Editor’s Note: This essay kicks off a series of essays we’ll enjoy throughout the month of June marking the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.
Throughout this anniversary year, many of us will be reading and talking about the Nicaea event and its significance for the church today. No doubt many will tell and retell a familiar story about Athanasius and Arius, the former condemning the latter and championing orthodox Christology. Some tellings may include the tenuous element of Nicholas’s reaction to Arius (as per Internet memes), when Arius read aloud to the council his heretical Christology and the outraged Nicholas slapped him!
In our quest to rediscover Nicaea, certain questions may guide us. Why were the council and the creed necessary? What was the nature of this creed? How was the council received in its day, and what was its legacy in later decades? In other words, what kind of identity did Nicaea take on in the immediately succeeding era?
The Council
The immediate precipitator of the council was the dispute over the nature of the eternal Son and his relationship with the Father, as emphasized in the Creed’s second article. Arius, an Egyptian presbyter, objected to his bishop’s homiletical use of the phrases “always Father, always Son” and “the Son is from God himself.” His bishop, Alexander of Alexandria, meant to emphasize by these phrases the co-equality and co-eternity of the Son with the Father, as well as their essential identity of godhead. To Arius, it sounded like the affirmation of two unoriginate, unbegotten beings, which indicated duality in God, or even as implying that the Son was a broken-off piece of God. Therefore, Arius thought to protect monotheism and the uniqueness of the Father by defining the Son in lesser terms, classifying the Son with the created order.
The church needed a council and Emperor Constantine mandated one. A council had already met early in 325 at Antioch to affirm Alexander’s doctrinal position, one presented along the lines of a Rule of Faith. Specifically, he emphasized that the Son shares the nature of the Father and is certainly not to be classified with creatures. Eusebius of Caesarea, although a consummate theologian, was provisionally condemned by this council because he and two other bishops refused to sign an anti-Arian creedal statement. He would still attend the future ecumenical council, but on the defensive.
Moreover, the bishops at Antioch referred to the upcoming council at Nicaea (originally planned for Ancyra) as “the great and hieratic” synod, a descriptor that hints at the unusual nature of the event. Indeed, this council would be the first of its kind, different from regional synods. It was to be an ecumenical (universal) gathering, one made possible by a providential regime change. The emperor seems to have indicated his desire for a creed to restore the church’s peace. Alexander hoped that this significant council could resolve what prior synods could not, and might also result in Eusebius’s doctrinal recovery.
Who, then, was in leadership at the council? Who comprised the council’s leadership and main speakers? Perhaps this commemorative focus on Nicaea offers an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the cast of characters involved in the conciliar activities. The Spanish Bishop Hossius of Cordoba, long a servant of Constantine’s religious objectives, presided. Hossius had a reputation for integrity and sanctity, was bilingual, had opposed schismatics like the Donatists and Novatianists, and, as a result, had the trust of Constantine.
Eustathius of Antioch, an anti-Arian bishop (present with Hossius at the Antioch council), delivered a welcome speech at the emperor’s arrival. An additional welcome speech was given by Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian supporter. Despite his support for Arius, Eusebius remained influential in the capital, eventually becoming the emperor’s pastor and administering baptism to Constantine on his deathbed (in 337).
The facts regarding the participation of Arius and Athanasius seem mixed. Athanasius was Alexander’s deacon/secretary; he was present and active, though not a voting member of the council. Arius had been exiled and was under condemnation, but some sources indicate that he was called to subscribe to the creed (which he refused to do).
The Creed
What about the events of the council? Assembling the evidence, it seems that Constantine hosted meetings in a large hall of his imperial residence, and addressed the bishops, urging them toward a biblical resolution of the theological issues. The Arian faction (called “the Eusebians”) put forth a creedal statement read aloud by Eusebius of Nicomedia, but he had barely finished when the anti-Arian bishops erupted in protest, and someone (St. Nicholas? Probably not) snatched the document and ripped it up.
A statement was communally crafted on the model of a Trinitarian declaratory creed emphasizing Christological wording and carefully expressing each thought biblically. The Arians acquiesced to this step, still able to retain their own interpretation in biblical language of the Son’s nature and status, until homoousios (“same substance/essence”) was introduced into the discussion. This term, approved by the emperor, completely ruled out Arian subordinationism, and clinched a status of deity for the Son as clearly co-equal with the Father.
Eusebius of Caesarea was summoned before the assembly and urged to sign the creed; he hesitated and instead offered his baptismal creed from Caesarea, which used only biblical language. Non-scriptural language was a concern for all the bishops, which demonstrates their elevated view of Scripture as a driver of exegesis, theology, and praxis. Eusebius worried about using the language of substance for deity, but once he examined the wording and its scriptural intent, he subscribed to the Nicene Creed, approving even the term consubstantial (homoousios), as he explained to his church back home in Caesarea.
Nicaea’s Identity and Legacy
The first ecumenical council may be described in five terms: controversial regarding theological language; clarifying with respect to tenets of faith; concise in the creed’s compact language; conciliatory in its intent of the moment; and consecrated in a way evident both at the time and subsequently—including today.
Controversial
Concern over wording appeared from the outset, and disputes over non-biblical (and anti-biblical) terminology continued, but there seemed something helpful and appropriate in the term consubstantial. Confusion over wording continued in the decades after Nicaea over the terms ousia (essence) and hypostasis (individual subsistence), which the anathemas used interchangeably. However, precise definitions would follow in the next generation, the legacy of the Cappadocians. One may consider, for example, Gregory of Nyssa’s Letter 35 to his brother Peter on ousia and hypostasis.
Clarifying
The council met its most immediate aim when it clarified the Son’s status and nature as co-equal in Godhead with the Father and ontologically one with Him. In addition, though, by affirming the Son’s Godhead and repudiating the Arian subordination of the Son, the council also preserved the status and nature of the Holy Spirit as fully God and not a creature, a significant anchor for future Trinitarian discussions.
Nicaea, then, reiterated and reaffirmed what baptismal creeds and the Bible had already stated, but it also brought forward and included in this tight statement as much what is affirmed as what is rejected. Yes, the creed rejects Arianism, but it also rejects Docetism by affirming the Incarnation and death of our Savior; rejects Gnostic/Marcionite views of the Father as different from a Gnostic Demiurge, the evil creator God; and rejects Adoptionism by insisting that the eternal Son who was “very God … came down from heaven” rather than being a divinized man.
The creed also clarified that the necessity for establishing the Son’s ontological identity as God was “for our salvation.” The saving actions that follow are only effective for human salvation if the Son is fully God. Equally, the Incarnation is affirmed, through which the saving acts are performed on humanity’s behalf.
Concise
The creed is compact, but the third article on the Holy Spirit is especially terse. At times, believers may find this seemingly truncated statement troubling. At the least, the phrase “and in the Holy Spirit” completes the Trinitarian shape of faith and salvation, but no additional details follow in the 325 version.
Although more robust wording will appear by Constantinople 381 that sets forth a fuller creed, readers need not be distressed. The vocabulary of faith regarding the Holy Spirit had been present for over a century in the Rule of Faith, and was present in epistolary correspondence before Nicaea. Similarly, the creed’s simple phrase and was incarnate omits mention of Mary from whom the Son took humanity; yet in the pre-Nicene letters, the title God-bearer (theotokos) is used unhesitatingly by Alexander as accepted confessional language.
Conciliatory
The Council of Nicaea was aimed at reconciliation, reflecting Constantine’s commitment. He exhorted the bishops to unity and demonstrated it by visual means. Apparently many of these bishops brought with them grievances against one another and saw the council as an opportunity to present their petitions to the emperor. One by one, Constantine listened, received their documents, and in the end burned them all in a furnace, urging forgiveness and unity for the present, and looking to resolution from the Lord at the final judgment.
Additional attempts at conciliation and unity included healing divisions over the date of Easter, so that the church everywhere would celebrate simultaneously. All the activities of Lenten catechesis, fasting, prayer, memorization of the Creed, Easter baptisms, and celebration of the Paschal Eucharist should be done in solidarity across the Empire.
Consecrated
Finally, there was a sentiment surrounding the work of the council that God was working providentially. The phrase The great and holy council was used of the meeting in Constantine’s widely distributed letters, even while the council was still in session. Never were so many bishops from around the empire together for fellowship, prayer, and deliberation.
There were celebrated holy men among the participants, confessors like Paphnutius, bishop in Upper Thebaid, famous for his virtue, miracle-working, and resilience under persecution. Under the tyranny of Licinius, his right eye had been plucked out and his left leg maimed before he was condemned to the mines. In fact, Theodoret of Cyrus writes that the council gathering resembled an army of martyrs, and the emperor was deeply moved and respectful toward these venerable men.
Sozomen the historian, citing Eusebius, described the conciliar assembly as akin to the worldwide ingathering of worshipers at Pentecost in apostolic days, but superior to it, for these were all ministers of the gospel, doing God’s work.
Constantine himself believed that God had providentially allowed him to rule, had called him to protect the church, and that the Holy Spirit was working among the bishops. By God’s grace, he believed, the council was able to agree on the Creed’s phrasing and make decisions in concord on doctrine and practice for the continued success of God’s kingdom.
Both during the Council and in hindsight, the Nicaea event seemed special, providential, dramatic, and inspired. It certainly set a precedent that later generations looked back to, and the Creed was regarded as something sacrosanct that should not be altered or superseded, but should rather remain foundational for the expression of the Christian faith. Nicaea itself could be identified simply by the number 318—an approximation of attendance, but also a biblically significant number recalling the fighting men in Abraham’s camp. And so it is 1,700 years later that the “318 Fathers” at the “Great and holy council” have handed down to us an enduring faith legacy that each generation must preserve and faithfully hand on.
Stefana Dan Laing is a Guest Writer. She is Associate Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University. Dr. Laing is the author of Retrieving History: Memory and Identity Formation in the Early Church (Baker, 2017). Prior appointments include theological librarian at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and teaching for Houston Graduate School of Theology and Houston Christian University.
