Of all of Christ's teaching, very few allude to him being a deity. Yet for some reason Paul (and others who never met Jesus) decided that belief in this single factor is the key into entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Why don't his other teachings matter?
That's a really interesting post.
This bit of history may or may not be related.
Constantine (232-327 CE) brought Christianity to the Roman Empire, and believed that religious disputes and controversies brought with them instability, preferring where possible to establish an orthodoxy, so he brought 300 bishops to the Council of Nicaea, May 20, 325.The immediate reason for the Council was the dispute between Arius, an Alexandrian priest, and his bishop in 306. Arius argues that Christ could not be divine, but was an intermediary of God. In 320, Arius was excommunicated- but his ideas continued to spread. At the Council, Constantine tried to find a compromise, but the emperor carried out his earlier statement: everybody who refuses to endorse the Creed will be
exiled. Arius, Theonas, and Secundus refused to adhere to the creed, and were thus exiled to
Illyria, in addition to being
excommunicated. The works of Arius were ordered to be confiscated and
consigned to the flames while all persons found possessing them were to be executed. A later council supported the Monophysite position: the nature of Christ contained no difference between human and devine, on a single-natured (Monophysite) Jesus.
[The
Arian Baptistry in
Ravenna,
Italy was erected by
Ostrogothic King
Theodoric the Great between the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the sixth century. In the central mosaic, the Arian view of Jesus is shown: he is baptized in the Jordan by John, and only at that moment does he achieve divinity:]
Explains the iconography and other details of the mosaic of Jesus' baptism in the dome of the Arian Baptistery in Ravenna, Italy.
www.christianiconography.info
See "Justinian's Flea," Rosen
