by Pam Brink

Created on: February 11, 2011   Last Updated: May 01, 2012

The primary impetus for the first Council of Nicea, held in 325, was to discuss the problem of Arianism. During the Fourth Century, Arius, a priest of the Church of Alexandria (Antioch), was going about the Christian world preaching that Jesus was not divine, that he was not co-equal with God the Father and that there was no such thing as the Holy Trinity or a Triune God. Arius taught that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were semi-divine. Many Christians believed this doctrine (including the Emperor Constantine, most of the Christians in the Germanic tribes and a majority of the world’s bishops). The question of how to counter this heresy was immediate and pressing.  

The basic doctrine underlying Christian theology was,and continues to be, that Jesus was both human and divine. The first sentence in the Gospel of John makes that point very clearly. He was the second person of the Trinity composed of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christian theology is based upon a belief in one God with three natures. When Arius proclaimed the Jesus was not divine, he was denying the existence of the Trinity.

The popularity of the Arian doctrine threatened not just to split the Church but might also cause a civil war. Constantine, not wanting unrest in the empire, called a council of all bishops to decide the issue, with Constantine, himself, attending the meetings.

It was Athanasius (297-373) who proposed the words used later in the formulation of the Nicene Creed, a statement of the fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church. (See the difference between the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed here.)

Constantine called a council of all bishops in 325 to discuss the issue. The meeting lasted for two months and twelve days. Three hundred and eighteen bishops were in attendance.

There were two major outcomes of the First Council of Nicea: the creation of the Nicene Creed and the establishment of a fixed date for Easter.

Although Constantine is often called the first Christian Roman Emperor, this isn’t quite correct. In 313, just twelve years before the Council at Nicea, Constantine had issued the Edict of Milan, which decreed Roman toleration of Christianity and the end of Roman persecution of Christians. Throughout his lifetime, Constantine remained a pagan but his mother, Helena, was a devout Christian, which may have influenced his decision relating to Christians. On his deathbed, and at his own request, Constantine was baptized a Christian. The priest who baptized him, however, was an Arian priest and not an Orthodox Christian priest.

The first great debate, then, was on the nature of God and the establishment of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

References

http://www.newadvent.org/library/almanac_14388a.htm

Mike Aquilina. The Fathers of the Church: An introduction to the first Christian teachers. 2006.

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