Council of Nicea (325 A.D.)

[_madeleine]

The best so far. :)

A friend of mine (who is Catholic) once described St. Augustine's descriptions of the Holy Trinity as "cracking a nut". He was able to articulate to the other Bishops at Nicaea what had always been believed, using human reason and language. It isn't like the Bishops went, "wow, we didn't know this is what we believed!". That idea would be ludicrous to any Catholic...as though the Bishops of the Church didn't know their own faith, AND, the laity would not have accepted a foreign, novel, teaching of God. That idea is even more ludicrous. If any Mormon doesn't believe that, all they have to do is take a peek at all the Christians who say Mormons are not Christian, for the very fact that they reject the doctrine of Who the God IS that Christians worship. Any other god is rejected, vehemently, and at times in Christian history without mercy.

The whole idea that the doctrine of the Trinity was a novel idea, arising out of Nicaea, just cannot be supported by history, fact or even reason. (At least, that is how I see it.)

[_Called2Serve]

Best answer available on this subject is on the LDS website:
Conference Talk October 2007
The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent
by Elder Jeffery R. Holland

[_Wisdom Seeker]

Emperor Constantine did allow the Christians to absorb the main holidays of the followers of Mithra into their calendar for events such as Sol Invicta (a.k.a. Christmas), Easter and especially their day for the Sun God, Sunday. Where would we be without this structure? Oy!

Both worship on Sunday and the Easter celebration in Christianity were around long before Constantine (who was, granted, a devotee of the sun before finding Christianity more useful). Testimony to worship on the 'Lord's day' (Sunday - the day of his resurrection) rather than on the Jewish Sabbath is found in the epistles of Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (about 107 AD) as well as in the writings of Justin Martyr (mid second century). The proper time to celebrate Easter was a matter of some contraversy in the late second century, with the churches in Asia Minor observing the teaching of the apostle John that followed the Jewish calender on Passover, regardless of the day of the week, with the rest of the churches only celebrating it on Sunday. The bishop of Rome at the time actually excommunicated all those Asian churches for not taking his 'advice' on Easter, which earned him the rebuke of some of the other bishops for being too harsh.

The origins of the date of Christmas is another matter, it does seem to come from pagan culture / the winter solstice.

BasilII, you really know your stuff, yet you post very little here, and only up here in the Celestial forums. As a wisdom seeker, I am intrigued by your answers and about you. Anything you would like to share?

[_basilII]

BasilII, you really know your stuff, yet you post very little here, and only up here in the Celestial forums. As a wisdom seeker, I am intrigued by your answers and about you. Anything you would like to share?

Thanks for the (undeserved) compliment. As far as my background goes, there is a lot of the usual stuff: I was raised LDS, served a mission, attended BYU, married in the temple (wife is still LDS), etc. I even spent some time working for the church (BYU again). But at some point the proverbial 'shelf' finally broke, and I had to be honest enough with myself to admit that I was wrong and that my life was built on a sandy foundation. As part of this process I have spent a fair amount of time and energy studying early Christianity, particularly the so called 'Church Fathers'. The more I studied the less plausible the notion of a great apostasy became and the more I was drawn to traditional Christianity. I am still on the journey however, and have not yet arrived.