The character of the church at Pergamos: A.D. 312 - 606.

The character of the church at Pergamos is a fair outline of the church period from A.D. 312 - 606.

The emperor Constantine is said to have seen a vision of a cross of fire and to have heard a voice saying “In this sign, conquer.” He was told that the cross was the sign of Christian religion, and that it must mean that the God of the Christians was calling him to be the champion of the Christian religion, that if he obeyed the voice, he would be victor over the hosts of Maxentius and become emperor of the world. He accepted the new doctrine and declared himself to be its God-appointed patron and protector.

Postmillennialism Introduced 

He bestowed honors on the bishops, clad them in costly vestments, and they sat on thrones with the nobles of the empire. As the Church became rich and powerful, it was suggested that the world was getting better and better, that Christ’s kingdom was already ushered in, and that He would come at the end of the thousand-year reign. This demanded a reinterpretation of the status of Israel, which was accomplished by suggesting that Israel had been “cast off forever” and the promises of Israel now applied to the Church. Christian bishops said “We have been looking for Christ’s reign, but we have been wrong; Constantine’s empire is Christ’s kingdom.”

 In A.D. 313 the emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, granting religious freedom to the Christians and ending two and a half centuries of savage persecution. He adopted Christianity and made it the favored religion of the empire, beginning the process by which Christianity merged with the Roman state. Heathen priests became Christian priest; heathen temples became Christian churches; heathen feasts became Christian festivals. The church married the political system, and worldliness was synonymous with the church.

During this time at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, the Arian controversy was fought. The Arian controversy was a Trinitarian dispute that began in Alexandria between the followers of Arius (the Arians) and the followers of St. Alexander of Alexandria (now known as Homoousians). Alexander and his followers believed that the Son was co-eternal with the Father, and divine in just the same sense that the Father is. The Arians believed that the Son shared neither the eternity nor the true divinity of the Father, but was merely the most perfect of the creatures.  For about two months, the two sides argued and debated, with each appealing to Scripture to justify their respective positions.

The Council declared that the Son was true God, co-eternal with the Father and begotten from his being, arguing that such a doctrine best codified the Scriptural presentation of the Son as well as traditional Christian belief about him handed down from the Apostles. Under Constantine's influence, this belief was expressed by the bishops in the Nicene Statement, which would form the basis of what has since been known as the Nicene Creed.