The two councils of Nicaea were ecumenical councils of the Christian church held in 325 and 787, respectively. The First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council held by the church, is best known for its formulation of the Nicene Creed, the earliest dogmatic statement of Christian orthodoxy. The council was convened in 325 by the Roman emperor Constantine I in an attempt to settle the controversy raised by Arianism over the nature of the Trinity. Nearly all those who attended came from the eastern Mediterranean region.
It was the decision of the council, formalized in the Nicene Creed, that God the Father and God the Son were consubstantial and coeternal and that the Arian belief in a Christ created by and thus inferior to the Father was heretical. Arius himself was excommunicated and banished. The council was also important for its disciplinary decisions concerning the status and jurisdiction of the clergy in the early church and for establishing the date on which Easter is celebrated.
The Second Council of Nicaea, the seventh ecumenical council of the Christian church, was convoked by the Byzantine empress Irene in 787 to rule on the use of saints' images and icons in religious devotion. At that time a strong movement known as Iconoclasm, which opposed the pictorial representation of saints or of the Trinity, existed in the Greek church. At the prompting of Irene, the council declared that whereas the veneration of images was legitimate and the intercession of saints efficacious, their veneration must be carefully distinguished from the worship due God alone.
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Bibliography
A E Burn, The Council of Nicaea (1925);
G Forell, Understanding the Nicene Creed (1965); E J Martin,
A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy (1930).
The first ecumenical council in the history of the church was convened by the emperor Constantine at Nicaea in Bithynia (now Isnik, Turkey). The main purpose of the council was to attempt to heal the schism in the church provoked by Arianism. This it proceeded to do theologically and politically by the almost unanimous production of a theological confession (the Nicene Creed) by over three hundred bishops representing almost all the eastern provinces of the empire (where the heresy was chiefly centered) and by a token representation from the West. The creed thus produced was the first that could legally claim universal authority as it was sent throughout the empire to receive the agreement of the churches (with the alternative consequences of excommunication and imperial banishment).
The issue which culminated at Nicaea arose out of an unresolved tension within the theological legacy of Origen concerning the relation of the Son to the Father. On the one hand there was the attribution of deity to the Son in a relationship with the Father described as eternal generation. On the other hand there was clear subordinationism. Almost appropriately, the dispute erupted at Alexandria about 318, with Arius, a popular presbyter of the church district of Baucalis, developing the latter strain of Origenism against Bishop Alexander, who advocated the former line of thinking. Arius was a quite capable logician who attacked Alexander (with motives not entirely scholarly) on the charge of Sabellianism. After a local synod heard his own views and dismissed them and him as unsound, Arius demonstrated his popularizing literary and political talents, gathering support beyond Alexandria.
His theological views appealed to left - wing Origenists, including the respected Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea. His closest and most helpful ally was his former fellow student in the school of Lucian, Eusebius, bishop at the imperial residence of Nicomedia. After Constantine's personal envoy, Hosius of Cordova, failed to effect a reconciliation in 322 between the two parties in Alexandria, the emperor decided to convene an ecumenical council.
The teaching of Arianism is well documented. The central controlling idea is the unique, incommunicable, indivisible, transcendent nature of the singular divine being. This is what the Arians referred to 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 (and everyone was anxious to avoid it), then certain conclusions about the Son were inescapable. And it is this view of the Son which is the central significance of Arianism. He 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 exists only by the Father's will, as do all other creatures and things. The biblical description of his being begotten does imply a special relationship between the Father and the Word or Son, but it cannot be an ontological relationship.
"Begotten" is to be taken in the sense of "made," so that the Son is a ktisma or poiema, 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, as they accorded him, 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 real communion or knowledge of the Father at all. The ascription of theos to Christ in Scripture was deemed merely functional.
The council of Nicaea opened June 19, 325, with Hosius of Cordova presiding and the emperor in attendance. Despite the absence of official minutes a sketch of the proceedings can be reconstructed. 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 formularies. 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. Soon thereafter Eusebius of Caesarea, anxious to clear his name, read a lengthy statement of faith that included what was probably a baptismal creed of the church of Caesarea. Eusebius had been provisionally excommunicated earlier in the year by a synod in Antioch for refusing to sign an anti - Arian creed. The emperor himself pronounced him orthodox with only the suggestion that he adopt the word homoousios.
For a long time the confession of Eusebius was believed to have formed the basis of the Nicene Creed, which was then modified by the council. However, it seems clear that such was not the case, the structure and content of the latter being significantly different from the former. Most likely a creed was introduced under the direction of Hosius, discussed (especially the term homoousia), and drafted in its final form requiring the signatures of the bishops. All those present (including Eusebius of Nicomedia) signed except two who were subsequently exiled.
It should be noted that this creed is not that which is recited in churches today as the Nicene Creed. Although similar in many respects, the latter is significantly longer than the former and is missing some key Nicene phrases.
The theology expressed in the Nicene Creed is decisively anti-Arian. At the beginning the unity of God is affirmed. But the Son is said to be "true God from true God." Although confessing that the Son is begotten, the creed adds the words, "from the Father" and "not made." It is positively asserted that he is "from the being (ousia) of the Father" and "of one substance (homoousia) with the Father." A list of Arian phrases, including "there was when he was not" and assertions that the Son is a creature or out of nothing, are expressly anathematized. Thus an ontological rather than merely functional deity of the Son was upheld at Nicaea. The only thing confessed the Spirit, however, is faith in him.
Among other things achieved at Nicaea were the agreement on a date to celebrate Easter and a ruling on the Melitian Schism in Egypt. Arius and his most resolute followers were banished, but only for a short time. In the majority at Nicaea was Athanasius, then a young deacon, soon to succeed Alexander as bishop and carry on what would become a minority challenge to a resurgent Arianism in the East. However, the orthodoxy of Nicaea would eventually and decisively be reaffirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
C A Blaising
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)
Bibliography
Athanasius, Defense of the Nicene Council; Eusebius,
The Life of Constantine; Socrates, Ecclesiastical
History; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History; Theodoret,
Ecclesiastical History; A E Burn, The Council of Nicea;
J Gonzalez, A History of Christian Thought, I; H M Gwatkin,
Studies of Arianism; R C Gregg and D E Groh, Early Arianism;
A Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition; J N D Kelly,
Early Christian Creeds and Early Christian Doctrines; C Luibheid,
Eusebius of Caesarea and the Arian Crisis.
It is more than sixteen hundred years since the first of the General Councils of the Church met. This is so long ago that the very names of the places connected with its history have quite disappeared from common knowledge and the atlases. They have about them an air of the fabulous; Nicaea, Bithynia, Nicomedia, and the rest. The very unfamiliarity of the sounds is a reminder that even for the purpose of the slight consideration which is all that these pages allow, a considerable adjustment of the mind is called for. We must, somehow, revive the memory of a world that has wholly passed away, that had disappeared, indeed, well nigh a thousand years already when Columbus and his ships first sighted the coasts of the new continent.
The business that brought the three hundred or so bishops to Nicaea in 325 from all over the Christian world was to find a remedy for the disturbances that had seriously troubled the East for now nearly two years. The cause of these disturbances was a new teaching about the basic mystery of the Christian religion.
Let our expert summarise the position, and say what it was that the new leader, Arius by name, had lately been popularising, through sermons, writings, and popular hymns and songs. "It was the doctrine of Arianism that our Lord was a pure creature, made out of nothing, liable to fall, the Son of God by adoption, not by nature, and called God in Scripture, not as being really such, but only in name. At the same time [Arius] would not have denied that the Son and the Holy Ghost were creatures transcendently near to God, and immeasurably distant from the rest of creation.
"Now, by contrast, how does the teaching of the Fathers who preceded Arius, stand relatively to such a representation of the Christian Creed? Is it such, or how far is it such, as to bear Arius out in so representing it? This is the first point to inquire about.
"First of all, the teaching of the Fathers was necessarily directed by the form of Baptism, as given by our Lord Himself to His disciples after His resurrection. To become one of His disciples was, according to His own words, to be baptized 'into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost'; that is, into the profession, into the service, of a Triad. Such was our Lord's injunction: and ever since, before Arianism and after, down to this day, the initial lesson in religion taught to every Christian, on his being made a Christian, is that he thereby belongs to a certain Three, whatever more, or whether anything more, is revealed to us in Christianity about that Three.
"The doctrine then of a Supreme Triad is the elementary truth of Christianity; and accordingly, as might have been expected, its recognition is a sort of key-note, on which centre the thoughts and language of all theologians, from which they start, with which they end."[1]
Examination of a chain of pre-Arian writers, from every part of Christendom, reveals that "there was during the second and third centuries a profession and teaching concerning the Holy Trinity, not vague and cloudy, but of a certain determinate character," and that this teaching "was contradictory and destructive of the Arian hypothesis."[2] And from all this literature the fact emerges that, from the beginning, "some doctrine or other of a Trinity lies at the very root of the Christian conception of the Supreme Being, and of his worship and service": and that "it is impossible to view historical Christianity apart from the doctrine of the Trinity."[3]
It was round about the year 323 that the Arian crisis developed. The struggle between the advocates of the new theory and the Church authorities who stood by the tradition was to continue thence onward for a good fifty years and more. And now, for the first time in the history of the Church, the State intervened in what was, of itself, a dispute about belief. A second point to note is that the State, on the whole, sided with the innovators, and was hostile to the defenders of the traditional truth.
The history of those fifty-six years (325-81), that followed the Council of Nicaea and closed with the next General Council (Constantinople I), is part of the history of both these councils. And its complexity defies any summary simplification. If we turn to Newman for a clue to the meaning of it all, he will tell us that this long and stubborn struggle is nothing else than a particular passage in the conflict that never ceases between the Church and the secular power. "The same principle of government which led the emperors to denounce Christianity while they were pagans, led them to dictate to its bishops, when they had become Christians." Such an idea as that "religion should be independent of state authority" was, in the eyes of all these princes, contrary to the nature of things. And not only was this conflict "inevitable," but, Newman continues, it might have been foreseen as probable that the occasion of the conflict would be a controversy within the Church about some fundamental doctrine. Newman's last remarkable words may usefully warn us that in Church History things are not always so simple as we expect.[4]
Even the full history of a General (i.e., world-wide) Council called in such circumstances, the first council of its kind--which had no precedents to guide its procedure, or to instruct the generality about the special value attaching to its decisions--even this would inevitably present difficulties to minds sixteen hundred years later; minds bred in a detailed, centuries-old tradition about the kind of thing General Councils are, and furnished with definite ideas about their nature, procedure, and authority.
But we are very far from possessing anything like a full history of this first Council of Nicaea. Of any official record of the day-today proceedings--the acta of the council--there is no trace. The earliest historians, from whose accounts our knowledge must derive, were in large measure partisan writers. And of the two writers who were present at the council, the one who was a historian[5] was an ally of the heretics and the quasi-official panegyrist of the emperor Constantine who called the council; and the other,[6] though he has much indeed to say about the council, does not anywhere profess to be writing a record of its acts.
Nowhere, of course, is our knowledge of the history of these first centuries of the Church anything like so complete as is our knowledge of, let us say, any part of it during the last eight or nine hundred years. In the matter of Nicaea, as in other questions, scholars are still disputing-- and not on religious grounds--whether, for example, certain key documents were really written by the personages whose names they bear. About the details of the history of all these early councils, because of the insufficiency of our information, there is inevitably much confusion, great obscurity. Yet there are compensations for those who study it. "History does not bring clearly upon the canvas the details which were familiar to the ten thousand minds of whose combined movements and fortunes it treats. Such is it from its very nature; nor can the defect ever fully be remedied. This must be admitted . . . still no one can mistake its general teaching in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines, which cannot be disregarded, rise out of the records of the past, when we look to see what it will give up to us: they may be dim, they may be incomplete, but they are definite; there is that which they are not, which they cannot be."[7]
The state, or political society, in which the Arian troubles arose and developed was that which we know as the Roman Empire. This state, for its inhabitants, was one and the same thing as civilisation, and not surprisingly. As the accession of Constantine to the sole rulership, in 324, found the empire, so it had endured for three hundred years and more. History does not record any political achievement even remotely parallel to this. For the empire took in, besides Italy, the whole of Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Danube and also the southern half of the island of Britain. In the east it included the whole of the modern state we call Turkey, with Syria also, Palestine, and Egypt, and the lands on the southern shore of the Mediterranean westward thence to the Atlantic.
Races as varied as the peoples who today inhabit these lands, with just as little to unite them naturally, lived then for some four hundred years under the rule of the emperors, with a minimum of internal disturbance and in almost entire freedom from foreign war. The stresses and strains of the internal life of the empire were, of course, a constant menace to this marvellous unity. The supreme ruler, with whom lay the fullness of legislative power, who was the final judge in all lawsuits, and the head of the national religion, was the ruler because he was the commander in chief of the army: his very title imperator, which we translate "emperor," means just this.[8] And for the imperator, it was one of the chief problems of government to maintain his military prestige with the vast armies. No man could long rule the Roman world who did not first hold the legions true to himself by his own professional worth. All the great rulers who, in the course of these four centuries, developed and adapted and reformed the complex life of the state, its finances, its law, its administration, were in the first place great soldiers, highly successful generals: Trajan, for example, Hadrian, Septimius Severus, Decius, Diocletian.
And Constantine, the first emperor to abandon the pagan religion and to profess himself a Christian, stood out to his own generation primarily as a highly successful soldier, triumphant in a series of contests with rivals for the supreme place. Such wars, fights between rival generals for the imperial throne, were the chief curse of Roman political life, and especially so in what we reckon as the third century, the century in the last quarter of which Constantine himself was born. He would have been a little boy of nine or ten when the great Diocletian became emperor in 284, who, to put an end to these suicidal wars, immediately associated another soldier with himself, as joint emperor, the one to rule the East, the other the West. In 293 Diocletian took this devolution of power a step further With each emperor there was now associated a kind of assistant emperor, with the title of Caesar, the actual ruler of allotted territories and destined to be, in time, his principal's successor. The soldier chosen in 293 as the first western Caesar was Constantine's father, Constantius, commonly called Chlorus (the Pale) from his complexion. His territory was the modern countries of Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and England.
These details of political reorganisation have a direct connection with our story. The reader knows--who does not?--that one feature of the history of this Roman state was its hostility to the Christian religion Scarcely a generation went by without some serious persecution. And Diocletian ended his reign with the most dreadful persecution of all (303). This was largely due to the influence of his colleague, the Caesar, Galerius who, in 305, was to succeed him as emperor in the East. And of all the territories, it was Egypt that provided most of the victims in the eight years the terror lasted--Egypt which was to be the principal scene of the Arian troubles and, par excellence, of the Catholic resistance to them. In the West the persecution was, by comparison, mild, and in the domains of Constantius Chlorus there was no persecution at all. This emperor's personal religious history, and his attitude towards the Christian religion, is full of interest. His views were also the views of his son Constantine, and they perhaps provide a clue to the strange and baffling story, not only of the long successful Arian defiance of the decisions of the Council of Nicaea, but of that first Christian emperor's seeming unawareness of the defiance.
Constantine's own character is, of course, an element of the first importance in the history of the council he convoked; and so also is the kind of thing which his "conversion" to Christianity was, some twelve years before the Arian problem arose. At the time of the council he was nearing his fiftieth year, and he had been emperor for almost twenty. History seems to reveal him as intelligent indeed, but passionate and headstrong; a bold campaigner and, as an administrator, "magnificent" in the Aristotelian sense. That is to say, he loved great schemes, supported them always with princely generosity, improvised readily, and delighted to dazzle by the scale of his successes. It was a natural part of the character that he was ambitious, confident of success, and--a less obvious trait--his ambition was linked with a "mystical" belief that he was destined to succeed, and a sure, if confused, notion that the heavenly powers were on his side. Be it remembered here, once more, that this man was omnipotent in public affairs, as no ruler has been even in the recent revolutions of our own time; for the Roman emperor's omnipotence was universally accepted by his millions of subjects as his right, as something belonging to the very nature of things.
It is less easy to say exactly what Constantine knew or believed about the religion of Christ, twelve years after he had, as emperor, publicly made it his own. Certainly it would be a gross error to consider the business of his mystical dream on the eve of his victory at the Milvian Bridge (312), that made him supreme master of the West, as parallel to what happened to St. Paul on the road to Damascus. His own personal religion at the time was that of his pagan father, the cult suddenly promoted to the supreme place as the official religion about the time that Constantine was born, by the then emperor, Aurelian (269-75). This was the cult of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), the worship of the divine spirit by whom the whole universe is ruled, the spirit whose symbol is the sun; a symbol in which this spirit in some way specially manifests itself. Under Aurelian this cult was organised with great splendour. The temple of the Sun which he built at Rome must have been one of the wonders of the world. Aurelian's coins bear the inscription The Sun is the Lord of the Roman Empire. The whole cult is penetrated with the idea that there is a single spirit who is supreme, with the idea of an overruling divine monarchy. Moreover, the cult was in harmony with a philosophical religion steadily growing, in the high places of the administration, throughout this same century, the cult of Summus Deus--the God who is supreme.
Constantine's father remained faithful to this cult of Sol Invictus even when his seniors, Diocletian and Maximian, reverted to the old cults of Jupiter and Hercules. And once Constantine--no more than Caesar on his father's death (306)--felt himself really master in the West, Hercules and Jupiter disappeared from his coinage, and Sol Invictus was restored, while the official panegyrics laud "that divine spirit which governs this whole world." This in 311.
What Constantine gathered from his famous dream in September 312 was that this supreme divinity was promising him salvation in this military crisis, had despatched a messenger to assure him of it and to tell him how to act, and that this messenger was Christ, the God whom the Christians worshipped, and that the badge his soldiers must wear was the sign of Christ, the cross. He did not, on the morrow of his victory, ask for baptism, nor even to be enrolled as a catechumen. Constantine was never so much as even this. And not until he lay dying, twenty-five years later, was he baptised.
It was, then, an all but uninstructed, if enthusiastic, convert who now, with all the caution of an experienced politician, set his name to the Edict of Milan ( 313 ), set up the Christian religion as a thing legally permissible, endowed its chief shrines with regal munificence, showered civic privileges, honours, and jurisdiction on its bishops, and even began the delicate task of introducing Christian ideas into the fabric of the law. It was an all but uninstructed convert who, also, in these next ten years--and in the turbulent province of Africa--plunged boldly into the heat of a religious war, the Donatist Schism, with the instinctive confidence that his mere intervention would settle all problems. Between the truce with the Donatists, 321, and the appearance of Arius in Egypt the interval is short indeed. What had Constantine learned from the Donatist experience? What had it taught him about the kind of thing the divine society was in which he so truly believed? Very little, it would seem.
The great see of Alexandria in Egypt, of which Arius was a priest had for many years before his appearance as a heretic been troubled by schism. One of the suffragan bishops--Meletius by name--had accused his principal of giving way during the persecution; and, declaring all the bishop of Alexandria's acts invalid, had proceeded to consecrate bishops in one place after another, in opposition to him. Nor did Meletius cease his activities when this particular bishop of Alexandria died. In many places there were soon two sets of Catholic clergy, the traditional line and the "Meletian"; the confusion was great and the contest bitter everywhere, the faithful people as active as their pastors. "It was out of the Meletian schism that Arianism was born and developed," one historian[9] will tell us. Arius had been a "Meletian" in his time, but the new bishop, Alexander, had received him back and had promoted him to an important church. And here his learned eloquence and ascetic life soon gave his novel teaching as wide publicity as he could desire.
The bishop's first act, as the news spread, was to arrange a public disputation. In this Arius was worsted. He next disobeyed the bishop's natural injunction to be silent, and began to look for support outside Egypt. Meanwhile the bishop called a council of the hundred bishops subject to his see; ninety-eight voted to condemn Arius; and his two supporters, along with a handful of other clerics were deposed. Arius fled to Palestine, to an old friend generally regarded as the greatest scholar of the day, Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea. And from Caesarea the two began a vast correspondence to engage the support of bishops expected to be friendly to the cause, as far away as the imperial capital, Nicomedia.
Already there was a bond between Arius and many of those to whom he wrote. They like himself were pupils of the same famous teacher of the last generation, Lucian of Antioch, whose school--and not Alexandria--was the real birthplace of this new theological development. And Arius could address such prelates as "Dear Fellow-Lucianist." Of all those to whom he now wrote, none was so important as a second Eusebius, the bishop of the imperial city itself, and a possible power with the emperor through his friendship with Constantine's sister, the empress Constantia, consort of the eastern emperor, Licinius. The Lucianist bishop of Nicomedia rose to the occasion, "as though upon him the whole fate of the Church depended," the bishop of Alexandria complained. For Eusebius, too, circularised the episcopate generally and summoned a council of bishops, and they voted that Arius should be reinstated, and wrote to beg this of the bishop of Alexandria.
Arius' bishop, meanwhile, had been active also. We know of seventy letters which he wrote to bishops all over the Christian world; amongst others to whom he wrote was the pope. And since all these episcopal letters were copied and passed round, made up into collections and, as we should say, published, the whole of the East was soon aflame, fighting and rioting in one city after another. Few indeed of these enthusiasts could have understood the discussions of the theologians, but all grasped that what Arius was saying was that Christ was not God. And if this were so, what about the saving death on the Cross? And what was sinful man to hope for when he died? When the bishop of Alexandria stigmatised his rebellious priest as Christomachos (fighter against Christ), he clinched the matter in such a way that all, from the Christian emperor to the meanest dock hand in the port, must be personally interested, and passionately.
During these first months of agitation Constantine had, however, other matters to occupy him, and, to begin with, the agitation was none of his business. At the moment when the great movement began, none of the lands affected came under his jurisdiction. But in that same year, 323, war broke out between himself and his eastern colleague, his brother-in-law, Licinius. In July 324 Constantine, invader of Licinius territory, defeated him heavily at Adrianople, and in September he gained a second victory at Chrysopolis.[10] Later Licinius was put to death. When the victor entered his new capital in the ensuing weeks, there was in his household a Spanish prelate who had dwelt with Constantine for some years now, Hosius, bishop of Cordova. It was to him that Constantine, with the new Arian crisis confronting him, now turned.
Arius, by now, had returned to Alexandria, fortified with the vote of the council at Nicomedia and of a second (more peremptory) council at Caesarea, to demand the decreed reinstatement. His arrival, and the campaign of propaganda now launched, set the whole city ablaze. And Constantine despatched Hosius to make a personal investigation of the affair. When he returned to make his report, Alexander and Arius soon followed. The crisis next moved to the third great city of the empire, Antioch. The bishop there had recently died, and when the fifty-six bishops subject to Antioch came in from Palestine, Arabia, Syria, and elsewhere to elect a successor (January 325, probably), they took the opportunity to notice the Arian development. All but unanimously (53-3) they condemned the new teaching, and excommunicated--provisionally--the three dissidents. One of these was the bishop of Caesarea.
And now, sometime in the early spring of 325, it was decided to summon a council representative of all the bishops in the world. Who was it that first put out this grandiose, if simple, plan? We do not know. Within a matter of months--not indeed simultaneously, but with impressive nearness in time--councils had been held at Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, Nicomedia, in which a good half of the bishops of the East must have taken part, i.e., a good proportion of the vastly more numerous half of the entire episcopate. Whoever it was to whom the idea of a council of the Christian universe first occurred, it was Constantine who decided it should be held, and who chose the place and sent out the invitations to the bishops, offering to all free passage in the imperial transportation service.
The council opened, in the imperial summer palace at Nicaea,[11] May 20, 325, with something over three hundred bishops present, the vast bulk of them from the Greek-speaking lands where the trouble was raging, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor. But there were bishops also from Persia and the Caucasus, from the lands between the Danube and the Aegean, and from Greece. There was one from Africa and one from Spain, one from Gaul and one from Italy, and since the great age of the Bishop of Rome forbade his making the journey he was represented by two of his priests.
Eusebius of Caesarea who has described the great moments of the council was evidently moved, as we too may be, by his recollection of the scene when, the bishops all assembled in the great hall of the palace, some of them lame and blind from the tortures undergone in the persecutions, the Christian master of the whole Roman world entered, robed in scarlet and gold, and before taking his place at the throne, bade them be seated. Constantine came with a minimum of pomp, and in his brief address he did no more than welcome the bishops, exhort them to peaceful conference, and admit that the spectacle of "sedition" within the Church caused him more anxiety than any battle.
The little we know of the actual history of the council is soon told. The theology of Arius was condemned unanimously--though he is said to have had twenty-two supporters among the bishops. But if it was a simple matter for the episcopate to testify to its belief that the Divine Word was truly God, it was less easy to agree about the best way to phrase a declaration of this faith, i.e., to construct a statement to which no subtlety could give a heretical Arian meaning also. One section of the bishops was anxious that no terms should be used which were not already used in Scripture. But the Scriptures had not been written for the purpose of confuting philosophically minded heretics. It was now necessary to say that the accepted Scripture meant just "this" and not "that" as well. And if this were to be accomplished, the technique must be adopted of coining a special word for the purpose.
The statement as the council finally passed it--the creed of the council of Nicaea--states: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, born of the Father, the sole-begotten; that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; born, not made, consubstantial with the Father [in the Greek original, homo- ousion toi patri], through whom all things were made, which are in heaven and on earth . . ."[11a] The word homo-ousion is the special non-Scriptural word which the council adopted to characterise the true, traditional belief, a word it was impossible to square with any kind of Arian theory, a test word that would always make it clear that any Arian theory was incompatible with the Christian tradition, and which would serve the practical purpose of preventing any further infiltration of these enemies of Christ within the Church, and defeat any endeavour to change the belief from within.
Who it was that proposed to the council this precise word, we do not know. An Arian historian says it was the bishop of Alexandria and Hosius of Cordova. St. Athanasius, who was present at the council, says it was Hosius. What seems clearer is that the bishops, solidly determined that the heresy should be rooted out, were yet by no means happy about the means chosen. The word homoousion was known to them already. Since long before the time of Arius and Lucian it had a bad history in the East, as will be explained. But Constantine definitely declared himself in favour of the uniquely useful instrument, and the council accepted it, each bishop rising in his place and giving his vote. Two bishops only refused their assent. With Arius, and a few priest supporters, they were promptly sent into exile by the emperor's command.
The bishops then passed to other problems. In the first place the twenty- year-old Meletian schism. Its leaders had appealed to Constantine, and the emperor left it to the council to judge. The bishops supported their brother of Alexandria, but offered the schismatics very easy terms, restoring Meletius himself to his see of Lycopolis. But he was not, ever again, to confer Holy Orders, and all those whom he had unlawfully ordained were to be reordained before again officiating. Moreover they were to be subject henceforward to the true, i.e., Catholic, bishop of the place. Those whom Meletius had made bishops might be elected to sees in the future, as vacancies arose--always with the consent of the bishop of Alexandria, the traditional head of this extensive episcopate.
A second practical problem, that had teased the eastern churches for generations, was now finally solved, viz., how the date of the Easter feast should be calculated. "All our good brothers of the East[12] who until now have been used to keep Easter at the Jewish Passover, will henceforward keep it at the same time as the Romans and you," so the bishops of Egypt announced in a letter to their people.
Finally the bishops promulgated twenty laws--canons--for general observance. Like the solution proposed for the Meletians they are notable for a new mildness of tone, a quality more Roman than Oriental, it may be said. They are, in great part, a repetition of measures enacted eleven years earlier in the Latin council held at Arles, in Gaul.[13] Five canons deal with those who fell away in the recent persecution. If any such have since been admitted to ordination they are to be deposed. Those who apostatised freely--that is, without the compulsion of fear--are to do twelve years' penance before being admitted to Holy Communion. If, before the penance is completed, they fall sick and are in danger of death they may receive Holy Viaticum. Should they then recover they are to take place with the highest class of the penitents--those who are allowed to hear mass, though not to receive Holy Communion. Catechumens who fell away-- i.e., Christians not yet baptised--are to do three years' penance and then resume their place as catechumens. Finally, the Christians who, having once left the army, had re-enlisted in the army of the persecutor, the lately destroyed emperor Licinius, are to do thirteen years' penance, or less if the bishop is satisfied of the reality of their repentance, but always three years' penance at least.
There are two canons about the readmission of heretical schismatics. First of all there are the remnants of the schism begun in Rome by the antipope Novatian, some seventy-five years before the council. Novatian was one of that fairly numerous class for whom the rulers of the Church deal far too mildly with repentant sinners. He ended by denying that the Church had the power to absolve those who fell away in times of persecution; and his followers, self-styled "the Pure," extended this disability to all sins of idolatry, sex sins, and murder. They also regarded second marriage as a sex sin. At this time there were many Novatians in Asia Minor, and the council offered generous terms to those who wished to be reconciled, recognising the orders of their clergy, and the dignity of their bishops, but exacting written declarations that they will regard as fellow Catholics those who have contracted a second marriage and those doing penance for apostasy.
To a second class of schismatics the same generosity was shown. These were the sect that descended from the notorious bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, deposed in 268 by a council of bishops, for various crimes and for his heretical teaching that there is no distinction between the three persons of the Holy Trinity. But these "Paulinians," so to call them, are to be rebaptised. Those who had functioned as clergy may be reordained if the Catholic bishop to whom they are now subject thinks fit.
On various aspects of clerical life there are as many as ten canons. No one is to be ordained who has had himself castrated, nor anyone only recently converted to the faith. "Yesterday a catechumen, today a bishop," says St. Jerome; "in the evening at the circus and next morning at the altar; just lately a patron of comedians, now busy consecrating virgins." It is the canon itself which speaks of ordination, and episcopal consecration, following immediately on baptism. Bishops are not to ordain another bishop's subject without his consent. No clerics--bishops, priests, or deacons--are to move from one diocese to another. Clerics are forbidden to take interest for money loans, and for this offence they must be deposed.
Finally there are two canons regarding three famous sees: Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem. The council confirms the ancient custom that gives the bishop of Alexandria jurisdiction over the bishops of the civil provinces of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis. And likewise the ancient privileges of the see of Antioch and of [the chief sees] of the other provinces. Jerusalem is a city apart, the Holy City par excellence, and although its bishop remains as much as ever the subject of the metropolitan bishop at Caesarea, he is allowed what canon 7 calls a precedence of honour, without a hint to say in what this consists.
All this variety of business was rapidly despatched, for the council held its final session barely four weeks after it opened, June 19, 325.
As the date all but coincided with the celebrations that marked the twentieth year of Constantine's reign, the emperor entertained the prelates at a banquet in full imperial style, and as they passed before the guards, presenting arms in salute, they asked themselves, says Eusebius, if the Kingdom of Heaven on earth had not finally come to pass.
Save for the letter of the bishops of Egypt, mentioned already, and two letters of the emperor, the one general, announcing the new rule about Easter, the other telling the people of Egypt that the bishops had confirmed the traditional belief and that Arius was the tool of the devil, we know nought of what might be called "the promulgation" of the council's decisions. But the breakup of the great gathering was by no means followed by the silence that accompanies peace perfectly attained. The real troubles had not yet begun.
NOTES
1. Newman, Causes of the Rise and Successes of Arianism (February 1872) in Tracts, Theological and Ecclesiastical, pp. 103-4.
2. Ibid., 116. For Newman's "examination," 103-11.
3. Ibid., 112.
4. Ibid., 96, 97 for the passages quoted.
5. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (?265-338).
6. St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria ( 328-73); born ?295.
7. Newman, The Development of Christian Doctrine, 1st ed., 1845, pp. 7, 5; with one sentence ("Still no one," etc.) from ibid., rev. ed., p. 7.
8 A standard Latin dictionary will give as a first basic equivalent, "commander in chief."
9. J. Lebreton, S.J., Histoire de Eglise, edited by A. Fliche and Msgr. V. Martin (henceforward referred to as F. and M.), vol. 2, p. 343.
10. The modern Scutari, on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus.
11. A city 60 to 70 miles from Constantinople, on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus, at the head of Lake Iznik. It was about 25 miles south from the then capital, Nicomedia.
11a. Denzinger, Enchiridion, no. 54, prints the Greek text; Barry, Readings in Church History, p. 85, gives a translation.
12. The word has here a special meaning as the name of the (civil) diocese of which Antioch was the chief city, Oriens: the modern Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, the coast of Turkey thence north and west for a good 200 miles with a vast territory in the interior that went beyond the Euphrates.
13. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils (1937), prints the text and a translation. This note serves for all the councils down to the Fifth Lateran of 1512-17. Barry, no 16, gives a translation.
From: THE CHURCH IN CRISIS: A History of the General Councils: 325-1870
CHAPTER 1
Mgr. Philip Hughes
Index
Introduction
The Profession Of Faith Of The 318 Fathers
Canons
The Letter Of The Synod In Nicaea To The Egyptians
This council opened on 19 June in the presence of the emperor, but it is uncertain who presided over the sessions. In the extant lists of bishops present, Ossius of Cordova, and the presbyters Vitus and Vincentius are listed before the other names, but it is more likely that Eustathius of Antioch or Alexander of Alexandria presided. (see Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner S.J.)
The bold text in the profession of faith of the 318 fathers constitutes, according to Tanner "The additions made by the council to an underlying form of the creed", and that the underlying creed was most likely "derived from the baptismal formula of Caesarea put forward by the bishop of that city Eusebius" or that it "developed from an original form which existed in Jerusalem or at any rate Palestine". "A direct descent from the creed of Eusebius of Caesarea is manifestly out of the question." Vol. 1, p2)
The figure of 318 given in the heading below is from Hilary of Poitier and is the traditional one. Other numbers are Eusebius 250, Eustathius of Antioch 270., Athanasius about 300, Gelasius of Cyzicus at more than 300.
The Profession Of Faith Of The 318 Fathers
1. 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 [Gr. ousias, Lat. substantia] of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten [Gr. gennethenta, Lat. natum] not made [Gr. poethenta, Lat. factum], Consubstantial [Gr. homoousion, Lat. unius substantiae (quod Graeci dicunt homousion)] 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.
2. And those who say
1. "there once was when he was not", and "before he was begotten he was not", and that
2. he came to be from things that were not, or from another hypostasis [Gr. hypostaseos] or substance [Gr. ousias, Lat. substantia], affirming that the Son of God is subject to change or alteration these the catholic and apostolic church anathematises.
1. If anyone in sickness has undergone surgery at the hands of physicians or has been castrated by barbarians, let him remain among the clergy. But if anyone in good health has castrated himself, if he is enrolled among the clergy he should be suspended, and in future no such man should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this refers to those who are responsible for the condition and presume to castrate themselves, so too if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians or by their masters, but have been found worthy, the canon admits such men to the clergy.
2. Since, either through necessity or through the importunate demands of certain individuals, there have been many breaches of the church's canon, with the result that men who have recently come from a pagan life to the faith after a short catechumenate have been admitted at once to the spiritual washing, and at the same time as their baptism have been promoted to the episcopate or the presbyterate, it is agreed that it would be well for nothing of the kind to occur in the future. For a catechumen needs time and further probation after baptism, for the apostle's words are clear: "Not a recent convert, or he may be puffed up and fall into the condemnation and the snare of the devil". But if with the passage of time some sin of sensuality is discovered with regard to the person and he is convicted by two or three witnesses, such a one will be suspended from the clergy. If anyone contravenes these regulations, he will be liable to forfeit his clerical status for acting in defiance of this great synod.
3. This great synod absolutely forbids a bishop, presbyter, deacon or any of the clergy to keep a woman who has been brought in to live with him, with the exception of course of his mother or sister or aunt, or of any person who is above suspicion.
4. It is by all means desirable that a bishop should be appointed by all the bishops of the province. But if this is difficult because of some pressing necessity or the length of the journey involved, let at least three come together and perform the ordination, but only after the absent bishops have taken part in the vote and given their written consent. But in each province the right of confirming the proceedings belongs to the metropolitan bishop.
5. Concerning those, whether of the clergy or the laity, who have been excommunicated, the sentence is to be respected by the bishops of each province according to the canon which forbids those expelled by some to be admitted by others. But let an inquiry be held to ascertain whether anyone has been expelled from the community because of pettiness or quarrelsomeness or any such ill nature on the part of the bishop. Accordingly, in order that there may be proper opportunity for inquiry into the matter, it is agreed that it would be well for synods to be held each year in each province twice a year, so that these inquiries may be conducted by all the bishops of the province assembled together, and in this way by general consent those who have offended against their own bishop may be recognised by all to be reasonably excommunicated, until all the bishops in common may decide to pronounce a more lenient sentence on these persons. The synods shall be held at the following times: one before Lent, so that, all pettiness being set aside, the gift offered to God may be unblemished; the second after the season of autumn.
6. The ancient customs of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis shall be maintained, according to which the bishop of Alexandria has authority over all these places since a similar custom exists with reference to the bishop of Rome. Similarly in Antioch and the other provinces the prerogatives of the churches are to be preserved. In general the following principle is evident: if anyone is made bishop without the consent of the metropolitan, this great synod determines that such a one shall not be a bishop. If however two or three by reason of personal rivalry dissent from the common vote of all, provided it is reasonable and in accordance with the church's canon, the vote of the majority shall prevail.
7. Since there prevails a custom and ancient tradition to the effect that the bishop of Aelia is to be honoured, let him be granted everything consequent upon this honour, saving the dignity proper to the metropolitan.
8. Concerning those who have given themselves the name of Cathars, and who from time to time come over publicly to the catholic and apostolic church, this holy and great synod decrees that they may remain among the clergy after receiving an imposition of hands. But before all this it is fitting that they give a written undertaking that they will accept and follow the decrees of the catholic church, namely that they will be in communion with those who have entered into a second marriage and with those who have lapsed in time of persecution and for whom a period [of penance] has been fixed and an occasion [for reconciliation] allotted, so as in all things to follow the decrees of the catholic and apostolic church. Accordingly, where all the ordained in villages or cities have been found to be men of this kind alone, those who are so found will remain in the clergy in the same rank; but when some come over in places where there is a bishop or presbyter belonging to the catholic church, it is evident that the bishop of the church will hold the bishop's dignity, and that the one given the title and name of bishop among the so-called Cathars will have the rank of presbyter, unless the bishop thinks fit to let him share in the honour of the title. But if this does not meet with his approval, the bishop will provide for him a place as chorepiscopus or presbyter, so as to make his ordinary clerical status evident and so prevent there being two bishops in the city.
9. If any have been promoted presbyters without examination, and then upon investigation have confessed their sins, and if after their confession men have imposed hands upon such people, being moved to act against the canon, the canon does not admit these people, for the catholic church vindicates only what is above reproach.
10. If any have been promoted to ordination through the ignorance of their promoters or even with their connivance, this fact does not prejudice the church's canon; for once discovered they are to be deposed.
11. Concerning those who have transgressed without necessity or the confiscation of their property or without danger or anything of this nature, as happened under the tyranny of Licinius, this holy synod decrees that, though they do not deserve leniency, nevertheless they should be treated mercifully. Those therefore among the faithful who genuinely repent shall spend three years among the hearers, for seven years they shall be prostrators, and for two years they shall take part with the people in the prayers, though not in the offering.
12. Those who have been called by grace, have given evidence of first fervour and have cast off their [military] belts, and afterwards have run back like dogs to their own vomit, so that some have even paid money and recovered their military status by bribes; such persons shall spend ten years as prostrators after a period of three years as hearers. In every case, however, their disposition and the nature of their penitence should be examined. For those who through their fear and tears and perseverance and good works give evidence of their conversion by deeds and not by outward show, when they have completed their appointed term as hearers, may properly take part in the prayers, and the bishop is competent to decide even more favourably in their regard. But those who have taken the matter lightly, and have thought that the outward form of entering the church is all that is required for their conversion, must complete their term to the full.
13. Concerning the departing, the ancient canon law is still to be maintained namely that those who are departing are not to be deprived of their last, most necessary viaticum. But if one whose life has been despaired of has been admitted to communion and has shared in the offering and is found to be numbered again among the living, he shall be among those who take part in prayer only [here a variant reading in Les canons des conciles oecumeniques adds "until the term fixed by this great ecumenical synod has been completed"]. But as a general rule, in the case of anyone whatsoever who is departing and seeks to share in the eucharist, the bishop upon examining the matter shall give him a share in the offering.
14. Concerning catechumens who have lapsed, this holy and great synod decrees that, after they have spent three years as hearers only, they shall then be allowed to pray with the catechumens.
15. On account of the great disturbance and the factions which are caused, it is decreed that the custom, if it is found to exist in some parts contrary to the canon, shall be totally suppressed, so that neither bishops nor presbyters nor deacons shall transfer from city to city. If after this decision of this holy and great synod anyone shall attempt such a thing, or shall lend himself to such a proceeding, the arrangement shall be totally annulled, and he shall be restored to the church of which he was ordained bishop or presbyter or deacon.
16. Any presbyters or deacons or in general anyone enrolled in any rank of the clergy who depart from their church recklessly and without the fear of God before their eyes or in ignorance of the church's canon, ought not by any means to be received in another church, but all pressure must be applied to them to induce them to return to their own dioceses, or if they remain it is right that they should be excommunicated. But if anyone dares to steal away one who belongs to another and to ordain him in his church without the consent of the other's own bishop among whose clergy he was enrolled before he departed, the ordination is to be null.
17. Since many enrolled [among the clergy] have been induced by greed and avarice to forget the sacred text, "who does not put out his money at interest", and to charge one per cent [a month] on loans, this holy and great synod judges that if any are found after this decision to receive interest by contract or to transact the business in any other way or to charge [a flat rate of] fifty per cent or in general to devise any other contrivance for the sake of dishonourable gain, they shall be deposed from the clergy and their names struck from the roll.
18. It has come to the attention of this holy and great synod that in some places and cities deacons give communion to presbyters, although neither canon nor custom allows this, namely that those who have no authority to offer should give the body of Christ to those who do offer. Moreover it has become known that some of the deacons now receive the eucharist even before the bishops. All these practices must be suppressed. Deacons must remain within their own limits, knowing that they are the ministers of the bishop and subordinate to the presbyters. Let them receive the eucharist according to their order after the presbyters from the hands of the bishop or the presbyter. Nor shall permission be given for the deacons to sit among the presbyters, for such an arrangement is contrary to the canon and to rank. If anyone refuses to comply even after these decrees, he is to be suspended from the diaconate.
19. Concerning the former Paulinists who seek refuge in the catholic church, it is determined that they must be rebaptised unconditionally. Those who in the past have been enrolled among the clergy, if they appear to be blameless and irreproachable, are to be rebaptised and ordained by the bishop of the catholic church. But if on inquiry they are shown to be unsuitable, it is right that they should be deposed. Similarly with regard to deaconesses and all in general whose names have been included in the roll, the same form shall be observed. We refer to deaconesses who have been granted this status, for they do not receive any imposition of hands, so that they are in all respects to be numbered among the laity.
20. Since there are some who kneel on Sunday and during the season of Pentecost, this holy synod decrees that, so that the same observances may be maintained in every diocese, one should offer one's prayers to the Lord standing.
The Letter Of The Synod In Nicaea To The Egyptians
The bishops assembled at Nicaea, who constitute the great and holy synod, greet the church of the Alexandrians, by the grace of God holy and great, and the beloved brethren in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis.
Since the grace of God and the most pious emperor Constantine have called us together from different provinces and cities to constitute the great and holy synod in Nicaea, it seemed absolutely necessary that the holy synod should send you a letter so that you may know what was proposed and discussed, and what was decided and enacted.
First of all the affair of the impiety and lawlessness of Arius and his followers was discussed in the presence of the most pious emperor Constantine. It was unanimously agreed that anathemas should be pronounced against his impious opinion and his blasphemous terms and expressions which he has blasphemously applied to the Son of God, saying "he is from things that are not", and "before he was begotten he was not", and "there once was when he was not", saying too that by his own power the Son of God is capable of evil and goodness, and calling him a creature and a work.
Against all this the holy synod pronounced anathemas, and did not allow this impious and abandoned opinion and these blasphemous words even to be heard.
Of that man and the fate which befell him, you have doubtless heard or will hear, lest we should seem to trample upon one who has already received a fitting reward because of his own sin. Such indeed was the power of his impiety that Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais shared in the consequences, for they too suffered the same fate.
But since, when the grace of God had freed Egypt from this evil and blasphemous opinion, and from the persons who had dared to create a schism and a separation in a people which up to now had lived in peace, there remained the question of the presumption of Meletius and the men whom he had ordained, we shall explain to you, beloved brethren, the synod's decisions on this subject too. The synod was moved to incline towards mildness in its treatment of Meletius for strictly speaking he deserved no mercy. It decreed that that he might remain in his own city without any authority to nominate or ordain, and that he was not to show himself for this purpose in the country or in another city, and that he was to retain the bare name of his office.
It was further decreed that those whom he had ordained, when they had been validated by a more spiritual ordination, were to be admitted to communion on condition that they would retain their rank and exercise their ministry, but in every respect were to be second to all the clergy in each diocese and church who had been nominated under our most honoured brother and fellow minister Alexander; they were to have no authority to appoint candidates of their choice or to put forward names or to do anything at all without the consent of the bishop of the catholic church, namely the bishop of those who are under Alexander. But those who by the grace of God and by our prayers have not been detected in any schism, and are spotless in the catholic and apostolic church, are to have authority to appoint and to put forward the names of men of the clergy who are worthy, and in general to do everything according to the law and rule of the church.
In the event of the death of any in the church, those who have recently been accepted are thereupon to succeed to the office of the deceased, provided that they appear worthy and are chosen by the people; the bishop of Alexandria is to take part in the vote and confirm the election. This privilege, which has been granted to all others, does not apply to the person of Meletius because of his inveterate seditiousness and his mercurial and rash disposition, lest any authority or responsibility should be given to one who is capable of returning to his seditious practices.
These are the chief and most important decrees as far as concerns Egypt and the most holy church of the Alexandrians. Whatever other canons and decrees were enacted in the presence of our lord and most honoured fellow minister and brother Alexander, he will himself report them to you in greater detail when he comes, for he was himself a leader as well as a participant in the events.
The following is not found in the Latin text, but is found in the Greek text :
We also send you the good news of the settlement concerning the holy Pasch, namely that in answer to your prayers this question also has been resolved. All the brethren in the East who have hitherto followed the Jewish practice will henceforth observe the custom of the Romans and of yourselves and of all of us who from ancient times have kept Easter together with you. Rejoicing then in these successes and in the common peace and harmony and in the cutting off of all heresy, welcome our fellow minister, your bishop Alexander, with all the greater honour and love. He has made us happy by his presence, and despite his advanced age has undertaken such great labour in order that you too may enjoy peace.
Pray for us all that our decisions may remain secure through almighty God and our lord Jesus Christ in the holy Spirit, to whom is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
SOURCE: Henry R. Percival, ed., _The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church_, Vol XIV of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, edd. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, (repr. Edinburgh: T&T Clark; Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988)
The value of the Percival edition is that it not only provides basic texts, but also has a number of well informed excursuses on significant topics, as well as, after each canon commentaries by later writers on the meaning.
[3]
The Synod at Nice set forth this Creed.(1)
The Ecthesis of the Synod at Nice.(2)
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things
visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the
only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of
God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten
(
(Found in his Epistle to his diocese; vide: St. Athanasius and
Theodoret.)
We believe in one only God, Father Almighty, Creator of things
visible and invisible; and in the Lord Jesus Christ, for he is the Word
of God, God of God, Light of Light, life of life, his only Son, the first-
born of all creatures, begotten of the Father before all time, by whom
also everything was created, who became flesh for our redemption,
who lived and suffered amongst men, rose again the third day,
returned to the Father, and will come again one day in his glory to
judge the quick and the dead. We believe also in the Holy Ghost We
believe that each of these three is and subsists; the Father truly as
Father, the Son truly as Son, the Holy Ghost truly as Holy Ghost; as
our Lord also said, when he sent his disciples to preach: Go and teach
all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
EXCURSUS ON THE WORD HOMOUSIOS.(4)
The Fathers of the Council at Nice were at one time ready to accede to
the request of some of the bishops and use only scriptural expressions
in their definitions. But, after several attempts, they found that all
these were capable of being explained away. Athanasius describes
with much wit and penetration how he saw them nodding and winking
to each other when the orthodox proposed expressions which they had
thought of a way of escaping from the force of. After a series of
attempts of this sort it was found that something clearer and more
unequivocal must be adopted if real unity of faith was to be attained;
and accordingly the word homousios was adopted. Just what the
Council intended this
[4]
expression to mean is set forth by St. Athanasius as follows: "That the
Son is not only like to the Father, but that, as his image, he is the same
as the Father; that he is of the Father; and that the resemblance of the
Son to the Father, and his immutability, are different from ours: for in
us they are something acquired, and arise from our fulfilling the divine
commands. Moreover, they wished to indicate by this that his
generation is different from that of human nature; that the Son is not
only like to the Father, but inseparable from the substance of the
Father, that he and the Father are one and the same, as the Son himself
said: 'The Logos is always in the Father, and, the Father always in the
Logos,' as the sun and its splendour are inseparable."(1)
The word homousios had not had, although frequently used before the
Council of Nice, a very happy history. It was probably rejected by the
Council of Antioch,(2) and was suspected of being open to a Sabellian
meaning. It was accepted by the heretic Paul of Samosata and this
rendered it very offensive to many in the Asiatic Churches. On the
other hand the word is used four times by St. Irenaeus, and Pamphilus
the Martyr is quoted as asserting that Origen used the very word in the
Nicene sense. Tertullian also uses the expression "of one substance"
(unius substanticoe) in two places, and it would seem that more than
half a century before the meeting of the Council of Nice, it was a
common one among the Orthodox.
Vasquez treats this matter at some length in his Disputations, (3) and
points out how well the distinction is drawn by Epiphanius between
Synousios and Homousios, "for synousios signifies such an unity of
substance as allows of no distinction: wherefore the Sabellians would
admit this word: but on the contrary homousios signifies the same
nature and substance but with a distinction between persons one from
the other. Rightly, therefore, has the Church adopted this word as the
one best calculated to confute the Arian heresy."(4)
It may perhaps be well to note that these words are formed like
The reader will find this whole doctrine treated at great length in all
the bodies of divinity; and in Alexander Natalis (H.E. t. iv., Dies.
xiv.); he is also referred to Pearson, On the Creed; Bull, Defence of the
Nicene Creed; Forbes, An Explanation of the Nicene Creed; and
especially to the little book, written in answer to the recent criticisms
of Professor Harnack, by H. B. Swete, D.D., The Apostles' Creed.
EXCURSUS ON THE WORDS
There can be little doubt however, that Ignatius wrote
[5]
substitute the single v. And to this reading also the Latin genitus et
ingenitus points. On the other hand it cannot be concluded that
translators who give factus et non factus had the words with one v, for
this was after all what Ignatius meant by the double v, and they would
naturally render his words so as to make his orthodoxy apparent. (2)
When Theodoret writes
[6]
The MSS. of early Christian writers exhibit much confusion between
these words spelled with the double and the single v. See e.g. Justin
Dial. 2, with Otto's note; Athenag. Suppl. 4 with Otto's note; Theophil,
ad Autol. ii. 3, 4; Iren. iv. 38, 1, 3; Orig. c. Cels. vi. 66; Method. de
Lib. Arbitr., p. 57; Jahn (see Jahn's note 11, p. 122); Maximus in
Euseb. Praep. Ev. vii. 22; Hippol. Haer. v. 16 (from Sibylline Oracles);
Clem. Alex. Strom v. 14; and very frequently in later writers. Yet
notwithstanding the confusion into which later transcribers have thus
thrown the subject, it is still possible to ascertain the main facts
respecting the usage of the two forms. The distinction between the two
terms, as indicated by their origin, is that
From the above passages it will appear that Ante-Nicene writers were
not indifferent to the distinction of meaning between the two words;
and when once the othodox Christology was formulated in the Nicene
Creed in the words
[7]
always to be lurking under the expression
[8]
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME(1) OF CANON I.
Eunuchs may be received into the number of the clergy, but those
who castrate themselves shall not be received.
BALSAMON.
The divine Apostolic Canons xxi., xxii., xxiii., and xxiv., have taught
us sufficiently what ought to be done with those who castrate
themselves, this canon provides as to what is to be done to these as
well as to those who deliver themselves over to others to be
emasculated by them, viz., that they are not to be admitted among the
clergy nor advanced to the priesthood.
DANIEL BUTLER.
(Smith and Cheetham, Dict. Christ. Ant.)
The feeling that one devoted to the sacred ministry should be
unmutilated was strong in the Ancient Church .... This canon of Nice,
and those in the Apostolic Canons and a later one in the Second
Council of Arles(canon vii.) were aimed against that perverted notion
of piety, originating in the misinterpretation of our Lord's saying
(Matt. xix. 12) by which Origen, among others, was misled, and their
observance was so carefully enforced in later times that not more than
one or two instances of the practice which they condemn are noticed
by the historian. The case was different if a man was born an eunuch
or had suffered mutilation at the hands of persecutors; an instance of
the former, Dorotheus, presbyter of Antioch, is mentioned by
Eusebius(H. E. vii., c. 32); of the latter, Tigris, presbyter of
Constantinople, is referred to both by Socrates(H. E. vi. 16) and
Sozomen(H. E. vi. 24) as the victim of a barbarian master.
HEFELE.
We know, by the first apology of St. Justin(Apol. c. 29) that a century
before Origen, a young man had desired to be mutilated by physicians,
for the purpose of completely refuting the charge of vice which the
heathen brought against the worship of Christians. St. Justin neither
praises nor blames this young man: he only relates that he could not
obtain the permission of the civil authorities for his project, that he
renounced his intention, but nevertheless remained virgo all his life. It
is very probable that the Council of Nice was induced by some fresh
similar cases to renew the old injunctions; it was perhaps the Arian
bishop, Leontius, who was the principal cause of it.(1)
LAMBERT.
Constantine forbade by a law the practice condemned in this canon. "If
anyone shall anywhere in the Roman Empire after this decree make
eunuchs, he shall be punished with death. If the owner of the place
where the deed was perpetrated was aware of it and hid the fact, his
goods shall be confiscated."(Const. M. 0pera. Migne Patrol. vol. viii.,
396.)
BEVERIDGE.
The Nicene fathers in this canon make no new enactment but only
confirm by the authority of an Ecumenical synod the Apostolic
Canons, and this is evident from the wording of this canon. For there
can be no doubt that they had in mind some earlier canon when they
said, "such men the canon admits to the clergy." Not,
[9]
and well-known canon" admits such to the clergy. But no other canon
then existed in which this provision occurred except apostolical canon
xxi. which therefore we are of opinion is here cited.
[In this conclusion Hefele also agrees.]
This law was frequently enacted by subsequent synods and is inserted
in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Decretum Gratiani. Pars. I. Distinctio
LV., C vii.
EXCURSUS ON THE USE OF THE WORD "CANON."
(Bright: Notes on the Canons, pp. 2 and 3.)
K
[10]
the ritual use of the word for a series of nine "odes" in the Eastern
Church service(Neale, Introd. East. Ch. if. 832), for the central and
unvarying element in the Liturgy, beginning after the
Tersanctus(Hammond, Liturgies East and West, p. 377); or for any
Church office(Ducange in v.); also in its application to a table for the
calculation of Easter(Euseb. vi. 29; vii. 32); to a scheme for exhibiting
the common and peculiar parts of the several Gospels(as the "Eusebian
canons") and to a prescribed or ordinary payment to a church, a use
which grew out of one found in Athanasius' Apol. c. Ari. 60.
In more recent times a tendency has appeared to restrict the term
Canon to matters of discipline, but the Council of Trent continued the
ancient use of the word, calling its doctrinal and disciplinary
determinations alike "Canons."
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON II.
Those who have come from the heathen shall not be immediately
advanced to the presbyterate. For without a probation of some time a
neophyte is of no advantage(
HEFELE.
It may be seen by the very text of this canon, that it was already
forbidden to baptize, and to raise to the episcopate or to the priesthood anyone who had only been a catechumen for a short time: this
injunction is in fact contained in the eightieth(seventy-ninth)
apostolical canon; and according to that, it would be older than the
Council of Nicaea. There have been, nevertheless, certain cases in
which, for urgent reasons, an exception has been made to the rule of
the Council of Nicaea--for instance, that of S. Ambrose. The canon of
Nicaea does not seem to allow such an exception, but it might be
justified by the apostolical canon, which says, at the close: "It is not
right that any one who has not yet been proved should be a teacher of
others, unless by a peculiar divine grace." The expression of the canon
of Nicaea,
These words have also given offence,
Others have explained the passage in this manner: "If it shall become
known that any one who has been too quickly ordained was guilty
before his baptism of any serious offence, he ought to be deposed."
This is the interpretation given by Gratian, but it must
[11]
be confessed that such a translation does violence to the text. This is, I
believe, the general sense of the canon, and of this passage in
particular: "Henceforward no one shall be baptized or ordained
quickly. As to those already in orders(without any distinction between
those who have been ordained in due course and those who have been
ordained too quickly), the rule is that they shall be de posed if they
commit a serious offence. Those who are guilty of disobedience to this
great Synod, either by allowing themselves to be ordained or even by
ordaining others prematurely, are threatened with deposition ipso
facto, and for this fault alone." We consider, in short, that the last
words of the canon may be understood as well of the ordained as of the
ordainer.
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON III.
No one shall have a woman in his house except his mother, and sister,
and persons altogether beyond suspicion.
JUSTELLUS.
Who these mulieres subintroductae were does not sufficiently appear .
. . but they were neither wives nor concubines, but women of some
third kind, which the clergy kept with them, not for the sake of
offspring or lust, but from the desire, or certainly under the pretence,
of piety.
JOHNSON.
For want of a proper English word to render it by, I translate "to retain
any woman in their houses under pretence of her being a disciple to
them."
VAN ESPEN
translates: And his sisters and aunts cannot remain unless they be free
from all suspicion.
Fuchs in his Bibliothek der kirchenver sammlungen confesses that this
canon shews that the practice of clerical celibacy had already spread
widely. In connexion with this whole subject of the subintroductae the
text of St. Paul should be carefully considered. 1 Cor. ix. 5.
HEFELE.
It is very terrain that the canon of Nice forbids such spiritual unions,
but the context shows moreover that the Fathers had not these
particular cases in view alone; and the expression
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum,
Pars I., Distinc. XXXII., C. xvi.
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON IV.
A bishop is to be chosen by all the bishops of the province, or at least
by three, the rest giving by letter their assent ; but this choice must be
confirmed by the Metropolitan.
ZONARAS.
The present Canon might seem to be opposed to the first canon of the
Holy Apostles, for the latter enjoins that a bishop ordained by two or
three bishops, but this by
[12]
three, the absent also agreeing and testifying their assent by writing.
But they are not contradictory; for the Apostolical canon by ordination
(
BALSAMON
also understands
BRIGHT.
The Greek canonists are certainly in error when they interpret
HEFELE.
The Council of Nice thought it necessary to define by precise rules the
duties of the bishops who took part in these episcopal elections. It
decided(a) that a single bishop of the province was not sufficient for
the appointment of another;(b) three at least should meet, and(c) they
were not to proceed to election without the written permission of the
absent bishops; it was necessary(d) to obtain afterward the approval of
the metropolitan. The Council thus confirms the ordinary metropolitan
division in its two most important points, namely, the nomination and
ordination of bishops, and the superior position of the metropolitan.
The third point connected with this division--namely, the provincial
synod--will be considered under the next canon.
Meletius was probably the occasion of this canon. It may be
remembered that he had nominated bishops without the concurrence
of the other bishops of the province, and without the approval of the
metropolitan of Alexandria, and had thus occasioned a schism. This
canon was intended to prevent the recurrence of such abuses. The
question has been raised as to whether the fourth canon speaks only of
the choice of the bishop, or whether it also treats of the consecration of
the newly elected. We think, with Van Espen, that it treats equally of
both,--as well of the part which the bishops of the province should take
in an episcopal election, as of the consecration which completes it.
This canon has been interpreted in two ways. The Greeks had learnt by
bitter experience to distrust the interference of princes and earthly
potentates in episcopal elections. Accordingly, they tried to prove that
this canon of Nice took away from the people the right of voting at the
nomination of a bishop, and confined the nomination exclusively to
the bishops of the province.
The Greek Commentators, Balsamon and others, therefore, only
followed the example of the Seventh and[so-called] Eighth(Ecu-
menical Councils in affirming that this fourth canon of Nice takes
away from the people the right previously possessed of voting in the
choice of bishops and makes the election depend entirely on the
decision of the bishops of the province.
The Latin Church acted otherwise. It is true that with it also the people
have been removed from episcopal elections, but this did not happen
till later, about the eleventh century; and it was not the people only
who were removed, but the bishops of the province as well, and the
election was conducted entirely by the clergy of the Cathedral Church.
The Latins then interpreted the canon of Nice as though it said nothing
of the rights of the bishops of the province in the election of their
future colleague(and it does not speak of it in a very explicit manner),
and as though it determined these two points only;(a) that for the
ordination of a bishop three bishops at least are necessary;(b) that the
right of confirmation rests with the metropolitan.
The whole subject of episcopal elections is treated fully by Van Espen
and by Thomassin, in Ancienne et Nouvelle Discipline de l' Eglise, P.
II. 1. 2.
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum,
Pars I. Dist. LXIV. c. j.
[13]
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON V.
Such as have been excommunicated by certain bishops shall not be
restored by others, unless the excommunication was the result of
pusillanimity, or strife, or some other similar cause. And that this may
be duly attended to, there shall be in each year two synods in every
province--the one before Lent, the other toward autumn.
There has always been found the greatest difficulty in securing the
regular meetings of provincial and diocesan synods, and despite the
very explicit canonical legislation upon the subject, and the severe
penalties attached to those not answering the summons, in large parts
of the Church for centuries these councils have been of the rarest
occurrence. Zonaras complains that in his time "these synods were
everywhere treated with great contempt," and that they had actually
ceased to be held.
Possibly the opinion of St. Gregory Nazianzen had grown common, for
it will be remembered that in refusing to go to the latter sessions of the
Second Ecumenical he wrote, "I am resolved to avoid every meeting of
bishops, for I have never seen any synod end well, nor assuage rather
than aggravate disorders."(1)
HEFELE.
Gelasius has given in his history of the Council of Nice, the text of the
canons passed by the Council; and it must be noticed that there is here
a slight difference between his text and ours. Our reading is as follows:
"The excommunication continues to be in force until it seem good to
the assembly of bishops (
Dionysius the Less has also followed this vacation, as his translation of
the canon shows. It does not change the essential meaning of the
passage; for it may be well understood that the bishop who has passed
the sentence of excommunication has also the right to mitigate it. But
the variation adopted by the Prisca alters, on the contrary, the whole
sense of the canon: the Prisca has not
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum,
Pars II., Causa XI, Quaest. III., Canon lxxiii., and the latter part in Pars
I., Distinc. XVIII., c. iii.
EXCURSUS ON THE WORD
The idea of the whole transaction of the Supper as a sacrifice, is
plainly found in the dache, (c. 14), in Ignatius, and above all, in Justin
(I. 65f.) But even Clement of Rome presupposes it, when (in cc. 40-
44) he draws a parallel between bishops and deacons and the
[14]
Priests and Levites of the Old Testament, describing as the chief
function of the former (44.4)
Harnack (lib. cit. Vol. II. chapter III. p. 136) says that "Cyprian was
the first to associate the specific offering, i.e. the Lord's Supper with
the specific priesthood. Secondly, he was the first to designate the
passio Domini, nay, the sanguis Christi and the dominica hostia as the
object of the eucharistic offering." In a foot-note (on the same page) he
explains that "Sacrificare, Sacrificium celebrare in all passages where
they are unaccompanied by any qualifying words, mean to celebrate
the Lord's Supper." But Harnack is confronted by the very evident
objection that if this was an invention of St. Cyprian's, it is most
extraordinary that it raised no protest, and he very frankly confesses
(note 2, on same page) that "the transference of the sacrificial idea to
the consecrated elements which in all probability Cyprian already
found in existence, etc." Harnack further on (in the same note on p.
137) notes that he has pointed out in his notes on the Didache that in
the "Apostolic Church Order" occurs the expression
[15]
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON VI.
The Bishop of Alexandria shall have jurisdiction over Egypt, Libya,
and Pentapolis. As also the Roman bishop over those subject to Rome.
So, too, the Bishop of Antioch and the rest over those who are under
them. If any be a bishop contrary to the judgment of the Metropolitan,
let him be no bishop. Provided it be in accordance with the canons by
the suffrage of the majority, if three object, their objection shall be of
no force.
Many, probably most, commentators have considered this the most
important and most interesting of all the Nicene canons, and a whole
library of works has been written upon it, some of the works asserting
and some denying what are commonly called the Papal claims. If any
one wishes to see a list of the most famous of these works he will find
it in Phillips's Kirchenrecht (Bd. ii. S. 35). I shall reserve what I have
to say upon this subject to the notes on a canon which seems really to
deal with it, confining myself here to an elucidation of the words found
in the canon before us.
HAMMOND, W. A.
The object and intention of this canon seems clearly to have been, not
to introduce any new powers or regulations into the Church, but to
confirm and establish ancient customs already existing. This, indeed,
is evident from the very first words of it: "Let the ancient customs be
maintained." It appears to have been made with particular reference to
the case of the Church of Alexandria, which had been troubled by the
irregular proceedings of Miletius, and to confirm the ancient privileges
of that see which he had invaded. The latter part of it, however, applies
to all Metropolitans, and confirms all their ancient privileges.
FFOULKES.
(Dict. Christ. Antiq. voce Council of Nicaea).
The first half of the canon enacts merely that what had long been
customary with respect to such persons in every province should
become law, beginning with the province where this principle had
been infringed; while the second half declares what was in future to be
received as law on two points which custom had not as yet expressly
ruled. ... Nobody disputes the meaning of this last half; nor, in fact,
would the meaning of the first half have been questioned, had it not
included Rome. ... Nobody can maintain that the bishops of Antioch
and Alexandria were called patriarchs then, or that the jurisdiction
they had then was co-extensive with what they had afterward, when
they were so called. ... It is on this clause ["since the like is customary
for the Bishops of Rome also"] standing parenthetically between what
is decreed for the particular cases of Egypt and Antioch, and in
consequence of the interpretation given to it by Rufinus, more
particularly, that so much strife has been raised. Rufinus may rank low
as a translator, yet, being a native of Aquileia, he cannot have been
ignorant of Roman ways, nor, on the other hand, had he greatly
misrepresented them, would his version have waited till the
seventeenth century to be impeached.
HEFELE.
The sense of the first words of the canon is as follows: "This ancient
right is assigned to the Bishop of Alexandria which places under his
jurisdiction the whole diocese of Egypt." It is without any reason, then,
that the French Protestant Salmasius (Saumaise), the Anglican
Beveridge, and the Gallican Launoy, try to show that the Council of
Nice granted to the Bishop of Alexandria only the rights of ordinary
metropolitans.
BISHOP STILLINGFLEET.
I do confess there was something peculiar in the case of the Bishop of
Alexandria, for all the provinces of Egypt were under his immediate
care, which was Patriarchal as to extent, but Metropolical in the
administration.
[16]
JUSTELLUS.
This authority (
On this important question Hefele refers to the dissertation of Dupin,
in his work De Antiqua Ecclesoe Disciplina. Hefele says: "It seems to
me beyond a doubt that in this canon there is a question about that
which was afterward calm the patriarchate of the Bishop of
Alexandria; that is to say that he had a certain recognized
ecclesiastical authority, not only over several civil provinces, but also
over several ecclesiastical provinces (which had their own
metropolitans);" and further on (p. 392) he adds: "It is incontestable
that the civil provinces of Egypt, Libya, Pentapolis and Thebais, which
were all in subjection to the Bishop of Alexandria, were also
ecclesiastical provinces with their own metropolitans; and
consequently it is not the ordinary fights of metropolitans that the
Sixth Canon of Nice confers on the Bishop of Alexandria, but the
rights of a superior Metropolitan, that is, of a Patriarch."
There only remains to see what were the bounds of the jurisdiction of
the Bishop of Antioch. The civil diocese of Oriens is shown by the
Second Canon of Constantinople to be conterminous with what was
afterward called the Patriarchate of Antioch. The see of Antioch had,
as we know, several metropolitans subject to it, among them Caesarea,
under whose jurisdiction was Palestine. Justellus, however, is of
opinion that Pope Innocent I. was in error when he asserted that all the
Metropolitans of Oriens were to be ordained by him by any peculiar
authority, and goes so far as to stigmatize his words as "contrary to the
mind of the Nicene Synod."(1)
EXCURSUS ON THE EXTENT OF THE JURISDICTION OF THE
BISHOP OF ROME OVER THE SUBURBICAN CHURCHES.
Although, as Hefele well says, "It is evident that the Council has not in
view here the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the whole Church,
but simply his power as a patriarch," yet it may not be unimportant to
consider what his patriarchal limits may have been.
(Hefele, Hist. Councils, Vol. I., p. 397.)
The translation of this [VI.] canon by Rufinus has been especially an
apple of discord. Et ut apud Alexandriam et in urbe Roma vetusta
consuetudo servetur, ut vel ille Egypti vel hic suburbicariarum
ecclesiarum sollicitudinem gerat. In the seventeenth century this
sentence of Rufinus gave rise to a very lively discussion between the
celebrated jurist, Jacob Gothfried (Gothofredus), and his friend,
Salmasius, on one side, and the Jesuit, Sirmond, on the other. The
great prefecture of Italy, which contained about a third of the whole
Roman Empire, was divided into four vicariates, among which the
vicariate of Rome was the first. At its head were two officers, the
proefectus urbi and the vicarius urbis. The proefectus urbi exercised
authority over the city of Rome, and further in a suburban circle as far
as the hundredth milestone, The boundary of the vicarins urbis
comprised ten provinces--Campania, Tuscia with Ombria, Picenum,
Valeria, Samnium, Apulia with Calabria, Lucania and that of the
Brutii, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. Gothfried and Salmasius
maintained, that by the regiones suburbicarioe the little territory of the
proefectus urbi must be understood; while, according to Sirmond,
these words designate the whole territory of the vicarius urbis. In our
time Dr. Maasen has proved in his book,(2) already quoted several
times, that Gothfried and Salmasius were right in maintaining that, by
the regiones suburbicarioe, the little territory of the proefectus urbi
must be alone understood.
Hefele thinks that Phillips "has proved" that the Bishop of Rome had
patriarchal rights over places outside the limits of the ten provinces of
the vicarius urbis; but does not agree
[17]
with Phillips in thinking Rufinus in error. As a matter of fact the point
is a difficult one, and has little to do with the gist of the meaning of the
canon. One thing is certain: the early Latin version of the canons,
called the Prisca, was not satisfied with the Greek wording and made
the Canon read thus: "It is of ancient custom that the bishop of the city
of Rome should have a primacy (principatum), so that he should
govern with care the suburban places, AND ALL HIS OWN
PROVINCE."(1) Another interesting reading is that found in several
MSS. which begins, "The Church of Rome hath always had a primacy
(primatum)," and as a matter of fact the early date of this addition is
evinced by the fact that the canon was actually quoted in this shape by
Paschasinus at the Council of Chalcedon.
Hefele further on says, "The Greek commentators Zonaras and
Balsamon (of the twelfth century) say very explicitly, in their
explanation of the Canons of Nice, that this sixth canon confirms the
rights of the Bishop of Rome as patriarch over the whole West," and
refers to Beveridge's Syodicon, Tom. I., pp. 66 and 67. After diligent
search I can find nothing to warrant the great amplitude of this
statement. Balsamon's interpretation is very vague, being simply that
the Bishop of Rome is over the Western Eparchies
(
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON VII.
Let the Bishop of AElia be honoured, the rights of the Metropolis
being preserved intact.
There would seem to be a singular fitness in the Holy City Jerusalem
holding a very exalted position among the sees of Christendom, and it
may appear astonishing that in the earliest times it was only a
suffragan see to the great Church of Caesarea. It must be remembered,
however, that only about seventy years after our Lord's death the city
of Jerusalem was entirely destroyed and ploughed as a field according
to the prophet. As a holy city Jerusalem was a thing of the past for
long years, and it is only in the beginning of NOTES
The Creed of Eusebius of Caesarea, which he presented to the council,
and which some suppose to have suggested the creed finally adopted.THE CANONS OF THE 318 HOLY FATHERS
ASSEMBLED IN THE CITY OF NICE, IN BITHYNIA.CANON I
IF any one in sickness has been subjected by physicians to a surgical
operation, or if he has been castrated by barbarians, let him remain
among the clergy; but, if any one in sound health has castrated
himself, it behoves that such an one, if [already] enrolled among the
clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no
such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said
of those who wilfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves,
so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters,
and should otherwise be found worthy, such men the Canon admits to
the clergy.CANON II
FORASMUCH as, either from necessity, or through the urgency of
individuals, many things have been done contrary to the Ecclesiastical
canon, so that men just converted from heathenism to the faith, and
who have been instructed but a little while, are straightway brought to
the spiritual layer, and as soon as they have been baptized, are
advanced to the episcopate or the presbyterate, it has seemed right to
us that for the time to come no such thing shall be done. For to the
catechumen himself there is need of time and of a longer trial after
baptism. For the apostolical saying is clear, "Not a novice; lest, being
lifted up with pride, he fall into condemnation and the snare of the
devil." But if, as time goes on, any sensual sin should be found out
about the person, and he should be convicted by two or three
witnesses, let him cease from the clerical office. And whoso shall
transgress these[enactments] will imperil his own clerical position, as
a person who presumes to disobey fie great Synod.CANON III
THE great Synod has stringently forbidden any bishop, presbyter,
deacon, or any one of the clergy whatever, to have a subintroducta
dwelling with him, except only a mother, or sister, or aunt, or such
persons only as are beyond all suspicion.CANON IV
IT is by all means proper that a bishop should be appointed by all the
bishops in the province; but should this be difficult, either on account
of urgent necessity or because of distance, three at least should meet
together, and the suffrages of the absent[bishops] also being given and
communicated in writing, then the ordination should take place. But in
every province the ratification of what is done should be left to the
Metropolitan.CANON V
CONCERNING those, whether of the clergy or of the laity, who have
been excommunicated in the several provinces, let the provision of the
canon be observed by the bishops which provides that persons cast out
by some be not readmitted by others. Nevertheless, inquiry should be
made whether they have been excommunicated through captiousness,
or contentiousness, or any such like ungracious disposition in the
bishop. And, that this matter may have due investigation, it is decreed
that in every province synods shall be held twice a year, in order that
when all the bishops of the province are assembled together, such
questions may by them be thoroughly examined, that so those who
have confessedly offended against their bishop, may be seen by all to
be for just cause excommunicated, until it shall seem fit to a general
meeting of the bishops to pronounce a milder sentence upon them.
And let these synods be held, the one before Lent, (that the pure Gift
may be offered to God after all bitterness has been put away), and let
the second be held about autumn.CANON VI
LET the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that
the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is
customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the
other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges. And this is to
be universally understood, that if any one be made bishop without the
consent of the Metropolitan, the great Synod has declared that such a
man ought not to be a bishop. If, however, two or three bishops shall
from natural love of contradiction, oppose the common suffrage of the
rest, it being reasonable and in accordance with the ecclesiastical law,
then let the choice of the majority prevail.CANON VII
SINCE custom and ancient tradition have prevailed that the Bishop of
AElia [i.e., Jerusalem] should be honoured, let him, saving its due
dignity to the Metropolis, have the next place of honour.