Welcome back to the series of lectures on Western Civilization, part one.
Today we’re going to talk about the Council of Nicaea.
There are two contexts for this, the first and obvious one is the Roman Empire.
The council takes place within the empire.
In fact, the Emperor Constantine presides over this council.
A second context is also obvious, this is early Christianity.
In fact, this is perhaps the key council in Christian history.
Significance – We’re going to see early Christian diversity reduced to Christian orthodoxy
at the Council of Nicaea.
We’re going to start with Diocletian, the Roman emperor who commences probably the most
severe persecution of the Christians ever.
This takes place in the late 3rd century or early 4th century.
Diocletian is ruling an empire that is troubled from both internal and external factors, barbarian
invasions, and so on and so forth.
He decides to reorganize the empire into what’s called the tetrarchy.
He divides it in half, east and west.
Both halves of the empire are going to have two rulers.
The primary ruler called an Augustus and a secondary ruler called a Caesar.
So two and two; you can see the possibilities for intrigue here.
Constantine, the emperor, Constantine is a Caesar in the Western portion of the empire.
Now let’s talk about Constantine in more detail.
He’s stationed at York, now this is the far northwestern periphery of the Roman Empire
and Great Britain.
Constantine as Caesar takes his legions and begins to march on Rome.
As he nears Rome he has an epiphany, he sees the sign of the cross in the sky and he hears
a voice tell him that he will conquer in this sign.
And of course, the sign of the cross is the sign of Christianity.
Constantine fights an historic battle at the Milvian Bridge just north of Rome.
He is victorious and he becomes a sole ruler in the West.
This of course, is a key moment in Christian history because Christian persecution is now
going to end and in fact, gradually Christianity will become the faith of the empire as Constantine
has this epiphany and this conversion experience.
This is probably the second-most important epiphany in Christian history, comparable
only to Saul becoming Saint Paul after his epiphany on the road to Damascus.
In 313 of the Common Era, after his victory, Constantine issues what is called the Edict
of Milan.
This establishes tolerance for Christianity in the empire.
Shortly afterwards Constantine will defeat a rival, Licinius, and become the sole emperor
of Rome.
Now let’s talk about Constantine’s conversion here.
This remains a topic of historical controversy.
Was Constantine both pagan and Christian?
Is that even possible?
Did he – in addition to his conversion to Christianity – did he retain pagan tendencies?
The sun god, Apollo, was apparently at the center of this theology.
Coins issued while Constantine was ruler carried the image of the sun god.
Constantine insists that Christians change their day of worship from the Hebrew Sabbath
to the Roman Day of the Sun.
Constantine is finally baptized on his deathbed and again, the controversy remains.
Was he a true convert to Christianity or was he a clever politician using the church as
a way of solidifying his power.
An argument has been put forward that here Constantine has established himself as the
one emperor of Rome; perhaps there should be one god, one emperor, one empire.
A clever political slogan and it probably made sense to Constantine, to reduce the empire
to the rule of one man and to reduce this cacophony of religions to one – in this
case, Christianity.
So this represents a dramatic transition for the Christian faith from that of a small,
persecuted sect to the faith of the Roman Empire.
Now, the Council of Nicaea, you’ll remember in our earlier lecture we talked about the
Gnostic Gospels.
These Gnostic Gospels illustrate just a remarkable diversity within early Christianity.
There’s no orthodoxy.
There’s no correct way to think or to believe.
There’s no Bible.
Each little Christian sect – whether in North Africa or in Syria or Turkey or Greece,
wherever they might be – they have their own set of books, letters, and materials that
they use in their services.
You’ll remember that the Gnostics favor secret knowledge over faith as the key to
salvation.
Theologians and historians point to the Gnostics as syncretic religion, that is blending other
faiths, other ideas, other theologies into one and creating a novel faith.
Again, the Gnostics illustrate diversity instead of orthodoxy.
Orthodoxy – you may remember – being the correct way of thinking.
One Gnostic Gospel even has Jesus escaping the cross and crucifixion.
This will be recapitulated later in the Koran, where the Muslims have Jesus also escaping
crucifixion.
You might remember the Gospel of Thomas we talked about earlier, when we discussed the
Gnostics, the line in particular, the quote ‘the kingdom of heaven is spread out upon
the Earth, yet men do not see it’.
This of course, is a metaphor for the presence of God all around us, yet we appear to be
unaware of it.
The Council of Nicaea takes place in 325 of the Common Era.
Initially it was to determine the proper day to celebrate Easter, which had fluctuated
from place to place.
It was also called to determine the Christian creed, a statement of belief.
The Emperor Constantine gathered the various Christian bishops from North Africa, the Middle
East, the Mediterranean Basin, brought them to Nicaea in what today we call modern-day
Turkey; he paid for their expenses, paid for their travel, etcetera, etcetera.
This must have been an interesting moment for these Christian bishops because they had
just a generation before been severely persecuted and now the Roman emperor is bringing them
together to consolidate the Christian faith.
One of the key theological questions addressed by the bishops at Nicaea was the nature of
Jesus and God; what is their relationship?
How was Jesus related to God?
Was Jesus both divine and human?
Was he one or the other?
This is the sort of minutiae that these bishops are going to grapple with.
You’ll remember the trinity will be confirmed here at Nicaea – the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit.
For many non-Christians this trinity reflects not a monotheistic religion, but a polytheistic
religion – Father, Son, Holy Ghost – and of course, there are other sort of supernatural
beings in Christianity, including Satan and angels and so on and so forth.
So many point to the trinity and say, this betrays the notion of one god.
Christians respond that this is one god in three forms.
So the controversy here goes on forever.
At Nicaea, one of the Christian bishops – Arius – argued that because Jesus is the quote
‘Son of God’, he cannot be equal to God.
So a big argument ensues over this issue.
Arius’ opponent, Athanasius, argued that God and Jesus are identical.
And finally the bishops vote on this issue and determine that Jesus is of the same substance
as God.
Now some conclusions for this –
First of all – the trinity triumphs here.
The second the Arian heresy is defeated, the Christian creed is established.
Constantine commissions Bibles to be produced.
At this point of course, you have to determine what books are going to go in and what books
are going to be left out of the Bible.
So the beginning of the canon is established here, what books are authoritative and what
books are not.
The writing of the New Testament is going to take place over a long period of time,
more than a century.
This will represent the closing of the canon.
In 167 of the Common Era, Athanasius will list the books that are going to be included
in the New Testament and at that point the canon is closed, these are the authoritative
books.
Those books left out?
Again, you can go online and simple Google Gnostic Gospels and you can see a long list
of them.
They’re quite interesting to look at.
So we have a Christian creed for the first time now; we have a Christian Bible; and we
have a unified empire with Christianity as its faith.
So that’s a brief look at the Council of Nicaea, one of the more important Christian
gatherings in history.
Thank you for your attention.