When did the apostasy begin in early Christianity?

By apostasy, I primarily mean the father and the son, Jehovah and Jesus being one entity? What was the early foundations of the trinity? am currently reading through the supposed "Church fathers" to try to get an idea. I know some members here are very knowledgeable about early Christianity.
 
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The God Pill

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Went back to reading a bit of that early 4th century church history book yesterday and according to it Jesus half brother James sons had prominent positions in the Jersusalem congregation after his martyrdom a few years before Jerusalem's destruction and after it and there sons after them apparently at one point Jesus great nephews were arrested and brought before one of the emperors at a time many of those with verifiable davidic ancestry were being eliminated but after it became clear they had no worldly political ambitions and they explained the whole Christianity thing they were let go as not a threat.
 
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The God Pill

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It's been a while since I posted here I don't have any fresh apostasy research to post but wanted to encourage participation, contribution, input etc in the discussion.
 

The God Pill

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Finished 4 (of 10) books of church history now. Nothing yet significant since last update on it except Papias had a very similar view of the resurrection and the millennial reign to Witnesses something Eusbesius of Caeserea was critical of in more of portraying the guy as a simpleton dismissively than condemning his character this might be because the proto Catholic church was on the fence on whether revelation should be canon or not Caeserea doesn't seem to have been a fan of Revelation but admitted a comparison to the old testament prophets work would be the right method to determine it's status.
 

The God Pill

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Reading book 5 It's a bit saddening because as noble as the end of the second century Christians were in the accounts unwaveringly confessing Christ even when it meant death by beheading, wild animal or roasted on iron chairs the divine name had already been lost for the most part it seems as when one of the romans asked a soon to be martyred Christian the name of their God he said "God has not a name as man has." 😥
 
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The God Pill

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Finished it not a lot to say about the second half besides how severely the romans behavior escalated over time when they didn't kill Christians they'd take out an eye permanently cripple a foot or leg and force then to slave away in the copper mines in Palestine. It was common to tie Christians to anchors and toss them in the ocean or cut them to small pieces with the sword and feed them to the fishes occasionally they'd pull trees with ropes so they'd curve in the directions of one another then tie Christians to the two trees so that when they let go the release of tension enabling the trees to resume normal orientation would rip the Christians apart. Books 9-10 were basically just the author glorifying Constantine for ending the persecution of most Christians and reporting negatively on his rivals.
 

Medi-tator

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Finished it not a lot to say about the second half besides how severely the romans behavior escalated over time when they didn't kill Christians they'd take out an eye permanently cripple a foot or leg and force then to slave away in the copper mines in Palestine. It was common to tie Christians to anchors and toss them in the ocean or cut them to small pieces with the sword and feed them to the fishes occasionally they'd pull trees with ropes so they'd curve in the directions of one another then tie Christians to the two trees so that when they let go the release of tension enabling the trees to resume normal orientation would rip the Christians apart. Books 9-10 were basically just the author glorifying Constantine for ending the persecution of most Christians and reporting negatively on his rivals.
Thank you TGP for the summary of something I would rather not read for myself. The things the Romans did to Christians are horrible! So sad!!
 

Back to True Worship

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By apostasy, I primarily mean the father and the son, Jehovah and Jesus being one entity? What was the early foundations of the trinity? am currently reading through the supposed "Church fathers" to try to get an idea. I know some members here are very knowledgeable about early Christianity.
I love this question and all the answers we are getting, I am always amazed at how people can't see what the "ENTIRE BIBLE " says ...I actually was in a discussion the other day with a former JW who is going to the Church of God , and they believe in the trinity , I shared numerous scriptures and asked him to read the entire book of Philippians which I believe he would then realize that Jesus is not God , but he didn't , I am going to keep trying because he stumbled from the truth of the bible over how he was treated as a JW by elders and others in his congregation....so he experienced "true love" in this church and is now attending. So in contrast I had a phone conversation with a life long catholic woman in her 70's and she did not believe in anything the Catholic Church teaches including the trinity, hell fire , immortal soul and the like. She , if I were not told what she believed would have thought she was a JW....she even said she celebrated Christmas because of family and knew it was pagan...but I must say it was a very interesting call, and I hope Jehovah will allow this woman to get out of religion....and into the new world .
 

MickHewitt

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By apostasy, I primarily mean the father and the son, Jehovah and Jesus being one entity? What was the early foundations of the trinity? am currently reading through the supposed "Church fathers" to try to get an idea. I know some members here are very knowledgeable about early Christianity.
Moses while ascending the mountain, they built a golden calf. Similarly while Christ left the desciples to ascend to heaven after the apostles died His absence created the same? Hos 10:5 "The residents of Samaria will fear for the calf idol; It's people will mourn over it. As will it's foreign god priests who rejoiced over it and it's glory." I feel we share guilt in serving this idol. Our blessing is to see the fault. Sadly our former brothers are still serving it!
 

The God Pill

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I'm watching the first half hour of the film Silence for the first time before leaving for the kingdom hall. Given Christian persecution and martyrdom has been mentioned before in this thread I thought it a good place to share a clip of the opening given we can expect no less when the beast opposes us.

 

The God Pill

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The timing of Buddhisms expansion to lands beyond India especially given it was the same time give or take a few years that the apostle Thomas went to India is pretty suspicious. Anyone else think Buddhism was one of the devil's main counterforces to Christianity besides Gnosticism at some points in history? If so why was it favored by our enemies besides geography in some regions.
 

The God Pill

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@White Stone
you asked me about the deal with "substance" and trinitatian nonsense while I have little data beyond a basic outline I did get a bit of data. People misunderstanding Hebrews 1:3 many centuries ago seems to be the root of that. The only other occurrence of that greek word in the bible is Hebrews 3:14 where most translations I checked seem to render it very differently in English than in Hebrew 1 for some reason. If hypostaseos has the same meaning in Hebrews 3 as in Hebrews 1 that would mean whatever connection it means in regard to Father and son in c1 is akin to christ and the annointed at c3.

I've sometimes read renderings as stamped with his substance which suggests it was a reference to the Roman coins with Caeser's face on them Jehovah's character/mental attributes imprinted on the Son like the shaping of metal on a coin to bear an image of a ruler. The back of the coin clearly depicts an object emitting rays notice how in 1:3 it says he is the radiance of his glory. Paul might very well have been playing off a Denarius like this in his letter and Christians in later centuries either got confused or actively misled people.
 

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White Stone

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@White Stone
you asked me about the deal with "substance" and trinitatian nonsense while I have little data beyond a basic outline I did get a bit of data. People misunderstanding Hebrews 1:3 many centuries ago seems to be the root of that. The only other occurrence of that greek word in the bible is Hebrews 3:14 where most translations I checked seem to render it very differently in English than in Hebrew 1 for some reason. If hypostaseos has the same meaning in Hebrews 3 as in Hebrews 1 that would mean whatever connection it means in regard to Father and son in c1 is akin to christ and the annointed at c3.

I've sometimes read renderings as stamped with his substance which suggests it was a reference to the Roman coins with Caeser's face on them Jehovah's character/mental attributes imprinted on the Son like the shaping of metal on a coin to bear an image of a ruler. The back of the coin clearly depicts an object emitting rays notice how in 1:3 it says he is the radiance of his glory. Paul might very well have been playing off a Denarius like this in his letter and Christians in later centuries either got confused or actively misled people.
Yes, Christians back then became confused as what Peter said would be with Paul’s letters. You’re right also with the hypostaseos. Couldn’t explained it better. It supports what the scriptures says. Just as Jesus became like his Father, so the anointed will also become like Jesus.

1 John 3:2 “Beloved ones, we are now children of God, but it has not yet been made manifest what we will be. We do know that when he is made manifest we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is.”
Thank you for sharing.
 

The God Pill

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Was rereading a few paragraphs in the beginning of church history that I remembered and I love the bit because as it was written a few weeks or months before the council of nicea he in talking about John 1 calls Jesus God's firstborn, the second cause and the angel of great counsel. Bit inconvenient for trinitarians.
 

The God Pill

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About halfway through all the gnostic/apostasy crap in the Nag Hamaddi library I noticed on the website gnosis.org that it's funded by the UN entity UNESCO not surprising given the connection of theosophist to the UN and globalists obvious interest in undermining Christianity. One can see seeds of the trinity doctrine in this filth for example neoplatonism, hypostasis, "Godhead" (pleroma) etc not surprising given Athanasius was an Egyptian even the duel nature god/man nonsense appears in the gnostic treatise on the ressurection. Even the phrase triple male appears in some of the texts which is not hard to fathom would connect to the trinity perhaps coming from the Hindu trinity of brahma, vishnu and shiva.
 
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The God Pill

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The gospel of Philip was probably the least unpleasant one so far it references the demiurge a few times so the gnostic paradigm intrudes but there's interesting temple themes and motifs. the acts of peter and the twelve apostles describes a city called habitation referencing Ephesians 2 probably but despite all the talk of the pearl of great price doesn't properly correspond to new Jerusalem as it had nine gates plus a tenth as opposed to twelve. That's interesting for two reasons 1. The ten might correspond to some sort of proto Kabalism sefirot etc 2. I remember Jay Dyer mentioning a film called the ninth gate about a book meant for summoning the devil.
 
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The God Pill

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Looking into the protoevengelium of James I mentioned in the past that was the root of mariolatry it appears what happened was people purposely tried to equate Mary with Asherah. Nothing new under the sun history rhyming and all.
 

Truth_Seeker

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The church turned apostate in the second century when began to misrepresent Jehovah in various ways, including the demotion of his name, misrepresentation of Jesus as ‘God the Son’, and the emerging Trinity doctrine. These false teachings lasted until the truth was revived by modern day Jehovah’s Witnesses.
 

The God Pill

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Three quarters through the gnostic trash last text I finished the gospel of the Egyptians supposedly written by Seth was so pervasively a mess it escapes me how anyone would be able to read more than three or four paragraphs at random without laughing a bit. I think part of why this mental illness flourished and took root especially in Egypt was that some of the Jewish communities in egypt particularly Elephantine's flavor of Judaism retained a lot more of the paganism Josiah and the prophets opposed remember in Jeremiah when the Jews in Egypt in his time had an attitude and blamed the conquest by the Babylonians on having ceased engaging in pagan practices rather than because of them.
 

The God Pill

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For all the watchtowers faults I think it's right to still express appreciation for what it once was as Russell and his associates and successors accomplished despite the denominational time bomb of the 1914 doctrine and its earlier variants they at least partially undid the original apostasy.
 
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