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:
Chapter 1: What was 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
It does seem as if it's an important moment in the changing relationship between the church and the state, doesn't it? And especially with the Emperor Constantine's presence as well as an overarching figure. I mean, Dafydd, this has been brilliant, but just to wrap it up, with the aftermath. So Arianism, it doesn't disappear after the council.
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Chapter 2: Who were the key figures in the Arian Controversy?
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Hallo ihr Mäuse, wir sind Janni und Alina vom Podcast Wine Wednesday.
Und wir spielen am 12.06. im Kino am Olympiasee. Sagt man am Olympiasee? Oder im Olympiasee?
Nee, paddeln wir da drin rum oder was?
Oh, das wäre geil, so eine Tretbotshow. Und wir spielen am 12.06. am Kino im Olympiasee. Im Kino am Olympiasee. Und wir spielen am 12.06. im Kino am Olympiasee in Zusammenarbeit mit unserem Partner Backmarket eine Liveshow, unser allererstes Open Air.
Das Geile ist, wir dürfen auf der Bühne an euch Zuschauer und Zuschauerinnen ein 800 Euro Voucher für Backmarket verlosen. Es lohnt sich also nicht nur wegen unseren schönen Gesichtern zu kommen. Tickets gibt es unter www.kinoamolympiasee.de.
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