Originally posted by oliveoil
Jesus is God
what a great topic!
Never mind all the biblical quotes. There's actual history here and it relates to the almighty dipthong.
During the rule of Augustus Constantine, now supreme poohbah of the Roman Empire after kicking the crap out of Licinius, he decided that he needed to
unify the quarrelling Christian sects, most notably the Arians who were very popular in Alexandria. To that end, he gathered together the bishops of
the Roman Empire, ~300 of them, in his palace in Nicaea.
There were other differences to be ironed out at the Council of Nicaea; things like when Easter was supposed to be (they never worked that one out)
but the most important was about Jesus.
One faction, led by the Arians, said that Jesus was 'of similar essense' to God. In other words, Jesus and God were seperated.
In the Greek, the two ideas were spelled this way:
Arian:
homo
iousion - similar essense
anti-Arian:
homoousion - same essense
The big dipthong.
This became the biggest controversy during the Council of Nicaea. Nothing could be worked out and the bishops became extremely vexed over it. Back and
forth it went. Voting didn't work, because if one side seemed to be winning, bishops would recant and side against them to tip the balance the other
way.
So they, in particular an anti-Arian bishop named Athanasius who was a buddy of Constantines sister Constantia, invited Arias to Nicaea on the notion
that if God favoured Arias, he would survive the journey. Arias amazingly died under horrible circumstances in the town of Nicomedia the day before he
was to be received. In fact, he died in a latrine from ultra-serious diarrhea. Maybe it was a miracle, maybe it was poison. We'll never know.
Apparently, not to be too graphic about it, he lost his guts that day. (eeeew)
As a result, the Nicene Creed was established and Father, Son and Holy Spirit were designated to be of the same essence.
The dipthong lost.
So, yea, oliveoil... when you say Jesus
is God, then you are backing the Nicene Creed.
[edit on 7/1/10 by masqua]