From the earliest generations, Christians explored the significance of the person, life and work of Jesus Christ in the light of scripture. Scripture played the decisive role in the formation of Christian teaching and in arbitrating doctrinal controversy in the third century. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the period characterised by the main ecumenical councils that established the central doctrines of the Trinity and of christology, the role of scripture in the development of doctrine comes into sharper relief. Starting with the doctrinal work of the Council of Nicaea, questions of the authority and functioning of the Bible in doctrinal development, in particular at the level of synodal interaction, take on a new dimension. The councils and the controversies over doctrine in general were part of the church's efforts to forge the institutional, theological and social framework of Christianity in the late Roman empire.