On the 1700-year anniversary of the Council of Nicaea: the Council 

In response to a dispute over the true nature of Jesus Christ, the first ecumenical council in church history makes world history and clears up a fundamental question of faith. Following is part two of our series.

The theological disputes that raged in the early decades of the third century are primarily linked to two individuals: Arius and Athanasius. Both men were active in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on the eastern Mediterranean, where Greek philosophy, Jewish thought, and Christian theology collided with—and enriched—one another. 

The opponents: Arius and Athanasius 

The ideas of Arius—which were largely identical to the tenets of subordinationism (the Son is a created being and thus subordinate to the Father)—were certainly accepted by many clergymen of the time. However, as early as ad 318, there were disputes between Arius and Bishop Alexander of Alexandria over the nature of the Son. Bishop Alexander even convened a synod in Alexandria in which Arius’s positions were condemned as heresy. 

The letter containing this condemnation was presumably written by the then Deacon Athanasius, who later served as theological advisor to Bishop Alexander at the Council of Nicaea. However, this condemnation of Arius was not the end of the dispute: it merely served as a catalyst for an even more intense controversy, which soon went on to engulf many other regions in its scope.  

The emperor and the Council 

Emperor Constantine eventually became aware of this dispute. Although the latter tended to consider dogmatic issues to be of secondary importance and generally assigned greater value to worship and ethos—that is, the practice of faith—he intervened in the dispute and convened a general council in a city in Asia Minor known as Nicaea in ad 325. 

Nicaea was located only 80 kilometres east of Constantinople—the seat of government of Emperor Constantine—and was thus easily accessible for him, allowing him to attend the bishops’ meetings at any time. The assembly took place in the imperial summer palace. It appears that a certain Bishop Hosius of Corduba presided over the meetings, the details of which were very closely coordinated with the emperor. 

The verdict of the three hundred bishops 

The council began on 20 May 325, and while its exact date of conclusion is unknown, it is likely to have lasted for a month or two. A total of three hundred bishops are said to have participated, the majority of whom had come from the eastern part of the empire, while only a few clergymen from the west were present.

The Council was of such outstanding importance because it explored the positions of Arius, condemned them, and arrived at binding statements on the relationship between the Father and the Son. The beliefs and theological positions of Athanasius had the greatest influence on the conclusions reached by the Council of Nicaea.     

The Son is true God 

Although Arius had also designated the Son as God, he considered the only true God to be the Father, in whose divinity the Son and the Holy Spirit—who had been created by the Father—shared to some degree. For Athanasius, the most important thing was the idea of ​​salvation: only the true God who becomes man is capable of granting salvation to humanity.

The Council reached a conclusion that is still binding today: the Son is “very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” The creed makes it clear that there is no difference between the divinity of the Father and the divinity of the Son. The statement that the Son is “begotten” of the Father is not meant to indicate any sort of succession, but rather serves to express the consubstantial equality of the two divine persons. The Son is not subordinate to the Father, but is God to the same degree as the Father. 

By convening this council, Emperor Constantin had “saved the church, which was deeply threatened by internal strife and external persecution,” the church historian Adolf von Harnack explains. The latter goes on to say that Athanasius had “protected the church from the complete secularisation of its foundations of faith”. He had diminished the overwhelming influence of Greek philosophy on the doctrine of God and oriented himself by the events of salvation history as attested in the New Testament. 

The Council had decided, but the dispute continued. This will be the subject explored in the next issue of this series. 

The background: The Creed of Nicaea (ad 325) 

The Creed of Nicaea, which captures key theological positions on the subject of Christology and the doctrine of God in only a few meaningful sentences, reads as follows: 

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; by whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; He suffered, and the third day He rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and in the Holy Ghost. 

But those who say: ‘There was a time when He [the Son] was not’; and ‘He was not before He was made’; and ‘He was made out of nothing’, or ‘He is of another substance’ or ‘essence’, or ‘The Son of God is created’, or ‘changeable’, or ‘alterable’— they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.”

This text contains the profession of faith that the Father and the Son are one true God. Although the Holy Spirit is mentioned, nothing is said here yet about the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son. These statements only came to be added over 50 years later at the First Council of Constantinople (ad 383). 

At the end of the confession, there is a condemnation of all those who do not accept this teaching. They are “condemned” (or, in other translations “anathemised”) which is intended to emphasise the binding nature of these statements about the Father and the Son. It expresses that the divinity of the Father and the Son is an inviolable part of the Christian faith. 

Photo: Yevhen – stock.adobe.com