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Post by carlhenrybrans on Jul 22, 2014 7:14:05 GMT -6
I was wondering if someone could help explain the council of nicea for me. Also if there are any books that you recommend it articles somewhere I could read to understand it better. I saw one of my former students post a video about it and he sees all the information that was put in the bible because of council if nicea as myth. Anyways,any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
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Post by carlhenrybrans on Jul 22, 2014 7:14:59 GMT -6
Also,were there other councils that got together to determine what was put in the bible?
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Post by CowboysDad on Jul 27, 2014 14:18:53 GMT -6
Carl, my internet was down for a bit, but I can see your question now. The Council of Nicea was essentially a council called by Emperor Constantine to settle a dispute between Arius and Athanasius regarding the deity of Christ. Here'a a great answer from gotquestions.org, a very trusty webstie.
"It is very important to clarify exactly what role the Emperor Constantine played in the Council of Nicea, what the purpose for the council was, what happened at Nicea, and briefly how the canon—the Bible as we know it—was formed. Constantine was a Roman Emperor who lived from 274 to 337 A.D. He is most famous for becoming the single ruler of the Roman Empire (after deceiving and defeating Licinius, his brother-in-law) and supposedly converting to Christianity. It is debated whether or not Constantine was actually a believer (according to his confessions and understanding of the faith) or just someone trying to use the church and the faith to his own advantage. Constantine called the Council of Nicea—the first general council of the Christian church, 325 A.D.—primarily because he feared that disputes within the church would cause disorder within the empire. The dispute in mind was Arianism, which was the belief that Jesus was a created being. The famous phrase they were disputing was, "There was when He was not." This was in reference to Jesus and was declared heretical by the council and thus resulted in the following words about Christ in the Nicene Creed: "God from true God…from the Father…not made." It was determined by the council that Christ was homoousia, meaning, one substance with the Father.
Concerning manuscripts that were burned at the order of Constantine, there is really no mention of such a thing actually happening at the order of Constantine or at the Council of Nicea. The Arian party's document claiming Christ to be a created being, was abandoned by them because of the strong resistance to it and was torn to shreds in the sight of everyone present at the council. Constantine, and the Council of Nicea, for that matter, had virtually nothing to do with the forming of the canon. It was not even discussed at Nicea. The council that formed an undisputed decision on the canon took place at Carthage in 397, sixty years after Constantine's death. However, long before Constantine, 21 books were acknowledged by all Christians (the 4 Gospels, Acts, 13 Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation). There were 10 disputed books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, Ps-Barnabas, Hermas, Didache, Gospel of Hebrews) and several that most all considered heretical—Gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthaias, Acts of Andrew, John, etc.
Liberal scholars and fictional authors like to purport the idea that the gospels of Thomas and Peter (and other long-disputed books) contain truths that the church vehemently stomped out, but that simply has no basis historically. It is closer to the truth to say that no serious theologians really cared about these books because they were obviously written by people lying about authorship and had little basis in reality. That is one reason why a council declaring the canon was so late in coming (397 AD), because the books that were trusted and the ones that had been handed down were already widely known."
But I like to quote my professor at seminary regarding the canonization of the books of the Bible. He always said rightly, "The councils did not DETERMINE which books were canonical or not, they simply RECOGNIZED what books were canonical." Books that were written by an apostle, showed historical and theological accuracy and were accepted by the early church were RECOGNIZED as canoncial. Though some disputes lingered, in the end the church rightly recognized which ones had God's stamp of authority on them. There's much more to it of course and a whole host of books. If you want to pinpoint your question even more, then I'm sure that those of us in the forum would be happy to take a bigger crack at it.
- Daniel
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Post by brianwagner on Feb 24, 2015 15:30:36 GMT -6
A related question is whether those at Nicea held to the true gospel! If a "Christian" denomination does not hold to the true gospel, then it really doesn't matter if they "recognize" or "determine" for themselves what books are inspired by God, does it? They certainly do not have the authority to say anything in behalf of all of Christianity since they hold to a false gospel, in my view.
If the "Christians" at Nicea held to baptismal regeneration, and they did, then they were starting a new "Christian" denomination, which we call Roman Catholicism, which had a false gospel from the beginning. Here is Augustine's definition of the phrase - "forgiveness of sins" from the Nicene creed -
Vol 3, St. Augustine, Doctrinal Treatises, On the Creed -
15. “Forgiveness of sins.” Ye have [this article of] the Creed perfectly in you when ye receive Baptism. .... When ye have been baptized, hold fast a good life in the commandments of God, that ye may guard your Baptism even unto the end.... For the sake of all sins was Baptism provided;.... Once for all we have washing in Baptism, every day we have washing in prayer. Only, do not commit those things for which ye must needs be separated from Christ’s body: which be far from you! For those whom ye have seen doing penance, have committed heinous things, either adulteries or some enormous crimes: for these they do penance. Because if theirs had been light sins, to blot out these daily prayer would suffice.
16. In three ways then are sins remitted in the Church; by Baptism, by prayer, by the greater humility of penance; yet God doth not remit sins but to the baptized. The very sins which He remits first, He remits not but to the baptized. When? when they are baptized....
Add to this that from Nicea on through the rest of the Roman Catholic denominational ecumenical councils, they added "anathemas" to various doctrines, which is like saying, "If you do not also believe this doctrine you are unsaved." I do not see how this is also not perverting the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Now I know that there are individuals in that denomination that believe in the true gospel in spite of their denomination's perversion of it. But I firmly believe that Roman Catholicism was/is publicly professing a false gospel in all its ecumenical councils, not matter what other matters they may have been more Scriptural.
Forgive me if I am sounding too aggressive! I am sick of heart how many evangelicals today have compromised the gospel by their actions in relationship to Roman Catholicism. Promoting Roman Catholic History as the church that Christ was building for 1000 years (AD 325 to AD 1325) is only part of the problem.
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