 Okay. Okay. I'm audible, right? Clear. The recording has started. Good morning, everyone. Welcome again to BC201 on Christian History and Missions. Today, we're going to continue from the place where we stopped last week. We're going to study again in detail or the constant team. Before we could begin with our session, we can start with the word of prayer. Can I request Zellie, if possible? Can you pray? Yes, your pastor. Let's pray. Father in the name of Jesus, we come before eternal grace, Lord, as we begin our class, Lord, Holy Spirit, we empower our pastor, Diana, Lord God, and also, Lord, give her the wisdom, the grace, the tissue, the word of God, Lord, and help each one of us so that our hearts are receptive, Lord, and you bless each one of us, Lord. We commit our session into Him to Lordship in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. So, we're on page 37 on our notes. Okay, we're going to study on Constantin the Great, who lived in 8312 and these dates are approximate. So, we see that after Constantin's father's death, Constantin continued to build a reputation as a man who was capable of taking the whole empire into an action and he faced many battles and he attacked many kingdoms around him and he attacked the Franks and he won many battles. So, we see that a certain heart of his was without mercy. We killed two Frankish kings by throwing them to a beast in the amphitheater that they had those days and later we see at the same time, he was also a compassionate emperor. We restored the church property that had earlier been confiscated by the other emperors. So, slowly what Constantin did was he started to gain the respect of the army where he demonstrated military power among the men and where people could trust him. He slowly started gaining the trust among the people. So, with that little support, he enters into a city to go against the Maxentius who left Rome. So, now this emperor Maxentius comes back to meet Constantin on a final crucial battle and this battle is called as Milvian battle of Milvian bridge which took place approximately in 312 AD. So, on the day before the battle could begin, it's reported that Constantin saw a vision in the sky. Okay, let me, I have made a presentation. I thought I'll share it with you all. Just give me a minute. So, these pictures are what was available on the internet more closely. So, I just took them for us to keep our class interesting. Yeah, that's Constantin the great. Can we all see it? Okay, we all can see. Okay. And this was the vision it looked like. So, we're not too sure exactly was across that way and the words appeared that way. Sorry. So, what happened was, but here we see the scholars say the historians say that Constantin had a vision. He saw a vision on the sky where he saw the cross of light just above the sun and under it there was a inscription. I've not put the inscription that just give me a minute. I'll just insert the inscription so we all know what's the inscription was. You all can see that? Okay. So, under the cross there was an inscription which was written as in H.O.C. Signo Venice which means in the sign you conquer. In the sign conquer. This is the meaning of that word that appeared on the sky. So, that night, the same night he also had a dream. He received the explanation of the sign that he saw in the sky where it says that Jesus Christ appeared before him telling him to carry the sign of the cross into the battle. So, the following day he carried the banners. The banners were replaced with this cross. If you see, let me put the other slide. Can you all see? Here we see the banners that they carried in their hand also carried the sign that he saw on the sky which had a cross and inscription of that writing. So, constantly what happened? Following that, they won the battle. Constantly easily defeated this Emperor, a Maxitanus who fled. He fled back to Rome and almost when he was reaching the city, this Maxitanus Emperor fell into the river and he was drowned. And later they found his body on the seashore the next morning. So, the story and say that Constantine's conversion to Christianity was the victory that he got from this battle. So, this became a turning point for him in the history. So, Constantine immediately assumed that complete control of the West. He took control of the West and he nominated himself as the new Augustus in the West. So, he marched into the room with this and the first thing that he did was he issued the edict of Milan that is a tolerance of all religion which was later also accepted by the other emperors. Now, having this power in his hand, he did something good like he restored the land to the Christians. They were and he changed all the pagan temple into the worship place for Christians. So, he showed much favor to the Christians because Jesus helped him to want the battle. So, here you see there was a conversion of him, conversion to Christianity though he is from a pagan culture but then after this very incident he changed himself. So, what happened? There was with that we see there was a first council of Nessia. So, after there was a major challenge that took place in AD, let me see what's the date in our notes. Council of Nessia, 325 AD, correct. They're on page 38. Council of Nessia. So, what happened here is in 8325, a presbyter in Alexandria. Ares had been teaching that some point God has created Christ. So, because of this teaching there was a riot in that place. Riot broke in several cities and we see Constantine now because he's favoring the Christians, he brings the bishops together at the city of Nessia to resolve this issue. So, what happened at the Council of Nessia resulted in the Christian doctrine which is known as the Trinity. So, so the council voted to claim that Christ was the identical essence of God present at creation and he manifested on earth in Jesus of Nazareth as Jesus of Nazareth and we also see the in this council they said that Christ returned and now this Christian emperor stands in for Christ. So, they carry a lot of identical power of God on earth and the way he rules. So, what happened here is in this council there was a concept of a creed from a Latin word credo. That means I believe was introduced so, so that all the Christians would believe the details of Jesus like how he was on I believe in Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior was born of a virgin you know the Nicene Creed that is there the family that we have right now right now it is in the Catholic Church. So, this creed the Nicene Creed was formed by the council there so that everyone believes on the birth of Jesus on the virgin birth of Jesus and he was incarnated by he was sent by God he's the only son you know all these details have been given in that creed let me read that creed to you just give me a minute. So, it says I believe in one God the Father the Almighty maker of heaven and earth of all that is seen and unseen I believe in one God one Lord Jesus Christ was the only son of God the eternally begotten of the Father light from light to God and true God begotten not made one is been with the Father through him all things were made so they come up with this okay it is a very long creed that they wrote y'all can read in detail which is available yeah so in the second century the writing of this church fathers produced what eventually became the Christians dogma so many of them came up with the same kind of idea and Constantin's letter and speeches on this creed became more evident to the churches and they all started following this creed we also see as emperor Constantin continued the standard practice as I said like building monuments and big bus liqas around the place where he lived in the room so this shapes helped form the standard of the churches where in Rome we see Constantine build the first bus liqas which is still standing strong that is St. Peter's and St. John and Lattern and his new this new imperial city which was trying to establish as Constantinople became very famous for its imperial architecture well in 325 AD Constantine's mother Helena she went on a pilgrimage trip to Israel and there she claims to have discovered the sites that associated with Jesus the birth of Jesus including the cross the true cross and here we see Constantine then instructed the church of nativity in Bethlehem through the help of his mum and we also see there was another church that he built as the church of the Holy Sepulchre that is housing the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem so Constantine started to build many churches across the Rome across the Constantinople and in his will and he wished to be buried in one of the place saying that he was the 13th apostle after the 12 apostles he wants to be the 13th apostle and we are not too sure was he buried in the same way that he wished but then the church grew during his time it grew and it flourished and it had some kind of political power so Constantine the great maintained his role as a military commander well in 8337 we see that Constantine fell hill and he died so approximately he ruled for about 31 years and he was buried at the church of the holy apostles in Constantinople living his empire in the hands of his three sons so what are the names of the three sons first son was named as Constantine second second son was Constantinus after his father second and the third was Constans so what happened eventually was the second son Constantius second defeated his two brothers and he started to rule the entire empire on himself okay so let's go to the presentation so this was the battle of the Milvian bridge that took place which was very famous and this was one of the arch of Constantine which he constructed before he could become a Christian and yes this was the church of the Holy Sepulcher which was built under the leadership of his mum Helena at Jerusalem okay with that we will move on to the next person UCBS Bishop of Caesarea he's also known as a father of church history so unlike the ancient histories he preserved so well the records of UCBS where his own life has mostly been lost the biographies that was been written about him has been lost but then his parents to see about his personal background is early life about his parents or about his early life is not known and very little about his youth has been recorded so UCBS was almost or they're not too sure about his birthplace because the information about his early childhood days have been lost but then some scholars say that he was born in Palestine around 260 AD and and spent the greater part of his life in that place so as a young man UCBS assisted and studied under a well-known Christian teacher Pamphilius and Pamphilius was the Bishop of Caesarea who later became UCBS closest friend as they had a good fellowship grew together they became they developed a good friendship with each other and we see UCBS was baptised at Caesarea and he served as a presbyter or an elder under the leadership of Pamphilius so UCBS was also acquainted with the presbyter Dorotheus in Antioch and properly would have received an instruction from him as well but we see UCBS followed Pamphilius much more closely than any other leader so we see that he was later days when we see how we led his life or the things that he thought was more closely to the teaching of Pamphilius so as a Bishop of Caesarea Pamphilius was the foremost Bible scholar and he was a teacher of his generation and he had certain devoted disciples who was ministered and by him so and Pamphilius had a big personal library which was devoted to the Christian community in Caesarea and Pamphilius also built he made this library to have the greatest Christian collection of books in the ancient world so many people were attracted to this library and it was also known to be the greatest Christian Christian library at Caesarea and yeah and it was primarily known as a learning centre for the Roman Christians those days and during his time there was also a great persecution so in AD 303 the Roman Emperor Diocletian began a persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire so what happened during this time? UCBS was an eyewitness so he has been documenting the terrible persecution that has been taking place during his season so you're UCBS right saying that with our own eyes the houses of prayer been thrown down to the very foundation and he says the divine and the sacred scriptures committed to the flames in the marketplace and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and they were captured and mocked by their enemies towards the end of this great persecution Pamphilius was a great teacher and a scholar was thrown in the prison and finally he was martyred by AD 310 so during this period we see UCBS travelled to Egypt I can't say he was travelled but he tried to escape from this persecution he went to Egypt where he was imprisoned there for a short time but even during that imprisonment somehow he managed to escape from the prison and shortly after the end of this great persecution around the time of constantance conversion it was in the same period we see when the edict of Milan was released UCBS was elected as a bishop of Caesarea after the death of his leader Pamphilius so where he served for many years until his death so UCBS continued with his work of recording the church history he was a good writer and a scholar because he was trained under the leadership of Pamphilius so he knew the importance of recording the things and keeping it safe so although UCBS was not counted among the most great or gifted theologians in history but he was known for being trained under a well known educated scholar Pamphilius and he was capable of writing and keeping a record of the church history for his generation so with that the scholars later drew the abundant resources from UCBS which was recorded about the church history and the events and the incidents that took place during his time and he had preserved it in the church library of Pamphilius so with that we see UCBS did a great contribution to the church history and and yes he was also part of the council of Messiae and originally this was returned in Greek and later it was translated in Latin Aramaic and Syriac these are the languages that were spoken and read those days well about UCBS we see that UCBS has written 40 written works during his time which had the topics of theology exegesis, apologetics, gospel criticism, biblical geography, chronology then the martyr law was it matrology I'm sorry if I've not pronounced it correctly so his writings involved all these and UCBS favorite theme was focused on the stories of the early Christian martyrs as seen in the Palestinian martyr so which covered the persecution of the fourth century of Christians in the east and we also see UCBS stayed active in the church councils until his death so he raised to be a good and effective leader who grew to be the bishop of Caesarea and he was active in almost all church council he was present and he has recorded everything that each council had decided with that we will move on to the canon let me check we are in page 39 canon of the new testament was confirmed in 8367 yeah so what happened the term canon was used with the reference to the bible means of collection of books which are received divinely inspired through the authoritative for faith and life so we see that this canon of the new testament was one of the most important developments in the thought and practices of the early church yet though the history is silent has to how when and by home it was brought about but it is possible to know that some of the leaders were influenced at that time and I've contributed to the emergence of the new testament canon so they did not create the Christian scriptures but they only confirmed what was already there so they just recognized and accepted and they put these scriptures together so at first a local church would have only had few apostolic letters for example like one or two gospels and during the course of the second century is where the most churches came to possess and acknowledge a canon which included right now what we have the first four gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John they put together along with the book of Acts and then they considered the 13 letters of Saint Paul or Apostle Paul and then they also included 1st Peter and 1st John and later there were seven books that still lagged in the recognition that was Hebrew James 2nd Peter 2nd and 3rd John Jude and Revelation so these letters was added much later much later during the time of Athanus who was the first to name them and exactly only during this time that is in AD 367 where the New Testament of all 27 books were put together and combined in the canonical point 2 that is in the second canon meeting where the New Testament what we have was brought together but still there were certain other groups like the Syrian Orthodox and Presbyterian those people took time to accept the addition of the new books and they want to retain themselves of what they had considered as scriptures during their time so with that we will move on to the next person and an emperor then we also see the Latin Vulgate Bible was composed by Jerome in AD 384 give me a minute please yeah 384 so what happened the Vulgate in the 4th century it is a Latin translation of the Bible produced primarily by Mr Jerome or Saint Jerome or he was one of the priests those days so working from the ancient Greek manuscript the original Hebrew or the Aramaic text that was there so Jerome aimed to create a translation that the church could preserve it or the church could read these original scriptures in their language so Jerome completed his work in 405 AD but he continued to revise on the Latin Vulgate for years for centuries and the Latin speaking church relied more on this translation especially for scholars who studied the scriptures in the Latin language so more than thousand years after it was finished so the Vulgate became the official Latin Bible of the Catholic Church which it remained until 1979 then we see the most people were aware of the King James version which was lasting impact in the English language we also see how the western literature art and culture that took place during this season but the Latin Vulgate was the most popular Bible translation for more than a millennia even before the King James version was existed so Jerome played a very vital role in translating this septigent version of the Greek version of Bible into the Latin and it was named as the Vulgate Bible composed by Jerome and was translated directly from the Hebrew so with that we will move on to the next person in Augustine was also one of the father he lived in 83 86 he's also known as Augustine of Hippo he was born in 354 AD again these dates are approximate so I'm not too keen on giving out the dates because each article or each scholar give a different date okay but let's look into his life which he lived and how he impacted the church so here we see that Augustine was born in Tagaste that a place in North Africa in the Roman provinces of New Media most likely his family of family where from a Berber lineage where his father Patrick was a pagan and his mother Monica was a devoted Christian so this was a very common practice those days in the Roman Empire because during the rule of Constantin many people from the pagan culture were converted to Christianity so some of them accepted the religion and practiced Christianity and some of them remained in the pagan culture so we do not know much about his father Patrick but he yes about his mother Monica was very ambitious in following the Christian religion and she also was very keen in bringing her son into Christianity so we see that we see that from his childhood that Augustine had an excellent education he was a very good orator and he was educated in a very good school of philosophy and he pursued his studies well but at a very younger age when he was 15 year old he got into a relationship with the women so it was too early for him to get into such kind of relationship but then he was he was he went astray that's what his mom says that Augustine went astray at a very young age for which his mom had to pray a lot seeking God for a transformation of his son but then he wanted to get married to this lady and then apparently they also had some together in this relationship and he named the child as Adiodatus that means gift of God but he died at a young age the child died at a young age and with this dissolutioned in the circle Augustine's mom takes him and moves into a different place so that hoping that he would change his lifestyle so they moved to a mill into a place in Italy where he won the position of a professor so Monica began negotiating with Augustine to get him married and settle in his life but then while while his mom was trying to look out for a girl he again got into a relationship with another woman and he later says that in one of his confessions that he has written he says that he had become a slave to lust and and later with the influence of his mom and the prayer of others he writes that he started to pray Lord Lord give me chastity and a continence but not just yet so he started praying about his lifestyle because he was not too keen or too happy in that adulterous or in the lifestyle that he was living so we see slowly how Augustine was converted to Christianity or how he was transformed to receive Jesus as the Lord and Savior or how he changed his lifestyle so we see that later part in the confessions we see that in this new place he was in touch with the bishop of Milan of Aurelius Ambrose was a prominent famous theologian so Augustine was very intellectually interested so he was in touch with this bishop Ambrose and he constantly attending the sermon and later we see these teachings impacted his life which transformed his life so after the sermon one day he was sitting on a bench outside waiting for his mother and one day he heard that he thought a child was playing a sing song game take up and read take up and read but when he did not see anyone around him then he realized that it was a supernatural call of God over him in that church and then he found a scripture in the New Testament when he opened the Bible he turned to Paul's letter to Romans chapter 1 verse 17 which read as for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith by now as he was influenced by this bishop Ambrose and he started to attend the church listen to the sermon the word started changing his life the word started transforming his life because any which ways where he was not happy with this adulterous lifestyle that he was living in and he wants to have a change and he was been constantly advised by his mom about God and all these things came together at a time where he heard the supernatural call coming to him and where he took the scripture the scripture would say stated that the just shall live by faith impacted him and here we see Monica was delighted of this changed nature of Augustine and slowly Augustine tend to become a perfectionist and he started following the Christian religion and he and later we see that he was going to become a celibate that is cancelling all the marriage negotiation that his mom was trying to get and he said I'm going to live a life of celibacy just like these monks and I want to get into this so he joined the monastery and he started reading the word of God so with yeah and as he was already a very intelligent person and he was a good orator after joining the monastery he grew he grew he started studying and you know there'll be certain levels for them to come to study and become an elected deacon then the elder deacon and then the father and then later Augustine we see the history says that he was elected as a bishop of hippo and he built his own monastery and he became a very renowned teacher and he started writing his own sermon so he often was presented in the public debates and then big town hall meetings where he continuously addressed many heresies that was coming up those days and we also see God giving him a greater wisdom through which he could he could minister to people in his time but but one thing no matter how old he was growing but he said he says that there is a problem that he struggled with himself which you know he had to face many friends and people in his ministry and yes he said that you know though he know lust is bad and he wants to overcome it but this had still effect on him through his thoughts and his mind so here he quotes Paul's scripture on Romans chapter 7 verse 21 to 25 where he says although I want to do good evil is right there with me for even in my inner being I delight in God's law but I see another law at work in me which which is waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me so what a wretched man I am who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord so what is Augustine trying to say or what did apostle Paul try to say is though they know it is wrong but because they are in the human nature there is always a room for temptation so no matter how perfectionist Augustine grew in his life though he practiced celibacy but there was certain kind of temptation though he didn't want to give in he thought okay that has no power over him but then at even at a very later at a very old age maybe approximately he was 77 year old or between those older age also he says that this temptation had a tempt over him so he says that you know no matter how a perfect we may think we may be or how old we may be or how experienced we could be in certain area but there is always a room for temptation but praise be to Lord Jesus Christ it's only through him that he delivers us from such temptations and he strengthens us in our weaknesses he says and also we see a very important story that stands out even now is one day when Saint Augustine Father Augustine or the Bishop of Hippo used to face lot of persecution lot of struggles or you know the heresies that he had to stand and debate and handle them so what happened he took a break from his work and he just walked along the beach side one day pondering upon God's wisdom or trying to understand the nature of God on how to debate and how to give a clear speech or sermon to people as he was pondering on that and he was walking just okay as he was pondering on that and he was walking on the beach side it was in this moment that he found a little boy little boy caught Augustine's attention so what was this child doing this child was determined to clear up something and he was running back and forth that is between the sea and a tiny hole that this child is made on the show so Augustine was looking at this boy's action he went towards him and asked son what are you doing there and the boy replied by telling him that I'm trying to empty move the water he's using a small pink shell he said that you know I'm trying to move the water from you know I'm trying to fit that great big ocean into this tiny hole through this pink shell so he said this by pointing out to the hole that he has made in the sand so Augustine smiled at this little child's innocence and he said he knelt down next to the boy and he said how can you how can you empty the whole ocean and try to fit it into this tiny hole and he just simply he just asked this little child you could never fit this great ocean into this tiny hole but the child didn't flinch but he responded quickly to him and he said you could never possibly understand the whole eternity nor the wisdom of God and then in a flash of a second this boy disappeared so over the centuries we see many scholars or many historians debate on this child would it be an angel or would this child be a Christ himself to bring an understanding or a revelation to Augustine so when we ponder on this on what the child said yes it's a life's big question isn't it we can never understand these mysteries all at once in our tiny little mind that we have God's wisdom is as big as the ocean and how can a man with his little brain like that small hole try to capture the ocean try to capture God's wisdom no but if we open our mind to God yes he will reveal himself to us bit by bit or drop by drop just like what the child did step by step and if you look at the story that has been revealed here to Augustine can the child fit a tiny bit of salt water into that sandy hole before it sank away yes the same way God often imparts himself to us bit by bit drop by drop so through these stories we see that you know Augustine book also concludes the work most of such revelations that he received during his time he has written in confessions it's called as the confessions and the city of God which worked on de trinite for over 30 years and yeah he has not ever finished it because he cannot finish it there's so much of revelation that he received during his time that he has documented here and yes this has kept our mind also open to keep our self open not to understand God completely but allow God to reveal himself part by part little by little in our own walk in our own relationship with God yes so these are the church fathers who have impacted who have have you know defended the gospel defended the faith despite their bad lifestyle but God chose them God gave them a chance to transform their life we also see how powerful the scripture could be the one Rehman word of Romans 117 of saying the just shall live by faith transformed a man who was addicted into adultery we see how God could transform him and use him greatly and raised him into a higher position who became the bishop of hippo if God could do that through Augustine I'm sure God could do that to any of us so yes just that we need to be available we need to keep ourselves equipped we need to dedicate our life to God and have that kind of fellowship or seeking him more depending on him so with that we will end this session and we will continue we will go on in the next class we will study on the middle age or the dark age of the early reformers okay with that we will end this session with a word of yeah that's Augustine and his mom's picture sorry I didn't move the slide yeah dear God thank you for this time thank you that you give us the session week after week we pray that you will keep the session interesting you will help us to reveal the church fathers the life how they lived how the spirit of the Lord moved through different seasons Lord I pray that you are the God who's also moving in and through us thank you Lord we ask this and most precious name Jesus Amen thank you so much for joining in today's session God bless thank you thank you mom