So my friend Tim (who is JS' SAREJESS) recently sent me an email in which he asked me a probing set of theological questions.
So I shall now endeavour to answer them.
Now Tim did not ask me this particular question- what is the Catholic Faith?
Nevertheless to deal with the questions Tim did ask me, I shall answer this question What Is the Catholic Faith? first.
First off by Catholic Faith, I do not mean the Catholic Church and more specifically the Roman Catholic Church which is the best known of all the Catholic Churches.
There are other Catholic Churches in the world besides the Latin Rite Roman Catholic Church. For example there's the Byzantine Rite Ukrainian Catholic Church. There's the Chaldean Rite Assyrian Catholic Church. And there's the Sarum Rite Book of Common Prayer Anglican Catholic Church to which I belong.
All of these Catholic Churches accept the 3 essentials of the Catholic Faith.
Catholic means Universal and it was a term first coined by Saint Ignatius of Antioch back in the late 1st and early 2nd Century AD.
By it, he meant that Christ died not only to save one people (the Jews) but all peoples and nations who live on the face of the Earth. Hence the use of the term Universal or Catholic. Because salvation was for all people not just one particular racial group.
The term Catholic became particularly important during the 4th Century AD. That was because most of the Churches throughout the Roman Empire had succumbed to the Arian heresy. Arius taught that Christ the Logos was only the Incarnation of the first creature that God had created at the beginning of time. Now this first creature whom Arius called the Logos was a powerful creature (the most powerful creature of all God's creation) and the reflection of God but this creature was not God.
Now Saint Athanasius disagreed. And for this reason Athanasius was disparagingly called Catholic by the majority of Churches in the Roman Empire.
It wasn't meant to be a compliment. Catholic was synonymous with Trinitarian in the Arian mind. Trinitarian meaning of course one who believes in the Holy Trinity- Father, Son and Holy Spirit- 3 persons in One God.
Now this belief in the Trinity was regarded as oh so old-fashioned and outdated by the Arians who regarded themselves as the oh so modern and chic and the self-proclaimed beautiful people of the 4th Century AD.
After all Arius had formed a synthesis of neo-Platonism and Christianity.
Now to be a neo-Platonist was the epitome of being an intellectual for those who considered themselves the "in" and "with it" crowd in 4th Century universities.
Now Plato taught that the Logos was a Demi-Urge. He was the Creator of the Universe sure but he wasn't the Good or the One (the Infinite in Platonic thought).
Now Plato taught that the Good (the Infinite) created the Logos (the Demi-Urge) and the Demi-Urge Logos in turn created the Universe.
But the Demi-Urge Logos was not synonymous with the Good (the Infinite).
During the 1st Century BC up to the 4th Century AD, there was a revival of interest in Platonism and Platonic thought.
The philosophy that arose as a result of this revival of interest in Platonism was called neo-Platonism
Among the greatest of the neo-Platonic philosophers were the neo-Platonists Porphyry and Plotinus.
Plotinus especially was considered the "in" and "with it" philosopher at the University of Alexandria in the 3rd Century AD.
Now Plotinus called the Infinite the One (whereas Plato himself had called Him the Good) and Plotinus taught the following:
The One created the Logos (the Demi-Urge) and the Demi-Urge Logos in turn had created the material universe.
Now the heretic Arius being full of... neo-Platonism... taught that sure Christ was the Incarnation of the Logos but that the Logos was not God but rather the Demi-Urge (Arius' theme song might well have been "The Logos is the Demi-Urge... this I know for the neo-Platonists tell me so!").
There was however one slight problem. In the opening verse of the opening chapter of The Gospel of John, the Apostle John had written, "In the beginning was the Logos (Greek word for Word) and the Logos (Word) was with God and the Logos (Word) WAS God."
Now John hadn't said the Logos (Word) was the Demi-Urge. John had written that the Logos (Word) WAS God. The Logos was God not the Demi-Urge.
Oh well, what did John know anyhow? Arius pompously pontificated, he was only a simple fisherman of the 1st Century AD. He wasn't that well educated. John certainly didn't have all the prestigious degrees that Porphyry, Plotinus and he Arius did.
He Arius knew the truth. God had created the Logos who was the Demi-Urge. This Logos Demi-Urge (whom Arius called the Christ) then created the physical universe and one day became Incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus of Nazareth was the Incarnation of the Logos Demi-Urge but he wasn't the Incarnation of God.
Now hold on a minute argued a priest called Athanasius (today he is called Saint Athanasius in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches).
That isn't what John said in his original Gospel. And that isn't what the Church Universal or the Church Catholic has been teaching since the 1st Century AD.
Athanasius pointed out that the Catholic Church had taught 3 essentials from its very beginning.
Those 3 essentials were the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Eucharist.
The Trinity was the teaching that God was made up of three Persons- the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and that these Persons together made up One God.
The Incarnation was the teaching that one of those three Persons of the Trinity- God the Son- had come down from Heaven and had united Himself to a human body and a human soul becoming Incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This individual who was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary and to whom Mary gave birth was the individual known to history as Jesus of Nazareth.
The Eucharist was the teaching that while Jesus will return in glory at the End of Time, Jesus was still found to be Present in the Eucharist. The Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ were present in the Bread and Wine on the Altar. This Doctrine is known as the Real Presence.
The Real Presence does not mean the same as Transubtantiation. Transubstantiation was taken to mean by some in the Church in the Middle Ages that people were literally eating the physical body and the physical blood of Christ when they ate the Bread and Wine.
This is not true.
While it is true that the Body and Blood of Christ are present in a Supernatural spiritual manner in the Bread and Wine (along with His Soul and Divinity of course), that does not mean that the components of physical flesh and physical blood are present.
So these were the 3 essentials of the Catholic Faith
1)Belief in the Trinity
2)Belief in the Incarnation (God the Son had become Man)
3)Belief in the Eucharist (the Body and Blood and Soul and Divinity of Christ were actually present in the Bread and Wine on the Altar).
Now of course these 3 Catholic essentials would not square with the new fangled Arian philosophy.
For Arius had adopted the Neo-Platonic proposition that the Logos was only a Demi-Urge not God Himself.
But the Catholic Faith taught that the Logos was God Himself- God the Son- who created the physical Universe. God the Son was called in the Old Testament Yahweh (Yahweh is the origin of the English word Jehovah). God the Father was called in the Old Testament Elohim.
The Holy Spirit was called in the Old Testament the Shekinah.
And the Catholic Faith taught that God the Son- Yahweh- who was called the Logos in Greek by the Apostle John- became Incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
Arius ridiculed Athanasius for believing these outdated not keeping up with modern times ideas and called Athanasius and his followers Catholics (it wasn't meant to be a compliment!).
So there was a battle between Arians and Catholics going on in the Church.
At the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, it looked like Athanasius had won.
Arianism was condemned as a heresy.
But despite the fact the Bishops sided with Athanasius at Nicaea, the rest of the Church did not follow suit.
Athanasius was driven from his bishopric at Alexandria and an Arian was appointed in his place.
Athanasius had to spend many years as an exile in the desert while the Arians controlled the Churches in Alexandria and most other places in the East as well. It was only towards the end of his life that Athanasius was restored to his bishopric in Alexandria.
Although the Emperor Constantine abided by the decision of the Council of Nicaea for the sake of unity in the Empire, Constantine was personally an Arian.
For Constantine had never really given up belief in Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) who was the god of Mithraism- the Persian religion Constantine had originally adhered to since it was so popular in the Roman Army.
After Constantine had won the victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, Constantine had come to believe in Christ sure but that's because he thought Christ and Sol Invictus were one and the same entity- one and the same being.
And since Constantine personally believed that Christ and Sol Invictus were one and the same entity- that's why he came to sympathize with Arianism.
For Constantine could not really picture Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) as existing outside the physical universe.
But when Arius came along and said Christ as the Logos was the Demi-Urge and the Demi-Urge was created by God and the Demi-Urge in turn created the physical universe, this was more in line with Constantine's personal belief that Christ and Sol Invictus were one and the same.
So while Constantine pretended to accept the Edict of Nicaea, he didn't really enforce it. After all Alexandria (which was an important City in Constantine's Empire) had driven out Athanasius and appointed an Arian in his place as Bishop of Alexandria. And Constantine accepted the decision.
That is why the idiotic hypothesis Dan Brown presents in his joke of a book called The Da Vinci Code is so out of touch with reality.
Dan Brown's ignorance of history is as vast as the universe is.
For Brown has the inate stupidity to suggest that Constantine imposed belief in the Trinity and belief in the Incarnate Deity of Christ on the Council of Nicaea.
ROTFLMFAO! Constantine was personally an Arian, Mr. Brown! (you're certainly living up to your last name because that's what your so-called history is full of- a substance whose colour is brown!).
Constantine only pretended to go along with Nicaea because the vote was so heavily against Arius' views (318 bishops voted to condemn Arius, only 2 did not).
Constantine did not enforce the edicts of Nicaea.
As can be seen by the fact he allowed the Orthodox Catholic Trinitarian Athanasius to be driven out of his bishopric in Alexandria and an Arian appointed in his place.
Constantine invented belief in the Trinity and in the Incarnate Deity of Jesus of Nazareth?
Get off the pot, Mr. Brown! (or whatever it is you're smoking!)
To be continued.
