1700 Years of Nicea

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This May marks the 1700 anniversary of the start of the Council of Nicea. In the Year 325, bishops from all across Christendom met in Nicea for an ecumenical council to define the orthodox position regarding Jesus' relationship in the Godhead. Convened by Emperor Constantine, this first ecumenical council put an end to the Arian controversy and solidified the doctrine of Jesus as God the Son having full divinity.

Background of Nicea

    The original controversy requiring the need for a council was a dispute among the clergy in the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The original actors in the dispute where Archbishop Alexander of Alexandria and a presbyter named Arius. While Alexander taught that Jesus as God the Son was coeternal with the Father and not a created being, Arius taught that God the Son had a point of creation or generation because the Father alone is eternal and therefore subordinate to the Father.

Arius had then accused Alexander of teaching Sabellianism, a teaching that said the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one person and not three distinct persons. Constantine, desiring the dispute to be settled locally, called for a council to be held in 325 as the controversy spread throughout the newly Christianized Roman Empire.

The Decision for Orthodoxy

    The Council of Nicea made a decision for the position that was taught by Alexander and issued a profession of faith known as the Nicean Creed which states: 

We believe in one God, the Father almighty,
maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
begotten from the Father, only-begotten,
that is, from the substance of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God, begotten not made,
of one substance with the Father,
through Whom all things came into being,
things in heaven and things on earth,
Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down,
and became incarnate and became man, and suffered,
and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens,
and will come to judge the living and dead,
And in the Holy Spirit.
But as for those who say, There was when He was not,
and, Before being born He was not,
and that He came into existence out of nothing,
or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance,
or created, or is subject to alteration or change
– these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.

    The Nicean Creed states that Jesus is eternally generated (begotten) from the Father and is from the same substance of the Father. The Greek term for, "same substance" is homoousia. Oosuia is a Greek term that is best understood as the fundamental nature of something. Since Jesus as the Son of God has the same fundamental nature as the Father, He is coeternal with Father and not created or made.

    It also anathematizes those who say that the Son of God does not have the same fundamental nature as the Father, that the Son of God was created, or that the Son of God can be altered. To pronounce someone anathema means to curse them and cut them off from the rest of the communion.

Why Nicea Still Matters

    Nicea still matters today because if the Son of God is created then He is simply not God. When Moses asks God, "Who shall I say sent me" God tells Moses to say, "I AM sent me". God is revealing His eternal nature by calling Himself the Hebrew word for existence. He is saying that His very nature is existence and it is impossible for Him to not be. Jesus does something similar in John 8:58 when He says, "Before Abraham was, I AM." Jesus boldly states the truth that He is God and therefore it is in His very nature to have existence. 

    If Jesus were to be created at some specific point, that means there was a time where He did not exist and therefore is not God. If Jesus is not God then He cannot live a sinless life and the entire meaning of the Incarnation begins to crumble apart and we no longer have salvation. This doctrine must always be defended and we must not be afraid to pronounce anathemas upon those who teach otherwise.

May our God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit always protect is truth in the Church.

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