"We live at a time when much freedom is given to the expression of thought, but little care is taken that thoughts should be founded on truth." - St. Macarius of Optina
"By whom also He [Christ] went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water." - 1 Peter 3:19-20
"These are of the number of the stars [of heaven], which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and are bound here till ten thousand years, the time entailed by their sins, are consummated." - 1 Enoch 21:6
The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch), written in the name of the Prophet Enoch (see Genesis 5:22-24) had very wide acceptance in the early Church; it is quoted or alluded to numerous times by the authors of the New Testament and explicitly accepted as Scriptural by Sts. Barnabas, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Clement of Alexandria. Tertullian specifically wrote that the Jews had rejected it because it contained such clear prophecies of Christ. In fact, it remains part of the Old Testament canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to this day!
The verse quoted above in particular gets a lot of attention from the New Testament authors. St. Peter alludes to this verse again in 2 Peter 2:4; St. Jude paraphrases it in Jude 6; and St. Paul makes a reference to the larger story behind this verse in 1 Corinthians 11:10. So what's the deal with this verse?
According to Genesis 6:1-4, some "sons of God" (angels) fell in love with and married beautiful "daughters of men" (human women), and even had children with them, who were "the heroes of old, men of renown." The Bible cites these relationships as a major contributing factor to the Noahide Flood. It doesn't mention a punishment upon the angels involved, but oral tradition does. This oral tradition was later written down in several Jewish writings; one of these writings is 1 Enoch. In 1 Enoch, the Prophet Enoch goes to these angels who were bound in their temporary punishment to proclaim to them the coming Final Judgment of God. The New Testament authors saw in this a parallel with Christ's harrowing of hell and, especially for St. Peter, viewed Enoch as a prototype of Christ in this respect.
This is the third and final video in my series on the modern myths surrounding the Council of Nicaea, as propagated by such groups as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, books like the Da Vinci Code, and various pseudo-scholars and conspiracy theorists.
In this video, I cover only one myth: Myth # 6 - After Nicaea, the Church was used as a tool for the political power of Rome, including justifying wars and atrocities
I conclude with a few ending notes; to summarize: don't be fooled by a bunch of modern charlatans like Acharya S and Peter Joseph who are only out to make a buck at the expense of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ -- research every claim, including mine!
Here's the promised list of all the primary documents from the Council of Nicaea; these are the documents written by people who were actually there or who knew people who attended -- these are the sources that historians and scholars have to work with when writing on the Council -- very important stuff here:
Myth #6: After Nicaea, the Church was used as a tool for the political power of Rome, including justifying wars and atrocities. Truth: Nicaea neither established Christianity as Rome's official religion nor did it mark the end of Rome's persecution of Christians. In fact, two of St. Constantine's sons, who took control of the Empire after his death, were ardent supporters of Arianism, which the Nicene Council had declared a heresy, and attempted to force the Orthodox to reconcile with the Arians and even to adopt Arianism. They, in turn, were succeeded by their cousin Julian, who is known as "the Apostate" for having renounced Christianity and revived official state Paganism. Why would Julian do this if Christianity had indeed been invented as a means of power for the Roman state? Because, in fact, Roman Paganism, which Christianity was in the process of supplanting, was the means of power for the state and Julian recognized this. Constantine, if he had indeed needed a common religious cult to control the Empire, already had one, and it was the official religion of the Empire until the Edict of Milan in 313. The Imperial Cult of Rome not only gave religious sanction to the actions of the Empire, but included the divinity of the Emperor himself as an article of faith! In fact, the Christians' failure to reverence the Emperor as a semi-divine being was one of the reasons they were so often persecuted by Rome during their first 300 years. If Constantine was attempting to reinforce his authority with religious sanction, he chose the wrong religion with which to do so by far; he already had one better suited for the purpose handy. In fact, even after the establishment of Christianity as Rome's official religion by Theodosius I, the relationship between Church and State in Rome was hardly as cozy as the above myth implies. The Church was often an outspoken critic of the government, no small thing in an empire which had no ideas like "freedom of speech." St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, for instance, was exiled from the Empire by Emperor Arcadius in 403 for having criticized the extravagance of Arcadius' wife, Eudoxia, and of the royal court in general. St. Ambrose of Milan threatened to excommunicate Emperor Theodosius I, the very Emperor who made Christianity the official religion, after the Emperor ordered a massacre at Thessalonica in 390. Ambrose publicly exhorted the Emperor to imitate David in repentance even as he had imitated him in guilt. When Theodosius did repent, Ambrose imposed several months of penance on him and refused to admit him to the Eucharist during this time. In addition to all of this, there is a further issue with this myth. It is often accompanied by laundry lists of atrocities attributed to the Pope of Rome. Here an example of such a list from Zeitgeist, the Movie:
By 325 a.d. in Rome, emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea. It was during this meeting that the politically motivated Christian Doctrines were established and thus began a long history of Christian bloodshed and spiritual fraud. And for the next 1600 years, the Vatican maintained a political stranglehold on all of Europe, leading to such joyous periods as the Dark Ages, along with enlightening events such as the Crusades, and the Inquisition.
There is a flaw in logic to be found here. The statement moves from the Roman State to the Vatican and seems to equate the two, but they are very different entities. The first question that comes to mind is: Why would Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, if seeking to advance his own power, empower the Pope of Rome, who had formerly been one of the leaders of a persecuted minority group? It doesn't make sense. What also doesn't make sense is why Constantine would, in 330, only five years after Nicaea, move the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome (meaning, away from the Vatican) to far away Constantinople. If Constantine were seeking (for some odd reason) to empower the Vatican, why would he move the seat of Roman Imperial authority away from the Vatican? Also worth noting in this regard is that the Western Roman Empire, where the Vatican is located, had been conquered by barbarians and ceased to exist by 476, which means the Pope of Rome was no longer part of the Roman Empire. All three of the events listed above (the Dark Ages, the Crusades, and the Inquisition) happened after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and outside of what remained of the Roman Empire. In fact, the Pope of Rome had officially broken with the Eastern Patriarchs in the Great Schism of 1054, meaning that by the time of the Crusades and the Inquisitions he no longer even shared a common religion with the people of the Roman Empire! The Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire, which stood until 1453, never experienced the "Dark Ages" (in fact, the period commonly referred to as the "Dark Ages," approximately the years 500-1000, were times of great prosperity in the East); was, in fact, a victim of the Crusades, not a belligerent; and had absolutely nothing to do with any of the Inquisitions. In fact, in the end, the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and the accompanying disappearance of the last vestiges of the Roman Empire, is, in part, a consequence of Christianity. First, the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders (who had been sent by the Pope of Rome) in 1204 significantly weakened the Byzantine Empire, a weakening from which they never recovered. In addition, the obstinacy of Eastern Christians and their leaders in preserving the Orthodox Christian Faith prevented the Byzantine Empire from acquiring European assistance. The last several Emperors appealed constantly for help from the much stronger Western European powers in repelling the Ottoman onslaught. The Pope of Rome refused to sanction this help by the Roman Catholic leaders of Western Europe unless the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs submitted to him and accepted reunion on his terms; they refused to compromise the Faith to facilitate the life of the Empire. As a result, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the Roman Empire was no more.
Now, before I end this video, I just want to add a quick little note here. As you can see, putting these silly myths to rest wasn't a very difficult exercise. I don't know how it is that so many people are fooled by such badly-constructed falsehoods. I encourage everyone to do the research for yourself. On my blog, which I have a link to in the sidebar at the right, I've included a list of all of the primary sources for the Council -- that's the writings of those who witnessed these events for themselves -- both Orthodox and Arian. If you don't believe me -- or, for that matter, even if you do! -- check them out for yourself. Really, don't let yourself be fooled by people out to make a buck, like Acharya S., Dan Brown, and Lynn Picknet. That's the real conspiracy here -- and it's sick, to manipulate people's trust and turn them against our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ -- all to make money. Research every claim made; otherwise somebody is going to take advantage of you. If you know of any more of these conspiracy theories and myths, let me know and I'll be more than happy to address them in some videos here. Eventually, I plan to get into the Gnostics and all the garbage that gets kicked around about them by the History Channel (which, honestly, is less informative than MTV) and Elaine Pagels. Until then...
Thanks for watching! I've got a couple more videos coming your way soon about the Council of Nicaea. Please rate, please comment, please subscribe, and please share this video with anyone you think might be interested in this topic. I hope you've enjoyed these videos on the myths surrounding the Council of Nicaea, and most of all, I hope you learned something.
This is part two (a) of my short series addressing some of the modern myths surrounding the First Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea in AD 325. The myths I address here are ones that are propagated by groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, individuals such as Dan Brown and Elaine Pagels, and media such as the book The DaVinci Code and Zeitgeist, The Movie.
The myths I address in this video are: 1. Constantine the Great was a pagan when he convoked and attended the Council of Nicaea. 2. The Arians were the true Christians, the "Orthodox" were the heretics. 3. The Council of Nicaea invented the Divinity of Christ.
For more of my videos, click here to visit my YouTube channel.
And the script for these videos:
In this video, I'll be addressing a couple more of the myths surrounding the Council of Nicaea. Let's jump right in.
Myth #4: Constantine was a pagan when he convoked and attended the Council of Nicaea.
This myth is a great example of an old saying: "A little education is a dangerous thing." Let's look at the truthy edge around this myth: 1. St. Constantine was not baptized until he was on his deathbed, well after the Council of Nicaea. 2. He was still, as Emperor, officially a pagan high priest, an honorary position held by all Roman Emperors. 3. He probably viewed Paganism and Christianity as compatable at this point in history. 4. He hadn't been catechized yet, and probably didn't know that much about the Christian Faith.
But that's pretty much where it stops. The most obvious problem with this myth is that it is anachronistic; it attributes a very modern mindset, in which crafty politicians manipulate religiosity and feign piety in order to win the support of the masses, to a very ancient time, when people had a very real fear of the gods. Religion, in the ancient world, wasn't something you toyed with. This was especially true if one wanted to be the Emperor of Rome -- you needed the favor of the gods of Rome. Why would Constantine, then, choose to abandon them in favor of a god --the Judeo-Christian one-- who was considered the enemy of the Roman gods? The only reasonable answer, as it bears out in logic and history, is true Faith. He may not have understood this Faith well --which is almost a certainty-- but he was no pagan.
Myth #5: The Arians were the true Christians; the Orthodox were the heretics. Or, stated in another way: The Council of Nicaea invented the Divinity of Christ.
First off, those who buy into this myth are working with some false assumptions to begin with. They assume that the Arians didn't believe in the Divinity of Christ; this is incorrect. The Arians believed that Christ was a created being, but still asserted that he was Divine and pre-existed all other created things. Those who try to tap into Gnosticism for support for this myth, as both the DaVinci Code and Zeitgeist do, are misinformed, to say the least. The Fathers' problem with the Gnostics was not that they thought Christ too human, but that the Gnostics thought Christ too Divine. This played out in Gnostic theology in a variety of ways that generally included the outright denial of his humanity altogether. Those who claim that the Gnostic Gospels present a more human Christ are asserting an utter falsehood; the complete opposite is true.
Now, back to the myth itself. Today, this myth is propagated primarily by the Jehovah's Witnesses and so it is their views on the matter that I will address. The Jehovah's Witnesses adopt an Arian theology and regard Arius himself as having been a teacher of true Christianity. Before I begin I should note that this is not going to be exhaustive as the work has already been done for me by St. Athanasius of Alexandria nearly 1700 years ago (and what's really "exhaustive" in a YouTube video anyway?). Also, arguments from Scripture are difficult in this case because the Jehovah's Witnesses have duly "corrected" their copies of the Bible to fit their beliefs. A glaring example of their intentional fudging of the Scriptures, from their New World Translation, is their consistent mistranslation of the Greek word for "cross" (stauroV) to "torture stake." A quote from their New World Translation:
Pilate wrote a title also and put it on the torture stake. It was written: “Jesus the Naz·a·rene´ the King of the Jews.” (Gospel of John 19:19)
And, more on topic with this post, they don't forget to edit the offending (that is, refuting) verses when it comes to theology. Example:
In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god. (Gospel of John 1:1)
Ironically, the scholar of Greek language whom they cite as an authority to justify their change here has subsequently written an article rebutting their mistranslation. In his own words:
"The translation suggested in our Grammar for the disputed passage is, "the Word was deity." Moffatt's rendering is "the Word was divine." William's translation is, "the Word was God Himself." Each translation reflects the dominant idea in the Greek. For, whenever an article does not precede a noun in Greek, that noun can either be considered as emphasizing the character, nature, essence or quality of a person or thing, as theos (God) does in John 1:1, or it can be translated in certain contexts as indefinite, as they have done. But of all the scholars in the world, as far as we know, none have translated this verse as Jehovah's Witnesses have.
"If the definite article occurred with both Word and God in John 1:1 the implication would be that they are one and the same person, absolutely identical. But John affirmed that "the Word was with (the) God" (the definite article preceding each noun), and in so writing he indicated his belief that they are distinct and separate personalities. Then John next stated that the Word was God, i.e., of the same family or essence that characterizes the Creator. Or, in other words, that both are of the same nature, and the nature is the highest in existence, namely divine."
Notice that he uses the word "essence" there. This is the English translation of one of the root words for the the Greek compound homoousios ("same essence/nature/substance"), the very word that the Fathers of the Ecumenical Council used. There we have the concept in Scripture. Why, some might ask, is the word itself not in Scripture? The reason is that there was no need for it. Words like "consubstantial," "transubstantiation," and "Trinity" were unnecessary. It was innovative heresies, like Arianism, that popped up later which forced Christians to name and explain their beliefs. Importantly, they did not seek to invent anything new, but only to more precisely define what they already believed. As a very simplified example, if all you ever knew were apples that were green, you would simply call them "apples." However, if someone brought you a red apple for the first time, you would now find the need to differentiate between the two, calling one a "green apple" and the other a "red apple." Your apples have always been green, but now you find it necessary to point out that they are such.
Now, if we're going to show that Arianism is not the true, original Christianity, the first thing we need to know is what exactly Arius taught. Here are Arius' words about his own philosophy, contained in a letter he wrote to Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, one of his supporters, in 319:
We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning. This is the cause of our persecution, and likewise, because we say that He is of the non-existent. And this we say, because He is neither part of God, nor of any essential being.
In essence, Arians believed in a kind of "divine hierarchy" of Father-->Son-->Holy Spirit, with the Father creating the Son and then creating, through the Son, the Spirit. This is summarized in a letter written by the Arian bishop Auxentius his Arian creed:
I believe that there is only one God the Father, alone unbegotten and invisible, and in His only-begotten Son, our Lord and God, creator and maker of all things, not having any like unto Him. Therefore there is one God of all, who is also God of our God, And I believe in one Holy Spirit, an enlightening and sanctifying power. As Christ says after the resurrection to his Apostles: "Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24.49) And again: "And ye shall receive power coming upon you by the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1.8) Neither God nor Lord, but the faithful minister of Christ; not equal, but subject and obedient in all things to the Son. And I believe the Son to be subject and obedient in all things to God the Father.
The problem with all of this, and the reason that the Fathers of the Council knew they had to quickly address the Arian heresy, is that it puts our possibility of salvation in jeopardy. This is most succinctly stated by St. Athanasius of Alexandria in his treaties On the Incarnation: "[God], indeed, became man that man might become God." If Christ is not God, then our salvation and our theosis, or deification, is impossible. This is why Arianism was (and still is) such a dangerous heresy.
So which is the belief that the earliest Christians held, Arianism or Trinitarianism? The most clear evidence that they were not Arian is that Arian ideas are nowhere to be found until Arius, who delineated his motives for inventing them, namely, that he did not believe that a doctrine (God as three in one, specifically) could be true which could not be entirely understood by the human mind. Essentially, he set up human reason as the standard by which to judge Faith and Scripture. A serious mistake. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD." - Isaiah 55:8.
Here are some selections from the earliest Christian writings that address the topics of the Holy Trinity and each Divine Persons' relation to the other members of the Trinity. Please note that this list of quotes is by no means exhaustive; there are, in fact, dozens of passages throughout the writings of the Fathers which are similar to these. I have placed them in chronological order and inserted the most commonly accepted dates for Arius' birth and the beginning of his career, so that it is clear that the Fathers were not just responding to Arius, but actually communicating the Faith as they knew it in their own words. All emphasis below is mine.
95 - "there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word," - St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians
96 - "For this is how Christ addresses us through his Holy Spirit: ‘Come, my children, listen to Me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.’" - St. Clement of Rome, First Letter to the Corinthians
130 - "...believe on our Lord and God Jesus Christ and on His Father that raised him from the dead." - St. Polycarp of Smyrna, Letter to the Philippians
150 - "The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spake to Moses, though He who spake to him was indeed the Son of God, who is called both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged, both by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe on Him, He endured both to be set at naught and to suffer, that by dying and rising again He might conquer death. And that which was said out of the bush to Moses, “I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and the God of your fathers,” this signified that they, even though dead, are yet in existence, and are men belonging to Christ Himself. - St. Justin Martyr, The First Apology
170 - "For, being at once both God and perfect man likewise, He gave us sure indications of His two natures: of His Deity, by His miracles during the three years that elapsed after His baptism; of His humanity, during the thirty similar periods which preceded His baptism, in which, by reason of His low estate as regards the flesh, He concealed the signs of His Deity, although He was the true God existing before all ages." - St. Melito of Sardis, Fragments
177 - "The Son…is the first offspring of the Father. I do not mean that he was created, for since God is eternal mind, he had his Word within himself from the beginning, being eternally wise." - Athenagoras of Athens, A Plea for the Christians
180 - "The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity, God, his Word, and his Wisdom." - Theopholis of Antioch, Letter to Autolycus
216 - "Keep always in mind the rule of faith which I profess and by which I bear witness that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and then you will understand what is meant by it. Observe now that I say the Father is other, the Son is other, and the Spirit is other. This statement is wrongly understood by every uneducated or perversely disposed individual, as if it meant diversity and implied by that diversity a separation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." - Tertullian, Against Praxeas
225 - "For we do not hold that which the heretics imagine: that some part of the being of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father from non-existent substances, that is, from a being outside himself, so that there was a time when he did not exist." - Origen, Fundamental Doctrines
225 - "For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages." - Origen, Fundamental Doctrines
225 - "The Word alone of this God is from God himself, wherefore also the Word is God, being the being of God. Now the world was made from nothing, wherefore it is not God." - St. Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of All Heresies
235 - "For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God himself as man. It has as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God. Because it does not set forth him to be the Son of God only, but also the son of man; nor does it only say, the son of man, but it has also been accustomed to speak of him as the Son of God. So that being of both, he is both, lest if he should be one only, he could not be the other. For as nature itself has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so the same nature prescribes also that he must be believed to be God who is of God…. Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus Christ the son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God." - Novatian, Treatise on the Trinity
250 - Arius is born
262 - "It is blasphemy, then, and not a common one but the worst, to say that the Son is in any way a handiwork ... But if the Son came into being, there was a time when these attributes did not exist; and, consequently, there was a time when God was without them, which is utterly absurd." - St. Dionysius of Rome, Letter to Dionysius of Alexandria
265 - "There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything super-induced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever." - St. Gregory the Wonderworker, Declaration of Faith
313 - Arius is ordained to the Priesthood and begins teaching for the first time.
It is very obvious from these and an abundance of other writings that the early Christians were most certainly not Arians. They believed that Christ is indeed God and, even before they had the word, they were Trinitarian.
I will conclude with one final, authoritative quote, this one recording the words of the Lord Himself on this matter:
"Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.'" - Gospel of John 8:58
Rhology's first question in the cross-examination portion of our debate is a very good one. It is, essentially, how do we distinguish the "good" from the "bad" in Tradition, the "commandments of God" from the "traditions of men?"
The first thing that needs to be cleared up here is that not all (and, in fact, very little) "little 't' tradition" is "bad" as Rhology's question seems to assume. Using Mark 7 as our point of reference, Christ is not even condemning all "traditions of men." He's condemning specifically those "traditions of men" which "make the word of God of no effect." And certainly not all "traditions of men" "make the word of God of no effect." National holidays like Independence Day and Thanksgiving are "traditions of men" but I doubt that Rhology would submit that they somehow violate the commandments of God.
I think that what we're really looking for here is a way to set apart what is Apostolic Tradition, that is, Tradition which bears Apostolic authority and carries divine inspiration and/or origin, from non-Apostolic traditions, which are not necessarily "bad" but are certainly secondary and subordinated to Apostolic Tradition. And, lucky for me, the Fathers handled this very question many hundreds of years before Rhology or I ever thought to ask it.
St. Vincent of Lerins, in The Commonitory, written in AD 434, states that our rule of faith is to be "that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all." In saying this, he restates the criteria which had been used since the times of the Apostolic Fathers of the 2nd century to separate truth from falsehood. In order to be recognized as Apostolic, a given tradition had to be ancient (that is, dating from the time of the Apostles and not a recent innovation), catholic (meaning "universal;" the tradition had to be something practiced in the whole Church, not just some custom in a local area), and it had to be orthodox (that is, it couldn't contradict those beliefs and practices which the Church already held to be true).
To let St. Vincent speak in his words:
We shall hold to this rule if we follow universality, antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike.
Rhology is essentially cutting off his own legs in this debate with this question because these same criteria were used by the Fathers in deciding what belonged in the canon of Scripture! Scripture is a part of Tradition -- in fact, it is the very heart and center of Tradition. And it has a common history of codification and definition along with the rest of Tradition, and cannot be separated from the remainder of Tradition without doing serious harm to its message. Rhology seems to forget that Scripture didn't appear in a vacuum -- it was subject to the same test as the rest of Tradition: is it something that "has been believed everywhere, always, and by all?"
"By whom also He [Christ] went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water." - 1 Peter 3:19-20
Posts
