Early Christianity had many of the accounts of the life and
teachings of Jesus from and after the apostolic times. Not all were
given the same acceptance and belief. Few amongst them had a
confirmed link to apostolic time. From the mid second century
Christian writers cited frequently the Gospels of Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John and the letters of Paul as reliable sources of Jesus
life and the Faith of the early Apostles.
The Christian writers do not quote books of Mary Magdalene,
Barnabas, Philip or Thomas etc.
It was the Council of Laodicea in AD 363 which confirmed the
centuries church use of the Gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John, the letters of St.Paul and the list of canonical books that
we have in our bible today . To these were added in AD 393, the
book of the Revelation at the Council of Hippo( home of St.
Augustine), which also accepted these books.. Both of these dates
were years after Constantines rule , and his death in AD 339 (c )
As a consequence of their belief in the Divinity of Jesus and his
resurrection from the dead, the early Christians kept Sunday as the
Lords Day ( Acts 20: 7; 1, Cor 16,2; Rev 1:10) all preceding the
first Council of Nicea (AD 325AD) . These are seen in the writings
of the early Church Fathers, such as St Ignatius of Antioch( died
AD 110), St Justin Martyr (died AD160 ), Didache and even the pagan
writer Pliny Dan Brown claims (223) that Emperor Constantine was a
patriarchal character had forced the Bishops to have a Council of
Nicea to sanction the canon of scripture . Dan Brown says that
Jesus was viewed as mortal prophet and by a close vote at the
Council of Nicea was pronounced God at the pressure of Constantine.
This statement is completely false. The truth is that by a vote of
300 to 2 in favor of Jesus Divinity . Furthermore, it was not
Constantine who shifted Christian worship from Saturday to Sunday
to coincide with the pagan veneration of the sun( as claimed by Dan
Brown) but by the Early Apostolic Church Fathers( Acts of
Apostles), and confirmed by the Synod of Loadicea in AD343- 381.
(d) Constantine while undeniably a flawed individual( as any
Emperor had), he renounced paganism and became a genuine Christian
convert. He repaid the terrible losses to the Church by the early
Roman persecutions, by building Churches, favouring the clergy and
convened the Great Ecumenical Council of Nicea, by underwriting the
expenses of the clergy who attended. He was baptized on his free
will on his death bed, because of the belief, at that time amongst
people that baptism would absolve him from his previous sins.
However Dan Brown does Constantine no justice when he says
Constantine was forced to be baptized on his bed too weak to
protest (232). This is false. Dan Brown also makes misleading
claims that Constantine was responsible for the collating the
Canonical books of the Bible or Christianity for his political
gain. This is false because both Councils of Laodicea (AD 343-381),
Constantinople (AD 381) and Hippo (AD 419), gave us all , the
Canonical Scriptures( Old and New testaments) many years after the
death of Constantine in AD 339. (b AD 285.)
