Councils: First Council of Nicaea (Online Source)
From Wikipedia
Number of quotes: 10
Book ID: 89 Page: 3
Section: 3C1
Constantine had invited all 1800 bishops of the Christian church (about 1000 in the east and 800 in the west), but a smaller and unknown number attended. Eusebius of Caesarea counted 250, {21} Athanasius of Alexandria counted 318, {22} and Eustathius of Antioch estimated “about 270” {23} (all three were present at the council).
Quote ID: 2347
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 5/6
Section: 3C1
Much of the debate hinged on the difference between being “born” or “created” and being “begotten”. Arians saw these as essentially the same; followers of Alexander did not. The exact meaning of many of the words used in the debates at Nicaea were still unclear to speakers of other languages. Greek words like “essence” (ousia), “substance” (hypostasis), “nature” (physis), “person” (prosopon) bore a variety of meanings drawn from pre-Christian philosophers, which could not but entail misunderstandings until they were cleared up. The word homoousia, in particular, was initially disliked by many bishops because of its associations with Gnostic heretics (who used it in their theology), and because their heresies had been condemned at the 264–268 Synods of Antioch.
Quote ID: 2348
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 6
Section: 3C1
Position of Arius (Arianism)According to surviving accounts, the nontrinitarian Arius maintained that the Son of God was a Creature made from nothing, begotten directly of the Eternal God, and that he was God’s First Production, before all ages. And he argued that everything else was created through the Son. Thus, said the Arians, only the Son was directly created and begotten of God; and therefore there was a time that He had no existence. Arius believed that the Son of God was capable of His own free will of right and wrong, and that “were He in the truest sense a son, He must have come after the Father, therefore the time obviously was when He was not, and hence He was a finite being”,{44} and was under God the Father. Therefore Arius insisted that the Father’s divinity was greater than the Son’s. The Arians appealed to Scripture, quoting verses such as John 14:28: “the Father is greater than I”, and also Colossians 1:15: “Firstborn of all creation”.
Position of the council
The Council of Nicaea, with Arius depicted as defeated by the council, lying under the feet of Emperor Constantine.
Alexander and the Nicene fathers countered the Arians’ argument, saying that the Father’s fatherhood, like all of his attributes, is eternal. Thus, the Father was always a Father, and that the Son, therefore, always existed with him, co-equally and con-substantially. The Nicene fathers believed that to follow the Arian view destroyed the unity of the Godhead, and made the Son unequal to the Father. They insisted that such a view was in contravention of such Scriptures as “I and the Father are one” and “the Word was God”, as such verses were interpreted. (John 10:30 John 1:1) With Athanasius, they declared that the Son had no beginning, but had an “eternal derivation” from the Father, and therefore was co-eternal with him, and equal to God in all aspects.
Quote ID: 2349
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 8
Section: 3C1
In spite of his sympathy for Arius, Eusebius of Caesarea adhered to the decisions of the council, accepting the entire creed.
Quote ID: 2350
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 9
Section: 2E4
The controversy between those who argued for independent computations and those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar was formally resolved by the Council, which endorsed the independent procedure that had been in use for some time at Rome and Alexandria. Easter was henceforward to be a Sunday in a lunar month chosen according to Christian criteria—in effect, a Christian Nisan—not in the month of Nisan as defined by Jews.PJ Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea.
Accessed 7-01-2022.
Quote ID: 2351
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 11
Section: 3C1
In the short-term, however, the council did not completely solve the problems it was convened to discuss and a period of conflict and upheaval continued for some time. Constantine himself was succeeded by two Arian Emperors in the Eastern Empire: his son, Constantius II and Valens. Valens could not resolve the outstanding ecclesiastical issues, and unsuccessfully confronted St. Basil over the Nicene Creed.{61}
Quote ID: 2352
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 11
Section: 3C1
Almost immediately, Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian bishop and cousin to Constantine I, used his influence at court to sway Constantine’s favor from the orthodox Nicene bishops to the Arians.{62}Eustathius of Antioch was deposed and exiled in 330. Athanasius, who had succeeded Alexander as Bishop of Alexandria, was deposed by the First Synod of Tyre in 335 and Marcellus of Ancyra followed him in 336. Arius himself returned to Constantinople to be readmitted into the Church, but died shortly before he could be received. Constantine died the next year, after finally receiving baptism from Arian Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, and “with his passing the first round in the battle after the Council of Nicaea was ended”.{62}
Quote ID: 2353
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 11
Section: 2B1
The council of Nicaea dealt primarily with the issue of the deity of Christ. Over a century earlier the use of the term “Trinity” (Τριάς in Greek; trinitas in Latin) could be found in the writings of Origen (185-254) and Tertullian (160-220), and a general notion of a “divine three”, in some sense, was expressed in the second century writings of Polycarp, Ignatius, and Justin Martyr. In Nicaea, questions regarding the Holy Spirit were left largely unaddressed until after the relationship between the Father and the Son was settled around the year 362.{73} So the doctrine in a more full-fledged form was not formulated until the Council of Constantinople in 360 AD.{74}
Quote ID: 2354
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 89 Page: 11/12
Section: 3C1
While Constantine had sought a unified church after the council, he did not force the Homoousian view of Christ’s nature on the council (see The role of Constantine).Constantine did not commission any Bibles at the council itself. He did commission fifty Bibles in 331 for use in the churches of Constantinople, itself still a new city. No historical evidence points to involvement on his part in selecting or omitting books for inclusion in commissioned Bibles.
Despite Constantine’s sympathetic interest in the Church, he did not actually undergo the rite of baptism himself until some 11 or 12 years after the council.
For more details on this topic, see Constantine I’s turn against Paganism.
Quote ID: 2355
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 89 Page: 12
Section: 2D1
According to Protestant theologian Philip Schaff, “The Nicene fathers passed this canon not as introducing anything new, but merely as confirming an existing relation on the basis of church tradition; and that, with special reference to Alexandria, on account of the troubles existing there. Rome was named only for illustration; and Antioch and all the other eparchies or provinces were secured their admitted rights. The bishoprics of Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch were placed substantially on equal footing.”{76}
Quote ID: 2356
Time Periods: 4
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