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[Freddy Johns]

Contention: A key portion of Christianity theology (the nature and two parts of the trinity) is passed down to us as a made-up word by a semi-pagan man with some pretty heinous moral character traits. As most know, the man is the Roman Emperor Constantine, who was trying to make all religions welcome in his Empire to keep the peace within his borders as much as possible. In response to some mounting discord within the Christian community regarding the nature of Jesus, for the First Ecumenical Council the bishops were summoned to Nicea by Constantine who, as Emperor, considered himself above all other men but below both the pagan gods and the Christian God. When trying to decide whether Jesus was less than God or equal there was much disagreement. Constantine first tried the approach of asking people to just keep their views in the privacy of their thoughts. When quite a few bishops protested, he personally intervened to suggest a made-up Greek word to describe Christ and God as being 'of the same substance', which would fudge the issue and offer something everyone could get behind.

As for semi-pagan, Constantine never gave up his pagan religious title of Pontifex Maximus, retained in his service a pagan augur (diviner) and considered himself the leader of both pagans and Christians.

Regarding his moral character, Constantine during this time killed off both his son-in-law and his grandson. He also boiled his wife Fausta alive in her bath.

Primary source material from: "Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity" by Michael Scott (2016).

[jimwalton]

Wow, you have some pretty wild views, there. I think your source material is, um, lacking, should I say. Trinitarian theology was crystallized by people like Irenaeus (late 2nd c.), Tertullian in about AD 200, and Origen in about 250, LONG before Nicea. It was they who wrestled against heretical movements such as Docetists, Ebionites, Sebellians, and the rest.

The council of Nicea was convened by Constantine to rebut the threat of the Arian Controversy (Jesus was the first and greatest of the beings created by God). This issue had long been settled in the western Roman Empire, but the Eastern Church was still being attacked. The trinitarian position was cemented at Nicea, not fudged.

Sure, Constantine is the emperor who legitimized Christianity, but let's not go wild and credit him with Christian theology, let alone with Christian behavior.

[Bob Walton]

Freddy Johns's post has some truth, and some misrepresentation. My thoughts:

* The idea that Constantine "was trying to make all religions welcome" makes him sound like a twenty-first century multiculturalist, which he assuredly was not. He did profess Christian faith. His actions included the Edict of Milan, which added Christianity to the list of legal religions and ended the persecutions (it did not, as many mistakenly think, make Christianity the official religion of the Empire), but he also made Sunday a legal holiday and saw that churches were compensated for damage done during the persecutions. The fact that he openly favored Christianity led to many of the shallow "conversions" in the years that followed.

* Constantine did call the Council of Nicea, and he was concerned with discord in the Christian community over the deity of Christ, largely because of the ideas being promoted by Arius and the reactions against them. His goal was not to produce peace among all religions, but to avoid conflict in the Church.

* I'm not sure where he got his ideas about Constantine's views of himself with regard to men and gods, though some evidence exists that he continued to worship the sun god even after professing Christianity.

* Constantine thought the dispute trivial, but he did not ask people to keep their ideas to themselves. Both Arius and Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria and the major defender of Trinitarian doctrine, were allowed to explain their views, which were given lengthy discussion.

* Though many at the council wanted some sort of compromise, in the end the Trinitarians won the day (though the dispute continued for another half-century). Homoousias was not a compromise, nor was it a made-up Greek word, nor was it proposed by Constantine; his theological knowledge was insufficient for such a sophisticated discussion.

* This was not intended to satisfy everyone, nor did it. Arius was banished and his books were burned. And as I said, the dispute, later led by Athanasius, continued until the Council of Constantinople in 381.