Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!
The Church commemorates the First Ecumenical Council each year on the Sunday after the Ascension.
Had I ever written about the First Council? I searched back, and so I had – nine years ago. It was like reading somebody else’s writing! I’m sure that very few of you were following this Blog in those days of yore, and those who were have surely forgotten about it, just as I had.
That is my excuse for repeating these two Posts – as always with some clarifications and improvements.
The Story of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council
Why does the Church title this “The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council?” Because the Orthodox Church, in her personal approach to everything, wisely commemorations not events but the people who took part in them. Much more could be said about this, but not now.
The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council dealt with many matters: the date of Pascha (why does this never get settled?), the Meletian schism, regulations for the clergy and much more. But here we’re going to talk only about the big issue: the Arian heresy.
What led up to the Council: Arius’ wicked confusion
This story really began one day in the year 319. Pope Alexander of Alexandria was speaking of the eternal divinity of Jesus Christ, when he was interrupted by a priest Arius who said (this is not a quote): No, the Bible says the Son is begotten of the Father; therefore the Son is younger than the Father. He was created by the Father. And this became the Arian theme song: “There was a time when the Son was not”.
Now it is possible that Arius wasn’t very intelligent or was careless – hadn’t read the Scriptures carefully, or didn’t understand the meaning of divinity. Perhaps he didn’t see that to be divine means to be eternal, to exist outside time. Therefore if Christ is God, He could not have been created. The Scriptures are clear about this: Hebrews 1:10, speaking of Christ, says “In the beginning, Lord, You laid the foundations of the earth, an
d the heavens are the work of Your hands.” That is, Christ our God created all things including time. In the Gospel, Jesus prays, “Father, glorify me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was”. John 17:5 There never was a time when Christ was not.
Granted, there is also a certain subservience of Christ to the Father: In the Garden Jesus prayed “Father, not My will but Yours be done.” John 3:16, for example, says Christ is begotten of the Father – whatever that means. This is all beyond our ken. I think it was Saint John of Damascus * who wrote (I paraphrase) that we believe Christ is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father, but as to what “begotten” and “proceed” mean, we have no idea. As my old Methodist theology professor (a believer) said, “We do well not to inquire too closely into the inner family life of God.” But this much is clear: We cannot say there was a time when Christ was not.
- Please correct me if I’m wrong.
To call Christ the Son of the Father has never meant that He is younger than the Father. It means that, as a human son is human just as his father is human, so the Son of God is God just as His Father is God. As the Creed puts it, Christ is of the same “essence”, same “nature” as God His Father.
Therefore, the New Testament speaks clearly of the divinity of Christ: Saint John began his Gospel with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Apostle Thomas saw the risen Lord and cried, “My Lord and my God”. John 20:26 Saint Paul proclaimed that Christ has equality with God. Philippians 2:6 There is much more. Passage after passage in the Gospels make sense only if Jesus is divine. If He is not God, His claim that “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18) is idolatry. Or craziness.
My point in restating these familiar texts is just to point out that Arius was clearly wrong. He wasn’t reading the New Testament right. He was like some people throughout history (the world is full of them right now) who have run off with Scripture passages out of context, contrary to the rest of the Bible, contrary to the Tradition of the Church, and have tried to make them mean what they do not mean.
In the early centuries the divinity of Christ seemed obvious; it was His humanity that some questioned. Arius’ denial of Jesus’ divinity was a new idea and a dangerous one. It threatened our salvation. If Christ is not God, how does our Baptism into Him unite us with God? How do His teachings have divine authority? He becomes only one more human teacher like Mohammed or the Buddha. If Jesus is not God, His crucifixion is no longer the ultimate sign of God’s love for us; His resurrection is not God’s victory over the worst the devil and mankind can do. If Christ is not both God and Man, how can He unite mankind with God, unite Heaven and earth in Himself? If Christ is not God, how does the Holy Eucharist bring the power of God into our lives? If Jesus Christ is not God and Man, the Gospel, the “Good News” of our salvation, goes out the window. To put it bluntly, if Christ is not God, what are we all doing here?
The Church had always believed Jesus Christ is fully God and fully Man. Arius had it wrong.
What caused the Council: the Arian heresy
So Pope Alexander pointed all this out. Arius refused to back down. He got his back up. This is the mark of the heretic. I once heard Father Thomas Hopko say that a heretic is not just anyone with a false opinion. Who among us perfectly understands the Orthodox Faith? We all get confused sometimes. All the saints, even the Fathers, have made theological errors. However, they submitted their opinions to the Church, to the Tradition, and when it was made clear to them why they were wrong they humbly admitted their error and changed their minds and got with the Church. However, the heretic, when his or her errors are pointed out, says, “No, the Church is wrong, the Tradition is wrong, and I am right.”
(I repeat here my plea: If I ever mistakenly write anything un-Orthodox or inaccurate, please correct me.)
But Arius wouldn’t give it up. He started to promote his doctrine which became known as Arianism, and to do so (I’m sorry to tell you this) he appears to have invented the singing commercial. *
- I think this was almost as bad as being a heretic! It has led to today’s commercial world where we forever catch ourselves humming mindless ditties designed to make us buy stuff we don’t need or even want. That catchy “See the USA in your Chevrolet” is back after seventy years! And I’m sorry I mentioned it, because right now that is stuck in my mind, even though at my age I am not going to buy a new car.
Where were we?
So… Arius put his doctrines to music and sent pop musicians out to teach people the songs so they would remember. We don’t know the tunes, but here’s one example of the lyrics: “The uncreated God has made the Son the first of all things created… the Son is not equal to the Father, nor does he share the same essence… there was a time when the Son was not… the members of the Holy Trinity share unequal glories.” (Well, you had to be there…)
And it worked. Arius knew what modern advertisers and politicians know: that people rarely ask: “Is this true? Does it make sense?” So if you just say it often enough in a way people can remember, then no matter how false or off the wall it is, many will come to believe it. Look at today’s world, where devious men like Arius (both religious and political) tell lies so often – and use the internet to promote them – that truth scarcely matters any more.
Just so in the Fourth Century: Arianism began to take hold and grow, first in Egypt and then throughout the East. The Church had experienced plenty of persecution from outside, but Arius was the first of the “savage wolves”, predicted by Saint Paul in Acts 20, who set out to ravage the Church from the inside.
Emperor Constantine the Great * comes to the rescue.
- My brief account of the life of Constantine can be found at the end of this Post.
Now, this was a problem and not only for the Church. The new Emperor Constantine favored Christianity and intended the Empire to be united in the Christian faith. But now Christians were divided. Constantine was getting letters from irate Christians, both Orthodox and Arian. fuming at each other, begging him to suppress their opponents. This wouldn’t do.
So Constantine took it upon himself to unite the Church. He invited all bishops to a Council to be held in the city of Nicaea in western Asia Minor, not far from where his new capitol, later titled Constantinople, would soon be built.
Remember, this was barely a decade since the Great Persecution had ended. The bishops could scarcely comprehend that a Christian Emperor now sat on the throne and cared about the unity of the Church. 1800 bishops were invited, but it is said only 318 attended, 6 from the West, 312 from the East. With their accompanying priests, deacons and other assistants, perhaps as many as 1800 people were gathered. (I wonder how they handled the logistics.)
I draw off and on throughout this Post and the next from the book The Holy Fire: The Story of the Fathers of the Eastern Church by Robert Payne, a very readable introduction to the subject. *
- Should you get it, be sure to read the Preface by Father Thomas Hopko, where he enthusiastically endorses the book, but points out a few errors.
Here is a quote:
“From the east came bishops who had suffered persecution… Paul, Bishop of Mesopotamian Caesarea, with his hands scorched in the flames. Paphnutius of Upper Egypt, famous for the austerity of his life, had had his right eye dug out and the sinews of his left leg…cut during the Diocletian persecution. Bishop Potammon of Heraclea who had lived in the deserts of the Nile had also lost an eye… James Bishop of Nisibis who wore a coat of camel’s hair, and from the island of Cyprus Bishop Spyridon a saintly shepherd who refused to give up tending sheep even when he was elevated to the episcopate, a man who performed miracles to the delight of Cypriotes… John Bishop of Persia and Metropolitan of India from the lands outside the empire, and from the unknown north came Theophilus the Goth a flaxen haired Scythian from somewhere in Russia. There were sharp-featured intellectuals, men of abstruse book learning capable of splitting hairs by the yard,… wise old hermits who had spent the previous year clothed in rough goat hair cloaks living on roots and leaves. There were men so saintly that it was almost expected…that they would perform miracles. There were cantankerous men and men riddled with heresies and men…in hope of preferment from the emperor, …men who came peacefully and other men determined to wage war.”
And now it was time for the First Ecumenical Council to begin.
Next Week: Part Two – What the Council was like, what it accomplished and what it did not accomplish.
Week after Next: Idolatry? Polytheism? Theoretical Conjecture?
In this nine year old account of the life of Emperor Constantine, I have made no updates – left it just as it was when I first wrote it.
Very insightful! Thank you!
“You’re welcome” – to both of you.