Historical Spotlight: First Council of Nicaea

The first council of Nicaea occurred in 325 AD, convened by the Emperor Constantine to discuss the rising problems of Arianism and the conflict growing in Christendom.

When Constantine announced the council, he asked for bishops from all over the world come together to Nicaea to discuss the question. He also provided transportation for the bishops and during the council, he provided for all the needs of the members. Compared to the policy of the emperor 30 years before this, where he’d just kill the Christians at random, Constantine’s providing for transportation and the food were a massive step forward.

The two biggest parties of this council were the traditional party, who followed the traditional understanding that Jesus was a part of the Trinity, and the party of Arius, that Jesus was a creature. The champions of the traditional party were Hosius, a hundred year old bishop from Spain, and a certain deacon from Alexandria, Athanasius, a rather unexpected champion of orthodoxy, given his youth. The champions of the Arianism were Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea.

The council itself was presided over by Hosius, the bishop from Spain. Pope Sylvester I couldn’t be at the council himself, apparently because he was rather old and was unable to make the journey. Constantine was present at every session, but according to everybody present at the council, including members of both sides of the debate, he did very little to discuss the question and really just there to make sure nobody started a riot.

The council itself took great pains to ensure that they heard both sides of the argument. Arius himself was called into the sessions many times to try to present his side of the debate. The council fathers then took the time to debate the topic long enough that they could write a creed. The creed that came out of this council was the first draft of the creed that we say today at Mass every Sunday. By the end of the council, all but two of the bishops had signed onto the creed. At the end of this, the two bishops who were still dissenting were officially excommunicated. Arius was also excommunicated along with these bishops and everything he had written was ordered to be burned.

However, this debate didn’t go very smoothly. The creed was written in Greek, because this was the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, where Greek was more widely used than Latin. The word in Greek that was the source of most of the debate was “homoousios,” (ὁμοούσιος) which means “of the same substance.” In the creed today, we use the word “consubstantial.” This basically says that Jesus is fully and completely God, which was what the Arians were debating. By the end of the council, all but 2 bishops signed a copy of the creed. However, some of the bishops were a bit sneaky. They added a single letter, an ‘i’ (in Greek, iota), to the word, to completely change the meaning. This is the origin of the phrase “an iota of a difference.”

The word that it was changed to was “homoiousios,” (ὁμοιούσιος) which means “of a similar substance.” Basically, they said that Jesus was kinda God, but not really. These bishops would lay the groundwork for the part of the Arian controversy that should have destroyed the Church. But that is a subject for another time.

This council also officially and definitively decided the matter of when Easter was to be celebrated. The consensus was that everybody should celebrate it on the same day, which had been decided for Rome in 191. There were a few people who held out to try to use the Jewish calendar to decide the date. They were called “Quartodecimans” and became a bizarre heresy group.

The council also decided the case of a bishop named Meletius. Meletius had an unfortunate habit of governing neighboring dioceses when the lawful bishops were away. He even went so far as to declare himself the bishop of Alexandria. He would also ordain his own bishops. At the time of the council, he had ordained 29 bishops. The council decided that the clergy he ordained would be allowed to keep their positions, but were to be subordinate to the rightfully ordained clergy. Meletius was allowed to keep his title as a bishop, but he was stripped of all the powers that went with it.

There were a total of 20 disciplinary canons to come from the council. Basically, twenty new rules showed up, including the beginnings of priestly celibacy, that self-mutilated men could not become priests, and that deacons cannot be considered close to priests in case of emergency sacraments.

Overall, the first ecumenical council of the Church considered itself a success. It had dealt with the biggest problem of the age, along with some other minor issues that had arisen. Unfortunately for the council fathers, enough ambiguity had been left that another controversy was brewing even as they went their separate ways. The Semi-Arians would soon rise from the ashes of Arius and his supporters.

The Church stood at a crossroads.