Council of Nicea I (325)
TARMO TOOM
The Council of Nicea, which “defines and glorifies the great mystery of Orthodoxy” (kontakion of the feast), is retrospectively considered the first ecumenical council (Eusebius, Vita Const. 3.6.1). The Nicene Creed became the basis for the Niceno- Constantinopolitan Creed, which is popularly known as the “Nicene Creed.”
Emperor Constantine needed to secure the religious unity of the Christians in his empire. Among several things that threatened it were the ecclesiological controversies, especially the Melitian schism, the liturgical controversy over the right date of Easter, and the increasingly internationalized theological controversy between Alexander of Alexandria and Arius. Accordingly, more than 200 bishops were summoned to the Council of Nicea (now Iznik: site of his imperial palace). A few came from North Africa and the Western Churches, while most were from the Greek-speaking Eastern Churches.
The Acta of the council, if ever written, are not extant. Eusebius, highlighting the role of the emperor, provided his description of the council in the De vita Constantini, and several years later St. Athanasius offered his version of events in his De decretis.
Although it is common now to think about the Council of Nicea as primarily a doctrinal gathering (and one has to thank Athanasius writing out of his apologetic context for popularizing such a perception), it was originally largely an administrative meeting which addressed ecclesiological- liturgical questions. This can be borne out by looking at the substance of its twenty reformatory Canons.
In its Creed, the Council of Nicea affirmed the eternal generation of the only-begotten Son (monogenes) from the Father’s “essence” (ousia). Father and Son were said to be “consubstantial” (homoousios). However, what this term exactly meant and implied was left to be hammered out during the 4th-century trinitarian controversies (Hilary of Poitiers, Syn. 67–9; Trin. 4.4). Basil of Caesarea remarked at the time, “The term homoousion [is] ill received in certain quarters” (Ep. 52.1). The main problem proved to be that it could be interpreted in several senses, not least in a modalist meaning.
Moreover, despite rising to almost archetypal status, the Creed of Nicea is by no means a complete summation of the Christian faith. While trinitarian in structure, it says almost nothing about the Holy Spirit and does not even mention the church and Virgin Mary. Instead, it is case specific, rising out of a particular apologetic, focusing on the full divinity of the Son and issuing anathemas against Arius. The original Nicene Creed, which was later called at the Council of Ephesus in 431 “Pious and sufficiently helpful for the whole world,” was written for bishop- theologians and was probably never actually used in the celebration of baptisms. It had to wait for its decisive modification, reaffirmation, and (in a sense) completion by the Council of Constantinople in 381.
SEE ALSO: Arianism; Christ; Council of Constantinople I (381); Council of Ephesus (431); Ecumenical Councils; Fatherhood of God; Holy Trinity; St. Constantine the Emperor (271–337)
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Ayres, L. (2004) Nicaea and Its Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Coakley, S. (ed.) (2007) “Disputed Questions in Patristic Trinitarianism,” Harvard Theological Review 100/2: 125–75.
Edwards, M. (2006) “The First Council of Nicaea,” in M. Mitchell and F. M. Young (eds.) The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 552–67.
L’Huillier, P. (1996) The Church of the Ancient Councils. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Need, S. W. (2008) Truly Human and Truly Divine. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.
Tanner, N. P. and Alberigo, G. (1990) Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.