Reply #65: The Nicaean Council also decided what was official [View All]

[Julius Civitatus]

in the Bible and was not "official." The decision by Emperor Constantine to create and official version of Christianity involved picking those parts that didn't conflict with the idea of Empire and the power of Rome, and eliminating (or even changing) those parts that seemed "inconvenient" to the authorities.

In the Nicaean Council, Constantine pretty much decided which books, gospels and letters were to be part of the official Bible, and which ones to be left out (which are known as "The Apocrypha.") They even voted if Jesus was going to be "man," a human prophet, or "divine." Seriously.

Some scholars point to the fact that Emperor Constantine mixed elements of other mainstream Roman religions with early Christianity in order to create an official church for Rome, thus getting those pesky, pacifist early Christians under control, and making the official adoption of this new religion more palatable to the mainstream pagan Romans. You would be surprised to know how much they "borrowed" from the cult of Mithra. If you are very religious in your Christian beliefs, you may not want to further look into this, because it will shatter your assumptions quite quickly.