Historical Spotlight: Arianism

Today will be the first installment of history in this blog. Today, we’ll be talking about the first ecumenical council in the history of the world. The First Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 AD by the emperor Constantine. Before we discuss the council itself, though, we’ll begin to discuss the surrounding context in history.

Constantine came to power in the Roman Empire in 312 AD, by winning the battle of Milvian Bridge, where his army placed a logo on their armor that Constantine said he had seen in a vision. He credited this victory to the Christian God, and because of this, in 313 AD, he issued the edict of Milan, formally legalizing Christianity in the empire. However, contrary to popular belief, Constantine was NOT baptized when he issued the edict. Constantine was still a pagan at this point in time, but he was friendly to Christians after his victory.

Meanwhile, in the southern part of the empire, in Africa, Arius was beginning to preach some questionable doctrines. He wasn’t the first, though. Arius was, in teaching, the historical grandchild of a few people. He wasn’t the first to present his ideas, but he was by far the most illustrious and most successful in his teaching.

Arius was a priest in Alexandria and began to teach a radical idea that would set up the largest controversy in the history of the Church. Arianism was a bizarre teaching. The idea was that the person of the Son of God, aka Jesus, was not actually God. He was just an angel, though the highest of any created being. As a creature, he would also be very different from any other creature. The motto of Arianism was “There was a time when the Son was not.” There’s actually a group of “Christians” today that still holds this belief. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are actually an Arian group. In a few weeks, I’ll explain why the word Christians is in quotation marks. In the meantime, though, back to Arianism.

Arius began to lead people astray as a priest. The bishop of Alexandria, though, was uninterested in trying to pursue the debate. Instead, Arius was allowed to continue his preaching mostly unbothered. Alexander, the bishop, had in his service a deacon who could see through the cleverness of Arius’s presentation. Athanasius, a deacon, was a man who was just as clever as Arius. Because of the effect of Athanasius, a synod (a meeting of local bishops) was convened in Alexandria. These bishops decided to condemn Arius as a heretic and excommunicated him.

This should been enough to condemn Arius in the eyes of the rest of the world, but unfortunately, the politics of the world prevented Arius from ending his teachings. In Constantinople, there was a bishop friendly to his teachings. Eusebius of Nicomedia was bishop of Constantinople, the eastern capitol of the Roman Empire. There, Arius found himself a willing audience with Constantia, the sister of Emperor Constantine. Arius enjoyed imperial protection and found an audience with Eusebius, who was willing to do anything he could to increase his power in the Church. This included gathering about him a sizeable collection of followers with this new idea that would be identified with him.

Arianism began to be united with Eusebius of Nicomedia, whose political base was growing. The Church was beginning to splinter along factional lines and pagans began to mock the Christians. The arguments began to lead to violent riots. Constantine tried to quell the violence by forcing himself into the issue. He assumed the problem of Arianism was a secondary matter and so wrote a letter to Rome asking for Pope Sylvester to settle the matter.

When Pope Sylvester received this letter, he began to understand the depths of the problem. Pope Sylvester returned Constantine’s letter with a letter of his own, explaining the situation. Constantine received this second letter and began to understand just how big of a problem he was facing. Once he understood, Constantine summoned all the bishops of the world to Nicaea to discuss the matter.