Dr. Dafydd Daniel
Appearances
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Yes, so 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. No, he's very interested in the theological question. that's at issue.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
In fact, he thinks it's ridiculous as far as we tell that, you know, we should stop messing around and introducing disorder debates over this sort of minute and obscure, you know, theologians of any age, I suppose, can find something to disagree over. They need to not to bother with that sort of stuff just to keep peace in the church. So His interest definitely in peaceableness, in order.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
I mean, 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, right? The voice of the laity coming into Christian affairs. They should be represented.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Ares is a priest in Alexandria, so 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?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
It seems that some followers of Ares 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 Arius are writing all over the place to sort of hundreds of other bishops across Syria, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, in modern day terms, writing to all of them to try and get them on their side.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And of course, then they are then appealing to imperial power, imperial authority to help try and decide this debate. And so in the end, Arius is exiled. And three, two, one, 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?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And 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 called disorder through Africa, through Turkey, whatever else.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
If people are saying that this is something that they're going to disagree about, then we better try and settle the question. That's why it's the first ecumenical council. 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Most of these are Eastern bishops, only five from the West. But, you know, 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 Constantine's point seems to be if you want to debate some minute point of theology, then you can.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
It's incredibly interesting, isn't it, 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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. a thriving Greco-Christian culture in these areas of the world, Asia Minor, Alexandria, and so on.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And so later on, we're going to have Jerusalem as an important place, then Constantinople a little bit, a 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. And this is where a concentration of bishops are then across these areas, metropolitan bishops. And then they have their own priests and everything else.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 to debate these issues with each other. The actual debate, the actual debate between the two is, We all know the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 or 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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, is 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?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Monos, one, and then arche, 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 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. It's utterly transcendent from it.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Now, the Christian religion then poses a great threat for these Greek philosophically-minded figures like Ares and others, that you've got this principle of God. How can you then explain that it becomes incarnate? Ares solves it in an interesting way. So Ares' point is that there's the God, God as substance, God that becomes a father when he begets a son.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
So Arius's tagline is that there was a time that the sun was not. The sun is not eternal because he hasn't existed always, unlike God. So what the sun is for Arius, in effect, is divine, but not the deity, not the Godhead. It's another level or ranking of divinity between the two.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And so it means the Son 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, if you like, above it.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Yeah, that's right. So the Son is Jesus. So 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Well, I mean, 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. I mean, 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
So what's the problem with Arius? Well, Arius is suggesting what's called heteroousio, right? So ousio is substance and hetero is different, that the Father and the Son are different substances, different divine substances. So 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
So this is where you get then the homoousion 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, right? You say they're the same, they're equal.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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. And you shouldn't be saying that, right? Because you should be able to distinguish something about these persons. There must be different persons. In Arius' own light, he's actually being the most Christian person.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Because he's preserving that there's three different persons in the Godhead. Whereas for their opponent, Alexander, they're being really Christians because they're preserving the fact that Christ is fully divine in the same sense as the Father. And so that's why they want to push that homoousion language.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Well, it's a great question because no one's entirely sure. I mean, it's open to our imagination a little bit. And I find it very difficult to imagine. It must be the most extraordinary thing ever. So Constantine pays for it all to bring all of these bishops together. The discussion is in Greek. Constantine, when he speaks, speaks in Latin, it seems, for the most part.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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. No, no. He's actively there. So he opens the council. So you can imagine these, I mean, in effect, thousands of people gather together in Nicaea. He moves it to Nicaea just so he can attend because that's closer to where he is.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And Eusebius and Athanasius give these strongly glowing descriptions of Constantine opening the debate. Eusebius is describing this sort of transfigured figure, right? Sort of in this glowing gold, opening the discussion. Then what is really heated argument for months between these bishops and others. They are heavily disagreeing.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 Nicene, that he was at the council and sort of biffed Arius on the nose.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
He sort of slapped him across the face for his views, which says... Father Christmas.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
I know, it's funny. 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. You know, 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...
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
compromises suggested. And according to Eusebius of Caesarea, it's actually Constantine himself who rejects those sorts of compromises. He insists on homoousion. Constantine seemed to prefer that sort of language of clarity, just say, well, this is the point of view, and that's it.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And then in the end, they all have to sign this creed, sign their agreement to the Nicene Creed, which only two bishops don't do, Secondus of Ptolemais and And Theonis of Mamaris, I think they are those two, they don't sign. They 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 Homo Iuson, that's the end of the debate.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
We settled it all. And then he issues Ares' work to be burned. You know, you're not meant to support his works, not meant to even own them or have them. This is now the orthodoxy.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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, that the God and the Father are one. And so this is where it says, you know, 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
That later on becomes, you know, eternally begotten, to emphasize that God, his Son is also eternal. And then further to emphasize it, you know, of one substance, right? The Son is from the substance of the Father, from this Godhead, that divine substance, but it's also one with that substance, right?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
It's really emphasized the fact that the Son is divine and equal, and therefore Jesus is divine and equal. And so it is, you know, that great Arian tagline, you know, 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?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And the Holy Spirit, so that still needs to be settled. And then this fundamental question, right? Okay, we're clear now. There's a Trinity. The Son is equal with the Father. They're all divine. They're homoous on the same substance. How can Christ be both human and divine? I won't go to that now because that's a huge other thing. But when that is decided, this language of homoousion returns.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
That's part of the viewpoint here. And 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's certain mysteries that have to be left there. That might be part of the argument.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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. I mean, even celibacy of priests is something where the priest can be married is something that's being heavily discussed as well. So one thing is the date of Easter. Again, the idea of uniformity.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
One thing that comes out of the Nicene Council is not just the creed, it's also the canons. This is the beginning of canon law, church law, the first steps of canon law. What they're a lot about is church structure, organization. How do you organize things? A lot of these canons are setting rules for how you decide who's going to be a bishop.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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, right, and then carry on being a priest over there. So a lot of that is laid down as that canon law. You know, I mentioned our celibacy of priests.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
I mean, it's decided that priests can remain married there. They just can't live with any woman that they want to live with. Always an upright character, I think, is how they put it. Also about whether eunuchs can be priests, and it's decided they can be, but you can't castrate yourself, you know, you can't do that.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
But 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 round 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And Eusebius of Caesars 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 Constant. He tries to have lots of his own councils to go in a more Aryan direction, to reject a Nicaea. They're not then classed anymore as ecumenical councils, right?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Because they don't fit this list of what's decided as what is orthodox. But no, the Nicaea is doing a lot of different things. And You can see there this laying down of, maybe centralization isn't necessarily the right word, but the churches, what has the Christian church been?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
I mean, the earliest churches that survive are from the 230s, these house churches, more informal churches, private gatherings. But now we've got Constantinus building churches, a visible display of of Christianity. You can see already there's this huge network of bishops. I mean, staggering really how Christianity was already organized in this way, even before Constantine's conversion.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And so really the structure was already in place, but now it's being more formularized, right? There's a sort of formal idea of what can be done. 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, right? We got together, we agreed it. And so let's all follow it.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
It doesn't disappear. No, it doesn't disappear. I mean, it has immediate afterlife in that it becomes more successful in the short term because Constantius, Constantine's son, was educated by Eusebius of Nicomedea, who was the great Arian defender at Nicaea. And he's greatly embedded in the imperial court. And it's part, really, of exiling all sorts of Nicene people.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Athanasius goes, Eustathius of Antioch goes, you know, Marcellus of Ancyra, all these figures who are pro-Nicene figures actually get into trouble and lose their seas for a while. And so actually the Aryans gain ground. And it seems that Constantius is more interested in. And so Jerome has this line later on. He says, the world groaned to wake up and find itself Arian.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
But 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. And then we go back to Nicene, Empress Jovian, and then finally, Theodosius. I mean, also, Arianism has an interesting afterlife in two very different contexts. One, I always find really interesting,
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
is that through, I'm going to get his name wrong now, but it's Ulfila, a priest ordained by this Eusebius of Nicomedia. He is the apostle to the Goths. And so the Visigoths and the Vandals who sack Rome are actually Aryans. They're Aryan Christians at that time. But Arianism survives. And of course, you know, some great figures are in. The most famous Arian really is Isaac Newton.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
So Isaac Newton is Arian. And 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 Athanasius away from it.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And of course, you know, He wasn't public about that because of the Test and Cooperation Acts.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
You know, in Britain, from the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century, the Test and Cooperation 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 Aryanism, Unitarianism.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
We just don't believe in the Trinity at all. I mean, Samuel Clarke is called 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 weren't of the Trinity. They're a particular type of Christian. So Aaronism, yeah, thrives for a little bit. But of course, Nicaea really has its great victory
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
at what's now known as Second Ecumenical 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 goes further into the language of the Son, 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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, right? The Father and the Son are equal, so the Holy Spirit must come from both.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 same creed 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 Eusebius of Caesarea, one of the early church historians who was there to describe this council worldwide. It's significant because it decides really –
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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, well, one of two things, depending on your point of view.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 Nicaea has decided.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
These obscure phrases, homoousion, 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 Nicenes.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
So it's part of a very vibrant struggle or discussion, depending on how you want to phrase it, through this period.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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. I mean, it goes on for decades. a couple of months, it seems.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Maybe it starts on the 20th of May, ends in July in Nicaea 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 account and recognition of what's gone on. But it's in their book's
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 them, tell the church what the decisions that have been made. And of course, other records of, for example, the writings of Arius.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And, you know, part of the build up to the controversy is sort of hundreds of letters being exchanged all over the place between these various bishops, theologians, and versions of those recorded in those historic accounts, as well as others later on. So there's Theodoret of Cyrus,
The Ancients
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and a couple of other sort of historians more in the fifth century who also had 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 everyone to calm down.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Again, we've got sort of versions of those letters, whether how accurate they are is open to debate.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
In the empire itself, so we're coming out of the so-called crisis of the third century, sort of unsettled period in Roman history, right? So, you know, we've had the plagues, like Plague of Cyprian, which has wiped out 50% of Alexandria and things like that. And all these barbarian tribes attacking in the third century lead to unsettled situation.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Various people declaring themselves Caesar all the time, right? You know, they win a battle and they're the new emperor. So the crisis of the third century has led to, at the end of that period, the Tetrarchy. The Tetrarchy system of government has been established by Diocletian, which has seemed to work fairly well.
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You've got two Augusti, two senior emperors, East and West, then these junior Caesars beneath them. And that, of course, means you've got more imperial people closer to the action across the empire, to the troubled areas. And that seemed to work fairly well until 306, when the Augustus at that point, the who is Constantine's father, dies.
The Ancients
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And 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And then this other fellow, Licinius, who'd been promoted above both Maxentius and Constantine, much to their consternation. And so 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And then later on, Constantine gets rid of his other half-brother, Licinius, in the Battle of Chrysopolis in 324. So a period of civil war and settlement. Now we've got this 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 Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
The church, well, 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
As part of the tetrarchy, however, Diocletian and Galerius do have a concentrated persecution against Christians. This is called the Great Persecution. And that has continued until softly in 311 when Galerius releases an edict of toleration. But finally, with the edict of Milan, which comes out of Constantine and Licinius before they separate.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
So it's been a period of unrest for the Empire Amateur 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 coming. are claiming to be the true church.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And this is most famously with the Donatists in Africa. I mean, 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. So 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.
The Ancients
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and the Donatists refusing. And the same thing is happening in Egypt with a chap called Militius. And so 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 church of the spiritual church, the church of saints. So again, there's a threat of schism and separation.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
Yes. Yeah, exactly right. No, exactly right. I mean, the status of Christianity, even as a religion in the empire, has been much debated, right? It's only in that Edict of Milan that Christianity actually becomes officially recognized as a religion. I mean, that's part of a significant stage, right? It's not even viewed as religion at that point.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And then we've got this, the Emperor Aurelian, and he is already asked to try and decide a controversy about another heresy, which is still being debated at the time of the Nicene Church.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
which is known as Sibelianism, 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And of course, like it was back, you know, the earliest record that we have of Christianity even being discussed is Pliny with Trajan, you know, saying he's found these odd people, you know, I've tortured them anyway. Now what should I do with them now?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
It's an extraordinary story, isn't it? And, you know, much debated how much truth there is in this and how it relates to wider sort of 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.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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. 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. And Constantine makes this his symbol, right?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
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 wins. And so because that Constantine thanks the Christian God, you know, dedicates the victory to it, thinks it's come from that, and carries on using this symbol.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
It's said that Licinius lived in great fear of it, you know, at this later battle, Chrysopolis 324. It's sort of pagan symbols of Licinius against this symbol Cairo symbol. So what's his real view of Christianity? I mean, it's clearly, it seems to have been a monotheist, right?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
So 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 sort of natural revelation of God and then further revelation of him. So there's no inconsistent to say, well, the sun God is revealed as actually being this other one God, this Christian God.
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
And then you take Christianity very seriously. As I mentioned, the Council of Isles very early on when he's deciding about Donatist, but St. Peter's Basilica right in Rome, that's 318, starts to build that. Then 330 establishes Constantinople as a new capital. That's sort of festooned with all those Christian buildings. It's a vibrant pluralist sense of religion, isn't it?
The Ancients
The Council of Nicaea
That religion can appear in different forms, as long as it's peaceful. The particular religion that you worship in this case, 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.