The Ancients - The Council of Nicaea

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

1700 years ago, the Roman Emperor Constantine called an unprecedented meeting of early Christian leaders from across the empire to settle a fierce dispute threatening to split the early Church. The result? The Council of Nicaea - Christianity’s first great general council and the birthplace of the Nicene Creed.In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Dafydd Daniel to explore this this pivotal moment in history. From the dramatic showdown between Bishops Arius and Alexander to how this momentous gathering shaped the core beliefs of Christianity. Join us to discover the lasting legacy of one of the most influential councils in history.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The producer and audio editor is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here:

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes and if you would like the ancient ad free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting HistoryHit.com slash subscribe. 1700 years ago, an unprecedented council of early Christian bishops gathered at Nicaea, not far from present-day Istanbul. The council had been convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine, Constantine the Great, to address a theological dispute, a schism amongst early Christians that threatened to explode across the empire. Constantine

wanted it sorted. At the centre of the council was the issue of Homo Ussion, this idea that the Father, God, the Son, who would be Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit were all equal. The two figureheads on opposing sides of this dispute were Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria on one side, and Arius, a member of the clergy on the other. Arius had the idea that there was almost this divine hierarchy,

that the son was subordinate to the father. Alexander and his followers believed that the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit were of equal weight and shared the same divine substance. This dispute was the so-called Arian controversy. The bishops had gathered at Nicaea to determine which was the correct doctrine and which was heresy. Their decision remained central to Christianity even today. It's the Ancients on History hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host.

Joining me to explain the Council of Nicaea and why this ecumenical council was one of the most important events of early Christianity, I was delighted to interview Dr. Dapheth Daniel, a lecturer in divinity at the University of St. Andrews. We delve into the fascinating details of this early Christian theological dispute and I really do hope you enjoy. Davith, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a special anniversary, it feels, this year because 2025 is the 1700th anniversary of one of the most pivotal moments in Christian history, the Council of Nicaea. But this isn't just a dry

theological debate. It's got power, politics, intense religious rivalry, all set against the backdrop of the Roman Empire's first Christian emperor Constantine the Great. So with that established, let's start with the basics. For listeners who might not be familiar with early Christianity, what was the Council of Nicaea and why does it still matter so much today? Richard Lyle So the Council of Nicaea was a church council called by the Emperor Constantine in 325. It's the first ecumenical council, so worldwide council. In fact, the word ecumenical was coined by U.C. V.C. Caesarea, one of the early

church historians who was there to describe this council worldwide. It's significant because it decides really two of the most fundamental doctrines in Christianity that we've all heard about, the Trinity and the Incarnation. But also because through that, it really is the beginning of one of two things, depending on your point of view. It's either the beginning of modern Christianity, Christianity as a public, visible religion, civic religion, or it's the beginning of the corruption of Christianity because it involves this decision of what is orthodox and therefore what is heretical and involves the state's action in that.

Mason- Is it quite a definitive line that either you go the way that is agreed and that's orthodox or if you don't and anything else is seen as heresy? Will Barron Yes. This is where the Church Council produces this Nicene Creed, something still read out today. This is a foundational text. Now, it certainly is trying to clearly decide a distinction between orthodoxy and heresy. One of the interesting things is that it's not necessarily entirely clear what Nicene has decided. These obscure phrases, homo eusium, which I'm sure we'll get to, what does that really mean? Is that heretical itself, which was one perspective at the time?

And then even though Nicaea, the council, makes this decision, in the immediate aftermath, really, the opposing side, who are the Aryans, seem to come to the fore a bit more than the Nicaeans. So it's part of a very vibrant struggle or discussion, depending how you want to phrase it through this period. Mason- Well, we're going to be exploring all of that in detail. But, Dapheth, at the beginning, as we explore the background, you also mentioned in passing a figure called Eusebius of Caesarea. Do we have many literary sources for this event and this time in history? Dapheth- Yeah, it's striking because we don't really.

I suppose that's the interesting thing because I think now we'd certainly I would think of something like a church council of any kind would have all sorts of minutes taken and there'd be all these records and everything else. But that's not the case here. It goes on for a couple of months, it seems. We're not entirely, maybe starts on the 20th of May, ends in July in ICA 325. Even that's not that clear. Our main sources for it are Eusebius of Caesarea, who was there, and also Athanasius of Alexandria. Obviously, they have their own particular point of view and perspective, which may well interfere with their accounts and recognition

of what's gone on. But it's in their books that we have their account of what went on, but also extracts from some of Constantine's letters, which follow the council, which go out to the church to tell the church what the decisions that have been made. Of course, other records of, for example, the writings of various. Part of the buildup to the controversy is hundreds of letters being exchanged all over the place between these various bishops and versions of those recorded in those historic accounts, as well as others later on. There's Theodora T. Cyrus and a couple of others, who were more in the fifth century, who also have some

sort of access to documents that don't seem to survive and only survive in those histories. Constantine also wrote other letters to try and prevent the council happening, to try and stop everyone arguing and to calm down. Again, we've got versions of those letters, whether they're how accurate they are is open to debate. Mason- Well, let's explore the context as to why this council is happening in 325 AD. Big question, Dapheth. What is happening in the Roman Empire and the church in those years running up to 325? Yeah, okay. In the empire itself, so we're coming out of the so-called crisis of the third century, the unsettled period in Roman history. We've had the plagues, like Plague of Cyprian, which has wiped out 50% of Alexandria and things like that. All these barbarian tribes attacking

in the third century lead to an unsettled situation. Various people declaring themselves Caesar all the time. They win a battle and they're going to be the new emperor. So the crisis of the third century has led to, at the end of that period, the Tetrarchy. It's a Tetrarchy system of government that's been established by Diocletian, which has seemed to work fairly well. You've got two Augusti, two senior emperors, East and West, then these junior Caesars beneath them. That, of course, means you've got more imperial people closer to the action across the empire, to the troubled areas. That seemed to work fairly well until 306, when Augustus at that point, the leader Augustus in the

West, Constantius, who is Constantine's father, dies. That then leads really to set off to civil war in the empire between these rival Augusti and Caesar as they all start fighting each other. Not least Constantine, of course, but another chap, Maxentius, who was one of the original Augusti, but he's been left out of the equation. Then this other fellow, Licinius, who had been promoted above both Maxentius and Constantine, much to their consternation. They've all been fighting with each other. Maxentius is significant because it leads us to the Battle of Milvian Bridge, which I'm sure we'll come to. That's 312. That's where Constantine gets rid of him, his half-brother. Then later on, Constantine gets rid of his other half-brother, Licinius, in the Battle of

Chrysopolis in 324. So, period of civil war and settlement, now we've got a single man. Constantine has become the sole emperor. So, a period of settlement has emerged there through periods of unrest. That's the empire at large. The church has also come through really its main periods of persecution. So there's only two really empire-wide persecutions of the church. One of them is Decius in 250s. It's not aimed at Christianity as such. Decius wants a return to the worship of the ancient gods as that gathers the Christians up into it. As part of the

Tetrarchy, however, Dicholetian, Glarist, who have concentrated persecution against Christians. This is called the Great Persecution. That has continued until softly in 311 when Glarist releases an edict of toleration, but finally with the Edict of Malan, which comes out of Constantine and Licinius before they separate. So it's been a period of unrest for the Empire, I am a church and persecution for Christians, which does feed into Nicaea because part of the struggle, sort of internal politics of the church and part of Constantine's concern is the fact that after those periods of persecution, you have certain Christian groups proclaiming to be the true church.

This is most famously with the Donatists in Africa. One of Constantine's first acts in 314, so even before he's in towards Nicaea, is to have the Council of Arles, which is to try and quiet these Donatists. The Donatists oppose people who apostatized during the persecution. They surrendered the Bible, surrendered their faith. Now they want to come back into the church and the Donatist refusing. The same thing is happening in Egypt with the chapel Militius. The Militians are also this group that don't necessarily seem suspect in their orthodoxy, unlike Arius and others that we'll come to, but they are claiming to be the real spiritual church, the church of saints. Again, there's a threat of schism and separation. Mason- So already in those immediate decades before the Council of Nicaea and before we

get to the figure of Arius, there are other figures as you've highlighted there, the Donatists and so on, which are almost a symbol of what's to come. There are divisions emerging, maybe catalyzed by these persecutions that have happened in recent history. There are divisions in how people are viewing Christianity and how they should approach it. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, the status of Christianity even as a religion in the empire has been much debated. It's only in the edict of Milan that Christianity actually becomes officially recognised as a religion. I mean, that's part of a significant stage. It's not even viewed as religion at that point. And yes, as you say, there's unrest about the status of the church, the status of Christianity. Is it a suspect cult? Is it something serious or not? Even before this point,

you've had the persecution of Decius in 250s. After that is what's known as the little piece of the church, the sort of 40 years or so between that persecution and the great persecution. And then we've got the Emperor Aurelian, and he is already aft to try and decide a controversy about another heresy, which is still being debated at the time with the Nicene Church, which is known as Sabalianism, with this extraordinary character, Paul of Samosata, who's a bishop of Antioch who claims the privilege of the Queen Zenobia, who's sort of a next part of Egypt and Syria from the empire. So, yeah, already the empire has been involved in trying to decide what's going on. And of course, like it, like it was back, the earliest record that we have

of Christianity even being discussed is Pliny with Trajan saying he's found these odd people. I've tortured them anyway. What should I do with them now? Yes. He's like, don't go looking for the Christians, but if they do, you can execute them or something like that. They've got a very interesting relationship with the Christians, but if they do, you can execute them or something like that. That's right. They've got a very interesting relationship with the Christians early on. It seems like in regards to the events of the Roman Empire up to the Nicene Creed, some key events and things to highlight, as you have highlighted already, Dapheth, is at the end of the third century crisis, the Emperor Diocletian comes along, creates the rule of four, the tetrarchy, those two senior emperors and those two junior emperors. It seems to work for a period of time,

but then after Diocletian goes, the next success is Constantius Clorus. He dies early on. His son Constantine is proclaimed emperor in 306 and very quickly it all starts falling apart and you get those civil wars like Constantine versus Maxentius and so on, ultimately leading to Constantine ditching the tetrarchy completely and becoming a sole emperor again by the time he gets to the Council of Nicaea. Let's focus on Constantine's career a bit to get more context into his adoption or his relationship with Christianity by that time, because it seems it's been 13 years or so, hasn't it, by 325 and the beginning of his relationship with Christianity. I feel this is where we probably want to explore the Milvian Bridge and why that's important.

Mason- It's an extraordinary story, isn't it? Much debated how much truth there is in this and how it relates to wider political motivations for Christian conversion as well as anything else. But Constantine is about to fight this battle against Maxentius and has this vision of a sign in the sky and this line in this sign conquer and later has a dream, a dream of Christ coming to him. This is how it's relayed by Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea, both of whom knew Constantine personally. And the sign in question is the Cairo symbol. The Cairo symbol is just the first two letters of Christos in Greek. It's an X with a big P sticking out the top of the X. Constantine makes this his symbol. He puts it

on his standards, on his shield and fights with this and wins an extraordinary victory. It's not clear why Maxentius comes out to fight even at such an exposed area. And so because of that constant time thanks, the Christian god, you know, dedicates the victory to it, thinks it's come from that and carries on using this symbol. It's said that Licinius lived in great fear of it, you know, at this later battle, Chrysopolis 324, it's pagan symbols of Viscenius against this Cairo symbol. So what's his real view of Christianity? It seems to have been a monotheist, it seems to have believed in one God, and seems like a lot of people in the ancient world too, and not least Christians themselves, have had the view that you may have natural revelation

of God and then further revelation of him. So there's no inconsistency to say, well, the sun god is revealed as actually being this other one god, this Christian god. And then you take Christianity very seriously. As I mentioned, the Council of Arles very early on when he's deciding about Adonitus, but Saint Peter's Basilica right in Rome, that's 318, starts to build that. Then 330 establishes Constantinople as a new capital. That's when 330 establishes Constantinople as a new capital that's festooned with Christian buildings. It's a vibrant pluralist sense of religion, isn't it? Religion can appear in different forms as long as it's peaceful. The particular religion that you worship in this tape, Christianity for Constantine, he doesn't have to repeal the Edict of Milan, which is about freedom

of religious worship and convert to a Christian. That's sort of what I'm trying to get across, I suppose. Mason- There seems to be a bit more toleration at that time, doesn't it? I remember interviewing Professor David Potter and he was saying how with Constantine it almost seemed like he was hedging his divine bets at times. Patronage to Christians, but also building temples and churches. So doing both things at hand. But as time goes on, as you say, that endures. By the time we get to 325 AD, does he feel responsibility? Is he the one who calls the council together? What do we know about that?

Yeah. He does call the council and seems to preside over it in some form, interjecting the debate, so far as we can tell. He feels bound to call it, as far as we can tell from the documents we have from the time. It's not that he's very interested in going back to your point about hedging the bets, not that he's very interested in the theological question that's at issue. In fact, he thinks it's ridiculous as far as we tell that they should stop messing around and introducing disorder debate over this minute and obscure theologians of any age, I suppose, can find something to disagree over. They need not to bother with that sort

of stuff just to keep peace in the church. So his interest definitely in peaceableness in order. Eusebius dubs him bishop of those outside the church. So he's not an official churchman, not baptized, of course, as he isn't until he's just before he dies, but he's responsible for those who are believers. Another way of putting it, I suppose, is that what Constantine represents is the laity. The voice of the laity coming into Christian affairs. They should be represented, they should have a sense of it because you can't allow theologians to entangle things in endless debates, especially when those debates spill over into civic disorder.

Mason- So is it a case then that Constantine hears that there are these divisions emerging in the Christian church and he's worried about dissent, about trouble within the empire if it's not sorted? Will Barron Yeah, that's right. That's it. So, Ares is a priest in Alexandria. He's just a priest and he objects to what his bishop, Alexander, is teaching. So he objects to it. And he makes his objections very clear and then writes to loads of other people to say that this patriarch is a heretic basically and should we really be following him? Should we actually maybe organize our

own deacons? It seems that some followers of Aries are even sort of ordaining their own deacons and so on. So a threat to that order, that principle of order within the church. So then both Alexander and Aries are writing all over the place to sort of hundreds of other bishops across, you know, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, in modern day terms, writing to all of them to try and get them on their side. And of course, then they are then appealing to imperial power and imperial authority to help try and decide this debate. And so in the end, Ares is exiled and 321, he's thrown out, but he doesn't wish to be thrown out. So he appeals back and Constantine says, look, can't you just both shake hands and call it a draw or whatever and move on? They have

their own individual synods to try and decide the answer to the question and that can't decide it. So then finally, Constantine says, right, well, he's going to organize something just to decide this question once and for all. This question is caused disorder through Africa, through Turkey, whatever else. If people are saying that this is something that they're going to disagree about, then we better try and settle the question. And that's why it's the first ecumenical council. So it seems to be 315 bishops, extraordinary number of people, and that would then include thousands of priests brought in from across the empire. Only five from the West, interestingly. Most of these Eastern bishops, only five from

the West. But they're all coming in to try and decide this question. If we can decide this question, then maybe everyone can just move on and stop arguing about it. I think a constantized point seems to be if you want to debate some minute point of theology, then you can. But the idea of then threatening a schism really, which is what this is, threatening the church to become divided into different types of different churches to rival each other, then that's not going to help some cool battle and disagreement. David, before we explore the camps of Nicaea, I hope you don't mind if we delve into a bit more detail about what Arius and Alexander were disagreeing about and really get that sorted for us so we can nail that down. And also, I guess, first of all, why it's happening in Alexandria? You mentioned there's a patriarch of Alexandria. Set the

scene of Alexandria at this time in Egypt and the strength of Christianity there, and then what is the root of this disagreement that erupts between Arius on one side and Alexander on the other? Tobyson It's incredibly interesting, isn't it, and important to remember that we've got Paul's letters as the earliest documents of the Christian religion and these are writing to these churches in the Eastern world, right? Ephesus, Corinth in Greece and so on. So really the Eastern Empire, which later will become the Byzantium Empire, is the start

of Christianity, where Christianity comes from and grows out into the West. So just fewer bishops in the West, fewer Christians in the West. This really is a thriving Greco-Christian culture in these areas of the world, Asia Minor, Alexandria, and so on. And so later on, we're going to have Jerusalem as an important place, then Constantinople a little bit later important place. But at the moment, we've got Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt, these really key posts in the Christian world. This is where a concentration of bishops are across these areas, metropolitan bishops, and then they have their own priests

and everything else. The estimate is really that by 300, 10% of the empire is Christian, so 10 million people, and then by the middle of the fourth century, about half of the empire is Christian. So growing numbers and large numbers, two debate these issues with each other. The actual debate between the two, we want the Trinity, right? We want the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We've got an issue here then of the Father and the Son. Are they all equal? Are they equal? Is there any differences between them? What's the difference between the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost? Are they the same and different? If you're saying they're really different,

then you're saying you've got three gods. So you don't want to have that. You don't want to be a polytheist. So you want to connect them in some way. So how are you going to connect them and bring them together? Now, Arius' claim is really straightforward semantics. It's that the son must be subordinate to the father, otherwise it's not a son and it's not a father. So his claim, Arianism, is a form of a particular viewpoint that we call monarchianism. So monarchism comes from Monarch, right? Monos, one, and then Archaic principle rule. So one principle rule.

A belief then that God is one, that God is not just a being, God is being. God is everything, God is one, that God is not just a being, God is being. God is everything, God is all. God is this essence beyond description, a particular substance, a divine substance, a deity, something above all things. He's created a world completely different from it, that's utterly transcendent from it. Now, the Christian religion then poses a great threat for these Greek philosophically minded figures like Eris and others, that you've got this principle of God. How can you then explain that it becomes incarnate? Aries solves it in interesting ways. Aries' point is that there's the God, God as substance, God that becomes a father when he

begets a son. Aries' tagline is that there was a time that the son was not. The son is not eternal because he hasn't existed always, unlike God. So what the Sun is for Aries, in effect, is divine but not the deity, not the godhead. It's another level or ranking of divinity between the two. And so it means the Sun is the creator of the world, is the mediator of the world, can become incarnate to save the world, but you leave the Father as pure Godhead above it. That allows Eris to solve that problem. Mason. The Son is Jesus, is it? This idea that Jesus wasn't there at the beginning

but he's created by God for his mission on earth and that? Chris. Yeah, that's right. The Son is Jesus. The Son becomes incarnate then as Jesus in the world and then can exist to save it in the world. So, let's put it in these sort of terms. The son is at home with the father in heaven or whatever. Now, the son then decides to leave that place and become incarnate as a particular human being, which is Jesus, and then acts to save it.

One thing I suppose to emphasize about Arianism is that it shouldn't be confused with a later heresy called Sassinianism, which denies the divinity of Jesus. This is still saying that Jesus is the Son of God and is divine. It's just he's a different level of God. He's not the highest God. So that is Arius's position. How does that differ then from Alexander's? Yeah. Okay. So what's the problem with Aries? Well, Aries is suggesting what's called hetero-ucio. Ucio is substance, and hetero is different. That the Father and the Son are different substances, different divine substances. One problem there for Alexander is that that seems to return us to polytheism. We've got more than one God, more than one divine substance. This this is where you get then the homo eusion viewpoint. What that is saying

is that the Father and the Son are the same substance. They're equal. Now, what's the problem with saying that? Why is that such a problem? That seems to be okay. They're the same. They're equal. Well, the problem for Arius, why Arius views it as a heresy, is that then what you're saying is that the father becomes incarnate and dies on a cross. You shouldn't be saying that, right? Because you should be able to distinguish something about these persons. They must be different persons. In Arius' own light, he's actually being the most Christian because he's preserving that there's three different persons in the Godhead. Whereas for their

opponents, Alexander, they're being really Christians because they're preserving the fact that Christ is fully divine in the same sense as the Father. That's why they want to push that homo-ocean language. Mason- Well, let's now move on to the debate. You've already highlighted how this explodes out of Alexandria. It reaches the Emperor Constantine and he starts getting worried that it will affect Concord and harmony in the empire. The creating of this council, and as you've also highlighted, this feels unprecedented.

It doesn't feel like this has happened before, has it? When the council is called and the people get together, what should we be imagining at Nicaea? What should we be imagining with this council and how it looks? Well, it's a great question because no one's entirely sure. It's open to our imagination a little bit. I find it very difficult to imagine. It must be the most extraordinary thing ever. Constantin pays for it all to bring all of these bishops together. The discussion is in Greek. Constantin, when he speaks in Latin, it seems to be the most part rather than Greek, although he

does understand Greek and occasionally talks in Greek. And he's actively there as well. He's not dictating it from afar. Okay. Jason Vale No, no. He's actively there. So he opens the council. So you can imagine these, I mean, in effect, thousands of people gathered together in Nicea. He moves it to Nicea just so he can attend because that's closer to where he is. And Eusebius and Athanasius give these strongly glowing descriptions of Constantine opening the debate. Eusebius and Athanasius give these strongly glowing descriptions of Constantine opening the debate. Eusebius is describing this transfigured figure, right, sort of this glowing gold opening the discussion. Then what is really heated argument for months between these bishops and others.

They are highly disagreeing. As you alluded to earlier, they're not always clear whether in actual fact they are agreeing rather than disagreeing. There's one great story which seems sadly not to be true, that Father Christmas himself, St. Nicholas, who maybe was not even actually there, but he was around and was a nice Ian, that he was at the council and sort of biffed areas on the nose. He sort of slapped him across the face for his views, which says- Father Christmas. How you wouldn't have imagined it. There you go.

So yeah, a really heated discussion that each side feels that their view is the orthodoxy, right, should be the view and that each other view is really in danger of doing something. One view feels it threatens the divinity of Christ and therefore salvation. The other that it really diminishes our idea of what God and the Godhead is. And then there are even compromises suggested. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, it's actually Constantine himself who rejects those sorts of compromises. He insists on homo-sion. Constantine seemed to prefer that sort of language of clarity, just say, well, this is the point of view and that's it. Then in the end, they all have to sign this creed, sign their

agreement to an Icyan creed, which only two bishops don't do secondous of Ptolemais and Theonis of Mamaris. I think those two they don't sign. They're the only two that don't sign and they're deposed as a result. Ares is exiled, they're exiled. Then Constantine at the end, you know, we decide to homo-us on that's the end of the debate. We settled it all and then he issues Ares' work to be burned. You know, you're not meant to support his works, not to even own them or have them. This is now the orthodoxy. Masonic And is this all written down then, if it was important to then cover this, in the Nicene Creed? Because what is this and is this almost, as you say, the confirmation written down of what they've agreed?

Chris That's right, yeah. And so that is the Nicene Creed. So it is emphasising the divinity of Jesus as the Son incarnate and that the divinity of Jesus is equal with that of the Father, the God and the Father are one. And so this is where it says, the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, all that sort of language, and begotten, not made. That later on becomes eternally begotten, to emphasize that God, the Son is also eternal. And then further to emphasize that of one substance, right, homo-rhusum, the Son is from the substance of the Father, from this Godhead, that divine substance, but it's also one with that substance. It's really emphasized the fact that the Son is divine and equal,

and therefore Jesus is divine and equal. And so it is that great area in tagline, there was a time when He was not. So in other words, the son was born at a certain point, was made. Well, that's anathema. There was not a time when he wasn't and so on. As I say, the Holy Spirit is just mentioned as an aside, right? And the Holy Spirit, so that's still there to be settled. And then this fundamental question, right? Okay, we're clear now, there's the Trinity, the son is equal with the father, they're all divine, they're homo-us on the same substance. How can Christ be both human and divine? I won't go into that now because that's a huge other thing. But when that is decided, this language of homo-euson returns. So what does Nicaea settle in itself?

It gives great clarity as a substantive statement with a controversial word and then it still leaves open many questions how God can be three persons in one. But then part of the point then is that maybe some things just have to be left a mystery, right? Maybe things are not inaccessible to human reasoning and everything else. That's part of the viewpoint here. That seems to be Constantine's view in his letters. We've got a letter of Alexander's when he's complaining about Arius to another Alexander of Byzantium and he's saying that Arius is straying into things that are beyond human reason. So there are certain mysteries that have to be left there. That might be part of the argument. So, the Council of Nicaea, they ultimately come up with the Nicene Creed and the understanding of homo russion and being three different parts. Is there anything else big that we

haven't covered that is achieved at the Council of Nicaea alongside the Nicene Creed and the condemning of Arianism or what Arius believes is heresy? It does do much more than the Creed, which is part of why the debate went on for months. It's about a lot of things. Even the celibacy of priests is something really. Just whether priests can be married is something that's being heavily discussed as well. One thing is the date of Easter. Again, the idea of uniformity. It doesn't work, of course, because East and West still have different dates for Easter following that because they date the spring equinox at different times. But that was the idea that you could move away from the Jewish

calendar, but also try and get everyone to agree when they celebrate Easter. Also Sunday establishes the day of rest, one thing that Constantine does. One thing that comes out of the Nicenea Council is not just the creed, it's also the canons. This is the beginning of canon law, right? Church law, the first end of canon law. What they are a lot about is about church structure, organization. How do you organize things? So a lot of these canons are setting rules for how you decide who's going to be a bishop. It's setting rules that you as a deacon and priest, you have to follow the direction of your particular bishop in your area that if you're exiled or anathematized in one area of the church, one province, one bishopric, you can't just move next door and then carry on being a priest over there.

So a lot of that is laid down as that canon law. I mentioned Isolibusae of priests. It's decided that priests can remain married there. They just can't live with any woman that they want to live with. It's an upright character, I think is how they put it. Also about whether a eunuch can be priest and it's how they can be, but you can't castrate yourself. You can't willfully do that. If you've already gone through that process, you can become a priest and so on. So those are some of the other things that come out of Nicaea and laid down and sent around to churches. And that's why we have those to survive, right? They're sort of gathered together and they're the things that are sent out and laid down and kept. I mean, we talk about this as the first

ecumenical council and you see this as it describes it in those terms. But so after this and even before this, there were so many synods and I've mentioned Constantius, the son of Constantius, he tries to have lots of his own councils to go in a more Aryan direction to reject Anicaea. They're not then classed anymore as ecumenical councils because they don't fit this list of what's decided as what is orthodox. But no, Anicaea is doing a lot of different things. You can see there this laying down of maybe centralization isn't necessarily the right word, but the church has... What has the Christian church been? I mean, the earliest churches that survive are from the 230s, these house churches, more informal churches, private gatherings. But now we've got Constantine is building churches, right, more informal churches, private gatherings, you know, but now we've

got Constantine is building churches, a visible display of Christianity. You can see already there's this huge network of bishops. I mean, staggering really how Christianity was already organised in this way even before Constantine's conversion. And so really the structure was already in place, but now it's being more formalised, right? There's a sort of formal idea of what we've got. You know, once there's a rule, once the rule is decided, you can say, well look, you're disobeying this rule. We all agreed this, we got together, we agreed it, and so let's all follow it. Mason It does seem as if it's an important

moment in the changing relationship between the church and the state, doesn't it? Especially with the Emperor Constantine's presence as well as an overarching figure. Dapheth, this has been brilliant, but just to wrap it up with the aftermath. Arianism doesn't disappear after the council. D.P. It doesn't disappear. No, it doesn't disappear. It has immediate afterlife in that it becomes more successful in the short term because Constantius, Constantine's son, was educated by Eusebius of Nicomedean, who was the great Arian defender at Nicaea. He's greatly embedded in the imperial court and is part really of exiling all sorts of Nicaean people. Athanasius goes, Eustithius of Antioch

goes, Marsalis of Ancyra, all these figures who are nice pro-Nicaean figures actually get into trouble and lose their seas for a while. Actually, the Aryans gain ground and it seems that Constantius is more interested in it. Jerome has this line later on, he says, the world grown to wake up and find itself Arian. Really, Arianism was this short-term successor for a while. Then, of course, you've got Julian the Apostate and that sort of falls apart. Then we go back to Nicene, Emperor's Jovian, and then finally Thedosius. I mean, also, Arianism has an interesting afterlife in two very different contexts.

One I always find really interesting is that through – I'm going to get his name wrong now, but it's Ulfela, a priest ordained by the Seusibus of Nicomendia. He is the apostle to the Goths. And so the Visigoths and the Vandals of Sacrum are actually Arian. They're Arian Christians at that time. But no, Arianism survives. And of course, some great figures are in. The most famous Arian really is Isaac Newton. He despises Athanasius. He thinks Athanasius was the Antichrist, that Nicaea, and obviously this was the beginning of the end of Christianity, has been destroyed from being a pure biblical religion where you look at this scripture, what it's conveying to you, to something that is corrupted by an immoral murderer and power-seeking in Athanasius away from it. Of course, he's wisdom public about

that because of the Test and Corporation Acts. In Britain, from the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century, the Test and Corporation Acts, which meant you had to sign up to not being an Aryan, to believing in the Trinity in the Nicene way to go to university, well, in Oxford and Cambridge, to have political office to join the church. And this was to get rid of sort of variant of Arianism, like Unitarianism. We just don't believe in the Trinity at all. I mean, Samuel Clarke is called a Sir Isaac Newton's bulldog because of his argument with Gottfried Leibniz. He's called Arian or semi-Arian. Again, it's this interesting Arianism. We say it's called anti-Trinitarianism. That's what we now call things like Arianism.

But of course, they do believe in the Trinity. It's just they don't believe in the equality of the divine figures in the Trinity. That's the thing. They're not radical modalists or whatever that don't believe in it, or Unitarians who wouldn't have a Trinity there. They're a particular type of Christian. So Arianism, yeah, thrives for a little bit. But of course, Nicaea really has its great victory at what's now known as Second Deadential Council which is the one called by Theodosius in Constantinople in 381. And that's why the Nicene Creed that we have is the Niceno-Constantinople Creed because

that then settles, goes further into the language of the Sun but also adds in the Holy Spirit and settles that. It's a slightly longer Creed but that's the Nicene orthodoxies combined with that. Now of course, one last thing I should just mention. What then happens after all this is that a clause is added, which is called the philoque clause, which is to say the Holy Spirit doesn't just proceed from the Father, it proceeds from the Father and the Son. Because again, it emphasizes the equality. The Father and Son are equal, so the Holy Spirit must come from both. Now, the Eastern Church doesn't like that. So what becomes the schism between East and West

where they finally divide in 1054? The schism is over the clause that is added to the Sengkri about whether or not the equality of the Father and the Son is such that the Holy Ghost also proceeds from both Father and Son rather than just the Father. So equality in the Trinity and Homo Roussion, both fathoms rather than just the five. So equality in the Trinity and homo russion, you can trace its roots back to the debate between Arius and Alexander, the Council of Nicaea and ultimately the split between East and West. It just continues throughout. I mean, Dapheth, this has been absolutely, well, it's been really, really interesting to learn all about this and it's a lot of deep theological debate as well to get through, but I think we succeeded in covering all the main points as well. Dapheth Daniel explaining the first council of Nicaea that occurred

1700 years ago, exploring key parts of the story such as the Aryan controversy, the issue of Homo Rucion and of course the Nicaene Creed. I hope you enjoyed the episode, thank you for listening. Please follow The Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you leave us a rating as well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of HistoryHit's podcasts ad-free, and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com slash subscribe. That's enough from me, and I'll see you in the next episode.