Table of Contents - The Barnes Review

political parties and sects within the church.
In the Hellenic and Hellenized towns and cities of the
empire there arose a civil duplication, two assemblies, two councils,
two leaderships, the one set being of Christians and the
other of pagans.
For peace, the common good, and to halt sectarian doctrinal
innovations, Constantine called for a great synod, the form of
which was modeled, on the one hand, after the senate of the
republic and, on the other hand, after the synods of old among
independent Hellenic city-states. The location was Nicaea (Isnik)
at the southeast corner of the Bosporus.
There were 319 bishops and a multitude of priests, deacons
and other clergymen attending; some bishops sent priests to
represent them. Bishops may be likened to tribunes of the plebeians
in old Rome. Constantine gave the imperial opening
address in Latin, then took up his position as an observer, as did
the consuls at the Roman senate. All sessions were conducted in
Greek. At times he was in the discussions, too, in Greek.
In a countering action, Massoretic Judaistic scholars in
Persia, while manufacturing a new Massoretic Judaic religion,
fabricated an allegedly re-constructed
Hebrew Bible in order to
abandon the use of Greek from their
worship, as the bankers and Jews were
sponsoring the de-Hellenizing of Persia as
well. The forgery, dubbed “Original
Hebrew,” in the 900s would be adopted by
the Vatican and later by innumerable
Protestant groupings. The Dead Sea
Scrolls bear this out to be a forgery, intending
to desensitize especially the prophetic
matters fulfilled in Christ.
The synod condemned the teachings
of Bishop Arius of Alexandria, Egypt,
an intellectualized sophist propagating
his own sectarian views (e.g., that Christ
is not God) and not being in conformance with the common ecclesiastic
tradition and the chain of evidence. The synod admonished
him to repent. Most bishops concurred with the findings,
including those of Arian persuasion. Recalcitrant, Arius, with his
leftover following, is excommunicated.
Constantine, listening to the bishops, declared that Arius
was influenced by Neoplatonism, a contrived synthesis of
Platonism and Zoroastrianism, used as another Jewish and
bankers’ front, originally to de-Hellenize Persia. Those who say
that Constantine was an Arian sympathizer forget that two
years earlier he dispatched his friend, the orthodox Bishop of
Tarragona, Spain, to talk sense into Arius, who confounded
Revelation with philosophy.
Through Arianism a series of rebel nationalisms was
expressed, cultivated and promoted in parallel with the resurgence
of Latin provincial pagan traditionalisms and false
“Hellenisms” of sectarian sophistry, all which led toward breaking
up the empire. Arianism was tantamount to political sedition,
seeded by the bankers to disrupt both church and empire.
Their technique for social and civic disruptions, including clogging
the law courts with frivolous cases, bribing judges, tax farming,
publicizing misinformation and panic peddling, were typical
Jewish and Gnostic practices, then as now.
The synod reaffirmed the Julian calendar with its mathe-
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Arianism was tantamount to
political sedition, seeded by
the bankers to disrupt both
church and empire. Their
technique for social and civic
disruptions and panic
peddling were typical gnostic
practices, then as now.
matics. It saw that the equinoxes were irregular year to year and
did not fit with other celestial and terrestrial cycles. It rejected
the notion for a wobbly tropical (i.e., the later Gregorian) calendar.
It defined the formula for setting the variable date each year
for the Pascha.
The Jews in Persia at that time, oppositely, switched from
a luni-Egyptian to an innovative luni-tropical calendar. The
Vatican would follow in about 1,300 years with its empirical solitropical
Gregorian calendar to run neck to neck with the
Massoretic luni-tropical over the centuries. Any form of tropical
calendar derives directly from sun worshiping.
Imaginative, incongruous and false books, having crept in
as allegedly belonging to Holy Writ, were purged by the synod.
No editorial additions to Holy Writ were made. In other words,
the great synod was an international hearing for investigating
with legal and dialectic acumen the chain of evidence of all that
concerns Christ.
The synod succinctly extracted evidence and defined in a
creed the nature of Christ in relation to the Father, in answer to
Arius. A future synod, in A.D. 381, in answer to the compromised
followers of Arius, would research and complete the statement on
the Holy Trinity by defining the Holy
Spirit, as well as defining church, baptism
and life eternal. Called the Nicene Creed,
or the symbol of faith, the 12 articles
thereof briefly, mystically and succinctly
express the faith.
The emperor mildly and prudently
admonished the bishops to avoid factionalism
and argumentativeness with one
another, to forgive human frailties, to be
careful not to give cause to those seeking
to ridicule the Church, and concluded,
“You are bishops in the church; I am bishop
outside the church, ordained by God.”
The classic usage of “bishop” means
“supervisor,” an assigned position of responsibility
over others. The phrase “ordained by God,” is that
God holds him responsible now that he is emperor and, accordingly,
God holds the bishops in the church responsible.
The world outlook of the great synod is for unity in the civilized
world to be above other loyalties. Bishops not
attending, being apprised, deliver their signatures, as
did those of Alexandria, of Rome, and the former Arian
Eusebius of Nicomedia. Constantine writes to the king of
Persia, “With the help of God I come forth to bring peace and
prosperity in all lands.” That is, he was offering a universal concord
against the banks. A universal second synod in 381 would
ratify this first and dispel doubts for posterity on any political or
financial manipulations.
Constantine soon returned to Rome where he found an
atmosphere less friendly toward Christianity, a contrivedly
paganizing capital for a grassroots Christianizing empire. Yet he
broke no law of Rome. He assumed neither authority nor the
impiety to overthrow the senate and Roman tradition. Besides
the ongoing conspiracies to keep society destabilized, it appears,
the bankers with their Jewish tools tried getting at him personally.
Many of his own family are involved.
Ought Constantine to have resigned and lived as a pious
Christian? God granted him, he believed, the position to keep