The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 103 - Beyond the Creed: Exploring Nicaea's Practical Wisdom for Church Life
The final deliberations of the Council of Nicaea reveal a fascinating dimension beyond the famous creed that defined Christ's divinity. While theological unity formed the cornerstone of the council, what happened after the creed was established shows how these early church leaders addressed practical matters with remarkable wisdom and global perspective.
The council itself represented an astonishing diversity of Christian experience. Beyond the expected Roman and Greek bishops, we encounter figures like John the Persian who represented churches from "Greater India" where the Apostle Thomas had established Christian communities. Even more remarkably, these connections extended through a chain of representation that reached as far as Southeast Asia and China. This reveals a fourth-century Christianity far more globally interconnected than many realize today.
What strikes me most about the council's practical rulings is how they saw heavenly order reflected in earthly worship. When establishing church structures, they weren't thinking in organizational or pragmatic terms, but believed ordained ministers "should serve as types and images of heavenly beings." This perspective shaped everything from how they conducted baptism to their understanding of communion, where they deliberately used small portions to emphasize that "its purpose is not to satisfy physical hunger but to sanctify us."
The bishops addressed everyday challenges with surprising relevance for contemporary church life. They condemned those who misused Jesus's teachings about not worrying as an excuse for laziness. They established boundaries for clergy conduct to protect reputation. Their understanding of God's foreknowledge focused not on individual salvation but on the certainty of cosmic redemption and the coming new creation – a refreshingly hopeful perspective that anchored their practical decisions.
These ancient guidelines emerged from a profound experience of unity in confessing the faith together. As Constantine observed, they spoke "as if from one mouth," guided by the Holy Spirit. This unity in essentials then inspired them to address practical disagreements with wisdom, charity, and common sense – a model worth considering in our own divided times.
What might we learn from how these early Christians connected heavenly realities with earthly practices? How might their global perspective and practical wisdom reshape our approach to church today?
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. And we're really coming to the end of our deep dive analysis into the Council of Nicaea and all its proceedings. And it'll be June the 19th when that kind of first intense month came to an end when they finally produced well, it had already kind of been produced the creed by eusebius of caesarea and the other bishops who'd gone to, uh, ankara is that right pj's with me from the global church history project? They'd already done that at ankara, hadn't they? And then um, and it's largely the same, except lacking that one word. Which eusebius? He didn't like people meddling with his creed, but it was okay if Constantine did it, equal to the apostles and everything. So they did produce that.
Speaker 1:But then there was other business to attend to at the council, and that's what we're going to look into in this episode of CCCC. But before we get into that other business that was attended to and always remember, as well as that kind of funny thing, that sort of three or four years later there are still people hanging around having a jolly on the basis of Constantine and in the end he says no, I'm pulling the plug now, you've all got to go home. But the bishops, of course weren't like that. They had to get back to the diocese and get on with work. But there's always people who like that sort of thing. But of the bishops that were present, we want to just Now. We know there were those bad ones, the Urian ones, that he had a handful of bishops who were with him, including one guy who was Eusebius of Nicomedea, and he's a complex fella, isn't he? Because he's a friend of Constantine and yet he's really of the Urian persuasion, isn't he? Can you tell us anything about him?
Speaker 1:So it's quite interesting that that word homoousion first popped up in the council because Eusebius of Nicomedea said it and we were thinking how there had been that previous council at Antioch that said we can't use the word homoousion. So he brings it up because he says, and we thought it basically just means are the same thing, and so he says the father and the son are the same thing and so that had been used in the wrong way to mean Unitarianism. So he brings it up first, eusebius of Nicomedia, and he says well, we can't be saying what you're saying, or else we're saying the father and the son are the same thing, and then constantine, hearing that, puts it in and I think that's an interesting thing, that he cares about his friend and he thinks all right, this is clearly where he's getting stuck, let's help him out and say this word that's exactly what we've got to put in um to help him. So I think constantine's a really good friend. Yeah, that's good, isn't? He's like you, save you, so they could do, because he's an Arian. He's too philosophical. He's like well, we can't say the father and the son are the same thing, because we've got to make sure they're different. And then Eusebius is like no, I'm going to help my friend here and get him to say it, because if he says it in the right way, it'll help him. I don't know whether it ever completely helped Eusebius of Nicomedea, because I think he may always have struggled with this, but there was him.
Speaker 1:But on the good ones, we've thought about Hoseus, the Bishop of Cordova. He represented Rome. Really, he's this Spanish guy. I think we've mentioned him before, and he had these two Roman priests, vito and Vincent. They're coming from. Those are Italian priests, the Roman priests who are coming, so they're going.
Speaker 1:Then there's Alexander of Alexandria, with Athanasius who was his archdeacon, and then they represented Egypt, libya, the Pentapolis and neighbouring regions. And here it says even they helped to represent provinces of Indiaia associated with alexandria. Could that be true? Yeah, there's well. The word india, as still is the case, actually refers to a lot of countries, because we often think about the west indies and the east indies, and so it kind of can mean anything like more equatorial than the Roman Empire was, and so it often refers to Ethiopia, and often Ethiopian traders would capitalize on this. They would buy loads of Indian stuff and then sell it as if it was coming from Ethiopia, because they'd call Ethiopia India and then confuse oh, they'd go, it's genuinely Indian. Yeah, okay, that's good. So he represents that. Oh, there you go. It's genuinely Indian. Yeah, okay, that's good. So he represents that.
Speaker 1:There's the Eustathius of Great Antioch representing Mesopotamia, but then there's a guy who's just called John the Persian, and then it says he represented the churches of Persia and Greater India. Yeah, so who's he representing? Yeah, so Greater India seems to refer to what we now call India, the kind of subcontinental southern part of Asia that is split between Dravidians and Indo-Aryans, that sort of area, and where the Apostle Thomas died and where he spent a lot of his ministry. And what's quite interesting is that the St Thomas churches were all interconnected through a sort of chain. So you had these bishops in Persia which were able to contact the West and Indians, and Socotrans would send bishops to this bishop in Persia. And then there's liturgy in the St Thomas churches which are preserved but not currently used for welcoming people from Southeast Asia, which was called Marchin. And then there's further records that they would represent people all the way in what we now call China. So there's a chain like people from China send people to Southeast Asia, they send people to India, they send people to Persia. So this John represents kind of the majority of the Christian population. But they do it all through this chain sort of thing. So what he's got to do is make sure it all adds up with the theology of this massive church of the east and then bring it back and then slowly disseminate it. But they don't, all these churches don't sign up to it for like over a hundred years, cause the logistics of that is almost impossible. They do in the end say, oh yeah, we were properly represented, everything in Nicaea is fine, but just the logistics of taking this. And I suppose realistically, if you're say leading church, you know many hundreds of thousands of Christians say in China or Indonesia or whatever.
Speaker 1:And then you hear about this guy in North Africa who's like, oh, I don't think Jesus has always existed. And then they say, don't worry, here's a creed that sorts it out. They're like what? Like? What on earth are you having a problem like that for? So I sometimes think they probably thought, yeah, sure, but why were you struggling with the biblical teaching about the deity of Jesus and the Father and the Spirit? How come? Yeah, okay, you know, thanks. But it would be odd, wouldn't it? Like they perhaps just didn't even understand the need for such a thing. Yeah, and in later decades, aryans became very missional-minded, and so there were Aryan missionaries to India and beyond, and then that probably spurred them to finally rush to the. So then they would then be like, hey, hang on, where was that funny old creed that those guys were? Oh, actually, this is quite useful. So once you meet Aryans, then you appreciate the nice-y creed, but up until then it would seem like, yeah, uh, sure, thanks, you know.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, and so there's all these other characters who were there. There's a guy, there's the patriarch of jerusalem, eusebius pamphili bishop. Oh, that's our bit, that's our eusebius of caesarea. There he is um alexandra thessalonica and and that's interesting because he had, he is Alexandra Thessalonica and that's interesting because he is partly has representatives with him with Greece, europe, scythia, illyricum, thessaly, but Scythians are with him. So that's like the kind of step peoples of like um, kind of like russia, yeah, russia, ukraine, belarus, that's sort of a bit of poland as well. That's fascinating in it. So there's even people like russian peoples um being represented or actually present, because each of them it says alexander with his subordinates, so he's brought people with him, presumably, uh, represented actual people from these locations.
Speaker 1:And we think in thessalonica, yeah, philippi, which is one of these cities, some kind of calculations put over a million people. So you get, you do get in the ancient world proper metropolis, that um, you know, like philippi and that's one of them, and that was lots of goths went there, setheans, that sort of thing. So it's quite a multicultural one because it was alexander the great's capital. So, like everywhere, alexander kind of connected to and conquered, has a sort of interest in philippi. Well, we can go through all these names.
Speaker 1:There's lots of them interesting. There's a guy called Nunecius of Laodicea and he represents Phrygia, prima and Secunda. So that was interesting. Both Phrygias, yeah, both. And then there's Sardica, and then the guy from Carthage, it says, represented Africa, numidia, and both Mauritanias, ah, yeah, so that's Algeria and what we now call Morocco. Ah, there we are. And it's worth noting Eusebius. Earlier, when we'd read out his stuff, he did mention there were Parthians there, and that's like Central Asia, Central Asia.
Speaker 1:There's a guy called Pistus of Marcianopolis and he represents Athens and Gaul. Why Athens and Gaul? They seem extremely far from each other. Well, the Apostle Philip had preached in both Athens and Gaul, ah, so that connects them. Yeah, as did Irenaeus of Lyon, ah, and Irenaeus, of course, course, is the classic example connecting those two. But also I've noticed that sometimes, gaul, there are colonies of gaul, yeah, like galatia. Galatia is an example of that, aren't there? So, uh, it in the middle east. In the middle east, like russia, in everywhere.
Speaker 1:Like the, the celts did settle a lot of places. They were kind of rivals to the Greeks for a long time and then, because they end up getting conquered and because a lot of their history was orally preserved, a lot of their perspective is lost. But it's always interesting to see how much they had accomplished. And they burned down Rome, famously under Brennus. Oh, he was British, probably, but he might be Gaulish. So the Celts had accomplished a lot and were able to beat Rome quite a few times. But that kind of gets left out of the history books because they can't speak for themselves. Oh yeah, there we have it. So these are all the.
Speaker 1:It says all these holy In this eyewitness account we have. It says all these holy apostolic men delivered the decisions and, uh, brought it says brought unity to the whole, all parts of the world, and I like this. Then it says emperor constantine rejoiced in the exposition of the orthodox apostolic faith pronounced by the holy spirit through our 300 holy fathers, as if from one mouth, confirmed by all. So it was interesting. They really, even at the time, felt that it was the Holy Spirit who'd spoken through them all and given this tremendous unity. And then it says Constantine rose from his throne before the entire crowd of holy high priests and all who assembled for that holy discussion of the faith. He stretched out his hands, turned his eyes toward God in heaven and praised God, the Saviour and benefactor of us all. Because God had made the bishops united, as he desired, and led them to agree about the true saving faith. So there Constantine has God in heaven, god the saviour, and God who'd made the bishops speak together, which we know to be the Holy Spirit in that paragraph. So it's like Constantine just does.
Speaker 1:That gives this perfect exposition of the Trinitarian faith as he raises his hands and he's called the God-loving emperor, who was excellent in every respect, had such concern for the churches and for peaceful unity among the shepherds. Now, this is, of course, eusebius' words, who was present there, and of course he's completely unbiased and gives us that perfectly accurate account of what happened. So that's lovely. And then it says that you know people, different people, have things to say in praise of it all, and there's lots of wonderful things about you know how it really gets into issues then about clarifying matters of church unity, and so they get into this. It's as if they go from we're all absolutely united in confessing the Trinitarian faith together, but now what are we going to do about things where there are disagreements and fractures? And what do we do with people who have separated from us, or should they be separated from us? Or, if they've sinned badly or betrayed the faith, can they be united? So it's as if this experience of great unity led to. Let's clarify now, in the spirit of this unity, let's use that to try and address questions where we're not necessarily totally on board together, and so that's what we'd like to look at briefly now.
Speaker 1:Some of the things that they got into that are like the canons, the rules, the extra wisdom, and it's worth noting because Athanasius people often in Athanasius' time criticized the council because they were like saying they were taking something so seriously they made a heresy out of everything. Once they start picking apart this whole divinity of the something and he says no, no, it's not like that With the divinity of the something, they said you, it's not like that with the divinity of the something, they said you must believe this, or else your anathema cast out the church, sort of thing. With all these other ones, there tends to be just this language of oh, you should do this, unless there is something it's talking about very strongly, like not having concubines, then you must not. But that's worth noting, it's not. Um, even this bit isn't a kind of like imperial, enforcing a uniform culture. And you know, there is all this language of we should do this because we should be united and they're working towards finding a solution that will work for everyone, but it's not the same level of absolute necessity as the creed, as the creed yeah, the creed we all unite on, but there's a.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I I love it the way that it's full of just kind of common sense wisdom in the rulings, and the first one that's recorded for us by eusebius is really saying like there are some people when jesus says do not worry about your life, what, what you will eat Matthew 6.25. And they say look, there are busybodies who misunderstand this and so they just don't do any work. They just loaf around all day because they're like, oh well, you shouldn't worry about what you're going to wear, so let's not bother doing anything. So this is the first one that they say. And then the, the bishops, say yeah, but the bible also says that the lord causes our work to grow and bear fruit mark 4, 26 to 27. The kingdom of god is like a man who scattered his seed on the ground night and day, whether he sleeps or get up the seed sprouts and grows, though he doesn't know how. So the idea is you work and that's how God blesses you. It's not that he just sends food out of thin air or clothes out of thin air. He sends these things to you as you work. So that was the very wise response that people who were just loafing around all day saying, well, I'm trusting the Lord, they're like, no, you're not trusting the Lord because if you did, you would work. So I like that one. That was the first bit of this business, that saying what are we going to do about loafers? And they're like, well, don't, don't have loafers. But they even they don't even say you've got to chuck them out. They really just say they're not really trusting the Lord. Help them to see things in a better way. But what about this one?
Speaker 1:This is interesting because the next one says about ordained people. It says the ordained should serve as types and images of heavenly beings. The bishop should occupy the throne of the Lord himself as head. What do you make of that? Yeah, that is. It's an interesting view of like the threefold ministry and seeing it in the highest heaven, seeing that Moses, when he sets up this ancient threefold ministry, he expects ancient Israel to kind of know what he's talking about. I was reading it in the septuagint Greek and it's interesting because he just says I'm going to make air the high priest. So he'll be your bishop and then I'll make you know these Levites will be priests, but then some of them will just be helpers. They'll be, you know, your elders and your servants or deacons. You know. So these sort of words. Moses expects ancient Israel, before he's done all the Aaronic priesthood stuff, to understand what these kind of words and this threefold ministry is. I think they might be right that the easiest way to understand why that might be is that they knew about angels.
Speaker 1:Throughout Genesis, angels get mentioned a lot, or angelic beings, because cherubs and seraphs kind of aren't angels but they are angelic or celestial beings. And what all these prophets see whenever they go up to the highest heaven is, you know, tends to be like a divine liturgy sort of thing being carried out. And so he's just noting, I suppose, or not, just like the global church, I suppose or not, to say like the global. Yeah, the bishops were really saying that the way we organize church on earth they take it for granted it's reflecting an order, a liturgy of divine worship that's heavenly and that, like nowadays it's. Quite often people do it very pragmatically and they're just like well, let's just organize ourselves in a simple, pragmatic way and and never think, well, hang on, how exactly is divine worship conducted in the heavens? Because we must reflect that that that probably doesn't even come up on the agenda for for uh, many, many, certainly protestant churches, I think, don't generally think like that.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting that the council said they took it for granted that we must reflect this sort of angelic, you know, and therefore, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we proclaim your glorious name forever, praising you and saying holy, so they're like. So if we're doing that, let us make sure that the just basic structures of bishops, priests and deacons does reflect the lord with seraphs and cherubs. It's unusual thing to get our heads around perhaps. And yet there it was at the council of nyseros they were just saying let's try and all go. They also then have a rule to say don't members just of the laity, the sort of general congregation, shouldn't go wandering up into the pulpit, like they felt that the pulpit or the ambo where preaching was from or the scriptures were read from, this, like the place where the scriptures are read and expounded People from the congregation shouldn't just go wander around that. So it's interesting that they were kind of guarding. The reading and preaching of the word Shouldn't be reduced to something just casual. I like that.
Speaker 1:But then it says on holy baptism it says this Our baptism is not to be considered with physical eyes but with spiritual eyes. When you see water, recognize the power of God, god which is hidden in the water. The Holy Scripture teaches that we are baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire. Recognise that by the faith of the baptiser and the faith of the person being baptised, the water is full of the Spirit, spirit sanctification and divine fire. So what is interesting about that is a warning against don't over-physicalise or, yeah, don't over-physicalize the baptism that what is going on is not merely, as Peter says, application of water or even just the. It's not even the idea that the water itself contains a kind of power, but it says the faith of the baptizer and the faith of the person being baptized it's like faith in Jesus is what makes baptism powerful. So that's quite interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Because that's not exactly the way that many people now think of it On either. More of the Catholic side would tend to emphasise that the water kind of does have power, and then Protestants would tend to go no, no, it's entirely about faith. But here it's like a slightly different version of all that. But again you can see what they're trying to do. They're trying to capture biblical truth. Similarly, on Holy Communion it says of the table of God and the mystery of the body and blood of Christ which occurs on it. So they actually define that the mystery of the body and cup placed on the table of God. But should lift up our minds to understand by faith that on that holy table is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world John 1 29,.
Speaker 1:A bloodless sacrifice by the priests. Since we truly receive his precious body and blood, we believe they guarantee our resurrection. We do not receive much, but little. So not a lot of bread, not a lot of wine. We deliberately do that only receive a little bit of bread and only a little bit of wine at the table of bread and only a little bit of wine at the table, so that we realize its purpose is not to satisfy our physical hunger but to sanctify us. So what do you make of that? The, the, the language is lift up your minds. We lift up our minds to understand by faith, but that what is on the table is the lamb of god, a bloodless sacrifice by the priests.
Speaker 1:I think it's a natural kind of application of the Apostle Paul's recommendation when he notes people just having communion as part of a feast and then they're getting drunk on the blood of God, and then he's like, well, this isn't right sort of thing. And so I think that's just taking it kind of a bit further and just taking it seriously what the Apostle that's just taking it kind of a bit further and just taking it seriously what the apostle paul's saying about the nature of this and that we have to have this kind of uh. And then it's kind of explaining like, well, why have this kind of sanctity around it? And it's saying it's so that it gives us the proper perspective of what's actually going on. And it's not just that we're eating something and that might remind us of the sacrifice of jesus, something. It's like there's something real going on and we're after the real thing and not just so the image is helpful, but we're after the real thing that's contained in this image. Yeah, so we mustn't allow just the side effect of like being full. Yeah, so that's why only have a small bit of bread, a small bit of one, so that you're never imagining this is about physical consumption. Yeah, um, it's very good.
Speaker 1:On the resurrection of the dead, they point out that his flesh arose so that by making us immortal he might obtain for us, forsaken humans, hope for our own resurrection. So there's this quite strong, uh, emphasis that the death, by his death, he deals with one thing, but by his resurrection that's about our resurrection, and physical resurrection is very strong, strongly asserted here that the lord, the lord, must glorify our bodies like his, and this tremendous hope in physical resurrection that is expressed now in holy living there's that they also have this thing here that there is one church of God and they say there is one church in heaven. The same church is also on earth. The Holy Spirit rests on it. The heresies outside of it to which people adhere are not the teaching of the Saviour, nor of the apostles, but of Satan, the father of the devil. They teach the heresies of Jews and Greeks in a different form to take away true life. So there, there's this very much a sense of. There's that heavenly church. We've already thought that they want to reflect that and that's reflected on earth and that heretics are not like a damaged church, but no church at all. There's only salvation inside church. Yeah, yeah, and that is interesting and you can see well, we'll probably get into later some of this stuff that comes out later with these definitions why they have to go a little further.
Speaker 1:But this whole no salvation outside the church thing and with that earlier thing about how it's the faith of the baptizer and the baptized are needed, those two things together cause a bit of controversy because later on people start saying, oh wait, I was baptized by a guy that turned out to be an arian. Do I have the saving faith? And then they end up kind of saying I think they kind of use the example of caiaphas yes, the spirit uses because of the faith of all the believing jews, the spirit is still on this high priest so, even though he's not a believer. So that ends up being clarified even more. These two points which is interesting to note, to note and that was something Athanasius said where these bits aren't as definitive as the creed in a way, and they get improved as time goes on.
Speaker 1:The next thing is that they deal with is God's foreknowledge and the will. Now, in post-Reformation times, particularly the idea of God's foreknowledge is very narrowly to do with the salvation of individuals, kind of that debate. But here God's foreknowledge is God foreknew that humans would sin. Therefore we look forward to a new heaven and an earth, according to the scriptures, when the reign of our great God and saviour, jesus Christ, will be revealed to us. So here the emphasis is on. They're like saying God's foreknowledge is his foreknowledge of sin and salvation and how it's all going to turn. Like the whole section about foreknowledge is foreknowledge of the end. Like the eschaton, the new creation. God foreknew the new creation before the world began. And so it's almost as if for them God's foreknowledge is not who is going to be saved right here and now. It questions about the present. Their emphasis of God's foreknowledge is on how is it all going to turn out at the end. And it's okay, don't worry, there's going to be this total victory of God. There's going to be a day of resurrection, there's going to be a new creation. God foreknew all this. So history you don't need to worry that history's going to turn out right, it is going to turn out. So foreknowledge in the Nicene canons, the God's foreknowledge is completely focused on the new creation, hope.
Speaker 1:And you get that idea sometimes in early church stuff where, like the fall really is when Adam and Eve don't confess their sin and Jesus has to investigate it. Instead, when he just calls out to them so he knows they're going to sin, and so he leaves them for a bit, and then when he comes back, he's hoping they just come and say, look sorry. And then they ask Jesus to sin, and so he leaves them for a bit, and then when he comes back, he's hoping they just come and say, look sorry, and then they ask jesus to make them new, and then the new creation might have started, just right. Then, yeah, he's like I'm gonna sort it, don't worry. But instead they're like, no, we've got to make ourselves right. And then he's like, right, I've got to throw you out of eden, because that's not how we can't do it. That way, you can't hold on to sin. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's it's an interesting sort of idea that where they I think they kind of leave that open whether that earlier interpretation might still happen, uh, which is always a fun one, but that he certainly knew we would sin and there'd have to be a new creation, and it's only so. Jesus was always the answer. There was never this other way of you know, and it's interesting that they think of it all in terms of macro level. How's the whole cosmos going to end up, rather than getting too embroiled in what about this individual or that individual? And there's an interesting thing here. It says eunuchs who have castrated themselves. This is an unusual thing, but they simply because of, I suppose, the, what it says in in the ancient law of Moses. So they're saying like people who become castrated, because like barbarians have done it to them or because of disease, they're like that's no problem at all. No, that's no.
Speaker 1:Questions arise, but if someone belonging to the clergy castrated himself while healthy, he must resign and from now on, no such person can be taken on as a clergy. Yeah, so wow, an early version of that was used in Alexandria to expel St Oregon the Scholar, which I always find it strange when Some people deny that he castrated himself. So I always find it strange that he never decided to say no, I actually didn't castrate myself, or give some sort of evidence. He just kind of accepts that. He accepts it. Well, he is a Bible man, oregon, whatever else. I mean, he's obsessed with the scriptures, so he might go. Well, you know, actually that isn't true or whatever is the case, or if it is true, but he loves the idea that he's getting thrown out for deeply biblical reasons. So, yeah, then it also has warning that don't ordain people to be priests and bishops and things If they've only recently could be converted from paganism, because if they were, like recently, sorcerers and pagans and things, and then very quickly you've got them as bishops and things, he said that's going to lead to big trouble. So that's good wisdom.
Speaker 1:Another good wisdom one is they say clergy who have housekeepers, and they're saying if you have housekeepers, the great council generally decided not to allow bishops, priests, deacons or anyone else in the clergy to have a housekeeper, except for a mother, sister or aunt or auntie or somebody. Anyone who violates this will endanger his reputation. So it's very interesting, isn't it? They're saying you can't have women, like a woman, living in your house looking after you. Uh, because everyone is just like that's obviously your reputation shot. So it's very interesting that we see how the reputation of church has been badly damaged in modern times because just basic wisdom, do not do these sort of things, because sometimes these things actually lead to not just the appearance of immorality but actual severe immorality? Yeah, absolutely. And that had been a thing earlier where Paul of Samosata had two housekeepers who were young women in his house and so that had been a massive sort of controversy but there weren't cannons by which he could be expelled.
Speaker 1:So a lot of these things in the cannons are dealing with problems in the build-up to that previous controversy and to this arian controversy, really making sure these problems can never come again. Partly because we think about constantine. When he opened up this uh council he was saying and in these letters he was saying really the cause of all heresies, according to the apostles, is our deceitful desires. So if we sort those out, we don't get heresies. These are the most important things if we actually think. How are we going to stop heresy? Definitions are kind of helpful for the symptoms, like this kind of disease that sprung up. But what's the actual problem? We need to make sure our deceitful desires are kept control of and or gotten rid of, not kept control of, totally gotten rid of. And that's really what the canons are about. I think, yeah, excellent.
Speaker 1:And then they talk about problems where, if someone has to be excommunicated and they just say how important it is to if some Christian just rolls up and says, can I join your church? They say, make sure you invest. It was that. Have they come from? What church have they come from? Find out. Give them a ring like find out, like how do you know this guy? Like, is it okay that he's left your church and come to our church? I love that because that's an enduring problem. Many, many ministers know it today. And it's always a problem if you, if someone just comes to your church, particularly if they're disgruntled and there's I had to leave that other church because they weren't good enough or they weren't biblical always investigate.
Speaker 1:The wisdom of nicaea is find out why did they leave that church? Like because they may have been excommunicated, in which case you mustn't allow them into your church. And that that again is directly into this Arian controversy because, as we thought, saint Eusebius did let Arius into his church after he was expelled from the African church. So this is kind of addressing the immediate cause of this controversy. And so good for Eusebius. He doesn't back away from this. He says no, no, like I wouldn't have got into that difficulty if I'd paid a, if this wisdom had been given. And then he also has a thing about and we can't pick them all up. We'll perhaps pick just this. Last one was last bit of wisdom out. Uh, although there's lots of good ones, maybe we'll get another episode. Okay, yeah, maybe we'll do another episode. Okay, yeah, let do one. I won't do any more now because there are some really good ones about sin and should, clergy, what about if they're married, and how do you handle all that? We'll save all that for the next episode.