{"id":22061,"date":"2025-07-21T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/?p=22061"},"modified":"2025-07-21T21:05:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T01:05:29","slug":"from-nicaea-to-the-nicene-creed-sixty-years-of-confusion-and-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/article\/longform\/from-nicaea-to-the-nicene-creed-sixty-years-of-confusion-and-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"From Nicaea to the \u201cNicene Creed\u201d: Sixty Years of Confusion and Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although church history has bequeathed many famous heroes to posterity, few people have ever heard the name of Cadmus of Bosporus. Even the most knowledgeable church historians would be hard pressed to place him. He was an obscure bishop from the Crimean Peninsula along the coast of the Black Sea. His contributions to church history remain entirely unknown to us except for one thing: his signature. In the ancient manuscript lists for the Council of Nicaea, Cadmus (or Kadmos<\/em> in Greek) appears as the final signatory\u2014number 220\u2014who put his name to the Creed of Nicaea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the ink of Cadmus\u2019s signature had dried on the parchment and all the bishops went home after the summer of 325, it\u2019s tempting to believe the Trinitarian controversy had been solved forever. We like our history in neat packages. We tell ourselves that once the council had done its job, orthodoxy reigned forever after. The good guys had won the day. The bad guys\u2014the instigator Arius and two recalcitrant Libyans who joined him\u2014had been crushed underfoot like heretical snakes. Greek Orthodox icons still depict Arius groveling at the feet of the triumphant councilmen. Some icons even show St Nicholas of Myra\u2014the inspiration for the later figure of Santa Claus\u2014giving the rebellious heretic a well-deserved slap to the face. The deity of Christ had triumphed, never again to be questioned. All of this sounds great to our ears\u2014except it\u2019s not what happened. The real events that unfolded in the decades after the council were much more messy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Arius groveling at Nicaea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A
Nicholas slapping Arius<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Fate of Arius<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Though Arius had been excommunicated, he didn\u2019t disappear into the dustbin of history. He hung around Palestine and the eastern Roman Empire, where his theological ideas found widespread support even if few people attributed them to their ostensible founder. Among those who sympathized with Arius\u2019s type of thinking was the great church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea. To complicate matters, another prominent supporter of Arius\u2014perhaps the most powerful bishop of his age\u2014also bore the name Eusebius. His church at Nicomedia was a see in one of the main imperial capitals, so this second Eusebius was well connected to the political world. He was a close confidante of Emperor Constantine\u2019s sister, Constantia. Through her, he had access to Constantine himself. In fact, he was distantly related to the imperial family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after the Council of Nicaea rejected Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia continued to support the exiled cleric. This action angered Constantine, who wasn\u2019t particularly committed to any particular form of Trinitarian theology but wanted ecclesiastical unity above all else. He sent Eusebius away for continuing to stir the Arian pot. Though Eusebius had put his name on the Nicene Creed, it was widely recognized that he had \u201cagreed to subscribe with hand only, not heart.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/sup> And he refused to sign his name to the condemnations of Arius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Rufinus of Aquileia: <\/span>Historia Ecclesiastica<\/em> 10.5. Translated by Philip R. Amidon, <\/span>The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia: Books 10 and 11<\/em> (Oxford: 1997). Online excerpt <\/span>here<\/a>.<\/span><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Constantine wanted his impressive council to put a final end to the debate and bring the empire back into theological agreement. But when a few years passed and it became obvious that \u201cArian\u201d kinds of thinking (more on that term in a moment) would continue to proliferate, Constantine found himself open to compromise. Since the Arian perspective hadn\u2019t faded away but only grew stronger, Constantine decided the best path to unity would be to fudge the language of Nicaea in ways that all parties\u2014or at least the main ones\u2014could live with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eusebius of Nicomedia saw his chance at restoration. He humbly\u2014though perhaps not entirely honestly\u2014told a council of churchmen, \u201cIf you should now think fit to restore us to your presence, you will find that we agree with you on all points, and agree fully in your decrees.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/sup> Since the emperor regarded this recantation as satisfactory, Eusebius found himself ushered back into the hallways of the imperial palace and the churches of the tetrarchic capital. He began to advocate for Arianism in impactful ways that a minor prelate like Arius never could have achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea to a Council<\/em> 5. Translated by Glen Thompson on the excellent website, <\/span>Fourth Century Christianity<\/a>. <\/span><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In the end, Arius faded off the stage of church history, but not before going out with a bang. His cataclysmic demise was preceded by seeming success. With help from his supporters, he managed to get himself reinstated into church fellowship at a Jerusalem council in 335. He was even granted an audience before Constantine where he swore allegiance to the Nicene Creed. But in stating his personal faith, Arius only affirmed that God\u2019s Son was begotten of God \u201cbefore all ages,\u201d not that he was\u2014and here is the crucial Nicene point\u2014eternally<\/em> begotten and thus always existent. Arius left open the possibility that there was a time when Christ \u201cwas not.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/sup> Nevertheless, his creedal affirmation was good enough for Constantine, who sent Arius back to Alexandria in good standing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Technically, the ancient discussion wasn\u2019t about \u201cChrist,\u201d but about the Logos, or Word, who became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth. The term \u201cChrist\u201d functions in this article as a shorthand way to refer to the second person of the Trinity. <\/span><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Controversy immediately broke out in Egypt because the city\u2019s young bishop, Athanasius, knew about Arius\u2019s theological duplicity and refused to accept him into fellowship. Nicaea\u2019s vital and inviolable doctrine taught that Christ was consubstantial and coeternal with the Father, which Arius actually denied no matter what Constantine believed. The complex politics of the times, which were intertwined with theology, caused Athanasius to be exiled. Yet Arius was also summoned back to Constantinople (newly established as the main imperial capital) to account for his problematic doctrine and the ongoing church strife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local bishop at Constantinople, Alexander, adhered to Nicene Trinitarianism, so he rejected Arius just like the leaders in Egypt had done. He refused to admit Arius to communion. But over in Nicomedia, Eusebius was pulling strings to get Alexander deposed from church office. In response, Alexander doubled down, not into logical arguments and politicking, but prayer and fasting. He shut himself in the Constantinople\u2019s greatest church, Holy Peace, and prostrated himself before the altar, adding a flood of tears to his prayers for several days and nights. His petition was simple. If Arius\u2019s views were right, Alexander prayed he wouldn\u2019t have to witness the day appointed for their discussion; but if the Nicene view was correct, Arius should suffer God\u2019s righteous punishment for heresy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon enough, Alexander was proven right in a dramatic way. According to the church historian Socrates Scholasticus (not the same man as the philosopher of similar name), a divine judgment struck Arius the day before he was to be admitted to communion at Constantinople. Socrates records that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

a terror arising from the remorse of conscience seized Arius, and with the terror a violent relaxation of the bowels: he therefore enquired whether there was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of Constantine\u2019s Forum, he hastened thither. Soon after a faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded, followed by a copious hemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died.[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

4. Socrates Scholastics, <\/span>Ecclesiastical History<\/em> 1.38. Translated by A.C. Zenos in Philip Schaff, <\/span>Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, <\/em>Series 2, 2:35. Online <\/span>here<\/a>. <\/span><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In Socrates\u2019s day, passers-by would still whisper and point at the dreadful latrine where the arch-heretic had met his ghastly end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Depiction of Arius\u2019s death on the toilet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The original account of these events came from the pen of Arius\u2019s mortal enemy, Athanasius. He interpreted the scene biblically, equating it with the death of the traitor Judas who \u201cfell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out\u201d (Acts 1:18 NIV). But it\u2019s debatable whether these events happened to Arius exactly like the ancient historians described. Exaggeration and over-spiritualization characterize the narratives. Some modern scholars have even suggested an alternate theory: instead of divine judgment, Arius might have been poisoned by his opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the case, Arius had been suddenly removed from the stage. Shortly thereafter, Bishop Alexander died, and so did Emperor Constantine (though not before being baptized on his deathbed by Eusebius of Nicomedia). As the decade of the 340s began, the views of Arius had been invigorated with new life despite the death of their namesake. It was time for the next generation of orthodox theologians to rise up and defend Nicaea. The energetic Athanasius was ready to go to war against the adherents of \u201cArianism.\u201d But what exactly did that term mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athanasius against \u201cArianism\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Athanasius found it convenient to lump all his opponents together and brand them with the name of the heretic who had died such an ignominious death. His four-volume broadside Against the Arians<\/em> takes his enemies to task without remorse. But modern scholars aren\u2019t keen to use \u201cArianism\u201d as a catch-all term. For one thing, the various outlooks differed from one another, as well as from Arius\u2019s own views. Sometimes, the groups mutually condemned each other. Furthermore, the adherents of these views didn\u2019t necessarily trace themselves to Arius as some sort of honorable founder. They derived their views from the pages of Scripture and what they considered long-standing Christian principles that pre-dated the rise of Arius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, one key element bound these views into a single category: their shared opposition to Nicaea\u2019s term homoousios<\/em> (the Greek word homos <\/em>means \u201cone, same\u201d and ousia <\/em>means \u201csubstance\u201d). The various anti-Nicene parties viewed that repugnant term as a form of Sabellianism (today often called modalism) which collapsed the Trinity into a unity that wrongly conflated the three persons as a single being. Although that wasn\u2019t Nicaea\u2019s intent, its opponents thought it did precisely that. Their collective denial of consubstantiality between the Father and Son made Athanasius view them as a single \u201cArian\u201d enemy, like a hydra with many snarling heads but the same essential body. For the sake of convenience, we\u2019ll use the term \u201cArianism\u201d to describe the anti-Nicene views that Athanasius spent his life combatting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of all the political intrigue that went along with the theological wrangling, Athanasius was kicked out of his Alexandrian church five different times. The emperors either commanded that he leave or local threats made it too dangerous for him to stay. Sometimes, he managed to escape to the Egyptian countryside or the remote deserts of the Upper Nile, where the ascetic monks took him in and gave him shelter. Other times, Athanasius was exiled all the way to the western empire, to Rome or even as far away as Trier in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athanasius being gone from his church gave Arianism the freedom to gain more ground. One eyewitness of those times, the great biblical scholar Jerome, remarked that despite the seeming victory at Nicaea, a few years later, Arianism had triumphed in its place. When an Arian creed was published at another council as an attempted replacement for the one from 325, Jerome could scarcely believe it. \u201cThe Nicene Faith stood condemned by acclamation,\u201d he lamented. \u201cThe whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Jerome, <\/span>Dialogue Against Luciferians<\/em> 19, in <\/span>NPNF2<\/em>, ed. Philip Schaff, 6:319. Online <\/span>here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

For many years, Bishop Athanasius represented a lone voice striving to preserve the doctrine of the Trinity against those who would water it down by making Christ in some way inferior to his Father. Despite such fierce opposition from every direction, Athanasius took his stand on the full deity of Christ and would not budge. Because of his dogged determination to defend the Trinity, church history has described him with the slogan Athanasius contra mundum<\/em>. This Latin phrase means \u201cAthanasius against the world\u201d\u2014and in a very real sense, during the middle decades of the fourth century, that was true. Almost everyone had taken up a different view from Nicaea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What were those erroneous views? Three main forms of Arianism developed in the mid-fourth century:<\/p>\n\n\n\n