The
Council of Nicaea has often been cited as the singular point in history where Christianity and the Bible as we know it first came into existence. According to the popular narrative, Christianity as we know it today was first created by Emperor
Constantine I in the 4th Century AD. Before this time, there were many competing sects of Christianity each with it's own written and oral traditions concerning essential doctrines of the faith. In order to make his version of Christianity the official state religion of the Empire, Constantine organized a clandestine council with the intention of creating a unified holy text in support the new Imperial religion. Once the Bible had been officially created, the newly formed Roman Catholic Church destroyed all unauthorized Biblical manuscripts and other writings they deemed heretical before setting out on a bloody, government-sanctioned purge against anyone and anything who dared question the authority of the Emperor and the Church.
This is the version of history many have accepted as fact. However, a closer examination of history tells quite a different tale.
The First Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 AD following Emperor Constantine's alleged conversion to Christianity in 312 AD. Despite his conversion to the Christian faith, Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Instead, Constantine decreed that all religions within the Empire should be legalized in the charter known as the
Edict of Milan (ca. 313 AD). Christianity was not the official state religion of the Empire until Emperor
Theodosius I issued the
Edict of Thesolonica in 380 AD. Christianity therefore, was not the only authorized religion within the Empire so much as it was one of many religions legalized by Emperor Constantine in 313 AD.
Furthermore, there was no centralized Church government during the Council of Nicaea. Each individual community of Christians was governed by a local bishop. The papacy as we know it today did not exist in the 4th Century AD. The Pope was simply the bishop of the Church in Rome, one of over 1,800 bishops scattered all across the Roman Empire.
Two years before the Edict of Milan, the
Edict of Serdica officially ended the persecution of Christians under Emperor
Diocletian (ca. 303 AD) by which many of the bishops present at the Council of Nicaea had endured imprisonment and torture for the sake of their religion. The fact that nearly all of the roughly 300 bishops in attendance at Nicaea lived through one of the most intense periods of Christian persecution in antiquity is crucial given the fact that the Council of Nicaea was convened, not to create Christianity
—as those who were summoned to attend were already Christians
—but rather to address a specific heresy springing up within Christianity. The men representing the orthodox Christian faith at Nicaea had not changed their stance on the core doctrines of the faith even in the face of imprisonment, torture and death. And they would show the same unity and steadfast resolve in their opposition to the Heresy of Arius.
The nontrinitarian doctrines of
Arianism—that Jesus is a lesser, created being separate from and subordinate to God the Father
—were first taught by
Paul of Samosata, the Bishop of Antioch (ca. 260-268 AD) and was later popularized by a man known as
Arius of Alexandria at the turn of the 3rd and 4th Centuries AD. Arius' new teachings had bitterly divided the Church in Alexandria, forcing Arius to flee to Jerusalem where he continued to teach the Samosatene Doctrine, leading many to convert to Arianism. It was this divisive debate on the deity of Christ that prompted Constantine to convene the Council of Nicaea. It was his hope that the Christians would come to an agreement on the issue and that unity within the Church would be restored. However, instead of embracing Arianism or agreeing on a compromise, the Council of Nicaea all but unanimously recognized Arius' teachings as heretical. Of the nearly 300 bishops present at Nicaea, all but three
—Arius and two of his followers
—signed the
Nicene Creed, officially codifying the orthodox belief in the deity of Christ.
Following the Council's ruling, Arius was excommunicated and exiled from the Roman Empire. Later, Arius convinced Emperor Constantine to allow him back into the Empire so that he could force the orthodox Church to readmit him. However Arius died en route and was never readmitted into the orthodox Church. That said, one of his followers,
Eusebius of Nicomedia, managed to sway Constantine's views in favor of Arianism. In a bid for political power, Eusebius of Nicomedia baptized Constantine before his death, thus legitimizing Arianism by means of Imperial endorsement. Over the next several decades, the Arians gained more and more political power, which they used to try to overthrow orthodox Christianity. Ultimately however, the Arians began fighting among themselves and lost much of their political influence, allowing the orthodoxy to reaffirm the Nicene Creed at the council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Eventually Arianism died out completely, though the Samosatene Doctrine would later find a new voice in the 19th Century teachings of
Joseph Smith Jr. and
Charles Taze Russell.
All that to say, the Council of Nicaea did not invent orthodox Christianity. Instead, we find the orthodox views were already well established by that time, as evidenced both by the unanimity of the Council's decision regarding Arius and his followers and multiple attestations within the cumulative writings of the
Apostolic and
Ante-Nicene Fathers. The Council of Nicaea, therefore, did not invent Christianity, they simply affirmed and codified what Christians had always believed regarding the deity of Christ.
Furthermore, the Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with the canon of scripture or the creation of the Bible. The Canon of Scripture was affirmed at the
Council of Laodicea in 364 AD
—nearly 40 years after Nicaea
—and was reaffirmed by both the Council of Hippo in 393 AD and the Council of Carthage in 397 AD. Even then, the Council of Laodicea did not invent the Bible, nor did it decide which books were authorized by the Church. The Council of Laodicea merely
affirmed the collections of books that had already been recognized as authoritative. (There is a difference between a work that is
authorized by a ruling body and a work recognized as being
authoritative on a particular topic.)
The earliest Biblical Canon we have discovered to date is the
Muratorian Canon (ca. 170-180 AD) though there are other lists dating from the Second Century onward. The appearance of Biblical Canons in the mid-to-late Second Century AD should come as no surprise given the sudden influx of spurious Gnostic writings at this time. (ie. The so-called Gospels of Thomas, Peter, and Judas, etc.) Faced with the sudden proliferation of alleged scriptures attributed to authors who had been dead for 100 years, it makes perfect sense that the early Christians would seek to safeguard themselves against false teachings by compiling lists of authoritative works previously recognized as having come from legitimate sources.
While it is true that these early lists do disagree on the inclusion of some books (ie. Certain
Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament and the New Testament books of Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 3 John and Revelation, etc.) they all include the complete canon of Hebrew Scriptures (The Old Testament), the four Gospels, the book of Acts and Paul's Epistles, which make up the bulk of the New Testament writings. This continuity demonstrates a high degree of agreement among the early Churches in regards to the Canon of Scripture, as well as a steadfast commitment to preserving the Biblical text against later additions.
Following the Council of Carthage, the next time the Canon of Scripture was addressed at a Church Council was at the
Council of Trent (1545-1563 AD), almost 1,200 years later. This council canonized much of the Apocrypha as inspired Scripture in direct response to the growing Protestant Movement in order to garner proof-texts in support of Catholic teachings on purgatory, praying for the dead, and salvation by the paying of alms/purchase of indulgences. None of which are found in any of the books recognized as authoritative by the council of Laodicea.
In closing, it is clear from a careful investigation of history that the Council of Nicaea did not invent Christianity or the Bible. Every bishop present at the Council, with the exception of Arius and his followers, were orthodox Christians who shared the same core belief in the deity of Christ, his death and Resurrection as modern Christians. These beliefs are well attested to within the New Testament manuscripts, the writings of the Apostolic and Ante-Nicene Fathers, and the writings of contemporary
Roman and
Jewish sources dating back to the First Century AD. Likewise the Bible was not a later invention of any Church council. Rather, the Church Councils in the 4th Century merely affirmed those writings which had already been recognized as authoritative works by the early Christians starting in the mid First Century AD.
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