The start of a new year prompts us to look forward and think through what we would like to accomplish or see happen in the next year. A new year is also a good time to look back, reflecting on all that has happened in the world and your life over the past year. It can also prompt us to look back even farther, as it marks a significant anniversary for many notable events and occurrences. For example, 2025 marks 40 years since the release of the movies “Goonies” and “Back to the Future” and is the year that Elvis would have turned 90. On a more serious note, 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, 60th of the Civil Rights Act, 75th of the Korean War, 80th of V-E Day at the end of World War II, and 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord that marked the start of the American Revolutionary War.
This year will also mark the 1700th anniversary of a significant event in church history: the Nicene Council. Back in 325, around 300 bishops from across the Roman empire were summoned by Constantine to the city of Nicaea (present day Iznik, Turkey) and met from May to July. This event is viewed as extremely important by Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians; however, the importance of this event is often misunderstood or forgotten, so I want to spend some time exploring what happened (and didn’t happen) and why we should not just remember that it happened but also be thankful for it.
What It Wasn’t: Correcting False Claims and Common Misunderstandings About It
Like many other historical events, there are false claims made about what exactly happened at the Council of Nicaea and also the significance of its proceedings. One of these inaccurate assertions is that the Roman Emperor Constantine was the one who led the council or was the most influential figure at it. He was the one who convened it (and who footed the bill for it!), and it does seem that he participated in at least some of the discussions that happened there, but he by no means dictated its decisions and didn’t even have a vote at it. The biggest way he influenced the proceedings was in seeing the need for unity and clarity on a theological issue, gathering the people who could figure this out, and imploring them that they have to come to some agreement on the issues.
Another notable myth about this gathering was that it was where church leaders decided on what books would be in the Bible, especially which among the various accounts of Jesus’s life (gospels) that were circulating would be accepted. This claim is patently false, as this was neither the primary issue discussed there nor one that we see arise in the historical documents of its proceedings. As I have written elsewhere, such discussions happened at other times and places. It should also be noted that we have considerable evidence that the four gospels in the New Testament were seen as authoritative by Christians and that other gospels were rejected due to their claims being false much earlier than this council. The discussions at the Council of Nicaea were not about which books to accept but rather what they teach about the person and nature of Jesus. Therefore, they did not produce a list of books to use but rather a creed to be affirmed (but not the creed you might be thinking, as I’ll explain in a moment).
A final important misconception people have about this event is not concerning the subject it discussed but rather the significance of the decision it reached on that subject. I’ve heard many people maintain that it was at the Council of Nicaea that Jesus “became God,” in that the Council declared him to be the Son of God when it was not a widely held belief before this time. The result of the Council was a statement that affirmed and discussed Jesus’s divine nature, but this was by no means a new or a unique idea. Instead, it reflected what had been believed and maintained from the beginning of the church and seen taught in the Scriptures of the church in the face of novel and incorrect ideas that had been circulating and growing in popularity.
What It Was: Clarifying the Purpose and Product of This Gathering
While there is a sense in which you could say that this council occurred because of Constantine, there is another sense in which we should say that this council happened because of a different man: Arius. He became an elder in the church in Alexandria around 313 and was known for his learning and piety. Around 318, he started to teach that Jesus was subordinate to God the Father and a creature rather than creator, saying that Jesus had a beginning and came into existence. In teaching these positions, Arius was critiquing and contradicting the teachings of the bishop of Alexandria (whose name ironically was Alexander), as he maintained that Jesus was eternally generated and of the same substance as the Father (and thus equal to him). This was not a minor debate, as Arius’s teaching spread (in part because he put them to song), leading to much confusion and debate in the town. Alexander would call a council of other local bishops to discuss the issue, and these bishops supported Alexander’s view and removed Arius both from his position in the church and from the city. That decision did not end the controversy, as Arius would continue to teach his position and would spread it in other places, even garnering some prominent supporters in the church.
This theological debate caught the attention of Constantine, who had become a Christian back in 312 and gained authority over the entire Roman empire in 324. Recognizing that disunity in the church would also be bad for the empire, he summoned church leaders from around the empire to discuss it. The majority of the 300 bishops came were from the Eastern part of the empire, as only six were from the Western (Latin-speaking) part of the church; the bishop of Rome was not one of those six and thus played no direct role in these discussions. Christianity had only recently become legal, so many of these leaders had experienced persecution and even had the physical scars testifying to their persecution. Thus, we should not think of these figures as ivory-tower figures or those who had gained their position in the pursuit of power or influence, but as people who thought their faith was a matter of life and death.
Such a gathering was something that would not have happened before the legalization of Christianity, so this historic assembly took the occasion to also discuss a number of other issues (e.g., the date of Easter, how to deal with those who lapsed in faith). However, the most important issue was this theological matter. A few of the bishops that came held to Arius’s view, while others were strongly opposed to it; there were also many others who might have thought the best course of action would be some sort of compromise. The discussion did not lead to anything close to a compromise between the two positions but an almost universal rejection of Arius’s view and support for the view espoused by Alexander of Alexandria that Jesus is of the same substance of the Father and equal, not subordinate, to Him (all but two bishops accepted this stance). Because Arius had sought to argue for his position from certain biblical texts, the council crafted a statement that would make it clear that the view taught by Arius was not the one taught in Scripture. This statement would be known as the “Nicene Creed.”
This creed, however, is not the version that you may be familiar with. What is often recited as the Nicene Creed in church services today is actually an update of that creed from the Council of Constantinople in 381. This additional council was held because some continued to put forth Arius’s view after the Council of Nicaea and Arius himself would actually be restored and returned from exile. In fact, one of the primary defenders of the Nicene Creed was a man named Athanasius (who succeeded Alexander as bishop of Alexandria), and he was exiled and faced opposition even though his view was the official teaching of the church! Debates and divisions continued for over 50 years until the Council of Constantinople brought about the unity sought at Nicaea under the same set of beliefs. Some people still taught the view of Arius even after this council, and you see this viewpoint pop up in certain circles at times, but it has been deemed to be out of accord with what we see in the Bible and thus outside of the Christian church.
The primary differences between the creed composed at Nicaea 1700 years ago and the one written a few decades later at Constantinople are expansions in the latter creed to clarify the divinity of the Holy Spirit along with a section on the church, baptism, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life. The version at Constantinople also adds a few lines about Jesus, offering more details concerning his birth, death, and resurrection and also a reference to his kingdom. Most of these expansions reflect ideas that also appear in the Apostles’ Creed, making the Nicene-Constantinople a bit more Trinitarian and thorough in its content.
What’s To Come in the Next Posts: Examining the Nicene Creed on Jesus
There are some statements about Jesus found in the Nicene Creed of 325 (and largely echoed the 381 revision) that do not appear in the Apostles’s Creed: “the only Begotten, begotten from the Father, that is from the substance of the Father. God from God, Light from Light, true God from True God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made, those in heaven and those on earth. For us men and for our salvation he came down, was incarnate, and became man.” We’ll look at those sections in the next couple of posts as a way to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of this important event in church history and see how it helps us better understand and appreciate the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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