Early Christianity · Part 6 · Arius and Nicaea · B1–B2
Arius and Nicaea: One Word, an Emperor and a Creed
Part 6 of Early Christianity: a priest in Alexandria taught that the Son of God had a beginning. His bishop disagreed, the quarrel spread across the empire, and in 325 the first Christian emperor called the bishops to Nicaea. What did each side believe, what did the council really decide, and what did it not? Cause and result: because, since, so, therefore, as a result, which is why.
By the early fourth century, Christianity had grown from a small movement into a large network of churches across the Roman Empire. In 313, the emperors stopped the persecution of Christians, and in 324 Constantine, who favoured the Christians, became the only emperor. For the first time, the Church’s arguments were also the emperor’s problem, because he wanted one empire with one peaceful Church.
The great question of the century was about God. Christians called Jesus the Son of God and worshipped him, but they also insisted that there is only one God. How could both be true? Was the Son equal to the Father, or something less? The answer that won was written into a creed, a short statement of belief, which most Christian churches still recite today.
At Nicaea, a single Greek word decided the shape of Christian belief.
Arius was a popular priest in Alexandria. Around 318 he began to teach that the Son of God was not eternal: the Father had created him, before everything else, and through him had made the world. The Son was divine and deserved worship, but he was not equal to the Father, since only the Father had no beginning. His followers summed it up in a phrase: “There was when he was not.” Arius’s bishop, Alexander, taught that the Son had…
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