Ramblings: The Council of Nicea (Part I)

In A.D. 325, Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine called a council of bishops to determine, once and for all, what exactly was the core belief of Christianity. Whether he had any business calling such a council could be questionable, but, he may have been the only interested party with the resources to do so. He offered to cover travel expenses for all the bishops that attended, along with a limited number of staff. He had some experiences with Christianity; in A. D. 312, he is said to have had a vision of a cross and the words, “In hoc signo vinces” (under this standard {or ‘in this sign’}, thou shall be victorious {or ‘thou shall conquer’}). Constantine had crosses painted onto the shields and breastplates of his troops, and they were, indeed, victorious. His mother, Helena, is said to have been a very devout and generous Christian. Some believe that she, during a pilgrimage, discovered the cross with the sign still on it saying, “King of the Jews.” There is, however, no indication that she herself ever made such a claim.

Anyway, Constantine invited over three thousand bishops of the church to attend this council. It’s hard to say how many of them showed up. One of the attendees, Athanasius, wrote a letter in which he asserts that there were 318. Some other estimates are less. The point is, only about ten percent of the known church bothered to attend. I can imagine that there were probably many that prayed about it, and felt that God was leading them not to go. I can imagine that there were many who simply thought about it, and, realizing that the Roman Empire was, traditionally, not a friend to the church, could not see any wisdom in going. In point of fact, Constantine had only outlawed persecution against Christianity two years earlier. Now, why does an Emperor, marching troops under the standard of the cross, allow the church to be persecuted? Hard to say, but one can certainly understand the trepidation of the church leaders, and their reluctance to put themselves in Constantine’s hands. Having said that, many of those bishops who attended the council had personally suffered persecution, but they came anyway.

One of the big points of discussion was the deity of Christ. One of the bishops, Arius, contended that, since Jesus was begotten of the Father, he had a definite beginning, and therefore could not be considered co-eternal with the Father, and, furthermore, should not be deified. Arius was very much in the minority. In the initial vote, four other bishops voted with Arius; after some discussion, only two continued with Arius. It should be noted that Arius had been anathematized (excommunicated) by a vote of approximately 100 Egyptian bishops about four years earlier. The Council eventually settled on verbiage that said that Jesus was homoousios, or consubstantial, with the Father, that is, that Jesus and the Father were of one substance, because Colossians 2:9 says that in Him (in Jesus) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

If you stop and think about it, though, the confusion seems to come from the idea that before Mary became pregnant, Jesus didn’t exist. That’s easy to think that way, since we don’t really know at what point a person’s life begins. Some people say that a life doesn’t begin until the baby draws its first breath, others say life begins at conception, while others say that there are a number of lives waiting for conception so that they can obtain a physical body to go with their essence. The last group, understandably, preaches that contraception is therefore a sin, because one is preventing a living soul from obtaining a flesh-and-blood body. I don’t know that I would go that far, at least, not for most of us, but there are a number of Scriptural passages that indicate that Jesus existed long before Mary did.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:14 goes on to say, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” In his first epistle, John writes to the church, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. “ Let me first point out that John 1:14 refers to Jesus as the only begotten of the Father, but it also says that He was made flesh, which suggests that He was something else before. Of course, John 1:1 says that Jesus (or the Word) was in the beginning. So, in verse fourteen, John isn’t so much suggesting, as alluding to his earlier point. Now, in 1 John 5:7, he again refers to Jesus as the Word, rather than the Son, because at that time, Jesus had returned to His earlier state. He was no longer the flesh-and-blood Son, He was again the Word.