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Over the last month we reviewed the history of Roman Catholicism’s use of the Council of Sardica to claim Roman Primacy, focusing last week on Pope Zosimus’ and Pope Leo’s attempts to stamp that alleged primacy with Nicene authority. It was under their pontificates—and the intervening pontificates of Boniface, Celestine and Sixtus III—that the canons of Sardica (343 A.D.) were circulated as if they were the canons of Nicæa (325 A.D.), and thus were used to advance two errors simultaneously: 1) the claim that the Council of Sardica had affirmed Roman Primacy, and 2) the claim that Roman Primacy had manifested as early as the Nicene era. The error of Zosimus and the fraud of Leo are just one example of what we see consistently in Roman Catholicism: the attempt to stamp novel and idolatrous practices with Nicene and ante-Nicene authenticity. The more distant the origins of the idolatry from Nicæa , the more creative the historical revisionism necessary to “prove” the antiquity of the practice. Relic veneration is one more example of this propensity in Roman apologetics. Continue reading Diggin’ Up Bones