The Council of Nicaea

Did the council invent Jesus' divinity?

The most repeated Nicaea myth, made famous by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (2003): the divinity of Jesus was 'officially proposed and voted on' at Nicaea — invented there by the church under the Emperor Constantine.

Even skeptics reject this. The agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman, no friend of orthodoxy, says the council did not meet to decide whether Jesus was divine — 'everyone at the Council ... already agreed that Jesus was divine, the Son of God.' What Nicaea actually debated was not whether the Son is God but how: eternal and of one being with the Father, or a creature? The disciples had already confessed it — Thomas, to the risen Christ: 'My Lord and my God.' Nicaea confessed what the church had held from the start; it invented nothing.

Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003), ch. 55 — the character Teabing“Jesus' establishment as 'the Son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”

Hostile witness · Bart Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code (Oxford, 2004)“This was not a council that met to decide whether or not Jesus was divine ... everyone at the Council — in fact, just about every Christian everywhere — already agreed that Jesus was divine, the Son of God.”

Was his divinity decided by a close vote?

The Da Vinci Code calls it 'a relatively close vote' — as though the church barely carried the motion that Jesus is God.

The record is not close. Around three hundred bishops gathered (the eyewitness Eusebius says 'more than 250'; tradition says 318). When the Creed was signed, Socrates Scholasticus records that only five objected to the word homoousios — and three of those five subscribed anyway. Just two, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais, refused outright and were exiled with Arius. Three hundred to two is not a close vote; it is a landslide.

Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003), ch. 55 — Teabing“'You're saying Jesus' divinity was the result of a vote?' 'A relatively close vote at that,' Teabing added.”

Primary — eyewitness · Eusebius, Life of Constantine III.8“the number of bishops exceeded two hundred and fifty.”

Primary — church historian · Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History I.8“This creed was ... acquiesced in by three hundred and eighteen. ... Five only would not receive it ... Theonas of Marmarica, and Secundus of Ptolemaïs.”

Did Nicaea decide which books are in the Bible?

A widespread belief — again amplified by The Da Vinci Code — is that the New Testament canon was chosen at Nicaea: the bishops voted the right books in and the rival gospels out. A medieval legend even has the apocryphal books miraculously falling off the altar.

Nicaea never discussed the canon. Not one of its twenty canons mentions which books are Scripture. The skeptic Bart Ehrman is blunt: the idea 'that it was at the Council of Nicea that the canon of the New Testament was decided ... That too is wrong.' The four Gospels were already fixed in Irenaeus' day (c. AD 180), a century and a half earlier. The altar-miracle tale comes from the ninth-century Synodicon Vetus, popularized by Voltaire — not from any act of the council. The church recognized the books it already received; it did not invent a list at Nicaea.

The canon-by-miracle legend — Synodicon Vetus (9th c.), popularized by Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, 'Conciles'“The story that the inspired books, set beside the altar, sorted themselves while the apocrypha fell beneath — a late forgery, not a record of Nicaea.”

Hostile witness · Bart Ehrman, 'Widespread Misconceptions about the Council of Nicea'“There are also a lot of people who think ... that it was at the Council of Nicea that the canon of the New Testament was decided ... That too is wrong.”

Primary · Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.8 (c. AD 180)“It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.”

Did Constantine commission a new Bible that cut the human-Jesus gospels?

The Da Vinci Code claims Constantine 'commissioned and financed a new Bible' that omitted the gospels stressing Christ's human traits and kept only the ones that made him godlike.

Constantine did order Bibles — but the record says the opposite of the myth. Eusebius preserves the actual letter: fifty copies 'of the sacred Scriptures' for the new churches of Constantinople, to be made by trained scribes. They were copies of the Scriptures the church already used, written years after Nicaea — not an edited canon, and nothing was 'cut.' And the canonical Gospels are the very ones that insist on Jesus' humanity: 'the Word became flesh.' The myth has the evidence backwards.

Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003), ch. 55 — Teabing“Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made him godlike.”

Primary — Constantine's own letter · Eusebius, Life of Constantine IV.36“I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures ... to be written on prepared parchment ... by professional transcribers thoroughly practised in their art.”

Were the 'lost gospels' banned at Nicaea?

It is often said that the Gnostic 'lost gospels' — Thomas, Judas, Mary — were suppressed or outlawed at Nicaea to hide a more human Jesus.

Nicaea never took up the subject. These texts were written long after the apostles (the 2nd century and later) and were never widely received; the fourfold Gospel was already settled by c. AD 180, when Irenaeus could say the Gospels could be 'neither more nor fewer' than four. They were not 'lost' at Nicaea — they were never in. (For the full canon question, see the 'Who Chose the Books?' examination.)

The popular 'suppressed gospels' claim (Gnostic Thomas, Judas, Mary)“That the council banned rival gospels portraying a merely human Jesus — a claim with no basis in the acts of Nicaea.”

Primary · Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.8 (c. AD 180)“It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.”

Did St. Nicholas punch Arius at the council?

A favorite internet story — beloved even by some Christians — has Bishop Nicholas of Myra (the original 'Santa Claus') so enraged by Arius that he slapped or punched him on the council floor.

We hold our own side to the same standard: this one is legend. The slapping story appears centuries after Nicaea and attaches to Nicholas only in the late-medieval and early-modern period; no contemporary account of the council records it, and the early attendance lists do not even securely place him there. It is a fun tale, not history — and an examination that corrects others' myths must correct its own.

The 'Santa punched a heretic' legend“A late, post-medieval story with no contemporary attestation at Nicaea — included here only to be set straight.”

Note on the legend's late origin · The earliest accounts of Nicaea say nothing of it“Eusebius, Socrates, and the council's own canons record no such incident; the story attaches to Nicholas only many centuries later.”

So what did Nicaea actually decide?

If Nicaea did not invent Jesus' divinity or pick the Bible's books, the fair question is: what did it do?

Four things, all on the record. (1) It answered the Arian controversy, confessing the Son as 'of one substance with the Father' — homoousios. (2) It issued the Nicene Creed, with an anathema against the slogan 'there was a time when he was not.' (3) It set a common rule for dating Easter. (4) It passed twenty canons — rules of church order, about clergy and the restoration of the lapsed — none of which concern which books are Scripture. A creed, a date, and church order: that is Nicaea.

The Nicene Creed (AD 325)“... being of one substance with the Father (Greek homoousion) ... And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not ... the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.”

Primary · The Creed and Canons of Nicaea (AD 325)“Twenty canons of church order, the Creed with its anathema, and the ruling on the date of Easter — the council's actual acts.”

Primary · Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History I.8“This creed was recognized and acquiesced in by three hundred and eighteen.”

Is 'homoousios' just an unbiblical, man-made word?

A fair objection: the council's key term, homoousios — 'of one substance' — is not in the Bible. So is the doctrine a 4th-century invention forced onto the church?

The word is not in Scripture; the teaching is — and we should say both plainly. 'Of one substance' is a fence around what the apostles already wrote: 'the Word was God'; 'I and the Father are one'; 'in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily'; the Son is 'the express image of his person.' The church needed one word to rule out Arius's created Son without denying the one God of Israel. Naming a truth precisely is not the same as inventing it.

The objection (held by Arians then and biblical unitarians now)“That homoousios is an extra-biblical, philosophical term, and therefore an imposition on the apostolic faith.”

Primary · The Nicene Creed (AD 325)“... being of one substance with the Father (Greek homoousion, Latin consubstantialem) ...”

Was it just imperial politics — did Constantine dictate the outcome?

The cynical version: Nicaea was theater. Constantine wanted a unified empire, so he convened the council and the bishops rubber-stamped whatever the emperor wanted.

Constantine did convene and fund the council and pressed for unity — but he did not author its theology, and the aftermath proves it. Within a few years he recalled the exiled Arius, and by AD 335 he banished Athanasius, Nicaea's great defender. If the emperor controlled the doctrine, the Nicene party would not have spent the next half-century out of favor at court. The creed outlasted the politics precisely because it did not depend on them.

The 'imperial fiat' reading of Nicaea“That the homoousios result was Constantine's political will imposed on a compliant council.”

Primary — the documented sequence · Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Book I“After Nicaea, Constantine received Arius back from exile and later banished Athanasius (335) — the emperor did not enforce the very result he had presided over.”

Before Nicaea, was Jesus seen only as a prophet?

The Da Vinci Code's premise: 'until that moment' at Nicaea, Jesus' followers regarded him as a mortal prophet — a great man, but a man. Divinity came later.

The evidence is centuries earlier. Around AD 112 the Roman governor Pliny — a hostile witness — reports that Christians met before dawn and 'sing ... a hymn to Christ as to a god.' Around AD 107 Ignatius writes of 'our God, Jesus Christ.' The scholar Richard Bauckham notes a Christology higher than which 'is scarcely possible' already in Paul's 1 Corinthians 8:6 — decades before. And John records Thomas calling the risen Jesus 'My Lord and my God,' and Jesus himself saying 'Before Abraham was, I am.' Christians worshiped Jesus as God for two centuries before any bishop reached Nicaea.

Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003), ch. 55 — Teabing“Until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet ... a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.”

Primary — hostile (Roman governor) · Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96 (c. AD 112)“[The Christians] were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.”

Primary — church father · Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 18 (c. AD 107)“For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary...”

Scholarship · Michael J. Kruger, quoting Richard Bauckham“A higher Christology than Paul already expresses in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is scarcely possible.”