Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 31 - The first Council of Nicaea

  • from Part VI - ‘Aliens’ become Citizens: towards Imperial Patronage
  • Edited by Margaret M. Mitchell, University of Chicago, Frances M. Young, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Christianity
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    19 January 2006, pp 552-567

  • Summary

    The first Council of Nicaea was summoned in 325 CE by Constantine, within seven months of the victory that installed him as sole ruler of the empire. Eusebius of Caesarea seems none the less to disapprove of the Council of Nicaea altogether when he imputes the beginnings of it to malevolence. Few considerations may have induced Eusebius of Nicomedia to take up the cause of Arius. Eusebius may have thought in good faith that his suppliant had been wrongly condemned, for, while he does not appear to have held that the Son was out of nothing. Whatever the provenance of the 'Nicene symbol', earliest text of it is quoted in the letter of Eusebius, which is appended to the treatise of his opponent Athanasius, De decretis Nicaenae synodi. The Council of Antioch had ratified the condemnation of Arius while purging the creed of clauses which, in the eyes of easterners, were more of a snare than a prop to orthodoxy.