This subject is being dealt with as a component of my series on The Princes, the Priests and the Prophets hence the preface of PPP. The link here is provided to connect with the main article.

Hegemony in Christianity

The Popes power centres on Nicene Christianity. Nicene Christianity is a set of doctrinal traditions established by the Nicene Creed, which was formulated at the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and amended at the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381. The Council of Nicaea was convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine I (r. AD 306 - 337) whose main objective was to have all classes submit to his authority, and hence support and defend the empire. He perceived that the Roman version of Christianity was the most appropriate religion that could fit with the Imperial cult (Sol Invictus) and therefore chose it to conduct his political propaganda, and legalised it in 313 AD through the Edict of Milan. Notice the similarity.

Sol Invictus (Classical Latin: [ˈsoːɫ ɪnˈwɪktʊs], "Invincible Sun" or "Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the late Roman Empire and a later version of the god Sol. The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in AD 274 and promoted Sol Invictus as the chief god of the empire.[2][3] The main festival dedicated to him was the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ('birthday of the Invincible Sun') on 25 December, the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar. From Aurelian onward, Sol was of supreme importance, and often appeared on imperial coinage. He was often shown wearing a sun crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky. His prominence lasted until the emperor Constantine I established Christianity as the Imperial religion.[a] The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387,[5] although there were enough devotees in the fifth century that the Christian theologian Augustine found it necessary to preach against them.[6]

editors of WikipediaSol InvictusWikipedia, the free encyclopediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus22:08, 16 December 2023‎

So why 381. Did it just magically happen or was God directing events to converge at that point?

I think it is worth considering that Nicene Christianity is the same old mysteries that started with Nimrod, went to Babylon, passed through Pergamos and rested in Rome. Details concerning that are for another time but consider that it was a Trinitarian religion centred on Semiramis and hence that form had to be preserved in the new Christianity. Arianism centred on one god and it had no female at its core so it had to go.

The convergence of Forces leading to 381

1.. A Need to Unite an Empire Under Cultural Stress

Rome had eventually annexed everything Hellenized east of Italy and quickly appreciated that they could capitalise on the more mature Greek civilization. They also recognised the usefulness of a knowledge of Greek - an international language spoken by their potential and existing subjects - and the related importance of mastering the art of oratory, another Greek strength. The Greek mythology began about a millennium before the Roman, hence Roman religion was already an adaptation of the Greek, consequently Hellenism was adopted wholeheartedly. They had no problem with that but what about all of the other cultures absorbed by the empire?

At the time of Christ Rome was Hellenised and indeed the Maccabean rebellion against Jewish Hellenizing parties is clear evidence that it was even entrenched in Judea. In the case of Rome, the myth of divine ancestry took root in the story of Romulus, one of the legendary founders of Rome. These myths served to legitimatise the claims of the king to divine associations. Rome had followed Greece, where the belief that the ancestry of rulers was in the line of gods, was commonly accepted.

Augustus (Reign: 27 BC AD 14) transformed himself into a brilliant statesman. As a means of gaining support for political reforms Roman citizenship was being extended to Roman non-nationals; also as slaves were emancipated their children automatically acquired Roman citizenship; combined with the low marriage and birth rates among native Romans it was causing a major shift in the racial balance of Romes elite. Augustus believed that Rome's success depended on moral qualities that could be found only in the native born, aristocratic Roman but this class scorned marriage, and allowed its women far too much freedom in his opinion. Does that sound familiar?

Romes religion was under siege. Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its history of Hellenistic religion says:

Oriental cults underwent their most significant expansion westward during this period. Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries. A developing tension between these “new” Eastern religions and the archaic Greco-Roman traditions was expressed internally in the attempt by the emperor Augustus to revive traditional Roman religious practices. . .

Smith, Jonathan Z.Hellenistic religionEncyclopedia Britannicahttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Hellenistic-religion/Historylast accessed Dec 20, 2023

Christianity began with Christ and at that time Rome was already feeling threatened. You will recall the story of Paul and Diana of the Ephesians in Acts 19. The background to the incident was that Christianity was showing powerful signs of its validity and converts were multiplying. It also shows that vagabonds e.g. the seven sons of the High Priest Scheva (Acts 19:14), were using the name of Christ because of its power without being converted. When Paul was in Ephesus, where the signs had been done and which was part of Greece (the home of Hellenism) ... there arose no small stir about that way (Acts 19:23 [KJV]). Tensions erupted into wars, riots, and persecutions, including the Jewish-Roman wars of AD 66 - 70 and AD 132 - 135, and the beginning of the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Nero in AD 64. Roman reaction to marginalization of its religion had been a full-blown cult of emperor worship, beginning when Christ was a teenager with the deification of Augustus (Sept. 17, AD 14) shortly after his death, as it was intent on defending its culture.

Marcus Aurelius, emperor from 161 to 180 AD, was a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire. After him his son Commodus became emperor, and a political slide to instability began. We will talk more of this instability shortly but the only outstanding thing that was growing in the Roman Empire during this period was Christianity (the vagabond kind and the genuine kind) while the Hellenistic influence was dwindling, culminating in the adoption of Christianity by the emperor Constantine. All along the battle waged between pagans and Christians. On the pagan side there were the philosophers Maximus of Tyre and Celsus, versus Christian philosophers Irenaeus, Tertullian, and St. Clement of Alexandria during the 2nd century. During the third century the Neoplatonic philosophers Plotinus and Porphyry shifted the balance towards paganism. The Syrian solar cults of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) and Jupiter Dolichenus rose to prominence under the emperors Antoninus Pius (138 to 161), the Severans ( Septimius [193 - 211] to Alexander [1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235] ) and became the supreme deities of Rome under Aurelian, whose Sun temple was dedicated in 274. From Parthia came the teaching of Iranian prophet Mani during the second century, and during the third century the Persian cult of the Iranian god of light, Mithra, but although they each saw brief periods of popularity it was Christianity that made steady growth.

Constantine became the Western emperor in 312 and the sole Roman emperor in 324. In 313 Constantine I, together with his eastern counterpart Licinius, issued the Edict of Milan, which granted religious freedom to Christians. Even so the Eastern half of the empire became resolutely Arian while the Western half held to Trinitarian values. Constantine convened The First Council of Nicaea in 325 to resolve the division. The Trinitarians were victorious, since it produced the Nicene creed as a standard for Christianity. In AD 380 Theodosius and the other two then reigning Roman Emperors, legislated Nicene Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica. It condemned other Christian creeds such as Arianism as heresies and authorized their persecution. This was followed in 381 by the First Council of Constantinople which expanded the Nicene Creed virtually killing Arianism, and finally Theodosius prohibited paganism in his decree of 392 when he became sole emperor.

2..A Willingness to Compromise the Truth

To put this in context lets look at a brief summary of what was to occur from a Biblical standpoint with regard to Changing Time and Laws.

Daniel says that a beast power will change times and laws and eventually the true Church will be given into its hands for over three years. We had looked earlier at what Wikipedia said on Sol Invictus so now we can see what Britannica says on the matter, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sol-Invictus then and zero in on changing time. The current Church year is aligned to Sol Invictus, not the year prescribed in the Bible and followed by the apostles and Christ. Speaking of the Church Year Britannica.com says @ 2020-01-25 https://www.britannica.com/topic/church-year under caption Formation of the church year:

Early Christians believed that the new age promised by Jesus had dawned with his Resurrection, on “the first day of the week” (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). By this event the Law was fulfilled. Now every day and time were viewed as holy for the celebration and remembrance of Jesus’ triumph over sin and death.

Shepherd, Massey H.church yearEncyclopedia Britannicahttps://www.britannica.com/topic/church-yearlast accessed 22 December 2023

Just to make sure that we are all on the same page, the scriptures quoted actually refer to what we know as Saturday night because in God's calendar the evening and the morning make a day. I am always fascinated by how people are able to justify lies with authoritative sounding references. Even a casual reading of the Bible shows that the new age began with His death at Passover, three days and three nights before the Resurrection. Nobody was there for the Resurrection and the next significant point in time was the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It is at Pentecost that the message of hope for the Kingdom was preached (Acts 2:38) not at the Resurrection. It is at his death (the Passover) that the veil was torn beginning the new age. It is the Lord's death that we are commanded to commemorate, 1 Corinthians 11:24-26. The new age or new covenant began with and is commemorated by His death not His resurrection. The article goes on to say:

new converts broke with the custom because they regarded it as no longer needful or necessary. St. Paul, himself a dutiful observant of the Law, considered the keeping of holy days a matter of indifference, provided the devotion be “in honor of the Lord” (Romans 14:5–9). He warned his converts not to judge one another with regard to “festivals, new moons, or sabbaths” (Colossians 2:16).

That first scripture quoted in Romans is actually a warning that at the end of the day God will judge us and not men. It warns us to be certain that what we do is actually done in honour of Him. It does not matter what any man esteems because God purchased us and owns us. Next it quotes Colossians.

What their Bible does is to insert an is before of Christ but the same scripture when read as originally written says that the Church, the whole Church over all time, should judge. What is also left out is that Colossians goes on to say that Paul is condemning things established by men not God in the Torah. Paul would never condemn commandments and doctrines of the Torah.

Otherwise the Church should celebrate no days at all according to the Bible since it says in Galatians?

But Christ is higher than Paul and he says If ye love me, keep my commandments, John 14:15 [KJV]. Those commandments include a day and it is not optional. There is a group that has changed the time commanded by God in the Ten Commandments and also other times and laws but does God have anything to say about that?

The Old and New Testaments are in unison on the matter: Obey what God says, His Commandments included. Walk humbly not in arrogance and rebellion to His words. Show love by obedience. 

Further on the same article captioned church year says

Before the end of the apostolic age (1st century ce), as the church became predominantly Gentile in membership, the first day of the week, or Sunday, had become the normative time when Christians assembled for their distinctive acts of worship, in commemoration of the Lords Resurrection (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2).

We all know that these are talking about Saturday night. The article goes on to justify replacing passover with Easter, introducing Lent and Christmas, and the use of relics and birthdays of Saints. As you can see the same willingness to compromise truth for popularity still exists today in the same false Christianity.

The most important laws (Matthew 22:36-40) were changed by the Pope. He changed love thy neighbour as thyself. His Christianity preached hatred of Jews, something that was prohibited by the very Bible that they claimed to follow. By hating God's people they also changed love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. You can find a more detailed exposition on anti Semitism at https://www.jpost.com/Blogs/Truth-Beyond-Price/How-anti-Semitism-was-exacerbated-at-the-Council-of-Nicea-500930. The Old Testament was canonised by Ezra and the others following their release from captivity. The New Testament was most likely canonised by James (the brother of Christ) and John the apostle. Peter and the others of the twelve were not Bible scholars (Acts 4:13) but apparently James was (Galatians 2:11-12) because he seemed to be president of the Church at Jerusalem. Even though he was not a disciple (John 7:2-5) Christ had spoken to him personally about something (I Corinthians 15:3-8) and it seemed to be that. Peter never had the authority. No Pope ever had the authority to change the Bible and tell people to hate Jews and Jewish practise. No pope ever had the right to send people to war on God's behalf calling it a Crusade:  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. [37] Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice, (John 18:36-37 [KJV]). The term Judaize is not in the Bible. It is a creation of the Catholic Church and The Council of Laodicea, which  around 365 decreed 59 laws, where law 29 states Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ (Percival Translation). This principle was expanded to provide support for the Catholic Church during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions (from 1300 to 1800) using as a basis the Pauline epistles. Paul was a Jewish Christian that shaved his head and had vows (Acts 18:18) and kept the Sabbath (Acts 13:44, Acts 17:2) yet somehow they believe that he was condemning himself. Learned people were willing to compromise the truth of what Paul actually said for their own advancement.

3..Theological and Secular Empowerment of Religious Leader Over State Leader

This is basically why the Eastern Orthodox Church had to go. The opposing theologies, Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 - 339) vs St. Augustine (354 - 430), along with with the Donation of Constantine establishes the case.

Eusebius of Caesarea viewed church and state as one entity with the State over all. This was the intention of Constantine and the early emperors and was the eastern view. According to Encyclopaedia Britanica

The views of Eusebius of Caesarea
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In Eusebian political theology, the Christian emperor appears as God’s representative on earth in whom God himself “lets shine forth the image of his absolute power.” He is the “Godloved, three times blessed” servant of the highest ruler, who, “armed with divine armor cleans the world from the horde of the godless, the strong-voiced heralds of undeceiving fear of God,” the rays of which “penetrate the world.” Through the possession of these characteristics the Christian emperor is the archetype not only of justice but also of the love of humankind. When it is said about Constantine I that “God himself has chosen him to be the lord and leader so that no man can praise himself to have raised him up,” the rule of the Orthodox emperor has been based on the immediate grace of God.

Fredericksen, Linwood , McGinn, Bernard J. , Chadwick, Henry , Marty, Martin E. , Hogg, William Richey , Spencer, Sidney , Crow, Paul A. , Lindberg, Carter H. , Sullivan, Lawrence E. , Hick, John , Wainwright, Geoffrey , Pelikan, Jaroslav Jan , Benz, Ernst Wilhelm and Stefon, Matt.ChristianityEncyclopedia Britannicahttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/Church-and-state-in-Eastern-and-Western-theologyLast Updated: Dec 18, 2023

St. Augustine held the opposing western view that Church and state we incompatible. His The City of God attempted to rationalise the sack of the city of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. This view provides supreme power to the Church over every spiritual being while the state is responsible for the physical. The same Encyclopedia Britannica article on Christianity continues:

The views of Augustine
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St. Augustine’s The City of God attempted to answer questions arising from the most painful event of his day: the sack of the city of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. Augustine responded to the shock and dismay his contemporaries experienced with the collapse of their world by delivering a literary demolition of paganism. From Augustine’s perspective the “splendid vices” of the pagans had led inexorably to the fall of an idolatrous world. In sharp contrast to this “earthly city,” epitomized by Rome but everywhere energized by the same human desires for praise and glory, Augustine projected the “most glorious city” of praise and thanks to God, the heavenly Jerusalem. However, Augustine did not simply identify the state with the earthly city and the church with the city of God. He perceived that the state existed not simply in opposition to God but as a divine instrument for the welfare of humankind. The civitas dei (“city of God”) and the civitas terrena (“earthly city”) finally correspond neither to church and state nor to heaven and earth. They are rather two opposed societies with antagonistic orders of value that intersect both state and church and in each case show the radical incompatibility of the love of God with the values of worldly society.

This was coupled with The Donation of Constantine, (Latin: Donatio Constantini) a forged Roman imperial decree which claimed that Constantine bestowed vast territory and spiritual and temporal power on Pope Sylvester I (r. 314 - 335) and his successors. Its impact on political and religious affairs in medieval Europe continued until it was clearly demonstrated to be a forgery by Lorenzo Valla in the 15^th century. Based on that, the transfer of the capital to Byzantium, the displacement of old Rome by the new Rome of the church, papal secular authority (e.g. evident with the supplanting of the Exarchate of Ravenna), and the papacy's separation from allegiance to the Byzantine empire (the only true remaining part of the Roman Empire and seat of the emperor) in favour of the power of the Latin West are all explained. This view extends the power of the Church beyond the reach of the Emperor. The Emperor had opened the door to the Pope by legalising Christianity then empowering him by supporting the Trinitarians now submission of Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379 to 395) to the imposed penance by the Pope had demonstrated that the Church's power was superior.

4..Secular Instability vs Religious Continuity

The combination of invasions and civil wars between 235 and 284 brought the empire close to collapse. Several regions were laid waste, many important cities were either pillaged or destroyed. Even Italy itself, the home of the empire (Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy) had been overrun by the Alemanni (Germanic people). During the crisis, whenever the emperor focused his forces on the defending one point, he exposed another area to attack or had to abandon some embattled frontier altogether. During this period Encyclopaedia Britanica says

Economic and social crisis
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any commander who proved successful had the emperorship thrust upon him, on the very heels of his victories over the invaders. Counting several sons and brothers, more than 40 emperors thus established themselves for a reign of some sort, long or (more often) short. The political destabilization fed on itself, but it also was responsible for heavy expenditure of life and treasure. To keep pace with the latter, successive emperors rapidly and radically reduced the percentage of precious metal in the standard silver coins to almost nothing so as to spread it over larger issues. What thus became a fiduciary currency held up not too badly until the 260s, when confidence collapsed and people rushed to turn the money they had into goods of real value. An incredible inflation got under way, lasting for decades.

Saller, Richard P. , Vermeule, Emily D. Townsend , Hornblower, Simon , Forsythe, Gary Edward , Petit, Paul , Badian, E. , Ferguson, John , MacMullen, Ramsay , Salmon, Edward Togo and Grummond, Nancy Thomson deancient RomeEncyclopedia Britannicahttps://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Rome/The-barbarian-invasionsLast Updated: Dec 13, 2023

Then came Diocletian and the tetrarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrarchy. Tetrarch is an old word generally meaning that a state was broken into four independently governed areas and this was the leader of one. Modern scholarship uses the term somewhat differently as it usually refers to the system instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293, which ended the Crisis of the Roman Empire in the Third Century, and marked its recovery.

The four tetrarchs allowed Rome to place a headquarters of defence close to the threats against the border, namely Sassanian Persia and barbarians which were mainly Germanic but included a host of nomadic or displaced tribes from Europe. Rome ceased to be an operational capital but continued to be nominal capital, a model that was later copied in Constantinople.

It started with the designation of the general Maximian as co-emperor—firstly as Caesar (junior emperor) in 285, followed by his promotion to Augustus in 286. Diocletian took care of matters in the eastern regions of the empire while Maximian similarly took charge of the western regions. In 293, Diocletian, with Maximian's consent,  appointed two Caesars (one responsible to each Augustus)—Galerius and Constantius Chlorus.

In 305, the senior emperors jointly abdicated and retired, allowing Constantius and Galerius to be elevated in rank to Augustus. They in turn appointed two new Caesars. Wikipedia says

However, the system broke down very quickly thereafter. When Constantius died in 306, Constantine, Constantius' son, was proclaimed augustus by his father's troops; however, Galerius instead chose to promote Severus to augustus while granting Constantine the position of caesar to Severus. At the same time, Maxentius, the son of Maximian, resented being left out of the new arrangements, so he rebelled against and defeated Severus before forcing him to abdicate and then arranging his murder in 307. Maxentius and Maximian both then declared themselves augusti. By 308 there were therefore no fewer than four claimants to the rank of augustus (Galerius, Constantine, Maximian and Maxentius), and only one to that of caesar (Maximinus Daza).

editors of Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaTetrarchyWikipedia, the free encyclopediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrarchy04:14, 17 December 2023‎

Things further deteriorated in 308 with fighting, murder and intrigue too numerous to mention. Between 309 and 313 most of the claimants died or were killed in various civil wars. Constantine forced Maximian to commit suicide in 310. Galerius died naturally in 311. Maxentius was defeated by Constantine in 312 and subsequently killed. Maximinus committed suicide in 313 after losing to Licinius.

By 313 the survivors were Constantine in the West and Licinius in the East. In 324 Constantine defeated Licinius and declared himself sole Augustus. Constantine could see that emperors did not last forever so he needed a unifying element for the empire. Religion was a possibility but which one? During the Greek period Oriental cults had expanded the claims of the king to divine associations, as well as injected a boost in the worship of female deities, and it had been passed on to Rome. The widespread acceptance of Christianity with its Mary, its all powerful God and saints made it an obvious target for adaptation to meet all needs.

The Popes skill at Diplomacy

The Pope's skill at diplomacy not only enabled him to survive in hostile conditions but to emerge as the supreme potentate. The pope was able to ward off Atilla the Hun and others, to unite the Germanic barbarians and to become the chief representative of the Roman empire.

The first seven ecumenical (representing a number of different Christian Churches) councils were called by Emperors as head of the Church and empire not by bishops. In other words Church policy was dictated by the Emperor. The first ecumenical council (First Council of Nicaea, AD 325) was called by Constantine to resolve the Arian Controversy, which was the main opposition to a catholic position. It determined that Jesus Christ, consubstantial with the Father, and rejected the Arian position that Jesus was a created being. Nicene Christianity is the basis of Catholicism. The threat of Arianism was eventually defeated at the First Council of Constantinople (381) by which time the Emperor saw himself as subject to the Church. In 387 the city of Thessalonica rioted because a favourite charioteer was imprisoned for homosexuality. Theodosius ordered revenge which caused the death of 7,000 citizens. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, refused to give the emperor Communion until he performed public penance. Theodosius eventually complied and was readmitted to Communion. Theodosius became increasingly intolerant with his Theodosian decrees under the influence of Ambrose.

The map here showing Strathclyde is from Wikimedia Commons.

Patrick was born about 360 AD in the kingdom of Strathclyde in the north-western part of England, which would make him a Roman citizen by birth. The top if Ireland is labelled Nordlige Irland on the bottom left of the map. At the age of sixteen, Patrick was carried captive to Ireland by freebooters and put into slavery. Apparently Patrick escaped slavery, became a Christian and went back to Ireland to seek the conversion of his former master. When he came back around the end of the fourth century he found Celtic Christianity already well established there and became its outstanding advocate. Even though he established a solid ground for Christianity they could not compete with the forces driving Catholicism.

In spite of the First Council of Nicaea, at this time Catholicism (catholic means all-embracing) was nowhere near globally accepted in Christianity. Following the death of his father in 337, Constantine II initially became emperor jointly with his brothers Constantius II and Constans. Constantius supposedly ordered a massacre of his relatives descended from the second marriage of his paternal grandfather Constantius Chlorus. The massacre killed two of Constantius' uncles and six of his cousins leaving Constantius, his older brother Constantine II, his younger brother Constans, and three cousins Gallus, Julian and Nepotianus as the only surviving male relatives of Constantine the Great. Constantius promoted Arian Christianity. Constantine II sided with the bishop in Rome, now known as the Pope. He opposed Arianism and homoousion. Arianism was a heresy started by the Alexandrian priest Arius ( c. 250 AD c. 336 AD) and maintained that the Son of God was created by the Father. It opposed the trinity. Homoousion is from the First Council of Nicaea. The Nicene Creed adopts homoousion (identity of substance) a doctrine fundamental to the Trinity and is the official doctrine of most Christian churches. Constans I defeated his brother Constantine II in 340, but anger in the army over his personal life (homosexuality) and favouritism towards his barbarian bodyguards led to his assassination in 350 leaving Constantius alone. Nepotianus became a userper and was killed by a rival usurper Magnentius. Constantius unintentionally executed Gallus for treason leaving his last remaining male relative, Julian, whom he elevated to the rank of Caesar. Julian (355 - 360) succeeded Constantius. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism, earned him the title Julian the Apostate by Christians. He was the last Constantinian emperor. He was soon succeeded by Valentinian I, a Nicene Christian, who named his brother Valens (an Arian Christian) Emperor of the East. This restarted a sequence of East or west Emperors. Valentinian I was succeeded by Valens (364-375) of uncertain religion, Gratian (367-383) who favoured Christianity over traditional Roman religion, and Valentinian II (375-388) of uncertain religion. The pope backed the right horse. Theodosius I (379 395) was contemporary with Valens in the East, Gratian in the West and Valentinian II in the West but was sole emperor from 392, whereupon there was nothing to restrain his religious fervour stoked by Ambrose. He was the last emperor to rule both East and West and pursued Nicene Christianity with zeal to the detriment of all other religions. For a time short (393 -395) he was co-emperor with his two sons after which the empire was split between them; Arcadius, (Eastern Emperor from 395 to 408) and Honorius (Western Emperor from 395 to 423).

Rome's Biblical Cannon (the pharisaic rules for regulating the conduct of church members) came from the Council of Laodicea 364 AD, which was a regional council that took place soon after the death of Julian, the last of Constantine's heirs, who attempted a revival of paganism. Officers of the army elected the Christian Jovian (363 364) as his successor. At the time of this writing a copy of the canons of the Council of Laodicea could be found at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3806.htm.

You can examine them and see if this is the true Church of God or not. The meeting hosted only about thirty members, all from the local Middle Eastern churches. The Council produced sixty rulings. Among other things these rulings prohibited certain acts during Lent, discussed whether or not to minster to Jews and heretics and addressed behaviour for the Sabbath day versus the Lord's Day (they knew that the Sabbath ordained by God was not what they deemed the Lord's Day). Consider:

The 59^th ruling of the Council directed that only canonical books should be read in church. The 60^th ruling specified this canon as the traditional 27 books of the New Testament, excluding Revelation; and the 39 books of the Old Testament, with the addition of the book of Baruch from the present day Apocrypha (writings considered genuine but not scripture).

Moving on From 381

Under the influence of Ambrose (Bishop of Milan) Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379 to 395) made Nicene Christianity the Empire's state religion giving immense power to the catholic bishops. The decree Cunctos populos, the so-called Edict of Thessalonica in 380, declared the Nicene Trinitarian Christianity to be the only legitimate imperial religion and the only one entitled to call itself Catholic, but it did not make others illegal. They now set their sights on eliminating the strongest contender: Arianism. This brings us to 381 that we started with. The First Council of Constantinople (381) was convened in Constantinople by Theodosius I, who was Emperor only of the western Empire at the time. It put the final nails in th coffin of Arianism. I propose that it marked the completion of transferring Sol Invictus to Christianity, hence there was nothing else for them to bring over and so we can find ALL of the major tenets of the mystery religion in catholic Christianity by 381.

Constantinople was recognized as the fourth patriarchate, following Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. The story behind Antioch is in Acts 11:19 -30. The Church had spread there because of the persecution starting around Stephen and was at first wholly Jewish, but at Antioch they started to preach to gentiles (v20). The gentile work caused the headquarters Church governed by James to send Barnabas (v22) who brought in Paul (v25) and from there the Church headed to Rome by Paul (Romans 1:1-17), which he reached (Acts 28:1-31). The disciples, now a mixture of Jews and gentiles, began to be called Christians at Antioch (Acts 11:26). The president of the Church was James at Jerusalem at least until AD 50 when they all came to James to resolve the extent to which gentiles were committed to Jewish law (Acts 15, Galatians 2:1-9). In the Roman Church the Patriarch was the bishop of Antioch which was the capital of the Seleucid Empire, much like the Pope is the bishop of Rome which was the capital of the Roman Empire and there is no centre at Jerusalem. There is no name given to the bishop of Alexandria although it was obviously a centre because of its historic value under the Greeks and early Egyptians. Apollos was from Alexandria, a historic place of the learned Acts 18:24. Constantinople was now added because of Constantine. Canon 3 of the First Council of Constantinople stated that the bishop of Constantinople shall have primacy of honor after the Bishop of Rome because Constantinople is the New Rome, and by the Canon 28 of council of Chalcedon Equal prerogatives to Old Rome, confirmed in 692 by the Quinisext (the Fifth-Sixth) Council at Constantinople under Justinian II. The power of the bishop of Rome was to be attributed to it being the capital of the empire. The church was split on philosophical issues like Arianism and the council was an effort towards consensus. It confirmed the Nicene Creed and expanded it to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. It was affirmed as ecumenical (i.e. according to Webster, promoting or tending toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation) in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon. In 476 AD the Roman Empire in the west fell so Rome was no longer a capital of the Empire and with the perception that Constantinople was the new Rome one would expect a bleak future for the bishop at Rome. The Roman Empire did not contain Babylon but its ethos was transferred to Rome so how could Rome be lost?

Emperor Marcian (r. 450 to 457) called the Council of Chalcedon to set aside the 449 Second Council of Ephesus. The issues about the nature of Christ are philosophical so I will not go about trying to unravel them, what concerns me is the tug of war going on. Pope Leo's position held, even though the Pope was from the west (where the Roman Empire was now fallen) and yet he now represented the Emperor who ruled in the east, while the Patriarch (who was from the east where there was an actual standing empire) had to settle and eventually leave. Pope Leo I was a Roman aristocrat. He is famous for having met Attila the Hun in 452 and persuading him to turn back from his invasion of Italy. He is the one who issued the Tome of Leo, a document which dominated the debates of the Council of Chalcedon. Greeks and Romans were skilled orators, (Syrians e.g. people from Antioch, not so much) hence Synods and councils were their territory. The Germans learned well from them.

As an aside, it appears that Atilla the Hun was Ukranian. Consider the Los Angeles Times article By MARY MYCIO
April 27, 1993 12 AM PT Postscript : Attila the Ukrainian : History’s famed barbarian may have been the head of a Slavic tribe based on the Dnieper River, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-27-wr-27914-story.html. It makes the case. The Ukraine is the bridge between the Russians and the Germans and it appears to have been so from antiquity. The Wikipedia article Attila dated 13:54, 22 December 2023‎, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila says, Attila (/əˈtɪlə/ ə-TIL-ə[3] or /ˈætɪlə/ AT-il-ə;[4] fl. c. 406–453), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death, in March 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe. He lead a mixture of Germanic and other people but it was the Huns represented by him that decimated the Roman Empire. The legend of Pope Leo the great (Pope Leo I) is recorded at the Fordham website under Internet History Sourcebooks Project, Medieval Sourcebook: Leo I and Attila, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/attila2.asp. Leo is supposed to have met Atilla as he came to Italy and discouraged his from proceeding further. The Germans capitalised on the devastation done by Atilla to take over the Roman territories. As a matter of fact before the Germans came Islam. The German colonisation has a lot in common with how Atilla dealt with the Romans. An easy place to read about him is the article on him at Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/Attila-king-of-the-Huns.

A stronghold of the true Church was in England. Patrick had firmly established it and the next leg is Columba. Columba was an Irishman born in Donegal in 521 AD. He graduated from one of the the schools established by Patrick in Ireland to go to Scotland. By 597, the year of Columba's death, he had converted the Picts and the Scots, and much of northern England. His missionaries had spread as far as southern England, France and Switzerland. While Rome and the Nicene Christians were spreading the Gospel of Constantine these had long held Christianity from a different source and were carrying its Gospel to the world.

The Second Council of Constantinople (553 AD), met under the presidency of Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople. Pope Vigilius of Rome, who had been summoned to Constantinople, opposed the council and took sanctuary in a church from May to December, but he at last yielded and formally ratified the decisions of the council on February 23, 554. I find it interesting that at this time the Patriarch had the power of an empire behind him to summon the Pope but not many years after, aided by the coming of Islam, the Pope became so proficient at manipulating emperors and kings that he superseded the Byzantine Empire, the remnant of the Roman Empire. The 14 anathemas issued by the council rejected Nestorianism (arguments about whether the human and divine nature of Christ was joined by will or priesthood). For the Second Council of Constantinople, in Africa imperial troops were able to force acceptance but the Pope could not even control Italy. North Italian bishops refused their allegiance to the see of Rome and found support in France and Spain; the former to be taken over by Islam and the latter to drive them back out. The opposition hung on in northern Italy until the end of the 7^th century. By then the coming of Islam into the eastern Mediterranean and Africa nullified concerns of compromise. Islam moved into the region that comprises present-day Turkey as early as the 7^th century leaving Anatolia as all that remained of the Roman Empire. It also took over north Africa and later from 1100 to 1500 occupied Anatolia itself (Asia Minor), wiping out active resistance to the Pope in these areas.

Papal supremacy is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church extending from their claim that the Pope is Vicar of Christ and pastor of the entire Christian Church. The doctrine claims that he has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church and universal power in the care of souls. Biblical support is supposed to come from in Matthew, And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. [17] And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. [18] And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. [19] And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, Matthew 16:16-19 (KJV). This has many obvious flaws including one which is evidenced in the writings of John.

If Peter was given the authority then to whom did he pass it, John or the Pope? It seem like the Holy Spirit indicates that John was the senior authority of the truth in his time and he never passed anything to Rome. What this does show is that there was a Satanic authority invested in men who wanted supremacy over the Church and it started during the first century A.D. Catholics claim this power based on acceptance of their authority by people and not based on clear historical evidence or biblical records. The success of the Pope is attributed to his skill at managing international relations not adherence to the Bible.

With regard to the Byzantine Empire the Encyclopedia Britannica article Byzantine Empire subtitle historical empire, Eurasia, Written By: John L. Teall Donald MacGillivray Nicol, https://www.britannica.com/place/Byzantine-Empire , Last Updated - Apr 3, 2018 says:

...convinced that their earthly empire so nearly resembled the heavenly pattern that it could never change, they called themselves Romaioi, or Romans...

The article earlier demonstrated that this stems from a perception shared by the entire Roman Church.

Diocletian (284 - 305) and Constantine I (324 - 337) both foresaw that the prosperity of the empire required that the emperors subjects have one religion. The Christian church had one God but was modified to handle many gods by the concept of saints in heaven. The Byzantine Empire can be traced to 330 A.D., when Constantine I dedicated a New Rome on the site of ancient Byzantium, known as Constantinople in antiquity and is now Istanbul. He split the empire into two parts: the capital in the west was Rome and he named the capital in the east after himself, Constantinople. The Eastern Roman Empire was also called Byzantium or the Byzantine Empire. The people of the Byzantine Empire considered themselves Roman by nationality but adopted Greek culture, rather than the Latin of Rome. People there spoke Greek and wore Greek-styled clothing. The weaker western half of the Roman Empire, including the city of Rome, eventually fell to barbarian invaders in 476 AD. What was left of the Roman Empire was the east side ruled by the emperor in Constantinople. The first conquerors of the west were subjects of the Emperor in the East.

While the Eastern half preserved the emperor the western half sought dominance by championing papal supremacy in the entire Church. Germanic tribes such as the Visigoths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Franks, Ostrogoths, and Lombards each took turns at the Empire. Finally in 476 A.D. Romulus, the last of the Roman emperors in the west, was overthrown by the Germanic leader Odoacer, who became the first Barbarian (German) to rule in Rome. Actually Odaocer was an Arian Christian who showed allegiance to the Emperor in the east. When he appeared to rival emperor Zeno he sent another Ostrogoth in 489, Theodoric to overthrow him. You can read of the influence of the Pope in calling the final truce and how Odaocer was murdered. After the fall of the Western Roman empire, Rome was in tatters after the long war, its single emperor was replaced by a dozen or so kings and princes but the eastern part of the Holy Roman Empire survived for another 1,000 years.

It appears that the Popes skill at diplomacy worked to enhance their influence in Rome and their position flourished. The early Goths and Constaniople had an arrangement where the land and its people were regarded as part of the Empire, with a Goth (German) holding the position of viceroy and head of the army. As this arrangement broke down the pope negotiated support from the Franks (Germans). These Germans were originally called barbarians and fought among themselves fiercely. Gradually they were won over to the Roman Catholic version of Christianity and that united them. With the unity came power. As the Germans gained power so did the Pope. The popes religion became the religion of the west which was now dominated by Germans (goths, saxons, angles, Jutes etc.). At the outset (from 584) the Exarchate of Ravenna was a lordship of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire). Its political centre was Ravenna, which was ruled by a military leader appointed from Constantinople and called exarch from about 590. The Duchy of Rome was a state within the Exarchate of Ravenna. So the Exarchate of Ravenna or of Italy was the region in Italy still held by Byzantine Empire and it controlled Rome. It existed from 584 to 751, when the last exarch was put to death by the Lombards (Germans) who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The duchy was ruled by an imperial functionary with the title dux, anglicised as duke. The Popes lived on on the western side of Italy in Rome whereas the exarchs were on the eastern side in Ravenna however while both were subjects of the Byzantine Empire, but the pope fared better than the dukes/exarchs. Pope Gregory I (who reigned from 590 to 604 A.D.) became the leading civil official of the empire in Rome. He took over the civil administration of the cities and negotiated for the protection of Rome itself with the Lombard invaders. The dukes were appointed by the Emperor but the Popes had gained control over huge amounts of land passed on as patrimony. In 751, Aistulf, king of the Lombards, conquered what remained of the exarchate of Ravenna, the last vestige of the Roman Empire in northern Italy. Rome, under Pope Stephen II, attempted diplomatic negotiations with the Aistulf (king of the Lombards and a Duke). When he met with no success he appealed to King Pepin the Short of the Franks for help. Pepin defeated the Lombards by 756 and granted the lands of the Duchy of Rome (a state within the Exarchate of Ravenna) as well as the former Lombard possessions to the Papacy in what is referred to as the Donation of Pepin. The Donation of Pepin in 756 provided a legal basis for the establishment of the Papal States. Both civil and religious power in Rome now went to the Pope.

What I am hoping to introduce here and develop later is that what we call the West or Europe is a group of German states unified by the pope. Historians claim that the ancient Greeks divided the world into three major units: Europe (everything north of Africa), Asia (the civilizations east of their empire), and Libya (the known northern portion of Africa) but that is not how people see Europe today. The German states started by colonising the Western Roman Empire. This has spread to Britain, The US, Israel, Australia and to almost every nation in the world. These nations become dominated by an elite group of Germans with allegiance back to the source. They do not include Russia and Turkey is questionable since Germans and Turks come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and Turkey was the core of the Ottoman Empire. I would like to suggest why the Pope would have been able to control these German/European people but not the Celts. If you consider the description of them given by early historians it centres around the word barbarian. Even though they converted to the Nicene Christianity or Arianism or the like they were nevertheless referred to by that description even after conversion. It was who they were: unlearned, uncouth, uncivilised by the standards of their contemporaries like the Moors or the Huns. I would prefer not to repeat how they were described but you may gain a sense of it from the YouTube video The Moors by Ray Grist, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tUhyckWBMA&list=WL&index=132&t=1741s , dated 2020 with introduction A presentation exploring Al Andalus - 710 AD to 1492 AD. The Iberian Empire of the Moors.  This history is essential to the knowledge and understanding of our time since it laid the foundations for the New World. The pope united them to one purpose as is seen by the objectives of the Crusades, but they already had the necessary ruthless mindset and lack of other qualities that made them ideal to be unleashed on a unsuspecting world: This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men (Daniel 4:17 [KJV]). God has decreed His purpose and we are observing it unfold.

The Basest of Men

I have focussed on the Pope and the western Roman Empire as the mechanism that God used to demonstrate that He rules in the kingdoms of men give rulership over all to the basest of men. Is that to say that these Germans were the only people capable of subhuman behaviour? Could not God have done it from the east? I suggest that there were very good candidates on that side and to be considered as more base than them is an achievement. The Europeans went on to develop the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade but the Arabs had the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade. Wikipedia says:

The Trans-Saharan slave trade, also known as the Arab slave trade,[1][2][3] was a slave trade in which slaves were transported across the Sahara. Most were moved from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other direction.[4] Estimates of the total number of black slaves moved from sub-Saharan Africa to the Arab world range from 6-10 million, and the trans-Saharan trade routes conveyed a significant number of this total, with one estimate tallying around 7.2 million slaves crossing the Sahara from the mid-7th century until the 20th century when it was abolished.[5][6] The Arabs managed and operated the trans-Saharan slave trade,[7] although Berbers were also actively involved.[8]editors of Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaTrans-Saharan slave tradeWikipedia, the free encyclopediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_slave_trade01:43, 11 December 2023‎

For more on the Arab Slave Trade consider visiting the Black Journals Youtube vidio The Dark Untold History The Arabs Have Tried To Erase, by  Black Journals, Premiered Oct 9, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnDhuRUYQoE&list=WL&index=133 from the series The Erasure of Black History in American Education (Black Culture) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcP2uuyLXSHDYowkIlnNK85kl3TN-xd8M.

the outline says:

The Arab slave trade, lasted more than 13 centuries. it began in the early seventh century and continued in one form or another until the 1960s. in Mauritania slavery was officially outlawed only in august 2007. The English word slave has its origins in the word slav. The slavs, who inhabited a large part of Eastern Europe, were taken as slaves by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD. At the time of this writing Encyclopedia Britannica recorded Customarily, Slavs are subdivided into East Slavs (chiefly Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), West Slavs (chiefly Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Wends, or Sorbs), and South Slavs (chiefly Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins), Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. Slav. Encyclopedia Britannica, Invalid Date, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Slav. Accessed 29 December 2023. Russians and Africans have some things in common: they are both strong. If you examine the names of those territories you will see similar treatment to what Africans have experienced.

The Arab Slave Trade has ended but Neocolonialism has not. It is an insidious version of the same thing, reducing people to chattel for profit but Neocolonialism does it at the level of whole nations. A stark example is what France is currently doing to the nations of the Sahel region. It is a stunning example of The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it (Jeremiah 17:9 [KJV]). The subtle web of laws and extortion has enslaved and impoverished the citizens, a protection racket that goes back to Nimrod. It began with the Berlin Conference. The Berlin Conference was conducted over an almost four months of deliberations, from 15 November 1884 to 26 February 1885. By the end of it the European powers had neatly carved Africa up amongst themselves. Both the Arabs and the Germans have controlled Jerusalem, the centre of God's theocracy and they have abused it instead of reinstating what God put there.  And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel (Exodus 19:6 [KJV]); but that is story for another place. The point is that the spiritual leaders of the masses of mankind have presided over the despicable atrocities. It is a combination of the princes the priests and the prophets. They do not seem to understand what holy means. It does not mean pious or ritually blameless. I will leave you to judge who is the basest of men.

I believe that this treatment of black people by lighter skinned Arabs and Germanic people is why the complexion of peoples from formerly dark skinned areas has become white or Arabic. The natural tendency would be to leave areas where you could become a slave and/or come to be treated in a base manner. North Africa has therefore become light skinned Arabic and all darkness has been wiped from any area further north. The Arabs are not a distinct ethnic group, since there are both white Arabs and black Arabs which, from all evidence, is how it appears that the society in Israel was. The Arabs now claim that they have always lived in North Africa although people were living there before Abraham. The attempt to whiten South Africa has failed otherwise the argument that dark skinned people cannot be native to temperate areas would continue to be pursued. The evidence that I have seen indicates that Africa was entirely black before the Greeks. I suspect that whiteness came to be seen as more and more a badge of privilege as the years of Greek and Roman dominance went on. The Arabs learned it from the Greeks and Romans and used it against the blacks who had conquered in their name. It has been the trend to produce the basest of men, men who hate God for, among other things, the variety that He built into human complexion.

Meanwhile in Britain

Meanwhile conditions in England clearly demonstrate the previously quoted purpose of God (Daniel 4:17) and the tremendous influence of the Pope in the former western Roman Empire after 476 A.D. Constantine had re-branded Sol Invitus as Christianity and the Pope as one of his agents to spread his Catholic religion. I have proposed above that the transformation from Sol Invictus to Roman Christianity can be attributed to a convergence of forces. After 381 one of those forces was the rise of the Germans and it provided the opportunity to root out minor contenders to their version of Christianity. In a very short time we see how the Pope wielded that power to supersede the Emperor. When the exarchate of Ravenna fell the Pope appealed to Pepin in France and was delivered by him not the Emperor. Bear in mind that there is no more Roman Empire in the west since 476 AD. The Gregorian mission started in 596. It was headed by Augustine of Canterbury (an Italian Benedictine monk who became the first archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597) and so is also known as the Augustinian mission. Pope Gregory I sent a group of Italian monks to Kent to convert Æthelberht, King of Kent, whose wife Bertha, was Catholic. Gregory gave Augustine power over the clergy of the native Britons, but the long-established Celtic bishops refused to acknowledge his authority. After converting king Æthelberht (a Saxon or German not a Celt) the missionaries settled into the task of subjugating the British Christians to Rome. They persuaded Æthelberht/Ethelbert to make an expedition against them. Twelve hundred monks from the monastery of Bangor in modern Flintshire, Whales, were savagely slaughtered. After Æthelberht's death in 616 the see (or bishopric) of London was abandoned. Æthelberht's daughter,Æthelburtg, married Edwin, the king of Northumbria. By 627 Paulinus, the bishop who accompanied her, had converted her husband. When Edwin died, in about 633, she and Paulinus were forced to flee back to Kent but by then they had established Catholicism in southern Britain. We will continue this subject in another article.

It is interesting how people's very words can show the obvious bias in their thinking and presentation of the facts. Consider this statement: Roman and Celtic traditions differed, not in doctrine, but on such questions as the proper way of calculating the date of Easter, and the proper style of haircut and dress for a monk, taken from a biographical sketch of Hilda at http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/285.html. Passover vs. Easter and tonsuring is doctrinal! This proves that the Celts were true Christians AND that their tormentors were not! The Wikipedia article on the Gregorian mission also fails to point out that after conversion to Catholicism Æthelberht turned on his people and slaughtered them.

This is the background to the Synod of Whitby hosted by Hilda (AD 664). The argument was decided based on whether the Romans/Germans (who obtained that their practise came directly from Peter) or the Celts (who argued that their practise came directly from John) were right. Wikipedia topic Synod of Whitby says:

Wilfrid argued the Roman position on the following grounds (according to Bede's narrative):

    it was the practice in Rome, where the apostles SS. Peter and Paul had "lived, taught, suffered, and are buried";
    it was the universal practice of the Church, even as far as Egypt;
    the customs of the apostle John were particular to the needs of his community and his age and, since then, the Council of Nicaea had established a different practice;
    Columba had done the best he could considering his knowledge, and thus his irregular practice is excusable, but the Ionan monks at present did not have the excuse of ignorance; and
    whatever the case, no one has authority over Peter (and thus his successors, the Bishops of Rome).

Oswiu then asked both sides if they agreed that Peter had been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven by Christ and pronounced to be "the rock" on which the Church would be built (as stated in Matthew 16:18-19), to which they agreed. Oswiu then declared his judgment in favour of the holder of the keys, i.e. the Roman (and Petrine) practice.

editors of WikipediaSynod of WhitbyWikipedia, the free encyclopediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Whitby#Decisionaccessed 2019/12/12

About fifty years after the Synod of Whitby, in 715, the growing influence of the Pope backed by monarchs of Europe, brought about an attack on the centre of Celtic Christianity at Iona, founded by Columba in 563 AD and the clergy of the Irish Church were expelled from their home. Constantine created the Pope now Popes crowned Emperors. Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800 and the papacy gained his protection but it also served to sever ties with the Byzantine church. It made the Byzantine Emperor redundant. From the Byzantine viewpoint, they were the ones who had survived and were the only true remaining part of the Holy Roman Empire. Relations between the East and the West deteriorated until a formal split occurred in 1054. As the Pope consolidated power in the west the Byzantine Empire (the eastern half of the Roman Empire) crumbled into various feudal kingdoms which finally fell to the Ottoman Turkish in 1453. The eastern patriarch had no more backing. Then in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue and the Pope became unstoppable. The Eastern Church came to be called the Greek Orthodox Church and severed all ties with the Latin Roman Catholic Church. Pope Leo and Patriarch Michael excommunicated each other and their respective churches. England is the prime example of people who have been so well colonised that they believe that they are the same as their invaders. The English people trace their ancestry as Anglo-Saxons and the like but they are not. There is a veneer af German at the top to make them think that they are all Germanic but that is only the ruling class. The same is true of Spain and France but that is not my current focus. Keeping the masses poor and ignorant was part of the societal norm. According to the Black History Studies Website article 15 Things You Did Not Know About the Moors of Spain https://blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15-facts-on-the-moors-in-spain/ last visited on Dec 29, 2023:

Education was universal in Moorish Spain, available to all, while in Christian Europe ninety-nine percent of the population were illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. At that time, Europe had only two universities, the Moors had seventeen great universities! These were located in Almeria, Cordova, Granada, Juen, Malaga, Seville, and Toledo.

They have maintained this reputation until today and the synergistic relationship with their potentate and that is the source of much of the power of the Pope. It is sufficient for their potentate to baptize you and wave at you every now and then and recognise you as belonging. That then gives the Germans the right to impoverish you and stunt your development otherwise. Is that representative of Christ? To whom do these princes, prophet sand priests belong?

the Crusades

What is so stunning to me is the job that the Pope has been able to do psychologically on adherents to his version of Christianity. Jihad and Crusades (and similar expeditions) are religiously sanctioned aggression. As I see it they are both the same and oppose the Royal Law. God said love your enemies, full stop. Christianity is governed by the edicts of councils not the Bible and both the Koran and those edicts sanction the same things.

The reaction to Obama's comments on the Crusades at the National Prayer Breakfast shows the bigoted ignorance of supposed Christians in the world today who hate Muslims because they believe that Islam is wrong and Christianity is right. It is amazing to me how Christianity has justified the Crusades while simultaneously asserting that Christ told Peter to put the sword away (Matthew 26:52 and John 18:11). St. Bernard of Clairvaux, well known promoter of the Crusades, is alleged to have referred to that biblical incident when he wrote to the Archbishop of Mainz about a monk named Raoul, who had urged violence against Jews when the Second Crusade was being organized. It is also striking how when it is convenient they vehemently pursue and condemn people for being judaisers and then change their tune when they want to reclaim Jerusalem the homeland of Jews.

The now expired site rationalchristianity.net carried a commentary on the crusades which I have preserved in part.

Were the Crusades justified?

The three main reasons given for the Crusades were:

    1.     Rescuing fellow Christians from invasion and persecution
    2.     Conquering or retaking lands in the possession of Muslims
    3.     Fulfilling personal vows to go on a crusade

In my opinion, a war is justified only as a last resort for defense of oneself or others or if it is clearly and directly commanded by God (e.g. God speaks directly to a person). (For more on this, see Onward Christian Soldiers? Christian Perspectives on War by Timothy J. Demy.) Therefore, I consider the first reason to be a possible just cause for war. However, the crusaders seemed primarily focused on the second objective, which casts some doubt on the extent to which they were motivated by the first objective.

With the later crusades, the length of time since the initial invasion should be considered as well. If the current inhabitants of a city weren't alive when the invasion occurred and aren't being oppressed, they're not necessarily in need of rescue. Jerusalem was retaken by the Turks in 1187; Frederick II's and Louis IX's crusades occurred forty and sixty years later, respectively.

As for the second reason, there is nothing in the Bible to support the notion that certain lands (e.g. Jerusalem) ought to remain in the hands of Christians or that Christians ought to take control of lands which belong to non-Christians. The Bible teaches that Christians are to love their enemies (in the case of the Crusades, the Europeans viewed the Turks as their enemies) and help them:

    Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Mt 5:44)

    If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it. (Ex 23:4-5)

Land or other property belonging to non-Christians or a non-Christian government should be left in their keeping (Ex 20:15, 17, Mt 22:21). Furthermore, Christians are not to coerce others into faith (1 Pt 3:15-16). When nonbelievers refuse to accept Christianity, Christians are to move on and evangelize others (Mt 10:14), not punish the nonbelievers (Lk 9:51-56).

Concerning vows, Jesus taught that they should be avoided altogether (Mt 5:33-37). The OT warns against making vows (Pr 20:25) and includes several examples of foolish vows having disastrous results (e.g. 1 Sam 14:24-35).

What Obama actually condemned was the inquisition during the Crusades. The reaction latched on to the narrowly defined Crusades and went to town on him.

The crusades are not all of the barbarism perpetrated by the Christian religion and trying to live by some personal creed like a Pope's and justifying our actions will not nullify that. Comparing the Bible and the Koran is not the same as comparing Muslim and Christian beliefs. Christians who adhere to that position disregard from Genesis to Revelation which shows that the issue is the heart and the adversary is Satan. Supporting modern Christianity or Judaism in the West is not the same as supporting God. God's stated position is . . . My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence (John 18:36 [KJV]).

for an account of the Crusades you can check Encyclopedia Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/event/Crusades

There were at least eight Crusades. The First Crusade from 1096 to 1099. The Second Crusade from 1147 to  1149. The Third Crusade began in 1189 and ended in 1192. The Fourth Crusade from 1202 to 1204. The Fifth Crusade lasted from 1217 until 1221. The Sixth Crusade from 1228 to 1229. The Seventh 1248 to 1254. And the Eighth Crusade was in 1270. There were also minor Crusades against Christian sects within Europe, including the Albigensian Crusade (1209 - 1229).

In spite of what God Himself said in John 18:36, the objective of the Crusades was to halt the spread of Islam and retake control of the Holy Land, i.e. unwittingly to move from one head of the beast to another.

The Crusades were a backlash to the Muslim movement. By the end of the 11th century about two-thirds of the ancient Chriatian world had been conquered by Muslims, including outstanding areas like Palestine, Syria, Anatolia and Egypt. The Crusades initially pushed back the advancing Muslims but the growth of Islam ultimately obliterated any Catholic success. On May 29, 1453, Constantinople fell to to Otoman Turks, eventually to be transformed into the Islamic city of Istanbul and the Byzantine Empire was at an end. The influence of the Catholic Pope had dwindled since the time of the Synod of Whitby. At that time their goals coincided with the expansionist plans of the empire, but now the focus was on survival. The demonic dance of uprooting spoken of in Revelation 13 had begun. It first produced the Persians of the Sasanian Persian Period (614 AD - 629 AD). Catholicism had fought back with Christians of the Byzantine Empire (629-638 AD) swaying the balance of power in favour of the patriarch rather than the Pope. The pendulum swung again with the First Muslim Period (638-1099 AD) when the Dome of the Rock was Built on Temple Mount. Another overturn came when the papacy mustered the Christian forces and fought back during the Crusader Period (1099-1187 AD). Christian dominance was terminated by Muslim power during the Ayyubid Period (1187-1259 AD) the Mamluk Period (1260-1516) and the Ottoman Period (1516-1917) each time God had predicted and overturn eventually leading to the rise of Spain and the wealth of south America the the tables were turned once again.

The rise of Spain and subsequently Britain is another amazing example of how God moved to control history and preserve His truth even in the midst of overwhelming evil. I hope to give greater space to the details of these later in this series but it is important to recognise that this is what is happening here.

We know that the little horn developed under Rome and by AD 325 was the state religion that controlled Jerusalem. That control was interrupted in Jerusalem by the Sasanian empire but the Sasanian Empire never conquered Rome and hence never subdues the little horn. The 7^th century saw Caliph Omar of the Umayyad Dynasty enter Jerusalem. The Umayyad Dynasty did not conquer Rome either and so the little horn continued. Following this Jerusalem was ruled Under the Abassid Dynasty but they did not conquer Rome either. During the many vicissitudes of Jerusalem the little horn remained and contended with Islam over Jerusalem. The Pope has endured and Rome has always miraculously escaped but that is the power God gave the little horn.

The Great Schisms

There is a belief by some that there is such a thing as a first Pope and the office has been passed on to a single individual through the ages. There has not always been one Pope in the sense of a dominant figure over Christianity, although there has been a Bishop of Rome from the First Century. The Schism of 1378 was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417 in which two men (by 1410 ther were three) simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, and each excommunicated one another. It is commonly accepted that it was driven by politics rather than any theology. It was ended by the Council of Constance (1414 - 1418). The more enduring schism between the Western Churches answering to the See of Rome and the Greek Orthodox Churches of the East climaxed with mutual excommunications of 1054. We have also seen that there were three bishops equal to the pope at the time of Constantine and Nicea. In all of this the Bishop of Rome has always endured.

Acknowledgements

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_period

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hellenistic-religion/History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

https://www.gotquestions.org/Council-of-Laodicea.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Constantinople

https://www.britannica.com/event/Second-Council-of-Constantinople-553

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/Church-and-state-in-Eastern-and-Western-theology#ref301663

https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Rome/The-barbarian-invasions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_supremacy

https://www.britannica.com/place/Holy-Roman-Empire/Empire-and-papacy

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lombard-people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/fallofrome_article_01.shtml

https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Duchy+of+Rome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_Patriarchate_of_Constantinople

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Wars#Gothic_War_(535%E2%80%93554)

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-31156153

https://www.vox.com/2015/2/7/7995803/obama-crusades

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/us/obama-trying-to-add-context-to-speech-faces-backlash-over-crusades.html