Background to the Council of Nicaea (325) continued:

The teaching of Arianism centered on the central idea that God, the Father, is the unique, incommunicable, indivisible, transcendent nature of the singular divine being. This is what the Arians defined as the Father. Logically pressing this definition of the Father and making use of certain biblical language, the Arians argued that if the error of Sabellius was to be avoided, then certain conclusions about the Son were inescapable.

Timeout for History:

The teaching of Sabellius was fresh in the minds of church leaders and an error they wanted to avoid in dealing with Arius. Sabellius was a priest and theologian from in Libya or Egypt and was excommunicated by Calixtus I in 220. Sabellius opposed the orthodox teaching of “essential Trinity.” Instead, Sabellius advanced the doctrine of the “economic Trinity.” God, he held, was one indivisible substance, but with three fundamental activities, or modes, appearing successively as the Father (the creator and lawgiver), as the Son (the redeemer), and as the Holy Spirit (the maker of life and the divine presence within men).

With Sabellius as a backdrop it is easy to see how Arius’ view of the Son, which is the central significance of Arianism, was being positioned. Arius was accusing Alexander of committing this error in describing the Son. To Arius, Jesus cannot be of the Father’s being or essence (otherwise that essence would be divisible or communicable or in some way not unique or simple, which is impossible by definition). He therefore, according to Arius, exists only by the Father’s will, as do all other creatures and things. “Begotten” is to be taken in the sense of “made,” so that the Son is a ktisma or poiema (see Eph. 2:10, “workmanship”), a creature. Being begotten or made, he must have had a beginning, and this leads to the famous Arian phrase, “There was when he was not.” Since he was not generated out of the Father’s being and he was, the first of God’s creation, then he must have been created out of nothing. Not being of perfect or immutable substance, he was subject to moral change. And because of the extreme transcendence of God, in the final respect the Son, has no essential communion or knowledge of the Father at all. The ascription of theos to Christ in Scripture was deemed merely functional; it was regarded to Jesus’ role of representing the Father. God? Yes. The same substance as the Father? No. To Arius, his view was not like Sabellianism, but it also was not the what was being taught now in the church. A clear definition was needed regarding the relationship in eternity between the Father and the Son.

The Da Vinci Code teaches that Jesus was only “a mortal” prior to the Council of Nicaea in 325. However, this assertion is clearly wrong and anyone who would research the historical record, as Dan Brown claims to have done, would have known this.

The council of Nicaea opened June 19, 325, with Hosius of Cordova presiding with Emperor Constantine in attendance. Following an opening address by the Emperor in which the need for unity was stressed, Eusebius of Nicomedia, leading the Arian party, presented a formula of faith which candidly marked a radical departure from traditional teaching that was presently being taught in the church, that Jesus was God of God. The disapproval was so strong that most of the Arian party abandoned their support of the document and it was torn to shreds before the eyes of everyone present.

A creed was needed to define what the church had been teaching and would teach. This creed featured the term homoousia, in regard to Jesus’ relationship to the Father, which meant that Jesus and God are of the same substance. This term created a clear line of distinction between what the church believed and Arianism along with the previous Sabellianism error. The final draft would require the signatures of the bishops or their departure from the church. The “vote” taken at Nicaea was in regard to the relationship between Jesus and the Father, not to determine if Jesus was deity.

Next
We will look at the terminology of the Creed and how the document reinforces that the Council was not “voting” on the divinity of Christ, but the relationship between the Father and the Son in eternity.