There are a lot of myths about the Council of Nicaea, but they all share the assumption that the Council of Nicaea was a sudden break in the history of Christianity.

0:00 Introduction

3:00 What was discussed at the Council

6:29 The Fourth-Century Mind

10:32 The Council of Nicaea

13:05 Arianism strikes back

21:27 The return of the homoousion

22:49 How the Council was historically significant

27:43 How the Council was not historically significant

Footnotes

[1] Arius is usually said to have regarded the Son as created, which is true, but he also used the term begotten. There are many instances of this. See for example Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica (hereafter HE) 1.5, 1.6, and Athanasius, De synodis 16.

[2] J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 4th ed. (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968), 228.

[3] Socrates, HE 1.5; Charles Joseph Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, trans. William R. Clark, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1871), 243.

[4] Paul Stephenson, Constantine: Roman Emperor, Christian Victor (New York: Overlook Press, 2010), 267; Charles Matson Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, 2nd. ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 197.

[5] Socrates, HE 1.11

Thumbnail:

Image of the First Ecumenical Council, 18th century (detail)

St. Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv

Wikimedia Commons