(April 28, 2020 at 11:50 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote:(April 28, 2020 at 11:44 pm)Jehanne Wrote: There's never been an "orthodox Christianity"; rather, right up to the present day, things have been in a constant flux. The Council of Nicaea did not change that, but rather fueled it. You can, for instance, compare Lumen Gentium (in particular, #14) from the Second Vatican Council to Cantate Domino from the Council of Florence. I do not know (or, for that matter, really care) what people like Drich believe. His version of Christianity is one of many, right from the "beginning" (which likely began in the 40s, a decade after Jesus' death) right up to the present day. The Christian religion(s) is just a bunch of competing memes, cultural viruses that infect individuals and cultures down through the ages, mutating and changing as the "doctrines" morph and change over time.
There were long periods of orthodoxy.
Comparing Nicaea to the 20th Century version ignores the centuries where the basic doctrines did not change, including the divinity of Jesus. What exactly is different about basic doctrine in Lumen Gentium from the Council of Trent ? It has not always been "a bunch of competing 'memes'. There were long periods where heretics were burned for not espousing orthodoxy.
What exactly was in "constant flux" in the 5th Century, the 9th Century, the 11th Century, the 13th Century ? From your assertions, you should be able to answers those questions.
If it is/was so chaotic, why is it that virtually all the mainline Christian bodies still recite the Nicaean Creed every Sunday, and have for centuries ? What "flux" did Nicaea incite exactly ?
Constantine told them he did not care what they agreed on, as long as they agreed.
I'll give you just one example, out of many:
Wikipedia -- Filioque
Many other examples exist -- conciliarism, infant baptism (not to mention the eternal fates of infants who die without Baptism), innerancy of the Bible, necessity of explicit faith in Jesus, venial versus mortal sin, eternal security ("Once saved, always saved."), predestination, universal salvation, etc., etc. As for burning heretics, such as episodic. Jon Hus was burned at the behest of the Council of Constance under Pope Martin V, but Pope John Paul II, 500 years after Hus' immolation apologized to modern-day Bohemia for his condemnation. And, so, was Hus a heretic or not?