the canon for the first two hundred years of the Church's history (see Book 3, Chapter 25). He also had this to say about a sect of early Christians who continued to observe the tenets of Torah, including the Sabbath:
1. The evil demon, however, being unable to tear certain others from their allegiance to the Christ of God, yet found them susceptible in a different direction, and so brought them over to his own purposes. The ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites, because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ.
2. For they considered him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.
3. There were others, however, besides them, that were of the same name, but avoided the strange and absurd beliefs of the former, and did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, inasmuch as they also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed, being God, Word, and Wisdom, they turned aside into the impiety of the former, especially when they, like them, endeavored to observe strictly the bodily worship of the law.
4. These men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle, whom they called an apostate from the law; and they used only the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews and made small account of the rest.
5. The Sabbath and the rest of the discipline of the Jews they observed just like them, but at the same time, like us, they celebrated the Lord's days as a memorial of the resurrection of the Saviour.
6. Wherefore, in consequence of such a course they received the name of Ebionites, which signified the poverty of their understanding. For this is the name by which a poor man is called among the Hebrews.
(See Church History, Book 3, Chapter 27, "The Heresy of the Ebionites")
Thus, we see that Herbie's and Jeff's narrative about Church history is NOT consistent with the sources available to us. Their narrative regarding the "change" from Sabbath to Sunday happening in the Fourth Century under the Roman Emperor Constantine is NOT supported by the evidence available to us. Likewise, their attack on the Trinity fails on both the Scriptural and historical fronts. In fact, their history of how Sunday, the Trinity, and Pascha/Easter were borrowed from paganism and instituted by the Great False Church is shown to be a bold-faced lie! Even so, don't look for them to ever update their historical accounts of Church history, because their false historical narrative supports their heretical teachings. After all, if the truth of what actually happened in the past is too embarrassing, or doesn't support your narrative, you simply modify it - right?
Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix
