The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation

Episode 99 - The Lion's Roar: Constantine's plea for Church unity

• Paul

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Have you ever wondered how the most important Christian creeds came to be? Behind the elegant theological formulations lie fascinating human stories of conflict, politics, and divine intervention.

This episode brings to life Emperor Constantine's pivotal role in the theological disputes that led to the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. We examine his remarkable letter to Alexander of Alexandria and Arius, revealing a ruler deeply concerned with Christian unity yet initially unable to grasp why these "abstract questions" about Christ's nature mattered so profoundly.

The conversation unpacks layers of complexity beneath what appears to be merely theological disagreement. Alexander, the Greek-named Coptic Pope, recognized dangerous undertones in Arius's teaching before they became explicit. Meanwhile, Arius, whose Berber name means "lion," gathered followers particularly among native North Africans and ascetic virgins, creating a movement with both theological and cultural dimensions.

Most fascinating are the prophetic elements surrounding Arius. We discuss how previous Coptic popes had spiritual warnings about him years before his theology became problematic. Even his name evoked biblical warnings about "a roaring lion seeking someone to devour" – connections early Christians found deeply significant.

Through this historical exploration, we discover that what Constantine initially dismissed as philosophical quibbling ultimately concerned Christianity's core belief: the full divinity of Christ. The dispute that seemed "insignificant" to Constantine would define orthodox Christianity for millennia to come.

Listen now to understand how the Nicene Creed emerged from this complex intersection of theology, politics, ethnicity, and divine guidance. Then share your thoughts with us about how these ancient controversies continue to shape Christian faith today.

• Constantine's letter reveals his concern for Christian unity and evangelism
• Alexander of Alexandria (the Coptic Pope) recognized dangerous theology in Arius
• Ethnic tensions between Greek Alexandrians and native Berbers fuelled the conflict
• Arius initially appeared orthodox but gradually revealed problematic views on Christ's divinity
• Alexander wisely appointed Athanasius, a native Egyptian, as his successor
• Constantine initially misunderstood the theological significance but later recognized its importance
• Several Coptic popes had prophetic warnings about Arius before his teaching became problematic
• The dispute centered on the crucial question: "Was there a time when Jesus did not exist?"


The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Speaker 1:

Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. We're continuing to look at the Nicene Creed and Council and the background to it all in this 1700th anniversary year, and what I want to do in this episode is look at Constantine a little bit. The blessed Constantine, equal to the apostles. What are his other titles? Pj, I know you have a full side of A4 with all his titles. What are some of them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I literally do have that A4. I'll put it on the website at some point, but there's Born for the Good of the Republic, which a lot of people find uh ironic given that he turns it into a monarchy. But that's really what is best for a republic, so there's no irony in that whatsoever. Uh that he's a new moses, he's uh the final pharaoh, he's the, you know yeah and angelic visionary, a friend of michael. He often saw Michael.

Speaker 1:

All right, there you go. He has a lot of titles Constantine and we're going to look at Eusebius in a future episode and he thinks that Melchizedek in the Bible is a type of Constantine and we can think about that. So, constantine we're massive fans of Constantine, as you can imagine, because of how joyfully we embrace these titles that Constantine has. But he has an extremely important role with the Council of Nicaea and it couldn't happen without him, really in the way that it does as a global event and his ability to call together the global church and enable them to travel and they get safe passage and all this that Constantine enables to happen where he brings this event. But why does he do it? Why does he get involved? What's it got to do with him anyway? I mean, some people would say he's the leader of the state and modern people use words like secular, he's a secular leader. That kind of language really doesn't make any sense at all in the ancient world, but people import that language back anachronistically and go he's a secular leader. And why is he getting involved in church stuff? What's that got to do with him? Ok, well, that's kind of some of the things we wish to think about in this episode why he is so bothered that Christian leaders are disagreeing with each other and doing so in such a way that it's creating public disturbances, and his initial concern is he. Well, you'll see, what we're going to do is read a letter he writes to Alexander and Arius and then we're going to have PJ explain to us who is Alexander and who is Arius. But Constantine's very alarmed that they are arguing publicly and it's creating public disorder and he can't understand how Christians can be like this, disagreeing with each other publicly and creating public disorder over stuff which you'll see. Constantine initially feels that it's like what's this about? What are you even arguing about? It does it feels as if and I will read this whole thing out but he okay, uh, constantine is feeling you're you're kind of asking very abstract questions and doing that and asking abstract questions that are not asked or answered in the Bible. This is the kind of Constantine's initial feeling. He's like what are you doing? Asking and trying to answer questions that are very abstract, very weird, and this is creating trouble. You know you need to what's going on? So this is Constantine's initial reaction and I'll read this like the Global Church History Project, via PJ, has provided a kind of modern language edition of this famous letter that Constantine addresses to Alexander and Ares. I'm going to read it, the whole thing, and it's worth it, and just like if you're listening you've never heard the letter before. Just try and get into it as I'm reading it, to get a real sense of the mood at the time, particularly from Constantine's view that he's the like, he's a sacral monarch, he's the representing the divine emperor on earth and he's got concerns about church. Um, and this is how he addresses it. So here we go, from victor constantine the most august, to Alexander and Arius, with God as my witness.

Speaker 1:

I took on my duties as emperor for two main reasons. First, I wanted everyone across every nation to basically agree on what they believed about God. Second, the world felt like it was sick. Keeping these two goals in mind, I decided to achieve the first through careful thought, and my army would handle the second problem. My thinking was that if everyone who serves God could agree, everything would improve as they conformed to their holy desires. Now I saw that all of Africa was consumed by foolishness because they were carelessly splitting the religion into different groups. I wanted that to stop, so I thought the best way was to send you to help everyone else after I defeated the unbelieving emperor, because God's truth and worship started in the east and you brought that light to the world. It made sense to me that you'd be the first to help spread that good news to everyone else. That's why I was so keen to get your help.

Speaker 1:

As soon as I defeated my enemies, I wanted to know more about these things, which I consider to be most important. But how sad I was when I heard you were fighting amongst yourselves, even worse than what was happening back in Africa, africa. I was counting on you to help fix other people's problems, but it sounds like you need even more help yourselves. But after looking into why you're arguing honestly, it seems like the reason behind it is truly insignificant. So, as God's appointed minister of peace, I prayed to God to help me intervene.

Speaker 1:

I felt I had to write this letter to ask you to remain in unity, with good reason. If you could unite, even if the problem's a big deal, it'd be easier to fix this little squabble. From what I can tell, it started when you, alexander, asked the other church leaders what they thought about some part of the religious rules, or I don't know, maybe it was that unhelpful question. And then you, arius, said something you shouldn't have even thought, or, in the very least, should have kept to yourself, and that's how you two started fighting. And that's how you two started fighting. The fellowship was broken, the holy people were divided.

Speaker 1:

So both of you need to be equally patient with each other and take some advice from a fellow believer. What's my advice? Well, you shouldn't have even brought up these kinds of questions in the first place, or you shouldn't have answered them when asked. If it's not a rule, but just some debate that came out of having too much free time and wanting to argue, then keep it to yourselves. Don't just throw it out there in public to everyone. How many people can really understand or explain this topic? And even if someone does understand, how many others will they convince? Who can be totally sure they won't accidentally get it wrong when talking about these things? So we need to be careful with our words. If we can't even explain it clearly ourselves, or if people are too confused to get what we're saying, we could end up with people saying blasphemous things and getting divided. So forgive each other for that unguarded question and for that thoughtless answer.

Speaker 1:

The reason you're fighting isn't about any of the main beliefs or rules of our religion, and no one's come up with a new way to worship God. You actually agree on the important things, so you should be able to join in communion and fellowship. As long as you keep arguing about these tiny, unimportant things, it's not right for you to be in charge of so many of God's people if you can't agree yourselves, I honestly think it's not just bad, it's positively evil. Think about the pagan philosophers. They all follow the same basic ideas, even though they disagree on some details and have different levels of knowledge, but their main beliefs bring them back together.

Speaker 1:

So shouldn't it make even more sense for you, who are ministers of the true God, to be on the same page when it comes to your religion? Really think about this. Is it good for you to treat each other like enemies over some foolish word difference? Is it right for the most important meetings that happen to be torn apart by this pointless bickering? This is just childish and foolish, not how wise priests and sensible people act. Let's ditch these temptations from the devil. Our great God, who saved us all, has given the same light to us all. Let me his servant, help finish what I started so I can use my encouragement and hard work to bring his people back together. Because, as I said, you basically believe the same things about our religion and the whole point of our faith is the spirit of peace.

Speaker 1:

So don't let this little disagreement cause a schism, and I say this without trying to make you agree on every single detail of this truly idle question in any way. You can still meet as a church with full dignity and stay united as a group, even if you disagree on minor things. We don't all agree on everything, and that's perfectly acceptable, but when it comes to God, let's have one faith and one understanding. As for those complicated arguments that don't really matter, keep those to yourselves. Now let's focus on loving each other, believing in the truth, honouring God and his rules. Be friends again, show love, respect each other. Let everyone get back to how things were.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, when you reconcile, your friendship becomes even stronger than it was before. So please give me back my quiet days and untroubled nights so I can enjoy my life in the joy that comes from the undimmable light. Otherwise, I'll mourn constantly and won't have any peace. How can I possibly maintain a peaceful mind when God's people, who I'm here to serve, are fighting over nothing. I'll even show you how upset I was.

Speaker 1:

I was in Nicomedia and planning to head straight east to see you. I'd already travelled most of the way when I heard about this and it made me change my plans because I didn't even want to see it with my own eyes. So please, by agreeing with each other, open up that road to the east again that your fighting has closed off. Let me see you and everyone else happy together. Me see you and everyone else happy together, praising and thanking god for bringing peace and freedom to all of us. There it is.

Speaker 1:

That's constantine's letter. I mean, it's quite powerful, and he cares so much about the nation, other nations, the whole world. He wants the whole world to become Christians and he fears fighting over abstract questions. Nothing questions is going to spoil evangelism. How are we going to win the whole world if we can't agree and love one another? That's the burden of his letter. As you can see Now he says there's a question that was asked, that shouldn't have been asked, and Arius has given a thoughtless, foolish answer to it. So, alexander, who's he? Arius, who's he? Why is Constantine writing to them? What does Constantine think's going on? How has all this been? Let's get PJ now to take over. He provided that translation of the letter anyway, so he's the expert. Let's see if he can help us figure out more about the history behind this letter. Who are the people involved? What's going on? So, alexander?

Speaker 2:

is the Coptic Pope who's the leader of the African church, kind of as we read so he's Alexander of Alexandria.

Speaker 2:

Yes, alright well, that's actually somewhat important because that's a very Greek name and Alexandria is considered at that time to be a bit of Greece, not a bit of Africa. It's like a bit of Greece. That's like fallen off and gotten attached to Africa. So they often say you leave Egypt to go to Alexandria At this time. Later it becomes a very Egyptian place, but at this time there's a bit of division. So there's something going on outside of just doctrine, where you've got Arius, which is a very Berber name, and Alexander, which is a very Greek colonial sort of name, going on. So when you get lots of native Egyptians and Berbers and other Africans rallying around Arius at first, before it's totally made apparent what Arius really believes, there's something a bit more going on. And so Constine has seen something. But some of the people who are so caught up with abstractions have kind of missed.

Speaker 1:

So let me so what's happening is, uh, constantine sees his superficial assessment, his, he says, ah, this has got a lot to do with people rallying around arias because for kind of nationalist reasons really. And then there's alexander in alexandria who's like perceived as he's part of this colonial greek invader people and he can see that that's actually a lot of the heat behind it, right, that's fascinating, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So his exhortations towards, like, finding our identity in Jesus and in the church is really a key solution. That might have avoided this to begin with. This to begin with. So he's kind of actually figured a lot out about people, which is kind of his job, and about unity, which the Apostle Paul says is his job, and he's really trying to figure that out. But he is missing some of the abstraction things, but that's not entirely his fault, because you can read confessions from Arius and some of his defenders.

Speaker 2:

So at this time we often we love St Eusebius he includes one of these early confessions to defend Arius at this time because he's saying look, this is all he's saying. So initially Arius says Jesus is made, but he's not a creature. He isn't mutable or changeable like creatures are. He has a divine nature, like the fathers, and he's generated but or born, but he's born before all ages, outside of time, and and he's like the father, but he's not like any creature. Uh, so he says all these things which and and in I've almost said it in a more aryad way that he said, he says it very close to what seemed to be, and remember, this is before the nicene creed is written. So our kind of idea. You know where we say begotten not made all of it. We're used to these phrases.

Speaker 1:

Um is not common at that time yeah, and and if, if you, if you just like, for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So Ares is saying, yeah, he's this begotten. The father begot this son. And who is this truly divine son? And you know, he is God truly, and before the world was created he's not a creature, he's begotten of the father. Ares would be able to say all that kind of it did, say that sort of thing, and it's only later that, under pressure and examination, that exactly what arius is saying comes out. But in, in that you're saying like, even if you go back to the early words and confredes that arius is using, it's not at all obvious that there's a problem.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and some people think there may not have been a problem.

Speaker 2:

But he develops thought later as he digs his heels in and he becomes which I think is kind of what we see in like to peter and jude. There's people who and in arius case it might have been pride, whereas peter and jude kind of deal with people who are overcome with lusts of different kinds and like fill in their bellies and that sort of thing. But for arius he was very ascetic and everything he loved praise. So one thing that's quite noteworthy loads of virgins joined him quite early on, and these were people, virgins, and Females, and male and female, male and female.

Speaker 2:

So he gets all these young people who were very intense about, very intense about stuff and he was very devout in rules for life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so he gets those people who are very detached from the world. And so there's good and bad people like that, because there's some people who do it entirely, because Paul talks about these people who hate marriage, and there's people who just realise God's not calling me to marriage and they need to focus on the church, who are good, and then they can look exactly the same from an outsider sort of perspective. But arius is very arrogant and if you read anything he's written you can tell that. So he's not ascetic for the good reasons that paul right people to be this way he and so he might gather. But he could gather either kind of person, because there might be people thinking, oh, he's ascetic like this because he's super intense about the Christian faith and I am too so good people might have been caught up as well.

Speaker 1:

But it's very noteworthy that these like hermits and monks and virgins we thought about consecrated widows with Monica so it's like you were saying, like the Berbers and a lot of these north african christians who are very intense, and arius is sort of, in a way, representing them in intensity and things. But the flaws in his character are not obvious to begin with. So to begin with he looks like he's almost like a hero of the people, sort of articulating their faith, and then it looks like he's getting picked on by outsiders who are like trying to put down these africans.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly, and it is basically framed this way. Um so, and at the time, and we'll think about more, but it's just worth noticing. Even alex Alexander seems to have noticed this, because he's picked as his favourite to succeed him because he's getting old and he knows he'll have to be succeeded. He's picked Athanasius, who's a Copt who looks very Coptic, and he spoke Coptic. Naturally, he learned Greek later in life, and very well. So loads of people think Greek was his first language if they just read his Greek. But we know it's Coptic, having read his Coptic stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so Alexander picks a super African, egyptian person to go, because Alexander's thinking look, I'm not helping here Because I'm perceived as being a bullying outsider, a bullying European. Right, I've got to step back a little bit and let me leave this in the hands of a super Egyptian guy. So that way, it takes that kind of fleshly element out of this theological situation. Brilliant by Alexander, then, wasn't?

Speaker 2:

it, yeah, and very humble because we can allow people attacking our nationality and our race and things very personally, and of course it's stuff in the bible, the. The bible is not keen on people attacking people on these characteristics, but there is also, just in alexander, incredible wisdom and humility where he's like I've got to leave that aside. It is personally insulting that they're saying this stuff about me Because he is the Coptic Pope.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he's a huge and he does everything to help all these Christians all throughout his diocese. He's not at all caught up with Greek colonialism and in fact, in some ways, arius is much more greek than alexander is uh deep down, but arius knows how to put on the aesthetic of it.

Speaker 2:

And so, alexander, just so he doesn't step down or anything, he doesn't do anything too cringe, but he does. Uh, he does do that with athanasia. He does recognize where they're coming from and how to deal with it, and obviously he also chose athenae, like athanasius is also just absolutely brilliant like a very intelligent person. So it's not entirely, you know, we shouldn't.

Speaker 1:

We'll come back to athanasius in his own episode, because he's he literally shocks me how brilliant he is at times yeah, but it's a good political move.

Speaker 1:

So constantine can see this isn't just pure theology going on here. There's kind of very fleshly elements to what's happening and people are getting drawn into friction and being pulled apart into divided parties in a way that right underneath a lot of this he can see this has got nothing to do with the christian faith and it's in fact undermining it, and he's feeling you need to sort this out in a christian way. So, constantine, sometimes people say, oh, he's an idiot, he doesn't understand at all, but we're saying, no, he does understand that the this whole dimension of this, a lot of this is fuelled by things that are nothing to do with the doctrine of the Trinity, really, and a lot more to do with fleshly pride in ethnicity and nationalism and fleshly identities, and that needed and Constantine's right, it needed that kind of wisdom that alexander then does show. So the letter maybe had a good effect yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But then there is also this sort of idea that alexander's kind of seeing some of the stuff developed so then he's closer to.

Speaker 2:

So this letter is closer to the time than a lot of stuff. So a lot of people backtrack a lot of stuff that happens later, a lot of what's said later onto Arius right at the beginning, which may not be true, but Alexander does, quite soon after this, do this letter to everyone in Africa, basically to basically just say this is actually what he's saying behind the scenes. And then we do now have all these secret letters written to all his friends in which he says, yeah, jesus is a creature, he is changeable, is, he has it doesn't have a nature, anything like the fathers and all of this. And you know he was generated at time. And so, alexander, he's asking these questions.

Speaker 2:

So what, what constantine sees is these confessions of faith that look entirely orthodox. And then Alexander keeps peppering Arius with these questions until he gets caught out saying something stupid. Well, you know, there was a time when Jesus was not, but we know from his letters this is actually kind of what he does believe, or maybe, or maybe. So these are the questions people genuinely think either way. Does he develop this idea? Does he always believe it? Does alexander back him into a corner and then he has to believe it like?

Speaker 1:

what kind of? It sounds to me, though, that alexander the, the coptic pope, is a wise owl and that one he can see the the value of bringing athanasius in to take some of the fleshly stuff out of it. But it seems to me he just smells that there's something wrong here, that this aureus guy is not legit. And you can tell that. Often with um false teachers, I've found in my life that a person they could sound legit but then there's something not quite right with the like I you can call it the grammar of their theology. Like if a person, when they get their grammar wrong in in language, you think, oh, that's not how you're supposed to say it, the grammar's wrong in ordinary speech. And we'll say, oh no, you don't say it like that, you're supposed to say it like that. And that's the same that happens in theology, because a person doesn't understand, they're not the. Because I find that, like people who really are Christian and really like love and worship Jesus, they may say something in the wrong way and use the wrong words, but you can tell what they're trying to say, the right thing. But if a person's a false teacher and there's something not right, there's something wrong even if they use the right words. Sometimes the feels wrong, the grammar's wrong, there's something there that you go, what hang on? This doesn't smell right. So it's a bit like Alexander can see he kind of this guy is saying, saying, and in fact you're saying that.

Speaker 1:

In fact alexander perhaps has correspondence. He actually knows arius is saying dodgy things privately or writing letters that are dodgy. So it's not so. Alexander can see all this. So he's like trying to bring that into the open, not because he's trying to create division, which Constantine feels. Oh, why are you even pushing all these questions? It's bringing division but Alexander's thinking no, I got her. I got her because you don't understand. There's some rottenness hidden here?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely, it does seem like that is. So. That is this early tension between Constantine and Alexander and Eusebius, who, again, we love Eusebius, and so a key thing. So one of the reasons we had the last episode where we thought about modalism and some of the stuff going on there is Arius begins his. So when Alexander first noticed it, alexander's just preaching about the Holy Trinity and then he drops that phrase that they are of one nature, and then comma ocean, yeah, and then aries is like whoa. We literally like just denounced that as total heresy. And then some the we don't know the exact exchange, we know from constantine some question, some unprofitable question a Alexander asks at some point. We don't know exactly what it is, but it prompts Arius to say well, it makes sense, doesn't it? Because if he's begotten, then he is really a son and then if he's son, he's got to be generated. So there was a time when he was not. He says something along those lines and then everyone's quite shocked that he's been.

Speaker 1:

He out, then it's out in the open, and that's so the question then could become very was there a time when jesus was not, did not exist? That because can? So whatever, however that that may be the question, isn't it of this issue? That, in a way, because whether it was the part of the initial questions of Alexander, but it certainly ends up being the question, doesn't it? Yeah?

Speaker 2:

But then you can also see Constantine's perspective, where he's meant to be leading this Bible study. That's very open, everyone's welcome. And then he just starts asking this one guy, and then we thought about the other. You know a Greek colonist, and you know Alexandria is literally called the colony, peppering this native Berber with all these questions it does look bad, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

he's like stop bullying him, leave him alone. No, you don't understand this guy. And he's like just keeps asking him the same sort of questions over and over again. And Constantine's like leave him alone, okay.

Speaker 2:

And if you just ask, and, as Constantine said, if you just keep asking someone loads of questions which we don't know the answers to, they're going to say the wrong thing eventually.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you may trip them up into actually saying blasphemy, and then that's on you, that's on you. So from Constantine's perspective he's like he actually gets some of the deep things. But then he also is like, why are you pushing this one question all the time? It's as if you're trying to find a question to trip this guy up, which he is he is doing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he actually is, yeah so he has figured everything out in a sense, but he's not there. And he does explain why he's not there and that's just because he's so upset about the whole thing. He couldn't bear to to go, isn't it? But maybe he should have been there and then he might have been able to see he would have seen the real issues but, it makes you.

Speaker 1:

I come away from the letter feeling constantine's like lovely really, and he just wants all the christians to get on and get on with evangelism, to win the entire world over. And you're like beautiful, that is good. But you're right, he got so upset about it he didn't go and visit. But if he'd visited he probably would have quite quickly. And we're going to see, aren't we? That Constantine is is because sometimes people say, oh, he's not a theologian, he doesn't understand stuff, but he is a theologian and we're going to see that perhaps in future episodes that, particularly in relation to Eusebius, that the kind of actual language used in the final form of the Nicene Creed is to do with Constantine's involvement. But we'll not talk about that now.

Speaker 1:

So there's Alexander. He's the Coptic Pope, he gets that. There's a problem. He's pushing and peppering this Aureus guy with questions in Bible studies, because Alexander knows this guy is portraying himself as like a man of the people, representing Berbers and things. But actually he's dangerous. And the very fact that he perhaps won't answer questions straightforwardly means, one, that alexander has to keep asking the questions, but two, it means that you know, ah, this is something well dodgy here and and and and I guess the more arius is pushed in a way, he perhaps does end up taking more extreme views, because the what happens when you're questioned is sometimes it forces you to articulate what you really think, and maybe that do you think. That's what's happening really that early in the process Arius perhaps hasn't really thought through what he really thinks yeah, and I think that is something Constantine's afraid of.

Speaker 2:

Once we start asking philosophical questions, we'll need philosophical answers, and we saw him have a go at pagan philosophy in this. So there something you know in the bible when it just casually says, oh yeah, when god made the word sort of all the wisdom, and you know, it just says that sort of thing and we're like no, you can't say made and everything. But there's a sense in which, before we started asking all these philosophical and we started, before we started breaking down what does it mean to be made? What does it mean to be a creature like the bible just uses any language that seems to be roughly correct, yeah, uh, whereas it's like no, we've got to have this, like don't use that word yeah, yeah, then you lose some of the poetry of the bible.

Speaker 2:

you can, and there's something horrible when you read too many commentaries and you can't just read the Bible because there's too many thoughts in your head. Constantine is, he started reading the Bible and he's loving it and then he gets all this theology that he's got to deal with and it's ruining it and I really resonate with that. I remember that happening for me with the apostle Paul just reading him, and he made total, total sense. Then read lots of commentaries. He stopped making sense. So Constantine's afraid of that sort of thing where it's like well, we're talking about, don't use this word, that word's in the bible.

Speaker 1:

that becomes a bit of a problem where we've lost the simplicity of expression because we've gotten too philosophical and that's unhelpful it's funny because I remember when reading some Philo quotes out to people, when Philo is describing the Logos, the word of the Lord, and he says that's the second God, and then someone who I was like they were furious. They said how dare Philo use that language? That is totally heretical. And I was like whoa, hang on a minute, like you've you they were saying, and then they quoted like the Nicene Creed to me, saying he's totally gone against the Nicene Creed. And I'm like yeah, but you do realize he was living, that he was speaking 300 years before that he's taught he's. If you understand what Philo's trying to say in his own context, you would realize he's actually articulating the theology of the Nicene Creed. But he's not.

Speaker 1:

And even the language like what particular words are we allowed to use and how? Like substance, prosopon, hypostasis, oosia, all these words later become very technically precise and everyone's like oh no, no, you can't use that word that way. You can only use it in this way to mean this one thing Previous to it. Those words are used in all kinds of ways and literally hypostasis or hypostasis is used to mean the one thing that God is, and other people use it to mean the three things God is. So that same word, isn't? It is literally used for opposite, like God is one of it. Or God is three so that same word, isn't it? It's literally used for opposite, like God is one of it or God is three of it.

Speaker 1:

And people are arriving at this Council of Nicaea literally using words in opposite ways, and then later everyone's like, oh, can you believe that idiot's using that language? And you're like what? Like you're not being, you're not thinking like. And you're like what I'm gone, like you're not being, you're not thinking like. And so Constantine can see yeah, like in the Bible and in people before Nicaea, there's a huge breadth of language and a kind of imprecision. Like you know, irenaeus might talk about that like the father has two hands the Son and the Spirit, the Word and Wisdom. And then after that he says you can't say that God the Son and God the Spirit are not just two hands. No, but you're not understanding. It's a brilliant way of expressing the Trinity and a biblical one by his right hand.

Speaker 2:

he saved us, and that is about Jesus.

Speaker 1:

It's Biblical to do that. Yeah, I guess Constantine is like seeing oh things, this may not end well, and like, once we start getting into very abstract questions and pushing things like this, there's dangers to it, and there certainly is, and that has happened. But I think maybe that's enough for us in this episode, because we've really enjoyed constant time. We've got to know Alexander and how wise he is. Have you got anything else you want us to think in this episode?

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, there was an interesting thing, just as you were saying with all this kind of wisdom and seeing through things, that someone way before Ares said any of this it was two Coptic popes before had said he kicked him out, Ares pre-saging everything, and then said Ares had already been kicked out, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then he was like you must never let him back in and basically doesn't really explain why. But the next guy who's this guy called heraclius. He lets him in because he's like, well, he wasn't even let out for any kicked out for any good reason and then he dies shortly after letting arius back in. So that's all happened and, like, there's lots of people you still believe in prophecy and stuff in uh in this time, and so they believe. Like you know, this earlier coptic pope had prophesied about arius and it wasn't heeded and someone's already died wow.

Speaker 1:

And so then the next part because he let him back in, he gets killed, like the lord judges him. So wow. So that adds a whole nother layer to it, that there's an earlier coptic pope who, like, given a word of knowledge from the spirit don't do not let this arius guy in, he's a catastrophe. And it might be that he genuinely didn't even know why he didn't kick him out. He's just kicking him out because the spirit had told him to, maybe gave him a dream, like joseph or something yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So there's stuff like that and there's other, like people who were recorded having literally dreams about arius before he's even born. Sometimes, Wow. Because his name Arius, it's like a Berber name that means lion, and so some people even see some you know where, it's like a roaring lion and all of that and like, ah, it is that particular word evokes because it's a homophone, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Or onomatopoeic where it's like ah, it's what a roaring lion says. So, Arius, he's got this thing. When you read these things about watching out for a roaring lion in the bible, loads of people at the time thought is that literally a prophecy?

Speaker 1:

about arius. Wow, he is the raw arius, that's it. Wow, I mean. And yeah, because it's like as if the as we'll, as we will see as we carry on exploring the 19th grade, it is like Constantine saying this isn't an important issue because that's his initial perception of it. But what we're going to see is it is actually the most important issue, like john says in one.

Speaker 1:

John, like this attack on the deity of jesus is the mark of antichrist. So that the this sense that there's kind of like the holy spirit had been warning people about arias, maybe even before arias was born, but certainly this earlier coptic pope had just been like we gotta get shut of this guy, and I don't even know why. Um, it tells you yeah, no, actually, even though constantine initially isn't can't see why alexander's so upset about this, he later does, constantine later gets to understand the importance of it and and contributes to the solution. But it is important for us to why we want to say is, although this is the initial reactions to what's going on, it is actually so important an issue. The who is Jesus? Yes,