The “Place” Called Sheol in the Hebrew Scriptures, and Called Hades in the Greek Scriptures

Is Sheol a place of immateriality, a place for departed souls where soul is, contrary to the Bible, thought by many religionists to be defined as the immaterial essence of personhood that allegedly survives the death of a person’s body? No, it is not a spiritual realm. It is actually mankind’s common, earthen grave; it is gravedom, or we may write it as “the Grave.” It has no particular geography or literal boundaries, though it may be distinguished from the sea that has received beneath its waves countless dead persons. So, when we read Revelation 20:13, we are no more to think of the dead in Hades (Sheol) as being alive than would we as respects those dead in the sea; the condition of the dead in Hades is no different than it is for the dead in the sea. We must not allow ourselves to be duped by certain religionists whose arguments they unwittingly let devolve to the point where we can only say that they would make the Bible to contradict itself. They do, in fact, themselves contradict the Bible’s statement in Ecclesiastes 9:10 that ‘the dead are unconscious; the dead do not think.’ Moreover, even though those religionists do not appreciate their error, it amounts to the doctrine that planet Earth has two immaterial realms, one somewhere below the surface of the ground, and another one somewhere beneath the waves of the sea. They should agree that such a doctrine is part and parcel of their errors, or they should admit that they are using two different definitions for the two uses of the phrase “the dead” at Revelation 20:13.

What things are in Sheol (Hades)? Dead bodies are, generally speaking, though there was an occasion (see Numbers 16:26-35) where living persons – not dead persons – went down into Sheol; yes, they went down alive into Sheol, they and all their possessions when the ground opened up beneath them and their tents. Men, women, children and all that was theirs went down into Sheol; they had not become dead persons before going down into Sheol, but they soon enough became the kind of persons we normally associate with Sheol; they became dead persons in Sheol when the earth closed back over the top of them. How far down need they to have fallen in order that we may say that they were in Sheol? Did they have to fall miles and miles deep below the surface of the ground? No! They needed to have fallen no more deeply than what should allow the fissure to become shut back over the top of them, so that they should not be seen by others, and that they should be either crushed or suffocated to death. When it happened, then that shut fissure had become a grave for the rebels, and had become part of that wider collection of graves that we normally, by abstraction, present to our mind’s eye when we say “Sheol,” or "the land down below" (Ezekiel 31:14, 18, 32:18, 24). We have here no picture of an immaterial realm under the label “Sheol.” Nor do we have it anywhere else in the Bible as respects actual persons who have died.

True, Sheol was, in the book of Ezekiel, spoken about in a context involving a figurative reference to slain, uncircumcised warriors whose corpses had, unsurprisingly, come to be buried in the earth; hence, we may also say that they had come to share a “place” in Sheol with their weapons of war alongside them, with swords under the heads of the many slain ones who were buried in the earth with their weaponry. We read nothing unusual in just those words that discuss Sheol; Sheol is not presented as the abode of departed, immaterial souls. (See Ezekiel 32:27.) What is unusual, however, is that Sheol is figuratively presented as the scene where the slain, uncircumcised corpses of warriors ‘are speaking from the depths of Sheol’ (see Ezekiel 32:21). It is macabre theater; it is not description of any event that has ever literally (actually) taken place in a grave, no, nor between two graves, nor among any number of the graves that we see collectively referenced in the Bible as Sheol. Accordingly, then, we see Ezekiel's convenient employment of a figurative (fictitious, non-literal) geography for Sheol such that it was pictured as having also a certain collection or arrangement of the graves of the nations' slain, uncircumcised warrior-rulers, where such graves were conveniently pictured as being in such close proximity to one another that the corpses of the slain, warrior-rulers could, from their graves, figuratively "speak to [Pharaoh] and his helpers"; see Ezekiel 32:21ff.). Hades is, in the New Testament, the Greek language word that is equivalent to Sheol; both words refer to mankind's common earthen grave. We may translate Sheol and Hades into English with the phrase “the Grave.”

Does God Approve the Homosexual Lifestyle?

Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 let us know that Jehovah God views any act of sexual intercourse between two men as something detestable and unnatural. Leviticus 18:22 New World Translation (NW) states, “And you must not lie down with a male the same as you would lie down with a woman”; Leviticus 20:13 NW states, “And when a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. They have committed a violation of what is natural. Their own blood is upon them.”  The texts here speak only to the act of sexual intercourse itself; therefore, effort to place the prohibition as something that applies only to certain kinds of exploitative homosexual activity (e.g., the lustful, greedy behavior of male temple prostitutes; homosexual rape; and pederasty) is effort that ignores the fact that the texts focus on the unnaturalness of the intercourse itself, it being sexual intercourse not between a man and a woman, but between two men.  If any person feels inclined towards homosexual intercourse, then he should know that the God of the Bible, Jehovah, has not left Himself without witness that He sees any and all homosexual intercourse to be both unnatural and detestable. One will search the Bible in vain for any indication that the Father of all persons does not categorically condemn sexual intercourse between two men. The Bible is without any ambiguity as respects any of its texts that deal with the subject.

 

The Bible also shows us that it is not only that sexual intercourse between two men which is unnatural and detestable, but it also shows us that sexual intercourse between two women is unnatural.  The Law of Moses does not address lesbianism, although it, too, is unnatural.  Lesbianism evidently was a very rare phenomenon in ancient Israelite culture, a culture in which women were kept safe through child bearing (cf. 1 Timothy 2:15); therefore, there was no more urgency to prohibit lesbianism explicitly than there was for the Lawgiver, Jehovah, to feel urgent need to explicitly prohibit elective abortions among Israelite women, or explicitly to prohibit necrophilia.  Any women ever discovered in an act of sexual intercourse between them were guilty of an unnatural sex act; it surely made them liable to execution. The God of the Bible does not change His moral standards; therefore, if He reveals to us Christians that He views sexual intercourse between two females to be unnatural behavior that provokes His wrath, then the same thing was true of Him when He was in covenant relationship with fleshly Israel.  So, has Jehovah revealed explicitly to us Christians how He feels about sexual intercourse between two females?  Romans 1:26, 27 NW answers; there we read as follows: “That is why God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error.” God ordained a proper use of one’s genitals, that such take place only in a marital union; therefore, that which is contrary to what God has ordained is idolatry. Homosexual intercourse, then, is idolatrous because it spurns God’s clear witness that He has given both in nature and in the Bible as respects what shall be lawful sexual intercourse.  Really, those who offend against prohibition of fornication in any manifestation fornication takes (e.g., erotic use of one’s genitals with a person of the opposite gender where the man and the woman are not married to each other, nor is either one married to some other person, and which constitutes illicit heterosexual intercourse between them; adultery; bestiality; and erotic use of one’s genitals with a person of the same gender, which constitutes the abominable/detestable act of homosexual intercourse between them) have allowed greed and lust to motivate them to care more for their own feelings rather than for the feelings of their Creator whom they have spurned. Such greed is idolatry, just as Ephesians 5:3-5, 12 NW states, where we read as follows: “Let fornication and uncleanness of every sort not even be mentioned among you, just as it befits holy people; neither shameful conduct nor foolish talking nor obscene jesting, things which are unbecoming, but rather the giving of thanks.  For you know this, recognizing it for yourselves, that no fornicator or unclean person or greedy person – which means being an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and of God…. For the things that take place in secret by them it is shameful even to relate.”

As Christians, we do not ridicule or revile anybody. We Jehovah’s Witnesses welcome into our community of faith those who have repented and turned around from practicing “works of the flesh”; therefore, the way is open for men and women who have desisted the homosexual lifestyle to become our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Does this mean that those Jehovah’s Witnesses who were, formerly, practicing the homosexual lifestyle must be free of same-sex attraction? No, but it means that, if they have same-sex attraction, they must keep on depending on help by holy spirit to keep on resisting temptation to return to homosexual behavior. Resisting temptation to engage in any kind of porneia (the Greek term for "fornication," any kind of illicit sexual activity) is something all of us must do: whether we experience heterosexual attraction, or whether we experience homosexual attraction, we can, by God's undeserved kindness, be holy in all our conduct/behavior.

Is it really established scientific fact that homosexuality is genetically determined? No. Consider an excerpt from an article titled Are People Really 'born gay'? Can someone really be "born gay"? Is there a "gay gene"? Does biology equal destiny? by Caleb H. Price (formerly a research analyst for Focus on the Family). He writes:

“Even more recently in 2007, a landmark study was published by Drs. Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse which concluded that it is possible for homosexuals to change their physical attractions and that such efforts to bring about change do not appear to be psychologically harmful. Entitled Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation, this groundbreaking research has been hailed by experts from both sides of the debate as being the most methodologically rigorous to date.” [See Endnote 11.]

Endnote note 11: “Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse, Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 2007.”

Does "Breaking Bread" at Acts 20:7 Refer to a Commemorative Supper?

Dear Nick,

We read the following at the web site

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/emor/gel.html

" . . . the Karaites do not leave their houses on the Sabbath except to go to their synagogues or attend to absolutely essential matters; nor do they carry objects, for they do not acknowledge the concept of an eruv. Breaking bread on the Sabbath is forbidden by them . . . (Ex. 34:21 )." [End of my excerpt from the web site listed above]

If the Jews of the first century generally had this practice of refraining from breaking bread on the Sabbath, then Jewish Christians, living amidst Jewish unbelievers, may have refrained from inviting guests to travel any appreciable distances to each others' homes on a Sabbath day when and where they might have prepared and shared a meal on that day of the week. In the event that they did so refrain, then this would be out of deference to the unbelieving (non-Christian) Jews' sensibilities so as not to stumble them needlessly. `Breaking bread' (having a meal prepared/cooked), as well as inviting fellow Christians into their homes for that meal, could be done on some day other than the Sabbath (e.g., on the first day after the Sabbath), this so that unbelieving Jews might not have (yet another baseless) reason for their being hypercritical of Jewish Christians.

Is it reading too much into the record (that Luke gives us of Paul's movements after his Ephesian ministry) if we think that we see strong evidence in Acts that, beginning with Jewish Christians, a custom soon enough arose among the believers for them not to hold any of their own meetings – that is to say, not to hold meetings peculiarly Christian -- on a Sabbath day in a city where Jews lived, but to hold them on some other day of the week? (I know Seventh Day Adventists would holler "Sacrilege" at the suggestion.) The last record we have of Paul's use of a synagogue was at Ephesus (Acts 19:8). We have no record that Paul used a synagogue at Troas on his return trip to Jerusalem, this despite the fact that a Sabbath had come and gone while he was at Troas (Acts 20:7, 8), and it was not until the next day after the Sabbath before Paul gathered with, evidently, all the disciples to give them a discourse, and "to break bread" with them (for an evening meal, though Paul's prolonged discourse delayed the meal – i.e., delayed that aforementioned meal -- until after midnight; it was after midnight that Paul `broke the [aforementioned] bread and ate food' -- Acts 20:11), and then resumed that discourse that he had begun earlier in the evening (Acts 20:7b, 11b). Also, later, on this return trip to Jerusalem, Paul spent another seven days with disciples (the disciples in Tyre), during which time a Sabbath had to have occurred; however, we do not read that Paul availed himself of a Jewish synagogue in Tyre on a Sabbath. No, but after the seven days – though not necessarily the first day after a Sabbath --, Paul and his traveling companions were with all the Tyrian disciples, and "they all, together with the women and children, conducted [them] as far as outside the city," where, "kneeling down on the beach [they] had prayer" before the Tyrian disciples "returned to their homes" (Acts 21:4-6). Though we have record of a meal that Paul evidently shared with all the disciples in Troas (where the young man Eutychus, who had fallen asleep while seated in a window, fell from that window three stories down to the ground to his death), yet we have no record of a meal – no record of any breaking of bread -- that Paul shared with all the disciples in Tyre.

_____________________________________________

Dear Nick,

As an addendum to my earlier post in your thread, I should like to add the following:

It is not necessary to think the unlikely thing that Paul and companions were in the habit of putting out to sea on vessels (cargo boats) operated either by Jews or by Christians. They were simply at the mercy of shipping schedules used by the pagan operators of those vessels, and had to choose one that, on the occasion of Paul's return to Jerusalem, would allow Paul to accomplish as much ministering to the disciples' spiritual needs as possible in a port city, as well as for a scheduled departure that would not unnecessarily delay them on the return voyage. (I don't think that I am moving heaven and earth here, but I am certainly reviewing, I think, the scenario that allowed Paul and fellow travelers themselves to be moved, to be moved expeditiously upon the sea after Paul's ministering to the spiritual needs of the disciples in Troas for the maximum amount of time as might be practically afforded him, while also not offending the religious sensibilities of Sabbath-observing Jews.)

At Troas, Paul and his companions were able to book passage on a cargo boat, one that happened not to be setting sail on a Sabbath, but rather as soon as practically possible after the Sabbath, actually, after daybreak on a Sunday morning (Acts 20:7, 11), if Luke is using a Jewish calendar. Might Paul just as easily have scheduled a Friday evening meal and discourse, or a Saturday meeting, and a meal to follow, during Saturday's daylight hours? If there were no cargo boats scheduled to leave either on a Saturday morning or on a Saturday afternoon, then physically Paul might have done so; he might have felt inducement to so schedule a meeting, but he did not so schedule the fellowship, nor did he board a cargo vessel that might have been available during Sabbath's daylight hours -- and apparently would not have done so even had there been available such a departure date on a Sabbath.  As to scheduling a meeting on the Sabbath, he might have chosen a more relaxed schedule, one affording spiritual fellowship, and for a meal thereafter, by scheduling the events on a Sabbath.  Apparently, though, it was Paul's desire not only to board a cargo boat only after Sabbath, but also for ministering to the spiritual needs of the disciples in Troas only after that Sabbath, too. Those strictures meant a Sunday morning departure, at the earliest, if we are using a Jewish calendar. But the schedule he chose certainly raises the question "Why after Sabbath for those events? Why push so hard up against the daylight hours of the day on which he actually did depart?" Apparently, Paul wanted the shortest, practical interim to transpire between when he would last be with the disciples in Troas for spiritual fellowship, and for his departure in order to continue his journey to Jerusalem. Part of those practical, pragmatic considerations may well have included not only his taking into consideration a practical sailing schedule, but also into consideration the religious sensibilities of Sabbath-observing Jews in Troas so as not to offend them needlessly (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Even if so – as appears reasonable to me --, still, owing to the way events actually did transpire, it turned out that there was hardly a practical interim that transpired from after the end of spiritual fellowship, which fellowship did not itself begin until after Sabbath, until departure from Troas.

_________________________________________

Dear Chuck,

I like the way you reason on the sequence of events. So, the earliest that a time to begin the fellowship could have occurred would have been in an hour sufficiently after Saturday sundown, time sufficient enough for allowing Christians in Troas to travel a distance from their homes to a fellow Christian's home after Sabbath, which, for some of them, may well have meant a distance that exceeded the distance of an eruv. In this way, they could make plans to travel to the place for this special meeting with Paul, and, after the meeting, to partake a nourishing meal together with Paul and his traveling companions. All that activity could take place without the Christians needlessly offending Sabbath-observing, unbelieving Jews, who also did not light fires for cooking meals on a Sabbath day out of their allegiance to Mosaic Law.

Your brother,

Al

--- In [a private, Witnesses-only forum],  > chuck*****@***> wrote:
>
> Since they gathered together on the "first day of the
> week", and the new "day" started at sundown, it was
> probably around 6:00 p.m. or so, that they gathered
> together. Some translations even say that they
> gathered together on "Saturday evening". By that time
> of night, they were hungry and ready to eat. Since
> Paul kept them there until past midnight when did they
> eat, if they weren't having a meal together as the
> Scripture suggests by "breaking bread," [then they]
> would have REALLY been hungry by the close of their
> gathering had they not had a meal. It's interesting to
> me how some try to connect this meeting with a
> "weekly" (or even "daily") ceremony of "communion",
> calling it as the footnote in The Catholic Study Bible
> (NAB) "the celebration of the liturgy of the Eucharist..."
> The CEV agrees in their footnote which says: they
> "celebrated the Lord's Supper."
> . . . . It's interesting how some "Christians" grab for
> straws to keep their unscriptural practices afloat.
> (i.e. liturgy of the Eucharist).
>
> Chuck

Can a Sane and Loving Creator Teach Us Absurdities?

 

Can a body present to our sight that which identifies it as being both a sphere and a cube at the very same moment that we are seeing it?  That is illogical, an absurd concept, and if it were so that various Bible writers had recorded that absurd concept as something enunciated by the Creator (Jehovah), then that alone should be sufficient evidence that the Bible contains error -- that it were not a book that presents to human eyes only statements that are true about the Creator.  Because we similarly find trinitarianism to be illogical (an absurd doctrine), then were the Bible to enshrine such an absurd doctrine, that alone should be sufficient reason for us to reject Biblical theology.  It is absurd doctrine that the Supreme Being could be a sane triunity (i.e., could be three real persons coevally subsisting in one Being/Mind); were even the Bible to enshrine such absurd doctrine, then still we could not believe it.  We then should also know that the Bible was not free from error.

All Biblical doctrines cannot be other than logically coherent, else we then have sufficient evidence that the Bible was not authored by a Creator who loves us. A loving Creator cannot teach us things that are logically incoherent. Apart from Biblical revelation, we know that a Supreme Being lives, that He is our Creator. We also know that He is a loving Creator, and that, too, is knowledge that we should still possess even were there no Bible. So, if, through the course of time, a Bible might have come along that would teach us absurdities, then were we to know it not to be a book authored by our loving Creator.

British Courts Are Urged against Us by Apostates . . .

. . . but will they win the argument against us in courts? (Some individuals in Great Britain who have apostatized from the faith make the baseless assertion that The Watchtower has slandered them individually, and caused them hurt by its statement that apostates should be avoided because they are mentally diseased and are a threat to any of us who might unwisely choose to give ear to their teachings. That description of apostates, however, is found in the Bible at 1 Timothy 6:3, 4.)

Brilliant lawyers can help to expose to honest-hearted onlookers the wickedness of those jurists who oppose; however, that brilliance in our lawyers will not carry any weight with how wicked jurists, who are bent on persecuting us, will necessarily respond if left to their own devices. The trump card, however, as respects that response is Jehovah's, for He can confuse the counsels of the wicked (Psalm 55:9; 57:3; 2 Samuel 15:31), and that just at the moment when they are poised to render judgment against us. We may compare here (see Acts 23:6-11) Paul's God-inspired brilliance against a murderous Sanhedrin in defending himself, which had little to do with countering the "evidence" that wicked witnesses were poised to urge against Paul before that kangaroo court. No, but the brilliance of Paul's maneuver lay in his perceiving how the Sanhedrin could be divided for its collapsing into chaos, collapsing into a riot from which Paul was rescued by military intervention.

But then again it may not be Jehovah's will to intervene, this no matter how brilliant our arguments. In that case, who among us would presume to counsel Jehovah as to what He should have done (cf. Romans 11:34)? Nor need we ever to second guess the wisdom and righteousness of our arguments against wicked opposers. It may well be Jehovah's will not to intervene, this so that wicked men go from wickedness to more wickedness, which may serve not only to show that the wicked jurists are themselves worthy of judgment, but serve also to increase thanksgiving to Jehovah's name on the part of honest-hearted onlookers who are moved to take sides with Jehovah.

If Jehovah allows the issue to come to a boil in a British court of law, then He may allow a verdict against us. On the other hand, He may choose not to allow the case to go against us; He could make a court case to go in our favor. Either way, it would boil down to what Jehovah is pleased to allow or to disallow, which need have very little or nothing to do with how most unbelievers perceive the arguments of our attorneys. Our prayer is that regardless of the weapons that men unjustly (immorally) form against us, Jehovah allow us and empower us to keep speaking His word with all boldness.

We trust that no servant of God wished that he could have been in Stephen's place before the Sanhedrin, thinking to himself, "I have figured out a sure-fire way that would have resulted in my exoneration had I been in Stephen's place, because I know how I would have exposed my accusers as liars -- as the murderous slanderers -- that they are, this to the chagrin both of them and of the court who would have been giving ear to them against me." No, no man could have had a better way to lay open to view the wickedness of Stephen's murderous accusers and judges than the way Stephen did it, for his was a God-given defense. But the wisdom and righteousness of his defense was, from merely an unenlightened human point of view, seemingly to no avail, for Jehovah chose not to intervene in Stephen's case. In Paul's case, however, Jehovah was not willing to leave to wicked judges and conspirators the future of the work that Paul ought not to be thwarted in accomplishing, for indeed Jehovah had already purposed that Paul should survive the machinations of his wicked opposers who had, at that time, determined to do away with him (see Acts 23:11).

Let us, then, not become anxious and excited in the face of what apostates allege against us, thinking to ourselves that our lawyers must, by their own educated wits, play the determinative role as to the extent of what may or may not befall the organization should responsible brothers be made liable to answer in court baseless, God-condemned charges levied against them. Jehovah will help them with their defense so that it will not be lacking for its wisdom and righteousness (Mark 13:11). Still, it may be Jehovah's will to allow wicked men to pronounce judgment against them. So what? We will continue to pray for them, and that Jehovah keep on granting His earthly organization opportunity and power to keep speaking His word with all boldness. We want Jehovah to read in our own heart what is our chief concern. And He will. And He will also act in harmony with our prayers, for it is already in Bible prophecy as to what will befall Jehovah's earthly organization in the near future, and it will not please our enemies when they are forced to see it, when they are forced to realize just how decisively and finally Jehovah defends His people against them, against the ones persecuting (see Revelation 6:15-17).

What Constantine Brought to the Nicene Council

Pier Franco Beatrice, as a professor in the department of Early Christian Literature at the University of Padua, Italy, wrote an article titled The Word "homoousios" from Hellenism to Christianity, Church History (June 1, 2002). In it we read the following excerpts I present in bolded text below.

"Neither before nor during Constantine's time is there any evidence of a normal, well-established Christian use of the term homoousios in its strictly Trinitarian meaning. Having once excluded any relationship of the Nicene homoousios with Christian tradition, it becomes legitimate to propose a new explanation . . ."

And so that is what Beatrice proceeded to do in his article. But before I go into any of that, I would like to comment on something Beatrice has written as respects Constantine himself. On page 13 of my printout of Beatrice's article, he has this to say about Constantine:

"Constantine's involvement with the theological traditions of Egyptian paganism is again confirmed by a disconcerting document, the letter to the Church of Nicomedia written just a few months after the [Nicene] council. After having claimed that the Christ, who is Lord, God, and Savior, is at the same time Father and Son, he adds that Christ is called Father as he eternally begets his Aion, and that he is called the Will of the Father. Aion is also the name of the Son of the virgin Kore, whose birth was celebrated in the Egyptian ritual mentioned by Epiphanius. It is also interesting to note that in the Hermetic tradition Aion (Lat. Aeternitas) always accompanies God as his eternal offspring and is the perfect image . . . of God. Moreover, for Constantine the Son is the consubstantial Will of the Father, the creator and administrator of the universe, the guide to immortality. The notion of the creative will . . . of God is, for example, found again in the Poimandres and in the Asclepius."

Constantine's meaning for the word homoousios was not like that which Athanasius, in post-Nicene years, came to champion. No, but it was Hermetic. Says Beatrice:

"In Constantine's view homoousios was a pregnant technical term, with its own precise, traditional Hermetic meaning. In his thought the word homoousios did not contradict the distinction of two divine ousiai [(substances, hypostases)], precisely because it was the heritage of the ancient Egyptian theology and of the revelation of Hermes Trismegistus, and had therefore nothing to do with the Sabellian or monarchian identification -- theology of the one hypostasis. Hermetism forms the conceptual background of the emperor's theology."

Imagine the consternation of the anti-Arian bishops, who, not only at Nicaea, according to Eusebius, but also on another occasion, too, had to hear words that, as we deduce, were inspired by Constantine's own stripe of Neoplatonism, a philosophical theology received from his attachment to Hermeticism. His Hermeticism got reinforcement from the Christ-subordinating cleric Lactantius, and from another of his favorite advisers, the Neoplatonist philosopher Sopater of Nicomedia. So, Constantine's philosophy was not that Platonism as filtered through the mind either of Ossius or of Athanasius. Writes Beatrice:

"Constantine enunciated his "philosophy" in a more extensive way [ -- than did he at Nicaea -- ] in the so-called Speech to the Assembly of the Saints . . . Constantine praises Plato for having said many true things about God: (Plato) describes the one who is above being, rightly so doing, and subordinated to this one also a second [(god)], and distinguished the two beings numerically, the perfection of both being one, but the substance of the second receiving its subsistence from the first. For the first God is the Demiurge and governor, being clearly above the universe, while the other, in obedience to his mandates, brings back to him the cause of the constitution of the universe."

Beatrice easily defeats the thought that the Oration to the Saints as we have it is not a true record of what Constantine said.

In the Oration to the Saints, Constantine (falsely) claims that Plato was an exponent of orthodox theology that he (Constantine) claims that he had accepted; however, Constantine had actually come to accept  Egyptian Hermeticism, the same theology that had informed the Gnostic (Valentinian) heretics' theology. He was probably aping the teaching of Lucius Lactantius, a professed Christian and confidant of Constantine. Lactantius' theology was heavily imbued with Hermeticism via its first tractate Poimandres. Lactantius says that "Plato spoke about the first god and the second god," and he says that Plato was himself a disciple of Hermeticism. Hermeticism envisioned a transcendent God, yet describable in terms that suit a material nature for its transcendent, supreme being. This high god was called "the Nous of the Supreme," and "Poimandres," which is to say that Divine Mind shepherds the noblest men. This Nous generated a second god (the Son, the Logos).

Now, Hermeticism used the term homoousios ("same substance"), and it was used by the Gnostic Manichaeans, by certain Christian modalists in Libya, by Paul of Samosata, by Lactantius, and then by Constantine. It was, however, a term condemned by the Council of Antioch in 268 C.E. The problem facing the bishops convened by Constantine at Nicaea in 325 C.E. was how they might go along with Constantine's insistence on use of the Hermetic term homoousios, but to do so without their seeming to have capitulated either to Gnosticism, modalism, or Hermeticism. The solution was that the bishops could have each his own definition of the term in accordance with his own theological predilection. So, by word magic the word was pressed into service in a way that was foreign to Constantine's usage; the bishops, however, could yet say that the word was not intended to present a material concept for God, not a theology that had God's substance as something that was divisible or diminishable, but whose substance was wholly intellectual, spiritual. The one thing that pleased the bishops at Nicaea was that the term allowed them to stand ostensibly with Constantine in his primary concern, which was to force an end to disunity in the Church by ridding the clerics of the dissenters Arius and company, because it was known that Arius would not consent that homoousios should ever find any kind of currency in orthodoxy. The term was subsequently dropped in creeds adopted shortly after the deaths of Constantine and Eusebius of Caesarea. It reentered orthodoxy when Emperor Theodosius in 380 C.E. demanded usage of the term by all professing Christianity.

Those professing a non-modalistic Christology prior to Nicaea had an essentially subordinationist Christology for their presentation of the Logos/Son. This Christology was thrown into chaos by the Council of Nicaea until there eventually emerged a Christology built on the word magic of the so-called Cappodocian "Fathers," which gave Christendom a trinitarian consensus, yet without a consensus among all Christendom's theologians as respects the historical nature of Jesus of Nazareth.

Why John 1:1c Calls the Word "a god"

Given the grammar that we have at 1:1c, we may say that the only thing that can rule out “a god” would be a theology that has it that there are no real, begotten (created) gods. Contravention of such a theology is found at John 1:1b (the Word was with God, the Father), and John 1:18 θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο. There at John 1:18 we learn that the Word is a god, the only god directly created/begotten by the Father; hence, he is called “an only-begotten god.” Only Jehovah God the Father is the unoriginate, unbegotten God. All other divine but created beings (superhuman creatures, angels) are gods, too (compare the Hebrew text at Psalm 8:5 with its Greek translation endorsed by the Scriptures at Hebrews 8:5); however, they are not gods directly created by the Father, but were gods/angels brought into existence by the Son, the Word, acting as the Father’s mediating agent for their creation. In fact, all anointed Christians who go to heaven will become sharers in divine nature (2 Peter 1:4 ἵνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως); therefore, they will become gods, too. (Compare Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:49; Philippians 3:20, 21; Hebrews 1:3a.)

In the New Testament, the Greek word θεὸς, or the Greek phrase ὁ θεὸς, almost always refers to Jehovah, the only true God (of Universal Sovereignty; John 17:3), and this distinguishes Him from Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is not the only true God of Universal Sovereignty, but was sent forth by the only true God, “the Father of all persons” (Ephesians 4:6). Jehovah God is the God and Father of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:3; John 8:54). In those cases, the Greek word θεὸς, or the Greek phrase ὁ θεὸς, does not refer to the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6).

Why, then, does John’s Gospel at 1:1 emphasize the Word’s godship, that the Word really was a god, a divine being? The apostle John’s Gospel account is unusual in that towards the end of the first century John was inspired to write things about Jesus Christ that would help Christians to combat a brand of apostasy (Docetism) that had it that Jesus was an agency in God that was manifested by God to human sight, as was true for the “dove” (holy spirit) that John the Baptist saw coming down to rest upon Jesus when he was baptized in the Jordan River (John 1:32). The Docetists said that Jesus was never a real being; however, John’s Gospel shows that the Word was not an agency in the Father’s being, but was already with God (the Father) as a god for the start of all those things that were to come into existence through the Word (in his role as the Father’s mediating agent) for their creation, and that this one (the Word) became flesh (John 1:14 Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο), which was something that cannot be sensibly said about any agency in God’s beingness. The Word did not merely appear on earth as though he were like a creature of flesh, but the Word really was a god who became flesh; the Word became a real man, the man Jesus.