Pathway to Unity - Catholic Church marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea

By Sean M. Wright

Who or what is Jesus? 

According to author Martin Mosebach, “The early Christians knew that the Christian message was Jesus himself. The essence of the Gospels’ new, more profound, and more compelling picture of God was that God had become flesh, present among us.” (“The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy” (Ignatius Press). There was much confusion about Jesus’ precise relationship to God.

The Problem

Was Jesus the One God as well as the eternal Son of God? If there is only one God, how can Jesus be God if the Father is God? And how is he the Son of God? Is he a demigod like Hercules, son of Jupiter? Or was Jesus a man so righteous that he was adopted by God to be his son? Or was the son a powerful, pre-existent spirit, Michael the Archangel, perhaps? If Jesus is the Son of God, he must be subordinate to the Father, after all, he said, “The Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28). But how, then, can Jesus also say, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30)?

Around 315 A.D., Arius, an erudite priest in Alexandria, Egypt, pondered the oneness of God so heavily stressed in Scripture, as in Isaiah 45:5: “I am the LORD, there is no other; there is no God except I Myself.”

Arius came to deny God’s existence as three-in-one, the Most Holy Trinity. He declared Jesus, the Logos, i.e., the Word, as a lesser god, not eternal, “the firstborn of all creation,” part human, part divine. The belief sounded reasonable; preaching it soon rocked the Catholic Church.

To be honest, the concept of three divine persons eternally existing as One God is a conundrum which has puzzled the greatest minds. St. Theophilus of Antioch, c. 160, was first to use the Greek compound word meaning “tri-unity,” citing Scripture to describe the existence of Father, his Word (Son) and his Wisdom (Spirit) as One God.

Around 190, Tertullian, that intense Carthaginian theologian, basing himself on Theophilus, wrote in Latin even more precisely about the Trinitas. He described Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three individual yet inseparable Entities Who are, therefore, co-eternal and co-equal in essence, knowledge, power, and majesty.

After Rome and Antioch, Alexandria was a major cultural center and one of the three influential, patriarchal sees tracing their origins back to St Peter. Arius’ bishop, Alexander, demanded he stop teaching his unapostolic view. Arius refused. In fact, he began writing lively songs to popularize his doctrine; followers then sang them where people met, especially in taverns. One might hear something like the following, based on the refrain of Sigmund Romberg’s famous “Drinking Song” in The Student Prince:

Think! Think! God is not Three! Think! Think! That cannot be!

Think! Think! Think! Let every believer believe just like me!

The Solution

The tumult grew, causing grave concern to Constantine, the Augustus and sole Emperor. Without really understanding the theological concepts involved, he summoned all the bishops of the Empire to end the division, meeting in what is considered the first ecumenical council.

Councils were nothing new to the Christian milieu. Acts 15 describes the original council called by the apostles and presbyters in Jerusalem, meeting in 50 A.D.  Nicaea, however, was unique in five ways:

First, it was not convened by a pope or by a bishop but by the emperor Constantine. The Augustus had adopted the religion as a means of unifying an empire comprised of conquered peoples surrounding the Mare Nostrum, “Our Sea,” as the Romans called the Mediterranean. 

Second, this would be no small gathering of local ecclesiastics. In May of 325, Constantine sent word to all the bishops in the Empire to meet in Nicæa — now the town of Iznik in Turkey. It is located  20 miles away from Byzantium, the city being reconstructed as Constantinople, the glittering new capital of the Roman Empire.

Bishops were summoned from Europe, Africa, and Asia Minor, the largest hierarchical gathering to date. Many of these men still bore dreadful scars from horrible tortures meted out during the persecution of Diocletian. Now, praising God’s benevolence, they were awed by the Emperor graciously providing transportation, food and lodging — all at government expense.

Old age prevented Pope Sylvester I from attending, but the priests Vitus and Vincentius acted as his legates. Hosius, bishop of Cordova, Spain, the Emperor’s advisor, presided over the sessions beginning in July, with Constantine himself presiding over the final session in August. 

Third, the Council depended on the technical term “Homo+ousios” meaning “Of the same substance (or essence),” a term not found in Scripture. Council fathers at first groused about straying from the Word of God to produce a functioning definition to make clear the relation between Father and Son but ultimately gave way.

Athanasius, Alexander’s deacon, was forcefully eloquent in presenting the orthodox, apostolic belief. He argued that the Son, “only-begotten” (“monogenes” in Greek) as Jesus describes himself (Jn 3:16), logically must share the same nature and essence as the Father.

There are conflicting accounts of the role of Arius at the council. However, the most reliable sources seem to indicate that Arius, having been excommunicated by the Synod of Alexandria in 318, attended the Council of Nicaea but was not allowed to speak. The tale of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, slapping Arius after hearing his blasphemy appears to be a pious fabrication.

Instead, Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia Bishop and Theognis of Nicaea presented Arian belief. After explaining Arius’ blatant denial of Christ’s divinity, their cause was irretrievably lost. Of the 318 bishops and delegates present those, two alone voted to accept Arius’ theology.

Fourth, from Nicaea came a “symbolon,” as it is called in Greek,  or in Latin “credo”: a statement of belief. Similar statements, such as the Apostles Creed, had long been used, especially in baptismal liturgies.

The Nicene Creed stated Catholic dogma in ringing affirmations no Arian could accept: “God from God, light from light, very God from very God,” (“very” comes from the Latin “veritas,” meaning “true.”) So important is this truth that every Sunday we proclaim belief in the one God as a family of three divine persons, with an emphasis in the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ.

To the creed was added anathemas — solemn condemnations implying excommunication “for those who say: There was a time when He was not.” St. Paul uses this word in 1 Corinthians 5:5; 16:22 and elsewhere; condemning malcontents and deceivers with maledictions and excommunication.

Fifth, the council imposed the obligation on all bishops to celebrate the Christian Pascha (Easter) on the first Sunday following the first full moon of spring, as Sts. Peter and Paul had observed. In Asia Minor, bishops following a tradition dating to the apostles John and Philp, celebrated both Crucifixion and Resurrection on the 14th Nisan of the Jewish calendar no matter what day it fell on in the Julian calendar. This ended the Quartodeciman (14th) Controversy.

Concluding the council, Constantine praised God the Holy Spirit for working through his bishops. Endorsing its theological conclusions, he decreed that Arius be exiled to Illyricum, a region on the Balkan Peninsula.

The Aftermath

So the bishops went home, all believers accepted the definitions of the council, and everyone lived happily ever after — in a pig’s eye. Remember, we’re talking Christians, here.

Referring to the post-Nicene period, St. Jerome wrote, “The world groaned, astonished to find itself Arian.”

Constantine, originally endorsing the Catholic view, changed, influenced by Eusebius of Nicomedia, the Arian bishop, who was one of his relatives. Arius was recalled from exile, dying in 336. In 337 Constantine finally allowed himself to be baptized by Eusebius, dying two weeks later. “It can be logically surmised that Eusebius had a huge hand in the acceptance of Arianism in the Constantinian household,” wrote Frances Young in “From Nicaea to Chalcedon.” Eusebius died in 342

Athanasius, succeeding Alexander as patriarch of Alexandria, continued to struggle fiercely against Arianism, earning the epithet “Athanasius contra mundi,” or “Athanasius against the world.” During his 45-year episcopacy he suffered exile five times, dying in 373. A pillar of orthodox belief, he is honored as a saint, patron of theologians and all defenders of the Faith.

It was not until 380, under Theodosius I, that Arianism lost its influence and Nicene Catholicism became the state religion of the Roman Empire. Nonetheless, elements of Arianism live today through secularism, humanism and in the theology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In June, a symposium titled “Nicaea and the Church of the Third Millennium: Towards Catholic-Orthodox Unity” was held in Rome. Pope Leo XIV addressed the symposium on June 7. Following is an excerpt of his remarks:

“The Council of Nicaea is not merely an event of the past but a compass that must continue to guide us towards the full visible unity of Christians. The First Ecumenical Council is foundational for the common journey that Catholics and Orthodox have undertaken together since the Second Vatican Council. For the Eastern Churches, which commemorate its celebration in their liturgical calendar, the Council of Nicaea is not simply one Council among others or the first in a series, but the Council par excellence, which promulgated the norm of the Christian faith, the confession of faith of the ‘318 Fathers.’”

Let us pray that all Christians come to see Jesus as he is, truly God, truly man, truly our Savior.

(Sean M. Wright, MA, award-winning journalist, Emmy nominee, and Master Catechist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Santa Clarita. He answers comments at Locksley69@aol.com.)