07-24-2013, 04:25 AM
Shlama Akhan Mike,
Keep in mind, it was not just Ephesus. Decades after the Nicene Council, the Western Church sent delegates (Aramaic speaking delegates, incidentally) to the Persian Church to review and accept those decrees way before Ephesus.
Ask yourself this: how isolated was this community, if delegates needed to be sent from the Roman Empire every time an important council was held ?
And again, these travelers weren't Greeks. They were Aramaic speakers (like, Marutha, who was the envoy who brought the Nicene council decisions.)
How isolated? Very much so. But fortunately, Aramaic speakers existed on both sides of the border. And they communicated with each other that way. But they lived in a reality in which their empires were at constant war with each other. And many times, these visits from the western delegates were viewed with suspicion (and often resulted in bad retribution to the eastern Christians, because they were accused of being sympathetic to Rome - the enemy.)
Just like today: Christians in the Middle East are persecuted because they are suspected of being tied to their co-religionists in the west. Today it is the Muslims who slaughter villages because of the actions of some western nations. Back then, it was the Zoroastrians who slaughtered villages because they suspected the Christians had allegiance to Caesar (which was untrue of course.)
Isolation was a reality from the start, and became more necessary and convenient for survival as time went on.
We had no Constantine.
+Shamasha
Keep in mind, it was not just Ephesus. Decades after the Nicene Council, the Western Church sent delegates (Aramaic speaking delegates, incidentally) to the Persian Church to review and accept those decrees way before Ephesus.
Ask yourself this: how isolated was this community, if delegates needed to be sent from the Roman Empire every time an important council was held ?
And again, these travelers weren't Greeks. They were Aramaic speakers (like, Marutha, who was the envoy who brought the Nicene council decisions.)
How isolated? Very much so. But fortunately, Aramaic speakers existed on both sides of the border. And they communicated with each other that way. But they lived in a reality in which their empires were at constant war with each other. And many times, these visits from the western delegates were viewed with suspicion (and often resulted in bad retribution to the eastern Christians, because they were accused of being sympathetic to Rome - the enemy.)
Just like today: Christians in the Middle East are persecuted because they are suspected of being tied to their co-religionists in the west. Today it is the Muslims who slaughter villages because of the actions of some western nations. Back then, it was the Zoroastrians who slaughtered villages because they suspected the Christians had allegiance to Caesar (which was untrue of course.)
Isolation was a reality from the start, and became more necessary and convenient for survival as time went on.
We had no Constantine.
+Shamasha