In JCING, Wierwille wrote something about a party of bishops conducting a church council and condemning another party of bishops before the latter arrived.
Could anyone provide an exactly worded citation from JCING?
I am particularly interested in the locations, dates, names and (especially) the controversy with which Wierwille identified the incident as occurring.
That was the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., wasn't it?
(from JCING ---To legitimatize his position, Constantine invited all bishops of the Christian Church to Nicea (which is now Nice, France) in May 325 A.D. Thus the Coucncil of Nicea began with it's main goal being to settle the dispute over the relationship between God and His Son. (page 23)
The location is one of the areas where Wierwille got it dead wrong. It was not anywhere near Nice, France. It was Nicea, which was on the western coast of what we now know as Turkey, and was near Ephesus.
Overall, I'd say that he could have done a LOT better in the quality of his ((cough)) 'research' work than he did.
Oh, by the way, there are other (and a lot better!) sources that do portray what happened at that council, and Constantine's rather intimidating influence in it, in their 'decision' to determine Jesus to be God the Son. ... Let's just say that the council left a lot to be desired when it came to honest debate. :unsure:
Anthony Buzzard's book "The Trinity: Christianity's Self Inflicted Wound" is an excellent source, complete with a LOT of footnotes and quoted sources, pertaining to this topic.
The location is one of the areas where Wierwille got it dead wrong. It was not anywhere near Nice, France. It was Nicea, which was on the western coast of what we now know as Turkey, and was near Ephesus.
I know! And I was quoting verbatim from my copy of JCING!
I am looking for the section of JCING in which Wierwille mentioned some bishops using a slower means of transportation to a council in which they were condemned largely in absentia.
From the quite little I know about church history (which is probably some significant number of times that which Garth knows about it), the church council in which such an event occurred was the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431), led by the at-times theologically brilliant but infamously underhanded Cyril of Alexandria.
The Third Ecumenical Council, however, was not about Arianism, which had been previously condemned (beginning with the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea, 325), nor did the deity of Christ appear there as an issue of controversy. The preeminent issue before the council was christological, but it involved addressing the problem of Nestorianism rather than of Arianism.
I am wondering how and why Wierwille mentioned the subject incident. Was Wierwille accurately historicizing about an event occurring at another council? Did Wierwille conflate an event that occurred at the Third Ecumenical Council with events of the First Ecumenical Council (or with events of another council)? Or, if Wierwille was directly referring to something that happened at the Third Ecumenical Council, what was the subject matter in JCING that made reference to events of that council germane?
I am looking for the words Wierwille used when asserting that some bishops used a slower means of travel towards a council in which they were condemned in absentia.
Hmmm. I don't think that is in JCING. I just did a cursory *flipping through* the book,
and no mention (that I saw) of anything other than the Council of Nicea.
Perhaps what you are remembering came from a SNS tape??
Although such an allegation has the odor of a crackpot rather than that of probable history, I would like to know what you and your Romanist pals did to Elvis.
Cynic, I looked through my JCING and couldn't find anything on it. However, I may have found what you're thinking of in The Word's Way by VPW, Chapter 11, The Lord's Brethren, pages 175 to 177:
"…regarding the Lord's brethren, let us first look at the historical background which made an issue of who was the Lord's family…it had become a flaming issue by 300 A.D. when Christianity west of the Euphrates River divided into two camps over the issue. The one camp was in Antioch in the country now called Turkey where Aramaic was the language spoken…The other school had its home base in Alexandria, Egypt, where Greek was the scholar's language.
The leader in the Greek school was Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria…In his early non-Christian days, he believed in Isis, Osiris, Horus and other such Egyptian gods. Undoubtedly this early learning influenced his thinking when he became a Christian. As Bishop of Alexandria, he proposed a new doctrine, namely that Mary was the mother of God…
Heading the Antioch camp was Nestorius, a graduate of the school at Antioch and chaplain to the emperor in Constantinople. Nestorius, along with Christendom east of the River Euphrates, believed that Mary was the mother of Jesus our Lord but definitely not the mother of God…
Thus the divergent doctrines on Mary not only stirred religious controversy in the Roman Empire, but also caused a struggle over power to determine which city – Constantinople or Alexandria – was the most prominent and influential in matters of church doctrine…
Because of this controversy a general council of all bishops was called to meet in Ephesus in 431 A.D. The Western bishops came by ships from Greece, Rome, Spain and Alexandria. The Eastern bishops, however, had to come by time-consuming land routes and so they arrived late for the meeting. Thus, before the Nestorian group of bishops arrived, the other bishops of the West had met and condemned the position of Nestorius."
From what I know, Wierwille’s description of the preemptory manner in which the council was conducted seems essentially accurate.
There are some problems, however, with Wierweille's piece:
1. As GSC's resident Roman Catholic polymath pointed out one time, Cyril did not invent the term theotokos (i.e. “God-bearer”) that is rendered sometimes “mother of God.” Nestorius was not opposing some theological innovation of Cyril's.
2. Cyril’s uncle was the patriarch of Alexandria and mentored Cyril’s education that reportedly went from classical through theological studies. I cannot presently refute Wierwille's charge that Cyril was a former believer in pagan deities, but am quite skeptical about it. Wierwille's charge is possibly sustainable, but it doesn't fit well with Cyril being mentored by his uncle Theophilus and the little I have found mentioned about Cyril's eary years in pieces such as these:
3. Wierwille’s characterization of the issues involved in the christological controversy (the issue was the person and natures of Christ -- not an issue of Marian dogma) is, at best, so vacuous as to be misleading.
_______________________________________
While preparing this response, I came across a post by Galen containing a somewhat extensive quote of the subject Wierille piece:
Due to some apparent GSC glitch (or a Jesuit cabal), the link I provided to Galen's post no longer works directly, but goes to the top of the page that contains Galen's post.
Due to some apparent GSC glitch (or a Jesuit cabal), the link I provided to Galen's post no longer works directly, but goes to the top of the page that contains Galen's post.
Unless you've corrected it so that it NOW links right,
the link BEGINS LOADING at the top of the page,
and is completed pointing EXACTLY at Galen's post.
Barring a cabal at the technical levels of GSC, I think the problem is in IE 7.05346.5. The direct link works for Netscape. It also works for IE, if I turn off IE’s pop-up blocker, rather than overriding it by pressing the ctrl key when clicking on the link. Odd thing is that overriding the popup blocker results in IE properly opening the link I provided to Mark’s post.
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dmiller
That was the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., wasn't it?
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GarthP2000
DMiller,
The location is one of the areas where Wierwille got it dead wrong. It was not anywhere near Nice, France. It was Nicea, which was on the western coast of what we now know as Turkey, and was near Ephesus.
Overall, I'd say that he could have done a LOT better in the quality of his ((cough)) 'research' work than he did.
Oh, by the way, there are other (and a lot better!) sources that do portray what happened at that council, and Constantine's rather intimidating influence in it, in their 'decision' to determine Jesus to be God the Son. ... Let's just say that the council left a lot to be desired when it came to honest debate. :unsure:
Anthony Buzzard's book "The Trinity: Christianity's Self Inflicted Wound" is an excellent source, complete with a LOT of footnotes and quoted sources, pertaining to this topic.
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dmiller
I know! And I was quoting verbatim from my copy of JCING!
I agree about Buzzard. His is a good book.
Another good one to look at is WHEN JESUS BECAME GOD, by Richard Rubenstein.
Rubenstein's book is VERY easy to read and I'd recommend it to anyone. :)
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Cynic
I am looking for the section of JCING in which Wierwille mentioned some bishops using a slower means of transportation to a council in which they were condemned largely in absentia.
From the quite little I know about church history (which is probably some significant number of times that which Garth knows about it), the church council in which such an event occurred was the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431), led by the at-times theologically brilliant but infamously underhanded Cyril of Alexandria.
The Third Ecumenical Council, however, was not about Arianism, which had been previously condemned (beginning with the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea, 325), nor did the deity of Christ appear there as an issue of controversy. The preeminent issue before the council was christological, but it involved addressing the problem of Nestorianism rather than of Arianism.
I am wondering how and why Wierwille mentioned the subject incident. Was Wierwille accurately historicizing about an event occurring at another council? Did Wierwille conflate an event that occurred at the Third Ecumenical Council with events of the First Ecumenical Council (or with events of another council)? Or, if Wierwille was directly referring to something that happened at the Third Ecumenical Council, what was the subject matter in JCING that made reference to events of that council germane?
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dmiller
Hmmm. I don't think that is in JCING. I just did a cursory *flipping through* the book,
and no mention (that I saw) of anything other than the Council of Nicea.
Perhaps what you are remembering came from a SNS tape??
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Cynic
I'm pretty sure it was in written materials. Maybe it was in some other book by Wierwille.
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TheInvisibleDan
I'm quite sure that the bishops from the east not getting to that meeting on time is in JCING somewhere.
But I sold that book on Ebay last year.
Sorry.
Danny
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dmiller
Dan -- then I'll look closer. :)
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TheInvisibleDan
Or perhaps those bishops really did end up in France, thinking the meeting was there.
:)
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markomalley
Maybe he got it from reading those Jack Chick cartoons...
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T-Bone
Shame on the late-comers - they knew Bishop-time is 10 minutes before the meeting!
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Cynic
Mark,
You seem to be much more acquainted with Jack Chick's stuff than I am.
After reading your post, I did find on Chick's site a charge that Jesuits killed Lincoln ( http://www.chick.com/catalog/books/0180.asp ).
Although such an allegation has the odor of a crackpot rather than that of probable history, I would like to know what you and your Romanist pals did to Elvis.
:)
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T-Bone
Cynic, I looked through my JCING and couldn't find anything on it. However, I may have found what you're thinking of in The Word's Way by VPW, Chapter 11, The Lord's Brethren, pages 175 to 177:
"…regarding the Lord's brethren, let us first look at the historical background which made an issue of who was the Lord's family…it had become a flaming issue by 300 A.D. when Christianity west of the Euphrates River divided into two camps over the issue. The one camp was in Antioch in the country now called Turkey where Aramaic was the language spoken…The other school had its home base in Alexandria, Egypt, where Greek was the scholar's language.
The leader in the Greek school was Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria…In his early non-Christian days, he believed in Isis, Osiris, Horus and other such Egyptian gods. Undoubtedly this early learning influenced his thinking when he became a Christian. As Bishop of Alexandria, he proposed a new doctrine, namely that Mary was the mother of God…
Heading the Antioch camp was Nestorius, a graduate of the school at Antioch and chaplain to the emperor in Constantinople. Nestorius, along with Christendom east of the River Euphrates, believed that Mary was the mother of Jesus our Lord but definitely not the mother of God…
Thus the divergent doctrines on Mary not only stirred religious controversy in the Roman Empire, but also caused a struggle over power to determine which city – Constantinople or Alexandria – was the most prominent and influential in matters of church doctrine…
Because of this controversy a general council of all bishops was called to meet in Ephesus in 431 A.D. The Western bishops came by ships from Greece, Rome, Spain and Alexandria. The Eastern bishops, however, had to come by time-consuming land routes and so they arrived late for the meeting. Thus, before the Nestorian group of bishops arrived, the other bishops of the West had met and condemned the position of Nestorius."
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dmiller
BINGO!!! :D
It was the *brown* book, NOT the *yellow* one! ;)
T-Bone ---
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Cynic
Thanks, T-Bone. That's it!
From what I know, Wierwille’s description of the preemptory manner in which the council was conducted seems essentially accurate.
There are some problems, however, with Wierweille's piece:
1. As GSC's resident Roman Catholic polymath pointed out one time, Cyril did not invent the term theotokos (i.e. “God-bearer”) that is rendered sometimes “mother of God.” Nestorius was not opposing some theological innovation of Cyril's.
(see http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.ph...st&p=190635 )
2. Cyril’s uncle was the patriarch of Alexandria and mentored Cyril’s education that reportedly went from classical through theological studies. I cannot presently refute Wierwille's charge that Cyril was a former believer in pagan deities, but am quite skeptical about it. Wierwille's charge is possibly sustainable, but it doesn't fit well with Cyril being mentored by his uncle Theophilus and the little I have found mentioned about Cyril's eary years in pieces such as these:
http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Cyril_of_Alexandria
http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-926713-8.pdf
3. Wierwille’s characterization of the issues involved in the christological controversy (the issue was the person and natures of Christ -- not an issue of Marian dogma) is, at best, so vacuous as to be misleading.
_______________________________________
While preparing this response, I came across a post by Galen containing a somewhat extensive quote of the subject Wierille piece:
http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.ph...mp;#entry117637
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Cynic
Due to some apparent GSC glitch (or a Jesuit cabal), the link I provided to Galen's post no longer works directly, but goes to the top of the page that contains Galen's post.
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WordWolf
Unless you've corrected it so that it NOW links right,
the link BEGINS LOADING at the top of the page,
and is completed pointing EXACTLY at Galen's post.
So, just wait a second.
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Cynic
I waited 30 of them.
Barring a cabal at the technical levels of GSC, I think the problem is in IE 7.05346.5. The direct link works for Netscape. It also works for IE, if I turn off IE’s pop-up blocker, rather than overriding it by pressing the ctrl key when clicking on the link. Odd thing is that overriding the popup blocker results in IE properly opening the link I provided to Mark’s post.
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GarthP2000
Look at the numbers '7.05346.5'. That must be some key code that only a high ranking Jesuit cabalist would understand. .....
..... Mark O? What say you?
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Cynic
Actually, I should have written 7.0.5346.5 (note the additional decimal point) and also added Beta 2.
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