Council of Nicaea (325 AD)
Nicaea
Council, definition; Man trying to be God, instead of praying and becoming of
one mind in Christ.
The
first ecumenical council in the history of the church was convened by the
emperor Constantine at Nicaea in Bithynia (now Isnik, Turkey). The main purpose
of the council was to attempt to heal the schism in the church provoked by
Arianism. This it proceeded to do theologically and politically by the almost
unanimous production of a theological confession (the Nicene Creed) by over
three hundred bishops representing almost all the eastern provinces of the
empire (where the heresy was chiefly centered) and by a token representation
from the West. The creed thus produced was the first that could legally claim
universal authority as it was sent throughout the empire to receive the
agreement of the churches (with the alternative consequences of excommunication
and imperial banishment).
The issue which culminated at Nicaea arose
out of an unresolved tension within the theological legacy of Origen concerning
the relation of the Son to the Father. On the one hand there was the
attribution of deity to the Son in a relationship with the Father described as
eternal generation. On the other hand there was clear subordinationism. Almost
appropriately, the dispute erupted at Alexandria about 318, with Arius, a
popular presbyter of the church district of Baucalis, developing the latter
strain of Origenism against Bishop Alexander, who advocated the former line of
thinking. Arius was a quite capable logician who attacked Alexander (with
motives not entirely scholarly) on the charge of Sabellianism. After a local
synod heard his own views and dismissed them and him as unsound, Arius
demonstrated his popularizing literary and political talents, gathering support
beyond Alexandria. His theological views appealed to left-wing Origenists,
including the respected Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea. His closest and most
helpful ally was his former fellow student in the school of Lucian, Eusebius,
bishop at the imperial residence of Nicomedia. After Constantine's personal
envoy, Hosius of Cordova, failed to effect a reconciliation in 322 between the
two parties in Alexandria, the emperor decided to convene an ecumenical
council. It should be noted that this
creed is not that which is recited in churches today as the Nicene Creed.
Although similar in many respects, the latter is significantly longer than the
former and is missing some key Nicene phrases.
The theology expressed in the Nicene Creed is
decively anti-Arian. But the Son is said to be "true God from true
God." Although confessing that the Son is begotten, the creed adds the
words, "from the Father" and "not made." It is positively
asserted that he is "from the being (ousia) of the Father" and
"of one substance (homoousia) with the Father." Thus an ontological
rather than merely functional deity of the Son was upheld at Nicaea. The only
thing confessed the Spirit, however, is faith in him.