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Alright, so during the summer for our guests, just to let you know, we usually, well, we do sometimes apologetics. We've also did a thing on world views, and now we're doing church history. And so, we began the actual history part of it last time. And maybe I need to turn this on.

Okay. So, we quickly ran through this. You know, we talked last time about the fact that as tough as the Christians are going to have it with all the persecution, the men at the top, often the very ones directing the persecution, you can see the Lord's taking care of them as well.

You know, you got of the 76 Roman emperors, you know, only 19 died natural deaths. You know, most of them died very violent deaths. So, we went through that, went through the background, talked about the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Dead Sea Scrolls. We went through some of the basic verses that are so central to Christianity, the very words of Jesus himself.

And we go through the crucifixion, the resurrection. We discussed the fact that Christos is the Greek word for Messiah. And so, Jesus Christ, you'd be surprised how many people out there think that the word Christ is the last name of Jesus. It's not. You're saying Jesus the Messiah when you say Jesus Christ.

And, of course, we also talked about some of the historical Reasonings why Pilate went along with the crucifixion, some things that are not recorded in Scripture. Of course, Scripture gives you the essential information there, but there's additional information as to probably why Pilate went along with that. He's so fearful of Tiberius being reminded that he was appointee of Sejanus, who had been purged by Tiberius.

Okay, and of course, we have the resurrection itself. We talked about how that is central to Christianity. There basically is no Christianity without the resurrection. And the fact that you're standing on very firm, sound ground when you talk with someone about the resurrection, because all you have to do is say, well, if it didn't happen, you explain to me what did happen.

And they will quickly find themselves having all kinds of problems trying to explain that. We also briefly mentioned that, of course, Muslims do not believe in Jesus even being crucified. But that is one of the most documented historical events in history. We have more documentation on the crucifixion than we have on Julius Caesar by far.

Okay, so, and we talked a little bit about, you know, the documents of Christianity as well. And, of course, Christians believe in resurrection. We talked about Paul. We talked about some of the practical reasons that Christianity is going to take off, unlike Judaism. One of the big problems of Judaism, of course, is circumcision.

And, you know, that, for guys at least, that's a big implement right there. And, of course, Paul comes in. You have the church, the Jerusalem Council. Circumcision is no longer necessary. And remember, Paul goes to all these in the book of Acts, he always starts off as a Jewish synagogue.

You have Jews, and you always have this group called the God Fearers, who are usually Gentiles, that very much like the ethical teachings of Christianity, but all these Jewish rules, you know, such 500 laws on how to prepare squash. I really need that. And, you know, you can't pluck your hair out, you know, looking in a mirror on the Sabbath because that's work.

Okay, so you can't look in a mirror, so you don't pluck out your hair. You know, they built these incredible hedge about the law and just incredible works-oriented. Of course, with this, Paul, you know, has his most famous verse is as far as by grace you've been saved, not by works.

This is not from yourselves, it's a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. And that is, you know, this releases people from this works-based religion that is really what much of Judaism is to this day. Okay, so all that is, of course, incredibly important.

The thing about all people equal before God is something we're going to come back again later on. Own. I actually didn't mention that last time. That is so central to Western civilization. You know, the Greeks had democracy, but it didn't last. It is this concept of a grace, you know, put into this ideal about, you know, in fact, really going, you know, all men are equal before God.

That really goes back to the Apostle Paul. You know, there's neither the male nor female Jew nor Greek, for we're all one. You know, that is really a direct tie to that phrase, that scripture to we hold these truths, self-evident, that all men are created equal. And if I have time later on, I'll talk to you about, talk to you how that developed of a religious concept.

Okay, so let's see, did we get through this? No. Yeah, we did. We got through this. We were talking about the pagan competition. Yeah, you didn't do your homework there, A-Rob. You got, we talked about how, you know, in paganism, the gods are limited. They offer very little way of community.

You go to temple, not as a congregation. There was no congregational worship in pagan religions. And the gods themselves are immoral. If you want to go to see how not to behave, go and look at the Greek gods. They're also. The Roman gods, they just changed the name, but they're the same gods.

You know, the chief of the gods, Zeus, Jupiter for the Romans, he is the leader, adulterer, you know, of all the gods. You know, a pagan religion is kind of strange. And this is partly because of Christianity, we think religion should teach morality. But that's not the case with pagan religion.

You know, I jokingly would tell my students sometimes, you know, maybe they came up with their gods as a replacement for the afternoon soap operas, if y'all even know those are anymore. But anyway, you know, they were just wild stories and all kinds of shenanigans and you've got that.

There's almost no role for women. You've got segregated worship. There's no scriptures like what we have with the Christian scriptures. The closest you have is the Iliad and the Odyssey. And once again, you know, there's... Plus, by the way, talk about corruptions. The Iliad and the Odyssey was full of corruptions, you know, in terms of different versions and totally different readings.

And there's not much hope for the afterlife. Hades, you know, very dark, shadowy. And so not very much there. And the other course problem is just keeping up with them all. And that's just, you know, That's the main ones. There's a lot more. You know, you've got all these different gods and goddesses, and everyone has their own story, and there's various legends sometimes differing quite a bit with each one of these.

Another thing that's kind of interesting about pagan religion is it's predestinarian, fate. In fact, you know, that gives rise to the Greek tragedies as going against fate. And Oedipus Rex, we mentioned that last time. You know, you're fated to kill your father, marry your mother. And no matter how much you tried, you know, it happens.

And, of course, Freud has all kinds of fun with Oedipus, you know, and all that. Okay, so also the attitude is you go to the gods to bribe them, you know, if you want something. Take an offering, and, you know, it can be all sorts of things. And of course, with the pagans, it's perfectly legitimate.

Take a pig, which, of course, Jews would probably kill over dead. They tried that. Okay, so another element about pagan religion, too, which is very important for us when we think about the coming of the persecutions of Christians, is that it was more than just religion. It's like saluting the flag.

And so offering sacrifice, you see, each of these city-states in ancient Greece had a particular patron deity, or, you know, Athens, you know, is Athena. And by offering sacrifice to that particular deity, you're like... The flag. So it's a patriotic act as well. Now, of course, when the Roman emperors declare themselves to be gods, they're expecting everyone to offer sacrifice to them.

Of course, I think you can see politically, you know, that empowers the emperor. You know, if the emperor says jump, your only reply is how high, right? And so they want everyone to offer sacrifice to them, and this is to show your loyalty to the state. And if you don't offer sacrifice to the emperor, then you know, you're a traitor, right?

And that's going to get Christians in a lot of trouble. And also, we discussed the fact that in paganism, it's a very cold religion. You actually have a legitimate religious excuse to not help your neighbor. In fact, help your neighbor when he's in trouble, we said last time, was what?

Bad. Why? Because you'd like to free sit in the body. Yeah, that person's going through bad times and difficulties and trials because the gods are punishing them. So, and, you know, now let's, I didn't, I don't, this is where we were, right? So, let's talk about some of these competing religions, which at the time people thought these religions would become the dominant world religion, not Christianity.

One is Sebel. And the goddess Ebel. Lots of different versions about Sebel, but. She supposedly, one of the religious legends is she falls in love with this very handsome young man, a young shepherd boy named Addis, but he apparently had his eyes on a nymph, and this made Sebel very jealous.

And so she's going to strike him, and he goes mad, and he castrates himself, bleeds out, and dies. Okay, and she is real sorry that she did this, and she makes him into a pine tree. Okay, and devotes Siebel, in order to be initiated into this religion, what she had to do was they had these special where they have a ramp and then sort of box, and then you get inside that box, there's a grate on top of the ramp, and they pull a bull up there, and they slit the throat of that bull so the blood will spray down through that grate and baptize you.

All right. By the way, the priests of Sybil were required in order to be priests to self-castrate themselves. All right, so it's a pretty wild religion, and it gets grosser, by the way. I'm going to stop it there. But let me point out a very simple little fact about this.

How much does a bull cost? Let me tell you, that could be several months' wages. And for a peasant, probably about a half a year's wages. How many people could afford to be devotees of Sibel? Now, how much does it cost you to go through the Christian rite to show public conversion?

Was it required? Well, yeah, everything it was, but in terms of actual costs, money. Back then, water is free, folks. I know it's not today. But back then, it was. Water's free. And of course, then you take part of the Eucharist, Lord's Supper, and that's a little bit of wine, right?

And a little piece of bread. And that's it. You see, just on a practical basis, why Christianity was so much more attractive, you know, and just for practical reasons. All right. Then, of course, you got this legend of Isis, you know, Osiris, Isis legend. Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Isis, this had been around for thousands of years, but for some reason, it really took off again. And it's big, big, big in Rome, had a bunch of ISIS temples. Basically, according to ancient Jews, distraught. She's lost her husband, lost her husband. Her brother, and so she goes seeking for the body, and she finds it up there at Byblos, brings it back to Egypt, and Set is very upset.

So he takes the body away from her, cuts up the itty-bitty pieces, and scatters them across the earth. And Isis is so distraught again, and so she goes and hunts every itty-bitty piece, except for one piece, part of Malmember that we don't want to talk about. But anyway, she finds all the other pieces and she reassembles them.

And the gods are so touched by her love for her husband, brother, that they magically resurrect Isis, they replace the missing item, and they make whoopy, and they have Oris, who is the reincarnation of Osiris, by the way. And he is always depicted as green because actually he represents spring.

Green spring rhymes. Okay, and so now that is, believe it or not, folks, a major religion. Okay? No, back then. Now we have something even better. It's called Scientology. All right, that's even wilder if you ever looked at the origins of that. Okay, so I once sat down in bookstores to read Dianetics, which is sort of their Bible.

And there's a testimonial young man saying that all his problems had gone away because they had these e-bar readings that they do that you had to pay several thousand dollars for. And he found out that all his problems went back some three million years ago when he was an alien on planet such and such.

And he had this traumatic experience, and that's where all his problems emanated from. I just saw her close that book and put it back on the shelf. But the point of that is, as crazy as that is, it shows you that people, instead of accepting the truth, will go out and find something far just way out there.

All right. So anyway, that was a competition. I think you can see why Christianity is going to triumph over stuff like that. Okay, so let's keep on going. Now, the appeal of Christianity. Well, we know a lot of what the appeal was. Christianity fulfilled the spiritual longings of the people of the Roman Empire unlike anything else before.

Those who are disillusioned with their traditional pagan religions, Christianity's doctrines of salvation, immortality, a Savior, which we just inherently know almost from birth that we need a Savior. And Christianity provides a Savior and a God who is loving, He's caring, He has high ethical. Conduct. He's even bound by his own ethical conduct.

He's not going to be running around like Zeus or Jupiter doing immoral things. And of course, as we've already pointed out, the sacraments to become part, or ordinances, as Protestants, these ordinances are not going to cost you an arm and a leg or a bull. And there's the brotherhood of redeemed man, the resurrection of the dead, life after life.

All these things were just, it's like, you know, this is living water, something that they had never experienced before. And of course, women can worship with men. In theory, at least, everyone is equal before God in Christianity. There's neither male nor Gentile, you know, and male nor female, Gentile, nor, let's keep on going.

You got the ceremonies of Christianity, you know, we've already talked about how they're inexpensive. Baptism requires only water, Eucharist required unfermented wine, unleavened bread, promise of better life in the next world, needs of the weak, the sick, the unfortunate are to be cared for. Under paganism, if you're in those two boats, you're in deep doo-doo.

You know, nobody's going to care about you. But in Christianity, Christians are ordered. It's part of being a Christian to care for people like that. And there is a warmth and a human appeal to Christianity that the cold impersonal pagan cults at that time just did not have.

Only thing approaching it was Judaism, but of course Judaism had all these legal requirements. And of course, with Christianity, you have this concept of grace that's so missing there in Judaism. And then, of course, let's look at some examples of what I'm talking about. In 165 AD, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, you have a devastating epidemic sweeping through the empire.

Some scholars think it's the first appearance of smallpox, but we're not sure. The kill rate was incredible. 25-30% of the population is wiped out in this great plague. And one century later, another plague hits. In both cases, the pagans panic. You have husbands abandoning wives, wives, husbands, parents, children, children, parents.

And of course, the doctors aren't going to help you because they're scared too. The most famous doctor of the time period, Galen, flees Rome, goes out to private estate to literally hide out from the plague. What do the Christians do? Well, Michael, read that for me. However, Creparian, the bishop.

No, no, no, no. See, friend, Bishop of Carthage, let's start with the quote. Yeah. Most of our brothers showed unbound love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ.

And with them departed this life, serenally happy for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Keep going. Many in nursing and curing others transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead. The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner.

A number of elders, deacons, and lawmen, laymen winning high commendation, so that in death, in this form, the result of great piety and strong faith seems in every way the equal of matrimony. Martyrdom. Okay, somebody volunteer over there. Just hand that mic to be the next reader. All right, so what do the Christians do?

Now, why are Christians not scared to care for the sick, even though they know they might get it? Yeah. And you got to understand, back then, death, if you really believe Christianity, death was almost a release. I mean, because life was so much harder back then, especially if I'm the common, ordinary person.

And you've got to also understand, folks, back then, death was everywhere. It was constant. You don't have the medicine you have now. You have all kinds of, you think, breaking the law is bad today. Oh, my gosh. You know, there's constant murders, constant, just all sorts of things.

And, of course, you have slavery. Sometimes I think the Roman population, almost half the population, slave. So now, that was by Cyprian, and he was the bishop at Carthage. And he survived the plague, you know, but he doesn't survive when the Emperor Valerian ordered all the Christians to offer sacrifice to him.

And as the chief bishop there in Carthage, he refused to obey the order, and he's going to be publicly beheaded, which is actually pretty nice. Most of them died horrible, torturous deaths. But, you know, he's beheaded publicly. It's kind of interesting, thousands of Christians were watching this. And apparently, the Romans, many times when they do the persecutions, they just selectively go after.

The leadership. Meantime, back in Rome, two bishops of Rome, the same persecution, are going to be killed, you know, in the same persecution. So these guys, they really stood up for the faith. And they didn't worry about death because to them, they're going to a better place and looking forward to it, which is pretty astounding.

Now, flash forward 13 centuries. And you think, oh, well, that's today. No, it's not. That's still way back there. And we've got another guy, Martin Luther, right? And there's, you're going to find out they still have plagues at the time, Martin Luther. And you've got, of course, the bubonic plague coming through.

And two of his brothers died of the plague, as well as two of his colleagues, professors at Wittenberg. And Wittenberg's small college. I mean, it's probably smaller than, it's way smaller than Blind College, you know. You know, it's 15,000 students there. So, I mean, all the teachers knew each other very intimately, and it must have been quite a shock to lose them.

So you have Luther, you know, he's personally impacted by the plague. And it comes, you know, 10 years after the Nifi thesis, plague hits there at Wittenberg, University of Wittenberg, and, you know, Luther was working there, translating, teaching the Bible. And many of his students, many of the teachers fled, but Luther does not.

He stays there. And they, you know, me, other, you know, strong Christian leaders did too. And Luther later writes about this. He says, whether one may flee from death, plague. You know, at the time, many thought the plague was God's divine deserved punishment. Some victims even asked to be flogged when they were infected.

Oh, you know, take a cat, nine tails, and flog me. You know, maybe the Lord will take pity on me if I'm flogged. And they'd seek contrition, you know, to spare them. Luther, of course, was ahead of his time. He believed that Christians should not try to escape.

And he said, I cannot tell if the plague will allow me to finish translating the epistle of Galatians. He is translating the epistle of Galatians. Brother Clyde, you can relate to that, can't you? He is worried. You see, he's not worried about dying. He's just worried about, well, I'll be able to finish the epistle of Galatians.

That's somebody. Okay, that sounds like Clyde there. He wrote to a friend, rapid and sudden it is, making great ravages, the plague he's talking about, especially among the young. You advise me to fly. Whither shall I fly? And to save one's God-given life, he decided was not a sin.

Indeed, the sin would be to reject the intelligence that God had granted. In other words, get sick, you know. Go get care for it, you know. And if the situation worsened, he would send his followers away. But he thought that anyone in a position of power or authority are in a position to help, that it's their duty to stay.

Okay? He says, My place is here, he wrote. And by the way, he took plague victims into his home to care for them. All right, this is Martin Luther. Okay. And remember, this is endangering all his kids. Remember, he adopted all these kids. They had to give him the local convent.

It shut down anyway. And just to hold all his kids. He and his wife adopted. They had ton too, and then they adopted more kids. He says, so my place is here. He wrote, obedience will not permit my flight. He who has called me recalls me, not that I do not fear death.

And I love this. Even here he has Gallows' humor. He says, for I am not the apostle Paul. I am only his commentator. All right, he translates Paul, but he's not as brave as Paul. All right, but I hope that the Lord will deliver me from fear. Now, you see, 13 centuries spanning the first Christians, and here you've got Martin Luther doing the same thing that first century, second century Christians were doing, you know, the Roman Empire.

I just thought that was amazing. Just to give you an idea, this is. 200, and that's where Christianity's at, about 200 AD. See? It's almost like cancer. It just starts spreading all over the place, but this is good cancer. Okay. And why does it spread so quickly? Yeah, one reason is the Lord, I don't, once again, I think this is Clyde's, I don't know where I heard this before, but I know I heard Clyde say it plenty of times: the Lord can write a straight line even with a crooked stick.

All right, and he can use crooked powers, he can use wicked, evil people still to accomplish his aims. And the Romans are partly practically explaining the rapid spread of Christianity because Jesus' appearance is right on the eve of completion of one of the most fantastic highway systems in human history.

And there it is. And you saw what the roads look like. They're incredibly modern in some ways. They had rest areas, so ever so many miles. They had water fountains, just like we have our highways. And although most people will hire their police to travel with them because the roads are so dangerous, highway travelers.

Can you imagine? Ready, a state trooper, too. Accompany you. All right, but anyway, they have this incredible highway system and is completed pretty much on the eve of the arrival of Jesus. And the Lord, once again, knows what he's doing in his timing. Now, unfortunately, though, the Romans are by about 200 going to figure out that Christianity is not the same thing as Judaism.

Remember, we talked about last time how Judaism was protected by Roman law. They had special exceptions. You know, they could get away with things that pagans couldn't normally get away with. But the problem is, as Christianity spreads, why do you think the Romans finally realize this is not just another form of Judaism?

Most of the membership are no longer Jews. They're pagans. Christians are very good at evangelism, and the pagans are pouring in. And the pagans are outnumbering the Jews now. All the first Christians were Jewish. They were Jews and Christians. Now, increasingly, they're almost all pagans. Although, Jewish conversion to Christianity, we now know there's all kinds of new scholarship coming out, and this continued for centuries.

You have Chrysostom, famous, famous Byzantine preacher at Constantinople. And he actually, in one of his sermons, is getting on the Christians because he's saying they're frequenting the synagogues too much. In other words, he's afraid that some Christians were actually going into Judaism, rejecting Christianity, and he's warning them to be careful about that, which is kind of interesting because that's centuries later.

So a lot of people think there's a total division between Judaism and Christianity after the first century. No, that's not actually the case. And I say, actually, it never has been the case. We still, you know, Effie's a good example right there of Jews who are converting to Christianity.

It's been going on for centuries. But there's also been some from Christians going, well, so-called Christians going the other direction. Okay, so now we're getting up to the fact that the Romans, once they recognize that Christianity is a different religion and Christians refused to offer sacrifice to the emperor, which now has become the thing, it starts getting very negative attention from the Roman government.

And you start having the appearance of martyrs for the faith. A martyr is someone who dies for their faith willingly. And the first persecution, and I might actually later on do just one lecture on persecutions by themselves, but I'm going to do it very briefly today. The first persecution, I think most of us know, began under Nero, but I want you to know that's not empire-wide persecution.

That's just in Rome and Rome itself. And the cause of that, of course, is the accusation that the Christians set the great fire of Rome, which burned the entire city down. And, of course, this caused all kinds of anger afterwards in the aftermath. Y'all remember, was it Katrina?

you know, that got George Bush in so much trouble because they didn't think he did enough? Okay. Well, multiply that by a factor of about 20, and you get an idea of the hot seat Nero was in. They accused Nero. In fact, they accused him of setting the fire.

And he had once made a comment in public that he hated Rome, is ugly. He just wished he could tear the whole city down and start over again. And people remembered that, and there's a suspicion that he set the fire. It didn't help that after the fire, he bought the prime real estate in Rome for himself and built his famous golden palace there, which aroused even more suspicion.

So anyway, you got Nero, who was, you know, he was crazy like a fox. He realized he's in trouble, so he had to find a fall group, and that's the Christians. And Christians were susceptible, being accused of all kinds of crazy things. Partly is their own fault, and we still have a problem with this today.

I want you to realize that. We speak sometimes in Christianes. Y'all know about that? Christianes? We just take it for granted. But imagine. If you're a pagan now and you're walking on a sidewalk in Rome, and there's two Christians ahead of you, and one of the Christians looked at the other Christians and says, You're going to come to the meeting tonight?

Oh, yeah, I'll be at the meeting tonight. Are you going to partake of the blood and eat the body? Yes, I'm going to do that. Now, what do you think the pagan thinks? Cannibals, you know, all right. And remember, they always already accuse Christians of being atheists because, you know, you can't depict their God.

And remember, Romans, they're very concrete, you know, to worship God, you've got to have an idol there. And so, you know, all kinds of wild stories about Christians. So, anyway, the Christians are falsely accused. And the Nerodian persecution is very small because it's just Rome. Of course, that's a pretty big city.

It's not empire-wide, but boy, does it take out some big folks? Who does it take out? Who's there in Rome at the time of Nerodian persecution? Peter and Paul. Peter, Paul is executed according to tradition, how? Why is he beheaded? He's a Roman citizen. Peter, however, not being a Roman citizen, how do they take him out?

Crucified. Traditionally, he's said upside down. He didn't want to be crucified the way his Lord was because he didn't believe he was worthy to die the same death his Lord died. Okay, but anyway, now that's a mortar for you. All right, so you. You got two of the, and you know, isn't it amazing?

You would think, Lord, if you want your Christian religion to spread, surely you wouldn't take out your two top leaders who've been so loyal to you. Well, the Lord doesn't operate the way we operate. All right? And by the way, were Peter and Paul in bad shape after their deaths?

No, my God. No, they're receiving their crowns, right? They're far better off. The Lord has his purposes, and we've got to understand that. We had a little talk about that yesterday, right here. And so the Lord has his purposes, and we can't see it. But Christianity is going to explode like crazy after this.

You wouldn't think it, but it does. All right, so that's Nero. Around 250 AD, the Emperor Decius invokes the aids of the gods in his war against the Goths. And of course, the Christians refuse to offer the sacrifices. So he's furious. And here is this thing about patriotism.

Those Christians are unpatriotic. And so he goes after the Christians in very major persecution. Valerian, another major persecution. And although a Valerian is also get the Christians money. And by the way, from the very beginning, now there used to be this idea. Out there that Christians was only attracted to the poor people.

And it was. But it's also attracted to what middle class they had, which wasn't much of one, and it's also attracted to the wealthy people. That has always been the case with Christianity. It attracts all races, all social economic levels, all levels of education. Always has. It's just amazing how that has worked.

And of course, there are some fairly wealthy Christians, and Valerian goes after them to get their money. And we've already seen he's the guy that takes out Ceprian, you know, the one that we talked about just a little while ago. Then the most systematic empire-wide persecution is begun by the Emperor Diocletian, this late empire, which is really strange.

He is emperor about 20 years before he institutes this. In fact, one of the biggest churches in the city where his capital is actually in Asia Minor, not Rome itself. And right in front of his palace was a gigantic cathedral. And he didn't bother with it for years and years.

And then all of a sudden, bam, he goes after Christianity. And this one was the first attempted empire-wide. He's trying to stamp out the religion, even to the point of raising, destroying the churches, especially goes after the documents of Christianity. A total failure. There are just so many manuscripts of the Bible now, it is really impossible.

Get rid of them. But boy, did he try burning the Bibles, torturing Christians, you know, just arresting them, putting them in jail. And then 311, his successor, in fact, some think he's the guy who actually got Diocletian to start the persecution in the first place. But when Diocletian dies, Galerius, 311, is going to continue the persecution.

He even ratches it up, you know. But then he is suddenly struck down by a terrible illness. We're not quite sure what. And on top of it, his wife converts to Christianity. He's convinced that his illness is the wrath of the Christian God. And he suddenly decides to order a halt to the persecution and ordered Christians to pray for him.

But it doesn't work. He dies, all right. And of course, you know, this thing about the arena, this really did happen. You got, you notice around the arena, they have Christians mounted on crucifixes, and they're being crucified. Of course, you know, this has got to be exciting for a crowd.

Crucifixion could last for days. So they have little bundles and they soak them in tar and they light them on fire for the entire meantime. The Christians down there, they unleash the tigers and the lions on them. But what's the result of all this persecution? Just keep spreading.

Okay? And in fact, it seems the more the persecuted, the more this spreads. Now, you got to think about this. You got pagans whose lives are empty, who are not satisfied. They go to the arena every day for cheap entertainment. And we got a different entertainment day. We got this strange group of people called Christians.

And they were very not entertaining, as it turns out, because you could not force them to fight each other. They just wouldn't do it. That's usually how the Romans would take care of people. They send them to the arena and they don't fight each other to the death.

Christians wouldn't do it. So all you could do is turn the tigers and the lions on them, and they expect them to run around like crazy, but the Christians just stand there and await their deaths. What would you think watching this? What is wrong with us? You think that, and then you think, they know something I don't know.

And it had a huge impact. Okay, and of course the Christians aren't just standing around waiting to be killed. They're going forth and sharing their faith. Missionary zeal of the Christians was just incredible. And because they really live their life and they're standing up for the faith, even willing to die for it, they have huge impact.

And of course, you know, the New Testament is coming together at this point in time. As well, and you know, composed of the writings of the apostles, and also the gospels are now out there. And of course, the church begins to organize. And here's a problem, though. As you start organizing, start getting bigger and bigger and bigger, you start losing some of that spontaneity, and you start having bureaucratization come in, and bureaucracy can always be bad.

On the other hand, you need that organization at the same time. Partly because of this intense persecution, needless to say, you have the church coming up with an idea which is not biblical, but I think it's just due to the persecution. You know, ultimately, people begin to rely on strong people who are not going to give in to the persecution.

And that usually is going to be the local church leader who, in, you know, each church is called the bishop. And bishops are being taken out left and right. And eventually, over time, I think partly to keep discipline in the church, bishops began claiming powers that I can see how they came up with this, but it really is not biblical.

And it's called apostolic succession. Of apostolic succession. And the theory behind this is the idea that each bishop's authority is not based upon the church selecting them. And by the way, originally, all the bishops were elected by the local congregations. But they are bishops because one of the former apostles way back yonder came through town, laid his hands on the first bishop of that city or town, and then when he goes out of office, he lays his hand on his successor.

And so each bishop has an unbroken line of apostolic blessing, laying on hands of the original apostle. And it's that laying on the hands of that original apostle that gives that bishop his power and authority. You understand that? And they call this apostolic succession. This is what Roman Catholics believe.

This is what Greek Orthodox believe. Okay, and so that's going to start arriving about this time. Of course, you did have elders, had deacons, and of course, bishops. All right, now it keeps growing. And by the way, this map's incorrect because it's not just there, it's gone now into the Persian Empire, which is now a part of the Roman world, and it's going to have major influence in places like Syria, Iraq, and Persia.

And of course, you know, we believe Stephen got to India and even have Christianity's. Springing up in India. Okay, now, although the Christians were first persecuted, then tolerated by the Roman emperors, no consistent effort was made to annihilate them except Diocletian. The Christians, although suspicious of the state, still recognize its authority in certain matters.

You know, Paul writing that letter, you know, pray for the government despite what it is. And then by the beginning of the 4th century BC, Christians in the empire represent a very popular sect, which the emperors are now going to do at 180 and start seeking their support once they become so numerous.

Now, this is evident with, of course, Constantine. Constantine 313, 337 AD, he is in this tug-of-war. Who's going to be the emperor? You know, after one emperor dies, they usually have a civil war, and these generals will have a big fight, and the winning general comes out on top, and he's going to be the new emperor.

And that's the case with Constantine. There's a lot more to the story which I go into. He's a very interesting person. But anyway, you got after the battle, Milvian Bridge, you know, he believed he had a vision before the battle, and you know, Constantine cross, you know, Angelic being told him, paint this on the shields of your men, and you will win a victory.

And so he ordered his entire army to paint this cross. And then after the victory, he is convinced it was the Christian God that gave him the victory. Victory. And so he is going to convert to Christianity. Now, some dispute that. From what I've seen, and one of the big reasons they dispute it, Constantine refused to be baptized until right before he died.

But what people don't understand is, you know, throughout history, Christianity has different ideas about when and how you do things. Of course, you know, Church of Christ, you've got to be baptized immediately after profession of faith. You can't wait. In the old days, when the 1800s have heard Church of Christ, the only place to baptize is a local river or pond.

They would go out and cut a hole in the ice in wintertime and baptize that person right then. Okay, all right. But at this time, there was a teaching that you don't want to be baptized until right before you die because you're less likely to sin. I guess there's a certain logic to that.

But anyway, and that's apparently what Constantine believed. So he, you know, from all evidence, I think he probably really did believe in Christianity. Only the Lord knows if he was. He certainly, in many ways, behaved like that. But anyway, he issues the Edict of Milan, which now officially tolerates Christianity.

Now, here's the thing, though. Some see this as a great, wonderful event. Certainly, the Christians who are being persecuted, I mean, a lot of them were still in prison. They're released from prison. The torturing stops. I would say that's pretty wonderful. But guess what the bad thing is?

You always knew a Christian was a Christian before this. Why? Yeah, you publicly announce you're a Christian, you're setting yourself up for all kinds of trouble, right? Now, the emperor's a Christian, and he's officially ordering Christians to be taught nice. In fact, they're going to start getting government revenue to rebuild the churches that the government tore down.

All right? What's the problem? A bunch of people suddenly won't be Christians. But not really. You know, it's just, it kind of reminds me back when I was a little kid, we had this candidate who run for sheriff. And you never see him in the church except when the campaign begins.

And then suddenly he's up front in the choir. You know? Yeah. And after the election, didn't see him again until the next election, okay? All right. Well, you got a whole lot of that. Yes, ma'am. Pat, I think that the Catholics still believe that at baptism, all their sin is forgiven.

Because I remember when I was young, I had a cousin who married a gentleman who converted. And that's what we were told. At that point, all his sins might be forgiven. And I was thinking, God. I wish that were me. Yeah, there's a lot of different teachings, and some of them are very bogus.

But anyway, you know, you have, so you've gone from being hated, despised, persecuted, to being officially tolerated and now even favored by the government. And so a lot of people are going to come rushing in. They're no longer sincere Christians. And this is going to be a big real problem.

And by the way, this also politicizes the bishops as well. You guys are receiving, they start receiving state revenue. You have people wanting to be bishop not because they really love Christ, they wish to serve Christ. They want to be bishop because that's a good lifestyle. How many times have you been in a town?

They say, have you gone seen the bishop's palace? All right. In Mexico, there's a lot of bishops' palaces. I mean, pretty nice digs. Total, total wrong reasons, though. All right, so this relationship between church and state is going to be problematic from this point on. And I don't think any country really figures it out until this country.

And what we call separated church and state, which, by the way, the original idea of that has been totally warped. But definitely, that's going to be an improvement over what you have. And of course, it is Constantine who decides to move the capital from Rome to Constantinople. A little Greek city-state called Byzantium was right there on the Horn, you know, jutting out to the Bosphorus there.

Strategic location, you know, where East meets West. Black Sea crosses into the Mediterranean Sea. Very vitally important location. And this shows Constantine marking off the... I ripped that off on National Geographic, just scanned it in there if you're wondering why there's a stripe in the middle. But anyway, so much for that.

Well, now, of course, with this growth in Christianity, anytime any religion gets to a certain situation, remember, you're going to have splinterings take place. This is evident every world religion that's ever existed. We have what we call denominations. And we've already been through the little thing that the very word non-denominational is a misnomer because the definition of denomination, any particular group of people with a particular set of beliefs, if you join a non-denominational church and you tell people, I believe I'm non-denominational because I joined this non-denominational church, congratulations, you just became a denomination.

Okay, because you have a particular belief that you're non-denominational. So anyway, but that's just one of my little pet peas. But I lost that war before I even started. I even use the word myself sometimes, but just be aware that that's really a contradictory term, non-denominational. All right, but you have splinterings, and on top of just different denominations, you're now going to have outright heresy.

Now, heresy defined is incorrect belief. The problem with determining heresy is who's determining that. Usually, whoever the power is that's in power at the time. Fortunately, starting off, you have the church, the Orthodox church, and by that, I'm not talking about the Orthodox Catholic Church of today. I'm talking about the true church.

Orthodox simply means correct. Okay? That's the original meaning of the word Orthodox. And I would argue that the Orthodox Church today is not the church of second, although they definitely claim, they claim they're the only group that goes directly back. But there's real problems with that if you get into it.

But anyway, you got the Orthodox, and I'm using terminology Orthodox in that correct belief, they're going to determine what is heretical. Okay? And some of the heresies we already know about because they're already popping up in the New Testament. Read the book of Galatians. This one's already beginning to pop up there.

Gnosticism. This comes from the Greek word gnosis, which is Greek word for knowledge. And this is usually one of these religions. How much time have I got? One minute. Oh my gosh. I was hoping to at least get to Nicene heresy today. Okay. Well, anyway, Gnosticism, just know that this is one of these stair-step to heaven type religions, that you have to have the secret knowledge.

What perfect example of Gnostic religion do we have today? I just, we mentioned it earlier. Scientology is a Gnostic, it's a modern Gnostic religion. Supposedly, salvation comes through the secret knowledge, and usually it's going to cost you a lot of money. That's the reason people like John Travolta and Tom Cruise can afford to be Scientologists, right?

All right, but anyway, and that's nothing new, though, that they're having the same types of religion pop up at the beginnings of Christianity. And what we're going to start with next time, Nestorians, very briefly, talk about them, and then talk about the Donatists and Manichaeans, and then that's the biggie.

That's the real biggie there. You know, you got a problem when somebody says, we know one God alone, unbegotten, the Son begotten by the Father, is created and was not before he was begotten. All right, that's the Aryan. That's a quote by Arius. Let Arius condemn himself there.

Okay. We're going to get to that one next time. And that split the church wide open. By the way, just out of curiosity, anybody tell me what is an obvious Aryan religion today? Aryan. Jehovah's Witness? Jehovah's Witness, yeah. Almost very, very, almost the doctrines of Arianism, really. Okay.

All right. Well,.