Did the Chruch of Rome select writings for the Bible?

[Zzyzx]

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Did the Chruch of Rome select writings to be included in the Bible?

If so, might that indicate a bias toward writings that were acceptable to / in Rome and/or writings that were in accord with Roman practices and policies?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 80 by historia]

Odd, I think they did, what you did, re-wrote it to make it say what they wanted, despite all evidence to the contrary.

[Zzyzx]

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There is really nothing left to discuss on the main topic of the thread.

The OP has been answered, and those who were arguing that emperors were involved in the formation of the canon could not cite any evidence or scholarship to support that assertion.

Before taking a victory lap it might be prudent to re-read the OP

Did the Church of Rome select writings to be included in the Bible?

If so, might that indicate a bias toward writings that were acceptable to / in Rome and/or writings that were in accord with Roman practices and policies?

Have Roman churches been eliminated as having selected writings to be included in the Bible?

Has it been determined that there was no bias toward writings acceptable to Rome?

[historia]

Did the Church of Rome select writings to be included in the Bible?

If so, might that indicate a bias toward writings that were acceptable to / in Rome and/or writings that were in accord with Roman practices and policies?

Have Roman churches been eliminated as having selected writings to be included in the Bible?

As I mentioned in post 16, all (proto-) orthodox churches were involved in the 200+ year process that resulted in the formation of the New Testament cannon. That included the churches in Rome too.

Has it been determined that there was no bias toward writings acceptable to Rome?

What do you mean by "Rome"? The Roman government? If someone wants to assert there was bias toward writings acceptable "to Rome," it's up to them to cite evidence and scholarship to substantiate the claim.

[Tetragrammaton]

I thought you were referring to the pre-orthodox Christians

I am. Throughout the thread I've used the term "orthodox" in reference to these Christians. Some scholars prefer the term "proto-orthodox," which is fine by me. If my use of "orthodox" has confused you, I'm happy to use the term "proto-orthodox" instead for added clarity.

You proved you did not know about it when you tried to criticize me about the church of Rome.
It is too late now to do your research and then pretend you knew already.
Just be honest about it.

Although I have to point out your equating orthodox Christianity with the "church of Rome" is unusual and anachronistic. Orthodox Christians lived in all areas of the empire. And, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, the bishop of Rome was simply one patriarch among many.

First of all I did not say "bishop of Rome", but Church of Rome, which means the church's philosophy, which means not just in rome.(strawman?)

"I have to point out your equating orthodox Christianity with the "church of Rome" is unusual and anachronistic."

This proves you did not know that the Orthodox christian theology originates mostly from the church of Rome and throughout your conversation you claimed that all the quotes about christian persecution were orthodox.
In fact you called them all orthodox, which indicates that you were assuming they were all orthodox which in fact they could not be.
This would completely invalidate your argument that orthodox Christians were persecuted for not offering sacrifice.

Clearly showing to us all that you did not even know there were churches that were not proto-Orthodox and automatically assumed they were.

Where my entire argument was that there is no evidence for proto-orthodox persecution.

Second, what he is saying here is exactly what the the primary sources, scholars, and encyclopedia articles above have also said: orthodox Christians were persecuted because they denied the existence of the Roman gods and refused to worship and perform sacrifices.

Yes we agree here

We agree here that those who were proto-ortodox christians and refused to follow the law, were persecuted, AND NOT that proto-ortodox christianis were persecuted because they were not following the law.
One is an exception and the other is a generalization.

I do not deny that there might have been few individual proto-ortodox christians who would break the law for whatever reason(their different faith) but as the church of Rome stands, it never endorsed the idea to not follow roman law, instead it promoted the idea to follow it as I quoted before.

Stop using straw-mans please.

You have repeatedly asserted that (proto-)orthodox Christians were not persecuted for refusing to sacrifice to the gods/emperor, since, according to you, their theology required them to follow all Roman laws, even if those laws involved sacrificing to the gods/emperor.

Yes proto-ortodox Christians were ordered by the church of Rome at the time to follow all roman laws as I have quoted before.
The church of Rome so much supported the Romans that it took popular roman pagan beliefs and added them to Christianity like Christmas and Easter.

These are clear evidence of how doctrine was changed just to be liked by the Romans for personal gain.(power)
Claiming that the church of Rome would do the opposite against it's own interests is ridiculous.

If you wish to claim that the church of Rome was against Christians from following roman law you need to provide evidence.

What you have shown thus far is not about (proto-)orthodox Christians but about any individual Christians that could easily be the heretics the church of Rome was persecuting, which later were being used by Orthodox christian writers as claims of persecutions for political gain.

So either you agreed here in haste, or your argument appears confused.

You are either confused or in denial that you have presented no evidence of the church of Rome((proto-)orthodox Christianity) ever being persecuted for their faith.
In fact you seem to find it very hard to support the idea that the church of Rome supported the idea of going against roman law.

but that is not what you said before, you claimed that Christians were persecuted for their faith, for being Orthodox Christians.

I'm afraid we're talking past each other here.

No I quoted directly what you said, you are guilty of talking past my argument.

Whereas orthodox Christians refused to give in and were killed for their faith.

There is no evidence of (proto-)orthodox Christians even refused to give in to the roman laws officially.
What you have presented is mostly claims of post Constantine authors about individual Christians.

When I say that proto-orthodox Christians were persecuted "for their faith," I don't mean that they were persecuted simply for being Christians, as if Christianity were in-and-of-itself illegal. We already settled that in post 46.

Yes we settled that but you failed to understand the complexity of that conclusion.
It means that for the Romans, Christianity was not against roman laws, they did not see it as breaking their laws and it did not.

However you claimed that it was not some deluded/heretic Christians not following Christianity((proto-)orthodox Christians) that were persecuted but true believers the "orthodox Christians refused to give in and were killed for their faith."

I just saw the plain contradiction in your conclusions while you did not.

Rather, I'm saying that, when a government (or a mob or anyone else) forces a religious group to engage in religious practices that are expressly against their beliefs, and punishes them if they don't comply, that constitutes persecuting them "for their faith," as that phrase is commonly used.

Your bias makes you think that just because it is popular christian belief today that Jesus demands that a Christian does not sacrifice to false gods, it was valid back then for all Christians.

This is false, you are assuming that they were expressly against their beliefs.
It is your bias.
If the (proto-)orthodox Christianity(church of Rome) issued such an order the Romans would have saw Christianity as illegal and banned it/persecuted it, just like they did to the messianic movement(christinas) in the first century.

However we both agree that no such thing happened, so it leaves no other option to conclude that the Church of Rome (proto-)orthodox Christianity followed all roman laws
YES ALL of them.

There was no orthodox Christianity during the persecutions so you cannot call every single christian church/community part of the orthodox church.

Nowhere did I say that every single Christian church in the 3rd and 4th Century was orthodox. Rather, what I said was that those churches that were part of the (proto-) orthodox Christian community were geographically located in every part of the empire, not just in Rome.

No, you quoted people as orthodox Christians but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest what they were.
All your quotations are assumed orthodox Christians, according to you.

Your bias is running loose.

Also the church of rome was (proto-)orthodox Christianity and only the churches who submitted to the church of rome(yes all over the roman empire) were not persecuted later on in history.
By no means does that mean they all agreed with the church of rome, but they at least submitted to some aspects that the (proto-)orthodox Christianity was proposing.
Some did not and were persecuted for it.
(Your quotes might be of those persecuted churches)

You just called every single persecution quotation as (proto-)orthodox Christianity which is just wrong and filled with bias.

There is no passage in the gospels that says to not follow roman law.

So an argument could be made that those Christians that refused were not really Christians that follow their doctrine.

I suppose someone could make such an argument, but that would be a rather silly argument.

First of all, just because no passage in the gospels explicitly says you shouldn't follow Roman law, doesn't, of course, mean the gospels are saying you should follow every Roman law.

If we agreed upon the fact that Romans did not officially persecute Christians, then that means that some church leaders agreed to follow all roman laws.

Those that did not were killed and replaced by new church leaders that did.
Those entire church communities that refused were exterminated.
The church of Rome was not one of them, since it gained even more power rather then being exterminated.

Second, there is, of course, more to Christian scripture than just the gospels.

Cyprian,..

I already proved he is a liar and a hypocrite, what he says is irrelevant.

Him only shall you serve?" [Deuteronomy 6:13]

Sacrificing to pagan gods is not serving pagan gods, it is obeying roman law.

"He that sacrifices unto any gods, save unto the Lord only, shall be destroyed."
These are OT laws for the jews not for the Gentile.
The is hypocracy to the extreeme since the gentiles(christians) were famouse for breaking the 3 rd comandment of making a painting of jesus in basically every church.
Using OT text to support an agenda is typical for a propagandist and a hypocrite.

This is, of course, obvious to anyone with even a passing understanding of the Bible and early Christian literature.

Third, proto-orthodox Christian writers simply did not interpret Matthew 22:21 ("Render unto Casear") or Romans 13:1-6 ("Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities") as blanket commands that they should follow every Roman law even when it violated core Christian beliefs, as you seem to have interpreted it.

They interpreted exactly like that, they saw Jesus as telling them "slaves to obey your masters" no matter what, also they followed Jesus teaching to "be subject to the governing authorities"
The idea that they did not follow roman law is hilarious.
If you are under the heals of a fascist roman empire and your religion says love your enemy and obey your master, isn't it obvious to follow all their orders.
If there is nothing in the text that says to not offer sacrifice, you will offer sacrifice, since it is not against your faith.
Now the leaders of each church dictates your faith, so in the end if the bishops/leaders chose to follow/not follow roman law, they will tell their flock to do the same.
If the church of Rome wanted their flock to disobey roman law they would not have survived.

It is just your bias who makes you think otherwise.
Be reasonable and honest, if they broke a single law in Rome itself they would not have survived to become a state religion.
In fact those that did not, were exterminated whilst those that did lived and prospered.

Who lived and prospered to this day?
proto-orthodox Christians

Consider these examples:

What possible heretic Christians believed is irrelevant to your claim that proto-orthodox Christians believed this or acted on this.

There is no evience they officially believed it, which is a requirement for your claim that:

Whereas orthodox Christians refused to give in and were killed for their faith.

The point these proto-orthodox Christian writers make is plain:

Again you are making the same flawed assumption that all these writers are proto-orthodox Christians which you have presented no evidence of.

Christians are happy -- eager, even -- to follow the law, except when the law violates Christian religious mandates, and especially if they are being forced to worship idols or anything other than God. Such laws, in that case, should not be followed.

Some Christians yes, but you did not show that they were the proto-orthodox Christians.
Instead you generalized everybody as proto-orthodox Christian to support your argument.

It seems to me, then, this "argument," such that it is, is based on the faulty assumption that, just because a critic of Christianity today on an Internet message board can interpret a handful of passages in the Bible to mean that Christians should always obey the Roman laws, that must mean ancient proto-orthodox Christians shared that same interpretation.

They must have if they were promoted as the state religion in less then a century.
You do not go from near extermination to being so numerous that the emperor decides to use your popularity to unify his empire.

But when we look at actual proto-orthodox sources from this time period, as we just did, it turns out that assumption is completely mistaken.

No it turns out that you are making the assumption that every persecution was directed at proto-orthodox Christian instead of other Christians.

This was exactly the propaganda being put forward by the orthodox Christianity later on in history for political gain.
And you bought it hook line and sinker.

their beliefs are not christian beliefs, so they were persecuted not for being Christians but for having a perverted interpretation of christianity which did not conform to roman law.

It seems to me your objection here is operating on a kind of No True Scotsman fallacy.

The fallacy is committed if I said:
"They were not true Christians."
But what I said was that you are grouping up all Christian accounts as proto-orthodox Christian accounts, where we know for a fact that that is not the case.
We know that there were different Christians at the time with different doctrines.
Thus persecutions cannot be attributed for proto-orthodox Christians but an assessment of who was persecuted and why needs to be further studied.

Your over simplification is the fallacy.

You have simply asserted -- without citing any evidence or scholarship -- that proto-orthodox Christians always obeyed every law and were not persecuted for refusing to sacrifice to the gods. And then when I provided evidence to the contrary, you simply claimed those author's views aren't really Christian, or are not really (proto-)orthodox.

Yes because the facts show that proto-orthodox Christians increased in numbers and your same quotes support this fact.
I did point them out from your own same sources.

But if Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, and the other authors I cited -- most of whom were bishops or other leaders in the proto-orthodox community -- are not (proto-) orthodox, or part of the "church of Rome," as you would have it, then no one is! These are all proto-orthodox writers.

NO one is??????
What about the church of Rome that submitted to roman law?
What about the churches that did not have persecutions because they submitted?
What about the growing number of Christians to the point that the emperor made Christianity the state religion some years later?

IF the orthodox Christians supposedly died because they refused to offer sacrifice, how come the "other Christians" were in the minority?

Somehow proto-orthodox Christians are still alive and more popular then the rest?

As I said, later orthodox Christians writes used these people(other Christians) as a way to support the idea of persecution of ALL Christians(including proto-orthodox) for political again.

You made the claim about the killing of Christians and I replied to it and we have been discussing it all along.

Simply because I ignore when you twist the argument away from killings, it does not mean you are right to change subject.

here let me remind you about your own claim:

This persecution was directed at all Christians -- orthodox, Gnostics, or otherwise. But the Gnostics largely escaped persecution by giving in to Roman demands rather than facing martyrdom. Whereas orthodox Christians refused to give in and were killed for their faith.

Again I just objected to this claim and explained that there is no evidence of this.

You seem to have forgotten the history of our conversation. This tangential topic about persecution of Christians was started by you in post post 17, when you said:

News Flash, the Jesus Christians were probably never persecuted in the roman empire because of their faith.

You subsequently clarified that statement to this:

Again misquoting on purpose, this is dirty on your side.
I did not "subsequently clarified", I was very clear from start.
2 lines before that quote:

Debunking the idea of christian persecution because they were Christians, that the church invented for political support.
(they might have been persecuted for political decisions the church made like supporting the wrong emperor)

News Flash, the Jesus Christians were probably never persecuted in the roman empire because of their faith.

I was very clear what I mean unlike you:
Debunking the idea of christian persecution because they were Christians = because of their faith.

All of my responses have, from the beginning, been directed at these assertions, as I take that to be the question under consideration in our discussion. Your assertion was about persecution -- broadly -- not just killing, and not even just by the government.

Yea broadly because they were Christians, and you agreed to that in post 46.

I'm responding to a claim you made, not the other way around.

You you are trying to mix up an old solved argument with a new one.

So when you say that you are "just" objecting to something I have said, or that what we've been discussing "all along" is a comment I made a good six or seven posts into our discussion (in post 41) is a bit disingenuous.

It was 6 or so posts later because you did not clarify your claim originally.
Actually it took up to post number 46 for you to agree that the Romans never persecuted Christians because they were Christians.

When you clarified your own very vague argument I clearly pointed out how wrong it was.

Now, if you want to shift from discussing the broader topic to now focus narrowly just on this one comment I made, let's do so. Here's the context again:

I am not shifting anything, you are.

This persecution was directed at all Christians -- orthodox, Gnostics, or otherwise. But the Gnostics largely escaped persecution by giving in to Roman demands rather than facing martyrdom. Whereas orthodox Christians refused to give in and were killed for their faith.

As you can see, my comment here was in regards to the persecution under Diocletian. The first three edicts Diocletian issued were specifically aimed at Christians, stripping them of legal rights and calling for the destruction of churches and scriptures.

Yes and I disagreed, that there is no evidence that "orthodox"(corrected as proto-ortodox) Christians were killed during those.

Especially the claim that:

"But the Gnostics largely escaped persecution by giving in to Roman demands rather than facing martyrdom."

It was quite the opposite in fact, it would be the proto-ortodox Christians which would give in since the church of Rome would support the idea of following all roman laws to keep their power.

And not only they kept their power, they increased it to the point of creating orthodoxy and have enough power to eradicate the other churches that did not comply later on in history.

And, as the Wikipedia and Britannica articles point out, this persecution directly lead to the death of proto-orthodox Christians.

If they say so, they are wrong.

The facts prove that proto-ortodox Christians gained numbers and power during those periods and not the other way round.

The numbers show that the other non proto-ortodox Christians were reducing in numbers to the point of extinction.

Even basic common sens tell you this:

If the proto-ortodox Christians romans were so hated by the pagan romans in Rome wouldn't they take the opportunity to take their lands and everything as soon as the proto-ortodox Christians romans try to promote the idea to break roman law?

They would and we would not have such beautiful christian artifacts in Rome, if that was the case.

The fact that the church of Rome did not suffer such persecutions, is proof that they never even hinted to go against roman law officially and if there were persecutions it was on an individual level and not directed from the belief/faith of the church of Rome.

Thus it means that proto-ortodox Christians were never persecuted for their faith, and if they were persecuted is because of a difference of opinion about their faith from what the church of Rome was proposing.