What Really Happened at Nicea?

The Council of Nicaea, Arianism, and the Authority of Scripture

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

The Dividing Line is brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries, the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and Bethany House Publishers. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

With today's topic, here is Dr. White.

The July-August 1997 edition of the Christian Research Journal carried an article entitled, What Really Happened at Nicaea? The Council of Nicaea, 325 A .D., an important council that helped to define and defend the doctrine of the deity of Christ, his relationship to God the Father.

This article I had the privilege of writing. It was published by the Christian Research Journal. In the course of writing the article, I noted some important things. First of all, I noted the relationship of the council to the authority of Scripture.

I related the arguments that the defenders of the Council of Nicaea used to defend their teaching concerning who Jesus Christ was, and that these were Scriptural arguments. I also noted something that a lot of people are not aware of, and that was that after the Council of Nicaea, for 50 to 60 years, there was something known as the Arian Resurgency.

It was a period of time where Arius and those who followed his teachings, that Jesus Christ was a mere creature, that he was a very exalted creature, but was in fact a creature. He had not eternally been God.

These individuals came to the forefront, and in fact, for a while, they controlled many of the most important churches, many of the bishoprics, the great sees of the church at that time and that day, and that there had to be a tremendous amount of struggle and argument for the Council of Nicaea's belief, which is a biblical belief, to be defended and to survive.

In fact, reading from the specific article that I wrote for the CRI Journal, during the six decades between the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople in 381, Arianism experienced many victories.

There were periods where Arian bishops constituted the majority of the visible ecclesiastical hierarchy. Primarily through the force of political power, Arian sympathizers soon took to undoing the condemnation of Arius and his theology.

Eusebius of Nicomedia and others attempted to overturn Nicaea, and for a number of decades, it looked as if they might succeed. Constantine adopted a compromising position under the influence of various sources, including Eusebius of Caesarea, and a politically worded confession from Arius.

Constantine put little stock in the definition of Nicaea itself. He was a politician to the last. Upon his death, his second son Constantius ruled in the east, and he gave great aid and comfort to Arianism.

United by their rejection of the homoousion, that is, the idea that Jesus Christ is fully God, semi-Arians and Arians worked to unseat a common enemy, almost always proceeding with political power on their side.

Under Constantius, council after council met in this location or that. So furious was the activity that one commentator wrote of the time, quote, The highways were covered with galloping bishops, end quote.

Most importantly, regional councils, meaning Ariminum, Seleucia, and Sirmium, presented Arian and semi-Arian creeds, and many leaders were coerced into subscribing to them. Even Liberius, bishop of Rome, having been banished from his sea and longing to return, was persuaded to give in and compromise on the matter.

During the course of the decades following Nicaea, Athanasius, who had become bishop of Alexandria shortly after the council, was removed from his sea five times, once by force of 5 ,000 soldiers coming in the front door while he escaped out the back.

Hoseus, now nearly 100 years old, was likewise forced by imperial threats to compromise and give place to Arian ideas. At the end of the sixth decade of the century, it looked as if Nicaea would be defeated.

Jerome would later describe this moment in history as the time when, quote, the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian, end quote. Yet in the midst of this darkness, a lone voice remained strong.

Arguing from scripture, fearlessly reproaching error, writing from refuge in the desert, along the Nile, or in the crowded suburbs around Alexandria, Athanasius continued the fight. His unwillingness to give place, even when banished by the emperor, disfellowshipped by the established church, and condemned by local councils and bishops alike, gave rise to the phrase, Athanasius contra mundum, Athanasius against the world.

Convinced that scripture is sufficient above all things, Athanasius acted as a true Protestant in his day. Athanasius protested against the consensus opinion of the established church, and did so because he was compelled by scriptural authority.

Athanasius would have understood, on some of those long, lonely days of exile, what Wycliffe meant a thousand years later, quote, If we had a hundred popes, and if all the friars were cardinals, to the law of the gospel we should bow more than all this multitude, end quote.

Movements that depend on political favor rather than God's truth eventually die, and this was true of Arianism. As soon as it looked as if the Arians had consolidated their hold on the empire, they turned to internal fighting, and quite literally destroyed each other.

They had no one like a faithful Athanasius, and it was not long before the tide turned against them. By A .D. 381, the council of Constantinople could meet and reaffirm, without hesitancy, the Nicene faith, complete with the Homoousius clause.

The full deity of Christ was affirmed, not because Nicaea had said so, but because God had revealed it to be so. Nicaea's authority rested upon the solid foundation of scripture. A century after Nicaea, we find the great bishop of Hippo, Augustine, writing to Maximin and Arian, and saying, I must not press the authority of Nicaea against you, nor you that have Ariminum against me.

I do not acknowledge the one as you do not the other, but let us come to ground that is common to both, the testimony of the holy scriptures. Well, most of the article was on the subject of the deity of Christ.

It was primarily relevant to responding to individuals who would attempt to say that Constantine came into the council of Nicaea and told everybody what to believe, and that basically if you believe in the doctrine of the Trinity today, it's because some emperor decided to tell you to believe such a thing.

Misrepresenting Nicaea in Envoy Magazine

Well, I hold in my hands the July-August 1998 edition of Envoy magazine. Envoy magazine is a magazine of Catholic apologetics. It is edited by Patrick Madrid. And in this particular edition, we have an article by Father Hugh Barber.

And I know Hugh Barber. He moderated the debate that I did against Timothy Staples in November of 1996 in Fullerton, California, on sola scriptura. And this particular edition has a picture of what is meant to be me on the front.

It is supposed to be a person dressed up like a Baptist. Obviously, Patrick hasn't seen me for a long time because the person on the front cover is wearing a tie I wouldn't be caught dead wearing. But the person is holding a mask in front of his face, and the eyes are peering through the mask.

And the title is, Who Is That Masked Man? A Baptist Tries to Hijack the Early Church. And right in the middle of the magazine, you have a very nicely graphically laid out article where allegedly what you have here are a bunch of Baptists at the council of Nicaea.

And they're dressed in suits, and they have ties on, and they have crosses on their lapels, and they're all standing around arguing at the council of Nicaea. And here, the title, I'll read directly from the magazine, A Catholic Expert on Early Christian History Debunks the Fanciful Claims of a Protestant Apologist, Ancient Baptists and Other Myths.

And let me read you just the beginning here. Nicaea, August 24th, AD 325, 741 PM. That was powerful preaching, Brother Athanasius, powerful, amen. I want to invite any of you folks in the back to approach the altar here and receive the Lord into your hearts.

Just come on up. We've got brothers and sisters up here who can lead you through the sinner's prayer. Amen. And as this council of Nicaea comes to an end, I want to remind Brother Eusebius to bring the grape juice for tomorrow's closing communion service.

Ah, yes, the Baptists at the council of Nicaea. Sound rather silly? It certainly does. And yet, there are those who claim the church of Nicaea was more Protestant in belief and practice than Catholic.

I recently read an article in the Christian Research Journal written by a Reformed Baptist apologist who argued this very point. No, I am not making this up. The article, What Really Happened at Nicaea, actually claimed the fathers of the council were essentially Evangelical Protestants.

And it goes on from there. Obviously, the fundamental issue that is being raised by Hugh Barber in his article is the idea that in my article I attempted to say that the fathers at Nicaea were Baptists.

A couple of things to note before we respond to something like that. First of all, when you engage in honest Christian apologetics, I think we need to use the highest level and the highest standard of truth in how we respond to people.

I have already told you who the editor of Envoy magazine is. It's Patrick Madrid. I've told you who wrote this article. It's Hugh Barber. I've told you what edition of Envoy magazine. It's the July-August 1998 edition.

Why would I tell you that? So you can go look at it yourself. So you know who we're talking about. So you can read the article for yourself. So you can have all the information. So you can make a fair decision.

That's what truth demands that we do. The problem is, when we look at the Envoy magazine article, my name never appears. Oh yes, they mention a Reformed Baptist apologist. That's me. But my name doesn't appear.

They do mention the Christian Research Journal, but they never give the article's page numbers or what issue it was in. All they mention is the name of the article. It was in the Christian Research Journal, but they don't tell you when.

They don't tell you who wrote it. You can't go and look for yourself. Now why would that be? Well, I've found this, unfortunately, to be somewhat consistent in how Catholic apologists, some Catholic apologists anyways, operate.

You see, if you went and actually read the article, you would discover that it's very, very different than the presentation being made in the pages of Envoy magazine. And so I can only come to the conclusion that they don't want you to go read that article because you'd discover that the thrust of the article was completely different than it's presented here, and you'd also discover that I never once claimed that Athanasius or anyone else was a Baptist.

I don't believe that. And in fact, if you took the time to read the books that I've written, read the articles that I've written that have been published in various sources, go to our website and read anything there, I believe that the early church fathers were the early church fathers.

They were not Roman Catholics. They were not Protestants. They wouldn't have known what either term meant. They used the term Catholic of themselves, not Roman Catholic. They did not believe many of the things that Roman Catholicism teaches today.

They had no concept that the bishop of Rome was the universal head of the church. They had no concept of many of the soteriological teachings, the teachings on salvation the church of Rome teaches today.

They had no concept of the position of Mary that Rome teaches as dogma today. They were not Roman Catholics. And we have a debate, well, part of a debate anyways. My opponent eventually disqualified himself, but we have part of a debate on this very issue on our website at www .aomin .org, specifically on the issue of was the church of Nicaea the Roman Catholic church?

But I made very clear in that debate, and of course Hugh Barber never contacted me to find out what I believed about these things, but I made very clear in that debate and in others that we've done and other things that I've written that I believe that the early church fathers were the early church fathers.

They were not Protestants. They were not Roman Catholics. They were who they were. I don't have to, as a Protestant, make them into Protestants. I don't have to make them into something they were not.

I can let them be exactly what they were. It's Rome that claims that her teachings are the universal and constant faith of the church. It's Rome that claims these men believed what she believes today.

So it's Rome that has to form these men into her beliefs, not me. I can look at an Athanasius, and I can be tremendously encouraged by his defense of the deity of Christ, but I can look at elements of his theology, other areas he taught, and recognize that he wasn't right about certain things.

You see, my ultimate standard is unchanging. It's the word of God. And just as I can listen to men who preach and teach today and tremendously appreciate things that they say and yet also recognize that there are other elements of their theology that I would not agree with, I do the same thing with the early fathers.

And that's why I can look at them, and I can be very appreciative of the true things they said, while at the same time recognizing places where they had problems, where they had an error. And so I don't have to make them in my image.

That's something that Rome has to do, and that's something that Hugh Barber does and makes a number of mistakes in the process in his article, Ancient Baptists and Other Myths. The first myth that we'll deal with is that I ever said anything like what he attempts to say.

I did. But there are some other things to learn from this, and we'll take a look at those and continue looking at this article. But first, we need to take a brief break. We'll be right back. Well, it's always interesting to find yourself on the front cover of a magazine.

Well, of course, with a mask in front of your face anyways. And it's always interesting to then turn within those pages and discover that yet once again, a wonderful opportunity for meaningful interaction.

Why Apologetics Requires Honest Representation and Debate

And, you know, I have a long history of desiring to engage in meaningful scholarly debates. We've done 24 such debates across the United States. In fact, we did a debate against Patrick Madrid in 1993.

He has not seen fit to take any of the rest of our challenges for debates since then, but back then we did a debate on solo scriptura over in San Diego. Why do we do this type of thing? Because we believe that the truth is best seen when contrasted with error.

You know, it's real easy for someone to present an argument against someone else's position when you do not allow the other side to respond to what you're saying. You can misrepresent your opposition.

You can sort of tweak the facts this way or that way. But when both sides have to face each other and you have to undergo cross-examination and there has to be give and take, my goodness, it's amazing what happens in situations like that.

All the straw men and all the misrepresentations, that person's sitting right there. How can you misrepresent their position? And that's why we engage in these types of debates. That's why we have sought to expand those debates into other areas.

I would love to have one of the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, willing to come out and debate the issue of the New World Translation or something like that. I would love to have one of the general authorities of the Mormon Church engage in a meaningful debate on the First Vision or polytheism or any of those issues.

But you can't get those folks to do that kind of thing. At least you can find, at times, Roman Catholic apologists who are willing to engage in debate. For example, this past April, we did a debate against Fr. Mitchell Pacwa on the subject of the papacy.

And this is one of actually three or four debates we've done now so far on Long Island. Each spring, next spring, we're going to be doing a debate against James Aiken of Catholic Answers on the subject of the Mass.

And we've already scheduled the year 2000 debate, if any of us are around at that point. If planes are still flying and this Y2K thing hasn't turned us all into the Stone Age or something like that, in the year 2000, in the spring, we are supposed to be debating the subject of justification by faith against Robert St. Genes, again, during the Long Island debates that we've been doing.

Why do that? Because when you present the truth over against error, it can be seen most clearly. And some of these subjects are very complex. Some of the false teachings that are presented by some of these groups are very nuanced.

And only by placing them head-to-head can you, in reality, demonstrate what the truth really is. Well, here's another great example. I wrote an article and I presented some historical issues. And I cited historical sources.

And I pointed out that certain things happened. Well, the proper way of responding would have been, let's cite the article. Let's be open about who we're talking about. Let's let people go and look at the article themselves.

Let's look at the historical sources that were used. And if Hugh Barber wants to say that the Council of Nicaea was a Roman Catholic council that believed what he believes as a Roman Catholic today, that the Bishop of Rome was the infallible head of the church, that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven, that she was immaculately conceived, believed in purgatory and indulgences and things like that, then demonstrate those things from the historical sources.

If what I said about Athanasius was wrong, demonstrate that. Is it truly a Roman Catholic thing to do what Athanasius did? You heard what I said. The specific thing that seemingly got everybody upset was I said, after mentioning the phrase Athanasius contra mundum, Athanasius against the world, I said, convince that Scripture is sufficient above all things.

That's a quote from Athanasius. Athanasius acted as a true Protestant in his day. He protested against the consensus opinion of the established church and did so because he was compelled by scriptural authority.

Now, if you believe that that's untrue, then demonstrate that it's untrue. Demonstrate that he was not kicked out of his seat five times. Demonstrate that there were no councils of Ariminum or Seleucia or Sirmium that promulgated semi-Aryan teachings on the deity of Christ.

Demonstrate from the writings of Athanasius, for example, that he did not argue from Scripture, that he did not say that he was convinced that Scripture taught these things. Indeed, would it be a Roman Catholic thing to do today for a bishop to stand against Pope John Paul II and to stand against councils like Vatican II?

Would it be a Roman Catholic thing for a bishop to say, no, they're wrong because the Scriptures say this. What would Hugh Barber or Patrick Madrid or Tim Staples say of a bishop today who rejected the teachings of John Paul II and rejected the condemnations of Vatican II and said, no, the Scriptures say such and so?

Would that be a Roman Catholic thing to do? Or would that be a Protestant thing to do? You see, when I said that Athanasius acted in a Protestant manner, all I was referring to was the fact that he stood on the ultimate authority of Scripture even when the established church disfellowshipped him for so doing.

I didn't say he was a Baptist. I didn't say that he would be comfortable meeting with me on Sunday in my church. It was a completely different time and a completely different culture. So why the straw man?

Why the misrepresentation? Because historically, if you look at the facts, that's what Athanasius did. He did something that if he had been a Roman Catholic, he would not have done. That's all I pointed out and those are the historical facts.

So here would have been a wonderful opportunity in a major Roman Catholic apologetics magazine for a meaningful interchange and instead what you get are funny little lines, you know, the front covers after it says a Baptist tries to hijack the early church, it says, you know how he'd be punished in Singapore, don't you?

Of course, that's the same edition that has along the top banner of the magazine, Inquisition, we will, we will rack you. Yes, think about the rack for a moment, the Inquisition, and you'll figure out what's going on here.

These folks like to make jokes, they like to make things funny and they like to have these nice graphics of the Baptist back at Nicaea, but the simple fact of the matter is this is a serious subject. And it would be really, really nice if they would engage in meaningful apologetics and really respond in a meaningful way.

Instead, while my article provides you with numerous endnotes, glancing over here I see at least 27, let me look again, there are 28 endnotes in my particular article. Hugh Barber's article makes claims that are not even mainline Roman Catholic claims these days without even providing so much as an endnote.

Basically, since it starts off, he says, as a trained patristics scholar, well, I guess it's because he's a trained patristics scholar, therefore, we just have to take his ipsedixit. If he says it, it must be true.

For example, one of the things that he says, just read one very quickly here, most of the Nicene Council's 318 Episcopal attendees were representatives of Eastern churches, like Ephesus, Jerusalem, and Antioch.

Pope Sylvester, too ill to make the journey himself, sent to Legates. According to the ancient historian Galatius, the Roman church was represented by Hoseus, Bishop of Cordova, and the leading proponent of the Orthodox position regarding Christ's divinity.

Not only was Hoseus representing Rome, but it seems he also presided over the council after Constantine's introduction. St. Athanasius, an attendee and tireless defender of Orthodoxy, wrote admiringly about Hoseus, what council can be mentioned in which he did not preside?

That's very nice, but it does not even begin to engage the real subject here. Here we want to be told that the council preceded, led by a bishop, officially representing the Church of Rome, Hoseus. We aren't given the reference to Galatius.

And why is it that in AD 680, as I noticed in my own article, the Roman church had to begin to claim something very different in regards to this, right because of the problem that Nicaea presented, and that was it wasn't called by the Bishop of Rome.

It was called by the emperor himself. It wasn't presided over by the Bishop of Rome. Why did these later historians have to start coming up with this kind of thing? Well, because history doesn't fit with the claims of Rome itself.

There are a lot of other problems we will be getting into. I will be posting an entire response to this article, and I, of course, will name names and give you page numbers so you can check things out for yourself because that's how you do Christian apologetics.

But we'll be looking at some other of those. I want to spend some time, however, next week, Lord willing, looking specifically at some of the statements of the early fathers regarding the sufficiency of Scripture.

And, of course, we'll give you reference numbers and reference pages so you can look them up for yourself because, you see, folks, that's your responsibility. It's the responsibility of everyone listening today to do your own homework.

Don't take my word for it. Check things out. Look things up. You say, you mean do work? Yeah, do work. We're all responsible for God, for what we believe. That's what this program is all about. Thanks for being with us today.

Look forward to being with you again next week here on The Dividing Line. The Dividing Line.