Christian Forums

Error and misinformation abound regarding the role of Constantine and Nicea in Church history. Comments recently posted on this board to that effect have prompted me to post a link to an article that sets the record straight.

http://www.equip.org/article/what-really-happened-at-nicea/#christian-books-4

I saw NOTHING in that article about the exclusion (other than the fact that we are not mentioned) of the Believing Jews from the table.

Quote from: DaveW on Wed Dec 31, 2014 - 11:37:37
I saw NOTHING in that article about the exclusion (other than the fact that we are not mentioned) of the Believing Jews from the table.

Sorry Dave. The article wasn't meant to be that comprehensive. Read the summary. It was meant to address the most common misconceptions regarding the role of Nicea and Constantine in the formation of the canon of Scripture and the doctrine of the Trinity. No one who knows Church history will deny that there are examples of anti-Jewish sentiment to be found throughout that history, but that wasn't the purpose of the article.

Quote from: Nomad1689 on Wed Dec 31, 2014 - 12:24:24
Sorry Dave. The article wasn't meant to be that comprehensive. Read the summary. It was meant to address the most common misconceptions regarding the role of Nicea and Constantine in the formation of the canon of Scripture and the doctrine of the Trinity. No one who knows Church history will deny that there are examples of anti-Jewish sentiment to be found throughout that history, but that wasn't the purpose of the article.

Well - the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity badly needed a Jewish perspective.  While not inaccurate, the wording came across as tri-theism (worship of 3 gods) rather than a true monotheism.  As one messianic rabbi put it: "It seems engineered to repel Jews."

"Nicea was not creating some new doctrine, some new belief, but clearly, explicitly, defining truth against error." - That's debatable, but since Arius didn't have any problem accepting the scriptures they threw at him I wonder if they considered that the bible was sufficiently vague enough that people would have just reason to interpret it differently, and they could have just told Constantine that they wanted to adopt a position of tolerance and unity without demanding uniformity, and the good Emperor would have nothing to worry about concerning his kingdom falling apart due to the disunity in the church. I think a show of unity based on being one in Christ would have gone a lot further than the mess created by trying to micro-define "orthodoxy".