First Council of Nicaea

Based on Wikipedia: First Council of Nicaea

In the summer of 325, something unprecedented happened. An emperor who worshipped the sun god just a decade earlier summoned Christian bishops from across the known world to settle a theological dispute about the nature of Jesus Christ. The Roman Emperor Constantine paid for their travel, hosted them in his palace, and sat among them as they debated. When they emerged after two months of deliberation, they had produced a document that would shape Christianity for the next seventeen centuries and counting.

This was the First Council of Nicaea.

The Question That Split Christianity

The crisis began in Alexandria, Egypt, sometime between 318 and 322. A priest named Arius started teaching something that sounded reasonable enough on its surface: if God the Father is truly the source of all things, then surely the Son must have had a beginning. The Father existed first, then brought the Son into being. The Son was divine, certainly, but not in quite the same way the Father was divine.

His archbishop, Alexander, found this intolerable. Alexander taught that the Son was eternally generated from the Father—that there was never a moment when the Father existed without the Son. The Son wasn't created; the Son simply was, as the Father was.

To modern ears, this might sound like hairsplitting. Was versus was created. Eternally generated versus brought into being. But the stakes were enormous. If Jesus was a created being—even the first and greatest created being—then Christians were essentially worshipping a creature rather than the Creator. The entire logic of salvation, as Christians understood it, depended on Jesus being fully divine. A creature couldn't redeem other creatures. Only God could bridge the infinite gap between the divine and the human.

Arius accused Alexander of falling into an ancient error called Sabellianism, which held that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were just three masks worn by a single divine person—like an actor playing three roles. Alexander countered that Arius was making the Son into a mere creature, subordinate and secondary to the Father.

Alexander called a local council of Egyptian and Libyan bishops, who sided with him. Arius refused to accept their ruling and was excommunicated. But rather than accept defeat, he traveled throughout the eastern Mediterranean, writing letters and gathering allies. Among his supporters were two powerful bishops, both named Eusebius—one based in Nicomedia (near the imperial capital) and one in Caesarea (a major intellectual center). The controversy spread like fire through dry grass.

Constantine Steps In

In 324, Constantine defeated his rival Licinius and became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. He had tolerated Christianity since the Edict of Milan in 313. Now he discovered that the religion he hoped would unify his empire was tearing itself apart over what he considered an abstract theological question.

Constantine wrote to both Alexander and Arius, essentially telling them to stop bickering. His letter reveals a politician's impatience with theological nuance: he suggested their dispute was over a trivial matter that should never have been raised publicly. Just agree to disagree, he urged. Focus on what unites you.

This was not Constantine's first attempt at religious peacemaking. He had previously tried to resolve a schism in North Africa involving a group called the Donatists, who believed that clergy who had handed over scriptures during persecution had permanently forfeited their authority. Constantine had appointed the Bishop of Rome to hear the case, instructing him: "I do not wish you to leave schism or division of any kind anywhere." When that failed, he called a council at Arles in 314. The Donatist controversy would outlast him.

Constantine sent Bishop Hosius of Corduba (modern Córdoba, Spain) to Alexandria as his representative. Hosius was an elder statesman of the church, possibly in his seventies, who had survived the great persecution under Diocletian. He held a synod in Alexandria, then called a council of eastern bishops in Antioch. This council endorsed Alexander's position and issued a statement of faith declaring that the Son was "begotten not from non-existence, but from the Father, not as made, but as genuine product." It even temporarily excommunicated Eusebius of Caesarea for supporting Arius.

The Antioch council didn't settle things. Someone—probably Hosius—convinced Constantine that a larger assembly was needed. The emperor agreed to summon bishops to a "great and hierarchic council."

A City Called Nicaea

The council was originally planned for Ancyra (modern Ankara, Turkey), but Constantine moved it to Nicaea in Bithynia. The reasons were practical. Nicaea was close to his capital at Nicomedia, allowing him to attend in person. It was accessible by good roads from throughout the empire. And conveniently, Constantine had already planned to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his reign there.

The imperial treasury covered all expenses, including travel costs for bishops coming from as far away as Persia and the region north of the Black Sea that the Romans called Scythia. Contemporary accounts suggest between 250 and 318 bishops attended, though the number 318 became traditionally accepted—perhaps because it matched the number of members in Abraham's household mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Most were from the eastern half of the empire. About twenty came from Egypt and Libya, fifty from Palestine and Syria, and more than one hundred from Asia Minor (modern Turkey).

The western church was barely represented. Hosius came from Spain. A bishop named Caecilianus came from Carthage. A handful of others represented Italy, Gaul, and the Danube region. Pope Sylvester of Rome, elderly and perhaps too frail to travel, sent two presbyters as his representatives. This eastern preponderance would shape the council's decisions and its legacy.

Each bishop brought presbyters and deacons as attendants. Including all the support staff, the gathering may have numbered between 1,200 and 1,900 people. They met in the imperial palace, most likely in a large rectangular hall suitable for formal assemblies.

The Emperor's Entrance

Constantine knew how to make an impression. Eusebius of Caesarea, who was present and whose account survives, describes the emperor's entrance in terms that sound almost like a theophany—a divine appearance. Constantine came clothed in a bright mantle "shedding lustre like beams of light, shining with the fiery radiance of a purple robe, and decorated with the dazzling brilliance of gold and precious stones."

He was, remember, not yet a baptized Christian. He wouldn't be baptized until he lay on his deathbed twelve years later. Yet here he was, entering an assembly of bishops as if he were a messenger from heaven.

Constantine gave an opening address in Latin—the language of the imperial court—though most of the bishops spoke Greek. He urged the bishops to achieve unity. Discord within the church, he said, was worse than any war.

The council operated somewhat like a Roman Senate meeting. Hosius of Corduba probably presided, with Constantine participating in debates but not voting (since he wasn't a bishop). Speakers addressed the assembly in order of rank and seniority. Unfortunately, no detailed records of the proceedings survive as they do for later councils. We have to reconstruct what happened from letters, later accounts, and the council's final decisions.

Crafting the Creed

The council's most lasting achievement was the Nicene Creed—a formal statement of Christian belief designed to exclude Arianism while including everyone else.

Creeds weren't new. Christians had used brief statements of faith since the earliest days of the church, especially during baptism. When someone was baptized, they would affirm their belief in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Different communities had developed different formulas. Rome had what would later be called the Apostles' Creed. Eastern churches had their own variations.

The challenge at Nicaea was that Arius and his supporters could affirm most existing creeds without any difficulty. Yes, they believed in God the Father. Yes, they believed in Jesus Christ as Lord. The problem was what they meant by those affirmations. They needed language that would draw a clear line.

A committee probably drafted the initial text, which the full council then debated line by line. The result was a creed with some distinctive and carefully chosen phrases:

"Light from Light, true God from true God." This asserted that the Son shared the same divine nature as the Father—not a lesser, derived divinity, but the full reality of God.

"Begotten, not made." This was a direct strike against Arius. Creatures are made. Children are begotten. The Son was the Father's genuine offspring, not a product of the Father's creative will.

The most controversial phrase was also the most important: the Son was declared to be "of one substance with the Father." The Greek word was homoousios. Literally translated, it means "same essence" or "same being." Eusebius of Caesarea later reported that Constantine himself suggested this term, though whether the emperor understood its theological implications is debatable.

Homoousios was a loaded word. It had actually been condemned at an earlier council in Antioch in 264-268, in a completely different theological controversy. Some bishops worried it was too philosophical, too Greek, too foreign to the language of scripture. Others thought it might imply that the Father and Son were identical in every way, collapsing the distinction between them. But it did the job. Arius could not accept homoousios without abandoning his core teaching.

The creed ended with a series of anathemas—formal condemnations of specific Arian claims. "Those who say, 'There was when he was not'"—anathema. "Those who say, 'Before being born he was not'"—anathema. "Those who say he came into existence out of nothing"—anathema. "Those who assert that the Son of God is of a different substance, or created, or is subject to change"—anathema, anathema, anathema.

All but two of the attending bishops signed the creed. Arius himself was not a bishop and could not vote, but his supporters Theonas and Secundus refused to sign. They, along with Arius, were exiled to Illyria (the Balkans). Constantine ordered that Arius's writings be burned and his followers be considered "enemies of Christianity."

When to Celebrate Easter

The second major issue at Nicaea was the date of Easter.

This might seem trivial compared to cosmic questions about the nature of Christ. But to ancient Christians, it mattered enormously. Easter was the central celebration of the Christian year—the commemoration of the resurrection. If Christians in different regions celebrated it on different days, what did that say about the unity of the church?

The complication was that Easter was tied to Passover. Jesus was crucified during Passover week. Christians believed that his death and resurrection fulfilled the meaning of Passover—the liberation from slavery in Egypt now signified liberation from sin and death. But how exactly should the Christian festival relate to the Jewish one?

Some churches, especially in Syria and Asia Minor, celebrated Easter on the 14th of the Jewish month of Nisan, whatever day of the week that fell on. They were called Quartodecimans (from the Latin for "fourteeners"). Most churches in the West and in Alexandria celebrated Easter on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan, ensuring it always fell on the day of resurrection.

But there was another problem. Determining the 14th of Nisan required knowing when Nisan began, which depended on the lunar calendar. Christians had traditionally relied on Jewish communities to determine this. By the third century, some Christians had grown uncomfortable with this dependence. They claimed that contemporary Jewish calculations were sometimes wrong—that Jews were occasionally identifying as Nisan a month whose 14th day fell before the spring equinox.

Nicaea decided that Easter should be celebrated on the same day throughout the church, following the calculation method used in Rome and Alexandria. It explicitly rejected the Quartodeciman practice. The precise astronomical calculations would be worked out later—the council didn't create the formula, just established the principle. The detailed rules for calculating Easter would continue to be refined for centuries, and the Eastern and Western churches would eventually diverge again when the West adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582 while the East kept the Julian calendar.

The Melitian Schism and the Twenty Canons

A third dispute the council addressed was purely local to Egypt but politically significant: the Melitian schism.

During the great persecution under Diocletian (303-311), Bishop Peter of Alexandria had been imprisoned. Another bishop named Melitius of Lycopolis stepped in to ordain clergy and manage the church in Peter's absence. When Peter was martyred and succeeded first by Achillas and then by Alexander, Melitius refused to step back. He continued ordaining clergy, creating a parallel hierarchy. By the time of Nicaea, there were Melitian bishops and clergy throughout Egypt who did not recognize Alexander's authority.

The council ruled that Melitius could keep his title as bishop of Lycopolis but could no longer ordain clergy. Bishops he had already ordained could continue serving if they were re-confirmed by Alexander. It was a compromise designed to heal the breach without humiliating either side.

The council also issued twenty canons—rules governing church practice. These covered matters like how clergy should be ordained, how bishops should relate to one another, what qualifications clergy should have, and how repentant sinners should be readmitted to communion. They established that major decisions about church discipline should be made in synods held twice a year. They gave special honor to the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch as the three great sees of the Christian world.

Canon 6, for instance, stated: "Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the churches retain their privileges."

These canons would form part of the foundation of what later became canon law—the internal legal system of the Christian church.

The Council Closes

By early July, the council had finished its work. The bishops were invited to stay for Constantine's celebration of his twentieth anniversary on July 25th. Eusebius describes a magnificent banquet where the emperor dined with the bishops, showered them with gifts, and exhorted them to maintain peace.

Both Constantine and the bishops sent letters throughout the empire announcing the council's decisions. They had achieved something that had never been attempted before: a universal council representing (at least in theory) the entire Christian world, reaching binding decisions on matters of faith and practice.

The bishops went home believing they had settled the Arian controversy. They were wrong.

The Aftermath

Within a few years, the tide began to turn. Arius was recalled from exile in 328 after writing a carefully worded profession of faith that avoided the specific language condemned at Nicaea. Constantine, influenced by advisors sympathetic to Arius, began to pressure the anti-Arian party. Eustathius of Antioch was deposed in 330. Athanasius, who had succeeded Alexander as bishop of Alexandria in 328 and became the most vigorous defender of Nicene theology, was exiled in 335. Even the aged Hosius of Corduba was eventually pressured into signing a compromise formula.

Constantine died in 337 and was baptized on his deathbed by Eusebius of Nicomedia—an Arian sympathizer. His son Constantius II, who eventually became sole emperor, actively promoted Arian and semi-Arian theology. The word homoousios was abandoned at several councils. For decades, it looked like Nicaea would be repudiated.

The Nicene party eventually prevailed, but it took another fifty years. The First Council of Constantinople in 381, convened by Emperor Theodosius I, reaffirmed and expanded the Nicene Creed, adding a fuller section on the Holy Spirit. The creed recited in most churches today is technically the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed—the Nicene Creed as revised in 381.

Why Nicaea Matters

The First Council of Nicaea established a precedent that shaped the development of Christianity. It demonstrated that theological disputes could be settled by councils representing the whole church, that emperors could and would involve themselves in church affairs, and that binding doctrinal decisions could be reached through debate and voting.

It also revealed the limits of such councils. The settlement at Nicaea didn't hold. It took decades more of controversy, exile, counter-councils, and imperial intervention before something like consensus emerged. And the consensus was never complete. Churches that rejected Nicaea continued to exist for centuries, particularly among Germanic tribes who had been converted by Arian missionaries.

The word homoousios—that technical Greek term meaning "of one substance"—became the touchstone of orthodoxy. It marked the boundary between Christianity as it came to be defined in the Roman world and the alternatives. To say that the Son was homoousios with the Father was to affirm something beyond human comprehension: that the infinite God, the source of all reality, had truly become a human being, had truly suffered and died, and had truly risen. Not a messenger from God, not an avatar, not a subordinate divine being, but God himself in human flesh.

Whether one believes this doctrine or not, understanding it is essential to understanding the history of Western civilization. The theological decisions made by a few hundred bishops in a Turkish town in 325 shaped art, philosophy, law, politics, and culture for the next seventeen hundred years. The questions they debated—about the nature of God, the meaning of Jesus, the relationship between the divine and the human—remain alive today, asked in different words but with the same urgency.

Constantine wanted unity. What he got was far messier and far more interesting: an ongoing conversation about ultimate things, with Nicaea as its first great milestone.