In my 05.10 and 05.12 blogs, I began to explore “The Da Vinci Code’s” assertion that the Council of Nicaea “voted” on the divinity of Christ. We have already clarified that the issue was not the fundamental deity of Christ, but the eternality of Christ. In other words, was Jesus always God or did He become God at some point in history? How could God be “begotten” by the Father and still be God? It was a monumental task to try and merge basic theological truths within a philosophical understanding.

Constantine wanted to know what is the Church teaching regarding this and what would be the best way to explain it as a binding doctrine of the Church to foster Church unity? With a final creed crafted, the Council of Bishops agreed (316 in agreement with 2 in opposition), to the following:

We believe in one God the Father all powerful, maker of all things both seen and unseen. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten begotten from the Father, that is from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things came to be, both those in heaven and those in earth; for us humans and for our salvation he came down and became incarnate, became human, suffered and rose up on the third day, went up into the heavens, is coming to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit.

And those who say “there once was when he was not”, and “before he was begotten he was not”, and that he came to be from things that were not, or
from another hypostasis or substance affirming that the Son of God is subject to change or alteration these the catholic and apostolic church anathematises. [emphasis mine]

Translation taken from Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner

It is abundantly clear that the Council was not only making an affirmation in creed, but sampling the sound-bites of heretical teaching in order to be crystal clear when it relates to the fact that Jesus was not created or of similar substance of the Father, but one and the same – God of very God. The Council of Nicaea could not have been clearer and Dan Brown could not be more wrong.