I had intended my first post to be something on the order of a short statement that I’ll be posting on whatever topic, meme, or amusing bit that captures my attention, but this topic has come up in conversation multiple times in the last few weeks, and the premise of it just irks me – mostly because there is no basis in fact for the assertion.
That assertion is that the accepted canon of Scripture was dictated by Emperor Constantine to the Council of Nicea and that both the canon and the doctrine of the deity of Christ were formulated at that council and passed by a narrow vote. Therefore, the so-called “lost books of the Bible” have equal (or greater) authority than established canon. Because they differ significantly from the accepted Bible, neither can be trusted as either authentic or trustworthy.
For the benefit of those of you who don’t want to wade through long articles, I’ll say this up front, and you can skip to the links at the end watch the video I’ve linked to – EVERY one of the above assertions is not only false, but not even close to truth.
What follows is summary of what the Council of Nicea was all about, and Constantine’s role in it. For more details, check out the links at the end.
After ending the civil war in 324 and becoming the sole ruler of the Roman empire, Constantine called for a council of bishops to address the problem of divisions in the Christian church. Eusebius quotes him as declaring that “Division in the church is worse than war.”
The council convened on May 20, 325 and adjourned on June 19 of that year. Constantine opened with a speech on the necessity of unity in the church, and presided much as a committee chair would today. In other words, he would introduce topics on the agenda and call on speakers but had no vote or official say in any decisions made. Over 1,000 bishops from across the empire were invited; although no exact count was made, estimates of the number in attendance are between 250 and 318, plus support staff including deacons and secretaries.
The Council agenda included the question of the Arian teaching (more on that later), the date of the Easter celebration, the leader of a minor sect (Meletus), and various matters of church discipline (more on that later as well).
We’ve already established that Constantine did not dictate what books should or should not be included in the Canon at Nicea; not only did he not have a vote in the Council, but the question of the Canon was not even addressed by the Council!
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On to the formulation of the doctrine of the deity of Christ:
The Council did not ‘formulate’ ANY doctrine. What the council addressed (and ultimately voted on), was the question of whether Arian’s Christology was orthodox or heretical, and how to present ALREADY ACCEPTED doctrine in such a way as to be unambiguous about the deity of Christ. Again, the Council did not formulate doctrine; it formulated a statement defending preexisting and accepted doctrine. The writing of the Nicene Creed simply recognized a Christology articulated as far back as the the first century and stated throughout the New Testament.
Arianism, which stated that Jesus was a created being, was a doctrine that was less than a century old at the time. Which view would you consider ‘new’?
Oh, and about that close vote. There was no vote per se – bishops in attendance were either signed the final draft of the Creed, or didn’t. Out of a conservative estimate of 250 bishops present, only three did not sign it. 247 to 3 in favor is hardly close!
The council did produce 20 “canons”, which were declarations of church law – practices either prohibited or commanded by the church, and rules regarding church discipline. None of these 20 edicts had anything to do with the contents of Scripture.
In conclusion:
Not only did Constantine NOT dictate the canon of Scripture or the doctrine of the deity of Christ, but he deferred to the consensus of the bishops in regards to statements concerning the nature and deity of Christ.
The inclusion or exclusion of any books in the Bible was not addressed at the Council at all; in fact the closest Constantine came to “dictating what is Scripture” is his order that there be 50 Bibles produced for the use of the churches in and around Constantinople.
The result of that edict was that the bishops of the Council had to come to a consensus of what writings should be included in the Bible. What they did was to include those writings that had been previously accepted as canon by the collective Church for a century or more. Excluded were works that had previously been excluded because they advocated doctrine contradicting Apostolic writings or were not written by an apostle or could not be verified as such.
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Useful Links, in no particular order:
Michael Heiser on What Really Happened at the Council of Nicea
https://www.fringepop321.com/constantine-and-the-new-testament.htm
Abridged print version of the above with a link to a better quality but much shorter video
https://www.christian-history.org/council-of-nicea.html
Paul F. Pavao has a series of articles on the Council; this is the first. If you read all 4, you will notice that he lists FIVE bishops (rather than three) who did not sign the creed. This is because he lists two bishops whose actual attendance at the council is disputed.
The Wikipedia article is well written and cites a very large number of sources that you can either link to or look up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea