You conveniently ignore the history between Nero and Constantine and change the subject. ---------- Here is some history between Nero and Constantine for you Snuff.
BEGINNING in 33 C.E., when Rome put Christianity’s Founder to death, that sixth world power of Bible history was at constant loggerheads with the Christians. It imprisoned them and threw some of them to the lions. But even when threatened with the martyrdom of serving as human torches to light Nero’s gardens, Roman Christians of the first century continued to let their spiritual light shine. (Matthew 5:14) In time, however, the situation changed. “In the early part of the third century,” says the book From Christ to Constantine, “the church was beginning to become respectable.” But respectability had its price, “a lowering of standards.” Accordingly, “Christian living was no longer seen to be a requirement of Christian faith.” The gospel light had waned to a glimmer. And “by the fourth century,” says the book Imperial Rome, “Christian writers were claiming not only that it was possible to be both Christian and Roman, but that the long history of Rome was in fact the beginning of the Christian epic. . . . The implication was that Rome had been divinely ordained.” Sharing this view was the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. In 313 C.E., Constantine made Christianity a lawful religion. By combining Church and State, putting religious leaders into the service of the State, and allowing State control of religious affairs, Constantine did a real disservice. Already in the early second century, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, had introduced a new method of congregational government. Instead of a group of elders, the monarchical episcopate provided for a single churchman to be in charge of each congregation. About a century later, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, expanded this hierarchical clergy system into a monarchical seven-grade hierarchy, the supreme position being occupied by the bishop. Under him were priests, deacons, subdeacons, and other grades. The Western church subsequently added an eighth grade, while the Eastern church settled for a five-grade hierarchy. Where did this form of church leadership, combined with State approval, lead? The book Imperial Rome explains: “Only 80 years after the last great wave of persecution of Christians, the Church itself was beginning to execute heretics, and its clerics were wielding power almost equivalent to that of the emperors.” Surely this is not what Christ had in mind when he said that his disciples were to be “no part of the world” and that they should conquer it, not by force, but by their faith.—John 16:33; 17:14; compare 1 John 5:4. Long before Constantine’s time, pagan ideas had already adulterated the Christian religion. The mythical gods of Greece that had once strongly influenced Rome’s religion had also already influenced the Christian religion. “By the time Rome had become an imperial power,” says the book Roman Mythology, “Jupiter had become assimilated to the Greek Zeus . . . Later on Jupiter was worshipped as Optimus Maximus, the Best and Greatest, a designation which was to be carried over into Christianity and appears on many a monumental inscription.” The New Encyclopædia Britannica adds: “Under Christianity, Greek heroes and even deities survived as saints.” Author M. A. Smith explains that this meant that “the many sets of gods were becoming intermixed, and the regional differences were getting blurred. . . . There was a tendency for people to think that the various deities were really only different names for one great power. . . . The Egyptian Isis, Artemis of the Ephesians and the Syrian Astarte could be equated. The Greek Zeus, the Roman Jupiter, the Egyptian Amon-Re and even the Jewish Yahweh could be invoked as the names of the one great Power.” While being fused with Greek and Roman thinking in Rome, Christianity was also undergoing changes in other places. Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and Edessa, all centers of theological activity, developed distinctive schools of religious thought. Herbert Waddams, a former Anglican Canon of Canterbury, says the Alexandrian school, for example, was “particularly influenced by Platonic ideas,” assigning allegorical meanings to most “Old Testament” statements. The Antioch school adopted a more literal, more critical attitude toward the Bible. Distance, lack of communication, and language misunderstandings served to intensify the differences. Chiefly responsible for the situation, however, was the independent spirit and selfish ambition of religious leaders willing to adulterate the truth for personal advantage, thereby snuffing out the gospel light.
