Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (124 page)

dreamt of considering these New Testament writings as Holy Scripture, that with the passage of time the custom arose of reading these writings to the Congregations, but that even then no one dreamt of treating them as Holy Scripture with the same status as the Old Testament, that this idea first occurred to people when the different factions in Christianity were fighting each other and they felt the need to be able to back themselves up with something binding, that in this way people only began to regard these writings as Holy Scripture about A.D. 200.

In other words, there is nothing there about inspiration by a spirit, not even by the Holy Ghost. 'God's word' sneaks in as if by a secret ballot in which black and white balls are used. Those are facts. It would be more convincing if the world organizations which claim to be guardians of the ultimate and only truth did not limit themselves to dealing with historical facts in discussions that are dialectically perfect, but unintelligible to a layman. What they should do is use a first-class public relations system to bring the facts to the 'common people' in generally intelligible language! Do they lack the courage of their convictions? Are they worried lest the business basis, the paid-up capital as it were, be taken away from their 'limited company' if it were admitted that the, Bible is not 'God's word', because it cannot be so according to the proven way in which it originated?

How long are the leaders of the Church going to persist in the error that the faithful can be kept in a state of Christian humility and ingenuousness? How long do they think they can describe contradictions and falsifications as 'willed by God', 'for the salvation of the faithful' or inspired by the

'Holy Ghost'? If that is the way facts are treated, what has theological scholarship to do with knowledge? Nevertheless theology is allotted a special faculty in the universities: it is financed by the taxpayer, who usually calls himself a Christian. I assume that straight-forward scientific knowledge is imparted to the theological students in these faculties. What kind of distortion takes place between academic teaching and what is preached from the pulpit? Where does the 'brain-washing' take place that caused the facts to be forgotten, and the old song of the Bible as the true word of God rung out once more from the pulpit?

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that he shares the 'divine gift of grace'. Hence when councils with such illustrious members meet, the Holy Ghost is among them, omnipresent and active.

The Assemblies of the first five Ecumenical (which means the whole Catholic Church) Councils of the early Christian world set the standards for the doctrine and organization of the new religion.

The oldest dogmas, which are still valid today, were pro-claimed at Nicea (A.D. 325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451) and again at Constantinople (553). It is worthwhile taking a quick look at how the Councils came into being and what decisions were taken at them - presumably for all eternity.

The first Ecumenical Council took place at Nicea. The Council was convened by the Emperor Constantine (who was not crowned until he was on his deathbed, because he wanted to use the rapidly