First Council of Nicaea

• 1. Introduction

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  The First Council of Nicaea met in the Bithynian city of Nicaea, now İznik in Turkey, from May until the end of July 325. Tradition says that 318 bishops attended, a figure given by Athanasius of Antioch. The same number counts the members of Abraham's household in the Book of Genesis. The Roman Emperor Constantine I summoned the bishops, paid for their journeys and joined their debates. Nobody had ever tried before to gather the whole church, from every part of the empire, into one assembly. Why would an emperor care so much about a quarrel over the nature of Jesus? What did the bishops decide, and who refused to accept it? Did the meeting settle anything at all? The answers begin in Alexandria, years before a single bishop set out for Nicaea.

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• 2. A Quarrel in Alexandria

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  Scholars place the start of the dispute somewhere between 318 and 322, among the clergy of Alexandria. The principal figures were Archbishop Alexander of Alexandria and a presbyter named Arius. Alexander taught that Jesus, as God the Son, was eternally generated from the Father. Arius and his followers insisted that only the Father was eternal. In their view the Son was created or begotten by the Father, had a defined point of origin and stood below him. Only a few writings by Arius survive, so much of what is known about his teaching comes from his opponents, chiefly Alexander and Athanasius of Alexandria.

  Sabellius is the name Arius used against his archbishop. He accused Alexander of following that teacher, who held that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were a single person. Most of the east believed they were distinct. Alexander called a local council of bishops from Egypt and Libya, and it sided with him. Arius refused to subscribe to its decision. Alexander then excommunicated him and exiled him from Alexandria, together with several followers.

  Exile did not silence Arius. He traveled through churches across the Roman east and wrote to bishops to win support. Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea both advocated for his view and for his restoration to the church in Alexandria. Alexander answered with letters of his own, defending his position.

  The Melitian schism ran parallel to this fight. Melitius, bishop of Lycopolis, had acted in the place of the imprisoned bishop Peter I of Alexandria during the Diocletianic Persecution. After Peter died in 311, Melitius would not give up his right to ordain clergy. He also refused to recognize Peter's successors, Achillas and then Alexander. Both disputes would end up before the same bishops in 325.

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• 3. The Emperor Steps In

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  In 324 Constantine defeated the eastern emperor Licinius and became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Soon afterward, probably through Eusebius of Nicomedia, he learned of the feud between Alexander and Arius. He wrote to both men and urged them to end their dispute and reconcile.

  Donatism in North Africa had already given Constantine a taste of church politics. To resolve that schism he first appointed Miltiades, Bishop of Rome, to hear the case. His instruction was blunt: "I do not wish you to leave schism or division of any kind anywhere." When that failed to settle matters, he called the Council of Arles.

  Bishop Hosius of Corduba carried the emperor's letter to Alexandria as his representative. He apparently presided there over a synod concerning the date of Easter. Then he called a council of Eastern bishops in Antioch. That council endorsed Alexander's position and issued a statement of faith. It declared the Son "begotten not from non-existence, but from the Father, not as made, but as genuine product." It attached anathemas against Arius. It also temporarily excommunicated Eusebius of Caesarea, who had argued that Father and Son were of two different natures.

  After this, Hosius prompted Constantine to call a larger council. The bishops were first to assemble at Ancyra in Asia Minor for a "great and hierarchic council," either on their own impetus or at Constantine's command. The emperor moved the meeting to Nicaea in Bithynia. The city lay near his capital at Nicomedia, so he could attend in person, and bishops from across the empire could reach it more easily. He had also planned to celebrate the twentieth year of his reign there.

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• 4. Gathering at the Palace

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  The imperial treasury covered the council's expenses, including the bishops' travel. Contemporary reports of attendance range from 250 to 300, while the lists of signatories hold only 200-220 names. Each bishop brought presbyters and deacons, so the whole crowd may have numbered between 1200 and 1900.

  Almost all the bishops came from the Eastern Church. About twenty arrived from Egypt and Libya, fifty from Palestine and Syria, and more than one hundred from Asia Minor. Persia and Scythia sent one bishop each. The western delegation was tiny: Hosius, Caecilianus of Carthage, Nicasius of Die, Marcus of Calabria and Domnus of Pannonia. Two presbyters, Victor and Vicentius, spoke for Bishop Sylvester of Rome.

  The room held open partisans. Arius counted on Eusebius of Nicomedia, Eusebius of Caesarea, Menophantus of Ephesus, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Narcissus of Neronias, Theonas of Marmarike, Secundus of Ptolemais and Theognis of Nicaea. Against them stood Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, Marcellus of Ancyra and Macarius of Jerusalem.

  Nicaea's imperial palace housed the sessions. Going by the description of Eusebius of Caesarea, the bishops most likely met in a rectangular basilica hall. Once they had assembled, Constantine made a formal entrance. Eusebius pictured him "like some heavenly angel of God, his 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." The emperor opened with a speech in Latin, although most of his audience spoke Greek. The church historian Socrates of Constantinople dates the opening to the 20th of May 325, though it may have come later, in June.

  Hosius most likely presided over the debates as Constantine's representative. Constantine joined the discussion himself, in Greek, but did not count himself a voting member because he was not a bishop. No detailed acta survive, unlike for later councils, so the sequence of debate is uncertain. Councils then followed the model of the Roman Senate. The presiding officer held wide control, and speakers took their turns according to rank. The first business was probably the standing of Eusebius of Caesarea and the others excommunicated at Antioch, since that decided whether they could take part. By Eusebius's own account, his profession of faith was accepted and he was restored. Eustathius of Antioch records a statement of faith by a Eusebius being rejected, probably Eusebius of Nicomedia.

  The gathering also holds a place in the vocabulary of the church. The Greek word oikoumene, behind "ecumenical," means worldwide, which at the time was nearly the same as the Roman Empire. Nicaea is counted as the first ecumenical council, the first attempt to summon a general council in which every part of the empire would be represented, at least in theory. Its earliest known description as an ecumenical council appears in Eusebius's Life of Constantine around 338. Another early use is a letter of 382 from the First Council of Constantinople to Pope Damasus I and the Latin bishops. Nicaea also began the period of the first seven ecumenical councils, and it set the precedent for later councils to adopt creeds and canons.

  The council closed in the first weeks of July. The bishops were invited to attend Constantine's celebration of his twentieth anniversary on the throne on the 25th of July. Both the bishops and the emperor wrote letters recounting the council's decisions to be circulated throughout the empire.

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• 5. The Creed and Its Penalties

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  In Rome, the Apostles' Creed was popular, especially during Lent and the Easter season. Creeds of this kind had long served Christians as marks of identity and belonging, above all at baptism. Several were already in use, and many were acceptable to the members of the council, Arius among them. At Nicaea, a draft based on earlier creeds was prepared, possibly by a smaller committee, and the council debated it line by line. All but two bishops subscribed to the final form. It was meant to define the church's faith clearly, to include those who professed it and to exclude those who did not.

  Several phrases in the Nicene Creed, perhaps from the hand of Hosius, were aimed at the Arian view. Jesus Christ is called "Light from Light, true God from true God," which proclaims his divinity. He is "begotten, not made," meaning he was no creature drawn out of nothing but the true Son, brought forth "from the substance of the Father." He is also "of one substance with the Father." The Greek word is homoousios, meaning of the same substance. Eusebius of Caesarea credits the word to Constantine, who may have used his authority on this single point. How far the two persons share one substance remained unclear, and the issue would be hotly contested later.

  A list of anathemas closed the creed, written to reject the Arians' stated claims directly. The claim that "there was once when he was not" was condemned, to preserve the Son's coeternity with the Father. The claim that the Son was "mutable or subject to change" was condemned as well. The Son, like the Father, was beyond weakness or corruption and could never fall from absolute moral perfection. So the council issued a creed that Arius could not sign, rather than a baptismal creed acceptable to both sides. The Council of Antioch of 264-268 had condemned homoousios, but Constantine and Hosius backed the term, and the creed was accepted.

  Constantine had declared that anyone refusing to endorse the creed would be exiled. Arius, Theonas and Secundus refused. All three were excommunicated and sent into exile in Illyria. The works of Arius were ordered confiscated and burned, and his supporters were labeled "enemies of Christianity." The text of the creed survives in a letter from Eusebius to his congregation and in the works of Athanasius. The First Council of Constantinople would amend it in 381.

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• 6. Easter and Church Order

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  As early as the time of Pope Sixtus I, in the 2nd century, some Christians placed Easter on a Sunday in the lunar month of Nisan. To know which month counted as Nisan, they relied on the Jewish community. By the late 3rd century some Christians complained that the Jewish calendar had grown disorderly. They argued that Jews were picking a month whose 14th day fell before the spring equinox. These reformers wanted Christians to compute Nisan for themselves, so that Easter would always fall after the equinox. They claimed that the Jewish calendar, not their own proposal, had broken with tradition. Others preferred to keep relying on Jewish calculations, even if they judged them mistaken.

  The council settled the matter by endorsing the independent method already used in Rome and Alexandria. Easter would be a Sunday in a lunar month chosen by Christian criteria, in effect a Christian Nisan. Later historians called those who held to the old reliance "protopaschites." They were urged to join the majority, but sermons, canons and tracts written against them in the late 4th century show that some did not. Only two rules were laid down explicitly: independence from the Jewish calendar and worldwide uniformity. The method of calculation was left to be worked out over centuries, amid controversies, some of which remain unresolved.

  The council did not seem to decree that Easter must fall on a Sunday, perhaps because it had no need to. By siding with the churches that moved the feast to the following Sunday, it had already ruled against the Quartodecimani, who celebrated on any day of the week. Nor did it forbid Easter from coinciding with Nisan 15 in the Hebrew calendar. The Finnish Orthodox Church explains that Pascha falls on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox, but always after the Jewish Passover, with the equinox fixed at the 21st of March. L'Huillier notes that Orthodox Easter has never preceded Passover.

  Melitius of Lycopolis received a mild settlement. He could keep his title and stay in his own city of Lycopolis in Egypt, but without authority or the power to ordain. He was barred from the surrounding district and from entering other dioceses to ordain anyone. Men he had ordained were to receive the laying on of hands again, since his ordinations counted as invalid. They had to yield precedence to clergy ordained by Alexander and act only with his consent. If a non-Melitian bishop died, a worthy Melitian could take the vacant see, provided Alexander ratified the popular election. The measures failed. The Melitians joined the Arians, and they became some of the worst enemies of Athanasius.

  Twenty canons were also promulgated, though scholars debate the exact number. One banned self-castration for clergy. Another set a minimum term for catechumens, the people preparing for baptism. A bishop was to be ordained in the presence of at least three provincial bishops, with confirmation by the metropolitan bishop, and two provincial synods were to meet each year. Clergy were forbidden to lend money at interest. Baptism by the Paulian heretics was declared invalid. The council also forbade kneeling on Sundays and during Pentecost, the fifty days beginning on Easter. Standing was the normal posture for prayer then, as it still is among Eastern Christians. Kneeling suited penitential prayer, not the festive spirit of Eastertide, so the rule aimed only at uniform practice. The sixth canon, on the jurisdiction of Alexandria, Rome and Antioch, would later be read in sharply different ways by Protestant and Catholic scholars.

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• 7. Aftermath and Empire

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  The Diocletianic Persecution ended in 311 under Galerius, but Christianity gained no legal protection until 313. In that year Constantine and Licinius agreed to what became known as the Edict of Milan. Nicene Christianity did not become the state religion until the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. Until the council, Constantine's coinage and official imagery had tied him to the pagan cult of Sol Invictus. At first he encouraged new temples and tolerated traditional sacrifices. Later in his reign he ordered Roman temples pillaged and torn down.

  For Nicaea, Constantine acted as the supreme civil authority, responsible for order in the empire. He wanted a church of one mind and at peace. When first told of the Alexandrian unrest, he was "greatly troubled" and "rebuked" both Arius and Alexander for starting the disturbance and letting it become public. He also knew of "the diversity of opinion" over Easter and hoped to settle both issues together. When Hosius's embassy failed, he turned to summoning a synod, inviting "the most eminent men of the churches in every country." He supplied lodging and furnished a "great hall... in the palace" so that his guests "should be treated with becoming dignity." At the opening he urged the bishops toward unanimity with these words: "Let, then, all contentious disputation be discarded; and let us seek in the divinely-inspired word the solution of the questions at issue."

  The emperor "gave patient attention to the speeches of both parties" and "deferred" to the bishops' decision. The bishops first pronounced Arius's teachings anathema and drew up the creed as a statement of correct doctrine. When Arius and two followers would not agree, they delivered the clerical judgement, and Constantine added a civil one. This marked the beginning of the use of secular power to establish doctrinal orthodoxy in Christianity. Every later Christian emperor followed the example. It fed a circle of Christian violence and of Christian resistance framed in terms of martyrdom.

  In the short term the council solved little. Constantine was succeeded in the Eastern Empire by two Arian emperors, his son Constantius II and Valens. Valens could not resolve the outstanding issues and unsuccessfully confronted St. Basil over the Nicene Creed. Pagan powers within the empire sought to keep or revive paganism at the imperial seat, as with Arbogast and Julian the Apostate. The Arians and Melitians soon regained nearly all the rights they had lost, and Arianism kept spreading through the rest of the 4th century. Almost at once, Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian bishop and cousin of Constantine, used his court influence to turn the emperor's favor from the Nicene bishops toward the Arians.

  The Nicene leaders paid for it. Eustathius of Antioch was deposed and exiled in 330. Athanasius, who had succeeded Alexander as Bishop of Alexandria, was deposed by the First Synod of Tyre in 335, and Marcellus of Ancyra followed in 336. Arius went back to Constantinople to be readmitted to the church, but he died shortly before he could be received. Constantine died the next year, finally baptized by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia. He had put baptism off for some 11 or 12 years after the council, to be absolved of as much sin as possible. In the words quoted in the source, "with his passing the first round in the battle after the Council of Nicaea was ended."

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• 8. Myths and Missing Records

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  Voltaire helped spread the story that the biblical canon was fixed at Nicaea by laying all the competing books on an altar and keeping those that did not fall off. The tale traces back to the Synodicon Vetus, a pseudo-historical account of early church councils from 887, and the source calls it a "fictitious anecdote." No record exists of any discussion of the canon at the council. The canon was nearly complete by the time the Muratorian fragment was written. In 331 Constantine commissioned fifty Bibles for the Bishop of Constantinople, but it is unclear whether he wanted whole Testaments, only the New Testament, or merely the Gospels. Some scholars think the request spurred the making of canon lists. Jerome claimed in his Prologue to Judith that the Nicene Council counted the Book of Judith among the Scriptures. Modern scholars such as Edmon Gallagher doubt that this shows any canon selection at the council.

  The word "Trinity" did not originate at Nicaea either. The council dealt primarily with the deity of Christ. The earliest surviving use of the term is by Theophilus of Antioch, who lived AD 115-181 and applied it to Theos, the Logos and Sophia. Origen and Tertullian used the Greek Trias and the Latin trinitas over a century earlier than Nicaea. Polycarp, Ignatius and Justin Martyr had already expressed a notion of a "divine three" in the 2nd century. At Nicaea, questions about the Holy Spirit were largely left alone until the relationship of Father and Son was settled around 362. A fuller doctrine was formulated at the Council of Constantinople in 381, with a final form shaped primarily by Gregory of Nyssa.

  Canon 6 produced a longer argument. Protestant theologian Philip Schaff read it as confirming an existing custom, with Alexandria, Rome and Antioch placed on substantially equal footing. Fr. James F. Loughlin offered a Catholic reading in which the canon shows the Bishop of Rome confirming the jurisdiction of the other patriarchs by his authority. Karl Josef von Hefele believed the council gave Alexandria the whole civil Diocese of Egypt. The source says these readings share an assumption that has been proven false, namely that each bishop already presided over a whole diocese. Timothy F. Kauffman points out that Rome and Milan both lay in the civil Diocese of Italy, while Antioch and Alexandria both lay in the Diocese of Oriens. On this reading, the council left most of Oriens to Antioch and assigned a few provinces to Alexandria, "since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also."

  No conciliar acts survive, so historians depend on other writers. The main sources are the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius of Caesarea and the History of the First Council of Nicaea by Gelasius of Cyzicus. Athanasios supplies three orations Against the Arians and two epistles, one written in 350-351 and containing the Nicene Creed. Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, Theodoret of Cirrhus and Rufinus of Aquileia wrote church histories that cover the council. Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus also wrote on its theological aspects.

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