WELCOME THE HISTORY SECTION
OF GODFELLAS
The majority church version of her history goes something like this... The 'church fathers' who developed what is now called 'orthodoxy' did nothing more than continue the faith of Jesus and the apostles. Though the original New Testament faith underwent considerable developments at their hands, these new explanations of what Christianity meant became necessary in order to defend it from the onslaught of heresy from the outside. And so the use of extra-biblical concepts such as the Trinity was a legitimate expression of what the apostles meant, but did not actually say. Even the importation of alien terms from the realms of Greek philosophy, without which it was impossible to articulate these new dogmas, was done in a manner entirely consistent with New Testament doctrine. With the alliance of that authentic Christianity with the Roman imperial power of Constantine and his successors the church councils successfully identified those writers who had been faithful to the original apostolic tradition and formulated their creeds accordingly. The others were consigned, quite literally, to the dustbin of history. In this way we come to have the establishment church as it continues to this day. This accounts for why the protestant reformers never saw the need, when condemning Roman Catholicism, to also make a break with the dogmas developed during the patristic period and endorsed by the state-sponsored church councils such as Nicaea, Constantinople or Chalcedon...
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