1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

observed historian John F. Hurst in his
HiBtary of the Christian Church. "The
Church, in every department of its life,
was subjected, as a part of the general
machinery of the government, to the supremacy
of the emperor."-John 15:19.
While this marriage to the State brought
worldly respectability and prestige to the
newly ·organized Catholic Church, it necessitated
submission to secular rulers.
Thus we find that the first eight ecumenical
councils were called by the Roman emperQl'S,
and not by the popes. In fact, the
popes were not even present at these councils,
and did not on all occasions have representatives
in attendance. Well, then, how
is it that these are honored by the Catholic
Church as ecumenical cOW1cils? It is
because they later received papal approval,
even though, at times, that approval did
not come until hundreds of years later.
These first eight ecwnenical councils
were held in the East for the convenience
of the emperors who took a leading part in
them. It was Constantine who transferred
the capital of the Roman Empire from
Rome, Italy, to Byzantium, where he built
a new capital that he named after himseU,
calling it Constantinople.
To Restore Peace
But what circumstances developed less
than twenty years after the Church received
approval by the State that necessitated
Constantine's calling a council of his
bishops? It was a doctrinal issue that involved
belief concerning Jesus. Toward the
close of the second century Theophilus had
used the term "trinity" in his ecclesiastical
writings, and in the following century
it came into general use. While there is no
term in the Bible denoting that Jesus is
part of a three-persons-in-one god, the
trinity idea nevertheless gained widespread
popularity. Tremendous conflict resulted.
''The whole of the east was soon aftame,
JANUARY 8, 1964
fighting and rioting in one city after another,"
one historian observes.
So, as The Catholic Encyclopedia explains,
Constantine "judged no remedy
more apt to restore peace in the Church
than the convocation of an oecumenical
council." His chief interest was the internal
peace of his newly adopted State religion.
So at Nicaea he listened as the two
factions wrangled. The presbyter Arius,
along with a minority of supporters, maintained
that Christ is the Son of God, and,
therefore, could not be equal to God. "Were
he in the truest sense a son," Arius argued,
"he must have come after the Father,
therefore the time obviously was
when he was not, and hence he was a finite
being."·
.But, on the other hand, the young archdeacon
Athanasius led the majority in declaring
that Jesus was "of the Father's
substance, God of God, Light of light, true
God of true God, begotten, not made, of
the same substance [homousios] as the
Father." Since, as M'Clintock and Strong's
Cyclopcedia points out, Constantine "had
at heart, for the sake of peace, the most
nearly unanimous decision which was possible,
he gave his voice for the disputed
word, and declared that he recognised in
the unanimous consent of the bishops the
work of God." So with Constantine's approval
this unscriptural trinitarian phraseology
was adopted and was embodied in the
famous Nicene Creed.
Dispute Rages
But the dispute was far from seWed.
The decision at Nicaea did not alter the
beliefs of Arius' supporters, and after the
council these simple and much clearer
teachings gained popularity among the
populace. The comments of a contemporary
observer, reported by Edward Gibbon
in his History of Christianity, give evi-
• The Encydopedkl Americana (1929 edition), Vol. :.I
page 250. •
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